Bone metabolism biomarkers, body weight, and bone age in healthy Brazilian male adolescents

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Saliva: reflection of the body

Saliva has become an important resource for evaluating physiological and pathological conditions in humans. The use of saliva has many advantages, including the simple and non-invasive method of collection and its easy, low-cost storage. With the addition of modern techniques and chemical instrumentation equipment, there has been an increase in its use for laboratory investigations, applicable for basic and clinical analyses in the fields of medicine and dentistry. The value of these methods for the diagnosis of oral and systemic diseases has been the subject of study by several researchers with the aim of increasing its use alongside complementary exams. (C) 2009 International Society for Infectious Diseases. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Likelihood approximations and discrete models for tied survival data

Ties among event times are often recorded in survival studies. For example, in a two week laboratory study where event times are measured in days, ties are very likely to occur. The proportional hazards model might be used in this setting using an approximated partial likelihood function. This approximation works well when the number of ties is small. on the other hand, discrete regression models are suggested when the data are heavily tied. However, in many situations it is not clear which approach should be used in practice. In this work, empirical guidelines based on Monte Carlo simulations are provided. These recommendations are based on a measure of the amount of tied data present and the mean square error. An example illustrates the proposed criterion.

Molecular systematic and historical biogeography of the armored Neotropical catfishes Hypoptopomatinae and Neoplecostominae (Siluriformes: Loricariidae)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Tribute to R.G. Boutilier: Skin colour and body temperature changes in basking Bokermannohyla alvarengai (Bokermann 1956)

In amphibians solar basking far from water sources is relatively uncommon since the highly permeable amphibian skin does not represent a significant barrier to the accompanying risk of losing water by evaporation. A South American frog, Bokermannohyla alvarengai (Bokermann 1956), however, spends a significant amount of the day exposed to full sun and relatively high temperatures. The means by which this frog copes with potentially high rates of evaporative water loss and high body temperatures are unknown. Thus, in this study, skin colour changes, body surface temperature, and evaporative water loss rates were examined under a mixture of field and laboratory conditions to ascertain whether changes in skin reflectivity play an important role in this animal's thermal and hydric balance. Field data demonstrated a tight correlation between the lightness of skin colour and frog temperature, with lighter frogs being captured possessing higher body temperatures. Laboratory experiments supported this relationship, revealing that frogs kept in the dark or at lower temperatures (20 degrees C) had darker skin colours, whereas frogs kept in the light or higher temperatures (30 degrees C) had skin colours of a lighter hue. Light exhibited a stronger influence on skin colour than temperature alone, suggesting that colour change is triggered by the increase in incident solar energy and in anticipation of changes in body temperature. This conclusion is corroborated by the observation that cold, darkly coloured frogs placed in the sun rapidly became lighter in colour during the initial warming up period (over the first 5 min), after which they warmed up more slowly and underwent a further, albeit slower, lightening of skin colour. Surprisingly, despite its natural disposition to bask in the sun, this species does not possess a 'waterproof' skin, since its rates of evaporative water loss were not dissimilar from many hylid species that live in arboreal or semi-aquatic environments. The natural history of B. alvarengai is largely unknown and, therefore, it is likely that the herein reported colour change and basking behaviour represent a complex interaction between thermoregulation and water balance with other ecologically relevant functions, such as crypsis.

Models Hosts for the Study of Oral Candidiasis

Oral candidiasis is an opportunistic infection caused by yeast of the Candida genus, primarily Candida albicans. It is generally associated with predisposing factors such as the use of immunosuppressive agents, antibiotics, prostheses, and xerostomia. The development of research in animal models is extremely important for understanding the nature of the fungal pathogenicity, host interactions, and treatment of oral mucosa! Candida infections. Many oral candidiasis models in rats and mice have been developed with antibiotic administration, induction of xerostomia, treatment with immunosuppressive agents, or the use of germ-free animals, and all these models has both benefits and limitations. Over the past decade, invertebrate model hosts, including Galleria mellonella, Caenorhanditis elegans, and Drosophila melanogaster, have been used for the study of Candida pathogenesis. These invertebrate systems offer a number of advantages over mammalian vertebrate models, predominantly because they allow the study of strain collections without the ethical considerations associated with studies in mammals. Thus, the invertebrate models may be useful to understanding of pathogenicity of Candida isolates from the oral cavity, interactions of oral microorganisms, and study of new antifungal compounds for oral candidiasis.

