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Opioids are administered epidurally (PV) to provide trans- and postoperative analgesia. Twenty healthy female cats aged between 6 and 24 months and weighing between 2 and 3.7 kg, undergoing elective ovariohysterectomy (OVH), were induced with propofol (8 mg/kg), followed by continuous infusion (0.1–0.4 mg/kg/min). Three groups were defined: CG (0.1 mL/kg of iodinated contrast, n = 6), G0.1 (0.1 mg/kg of morphine, n = 7), and G0.2 (0.2 mg/kg of morphine, n = 7) per VP. All received 0.1 mL/kg of iodinated contrast per VP and injection water to obtain a total of 0.3 mL/kg. Heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), temperature, expired CO2, oxygen saturation, and number of rescue analgesics were monitored. Postoperatively, a multidimensional scale was used to assess acute pain in cats for 12 h. The mean HR and SBP in the CG were higher at the time of maximum noxious stimulation and required fentanyl in all groups. Postoperatively, 83%, 28%, and 7% of the animals in CG, G0.1, and G0.2, respectively, received rescue analgesia. In cats undergoing OVH, epidural morphine at doses of 0.1 and 0.2 mg/kg did not prevent the need for intraoperative rescue analgesia but reduced the postoperative analgesic needed.

Grazing exclusion may lead to biodiversity loss and homogenization of naturally heterogeneous and species-rich grassland ecosystems, and these effects may cascade to higher trophic levels and ecosystem properties. Although grazing exclusion has been studied elsewhere, the consequences of alleviating the disturbance regime in grassland ecosystems remain unclear. In this paper, we present results of the first five years of an experiment in native grasslands of southern Brazil. Using a randomized block experimental design, we examined the effects of three grazing treatments on plant and arthropod communities: (i) deferred grazing (i.e., intermittent grazing), (ii) grazing exclusion and (iii) a control under traditional continuous grazing, which were applied to 70 x 70 m experimental plots, in six regionally distributed blocks. We evaluated plant community responses regarding taxonomic and functional diversity (life-forms) in separate spatial components: alpha (1 x 1 m subplots), beta, and gamma (70 x 70 m plots), as well as the cascading effects on arthropod high-taxa. By estimating effect sizes (treatments vs. control) by bootstrap resampling, both deferred grazing and grazing exclusion mostly increased vegetation height, plant biomass and standing dead biomass. The effect of grazing exclusion on plant taxonomic diversity was negative. Conversely, deferred grazing increased plant taxonomic diversity, but both treatments reduced plant functional diversity. Reduced grazing pressure in both treatments promoted the break of dominance by prostrate species, followed by fast homogenization of vegetation structure towards dominance of ligneous and erect species. These changes in the plant community led to increases in high-taxa richness and abundance of vegetation-dwelling arthropod groups under both treatments, but had no detectable effects on epigeic arthropods. Our results indicate that decision-making regarding the conservation of southern Brazil grasslands should include both intensive and alleviated levels of grazing management, but not complete grazing exclusion, to maximize conservation results when considering plant and arthropod communities.

The presence of green areas in urbanized cities is crucial to reduce the negative impacts of urbanization. However, these areas can influence the signal quality of IoT devices that use wireless communication, such as LoRa technology. Vegetation attenuates electromagnetic waves, interfering with the data transmission between IoT devices, resulting in the need for signal propagation modeling, which considers the effect of vegetation on its propagation. In this context, this research was conducted at the Federal University of Pará, using measurements in a wooded environment composed of the Pau-Mulato species, typical of the Amazon. Two machine learning-based propagation models, GRNN and MLPNN, were developed to consider the effect of Amazonian trees on propagation, analyzing different factors, such as the transmitter’s height relative to the trunk, the beginning of foliage, and the middle of the tree canopy, as well as the LoRa spreading factor (SF) 12, and the co-polarization of the transmitter and receiver antennas. The proposed models demonstrated higher accuracy, achieving values of root mean square error (RMSE) of 3.86 dB and standard deviation (SD) of 3.8614 dB, respectively, compared to existing empirical models like CI, FI, Early ITU-R, COST235, Weissberger, and FITU-R. The significance of this study lies in its potential to boost wireless communications in wooded environments. Furthermore, this research contributes to enhancing more efficient and robust LoRa networks for applications in agriculture, environmental monitoring, and smart urban infrastructure.

