Both MAT1-1 and MAT 1-2 idiomorphs present in rice blast populations (Magnaporthe oryzae) collected in rice fields in northern Brazil.

This is the first study to detect Magnaporthe oryzae rice isolates carrying the MAT1-1 idiomorph in Brazil. Despite the low frequency of the MAT1-1 idiomorph, the study showed that sexual reproduction is possible in the northern riceproducing regions of Brazil

Efeito do encharcamento e de alturas de corte sobre a taxa de expansão foliar em plantas de Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu.

Objetivou-se de contribuir para o entendimento dos fatores que possam estar envolvidos na morte de capim-braquiarão (Brachiaria brizantha cv Marandu), através da análise de encharcamento. Segundo Dias-Filho (Informação pessoal), o excesso de umidade é um dos principais causadores deste fenômeno

Lipid Bodies: Inflammatory Organelles Implicated in Host-Trypanosoma cruzi Interplay during Innate Immune Responses

The flagellated protozoa Trypanosoma cruzi is the causal agent of Chagas' disease, a significant public health issue and still a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Latin America. Acute Chagas' disease elicits a strong inflammatory response. In order to control the parasite multiplication, cells of the monocytic lineage are highly mobilized. Monocyte differentiation leads to the formation of phagocytosing macrophages, which are strongly activated and direct host defense. A distinguishing feature of Chagas' disease-triggered macrophages is the presence of increased numbers of distinct cytoplasmic organelles termed lipid bodies or lipid droplets. These organelles are actively formed in response to the parasite and are sites for synthesis and storage of inflammatory mediators. This review covers current knowledge on lipid bodies elicited by the acute Chagas' disease within inflammatory macrophages and discusses the role of these organelles in inflammation. The increased knowledge of lipid bodies in pathogenic mechanisms of infections may not only contribute to the understanding of pathogen-host interactions but may also identify new targets for intervention

A neural cognitive model of argumentation with application to legal inference and decision making

Formal models of argumentation have been investigated in several areas, from multi-agent systems and artificial intelligence (AI) to decision making, philosophy and law. In artificial intelligence, logic-based models have been the standard for the representation of argumentative reasoning. More recently, the standard logic-based models have been shown equivalent to standard connectionist models. This has created a new line of research where (i) neural networks can be used as a parallel computational model for argumentation and (ii) neural networks can be used to combine argumentation, quantitative reasoning and statistical learning. At the same time, non-standard logic models of argumentation started to emerge. In this paper, we propose a connectionist cognitive model of argumentation that accounts for both standard and non-standard forms of argumentation. The model is shown to be an adequate framework for dealing with standard and non-standard argumentation, including joint-attacks, argument support, ordered attacks, disjunctive attacks, meta-level attacks, self-defeating attacks, argument accrual and uncertainty. We show that the neural cognitive approach offers an adequate way of modelling all of these different aspects of argumentation. We have applied the framework to the modelling of a public prosecution charging decision as part of a real legal decision making case study containing many of the above aspects of argumentation. The results show that the model can be a useful tool in the analysis of legal decision making, including the analysis of what-if questions and the analysis of alternative conclusions. The approach opens up two new perspectives in the short-term: the use of neural networks for computing prevailing arguments efficiently through the propagation in parallel of neuronal activations, and the use of the same networks to evolve the structure of the argumentation network through learning (e.g. to learn the strength of arguments from data)

Perfil de ácidos graxos do óleo de semente de abóboras crioulas (Cucurbita máxima L.).

Trabalho publicado no III Congresso Brasileiro de Processamento de Frutas e Hortaliças, 2013