Neonatally induced mild diabetes: influence on development, behavior and reproductive function of female Wistar rats

Abstract Background Neonatal STZ treatment induces a state of mild hyperglycemia in adult rats that disrupts metabolism and maternal/fetal interactions. The aim of this study was investigate the effect of neonatal STZ treatment on the physical development, behavior, and reproductive function of female Wistar rats from infancy to adulthood. Methods At birth, litters were assigned either to a Control (subcutaneous (s.c.) citrate buffer, n = 10) or STZ group, (streptozotocin (STZ) - 100 mg/kg-sc, n = 6). Blood glucose levels were measured on postnatal days (PND) 35, 84 and 120. In Experiment 1 body weight, length and the appearance of developmental milestones such as eye and vaginal opening were monitored. To assess the relative contribution of the initial and long term effects of STZ treatment this group was subdivided based on blood glucose levels recorded on PND 120: STZ hyperglycemic (between 120 and 300 mg/dl) and STZ normoglycemic (under 120 mg/dl). Behavioral activity was assessed in an open field on PND 21 and 75. In Experiment 2 estrous cyclicity, sexual behavior and circulating gonadotropin, ovarian steroid, and insulin levels were compared between control and STZ-hyperglycemic rats. In all measures the litter was the experimental unit. Parametric data were analyzed using one-way or, where appropriate, two-way ANOVA and significant effects were investigated using Tukey’s post hoc test. Fisher’s exact test was employed when data did not satisfy the assumption of normality e.g. presence of urine and fecal boli on the open field between groups. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05 for all data. Results As expected neonatal STZ treatment caused hyperglycemia and hypoinsulinemia in adulthood. STZ-treated pups also showed a temporary reduction in growth rate that probably reflected the early loss of circulating insulin. Hyperglycemic rats also exhibited a reduction in locomotor and exploratory behavior in the open field. Mild hyperglycemia did not impair gonadotropin levels or estrous cylicity but ovarian steroid concentrations were altered. Conclusions In female Wistar rats, neonatal STZ treatment impairs growth in infancy and results in mild hyperglycemia/hypoinsulinemia in adulthood that is associated with changes in the response to a novel environment and altered ovarian steroid hormone levels.

A comparative study on the anti-inflammatory effects of single oral doses of naproxen and its hydrogen sulfide (H2S)-releasing derivative ATB-346 in rats with carrageenan-induced synovitis

Abstract Background Non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are the most commonly prescribed agents for arthritic patients, although gastric effects limit their long-term use. Considering the reported gastric safety of hydrogen sulfide (H2S)-releasing NSAIDs, in addition to the anti-inflammatory effects of H2S administration to rats with synovitis, we decided to evaluate the effects of the H2S-releasing naproxen derivative ATB-346 in this animal model. Methods Male Wistar rats were anesthetized with inhalatory halothane and pre-treated with equimolar oral doses of either naproxen (0.3, 1, 3 or 10 mg/kg) or ATB-346 (0.48, 1.6, 4.8, or 16 mg/kg) 30 min before the i.art. injection of 7.5 mg of carrageenan (CGN) into the right knee joint cavity. Joint swelling and pain score were assessed after 1, 3 and 5 h, and tactile allodynia after 2 and 4 h. After the last measurement, the joint cavity lavages were performed for counting of the recruited leukocytes. The drugs (at the highest doses) were also tested for their gastric effects by evaluating macroscopical damage score and neutrophil recruitment (measured as myeloperoxidase – MPO activity) in the stomachs 5 h after administration of the drugs. In addition, the serum naproxen pharmacokinetic profiles of both compounds, administered at the highest equimolar doses, were obtained during the first 6 h after dosing. Results At the two highest tested doses, both naproxen and ATB-346 reduced edema and pain score (measured 3 and 5 h after CGN; P < 0.001). Tactile allodynia was similarly inhibited by ~45% 4 h after CGN by both naproxen (at 1, 3 and 10 mg/kg) and ATB-346 (at 1.6 and 4.8 mg/kg; P < 0.001), as well as leukocyte infiltration. Naproxen (but not ATB-346) induced significant gastric damage and, despite the increased gastric MPO activity by ~130% in the naproxen-, but not in the ATB-346-treated rats, this effect was of no statistical significance. Conclusion The presence of a H2S-releasing moiety in the ATB-346 structure does not impair the antiinflammatory activity of the parent compound in rats with CGN-induced synovitis. In addition, released H2S may account for the absence of deleterious gastric effects, thus making of ATB-346 a potentially useful therapeutic alternative to traditional naproxen for treatment of patients with arthritis.

The changing politics of preference formation in international trade negotiations: the European Union in the Doha Round

This research seeks to provide an explanation for variations of “politics” of preference formation in international trade negotiations. Building on the ‘policy determines politics’ argument, I hypothesize the existence of a causal relationship between issue-characteristics and their variations with politics dynamics and their variations. More specifically, this study seeks to integrate into a single analytical framework two dimensions along which variations in the “politics of preference formation” can be organized: configurations of power relationships among the relevant actors in the structures within which they interact as well as the logic and the motivations of the actors involved in the policy making process. To do so, I first construct a four-cell typology of ‘politics of preference formation’ and, then, I proceed by specifying that the type of state-society configurations as well as the type of actors’ motivations in the “politics of preference formation” depend, respectively, on the degree to which a policy issue is perceived as politically salient and on the extent to which the distributional implications of such an issue can be calculated by the relevant stakeholders in the policy making process. The empirical yardstick against which the validity of the theoretical argument proposed is tested is drawn from evidence concerning the European Union’s negotiating strategy in four negotiating areas in the context of the so-called WTO’s Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiations: agriculture, competition, environment and technical assistance and capacity building.

Architectures for Context Aware Services in Smart Environments

This thesis deals with Context Aware Services, Smart Environments, Context Management and solutions for Devices and Service Interoperability. Multi-vendor devices offer an increasing number of services and end-user applications that base their value on the ability to exploit the information originating from the surrounding environment by means of an increasing number of embedded sensors, e.g. GPS, compass, RFID readers, cameras and so on. However, usually such devices are not able to exchange information because of the lack of a shared data storage and common information exchange methods. A large number of standards and domain specific building blocks are available and are heavily used in today's products. However, the use of these solutions based on ready-to-use modules is not without problems. The integration and cooperation of different kinds of modules can be daunting because of growing complexity and dependency. In this scenarios it might be interesting to have an infrastructure that makes the coexistence of multi-vendor devices easy, while enabling low cost development and smooth access to services. This sort of technologies glue should reduce both software and hardware integration costs by removing the trouble of interoperability. The result should also lead to faster and simplified design, development and, deployment of cross-domain applications. This thesis is mainly focused on SW architectures supporting context aware service providers especially on the following subjects: - user preferences service adaptation - context management - content management - information interoperability - multivendor device interoperability - communication and connectivity interoperability Experimental activities were carried out in several domains including Cultural Heritage, indoor and personal smart spaces – all of which are considered significant test-beds in Context Aware Computing. The work evolved within european and national projects: on the europen side, I carried out my research activity within EPOCH, the FP6 Network of Excellence on “Processing Open Cultural Heritage” and within SOFIA, a project of the ARTEMIS JU on embedded systems. I worked in cooperation with several international establishments, including the University of Kent, VTT (the Technical Reserarch Center of Finland) and Eurotech. On the national side I contributed to a one-to-one research contract between ARCES and Telecom Italia. The first part of the thesis is focused on problem statement and related work and addresses interoperability issues and related architecture components. The second part is focused on specific architectures and frameworks: - MobiComp: a context management framework that I used in cultural heritage applications - CAB: a context, preference and profile based application broker which I designed within EPOCH Network of Excellence - M3: "Semantic Web based" information sharing infrastructure for smart spaces designed by Nokia within the European project SOFIA - NoTa: a service and transport independent connectivity framework - OSGi: the well known Java based service support framework The final section is dedicated to the middleware, the tools and, the SW agents developed during my Doctorate time to support context-aware services in smart environments.

The Alliance for Progress and Housing Policy in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires in the 1960s

This article explores the construction of publicly financed low-income housing complexes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the 1960s. These housing developments were possible thanks to the arrival of foreign economic and technical assistance from the Alliance for Progress. Urban scholars, politicians, diplomats and urbanists of the Americas sought to promote middle-class habits, mass consumption and moderate political behaviour, especially among the poor, by expanding access to homeownership and ‘decent’ living conditions for a burgeoning urban population. As a result, the history of low-income housing should be understood within broader transnational discourses and practices about the ‘modernization’ and ‘development’ of the urban poor.

Capacity building in the use of geospatial tools for natural resource management in Tajikistan: Final Report

The Swiss Swiss Consultant Trust Fund (CTF) support covered the period from July to December 2007 and comprised four main tasks: (1) Analysis of historic land degradation trends in the four watersheds of Zerafshan, Surkhob, Toirsu, and Vanj; (2) Translation of standard CDE GIS training materials into Russian and Tajik to enable local government staff and other specialists to use geospatial data and tools; (3) Demonstration of geospatial tools that show land degradation trends associated with land use and vegetative cover data in the project areas, (4) Preliminary training of government staff in using appropriate data, including existing information, global datasets, inexpensive satellite imagery and other datasets and webbased visualization tools like spatial data viewers, etc. The project allowed building of local awareness of, and skills in, up-to-date, inexpensive, easy-to-use GIS technologies, data sources, and applications relevant to natural resource management and especially to sustainable land management. In addition to supporting the implementation of the World Bank technical assistance activity to build capacity in the use of geospatial tools for natural resource management, the Swiss CTF support also aimed at complementing the Bank supervision work on the ongoing Community Agriculture and Watershed Management Project (CAWMP).

Avances metodológicos del proceso de adopción de los Planes de Ordenamiento de segunda generación frente a los vacios jurídicos de la Legislación Colombiana en materia de Ordenamiento Territorial a la luz del P.O.T. Armenia 2007/2019 “Una Ciudad para la Vida"

Las nuevas realidades territoriales, bajo el innovador panorama constitucional colombiano, requieren de procesos de planificación coherentes, ajustados a las necesidades reales de desarrollo de nuestras sociedades en constante crecimiento. Se requieren acciones inmediatas y contundentes de fortalecimiento, asistencia técnica, desarrollo institucional e implementación de instrumentos de Gestión y financiación del suelo, para responder a la insuficiente capacidad de los entes territoriales para asumir con responsabilidad la formulación e implementación de los instrumentos de planificación y ordenamiento territorial planteados por la ley y la normatividad urbanística vigente. Dicha normatividad, dada su falta de reglamentación y regulación, hace compleja su aplicación en pequeñas y medianas ciudades, debido a la deficiente capacidad operativa y ejecutoria que tienen sus administraciones. El 24 de enero de 1999 el Concejo Municipal de Armenia aprobaba el primer plan de ordenamiento territorial para un municipio Colombiano bajo el marco de la Ley de Desarrollo Territorial 388 de 1997. Veinticuatro horas después se produce un sismo de 6.4 grados (Richter) con epicentro a 24 kilómetros de distancia, generando devastadoras consecuencias en toda la región del eje cafetero, tanto en lo físico como en lo social: “Cuando teníamos las respuestas… cambiaron las preguntas". Las nuevas determinantes territoriales generadas como efecto de la tragedia pondrían el proceso de implementación del plan en un escenario complejo y contradictorio. A pesar de que el concepto de gestión del riesgo había sido abordado por el P.O.T., las realidades del desastre superaban la expectativa planificadora, desbordando cualquier escala de ejecutabilidad de la norma recientemente aprobada. El equipo de formulación del nuevo plan, bajo la coordinación del D.A.P.M. y con apoyo de la academia identificó de manera inmediata la complejidad del proceso. Además, realizó aportes que permitieran a los demás municipios Colombianos evitar cometer los mismos errores, superar los obstáculos, agilizar procesos particulares de planificación territorial y dotar así a sus municipios de unos Planes de Ordenamiento mas aterrizados, realizables y sobretodo mas consecuentes con las necesidades particulares de sus municipios.