Brazil’s large land base is important for global food security but its high dependency on inorganic phosphorus (P) fertilizer for crop production (2.2 Tg rising up to 4.6 Tg in 2050) is not a sustainable use of a critical and price-volatile resource. A new strategic analysis of current and future P demand/supply concluded that the nation’s secondary P resources which are produced annually (e.g. livestock manures, sugarcane processing residues) could potentially provide up to 20% of crop P demand by 2050 with further investment in P recovery technologies. However, the much larger legacy stores of secondary P in the soil (30 Tg in 2016 worth over $40 billion and rising to 105 Tg by 2050) could provide a more important buffer against future P scarcity or sudden P price fluctuations, and enable a transition to more sustainable P input strategies that could reduce current annual P surpluses by 65%. In the longer-term, farming systems in Brazil should be redesigned to operate profitably but more sustainably under lower soil P fertility thresholds.

Guatteria olivacea R.E. Fries is an Amazonian species known as ‘envira-bobó’ and ‘envira-fofa’ and is common in the states of Amazonas, Acre, and Pará. Recently, the essential oil from the leaves of this species has shown promising antitumor activity both in vitro and in vivo. The presence of isoquinoline-derived alkaloids, including aporphinoids and tetrahydroprotoberberine alkaloids, has also been previously reported. In our ongoing search for bioactive compounds from Annonaceae Amazonian plants, the bark of G. olivacea was investigated via classical chromatography techniques, which revealed nine compounds, eight isoquinoline-derived alkaloids, a rare alkaloid with a α-gem-dimethyltetradehydrocularine structure known as gouregine, seven known aporphinoid alkaloids: isopiline, O-methylisopiline, melosmine, 9-hydroxyiguattescine, dihydromelosmine, lysicamine, and guattouregidine, and one known pimaradiene diterpene: acanthoic acid. All the isolated compounds were described for the first time in the bark of G. olivacea, and their structures were elucidated by extensive analyses of their 1D and 2D NMR spectra in combination with MS data. The NMR data of the alkaloids isopiline, O-methylisopiline, melosmine, dihydromelosmine, and guattouregidine were revised due to incomplete data in the literature and some ambiguities. The in vitro cytotoxic activities of the isolated compounds were evaluated against human cancer (HepG2, KG-1a, and HCT116) and noncancerous (MRC-5) cell lines via the Alamar blue assay after 72 h of incubation. Among the compounds evaluated against human cancer cell lines, the most active was the oxoaporphine alkaloid lysicamine, which has strong activity against HCT116 cells, with an IC50 value of 6.64 µg/mL (22.79 µmol/L). Melosmine had a moderate effect on HCT116 cells, with an IC50 value of 16.77 µg/mL (49.70 µmol/L), whereas acanthoic acid had moderate effects on HepG2 and HCT116 cells, with IC50 values of 14.63 µg/mL (48.37 µmol/L) and 21.25 µg/mL (70.25 µmol/L), respectively.

The combined use of a microbial additive and a chemical additive in sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) silages would reduce fermentation losses, favoring aerobic stability by modulating a favorable microbiome to control those losses. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the action of Lactobacillus buchneri and sodium benzoate on the fermentative profile, bacterial taxonomic diversity and aerobic stability of sorghum silages at different fermentation times. A completely randomized experimental design was adopted in a 4 * 4 factorial scheme, in order to evaluate four additives in sorghum silage (Control treatment, L. buchneri, sodium benzoate and L. buchneri combined with sodium benzoate) and four opening times (30, 60, 90 and 120 d fermentation), in five replicates. Silages inoculated with sodium benzoate showed higher pH values (3.70) at 90 d of fermentation, not differing (P > 0.05) from control (CTR) silage and the other silages. The largest lactic acid bacteria populations were observed at 120 d of fermentation in the silages inoculated with L. buchneri (9.06) followed by the silages inoculated with sodium benzoate and with the combination L. buchneri + sodium benzoate (8.37 and 8.85 log CFU, respectively) at 90 d of fermentation. For gas losses, in which silage treated with sodium benzoate showed lower values, with an average of 0.72% DM. The silages presenting a high DMR standard, ranging from 94.6% to 98.0%, with the exception of the CTR silages. Silages treated with L. buchneri showed higher values (98%) for the occurrence of the genus Lactobacillus in both fermentation times. The combined action of L. buchneri and sodium benzoate kept the Lactobacillus population stable at 30 and 120 d of fermentation. The combination of L. buchneri and sodium benzoate improved the fermentative profile and chemical composition of sorghum silages, reducing losses and increasing aerobic stability after 120 d of fermentation.

