Dark Proteome Database: Studies on Disorder

There is a misconception that intrinsic disorder in proteins is equivalent to darkness. The present study aims to establish, in the scope of the Swiss-Prot and Dark Proteome databases, the relationship between disorder and darkness. Three distinct predictors were used to calculate the disorder of Swiss-Prot proteins. The analysis of the results obtained with the used predictors and visualization paradigms resulted in the same conclusion that was reached before: disorder is mostly unrelated to darkness. (c) 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Design and analysis of a database to evaluate children’s reading aloud performance

To evaluate the reading performance of children, human assessment is usually involved, where a teacher or tutor has to take time to individually estimate the performance in terms of fluency (speed, accuracy and expression). Automatic estimation of reading ability can be an important alternative or complement to the usual methods, and can improve other applications such as e-learning. Techniques must be developed to analyse audio recordings of read utterances by children and detect the deviations from the intended correct reading i.e. disfluencies. For that goal, a database of 284 European Portuguese children from 6 to 10 years old (1st–4th grades) reading aloud amounting to 20 h was collected in private and public Portuguese schools. This paper describes the design of the reading tasks as well as the data collection procedure. The presence of different types of disfluencies is analysed as well as reading performance compared to known curricular goals.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Quality and Safety Indicators in Anesthesia

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Genetic and virulence characterization of colistin-resistant and colistin-sensitive A. baumannii clinical isolates.

Treatment of infections caused by A. baumannii is becoming a challenge due to the ability to develop multidrug-resistance, virulence, and high mortality. We described the colistin resistance and virulence genes present in sixA. baumannii clinical isolates using WGS, expression by qPCR, and virulence in the Galleria mellonella model. The colistin-resistant isolates were assigned as ST233 and the colistin-susceptible isolates as ST236 and ST407. The colistin-resistant isolates contained mutations within PmrA/PmrB, and the pmrA showed up-regulation in all of them. Only one colistin-resistant isolate indicating virulence in G. mellonella. This particular isolate belonged to a different clone, and it was the only isolate that presented non-synonymous mutations in pmrB. Colistinresistance in A. baumannii isolates seems to be caused by up-regulation of pmrA gene. Only one isolate appeared to be virulent in the G. mellonella model. This finding indicating low virulence in isolates belonging to emerging clones circulating in our hospital

Emergência de plantulas de Oenocarpus bacaba oriundas de diferentes localidades do Estado do Pará.

Avaliou-se a emergência de plântulas de O. bacaba por meio de sementes oriundas de diferentes localidades do Estado do Pará. As amostras foram obtidas de três mesorregiões: 1) 25 do Baixo Amazonas, Terra Santa – PA (02º 06' 16" S, 56º 29' 15" W); 2); 18 no Nordeste Paraense, Baião – PA (02º 047' 35" S, 49º 39' 46" W); e duas no Sudeste Paraense, Marabá – PA (05º 21' 54" S, 49º 07' 24" W). Foram despolpados 100 frutos e as sementes semeadas em delineamento inteiramente casualizado com 45 tratamentos, duas repetições e parcela de 50 sementes. Foram avaliados seis caracteres relativos à emergência das plântulas, com acompanhamento diário. Os dados foram submetidos as análises de variância e as médias comparadas pelo teste Scott Knott (P≤0,05). As 45 amostras apresentaram diferenças significativas para cinco dos seis caracteres avaliados, demonstrando comportamentos distintos. As médias para os caracteres DIE, DE, DFE, PE, IVE e TME foram de 25,7 dias; 33,9 dias, 59,6 dias, 74%, 0,7 e 40,4 dias, respectivamente. O teste de comparação de médias detectou a formação de dois (DIE, DE, IVE e TME) e quatro (PE) de grupos distintos. A emergência de plântulas de O. bacaba de diferentes procedências do Estado do Pará apresenta comportamento distinto para a maioria dos caracteres, com a porcentagem de emergência sendo o caráter mais discriminatório, sendo ao nível de procedência apenas o caráter dias para início de emergênci

Projeto e implementação de um reator eletrônico microcontrolado, de elevado fator de potência, orientado a lâmpadas de vapor metálico

The analysis, design and implementation of a microcontroller-based electronic ballast to supply metal halide (MH) lamps are presented. The proposed power scheme is based on the integration of the buck and flyback converters. The former providing power factor correction and the latter controlling lamp power by supplying the lamp with a low frequency square waveform current, which is a convenient way to avoid acoustic resonances in high intensity discharge (HID) lamps. Both converters operate in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM), thus allowing the use of only one high-frequency switch and simplifying the control. The electronic ballast is digitally controlled by using a low cost microcontroller PIC16F684. The microcontroller performs all the necessary tasks during starting, warming-up and steady state, including closed loop control of lamp current and protections. Experimental results for a 35W MH lamp are presented.Este trabalho descreve a análise, o projeto e a implementação de um reator eletrônico para lâmpadas de vapor metálico (MH) baseado em microcontrolador. O circuito do reator se fundamenta na integração de um conversor buck com um conversor flyback. A tarefa de correção do fator de potência é realizada pela etapa buck, enquanto a etapa flyback controla a potência na lâmpada fornecendo uma corrente em onda quadrada de baixa freqüência. Este é um método adequado para se evitar o fenômeno da ressonância acústica, comum em lâmpadas de descarga de alta pressão (HID). Os dois estágios conversores operam no modo de condução descontínua (DCM), o que permite o uso de apenas um interruptor de alta freqüência simplificando o controle. O reator eletrônico é controlado digitalmente e emprega um microcontrolador de baixo custo PIC16F684. Este componente é programado para desempenhar todas as tarefas necessárias aos processos de ignição, aquecimento e regime permanente da lâmpada, respondendo também pelo controle em malha fechada da corrente na lâmpada e proteções convencionais. O artigo inclui resultados experimentais obtidos de um protótipo que alimenta uma lâmpada MH de 35W

Clonal Population of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Strains Reside within Multiple Lung Cavities

(MTB) are localized within lung cavities of patients suffering from chronic progressive TB.Multiple cavity isolates from lung of 5 patients who had undergone pulmonary resection surgery were analyzed on the basis of their drug susceptibility profile, and genotyped by spoligotyping and 24-loci MIRU-VNTR. The patients past history including treatment was studied. Three of the 5 patients had extensive drug resistant TB. Heteroresistance was also reported within different cavity isolates of the lung. Both genotyping methods reported the presence of clonal population of MTB strain within different cavities of the each patient, even those reporting heteroresistance. Four of the 5 patients were infected with a population of the Beijing genotype. Post-surgery they were prescribed a drug regimen consisting of cycloserine, a fluoroquinolone and an injectable drug. A 6 month post-surgery follow-up reported only 2 patients with positive clinical outcome, showing sputum conversion.Identical spoligotype patterns and MIRU-VNTR profiles between multiple cavities of each patient, characterize the presence of clonal population of MTB strains (and absence of multiple MTB infection)