Estudo das florações de microalgas nocivas nos Parques Aquícolas de Santa Catarina: subsídio para implementação de fazendas de macroalgas

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro de Ciências Agrárias. Curso de Engenharia de Aquicultura.A produção aquícola é uma atividade em crescimento no mundo e a produção de moluscos tem uma representação significativa. No Brasil, o Estado de Santa Catarina é responsável pela maior parte da produção de moluscos bivalves. Porém, com o registro progressivo da frequência das florações de microalgas, a maricultura se torna vulnerável, gerando impactos ambientais, econômicos e à saúde humana. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo identificar a frequência das florações de microalgas nocivas e de ficotoxinas acumuladas na carne de moluscos bivalves nos parques aquícolas de Santa Catarina. O levantamento de dados reunindo informações relativas ao monitoramento de algas nocivas e de ficotoxinas foram efetuados nos munícipios de São Francisco do Sul, Penha, Balneário Camboriú, Porto Belo, Bombinhas, Governador Celso Ramos, Biguaçu, São José, Florianópolis e Palhoça. Foram selecionadas 29 localidades, dentre elas 27 localidades para fazendas de mexilhão Perna Perna e 14 para fazendas de ostras Crassostrea gigas e Crassostrea rhizophorae, entre novembro de 2012 a setembro de 2016. A frequência das florações de algas nocivas e de ficotoxinas no estado de Santa Catarina apresentou-se de maneira ampla, com maior ocorrência em Laranjeiras BC, Praia Alegre, Armação do Itacoporói, Porto Belo, Zimbros, Ganchos de Fora, Freguesia do Ribeirão, Costeira do Ribeirão, Praia do Cedro, Caieira da Barra do Sul e Ponta do Papagaio. Os períodos de maiores florações foram entre outono e primavera, com alguns casos no verão. Esses resultados podem servir de indicativo de locais em que a macroalga Kappaphycus alvarezii poderia integrar os cultivos de moluscos como alternativa para melhorar a qualidade de água, e mitigando os efeitos das florações de microalgas através da competição por nutrientes, além de complementar a renda dos produtores locais.Aquaculture production is an increasing activity in the world and mollusks production has a significant representation. In Brazil, Santa Catarina State is responsible for most of the production of bivalve mollusks. However, with the progressive frequency of microalgae blooms, mariculture becomes vulnerable, generating environmental and economic impacts besides threatening the human health. The objective of this study was to identify the frequency of harmful algae blooms and phycotoxins accumulation in the flash of bivalve mollusks, in aquaculture parks of Santa Catarina. Data regarding to the monitoring of harmful algae and phycotoxins of Santa Catarina State in municipalities of São Francisco do Sul, Penha, Balneário Camboriú, Porto Belo, Bombinhas, Governador Celso Ramos, Biguaçu, São José, Florianópolis and Palhoça were collected. Twenty-nine locations were selected, including 27 locations for mussel Perna perna farms and 14 for oyster Crassostrea gigas and Crassostrea rhizophorae farms, from November 2012 to September 2016. The frequency of harmful algal blooms and phycotoxins in Santa Catarina State presented in a wide way, with greater occurrence in Laranjeiras BC, Praia Alegre, Armação do Itacoporói, Porto Belo, Zimbros, Ganchos de Fora, Freguesia do Ribeirão, Costeira do Ribeirão, Praia do Cedro, Caieira da Barra do Sul and Ponta do Papagaio. The periods of higher blooms are between the autumn and spring seasons, with some occurrences in the summer. These results can be an indicative of locations where the seaweed Kappaphycus alvarezii could integrate mollusk farms as an alternative to improve water quality, and mitigating the effects of microalgae blooms through competition for nutrients, in addition to supplementing local farmers income

Quantitative PCR for the Diagnosis of HCMV Pneumonia in HSCT Recipients and Other Immunocompromised Hosts

Pneumonia is among the most serious manifestations of HCMV infection, with high morbidity and mortality. Probable pneumonia is defined as the detection of HCMV in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) by viral isolation or DNA quantification (qPCR) combined with symptoms and/or signs of respiratory infection. However, currently, there is no reproducible and well-defined viral load (VL) from BAL that can reliably differentiate patients with pneumonia from the much more common detection of viral DNA in seropositive patients without true HCMV pneumonia. Several studies have been published with the aim of establishing an optimal VL for differentiating pneumonia from viral lung shedding. The aim of this review is to collect and analyze the methodology and the conclusions obtained in studies whose objectives included the correlation between HCMV VL in BAL and/or the plasma and the occurrence of HCMV pneumonia. For this purpose, a total of 14 articles have been included. There are some conclusions on which they all agree. PCR techniques were more sensitive and had a higher NPV than culture techniques but were less specific and had a low PPV. The mean HCMV loads in both BAL and the plasma were significantly higher in patients with pneumonitis than in those without. The HCMV load in patients with pneumonitis was higher in BAL than in the plasma, making qPCR in BAL a better predictor of HCMV pneumonitis than in the plasma. Nevertheless, this review highlights the difficulty of establishing a universal VL value, both in BAL and in the blood, to differentiate patients with HCMV pneumonia from those without. To complete the information available in these studies, prospective multicentre studies would be required. Methodologically, a large number of patients with HCMV pneumonitis would have to be included, and a subclassification of the type of immunosuppression of each patient should be made in order to obtain an optimal VL threshold in different host groups

