Toxic thermoresistant metabolites of Fusarium oxysporum are capable of inducing histopathological alterations in Wistar rats

The genus Fusarium is known to produce mycotoxins that cause fusariosis in plants, animals and humans. Mycotoxins are among the virulence factors of this genus. Metabolic extracts of Fusarium oxysporum, isolated from a patient with onychomycosis and sterilized by filtration or autoclave, were inoculated intradermally into Wistar rats at concentrations of 0.25, 0.5 and 1 µg/µL, and the effects on their tegument were observed at 24 and 72 hours. After histological procedures and staining by hematoxylineosin, the sections were studied for their inflammatory-reaction intensity and for evidence of injury and tissue distortion. Inflammatory reactions in the dermis and the subcutaneous tissue were observed at all concentrations of the inoculated extract tested. There was a significant influx of neutrophils, mastocytes and lymphocytes, as well as a large quantity of macrophages. Apoptotic bodies and hyperemic blood vessels were observed. This reaction was directly related to the extract concentration, and was most intense in animals that received the 1 mg/µL dose. The maximum peak was observed at 24 hours. The autoclaved metabolic extract produced the same effects as the untreated one, indicating the presence of heat-resistant metabolites. In conclusion, the metabolic extracts obtained from sterilized culture filtrates of F. oxysporum are capable of inducing an inflammatory response within 24 hours in the dermis and subcutaneous tissue of rats

Distribution of non-LEE-encoded type 3 secretion system dependent effectors in enteropathogenic Escherichia coli

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) are important human gastroenteritis agents. The prevalence of six non-LEE genes encoding type 3 translocated effectors was investigated. The nleC, cif and nleB genes were more prevalent in typical than in atypical EPEC, although a higher diversity of genes combinations was observed in atypical EPEC.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Departamento de Microbiologia, Imunologia e ParasitologiaUniversidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho Instituto de Biociências Departamento de Microbiologia e ImunologiaUNIFESP, Depto. de Microbiologia, Imunologia e ParasitologiaSciEL

Adsorptive decontamination of wastewater containing methylene blue dye using golden trumpet tree bark (Handroanthus albus)

The golden trumpet tree bark (GTB), a wood-processing residue, was tested as adsorbent material for decontamination of wastewaters containing methylene blue dye (MB). The powdered material was preponderantly amorphous, containing an irregular surface with the presence of lignin and holocellulose. The adsorption was favorable at basic pH of 10 and adsorbent dosage of 0.5 g L−1. The kinetics has finished in only 30 min and fitted by the general order model (GO). The isotherm behaviors were successfully represented by the Langmuir model. The value found for the maximum adsorption capacity was 232.25 mg g−1, being obtained at 328 K. The standard variation of Gibbs free energy (ΔG0) ranged from − 10.77 to − 8.09 kJ mol−1, indicating a spontaneous and favorable adsorption. A variation of standard enthalpy (ΔH0) of 18.58 kJ mol−1 revealed an endothermic adsorption. A sloped forward curve was found in the continuous operation, with breakthrough time (tb) of 325 min. The stoichiometry capacity of the column (qeq) and the length of mass transfer zone (Zm) were, respectively, 23.57 mg g−1 and 11.28 cm. The GTB was efficient in the treatment of a simulated effluent, obtaining color removal of 96%. These results show that GTB can be applied as adsorbent for decontamination of wastewaters containing methylene blue

Statistical Audit via Gaussian Mixture Models in Business Intelligence Systems

A Business Intelligence (BI) System employs tools from several areas of knowledge for the collection, integration and analysis of data to improve business decision making. The Brazilian Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management (MP) uses a BI System designed with the University of Bras´ılia to ascertain irregularities on the payroll of the Brazilian federal government, performing audit trails on selected items and fields of the payroll database. This current auditing approach is entirely deterministic, since the audit trails look for previously known signatures of irregularities which are composed by means of an ontological method used to represent auditors concept maps. In this work, we propose to incorporate a statistical filter in this existing BI system in order to increase its performance in terms of processing speed and overall system responsiveness. The proposed statistical filter is based on a generative Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) whose goal is to provide a complete stochastic model of the process, specially the latent probability density function of the generative mixture, and use that model to filter the most probable payrolls. Inserting this statistical filter as a pre-processing stage preceding the deterministic auditing showed to be effective in reducing the amount of data to be analyzed by the audit trails, despite the penalty fee intrinsically associated with stochastic models due to the false negative outcomes that are not further processed. In our approach, gains obtained with the proposed pre-processing stage overcome impacts from false negative outcomes

Catalog of Isolated Galaxies Selected from the 2MASS Survey

We search for isolated galaxies based on the automatic identification of isolated sources from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) followed by a visual inspection of their surroundings. We use the modified Karachentseva criterion to compile a catalog of 3227 isolated galaxies (2MIG), which contains 6% of 2MASS Extended Sources Catalog (or 2MASX) sources brighter than Ks = 12 mag with angular diameters a_K > 30 arcsec. The catalog covers the entire sky and has an effective depth of z = 0.02. The 2493 very isolated objects of the catalog, which we include into the 2MVIG catalog, can be used as a reference sample to investigate the effects of the environment on the structure and evolution of galaxies located in regions with extremely low density of matter.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figure

Microwave dielectric permittivity and photoluminescence of Eu 2O3 doped laser heated pedestal growth Ta 2O5 fibers

Partilhar documento na coleção da comunidade Laboratório Associado I3NWe report the microwave dielectric properties and photoluminescence of undoped and europium oxide doped Ta2O5 fibers, grown by laser heated pedestal growth technique. The effects of Eu2O3 doping 1–3 mol % on the structural, optical, and dielectric properties were investigated. At a frequency of 5 GHz, the undoped material exhibits a dielectric permittivity of 21 and for Eu2O3 doped Ta2O5 samples it increases, reaching up to 36 for the highest doping concentration. Nevertheless, the dielectric losses maintain a very low value. For this wide band gap oxide, Eu3+ optical activation was achieved and the emission is observed up to room temperature. Thus, the transparency and high permittivity make this material promising for electronic devices and microwave applications. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.FCT-PTDC/FIS/66262/06FCT-PTDC/CTM/66195/200