130,492 research outputs found
Urinary 8-Oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanosine in Tunisian Electric Steel Foundry Workers Exposed to Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
No full textIn this study, urinary 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG), as biomarker of oxidative DNA damage, was evaluated in Tunisian electric steel foundry workers and was associated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure. Ninety-three healthy male workers were enrolled in the study; 8-oxodG was assessed by liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. Exposure to PAHs was evaluated by measuring 16 urinary PAHs (U-PAHs) and 8 monohydroxylated metabolites (OHPAHs). The median 8-oxodG level for all subjects was 3.20 μg l-1 (1.85 μg g-1 creatinine). No correlation between 8-oxodG and 1-hydroxypyrene or any other OHPAH was found. Significant linear correlations between 8-oxodG and some U-PAHs were found, particularly urinary acenaphthylene (r = 0.249), phenanthrene (r = 0.327), anthracene (r = 0.357), fluoranthene (r = 0.248), and pyrene (r = 0.244). Multiple regression analyses confirmed that urinary phenanthrene, anthracene, and naphthalene (the latter with a non-linear relationship) were predictors of 8-oxodG; job title, but not smoking, was a determinant of 8-oxodG; the variance explained by these models was up to 20%. The oxidative DNA damage assessed by urinary 8-oxodG was moderate and in the range of values reported in other occupational fields or in the general population. The results of this study indicate that the investigated biomarkers of PAH exposure were only minor contributors to urinary 8-oxodG
Biological monitoring of occupational exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at an electric steel foundry in Tunisia
No full textOccupational exposures during iron and steel founding have been classified as carcinogenic to humans, and the exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in this industrial setting may contribute to cancer risk. The occupational exposure to PAHs was assessed in 93 male workers at an electric steel foundry in Tunisia by biomonitoring, with the aims of characterizing the excretion profile and investigating the influence of job title and personal characteristics on the biomarkers. Sixteen 2-6 ring unmetabolized PAHs (U-PAHs) and eight hydroxylated PAH metabolites (OHPAHs) were analyzed by gas chromatography-triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry, respectively. Among U-PAHs, urinary naphthalene (U-NAP) was the most abundant compound (median level: 643ng l(-1)), followed by phenanthrene (U-PHE, 18.5ng l(-1)). Urinary benzo[a]pyrene (U-BaP) level was <0.30ng l(-1) Among OHPAHs, 2-hydroxynaphthalene (2-OHNAP) was the most abundant metabolite (2.27 μg l(-1)). Median 1-hydroxypyrene (1-OHPYR) was 0.52 μg l(-1) Significant correlations among urinary biomarkers were observed, with Pearson's r ranging from 0.177 to 0.626. 1-OHPYR was correlated to benzo[a]pyrene, but not to five- and six-rings PAHs. A multiple linear regression model showed that job title was a significant determinant for almost all U-PAHs. In particular, employees in the steel smelter workshop had higher levels of high-boiling U-PAHs and lower levels of low-boiling U-PAHs than those of workers with other job titles. Among OHPAHs, this model was significant only for naphthols and 1-hydroxyphenanthrene (1-OHPHE). Smoking status was a significant predictor for almost all biomarkers. Among all analytes, U-PHE and 1-OHPHE were the less affected by tobacco smoke, and they were significantly correlated with both low- and high-molecular-weight compounds, and their levels were related to job titles, so they could be proposed as suitable biomarkers of PAH exposure at steel foundries. Based on 1-OHPYR levels, our findings show that occupational exposure of these workers was similar to that reported in recent studies of electric steel foundry workers. The multianalytic approach is useful in revealing different exposure levels among job titles
Biological monitoring of occupational exposure to metals in electric steel foundry workers and its contribution to 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2′-deoxyguanosine levels
No full textIn this study, the urinary concentrations of selected metals in workers from an electric steel foundry in Tunisia were assessed and compared with existing biological limit values and general population reference values. Moreover, the association between oxidative DNA damage, measured as urinary 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2’deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG) and co-exposure to metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) was evaluated. Urinary levels of 12 metals were determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) in end-shift spot samples from 89 workers. The urinary levels of phenanthrene (U-PHE), as marker of exposure to PAHs, and 8-oxodG were also available. Median levels ranged from 0.4 μg/L (cobalt, Co, and thallium, Tl) to 895 μg/L (zinc, Zn). Only 1% of samples was above the biological limit values for Co, and up to 13.5% of samples were above limit values for Cd. From 3.4% (Co) to 72% (lead, Pb) of samples were above the reference values for the general population. Multiple linear regression models, showed that manganese (Mn), Zn, arsenic (As), barium (Ba), Tl, and Pb were significant predictors of 8-oxodG (0.012 ≤ p ≤ 0.048); U-PHE was also a significant predictor (0.003 ≤ p ≤ 0.059). The variance explained by models was low (0.11 ≤ R2 ≤ 0.17, p < 0.005), showing that metals and PAHs were minor contributors to 8-oxodG. Overall, the comparison with biological limit values showed that the study subjects were occupationally exposed to metals, with levels exceeding biological limit values only for Cd
