Discriminating between viable and membrane-damaged cells of the plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa.

Xylella fastidiosa is a plant pathogenic bacterium with devastating consequences to several crops of economic importance across the world. While this pathogen has been studied for over a century in the United States, several aspects of its biology remain to be investigated. Determining the physiological state of bacteria is essential to understand the effects of its interactions with different biotic and abiotic factors on cell viability. Although X. fastidiosa is culturable, its slow growing nature makes this technique cumbersome to assess the physiological state of cells present in a given environment. PMA-qPCR, i.e. the use of quantitative PCR combined with the pre-treatment of cells with the dye propidium monoazide, has been successfully used in a number of studies on human pathogens to calculate the proportion of viable cells, but has less frequently been tested on plant pathogens. We found that the use of a version of PMA, PMAxx, facilitated distinguishing between viable and non-viable cells based on cell membrane integrity in vitro and in planta. Additional experiments comparing the number of culturable, viable, and total cells in planta would help further confirm our initial results. Enhancers, intended to improve the efficacy of PMAxx, were not effective and appeared to be slightly toxic to X. fastidiosa

Plasma free amino acid profiles of Boer goat bucks as influenced by two feeding regimens

The aim of the study was to monitor the physiological changes in plasma free amino acid profiles in Boer goats under nutritional restriction. Fifteen Boer goat bucks were allocated to two experimental groups: CG (control), fed Themeda trianda hay, supplemented with maize, molasses and urea ad libitum; and RG (restricted feeding) fed the same hay (80 and 86% of the daily NRC energy and protein requirements, respectively) for 29 days. Animals were weighed and blood collected weekly for determination of plasma free amino acid profiles and the results compared between experimental groups. At the end of the experimental period the CG animals had higher concentrations of alanine, tyrosine and citrulline amino acids. The RG group had higher concentrations of valine, isoleucine, leucine, threonine, methionine, lysine, taurine, ornithine, hydroxyproline and tri-methyl-histidine, while glycine, serine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, arginine, histidine and proline levels were similar in both groups. From the results it can be concluded that plasma amino acid profiles in the Boer goat were significantly affected by nutritional restriction. The degradation of short carbon chain amino acids is preferred to long carbon chain amino acids for gluconeogenesis in the physiological mechanisms of response to nutritional restriction in Boer goats. Keywords: Boer goat; nutrition; restricted feeding; amino acids South African Journal of Animal Science Vol. 36 (5) 2006: pp.14-1

The Efficacy of Therapeutic Respiratory Muscle Training Interventions in People with Bronchiectasis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Respiratory muscle dysfunction is an important health problem with high morbidity and mortality and associated costs in patients with bronchiectasis (BC). The aim of this study was to analyse the effects of therapeutic respiratory muscle training (RMT) interventions on improving sputum clearance, ventilator function, muscle strength and functional capacity in BC. Methods: Systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted following PRISMA guidelines. Two independent investigators searched using several electronic databases. The methodological quality of nine studies was assessed using the PEDro scale. Study selection/eligibility criteria: The following were included: randomised controlled trials, randomised crossover trials and pilot studies of patients with BC that used the intervention as RMT (inspiratory/expiratory) and evaluations of respiratory muscle strength (maximal expiratory pressure/maximal inspiratory pressure). This systematic review was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42017075101). Nine studies were included, five of which obtained an A recommendation grade, three with B, and one with C. Study quality was poor to good (mean PEDro Score of 6.375 out of 10). Studies had small sample sizes (8-98). Results show improvements on PImax in favour of therapeutic respiratory muscle training intervention (MD = 6.08; 95% CI = 1.38, 10.77; p < 0.01; I-2 = 92%). However, high heterogeneity was identified on meta-analysis

