Comparative study by computed radiography, histology, and scanning electron microscopy of the articular cartilage of normal goats and in chronic infection with caprine arthritis-encephalitis virus

In the northeast of Brazil, caprine arthritis-encephalitis (CAE) is one of the key reasons for herd productivity decreasing that result in considerable economic losses. A comparative study was carried out using computed radiography (CR), histological analysis (HA), and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) of the joints of CAE infected and normal goats. Humerus head surface of positive animals presented reduced joint space, increased bone density, and signs of degenerative joint disease (DJD). The carpal joint presented no morphological alterations in CR in any of the animals studied. Tarsus joint was the most affected, characterized by severe DJD, absence of joint space, increased periarticular soft tissue density, edema, and bone sclerosis. Histological analysis showed chronic tissue lesions, complete loss of the surface zone, absence of proteoglycans in the transition and radial zones and destruction of the cartilage surface in the CAE positive animals. Analysis by SEM showed ulcerated lesions with irregular and folded patterns on the joint surface that distinguished the limits between areas of normal and affected cartilage. The morphological study of the joints of normal and CAE positive goats deepened understanding of the alteration in the tissue bioarchitecture of the most affected joints. The SEM finding sustained previous histological reports, similar to those found for rheumatoid arthritis, suggesting that the goat infected with CAE can be considered as a potential model for research in this area.

The tale of a person and a peptide: Wylie W. Vale Jr. and the role of corticotropin- releasing factor in the stress response

The studies reviewed in this article certainly do not constitute the entire body of research conducted by Wylie Vale's group and his collaborators, they might constitute turning points in CRF research. In addition, the studies reviewed here show that, over the course of 31 years (from 1981 to 2012), Wylie tirelessly pursued the answers to fundamental questions regarding CRF. He was a man whose drive never seemed to falter

Paracoccidoides brasiliensis 30 kDa adhesin: identification as a 14-3-3 protein, cloning and subcellular localization in infection models

Paracoccidoides brasiliensis adhesion to lung epithelial cells is considered an essential event for the establishment of infection and different proteins participate in this process. One of these proteins is a 30 kDa adhesin, pI 4.9 that was described as a laminin ligand in previous studies, and it was more highly expressed in more virulent P. brasiliensis isolates. This protein may contribute to the virulence of this important fungal pathogen. Using Edman degradation and mass spectrometry analysis, this 30 kDa adhesin was identified as a 14-3-3 protein. These proteins are a conserved group of small acidic proteins involved in a variety of processes in eukaryotic organisms. However, the exact function of these proteins in some processes remains unknown. Thus, the goal of the present study was to characterize the role of this protein during the interaction between the fungus and its host. To achieve this goal, we cloned, expressed the 14-3-3 protein in a heterologous system and determined its subcellular localization in in vitro and in vivo infection models. Immunocytochemical analysis revealed the ubiquitous distribution of this protein in the yeast form of P. brasiliensis, with some concentration in the cytoplasm. Additionally, this 14-3-3 protein was also present in P. brasiliensis cells at the sites of infection in C57BL/6 mice intratracheally infected with P. brasiliensis yeast cells for 72 h (acute infections) and 30 days (chronic infection). An apparent increase in the levels of the 14-3-3 protein in the cell wall of the fungus was also noted during the interaction between P. brasiliensis and A549 cells, suggesting that this protein may be involved in host-parasite interactions, since inhibition assays with the protein and this antibody decreased P. brasiliensis adhesion to A549 epithelial cells. Our data may lead to a better understanding of P. brasiliensis interactions with host tissues and paracoccidioidomycosis pathogenesis.

