Insulin concentrations in cerebellum and body balance in diabetic male rats: Aerobic training effects

Brain insulin has had widespread metabolic, neurotrophic, and neuromodulatory functions and has been involved in the central regulation of food intake and body weight, learning and memory, neuronal development, and neuronal apoptosis. Purpose: The present study investigated the role of swimming training on cerebral metabolism on insulin concentrations in cerebellum and the body balance performance of diabetic rats. Methods: Forty Male Wistar rats were divided in four groups: sedentary control (SC), trained control (TC), sedentary diabetic (SD), and trained diabetic (TD). Diabetes was induced by alloxan (32 mg kg b.w.), single dose injection. The mean blood glucose of diabetic groups was 367 ± 40 mg/dl. Training program consisted in swimming 5 days/week, 1 h/day, 8 weeks, supporting a workload corresponding to 90% of maximal lactate steady state (MLSS). For the body balance testing rats were trained to traverse for 5 min daily for 5-7 days. All dependent variables were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a significance level of p < 0.05 was used for all comparisons. Results: The body balance testing scores were different between groups. Insulin concentrations in cerebellum were not different between groups. Conclusion: It was concluded that in diabetic rats, aerobic training does not induce alterations on cerebellum insulin but induces important metabolic, hormonal and behavioral alterations which are associated with an improvement in glucose homeostasis, serum insulin concentrations and body balance. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

Diabetes mellitus activates fetal gene program and intensifies cardiac remodeling and oxidative stress in aged spontaneously hypertensive rats

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Inferences of body energy reserves on conception rate of suckled Zebu beef cows subjected to timed artificial insemination followed by natural mating

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

Multiphase feeding program for broilers can replace traditional system

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

Combined training (aerobic plus strength) potentiates a reduction in body fat but demonstrates no difference on the lipid profile in postmenopausal women when compared to aerobic training with a similar training load

The aim of this study was to verify the effects of aerobic and combined training on the body composition and lipid profile of obese postmenopausal women and to analyze which of these models is more effective after equalizing the training load. Sixty five postmenopausal women (age=61.0±6.3 years) were divided into three groups: Aerobic Training (AT,n= 15), Combined Training (CT,[strength+aerobic],n=32) and control group (CG,n=18). Their body composition: upper body fat (TF), fat mass (FM), percentage of fat mass and fat free mass (FFM) were estimated by DXA. The lipid profile, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol were assessed. There was a statistically significant difference in the TF (AT= -4.4 %, CT= -4.4%, and CG= 1.0%, p= 0.001) and FFM (AT= 1.7%, CT= 2.6%, and CG= -1.4%, p= 0.0001) between the experimental and the control groups. Regarding the percentage of body fat, there was a statistically significant difference only between the CT and CG groups (AT= -2.8%, CT= -3.9% and CG= 0.31%, p= 0.004). When training loads were equalized, the aerobic and combined training decreased core fat and increased fat-free mass, but only the combined training potentiated a reduction in percentage of body fat in obese postmenopausal women after the training program. HDL-c levels increased in the combined group and the chol/HDL ratio (atherogenic index) decreased in the aerobic group, however, there were no significant differences between the intervention programs. Taken together, both the exercise training programs were effective for improving body composition and inducing an anti-atherogenic status.

Efficiency and costless of a long-term physical exercise program to nom-medicated hypertensive males

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Gator Launch: Developing a Minority Career-Mentoring Program

Retaining minority students on college campuses is an important factor for maintaining the rich diversity of a university student body. This session will provide a look at the development of a career-mentoring program for minority college students to enhance retention and career success beyond graduation.

Effects of circuit-based exercise programs on the body composition of elderly obese women

