sid_melo blogreen

sábado, 25 de outubro de 2014

Um bate papo ao cair da noite…

Pintei esta cabeça de cavalo em 1985, utilizando tinta PVA, (polivinyl acetato) aquela usada para pintar paredes.

É preciso ser esperto porque a tinta seca muito rápido, mais ainda do que tinta acrílica para pintura de quadros. A vantagem é que se pode conseguir uma imensa variedade de tons, que se consegue no momento do trabalho. Só se pode trabalhar com pincéis de cerda dura, de várias larguras, para se conseguir um bom resultado. Outra vantagem é que é utilizado somente tinta e água, e o resultado final é semelhante ao de uma pintura à óleo, depois de envernizado.

Beetroot beneficial for athletes, heart failure patients, research finds

Football teams are claiming it improves their athletic performance, and according to new research from Kansas State University, it also benefits heart failure patients. The special ingredient: beetroot.

Recently, the Auburn University football team revealed its pregame ritual of taking beetroot concentrate, or beet juice, before each game. The juice may have contributed to the team's recent winning season -- and one exercise physiologist who has been studying the supplement for several years says that may be the case.

"Our research, published in the journal Physiology in 2013, has shown that the nitrate found in beetroot concentrate increases blood flow to skeletal muscles during exercise," said David Poole, professor of exercise kinesiology and anatomy and physiology at Kansas State University.

The researchers' latest study, "Microvascular oxygen pressures in muscles comprised of different fiber types: Impact of dietary nitrate supplementation," was published in the Journal of Nitric Oxide, Biology and Chemistry. This work provides the basis for how beetroot juice may benefit football players by preferentially increasing blood flow to fast-twitch muscle fibers -- the ones used for explosive running. This work was performed by Poole; Scott Ferguson, doctoral student in anatomy and physiology; and Timothy Musch, professor of exercise kinesiology and anatomy and physiology, all at Kansas State University.

In addition to improving athletic performance, the research also found that beetroot juice can improve the quality of life for heart failure patients.

"Remember, for every one football player in the United States, there are many thousands of heart failure patients that would benefit from this therapy," Poole said. "It's a big deal because even if you can only increase oxygen delivery by 10 percent, that can be the difference between a patient being wheelchair-bound versus getting up and walking around and interacting with his or her family."

The benefits of beetroot come from the nitrate found within it. The amount of nitrate in one 70-milliliter bottle of beetroot juice is about the same amount found in 100 grams of spinach.

"When consumed, nitrate is reduced in the mouth by bacteria into nitrite," Ferguson said. "The nitrite is swallowed again and then reduced to nitric oxide, which is a potent vasodilator. The nitric oxide dilates the blood vessels, similar to turning on a water faucet, and allows blood to go where it needs to go."

The beetroot juice consumption resulted in a 38 percent higher blood flow to the skeletal muscles during exercise and was preferential to the less-oxygenated, fast-twitch muscles.

"Heart failure is a disease where oxygen delivery to particular tissues, especially working skeletal muscles, is impaired, decreasing the capacity to move the arms or legs and be physically active," Poole said. "The best therapy for these patients is getting up and moving around. However, that is often difficult. Increasing the oxygen delivery to these muscles through beetroot can provide a therapeutic avenue to improve the quality of life for these patients."

Clinical trials are currently underway.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Kansas State University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal References:

Scott K. Ferguson, Daniel M. Hirai, Steven W. Copp, Clark T. Holdsworth, Jason D. Allen, Andrew M. Jones, Timothy I. Musch, David C. Poole. Effects of nitrate supplementation via beetroot juice on contracting rat skeletal muscle microvascular oxygen pressure dynamics. Respiratory Physiology & Neurobiology, 2013; 187 (3): 250 DOI: 10.1016/j.resp.2013.04.001
Scott K. Ferguson, Clark T. Holdsworth, Jennifer L. Wright, Alex J. Fees, Jason D. Allen, Andrew M. Jones, Timothy I. Musch, David C. Poole. Microvascular oxygen pressures in muscles comprised of different fiber types: Impact of dietary nitrate supplementation. Nitric Oxide, 2014; DOI: 10.1016/j.niox.2014.09.157

Vou pensar nisso.

VICTOR HUGO

Victor Hugo viveu no século XIX. Será que isso ainda vale no presente século?

