Non-chemical alternative in rice storage: the use of refrigeration for insect control and quality maintenance of paddy rice

Trials were conducted to evaluate the potential effects of refrigeration in controlling insect infestations of Sitophilus zeamais and S. oryzae on stored rice. In the rice storage and processing industry use of aeration systems during winter and refrigeration units under summer conditions can provide a good solution to reduce paddy temperature for control of insects and maintenance of paddy quality; though it is restricted by costs of machinery and electric power. Trials were conducted in a rice mill in Portugal close to the Mondego Valley. A granary containing 140 t of paddy (variety Ripallo) was cooled using refrigerated aeration because during the trials ambient temperatures were too high for successful insect control by ambient air aeration. Sitophilus zeamais and S. oryzae adults reared on brown rice at 28°C and 68±3% r.h. were used as bioassays. Paddy stored in the granary was cooled to below 18ºC from 27 June 2008 to 19 September 2008. The mean ambient temperature during the total period of the trial varied from 12ºC to 27ºC. The moisture content of the paddy in the granary ranged from 12.1% to 13.9% during the same period of time. The total F1 of adult emergence population of S. zeamais and S. oryzae was counted after the experiments. The F1 adult from parent adults of S. zeamais was reduced up to 77%; the F1 adult from eggs of S. zeamais and S. oryzae were also reduced up to 71% and 45%, respectively, when compared with corresponding untreated controls. Refrigeration of the paddy allowed storage for almost three months at about 18ºC and caused delay in rice weevils development. As a consequence, this negated the necessity for fumigation. Although the energy consumed during refrigeration doubled the cost when compared with cooling using an ambient-air, aeration system during the cold season, refrigeration provided an environmentally sound and user-friendly treatment during warm months of the year. Keywords: Refrigeration, Sitophilus zeamais, Sitophilus oryzae, Paddy, Rice mill, Storag

Microbioma y mediadores de inflamación intestinal en el síndrome de enterocolitis inducido por proteínas alimentarias

Trabajo presentado al XIV WorkShop de la Sociedad Española de Microbiota, Probióticos y Prebióticos, celebrado en Pamplona (España) del 8 al 10 de marzo de 202

Produção da cenoura e efeito na fertilidade do solo e nutrição decorrente da solarização do solo para controle da tiririca.

Dentre os desafios do cultivo orgânico de hortaliças destaca-se o controle de plantas daninhas, devido à proibição do uso de herbicidas. Entre as invasoras, a tiririca (Cyperus rotundus L.) é de difícil controle pela sua alta competitividade. A solarização é uma alternativa para desinfestação do solo, a qual consiste em cobri-lo com plástico transparente, com bons resultados no controle da tiririca. A fim de avaliar a influência do preparo e do revolvimento do solo sobre a eficiência da solarização no controle da tiririca, bem como seu posterior efeito sobre o cultivo da cenoura, foi realizado um experimento na Fazendinha Agroecológica, em Seropédica (RJ). O experimento foi disposto em blocos ao acaso com três repetições, em arranjo fatorial 2 x 3 mais uma testemunha adicional, sendo: 1) solo solarizado, preparado (com grade aradora) e revolvido 30 dias após a solarização (manualmente com auxílio de uma enxada); 2) solo solarizado, preparado e revolvido aos 60 dias; 3) solo solarizado, preparado e não revolvido; 4) solo solarizado, não preparado e revolvido aos 30 dias; 5) solo solarizado, não preparado e revolvido aos 60 dias; 6) solo solarizado, não preparado e não revolvido; solo não solarizado, não preparado e não revolvido (testemunha). A solarização iniciou-se em 29/1/2002, e durou cem dias. A solarização reduziu em 86% a infestação de tiririca no cultivo da cenoura. Até 10 cm de profundidade, a temperatura do solo foi superior nas parcelas solarizadas, porém a 5 cm, a solarização foi mais eficiente quando associada ao preparo do solo, não havendo efeito do revolvimento. A solarização aumentou os valores da biomassa microbiana e dos teores de Ca, Mg e P do solo. O desenvolvimento da cenoura foi influenciado pela solarização que resultou em maior produtividade

