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Low impedance within the uteroplacental circulation is crucial for fetal development. Flow velocity waveforms (FVW) have been established for the aortic and umbilical arteries in low-risk pregnancies during the second half of pregnancy, but data regarding early gestation is limited. Both vascular territories exhibit higher impedance patterns in pregnancies complicated by fetal growth restriction (FGR), hypertensive disorders, fetal anemia, and chromosomal abnormalities. Early identification of these complications is critical in obstetric practice, to reduce perinatal morbidity and mortality through prevention and close antenatal surveillance. Available data suggest that aortic and umbilical impedances follow the same variation pattern as pregnancy progresses. This observation implies that both vessels may be considered as a single artery, referred to as the "aortoumbilical column". Our hypothesis posits that changes in the hemodynamic pattern of this column could identify high-risk pregnancies, particularly those complicated by preeclampsia, FGR, intrauterine fetal demise, fetal aneuploidies, and fetal anemia. Understanding vascular embryogenesis and the FVWs of the aortic and umbilical arteries enables comprehension of impedance changes throughout normal pregnancies. The continuous variation in impedance along a single vessel supports our concept of the aortoumbilical column. Deviations from the regular pattern could assist in identifying compromised fetuses during early pregnancy. Further research on normal aortoumbilical column FVW and the development of reference charts is necessary to consider this arterial column as a screening tool in clinical practice., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

In this study, we investigated the effects of the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) in an agrisystem located in the Brazilian Midwest. This PES benefits the owners of rural properties that encompass springs that feed the Abóbora River microbasin which supplies water for consumption in the city of Rio Verde, Goiás. We evaluated the percentage of native vegetation cover around the springs of the watercourses and also estimated its change over time (2005, 2011 and 2017). The vegetation cover of the Areas of Permanent Preservation (APP) increased by 2.24% on average, seven years after the implantation of the PES. There was little difference in the change of vegetation cover maintained over the study years (2005, 2011, and 2017), however, the vegetation cover increased for 17 springs, decreased for 11 springs, and was completely degraded for other two. To improve the performance of this PES, we recommend (1) expanding the program to include the APPs surrounding the springs, together with the legal reserves of each property, (2) implementing measures to ensure that properties are environmentally adequate, (3) including the properties in the Brazilian Rural Environment Register (CAR), and (4) obtaining environmental licensing for the activities undertaken within the Abóbora River basin.

Allometric constraint is a product of natural selection and physical laws, particularly with respect to body size and traits constrained by properties thereof, such as metabolism, longevity, and vocal frequency. Allometric relationships are often conserved across lineages, indicating that physical constraints dictate scaling patterns in deep time, despite substantial genetic and ecological divergence among organisms. In particular, acoustic allometry (sound frequency ~ body size) is conserved across frogs, in defiance of massive variation in both body size and frequency. Here, we ask how many instances of allometric escape have occurred across the frog tree of life using a Bayesian framework that estimates the location, number, and magnitude of shifts in the adaptive landscape of acoustic allometry. Moreover, we test whether ecology in terms of calling site could affect these relationships. We find that calling site has a major influence on acoustic allometry. Despite this, we identify only four major instances of allometric escape, potentially deriving from ecomorphological adaptations to new signal modalities. In these instances of allometric escape, the optima and strength of the scaling relationship are different than expected for most other frog species, representing new adaptive regimes of body size ~ call frequency. Allometric constraints on frog calls are highly conserved and have rarely allowed escape, despite frequent invasions of new adaptive regimes and dramatic ecomorphological divergence. Our results highlight the rare instances in which natural and sexual selection combined can overcome physical constraints on sound production., Competing Interests: None declared., (© 2020 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Fruits from Ziziphus joazeiro from Mata Paraibana (MP), Borborema (BB), Agreste (AG) and Sertão Paraibano (SP) were assessed to determine their morphological characteristics, nutritional composition, content and bioaccessibility of phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity. In general, juá fruits presented ovoid shape, high moisture (65.33-72.53%), low acidity, with succinic acid being the predominant organic acid, and high dietary fiber content (8.98-10.81%), mostly insoluble fibers (5.72-8.02%). Fruits from MP presented the highest amounts of free phenolic compounds (24.27 mg/100 g) and the highest antioxidant activity in the DPPH, FRAP and ORAC assays. In MP fruits, epigallocatechin gallate (12.04 mg/100 g) was the major compound, while in fruits from other states, phenolic compounds were the major compounds. The bioaccessibility of catechin, epicatechin, epicatechin gallate, epigallocatechin gallate, procyanidin and syringic acid varied among fruits from different regions. Fruits from SP presented the highest phenolic content in the bioaccessible fraction and highest antioxidant activity in all assays. The findings of this study indicate that juá is a non-acidic fruit with highest moisture, source of fiber, majority insoluble fibers and bioaccessible flavanols., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Dendropsophus cruzi (Pombal Bastos, 1998) is a small hylid (male snout-to-vent length = 16.3-19.4 mm; female SVL = 21.3-25.0 mm) that is allocated in the D. microcephalus group (Faivovich et al. 2005). It is commonly found in Open and forested areas from Central Brazil to Provincia Velasco, Departamento de Santa Cruz, Bolivia (Frost 2017; Tessarolo et al. 2016). Pombal Bastos (1998) described the advertisement call of D. cruzi as a single pulsed note. Posteriorly, studies uncovered relationships between dominant frequency variation in the advertisement calls of D. cruzi and variation in the SVL and mass of males (Bastos et al. 2003), as well as the existence of a clinal geographic pattern in the variation of acoustic parameters of these calls (Tessarolo et al. 2016). However, the acoustic communication in anurans is usually mediated by more than one vocalization type (Toledo et al. 2015). Due the importance of call types in the social context of anurans (e.g., Reichert 2011; Forti et al. 2017), we expand the vocal repertoire of D. cruzi by describing its aggressive call.

Advertisement calls are often used as essential basic information in studies of animal behaviour, ecology, evolution, conservation, taxonomy or biodiversity inventories. Yet the description of this type of acoustic signals is far to be completed, especially in tropical regions, and is frequently non-standardized or limited in information, restricting the application of bioacoustics in science. Here we conducted a scientometric review of the described adverstisement calls of anuran species of Brazil, the world richest territory in anurans, to evaluate the amount, standard and trends of the knowledge on this key life-history trait and to identify gaps and directions for future research strategies. Based on our review, 607 studies have been published between 1960 to 2016 describing the calls of 719 Brazilian anuran species (68.8% of all species), a publication rate of 10.6 descriptions per year. From each of these studies, thirty-one variables were recorded and examined with descriptive and inferential statistics. In spite of an exponential rise over the last six decades in the number of studies, described calls, and quantity of published metadata, as revealed by regression models, clear shortfalls were identified with regard to anuran families, biomes, and categories of threat. More than 55% of these species belong to the two richest families, Hylidae or Leptodactylidae. The lowest percentage of species with described calls corresponds to the most diverse biomes, namely Atlantic Forest (65.1%) and Amazon (71.5%), and to the IUCN categories of threat (56.8%), relative to the less-than-threatened categories (74.3%). Moreover, only 52.3% of the species have some of its calls deposited in the main scientific sound collections. Our findings evidence remarkable knowledge gaps on advertisement calls of Brazilian anuran species, emphasizing the need of further efforts in standardizing and increasing the description of anuran calls for their application in studies of the behaviour, ecology, biogeography or taxonomy of the species.

Natural oils are extremely complex mixtures containing compounds of different chemical nature. Some of them have physiological or therapeutic activities that may act either alone or in synergy. Therefore, they are used in the pharmaceutical, agronomic, food, sanitary and cosmetic industries. Today, the interest in bioactive natural oils is growing due to their immense potential to prevent and treat numerous human diseases. Formulation in microemulsions (MEs) containing natural oils appeared suitable to improve pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical properties of bioactive compound derivatives from these oils. Microemulsion systems are thermodynamically stable, transparent, and are isotropic dispersions consisting of oil and water stabilized by an interfacial film of surfactants, typically in combination with a cosurfactant. They can protect labile compounds from premature degradation, control release, increase solubility and hence enhance the bioavailability of poorly bioavailable compounds. The aim of this work was to review the various advantages of bioactive compounds presented in natural oil loaded ME systems to be used as delivery systems. First, the state of the art of the parameters involved in the ME formation, including the basic concepts of the physicochemical formulation of the ME systems, and the main aspects of production and the energy responsible for their formation were reported. The second section describes the use of ME systems and reviews the recent applications of natural oil-loaded in the ME systems as the bioactive compound in the formulation.

