TRPA1 Role in Inflammatory Disorders: What Is Known So Far?

The transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1), a member of the TRP superfamily of channels, is primarily localized in a subpopulation of primary sensory neurons of the trigeminal, vagal, and dorsal root ganglia, where its activation mediates neurogenic inflammatory responses. TRPA1 expression in resident tissue cells, inflammatory, and immune cells, through the indirect modulation of a large series of intracellular pathways, orchestrates a range of cellular processes, such as cytokine production, cell differentiation, and cytotoxicity. Therefore, the TRPA1 pathway has been proposed as a protective mechanism to detect and respond to harmful agents in various pathological conditions, including several inflammatory diseases. Specific attention has been paid to TRPA1 contribution to the transition of inflammation and immune responses from an early defensive response to a chronic pathological condition. In this view, TRPA1 antagonists may be regarded as beneficial tools for the treatment of inflammatory conditions.     

Discovering collaborative knowledge-intensive processes through e-mail mining

Knowledge Management aims to promote the growth, communication and preservation of knowledge within an organization, which includes managing the appropriate resources to facilitate knowledge sharing and reuse. Business Process-Oriented Knowledge Management focuses on discovering and representing the dynamic conversion of existing knowledge among participants involved in executing business processes. In this context, Knowledge-Intensive Processes are a very important and challenging specific subclass of processes, since they strongly involve socialization and informal exchanges of knowledge among participants. This paper describes in detail a method for semi-automatic discovery of relevant information characterizing Knowledge-Intensive Processes, as well as the results of further evaluation of the method. Our approach draws on the informal exchange of existing knowledge in collaborative tools such as e-mails. The output is a conceptual map that describes the main elements of a Knowledge-Intensive Process, as well as their relationships. The results from the case study conducted to evaluate the method in an organization underlined the prospects for using collaborative environments to discover the way agents perform their activities.     

Gauging food and nutritional care quality in hospitals

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Food and nutritional care quality must be assessed and scored, so as to improve health institution efficacy. This study aimed to detect and compare actions related to food and nutritional care quality in public and private hospitals. METHODS: Investigation of the Hospital Food and Nutrition Service (HFNS) of 37 hospitals by means of structured interviews assessing two quality control corpora, namely nutritional care quality (NCQ) and hospital food service quality (FSQ). HFNS was also evaluated with respect to human resources per hospital bed and per produced meal. RESULTS: Comparison between public and private institutions revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the number of hospital beds per HFNS staff member (p = 0.02) and per dietitian (p < 0.01). The mean compliance with NCQ criteria in public and private institutions was 51.8% and 41.6%, respectively. The percentage of public and private health institutions in conformity with FSQ criteria was 42.4% and 49.1%, respectively. Most of the actions comprising each corpus, NCQ and FSQ, varied considerably between the two types of institution. NCQ was positively influenced by hospital type (general) and presence of a clinical dietitian. FSQ was affected by institution size: large and medium-sized hospitals were significantly better than small ones. CONCLUSIONS: Food and nutritional care in hospital is still incipient, and actions concerning both nutritional care and food service take place on an irregular basis. It is clear that the design of food and nutritional care in hospital indicators is mandatory, and that guidelines for the development of actions as well as qualification and assessment of nutritional care are urgent.     

Analysis of Grain Boundary Character in a Fine-Grained Nickel-Based Superalloy 718

In the current work, sheets of superalloy 718 were processed via thermomechanical route by hot and cold rolling, followed by annealing below the δ phase solvus temperature and precipitation hardening to optimum strength. Grain boundary character distribution throughout the processing was mapped via EBSD and its evolution discussed. The results show that it is possible to process the alloy to a fine grain size obtaining concomitantly a considerably high proportion of special boundaries Σ3, Σ9, and Σ27. The precipitation of δ phase presented a strong grain refining role, without significantly impairing the twinning mechanism and, consequently, the Σ3, Σ9, and Σ27 boundary formations.     

Adaptive Boolean Logic Using Ferroelectrics Capacitors as Basic Units of Artificial Neurons and Its Implementation in FPGA

In this work we propose the implementation of boolean logic through artificial neurons with Ferroelectric Capacitor (FeCapacitor) as its basic unit on a reconfigurable hardware platform. Two neurons were implemented: the Perceptron and the Spiking Neuron model. Both neurons use the phenomenon of the hysteresis loop as an activation function and were embedded on a Field Gate Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) hardware platform. The implementations were carried out by Simulink models and hardware synthesizable blocks from DSP Builder software and the results are shown in the form of the models and the boolean functions implemented by them.     