A control and automation system for wave basins

This paper presents the new active absorption wave basin, named Hydrodynamic Calibrator (HC), constructed at the University of São Paulo (USP), in the Laboratory facilities of the Numerical Offshore Tank (TPN). The square (14 m 14 m) tank is able to generate and absorb waves from 0.5 Hz to 2.0 Hz, by means of 148 active hinged flap wave makers. An independent mechanical system drives each flap by means of a 1HP servo-motor and a ball-screw based transmission system. A customized ultrasonic wave probe is installed in each flap, and is responsible for measuring wave elevation in the flap. A complex automation architecture was implemented, with three Programmable Logic Computers (PLCs), and a low-level software is responsible for all the interlocks and maintenance functions of the tank. Furthermore, all the control algorithms for the generation and absorption are implemented using higher level software (MATLAB /Simulink block diagrams). These algorithms calculate the motions of the wave makers both to generate and absorb the required wave field by taking into account the layout of the flaps and the limits of wave generation. The experimental transfer function that relates the flap amplitude to the wave elevation amplitude is used for the calculation of the motion of each flap. This paper describes the main features of the tank, followed by a detailed presentation of the whole automation system. It includes the measuring devices, signal conditioning, PLC and network architecture, real-time and synchronizing software and motor control loop. Finally, a validation of the whole automation system is presented, by means of the experimental analysis of the transfer function of the waves generated and the calculation of all the delays introduced by the automation system.

Experimental and numerical analysis of dry contact in the pin on disc test

The reduction of friction and wear in systems presenting metal-to-metal contacts, as in several mechanical components, represents a traditional challenge in tribology. In this context, this work presents a computational study based on the linear Archard's wear law and finite element modeling (FEM), in order to analyze unlubricated sliding wear observed in typical pin on disc tests. Such modeling was developed using finite element software Abaqus® with 3-D deformable geometries and elastic–plastic material behavior for the contact surfaces. Archard's wear model was implemented into a FORTRAN user subroutine (UMESHMOTION) in order to describe sliding wear. Modeling of debris and oxide formation mechanisms was taken into account by the use of a global wear coefficient obtained from experimental measurements. Such implementation considers an incremental computation for surface wear based on the nodal displacements by means of adaptive mesh tools that rearrange local nodal positions. In this way, the worn track was obtained and new surface profile is integrated for mass loss assessments. This work also presents experimental pin on disc tests with AISI 4140 pins on rotating AISI H13 discs with normal loads of 10, 35, 70 and 140 N, which represent, respectively, mild, transition and severe wear regimes, at sliding speed of 0.1 m/s. Numerical and experimental results were compared in terms of wear rate and friction coefficient. Furthermore, in the numerical simulation the stress field distribution and changes in the surface profile across the worn track of the disc were analyzed. The applied numerical formulation has shown to be more appropriate to predict mild wear regime than severe regime, especially due to the shorter running-in period observed in lower loads that characterizes this kind of regime.

Altered phenotype and function of dendritic cells in individuals with chronic periodontitis

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of periodontal bacterial lysates on maturation and function of mature monocyte-derived dendritic cells (m-MDDCs) derived from individuals with chronic periodontitis (CP) or healthy periodontal tissue (HP). DESIGN: m-MDDCs derived from peripheral blood monocytes, cultured for 7 days in presence of interleukin (IL)-4 and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), were stimulated with lysates of Streptococcus sanguinis, Prevotella intermedia, Porphyromonas gingivalis, or Treponema denticola on day 4, and were then phenotyped. IL-10, IL-12 and IFN-gamma concentration in the supernatant of cultures were measured. RESULTS: Expression of HLA-DR was lower in bacterial-unstimulated mature m-MDDC from CP compared to HP (p=0.04), while expression of CD1a and CD123 were higher in CP. The expression pattern of HLA-DR, CD11c, CD123, and CD1a did not change on bacterial stimulation, regardless of the bacteria. Stimulation with P. intermedia upregulated CD80 and CD86 in CP cells (p≤0.05). Production of IL-12p70 by bacterial-unstimulated m-MDDCs was 5.8-fold greater in CP compared to HP. Bacterial stimulation further increased IL-12p70 production while decreasing IL-10. Significantly more IFN-gamma was produced in co-cultures of CP m-MDDCs than with HP m-MDDCs when cells were stimulated with P. intermedia (p=0.009). CONCLUSIONS: Bacterial-unstimulated m-MDDC from CP exhibited a more immature phenotype but a cytokine profile biased towards proinflammatory response; this pattern was maintained/exacerbated after bacterial stimulation. P. intermedia upregulated co-stimulatory molecules and IFN-gamma expression in CP m-MDDC. These events might contribute to periodontitis pathogenesis

Evaluation of multitrophic biofiltration system with new algae species and the sea cucumber "Holothuria sanctori"

Máster Oficial en Cultivos Marinos. Trabajo presentado como requisito parcial para la obtención del Título de Máster Oficial en Cultivos Marinos, otorgado por la Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), el Instituto Canario de Ciencias Marinas (ICCM), y el Centro Internacional de Altos Estudios Agronómicos Mediterráneos de Zaragoza (CIHEAM)

Functional components and lipid quality assessment in vegetable foods: analytical and technological approaches

Lipids are important components that contribute very significantly to nutritional and technological quality of foods because they are the least stable macro-components in foods, due to high susceptibility to oxidation. When rancidity take place, it makes food unhealthy and unacceptable for consumers. Thus, the presence of antioxidants, naturally present of added to foods, is required to enhance shelf life of foods. Moreover, antioxidant like phenolic compounds play an important role in human health enhancing the functionality of foods. The aim of this PhD project was the study of lipid quality and lipid oxidation in different vegetable foods focusing on analytical and technological aspects in order to figure out the effects of lipid composition and bioactive compounds (phenolic compounds, omega-3 fatty acids and dietary fiber) addition on their shelf life. In addition, bioavailability and antioxidant effects of phenolic compounds in human and animals, respectively, were evaluated after consumption of vegetable foods. The first section of the work was focused on the evaluation of lipid quality impact on technological behaviour of vegetable foods. Because of that, cocoa butter with different melting point were evaluated by chromatographic techniques (GC, TLC) and the sample with the higher melting point showed the presence of fatty acids, triglycerides, 2-monoglycerides and FT-IR profile different from genuine cocoa butter, meaning an adding of foreign fat (lauric-fat) not allowed by the law. Looking at lipid quality of other vegetable foods, an accelerated shelf life test (OXITEST®), was used to evaluate of lipid stability to oxidation in tarallini snacks made up using different lipid matrices (sunflower oil, extravirgin olive oil and a blend of extravirgin olive oil and lard). The results showed a good ability of OXITEST® to discriminate between lipid unsaturation and different cooking times, without any samples fat extraction. In the second section, the role of bioactive compounds on cereal based food shelf life was studied in different bakeries by GC, spectrophotometric methods and capillary electrophoresis. It was examined the relationships between phenolic compounds, added with flour, and lipid oxidation of tarallini and frollini. Both products showed an increase in lipid oxidation during storage and antioxidant effects on lipid oxidation were not as expected. Furthermore, the influence of enrichment in polyunsaturated fatty acids on lipid oxidation of pasta was evaluated. The results proved that LC n-3 PUFA were not significantly implicated in the onset of oxidation in spaghetti stored under daylight and accelerated oxidation in a laboratory heater. The importance of phenolic compounds as antioxidant in humans and rats was also studied, by HPLC/MS in the latter section. For this purpose, apigenin and apigenin glycosides excretion was investigated in six women’s urine in a 24 hours study. After a single dose of steamed artichokes, both aglicone and glucuronide metabolites were recovered in 24 h urine. Moreover, the effect of whole grain durum wheat bread and whole grain Kamut® khorasan bread in rats were evaluated. Both cereals were good sources of antioxidants but Kamut® bread fed animals had a better response to stress than wheat durum fed, especially when a sourdough bread was supplied.

