Iron determination by FAAS in fish feed and feces after ultrasound-assisted extraction

This paper proposes a method to determine iron in samples of fish feed and feces using ultrasound in the extraction of the analyte and in subsequent quantification by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. Using HCl 0.10 mol L -1 as the extraction solution, the optimal conditions of extraction were found to be: granulometry of the sample <60 μm; a sonication time of five cycles of 10 s and sonication power of 136 W. The method was applied in studies of the availability of iron in four food sources used in the diet of Nile Tilapia. The results obtained with the proposed extraction method allowed us to calculate the coefficients of apparent digestibility of iron in the food sources, which was not possible when using results obtained from samples mineralized by acid digestion. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008.

A simple method based on HR-CS FAAS for multi-element determination of Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn in medicinal plants

A simple method to determine Cu, Fe, Mn and Zn in single aliquots of medicinal plants by HR-CS FAAS is proposed. The main lines for Cu, Mn and Zn, and the alternate line measured at the wing of the main line for Fe at 248.327 nm allowed calibration within the 0.025 - 2.0 mg L-1 Cu, 1.0 - 20.0 mg L-1 Fe, 0.05 - 2.0 mg L-1 Mn, 0.025 - 0.75 mg L-1 Zn ranges. Nineteen medicinal plants and two certified plant reference materials were analyzed. Results were in agreement at a 95% confidence level (paired t-test) with reference values. Limits of detection were 0.12 μg L-1 Cu, 330 μg L-1 Fe, 1.42 μg L-1 Mn and 8.12 μg L-1 Zn. Relative standard deviations (n=12) were ≤ 3% for all analytes. Recoveries in the 89 - 105% (Cu), 95 - 108% (Fe), 94 - 107% (Mn), and 93 - 110% (Zn) ranges were obtained.

Determinação direta de Ca, Mg, Mn e Zn em amostras de leite de búfala da Ilha de Marajó por espectrometria de absorção atômica com chama (FAAS)

ABSTRACT: This work proposes an analytical procedure for direct determination of calcium, magnesium, manganese and zinc in buffalo milk by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). Samples were diluted with a solution containing 10% (v/v) of water-soluble tertiary amines (CFA-C) at pH 8. For comparison, buffalo milk samples were digested with HNO₃ and H₂O₂. According to a paired t-test, the results obtained in the determination of Ca, Mg, Mn and Zn in digested samples and in 10% (v/v) CFA-C medium were in agreement at a 95% confidence level. The developed procedure is simple, rapid, decrease the possibility of contamination and can be applied for the routine determination of Ca, Mg, Mn and Zn in buffalo milk samples without any difficulty caused by matrix constituents, such as fat content, and particle size distribution in the milk emulsion

Avaliação da composição mineral do chá da folha senescente de Montrichardia linifera (arruda) schott (araceae) por espectrometria de absorção atômica com chama (FAAS)

Levels of Ca, Mg, Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn were determinated by FAAS in the tea and dry matter from senescent leaf from Montrichardia linifera, plant used in folk medicine Amazon. The content of these metals that are transferred of the leaf to the infusions have presented significant reductions, however, the Mn values in the infusion may exceed the tolerable daily intake (11 mg) if consumption of this tea is greater than 1.0 L per day. So the tea of senescent leaves of M. linifera may be considered as a toxic beverage and thus its use is not advised.

