Seed germination, phenology, and antiedematogenic activity of Peperomia pellucida (L.) H. B. K.

BACKGROUND: Peperomia pellucida is popularly known as coraçãozinho in the Brazilian northeast and is used in the treatment of abscesses, furuncles, and conjunctivitis. Our work aimed to determine the term of the development stages and the species cycle in the four seasons of the year (complete development, beginning of bloom, complete bloom, and seed set), verifying the plant's therapeutic profile during the four distinct development phases in order to detect differences in its potency. Pharmacological tests were performed to observe the anti-inflammatory activity. RESULTS: Phenological observations were accessed for a 12 month-period, from the Brazilian summer of 1999/2000 to fall 2000. On average the plantules' emergence occurred 15 days after seeding. All plantules grew in a similar manner up to 25 days after transplantation in all seasons. Starting on the 25(th) day, we observed faster growth during spring, with plants reaching a height of about 60 cm after 100 days of transplantation, unlike other seasons, in which plants reached heights of 40, 40, and 35 cm during winter, summer, and fall, respectively. The P. pellucida aqueous extract showed significant anti-inflammatory activity during phenophases 1 and 2 of winter and spring. Depending on the plant's phenophase there was variation in the potency of edema inhibition. CONCLUSION: P. pellucida has a phenological cycle of approximately 100 days. It is recommended that the P. pellucida aqueous extract is used as an antiedematogenic only during phenophases 1 and 2 of winter and spring

Sialólito no ducto da glândula mandibular em cão

A sialocele consiste no acúmulo de saliva nos tecidos moles, a qual pode ser desencadeada por ruptura dos ductos salivares. Entre as etiologias, destaca-se a presença de cálculo no interior do ducto ou da glândula salivar, denominada sialolitíase, clinicamente caracterizada por edema e ausência de dor. A deposição de sais minerais no interior das glândulas associada ao acúmulo de muco, bactérias e células epiteliais descamadas podem originar o sialólito, bem como o pH alcalino, que fica em torno de oito na espécie canina. O relato tem como objetivo descrever um caso de sialocele na glândula mandibular causada por sialólito em um cão da raça Pastor Alemão atendido no Hospital de Clínicas Veterinárias (HCV) da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). O diagnóstico baseou-se em anamnese, exame físico e exames complementares, como citologia do aspirado, e, como tratamento, indicou-se remoção da cadeia e do ducto glandular mandibular e sublingual afetado, aliada à retirada do sialólito. No caso relatado, a sialoadenectomia das glândulas afetadas juntamente com a remoção do sialólito presente no ducto da glândula mandibular foram eficazes no tratamento sem recidiva

Automated recognition of lung diseases in CT images based on the optimum-path forest classifier

The World Health Organization estimated that around 300 million people have asthma, and 210 million people are affected by Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Also, it is estimated that the number of deaths from COPD increased 30% in 2015 and COPD will become the third major cause of death worldwide by 2030. These statistics about lung diseases get worse when one considers fibrosis, calcifications and other diseases. For the public health system, the early and accurate diagnosis of any pulmonary disease is mandatory for effective treatments and prevention of further deaths. In this sense, this work consists in using information from lung images to identify and classify lung diseases. Two steps are required to achieve these goals: automatically extraction of representative image features of the lungs and recognition of the possible disease using a computational classifier. As to the first step, this work proposes an approach that combines Spatial Interdependence Matrix (SIM) and Visual Information Fidelity (VIF). Concerning the second step, we propose to employ a Gaussian-based distance to be used together with the optimum-path forest (OPF) classifier to classify the lungs under study as normal or with fibrosis, or even affected by COPD. Moreover, to confirm the robustness of OPF in this classification problem, we also considered Support Vector Machines and a Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network for comparison purposes. Overall, the results confirmed the good performance of the OPF configured with the Gaussian distance when applied to SIM- and VIF-based features. The performance scores achieved by the OPF classifier were as follows: average accuracy of 98.2%, total processing time of 117 microseconds in a common personal laptop, and F-score of 95.2% for the three classification classes. These results showed that OPF is a very competitive classifier, and suitable to be used for lung disease classification

Interleukin-17 plays a role in dental pulp inflammation mediated by zoledronic acid: a mechanism unrelated to the Th17 immune response?