Classification criteria and commercial profile re-definition of the Family Farm Agriculture in Chile, Maule region

In Chile, small-scale farmers are classified according to old approaches from 1993 that do not include changes occurred in the last two decades. Maule is the region with most rural population in Chile which represents a significant stratum for development, innovation and competitiveness. This study explores a new approach of small-scale farmers -associated with Family Farm Agriculture (AFC) - classification in Chile and it describes a commercial profile or AFC-1 for famers of the Maule Region. A Cluster analysis to determine AFC-1 farmers is used. The analysis includes four association variables: Total Assets, Farm Income, Production Costs and Management Indicators. The results suggest that 16.4% of the farmers have a commercial profile and they could stay out support provided by the National Institute for Agricultural Development (INDAP). This group of farmers would not belong to AFC in short terms. This fact could bring restriction to AFC-1 farmers such as lack of credit access, less investment incentives and technical assistance. Thus, it would expect low process of technology adoption and welfare improvement. New agrarian policies must be warranted to support this important group of famers with a commercial profile.

Essential elements of postabortion care: origins, evolution and future directions

In this comment, we chronicle the development and expansion of a postabortion care model designed to promote interventions that address abortion-related public health concerns even when abortion laws and policies are restrictive. We review years of program experience with the original model, which led to the development of an expanded and updated model, Essential Elements of Postabortion Care (PAC). Implementing the model challenges global public health leaders, donors, technical assistance agencies and ministries of health to work with communities to ensure that all women who want to prevent or space pregnancies can obtain contraceptive services; that all women have access to services to manage complications from abortion, whether induced or spontaneous; and that all women receiving treatment also receive counseling and the reproductive and other health services they need at the treatment visit, as well as follow-up care and contraceptive resupply

Territorio y extensión universitaria. Una experiencia de organización social en el Parque Pereyra Iraola

El trabajo que aquí se presenta recupera la experiencia de organización social y extensión que universitarios, militantes y técnicos rurales viene desarrollando en el Parque Pereyra Iraola desde el año 2001 junto a un grupo de 40 familias, como una estrategia de respuesta a la crisis. Se propone entender el proceso de transformación en la toma de posición territorial de los quinteros como un sistema de relaciones complejo entre la posición social de los productores, la irregularidad en la forma de tenencia de la tierra, la resistencia espontánea al desalojo, el posicionamiento de los extensionistas rurales que brindan asistencia técnica y la estrategia de conversión a la producción sin agrotóxicos.

Territorio y extensión universitaria. Una experiencia de organización social en el Parque Pereyra Iraola

El trabajo que aquí se presenta recupera la experiencia de organización social y extensión que universitarios, militantes y técnicos rurales viene desarrollando en el Parque Pereyra Iraola desde el año 2001 junto a un grupo de 40 familias, como una estrategia de respuesta a la crisis. Se propone entender el proceso de transformación en la toma de posición territorial de los quinteros como un sistema de relaciones complejo entre la posición social de los productores, la irregularidad en la forma de tenencia de la tierra, la resistencia espontánea al desalojo, el posicionamiento de los extensionistas rurales que brindan asistencia técnica y la estrategia de conversión a la producción sin agrotóxicos.

Territorio y extensión universitaria. Una experiencia de organización social en el Parque Pereyra Iraola

El trabajo que aquí se presenta recupera la experiencia de organización social y extensión que universitarios, militantes y técnicos rurales viene desarrollando en el Parque Pereyra Iraola desde el año 2001 junto a un grupo de 40 familias, como una estrategia de respuesta a la crisis. Se propone entender el proceso de transformación en la toma de posición territorial de los quinteros como un sistema de relaciones complejo entre la posición social de los productores, la irregularidad en la forma de tenencia de la tierra, la resistencia espontánea al desalojo, el posicionamiento de los extensionistas rurales que brindan asistencia técnica y la estrategia de conversión a la producción sin agrotóxicos.