Funcionalidade dos extratos fenólicos obtidos pelo cultivo semi-sólido de resíduos de abacaxi (Ananas comusus L.) e goiaba (Psidium guajava L.)

Solid substrate cultivation (SSC) has become an efficient alternative towards rational use of agro industrial wastes and production of value-added products, mainly in developing countries. This work presents the production and functional application results of phenolic extracts obtained by solid substrate cultivation of pineapple (Ananas comosus L.) and guava (Psidium guajava L.) residues associated to soy flour and bioprocessed by Rhizopus oligosporus fungus. Two experimental groups were tested: (1) 9g of fruit residue and 1g of soy flour (A9 or G9); (2) 5g of fruit residue and 5g of soy flour (A5 or G5). After SSC, 100ml of distilled water was added to each Erlenmeyer flask containing 10g of bioprocessed material in order to obtain the phenolic extracts. Samples were taken every two days for total phenolic concentration (TPC) and antioxidant capacity evaluation by DPPH test during 12-day cultivation. The 2-day and 10-d ay extracts were selected and concentrated by ebullition until 1/10 of original volume was reached. After that, both non-concentrated and concentrated extracts were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella enterica and a-amylase inhibitory capacity. It was observed an inverse relationship between total phenolic concentration (TPC) and antioxidant capacity during the cultivation. Besides that, the concentrated pineapple samples after two days were able to inhibit both pathogens tested, especially S. aureus. Guava concentrated extracts after 2 days showed expressive inhibition against S. enterica, but negative results against S. aureus growth. When it comes to a-amylase inhibition, A9 extracts after 2 days, both concentrated or not, completely inhibited enzyme activity. Similar behavior was observed for G9 samples, but only for concentrated samples. It was shown that concentration by ebullition positively affected the enzymatic inhibition of G9 and A9 samples, but on the other side, decreased antiamylase activity of A5 and G5 samples

Efeito de variáveis de processo no tempo de fermentação e na concentração das dicetonas vicinais totais

Among the main challenges in the beer industrial production is the market supply at the lowest cost and high quality, in order to ensure the expectations of customers and. consumers The beer fermentation stage represents approximately 70% of the whole time necessary to its production, having a obligatoriness of strict process controls to avoid becoming bottleneck in beer production. This stage is responsible for the formation of a series of subproducts, which are responsible for the composition of aroma/bouquet existing in beer and some of these subproducts, if produced in larger quantities, they will confer unpleasant taste and odor to the final product. Among the subproducts formed during the fermentation stage, total vicinal diketones is the main component, since it is limiting for product transfusion to the subsequent steps, besides having a low perception threshold by the consumer and giving undesirable taste and odor. Due to the instability of main raw materials quality and also process controls during fermentation, the development of alternative forms of beer production without impacting on total fermentation time and final product quality is a great challenge to breweries. In this work, a prior acidification of the pasty yeast was carried out, utilizing for that phosphoric acid, food grade, reducing yeast pH of about 5.30 to 2.20 and altering its characteristic from flocculent to pulverulent during beer fermentation. An increase of six times was observed in amount of yeast cells in suspension in the second fermentation stage regarding to fermentations by yeast with no prior acidification. With alteration on two input variables, temperature curve and cell multiplication, which goal was to minimize the maximum values for diketones detected in the fermenter tank, a reduction was obtained from peak of formed diacetyl and consequently contributed to reduction in fermentation time and total process time. Several experiments were performed with those process changes in order to verify the influence on the total fermentation time and total vicinal diketones concentration at the end of fermentation. This experiment reached as the best production result a total fermentation time of 151 hours and total vicinal diketone concentration of 0.08 ppm. The mass of yeast in suspension in the second phase of fermentation increased from 2.45 x 106 to 16.38 x 106 cells/mL of yeast, which fact is key to a greater efficiency in reducing total vicinal diketones existing in the medium, confirming that the prior yeast acidification, as well as the control of temperature and yeast cell multiplication in fermentative process enhances the performance of diketones reduction and consequently reduce the total fermentation time with diketones concentration below the expected value (Max: 0.10 ppm)

