Cost Study for Implementing the Green Roof in Boa Vista/RR

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Knowledge about the disease and adherence to treatment in patients with Diabetes

INTRODUCTION: Glycemic decompensation in is one of the major factors for the development of chronic disease complications. Factors involved in the adequate control of diabetes include adherence to pharmacological treatment and knowledge about the disease. METHODS: Cross-sectional study on the factors associated with adherence to drug treatment and knowledge about diabetes in diabetic patients treated at Hospital Universitário de Santa Maria between 2018 and 2019, based on the validated Morisky-Green test and on the Diabetes Knowledge Questionnaire. RESULTS: A total of 201 patients diagnosed with diabetes were included, the majority (85.6%) of which had type 2 diabetes and were white (75.6%), with a mean age of 59.4 years. An association between insufficient knowledge about diabetes and patients with type 2 diabetes was observed. An association was found between patients with type 2 diabetes using insulin and non-adherence to drug treatment compared with patients with type 2 diabetes who did use insulin. The research also showed that non-adherence to drug treatment was associated with higher occurrence of hypoglycemia compared with patients who adhered to drug treatment. CONCLUSION: The data obtained in our study allows us to conclude that non-adherence to pharmacological treatment makes diabetes therapy more complicated and worsens the prognosis.INTRODUCTION: Glycemic decompensation in is one of the major factors for the development of chronic disease complications. Factors involved in the adequate control of diabetes include adherence to pharmacological treatment and knowledge about the disease. METHODS: Cross-sectional study on the factors associated with adherence to drug treatment and knowledge about diabetes in diabetic patients treated at Hospital Universitário de Santa Maria between 2018 and 2019, based on the validated Morisky-Green test and on the Diabetes Knowledge Questionnaire. RESULTS: A total of 201 patients diagnosed with diabetes were included, the majority (85.6%) of which had type 2 diabetes and were white (75.6%), with a mean age of 59.4 years. An association between insufficient knowledge about diabetes and patients with type 2 diabetes was observed. An association was found between patients with type 2 diabetes using insulin and non-adherence to drug treatment compared with patients with type 2 diabetes who did use insulin. The research also showed that non-adherence to drug treatment was associated with higher occurrence of hypoglycemia compared with patients who adhered to drug treatment. CONCLUSION: The data obtained in our study allows us to conclude that non-adherence to pharmacological treatment makes diabetes therapy more complicated and worsens the prognosis

Heavy Metal Concentrations in Free-Living Southern Caracaras (Caracara plancus) in the Northeast Region of Brazil

Background: With the continuously increasing release of heavy metals in the environment, mostly from anthropogenic sources, there is a need to find ways of evaluating and managing the issuance of these contaminants and correct its damages. The birds being at the top of some food chains reflect the presence of metals in the environment, keeping this in perspective, raptors have been successfully used for heavy metals biomonitoring studies in the past. The purpose of this study was to identify and quantify cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), copper (Cu), and chromium (Cr) in the feathers and livers of free-living southern caracaras, live and dead, from Recife, Pernambuco state, Northeast of Brazil.Material, Methods & Results: Sixty-two feathers from live and dead southern caracaras and 21 livers from dead southern caracaras were analyzed by atomic absorption spectrometry for Hg and by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry for Cd, Cr, Pb, and Cu. Concentrations of Cr and Cu elements were detected in all feather and liver samples analyzed from live and dead caracaras. There was no difference in the concentration of metals between feathers of dead and live caracaras: Pb (P = 0.3576), Cd (P = 0.0792), Cr (P = 0.5475), and Cu (P = 0.3603), but significant variation was observed for Hg (P = 0.0459). The highest concentrations of Pb (P < 0.0001) and Cr (P < 0.0001) were found in the feathers than in the liver. On the other hand, the highest concentrations of Cu were found in liver samples (P = 0.0011). No significant variation in the concentrations of Cd (P = 0.7770) and Hg (P = 0.3669) was found between feathers and liver samples.Discussion: Chromium, as well as Hg, and Cu have a high affinity for keratin, which may explain the higher concentrations of Cr in caracaras feathers in this research. Lead was detected in all liver samples analyzed. Elevated levels were also found in the feathers of dead (95.2%) and live (75.6%) caracaras. The presence of Pb may be due to external contamination by pollutants, such as fossil fuels. Higher concentrations of Hg were observed in dead caracaras feathers, this concentrations change during molting but are not affected by external contamination. Metals, such as Hg, and Cd, accumulate in organisms from different trophic levels, which may indicate that this contamination comes mainly from feed. Pearson’s coefficient here showed no correlation between metals from dead caracaras feathers and livers, although a few previous studies have shown a correlation between metal concentrations from tissues and feathers. This pattern can be attributed to the different time of exposure of feathers to metals in relation to livers. The concentrations of metals in hepatic tissues reflect the levels of elements in the diet of these birds, characterizing acutely the contamination of the ecosystem. On the other hand, feathers represent the exposure in the time of molting, when the artery supplies metals, thus representing a chronic exposure. In feathers from live birds, the Pearson’s correlation analysis showed a high to moderate correlation between metals, which may suggest that they come from a similar source, but there is no way to specify the origin since the metals surveyed could be present in the soil, water, or in the prey eaten by these animals. For the purpose of environmental analyses, it is required to determine the exact source of contamination. Considering that it is possible to confirm the presence of these heavy metals in southern caracaras, these birds may be important environmental bioindicators. The development of systematic research on animals and the environment is essential for monitoring the levels of metal pollutants and evaluating their impact in order to guide measures to protect fauna and human health

