Genetic diversity of American wild rice species

Studies on genetic diversity and genetic structure of natural populations are important in order to define strategies for in situ and ex situ conservation actions and for plant pre-breeding programs. Aiming to assess the genetic diversity and genetic structure of three wild American Oryza species with isozyme markers, 14 populations of the diploid O. glumaepatula (AglAgl), 11 populations of the tetraploid O. grandiglumis (CCDD) and five populations of the also tetraploid O. latifolia (CCDD) were studied. They were all originated from Rio Paraguay hydrographic basin and the Amazon. Four enzymes were used and they gave 40 polymorphic bands. The most polymorphic species was O. glumaepatula, followed by O. latifolia and O. grandiglumis. A cluster analysis with the Jaccard similarity coefficient separated the diploid from the two tetraploid species, and also the two tetraploid species. This separation was also evident on a scatter plot from a principal component analysis, suggesting that they should be treated as two separate species, although further studies are necessary to provide support for this affirmative. The AMOVA analyses showed a high intrapopulational variability for O. latifolia (67.6%) and O. grandiglumis (52.2%), when compared to their interpopulational variability (32.4% and 47.8%, respectively), which suggests the hypothesis of a higher degree of outcrossing events within these species. When studying the correlation between the Jaccard dissimilarity coefficient and geographic distances, a spatial genetic structure was observed for O. glumaepatula only. These results are important for defining strategies of both in situ and ex situ conservation.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

TEORIA DE PIAGET E EXPERIMENTAÇÃO NO ENSINO DE ELETROMAGNETISMO

This report refers to the Pedagogical Residency Program, linked to the Licentiate Degree in Physics at the Federal Institute of Catarinense – Campus Concórdia. The objective was to promote the immersion of the licentiate in the school context and enable the learning and development of the teaching identity. The activities were carried out with a 3rd-year class of Technician in Agriculture Integrated into High School, and involved the reading of documents relevant to the teaching-learning process, eight weeks of work as a teacher and application of a didactic workshop. During the teaching and didactic workshop, concepts related to electromagnetism were addressed through experimentation, history of science, problem solving and virtual simulations. As a theoretical basis, the constructivist conceptions of Jean Piaget were adopted. In general, the experiences developed in the Pedagogical Residency represented a unique opportunity to prepare for future teaching work.Este relatório refere-se ao Programa de Residência Pedagógica, vinculado ao curso de Licenciatura em Física do Instituto Federal Catarinense – Campus Concórdia. O objetivo foi promover a imersão do licenciando no contexto escolar e possibilitar o aprendizado e o desenvolvimento da identidade docente. As atividades foram desenvolvidas com uma turma de 3° ano do Técnico em Agropecuária Integrado ao Ensino Médio, e envolveram a leitura de documentos pertinentes para o processo de ensino-aprendizagem, oito semanas de atuação como docente e aplicação de uma oficina didática. Durante a docência e a oficina didática foram abordados os conceitos ligados a eletromagnetismo, por meio da experimentação, história da ciência, resolução de problemas e simulações virtuais. Como embasamento teórico, foram adotadas as concepções construtivistas de Jean Piaget. De modo geral, as experiências desenvolvidas na Residência Pedagógica representaram uma oportunidade única de preparação para o futuro trabalho docente

Inpainting Technique application to Rebuild Partially Detected Dark Slope Streaks/ Aplicação de técnica de inpanting para reconstrução de dark slope streks parcialemtne detectados

This paper approaches the implementation of an algorithm that automatically detects features of interest on the Martian surface known as Dark Slope Streaks (DSS), and the application of an inpainting technique to improve the results obtained by the detection. The greatest difficulty for the development of this algorithm is the false positives caused by shadows, depressions or fading of DSS, after a period. To overcome these problems, techniques such as image segmentation and custom filtering routines were used. Sometimes, the extraction algorithm obtains partially detected features, culminating in a loss of quality. However, in order to remove occlusions and restore lost features, the resulting image goes through an inpainting process proposed by Galerne et al (2017). To understand if the inpainting technique improves the quality of the extraction process, we created a reference image and compared with both the image obtained from the extraction algorithm and the resulting image of the inpainting algorithm. This process was repeated for four interest areas. Comparing the mean of pre-reconstruction SSIM and the mean of post-reconstruction SSIM, the inpainting algorithm shows an improvement of 6.13% in quality. Therefore, both algorithms may contribute greatly to the increasing quality of extraction of DSS in the area of cartography