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of circuit-based exercise on the body composition in obese older women by focusing on physical exercise and body weight (BW) gain control in older people. Methods: Seventy older women (>60 years old) voluntarily took part in the study. Participants were randomized into six different groups according to body mass index (BMI): appropriate weight (AW) control (AWC) and trained (AWT) groups, overweight (OW) control (OWC) and trained (OWT) groups, and obesity (O) control (OC) and trained (OT) groups. The exercise program consisted of 50 minutes of exercise three times per week for 12 weeks. The exercises were alternated between upper and lower body using rest between sets for 40 seconds with intensity controlled by heart rate (70% of work). The contraction time established was 5 seconds to eccentric and concentric muscular action phase. The following anthropometric parameters were evaluated: height (m), body weight (BW, kg), body fat (BF, %), fat mass (FM, kg), lean mass (LM, kg), and BMI (kg/m(2)). Results: The values (mean +/- standard deviation [SD]) of relative changes to BW (-8.0% +/- 0.8%), BF (-21.4% +/- 2.1%), LM (3.0% +/- 0.3%), and FM (-31.2% +/- 3.0%) to the OT group were higher (P < .05) than in the AWT (BW: -2.0% +/- 1.1%; BF: -4.6% +/- 1.8%; FM: -7.0% +/- 2.8%; LM: 0.2% +/- 1.1%) and OWT (BW: -4.5% +/- 1.0%; BF: -11.0% +/- 2.2%; FM: -16.1% +/- 3.2%; LM: -0.2% +/- 1.0%) groups; additionally, no differences were found for C groups. While reduction (P < .03) in BMI according to absolute values was observed for all trained groups (AWT: 22 +/- 1 versus 21 +/- 1; OWT: 27 +/- 1 versus 25 +/- 1, OT: 34 +/- 1 versus 30 +/- 1) after training, no differences were found for C groups. Conclusion: In summary, circuit-based exercise is an effective method for promoting reduction in anthropometrics parameters in obese older women.

Junction Field Effect on the Retention Time for One-Transistor Floating-Body RAM

One-transistor floating-body random access memory retention time distribution is investigated on silicon-on-insulator UTBOX devices. It is shown that the average retention time can be improved by two to three orders of magnitude by reducing the body-junction electric field. However, the retention time distribution, which is mainly caused by the generation-recombination center density variation, remains similar.

Exercise training program based on minimum weekly frequencies: effects on blood pressure and physical fitness in elderly hypertensive patients

Background: Exercise training (ET) can reduce blood pressure (BP) and prevent functional disability. However, the effects of low volumes of training have been poorly studied, especially in elderly hypertensive patients. Objectives: To investigate the effects of a multi-component ET program (aerobic training, strength, flexibility, and balance) on BP, physical fitness, and functional ability of elderly hypertensive patients. Methods: Thirty-six elderly hypertensive patients with optimal clinical treatment underwent a multi-component ET program: two 60-minute sessions a week for 12 weeks at a Basic Health Unit. Results: Compared to pre-training values, systolic and diastolic BP were reduced by 3.6% and 1.2%, respectively (p < 0.001), body mass index was reduced by 1.1% (p < 0.001), and peripheral blood glucose was reduced by 2.5% (p= 0.002). There were improvements in all physical fitness domains: muscle strength (chair-stand test and elbow flexor test; p < 0.001), static balance test (unipedal stance test; p < 0.029), aerobic capacity (stationary gait test; p < 0.001), except for flexibility (sit and reach test). Moreover, there was a reduction in the time required to perform two functional ability tests: "put on sock" and "sit down, stand up, and move around the house" (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Lower volumes of ET improved BP, metabolic parameters, and physical fitness and reflected in the functional ability of elderly hypertensive patients. Trial Registration RBR-2xgjh3.

Assessment of field fertility and several in vitro sperm characteristics following the use of different Angus sires in a timed-AI program with suckled Nelore cows

In order to provide information that may help researchers to understand the main cause(s) of differences in bull fertility frequently observed in field trials, this study aimed to investigate conception rates as well as several in vitro sperm characteristics of different sires of unknown fertility utilized in a Timed-AI (TAI) program. Suckled Nelore cows submitted to the same TAI protocol were allocated into eight breeding groups of approximately 120 animals each. Frozen semen doses from three Angus bulls and three different batches from each bull were utilized. Approximately 100 doses from each batch were used in TAI. Sires, batches and AI technicians were equally distributed across breeding groups. Cows were examined for pregnancy diagnosis 40 d after TAI. For in vitro sperm analyses, the same thawing procedure was repeated in the laboratory to mimic field conditions. The following in vitro sperm characteristics were assessed: computerized motility, thermal resistance, plasma and acrosomal membrane integrity, lipid peroxidation, morphology, morphometry and chromatin structure. No effect of breeding group, body condition score, AI technician and sire was observed. However, some significant differences among bulls were detected in laboratory analyses. Semen from sire presenting numerically lower (P > 0.05) pregnancy/AI also presented lower (P < 0.05) values in all sperm characteristics analyzed in thermal resistance test at 4 h (Total Motility, Progressive Motility, Average Path Velocity, Straight-Line Velocity, Curvilinear Velocity, Amplitude of Lateral Head Displacement, Beat Cross Frequency, Straightness, Linearity, and Percentage of Rapidly Moving Cells), higher (P < 0.05) Major and Total Defects in sperm morphological test, lower (P < 0.05) Length, Ellipticity and Fourier parameter (Fourier 0) in sperm morphometric analysis as well as higher (P < 0.05) chromatin heterogeneity. It was concluded that, although no bull effect was observed in the field experiment, the sire that presented numerically lower pregnancy/AI also presented lower semen quality according to the laboratory analyses performed. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The need of a weight management control program in judo: a proposal based on the successful case of wrestling