That’s my work.

Beyond 3D printers and the coming of the home electronics factory

Squink is a miniature factory (Photo credit:Eric Mack/Gizmag.com)

Image Gallery (9 images)

When I saw BotFactory's Squink in action at MakerCon in New York last month, it was one of those innovations that took a few minutes to sink in. It looks like a modified 3D printer, but it does much more. In essence, it is a home factory in a single package.

Unlike most 3D printers, Squink has a detachable head that can be swapped out to allow it to move around its workspace to perform different functions. When I first approached the machine, it was in the process of building a circuit board independent of any human assistance in between steps (besides physically switching out the detachable heads). The machine head was picking up components, then hovering the part over a small camera that identified it and then gave the order for it to be placed on a piece of paper where the Squink had already printed conductive ink and laid down conductive glue to ready it for components.

If a 3D printer puts the power of a CNC mill and a few other machines into the hands of even amateur makers, then Squink could essentially put the power of an entire factory into one small corner of a home office. Forget soldering, cutting, etching or simply waiting forever to get your prototype back from an actual factory. BotFactory, which is a startup that grew out of the relationship between a few NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering graduates and their professor, sees Squink as a way to take the lag out of the traditionally long and laborious process of prototyping electronics.

“We see ourselves as members of the Agile Electronics Development wave,” they said in a recent release leading up to MakerCon. “As such we walk uncharted routes, creating new horizons for this newborn concept. In the upcoming years we'll continue evolving our products to provide the best experience on the market for this kind of technology.”

Those new horizons are where my mind went right away as I watched the Squink place each component on the circuit it recently printed. The amount of people out there with ideas that are at least worthy of making it to a prototype, but who don't possess the fabrication skills or background to ever dream of making their notions a reality, is surely larger than just me.

"It allows very easy entry into the world of electronics," BotFactory Co-Founder Michael Knox confirmed in an interview.

The team claims that Squink is simple enough to operate that there's no reason even a child couldn't design and create a circuit with a little guidance. They imagine uses for their technology that might include integrating circuits into glass, wearables and even artwork, just for starters.

A crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter successfully raised US$100,000 to get Squink off the ground, and now the team is gearing up to begin selling the early units for somewhere around $3,500, which is what a few dozen backers pledged to be first in line for the fully-functional version of the system.

Check out the video below to see a quick demonstration of the alpha version of Squink in action.

Source: BotFactory

Masters of Photography–Nat Geo

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Powerful new class of weapons found in the war on cancer

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch, and Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have identified small molecules that can represent a new class of anticancer drugs with a novel target for the treatment of lung cancer. These findings are detailed in Nature Communications. A PCT patent (WO 2013028543 A1) was jointly documented by these two Institutes for the invention.

Survival outcomes remain poor for lung cancer patients in large part because of lung cancer's resistance to conventional therapies. Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, is a natural process within cells that scientists are learning to successfully exploit in cancer therapies. The Bax molecule is required for the decision-making stage for programmed cell death. This research team has previously identified the serine184 site of the Bax molecule as a critical functional switch in controlling its cell death activities. Therefore, the researchers sought to learn how manipulate the Bax molecule at S184 to devise a new strategy for cancer treatment.

In the present study, researchers used the structural pocket around S184 as a docking site to screen about 300,000 small 'drug-like' compounds from the National Cancer Institute's library of small molecules to discover compounds that activate Bax and trigger apoptosis in lung cancer cells. They identified three small-molecule Bax activators that target the S184 site of Bax, activate the cell death machineries of Bax and potently repress lung tumor growth. The researchers also found that application of these compounds to Bax-positive lung cancer tumors did not have any toxic effects on nearby noncancerous tissues.

"These compounds hold potential as an entirely new class of anticancer drugs with a unique therapeutic target for the treatment of cancers expressing Bax, including lung cancer," said Dr. Jia Zhou, lead UTMB author and associate professor at Department of Pharmacology and Center for Addiction Research. "They induce high levels of cell death in lung cancer cells without triggering cell death in noncancerous cells."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

Meiguo Xin, Rui Li, Maohua Xie, Dongkyoo Park, Taofeek K. Owonikoko, Gabriel L. Sica, Patrick E. Corsino, Jia Zhou, Chunyong Ding, Mark A. White, Andrew T. Magis, Suresh S. Ramalingam, Walter J. Curran, Fadlo R. Khuri, Xingming Deng. Small-molecule Bax agonists for cancer therapy. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 4935 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5935

Bullying in schools still prevalent, american national report finds

Despite a dramatic increase in public awareness and anti-bullying legislation nationwide, the prevalence of bullying is still one of the most pressing issues facing our nation's youth, according to a report by researchers from Clemson University and Professional Data Analysts Inc., and published by the Hazelden Foundation.