Integração dos processos de flotação e foto-fenton para redução de óleos e graxas de água produzida em campos de petróleo

During production of oil and gas, there is also the production of an aqueous effluent called produced water. This byproduct has in its composition salts, organic compounds, gases and heavy metals. This research aimed to evaluate the integration of processes Induced Air Flotation (IAF) and photo-Fenton for reducing the Total Oils and Greases (TOG) present in produced water. Experiments were performed with synthetic wastewater prepared from the dispersion of crude oil in saline solution. The system was stirred for 25 min at 33,000 rpm and then allowed to stand for 50 min to allow free oil separation. The initial oil concentration in synthetic wastewater was 300 ppm and 35 ppm for the flotation and the photo-Fenton steps, respectively. These values of initial oil concentration were established based on average values of primary processing units in Potiguar Basin. The processes were studied individually and then the integration was performed considering the best experimental conditions found in each individual step. The separation by flotation showed high removal rate of oil with first-order kinetic behavior. The flotation kinetics was dependent on both the concentration and the hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB) of the surfactant. The best result was obtained for the concentration of 4.06.10-3 mM (k = 0.7719 min-1) of surfactant EO 2, which represents 86% of reduction in TOG after 4 min. For series of surfactants evaluated, the separation efficiency was found to be improved by the use of surfactants with low HLB. Regarding the TOG reduction step by photo-Fenton, the largest oil removal reached was 84% after 45 min of reaction, using 0.44 mM and 10 mM of ferrous ions and hydrogen peroxide, respectively. The best experimental conditions encountered in the integrated process was 10 min of flotation followed by 45 min of photo-Fenton with overall TOG reduction of 99%, which represents 5 ppm of TOG in the treated effluent. The integration of processes flotation and photo-Fenton proved to be highly effective in reducing TOG of produced water in oilfields

Essa marca de suor numa canção: o processo de redução estrutural na poesia de Zila Mamede

Die Beziehung zwischen Literatur und Gesellschaft wurden, im Laufe der Jahrhunderte, aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven analysiert. Die Wissenschaftler analysieren manchmal die Aspekten der sozialen Realität, sie betonen manchmal die Natur der literarischen Werk. Wir glauben, dass Antonio Candido einen Gleichgewichtszustand erreicht, als er das Konzept der strukturellen Reduktion oder Formalisierung entwickelt. Nämlich, der Prozess, bei dem die menschliche und soziale Leben zu einem Bestandteil der literarischen Struktur wird. Der Autor tritt eine Einbahnstraße und er kann Daten aus der sozialen Ordnung aufholen, ohne dabei die Materialität des Textes den Augen verlieren. Und das sind die theoretische Annahmen, die die Entwicklung dieser Arbeit leiten. Wir wollen zu zeigen, dass die Struktur der mamediana Lyrik aufdeckt, signifikante Daten der Gesellschaft, in der der Autore eingefügt wurde enthüllt. Folglich, wir analysieren soziale Thema, das sein Werk durchzieht. Zuerst, wir untersuchen, wie Zila Mamede den Alltag der Gesellschaft vertreten. Von der strukturellen Organisation der Gedichte, wir erkennen, das die Episode aus kleiner Städte ein Akt des Widerstands gegen die fragmentierte Profil der kapitalistischen Gesellschaf sind. Das ist, warum sie doch eng mit der Idee der Tradition erscheinen. Die dichotome Beziehung zwischen den regionalen Daten und der Element der Modernisierung etabliert, sie wird durch die Organisation des Raumes verstärkt. Während die Stadt bei konkrete gesellschaftliche Ordnung Spitzenbeträge verweist, hat die Landschaft eine harmonische und warme Form. Allgemeinen, die moderne Stadt von Zila Mamede geformt, ist eine Abbild der Industriegesellschaft. Die Bilder die Landschaft sind ein Gegenmittel gegen die Feindseligkeiten Merkmale der neuen urbanen Zustand. So, die Landschaft hat die Funktion von Umstrukturierung der Persönlichkeit des Einzelnen durch die Erfahrung der großen Städte betroffen verdinglichenden. Der Konflikt, der durch das lyrische mamediana läuft, sind Reflexionen des Prozesses der Modernisierung der Stadt Natal, ihres eigenen Landes die politische Instabilität, sie durch verschiedene staatliche Programme ging, während Der Autor seine literarische Tätigkeit verfolgt