Inventário de aves da restinga de uma Reserva Particular do Patrimônio Natural, Nordeste do Brasil

The knowledge of the characteristics of bird communities found in each habitat type and the ecological requirements of each species helps to define the environmental conditions of an area. In the present study, we provide an inventory of the bird community of the Caju Private Natural Heritage Reserve (RPPN Caju), in Itaporanga d’Ajuda, Sergipe, Brazil. We conducted a rapid assessment of the bird community between October 21st and 31st, 2014, using MacKinnon’s lists and mist-netting. We identified 89 bird species representing 36 families, of which the most diverse were Thraupidae (S=11), Tyrannidae (S=11), Columbidae (S=5), Falconidae (S=4) and Psittacidae (S=4). Five of the species recorded are endemic to Brazil and one (Herpsilochmus pectoralis) is considered vulnerable to extinction, according to IUCN criteria. We recorded bird species that are predominantly insectivorous (40.45%), omnivorous (25.84%), and carnivorous (11.24%). Other guilds (frugivorous, granivorous, detritivorous, piscivorous, and nectarivorous) represented together less than 25% of the records. The bird richness recorded at the RPPN Caju confirms the potential importance of the area as a conservation unit.Keywords: protected area, avian fauna, Sergipe.Conhecer as exigências ecológicas das espécies e a composição da comunidade de aves auxilia na identificação das condições ambientais de determinada área. Nesse sentido, o presente estudo apresenta resultados de um inventário de aves de restinga da Reserva Particular do Patrimônio Natural do Caju, em Itaporanga d’Ajuda, Sergipe, Brasil. O inventário foi realizado com base no método de levantamento rápido, durante dez dias de outubro de 2014, através de amostragens com a confecção de listas de MacKinnon e uso de redes de neblina. Foram identificadas 89 espécies de aves distribuídas em 36 famílias, sendo Thraupidae (S=11), Tyrannidae (S=11), Columbidae (S=5), Falconidae (S=4) e Psittacidae (S=4) as mais representativas. Entre os registros totais, cinco espécies são endêmicas do Brasil, e uma é considerada vulnerável (Herpsilochmus pectoralis), de acordo com os critérios da IUCN. As espécies de aves insetívoras foram mais bem representadas (40.45%), seguidas das omnívoras (25.48%) e das carnívoras (11.24%). Outras guildas tróficas (frugívoros, granívoros, detritívoros, piscívoros e nectarívoros) representaram em conjunto menos de 25% do total dos registros. Os resultados indicam que a RPPN do Caju abriga uma diversidade de aves considerável, confirmando a importância da área enquanto unidade de conservação.Palavras-chave: área protegida, avifauna, Sergipe

High-Intensity Interval Training Improves Markers of Oxidative Metabolism in Skeletal Muscle of Individuals With Obesity and Insulin Resistance

Background: The excess body fat characteristic of obesity is related to various metabolic alterations, which includes insulin resistance (IR). Among the non-pharmacological measures used to improve insulin sensitivity are aerobic physical training, such as high-intensity interval training (HIIT). This study investigated the effects of 8 weeks of HIIT on blood and skeletal muscle markers related to IR and oxidative metabolism in physically inactive individuals with obesity and compared the changes between insulin resistant and non-insulin resistant phenotypes.Methods: Initially to investigate the effect of obesity and IR in the analyzed parameters, insulin-sensitive eutrophic volunteers (CON; n = 9) and obese non-insulin (OB; n = 9) and insulin-resistant (OBR; n = 8) were enrolled. Volunteers with obesity completed 8 weeks of HIIT in a cycle ergometer. Venous blood and vastus lateralis muscle samples were obtained before and after the HIIT. Body composition and peak oxygen consumption (VO2peak) were estimated before and after HIIT.Results: HIIT reduced IR assessed by the homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in OBR (4.4 ± 1.4 versus 4.1 ± 2.2 μU L−2), but not in OB (HOMA-IR 1.8 ± 0.5 versus 2.3 ± 1.0 μU L−2) volunteers. HIIT increased VO2peak with no change in body fat in both groups. In skeletal muscle, HIIT increased the phosphorylation of IRS (Tyr612), Akt (Ser473), and increased protein content of β-HAD and COX-IV in both groups. There was a reduction in ERK1/2 phosphorylation in OBR after HIIT.Conclusion: Eight weeks of HIIT increased the content of proteins related to oxidative metabolism in skeletal muscle of individuals with obesity, independent of changes total body fat

The BLue Amazon Brain (BLAB): A Modular Architecture of Services about the Brazilian Maritime Territory

We describe the first steps in the development of an artificial agent focused on the Brazilian maritime territory, a large region within the South Atlantic also known as the Blue Amazon. The "BLue Amazon Brain" (BLAB) integrates a number of services aimed at disseminating information about this region and its importance, functioning as a tool for environmental awareness. The main service provided by BLAB is a conversational facility that deals with complex questions about the Blue Amazon, called BLAB-Chat; its central component is a controller that manages several task-oriented natural language processing modules (e.g., question answering and summarizer systems). These modules have access to an internal data lake as well as to third-party databases. A news reporter (BLAB-Reporter) and a purposely-developed wiki (BLAB-Wiki) are also part of the BLAB service architecture. In this paper, we describe our current version of BLAB's architecture (interface, backend, web services, NLP modules, and resources) and comment on the challenges we have faced so far, such as the lack of training data and the scattered state of domain information. Solving these issues presents a considerable challenge in the development of artificial intelligence for technical domains

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO