Hydrophilic interaction chromatography–mass spectrometry for anionic metabolic profiling of urine from antibiotic-treated rats

Hydrophilic interaction chromatography–mass spectrometry (HILIC–MS) was used for anionic metabolic profiling of urine from antibiotic-treated rats to study microbial–host co-metabolism. Rats were treated with the antibiotics penicillin G and streptomycin sulfate for four or eight days and compared to a control group. Urine samples were collected at day zero, four and eight, and analyzed by HILIC–MS. Multivariate data analysis was applied to the urinary metabolic profiles to identify biochemical variation between the treatment groups. Principal component analysis found a clear distinction between those animals receiving antibiotics and the control animals, with twenty-nine discriminatory compounds of which twenty were down-regulated and nine up-regulated upon treatment. In the treatment group receiving antibiotics for four days, a recovery effect was observed for seven compounds after cessation of antibiotic administration. Thirteen discriminatory compounds could be putatively identified based on their accurate mass, including aconitic acid, benzenediol sulfate, ferulic acid sulfate, hippuric acid, indoxyl sulfate, penicillin G, phenol and vanillin 4-sulfate. The rat urine samples had previously been analyzed by capillary electrophoresis (CE) with MS detection and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy. Using CE–MS and 1H NMR spectroscopy seventeen and twenty-five discriminatory compounds were found, respectively. Both hippuric acid and indoxyl sulfate were detected across all three platforms. Additionally, eight compounds were observed with both HILIC–MS and CE–MS. Overall, HILIC–MS appears to be highly complementary to CE–MS and 1H NMR spectroscopy, identifying additional compounds that discriminate the urine samples from antibiotic-treated and control rats.

Age and microenvironment outweigh genetic influence on the Zucker rat microbiome

Animal models are invaluable tools which allow us to investigate the microbiome-host dialogue. However, experimental design introduces biases in the data that we collect, also potentially leading to biased conclusions. With obesity at pandemic levels animal models of this disease have been developed; we investigated the role of experimental design on one such rodent model. We used 454 pyrosequencing to profile the faecal bacteria of obese (n = 6) and lean (homozygous n = 6; heterozygous n = 6) Zucker rats over a 10 week period, maintained in mixed-genotype cages, to further understand the relationships between the composition of the intestinal bacteria and age, obesity progression, genetic background and cage environment. Phylogenetic and taxon-based univariate and multivariate analyses (non-metric multidimensional scaling, principal component analysis) showed that age was the most significant source of variation in the composition of the faecal microbiota. Second to this, cage environment was found to clearly impact the composition of the faecal microbiota, with samples from animals from within the same cage showing high community structure concordance, but large differences seen between cages. Importantly, the genetically induced obese phenotype was not found to impact the faecal bacterial profiles. These findings demonstrate that the age and local environmental cage variables were driving the composition of the faecal bacteria and were more deterministically important than the host genotype. These findings have major implications for understanding the significance of functional metagenomic data in experimental studies and beg the question; what is being measured in animal experiments in which different strains are housed separately, nature or nurture?

Uptake of agri-environmental schemes in the Less-Favoured Areas of Greece: The role of corruption and farmers' responses to the financial crisis

Vine-growing in the Less-Favoured Areas of Greece is facing multiple challenges that might lead to its abandonment. In an attempt to maintain rural populations, Rural Development Schemes have been created that offer the opportunity to rural households to maintain or expand their farming businesses including vine-growing. This paper stems from a study that used data from a cross-sectional survey of 204 farmers to investigate how farming systems and farmers’ perception of corruption, amongst other socio-economic factors, affected their decisions to continue vine-growing through participation in Rural Development Schemes, in three remote Less-Favoured Areas of Greece. The Theory of Planned Behaviour was used to frame the research problem with the assumption being that an individual’s intention to participate in a Scheme is based on their prior beliefs about it. Data from the survey were reduced and simplified by the use of non-linear principal component analysis. The ensuing variables were used in selectivity corrected ordered probit models to reveal farmers’ attitudes towards viticulture and rural development. It was found that economic factors, perceived corruption and farmers’ attitudes were significant determinants on whether to participate in the Schemes. The research findings highlight the important role of perceived corruption and the need for policies that facilitate farmers’ access to decision making centres.

A five-dimensional model of attributes: some precursors of executive coach selection

The purpose of this study was to specify a set of attributes, identified as important precursors to coach selection. Executive coaching has grown exponentially, but there have been few studies as to the efficacy of coaching, including the factors that influence a manager's choice of coach. This study sought to identify these factors. The 45-item, online survey produced 267 useable responses. Results of the principal component analysis suggested a five-factor solution, with women showing a statistically significant preference over men for coaches who have the Ability to Develop Critical Thinking and Action, the Ability to Forge the Coaching Partnership and Coach Experience and Qualifications. The impact of coachee age was not significant in selecting executive coaches. The findings show a statistically significant relationship between coach attributes and the intention to continue with coaching. The implications of these findings for the selection of coaches, and for the coaching profession are discussed.