Bullfrog oil (BO), a natural product obtained from recycling of adipose tissue from the amphibian Rana catesbeiana Shaw, has been recently evaluated as a therapeutic activity ingredient. This work aimed to evaluate the long-term and accelerated thermal oxidative stabilities of this product, which is a promising raw material for emulsion technology development. BO was extracted from amphibian adipose tissue at 70 °C with a yield of 60% ± 0.9%. Its main fatty acid compounds were oleic (30.0%) and eicosapentaenoic (17.6%) acids. Using titration techniques, BO showed peroxide, acid, iodine and saponification indices of 1.92 mEq·O₂/kg, 2.95 mg·KOH/g oil, 104.2 g I₂/100 g oil and 171.2 mg·KOH/g oil, respectively. In order to improve the accelerated oxidative stability of BO, synthetic antioxidants butylhydroxytoluene (BHT) and buthylhydroxyanisole (BHA) were used. The addition of BHT increased the oxidation induction time compared to the pure oil, or the oil containing BHA. From the results, the best oil-antioxidant mixture and concentration to increase the oxidative stability and allow the oil to be a stable raw material for formulation purposes was derived.

Proceratophrys dibernardoi Brandão, Caramaschi, Vaz-Silva & Campos 2013 has recently been described and allocated into the P. cristiceps species group, but no information about its advertisement calls has been provided (Brandão et al. 2013). Here, we describe for the first time the advertisement calls of P. dibernardoi based on specimens from Central Brazil. We also expand P. dibernardoi´s geographic distribution by reporting a new population in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, constituting the westernmost record for this species, and extending its known range approximately 330 km westward of the municipality of Aporé, State of Goiás (P. dibernardoi´s former westernmost record).

Bullfrog oil is a natural product extracted from the Rana catesbeiana Shaw adipose tissue and used in folk medicine for the treatment of several diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate the extraction process of bullfrog oil, to develop a suitable topical nanoemulsion and to evaluate its efficacy against melanoma cells. The oil samples were obtained by hot and organic solvent extraction processes and were characterized by titration techniques and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The required hydrophile-lipophile balance and the pseudo-ternary phase diagram (PTPD) were assessed to determine the emulsification ability of the bullfrog oil. The anti-tumoral activity of the samples was assessed by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay for normal fibroblast (3T3) and melanoma (B16F10) cell lines. Both extraction methods produced yielded around 60% and the oil was mainly composed of unsaturated compounds (around 60%). The bullfrog oil nanoemulsion obtained from PTPD presented a droplet size of about 390 nm and polydispersity = 0.05 and a zeta potential of about -25 mV. Both the bullfrog oil itself and its topical nanoemulsion did not show cytotoxicity in 3T3 linage. However, these systems showed growth inhibition in B16F10 cells. Finally, the bullfrog oil presented itself as a candidate for the development of pharmaceutical products free from cytotoxicity and effective for antineoplastic therapy.

Colloidal systems such as emulsions, microemulsions and nanoemulsions are able to transport active molecules, enhance their solubility and stability and minimize their side effects. However, since they are dispersions with an aqueous continuous phase they have some disadvantages such as the risk of microbiological contamination, degradation by hydrolysis, physico-chemical instability and loss of pharmacological activity of the drug. Freeze drying, in which the water is removed from the preparation by sublimation under vacuum, has been suggested as a means to resolve these problems. Lyophilized products are very stable and are easy to transport and store. However, there is very little information in the literature about the application of this technique to emulsified systems. The aim of this review is to evaluate the lyophilization process as a tool for increasing the shelf life of emulsified systems such as emulsions, microemulsions and nanoemulsions. In addition, the mechanism of cryoprotection and the techniques that can be used to characterize the freeze-dried systems are discussed., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Lignocellulosic materials, such as forest, agriculture, and agroindustrial residues, are among the most important resources for biorefineries to provide fuels, chemicals, and materials in such a way to substitute for, at least in part, the role of petrochemistry in modern society. Most of these sustainable biorefinery products can be produced from plant polysaccharides (glucans, hemicelluloses, starch, and pectic materials) and lignin. In this scenario, cellulosic ethanol has been considered for decades as one of the most promising alternatives to mitigate fossil fuel dependence and carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere. However, a pretreatment method is required to overcome the physical and chemical barriers that exist in the lignin-carbohydrate composite and to render most, if not all, of the plant cell wall components easily available for conversion into valuable products, including the fuel ethanol. Hence, pretreatment is a key step for an economically viable biorefinery. Successful pretreatment method must lead to partial or total separation of the lignocellulosic components, increasing the accessibility of holocellulose to enzymatic hydrolysis with the least inhibitory compounds being released for subsequent steps of enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation. Each pretreatment technology has a different specificity against both carbohydrates and lignin and may or may not be efficient for different types of biomasses. Furthermore, it is also desirable to develop pretreatment methods with chemicals that are greener and effluent streams that have a lower impact on the environment. This paper provides an overview of the most important pretreatment methods available, including those that are based on the use of green solvents (supercritical fluids and ionic liquids)., (© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