A nonrecursive GR algorithm to extract road networks in high-resolution images from remote sensing

A number of studies address the development of algorithms based on the Growing Region (GR) technique adaptations for extracting road networks in images. However, these algorithms are high-computationally demanding and time-consuming while processing high-resolution images. The aim of this study is to introduce a modified version of the GR algorithm, named Nonrecursive Growing Region (NRGR), to extract road networks in high-resolution images from remote sensing. This study describes how the NRGR algorithm works to perform the extractions in a faster way. The proposed algorithm was developed taking into consideration the reduction of the data dependence between its tasks in order to allow the GR algorithm to process these tasks with the help of Graphical Processor Units (GPUs). The experiments were conducted to demonstrate the ability of the NRGR to process low or high spatial resolution images with or without the help of GPUs. Results achieved by experiments performed in this study suggest that the NRGR algorithm is less complex and faster than previous adaptations versions tested of the GR algorithm to process images. The NRGR was able to process the tested images with less than 30% of the time used by the recursive algorithm, reaching values below 10% in some cases. The NRGR algorithm can be used as software or hardware-software system"s co-design solutions to develop maps of road networks for Cartography

ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF INPAINTING TECHNIQUES FOR ENHANCING FEATURE EXTRACTION QUALITY IN REMOTE SENSING IMAGERY

Remote Sensing (RS) images have been used in several applications of interest for society. Despite the precision and robustness derived from RS images, several aerial scenes exhibit imperfections and fall short of attaining ideal quality standards, as some of them present distortions such as noise, blur, and stripes. An alternative approach to deal with such distortions is by applying Inpainting techniques, however, under certain circumstances, this type of approach requires to be evaluated by quantitative metrics to assess the final quality of the reconstruction. Therefore, this paper focus on the issue of quantitatively evaluating inpainting results in the context of RS by analysing and comparing new evaluation metrics in contrast to the classical ones from the general literature of RS. More precisely, two inpainting techniques are applied for object removal and reconstruction of partially detected curvilinear cartographic features in RS images. Next, the obtained results are evaluated by taking six evaluation metrics to assess the agreement level between the metrics, as well as between qualitative evaluations conducted by human agents. Based on the evaluation of these metrics when applied to RS images, it can be concluded that the DISTS and VSI metrics are the most promising candidates for adaptation and application within the specific context of RS

Ultrasound non-invasive measurement of intracranial pressure in neurointensive care: A prospective observational study