Judo competitions are divided into weight classes. However, most athletes reduce their body weight in a few days before competition in order to obtain a competitive advantage over lighter opponents. To achieve fast weight reduction, athletes use a number of aggressive nutritional strategies so many of them place themselves at a high health-injury risk. In collegiate wrestling, a similar problem has been observed and three wrestlers died in 1997 due to rapid weight loss regimes. After these deaths, the National Collegiate Athletic Association had implemented a successful weight management program which was proven to improve weight management behavior. No similar program has ever been discussed by judo federations even though judo competitors present a comparable inappropriate pattern of weight control. In view of this, the basis for a weight control program is provided in this manuscript, as follows: competition should begin within 1 hour after weigh-in, at the latest; each athlete is allowed to be weighed-in only once; rapid weight loss as well as artificial rehydration (i.e., saline infusion) methods are prohibited during the entire competition day; athletes should pass the hydration test to get their weigh-in validated; an individual minimum competitive weight (male athletes competing at no less than 7% and females at no less than 12% of body fat) should be determined at the beginning of each season; athletes are not allowed to compete in any weight class that requires weight reductions greater than 1.5% of body weight per week. In parallel, educational programs should aim at increasing the athletes', coaches' and parents' awareness about the risks of aggressive nutritional strategies as well as healthier ways to properly manage body weight.

Applying many-body expansion aiming to make ab in initio molecular dynamics more efficient

In this present work we present a methodology that aims to apply the many-body expansion to decrease the computational cost of ab initio molecular dynamics, keeping acceptable accuracy on the results. We implemented this methodology in a program which we called ManBo. In the many-body expansion approach, we partitioned the total energy E of the system in contributions of one body, two bodies, three bodies, etc., until the contribution of the Nth body [1-3]: E = E1 + E2 + E3 + …EN. The E1 term is the sum of the internal energy of the molecules; the term E2 is the energy due to interaction between all pairs of molecules; E3 is the energy due to interaction between all trios of molecules; and so on. In Manbo we chose to truncate the expansion in the contribution of two or three bodies, both for the calculation of the energy and for the calculation of the atomic forces. In order to partially include the many-body interactions neglected when we truncate the expansion, we can include an electrostatic embedding in the electronic structure calculations, instead of considering the monomers, pairs and trios as isolated molecules in space. In simulations we made we chose to simulate water molecules, and use the Gaussian 09 as external program to calculate the atomic forces and energy of the system, as well as reference program for analyzing the accuracy of the results obtained with the ManBo. The results show that the use of the many-body expansion seems to be an interesting approach for reducing the still prohibitive computational cost of ab initio molecular dynamics. The errors introduced on atomic forces in applying such methodology are very small. The inclusion of an embedding electrostatic seems to be a good solution for improving the results with only a small increase in simulation time. As we increase the level of calculation, the simulation time of ManBo tends to largely decrease in relation to a conventional BOMD simulation of Gaussian, due to better scalability of the methodology presented. References [1] E. E. Dahlke and D. G. Truhlar; J. Chem. Theory Comput., 3, 46 (2007). [2] E. E. Dahlke and D. G. Truhlar; J. Chem. Theory Comput., 4, 1 (2008). [3] R. Rivelino, P. Chaudhuri and S. Canuto; J. Chem. Phys., 118, 10593 (2003).

