Photobiomodulation Therapy in the Proliferation and Differentiation of Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cells: An In Vitro Study

Introduction: Since photobiomodulation therapy (PBMT) favors in vitro mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) preconditioning before MSC transplantation, increasing the proliferation of these cells without molecular injuries by conserving their characteristics, in the present in vitro study we analyzed the effect of PBMT on the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUCMSCs).Methods: Irradiation with an InGaAIP Laser (660 nm, 10 mW, 2.5 J/cm2, 0.08 cm2 spot size, and 10 s) was carried out. The cells were divided into four groups: CONTROL [cells grown in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM)], OSTEO (cells grown in an osteogenic medium); PBMT (cells grown in DMEM+PBMT), and OSTEO+PBMT (cells grown in an osteogenic medium-plus PBMT). The cell proliferation curve was obtained over periods of 24, 48 and 72 hours using the 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Osteogenic differentiation was analyzed by the formation of calcium nodules over periods of 7, 14 and 21 days. Morphometric analysis was performed to quantify the total area of nodular calcification.Results: The highest cell proliferation and cell differentiation occurred in the OSTEO+PBMT group, followed by the PBMT, OSTEO, and CONTROL groups respectively, at the observed times (P < 0.05).Conclusion: PBMT enhanced the osteogenic proliferation and the differentiation of hUCMSCs during the periods tested, without causing damage to the cells and preserving their specific characteristics, a fact that may represent an innovative pretreatment in the application of stem cells

eleanor: An Open-source Tool for Extracting Light Curves from the TESS Full-frame Images

During its two-year prime mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will perform a time-series photometric survey covering over 80% of the sky. This survey comprises observations of 26 24° × 96° sectors that are each monitored continuously for approximately 27 days. The main goal of TESS is to find transiting planets around 200,000 pre-selected stars for which fixed aperture photometry is recorded every two minutes. However, TESS is also recording and delivering full-frame images (FFIs) of each detector at a 30-minutes cadence. We have created an open-source tool, eleanor, to produce light curves for objects in the TESS FFIs. Here, we describe the methods used in eleanor to produce light curves that are optimized for planet searches. The tool performs background subtraction; aperture and point-spread function photometry; decorrelation of instrument systematics; and cotrending using principal component analysis. We recover known transiting exoplanets in the FFIs to validate the pipeline and perform a limited search for new planet candidates in Sector 1. Our tests indicate that eleanor produces light curves with significantly less scatter than other tools that have been used in the literature. Cadence-stacked images, and raw and detrended eleanor light curves for each analyzed star will be hosted on Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, with planet candidates on ExoFOP-TESS as Community TESS Objects of Interest. This work confirms the promise that the TESS FFIs will enable the detection of thousands of new exoplanets and a broad range of time domain astrophysics

Gammapy: A Python package for gamma-ray astronomy

In this article, we present Gammapy, an open-source Python package for the analysis of astronomical $\gamma$-ray data, and illustrate the functionalities of its first long-term-support release, version 1.0. Built on the modern Python scientific ecosystem, Gammapy provides a uniform platform for reducing and modeling data from different $\gamma$-ray instruments for many analysis scenarios. Gammapy complies with several well-established data conventions in high-energy astrophysics, providing serialized data products that are interoperable with other software packages. Starting from event lists and instrument response functions, Gammapy provides functionalities to reduce these data by binning them in energy and sky coordinates. Several techniques for background estimation are implemented in the package to handle the residual hadronic background affecting $\gamma$-ray instruments. After the data are binned, the flux and morphology of one or more $\gamma$-ray sources can be estimated using Poisson maximum likelihood fitting and assuming a variety of spectral, temporal, and spatial models. Estimation of flux points, likelihood profiles, and light curves is also supported. After describing the structure of the package, we show, using publicly available $\gamma$-ray data, the capabilities of Gammapy in multiple traditional and novel $\gamma$-ray analysis scenarios, such as spectral and spectro-morphological modeling and estimations of a spectral energy distribution and a light curve. Its flexibility and power are displayed in a final multi-instrument example, where datasets from different instruments, at different stages of data reduction, are simultaneously fitted with an astrophysical flux model.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figure