Abstract Salt stress causes several physiological and biochemical disorders and impairs plant growth. However, adequate fertilization can improve the nutritional status and may reduce significantly the harmful effects caused by salt stress. From this perspective, this study aimed to evaluate the impact of different combinations of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilization on the antioxidant activity and accumulation of organic and inorganic solutes in West Indian cherry leaves, in the second year of production. The experimental design was in randomized blocks, with treatments distributed in a 10 × 2 factorial arrangement corresponding to ten fertilization combinations (FC) of NPK (FC1: 80-100-100%, FC2:100-100-100%, FC3:120-100-100%, FC4:140-100-100%, FC5:100-80-100%, FC6:100-120-100%, FC7:100-140-100%, FC8:100-100-80%, FC9:100-100-120%, and FC10:100-100-140% of the recommendation) and two levels of electrical conductivity of irrigation water (ECw) (0.6 and 4.0 dS m-1), with three replications. The multivariate analysis showed that irrigation with water of different electrical conductivities (0.6 and 4.0 dS m-1) resulted in different responses concerning the enzyme activity, production of organic compounds, and accumulation of inorganic solutes in the leaves. Under irrigation with low salinity water, there was greater accumulation of K+, soluble carbohydrates, and proline, and lower activity of antioxidative enzymes, especially SOD and APX. Under high salinity water, greater enzyme activity and higher concentrations of Na+ and Cl- were observed. The results indicate that the response of West Indian cherry to salinity was more towards redox homeostasis than osmotic homeostasis through the accumulation of compatible solutes. Fertilization combination FC5 (100-80-100% corresponding to 200, 24 and 80 g plant-1 of NPK) modulates the enzyme activity of SOD and APX attenuating the impacts of salinity, being an efficient combination to preserve redox homeostasis in West Indian cherry plants grown under salt stress. Resumo O estresse salino causa distúrbios fisiológicos e bioquímicos que prejudicam o crescimento vegetal. Entretanto, acredita-se que a fertilização mineral adequada pode melhorar o estado nutricional e reduzir os danos causados pelo estresse salino. Dessa forma, o objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar os impactos de diferentes combinações de fertilização com nitrogênio, fosforo e potássio sobre o acúmulo de solutos (orgânicos e inorgânicos) e atividade antioxidante em folhas de aceroleira cultivada sob estresse salino no segundo ano de produção. O delineamento experimental foi em blocos casualizados com os tratamentos distribuídos em esquema fatorial 10 × 2, correspondendo a 10 combinações de adubação (FC) com nitrogênio, fósforo e potássio (FC1: 80-100-100%; FC2:100-100-100%; FC3:120-100-100%; FC4:140-100-100%; FC5:100-80-100%; FC6:100-120-100%; FC7:100-140-100%; FC8:100-100-80%; FC9:100-100-120% e FC10:100-100-140% da recomendação, referente ao segundo ano de cultivo) e dois níveis de condutividade elétrica da água (ECw) utilizada na irrigação (0,6 e 4,0 dS m-1), com três repetições. A análise multivariada mostrou que irrigação com água de diferentes condutividades elétricas (0,6 e 4,0 dS m-1) apresentou processos distintos em relação à atividade enzimática, produção de compostos orgânicos e acúmulo de solutos inorgânicos nas folhas. Sob irrigação com água de baixa salinidade houve maior acúmulo de K+, carboidratos solúveis e prolina, e menor atividade de enzimas antioxidativas, especialmente SOD e APX. Sob alta salinidade se observou maior atividade enzimática e maiores concentrações de Na+ e Cl-. Os resultados indicam que a resposta da acerola à salinidade foi mais no sentido da homeostase redox do que da homeostase osmótica por meio do acúmulo de solutos compatíveis com o metabolismo. A combinação de adubação FC5 (100-80-100% da recomendação correspondente a 200, 24 e 80 g planta-1 de NPK) modula a atividade enzimática da SOD e APX, atenuando os impactos da salinidade, sendo uma combinação eficiente para preservar a sua homeostase redox nas aceroleiras sob estresse salino.

