Wood-plastic composite based on post-consumer HDPE and vermiculite / Compósito madeira-plástico à base de HDPE pós-consumo e vermiculita

In this work, wood plastic-composites (WPCs) were prepared by the incorporation of vermiculite in the post-consumer HDPE. The processing of WPCs with different clay contents (2, 5 and 10% by weight) was carried out in a mono-extruder. The specimens were obtained by compression and characterized by density (ASTM D792), hardness (ASTM D2240) and melt flow index (MFI, ASTM D1238). The composites obtained showed a tendency of increased density and reduced MFI from 5% clay. However, no significant difference in WPC hardness was observed in relation to the matrix. 

Um olhar tecnológico sobre pet, sua reciclagem e o processo bottle-to-bottle / A technological look at pet, its recycling and the bottle-to-bottle process

As garrafas PET conquistaram o mercado graças às suas propriedades de leveza, razoável resistência mecânica e moldabilidade a baixa temperatura, aliadas ao preço baixo. Porém, em seu pós-consumo, devido à pouca degradabilidade e baixa densidade, ocupam vastos espaços no ambiente por um longo tempo e se tornam uma preocupação ambiental. Nos últimos anos, não só aumentou o percentual de garrafas recicladas no Brasil, como também foram criadas legislações para utilização deste material em embalagens de alimentos e bebidas. Além disso, refrigerantes com garrafas produzidas totalmente com resina proveniente de garrafa PET pós-consumo (bottle-to-bottle) já vêm sendo vendidas comercialmente. Neste contexto, o presente trabalho visou, através de uma revisão de literatura, fazer um levantamento de informações sobre o PET com enfoque em dados atualizados sobre sua reciclagem, o contexto social relacionado ao reaproveitamento desse material e seu uso para produção de novas garrafas PET (tecnologia bottle-to-bottle)

Embalagens cartonadas assépticas: uma revisão sobre os métodos de reciclagem mais empregados / Aseptic carton packages: a review about the most used recycling methods

Os resíduos sólidos domésticos são dejetos das atividades dos seres humanos em ambientes domésticos, cujo acúmulo representa um grande problema para a população. Dentre os tipos de resíduos sólidos domésticos existentes, as embalagens cartonadas assépticas, materiais compostos de polietileno, alumínio e papel-cartão, que são comumente utilizados para armazenar bebidas. A melhor maneira de destinar as embalagens cartonadas é a reciclagem, que pode ser realizada tanto de maneira artesanal, quanto separando seus componentes industrialmente. Este trabalho realizou uma pesquisa bibliográfica sobre os métodos de reciclagem de embalagens cartonadas assépticas mais empregados pelos autores de artigos científicos nos últimos dez anos. Para isso, foram realizadas buscas nos sites Science Direct, Scielo e Google Acadêmico. Em seguida, os artigos selecionados foram analisados com relação à técnica de reciclagem utilizada e aos produtos elaborados. Através da análise dos resultados, foi possível observar que dentre os 28 artigos selecionados, 61% destes usaram técnicas de separação dos componentes das embalagens cartonadas e 39% reciclaram artesanalmente. Com relação aos produtos desenvolvidos, o forro térmico e os compósitos que possuem resíduos de embalagens cartonadas em suas composições foram os mais encontrados nos artigos selecionados, ambos com 21% do total estudados. Foi possível concluir que é extremamente importante que sejam desenvolvidos trabalhos sobre produtos elaborados com materiais reciclados, ressaltando a necessidade de reciclar materiais para diminuir os danos causados ao meio ambiente e para a população envolvida, além das vantagens econômicas desta prática

SARS-CoV-2 uses CD4 to infect T helper lymphocytes

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the agent of a major global outbreak of respiratory tract disease known as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). SARS-CoV-2 infects mainly lungs and may cause several immune-related complications, such as lymphocytopenia and cytokine storm, which are associated with the severity of the disease and predict mortality. The mechanism by which SARS-CoV-2 infection may result in immune system dysfunction is still not fully understood. Here, we show that SARS-CoV-2 infects human CD4+ T helper cells, but not CD8+ T cells, and is present in blood and bronchoalveolar lavage T helper cells of severe COVID-19 patients. We demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein (S) directly binds to the CD4 molecule, which in turn mediates the entry of SARS-CoV-2 in T helper cells. This leads to impaired CD4 T cell function and may cause cell death. SARS-CoV-2-infected T helper cells express higher levels of IL-10, which is associated with viral persistence and disease severity. Thus, CD4-mediated SARS-CoV-2 infection of T helper cells may contribute to a poor immune response in COVID-19 patients.</p

SARS-CoV-2 uses CD4 to infect T helper lymphocytes

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the agent of a major global outbreak of respiratory tract disease known as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). SARS-CoV-2 infects mainly lungs and may cause several immune-related complications, such as lymphocytopenia and cytokine storm, which are associated with the severity of the disease and predict mortality. The mechanism by which SARS-CoV-2 infection may result in immune system dysfunction is still not fully understood. Here, we show that SARS-CoV-2 infects human CD4+ T helper cells, but not CD8+ T cells, and is present in blood and bronchoalveolar lavage T helper cells of severe COVID-19 patients. We demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein (S) directly binds to the CD4 molecule, which in turn mediates the entry of SARS-CoV-2 in T helper cells. This leads to impaired CD4 T cell function and may cause cell death. SARS-CoV-2-infected T helper cells express higher levels of IL-10, which is associated with viral persistence and disease severity. Thus, CD4-mediated SARS-CoV-2 infection of T helper cells may contribute to a poor immune response in COVID-19 patients.</p

The germline mutational landscape of BRCA1 and BRCA2 in Brazil

The detection of germline mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 is essential to the formulation of clinical management strategies, and in Brazil, there is limited access to these services, mainly due to the costs/availability of genetic testing. Aiming at the identification of recurrent mutations that could be included in a low-cost mutation panel, used as a first screening approach, we compiled the testing reports of 649 probands with pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants referred to 28 public and private health care centers distributed across 11 Brazilian States. Overall, 126 and 103 distinct mutations were identified in BRCA1 and BRCA2, respectively. Twenty-six novel variants were reported from both genes, and BRCA2 showed higher mutational heterogeneity. Some recurrent mutations were reported exclusively in certain geographic regions, suggesting a founder effect. Our findings confirm that there is significant molecular heterogeneity in these genes among Brazilian carriers, while also suggesting that this heterogeneity precludes the use of screening protocols that include recurrent mutation testing only. This is the first study to show that profiles of recurrent mutations may be unique to different Brazilian regions. These data should be explored in larger regional cohorts to determine if screening with a panel of recurrent mutations would be effective.This work was supported in part by grants from Barretos Cancer Hospital (FINEP - CT-INFRA, 02/2010), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP, 2013/24633-2 and 2103/23277-8), Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa do Rio Grande do Norte (FAPERN), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS), Ministério da Saúde, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (Avon grant #02-2013-044) and National Institute of Health/National Cancer Institute (grant #RC4 CA153828-01) for the Clinical Cancer Genomics Community Research Network. Support in part was provided by grants from Fundo de Incentivo a Pesquisa e Eventos (FIPE) from Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, BioComputacional 3381/2013, Rede de Pesquisa em Genômica Populacional Humana), Secretaria da Saúde do Estado da Bahia (SESAB), Laboratório de Imunologia e Biologia Molecular (UFBA), INCT pra Controle do Câncer and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). RMR and PAP are recipients of CNPq Productivity Grants, and Bárbara Alemar received a grant from the same agencyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio