An Essential Infinitebook for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Preoperative Planning.

Background: Over the past decade, plastic and reconstructive procedures have notably increased, driven by greater accessibility and aesthetic preferences. Despite surgeons' efforts, patient satisfaction faces challenges due to unrealistic expectations rooted in inadequate knowledge. Preoperative consultations present an opportune moment to address this issue.

The Relevance of Plant-Based Diets and Micronutrient Supplementation for Body Composition: Data from the VeggieNutri Cross-Sectional Study.

Objectives: This study aimed to compare the anthropometry and body composition of vegetarian and omnivorous adults living in Portugal, while exploring nutritional and health parameters underlying observed differences.

Methods: 425 omnivorous (OMNI), lacto-ovo-vegetarian (LOV), or vegan (VEG) healthy adults were recruited. Anthropometry was measured, and bioelectrical impedance analysis was performed.

The Effects of Enrichment on Zoo-Housed Scarlet Ibis Behavior.

Good zoo animal welfare is commonly promoted with environmental enrichment; however, some species are less likely to be offered enrichment than others. This study tested the effect of enrichment on a group of scarlet ibises from Zoomarine Algarve, Portugal. The study consisted of a first baseline condition, followed by four types of enrichment displays with individual presentations, a post-enrichment condition, and a post-enrichment with all enrichment types presented simultaneously.

Repurposing Kraft black Liquor as Reductant for Enhanced Lithium-Ion Battery Leaching.

The economic advantages of HSO make it the acid of choice for the hydrometallurgical treatment of waste lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, to facilitate the full dissolution of the higher valency metal oxides present in the cathode black mass, a suitable reducing agent is required. Herein, the application of industrial black liquor (BL) obtained from the Kraft pulping for papermaking is investigated as a renewable reducing agent for the enhanced leaching of transition metals from LIB powder with HSO.

Separation of natural compounds using eutectic solvent-based biphasic systems and centrifugal partition chromatography.

A study on the formation of ternary biphasic systems composed of heptane, 1-butanol or ethyl acetate and type III or type V deep eutectic solvents based on levulinic acid and choline chloride or thymol was carried. Binodal curves and densities and phase compositions of phases in equilibrium for seven systems are reported. The partition coefficients of six natural compounds, namely quercetin, apigenin, coumarin, β-ionone, retinol, and α-tocopherol, in these systems were measured.

Selective Separation of Vanillic Acid from Other Lignin-Derived Monomers Using Centrifugal Partition Chromatography: The Effect of pH.

In this work, centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) assisted by a polyethylene glycol (PEG)/sodium polyacrylate (NaPA) aqueous biphasic system (ABS) was applied in the separation of five lignin-derived monomers (vanillin, vanillic acid, syringaldehyde, acetovanillone, and -hydroxybenzaldehyde). The influence of the system pH (unbuffered, pH 5, and pH 12) and added electrolytes (inorganic salts or ionic liquids (ILs)) on the compound partition was initially evaluated. The obtained data revealed that ILs induced more adequate partition coefficients ( < 5) than inorganic salts ( > 5) to enable separation performance in CPC, while alkaline conditions (pH 12) demonstrated a positive impact on the partition of vanillic acid.

MigraR: An open-source, R-based application for analysis and quantification of cell migration parameters.

Background And Objective: Cell migration is essential for many biological phenomena with direct impact on human health and disease. One conventional approach to study cell migration involves the quantitative analysis of individual cell trajectories recorded by time-lapse video microscopy. Dedicated software tools exist to assist the automated or semi-automated tracking of cells and translate these into coordinate positions along time.

Identification of azaphilone derivatives of Monascus colorants from Talaromyces amestolkiae and their halochromic properties.

Currently, the ability to produce several kinds of water-soluble red natural colorants makes the genus Talaromyces particularly important to the dye industry, which can be an alternative to the use of harmful synthetic colorants. In this study, colored compounds produced by Talaromyces amestolkiae were extracted, characterized chemically and the color stability of the fermented broth without any extraction procedure was further evaluated over pH variation. Five azaphilones compounds were detected by Ultrahigh Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry system, all being complexes of the fatty acid amino-hexanedioic acid and azaphilone Monascus colorants.