Padrões cariotípicos em tetraodontiformes (Osteichthypes) :redução genômica e mecanismos de diversificação

The Tetraodontiformes order is composed for about 400 species of fish, distributed in ten families, with circuntropical distribution. The morphologic diversity of each family reflects in, part, the different levels of specialization. This group represents an ancestry after-Perciformes and constitutes the last branch of the diffusion of the Teleósteos, occupying a position of prominence. The phylogenetics relationships of the Tetraodontiformes exist diverse works examining and, in all, these families are recognized as groups brothers, being Diodontidae next to Tetraodontidae and Balistidae next to Monacanthidae. Although it possesss a representative number of species, the works involving of the families Balistidae and Monacanthidae are few exemplary, especially species of oceanic islands. In this work cytogenetic studies in five species had been analyzed Cantherhines macrocerus, Cantherhines pullus (Monacanthidae), Melichthys niger (Balistidae), Sphoeroides testudíneus (Tetraodontidae) and Chilomycterus antennatus (Diodontidae); through conventional coloration, Ag-NORs and C banding. Ahead of the different karyological trends of evolution presented by the Tetraodontiformes, the present work also searched to verify the relation existence enters the total size of the chromosomes with the amount of DNA in these groups of Tetraodontiformes. For such, they had been correlated the total size of the chromosomes of these species, with values of content of available DNA in literature. The cytogenetics analyses for the species C.macrocerusJ C.pullus (Monacanthidae) and M.niger (Balistidae), had disclosed 40 chromosomes, all acrocentrics. All possess only one pair of NORs and pericentromeric heterochromatin. For S.testudíneus the found dyploid number was equal 2n=46, with NF=78 (16m+18sm+8st+4a), while that for C.antennatus it possesss 2n=50, with NF=76 (4m+22st+24a). Both species possess simple NORs and pericentromeric heterochromatin blocks. In M.niger, the presence of positive marking (heterochromatin and NOR) in the secondary constriction in the second chromosomic pair suggesting the occurrence of a rearrangement, possibly a fusing involving these homologous ones, indicating that these events had been important for the establishment of the karyological history of this group. A maintenance of the chromosomic constancy found in the populations of C.macrocerus (Monacanthidae) and S.testudineus (Tetraodontidae) perhaps if must for the aiding of the gene flow through oceanic chains. These data contrast with the differentiated kinds of chromosomes of C.antennatus between the Northeast coast and Southeastern, suggesting that the ecological standards of each species, added to the conditions of the marine environment, can be responsible for the karyological delineation of each species. The found characteristics for the species C.macrocerus, C.pullus, M.niger, S.testudineus and C.antennatus add it the available data for other species of Tetraodontiformes. From the data gotten in the present study, it can be inferred that the DNA content possesss direct relation with the total length of the chromosomes

Avaliação da genotoxicidade das águas do lençol freático sob a Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