Habitat use by the South-American rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus) in south-eastern Brazil

Habitat use affects food intake, reproductive fitness and body temperature control in reptiles. Habitat use depends on both the characteristics of the animal and the environmental heterogeneity. In this study we investigated habitat use in a population of the South-American rattlesnake, Crotalus durissus, in a cerrado (the Brazilian savanna) remnant, in south-eastern Brazil. In general, snakes appeared to be thermal generalists. However, they showed substrate temperature preferences in the rainy season, when they selected colder substrates during the day and warmer substrates at night. Individuals were predominantly active on the surface and more frequently found under bushes. Furthermore, in general, the principal component analysis results indicate that rattlesnakes are generalists regarding the microhabitat variables examined in this study. These habitat characteristics, associated with a low thermal selectivity, indicate that rattlesnakes are able to colonize deforested areas where shade occurrence and vegetation cover are similar to those in the cerrado.

Symptomatic expression of depression among Jewish adolescents: effects of gender and age

Background Depression symptomatology was assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) in a sample of Jewish adolescents, in order to compare the frequency and severity of depression with non-Jewish adolescents as well as examine gender difference of the expression of depressive symptomatology. Method Subjects comprised 475 students from Jewish private schools, aged 13-17 years, who were compared with an age-matched non-Jewish sample (n = 899). Kendall`s definition was adopted to classify these adolescents according to level of depressive symptoms. The frequency of depression was calculated for ethnicity, gender and age strata. Discriminant analysis and principal component analysis were performed to assess the importance of depression-specific and non-specific items, along with the factor structure of the BDI, respectively. Results The overall mean score on the BDI in the Jewish and the non-Jewish sample was 9.0 (SD = 6.4) and 8.6 (SD = 7.2), respectively. Jewish girls and boys had comparable mean BDI scores, contrasting with non-Jewish sample, where girls complained more of depressive symptoms than boys (p < 0.001). The frequency of depression, adopting a BDI cutoff of 20, was 5.1% for the Jewish sample and 6.3% for the non-Jewish sample. The frequency of depression for Jewish girls and boys was 5.5% (SE = 1.4) and 4.6% (SE = 1.5), respectively. On the other hand, the frequency of depression for non-Jewish girls and boys was 8.4% (SE = 1.2) and 4.0% (SE = 1.0), respectively. The female/male ratio of frequency of BDI-depression was 1.2 in the Jewish sample, but non-Jewish girls were twice (2.1) as likely to report depression as boys. Discriminant analysis showed that the BDI highly discriminates depressive symptomatology among Jewish adolescents, and measured specific aspects of depression. Factor analysis revealed two meaningful factors for the total sample and each gender (cognitive-affective dimension and somatic dimension), evidencing a difference between Jewish boys and Jewish girls in the symptomatic expression of depression akin to non-Jewish counterparts. Conclusions Ethnic-cultural factor might play a role in the frequency, severity and symptomatic expression of depressive symptoms in Jewish adolescents. The lack of gender effect on depression, which might persist from adolescence to adulthood among Jewish people, should be investigated in prospective studies.

Evaluation of some metals in Brazilian coffees cultivated during the process of conversion from conventional to organic agriculture

The aim of this study was to evaluate the presence of nutrients and toxic elements in coffees cultivated during the process of conversion, on organic agriculture, in southwest Bahia, Brazil. Levels of the nutrients and toxic elements were determined in samples of soils and coffee tissues from two transitional organic farms by atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). The metals in soil samples were extracted by Mehlich1 and USEPA-3050 procedures. Coffee samples from both farms presented relatively high levels of Cd, Zn and Cu (0.75,45.4 and 14.9 mu g g(-1). respectively), but were still below the limits specified by the Brazilian Food Legislation. The application of statistical methods showed that this finding can be attributed to the addition of high amounts of organic matter during the flowering tree period which can act on the bioavailability of metal ions in soils. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Use of copper and gold electrodes as sensitive elements for fabrication of an electronic tongue: Discrimination of wines and whiskies

A low-cost method is proposed to classify wine and whisky samples using a disposable voltammetric electronic tongue that was fabricated using gold and copper substrates and a pattern recognition technique (Principal Component Analysis). The proposed device was successfully used to discriminate between expensive and cheap whisky samples and to detect adulteration processes using only a copper electrode. For wines, the electronic tongue was composed of copper and gold working electrodes and was able to classify three different brands of wine and to make distinctions regarding the wine type, i.e., dry red, soft red, dry white and soft white brands. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Artificial Neural Networks and the Study of the Psychoactivity of Cannabinoid Compounds