A discrete set of possible transit ephemerides for two long-period gas giants orbiting HIP 41378

In 2015, K2 observations of the bright (V = 8.9, K = 7.7) star HIP 41378 revealed a rich system of at least five transiting exoplanets, ranging in size from super-Earths to gas giants. The 2015 K2 observations only spanned 74.8 days, and the outer three long-period planets in the system were only detected with a single transit, so their orbital periods and transit ephemerides could not be determined at that time. Here, we report on 50.8 days of new K2 observations of HIP 41378 from summer 2018. These data reveal additional transits of the long-period planets HIP 41378 d and HIP 41378 f, yielding a set of discrete possible orbital periods for these two planets. We identify the most probable orbital periods for these two planets using our knowledge of the planets 'transit durations, the host star's properties, the system's dynamics,and data from the ground-based HATNet, KELT, and WASP transit surveys.Targeted photometric follow-up during the most probable future transit times will be able to determine the planets' orbital periods and will enable future observations with facilities like the James Webb Space Telescope. The methods developed herein to determine the most probable orbital periods will be important for long-period planets detected by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, where similar period ambiguities will frequently arise due to the mission's survey strategy.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Síndromes anêmicas: uma abordagem fisiopatológica sobre as principais considerações clínicas / Anemic syndromes: a pathophysiological approach to key clinical considerations

O seguinte artigo é uma revisão narrativa de literatura fundamentada nas plataformas do SciELO, LILACS, Pubmed, Google Acadêmico e Brazilian Journal of Health Review no período de janeiro a março de 2022. Atualmente, a anemia é algo que não é investigado sobre a sua etiologia e  sujeita a negligência, muitos pacientes são vítimas dos riscos de hemotransfusão e até privados de tratarem doenças que seriam possivelmente de manejo mais simples se detectadas precocemente. O seguinte artigo objetivou descrever as principais considerações sobre as síndrome anêmicas, em especial em sua  fisiopatologia e implicações clínicas. A temática de síndromes anêmicas é um tema complexo, que possui várias etiologias, apresentações clínicas, sintomatologias e meios diagnósticos. A terapêutica é focada em investigar o fator etiológico de base e simultaneamente tratar as implicações e aliviar o quadro clínico. Logo, o estudo em questão narra de modo detalhado a fisiopatologia da anemia e aborda as principais síndromes anêmicas para a clínica médica.

Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil: setting the baseline knowledge on the animal diversity in Brazil

The limited temporal completeness and taxonomic accuracy of species lists, made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications, has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent up-to-date knowledge of all species and classifications. In this context, the Brazilian megadiverse fauna is no exception, and the Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil (CTFB) (http://fauna.jbrj.gov.br/), made public in 2015, represents a database on biodiversity anchored on a list of valid and expertly recognized scientific names of animals in Brazil. The CTFB is updated in near real time by a team of more than 800 specialists. By January 1, 2024, the CTFB compiled 133,691 nominal species, with 125,138 that were considered valid. Most of the valid species were arthropods (82.3%, with more than 102,000 species) and chordates (7.69%, with over 11,000 species). These taxa were followed by a cluster composed of Mollusca (3,567 species), Platyhelminthes (2,292 species), Annelida (1,833 species), and Nematoda (1,447 species). All remaining groups had less than 1,000 species reported in Brazil, with Cnidaria (831 species), Porifera (628 species), Rotifera (606 species), and Bryozoa (520 species) representing those with more than 500 species. Analysis of the CTFB database can facilitate and direct efforts towards the discovery of new species in Brazil, but it is also fundamental in providing the best available list of valid nominal species to users, including those in science, health, conservation efforts, and any initiative involving animals. The importance of the CTFB is evidenced by the elevated number of citations in the scientific literature in diverse areas of biology, law, anthropology, education, forensic science, and veterinary science, among others