Tubular dentin sealer penetration after different final irrigation protocols: A confocal laser scanning microscopy study

The aim of this study was to evaluate tubular dentin sealer penetration, comparing different final irrigation protocols using a conventional needle (CONV), EndoActivator system (EAS), EndoVac system (EVS), and ultrasound (PUI). Initially, fifty‐two first maxillary molars with a single canal in the palatal root, without abrupt curvatures, resorptive processes, or previous endodontic treatment were selected for this study. Then, the crowns were sectioned to obtain palatal roots 15 mm in length. The root canals were prepared with the ProTaper Universal System and irrigated with 5% NaOCl. Afterwards, the specimens were divided into four groups (n. 13), according to the final irrigation protocol: CONV, EAS, EVS, and PUI. After filling, slices at 3 mm and 5 mm from the apex were obtained for analysis by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Two‐way comparisons between the groups and the levels were performed with Games Howell's test (p < .05). Tubular dentin sealer penetration was higher at 5 mm compared with 3 mm from the apex (p < .05). The EAS group showed a higher percentage of tubular dentin sealer penetration, compared with the CONV group, at both levels. At 3 mm, there was no statistically significant difference among EAS, EVS, and PUI; however, these groups showed better performance, compared with the CONV group. At 5 mm, there was no statistically significant difference between the EAS and EVS groups, but both showed higher sealer penetration than the PUI group (p < .05). The EAS and EVS groups achieved better degrees of tubular dentin sealer penetration, compared with the other groups.     

Structural and thermal behavior of 45S5 Bioglass®-based compositions containing alumina and strontium

The present research exposes the influence of 2 mol% of Al₂O₃ and 2 mol% SrO in 45S5 Bioglass^®-based compositions. Four compositions were produced to elucidate the difference in how both oxides influence structure and thermal behavior separately and their synergy when together. Thermal properties, crystallization tendency, and sintering behavior was evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry, hot stage microscopy, and dilatometry. Changes of medium-range structures were characterized by Qⁿ distribution of Raman spectroscopy and evaluation of ³¹P, ²⁷Al, ²³Na, and ²⁹Si environment obtained by magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance. Despite Qⁿ distribution was predominantly Q² in all samples, the composition criteria used enabled improved processing and stabilibity characteristics. The addition of Al₂O₃ and SrO promoted larger sinterability parameter (S_c) which indicates better sintering behavior, the glass stability against crystallization doubled (K_H) compared to 45S5 and the processing window enlarged from 106 to 171.     

Electroanalytical determination of the sunscreen agent octocrylene in cosmetic products

An electroanalytical method was developed to detect and quantify the sunscreen agent octocrylene (OCR) in cosmetic products. The method was based on electrochemical reduction, using voltammetric techniques. OCR was reduced at -0.97 V vs. Ag/AgCl on a glassy carbon electrode using a mixture of Britton-Robinson buffer (0.04 mol L(-1)) and ethanol (7 : 3, v/v) as the supporting electrolyte solution. Under optimized conditions and square-wave voltammetry, OCR response was linear from 5.0 × 10(-6) to 8.0 × 10(-5) mol L(-1) (r = 0.9995), with a limit of detection of 2.8 × 10(-6) mol L(-1). The proposed electroanalytical method proved simple, fast and suitable for detection and quantification of OCR in samples of cosmetic products, with satisfactory results in the recovery test and analytical determination in real samples.     

Single-step creation of localized Delaunay triangulations

A localized Delaunay triangulation owns the following interesting properties for sensor and wireless ad hoc networks: it can be built with localized information, the communication cost imposed by control information is limited, and it supports geographical routing algorithms that offer guaranteed convergence. This paper presents two localized algorithms, fast localized Delaunay triangulation 1 (FLDT1) and fast localized Delaunay triangulation 2 (FLDT2), that build a graph called planar localized Delaunay triangulation, PLDel, known to be a good spanner of the Unit Disk Graph, UDG. Our algorithms improve previous algorithms with similar theoretical bounds in the following aspects: unlike previous work, FLDT1 and FLDT2 build PLDel in a single communication step, maintaining a communication cost of O(n log n), which is within a constant of the optimal. Additionally, we show that FLDT1 is more robust than previous triangulation algorithms, because it does not require the strict UDG connectivity model to work. The small signaling cost of our algorithms allows us to improve routing performance, by efficiently using the PLDel graph instead of sparser graphs, like the Gabriel or the Relative Neighborhood graphs.     

Dimensional Effects on Magnetic Properties of Fe–Si Steels Due to Laser and Mechanical Cutting

Microstructural deterioration near the cut line and presence of residual stresses both affect the magnetic properties of cut parts. In this paper, the differences between microstructural deterioration resulting from mechanical and laser cutting as well as the sample size effects observed upon hysteresis will be discussed. It will be shown that the underlying mechanism for changes in magnetic properties due to mechanical cutting is distinct from that of laser cutting.