Asymmetries in e(+) e(-) -> f(f)over-bar processes at ILC for models with an extra neutral vector boson Z '

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Solutions of the bound-state Faddeev-Yakubovsky equations in three dimensions by using NN and 3N potential models

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Natural products from Brazilian biodiversity as a source of new models for medicinal chemistry

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

High precision GPS network with precise ephemerides and earth body tide model

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Estimation of (co)variance components and genetic parameters for weights of red-winged tinamou using random regression models

Com este trabalho objetivou-se determinar parâmetros genéticos para peso corporal de perdizes em cativeiro. Foram utilizados modelos de regressão aleatória na análise dos dados considerando os efeitos genéticos aditivos diretos (AD) e de ambiente permanente de animal (AP) como aleatórios. As variâncias residuais foram modeladas utilizando-se funções de variância de ordem 5. A curva média da população foi ajustada por polinômios ortogonais de Legendre de ordem 6. Os efeitos genéticos aditivos diretos e de ambiente permanente de animal foram modelados utilizando-se polinômios de Legendre de segunda a nona ordem. Os melhores resultados foram obtidos pelos modelos de ordem 6 de ajuste para os efeitos genéticos aditivos diretos e de ordem 3 para os de ambiente permanente pelo Critério de Informação de Akaike e ordem 3 para ambos os efeitos pelos Critério de Informação Bayesiano de Schwartz e Teste de Razão de Verossimilhança. As herdabilidades estimadas variaram de 0,02 a 0,57. O primeiro autovalor respondeu por 94 e 90% da variação decorrente de efeitos aditivos diretos e de ambiente permanente, respectivamente. A seleção de perdizes para peso corporal é mais efetiva a partir de 112 dias de idade.

A new nucleolar body appears in Drosophila saltans salivary gland cells before histolysis, in programmed cell death

The salivary glands of Drosophila saltans ( saltans group, saltans subgroup) analyzed in an advanced stage of programmed cell death showed the appearance of a single, round, nucleolar corpuscle inside the highly altered nucleus of every gland cell, at a time during which the integrity of the original nucleolus was already lost and the original nucleolar material apparently disappeared. In the same nuclei, which already had also lost the characteristic chromosome structure, some delicate chromosome threads were maintained. In many cells, the new nucleolar corpuscle and these chromosome threads are associated. These findings are novel. However, the hypothesis put forward concerning their meaning remains dependent on other studies.

Antagonism of clonidine injected intracerebroventricularly in different models of salt intake

Clonidine, an alpha 2-adrenergic agonist, injected into the brain inhibits salt intake of animals treated by the diuretic model of sodium depletion. In the present study, we address the question of whether central injection of clonidine also inhibits salt intake in animals deprived of water or in the need-free state. Saline or clonidine (30 nmol) was injected into the anterior third ventricle of 24-h sodium-depleted (furosemide + removal of ambient sodium), of 24-h water-deprived and of normovolemic (need-free state) adult male rats, Clonidine injected intracerebroventricularly (icv) inhibited the 1.5% NaCl intake for 120 min by 50 to 90% in every model tested. Therefore, different models of salt intake are inhibited by icv injection of clonidine, Idazoxan, an alpha 2-adrenergic antagonist, injected icy at a dose of 160 nmol, inhibited the effect of clonidine only in the furosemide + removal of ambient sodium model of salt intake. This indicates that the antagonism of this effect by idazoxan is dependent on the body fluid/sodium status of the animal.

Foreign body in the tracheobronchial tree

A 20-year experience with the treatment of 74 patients (83.8% children) for foreign body aspiration is reviewed. The object of this review is to show the clinical manifestations, the radiological findings, the nature and distribution in the bronchial tree, and complications due to longstanding (months or years) foreign bodies in the bronchial tree. The most common foreign bodies found were peanuts (13.5%), corn (13.5%), and beans (13.5%). The most frequent clinical manifestation was choking (67.5%), and the most frequent radiological finding was atelectasis (41.8%). The most serious complication was bronchiectasis needing resection in six patients who had the foreign body retained for years in the bronchial tree. In conclusion, in spite of an obvious foreign body in the tracheobronchial tree many cases are not diagnosed, and a longstanding foreign body in the airway may be responsible for irreversible complications.