Constraint handling rules. Compositional semantics and program transformation

This thesis intends to investigate two aspects of Constraint Handling Rules (CHR). It proposes a compositional semantics and a technique for program transformation. CHR is a concurrent committed-choice constraint logic programming language consisting of guarded rules, which transform multi-sets of atomic formulas (constraints) into simpler ones until exhaustion [Frü06] and it belongs to the declarative languages family. It was initially designed for writing constraint solvers but it has recently also proven to be a general purpose language, being as it is Turing equivalent [SSD05a]. Compositionality is the first CHR aspect to be considered. A trace based compositional semantics for CHR was previously defined in [DGM05]. The reference operational semantics for such a compositional model was the original operational semantics for CHR which, due to the propagation rule, admits trivial non-termination. In this thesis we extend the work of [DGM05] by introducing a more refined trace based compositional semantics which also includes the history. The use of history is a well-known technique in CHR which permits us to trace the application of propagation rules and consequently it permits trivial non-termination avoidance [Abd97, DSGdlBH04]. Naturally, the reference operational semantics, of our new compositional one, uses history to avoid trivial non-termination too. Program transformation is the second CHR aspect to be considered, with particular regard to the unfolding technique. Said technique is an appealing approach which allows us to optimize a given program and in more detail to improve run-time efficiency or spaceconsumption. Essentially it consists of a sequence of syntactic program manipulations which preserve a kind of semantic equivalence called qualified answer [Frü98], between the original program and the transformed ones. The unfolding technique is one of the basic operations which is used by most program transformation systems. It consists in the replacement of a procedure-call by its definition. In CHR every conjunction of constraints can be considered as a procedure-call, every CHR rule can be considered as a procedure and the body of said rule represents the definition of the call. While there is a large body of literature on transformation and unfolding of sequential programs, very few papers have addressed this issue for concurrent languages. We define an unfolding rule, show its correctness and discuss some conditions in which it can be used to delete an unfolded rule while preserving the meaning of the original program. Finally, confluence and termination maintenance between the original and transformed programs are shown. This thesis is organized in the following manner. Chapter 1 gives some general notion about CHR. Section 1.1 outlines the history of programming languages with particular attention to CHR and related languages. Then, Section 1.2 introduces CHR using examples. Section 1.3 gives some preliminaries which will be used during the thesis. Subsequentely, Section 1.4 introduces the syntax and the operational and declarative semantics for the first CHR language proposed. Finally, the methodologies to solve the problem of trivial non-termination related to propagation rules are discussed in Section 1.5. Chapter 2 introduces a compositional semantics for CHR where the propagation rules are considered. In particular, Section 2.1 contains the definition of the semantics. Hence, Section 2.2 presents the compositionality results. Afterwards Section 2.3 expounds upon the correctness results. Chapter 3 presents a particular program transformation known as unfolding. This transformation needs a particular syntax called annotated which is introduced in Section 3.1 and its related modified operational semantics !0t is presented in Section 3.2. Subsequently, Section 3.3 defines the unfolding rule and prove its correctness. Then, in Section 3.4 the problems related to the replacement of a rule by its unfolded version are discussed and this in turn gives a correctness condition which holds for a specific class of rules. Section 3.5 proves that confluence and termination are preserved by the program modifications introduced. Finally, Chapter 4 concludes by discussing related works and directions for future work.

Visual-somatosensory interactions in mental representations of the body and the face

The body is represented in the brain at levels that incorporate multisensory information. This thesis focused on interactions between vision and cutaneous sensations (i.e., touch and pain). Experiment 1 revealed that there are partially dissociable pathways for visual enhancement of touch (VET) depending upon whether one sees one’s own body or the body of another person. This indicates that VET, a seeming low-level effect on spatial tactile acuity, is actually sensitive to body identity. Experiments 2-4 explored the effect of viewing one’s own body on pain perception. They demonstrated that viewing the body biases pain intensity judgments irrespective of actual stimulus intensity, and, more importantly, reduces the discriminative capacities of the nociceptive pathway encoding noxious stimulus intensity. The latter effect only occurs if the pain-inducing event itself is not visible, suggesting that viewing the body alone and viewing a stimulus event on the body have distinct effects on cutaneous sensations. Experiment 5 replicated an enhancement of visual remapping of touch (VRT) when viewing fearful human faces being touched, and further demonstrated that VRT does not occur for observed touch on non-human faces, even fearful ones. This suggests that the facial expressions of non-human animals may not be simulated within the somatosensory system of the human observer in the same way that the facial expressions of other humans are. Finally, Experiment 6 examined the enfacement illusion, in which synchronous visuo-tactile inputs cause another’s face to be assimilated into the mental self-face representation. The strength of enfacement was not affected by the other’s facial expression, supporting an asymmetric relationship between processing of facial identity and facial expressions. Together, these studies indicate that multisensory representations of the body in the brain link low-level perceptual processes with the perception of emotional cues and body/face identity, and interact in complex ways depending upon contextual factors.