Modeling the impact of global warming on vector-borne infections

Global warming will certainly affect the abundance and distribution of disease vectors. The effect of global warming, however, depends on the complex interaction between the human host population and the causative infectious agent. In this work we review some mathematical models that were proposed to study the impact of the increase in ambient temperature on the spread and gravity of some insect-transmitted diseases.     

The Hallmarks of Flavonoids in Cancer

Flavonoids represent an important group of bioactive compounds derived from plant-based foods and beverages with known biological activity in cells. From the modulation of inflammation to the inhibition of cell proliferation, flavonoids have been described as important therapeutic adjuvants against several diseases, including diabetes, arteriosclerosis, neurological disorders, and cancer. Cancer is a complex and multifactor disease that has been studied for years however, its prevention is still one of the best known and efficient factors impacting the epidemiology of the disease. In the molecular and cellular context, some of the mechanisms underlying the oncogenesis and the progression of the disease are understood, known as the hallmarks of cancer. In this text, we review important molecular signaling pathways, including inflammation, immunity, redox metabolism, cell growth, autophagy, apoptosis, and cell cycle, and analyze the known mechanisms of action of flavonoids in cancer. The current literature provides enough evidence supporting that flavonoids may be important adjuvants in cancer therapy, highlighting the importance of healthy and balanced diets to prevent the onset and progression of the disease.     

Myorelaxant Effect of the Dysphania ambrosioides Essential Oil on Sus scrofa domesticus Coronary Artery and Its Toxicity in the Drosophila melanogaster Model

Purpose: Alternative methods for the use of animals in research have gained increasing importance, due to assessments evaluating the real need for their use and the development of legislation that regulates the subject. The principle of the 3R’s (replacement, reduction and refinement) has been an important reference, such that in vitro, ex vivo and cord replacement methods have achieved a prominent place in research. Methods: Therefore, due to successful results from studies developed with these methods, the present study aimed to evaluate the myorelaxant effect of the Dysphania ambrosioides essential oil (EODa) using a Sus scrofa domesticus coronary artery model, and the toxicity of both the Dysphania ambrosioides essential oil and its major constituent, α-terpinene, against Drosophila melanogaster in toxicity and negative geotaxis assays. Results: The EODa relaxed the smooth muscle of swine coronary arteries precontracted with K⁺ and 5-HT in assays using Sus scrofa domesticus coronary arteries. The toxicity results presented LC₅₀ values of 1.546 mg/mL and 2.282 mg/mL for the EODa and α-terpinene, respectively, thus showing the EODa and α-terpinene presented toxicity to these dipterans, with the EODa being more toxic. Conclusions: Moreover, the results reveal the possibility of using the EODa in vascular disease studies since it promoted the relaxation of the Sus scrofa domesticus coronary smooth muscle.     

Influence of the atmosphere on the decomposition of vegetable oils: study of the profiles of FTIR spectra and evolution of gaseous products

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The thermal stability of vegetable oils may be one of important properties in their use in the food industry, cosmetics and agro-industry, especially...     

A novel lariat-silacrown ether based in sol–gel process: synthesis, characterization and interaction study with the copper(II) ion

The synthesis and characterization of the lariat-silacrown ether (Sila15NH??IUPAC name: 3-[1-[[1-(3-aminopropyl)-2,5,8,11,14-pentaoxa-1-silacyclotetradec-1-yl] oxy]-2,5,8,11,14-pentaoxa-1-silacyclotetradec-1-yl]propan-1-amine) and its complex with copper(II) ion, Cu(II)?CSila15NH, are reported in this work. Tetraethylene glycol, 3-aminopropyl triethoxysilane and metallic sodium were employed as precursors and the lariat-silacrown ether obtained in a good yield (64?%) was characterized by elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance of ¹H, ¹³C and ²⁹Si. The Cu(II)?CSila15NH was characterized by elemental analysis and FTIR. The straightforward Cu(II) complex formation suggests this property could be explored for analytical purposes.     

