Chemistry of Chern-Simons Supergravity: reduction to a BPS kink, oxidation to M-theory and thermodynamical aspects

We construct a supersymmetric extension of the two dimensional Kaluza-Klein-reduced gravitational Chern-Simons term, and globally study its solutions, labelled by mass and U(1) charge c. The kink solution is BPS, and in an appropriate conformal frame all solutions asymptotically approach AdS. The thermodynamics of the Hawking effect yields interesting behavior for the specific heat and hints at a Hawking-Page-like transition at T_{critical} \sim c^{3/2}. We address implications for higher dimensions ("oxidation"), in particular D=3,4 and 11, and comment briefly on AdS/CFT aspects of the kink.Comment: 39 pages, 2 figures. v2: reference added, minor changes, typo

Benthic Foraminifera as Environmental Indicators in Mediterranean Marine Caves: A Review

Marine caves are characterized by wide environmental variability for the interaction between marine and continental processes. Their conditions may be defined as extreme for inhabiting organisms due to the enclosed morphology, lack of light, and scarcity of nutrients. Therefore, it is necessary to identify reliable ecological indicators for describing and assessing environmental conditions in these habitats even more than elsewhere. This review aims to provide the state of art related to the application of benthic foraminifera as proxies in the (paleo)ecological characterization of different habitats of marine caves. Special attention was addressed to a research project focused on Mediterranean marine caves with different characteristics, such as extent, morphology, freshwater influence, salinity, sediment type, oxygenation, and organic matter supply. This review aims to illustrate the reliability of foraminifera as an ecological and paleoecological indicator in these habitats. They respond to various environmental conditions with different assemblages corresponding to a very detailed habitat partitioning. Because marine caves may be considered natural laboratories for environmental variability, the results of these studies may be interpreted in the perspective of the global variability to understand the environmental drivers of future changes in marine systems

Supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories with local coupling: The supersymmetric gauge

Supersymmetric pure Yang-Mills theory is formulated with a local, i.e. space-time dependent, complex coupling in superspace. Super-Yang-Mills theories with local coupling have an anomaly, which has been first investigated in the Wess-Zumino gauge and there identified as an anomaly of supersymmetry. In a manifest supersymmetric formulation the anomaly appears in two other identities: The first one describes the non-renormalization of the topological term, the second relates the renormalization of the gauge coupling to the renormalization of the complex supercoupling. Only one of the two identities can be maintained in perturbation theory. We discuss the two versions and derive the respective beta function of the local supercoupling, which is non-holomorphic in the first version, but directly related to the coupling renormalization, and holomorphic in the second version, but has a non-trivial, i.e.anomalous, relation to the beta function of the gauge coupling.Comment: References correcte

Supersymmetric black holes in 2D dilaton supergravity: baldness and extremality

We present a systematic discussion of supersymmetric solutions of 2D dilaton supergravity. In particular those solutions which retain at least half of the supersymmetries are ground states with respect to the bosonic Casimir function (essentially the ADM mass). Nevertheless, by tuning the prepotential appropriately, black hole solutions may emerge with an arbitrary number of Killing horizons. The absence of dilatino and gravitino hair is proven. Moreover, the impossibility of supersymmetric dS ground states and of nonextremal black holes is confirmed, even in the presence of a dilaton. In these derivations the knowledge of the general analytic solution of 2D dilaton supergravity plays an important role. The latter result is addressed in the more general context of gPSMs which have no supergravity interpretation. Finally it is demonstrated that the inclusion of non-minimally coupled matter, a step which is already nontrivial by itself, does not change these features in an essential way.Comment: 30 pages, LaTeX, v2: mayor revision (rearranged title, shortened abstract, revised introduction, inserted section from appendix to main text, added subsection with new material on non-SUGRA gPSMs, added clarifying remarks at some places, updated references); v3: corrected minor misprints, added note with a new referenc

Chemical-physical and ecological characterisation in the environmental project of a polluted coastal area: the Bagnoli case study

The Bagnoli Bay (southern Tyrrhenian Sea, Naples, Italy) has been impacted for about one century by heavy anthropogenic pollution due to an important steel plant. A multidisciplinary environmental research, aimed at the reclamation of the marine contaminated area, was planned in order to evaluate, through quantitative data, the chemical-physical and ecological characteristics of marine sediments; the latter ones are strictly related to the composition and structure of benthic foraminiferal assemblages. A comprehensive statistical approach, considering all data, was attempted in order to single out the influence of pollutants on the single species distribution. The results show strong heavy metal pollution (Fe, Mn, Pb and Zn) in the vicinity of the industrial plant. Many foraminiferal species (Haynesina germanica, Miliolinella subrotunda,Quinqueloculina parvula), have a good tolerance to some trace metals while, Bulimina sublimbata, Elphidiummacellum and Miliolinella dilatata show a good tolerance to PAHs pollution

Observações sôbre a quantidade de milho amarelo necessária para prevenir a avita-minose a em pintos

The authors tried to check in this experiment the minimum of yellow corn necessary for preventing avitaminosis A in chickens. It was observed, in balanced ration with 50% of corn, that: a) 20% of dent and yellow grains and 30% of flint and white grains were insuficient to prevent avitaminosis A. b) 20% of flint and orange grains and 30% of flint and white grains or 40% of either colored grains and 10% of flint, and white grains did not show evident signs of avitaminosis A during the 12 weeks of the experiment. The ration containing 20% of flint and orange grains is pratically equivalent to the ration containing 40% of dent and yellow grains, regarding the content of pro-vitamina A. However, it was not possible to conclude if these dosage are sufficient to give the necessary vitamina A for normal development of the chickens since the table 3 seems to indicate a negative correlation between the amount of pigment in the ration and the mortality of the animals

Composição proximal em filés, rendimento de carcaça e de cortes de jundiá (rhamdia quelen) alimentados com rações contendo diferentes óleos vegetais.

