Design of novel urogenital pharmabiotic formulations containing lactobacilli,salivaricin CRL 1328 and non-microbial compounds with different functionalities

Context: The administration of pharmabiotics is a promising alternative to antimicrobial drugs for the treatment and/or prevention of female urogenital infections.

Objective: To design pharmabiotic formulations including bioactive ingredients of microbial origin combined with non-microbial substances and then to evaluate the stability of the combinations during freeze-drying and storage.

Materials and methods: Different formulations including Lactobacillus gasseri CRL 1263, Lactobacillus salivarius CRL 1328, salivaricin CRL 1328 (a bacteriocin) and non-microbial compounds (lactose, inulin and ascorbic acid) were assayed, and the ingredients were freeze-dried together or separately. The formulations were stored in gelatin capsules at 4?°C for 360?d.

Results: The viability of lactobacilli was affected to different extents depending on the strains and on the formulations assayed. L. salivarius and ascorbic acid were successfully combined only after the freeze-drying process. Salivaricin activity was not detected in formulations containing L. gasseri. However, when combined with ascorbic acid, lactose, inulin or L. salivarius, the bacteriocin maintained its activity for 360?d. The selected microorganisms proved to be compatible for their inclusion in multi-strain formulations together with lactose, inulin and ascorbic acid. Salivaricin could be included only in a L. salivarius CRL 1328 single-strain formulation together with non-microbial substances.

Conclusions: This study provides new insights into the design of urogenital pharmabiotics combining beneficial lactobacilli, salivaricin CRL 1328 and compounds with different functionalities.     

Mitochondrial Bioenergetic,Photobiomodulation and Trigeminal Branches Nerve Damage,What’s the Connection? A Review

Background: Injury of the trigeminal nerve in oral and maxillofacial surgery can occur. Schwann cell mitochondria are regulators in the development, maintenance and regeneration of peripheral nerve axons. Evidence shows that after the nerve injury, mitochondrial bioenergetic dysfunction occurs and is associated with pain, neuropathy and nerve regeneration deficit. A challenge for research is to individuate new therapies able to normalise mitochondrial and energetic metabolism to aid nerve recovery after damage. Photobiomodulation therapy can be an interesting candidate, because it is a technique involving cell manipulation through the photonic energy of a non-ionising light source (visible and NIR light), which produces a nonthermal therapeutic effect on the stressed tissue. Methods: The review was based on the following questions: (1) Can photo-biomodulation by red and NIR light affect mitochondrial bioenergetics? (2) Can photobiomodulation support damage to the trigeminal nerve branches? (preclinical and clinical studies), and, if yes, (3) What is the best photobiomodulatory therapy for the recovery of the trigeminal nerve branches? The papers were searched using the PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane databases. This review followed the ARRIVE-2.0, PRISMA and Cochrane RoB-2 guidelines. Results and conclusions: The reliability of photobiomodulatory event strongly bases on biological and physical-chemical evidence. Its principal player is the mitochondrion, whether its cytochromes are directly involved as a photoacceptor or indirectly through a vibrational and energetic variation of bound water: water as the photoacceptor. The 808-nm and 100 J/cm² (0.07 W; 2.5 W/cm²; pulsed 50 Hz; 27 J per point; 80 s) on rats and 800-nm and 0.2 W/cm² (0.2 W; 12 J/cm²; 12 J per point; 60 s, CW) on humans resulted as trustworthy therapies, which could be supported by extensive studies.     

Time Decay of the Activity of the Reduction Reaction of NO by CO on a Pd/Al2O3 Catalyst

An experimental study is made of the time decay of activity of the CO–NO reaction on a Pd/Al₂O₃ looking at the effect on reaction order and apparent activation energy. The optimum kinetics parameters fitting the steady state data at moderate pressures are determined. The time decay curves are analyzed through various catalyst deactivation models.     

Degradation of wine industry wastewaters by photocatalytic advanced oxidation.

Wine industry wastewaters contain a high concentration of organic biodegradable compounds as well as a great amount of suspended solids. These waters are difficult to treat by conventional biological processes because they are seasonal and a great flow variation exists. Photocatalytic advanced oxidation is a promising technology for waters containing high amounts of organic matter. In this study we firstly investigated the application of H2O2 as oxidant combined with light (artificial or natural) in order to reduce the organic matter in samples from wine industry effluents. Secondly, we studied its combination with heterogeneous catalysts: titanium dioxide and clays containing iron minerals. The addition of photocatalysts to the system reduces the required H2O2 concentration. Although the H2O2/TiO2 system produces higher efficiencies, the H2O2/clays system requires a H2O2 dosage between three and six times lower.     