Development of ASAS quality standards to improve the quality of health and care services for patients with axial spondyloarthritis

Objectives The Assessment of SpondyloArthritis International Society (ASAS) aimed to develop a set of quality standards (QS) to help improve the quality of healthcare provided to adult patients affected by axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) worldwide. Methods An ASAS task force developed a set of QS using a stepwise approach. First, key areas for quality improvement were identified, discussed, rated and agreed on. Thereafter, areas were prioritised and statements for the most important key areas were phrased on consensus. Appropriate quality measures were defined to allow quantification of the QS at the community level. Results The ASAS task force, consisting of 20 rheumatologists, two physiotherapists and two patients, selected and proposed 34 potential key areas for quality improvement which were then commented by 140 ASAS members and patients. Within that process three new key areas came up, which led to a re-evaluation of all 37 key areas by 120 ASAS members and patients. Five key areas were identified as most important to determine quality of care: referral including rapid access, rheumatology assessment, treatment, education/self-management and comorbidities. Finally, nine QS were agreed on and endorsed by the whole ASAS membership. Conclusions ASAS successfully developed the first set of QS to help improving healthcare for adult patients with axSpA. Even though it may currently not be realistic to achieve the QS in all healthcare systems, they provide high-quality of care framework for patients with axSpA that should be aimed for

Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) and Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Conceptual Design Report Volume 2: The Physics Program for DUNE at LBNF

The Physics Program for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) at the Fermilab Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) is described

Expected Performance of the ATLAS Experiment - Detector, Trigger and Physics

A detailed study is presented of the expected performance of the ATLAS detector. The reconstruction of tracks, leptons, photons, missing energy and jets is investigated, together with the performance of b-tagging and the trigger. The physics potential for a variety of interesting physics processes, within the Standard Model and beyond, is examined. The study comprises a series of notes based on simulations of the detector and physics processes, with particular emphasis given to the data expected from the first years of operation of the LHC at CERN

Gaia Data Release 1: the archive visualisation service

Context. The first Gaia data release (DR1) delivered a catalogue of astrometry and photometry for over a billion astronomical sources. Within the panoplyof methods used for data exploration, visualisation is often the starting point and even the guiding reference for scientific thought. However, this is a volume of data that cannot be efficiently explored using traditional tools, techniques, and habits. Aims. We aim to provide a global visual exploration service for the Gaia archive, something that is not possible out of the box for most people. The service has two main goals. The first is to provide a software platform for interactive visual exploration of the archive contents, using common personal computers and mobile devices available to most users. The second aim is to produce intelligible and appealing visual representations of the enormous information content of the archive. Methods. The interactive exploration service follows a client-server design. The server runs close to the data, at the archive, and is responsible for hiding as far as possible the complexity and volume of the Gaia data from the client. This is achieved by serving visual detail on demand. Levels of detail are pre-computed using data aggregation and subsampling techniques. For DR1, the client is a web application that provides an interactive multi-panel visualisation workspace as well as a graphical user interface. Results. The Gaia archive Visualisation Service offers a web-based multi-panel interactive visualisation desktop in a browser tab. It currently provides highly configurable 1D histograms and 2D scatter plots of Gaia DR1 and the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) with linked views. An innovative feature is the creation of ADQL queries from visually defined regions in plots. These visual queries are ready for use in the Gaia Archive Search/data retrieval service. In addition, regions around user-selected objects can be further examined with automatically generated SIMBAD searches. Integration of the Aladin Lite and JS9 applications add support to the visualisation of HiPS and FITS maps. The production of the all-sky source density map that became the iconic image of Gaia DR1 is described in detail. Conclusions. On the day of DR1, over seven thousand users accessed the Gaia Archive visualisation portal. The system, running on a single machine, proved robust and did not fail while enabling thousands of users to visualise and explore the over one billion sources in DR1. There are still several limitations, most noticeably that users may only choose from a list of pre-computed visualisations. Thus, other visualisation applications that can complement the archive service are examined. Finally, development plans for Data Release 2 are presented

