Squid beaks as a proxy for mercury concentrations in muscle of the giant warty squid Moroteuthopsis longimana.

Cephalopods play a major role in marine food webs as both predators and prey. Although most of the Hg in cephalopods is present in the muscle, most studies on its accumulation by predators are based on concentrations in beaks. Here, using upper and lower beaks and buccal masses of Moroteuthopsis longimana, we evaluated the relationship between Hg concentrations in different cephalopod tissues.

Comparative analysis of Zero Pressure Geometry and prestress methods in cardiovascular Fluid-Structure Interaction.

Background And Objective: Modelling patient-specific aortic biomechanics with advanced computational techniques, such as Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI), can be crucial to provide effective decision-making indices to enhance current clinical practices. To effectively simulate Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms (ATAA), the stress-free configuration must be defined. The Zero Pressure Geometry (ZPG) and the Prestress Tensor (PT) are two of the main approaches to tackle this issue.

Strong winds reduce foraging success in albatrosses.

Knowledge of how animals respond to weather and changes in their physical environment is increasingly important, given the higher frequency of extreme weather recorded in recent years and its forecasted increase globally. Even species considered to be highly adapted to extremes of weather, as albatrosses are to strong winds, may be disadvantaged by shifts in those extremes. Tracked albatrosses were shown recently to avoid storms and the strongest associated winds.

Numerical Fatigue Crack Growth on Compact Tension Specimens under Mode I and Mixed-Mode (I+II) Loading.

This study focused on standard Compact Tension (CT) specimens and two loading modes during the numerical analyses carried out, namely: pure mode I and mixed-mode loading (Modes I+II). Numerical stress intensity factors, K, were calculated using Abaqus 2022 and compared with those given analytically under pure mode I loading, showing very good agreement. Additionally, K, K, and K results obtained from Abaqus were presented for mixed-mode loading, analyzing crack growth and variation through the thickness of the CT specimen.

Functionally Graded Materials and Structures: Unified Approach by Optimal Design, Metal Additive Manufacturing, and Image-Based Characterization.

Functionally Graded Materials (FGMs) can outperform their homogeneous counterparts. Advances in digitalization technologies, mainly additive manufacturing, have enabled the synthesis of materials with tailored properties and functionalities. Joining dissimilar metals to attain compositional grading is a relatively unexplored research area and holds great promise for engineering applications.

Experimental Protocols to Test Aortic Soft Tissues: A Systematic Review.

Experimental protocols are fundamental for quantifying the mechanical behaviour of soft tissue. These data are crucial for advancing the understanding of soft tissue mechanics, developing and calibrating constitutive models, and informing the development of more accurate and predictive computational simulations and artificial intelligence tools. This paper offers a comprehensive review of experimental tests conducted on soft aortic tissues, employing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology, based on the Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE, Google Scholar and PubMed databases.

Insights on long-term ecosystem changes from stable isotopes in historical squid beaks.

Background: Assessing the historical dynamics of key food web components is crucial to understand how climate change impacts the structure of Arctic marine ecosystems. Most retrospective stable isotopic studies to date assessed potential ecosystem shifts in the Arctic using vertebrate top predators and filter-feeding invertebrates as proxies. However, due to long life histories and specific ecologies, ecosystem shifts are not always detectable when using these taxa.

White spots amidst the gold: ultrastructural and histological aspects of the chronic inflammatory response of goldfish with ichthyophthiriasis.

Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, the causative agent of white spot disease, is a ciliated protozoan parasite that infects freshwater fish and induces high mortality. Outbreaks occur both in natural and production sites. The aim of the present study was to describe the lesions caused by chronic infection by I.

Taking climate-smart governance to the high seas.

Comprehensive spatial planning in international waters is key to achieving ocean sustainability.

Identification of Apple Fruit-Skin Constitutive Laws by Full-Field Methods Using Uniaxial Tensile Loading.

The protective and preservative role of apple skin in maintaining the integrity of the fruit is well-known, with its mechanical behaviour playing a pivotal role in determining fruit storage capacity. This study employs a combination of experimental and numerical methodologies, specifically utilising the digital image correlation (DIC) technique. A specially devised inverse strategy is applied to evaluate the mechanical behaviour of apple skin under uniaxial tensile loading.

The Influence of Hydroxyapatite Crystals on the Viscoelastic Behavior of Poly(vinyl alcohol) Braid Systems.

Composites of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) in the shape of braids, in combination with crystals of hydroxyapatite (HAp), were analyzed to perceive the influence of this bioceramic on both the quasi-static and viscoelastic behavior under tensile loading. Analyses involving energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) allowed us to conclude that the production of a homogeneous layer of HAp on the braiding surface and the calcium/phosphate atomic ratio were comparable to those of natural bone. The maximum degradation temperature established by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed a modest decrease with the addition of HAp.

Vitamin D Receptor and Retinoid X Receptor Alpha in Melanocytic Benign Lesions and Melanoma.

Vitamin D receptor (VDR) exerts its biological effects when it heterodimerizes to a nuclear receptor of the retinoid family called retinoid X receptor α (RXRα), stimulating or inhibiting DNA transcription. VDR stimulation by vitamin D analogs led to in vitro antiproliferative effects, and experimental RXRα knockout led to loss of proliferation control in melanoma cells. The aim of this study was to determine VDR and RXRα positivity in melanocytic lesions, compared with normal skin species.

High lysyl oxidase expression is an indicator of poor prognosis in dogs with cutaneous mast cell tumours.

Mast cell tumour (MCT) is one of the most frequent skin tumours in dogs. Due to their unpredictable biological behaviour, MCTs often cause several therapeutic frustrations, leading to investigation regarding prognostic markers. Lysyl oxidase (LOX) is an enzyme that promotes extracellular matrix stability and contributes to cell migration, angiogenesis and epithelial-mesenchymal transition.

Clinical diagnostic approach for oral lymphomas: a multi-institutional, observational study based on 107 cases.

Objective: To evaluate oral lymphomas' clinical manifestations and investigate whether clinical features are associated with lymphoma subtypes.

Study Design: Oral lymphomas with at least 1 representative clinical image were evaluated. They were classified according to their microscopic grade (high vs low), predominant cell size (small vs medium/large), and cellular lineage (B cell vs T cell).

Antarctic toothfish Dissostichus mawsoni as a bioindicator of trace and rare earth elements in the Southern Ocean.

The Antarctic toothfish Dissostichus mawsoni is a Southern Ocean long-lived top predator which is regularly captured on an annual fishery operating in the region. By its biological and ecological characteristics, it is a potential bioindicator for the concentrations of trace and rare earth elements in the Antarctic. As these elements are mainly transferred through the diet and a deficiency or excess of these elements can lead to diverse health problems, it is important to measure their concentrations on the organisms.

Corrigendum: The significance of cephalopod beaks as a research tool: An update.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2022.

Life History of the Arctic Squid (Cephalopoda: Oegopsida) Reconstructed by Analysis of Individual Ontogenetic Stable Isotopic Trajectories.

Cephalopods are important in Arctic marine ecosystems as predators and prey, but knowledge of their life cycles is poor. Consequently, they are under-represented in the Arctic ecosystems assessment models. One important parameter is the change in ecological role (habitat and diet) associated with individual ontogenies.

The significance of cephalopod beaks as a research tool: An update.

The use of cephalopod beaks in ecological and population dynamics studies has allowed major advances of our knowledge on the role of cephalopods in marine ecosystems in the last 60 years. Since the 1960's, with the pioneering research by Malcolm Clarke and colleagues, cephalopod beaks (also named jaws or mandibles) have been described to species level and their measurements have been shown to be related to cephalopod body size and mass, which permitted important information to be obtained on numerous biological and ecological aspects of cephalopods in marine ecosystems. In the last decade, a range of new techniques has been applied to cephalopod beaks, permitting new kinds of insight into cephalopod biology and ecology.

A Miniaturized Device Coupled with Digital Image Correlation for Mechanical Testing.

Miniaturized mechanical testing based on small sample testing technology is a powerful technique to characterize the mechanical properties of different materials, and it is being used in different application fields. However, the small size of the specimens poses several challenges because the results are highly sensitive to measurement accuracy and the corresponding mechanical properties can change substantially due to the so-called specimen size effect. In this work, a novel testing device based on miniaturized specimens is presented.

Successful use of albendazole and fenbendazole therapy in a cat with persistent diarrhea due Enterocytozoon bieneusi.

Enterocytozoon bieneusi, also known as microsporidia, is an obligate, opportunistic, and neglected intracellular pathogen that causes diarrhea in humans. Although identified in the cat feces by epidemiological studies, no association with diarrhea has been demonstrated. We demonstrated a case of chronic enteritis by E.

Impact Of The COVID-19 Pandemic on Hospital Admissions and In-Hospital Lethality From Cardiovascular Diseases in Brazil: An Ecological and Time Series Study.

Since the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Brazil, several government policies have been taken. Herein, we aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital admissions and in-hospital lethality for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in Brazil in 2020. An ecological and time-series study on hospitalizations and deaths from CVD in Brazil was conducted from January 2018 to December 2020.

An Alternative Digital Image Correlation-Based Experimental Approach to Estimate Fracture Parameters in Fibrous Soft Materials.

One of the main challenges in experimental fracture mechanics is to correctly estimate fracture parameters of a nonhomogeneous and nonlinear material under large deformation. The crack tip detection is strongly affected by fibers at crack tip, leading to inaccurate measures. To overcome this limitation, a novel methodology based on the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) method for crack tip detection of fibrous soft composites is proposed in this work.

Impact of VDR and RXR expression in non-melanoma skin cancer pathogenesis.

1,25(OH) D , the active form of vitamin D, has been extensively studied for its putative protective activities against tumors. It does biological work by connecting to a nuclear receptor called VDR, which heterodimerizes itself to another nuclear receptor, RXR. The study observed differences in VDR and RXR expression in non-melanoma skin cancer a actinic keratosis and compared it with normal skin.

Mercury biomagnification in an Antarctic food web of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Under the climate change context, warming Southern Ocean waters may allow mercury (Hg) to become more bioavailable to the Antarctic marine food web (i.e., ice-stored Hg release and higher methylation rates by microorganisms), whose biomagnification processes are poorly documented.

Mice with genetic and induced B-cell deficiency as a model for disseminated encephalitozoonosis.

Encephalitozoon cuniculi, an intracellular pathogen, lives in a balanced relationship with immunocompetent individuals based on the activity of T lymphocytes. We previously highlighted the greater susceptibility of B-1 cell-deficient mice (XID mice) to encephalitozoonosis. This study aimed to develop a model of disseminated and severe encephalitozoonosis in mice with combined immunodeficiency to elucidate the role of B cells.