Wood and leaf anatomy of Copaifera langsdorffii dwarf trees

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Stability study of fluconazole applying validated bioassay and stability-indicating LC methods

Chemical degradation of drugs may result in altered therapeutic efficacy and even toxic effects. Therefore, understanding the factors that change the stability of pharmaceuticals and identifying ways to guarantee their stability are important. In this work stability-indicating Liquid Chromatographic (LC) and bioassay methods were validated and employed in the fluconazole stability studies. The correlation of sample results from both methods was evaluated. Fluconazole raw material stability was investigated in aqueous, acid (0.1 M HCl), alkaline (0.1 M NaOH) and oxidative (3% v/v H2O2) reflux for 6 hours, by LC method. Fluconazole capsules were exposed to UVC (254 nm, 66 and 180 days), climatic chamber (40°C, 75% RH, 90 days) and oven (60°C, 60 days), these samples were analyzed by LC and bioassay methods It was found that the drug is degraded (10% decrease) with arising of a possible degradation product in an oxidative medium and UVC exposure, in all the others conditions fluconazole remained chemically stable (higher than 98%) when analyzed by LC. However when the capsules stressed samples were evaluated through bioassay very low antifungal activity was found (about 30%). Fluconazole showed to be an unstable drug and it indicates that special care must be taken during the handling, storage and quality control using appropriated methods to analyze this therapeutic agent. This work suggests monitoring the fluconazole stability by bioassay and the stability-indicating LC methods.

Characteristics, complexation and analytical methods of darunavir

What is it? Darunavir is a protease inhibitor used in the treatment of HIV infection. It is an important drug of therapy cocktail for patients infected with the virus. On the market there are darunavir ethanolate tablets of 75, 150, 300, 400, 600 and 800mg, because this is the most stable form. It is commercialized by Janssen-Cilag with the name PrezistaTM. Why we started? This drug has low water solubility and poor bioavailability, therefore requires administration in doses relatively high to the success of the therapeutic effect. The complexation of drugs by using cyclodextrin is welcome in this respect to improve the solubility and hence increase the dissolution rate of poorly soluble drugs. A monograph about this compound has not been described, thus it is an extremely important quality control of darunavir to demonstrate its effectiveness and safety. What we did? Some existing analytical techniques have been discussed in this manuscript, focusing on bioanalytical and pharmaceutical quality control applications. What we found? This review showed the published analytical methods reported for the determination of darunavir and discuss about its characteristics and complexation with cyclodextrin.

Características qualitativas da carne de frango de corte proveniente de diferentes sistemas de produção

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Caracterização da produção e qualidade físico-química de méis produzidos no Estado de Pernambuco

The present study had as objective contribute to the characterization of beekeeping in the Pernambuco State and evaluate the physical-chemical quality of the honeys produced in the region. For this, was applied a directed formulary to the representative organ of beekeeping class aboutthe productives and technicals aspects of beekeepers. Was obtained 14 samples of honey by Apis mellifera africanized, stored in sterile plastic vessels was sent to the Beekeeping Products Quality Control Laboratory (CEA-UNITAU). Was observed that the most of beekeepers have of 50 to 100 hives (57,14%), 28,57% of 100 to 200 hives and 14,28% more than 500 hives, being that 85,71% produce 30 to 50 kg honey/hives/flowering. All use the standard hive Langstroth and 85,71% obtain their swarm by capture. About the physical-chemical quality of the honey, was observed that moisture content varied from 18,2% to 22,0%, with mean value of 19,80±1,11; the water activity varied from 0,70 to 0,84 aw, with mean value of 0,79±0,05 aw; the total acidity was 24,91±8,99 meq/kg and the average index of hydroxymethylfurfural was 16,32±17,88 meq/kg. The results obtained are according to the quality limits established by the brazilian legislation, excepted the water activity that exceeded the maximum limit of 0,65 aw. The datasobtained in this paper shows the development of beekeeping in Pernambuco State and the honey presents nice quality.

Utilização dos parâmetros físico-químicos e redes neurais artificiais na identificação dos méis de abelhas (Apis mellifera L.) produzidos no verão e inverno na microrregião de Campos de Jordão, São Paulo

The objective of this work was to typify, through physicochemical parameters, honey from Campos do Jordão’s microrregion, and verify how samples are grouped in accordance with the climatic production seasonality (summer and winter). It were assessed 30 samples of honey from beekeepers located in the cities of Monteiro Lobato, Campos do Jordão, Santo Antonio do Pinhal e São Bento do Sapucaí-SP, regarding both periods of honey production (November to February; July to September, during 2007 and 2008; n = 30). Samples were submitted to physicochemical analysis of total acidity, pH, humidity, water activity, density, aminoacids, ashes, color and electrical conductivity, identifying physicochemical standards of honey samples from both periods of production. Next, we carried out a cluster analysis of data using k-means algorithm, which grouped the samples into two classes (summer and winter). Thus, there was a supervised training of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) using backpropagation algorithm. According to the analysis, the knowledge gained through the ANN classified the samples with 80% accuracy. It was observed that the ANNs have proved an effective tool to group samples of honey of the region of Campos do Jordao according to their physicochemical characteristics, depending on the different production periods.

Determinação de atividade de água, umidade e sal em peixes salgados e secos importados

Brazil is a major importer in the world salted fish trade. The sale of these products must meet the established standards, based mainly on the salt and moisture levels. The aim of this study was to analyze the salt and moisture levels in imported Atlantic cod and Pacific cod, and in the dried salted fish Ling, Zarbo and Saithe, which are not classified as cod since they do not belong to the genus Gadus. The water activity was also analyzed, which could be a useful parameter to determine the quality of salted fish.The results showed that the legal limits for salt were much lower than the values found in the analyses. The moisture contents established for the category of salted fish, as determined by the Portuguese legislation, were more reliable. We suggest the inclusion of the water activity as a parameter for the evaluation of these products.

Produção da cultura da beterraba irrigada com água salina.,

The use of low quality water for agriculture should be performed with care to avoiding excessive accumulation of salts in the soil so not to harm crop development. In order to evaluate the performance of beets under the infl uence of low water quality, an experiment was conducted in a greenhouse of the Department of Agricultural Engineering, Universidade Estadual Paulista in Botucatu, Brazil, from April to July 2012. We used the beet (Beta vulgaris L.) in a completely randomized design with 6 treatments and 5 replications, totaling 30 plots. Treatments consisted of NaCl solutions at different concentrations (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0 dS m-1) plus a control treatment corresponding to water with no additional salt and electrical conductivity of roughly 0.26 dS m-1. Variables evaluated were total production, commercial production, plant height, number of plants and root diameter. Production of the beet crop was affected by the increasing salinity of irrigation water, characterized by reduced root production of the beets. Total and commercial production showed reductions of 8.82 and 12.2% in accordance with the unit increase of salinity.

Desenvolvimento de pastilha potencialmente probiótica

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Larvicidal activity of the water extract of Moringa oleifera seeds against Aedes aegypti and its toxicity upon laboratory animals

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)