Objective: To evaluate the influence of RORγT inhibition by digoxin on inflammatory changes related to interleukin-17 (IL-17) in the pulp of rats treated with zoledronate (ZOL). Methodology: Forty male Wistar rats were divided into a negative control group (NCG) treated with saline solution, a positive control group (PCG) treated with ZOL (0.20 mg/kg), and three groups treated with ZOL and co-treated with digoxin 1, 2, or 4 mg/kg (DG1, 2, and 4). After four intravenous administrations of ZOL or saline solution in a 70-day protocol, the right molars were evaluated by histomorphometry (number of blood vessels, blood vessels/µm2, cells/µm2, total blood vessel area, and average blood vessel area) and immunohistochemistry (IL-17, TNF-α, IL-6, and TGF-β). The Kruskal-Wallis/Dunn test was used for statistical analysis. Results: PCG showed an increase in total blood vessel area (p=0.008) and average blood vessel area (p=0.014), and digoxin treatment reversed these changes. DG4 showed a reduction in blood vessels/µm2 (p<0.001). In PCG odontoblasts, there was an increase in IL-17 (p=0.002) and TNF-α (p=0.002) immunostaining, and in DG4, these changes were reversed. Odontoblasts in the digoxin-treated groups also showed an increase in IL-6 immunostaining (p<0.001) and a reduction in TGF-β immunostaining (p=0.002), and all ZOL-treated groups showed an increase in IL-17 (p=0.011) and TNF-α (p=0.017) in non-odontoblasts cells. Conclusion: ZOL induces TNF-α- and IL-17-dependent vasodilation and ectasia, and the classical Th17 response activation pathway does not seem to participate in this process

Preemptive analgesia-related gene and protein expression in third molar surgeries under non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug protocols : A PROSPERO-registered systematic review of clinical studies

This study aimed to review translational studies focusing on third molar removal surgeries through a systematic analytical approach. A PROSPERO-registered systematic review (CRD42017060455) was conducted following the PRISMA statement to summarize current knowledge on gene expression in third molar surgeries. A search was performed in PubMed?s Medline and Scopus databases, without date or language restrictions, using the logical expression {[(Third molar) OR (preemptive) OR (cyclooxygenase inhibitors) OR (acute inflammation) AND (gene expression)]}. All studies included in the analysis evaluated gene expression in a third molar extraction model, using the preemptive analgesia methodology in seven investigations. The sample analyzed was obtained from gingival tissue biopsy (n=4), blood (n=1), transudate (n=1) and gingival tissue biopsy/transudate (n=1). There were differences with respect to evaluated genes, drug protocol, sample studied, and method for evaluating gene expression. Third molar surgeries were found to be associated with different COX-related gene expression patterns. Although inflammatory events following the surgical procedure are associated with COX isoforms, data from preemptive analgesia studies are scarce, especially from studies correlating gene expression and clinical parameters. In the future, from a clinical perspective, identifying the molecular targets of a drug based on individual gene expression may be helpful to delineate specific third molar, surgery-related, preemptive analgesia protocols

Towards Generating Richer Code by Binding Security Abstractions to BPMN Task Types

This paper presents an approach for binding security requirements to different BPMN task types to create secure executable business processes.This paper presents an approach for binding security requirements to different BPMN task types to create secure executable business processes

An Approach for Reducing the Gap between BPMN Models and Implementation Artifacts

The need for using high-level modeling tools (e.g. BPMN) isincreasing considerably. The proliferation of the service oriented architectures (SOA) is also apparent. In this context, there is a gap between the developed model and its execution. This work introduces the MoSC Translator which translates models produced in BPMN into executable WS-BPEL processes