2,364 research outputs found

    Ghrelin and obestatin: Different role in fetal lung development?

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    Ghrelin and obestatin are two proteins that originate from post-translational processing of the preproghrelin peptide. Various authors claim an opposed role of ghrelin and obestatin in several systems. Preproghrelin mRNA is significantly expressed in airway epithelium throughout lung development, predominantly during the earliest stages. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of ghrelin and obestatin in fetal lung development in vitro. Immunohistochemistry studies were performed at different gestational ages in order to clarify the expression pattern of ghrelin, GHS-R1a, obestatin and GPR39 during fetal lung development. Fetal rat lung explants were harvested at 13.5 days post-conception (dpc) and cultured during 4 days with increasing doses of total ghrelin, acylated ghrelin, desacyl-ghrelin, ghrelin antagonist (D-Lys(3)-GHRP-6) or obestatin. Immunohistochemistry studies demonstrated that ghrelin, GHS-R1a, obestatin and GPR39 proteins were expressed in primitive rat lung epithelium throughout all studied gestational ages. Total and acylated ghrelin supplementation significantly increased the total number of peripheral airway buds, whereas desacyl-ghrelin induced no effect. Moreover, GHS-R1a antagonist significantly decreased lung branching. Finally, obestatin supplementation induced no significant effect in the measured parameters. The present study showed that ghrelin has a positive effect in fetal lung development through its GHS-R1a receptor, whereas obestatin has no effect on lung branching

    Direito à proteção de dados pessoais no Brasil e os traços centrais de uma autoridade local de proteção

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    Resumo: Sob a lógica da constitucionalização do direito e através dos aportes da fenomenologia-hermenêutica, intenta-se um estudo jurídico e crítico acerca da futura política pública nacional de proteção de dados pessoais e, sobretudo, da autoridade garantidora desta proteção. Assim, no primeiro item realizou-se uma abordagem acerca dos efeitos da (in)compreensão jurídica da internet à proteção de dados pessoais. Em seguida, o estudo dedicou-se a elucidar os esforços jurídicos e políticos brasileiros para a específica proteção de dados pessoais, especialmente por meio da política pública nacional arquitetada no Projeto de Lei Federal número 5.276/2016. Por fim, sugeriram-se linhas fundacionais de uma “autoridade local” de proteção de dados pessoais, que servirá como garantidora dos direitos previstos na política pública nacional de proteção de dados pessoais. Em conclusão, obteve-se, em termos gerais, que o Brasil encaminha-se para a formação de uma política pública nacional de proteção de dados pessoais, muito embora o debate jurídico ainda seja incipiente, tenha sido prejudicado no ano de 2016 pelas tensões políticas e esteja muito atrasado em relação a Europa. Por outro lado, não obstante a política pública articulada seja nacional, melhor que a autoridade garantidora seja de cunho local, a fim de atender as dimensões territoriais do Brasil e as inúmeras referências, realidades e racionalidades que cada região possui.Palavras-chave: Internet. Proteção de dados pessoais. Política Pública. Autoridade Local de Proteção.  Abstract: Under the logic of constitutionalization of law and through the contributions of phenomenology, tries to be a legal and critical study about the future national public policy for the protection of personal data, above all, the guarantor of this protection. Thus, in the first item an evaluation was made about the effects of the legal (no) understanding of the Internet to the protection of personal data. The study then focused on elucidating the Brazilian legal and political efforts for the specific protection of personal data, especially through the national public policy as outlined in Federal Law Project number 5.276/2016. Finally, the foundational guidelines of a "local authority" for the protection of personal data were suggested, which will serve as a guarantor of the rights foreseen in the national public policy of protection of personal data. In conclusion, it was obtained, in general terms, that Brazil is moving towards the formation of a national public policy for the protection of personal data, although the legal debate is still incipient, was harmed in 2016 by political tensions and is far behind in relation the Europe. On the other hand, despite the articulated public policy being national, it is better that the guarantor authority be of a local nature, in order to take into account the territorial dimensions of Brazil and the innumerable references, realities and rationalities that each region possesses.Keywords: Internet. Protection of personal data. Public Police. Local Protection Authority. Submetido em: 30-03-2017Aprovado em: 14-07-201

    Local fetal lung renin-angiotensin system as a target to treat congenital diaphragmatic hernia

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    Antenatal stimulation of lung growth is a reasonable approach to treat congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), a disease characterized by pulmonary hypoplasia and hypertension. Several evidences from the literature demonstrated a possible involvement of renin-angiotensin system (RAS) during fetal lung development. Thus, the expression pattern of renin, angiotensin-converting enzyme, angiotensinogen, type 1 (AT₁) and type 2 (AT₂) receptors of angiotensin II (ANGII) was assessed by immunohisto-chemistry throughout gestation, whereas the function of RAS in the fetal lung was evaluated using fetal rat lung explants. These were morphometrically analyzed and intracellular pathway alterations assessed by Western blot. In nitrofen-induced CDH model, pregnant rats were treated with saline or PD-123319. In pups, lung growth, protein/DNA ratio, radial saccular count, epithelial differentiation and lung maturation, vascular morphometry, right ventricular hypertrophy and overload molecular markers, gasometry and survival time were evaluated. Results demonstrated that all RAS components were constitutively expressed in the lung during gestation and that ANGII had a stimulatory effect on lung branching, mediated by AT₁ receptor, through p44/42 and Akt phosphorylation. This stimulatory effect on lung growth was mimicked by AT₂-antagonist (PD-123319) treatment. In vivo antenatal PD-123319 treatment increased lung growth, ameliorated indirect parameters of pulmonary hypertension, improved lung function and survival time in nonventilated CDH pups, without maternal or fetal deleterious effects. Therefore, this study demonstrated a local and physiologically active RAS during lung morphogenesis. Moreover, selective inhibition of AT₂ receptor is presented as a putative antenatal therapy for CDH

