'Anjo negro': As fundações racistas do Estado no Brasil

The article reflects on the racial foundations of the Brazilian state through an analysis of the play 'Black Angel' by Nelson Rodrigues. From a postcolonial approach, it is argued that this 1948 play can be read as a critique of the influential vision of “racial democracy” associated with Gilberto Freyre and that its content anticipates a whole range of ideas later found in the book 'Black Skin, White Masks' ([1952] 2008), by Frantz Fanon. The article reveals the tensions and violence (re)produced by the state in Brazil through the encounters and disagreements between the multiple hierarchies—economic, patriarchal, and racial—explored by Nelson Rodrigues throughout the plot.   Resumo O artigo visa refletir sobre as fundações raciais do Estado brasileiro através da análise da peça 'Anjo negro' de Nelson Rodrigues. A partir de uma abordagem pós-colonial, argumenta-se que a peça de 1948 pode ser lida como uma crítica à influente visão de “democracia racial” associada à Gilberto Freyre e que seu conteúdo antecipa uma série de ideias posteriormente presentes na obra 'Pele negra, máscaras brancas' ([1952] 2008) de Frantz Fanon. O artigo revela as tensões e violências (re)produzidas pelo Estado no Brasil a partir dos encontros e desencontros entre as múltiplas hierarquias—econômica, patriarcal e racial—exploradas por Nelson Rodrigues ao longo da trama

Protective role for miR-9-5p in the fibrogenic transformation of human dermal fibroblasts

[Background] Excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins is the hallmark of fibrotic diseases, including skin fibrosis. This response relies on the activation of dermal fibroblasts that evolve into a pro-fibrogenic phenotype. One of the major players in this process is the cytokine transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression affecting a wide range of pathophysiological events including fibrogenesis. MicroRNA-9-5p (miR-9-5p) has been shown to exert a protective role in lung and peritoneal fibrosis. This study aimed to evaluate the role of miR-9-5p in skin fibrosis.[Results] miR-9-5p is up-regulated in TGF-β1-treated human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs). In silico identification of miR-9-5p targets spotted the type II TGF-β receptor (TGFBR2) as a potential TGF-β signaling-related effector for this miRNA. Consistently, over-expression of miR-9-5p in HDFs down-regulated TGFBR2 at both the mRNA and protein levels and reduced the phosphorylation of Smad2 and the translocation of Smad2/3 to the nucleus. In keeping, over-expression of miR-9-5p significantly delayed TGF-β1-dependent transformation of dermal fibroblasts, decreasing the expression of ECM protein collagen, type I, alpha 1 (Col1α1), and fibronectin (FN), the amount of secreted collagen proteins, and the expression of the archetypal myofibroblast marker alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA). By contrast, specific inhibition of miR-9-5p resulted in enhanced presence of fibrosis markers. The expression of miR-9-5p was also detected in the skin and plasma in the mouse model of bleomycin-induced dermal fibrosis. Using lentiviral constructs, we demonstrated that miR-9-5p over-expression was also capable of deterring fibrogenesis in this same model.[Conclusions] miR-9-5p significantly prevents fibrogenesis in skin fibrosis. This is mediated by an abrogation of TGF-β-mediated signaling through the down-regulation of TGFBR2 expression in HDFs. These results may pave the way for future diagnostic or therapeutic developments for skin fibrosis based on miR-9-5p.This work was supported by grants from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) SAF 2012-31338 and CSD 2007-00020 (SL), Instituto de Salud Carlos III REDinREN RD12/0021/0009, Comunidad de Madrid “Fibroteam” S2010/BMD-2321), and Fundación Renal “Iñigo Alvarez de Toledo,” all from Spain. This study was supported by the European Cooperation in Science and Research COST actions BM-1203 (EU-ROS) and BM-1005 (ENOGAS) (SL). The CBMSO receives institutional support from Fundación “Ramón Areces”. Verónica Miguel is currently supported by the MINECO program of Formación de Personal Investigador (FPI BES-2013-065986). Marta Fierro-Fernández was supported by a postdoctoral grant of the MINECO “Juan de la Cierva” Program. Oscar Busnadiego was a fellow of the FPI program.We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI)Peer reviewe

Factores de crecimiento plaquetarios en el tratamiento de la tendinitis del tendón flexor digital superficial de un caballo de carreras

