Vole hunting: novel predatory and carnivorous behavior by California ground squirrels.

Unlabelled: Dietary flexibility allows animals to respond adaptively to food pulses in the environment. Here we document the novel emergence of widespread hunting of California voles and carnivorous feeding behavior by California ground squirrels. Over two months in the twelfth year of a long-term study on the squirrel population, we document 74 events of juvenile and adult ground squirrels of both sexes depredating, consuming, and/or competing over vole prey.

Do nutritional assessment scores have a relationship with transthyretin levels?

Background and aims: nutritional screening tools assess factors like weight loss, BMI, food intake, and disease severity to determine a patient's nutritional risk and needed care. Plasma transthyretin is a practical measurement used to assess nutritional evolution due to its rapid response to food intake. This study examines the relationship between nutritional scores, transthyretin protein levels, and the possibility of death.

Use of native macrophyte for grey water treatment applying alternative bed substrate in constructed wetlands.

Two vertical flow constructed wetland (VFCW 1 and VFCW 2) with native macrophyte (Mart.) were operated. In VFCW 1, the substrates used were ceramic brick, washed sand, seashells (), and ceramic brick and sand in VFCW 2.

Tight-binding model of Pt-based jacutingaites as combination of the honeycomb and kagome lattices.

We introduce a refined tight-binding (TB) model for Pt-based jacutingaite materialsPt2NX3, (N= Zn, Cd, Hg; X = S, Se, Te), offering a detailed representation of the low-energy physics of its monolayers. This model incorporates all elements with significant spin-orbit coupling contributions, which are essential for understanding the topological energy gaps in these materials. Through comparison with first-principles calculations, we meticulously fitted the TB parameters, ensuring an accurate depiction of the energy bands near the Fermi level.

Transthyretin and Nutritional Status in Critically Ill Adults on Parenteral Nutrition: A Prospective Cohort Study.

Background And Aims: Correctly characterizing malnutrition is a challenge. Transthyretin (TTR) rapidly responds to adequate protein intake/infusion, which could be used as a marker to identify malnutrition. Nutritional therapy is used to prevent malnutrition.

Toxic Relationships: Prediction of TBT's Affinity to the Ecdysteroid Receptor of .

Tributyltin (TBT) is a biocide introduced in the 1960s in antifouling paints. Despite legislation banning its use, its persistence in the environment still causes significant harm to organisms. Tributyltin is a ligand of retinoid X receptors (RXR) and ecdysteroid receptors (EcRs), which in arthropods act as homologs of RXR.

The relationship between obesity-related methylation and and gene expression on offspring growth and body composition.

Background And Objective: Imprinted genes are important for the offspring development. To assess the relationship between obesity-related methylation and and gene expression and offspring growth and body composition.

Methods: Thirty-nine overweight/obese and 25 normal weight pregnant women were selected from the "Araraquara Cohort Study" according to their pre-pregnancy BMI.

Insights into environmental caffeine contamination in ecotoxicological biomarkers and potential health effects of .

Caffeine (CAF) exposures have been shown to cause several pharmacological and biological effects in target and non-target organisms. Although there are already several ecotoxicological studies with CAF in non-target organisms, they are focused on marine organisms, with relevant concentrations in these ecosystems, therefore, less ecologically relevant to freshwater ecosystems (the main ecoreceptor of this type of anthropogenic contaminant). The present study aimed to assess the chronic effects (28 days) of sub-lethal and environmentally relevant concentrations of CAF (0.

Nonlinear analysis by phase space reconstruction of healthy elderly voices.

Purpose: To compare the results of the non-linear acoustic analysis of elderly male and female voices, speakers of Brazilian Portuguese.

Methods: Recordings of 14 men and 15 women were used. The voices were consensually judged to be vocally healthy by three trained speech therapists.

An Unusual Fatal Outcome of Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: A Case Report.

( ) and () are pathogenic human bacteria. sepsis with intravascular hemolysis is a catastrophic process with an extremely high mortality rate (70 to 100%). A 74-year-old male submitted to an elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy due to cholelithiasis and develops severe abdominal pain only 10 hours after being discharged from hospital.

Maternal plasma transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) and newborn size: the Araraquara Cohort Study.

Objective: To investigate associations of maternal and cord blood cytokine patterns with newborn size and body composition.

Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 70 pregnant women and their healthy newborns selected from the "Araraquara Cohort Study". Newborn anthropometric measurements were recorded at birth.

Mathematical modeling and investigation on the role of demography and contact patterns in social distancing measures effectiveness in COVID-19 dissemination.

In this article, we investigate the importance of demography and contact patterns in determining the spread of COVID-19 and to the effectiveness of social distancing policies. We investigate these questions proposing an augmented epidemiological model with an age-structured model, with the population divided into susceptible (S), exposed (E), asymptomatic infectious (A), hospitalized (H), symptomatic infectious (I) and recovered individuals (R), to simulate COVID-19 dissemination. The simulations were carried out using six combinations of four types of isolation policies (work restrictions, isolation of the elderly, community distancing and school closures) and four representative fictitious countries generated over alternative demographic transition stage patterns (aged developed, developed, developing and least developed countries).

Subcellular compartmentalization of aluminum reduced its hazardous impact on rye photosynthesis.

Aluminum (Al) toxicity limits crops growth and production in acidic soils. Compared to roots, less is known about the toxic effects of Al in leaves. Al subcellular compartmentalization is also largely unknown.

Systematic Review of the Clinical and Experimental Research Assessing the Effects of Craniosynostosis on the Brain.

Although neurocognitive impairment has been considered as the main argument for the surgical treatment of craniosynostosis (CS), recent studies reported subtle deficits in neurological function even in operated patients. However, the cause of these deficits remains poorly understood. This systematic review sought to examine the impact of CS on the brain microstructure, mainly on functional connectivity, and comprehensively summarize the clinical and experimental research available on this topic.

DFT-1/2 method applied to 3D topological insulators.

In this paper, we present results and describe the methodology of application of DFT-1/2 method for five three-dimensional topological insulators materials that have been extensively studied in last years: BiSe, BiTe, SbTe, CuTlSeand CuTlS. There are many differences between the results of simple DFT calculations and quasiparticle energy correction methods for these materials, especially for band dispersion in the character band inversion region. The DFT-1/2 leads to quite accurate results not only for band gaps, but also for the shape and atomic character of the bands in the neighborhood of the inversion region as well as the topological invariants, essential quantities to describe the topological properties of materials.

Validation of the Brazilian Version of the RMS Tactile Scale (B-RMS-TS).

This study aimed to validate the Brazilian version of the RMS Tactile Scale (B-RMS-TS) in children and adolescents with visual impairment. Ten visually impaired children and adolescents between 10 and 17 years old of an Educational Center for Visually Impaired People answered the verbalized Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS), and the DAS in Braille to evaluate their dental anxiety levels. B-RMS-TS construct validity was assessed by convergent and discriminant validity.

Evaluation of medullary cytokine expression and clinical and laboratory aspects in severe human visceral leishmaniasis.

Background: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a serious public health problem. The factors that can determine whether VL develops and progresses to severe form have not been fully identified, but a specific cellular immune response appears to play a key role. Therefore, understanding immunopathogenesis can be useful in preventing a serious clinical outcome.

Prevalence and Influence of the -174 G/C Polymorphism in the Gene in Arboviruses Infections.

and are arboviruses that affect thousands of people worldwide annually. The mechanisms involved in viral pathogenesis still need to be better understood. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in immune genes may be involved in the protection, susceptibility, and/or progression of these diseases.

Dietary tryptophan supplementation does not affect growth but increases brain serotonin level and modulates the expression of some liver genes in zebrafish (Danio rerio).

This study aimed at assessing the effects of the dietary tryptophan (Trp) supplementation on growth and feed utilization, brain serotonin content, and expression of selected liver genes (involved in the liver serotonin pathway, protein synthesis degradation, and antioxidant activity) in zebrafish. A growth trial was conducted with zebrafish juveniles fed five experimental isoproteic (40%DM) and isolipidic (8%DM) fishmeal-based diets containing graded levels of Trp: a Trp-non-supplemented diet (diet Trp0, with 0.22% Trp) and four Trp-supplemented diets containing 2-16 times higher Trp content (diets Trp2, Trp4, Trp8, and Trp16 with 0.

DFT-1/2 method applied to 2D topological insulators: fluorinated and hydrogenated group-IV honeycomb systems.

We present a computationally efficient and accurate methodology to computetopological invariants for systems without inversion symmetry including quasiparticle (QP) effects within the density functional theory (DFT)-1/2 method. The Wannier charge center evolution is applied to compute thetopological invariant and investigate the topological properties of group-IV graphene-like systems, graphene, silicene, germanene and stanene, whose inversion symmetry is broken by simultaneous functionalization with hydrogen and fluorine atoms. Different atomic arrangements are studied.

Static and Dynamic Strength Indicators in Paralympic Power-Lifters with and without Spinal Cord Injury.

Background: In Paralympic powerlifting (PP), athletes with and without spinal cord injury (SCI) compete in the same category. Athletes with SCI may be at a disadvantage in relation to the production of muscle strength and the execution of motor techniques.

Objective: To analyze the indicators force, dynamic and static, at different intensities, on performance in athletes with and without SCI.