Análise química de elementos potencialmente tóxicos em baterias e pilhas por FAAS e ICP OES

Pós-graduação em Ciência dos Materiais - FEIS

ENHANCEMENT OF THE FAA’s ON-LINE WILDLIFE AIRCRAFT STRIKE DATABASE WITH AN INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS CAPABILITY

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Prescott, AZ, USA) was awarded a grant from the William J. Hughes FAA Technical Center in October 1999 to develop and maintain a web site dealing with a wide variety of airport safety wildlife concerns. Initially, the web site enabled users to access related topics such as wildlife management (at/near airports), bird identification information, FAA wildlife management guidelines, education, pictures, current news, upcoming meetings and training, available jobs and discussion/forum sections. In April 2001, the web site was augmented with an on-line wildlife strike report (FAA Form 5200-7). Upon submittal on-line, “quick look” email notifications are sent to concerned government personnel. The distribution of these emails varies as to whether there was damage, human injuries/fatalities, and whether feather remains were collected and will be sent to the Smithsonian Institution for identification. In July 2002, a real-time on-line query system was incorporated to allow federal and local government agencies, airport and operator personnel, and USDA and airport wildlife biologists to access this database (which as of June 2005 contains 68,288 researched strike reports added to at a rate of approximately 500 strike reports/month) to formulate strategies to reduce the hazards wildlife present to aviation. To date (June 2005), over 15,000 on-line real-time queries were processed. In June 2004, ERAU was authorized to develop a graphical interface to this on-line query system. Current capabilities include mapping strikes (by species) on the US map, each of the contiguous 48 state maps (with AK and HI being added), and airport diagrams of the major metropolitan airports as well as the next 46 airports with the most reported strikes The latter capability depicts strikes by runway in plan as well as in elevation view. Currently under development is the ability to view time-sequenced strikes on the US map. This extensive graphical interface will give analysts the ability to view strike patterns with a wide variety of variables including species, seasons, migration patterns, etc. on US and state maps and airport diagrams.

Caracterização físico-química e avaliação dos níveis de elementos-traço em sedimentos de manguezais das baías da Ilha Grande e de Sepetiba, RJ, por metodologias de digestão ácida assistidas por micro-ondas

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo principal comparar dois métodos de extração de elementos-traço em sedimentos que são assistidos por radiação micro-ondas. Foram coletadas amostras de sedimentos superficiais em um manguezal localizado na baía da Ilha Grande e em três manguezais localizados na baía de Sepetiba, RJ. As amostras de sedimentos coletadas foram secas, destorroadas e peneiradas. Sub-amostras foram submetidas a análises de caracterização física e química. Os métodos de extração de elementos-traço comparados foram o EPA-3051A e o método água régia assistido por micro-ondas. Os elementos-traço analisados foram: Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb e Zn. As concentrações dos elementos-traço nos extratos produzidos foram determinadas por FAAS (Espectrometria de absorção atômica com chama). Foram encontradas nos sedimentos dos manguezais estudados concentrações acima dos níveis estabelecidos pela Resolução CONAMA 344/2004 para os elementos-traço: Cd, Ni, Pb e Zn. Os resultados mostraram que as capacidades de extração de elementos-traço dos métodos EPA-3051A e água régia assistido por micro-ondas variam em função das características físico-químicas dos sedimentos. A análise estatística pela técnica de regressão linear simples mostrou que as duas metodologias são estatisticamente similares apenas para o Cr e os valores dos coeficientes de determinação (R2) obtidos obedeceram à seqüência: Cu > Pb > Zn > Ni > Cr > Cd. Na análise pela técnica estatística de regressão linear múltipla ocorreram melhorias estatisticamente significativas nos coeficientes de determinação quando foram incluídas as seguintes variáveis independentes: potencial redox e fósforo total para o Cd, argila para o Cr, areia para o Ni e fósforo total para o Pb e para o Zn

Determinação de cádmio e chumbo em peixes da espécie geophagus brasiliensis, no rio Paraíba do Sul, entre os municípios de Barra Mansa e Pinheiral

