Efeitos do potencial probiótico Enterococcus faecium 32 e de sua associação com o extrato da alga marinha Caulerpa mexicana no tratamento de colite experimental murina

Ulcerative colitis comprising an inflammatory bowel disease, whose most severe consequence is the development of intestinal neoplasia. The drugs currently used to treat the disease trigger a variety of serious adverse effects and are not effective in many cases. Recent studies demonstrated the effectiveness of natural products for the treatment of inflammatory processes. Seaweed extracts and their purified products have shown protective effects in models of inflammation and the association of traditional therapies with probiotics has significantly improved the clinical symptoms of ulcerative colitis. Therefore, the aims of this study include evaluating the potential effects of the use of probiotic strain Enterococcus faecium 32 (Ef32), the methanolic extract of the green seaweed Caulerpa mexicana (M.E.) and their concomitant administration in a murine model of colitis induced by dextran sodium sulfate (DSS). Accordingly, C57BL /6 mice were pretreated orally with Ef32 (109 CFU/ml) for seven days. In the seven days following, the colitis was induced by administration of 3% DSS (w/v) diluted in the animals drinking water. During this period, animals were treated daily with Ef32 and the M.E. (2.0 mg/kg) every other day by intravenous route. The development of colitis was monitored by the disease activity index (DAI), which takes into account the loss of body weight, consistency and presence of blood in stools. After euthanasia, the colon was removed, its length measured and tissue samples were destined for histological analysis and culture for cytokine quantification. The levels of cytokines in the culture supernatant of the colon were measured by ELISA. The treatments with the probiotic Ef32 or the M.E. alone or the combination of these two substances provoked significant improvement as to weight loss and DAI, and prevented the shortening of the colon in response to DSS. The isolated treatments triggered a slight improvement in intestinal mucosal tissue damage. However, their combination was able to completely repair the injury triggered by DSS. The association was also able to reduce the levels of all the cytokines analyzed (IFN-γ, IL-4, IL-6, IL-12, IL-17A and TNF-α). On the other hand, the treatment with Ef32 did not interfere with the levels of TNF-α, whereas treatment with M.E. did not alter the levels of IL-6. Moreover, the treatment with Ef32 not interferes in TNF-α levels, whereas treatment with M.E. did not alter the levels of IL-6. Therefore, the potential probiotic Ef32 and M.E. and especially when these samples were associated proved promising alternatives in the treatment of ulcerative colitis as demonstrated in an experimental model because of its beneficial effects on morphological and clinical parameters, and by reducing the production of proinflammatory cytokines of Th1, Th2 and Th17

Consórcio de cártamo e feijão caupi: alternativa para a produção de biodiesel na agricultura familiar

The new development strategies should operate mainly in the areas of energy efficiency and sustainable agriculture. Thus, the substitution of fossil fuels with biofuels, such as biodiesel, is increasingly on the agenda. The cultivation of oilseed plants for biodiesel production must take place in integrated systems that enable best environmental benefits and are more economically significant. The objectives of this study were to assess the morphological, anatomic, and physiological characteristics of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L., promising oilseed for biodiesel production) grown in monoculture and intercropping with cowpea bean (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.); and identify socioeconomic family farmers and verify their acceptance about safflower as an energy crop. The methodology used for the analysis of safflower growth in monoculture and intercropped with beans, were morphoanatomical and histochemical analyzes, made with samples of plants grown in the field in two cropping systems throughout the range of the life cycle of these plants. There were no changes in growth and anatomy of plants, even in the consortium, which is satisfactory to indicate the intercropping system for those crops and can be a good alternative for the family farmer, who may have safflower as a source of income without giving up planting their livelihood. To check the acceptance of safflower by farmers, interviews were made to family farmers by Canudos agrovila in Ceará-Mirim/RN. It was noticed that many of them accept the introduction of safflower as oil crop, although unaware of the species, and that, being more resistant to drought, safflower help in the stability of families who depend on the weather conditions for success their current crops. In general, it is concluded that safflower has features that allows it to be grown in consortium for biodiesel production combined with the production of food, such as cowpea, and can be used enabling better development for family farmers.

