Analysis of testosterone pulsatility in women with ovulatory menstrual cycles

Objetivo: Avaliar o padrão pulsátil da secreção da testosterona em mulheres normais. Métodos: Oito mulheres saudáveis com ciclos ovulatórios foram selecionadas. Amostras sanguíneas foram coletadas a cada dez minutos durante seis horas, começando entre 7 e 8 h da manhã, após dez horas de jejum, nas três fases do ciclo menstrual: folicular média (Dia 7), folicular tardia (Dia 12) e lútea (Dia 21). Foram mensurados: testosterona, LH e, no basal, também SHBG. Resultados: A frequência dos pulsos de testosterona, média da amplitude do pulso, porcentagem do incremento da amplitude, duração e intervalos dos pulsos foram similares nas três fases (p > 0,05). A pulsatilidade do LH foi estatisticamente diferente entre as três fases (p < 0,001), caracterizando padrão característico do ciclo ovulatório normal. Conclusões: Esses dados aumentam o conhecimento sobre o padrão de secreção da testosterona no ciclo menstrual humano e representam uma contribuição para a investigação clínica, tanto no hiperandrogenismo como na síndrome de insuficiência androgênica __________________________________________________ ABSTRACT Objective: To evaluate the pattern of the pulsatile secretion of testosterone in normal menstrual cycle. Methods: Eight healthy women with ovulatory menstrual cycles were enrolled. Blood samples were collected at ten-minute intervals for six hours, starting between 7 and 8 am, after a ten-hour fasting, in three phases: mid-follicular (Day 7), late follicular (Day 12) and mid-luteal phase (Day 21). Samples were assayed for testosterone, LH and the baseline also for SHBG. Results: Testosterone pulse frequency, mean amplitude pulse, percentage of increment in pulse amplitude, mean duration of pulses and pulse interval were similar in the three phases. LH pulsatility was statistically different among the three phases (p < 0.001) representing normal ovulatory cycles. Conclusions: These data increase the knowledge about the testosterone secretion profile in the human menstrual cycle and can be used as a contribution to clinical investigation in both hyperandrogenism and androgen insufficiency syndrome

Síntese e caracterização de carreadores de oxigênio para combustão com recirculação química obtidos via reação de combustão assistida por microondas

Perovskites oxides win importance by its properties and commercials applications, they have a high thermal stability, have conductive properties, electrical, catalytic, electro catalytic, optical and magnetic, and are thermally stable. Because of these properties, are being widely studied as carriers of oxygen in the process of power generation with CO2 capture. In this work, the base carrier system La1-xMexNiO3 (Me = Ca and Sr) were synthesized by the method via the combustion reaction assisted by microwave. were synthesized from the combustion reaction method by microwave process. This method control the synthesi`s conditions to obtain materials with specific characteristics. The carriers calcined at 800 ° C/2h were analyzed by thermal analysis (TG-DTA), to verify its thermal stability, X-ray diffraction (XRD) to verify the phase formation, with subsequent refinement by the Rietveld method, to quantify the percentage of phases formed, the surface area by BET method was determined, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was obtained to evaluate the material morphology and temperature programmed reduction (TPR) was done to observe the metallic phase of the nickel. After all proposed characterization and analysis of their results can be inferred to these oxides, key features so that they can be applied as carriers for combustion reactions in chemical cycles. The final products showed perovskite-type structures K2NiF4 (main) and ABO3.

Carregadores de oxigênio a base de níquel suportado em materiais mesooros para aplicação na recirculação química com reforma (RQR)

Oxygen carriers are metal oxides which have the ability to oxidize and reduce easily by various cycles. Due to this property these materials are widely usedin Chemical-Looping Reforming processes to produce H2 and syngas. In this work supports based on MCM-41 and La-SiO2 were synthesized by hydrothermal method. After the synthesis step they were calcined at 550°C for 2 hours and characterized by TG, XRD, surface area using the BET method and FTIR spectroscopy. The deposition of active phase, in this case Nickel, took place in the proportions of 5, 10 and 20% by weight of metallic nickel, for use as oxygen carriers.The XRD showed that increasing in the content of Ni supported on MCM-41 resulted in a decrease in spatial structure and lattice parameter of the material. The adsorption and desorption curves of the MCM-41 samples exhibited variations with the increase of Ni deposited. Surface area, average pore diameter and wall density of silica showed significant changes , due to the increase of the active phase on the mesoporous material. By other hand, in the samples with La-SiO2 composition was not observed peaks characteristic of hexagonal structure, in the XRD diffractogram. The adsorption/desorption isotherms of nitrogen observed are type IV, characteristic of mesoporous materials. The catalytic test indicates that the supports have no influence in the process, but the nickel concentration is very important, because the results for minor concentration of nickel are not good. The ratio H2/O2 was close to 2, for all 15 cycles involving the test storage capacity of O2, indicating that the materials are effective for oxygen transport

Reforma a vapor catalítica do metano: Otimização da produção e seletividade em hidrogênio por absorção in situ do CO2 produzido

Topics of research related to energy and environment have significantly grown in recent years, with the need of its own energy as hydrogen. More particularly, numerous researches have been focused on hydrogen as energy vector. The main portion of hydrogen is presently obtained by reforming of methane or light hydrocarbons (steam, oxy, dry or auto reforming). During the methane steam reforming process the formation of CO2 undesirable (the main contributor to the greenhouse effect) is observed. Thus, an oxide material (sorbent) can be used to capture the CO2 generated during the process and simultaneously shifting the equilibrium of water gas shift towards thermodynamically more favorable production of pure hydrogen. The aim of this study is to develop a material with dual function (catalyst/sorbent) in the reaction of steam reforming of methane. CaO is well known as CO2 sorbent due to its high efficiency in reactions of carbonation and easy regeneration through calcination. However the kinetic of carbonation decreases quickly with time and carbonation/calcination cycles. A calcium aluminate (Ca12Al14O33) should be used to avoid sintering and increase the stability of CaO sorbents for several cycles. Nickel, the industrial catalyst choice for steam reforming has been added to the support from different manners. These bi-functional materials (sorbent/catalyst) in different molar ratios CaO.Ca12Al14O33 (48:52, 65:35, 75:25, 90:10) were prepared by different synthesis methodologies, among them, especially the method of microwave assisted self-combustion. Synthesis, structure and catalytic performances of Ni- CaO.Ca12Al14O33 synthesized by the novel method (microwave assisted selfcombustion) proposed in this work has not being reported yet in literature. The results indicate that CO2 capture time depends both on the CaO excess and on operating conditions (eg., temperature and H2O/CH4 ratio). To be efficient for CO2 sorption, temperature of steam reforming needs to be lower than 700 °C. An optimized percentage corresponding to 75% of CaO and a ratio H2O/CH4 = 1 provides the most promising results since a smaller amount of water avoids competition between water and CO2 to form carbonate and hydroxide. If this competition is most effective (H2O/CH4 = 3) and would have a smaller amount of CaO available for absorption possibly due to the formation of Ca(OH)2. Therefore, the capture time was higher (16h) for the ratio H2O/CH4 = 1 than H2O/CH4 = 3 (7h) using as catalyst one prepared by impregnating the support obtained by microwave assisted self-combustion. Therefore, it was demonstrated that, with these catalysts, the CO2 sorption on CaO modifies the balance of the water gas-shift reaction. Consequently, steam reforming of CH4 is optimized, producing pure H2, complete conversion of methane and negligible concentration of CO2 and CO during the time of capture even at low temperature (650 °C). This validates the concept of the sorption of CO2 together with methane steam reforming