Performance Study of a Lucid Spherical Rotor
No full textNowadays, world population is growing very rapidly and need for electricity is rising. Due to adverse influence of non-renewable fuels exploitation on public health, global electricity need for renewable energies is predicted to rise. Hydraulic energy has got a growing interest as one of the clean and renewable energies. Cross flow turbines are more preferred in small-scale hydropower generations. Due to rising cost incurred in experimental studies of the design process of cross flow turbines, researchers have adopted numerical methods mainly CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) technique. In fact, the CFD method allows to find out the hydrodynamic specifics as well as the fluid stream behavior near a water rotor as that are hardly evaluated based on experimental tests. Within this study, one of the most used CFD package, the Ansys Fluent 17.0 has been employed to resolve the transient incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations and to analyze the impact of the dimension of the rotating domain on the numerical study of a Lucid water rotor. The validation of the numerical model with previous investigations has been fulfilled to choose the adequate rotating domain size. The hydrodynamic specifics of the flow near a Lucid spherical rotor (LSR) have been analyzed and discussed
Fermented seeds (“Zgougou”) from aleppo pine as a novel source of potentially probiotic lactic acid bacteria
No full textMicroorganisms inhabiting fermented foods represent the main link between the consumption of this food and human health. Although some fermented food is a reservoir of potentially probiotic microorganisms, several foods are still unexplored. This study aimed at characterizing the probiotic potential of lactic acid bacteria isolated from zgougou, a fermented matrix consisting of a watery mixture of Aleppo pine′s seeds. In vitro methods were used to characterize the safety, survival ability in typical conditions of the gastrointestinal tract, and adherence capacity to surfaces, antimicrobial, and antioxidant activities. Strains belonged to the Lactobacillus plantarum group and Enterococcus faecalis showed no DNase, hemolytic, and gelatinase activities. In addition, their susceptibility to most of the tested antibiotics, satisfied some of the safety prerequisites for their potential use as probiotics. All the strains tolerated low pH, gastrointestinal enzymes, and bile salts. They displayed a good antibacterial activity and antibiofilm formation against 10 reference bacterial pathogens, especially when used as a cell-free supernatant. Furthermore, the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) strains inhibited the growth of Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus carbonarius. Finally, they had good antioxidant activity, although depending on the strain. Overall, the results of this work highlight that zgougou represents an important reservoir of potentially probiotic LAB. Obviously, future studies should be addressed to confirm the health benefits of the LAB strains
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
"Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"
No full textBoth spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
Study of responses of the mussel Mytilus spp exposed to metallic and thermal stresses during the embryo-larval stages
No full textLes écosystèmes marins côtiers sont soumis à des pressions anthropiques et naturelles qui placent les organismes aquatiques dans des situations de multi-stress.Ce travail doctoral avait pour objectif d’évaluer l’impact et de mieux comprendre les mécanismes d’adaptation des premiers stades de vie de moule exposés à deux facteurs environnementaux majeurs : la pollution métallique et l’accroissement des températures des eaux marines côtières. Les effets induits par l’exposition à deux polluants métalliques modèles (Cu et Ag) et à un stress thermique modéré seuls ou en combinaison ont été évalués sur les stades précoces de développement de deux espèces de moule : Mytilus galloprovincialis et Mytilus edulis ainsi que leurs hybrides. Nos résultats montrent une augmentation significative du pourcentage de larves D ma lformées avec l’augmentation de la température. Par ailleurs, l’Ag apparaît significativement plus toxique que le Cu pour les larves. De plus,la toxicité des métaux s’accroit avec l’augmentation de la température. La coexposition aux métaux et à une température modérée augmente les activités enzymatiques antioxydantes de la catalase (CAT), de la superoxyde dismutase (SOD)et de la glutathion-S-transférase (GST) et accroît le contenu cellulaire en métallothionéines et la peroxydation lipidique. A une température plus élevée de 22 °C,une diminution significative des activités des enzymes antioxydantes est observée.Les dommages à l’ADN chez les larves-D de moule M. gallo provincialis ont été évalués à l’aide du test des comètes avec et sans traitement par la Formamidopyrimidine ADN glycosylase. L’exposition aux métaux et/ou à la température aaugmenté de manière significative les lésions de l’ADN sur les larves de moule,avec un effet plus accentué sur les dommages oxydatifs. Il a été montré également que le Cu et l’Ag sont