Impact of clinical supervision on job satisfaction and emotional competence of nurses.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of implementing the SafeCare clinical supervision model on nurses' job satisfaction and emotional competence profile.

Methods: This is a quasi-experimental study, with a sample of 28 nurses from a hospital in northern Portugal. A self-administered questionnaire was applied, used as pre and post-test, which included: sociodemographic and professional characterization; "Job Satisfaction Scale"; and "Veiga Emotional Competence Scale".

Encapsulation of in alginate beads to sustain bacterial viability and inoculation of under drought stress.

Conventional agricultural practices based on the application of synthetic fertilizers are increasingly considered as unsustainable. Under a forecasted scenario of drought for the next decades, there is a global demand for innovative and sustainable approaches to ameliorate plant performance. Here, encapsulating beneficial microbes (BMs) to promote plant growth is gaining attention.

Seed Coating: A Tool for Delivering Beneficial Microbes to Agricultural Crops.

Plant beneficial microbes (PBMs), such as plant growth-promoting bacteria, rhizobia, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and , can reduce the use of agrochemicals and increase plant yield, nutrition, and tolerance to biotic-abiotic stresses. Yet, large-scale applications of PBM have been hampered by the high amounts of inoculum per plant or per cultivation area needed for successful colonization and consequently the economic feasibility. Seed coating, a process that consists in covering seeds with low amounts of exogenous materials, is gaining attention as an efficient delivery system for PBM.

Using microbial seed coating for improving cowpea productivity under a low-input agricultural system.

Background: Plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi have the ability to enhance the growth, fitness, and quality of various agricultural crops, including cowpea. However, field trials confirming the benefits of microbes in large-scale applications using economically viable and efficient inoculation methods are still scarce. Microbial seed coating has a great potential for large-scale agriculture through the application of reduced amounts of PGPR and AM fungi inocula.

Increased protein content of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and nitrogen-fixing bacteria under water deficit conditions.

Background: Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a widely cropped pulse and an important source of proteins for humans. In Mediterranean regions it is predicted that drought will reduce soil moisture and become a major issue in agricultural practice.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are an alternative to the application of chemical fertilizer in the production of the medicinal and aromatic plant Coriandrum sativum L.

The widespread use of agrochemicals is detrimental to the environment and may exert harmful effects on human health. The consumer demand for organic food plants has been increasing. There is thus a rising need for alternatives to agrochemicals that can foster sustainable plant production.

Seed coating with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi as an ecotechnologicalapproach for sustainable agricultural production of common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).

The exploitation of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi has become of great interest in agriculture due to their potential roles in reducing the need for agrochemicals, while improving plant growth and nutrition. Nevertheless, the application of AM fungi by dispersing inocula in granular form to open agricultural fields is not feasible because nontargeted spreading of inocula over large surface areas results in high cost per plant. Seed coating has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of inoculum needed, resulting in cost reduction and increased efficiency.

Inoculation with Metal-Mobilizing Plant-Growth-Promoting Rhizobacterium Bacillus sp. SC2b and Its Role in Rhizoremediation.

A plant growth-promoting bacterial (PGPB) strain SC2b was isolated from the rhizosphere of Sedum plumbizincicola grown in lead (Pb)/zinc (Zn) mine soils and characterized as Bacillus sp. based on (1) morphological and biochemical characteristics and (2) partial 16S ribosomal DNA sequencing analysis. Strain SC2b exhibited high levels of resistance to cadmium (Cd) (300 mg/L), Zn (730 mg/L), and Pb (1400 mg/L).

The hyperaccumulator Sedum plumbizincicola harbors metal-resistant endophytic bacteria that improve its phytoextraction capacity in multi-metal contaminated soil.

Endophyte-assisted phytoremediation has recently been suggested as a successful approach for ecological restoration of metal contaminated soils, however little information is available on the influence of endophytic bacteria on the phytoextraction capacity of metal hyperaccumulating plants in multi-metal polluted soils. The aims of our study were to isolate and characterize metal-resistant and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) utilizing endophytic bacteria from tissues of the newly discovered Zn/Cd hyperaccumulator Sedum plumbizincicola and to examine if these endophytic bacterial strains could improve the efficiency of phytoextraction of multi-metal contaminated soils. Among a collection of 42 metal resistant bacterial strains isolated from the tissues of S.

