Tolerance of chickpea mesorhizobia to acid and salt stress

The main objectives of this thesis were to evaluate the tolerance of a collection of native Portuguese chickpea rhizobia to abiotic stresses, namely acidity and salinity, and to investigate the molecular bases of acidity and salinity tolerance. Additionally, the evaluation of the symbiotic performance of ACC deaminasetransformed strains under salinity was performed. The involvement of the chaperone ClpB in the response to abiotic stresses and in the symbiosis with chickpea was investigated by gene deletion in a Mesorhizobium strain. Chickpea rhizobia were assigned to several Mesorhizobium species. In both stress conditions, tolerant and sensitive rhizobia were found, including moderately acidophilic isolates. The analysis of the expression of the chaperone genes dnaK and groESL suggests their involvement in acid tolerance. ACC deaminase-transformed rhizobia strains showed an improvement of their symbiotic performance under salinity. The characterization of the ClpB knockout mutant indicated that ClpB is involved in the nodulation process; RESUMO:Os principais objetivos desta tese foram a avaliação da tolerância a stresses abióticos, nomeadamente acidez e salinidade, de uma coleção de rizóbios portugueses nativos de grão-de-bico, e investigar as bases moleculares da tolerância a ambos os stresses. Adicionalmente, avaliou-se a eficiência simbiótica de estirpes transformadas com o gene da ACC desaminase em condições de salinidade. Investigou-se ainda o envolvimento da chaperone ClpB na resposta a stresses abióticos e na simbiose com grão-de-bico através da deleção do gene. Os rizóbios de grão-de-bico pertencem a diferentes espécies de Mesorhizobium. Encontraram-se rizóbios tolerantes e sensíveis a ambos os stresses, incluindo isolados moderadamente acidófilos. A análise da expressão dos genes de chaperones dnaK e groESL sugere o seu envolvimento na tolerância à acidez. Estirpes de rizóbio transformadas com o gene da ACC desaminase apresentaram uma melhoria da sua eficiência simbiótica em condições salinas. A caracterização do mutante ClpB de Mesorhizobium indicou que esta chaperone está envolvida no processo de nodulação

A ClpB Chaperone Knockout Mutant of Mesorhizobium ciceri Shows a Delay in the Root Nodulation of Chickpea Plants

Several molecular chaperones are known to be involved in bacteria stress response. To investigate the role of chaperone ClpB in rhizobia stress tolerance as well as in the rhizobiaplant symbiosis process, the clpB gene from a chickpea microsymbiont, strain Mesorhizobium ciceri LMS-1, was identified and a knockout mutant was obtained. The ClpB knockout mutant was tested to several abiotic stresses, showing that it was unable to grow after a heat shock and it was more sensitive to acid shock than the wild-type strain. A plant-growth assay performed to evaluate the symbiotic performance of the clpB mutant showed a higher proportion of ineffective root nodules obtained with the mutant than with the wild-type strain. Nodulation kinetics analysis showed a 6- to 8-day delay in nodule appearance in plants inoculated with the Delta clpB mutant. Analysis of nodC gene expression showed lower levels of transcript in the Delta clpB mutant strain. Analysis of histological sections of nodules formed by the clpB mutant showed that most of the nodules presented a low number of bacteroids. No differences in the root infection abilities of green fluorescent protein tagged clpB mutant and wild-type strains were detected. To our knowledge, this is the first study that presents evidence of the involvement of the chaperone ClpB from rhizobia in the symbiotic nodulation process

“Things which don’t shift and grow are dead things”: Revisiting Betonie’s Waste-Lands in Leslie Silko’s Ceremony

