Control of depth of anesthesia using MUSMAR‐‐exploring electromyography and the analgesic dose as accessible disturbances.

Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2007;2007:1574-7. Control of depth of anesthesia using MUSMAR--exploring electromyography and the analgesic dose as accessible disturbances. Nunes CS, Mendonça T, Lemos JM, Amorim P. Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Departamento de Matemática Aplicada, Rua do Campo Alegre 687, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal. [email protected] Abstract The problem of controlling the level of depth of anesthesia measured by the Bispectral Index (BIS) of the electroencephalogram of patients under general anesthesia, is considered. It is assumed that the manipulated variable is the infusion rate of the hypnotic drug propofol, while the drug remifentanil is also administered for analgesia. Since these two drugs interact, the administration rate of remifentanil is considered as an accessible disturbance in combination with the level of electromyography (EMG) that also interferes with the BIS signal. In order to tackle the high uncertainty present on the system, the predictive adaptive controller MUSMAR is used. The performance of the controller is illustrated by means of simulation with 45 patient individual adjusted models, which incorporate the effect of the drugs interaction on BIS. This controller structure proved to be robust to the EMG and remifentanil disturbances, patient variability, changing reference values and noise. PMID: 18002271 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE

Antiproliferative activity of neem leaf extracts obtained by a sequential pressurized liquid extraction

Azadirachta indica A. Juss (neem) extracts have been used in pharmaceutical applications as antitumor agents, due to their terpenes and phenolic compounds. To obtain extracts from neem leaves with potential antiproliferative effect, a sequential process of pressurized liquid extraction was carried out in a fixed bed extractor at 25◦C and 100 bar, using hexane (SH), ethyl acetate (SEA), and ethanol (SE)assolvents. Extractions using only ethanol(EE) was also conducted to compare the characteristics of the fractionated extracts. The results obtained by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry suggested a higher concentration of terpenes in the SEA extract in comparison to SH, SE, and EE extracts. Therefore, antiproliferative activity showed that SEA extracts were the most efficient inhibitor to human tumor cells MCF-7, NCI-H460, HeLa, and HepG2. Hepatocellular cells were more resistant to SH, SEA, SE, and EE compared to breast, lung, hepatocellular, and cervical malignant cells. Neem fractioned extracts obtained in the present study seem to be more selective for malignant cells compared to the non-tumor cells.Klebson Silva Santos thanks CAPES (Process: PDSE 99999.003409/15-5) for the financial support during his Ph.D. studies in Portugal. Authors are grateful to CAPES, and FAPITEC (EDITAL CAPES/FAPITEC Nº 11/2016–PROEF/Processo de AUXPE 88881.157437/2017-01) for the financial support. The study was also carried out with financial support from FEDER, under the Partnership Agreement PT2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mangrove microniches determine the structural and functional diversity of enriched petroleum hydrocarbon-degrading consortia

In this study, the combination of culture enrichments and molecular tools was used to identify bacterial guilds, plasmids and functional genes potentially important in the process of petroleum hydrocarbon (PH) decontamination in mangrove microniches (rhizospheres and bulk sediment). In addition, we aimed to recover PH-degrading consortia (PHDC) for future use in remediation strategies. The PHDC were enriched with petroleum from rhizosphere and bulk sediment samples taken from a mangrove chronically polluted with oil hydrocarbons. Southern blot hybridization (SBH) assays of PCR amplicons from environmental DNA before enrichments resulted in weak positive signals for the functional gene types targeted, suggesting that PH-degrading genotypes and plasmids were in low abundance in the rhizosphere and bulk sediments. However, after enrichment, these genes were detected and strong microniche-dependent differences in the abundance and composition of hydrocarbonoclastic bacterial populations, plasmids (IncP-1 alpha, IncP-1 beta, IncP-7 and IncP-9) and functional genes (naphthalene, extradiol and intradiol dioxygenases) were revealed by in-depth molecular analyses [PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and hybridization (SBH and microarray)]. Our results suggest that, despite the low abundance of PH-degrading genes and plasmids in the environmental samples, the original bacterial composition of the mangrove microniches determined the structural and functional diversity of the PHDC enriched.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [SM59/4-1, 4-2]; FAPERJ-Brazil; European Commission [003998, 211684]; Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung; CONICET (Argentina)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tamanho de unidades experimentais básicas e tamanho ótimo de parcelas para nabo-forrageiro

Resumo: O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar a influência do tamanho da unidade experimental básica (UEB) sobre a estimativa do tamanho ótimo de parcela para a avaliação da massa de matéria fresca de nabo-forrageiro (Raphanus sativus). Dados de massa de matéria fresca de 3.456 unidades experimentais básicas de 0,5×0,5 m (0,25 m2) foram utilizados, tendo-se formado 36 planos de UEBs com tamanhos entre 0,25 e 16 m2. Para cada plano de UEB, determinou-se o tamanho ótimo de parcela, pelo método da curvatura máxima do modelo do coeficiente de variação. A diferença mínima significativa pelo teste de Tukey foi calculada para 2.016 cenários, formados pelas combinações entre 36 tamanhos ótimos de parcela - um para cada plano de UEB -, i tratamentos (i = 5, 10, 15 e 20) e r repetições (r = 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15 e 20), tendo-se considerado tanto os delineamentos inteiramente casualizados como os de blocos ao acaso. O tamanho ótimo de parcela depende do tamanho da unidade experimental básica. Em ensaios de uniformidade com nabo-forrageiro, a avaliação da massa de matéria fresca deve ser feita em unidades experimentais básicas com o menor tamanho possível