La tendinitis es una patología frecuente en los caballos de carreras. Su resolución no quirúrgica se basa en la disminución de la intensidad del entrenamiento del animal y en un tratamiento médico adecuado, que consiste en la administración de antiinflamatorios tanto sistémicos como tópicos, así como diuréticos para disminuir el edema, acompañados de vendajes y duchas frías. Además de este tratamiento conservador, se esta utilizando en medicina deportiva equina la infiltración local de plasma autólogo rico en factores de crecimiento plaquetarios (PRP), con muy buenos resultados. Para explicar en qué consiste, cómo se lleva a cabo y qué efectos tiene este tratamiento, se parte del caso clínico de una yegua de carreras PSI (pura sangre inglés), que presenta una tendinitis aguda en el tendón flexor digital superficial. Se reduce el nivel de entrenamiento y se instaura el tratamiento médico conservador descrito, junto con la infiltración local de PRP, que se obtiene a partir de la sangre de la yegua mediante un protocolo de sucesivas centrifugaciones. La pauta de tratamiento es de una infiltración semanal durante tres semanas consecutivas, tras las cuales una reevaluación ecográfica muestra una aparente recuperación macroscópica del tendón, que se revela completa en el tercer control ecográfico realizado un mes más tarde. Se concluye que la infiltración local de PRP, como complemento de las medidas de manejo y terapéuticas adecuadas, parece mostrar muy buenos resultados, favoreciendo el proceso de cicatrización y recuperación tisular y posibilitando el retorno del animal a una vida deportiva de calidad.Tendonitis is a frequent disease in racehorses. Its not-surgery resolution is based on decrease of the training intensity and on correct medical treatment, which consists in systemic antiISSN: 1988-2688 RCCV VOL. 3 (2). 2009 253 inflammatory, diuretics to decrease swelling, topic treatment with dressings and cold showers. Furthermore, it has being already used autologous plateled riched plasma (PRP) in equine sports medicine, with very good outcome. To explain this treatment, we resort to case report of a Thoroughbred (TB) racehorse mare with an acute superficial digital flexor tendonitis. We reduce her training level and treat with the classical medical therapy combined with PRP injection, which is obtained by means of successively centrifugations of the mare’s blood. The guideline was a local infiltration each week during three weeks. After that, an ultrasonography reevaluation shows an apparent macroscopic tendon recuperation that is full one month later. As a conclusion, this is a good outcome example of local PRP infiltration as a complement of correct therapy and management, which improves the tissue recuperation and makes possible animal return to high quality sports live

Effects of Mild Cognitive Impairment on the Event-Related Brain Potential Components Elicited in Executive Control Tasks

Published: 29 May 2018We summarize here the findings of several studies in which we analyzed the eventrelated brain potentials (ERPs) elicited in participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and in healthy controls during performance of executive tasks. The objective of these studies was to investigate the neural functioning associated with executive processes in MCI. With this aim, we recorded the brain electrical activity generated in response to stimuli in three executive control tasks (Stroop, Simon, and Go/NoGo) adapted for use with the ERP technique. We found that the latencies of the ERP components associated with the evaluation and categorization of the stimuli were longer in participants with amnestic MCI than in the paired controls, particularly those with multiple-domain amnestic MCI, and that the allocation of neural resources for attending to the stimuli was weaker in participants with amnestic MCI. The MCI participants also showed deficient functioning of the response selection and preparation processes demanded by each task.This study was financially supported by funds from the Spanish Government: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (PSI2014-55316-C3-3-R); and by the Galician Government: Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; Axudas para a Consolidación e Estruturación de Unidades de Investigación Competitivas do Sistema Universitario de Galicia: GRC (GI-1807-USC); Ref: ED431-2017/27

Multilevel fast multipole algorithm for fields

An efficient implementation of the multilevel fast multipole algorithm is herein applied to accelerate the calculation of the electromagnetic near- and far-fields after the equivalent surface currents have been obtained. In spite of all the research efforts being drawn to the latter, the electric and/or magnetic fields (or other parameters derived from these) are ultimately the magnitudes of interest in most of the cases. Though straightforward, their calculation can be computationally demanding, and hence the importance of finding a sped-up accurate representation of the fields via a suitable setup of the method. A complete self-contained formulation for both near- and far-fields and for problems including multiple penetrable regions is shown in full detail. Through numerical examples we show that the efficiency and scalability of the implementation leads to a drastic reduction of the computation time.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. MAT2014-58201-C2-1-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. MAT2014-58201-C2-2-RGobierno Regional de Extremadura | Ref. IB1318

