Rheological behaviour of vitreous humour

The vitreous humour (VH) is a complex biofluid that occupies a large portion of the eyeball between the lens and the retina, and exhibits non-Newtonian rheological properties that are key for its function in the eye. It is often possible to distinguish two different phases in VH, known as liquid and gel phases (Sebag J Eye 1: 254–262, 1987). In this work, we present a detailed rheological characterisation of the two phases of the VH under shear and extensional flow conditions. Healthy New Zealand rabbit eyes were used to measure the surface tension and the shear and extensional rheological properties of VH in different phase conformations and at different times after dissection. The results show that VH liquid phase exhibits a surface tension of 47.8 mN/m, a shear thinning behaviour reaching a viscosity plateau around 10^?3 Pa s for shear rates above ~1000 s^?1, and an average relaxation time of 9.7 ms in extensional flow. Interestingly, both VH phases present higher storage modulus than loss modulus, and the measurements performed with VH gel phase 4?±?1 h after dissection exhibit the highest moduli values. The compliance measurements for the gel phase show a viscoelastic gel behaviour and that compliance values decrease substantially with time after dissection. Our results show that the two VH phases exhibit viscoelastic behaviour, but with distinct rheological characteristics, consistent with a gel phase mostly composed of collagen entangled by hyaluronan and a second phase mainly composed of hyaluronan in aqueous solution.     

Extremes of Integer-Valued Moving Average Models with Regularly Varying Tails

In this paper we study the limiting distribution of the maximum term of non-negative integer-valued moving average sequences of the form X _n = _{i = – i} Z _{n – i} where { Z _n} is an iid sequence of non-negative integer-valued random variables with regularly varying tails, _iZ _n–i denotes binomial thinning. Several models are considered allowing different dependence structures on the thinning operations. For these models we manage to establish results which are similar to the ones obtained for the classic linear moving average: { X _n} > has an extremal index = \max_i{ _i } / ( _i ), where is the index of regular variation, irrespectively of the dependence structure considered. The paper is concluded with a simulation study to illustrate the results.     

Effect of Photobiomodulation on C2C12 Myoblasts Cultivated in M1 Macrophage-conditioned Media

Moderate levels of a proinflammatory macrophages phenotype are indispensable and play an important role in the skeletal muscle repair process since this response depends on their secreted products concentration to influence and modulate muscle inflammation as well as the differentiation of myoblasts. This study investigated the effects of photobiomodulation (PBM) on undifferentiated and differentiation-induced C2C12 myoblasts cultivated in different concentrations of M1 phenotype macrophage-conditioned media of J774 cells (MCM1) also submitted to PBM using the same irradiation parameters. Irradiation was performed once with low-level laser (780 nm, 70 mW, 1 J) and was evaluated cell viability, proliferation and differentiation, nitric oxide (NO) synthesis and IL-6 and TNF-α protein levels 24 and 48 h after C2C12 irradiation. PBM treatment in undifferentiated myoblasts exhibited lower IL-6 levels in the presence of nonirradiated MCM1 at both concentrations. Myoblasts in proliferation condition cultivated with irradiated MCM1 showed lower IL-6 and TNF-α levels after 48 h in the presence of both concentrations evaluated. PBM induced a decrease in the synthesis of NO on undifferentiated and differentiation-induced myoblasts. PBM was able to reduce the level of proinflammatory protein and markers, which are important to allow the differentiation of myoblasts during the muscle repair process.     

An Efficient Two‐Step Synthesis of New 5‐Substituted‐1H‐tetrazoles of Biological Interest

A simple procedure for the synthesis and characterization of new 3‐alkoxy‐3‐(1H‐tetrazol‐5‐yl)propionic acids and 2‐(1H‐tetrazol‐5‐yl)tetrahydrofuran‐ and ‐(1H‐tetrazol‐5‐yl)‐2H‐pyran‐3‐carboxylic acids from the [2 + 3] cycloaddition reactions between the nitrile group of β‐cyanocarboxylic acids with sodium azide in the presence of zinc chloride is described. The tetrazolic acids were isolated in moderate to good yields and are structurally analogous to succinic acid.     

Colored Texture Analysis Fuzzy Entropy Methods with a Dermoscopic Application

Texture analysis is a subject of intensive focus in research due to its significant role in the field of image processing. However, few studies focus on colored texture analysis and even fewer use information theory concepts. Entropy measures have been proven competent for gray scale images. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no well-established entropy methods that deal with colored images yet. Therefore, we propose the recent colored bidimensional fuzzy entropy measure, FuzEnC2D, and introduce its new multi-channel approaches, FuzEnV2D and FuzEnM2D, for the analysis of colored images. We investigate their sensitivity to parameters and ability to identify images with different irregularity degrees, and therefore different textures. Moreover, we study their behavior with colored Brodatz images in different color spaces. After verifying the results with test images, we employ the three methods for analyzing dermoscopic images of malignant melanoma and benign melanocytic nevi. FuzEnC2D, FuzEnV2D, and FuzEnM2D illustrate a good differentiation ability between the two—similar in appearance—pigmented skin lesions. The results outperform those of a well-known texture analysis measure. Our work provides the first entropy measure studying colored images using both single and multi-channel approaches.