In this work, we study the possibility of generalizing solutions of regular black holes with an electric charge, constructed in general relativity, for the f(G) theory, where G is the Gauss–Bonnet invariant. This type of solution arises due to the coupling between gravitational theory and nonlinear electrodynamics. We construct the formalism in terms of a mass function and it results in different gravitational and electromagnetic theories for which mass function. The electric field of these solutions are always regular and the strong energy condition is violated in some region inside the event horizon. For some solutions, we get an analytical form for the f(G) function. Imposing the limit of some constant going to zero in the f(G) function we recovered the linear case, making the general relativity a particular case.

The aims of this study were to characterize and investigate antimicrobial susceptibility and presence of integrons in 161 Aeromonas spp. isolated from ornamental freshwater fish farming environment, apparently healthy and diseased fish. Phylogenetic analyses of the gyrB gene sequences identified Aeromonas veronii as the most abundant species (75.8%) followed by Aeromonashydrophila (9.3%), Aeromonas caviae (5%), Aeromonas jandaei (4.3%), Aeromonas dhakensis (3.7%), Aeromonas sobria (0.6%), Aeromonas media (0.6%), and Aeromonas popoffii (0.6%). Susceptibility to thirteen antimicrobials was determined and antimicrobial resistance frequencies were: amoxicillin (92.5%), enrofloxacin (67.1%), nalidixic acid (63.4%), erythromycin (26.1%), tetracycline (23.6%), imipenem (18%), trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (16.8%), and gentamicin (16.8%). Multi-drug resistance (MDR) was widespread among the isolates (51.6%, 83/161) with 51.6% (63/122) A. veronii isolates being MDR. In addition, 68.3% of isolates had multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) indexes higher than 0.2, suggesting that they originated from a high-risk source of contamination where antimicrobials are often used. In all, 21.7% isolates carried class 1 integrons, with 97.1% having gene cassettes, while there were 12 isolates carrying class 2 integron gene cassettes. Our findings highlight that the aquatic environment and ornamental fish act as reservoirs of multidrug resistant Aeromonas spp. and underline the need for a judicious use of antimicrobials and timely surveillance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in aquaculture.

Background: Children and adolescents with obesity have altered serum copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) levels, which are associated with oxidative stress, inflammation, and health outcomes. The inclusion of cashew nuts in an adequate diet may provide health benefits and help improve the mineral status of individuals with obesity. Objective: To evaluate the effects of cashew nut consumption on biomarkers of Cu and Zn status in adolescents with obesity. Methods: This was a randomized controlled trial conducted in adolescents. The participants were divided into a control group (CON) and a cashew nut group (CASN). The CASN group received 30 g/day of roasted cashew nuts for 12 weeks, and both groups received nutritional counseling during the study. Anthropometric, dietary, and biochemical parameters (Zn, Cu, and superoxide dismutase (SOD)) were assessed at the baseline and at the end of the study. Association tests, within-group and between-group mean comparisons, and analyses of variation between study periods (Δ T12-T0) were performed. Results: The sample consisted of 81 adolescents who completed the intervention period, resulting in 54 in the CASN group and 27 in the CON group. After the intervention, the CASN group presented a decrease in plasma Cu (p = 0.004) and an increase in SOD (p = 0.030). Both groups showed an increase in plasma Zn (p < 0.050) and a decrease in the Cu/Zn ratio (p < 0.001). CASN had a negative effect on the Cu concentration, which was significantly different from that of CON (p = 0.004). Conclusions: The consumption of cashew nuts for 12 weeks reduced plasma Cu levels in adolescents with obesity. Nutritional counseling may have contributed to the increase in plasma Zn levels in all the study participants.