The groundwater represents the most important freshwater supply of planet. Dailly, in all world a great amount of toxic and genotoxic material reaches the aquatic systems, mainly the aquifers. The Barreiras aquifer through of five water wells is responsible for the supplying of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). All water wells are polluted with nitrate and some heavy metals, two of them were disabled. The genotoxicity of groundwater samples from Barreiras Aquifer in UFRN was assessed using the Allium cepa test, the Ames test and the Salmonella typhymurium microsuspension test (Kado test). For the Allium cepa test the influence of the groundwater samples collected on macroscopic (root length, colour and form) and microscopic (root tip mitotic index, chromosome aberrations and micronucleus) parameters was examined. All water samples caused a significant increase of the chromosome and mitotic aberration frequency and reduction on the rooth growth compared to negative control. Bridges and chromosome stickness were the most frequent kind of aberration in dividing cells. Furthermore, breaks were also observed. No significant increase in the number of micronuclei was found in relation to the negative controls. For Ames test were used the Salmonella typhymurium strains TA98 and TA100 without metabolic activation, applying the direct method. Prior to the Kado test, organic fractions from the water samples were obtained through XAD resin concentration. The mutagenicity organic extracts were evaluated by Kado test using TA98 and TA100 strains, in the absence and presence of S9 mix (metabolic activation). The concentrations of seven heavy metal ions were measured in water samples, but only Ni, Cu and Cr levels exceeded the permissible maximum concentration for the natural reservoirs. The results obtained for mutagenic activity using the Ames test were negative in all raw water samples analyzed. Positive results in XAD4 extracts of water samples were obtained for TA98 in the presence of S9 mix for two stations. Concentrations of heavy metals and nitrate can be correlated with the toxicity and genotoxicity of water analyzed. The mutagenic effect detected with TA98 strain suggested that organic compounds (after metabolization) are involved with the mutagenicity detected in the samples analyzed. The data set obtained in this work indicated the presence of at least two classes of mutagens: organic and inorganic compounds

A cafeína exerce efeitos positivos sobre a memória tipo episódica em ratos adultos sem influenciar a sobrevivência neural no giro dentado

The caffeine is a mild psychostimulant that has positive cognitive effects at low doses, while promotes detrimental effects on these processes at higher doses. The episodic-like memory can be evaluated in rodents through hippocampus-dependent tasks. The dentate gyrus is a hippocampal subregion in which neurogenesis occurs in adults, and it is believed that this process is related to the function of patterns separation, such as the identification of spatial and temporal patterns when discriminating events. Furthermore, neurogenesis is influenced spatial and contextual learning tasks. Our goal was to evaluate the performance of male Wistar rats in episodic-like tasks after acute or chronic caffeine treatment (15mg/kg or 30mg/kg). Moreover, we assessed the chronic effect of the caffeine treatment, as well as the influence of the hippocampus-dependent learning tasks, on the survival of new-born neurons at the beginning of treatment. For this purpose, we used BrdU to label the new cells generated in the dentate gyrus. Regarding the acute treatment, we found that the saline group presented a tendency to have better spatial and temporal discrimination than caffeine groups. The chronic caffeine group 15 mg/kg (low dose) showed the best discrimination of the temporal aspect of episodic-like memory, whereas the chronic caffeine group 30mg/kg (high dose) was able to discriminate temporal order, only in a condition of greater difficulty. Assessment of neurogenesis using immunohistochemistry for evaluating survival of new-born neurons generated in the dentate gyrus revealed no difference among groups of chronic treatment. Thus, the positive mnemonic effects of the chronic caffeine treatment were not related to neuronal survival. However, another plastic mechanism could explain the positive mnemonic effect, given that there was no improvement in the acute caffeine groups

Caracterização comportamental e distribuição de neurônios inibitórios em um modelo animal de autismo induzido por ácido valpróico

Autism comprises a heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental disorders that affects the brain maturation and produces sensorial, motor, language and social interaction deficits in early childhood. Several studies have shown a major involvement of genetic factors leading to a predisposition to autism, which are possibly affected by environmental modulators during embryonic and post-natal life. Recent studies in animal models indicate that alterations in epigenetic control during development can generate neuronal maturation disturbances and produce a hyper-excitable circuit, resulting in typical symptoms of autism. In the animal model of autism induced by valproic acid (VPA) during rat pregnancy, behavioral, electrophysiological and cellular alterations have been reported which can also be observed in patients with autism. However, only a few studies have correlated behavioral alterations with the supposed neuronal hyper-excitability in this model. The aim of this project was to generate an animal model of autism by pre-natal exposure to VPA and evaluate the early post-natal development and pre-puberal (PND30) behavior in the offspring. Furthermore, we quantified the parvalbumin-positive neuronal distribution in the medial prefrontal cortex and Purkinje cells in the cerebellum of VPA animals. Our results show that VPA treatment induced developmental alterations, which were observed in behavioral changes as compared to vehicle-treated controls. VPA animals showed clear behavioral abnormalities such as hyperlocomotion, prolonged stereotipies and reduced social interaction with an unfamiliar mate. Cellular quantification revealed a decrease in the number of parvalbumin-positive interneurons in the anterior cingulate cortex and in the prelimbic cortex of the mPFC, suggesting an excitatory/inhibitory unbalance in this animal model of autism. Moreover, we also observed that the neuronal reduction occurred mainly in the cortical layers II/III and V/VI. We did not detect any change in the density of Purkinje neurons in the Crus I region of the cerebellar cortex. Together, our results strengthens the face validity of the VPA model in rats and shed light on specific changes in the inhibitory circuitry of the prefrontal cortex in this autism model. Further studies should address the challenges to clarify particular electrophysiological correlates of the cellular alterations in order to better understand the behavioral dysfunctions

