The Brazilian higher education evaluation model: “SINAES” sui generis?

"Available online 29 November 2017"A study applied to the context of Higher Education (HE) accreditation and evaluation in Brazil. It discusses recent reforms within the context of the Brazilian evaluation model. The changes brought by the new resolutions published in 2016 have been presented, and a conceptual mapping of the HE evaluation model has been drawn. The objectives were to explain, longitudinally, the ways used by monitoring agencies/bodies to assess performance, and to assure a quality HE. The research methodology used a combination of multiple qualitative methods to present results as conceptual maps. The study may contribute to improving quality, based on best practices in the evaluated model.The authors are grateful to the Research Center for Political Science (CICP-Portugal) of the University of Minho and Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES-Brazil).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A taste sensor device for unmasking admixing of rancid or winey-vinegary olive oil to extra virgin olive oil

Electrochemical sensor devices have gathered great attention in food analysis namely for olive oil evaluation. The adulteration of extra-virgin olive oil with lower-grade olive oil is a common worldwide fraudulent practice, which detection is a challenging task. The potentiometric fingerprints recorded by lipid polymeric sensor membranes of an electronic tongue, together with linear discriminant analysis and simulated annealing meta-heuristic algorithm, enabled the detection of extra-virgin olive oil adulterated with olive oil for which an intense sensory defect could be perceived, specifically rancid or winey-vinegary negative sensations. The homemade designed taste device allowed the identification of admixing of extra-virgin olive oil with more than 2.5% or 5% of rancid or winey-vinegary olive oil, respectively. Predictive mean sensitivities of 84±4% or 92±4% and specificities of 79±6% or 93±3% were obtained for rancid or winey-vinegary adulterations, respectively, regarding an internal-validation procedure based on a repeated K-fold cross-validation variant (4 folds×10 repeats, ensuring that the dataset was forty times randomly split into 4 folds, leaving 25% of the data for validation purposes). This performance was satisfactory since, according to the legal physicochemical and sensory analysis, the intentionally adulterated olive oil with percentages of 2.510%, could still be commercialized as virgin olive oil. It could also be concluded that at a 5% significance level, the trained panelists could not distinguish extra-virgin olive oil samples from those adulterated with 2.5% of rancid olive oil or up to 5% of winey-vinegary olive oil. Thus, the electronic tongue proposed in this study can be foreseen as a practical and powerful tool to detect this kind of worldwide common fraudulent practice of high quality olive oil.This work was financially supported by Project POCI-01–0145FEDER-006984 – Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM, Project UID/QUI/ 00616/2013 – CQ-VR, Project UID/BIO/04469/2013 – CEB and strategic project PEst-OE/AGR/UI0690/2014 – CIMO all funded by FEDER - Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional through COMPETE2020 - Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) – and by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal. Nuno Rodrigues thanks FCT, POPH-QREN and FSE for the Ph.D. Grant (SFRH/BD/104038/2014). Souheib Oueslati is also grateful for the support of the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Isolation, Characterization, and Stability of Discretely-Sized Nanolipoprotein Particles Assembled with Apolipophorin-III

Background: Nanolipoprotein particles (NLPs) are discoidal, nanometer-sized particles comprised of self-assembled phospholipid membranes and apolipoproteins. NLPs assembled with human apolipoproteins have been used for myriad biotechnology applications, including membrane protein solubilization, drug delivery, and diagnostic imaging. To expand the repertoire of lipoproteins for these applications, insect apolipophorin-III (apoLp-III) was evaluated for the ability to form discretely-sized, homogeneous, and stable NLPs. Methodology: Four NLP populations distinct with regards to particle diameters (ranging in size from 10 nm to.25 nm) and lipid-to-apoLp-III ratios were readily isolated to high purity by size exclusion chromatography. Remodeling of the purified NLP species over time at 4uC was monitored by native gel electrophoresis, size exclusion chromatography, and atomic force microscopy. Purified 20 nm NLPs displayed no remodeling and remained stable for over 1 year. Purified NLPs with 10 nm and 15 nm diameters ultimately remodeled into 20 nm NLPs over a period of months. Intra-particle chemical cross-linking of apoLp-III stabilized NLPs of all sizes. Conclusions: ApoLp-III-based NLPs can be readily prepared, purified, characterized, and stabilized, suggesting their utilit

Cell Type–Specific Thalamic Innervation in a Column of Rat Vibrissal Cortex

This is the concluding article in a series of 3 studies that investigate the anatomical determinants of thalamocortical (TC) input to excitatory neurons in a cortical column of rat primary somatosensory cortex (S1). We used viral synaptophysin-enhanced green fluorescent protein expression in thalamic neurons and reconstructions of biocytin-labeled cortical neurons in TC slices to quantify the number and distribution of boutons from the ventral posterior medial (VPM) and posteromedial (POm) nuclei potentially innervating dendritic arbors of excitatory neurons located in layers (L)2–6 of a cortical column in rat somatosensory cortex. We found that 1) all types of excitatory neurons potentially receive substantial TC input (90–580 boutons per neuron); 2) pyramidal neurons in L3–L6 receive dual TC input from both VPM and POm that is potentially of equal magnitude for thick-tufted L5 pyramidal neurons (ca. 300 boutons each from VPM and POm); 3) L3, L4, and L5 pyramidal neurons have multiple (2–4) subcellular TC innervation domains that match the dendritic compartments of pyramidal cells; and 4) a subtype of thick-tufted L5 pyramidal neurons has an additional VPM innervation domain in L4. The multiple subcellular TC innervation domains of L5 pyramidal neurons may partly explain their specific action potential patterns observed in vivo. We conclude that the substantial potential TC innervation of all excitatory neuron types in a cortical column constitutes an anatomical basis for the initial near-simultaneous representation of a sensory stimulus in different neuron types

Essentially biased: why people are fatalistic about genes

We propose that people are genetic essentialists—that is, they tend to think of genetic attributions as being immutable, of a specific etiology, natural, and dividing people into homogenous and discrete groups. Although there are rare conditions where genes operate in these kinds of deterministic ways, people overgeneralize from these to the far more common conditions where genes are not at all deterministic. These essentialist biases are associated with some harmful outcomes such as racism, sexism, pessimism in the face of illnesses, political polarization, and support for eugenics, while at the same time they are linked with increased tolerance and sympathy for gay rights, mental illness, and less severe judgments of responsibility for crime. We will also discuss how these essentialist biases connect with the burgeoning direct-to-consumer genomics industry and various kinds of genetic engineering. Overall, these biases appear rather resistant to efforts to reduce them, although genetics literacy predicts weaker essentialist tendencies

Screening out irrelevant cell-based models of disease

The common and persistent failures to translate promising preclinical drug candidates into clinical success highlight the limited effectiveness of disease models currently used in drug discovery. An apparent reluctance to explore and adopt alternative cell-and tissue-based model systems, coupled with a detachment from clinical practice during assay validation, contributes to ineffective translational research. To help address these issues and stimulate debate, here we propose a set of principles to facilitate the definition and development of disease-relevant assays, and we discuss new opportunities for exploiting the latest advances in cell-based assay technologies in drug discovery, including induced pluripotent stem cells, three-dimensional (3D) co-culture and organ-on-a-chip systems, complemented by advances in single-cell imaging and gene editing technologies. Funding to support precompetitive, multidisciplinary collaborations to develop novel preclinical models and cell-based screening technologies could have a key role in improving their clinical relevance, and ultimately increase clinical success rates