OBJECTIVE: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the association between periodontitis and different severities of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in predialytic patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Demographic, socioeconomic, and medical data of 139 patients from the nephrology service of one university hospital in Porto Alegre, Brazil, were obtained through interview and clinical records. Full-mouth six-sites per tooth periodontal examinations were performed. Associations between periodontitis, stages of CKD, and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) were estimated by multivariable models adjusted for sex, smoking, vitamin D supplementation, physical activity, and renal treatment duration. CKD was classified based on eGFR (<60 ml/min/1.73 m(2) ) estimated by the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration equation. RESULTS: Patients with severe periodontitis, compared to those without severe periodontitis, had 2.8 (95% CI: 1.25-6.62) and 3.4 (95% CI: 1.27-9.09) times higher risk of being in stages 4 and 5 of CKD, respectively. Having >/= 2 teeth with clinical attachment loss (CAL) >/=6 mm increased 3.9 times the risk of being in stage 5 of CKD. Patients with severe periodontitis and >/=2 teeth with CAL >/= 6 mm had 4.4 ml/min/1.73(2) and 5.2 ml/min/1.73(2) lower eGFR (p-values < .05), respectively. CONCLUSION: Severe periodontitis was associated with poor renal conditions in predialytic CKD patients, strengthening the importance of periodontal evaluation in such patient population.

These datasets include the relative abundances of planktonic foraminifera, relative abundances of drilled specimens, stable isotope data and age model results of sediment core SAT-048A.

Author summary Allostery in proteins is the property of highly specific responses to ligand binding at a distant site. To inform protocols of de novo drug design, it is fundamental to understand the impact of mutations on allosteric regulation and whether it can be predicted from evolutionary correlations. In this work we consider allosteric architectures artificially evolved to optimize the cooperativity of binding at allosteric and active site. We first characterize the emergent pattern of epistasis as well as the underlying mechanical phenomena, finding the four types of epistasis (Synergistic, Sign, Antagonistic, Saturation), which can be both short or long-range. The numerical evolution of these allosteric architectures allows us to benchmark Direct Coupling Analysis, a method which relies on co-evolution in sequence data to infer direct evolutionary couplings, in connection to allostery. We show that Direct Coupling Analysis predicts quantitatively point mutation costs but underestimates strong long-range epistasis. We provide an argument, based on a simplified model, illustrating the reasons for this discrepancy. Our analysis suggests neural networks as more promising tool to measure epistasis.

Key Points: For the first time, drill holes in planktonic Foraminifera from the western South Atlantic were compared with paleoceanographic proxies. Paleoproductivity of the western South Atlantic was reconstructed using assemblage and geochemical indexes for the last 46 kyr. Paleoproductivity estimates and bioerosion rates of planktonic foraminiferal tests show a strong relation during late Quaternary.

In this paper, a reinterpretation of the older 14C ages of the Pleistocene substrate of the Holocene barrier-lagoon system of three coastal localities in southern Brazil is presented (Hermenegildo, Cassino, and Curumim). Sedimentological, geochronological, palynological, and diatom analyses of a sedimentary deposit formed in an estuarine/shallow marine environment are examined. This sedimentary deposit is presently found between 22 and 25 m depth below sea level in the Pinheira coastal plain. Results from all studied sites indicate that the deposit was formed under a former sea level of Marine Isotopic Stage 3 (MIS 3) that may have oscillated in the study region between 5 and 23 m depth below present sea level, from 36.2 to 47.7 ka. These results are reinforced by studies of nearby sites, including southeast Brazil. The Pleistocene substrate of the Holocene lagoonal-barrier system, at depths lower than 5 m below sea level, seems to correspond to sedimentary deposits of the Pleistocene barrier formed during MIS 5, while at depths greater than 5 m below sea level, they might correspond to sedimentary deposits that were formed during the relative high sea levels of MIS 3.

In the Southern Brazil ShelfSouthern Brazil Shelf (SBS), surface bioclastic concentrationsBioclastic concentrations are associated with putative paleo-shorelines formed where wave ravinement surfaces are probably present. From the late Last Glacial Maximum, the SBS can be considered a sediment-starved passive margin continental shelf, with its morphostructural development fairly known. There, fourteen molluscan shell samples from near shelf-break deposits (“distal shell-rich”), eleven from proximal, low depth bioclastic deposits (“proximal shell-rich”) and ten samples from sandy substrate (“shell-poor”) were evaluated for taphonomic damage accordingly to updated protocols. Multivariate statistical analysis showed significant differences between the three groups of shelly samples. Low-intensity damage states (such as natural bright and ornamentation) dominate samples from the distal shell-rich deposit, whereas the inverse occurs in the proximal deposit (samples from the shell-poor locations present an intermediate damage pattern). This pattern is consistent either with onlap/toplap and backlap shell bedShell bed formation, according to characteristics determined in the literature. The condition of these three areas may reflect degrees of exposure at the taphonomically-active zone, the magnitude of time averagingTime-averaging and duration of shell accumulation, and even the lack of shelf accommodation space, which in turn is related to glacioeustatic sea-level oscillations.

Information is a central notion for cognitive sciences and neurosciences, but there is no agreement on what it means for a cognitive system to acquire information about its surroundings. In this paper, we approximate three influential views on information: the one at play in ecological psychology, which is sometimes called information for action; the notion of information as covariance as developed by some enactivists, and the idea of information as minimization of uncertainty as presented by Shannon. Our main thesis is that information for action can be construed as covariant information, and that learning to perceive covariant information is a matter of minimizing uncertainty through skilled performance. We argue that the agent’s cognitive system conveys information for acting in an environment by minimizing uncertainty about how to achieve her intended goals in that environment. We conclude by reviewing empirical findings that support our view and by showing how direct learning, seen as instance of ecological rationality at work, is how mere possibilities for action are turned into embodied know-how. Finally, we indicate the affinity between direct learning and sense-making activity.

Enativismo é a família de teorias que interpretam a ação como constitutiva da cognição e que rejeitam a necessidade de postular representações para explicar todas as atividades cognitivas. O reconhecimento de um modo biologicamente básico e não representacional de cognição, no entanto, levanta a questão sobre como explicar atos cognitivos superiores ou complexos, o que chamamos de desafio de integração explanatória. Neste artigo, examinamos criticamente algumas tentativas de atender a esse desafio através do escalonamento ascendente (scale up) da cognição básica e do escalonamento descendente (scale down) da cognição complexa dentro do programa de pesquisa enativista.