Application of multivariate optimization in the development of an ultrasound-assisted extraction procedure for multielemental determination in bean seeds samples using ICP OES

In this paper, multivariate optimization was applied for the development of an ultrasound-assisted multielemental extraction procedure for analysis of bean samples by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. For this procedure, powdered samples were treated with an acid mixture and submitted to ultrasound energy for extracting the target elements (Ba, Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Sr and Zn). Centroid simplex mixture design was used for optimize the acid proportions (nitric, acetic and chloride acid) and Box Behnken design was applied for optimize the process variables (particle size, final concentration of extracting solution and sonication time) after mixture optimization. Iron had not presented quantitative extractions and it was excluded from final samples analysis. The developed method presents the follow limits of quantification in μg g^{− 1}: Ba (0.90); Ca (5.2); Cu (4.0); K (0.90); Mg (1.4); Mn (0.22); Sr (0.25) and Zn (4.0). Accuracy was accessed by comparison of determined concentration with the values obtained by the microwave digestion procedure. The proposed method was applied toward the determination of elemental composition in bean samples collected in the country zone from Jequié city located on the Bahia State, Brazil. The trace elements content ranged from 0.21 to 3.04, 3.84 to 10.8, 0.60 to 5.23, 31.0 to 46.5 and 10.8 to 19.6 μg g^{− 1} Ba, Cu, Sr, Zn, Mn, respectively. The major elements content ranged from 0.0418 to 0.0877, 0.109 to 0.153 and 1.30 to 1.56% (w/w) Ca, Mg and K, respectively.     

Application of multivariate techniques in the optimization of a procedure for the determination of bioavailable concentrations of Se and As in estuarine sediments by ICP OES using a concomitant metals analyzer as a hydride generator

A procedure has been developed for the determination of bioavailable concentrations of selenium and arsenic in estuarine sediments employing inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES) using a concomitant metals analyzer device to perform hydride generation. The optimization of hydride generation was done in two steps: using a two-level factorial design for preliminary evaluation of studied factors and a Doehlert design to assess the optimal experimental conditions for analysis. Interferences of transition metallic ions (Cd²⁺, Co²⁺, Cu²⁺, Fe³⁺ and Ni²⁺) to selenium and arsenic signals were minimized by using higher hydrochloric acid concentrations. In this way, the procedure allowed the determination of selenium and arsenic in sediments with a detection limit of 25 and 30 μg kg⁻¹, respectively, assuming a 50-fold sample dilution (0.5 g sample extraction to 25 mL sample final volume). The precision, expressed as a relative standard deviation (% RSD, n = 10), was 0.2% for both selenium and arsenic in 200 μg L⁻¹ solutions, which corresponds to 10 μg g⁻¹ in sediment samples after acid extraction. Applying the proposed procedure, a linear range of 0.08-10 and 0.10-10 μg g⁻¹ was obtained for selenium and arsenic, respectively. The developed procedure was validated by the analysis of two certified reference materials: industrial sludge (NIST 2782) and river sediment (NIST 8704). The results were in agreement with the certified values. The developed procedure was applied to evaluate the bioavailability of both elements in four sediment certified reference materials, in which there are not certified values for bioavailable fractions, and also in estuarine sediment samples collected in several sites of Guanabara Bay, an impacted environment in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.     

Improving Seismic Inversion Robustness via Deformed Jackson Gaussian

The seismic data inversion from observations contaminated by spurious measures (outliers) remains a significant challenge for the industrial and scientific communities. This difficulty is due to slow processing work to mitigate the influence of the outliers. In this work, we introduce a robust formulation to mitigate the influence of spurious measurements in the seismic inversion process. In this regard, we put forth an outlier-resistant seismic inversion methodology for model estimation based on the deformed Jackson Gaussian distribution. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposal, we investigated a classic geophysical data-inverse problem in three different scenarios: (i) in the first one, we analyzed the sensitivity of the seismic inversion to incorrect seismic sources; (ii) in the second one, we considered a dataset polluted by Gaussian errors with different noise intensities; and (iii) in the last one we considered a dataset contaminated by many outliers. The results reveal that the deformed Jackson Gaussian outperforms the classical approach, which is based on the standard Gaussian distribution.     

Charged scalar fields in a Kerr-Sen black hole:exact solutions,Hawkingradiation, and resonant frequencies

In this study, we consider charged massive scalar fields around a Kerr-Sen spacetime. The radial and angular parts of the covariant Klein-Gordon equation are solved in terms of the confluent Heun function. From the exact radial solution, we obtain the Hawking radiation spectrum and discuss its resonant frequencies. The massless case of the resonant frequencies is also examined.     

Consequences for nuclear physics of a NNγ and A NNγ time reversal violating vertex

This paper studies the effects in low energy nuclear physics of a possible time reversal invariance (TRI) violation in the electromagnetic interaction. It is shown that this effect appears as a two body short range TRI violating transition operator or as a two and three body TRI violating potential. Two cases are studied. Firstly a TRI violating NNγ vertex is considered and found to have very little effect. Secondly the TRI violation is assumed to occur in the NN^*γ vertex and it is shown that if the violation is “maximal” the contribution to the imaginary part of the “mixing ratio” δ is Im δ ≈ ¦δ¦ × 10⁻³. This should be measurable.