Redução da cobrança pelo uso da água para o setor rural nas Bacias PCJ

The deficient environmental preservation on agricultural properties has reflected in great soil losses for erosion and the high rate of sedimentation. Therefore, this work brings the application of software to demonstrate that planters can get benefits by the conservationist practices. The benefits will be obtained from the environment aspect (erosion and sedimentation control), as well as economical aspect (financial incentives). A proposal has been created by the Technical Chamber of Rural Water Use and Conservation (CT-Rural) to estimate the reduction in raw water use charge for the rural water users of the PCJ Watershed - this reduction is being possible since January 2007, at the PCJ Committee. The software develops a simple relationship, so that if the rural conservationist action goes more efficient, such as if the conserved rural area goes larger, then the reduction value will bring better benefits for the rural water users. Within the purposes of this study, there is the idealization of mechanisms that may support specific management matters related to the water users of federal rivers from the rural sector of PCJ Watershed.Considerando as implicações da insuficiência de preservação ambiental em propriedades agrícolas refletidas em grandes perdas de solos erodidos e sedimentação de mananciais, buscou-se, neste trabalho, demonstrar que, com a utilização de práticas conservacionistas, agricultores poderão ser beneficiados tanto no aspecto ambiental, pelo abatimento da erosão em suas propriedades, quanto no aspecto econômico, ou seja, por meio de proposta inicialmente deliberada pela Câmara Técnica de Uso e Conservação da Água no Meio Rural (CT-Rural) dos Comitês PCJ para o cálculo da redução da cobrança pelo uso da água que incide sobre o setor rural - o que será permitido pelos Comitês PCJ a partir de janeiro de 2007. Dessa forma, este trabalho traz como objetivo principal o desenvolvimento de programa computacional cujo método de cálculo apresenta uma simples relação, de forma que, quanto mais eficiente for a prática conservacionista, bem como quanto maior a área conservada, maior deverá ser o percentual de redução da cobrança que incide sobre os usuários do setor rural que captam as águas dos rios federais das Bacias PCJ. Portanto, tal programa apresenta-se como importante ferramenta de auxílio para questões específicas de gestão dos recursos hídricos relacionadas aos usuários de água do setor rural das Bacias PCJ.(FAPESP) São Paulo Research Foundatio

Leaf Appearance and Elongation in Panicum maximum cv. Tanzania Tillers of Varying Ages

A sward may be considered as a tiller population of varying ages and sizes, and these different age groups are likely to present distinct behaviour in terms of growth and herbage production. However, there is very little information on how tiller age, in association with grazing management practices (e.g. frequency and intensity of grazing), alter morphogenetic characteristics and, therefore, herbage production. Against this background, the present experiment had the objective to evaluate leaf appearance and elongation in Panicum maximum cv. Tanzania tillers of different age groups when submitted to intermittent grazing regimes

Human skin cell fractions fail to self-organize within a gellan gum/Hyaluronic acid matrix but positively influence early wound healing

Split-thickness autografts still are the current gold standard to treat skin, upon severe injuries. Nonetheless, autografts are dependent on donor site availability and often associated to poor quality neoskin. The generation of dermal–epidermal substitutes by tissue engineering is seen as a promising strategy to overcome this problematic. However, solutions that can be safely and conveniently transplanted in one single surgical intervention are still very challenging as their production normally requires long culture time, and graft survival is many times compromised by delayed vascularization upon transplantation. This work intended to propose a strategy that circumvents the prolonged and laborious preparation period of skin substitutes and allows skin cells self-organization toward improved healing. Human dermal/epidermal cell fractions were entrapped directly from isolation within a gellan gum/hyaluronic acid (GG-HA) spongy-like hydrogel formed from an off-the-shelf dried polymeric network. Upon transplantation into full-thickness mice wounds, the proposed constructs accelerated the wound closure rate and re-epithelialization, as well as tissue neovascularization. A synergistic effect of the GG-HA matrix and the transplanted cells over those processes was demonstrated at early time points. Despite the human-derived and chimeric blood vessels found, the proposed matrix did not succeed in prolonging cells residence time and in sustaining the self-organization of transplanted human cells possibly due to primitive degradation. Despite this, the herein proposed approach open the opportunity to tackle wound healing at early stages contributing to re-epithelialization and neovascularization.We thank the Hospital da Prelada (Porto), in particular Dr. Paulo Costa for lipoaspirates collection and to financial support by Skingineering (PTDC/SAU-OSM/099422/2008), Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)-funded project. The research leading to these results has also received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. REGPOT-CT2012-316331-POLARIS

Hind limb ischemia in type 1 diabetic mice as useful tool to evaluate the neovascularization of tissue engineering constructs

