Stellar populations in superclusters of galaxies

A catalogue of superclusters of galaxies is used to investigate the influence of the supercluster environment on galaxy populations, considering galaxies brighter than M$_r<$-21+5$\log$ h. Empirical spectral synthesis techniques are applied to obtain the stellar population properties of galaxies which belong to superclusters and representative values of stellar population parameters are attributed to each supercluster. We show that richer superclusters present denser environments and older stellar populations. The galaxy populations of superclusters classified as filaments and pancakes are statistically similar, indicating that the morphology of superclusters does not have a significative influence on the stellar populations. Clusters of galaxies within superclusters are also examined in order to evaluate the influence of the supercluster environment on their galaxy properties. Our results suggest that the environment affects galaxy properties but its influence should operate on scales of groups and clusters, more than on the scale of superclusters.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; accepted to MNRA

Desperate Times Call

DESPERATE TIMES CALL is a collection of short stories and a novella about people whose lives intersect with violence. The young girl in Of Course She Would is forced to leave her home after finding her meth-addicted father dead of a heart attack. Tomas Mangual, the main character of She Said Two, sets off on a blind date to discover his counterpart has recently been the victim of a disturbing hate crime. The featured novella, Diablo Corrido, raises the question: How far would someone chase their ambition to see a life-long dream come true? Using the intimate perspectives of first-person and close third-person points of view, DESPERATE TIMES CALL offers glimpses of characters chasing dreams of success, romance, wealth, even normalcy, but coming up empty-handed

The unphysical character of dark energy fluids

It is well known that, in the context of general relativity, an unknown kind of matter that must violate the strong energy condition is required to explain the current accelerated phase of expansion of the Universe. This unknown component is called dark energy and is characterized by an equation of state parameter $w=p/\rho<-1/3$. Thermodynamic stability requires that $3w-d\ln |w|/d\ln a\ge0$ and positiveness of entropy that $w\ge-1$. In this paper we proof that we cannot obtain a differentiable function $w(a)$ to represent the dark energy that satisfies these conditions trough the entire history of the Universe.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

VCube-PS: A Causal Broadcast Topic-based Publish/Subscribe System

In this work we present VCube-PS, a topic-based Publish/Subscribe system built on the top of a virtual hypercube-like topology. Membership information and published messages are broadcast to subscribers (members) of a topic group over dynamically built spanning trees rooted at the publisher. For a given topic, the delivery of published messages respects the causal order. VCube-PS was implemented on the PeerSim simulator, and experiments are reported including a comparison with the traditional Publish/Subscribe approach that employs a single rooted static spanning-tree for message distribution. Results confirm the efficiency of VCube-PS in terms of scalability, latency, number and size of messages.Comment: Improved text and performance evaluation. Added proof for the algorithms (Section 3.4

Cost-Effective Trap qPCR Approach to Evaluate Telomerase Activity: an Important Tool for Aging, Cancer, and Chronic Disease Research

OBJECTIVES: Telomeres are a terminal "DNA cap" that prevent chromosomal fusion and degradation. However, aging is inherent to life, and so is the loss of terminal sequences. Telomerase is a specialized reverse transcriptase encoded by self-splicing introns that counteract chromosome erosion. Telomerase activity is observed during early embryonic development, but after the blastocyst stage, the expression of telomerase reduces. The consequences of either insufficient or unrestrained telomerase activity underscore the importance of ongoing studies aimed at elucidating the regulation of telomerase activity in humans. In the present study, we aimed to standardize a simplified telomerase repeat-amplification protocol (TRAP) assay to detect telomerase activity in unstimulated and PHA-stimulated mononuclear cells. METHODS AND RESULTS: Our optimized qPCR-based can efficiently evaluate telomerase activity. Quantification of protein and DNA between unstimulated and PHA-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells revealed cellular activation and cell-cycle entry. The assay also showed that relative telomerase activity is significantly different between these two conditions, supporting the applicability of the assay. Furthermore, our findings corroborated that telomerase activity decreases with age. CONCLUSIONS: Telomeres and telomerase are implicated in aging and development of chronic diseases and cancer; however, difficulty in accessing commercial kits to investigate these aspects is a critical constraint in health surveillance studies. Our optimized assay was successfully used to differentiate telomerase activity between unstimulated and stimulated cells, clearly showing the reactivation of telomerase upon cell activation. This assay is affordable, reproducible, and can be executed in resource-limited settings

A Questão da Justa Indenização nas Ações de Desapropriação Por Utilidade Pública (Megaeventos Esportivos)

O trabalho pretende colocar em pauta uma discussão sobre o requisito da justa indenização nas ações de desapropriação por utilidade pública, no caso da população de interesse social (de 0 a 3 salários mínimos), considerando o regime jurídico que ampara o direito fundamental à moradia e o direito à cidade. Problematizando esse tema, busca-se inicialmente expor o regime jurídico que fundamenta o direito à moradia e odireito à cidade; procedendo-se em seguida uma abordagem sobre o instituto da desapropriação –em face tanto do domínio quanto da posse – em seus elementos centrais (onde se coloca o requisito da justa indenização), enfocando-se o tratamento da doutrina e da jurisprudência sobre a questão e colocando em pauta o novo tratamento ao direito fundamental à moradia posto na Constituição Federal de 1988 e o marco regulatório do direito à cidade, com foco na população de interesse social. Tratando da inaplicabilidade do Dec.-lei 3.365/1941 em face da Carta Magna de 1988 e o Estatuto da Cidade (Lei 10.257/2001), a discussão traz o foco para o contexto dos megaeventos esportivos (Copado Mundo – 2014 e Olimpíadas – 2016), onde o Estado– ente que tem o dever objetivo de concretizar/ efetivar o direito fundamental à moradia – não visualiza a situação de vulnerabilidade de uma população de interesse social, para a qual, em razão de sua exclusão do acesso ao mercado imobiliário formal, o conceito de justa indenização deve ser visto de forma ampliada, relacionando-se, de maneira intrínseca, com o direito à moradia (art. 6.º, caput, da CF/1988, com o direito à cidade posto legalmente no Estatuto da Cidade (Lei 10.257/2001) e com o princípio da dignidade da pessoa humana (art.1.º, III, da CF/1988). DOI:10.5585/rdb.v3i2.3