Seleção seqüencial de descritores por análise da semântica para recuperação de imagens baseada no conteúdo

With the rapid growth of databases of various types (text, multimedia, etc..), There exist a need to propose methods for ordering, access and retrieve data in a simple and fast way. The images databases, in addition to these needs, require a representation of the images so that the semantic content characteristics are considered. Accordingly, several proposals such as the textual annotations based retrieval has been made. In the annotations approach, the recovery is based on the comparison between the textual description that a user can make of images and descriptions of the images stored in database. Among its drawbacks, it is noted that the textual description is very dependent on the observer, in addition to the computational effort required to describe all the images in database. Another approach is the content based image retrieval - CBIR, where each image is represented by low-level features such as: color, shape, texture, etc. In this sense, the results in the area of CBIR has been very promising. However, the representation of the images semantic by low-level features is an open problem. New algorithms for the extraction of features as well as new methods of indexing have been proposed in the literature. However, these algorithms become increasingly complex. So, doing an analysis, it is natural to ask whether there is a relationship between semantics and low-level features extracted in an image? and if there is a relationship, which descriptors better represent the semantic? which leads us to a new question: how to use descriptors to represent the content of the images?. The work presented in this thesis, proposes a method to analyze the relationship between low-level descriptors and semantics in an attempt to answer the questions before. Still, it was observed that there are three possibilities of indexing images: Using composed characteristic vectors, using parallel and independent index structures (for each descriptor or set of them) and using characteristic vectors sorted in sequential order. Thus, the first two forms have been widely studied and applied in literature, but there were no records of the third way has even been explored. So this thesis also proposes to index using a sequential structure of descriptors and also the order of these descriptors should be based on the relationship that exists between each descriptor and semantics of the users. Finally, the proposed index in this thesis revealed better than the traditional approachs and yet, was showed experimentally that the order in this sequence is important and there is a direct relationship between this order and the relationship of low-level descriptors with the semantics of the users

A influência do status social no forrageio de itens camuflados e avermelhados em sagüis (Callithrix jacchus) cativos

Seeing colors can be advantageous, because they are an important signal for providing information about the environment, such as the location of food. However, not every animals sees these chromatic signals in the same way. In primates, the group of Plathyrrhini has polymorphic sex-linked vision with males always dichromats and dichromats or trichromats females. Studies indicate that trichromats during foraging would benefit by seeing better than dichromats ripe fruits against the green foliage background. On the other hand, dichromats appear to distinguish camouflaged insects better than trichromats. The marmoset (Callihtrix jacchus) is a neotropical primate species that have color vision polymorphism. This species establishes family groups with highly reproductive bias, with breeding females often having preferential access to food. This work aims to study whether the social context influences the foraging ability of camouflaged and red items in groups of C. jacchus. Four groups of captive marmosets were presented to four food tasks, involving difficult, easy, reddish and camouflaged food targets. Foods were presented in a concentrated and dispersed manner, to check whether there was monopolization of the resources by the dominant subjects and if this would affect the ability of individuals to find the food targets. Success was measured by latency to food acquisition and number of targets consumed. Males and females differed in their foraging success for camouflaged and reddish items, although this difference has not appeared in all situations and experimental conditions. In general males were more successful for detecting camouflaged items while females succeeded more in identifying reddish items. There were no differences in foraging success between individuals of different social status, however, there were differences in the success of consumption of food items for different situations when food was concentrate compared with dispersed food. Taken as a role, there was a greater difficulty in detecting food items when they were presented in concentrated arrangement, which is supposed to be related to a higher difficulty to approach and stay near the food. Although it appears that there was no direct competition seems to have group's indirect influence on the detection of food items and foraging success of individuals, affecting mainly those items more difficult to detect