"Bullying continues to affect a great number of children in all age groups, with the highest prevalence observed in third and fourth grades, where roughly 22 percent of schoolchildren report that they are bullied two or three times or more per month," said Sue Limber, co-author of the report and professor in the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life at Clemson.

Research shows that bullying affects individuals across ethnicity, gender, grade and socioeconomic status, whether they live in urban, suburban or rural communities. Bullying can have serious effects during the school years and into adulthood.

Using data collected from the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire, they analyzed a representative sample of more than 200,000 questionnaires administered to students at schools that intended to, but had not yet implemented, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, an internationally respected anti-bullying program.

The sample included 1,000 girls and 1,000 boys from each grade between third and 12th -- and the results were broken down by grade level and gender.

"We found that 18 percent of all students surveyed were involved in bullying others, were bullied by others or both, and that cyberbullying was one of the least common forms of bullying experienced," Limber said.

A substantial proportion of bullied students did not confide in anyone about being bullied, and boys were less likely to confide in others than girls. Although more than 90 percent of girls and 80 percent of boys said they felt sorry for students who are bullied, far fewer reached out to help them.

"Many students also lacked confidence in the administrative and teaching staff to address bullying and, by high school, less than one-third of bullied students had reported bullying to adults at school," she said. "Although half of students in grades three to five believed that school staff often tried to put a stop to it when a student was being bullied, this percentage dropped to just 36 percent by high school."

The researchers say that one of the best tools that schools have for decreasing the problems associated with bullying behavior is to implement evidence-based prevention programs.

"We hope that this report helps teachers, administrators, parents, policymakers and concerned citizens raise national awareness about bullying and improve school environments so every child can feel safe at school," said Limber.

The report can be found online at: http://newsstand.clemson.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/OBPPbullyingtrends_2014_final2.pdf

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Clemson University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Shorter tuberculosis treatment not a successful alternative, clinical drug trial shows

A clinical drug trial conducted in five Sub-Sahara African countries shows that a shortened (four month) treatment for tuberculosis (TB) is well tolerated and may work well in subsets of TB patients, but overall could not be considered as an alternative to the current six month standard treatment. The results of the study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

TB remains a significant public health problem worldwide. There were an estimated 8.6 million people who developed TB and 1.3 million died from the disease in 2012. The study was designed to verify whether replacing one of the four drugs of the standard regimen with gatifloxacin could shorten the overall treatment duration of TB from six to four months.

The new treatment was found to be safe and cleared the lungs from TB bacteria rapidly, but a proportion of patients relapsed within months after treatment ended. The shortened treatment appeared beneficial to patients with no TB cavitation in their lungs, undernourished patients, and people living with HIV, but it was less effective among other groups. Therefore, this shortened regimen could not be recommended to replace the current treatment, though the difference in effectiveness between the two treatments varied considerably across the different countries where the study took place.

"The standard treatment is very effective if taken for the full six months," says Dr Christian Lienhardt, who initiated the study while at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and who now works at the World Health Organization. "But in reality, many do not do this. Poor patient adherence to treatment may increase the risk of TB becoming drug resistant and thus potentially fatal. Shortening treatment duration remains, therefore, a global priority, as it would lead to more patients following the complete treatment."

The study enrolled over 1,800 patients in five African countries (Benin, Guinea Conakry, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa). Half of the patients received the standard six month treatment (rifampicin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide and ethambutol); the other half received the shortened four month treatment with gatifloxacin replacing ethambutol.

"While, unfortunately, the results do not support a much-needed shortened TB regimen," says Dr Piero Olliaro, an author and head of TDR's intervention and implementation research, "this study will teach us a lot about TB treatment response. For example, three of the African partners were TB national programmes, showing that high-level clinical research can be embedded in national control programmes, which is one of our goals."

