Mastite Bovina: Tratamento Convencional e Ação de Compostos Extraídos de Plantas

A mastite bovina é a doença que mais onera a pecuária leiteira, por tratar-se de uma doença plurietiológica e multifatorial, e altamente contagiosa. O uso de antimicrobianos ainda é a principal estratégia para controle e tratamento; todavia, a resposta à antibioticoterapia e o aumento de resistência bacteriana, bem como, a presença de resíduos antimicrobianos no leite, tem sido foco de estudos para definir quais os fatores responsáveis por falhas na terapia; além do estudo de várias substâncias extraídas de plantas como alternativas terapêuticas. Este artigo foi elaborado por meio de pesquisa bibliográfica, com o objetivo de abordar o uso compostos naturais extraídos de plantas sobre bactérias isoladas em mastite bovina. Várias substâncias extraídas de plantas têm sido estudadas, para avaliação de suas atividades farmacológicas; gerando dados importantes e ótimos resultados. Grande destaque tem sido dado aos óleos essenciais, substâncias complexas voláteis, lipofílicas, odoríferas e líquidas, oriundas do metabolismo secundário de vegetais; e têm despertado interesse como alternativa ao tratamento da mastite bovina. Diversos trabalhos têm comprovado a eficácia de compostos naturais extraídos de plantas sobre bactérias isoladas em mastite bovina; apresentando como estratégia terapêutica promissora; apesar de grande parte da diversidade genética vegetal do Brasil ainda permanecer oculta à ciência, merecendo a avaliação de suas propriedades farmacológicas. Palavras-chave: compostos naturais; pecuária leiteira; antimicrobiano. Abstract The bovine mastitis it’s the disease that most burden the dairy farming, due to the fact that it has many etiological reasons, and it is highly contagious. The use of antimicrobials is still the main strategy to control and treat this disease. However, the response to antibiotic treatment, the increase of bacterial resistance and the containing of antimicrobials residues in the milk as well, has been the main spot for researches to define which were the causes of failure in the treatment; also mentioning researches of many substances extracted from plants as alternative treatments. This article has been written using bibliographic survey with the objective to discuss the usage of natural compounds extracted from plants over isolated bacteria of cattle mastitis. Many substances taken from plants have been studied for the proper evaluation of their pharmacological usage, resulting in the achievement of important data and great results. A considerable highlight has been given to the essential oils, complex, volatile, lipophilic, odoriferous and liquid substances originated from the secondary metabolism of plants; they have risen the interest as an alternative to the treatment of cattle mastitis. Several researches have proved the efficiency of natural compounds extracted from plants over isolated bacteria of cattle mastitis; showing a new promising therapeutic strategy; although most of the vegetal genetic diversity in Brazil is still hidden to science, thus deserving a proper evaluation of their pharmacological properties. Keywords: natural compounds; dairy farming; antimicrobial.

Thermal Energy Release Measurement with Thermal Camera: The Case of La Solfatara Volcano (Italy)

Quiescent volcanoes dissipate a large part of their thermal energy through hot soils and ground degassing mainly in restricted areas called Diffuse Degassing Structures. La Solfatara crater represents the main spot of thermal release for the Campi Flegrei volcano (Italy) despite its reduced dimensions with regards to the whole caldera. The purpose of this study was to develop a method to measure thermal energy release extrapolating it from the ground surface temperature. We used imaging from thermal cameras at short distances (1 m) to obtain a mapping of areas with thermal anomalies and a measure of their temperatures. We built a conceptual model of the energy release from the ground to atmosphere, which well fits the experimental data taken in the La Solfatara crater. Using our model and data, we could estimate the average heat flux in a portion of the crater as q a v g = 220 ± 40 W / m 2 , compatible with other measurements in literature.

Crop Disease Leaf Image Segmentation Based on Genetic Algorithm and Maximum Entropy

Crop disease leaf image segmentation is a key step in crop disease recognition. In the paper, a segmentation method of crop disease leaf image is proposed to segment leaf image with non-uniform illumination based on maximum entropy and genetic algorithm (GA). The information entropy is regarded as the fitness function of GA, the maximum entropy as convergence criterion of GA. After genetic operation, the optimal threshold is obtained to segment the image of disease leaf. The experimental results of the maize disease leaf image show that the proposed method can select the threshold automatically and efficiently, and has an advantage over the other three algorithms, and also can reserve the main spot features of the original disease leaf image.

Oscillation of the Magnetic Field in an Active Region

The Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT) at Tenerife has been used together with a polarimeter in front of a two-dimensional imaging spectrometer with a Fabry-Perot interferometer. The spectrometer has been described by Bendlin et al. (1992) and Bendlin et al. (1995), the remaining instrumentation, calibration, and data reduction by Horn et al. (1996). Some parameters of the setup were: 384×286 pixel CCD-camera (0.2” per pixel); resolution for the images better than 0.8”; filtergrams in the photospheric spectral line Fe I 6173.4 Å with Δλ = 10.9 mÅ; 45 filtergrams for each scan; 127 scans within 114 min. Δt = 54 s. White-light images from the same field of view were taken strictly simultaneously to all narrow-band pictures to correct for image blurring and motion.The present observations were obtained on July 20, 1994, and were focused on the main spot of the active region NOAA 7757, 30° NE from the disk center.