The aim of this work was to investigate the antimicrobial activity of nanostructured emulsions based on copaiba (Copaifera langsdorffii) resin-oil, copaiba essential oil, and bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana Shaw) oil against fungi and bacteria related to skin diseases. Firstly, the essential oil was extracted from copaiba resin-oil and these oils, along with bullfrog oil, were characterized by gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Secondly, nanostructured emulsion systems were produced and characterized. The antimicrobial susceptibility assay was performed, followed by the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) determination, the bioautography assay, and the antibiofilm determination. Strains of the genera Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas, and Candida were used. The CG-MS analysis was able to identify the components of copaiba resin-oil, copaiba essential oil, and bullfrog oil. The MIC assay in association with the bioautography revealed that some esters of palmitic and oleic acids, a-curcumene, a-himachalene, isothujol, and α-fenchene--probably inhibited some strains. The nanostructured emulsions based on copaiba resin-oil and essential oil improved the antimicrobial activity of the pure oils, especially against Staphylococcus and Candida, resistant to azoles. The bullfrog oil nanostructured emulsion showed a lower antimicrobial effect when compared to the copaiba samples. However, bullfrog oil-based nanostructured emulsion showed a significant antibiofilm activity (p < 0.05). Given the significant antimicrobial and antibiofilm activities of the evaluated oils, it may be concluded that nanostructured emulsions based on copaiba and bullfrog oils are promising candidates for the treatment of infections and also may be used to incorporate other antimicrobial drugs.

The aims of this study were (1) to optimize the formulation of a prebiotic chocolate dairy dessert and assess the extent to which sensory properties were affected by adding different concentrations of prebiotics (inulin and fructooligosaccharides) combined with different levels of xanthan and guar gums, and (2) to analyze the ideal and relative sweetness of prebiotic chocolate milk dessert sweetened with different artificial and natural sweeteners. Acceptability was evaluated by 100 consumers using a 9-cm hedonic scale, and the level of sample creaminess was evaluated using a 9-point just-about-right (JAR) scale. Data were subjected to a multivariate regression analysis and fitted to a model provided by response surface methodology. The optimal concentrations were 7.5% (wt/wt) prebiotic and 0.20% (wt/wt) gum (guar and xanthan, in a 2:1 ratio). The ideal sweetness analysis revealed that the ideal concentration of sucrose was 8.13%. The relative sweetness analysis showed that Neotame (NutraSweet Corp., Chicago, IL) had the highest sweetening power compared with the prebiotic chocolate dairy dessert containing 8% sucrose, followed by sucralose, aspartame, and stevia. The study of sweetness in this product is important because consumers desire healthier functional products with no added sugar., (Copyright © 2014 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: There are few studies in the literature performed in human fetuses evaluating the incidence of genitourinary anomalies., Aims: Analyze the incidence of congenital urogenital malformations in human male fetuses. STUDY DESIGNS AND SUBJECTS: We analyzed 166 human male fetuses well preserved. The gestational age was determined in weeks post conception (WPC) according to the foot length criterion and ranged from 10 to 35 WPC. The fetuses were dissected with the aid of a stereoscopic lens with 2.5x magnification. We performed abdominal and pelvic incisions to expose the urogenital organs. We studied the incidence of renal, ureteral, vesicle, urethral, testicular, epididymal, vas deferens, prostate and penile anomalies., Results: Of the 166 fetuses, 7 (4.2%) presented some kind of anomaly of the urogenital system. Renal anomalies were found in two fetuses (1.2%). Unilateral renal agenesis was found in a 25 WPC fetus. Horseshoe kidney was found in a 20 WPC fetus. In a 23 WPC fetus (0.6%) the two testes were absent. Epididymal disjunction anomalies were found in four fetuses (2.4%)., Conclusions: The urogenital anomalies in human male fetuses are rare and have an incidence around 4%.