Determination of sulfur dioxide in wine using a quartz crystal microbalance

A new method for the analysis of both total and bound SO2 in wine is proposed, based on a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), and it is compared with the widely used Ripper method. The proposed method is faster than the Ripper's, and the instrumentation is either homemade or widely available. When both methods are applied to the same sample, the results obtained using the QCM method are bracketed in an interval less than one-tenth the size of that obtained using the Ripper method. Although the SO2 concentrations found using the QCM method correlate well with the ones obtained with the Ripper method, the results are systematically higher, which can be explained as due to the absence of interferences known to affect the Ripper method

The gathering firestorm in southern Amazonia.

Wildfires, exacerbated by extreme weather events and land use, threaten to change the Amazon from a net carbon sink to a net carbon source. Here, we develop and apply a coupled ecosystem-fire model to quantify how greenhouse gas-driven drying and warming would affect wildfires and associated CO2 emissions in the southern Brazilian Amazon. Regional climate projections suggest that Amazon fire regimes will intensify under both low- and high-emission scenarios. Our results indicate that projected climatic changes will double the area burned by wildfires, affecting up to 16% of the region's forests by 2050. Although these fires could emit as much as 17.0 Pg of CO2 equivalent to the atmosphere, avoiding new deforestation could cut total net fire emissions in half and help prevent fires from escaping into protected areas and indigenous lands. Aggressive efforts to eliminate ignition sources and suppress wildfires will be critical to conserve southern Amazon forests

Bioenergetic dysfunction in Huntington's disease human cybrids

In this work we studied the mitochondrial-associated metabolic pathways in Huntington's disease (HD) versus control (CTR) cybrids, a cell model in which the contribution of mitochondrial defects from patients is isolated. HD cybrids exhibited an interesting increase in ATP levels, when compared to CTR cybrids. Concomitantly, we observed increased glycolytic rate in HD cybrids, as revealed by increased lactate/pyruvate ratio, which was reverted after inhibition of glycolysis. A decrease in glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase activity in HD cybrids further indicated decreased rate of the pentose-phosphate pathway. ATP levels of HD cybrids were significantly decreased under glycolysis inhibition, which was accompanied by a decrease in phosphocreatine. Nevertheless, pyruvate supplementation could not recover HD cybrids' ATP or phosphocreatine levels, suggesting a dysfunction in mitochondrial use of that substrate. Oligomycin also caused a decrease in ATP levels, suggesting a partial support of ATP generation by the mitochondria. Nevertheless, mitochondrial NADH/NAD(t) levels were decreased in HD cybrids, which was correlated with a decrease in pyruvate dehydrogenase activity and protein expression, suggesting decreased tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA) input from glycolysis. Interestingly, the activity of alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, a critical enzyme complex that links the TCA to amino acid synthesis and degradation, was increased in HD cybrids. In accordance, mitochondrial levels of glutamate were increased and alanine was decreased, whereas aspartate and glutamine levels were unchanged in HD cybrids. Conversely, malate dehydrogenase activity from total cell extracts was unchanged in HD cybrids. Our results suggest that inherent dysfunction of mitochondria from HD patients affects cellular bioenergetics in an otherwise functional nuclear background

TORCH Serology and Group B Streptococcus Screening Analysis in the Population of a Maternity

Introdução: O rastreio para doenças de transmissão vertical na gravidez contribuiu para a melhoria dos cuidados perinatais. Objectivo: Avaliar o resultado de serologias para infeções do grupo TORCH e do rastreio para Streptococcus do grupo B (SGB) numa amostra de grávidas de uma maternidade, estudar a influência da idade e da nacionalidade, e identificar casos de infecção congénita. Material e Métodos: Estudo não probabilístico de prevalência de imunidade e infecção durante a gravidez. Resultados: Registámos 9508 serologias TORCH e 2639 resultados de rastreio para SGB. A taxa de imunidade para rubéola foi 93,3%, significativamente mais elevada em portuguesas; 25,7% das mulheres tinham IgG positiva para Toxoplasma goondii; a taxa foi mais elevada nas mulheres mais velhas e entre estrangeiras; encontrámos IgG positiva para vírus citomegálico humano (CMV) em 62,4%; não houve variação com a idade. O VDRL foi reactivo em 0,5%; 2,3% das mães tinham AgHBs positivo, mais frequente nas estrangeiras; 1,4% tinha anticorpos para o vírus da hepatite C e 0,7% tinha VIH positivo. Não houve casos declarados de infeção congénita; 13,9% das mulheres eram portadoras de SGB. Discussão: A elevada taxa de imunidade para a rubéola é resultado da política nacional de vacinação. A baixa taxa de imunidade para a toxoplasmose torna mais dispendioso o seguimento das grávidas. A elevada prevalência do CMV está de acordo com o encontrado na comunidade. Para algumas infeções foram encontradas diferenças de acordo com a nacionalidade. Conclusão: O conhecimento da imunidade e infecção na população é um instrumento importante para o planeamento dos rastreios durante a gravidez

Estudo de validade da escala South Oaks Gambling Screen junto a grupos distintos de jogadores brasileiros

OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this study was to assess the internal consistency and to perform a factor analysis of the Brazilian version of the SOGS - South Oaks Gambling Screen - scale, as well as its ability to discriminate between different profiles of gamblers. METHOD: Two hundred and seventeen subjects were enrolled in the study: 46 gamblers under treatment at the Gamblers Treatment Unit of PROAD - Program for Orientation and Attention of Dependent Persons- of the Federal University of São Paulo; 96 social gamblers and 75 subjects screened as pathological gamblers recruited at the local Jockey Club, video poker and bingo clubs. RESULTS: Differences in the score means of all three groups were statistically significant and were able to discriminate between social gamblers, pathological gamblers interviewed in a gambling site and the clinical sample. The internal consistency of the 20-item scale measured by Cronbach's alpha was 0.9304. Factor analysis resulted in a three-dimensional solution accounting for 58,6% of the total variance: a first factor composed mainly by questions related to the consequences of gambling; a second factor encompassing questions related to the gambling behavior of pathological gamblers; and a third and less expressive factor involving only two questions, probably a hybrid one of difficult interpretation. CONCLUSIONS: The Brazilian version of the SOGS was a useful screen to discriminate Brazilian pathological gamblers from social gamblers as well as to differentiate clinical pathological from non-clinical pathological gamblers, and to identify different levels of severity.OBJETIVOS: O objetivo desse estudo é avaliar a consistência interna e a dimensionalidade da versão da South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) adaptada para uso em população brasileira e sua capacidade de discriminar diferentes tipos de jogadores. MÉTODO: O estudo envolveu 217 jogadores ¾ contatados no Jockey Clube de São Paulo, em casas de bingo e de vídeo pôquer ¾, sendo que 46 deles haviam procurado tratamento no Ambulatório de Jogo Patológico do Programa de Orientação e Atendimento a Dependentes da Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP).Entre eles 96 eram jogadores sociais e 75 eram classificados como prováveis jogadores patológicos. RESULTADOS: As diferenças das médias de pontuações das subamostras foram estatisticamente significantes, discriminando jogadores sociais e jogadores patológicos entrevistados em local de jogo e amostra clínica. A SOGS, em sua versão integral de 20 itens, apresentou consistência interna medida pelo modelo Alfa de Cronbach de 0,9304. A análise fatorial da estrutura da escala resultou em uma solução de três dimensões, respondendo por 58,6% da variabilidade total dos dados na amostra: um primeiro fator constituído preponderantemente por questões referentes a conseqüências do comportamento de jogar; um segundo fator reunindo predominantemente questões relativas ao próprio comportamento de jogar dos jogadores patológicos; e um terceiro fator, menos decisivo no conjunto e composto de apenas duas questões, parecendo ser um fator híbrido de difícil interpretação. CONCLUSÕES: A versão adaptada para o Brasil da SOGS mostrou-se um instrumento útil para discriminar jogadores brasileiros patológicos de jogadores não-patológicos, como também diferenciou os grupos clínico e não-clínico de jogadores patológicos, identificando graus distintos de gravidade.Federal University of São Paulo Department of Psychiatry Ambulatory of Pathological GamblingUniversity of São Paulo Institute of Psychology Department of Experimental PsychologyFederal University of São Paulo Department of PsychiatryUNIFESP, Department of Psychiatry Ambulatory of Pathological GamblingUNIFESP, Department of PsychiatrySciEL

Peripheral Blood Leukocytes And Serum Nested Polymerase Chain Reaction Are Complementary Methods For Monitoring Active Cytomegalovirus Infection In Transplant Patients.

Human cytomegalovirus is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients. Qualitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has proven to be a sensitive and effective technique in defining active cytomegalovirus infection, in addition to having low cost and being a useful test for situations in which there is no need for quantification. Real-time PCR has the advantage of quantification; however, the high cost of this methodology makes it impractical for routine use. To apply a nested PCR assay to serum (sPCR) and to evaluate its efficiency to diagnose active cytomegalovirus infection compared with PCR of peripheral blood leukocytes (L-PCR). Samples of 37 patients were prospectively evaluated. An internal control was created and applied to sPCR to exclude false-negative results. In total, 21 patients (57%) developed active cytomegalovirus infection. After analyzing the two methods for the diagnosis of active infection, higher sensitivity and negative predictive value of the L-PCR versus sPCR (100% versus 62%), and higher specificity and positive predictive value of sPCR versus L-PCR (81% versus 50% and 72%, respectively) were observed. Discordant results were observed in 11 patients who were L-PCR-positive but sPCR-negative for active cytomegalovirus infection, five of whom developed clinical symptoms of cytomegalovirus. Clinical symptoms were observed in 14 patients, 12 of whom were diagnosed with active infection by nested L-PCR (P=0.007) and seven by nested sPCR (P=0.02). Higher specificity and a positive predictive value for sPCR were observed. Nested L-PCR and sPCR were considered to be complementary methods for the diagnosis and management of symptomatic cytomegalovirus infection.24e69-7

Risk factors for human papilomavirus infection among women in Portugal: the CLEOPATRE Portugal Study