I Refuse if You Let Me: Studying User Behavior with Privacy Banners at Scale

Privacy Banners are a common experience while surfing the Web. Mandated by privacy regulations, they are the way for users to express their consent to the usage of cookies and data collection. They take various forms, carry different wordings and offer different interaction mechanisms. While several works have qualitatively evaluated the effectiveness of privacy banners, it is still unclear how users take advantage of the options offered and if and how the design of the banner could influence their choice. This work presents a large-scale analysis of how the Privacy Banner options impact on users’ interaction with it. We use data from a global Consent Management Platform serving more than 400 websites with visitors from all countries. With this, we observe more than 4 M interactions collected over three months. We find that only 1-4% of visitors opt out of cookies when more than one click is required. Conversely, when offered a Reject All button to deny consent with a single click, the percentage of users who deny consent increases to about 21%. We further investigate other properties, such as the visitor’s country, device type, banner position, etc. While the results confirm some common beliefs, to the best of our knowledge, his is the first work to accurately quantify how people interact with Privacy Banners and observe the effect of offering a single-click refusal option. We believe our work improves the understanding of user behaviour and perception of privacy, as well as the implications and effectiveness of privacy regulations

Venetoclax in relapsed/refractory blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm with central nervous system involvement : a case report and review of the literature

Background: We describe a patient with blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm with central nervous system involvement and the outcome of venetoclax use in this setting. Case presentation: A 54-year-old Caucasian male was referred to the Haematology Unit with an enlarged inguinal lymph node which was diagnostic of a blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm. The staging revealed disseminated disease (skin, visceral, lymph nodes, and bone marrow). He received chemotherapy with an acute myeloid leukaemia-like regime. Afterwards, he underwent allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, though it was not successful, showing a relapse 14 months later with hepatic and central nervous system dissemination. Intrathecal chemotherapy was administered, and venetoclax (anti-bcl2 agent) was started in an off-label indication based on most recent literature. The disease halted its course for 3 months. In the end, the patient's disease progressed and so he succumbed due to infectious complications. Conclusions: Venetoclax monotherapy seems not enough to control the disease progression under CNS involvement and other treatments should be investigated

Fourth European Conference on Infections in Leukaemia (ECIL-4): Guidelines for Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Parainfluenza Virus, Metapneumovirus, Rhinovirus, and Coronavirus

Respiratory viruses have been recognized as a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with leukemia and those undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The risk for lower respiratory tract infections and a fatal outcome appears to depend on the intrinsic virulence of the specific community-acquired respiratory virus as well as factors specific to the patient, the underlying disease, and its treatmen

Liver transplantation for acute liver failure due to antitubercular drugs – a single-center experience

OBJECTIVES: Patients receiving treatment for tuberculosis are at risk of developing acute liver failure due to the hepatotoxicity of antitubercular drugs. We aimed to describe our experience with liver transplantation from deceased donors in this situation. METHODS: We identified patients undergoing transplantation for acute liver failure due to antitubercular drugs in our prospectively maintained database. RESULTS: Of 81 patients undergoing transplantation for acute liver failure, 8 cases were attributed to antitubercular drugs during the period of 2006-2016. Regarding the time of tuberculosis treatment until the onset of jaundice, patients were on antitubercular drugs for a mean of 64.7 days (21-155 days). The model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score of patients ranged from 32 to 47 (median 38), and seven patients underwent transplantation under vasopressors. The 1-year survival was 50%. Three patients died during the week following transplantation due to septic shock (including a patient with acute liver failure due to hepatic/ disseminated tuberculosis), and the remaining patient died 2 months after transplantation due to pulmonary infection. There were 2 cases of mild rejection and 1 case of moderate rejection. Of the surviving patients, all were considered cured of tuberculosis after alternative drugs were given. CONCLUSION: Patients arrived very sick and displayed poor survival after deceased donor transplantation

dc Josephson Effect in Metallic Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

The dc Josephson effect is investigated in a single-walled metallic carbon nanotube connected to two superconducting leads. In particular, by using the Luttinger liquid theory, we analyze the effects of the electron-electron interaction on the supercurrent. We find that in the long junction limit the strong electronic correlations of the nanotube, together with its peculiar band structure, induce oscillations in the critical current as a function of the junction length and/or the nanotube electron filling. These oscillations represent a signature of the Luttinger liquid physics of the nanotube, for they are absent if the interaction is vanishing. We show that this effect can be exploited to reverse the sign of the supercurrent, realizing a tunable \pi-junction.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Booster effect after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in immunocompromised hematology patients with prior COVID-19

