Comportamento de agregação de Phyllophaga cuyabana (Moser) (Coleoptera: Melolonthidae): relações entre locais escolhidos para o acasalamento e a distribuição da progênie

The aggregation behavior of Phyllophaga cuyabana (Moser) was studied and the hypothesis that the cluster distribution of larvae of this pest into the soil is related to the sites where females from the previous generation had aggregated for mating was investigated. Field observations and greenhouse experiments carried out in Londrina County, State of Paraná, South Brazil, indicated that: a) during flight, adult females of P. cuyabana select plants, which are more conspicuous for landing and/or attracting males; b) tall plants, nearby soybean fields, might be preferred because female adults do not move far from the mating sites before digging themselves into the soil to lay eggs; c) high density of eggs and larvae occurs close to the adult aggregation sites. There is a negative correlation between larval density in the soil and distance from adult aggregation sites.Foi estudado o comportamento de agregação de Phyllophaga cuyabana (Moser) e investigada a hipótese de que a distribuição agrupada das larvas dessa praga no solo está relacionada aos sítios onde as fêmeas da geração anterior se agregaram para acasalamento. Observações de campo e experimentos de casa-de-vegetação no estado do Paraná, indicaram que: a) durante a revoada, fêmeas adultas de P. cuyabana selecionam as plantas mais conspícuas para pousar e atrair os machos; b) plantas altas, próximas de lavouras de soja, podem ser preferidas uma vez que os adultos não se movem para longe dos sítios de acasalamento antes de se enterrarem no solo para ovipositar; c) altas densidades de ovos e larvas ocorrem próximas aos locais de agregação; d) há uma correlação negativa entre a densidade larval no solo e a distância dos sítios de agregação de adultos.53754

Cardiac involvement in COVID-19: a matter close to the heart, beyond the acute illness

© 2023 International Journal of Cardiovascular Sciences. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Human infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 have been ravaging the entire world since December 2019. As of February 17, 2023, records from the World Health Organization point to more than 756 million confirmed cases and approximately 6,845,000 deaths. In Brazil, until this date, approximately 36,961,000 cases have been reported, with about 698,000 deaths.Among the deaths, the main comorbidities reported are heart disease (40%), diabetes (28%), obesity (10%), neurological diseases (5%), kidney diseases (5%), and pneumopathies (5%). Furthermore, 70% of patients who died were 60 years old or older, and males were prevalent in 60% of the cases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

COVID-19 : a matter close to the heart

© This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International – CC BYThe world is facing a new challenge, the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by a betacoronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), phylogenetically identical to the SARS-CoV (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus) and the MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) responsible for innumerable deaths in China in 2003 and in the Middle East in 2012, respectively.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

High Performing Hospital Enterprise Architecture: Insights from a Multi-method Exploratory Case

The US healthcare system is a critical infrastructure grappling with as much as 16% of the GDP in its expenditures and unsatisfactory outcomes, and undergoing considerable public scrutiny. High ranking officials have both singled out the US healthcare system as the most expensive and among the least effective in the developed world. Hospitals hoping to find “The Toyota Way” so as to rid themselves of waste through lean and six sigma improvement initiatives, have mostly focused in applying tools at a process level, rather than adopting an enterprise perspective and understanding the full breadth of their socio-technical complexity. This paper adopts a systems thinking approach in describing a leading Boston hospital’s enterprise architecture through a multi-method exploratory case. The initial exploratory question proposed by hospital senior leadership was “How to speed patient flow in the Emergency Department?”, however as results became available, the scope was expanded to include the whole hospital enterprise. Both qualitative and quantitative data evidence were collected through a variety of methods, namely observation, archival records, documentation, and interviews. Analysis includes techniques consistent with the grounded theory approach, as well as more traditional quantitative data analysis. Hospital enterprise performance is hypothesized to be related to hospital enterprise architecture, and an alternative hospital enterprise architecture is proposed as well as future work

Role of benzalkonium chloride surface preconditioning in the increased resistance of biofilms to removal and disinfection

The main goals of the present study was to ascertain the role of surface preconditioning in the biofilm sanitation (removal and disinfection) ability of the cationic surfactant benzalkonium chloride (BC) and to investigated whether BC preconditioning can be a factor of the increased resistance of the Pseudomonas fluorescens biofilms to the surfactant. Prior to biofilm formation, coupons of two distinct materials (stainless steel and silicone rubber) currently used on medical and industrial processing facilities were exposed to several sub-effective concentrations of BC for 30 min. Afterwards, these conditioned coupons were used as the surfaces to form biofilms in a chemostat for 6 days. The antimicrobial action of BC on the biofilms was assessed by means of respiratory activity, due to oxygen consumption, and biofilm mass. The results showed that BC preconditioning, by itself, did not prevent or impair biofilm formation. In general, the mass and respiratory activity of the biofilms developed on the conditioned coupons increased with the increase of the BC concentration used in the preconditioning. The data related with BC application to the bacterial biofilms formed on the conditioned metal and rubber coupons showed that biofilms became more difficult to inactivate, especially those that have been developed in the coupons preconditioned with the higher BC concentrations. Thus, it can be concluded that the antimicrobial ability of BC was considerably disturbed when the surfaces are preconditioned with the surfactant. Based merely on this data, it can be speculated that, in the initial adhesion stage, the contact of the P. fluorescens with the BC residues adsorbed on the coupons surface, due to preconditioning, induces bacteria resistance when they are entrapped in a developed biofilm and submitted to BC aggression.IBQF, and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT

Synthesis and electrochemical study of new 3-(hydroxyphenyl)benzo[f]coumarins

New hydroxyl substituted 3-arylbenzo[f]coumarins (compounds 6–10) have been designed and synthesized. Their electrochemical redox mechanisms, and the influence of one or two hydroxyl groups, in different positions on the coumarin scaffold, was investigated by cyclic, differential pulse and square wave voltammetry, at a glassy carbon electrode, at different pHs, and a comparative study was performed. The structural information obtained enabled a better understanding of the structure/electrochemical relationship of hydroxyl substituted 3-arylbenzo[f]coumarins, compounds with important antioxidant properties