Análise quantitativa das células CD4 e sua importância no diagnóstico de lesões orais em pacientes HIV positivos

The oral manifestations due to HIV infection are, a lot of times, the first clinical signs of the disease. These injuries may also function as beepers and sentries of the curse and progression of the HIV infection and AIDS. The objective of this work was to evaluate the prevalence of the oral injuries in HIV positive patients, relating them with the CD4+ cells counting and the viral load in patients from the Hospital of Infected contagious Gizelda Trigueiro in Natal-RN. One hundred and one patients were evaluated, where after the clinical exam of the oral cavity, these ones were conducted to the peripheral blood collection for the counting of CD4+ lymphocytes. We observed a prevalence of 25,6%, that is, 31 cases. The Oral Candidiasis was the most commum injure, followed by Oral Hairy Leukoplakia, linear gingival erytema, lips herpes, gingivitis and periodontitis - HIV. The average counting of cells CD4+ of the injury carrying patients was of 250 cells/mm3. We did not observe relation between the presence of injuries and the viral load of the individuals

Imunoexpressão de galectinas em queilites actínias e sua relação com características clínicas e gradação histológica

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

Percepção de fala dos deficientes auditivos usando aparelho de amplificação com algoritmo de redução de ruído

Frequentemente, os indivíduos com perda auditiva têm dificuldade de entender a fala no ambiente ruidoso. OBJETIVO: O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar clinicamente o desempenho dos indivíduos adultos com deficiência auditiva neurossensorial, com relação à percepção da fala, utilizando o aparelho de amplificação sonora individual digital com o algoritmo de redução de ruído denominado Speech Sensitive Processing, ativado e desativado na presença de um ruído. MATERIAL E MÉTODO: Este estudo de casos foi realizado em 32 indivíduos com deficiência auditiva neurossensorial de graus leve, moderado ou leve a moderado. Foi realizada a avaliação por meio de um teste de percepção de fala, onde se pesquisou o reconhecimento de sentenças na presença de um ruído, para obter a relação sinal/ruído, utilizando o aparelho auditivo digital. RESULTADOS: O algoritmo pôde proporcionar benefício para a maioria dos indivíduos deficientes auditivos, na pesquisa da relação sinal/ruído e os resultados apontaram diferença estatisticamente significante na condição em que o algoritmo encontrava-se ativado, comparado quando o algoritmo não se encontrava ativado. CONCLUSÃO: O uso do algoritmo de redução de ruído deve ser pensado como alternativa clínica, pois observamos a eficácia desse sistema na redução do ruído, melhorando a percepção da fala.

Avaliação genética da eficiência reprodutiva em vacas pardo-suíças por meio da análise de sobrevivência