Cannabinoid compounds have widely been employed because of its medicinal and psychotropic properties. These compounds are isolated from Cannabis sativa (or marijuana) and are used in several medical treatments, such as glaucoma, nausea associated to chemotherapy, pain and many other situations. More recently, its use as appetite stimulant has been indicated in patients with cachexia or AIDS. In this work, the influence of several molecular descriptors on the psychoactivity of 50 cannabinoid compounds is analyzed aiming one obtain a model able to predict the psychoactivity of new cannabinoids. For this purpose, initially, the selection of descriptors was carried out using the Fisher`s weight, the correlation matrix among the calculated variables and principal component analysis. From these analyses, the following descriptors have been considered more relevant: E(LUMO) (energy of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital), Log P (logarithm of the partition coefficient), VC4 (volume of the substituent at the C4 position) and LP1 (Lovasz-Pelikan index, a molecular branching index). To follow, two neural network models were used to construct a more adequate model for classifying new cannabinoid compounds. The first model employed was multi-layer perceptrons, with algorithm back-propagation, and the second model used was the Kohonen network. The results obtained from both networks were compared and showed that both techniques presented a high percentage of correctness to discriminate psychoactive and psychoinactive compounds. However, the Kohonen network was superior to multi-layer perceptrons.

Yrkesstolthetens komponenter hos anställda på Försäkringskassan Dalarna

Syftet med föreliggande undersökning var att identifiera faktorer som bidrog till känslan av "yrkesstolthet" hos anställda vid Försäkringskassan Dalarna inkluderande personalens tillfredsställelse med yrkesrollen. Sammanlagt 163 personer, 123 kvinnor och 40 män, från 25 till 66 år (X= 49,8 år) deltog i undersökningen. Denna genomfördes med hjälp av General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work (QPS Nordic) inkluderande 123 frågor samt 9 frågor gällande yrkesrollen. Frågorna besvarades väsentligen med hjälp av en 5-gradig skala av Likert-typ. Huvudresultatet uträknades med hjälp av Cronbachs Alpha, Principal Component Analysis och multipel regressionsanalys. Det konstaterades att beroendevariabeln "yrkesstolthets" variation förklarades till 62,7% av oberoende-variablerna "interaktionsintelligens" "yrkesrealism", "arbetstillfredsställelse" och "arbetsengagemang". Även kön, ålder, utbildning och yrkeserfarenhet hade betydelse.

Automatic and objective assessment of alternating tapping performance in Parkinson’s disease

This paper presents the development and evaluation of a method for enabling quantitative and automatic scoring of alternating tapping performance of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Ten healthy elderly subjects and 95 patients in different clinical stages of PD have utilized a touch-pad handheld computer to perform alternate tapping tests in their home environments. First, a neurologist used a web-based system to visually assess impairments in four tapping dimensions (‘speed’, ‘accuracy’, ‘fatigue’ and ‘arrhythmia’) and a global tapping severity (GTS). Second, tapping signals were processed with time series analysis and statistical methods to derive 24 quantitative parameters. Third, principal component analysis was used to reduce the dimensions of these parameters and to obtain scores for the four dimensions. Finally, a logistic regression classifier was trained using a 10-fold stratified cross-validation to map the reduced parameters to the corresponding visually assessed GTS scores. Results showed that the computed scores correlated well to visually assessed scores and were significantly different across Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale scores of upper limb motor performance. In addition, they had good internal consistency, had good ability to discriminate between healthy elderly and patients in different disease stages, had good sensitivity to treatment interventions and could reflect the natural disease progression over time. In conclusion, the automatic method can be useful to objectively assess the tapping performance of PD patients and can be included in telemedicine tools for remote monitoring of tapping.

Newly Automated System For Integrated Assessment Of The Conditions Of Underwater Gas Pipelines

An underwater gas pipeline is the portion of the pipeline that crosses a river beneath its bottom. Underwater gas pipelines are subject to increasing dangers as time goes by. An accident at an underwater gas pipeline can lead to technological and environmental disaster on the scale of an entire region. Therefore, timely troubleshooting of all underwater gas pipelines in order to prevent any potential accidents will remain a pressing task for the industry. The most important aspect of resolving this challenge is the quality of the automated system in question. Now the industry doesn't have any automated system that fully meets the needs of the experts working in the field maintaining underwater gas pipelines. Principle Aim of this Research: This work aims to develop a new system of automated monitoring which would simplify the process of evaluating the technical condition and decision making on planning and preventive maintenance and repair work on the underwater gas pipeline. Objectives: Creation a shared model for a new, automated system via IDEF3; Development of a new database system which would store all information about underwater gas pipelines; Development a new application that works with database servers, and provides an explanation of the results obtained from the server; Calculation of the values MTBF for specified pipelines based on quantitative data obtained from tests of this system. Conclusion: The new, automated system PodvodGazExpert has been developed for timely and qualitative determination of the physical conditions of underwater gas pipeline; The basis of the mathematical analysis of this new, automated system uses principal component analysis method; The process of determining the physical condition of an underwater gas pipeline with this new, automated system increases the MTBF by a factor of 8.18 above the existing system used today in the industry.