This article explores the socio-political background that led to widespread Native American urban relocation in the period following World War II – a historical episode which is featured in Leslie Marmon Silko’s acclaimed novel Ceremony (1977). Through an analysis of the recycling, reinterpreting practices carried out by one of Ceremony’s memorable supporting characters, Navajo healer Betonie, Silko’s political aim to interrogate the state of things and to re-value Native traditions in a context of ongoing relations of coloniality is made most clear. In Silko’s novel, Betonie acts as an organic intellectual who is able to identify and challenge the 1950s neocolonial structure that forced Native American communities to either embrace hegemonic practices and lifestyles or else be condemned to cultural reification and abject poverty. Through his waste-collecting and recycling activities, Betonie develops alternative solutions that go beyond a merely spiritual or epistemological dimension of life and materially intervene in the social text. The margins of 1950s urban sprawl functioned as repositories of indigenous cultural and intellectual capital that was being consciously, actively transformed by Native agents such as him. Thus, through Ceremony’s medicine man, Leslie Silko criticizes disempowering attitudes of victimhood and Native self-shame while vindicating indigenous historical territories and unconventional political strategies. She also anticipates the liminal practices of material and cultural recycling we see in countless Western cities today, in the aftermath of the most recent world economic crisis

Most Acid-Tolerant Chickpea Mesorhizobia Show Induction of Major Chaperone Genes upon Acid Shock

Our goals were to evaluate the tolerance of mesorhizobia to acid and alkaline conditions as well as to investigate whether acid tolerance is related to the species or the origin site of the isolates. In addition, to investigate the molecular basis of acid tolerance, the expression of chaperone genes groEL and dnaKJ was analyzed using acid-tolerant and sensitive mesorhizobia. Tolerance to pH 5 and 9 was evaluated in liquid medium for 98 Portuguese chickpea mesorhizobia belonging to four species clusters. All isolates showed high sensitivity to pH 9. In contrast, mesorhizobia revealed high diversity in terms of tolerance to acid stress: 35 % of the isolates were acid sensitive and 45 % were highly tolerant to pH 5 or moderately acidophilic. An association between mesorhizobia tolerance to acid conditions and the origin soil pH was found. Furthermore, significant differences between species clusters regarding tolerance to acidity were obtained. Ten isolates were used to investigate the expression levels of the chaperone genes by northern hybridization. Interestingly, most acid-tolerant isolates displayed induction of the dnaK and groESL genes upon acid shock while the sensitive ones showed repression. This study suggests that acid tolerance in mesorhizobia is related to the pH of the origin soil and to the species cluster of the isolates. Additionally, the transcriptional analysis suggests a relationship between induction of major chaperone genes and higher tolerance to acid pH in mesorhizobia. This is the first report on transcriptional analysis of the major chaperones genes in mesorhizobia under acidity, contributing to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of rhizobia acidity tolerance

The emergence of smart cities and the Importance of IOT for its development: a study in Portugal: Lisbon

Thegrowing urbanization combined with the aging population and energy requirements lead cities to face serious challenges that can be mitigated with the development of Smart Cities, supported by Internet of Thingsapplications. With this Work Project, it was expectedto define a strategy to improve Lisbon as a Smart City. Thus, after having analyzed the city’s Current Positioning and conductedPrimary Research, it was understood that traffic, inefficient management of solid waste and ineffective health servicesare the main problems.Adding to that, I found there to bea weak level of ideas and experience exchangebetween different citiesin Portugal,a low level of citizen’s engagement in smart projectsand a lack of cooperation from universities. Therefore, theSmart Strategy Plan for Lisbon was developed taking these issues as the main priorities

Wordarrows: The performative power of language in N. Scott Momaday’s non-fiction work

This article focuses on two non-fiction works by Native American author N. Scott Momaday: his 1969 historical memoir The Way to Rainy Mountain and his essay collection The Man Made of Words It specifically tackles performative conceptions of language in the Kiowa storytelling tradition, where words are experienced as speech acts that have the power to intervene in surrounding realities. Taking into account 20th century ethno-cultural and linguistic policies in the United States, the article also reflects on the role indigenous languages may play in contemporary Native American Literature, which has most often been written in English

Native Waterscapes in the Northern Borderlands: Restoring Traditional Environmental Knowledge in Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms

In her novel Solar Storms (1995) Chickasaw novelist and poet Linda Hogan foresees what political geographers today refer to as waterscapes, that is, water-based environments where a multiplicity of human and other-than-human forces interact with each other producing diverse forms of signification. This essay examines Indigenous experiences of water, geography, and social activism as they intersect in Hogan‘s waterscape narrative. I ground my analysis of this visionary novel in recent geographical studies that look at waterscapes from the perspective of cultural politics and which criticize rationalist conceptions of water that reduce it to the sole function of human commodity. Challenging such a reductionist view, Western and non-Western political geographers have begun to take into account traditional environmental knowledge (TEK), local ecologies, and historically rooted, alternative social practices to argue that water environments produce meaning through the ways human and other-than-human beings experience them, and this includes beings such as the earth or water. In this article I contend that such a view is the epistemological backbone sustaining Hogan‘s Solar Storms. While the potential swirling action of water as a form of environmental and spiritual power is strongly highlighted, I also consider how alternative cartographical practices and stories may challenge the boundaries of colonial dominance and propose ways in which Hogan‘s waterscape may contribute to contemporary geographical and political debates concerning home, territory, sovereignty, and sustainability in the Americas.En su novela Solar Storms (1995), la novelista y poeta Chickasaw Linda Hogan anticipa el concepto de waterscape, un entorno natural acuático en el cual (tal y como se empieza a reconocer en el campo de la geografía política contemporánea) una multiplicidad de agentes humanos y no-humanos interactúa entre sí produciendo diferentes niveles de sentido. Este artículo considera el modo en que las comunidades indígenas entienden el agua, la geografía y el activismo social tomando como punto de partida los waterscapes descritos por Linda Hogan. Mi análisis está fundamentado en estudios geográficos recientes, los cuales examinan estos entornos acuáticos atendiendo a las nuevas políticas geoculturales, a la par que critican conceptualizaciones racionales occidentales que reducen el agua a la mera función de mercancía o recurso. Cuestionando esta perspectiva reduccionista, numerosos geógrafos políticos, occidentales y no occidentales, empiezan a reconocer el valor de la sabiduría ecológica tradicional de las comunidades indígenas, las prácticas ecológicas locales, así como una serie de prácticas geosociales alternativas que tienen también un fuerte arraigo histórico. Este grupo creciente de geógrafos alega que los entornos acuáticos cobran también significado a través de las múltiples experiencias que los seres humanos y no humanos tenemos de los mismos y esto incluye a seres naturales como la tierra o el agua. En este artículo defiendo que esta perspectiva orgánica y multivocal constituye el eje fundamental que sustenta la novela de Hogan. Paralelamente, demuestro cómo las historias y prácticas cartográficas alternativas presentadas en la novela, junto a la acción arremolinadora del agua como fuerza medioambiental y espiritual, cuestionan los límites del orden colonial dominante proponiendo maneras de intervención en los debates geopolíticos contemporáneos sobre hogar, territorio, soberanía y sostenibilidad en la América indígena

The value of a user for codacy

This research was developed in straight collaboration with the Portuguese startup Codacy with the purpose of valuing the different types of users by defining metrics for each segment created. The users were segmented according to their subscription plan — Cloud and Enterprise, Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) - Small, Medium and Big Accounts and subscription length - Monthly and Yearly. The main conclusion is that medium and big accounts are the main growth drivers. Furthermore, those metrics also provide powerful insights by enabling Codacy to be more data-driven across departments especially approaching Product Market Fit

The Way to Rainy Mountain: Imágenes, historias, y relaciones humanas/más-que-humanas en la memoria Kiowa de Alfred y N. Scott Momaday