accumulés différentiellement dans les larves en fonction de la température d’exposition. L’étude de l’expression par RT-qPCR de 18 gènes impliqués dans les défenses antioxydantes, la réparation de l’ADN, l’apoptose,la protéolyse, la transcription, les réponses au stress thermique et la détoxification métallique a été conduite chez les larves-D de moule M. galloprovincialis.En cas d’un stress thermique modéré, une tendance à la surexpression des gènes impliqués dans les défenses cellulaires est observée. Toutefois, en cas d’une coexposition métallique et thermique, les voies d’apoptose et d’altération cellulaires sont activées.Un plugin et une macro ont été développés pour le logiciel ImageJ afin d’évaluer et de caractériser le comportement de nage des larves D de M. galloprovincialis.Une augmentation significative de la vitesse maximale des larves-Davec l’augmentation de la température est observée sans que la vitesse moyenne soit affectée. En revanche, l’exposition au Cu et à l’Ag à 22 °C augmente significativement les vitesses moyenne et maximale des larves. En condition contrôle à18 °C, les larves suivent principalement des trajectoires rectilignes (88 %). Avec l’augmentation de la température et/ou l’exposition aux métaux, les trajectoires circulaires augmentent considérablement au détriment des trajectoires rectilignes.Ces modifications de comportement pourraient être liées d’une part à l’induction de malformations mais aussi à la modulation de l’activité neuronale. Ainsi, une augmentation significative de l’activité acétylcholine estérase (AChE) des larves a été observée suite à l’exposition à un gradient de températures et/ou aux métaux.Des larves D viables et normalement développées ont été obtenues par hybridation de M. galloprovincialis et M. edulis. Les larves de M. edulis apparaissent plus sensibles à la température que les larves de M. galloprovincialis. Aucune différence significative de sensibilité n’a été observée entre les moules hybrides et pures quelque soit le métal testé. (...)Coastal marine ecosystems are subject to anthropogenic and natural pressures that place aquatic organisms in multi-stress situations. The aim of this doctoral work was to assess the impact and better understand the adaptation mechanisms of mussel early life stages exposed to two major environmental factors : metallic pollution and increasing temperatures in coastal marine waters. The effects induced by exposure to two model metal pollutants (Cu and Ag) and moderatethermal stress alone or in combination were evaluated on the early life stages of development of two mussel species : Mytilus galloprovincialis and Mytilus edulisas well as their hybrids. Our results show a significant increase in the percentageof malformed D-larvae with increasing temperature. Moreover, Ag is significantly more toxic than Cu for larvae. In addition, the toxicity of metals increases with increasing temperature. Co-exposure to metals and a moderate temperature increases the antioxidant activity of catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD)and glutathione-S-transferase (GST), and increases cellular content of metallothioneinsand lipid peroxidation. At a higher temperature of 22 °C, a significant decrease in the activities of the antioxidant enzymes is observed. DNA damage in M. galloprovincialis larvae was evaluated using the comet assay with and without Formamidopyrimidine DNA glycosylase treatment. Co-exposure to metals and/ortemperature increase significantly increased DNA lesions on mussel larvae, witha more pronounced effect on oxidative damage. It has also been shown that Cuand Ag are accumulated differently in the larvae as a function of the exposure temperature. The study of the gene expression by RT-qPCR of 18 genes involvedin antioxidant defenses, DNA repair, apoptosis, proteolysis, transcription, thermal stress and metal detoxification was conducted in D-larvae of M. galloprovincialis.Under moderate thermal stress, a tendency of over expression of the cell defense pathways is observed. However, in the case of metallic and thermal co-expositions, the pathways of apoptosis and cellular alteration are rather induced. A pluginand macro were developed for the evaluation and characterization of behavior oflarvae of M. galloprovincialis. A significant increase in the maximum speed of D larvaewith increasing temperature is observed without affecting the mean velocity. In contrast, exposure to Cu and Ag at 22 °C significantly increases average and maximum larval speed. Under controlled conditions at 18 °C, larvae mainly follow rectilinear trajectories (88 %). With increasing temperature and/or exposure to metals, circular trajectories increase considerably at the expense of rectilinear trajectories. These changes in behavior may be related to the induction of malformations but also to the modulation of neuronal activity. Thus, a significant increase in the acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity of the larvae is observed following exposure to a temperature gradient and/or metals. Viable and normally developed D-larvae were obtained by hybridization of M. galloprovincialis and M.edulis. Larvae of M. edulis are more sensitive to temperature than larvae of M. galloprovincialis.No significant sensitivity differences between species are observed whatever the metal used. Moreover, the hybrid larvae from female M. galloprovincialis are more tolerant to the increase of temperature compared to the hybrid larvae issues from rom female of M. edulis
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