Gender Difference in the Perception of Guilt in Consumer Boycott in Brazil

The aim of this chapter is to analyze consumer boycott from the perception of men\u27s and women\u27s guilt on a specific case involving Nike company through partners in its supply chain in China. The study was conducted with 281 consumers in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 2012. In the process of validating a scale of consumer boycott in Brazil, the 13 items of the original scale were kept, but were grouped in different factors. The emerged factors were perception of guilt, influence from others, boycott efficiency, and purchase frequency. Testing relationship among demographic variables and these factors, only gender was significant on perception of guilt. In this sense, we seek in psychology, psychoanalysis (also briefly in anthropology and history), features that could explain the reasons why women feel guiltier than men, and thus are more likely to boycott

A new rat model of creatine transporter deficiency reveals behavioral disorder and altered brain metabolism.

Creatine is an organic compound used as fast phosphate energy buffer to recycle ATP, important in tissues with high energy demand such as muscle or brain. Creatine is taken from the diet or endogenously synthetized by the enzymes AGAT and GAMT, and specifically taken up by the transporter SLC6A8. Deficit in the endogenous synthesis or in the transport leads to Cerebral Creatine Deficiency Syndromes (CCDS). CCDS are characterized by brain creatine deficiency, intellectual disability with severe speech delay, behavioral troubles such as attention deficits and/or autistic features, and epilepsy. Among CCDS, the X-linked creatine transporter deficiency (CTD) is the most prevalent with no efficient treatment so far. Different mouse models of CTD were generated by doing long deletions in the Slc6a8 gene showing reduced brain creatine and cognitive deficiencies or impaired motor function. We present a new knock-in (KI) rat model of CTD holding an identical point mutation found in patients with reported lack of transporter activity. KI males showed brain creatine deficiency, increased urinary creatine/creatinine ratio, cognitive deficits and autistic-like traits. The Slc6a8 <sup>Y389C</sup> KI rat fairly enriches the spectrum of CTD models and provides new data about the pathology, being the first animal model of CTD carrying a point mutation

Normal phase HPLC profiling of the acetylcholinesterase activity in apolar plant extracts

Among nineteen evaluated Clusiaceous species, one stem bark CH2Cl2 crude extract was selected based on a significant inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) using the micro-dilution Ellman\u27s method [1]. A normal phase HPLC profiling with micro-fractionation of this extract provided discrete fractions every 20 seconds. In order to obtain a comprehensive profiling of AChE activity all microfractions were tested [2] in dilution assay (Ellman) as well as by bioautography (the Fast Blue B salt method). Furthermore the potency of inhibition was evaluated both by keeping the genuine concentration within the extract and after normalisation to a standard concentration level. From the active fractions five pure compounds were isolated and identified. The different methods of sample preparation and biological evaluation associated with normal-phase micro-fractionation of plant extracts are critically discussed

Effects of Trihalomethanes on Liver Mitochondria

Introduction: Trihalomethanes (THMs), namely dibromochloromethane (DBCM) and bromodichloromethane (BDCM), are disinfection byproducts of chlorinated water. This experiment aimed to evaluate the mitochondrial dysfunction induced by THMs at low levels in a mouse model