OBJECTIVE: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is responsible for a range of diseases, including cervical cancer. The primary objectives of the CLEOPATRE Portugal study were to estimate the overall and age-stratified prevalence of cervical HPV infection and to assess HPV prevalence and type-specific distribution by cytological results among women aged 18 to 64 years, who reside in mainland Portugal. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional population-based study recruited women aged 18 to 64 years, according to an age-stratified sampling strategy, who attended gynecology/obstetrics or sexually transmitted disease clinics across the 5 regional health administrations in mainland Portugal between 2008 and 2009. Liquid-based cytology samples were collected and analyzed centrally for HPV genotyping (clinical array HPV 2 assay) and cytology. Prevalence estimates were adjusted for age using 2007 Portuguese census data. RESULTS: A total of 2326 women were included in the study. The overall prevalence of HPV infection in the study was 19.4% (95% confidence interval, 17.8%-21.0%), with the highest prevalence in women aged 18 to 24 years. High-risk HPV types were detected in 76.5% of infections, of which 36.6% involved multiple types. The commonest high-risk type was HPV-16. At least 1 of the HPV types 6/11/16/18 was detected in 32.6% of infections. The HPV prevalence in normal cytology samples was 16.5%. There was a statistically significant association between high-risk infection and cytological abnormalities (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first population-based study to quantify and describe cervical HPV infection in mainland Portugal. This study provides baseline data for future assessment of the impact of HPV vaccination programs

A Data-Driven Feature Extraction Method for Enhanced Phonocardiogram Segmentation

In this work, we present a method to extract features from heart sound signals in order to enhance segmentation performance. The approach is data-driven, since the way features are extracted from the recorded signals is adapted to the data itself. The proposed method is based on the extraction of delay vectors, which are modeled with Gaussian mixture model priors, and an information-theoretic dimensionality reduction step which aims to maximize discrimination between delay vectors in different segments of the heart sound signal. We test our approach with heart sounds from the publicly available PhysioNet dataset showing an average F1 score of 92.6% in detecting S1 and S2 sounds

Inflammation in Bipolar Disorder: Identification of New Therapeutic Targets

Introdução: A doença bipolar é um distúrbio mental com origem no conceito “mania”. Trata-se de uma patologia crónica, de natureza cíclica, caracterizada pelo aparecimento de episódios alternados de mania/hipomania com episódios de eutimia/depressão. Com este artigo pretendemos identificar novas abordagens terapêuticas para o tratamento da doença bipolar, tendo em consideração o envolvimento da inflamação na sua fisiopatologia. Métodos: Revisão da literatura que relaciona a doença bipolar com a inflamação e possíveis alvos terapêuticos, baseada em artigos de revisão. Pesquisa de ensaios clínicos que permitam avaliar as novas intervenções terapêuticas. Resultados: O tratamento farmacológico da doença bipolar é complexo, sendo periodicamente adaptado à fase de doença. Para a compreensão da fisiopatologia da doença bipolar são propostas várias hipóteses relacionadas com o processo inflamatório subjacente, como a ativação patológica da microglia, desvendando um vasto leque de alvos terapêuticos. Atualmente estão a decorrer alguns ensaios clínicos que avaliam a eficácia das novas estratégias terapêuticas. Conclusão: Distúrbios mentais como a doença bipolar têm suscitado preocupação na comunidade científica e médica devido ao seu impacto ao nível social e económico. Tendo em conta o envolvimento da inflamação na fisiopatologia da doença bipolar, o sistema imunitário constitui um novo alvo terapêutico. Assim, surgem novas opções de tratamento que incluem fármacos anti-inflamatórios não esteroides e antagonistas do glutamato. Estas novas abordagens requerem mais estudos, nomeadamente a realização de ensaios clínicos.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Bioaccessibility and intestinal uptake of minerals from different types of home-cooked and ready-to-eat beans

Limited information exists on the bioaccessibility and intestinal uptake of essential minerals from different types of beans cooked through different cooking methods. This study aimed to estimate the in vitro bioaccessibility and intestinal uptake of the essential minerals K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Zn, Mn, Cu and Mo from four different types of beans (kidney, black, white and cowpea) cooked under different conditions (home-cooked and industrially processed canned product). Results showed that the bioaccessibility and uptake of most essential minerals is higher in canned beans. Mn was the mineral that presented the highest bioaccessibility (43–63%), and Mo had the lowest (3–36%). The highest uptake was observed for Mg (59.9%), while the lowest was found for Fe (10.5%). Regarding the type of beans, white beans presented the highest bioaccessibility and uptake for all the analyzed essential minerals and thus its consumption is preferable from a nutritional point of view.Edgar Pinto and César Oliveira acknowledge Instituto de Ciências e Tecnologias Agrárias e Agro-Alimentares da Universidade do Porto (ICETA) for their contracts NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-0001 and NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000011, respectively. This work received financial support from the European Union (POCI/01/0145/FEDER/007265), from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through COMPETE – Operational Competitiveness Programme and from national funds provided by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology under the project UID/QUI/50006/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio