New occurrences of Pleurocarpous mosses for the state of Bahia, Brazil

Four new records of pleurocarpous mosses are reported for the first time for the State of Bahia: Phyllodon truncatulus (Hypnaceae), Trichosteleum brachydictyon, Sematophyllum tequendamense and Potamium lonchophyllum (Sematophyllaceae). These species were found in the Tropical Atlantic Rainforest situated in the South of Bahia

Some new additions to the hepatic flora (Jungermanniophyta) for the State of Bahia, Brazil

In this paper are recorded 18 taxa of hepatics (Jungermanniophyta) for the first time for the state of Bahia, Brazil. Of these, Harpalejeunea ovata (Hook.) Schiffn. is new for Brazil. Morphological characters, notes on habitat and substrate are given for each species. Illustrations for Harpalejeunea ovata, Pycnolejeunea callosa (Lindenb.) Steph., Pycnolejeunea macroloba (Nees & Mont.) Schiffn., Rectolejeunea berteroana (Gott. ex Steph.) Evans and Trachylejeunea crenata (Mont. & Nees) Schust. are given

Robust self-trapping of vortex beams in a saturable optical medium

We report the first observation of robust self-trapping of vortex beams propagating in a uniform condensed medium featuring local saturable self-focusing nonlinearity. Optical vortices with topological charge m=1, that remain self-trapped over ~ 5 Rayleigh lengths, are excited in carbon disulfide using a helical light beam at 532 nm and intensities from 8 to 10 GW/cm^2. At larger intensities, the vortex beams lose their stability, spontaneously breaking into two fragments. Numerical simulations based on the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation including the three-photon absorption and nonpolynomial saturation of the refractive nonlinearity demonstrate close agreement with the experimental findings.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures,to be published in Phys. Rev. A (2016

New Teaching Strategies to Improve Student Performance in Fundamentals of Biotechnology

<p>Fundamentals in Biotechnology is part of the Chemical Engineering curriculum at the National University at Salta, in northwest Argentina. This course, given for four months in the fourth year of a five-year program of study, includes concepts of general microbiology, biochemistry, and industrial microbiology and is the first contact by the students with biological issues. Probably due to the long content of the course and to the lack of previous knowledge of biological and microbiological concepts, students have a lot of difficulty passing this course. In order to reach a better understanding of the concepts, to encourage students to learn biotechnology, and to develop critical thinking skills with the ultimate aim of improving performance, two new strategies were adopted, which consisted of including “Complementary Activities” and an “Integration Seminar.”</p