Similaridade florística em duas áreas de Cerrado, localizadas no município de Parnarama, Maranhão - Brasil.

Pelo fato do Cerrado ser um dos biomas de grande importância e também um dos mais impactados pela atividade humana no Brasil, esse trabalho teve como objetivo realizar uma similaridade florística em duas áreas de Cerrado localizadas no município de Parnarama, Maranhão ? Brasil. Nas duas áreas foram locadas 41 parcelas, sendo distribuídas 24 na área I e 17 na área II, onde todos os indivíduos com CAP ? 31,4 cm (DAP ? 10 cm) foram mensurados bem como suas respectivas alturas e identificados botanicamente. Para análise da similaridade florística foi utilizado a distância euclidiana pelo método de Ward. Como resultado, as duas áreas apresentaram trechos distintos entre si, a área I apresentou maior diversidade e número de espécies, podendo ser classificada como uma área de cerradão. Já a segunda área vem se regenerando e desenvolvendo e, caso não haja nenhuma intervenção antrópica, a mesma poderá vir a se tornar um remanescente florestal secundário

Protocol study: Sexual and reproductive health knowledge, information-seeking behaviour and attitudes among Saudi women: A questionnaire survey of university students

Copyright © 2014 Farih et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background - Sexual and reproductive health (SRH), a basic right for women worldwide, is infrequently researched in countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). No empirical studies of SRH among Saudi women exist. This protocol describes a study to explore the SRH knowledge, information-seeking behaviour and attitudes of Saudi female university students. Methods/Design - This study will administer a questionnaire survey to female students at 13 universities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire was developed following a literature search to identify relevant content, with psychometrically tested tools used when available. The content layout and the wording and order of the questions were designed to minimize the risk of bias. The questionnaire has been translated into Arabic and piloted in preparation for administration to the study sample. Ethical approval for the study has been granted (reference no. QMREC2012/54). After questionnaire administration, the data will be collated, analysed and reported anonymously. The findings will be published in compliance with reporting guidelines for survey research. Discussion - This study will be the first to provide fundamental information concerning Saudi females university students SRH knowledge and information needs.King Abdullah Scholarship Program, Saudi Arabi

Fertilizante de liberação lenta no desenvolvimento de mudas de Eucalyptus grandis.

Uma das ações mais importantes para aumentar a produção de mudas de essências florestais é a fertilização do substrato. A utilização de fertilizante de liberação lenta (FLL) pode contribuir para a obtenção de mudas de melhor qualidade. O objetivo do trabalho foi avaliar doses crescentes de FLL e fertilizante convencional (FC), bem como comparar esses fertilizantes no desenvolvimento de mudas de Eucalyptus grandis. O estudo foi realizado na região do Vale do Itajaí, SC. Os tratamentos foram a adição de FLL e FC para cada experimento nas seguintes doses de formulado: T1 ? 0 kg (testemunha); T2 ? 2 kg; T3 ? 4 kg; T4 ? 6 kg; T5 ? 8 kg e T6 ? 10 kg.m-3 de substrato-base. Decorridos 174 dias da semeadura, foram analisadas as variáveis altura total, diâmetro do colo, biomassa fresca da parte aérea, biomassa seca da parte aérea, biomassa seca da raiz, biomassa seca total, dose de máxima eficiência técnica e teores de nutrientes da parte aérea das mudas de cada tratamento. Em todos os tratamentos houve resposta positiva no desenvolvimento das mudas, entretanto as mudas tiveram melhor crescimento sob doses entre 9,1 e 12,9 kg.m-3 de fertilizante de liberação lenta

Photo-physical properties of He-related color centers in diamond

Diamond is a promising platform for the development of technological applications in quantum optics and photonics. The quest for color centers with optimal photo-physical properties has led in recent years to the search for novel impurity-related defects in this material. Here, we report on a systematic investigation of the photo-physical properties of two He-related (HR) emission lines at 535 nm and 560 nm created in three different diamond substrates upon implantation with 1.3 MeV He+ ions and subsequent annealing. The spectral features of the HR centers were studied in an "optical grade" diamond substrate as a function of several physical parameters, namely the measurement temperature, the excitation wavelength and the intensity of external electric fields. The emission lifetimes of the 535 nm and 560 nm lines were also measured by means of time-gated photoluminescence measurements, yielding characteristic decay times of (29 +- 5) ns and (106 +- 10) ns, respectively. The Stark shifting of the HR centers under the application of an external electrical field was observed in a CVD diamond film equipped with buried graphitic electrodes, suggesting a lack of inversion symmetry in the defects' structure. Furthermore, the photoluminescence mapping under 405 nm excitation of a "detector grade" diamond sample implanted at a 1x1010 cm-2 He+ ion fluence enabled to identify the spectral features of both the HR emission lines from the same localized optical spots. The reported results provide a first insight towards the understanding of the structure of He-related defects in diamond and their possible utilization in practical applicationsComment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Chirikov Diffusion in the Asteroidal Three-Body Resonance (5,-2,-2)

The theory of diffusion in many-dimensional Hamiltonian system is applied to asteroidal dynamics. The general formulations developed by Chirikov is applied to the Nesvorn\'{y}-Morbidelli analytic model of three-body (three-orbit) mean-motion resonances (Jupiter-Saturn-asteroid system). In particular, we investigate the diffusion \emph{along} and \emph{across} the separatrices of the (5,-2,-2) resonance of the (490) Veritas asteroidal family and their relationship to diffusion in semi-major axis and eccentricity. The estimations of diffusion were obtained using the Melnikov integral, a Hadjidemetriou-type sympletic map and numerical integrations for times up to $10^{8}$ years.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figure

Representative elementary volumes for evaluating effective seismic properties of heterogeneous poroelastic media

Understanding and quantifying seismic energy dissipation in fluid-saturated porous rocks is of considerable interest because it offers the perspective of extracting information with regard to the elastic and hydraulic rock properties. An important, if not dominant, attenuation mechanism prevailing in the seismic frequency band is wave-induced fluid pressure diffusion in response to the contrasts in elastic stiffness in the mesoscopic-scale range. An effective way to estimate seismic velocity dispersion and attenuation related to this phenomenon is through the application of numerical upscaling procedures to synthetic rock samples of interest. However, the estimated seismic properties are meaningful only if the underlying sample volume is at least of the size of a representative elementary volume (REV). In the given context, the definition of an REV and the corresponding implications for the estimation of the effective seismic properties remain largely unexplored. To alleviate this problem, we have studied the characteristics of REVs for a set of idealized rock samples sharing high levels of velocity dispersion and attenuation. For periodically heterogeneous poroelastic media, the REV size was driven by boundary condition effects. Our results determined that boundary condition effects were absent for layered media and negligible in the presence of patchy saturation. Conversely, strong boundary condition effects arose in the presence of a periodic distribution of finite-length fractures, thus leading to large REV sizes. The results thus point to the importance of carefully determining the REV sizes of heterogeneous porous rocks for computing effective seismic properties, especially in the presence of strong dry frame stiffness contrasts. </jats:p