Divisão sexual do trabalho na profissão de secretária executiva

A participação feminina no mercado de trabalho é um tema que tem sido discutido cada vez mais pela sociedade ocidental. Entre as profissões ocupadas por mulheres, uma delas se destaca, a de secretária executiva. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar se (e como) a vivência na profissão de secretária executiva reproduz questões relativas à divisão sexual do trabalho. Para atingir este, estudou-se a teoria de divisão sexual do trabalho a qual estabelece que existem trabalhos de homens e de mulheres, e que o primeiro possui mais valor que o segundo. Relacionou-se essa teoria com a feminização do mercado de trabalho e o cuidado no trabalho feminino. Além disso, realizou-se uma pesquisa de caráter qualitativo, onde foram entrevistadas mulheres secretárias executivas que atuam no setor privado. Na busca por compreender como se processa a relação da ocupação com a divisão sexual do trabalho, verificou-se que a) é uma profissão exercida majoritariamente por mulheres; b) possui forte vínculo com o cuidar/tomar conta; e c) a mulher se coloca e é colocada como inferior na relação com seu executivo

A Visual Zooarchaeology Guide for Florida Artifacts

One key factor of archeology research is discovering the faunal bones at excavation sites and seeing what lived many years ago. Faunal remains are bones, hair, shells, and more, any piece of animal anatomy. Discovering the different types of bones at excavations in Florida can give archeologists a sense of the different species in this state that were utilized by humans in the past. This study is creating a visual guide and key for faunal bone artifacts in south Florida. The key will consist of photos of bone artifacts excavated in south Florida of different types of fish and other animals. Also, the key will describe the bones excavated so that people and scientists can know what the defining characteristics of different bones are. Creating this key will be helpful for any other researcher to teach how to identify archaeological bone

Diseño de recursos didácticos para aulas virtuales

1 archivo PDF (21 páginas)Texto que hace referencia a las dificultades a las que se enfrentan los docentes de ciencias básicas al utilizar plataformas a distancia, al diseñar y utilizar cursos, ya sea en e-learning o enseñanza combinada, y la forma en que se puede desarrollar la habilidad de resolver problemas, pues existen numerosas dificultades y obstáculos en este proceso, incluso en enseñanza presencial

Antibiosis in Ascia monuste orseis Godart (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) caused by kale genotypes

Ascia monuste orseis (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) is one of the main insect pests of kale. The study was done to  identify kale varieties resistant to A. monuste orseis by the antibiosis resistance mechanism. Kale genotypes (26) were evaluated in experiments performed at the Laboratory of Agricultural Entomology of Goiano Federal Institute - Campus Urutaí. A completely randomized experimental design with 50 replicates was used. The biological parameters evaluated were (a) larval stage: development time, instars, viability and larval weight 15 days after hatching; (b) pupal stage: development time, weight of 24-h-old pupae, viability; (c) larvae-adult stage: development time and viability. The genotypes Gigante I-915 and Pires 1 de Campinas have antibiosis resistance. Gigante I-915 caused high larval mortality and Pires 1 de Campinas resulted in low larval and pupal viability of A. monuste orseis.Key words: Brassica oleracea L. var. acephala, Brassicaceae, Great Southern White, host plant resistance, integrated pest management (IPM)

Porphyrinoid biohybrid materials as an emerging toolbox for biomedical light management

The development of photoactive and biocompatible nanomaterials is a current major challenge of materials science and nanotechnology, as they will contribute to promoting current and future biomedical applications. A growing strategy in this direction consists of using biologically inspired hybrid materials to maintain or even enhance the optical properties of chromophores and fluorophores in biological media. Within this area, porphyrinoids constitute the most important family of organic photosensitizers. The following extensive review will cover their incorporation into different kinds of photosensitizing biohybrid materials, as a fundamental research effort toward the management of light for biomedical use, including technologies such as photochemical internalization (PCI), photoimmunotherapy (PIT), and theranostic combinations of fluorescence imaging and photodynamic therapy (PDT) or photodynamic inactivation (PDI) of microorganismsThe work carried out to write this review article has received funding from the People Program (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program FP7-PEOPLE-2012-ITN under REA grant agreement no. GA 316975. This work was supported by the EU (CosmoPHOS-nano, FP7-NMP-2012-6, 310337-2), Spanish MINECO (CTQ2017-85393-P (TT), CTQ-2014-53673-P and CTQ-2017-89539-P (AdlE), PCIN-2017-042/EuroNanoMed2017-191, TEMPEAT (TT)), and the Comunidad Autonoma de Madrid (FOTOCARBON, S2013/MIT-2841). IMDEA Nanociencia acknowledges support from the ‘Severo Ochoa’ Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (MINECO, Grant SEV-2016-0686