BACKGROUND: The invasive nature of the current methods for monitoring of intracranial pressure (ICP) has prevented their use in many clinical situations. Several attempts have been made to develop methods to monitor ICP non-invasively. The aim of this study is to assess the relationship between ultrasound-based non-invasive ICP (nICP) and invasive ICP measurement in neurocritical care patients. METHODS AND FINDINGS: This was a prospective, single-cohort observational study of patients admitted to a tertiary neurocritical care unit. Patients with brain injury requiring invasive ICP monitoring were considered for inclusion. nICP was assessed using optic nerve sheath diameter (ONSD), venous transcranial Doppler (vTCD) of straight sinus systolic flow velocity (FVsv), and methods derived from arterial transcranial Doppler (aTCD) on the middle cerebral artery (MCA): MCA pulsatility index (PIa) and an estimator based on diastolic flow velocity (FVd). A total of 445 ultrasound examinations from 64 patients performed from 1 January to 1 November 2016 were included. The median age of the patients was 53 years (range 37–64). Median Glasgow Coma Scale at admission was 7 (range 3–14), and median Glasgow Outcome Scale was 3 (range 1–5). The mortality rate was 20%. ONSD and FVsv demonstrated the strongest correlation with ICP (R = 0.76 for ONSD versus ICP; R = 0.72 for FVsv versus ICP), whereas PIa and the estimator based on FVd did not correlate with ICP significantly. Combining the 2 strongest nICP predictors (ONSD and FVsv) resulted in an even stronger correlation with ICP (R = 0.80). The ability to detect intracranial hypertension (ICP ≥ 20 mm Hg) was highest for ONSD (area under the curve [AUC] 0.91, 95% CI 0.88–0.95). The combination of ONSD and FVsv methods showed a statistically significant improvement of AUC values compared with the ONSD method alone (0.93, 95% CI 0.90–0.97, p = 0.01). Major limitations are the heterogeneity and small number of patients included in this study, the need for specialised training to perform and interpret the ultrasound tests, and the variability in performance among different ultrasound operators. CONCLUSIONS: Of the studied ultrasound nICP methods, ONSD is the best estimator of ICP. The novel combination of ONSD ultrasonography and vTCD of the straight sinus is a promising and easily available technique for identifying critically ill patients with intracranial hypertension.DC and MC are partially supported by NIHR Brain Injury Healthcare Technology Co-operative, Cambridge, UK. JD is supported by a Woolf Fisher Scholarship (NZ). PJAH is supported by the National Institute for Health Research Cambridge BRC as a Research Professor of Neurosurgery. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Trends and factors associated with dengue mortality and fatality in Brazil.

INTRODUCTION: Studies that generate information that may reduce the dengue death risk are essential. This study analyzed time trends and risk factors for dengue mortality and fatality in Brazil from 2001 to 2011. METHODS: Time trends for dengue mortality and fatality rates were analyzed using simple linear regression. Associations between the dengue mortality and the case fatality rates and socioeconomic, demographic, and health care indicators at the municipality level were analyzed using negative binomial regression. RESULTS: The dengue hemorrhagic fever case fatality rate increased in Brazil from 2001 to 2011 (β=0.67; p=0.036), in patients aged 0-14 years (β=0.48; p=0.030) and in those aged ≥15 years (β=1.1; p<0.01). Factors associated with the dengue case fatality rate were the average income per capita (MRR=0.99; p=0.038) and the number of basic health units per population (MRR=0.89; p<0.001). Mortality rates increased from 2001 to 2011 (β=0.350; p=0.002).Factors associated with mortality were inequality (RR=1.02; p=0.001) high income per capita (MRR=0.99; p=0.005), and higher proportions of populations living in urban areas (MRR=1.01; p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The increases in the dengue mortality and case fatality rates and the associated socioeconomic and health care factors, suggest the need for structural and intersectoral investments to improve living conditions and to sustainably reduce these outcomes

Insetos em presépios e as "formigas vestidas" de Jules Martin (1832-1906): uma curiosa manufatura paulistana do final do século XIX

Encontrados no Brasil desde os primórdios da colonização portuguesa, os presépios logo tiveram de adaptar-se à realidade local, circunstância muito propícia ao aparecimento de concepções heterodoxas e ao emprego de elementos exóticos da fauna e flora de cada região. Como registros envolvendo insetos são muito pouco comuns, chama a atenção que fêmeas de saúva, Atta sp. (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), tenham sido aproveitadas na composição de presépios no estado de São Paulo. Tendo subsistido pelo menos até a década 1960, os "presépios de formigas" existentes em cidades como Embu das Artes poderiam estar relacionados às "formigas vestidas" criadas por Jules Martin, curiosa manufatura paulistana do último quartel do século XIX.Present in Brazil since the beginning of Portuguese colonization, crèche nativity scenes were soon adapted to local reality, a propitious circumstance for the appearance of heterodox conceptions and the use of exotic elements of the fauna and flora peculiar to each region. As records about insects are very uncommon, it is noteworthy that females of leaf-cutting ants, Atta sp. (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), were used to compose crèche nativity scenes in São Paulo State. Having subsisted at least up to the decade of 1960, the "ant crèches" of cities such as Embu das Artes could be related to the then famous "dressed ants" created by Jules Martin, a curious manufacture of the city of São Paulo in the last quarter of the 19th century