    A qualitative assessment of implementing a cross-cultural survey on cancer wards in Denmark - a description of barriers

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Research into migration and health is often confronted with methodological challenges related to the identification of migrants in various settings. Furthermore, it is often difficult to reach an acceptable level of participation among migrant groups in quantitative research. The aim of this study is to conduct a qualitative assessment of the barriers encountered during the implementation of a cross-cultural survey on cancer wards in Copenhagen, Denmark.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Participant observation at the involved wards was combined with qualitative interviews with selected nurses and informal talks with a wider group of nurses at the wards involved in the survey.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>One possible way to increase the participation of migrant patients in research is through the involvement of the hospital staff in contact with patients. Involvement of nurses on cancer wards in the delivery of questionnaires to patients was challenging, despite a general willingness to participate in psychosocial research. The main difficulties were found to be both external (policy changes, general strike among nurses) and internal on the wards (heavy workload, lack of time, focus on medical aspects of cancer rather than psychosocial aspects). These factors interacted and resulted in a lower priority being given to psychosocial research. Further, nurses expressed a feeling that researchers in general did not recognize their contribution in research, making it more difficult to engage fully in studies.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Involving hospital staff in research is feasible but not straightforward. Awareness of the influence of possible external and internal factors and efforts to deal with these factors are fundamental to the successful implementation of psychosocial cancer research in a hospital setting.</p

    Learning auditory space: generalization and long-term effects

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    Background: Previous findings have shown that humans can learn to localize with altered auditory space cues. Here we analyze such learning processes and their effects up to one month on both localization accuracy and sound externalization. Subjects were trained and retested, focusing on the effects of stimulus type in learning, stimulus type in localization, stimulus position, previous experience, externalization levels, and time. Method: We trained listeners in azimuth and elevation discrimination in two experiments. Half participated in the azimuth experiment first and half in the elevation first. In each experiment, half were trained in speech sounds and half in white noise. Retests were performed at several time intervals: just after training and one hour, one day, one week and one month later. In a control condition, we tested the effect of systematic retesting over time with post-tests only after training and either one day, one week, or one month later. Results: With training all participants lowered their localization errors. This benefit was still present one month after training. Participants were more accurate in the second training phase, revealing an effect of previous experience on a different task. Training with white noise led to better results than training with speech sounds. Moreover, the training benefit generalized to untrained stimulus-position pairs. Throughout the post-tests externalization levels increased. In the control condition the long-term localization improvement was not lower without additional contact with the trained sounds, but externalization levels were lower. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that humans adapt easily to altered auditory space cues and that such adaptation spreads to untrained positions and sound types. We propose that such learning depends on all available cues, but each cue type might be learned and retrieved differently. The process of localization learning is global, not limited to stimulus-position pairs, and it differs from externalization processes.Foundation for Science and TechnologyFEDE

    Higgs boson production in photon-photon collision at ILC: a comparative study in different little Higgs models

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    We study the process \gamma\gamma->h->bb_bar at ILC as a probe of different little Higgs models, including the simplest little Higgs model (SLH), the littlest Higgs model (LH), and two types of littlest Higgs models with T-parity (LHT-I, LHT-II). Compared with the Standard Model (SM) prediction, the production rate is found to be sizably altered in these little Higgs models and, more interestingly, different models give different predictions. We find that the production rate can be possibly enhanced only in the LHT-II for some part of the parameter space, while in all other cases the rate is suppressed. The suppression can be 10% in the LH and as much as 60% in both the SLH and the LHT-I/LHT-II. The severe suppression in the SLH happens for a large \tan\beta and a small m_h, in which the new decay mode h->\eta\eta (\eta is a light pseudo-scalar) is dominant; while for the LHT-I/LHT-II the large suppression occurs when f and m_h are both small so that the new decay mode h->A_H A_H is dominant. Therefore, the precision measurement of such a production process at the ILC will allow for a test of these models and even distinguish between different scenarios.Comment: Version in JHEP (h-g-g & h-gamma-gamma expressions added

    Paradoxical reversal learning enhancement by stress or prefrontal cortical damage: rescue with BDNF.

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    Stress affects various forms of cognition. We found that moderate stress enhanced late reversal learning in a mouse touchscreen-based choice task. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) lesions mimicked the effect of stress, whereas orbitofrontal and dorsolateral striatal lesions impaired reversal. Stress facilitation of reversal was prevented by BDNF infusion into the vmPFC. These findings suggest a mechanism by which stress-induced vmPFC dysfunction disinhibits learning by alternate (for example, striatal) systems
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