Sabendo que os peixes são bioacumuladores de contaminantes do ambiente aquático e com isso representam riscos para seus consumidores, podendo ampliar tal poluentes para a cadeia trófica, este estudo tem por objetivo determinar os níveis de cádmio e chumbo presentes na espécie de peixe Acará (Geophagus brasiliensis), tradicional do consumo da população ribeirinha, devido a grande quantidade de indivíduos na região industrial do Sul Fluminense, no rio Paraíba do Sul, do estado do Rio Janeiro, além de comparar as faixas de concentração destes elementos-traço com dados estabelecidos pela ANVISA, utilizando estes peixes como bioindicadores das regiões estudadas. Os peixes foram capturados ao longo do rio Paraíba do Sul, nos municípios de Pinheiral, Barra Mansa e Volta Redonda. A identificação e quantificação dos metaisforam realizados, por um sistema de pré-concentração, baseado na adsorção de metais por uma resina quelante (chelex100) acoplada em linhacom um espectrômetro de absorção atômica com chama (FAAS). O método de pré-concentração permitiu a detecção de cádmio em níveis maiores que ao limite de detecção do FAAS e quando comparados com os valores estabelecidos pela ANVISA, indicou que o peixe estaria impróprio para o consumo humano. Nas análises de pré-concentração para chumbo, não houve sinal expressivo a ser comparado, apresentando somente sinais de ruído do equipamento. O cádmio e o chumbo foram escolhidos para análise uma vez que são regulamentados como contaminantes inorgânicos pela ANVISA e não foi encontrado na literatura nenhum dado sobre esses metais em Geophagus brasiliensis

药用牡丹资源与重金属污染问题的研究

我国牡丹资源丰富、药用历史悠久、药材出口量大。近年来国际上对进口植物药的重金属限量标准不断提高，已成为影响丹皮出口的最大贸易壁垒之一，严重阻碍了丹皮产业化进程。为了提高我国丹皮药材整体质量水平和国际竞争力，本试验探讨了不同产地、不同种质资源的丹皮与Cu、Cd、Pb、As四种重金属的关系，重点研究了两个代表性品种对重金属Cu的富集规律，分析了重金属Cu对牡丹生长、生理和药材品质的影响。实验中采用火焰原子吸收分光光度法（FAAS ）和电感耦合等离子体质谱法（ICP-MS）为基本检测手段来分析样品中重金属元素的含量，从植物与重金属相互关系的角度对牡丹药用、花药兼用以及生态修复可行性等方面进行了系统研究。结果如下： 1. 丹皮重金属含量与牡丹种质资源和栽培环境关系密切。野生种中滇牡丹丹皮中Cu、Cd含量相对较高，多数野生种丹皮中Pb、As含量较栽培种偏高；铜陵产区的丹皮重金属含量明显高于其它产区，铜尾矿上栽培出产的丹皮重金属Cu含量明显超标，建议其改变种植模式，可以考虑丰富牡丹品种，开发生态旅游、观赏栽培。 2. 综合比较同一地块的7个常用药用品种发现，‘JPH’和‘CKL’品种对重金属富集能力相对较弱。‘JPH’是传统的优良观赏品种，适宜花药兼用；结合前期研究的结果‘CKL’药效成分含量相对较高，药用价值较高，适宜药用栽培。 3. 对药用牡丹品种‘凤丹’和‘建始粉’外施不同浓度CuSO4溶液处理后发现，丹皮中重金属富集量与外施重金属浓度成显著正相关。当外施Cu 浓度超过150mg/kg 时，两个品种的丹皮中Cu含量均已超标。 4. 重金属Cu对牡丹生长的影响效应与重金属浓度和植物体自身部位有关。当外施Cu浓度小于600mg/kg 时，对牡丹生长有一定的促进作用，主要表现在地上部分；超过600mg/kg 时，对牡丹生长有抑制作用，随着浓度增大，毒害症状愈加明显。地下部主要表现出受抑制作用，抑制效应随外施浓度增大而加重。 5. 牡丹通过自身的生理生化调节机制抵抗Cu胁迫对细胞造成的氧化伤害：低浓度Cu可以刺激抗氧化酶系统SOD和POD 活性升高，高浓度下SOD和 POD活性则显著降低。相同处理条件下‘凤丹’品种的抗铜性要高于‘建始粉’。 6. 本试验未发现外施Cu处理对丹皮中药效成分丹皮酚、芍药苷产生影响。 7. ‘凤丹’及‘建始粉’根系铜富集质量分数均达到超富集植物的要求，因此牡丹可能在重金属Cu污染的环境修复方面存在巨大潜力。