Monitoramento de processos em bateladas através de cartas de controle multivariadas utilizando Análise de Componentes Principais Multidirecionais

Através da utilização de sistemas de controle informatizados, indústrias buscam uma caracterização mais completa de seus processos, gerando, freqüentemente, um grande volume de dados acerca de inúmeras variáveis de desempenho dos processos. Entretanto essa grande massa de dados é subaproveitada, visto que as cartas de controle multivariadas tradicionais, tais como as cartas de Hotelling, MCUSUM e MEWMA não são suficientemente robustas para tratar com um grande número de variáveis correlacionadas, pois foram concebidas para monitorar um número reduzido de variáveis de qualidade do produto final. Diante disso, ferramentas multivariadas mais robustas, que incorporam essas informações, vêm sendo desenvolvidas; dentre estas, destaca-se a Multiway Principal Component Analysis (Análise de Componentes Principais Multidirecionais; ACPM). Neste trabalho, apresenta-se a base teórica para a elaboração de uma carta de controle a partir da estratégia ACPM, para monitoramento on-line de processos em bateladas. Nesses processos, aferições freqüentes de variáveis de processo são disponibilizadas durante a realização de cada batelada. As cartas de controle baseadas em ACPM permitem o tratamento de variáveis autocorrelacionadas, com médias que descrevem trajetórias não lineares se observadas em momentos seqüenciados no tempo. Tais variáveis aparecem com freqüência em processos por bateladas. Uma aplicação das cartas de controle baseadas em ACPM em um sub-processo de produção de borracha para cobertura de pneus ilustra a utilização da ferramenta.

Estado, sociedade e subsistema de saúde no Brasil

Estado e sociedade brasileiros conviveram em descompasso, nos anos 80. A conseqüência imediata desse fenômeno foi o atendimento insuficiente de necessidades básicas da sociedade, nesse período, com aumento da entropia em vários subsistemas sociais brasileiros, dentre os quais o subsistema de saúde. Nesta tese, trabalhando com dados econômicos, sociais e de saúde, e construindo algumas variáveis-indicadores, confrontou-se, naquele período, necessidades da sociedade com ações do Estado, na área da saúde. Utilizando técnicas estatísticas - análise gráfica, associação estatística dos indicadores selecionados (matriz de correlação de PEARSON), análise em componentes principais, análise de agrupamento e análise de regressão linear múltipla com variáveis logaritímizadas - foi possível visualizar causas e conseqüências dessa alta entropia, caracterizada por desperdício de recursos e várias situações propensas à geração de crises nas organizações, setores e instituições do subsistema de saúde brasileiro. Propõe-se um método de alocação de recursos federais, objetivando minimizar desigualdades entre as Unidades da Federação, a partir de seus desempenhos na área de saúde.

Estudo sobre o risco de mercado de uma carteira de opções através da análise de componentes principais

A presente dissertação tem como objeto de estudo a superfície de volatilidade implícita de opções européias da paridade Real / Dólar no mercado brasileiro. Este trabalho não tenta explicar as deformações ou os desvios da volatilidade implícita com relação à hipótese de volatilidade constante do modelo de Black & Scholes (1973), mas trata a volatilidade implícita como uma variável financeira interessante por si só, procurando analisar a dinâmica de sua superfície. Para a análise desta superfície, o presente estudo propõe a utilização de uma ferramenta empregada em estudos empíricos de diversos ramos da ciência: a Análise de Componentes Principais – ACP (Principal Component Analysis). As mudanças na superfície de volatilidade alteram o apreçamento das opções de uma carteira. Desta forma, constituem um fator de risco que precisa ser estudado e entendido para o desenvolvimento de estratégias de imunização e de técnicas de gerenciamento de risco, dentre elas o cálculo de Valor em Risco (V@R – Value at Risk). De posse dos resultados obtidos com a análise de componentes principais da superfície de volatilidade implícita, o presente estudo tem por objetivo obter valores limite de variação desta volatilidade implícita, como forma de estimar as conseqüentes variações extremas nos valores de uma carteira de opções. Para tanto, baseia-se em estudos sobre a aplicação da análise de componentes principais da superfície de volatilidade implícita desenvolvidos por Alexander (2001). Estes estudos, por sua vez, são derivados de estudo sobre a dinâmica de curvas de volatilidade proposto por Derman (1999). Para se verificar a eficiência da metodologia proposta, os valores extremos obtidos são testados de acordo com os critérios de teste retroativo propostos pela emenda ao comitê da Basiléia de 1996.