Food waste along the supply chain. An analysis of nowadays food supply chain challenges in the italian and english contexts

Scopo. Lo scopo di questo studio è esaminare il problema degli sprechi nelle moderne food supply chain, così da consentire una piena comprensione delle principali cause di inefficienza sistemica nell’industria alimentare e individuare potenziali opportunità di miglioramento. Approccio e Metodologia. Per raggiungere gli obiettivi prefissati la presente trattazione si propone di implementare una ricerca empirica basata sull’analisi di due realtà industriali operanti nel settore alimentare. Nello specifico verranno studiate due aziende integrate rispettivamente nel contesto economico italiano e in quello inglese e operanti a due stadi diversi e complementari della filiera alimentare, quello della produzione e quello della distribuzione. Questo studio incrociato consentirà, auspicabilmente, di portare alla luce quegli elementi chiave necessari per una lettura chiara ed esaustiva delle maggiori sfide che le moderne supply chain si trovano a dover affrontare, in una prospettiva di minimizzazione degli sprechi e di accrescimento del valore per il consumatore. Risultati. I risultati che si prevede di ottenere dall’implementazione di questo studio sono fondamentalmente quattro: 1.Piena comprensione del concetto di spreco nell’industria alimentare. 2.Identificazione dei principali fattori chiave che dovrebbero essere attentamente monitorati con lo scopo di conseguire un’efficace riduzione degli sprechi lungo la filiera alimentare. 3.Analisi critica di quelle che sono le più utilizzate pratiche manageriali e operative nelle moderne aziende alimentari. 4.Individuazione dei potenziali sviluppi che potrebbero essere implementati attraverso l’utilizzo delle più recenti ICT in termini di efficienza della supply chain. Valore della Ricerca. Seppure mediante un’analisi prevalentemente di tipo qualitativo, questa trattazione si prefigge di fornire un contributo nell’ambito del food supply chain management che, data la rilevanza del problema relativo agli sprechi, risulta oggi più attuale che mai. L’originalità di questo studio risiede principalmente nelle fonti dei dati che ne hanno costituito le fondamenta: da un lato la ricerca teorica sviluppata nel Regno Unito, dove lo studio della supply chain è ormai da decenni approfondito nelle più importanti Università; dall’altro la ricerca empirica sviluppata sia presso una delle più importanti e moderne aziende alimentari italiane, che presso uno dei più famosi logistics service provider a livello mondiale.

Skin tissue engineering: medical problems and technological solutions.

In questo elaborato si affrontano problematiche cliniche legate ai traumi gravi della cute in cui è necessario intervenire chirurgicamente per ripristinare una situazione normale: si approfondisce lo studio della fisiologia del tessuto, la classificazione dei gradi delle ustioni della pelle, la guarigione delle ferite e la meccanica della cute. Il trapianto di tessuto autologo costituisce la soluzione più efficace e con minori complicazioni. Tuttavia il paziente potrebbe non presentare una superficie di cute disponibile sufficientemente estesa, per cui si ricorre ad altri metodi. In primo luogo, si effettuano degli allotrapianti di tessuto di donatore cadavere prelevati secondo le normative vigenti e conservati attraverso le varie tecniche, il cui sviluppo ha consentito una durata di conservazione maggiore; mentre la glicerolizzazione abbatte al 100% il rischio di trasmissione di patologie e lo sviluppo di microorganismi, la crioconservazione preserva la vitalità del tessuto. La chirurgia utilizzata per queste operazioni si avvale di tecnologie innovative come la Tecnologia a Pressione Negativa. Un'alternativa necessaria per sopperire all'ingente richiesta di tessuto di donatore sono i sostituti cutanei, che presentano un grande potenziale per il futuro. Per eliminare totalmente il rischio di rigetto sarebbe necessario personalizzare il costrutto utilizzando cellule autologhe, ma la ricerca è stata rallentata da minori investimenti da parte dell'industria biomedica, che si è maggiormente focalizzata sulla realizzazione di prodotti utilizzabili da un più ampio raggio di pazienti. Per queste ragioni, l'ingegneria tissutale della cute ha trovato più ampio campo di applicazione nel sistema dei test in vitro. A tale scopo sono stati creati dei protocolli certificati per testare la corrosività, la irritabilità e la vitalità del tessuto cutaneo, quali EpiDerm, EpiSkin e SkinEthic che si avvalgono dell'uso del metodo MMT e della spettrofotometria, che è diventata un supporto fondamentale per le scienze biologiche.