Este trabalho teve por objetivos avaliar a influência de óleos vegetais no desenvolvimento corporal de jundiá (Rhamdia quelen, Heptapteridae) e sua relação com o rendimento de carcaça, partes comestíveis e composição química do filé. Testaram-se seis rações com 32% de proteína bruta, sendo avaliados óleos de arroz, canola ou soja com 5 e 10% de inclusão durante 90 dias. Foram utilizados 180 peixes (peso inicial=71±0,81g) distribuídos ao acaso em 18 caixas de 280L (10 peixes/caixa) em um sistema de recirculação de água, com temperatura controlada (25,9±0,9ºC). Não houve diferenças para os parâmetros produtivos entre os tratamentos testados ao final do experimento (P<0,05). Os peixes alimentados com maiores níveis de óleo nas dietas depositaram maior porcentagem de gordura no filé. Conclui-se que os óleos de canola, arroz e soja utilizados como alternativas em dietas na recria de jundiá proporcionam bom rendimento de carcaça e de partes comestíveis. E, as rações contendo óleo de canola possibilitam menor deposição de gordura no filé de juvenis de jundiá em nível de 5%

MicroRNA-221 silencing attenuates the degenerated phenotype of intervertebral disc cells.

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of an antichondrogenic factor, MIR221 (miR‐221), in intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD), and provide basic information for the development of a therapeutic strategy for the disc repair based on specific nucleic acid based drugs, such as miR‐221 silencing. We established a relatively quick protocol to minimize artifacts from extended in vitro culture, without selecting the different types of cells from intervertebral disc (IVD) or completely disrupting extracellular matrix (ECM), but by using the whole cell population with a part of resident ECM. During the de‐differentiation process miR‐221 expression significantly increased. We demonstrated the effectiveness of miR‐221 silencing in driving the cells towards chondrogenic lineage. AntagomiR‐221 treated cells showed in fact a significant increase of expression of typical chondrogenic markers including COL2A1, ACAN and SOX9, whose loss is associated with IDD. Moreover, antagomiR‐221 treatment restored FOXO3 expression and increased TRPS1 expression levels attenuating the severity grade of degeneration, and demonstrating in a context of tissue degeneration and inflammation not investigated before, that FOXO3 is target of miR‐221. Data of present study are promising in the definition of new molecules useful as potential intradiscal injectable biological agents

Benthic foraminifera as environmental indicators in extreme environments. The marine cave of Bue Marino (Sardinia, Italy)

The coast of the Gulf of Orosei (Sardinia, Italy) consists of impressive cliffs set up on dolostones and limestones characterized by wide karst systems connected to the sea. Marine caves, which are part of these system flooded by seawater through marine entrances, may be considered as extreme environments because of wide spatial and temporal environmental variability due to changing marine and terrestrial contributions. This study presents the results of the third survey carried out in summer 2016 in the Bue Marino cave, as part of a research project started in 2014 aimed at the application of Benthic Foraminifera (BF) as ecological indicators in Mediterranean marine caves for the identification of different habitats and their environmental interpretation. Sediment and water samples were collected from a total of 25 stations from two distinct sectors of the cave (North Branch and Middle Branch); sediments were analysed for living and dead BF and grain size, while Temperature, Salinity, pH and Dissolved Oxygen were measured in water samples collected close to sediment water interface. Two main foraminiferal assemblages, with distinct characteristics with respect to the typical Mediterranean shallow-water ones, were recognized by means of Hierarchical Cluster Analysis and Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling, and a Canonical Correspondence Analysis deduced their environmental significance. A well oxygenated, less saline environment with coarse bottom sediment, correlated with a mixed calcareous-agglutinated assemblage (Gavelinopsis praegeri, Rosalina spp., Eggerelloides advenus and Reophax dentaliniformis) with high species diversity (H-index 2.32–3.57) and low foraminiferal density, was exclusive of the North Branch. A scarcely oxygenated, more saline environment with fine bottom sediment enriched in vegetal debris was related to a prevalently agglutinated assemblage characterized by low species diversity (H-index 1.60–2.68), with high dominance of E. advenus (up to 83.6%) associated to Ammonia tepida, and high foraminiferal density, recognized in the Middle Branch. These different environments were interpreted considering the different modes of feeding the karst systems of the two branches. They also corresponded to two distinct ecozones, Entrance and Confluence, already recognized in earlier studies. The environmental significance of the foraminiferal ecozones recognized in this study and their comparison with the ones identified in the previous years, helped to consider the ecological zonation as a tool for detecting seasonal and, possibly, long term annual environmental variability in the marine system

Estudos sobre a nutrição mineral do feijão macassar (Vigna sinensis (L) Endl.). V: chave para a identificação de deficiências minerais

Symptoms of deficiency of macro and micronutrients were induced in Vigna sinensis by growing two cultivars in nutrient solution under the necessary treatments. Results there of were used to prepare a key which could be used in the visual diagnosis of mineral deficiencies. As a rule, the information obtained is in agreement with result found in the literature for other legumes. It is noteworthy, however, that symptoms of Mo and Zn first showed up in older leaves.É apresentada uma chave para identificação visual das deficiências de macro e de micronutrientes em Vigna sinensis