Bone marrow biopsy in the diagnosis of fever of unknown origin in patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome

BACKGROUND: Fever is commonly observed in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease and frequently eludes diagnosis. The role of bone marrow biopsy in the diagnosis of fever of unknown origin in patients infected with HIV remains controversial. PATIENTS AND METHODS: One hundred twenty-three consecutive patients with 137 episodes of fever lasting 10 or more days without diagnosis after 1 week of hospitalization were evaluated by bone marrow biopsy. RESULTS: Overall, a specific diagnosis was achieved in 52 episodes by means of culture and histopathological examination (diagnostic yield, 37.9%). Three types of disease were found: mycobacterial infections (n = 36, 69% of documented episodes), including 18 patients with disseminated tuberculosis and 14 with Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare complex infections; non-Hodgkin lymphomas (n = 12, 23%); and visceral leishmaniasis (n = 4, 8%). Although bone marrow cultures were more sensitive than microscopic examination with special stains for the diagnosis of mycobacterial infections, the pathological examination of bone marrow led to a more rapid diagnosis of disease. In addition, the histopathological examination of bone marrow alone led to the diagnosis of a specific condition in 43 episodes (31.3% of all episodes). CONCLUSIONS: Bone marrow biopsy is a useful procedure for the diagnosis of fever in patients with advanced HIV disease, particularly in areas where tuberculosis and leishmaniasis are prevalent. Involvement of the marrow may be the first indication of the existence of extranodal non-Hodgkin lymphoma. For Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare complex infection, blood cultures were more sensitive than bone marrow biopsy.     

Carbonitriding of Clay: Relation between the Weight Loss and Crystalline Phases during Reaction

β'-Sialons are phases of the Si-Al-O-N system. The carbonitriding of clays and kaolins is a preparation method. The reaction mechanism of clay carbonitriding is verified by means of the relation among crystalline phases formed and the weight loss produced in the samples during the reaction. Two clays were previously mixed with carbon black and pressed into pellets, flowing through N₂ atmosphere, at five temperatures within the range 1335–1427°C. The phases formed (XRD)—mullite, SiC, β'A-sialon, and oxynitrides—were related to the weight loss measured in the pellet independently of reaction temperature and time. The β'A-sialon and the nitrogenous phases were formed from SiC and mullite. A z value decrease for β'A-sialon was observed during reaction progression.     

Performance and energy task migration model for heterogeneous clusters

The Journal of Supercomputing - This article presents a set of linear regression models to predict the impact of task migration on different objectives, like performance and energy consumption. It...     

Energy profile of rollback-recovery strategies in high performance computing

Extreme-scale computing is set to provide the infrastructure for the advances and breakthroughs that will solve some of the hardest problems in science and engineering. However, resilience and energy concerns loom as two of the major challenges for machines at that scale. The number of components that will be assembled in the supercomputers plays a fundamental role in these challenges. First, a large number of parts will substantially increase the failure rate of the system compared to the failure frequency of current machines. Second, those components have to fit within the power envelope of the installation and keep the energy consumption within operational margins. Extreme-scale machines will have to incorporate fault tolerance mechanisms and honor the energy and power restrictions. Therefore, it is essential to understand how fault tolerance and energy consumption interplay. This paper presents a comparative evaluation and analysis of energy consumption of three different rollback-recovery protocols: checkpoint/restart, message logging and parallel recovery. Our experimental evaluation shows parallel recovery has the minimum execution time and energy consumption. Additionally, we present an analytical model that projects parallel recovery can reduce energy consumption more than 37% compared to checkpoint/restart at extreme scale.     

Inactivation of Fusarium oxysporum Conidia in Soil with Gaseous Ozone – Preliminary Studies

ABSTRACT

In this study, the efficiency of gaseous ozone (O₃) injected in the soil as an oxidizing agent for the inactivation of F. oxysporum was evaluated under laboratory conditions. The results show the treatment reached an inactivation efficiency of 76% after an applied dose of 0.40 g O₃ kg ^?1 soil. This shows that the injection of O₃ can be a viable alternative to control pathogenic organisms in the soils. Nevertheless, it is clear that more studies on determining the effects of this treatment on soil quality are needed.     

Invariant three- and four-phase equilibria in the magnesium-rich corner of the Mg-Cu-Sn ternary system

Invariant three- and four-phase equilibria in the magnesium-rich corner of the Mg-Cu-Sn ternary system have been studied by differential thermal analysis, optical microscopy, electron probe microanalysis and X-ray diffraction. The L(Mg) + Mg₂ Cu + Mg₂Sn ternary eutectic reaction was found to be at 467 °C and at Mg–13.5 at % Cu–4.4 at% Sn. The LMg₂Cu + Mg₂Sn pseudo-binary eutectic reaction is tentatively located at 522°C and at Mg–26.0 at % Cu–7.7 at % Sn.