Enhancing Workers’ Well-Being. Scientific and social relevance of managing stress in the workplace

Purpose. Despite work-related stress is one of the most studied topic in organizational psychology, many aspects as for example the use of different measures (e.g. subjective and objective, qualitative and quantitative) are still under debate. According to this, in order to enhance knowledge concerning which factors and processes contribute to create healthy workplaces, this thesis is composed by four different studies aiming to understand: a) the role of relevant antecedents (e.g. leadership, job demands, work-family conflict, social support etc.) and outcomes (e.g. workplace phobia, absenteeism etc.) of work-related stress; and b) how to manage psychosocial risk factors in the workplace. The studies. The first study focused on how disagreement between supervisors and their employees on leadership style (transformational and transactional) could affect workers well-being and work team variables. The second and third study used both subjective and objective data in order to increase the quality of the reliability of the results gained. Particularly, the second study focused on job demand and its relationship with objective sickness leave. Findings showed that despite there is no direct relationship between these two variables, job demand affects work-family conflict, which in turn affect exhaustion, which leads to absenteeism. The third study analysed the role of a new concept never studied before in organizational settings (workplace phobia), as a health outcome in the JD-R model, demonstrating also its relationship with absenteeism. The last study highlighted the added value of using the mixed methods research approach in order to detect and analyse context-specific job demands which could affects workers’ health. Conclusion. The findings of this thesis answered both to open questions in the scientific literature and to the social request of managing psychosocial risk factors in the workplace in order to enhance workers well-being.

Computer-assisted liver surgery: clinical applications and technological trends

Oncological liver surgery and interventions aim for removal of tumor tissue while preserving a sufficient amount of functional tissue to ensure organ regeneration. This requires detailed understanding of the patient-specific internal organ anatomy (blood vessel system, bile ducts, tumor location). The introduction of computer support in the surgical process enhances anatomical orientation through patient-specific 3D visualization and enables precise reproduction of planned surgical strategies though stereotactic navigation technology. This article provides clinical background information on indications and techniques for the treatment of liver tumors, reviews the technological contributions addressing the problem of organ motion during navigated surgery on a deforming organ, and finally presents an overview of the clinical experience in computer-assisted liver surgery and interventions. The review concludes that several clinically applicable solutions for computer aided liver surgery are available and small-scale clinical trials have been performed. Further developments will be required more accurate and faster handling of organ deformation and large clinical studies will be required for demonstrating the benefits of computer aided liver surgery.

Recommendations for the management of patients with obstructive sleep apnoea and hypertension

This article is aimed at addressing the current state-of-the-art in epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnostic procedures and treatment options for appropriate management of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) in cardiovascular (in particular hypertensive) patients, as well as for the management of cardiovascular diseases (in particular arterial hypertension) in OSA patients. The present document is the result of work performed by a panel of experts participating in the European Union COST (Cooperation in Scientific and Technological research) Action B26 on OSA, with the endorsement of the European Respiratory Society and the European Society of Hypertension. In particular, these recommendations are aimed at reminding cardiovascular experts to consider the occurrence of sleep-related breathing disorders in patients with high blood pressure. They are also aimed at reminding respiration experts to consider the occurrence of hypertension in patients with respiratory problems at night.

Ethnosciences - A step towards the integration of scientific and non-scientific forms of knowledge in the management of natural resources for the future

Integration of indigenous knowledge and ethnoscientific approaches into contemporary frameworks for conservation and sustainable management of natural resources will become increasingly important in policies on an international and national level. We set the scene on how this can be done by exploring the key conditions and dimensions of a dialogue between ‘ontologies’ and the roles, which ethnosciences could play in this process. First, the roles which ethnosciences in the context of sustainable development were analysed, placing emphasis on the implications arising when western sciences aspire to relate to indigenous forms of knowledge. Secondly, the contributions of ethnosciences to such an ‘inter-ontological dialogue’ were explored, based on an ethnoecological study of the encounter of sciences and indigenous knowledge in the Andes of Bolivia, and reviewed experiences from mangrove systems in Kenya, India and Sri Lanka, and from case-studies in other ecosystems world-wide.