Multi-unit calibration rejects inherent device variability of chemical sensor arrays

Inherent sensor variability limits mass-production applications for metal oxide (MOX) gas sensor arrays because calibration for replicas of a sensor array needs to be performed individually. Recently, calibration transfer strategies have been proposed to alleviate calibration costs of new replicas, but they still require the acquisition of transfer samples. In this work, we present calibration models that can be extended to uncalibrated replicas of sensor arrays without acquiring new samples, i.e., general or global calibration models. The developed methodology consists in including multiple replicas of a sensor array in the calibration process such that sensor variability is rejected by the general model. Our approach was tested using replicas of a MOX sensor array in the classification task of six gases and synthetic air, presented at different background humidity and concentration levels. Results showed that direct transfer of individual calibration models provides poor classification accuracy. However, we also found that general calibration models kept predictive performance when were applied directly to new copies of the sensor array. Moreover, we explored, through feature selection, whether particular combinations of sensors and operating temperatures can provide predictive performances equivalent to the calibration model with the complete array, favoring thereby the existence of more robust calibration models

Socioeconomic status, health inequalities and non-communicable diseases: a systematic review

A comprehensive approach to health highlights its close relationship with the social and economic conditions, physical environment and individual lifestyles. However, this relationship is not exempt from methodological problems that may bias the establishment of direct effects between the variables studied. Thus, further research is necessary to investigate the role of socioeconomic variables, their composition and distribution according to health status, particularly on non-communicable diseases

MiR-9-5p suppresses pro-fibrogenic transformation of fibroblasts and prevents organ fibrosis by targeting NOX4 and TGFBR2

© 2015 The Authors. Uncontrolled extracellular matrix (ECM) production by fibroblasts in response to injury contributes to fibrotic diseases, including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation is involved in the pathogenesis of IPF. Transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) stimulates the production of NADPH oxidase 4 (NOX4)-dependent ROS, promoting lung fibrosis (LF). Dysregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) has been shown to contribute to LF. To identify miRNAs involved in redox regulation relevant for IPF, we performed arrays in human lung fibroblasts exposed to ROS. miR-9-5p was selected as the best candidate and we demonstrate its inhibitory effect on TGF-β receptor type II (TGFBR2) and NOX4 expression. Increased expression of miR-9-5p abrogates TGF-β1-dependent myofibroblast phenotypic transformation. In the mouse model of bleomycin-induced LF, miR-9-5p dramatically reduces fibrogenesis and inhibition of miR-9-5p and prevents its anti-fibrotic effect both in vitro and in vivo. In lung specimens from patients with IPF, high levels of miR-9-5p are found. In omentum-derived mesothelial cells (MCs) from patients subjected to peritoneal dialysis (PD), miR-9-5p also inhibits mesothelial to myofibroblast transformation. We propose that TGF-β1 induces miR-9-5p expression as a self-limiting homeostatic response.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) SAF 2012-31338 (SL), SAF 2013-47611 (MLC) and CSD 2007-00020 (SL), Instituto de Salud Carlos III REDinREN RD12/0021/0009 (SL and LGB) and FIS PS12/00094 (LGB), Comunidad de Madrid “Fibroteam” S2010/BMD-2321 (SL and MLC) and Fundación Renal “Iñigo Alvarez de Toledo” (SL), all from Spain. Supported by European Cooperation in Science and Research COST actions BM-1203 (EU-ROS) and BM-1005 (ENOGAS) (SL). The CBMSO receives institutional support from Fundación “Ramón Areces”.Peer Reviewe

Advanced daylighting evaluation applied to cultural heritage buildings and museums: Application to the cloister of Santa Maria El Paular

A method to evaluate the risk of using daylight in museums and cultural heritage exhibitions is presented along this study. Although daylight is an ecological and sustainable source of energy and sometimes also an intrinsic part of the artwork, the use of Natural lighting may cause damages in them due to the difficulty of controlling its variability. The developed method quantifies the damage produced to the artworks by daylight compared to artificial light taking into account the level of radiation and its spectral distribution in space and time by comparison with the damage caused by an Illuminant A (Global Risk Factor). The method, applied to the permanent paintings exhibition in the cloister of the fifteenth century of the Monastery of Santa Maria de El Paular, certifies that the control and exploitation of Natural Light should consider an optimal balance between exposure and damage