Serpentine bacteria influence metal translocation and bioconcentration of Brassica juncea and Ricinus communis grown in multi-metal polluted soils.

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of inoculation of rhizosphere or endophytic bacteria (Psychrobacter sp. SRS8 and Pseudomonas sp. A3R3, respectively) isolated from a serpentine environment on the plant growth and the translocation and accumulation of Ni, Zn, and Fe by Brassica juncea and Ricinus communis on a multi-metal polluted serpentine soil (SS).

Energetic study of 4(3H)-pyrimidinone: aromaticity of reactions, hydrogen bond rules, and support for an anomeric effect.

4(3H)-Pyrimidinone is observed in nature in equilibrium with other tautomeric forms, mimicking the tautomeric equilibrium in pyrimidine nucleobases. In this work, the enthalpy of formation in the gaseous phase of 4(3H)-pyrimidinone was derived from the combination of the enthalpy of formation in the crystalline phase, obtained by static bomb combustion calorimetry, and the enthalpy of sublimation, obtained by Knudsen effusion. The gaseous phase enthalpy of formation of 4(3H)-pyrimidinone was interpreted in terms of isodesmic reactions that consider the enthalpic effects of hydroxypyridines and pyrimidine.

Thermodynamic study of chlorobenzonitrile isomers: a survey on the polymorphism, pseudosymmetry, and the chloro···cyano interaction.

The relationships among structural and thermodynamic properties of 2-, 3-, and 4-chlorobenzonitrile were investigated, in the present work, using several experimental techniques (Knudsen effusion, differential scanning calorimetry, and combustion calorimetry) and computational studies. The CN···Cl intermolecular interactions are weaker in 2-chlorobenzonitrile, reflecting a lower enthalpy of sublimation. The two polymorphic forms of 4-chlorobenzonitrile were observed by differential scanning calorimetry and interpreted in terms of the strength of CN···Cl intermolecular interactions.

From 2-hydroxypyridine to 4(3H)-pyrimidinone: computational study on the control of the tautomeric equilibrium.

In this work is investigated why the entrance of a nitrogen atom in the ring of cis-2-hydroxypyridine and 2-pyridinone, resulting in cis-4-hydroxypyrimidine and 4(3H)-pyrimidinone, respectively, shifts the tautomeric equilibrium from the hydroxyl form, in the pyridine derivative, to the ketonic form, in the pyrimidine derivative. The conclusions obtained for these model systems allow us to understand how to control the gaseous-phase keto-enol tautomeric equilibrium in nitrogen heterocyclic rings and justify the tautomeric preference in pyrimidine nucleobases. The experimental and computational energetics of tautomeric equilibrium were interpreted in terms of the aromaticity, intramolecular hydrogen bonds, and electronic delocalization, evaluated using nucleus independent chemical shifts, quantum theory of atoms in molecules, natural bond orbital analysis, and the thermodynamic changes of appropriate reactions.

Is uracil aromatic? The enthalpies of hydrogenation in the gaseous and crystalline phases, and in aqueous solution, as tools to obtain an answer.

The enthalpy of hydrogenation of uracil was derived from the experimental enthalpies of formation, in the gaseous phase, of uracil and 5,6-dihydrouracil, in order to analyze its aromaticity. The enthalpy of formation of 5,6-dihydrouracil was obtained from combustion calorimetry, Knudsen effusion technique and Calvet microcalorimetry results. High-level computational methods were tested for the enthalpy of hydrogenation of uracil, but only with G3 was possible to obtain results in agreement with the experimental ones.

Comparative study of the in vitro bioactivities of Bupleurum rigidum and B. fruticescens.

Decoctions of the aerial parts of either Bupleurum rigidum or B. fruticescens are equally used in certain parts of Spain for the treatment of topical and musculoskeletal inflammations. In the present paper, their phytochemical profile and pharmacological value has been compared.

Energetic study applied to the knowledge of the structural and electronic properties of monofluorobenzonitriles.

The present work reports an energetic and structural study of 2-fluoro-, 3-fluoro-, and 4-fluorobenzonitrile. The standard molar enthalpies of formation, in the condensed phase, of the three isomers were derived from the standard molar energies of combustion, in oxygen, at T = 298.15 K.