Among the traits of economic importance to dairy cattle livestock those related to sexual precocity and longevity of the herd are essential to the success of the activity, because the stayability time of a cow in a herd is determined by their productive and reproductive lives. In Brazil, there are few studies about the reproductive efficiency of Swiss-Brown cows and no study was found using the methodology of survival analysis applied to this breed. Thus, in the first chapter of this study, the age at first calving from Swiss-Brown heifers was analyzed as the time until the event by the nonparametric method of Kaplan-Meier and the gamma shared frailty model, under the survival analysis methodology. Survival and hazard rate curves associated with this event were estimated and identified the influence of covariates on such time. The mean and median times at the first calving were 987.77 and 1,003 days, respectively, and significant covariates by the Log-Rank test, through Kaplan-Meier analysis, were birth season, calving year, sire (cow s father) and calving season. In the analysis by frailty model, the breeding values and the frailties of the sires (fathers) for the calving were predicted modeling the risk function of each cow as a function of the birth season as fixed covariate and sire as random covariate. The frailty followed the gamma distribution. Sires with high and positive breeding values possess high frailties, what means shorter survival time of their daughters to the event, i.e., reduction in the age at first calving of them. The second chapter aimed to evaluate the longevity of dairy cows using the nonparametric Kaplan-Meier and the Cox and Weibull proportional hazards models. It were simulated 10,000 records of the longevity trait from Brown-Swiss cows involving their respective times until the occurrence of five consecutive calvings (event), considered here as typical of a long-lived cow. The covariates considered in the database were age at first calving, herd and sire (cow s father). All covariates had influence on the longevity of cows by Log-Rank and Wilcoxon tests. The mean and median times to the occurrence of the event were 2,436.285 and 2,437 days, respectively. Sires that have higher breeding values also have a greater risk of that their daughters reach the five consecutive calvings until 84 months

Produtividade fabril II - método para rápido aumento da produtividade fabril: redução de esperas dentro do ciclo da operação

O método para rápido aumento da produtividade fabril, aplicável principalmente à indústria brasileira de manufatura (17% do PIB), fundamenta-se exclusivamente na redução ou eliminação do tempo inativo do homem, da máquina e do material, que é a grande causa da ineficiência. O método exige a utilização de apenas cinco das mais simples, elementares e conhecidas técnicas e é aplicável às vinte situações mais freqüentes (objetos de estudo) na indústria de manufatura. Nossa experiência atesta que o método é capaz de aumentar a produtividade fabril em valor superior a 30%, em poucos meses e de forma perene (houve um caso de aumento de 160% em toda uma seção de usinagem de uma empresa multinacional). Sua aplicação e a implantação das medidas dele decorrentes são feitas com extrema facilidade e, por isto, os resultados surgem muito rapidamente. Atinge portanto seu objetivo: proporcionar aumento da produtividade fabril em curto espaço de tempo. Este artigo detalhará sete objetos de estudo (situações): 1.redução da espera da máquina durante as inspeções; 2.redução da espera do operário, abordando trabalho em equipe, produção em linha e operação com ajudante; e 3.redução da espera do operador de máquina, por meio da diminuição do tempo-máquina, do controle do tempo-máquina e da atribuição de outras atividades ao operador pela adoção da célula de manufatura.

Produtividade fabril III - método para rápido aumento da produtividade fabril: redução de tempos inativos e do tempo de espera do material em processo

O método para rápido aumento da produtividade fabril, aplicável principalmente à indústria brasileira de manufatura (17% do PIB), fundamenta-se exclusivamente na redução ou eliminação do tempo inativo do homem, da máquina e do material, que é a grande causa da ineficiência. O método exige a utilização de apenas cinco das mais simples, elementares e conhecidas técnicas e é aplicável às vinte situações mais freqüentes (objetos de estudo) na indústria de manufatura. Nossa experiência atesta que o método pode proporcionar à produtividade fabril um aumento superior a 30%, em poucos meses e de forma perene. Sua aplicação e a implantação das medidas dele decorrentes são feitas com extrema facilidade e, por isto, os resultados surgem muito rapidamente. Atinge portanto seu objetivo: proporcionar aumento da produtividade fabril em curto espaço de tempo. Este artigo (terceiro e último da série) detalhará doze objetos de estudo (situações): 1. redução dos tempos inativos causados por troca de turno, por refeição e por troca de produtos; 2. redução dos tempos improdutivos acarretados por causas mais importantes, por espera pelo serviço de manutenção, por espera pelo serviço de preparação, por espera pelo operador e por causas não apontáveis pelos procedimentos usuais; 3. redução das atividades improdutivas e das produtivas executadas num ritmo improdutivo; e 4. redução do tempo de espera do material em processamento pela redução do tamanho do lote de fabricação e pelo aumento da velocidade de manufatura.