Hind-limb ischemia has been used in type 1 diabetic mice to evaluate treatments for peripheral arterial disease or mechanisms of vascular impairment in diabetes [1]. Vascular deficiency is not only a pathophysiological condition, but also an obvious circumstance in tissue regeneration and in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM) strategies. We performed a pilot experiment of hind-limb ischemia in streptozotocin(STZ)-induced type 1 diabetic mice to hypothesise whether diabetes influences neovascularization induced by biomaterials. The dependent variables included blood flow and markers of arteriogenesis and angiogenesis. Type 1 diabetes was induced in 8-week-old C57BL/6 mice by an i.p. injection of STZ (50 mg/kg daily for 5 days). Hind-limb ischemia was created under deep anaesthesia and the left femoral artery and vein were isolated, ligated, and excised. The contralateral hind limb served as an internal control within each mouse. Non-diabetic ischaemic mice were used as experiment controls. At the hind-limb ischemia surgical procedure, different types of biomaterials were placed in the blood vessels gap. Blood flow was estimated by Laser Doppler perfusion imager, right after surgery and then weekly. After 28 days of implantation, surrounding muscle was excised and evaluated by histological analysis for arteriogenesis and angiogenesis. The results showed that implanted biomaterials were promote faster restoration of blood flow in the ischemic limbs and improved neovascularization in the diabetic mice. Therefore, we herein demonstrate that the combined model of hind-limb ischemia in type 1 diabetes mice is suitable to evaluate the neovascularization potential of biomaterials and eventually tissue engineering constructs.  Acknowledgments: TCS and RPP acknowledge RL3-TECT-NORTE-01-0124-FEDER-000020, co-financed by ON.2-O Novo Norte; and FCT grants: SFRH/BPD/101952/2014 and SFRH/BPD/101886/2014, respectively. LPS acknowledges FCT grant SFRH/BD/78025/2011

"Sustainable Cellulose Nanofibers-Mediated Synthesis of Uniform Spinel Zn-Ferrites Nanocorals for High Performances in Supercapacitors"

Spinel ferrites are versatile, low-cost, and abundant metal oxides with remarkable electronic and magnetic properties, which find several applications. Among them, they have been considered part of the next generation of electrochemical energy storage materials due to their variable oxidation states, low environmental toxicity, and possible synthesis through simple green chemical processing. However, most traditional procedures lead to the formation of poorly controlled materials (in terms of size, shape, composition, and/or crystalline structure). Thus, we report herein a cellulose nanofibers-mediated green procedure to prepare controlled highly porous nanocorals comprised of spinel Zn-ferrites. Then, they presented remarkable applications as electrodes in supercapacitors, which were thoroughly and critically discussed. The spinel Zn-ferrites nanocorals supercapacitor showed a much higher maximum specific capacitance (2031.81 F g−1 at a current density of 1 A g−1) than Fe2O3 and ZnO counterparts prepared by a similar approach (189.74 and 24.39 F g−1 at a current density of 1 A g−1). Its cyclic stability was also scrutinized via galvanostatic charging/discharging and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, indicating excellent long-term stability. In addition, we manufactured an asymmetric supercapacitor device, which offered a high energy density value of 18.1 Wh kg−1 at a power density of 2609.2 W kg−1 (at 1 A g−1 in 2.0 mol L−1 KOH electrolyte). Based on our findings, we believe that higher performances observed for spinel Zn-ferrites nanocorals could be explained by their unique crystal structure and electronic configuration based on crystal field stabilization energy, which provides an electrostatic repulsion between the d electrons and the p orbitals of the surrounding oxygen anions, creating a level of energy that determines their final supercapacitance then evidenced, which is a very interesting property that could be explored for the production of clean energy storage devices

Chemical Composition and Evaluation of Antitumoral Activity of Leaf and Root Essential Oils of Conyza canadensis (Asteraceae)

The leaf and root oils of Conyza canadensis were studied for chemical composition and antitumor activity. The results showed that there is great variation in the composition of the oils obtained from different parts. The main components in the leaf oil were limonene, caryophyllene oxide and espatulenol. In the root oil the major component was the acetylenic ester lachnophyllum methyl ester. It was observed that according to the collection time (6 and 16 hours), significant variations in the content of the main components of this essential oil of leaves can occur. Limonene, spatulenol and caryophyllene oxide presented a distribution of 61% / 5.4% / 12.5% ​​and 38% / 10.7% / 22.3% in oils obtained from plants collected at 6 and 16 hours, respectively. The antitumor activity of the oils showed that leaf oil had a greater potential for inhibition, and this oil was distinguished by the activity against neoplastic cell lines K562 (leukemia) and NCI-ADR / RES (ovary with multidrug resistance phenotype ) with TGI values ​​of 16.8 and 19.0 mg.mL-1, respectively. Comparing the leaf oils and their tumor cell inhibition potentials, it was noted that this activity is higher in the oil with higher contents of monoterpene limonene. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17807/orbital.v11i5.137