Patients with hematological malignancies have been excluded from the new zoonotic coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2]) vaccine trials despite being at higher risk for SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID-19)-related mortality. However, most health authorities worldwide have designated these patients as a priority for COVID-19 vaccination, even in the absence of efficacy data in these highly immunosuppressed patients. In addition, on 12 August 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration amended the emergency use authorizations for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to allow for the use of an additional dose in immunocompromised individuals, such as solid organ transplant recipients or equivalently immunosuppressed patients

Poly (Lactic Acid)/Thermoplastic Starch Films: Effect of Cardoon Seed Epoxidized Oil on Their Chemicophysical, Mechanical, and Barrier Properties

In this work, biodegradable films based on poly (lactic acid) (PLA) and corn thermoplastic starch (TPS), additivated with epoxidized cardoon oil plasticizer (ECO) at 3% by weight with respect to PLA mass fraction, were prepared by melt extrusion process and compression molding. The effect of ECO on structural, thermal, mechanical, barrier, and spectral optical properties of the films was investigated. Spectroscopic analysis evidenced the development of physical interaction between oil and polymers, mainly PLA. In addition, no oil migration occurrence was detected after six months of film preparation, as evidenced by oil mass evaluation by precipitation as well as by 1H-NMR methods, thus highlighting the good inclusion of oil inside the polymeric network. The plasticizing action of the oil induced a lean improvement of the interfacial adhesion between hydrophobic PLA and hydrophilic TPS, particularly accentuated in PLA80_ECO composition, as evidenced by morphological analysis of blend fracture surfaces. TGA data underlined that, differently from TPS-based films, PLA-based systems followed one degradative thermal profile suggesting a slight compatibilization effect of epoxidized oil in these films. The shifting of Tg values, by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis, indicated a weak miscibility at molecular level. Generally, in the investigated blends, the phase separation between PLA and TPS polymers was responsible for the mechanical properties failing; in particular, the tensile strength evidenced a negative deviation from the rule of mixtures, particularly marked in TPS-based blends, where no physical entanglements occurred between the polymers since their immiscibility even in presence of ECO. The epoxidized oil strongly improved the barrier properties (water vapor permeability (WVP) and oxygen permeability (O2P)) of all the films, likely developing a physical barrier to water and oxygen diffusion and solubilization. With respect to neat PLA, PL80 and PL80_ECO films evidenced the improvement of surface wettability, due to the presence of polar groups both in TPS (hydroxyl residues) and in epoxidized oil (oxirane rings). Finally, following to the conditioning in climatic chamber at T = 25 °C and RH = 50%, PLA80 film became opaque due to TPS water absorption, causing a light transmittance decreasing, as evidenced by spectral optical analysis

The combination of sirolimus plus tacrolimus improves outcome after reduced-intensity conditioning, unrelated donor hematopoietic stem cell transplantation compared with cyclosporine plus mycofenolate

Different types of graft-versus-host disease prophylaxis have been proposed in the setting of reduced intensity and non-myeloablative allogeneic stem cell transplantation. An alternative combination with sirolimus and tacrolimus has recently been tested although comparative studies against the classical combination of a calcineurin inhibitor and mycophenolate mofetil or methotrexate are lacking. We describe the results of a prospective, multicenter trial using sirolimus + tacrolimus as immunoprophylaxis, and compare this approach with our previous experience using cyclosporine + mycophenolate in the setting of unrelated donor transplantation setting after reduced-intensity conditioning. Forty-five patients received cyclosporine + mycophenolate between 2002 and mid-2007, while the subsequent 50 patients, who were transplanted from late 2007, were given sirolimus + tacrolimus. No significant differences were observed in terms of hematopoietic recovery or acute graft-versus-host disease overall, although gastrointestinal acute graft-versus-host disease grade ≥2 was more common in the cyclosporine + mycophenolate group (55% versus 21%, respectively, P=0.003). The 1-year cumulative incidence of chronic graftversus-host disease was 50% versus 90% for the patients treated with the sirolimus- versus cyclosporine-based regimen, respectively (P<0.001), while the incidence of extensive chronic disease was 27% versus 49%, respectively (P=0.043). The 2-year non-relapse mortality rate was 18% versus 38% for patients receiving the sirolimus- versus the cyclosporine-based regimen, respectively (P=0.02). The event-free survival and overall survival at 2 years were 53% versus 29% (P=0.028) and 70% versus 45% (P=0.018) among patients receiving the sirolimus- versus the cyclosporine-based regimen, respectively. In conclusion, in the setting of reduced intensity transplantation from an unrelated donor, promising results can be achieved with the combination of sirolimus + tacrolimus, due to a lower risk of chronic graft-versus-host disease and non-relapse mortality, which translates into better event-free and over all survival rates, in comparison with those achieved with cyclosporine + mycophenolate