Drawing from the pictographic traditions and interspecies relations of the Kiowa as well as from N. Scott Momaday’s own theories of language, vision, and the creative imagination, this article aims to broaden our understanding of the ­­­memoir The Way to Rainy Mountain as a verbal/visual collaboration between Kiowa painter Alfred Momaday and his son, N. Scott. The stories and images rendered in the book strongly establish the Kiowa in relation to a particular cultural landscape, to visual/oral forms of memory, and to the animals and more-than-human beings that endow them with meaning. To further understand these two sets of relations, the sacred interdependence between images/words and human/more-than-human beings in the Kiowa tradition, I first situate the revision of history, place, and ceremony carried out by the Momadays within a tribal-specific intellectual framework. To that end, I consider the visual modes and practices that were traditionally engaged by the Kiowa and which are reinserted by the Momadays in their text as a form of anti-colonial resurgence. Such strategies contributed to decolonizing textual spaces and tribal representation in the late 1960s through their blurring of Western disciplines and through the spiritual interconnection of human, more-than-humans and place at a time when Native American religions were banned. Words and images in The Way to Rainy Mountain are preeminently relational and place-based; they engage with the land and the multiple beings that dwell on it at material and spiritual levels that cannot be set apart. Shaped by traditional Kiowa epistemology and social practice, Rainy Mountain’s illustrations depict more-than-human beings and interspecies relations which, understood as both material and sacred experience, lead to creative vision and cultural resurgence in this groundbreaking text.Partiendo de las tradiciones pictográficas y de las relaciones entre especies asociadas a la cultura kiowa, así como de las teorías sobre el lenguaje, la visión y la imaginación creativa desarrolladas por N. Scott Momaday, en este trabajo propongo ampliar nuestra comprensión de la autobiografía colectiva The Way to Rainy Mountain entendida como colaboración visual y verbal entre el pintor kiowa Alfred Momaday y su hijo N. Scott. Las historias e imágenes plasmadas en esta obra contribuyeron a establecer a los kiowa en relación a un paisaje cultural concreto, a unas formas de memoria visual/oral, así como a los animales y seres más-que-humanos que les dan sentido. Para entender estos dos tipos de relación, la sagrada interdependencia entre las imágenes y las palabras y los seres humanos y más-que-humanos en la tradición kiowa, sitúo la revisión histórica, geográfica y ceremonial practicada por los Momaday en un marco intelectual tribal. Para ello considero los modos y prácticas visuales que caracterizan a la cultura kiowa y que son reinsertados por los Momaday en su obra como estrategia de resurgimiento anti-colonial. Estas estrategias contribuyeron a descolonizar los espacios textuales y la representación tribal a finales de los años 60 al cuestionar la rigidez de los campos de conocimiento occidentales e interconectar telúrica y espiritualmente a seres humanos y más-que-humanos en un momento histórico en el que las prácticas religiosas amerindias estaban prohibidas. Las palabras e imágenes plasmadas en The Way to Rainy Mountain son preeminentemente relacionales y están centradas en el territorio; apelan a la tierra y a los múltiples seres que la habitan de un modo material y spiritual que los hace inseparables. Las ilustraciones de Rainy Mountain muestran una clara influencia de la epistemología, historiografía visual y prácticas sociales kiowa y presentan relaciones entre especies que, entendidas como experiencia material y sagrada, llevan a la visión creativa y al resurgimiento cultural en esta obra pionera

Institutional practices : a key factor for improving school effectiveness

The work presents the development and main results of a research project related to school performance during the initial cycle of secondary school in Cordoba (Argentina). The object was to study the relationship between institutional practices (institutional organization and learning assessment) and performance from a sociological perspective. The reference framework was Basil Bernstein?s theory on "code" and "pedagogical discourse". A descriptive design was used, on a random sample of secondary schools in the city, stratified by performance levels. By means of quantitative data (repetition rates; teacher surveys; characteristics of the institutions) the general features of the institutions were described, the teachers? positioning regarding their role was characterized and indexes were calculated. With data from interviews with directors and group discussions in focal groups of teachers and students, an in-depth analysis of institutional practices was made. Main results: Practices regarding institutional organization differ between schools with differing performance; direction management accounts the differences. Those regarding learning assessments, on the other hand, are relatively homogenous throughout the schools. A number of proposals for the improvement of practices are posed based on the results obtained.http://www.icsei.net/2013/Fil: Brígido, Ana María. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.Fil: Ríos, Graciela. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales; Argentina.Otras Humanidade