The trial is the result of broad collaboration between two sponsors, three national African TB programmes (Benin, Guinea Conakry and Senegal), two African research institutes (Kenyan Medical Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya and Medical Research Council in Durban, South Africa) and four European institutions: Assistance Publique -- Hôpitaux de Paris (France), St Georges Hospital Medical School (UK), the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp (Belgium), and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (UK).

"The study will help improve the way future studies of TB will be conducted, due to the investments made in strengthening capacities for quality clinical trials in highly endemic TB countries," said Dr Corinne Merle, the study coordinator from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. "Given the variety of TB drugs that are currently in the development pipeline, these skills will continue to be needed."

This was a large study with 1,356 patients from five countries, noted the trial statistician Dr Katherine Fielding from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. "Additional analyses of our data and combining data from other trials will be essential to continue the search for new and improved TB treatments."

"We have ethical, scientific and economic obligations to make the best out of this and other recent TB trials," says Olliaro. "Sharing data will help shorten the journey to the next TB regimen." TDR is organising consultations with stakeholders on the establishment of a TB clinical data sharing platform and community of practice.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

Corinne S. Merle, Katherine Fielding, Omou Bah Sow, Martin Gninafon, Mame B. Lo, Thuli Mthiyane, Joseph Odhiambo, Evans Amukoye, Boubacar Bah, Ferdinand Kassa, Alimatou N'Diaye, Roxana Rustomjee, Bouke C. de Jong, John Horton, Christian Perronne, Charalambos Sismanidis, Olivier Lapujade, Piero L. Olliaro, Christian Lienhardt. A Four-Month Gatifloxacin-Containing Regimen for Treating Tuberculosis. New England Journal of Medicine, 2014; 371 (17): 1588 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1315817

Reminiscing can help boost mental performance

Click to enlarge

“The prevailing view is that activating brain regions referred to as the default network impairs performance on attention-demanding tasks because this network is associated with behaviors such as mind-wandering,” said Spreng. “Our study is the first to demonstrate the opposite – that engaging the default network can also improve performance.”

To solve a mental puzzle, the brain’s executive control network for externally focused, goal-oriented thinking must activate, while the network for internally directed thinking like daydreaming must be turned down to avoid interference – or so we thought.

New research led by Cornell University neuroscientist Nathan Spreng shows for the first time that engaging brain areas linked to so-called “off-task” mental activities (such as mind-wandering and reminiscing) can actually boost performance on some challenging mental tasks. The results advance our understanding of how externally and internally focused neural networks interact to facilitate complex thought, the authors say.

There are plenty of neuroimaging studies showing that default network activation interferes with complex mental tasks – but in most, Spreng explained, the mental processes associated with default network conflict with task goals. If you start thinking about what you did last weekend while taking notes during a lecture, for example, your note-taking and ability to keep up will suffer.

Spreng and his team developed a new approach in which off-task processes such as reminiscing can support rather than conflict with the aims of the experimental task. Their novel task, “famous faces n-back,” tests whether accessing long-term memory about famous people, which typically engages default network brain regions, can support short-term memory performance, which typically engages executive control regions.

While undergoing brain scanning, 36 young adults viewed sets of famous and anonymous faces in sequence and were asked to identify whether the current face matched the one presented two faces back. The team found participants were faster and more accurate when matching famous faces than when matching anonymous faces and that this better short-term memory performance was associated with greater activity in the default network. The results show that activity in the default brain regions can support performance on goal-directed tasks when task demands align with processes supported by the default network, the authors say.

“Outside the laboratory, pursuing goals involves processing information filled with personal meaning – knowledge about past experiences, motivations, future plans and social context,” Spreng said. “Our study suggests that the default network and executive control networks dynamically interact to facilitate an ongoing dialogue between the pursuit of external goals and internal meaning.”

The study, “Goal-congruent default network activity facilitates cognitive control,” published in October in the Journal of Neuroscience, was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Cornell University. The original article was written by Melissa Osgood. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

R. N. Spreng, E. DuPre, D. Selarka, J. Garcia, S. Gojkovic, J. Mildner, W.-M. Luh, G. R. Turner. Goal-Congruent Default Network Activity Facilitates Cognitive Control. Journal of Neuroscience, 2014; 34 (42): 14108 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2815-14.2014