Evaluation of a class of isatinoids identified from a high-throughput screen of human kinase inhibitors as anti-Sleeping Sickness agents

New treatments are needed for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), Chagas disease, and schistosomiasis. Through a whole organism high-throughput screening campaign, we previously identified 797 human kinase inhibitors that grouped into 59 structural clusters and showed activity against T. brucei, the causative agent of HAT. We herein report the results of further investigation of one of these clusters consisting of substituted isatin derivatives, focusing on establishing structure-activity and -property relationship scope. We also describe their in vitro absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) properties. For one isatin, NEU-4391, which offered the best activity-property profile, pharmacokinetic parameters were measured in mice

Benchmarking scientific performance by decomposing leadership of Cuban and Latin American institutions in Public Health

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Scientometrics. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1831-z”.Comparative benchmarking with bibliometric indicators can be an aid in decision-making with regard to research management. This study aims to characterize scientific performance in a domain (Public Health) by the institutions of a country (Cuba), taking as reference world output and regional output (other Latin American centers) during the period 2003–2012. A new approach is used here to assess to what extent the leadership of a specific institution can change its citation impact. Cuba was found to have a high level of specialization and scientific leadership that does not match the low international visibility of Cuban institutions. This leading output appears mainly in non-collaborative papers, in national journals; publication in English is very scarce and the rate of international collaboration is very low. The Instituto de Medicina Tropical Pedro Kouri stands out, alone, as a national reference. Meanwhile, at the regional level, Latin American institutions deserving mention for their high autonomy in normalized citation would include Universidad de Buenos Aires (ARG), Universidade Federal de Pelotas (BRA), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientı´ficas y Te´cnicas (ARG), Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (BRA) and the Centro de Pesquisas Rene Rachou (BRA). We identify a crucial aspect that can give rise to misinterpretations of data: a high share of leadership cannot be considered positive for institutions when it is mainly associated with a high proportion of non-collaborative papers and a very low level of performance. Because leadership might be questionable in some cases, we propose future studies to ensure a better interpretation of findings.This work was made possible through financing by the scholarship funds for international mobility between Andalusian and IberoAmerican Universities and the SCImago GroupPeer reviewe

Isolation and Characterization of Cytotoxic, Aggregative Citrobacter freundii

Citrobacter freundii is an infrequent but established cause of diarrhea in humans. However, little is known of its genetic diversity and potential for virulence. We analyzed 26 isolates, including 12 from human diarrheal patients, 2 from human fecal samples of unknown diarrheal status, and 12 from animals, insects, and other sources. Pulsed field gel electrophoresis using XbaI allowed us to divide the 26 isolates into 20 pulse types, while multi-locus sequence typing using 7 housekeeping genes allowed us to divide the 26 isolates into 6 sequence types (STs) with the majority belonging to 4 STs. We analyzed adhesion and cytotoxicity to HEp-2 cells in these 26 strains. All were found to adhere to HEp-2 cells. One strain, CF74, which had been isolated from a goat, showed the strongest aggregative adhesion pattern. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) released from HEp-2 cells was evaluated as a measure of cytotoxicity, averaging 7.46%. Strain CF74 induced the highest level of LDH, 24.3%, and caused >50% cell rounding, detachment, and death. We named strain CF74 “cytotoxic and aggregative C. freundii.” Genome sequencing of CF74 revealed that it had acquired 7 genomic islands, including 2 fimbriae islands and a type VI secretion system island, all of which are potential virulence factors. Our results show that aggregative adherence and cytotoxicity play an important role in the pathogenesis of C. freundii