原子吸收光谱测定刺五加中金属元素的含量

用原子吸收光谱法测定了刺五加根、茎、叶中Ca、Cu、Mg、Fe、Zn、K、Mn、Na等8种矿物质元素的含量,并对其结果进行了分析比较,以此研究了这8种金属元素在刺五加体内的分布.结果显示:各元素在实验范围内,线性关系良好,加标回收率在99%-109.6%之间,相对标准偏差为0.2%-1.8%.刺五加中不同部位的这8种元素间存在显著差异,根中Ca>Mg>K>Fe>Na>Mn>Zn>Cu,其叶中的含量以K为高,而且各部位均有较高的Ca、Cu、Mg、Fe、Zn、K、Mn、Na.从微量元素的角度分析,刺五加的根、茎、叶均有一定的应用价值.

原子吸收光谱法测定膜荚黄芪不同器官矿质元素含量

应用混合酸HNO3-HClO4(4∶1)在常压微沸条件下对膜荚黄芪根系及茎叶样品进行消解,采用原子吸收光谱法测定了膜荚黄芪不同器官即根及茎叶中五种人体必需矿质元素K,Fe,Zn,Mn和Cu含量,并对结果进行了统计分析与比较。该方法标准曲线相关系数为0.997 3~0.999 9,加标回收率为92.88%~109.25%,相对标准偏差(RSD,n=5)为0.393 5%~3.175 2%。方法简单,结果可靠。结果显示,膜荚黄芪根及茎叶中5种矿质元素含量顺序均为K>Fe>Zn>Mn>Cu。膜荚黄芪不同器官矿质元素含量不同,根中富含Fe,Zn,Cu元素,根内Fe含量是茎叶的1.54倍。茎叶中也含有丰富的矿质元素,特别是K和Mn元素。茎叶中K含量是根的1.63倍,这与黄芪的药效相符合。试验结果将为研究矿质元素在黄芪植株中的分布以及矿质元素含量与黄芪药效相关性提供理论依据。

Quantificação de metais potencialmente tóxicos em mexilhão dourado (Limnoperna fortunei) por espectrometria de absorção atômica com fonte contínua e alta resolução empregando amostragem direta de sólidos

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Mirror extreme BMI phenotypes associated with gene dosage at the chromosome 16p11.2 locus.

Both obesity and being underweight have been associated with increased mortality. Underweight, defined as a body mass index (BMI) ≤ 18.5 kg per m(2) in adults and ≤ -2 standard deviations from the mean in children, is the main sign of a series of heterogeneous clinical conditions including failure to thrive, feeding and eating disorder and/or anorexia nervosa. In contrast to obesity, few genetic variants underlying these clinical conditions have been reported. We previously showed that hemizygosity of a ∼600-kilobase (kb) region on the short arm of chromosome 16 causes a highly penetrant form of obesity that is often associated with hyperphagia and intellectual disabilities. Here we show that the corresponding reciprocal duplication is associated with being underweight. We identified 138 duplication carriers (including 132 novel cases and 108 unrelated carriers) from individuals clinically referred for developmental or intellectual disabilities (DD/ID) or psychiatric disorders, or recruited from population-based cohorts. These carriers show significantly reduced postnatal weight and BMI. Half of the boys younger than five years are underweight with a probable diagnosis of failure to thrive, whereas adult duplication carriers have an 8.3-fold increased risk of being clinically underweight. We observe a trend towards increased severity in males, as well as a depletion of male carriers among non-medically ascertained cases. These features are associated with an unusually high frequency of selective and restrictive eating behaviours and a significant reduction in head circumference. Each of the observed phenotypes is the converse of one reported in carriers of deletions at this locus. The phenotypes correlate with changes in transcript levels for genes mapping within the duplication but not in flanking regions. The reciprocal impact of these 16p11.2 copy-number variants indicates that severe obesity and being underweight could have mirror aetiologies, possibly through contrasting effects on energy balance.

OFFLINE AND ONLINE SOLID PHASE EXTRACTION/PRECONCENTRATION OF INORGANICS

Solid phase extraction (SPE) is a powerful technique for preconcentration/removal or separation of trace and ultra trace amounts of toxic and nutrient elements. SPE effectively simplifies the labour intensive sample preparation, increase its reliability and eliminate the clean up step by using more selective extraction procedures. The synthesis of sorbents with a simplified procedure and diminution of the risks of errors shows the interest in the areas of environmental monitoring, geochemical exploration, food, agricultural, pharmaceutical, biochemical industry and high purity metal designing, etc. There is no universal SPE method because the sample pretreatment depends strongly on the analytical demand. But there is always an increasing demand for more sensitive, selective, rapid and reliable analytical procedures. Among the various materials, chelate modified naphthalene, activated carbon and chelate functionalized highly cross linked polymers are most important. In the biological and environmental field, large numbers of samples are to be analysed within a short span of time. Hence, online flow injection methods are preferred as they allow extraction, separation, identification and quantification of many numbers of analytes. The flow injection online preconcentration flame AAS procedure developed allows the determination of as low as 0.1 µg/l of nickel in soil and cobalt in human hair samples. The developed procedure is precise and rapid and allows the analysis of 30 samples per hour with a loading time of 60 s. The online FI manifold used in the present study permits high sampling, loading rates and thus resulting in higher preconcentration/enrichment factors of -725 and 600 for cobalt and nickel respectively with a 1 min preconcentration time compared to conventional FAAS signal. These enrichment factors are far superior to hitherto developed on line preconcentration procedures for inorganics. The instrumentation adopted in the present study allows much simpler equipment and low maintenance costs compared to costlier ICP-AES or ICP-MS instruments.

Eficacia del diagnóstico prenatal no invasivo por células fetales libres en sangre materna 1990-2014. Revisión sistemática

ANTECEDENTES: El aislamiento de células fetales libres o ADN fetal en sangre materna abre una ventana de posibilidades diagnósticas no invasivas para patologías monogénicas y cromosómicas, además de permitir la identificación del sexo y del RH fetal. Actualmente existen múltiples estudios que evalúan la eficacia de estos métodos, mostrando resultados costo-efectivos y de menor riesgo que el estándar de oro. Este trabajo describe la evidencia encontrada acerca del diagnóstico prenatal no invasivo luego de realizar una revisión sistemática de la literatura. OBJETIVOS: El objetivo de este estudio fue reunir la evidencia que cumpla con los criterios de búsqueda, en el tema del diagnóstico fetal no invasivo por células fetales libres en sangre materna para determinar su utilidad diagnóstica.  MÉTODOS: Se realizó una revisión sistemática de la literatura con el fin de determinar si el diagnóstico prenatal no invasivo por células fetales libres en sangre materna es efectivo como método de diagnóstico.  RESULTADOS: Se encontraron 5,893 artículos que cumplían con los criterios de búsqueda; 67 cumplieron los criterios de inclusión: 49.3% (33/67) correspondieron a estudios de corte transversal, 38,8% (26/67) a estudios de cohortes y el 11.9% (8/67) a estudios casos y controles. Se obtuvieron resultados de sensibilidad, especificidad y tipo de prueba. CONCLUSIÓN: En la presente revisión sistemática, se evidencia como el diagnóstico prenatal no invasivo es una técnica feasible, reproducible y sensible para el diagnóstico fetal, evitando el riesgo de un diagnóstico invasivo.