Genetic evaluation of Jatropha curcas: an important oilseed for biodiesel production

Jatropha curcas, internationally and locally known, respectively, as physic nut and pinhão manso, is a highly promising species for biodiesel production in Brazil and other countries in the tropics. It is rustic, grows in warm regions and is easily cultivated. These characteristics and high-quality oil yields from the seeds have made this plant a priority for biodiesel programs in Brazil. Consequently, this species merits genetic investigations aimed at improving yields. Some studies have detected genetic variability in accessions in Africa and Asia. We have made the first genetic evaluation of J. curcas collected from Brazil. Our objective was to quantify genetic diversity and to estimate genetic parameters for growth and production traits and seed oil content. We evaluated 75 J. curcas progenies collected from Brazil and three from Cambodia. The mean oil content in the seeds was 31%, ranging from 16 to 45%. No genetic correlation between growth traits and seed oil content was found. However, high coefficients of genetic variation were found for plant height, number of branches, height of branches, and stem diameter. The highest individual narrow-sense heritabilities were found for leaf length (0.35) and width (0.34), stem diameter (0.24) and height of branches (0.21). We used a clustering algorithm to genetically identify the closest and most distant progenies, to assist in the development of new cultivars. Geographical diversity did not necessarily represent the genetic diversity among the accessions collected. These results are important for the continuity of breeding programs, aimed at obtaining cultivars with high grain yield and high oil content in seeds

CURSO DE FORMAÇÃO PEDAGÓGICA PARA MONITORES DA UFAPE: CONTRIBUIÇÕES ACADÊMICAS E PROFISSIONAIS

Nesse artigo a partir da experiência vivenciada no projeto de ensino coordenado pela Comissão de Ensino, em parceria com a Coordenação Geral de Cursos de Graduação, da Unidade Acadêmica de Garanhuns (UFRPE), atual Universidade Federal do Agreste de Pernambuco - UFAPE, em 2019, analisam-se as contribuições do curso para formação dos monitores para a formação acadêmica e profissional dos estudantes participantes do evento. Adota como fundamentação teórica os estudos de Lee Shulman que investigam conhecimentos necessários para o ensino. Os dados foram coletados por meio de um formulário on-line composto, em sua maior parte, por perguntas que deveriam ser respondidas atribuindo pontuação de 1 a 5, utilizando a escala de Likert. O perfil dos participantes foi diversificado, incluindo discentes ligados aos programas de monitoria e tutoria bolsistas ou voluntários. As motivações, indicadas pelos discentes participantes do curso, para ingresso nos programas de monitoria ou tutoria estão alinhadas com as definidas na resolução UFRPE 262/2001. Os participantes citaram positivamente a relação dos temas tratados com as atividades práticas da monitoria destacando-se o estímulo à profissão docente, especialmente ao contribuir para o desenvolvimento de conhecimentos pedagógicos, sobre avaliação; aprendizagem; metodologias de ensino, entre outros, importantes aspectos para a profissionalização docente

Estimating the inelasticity with the information theory approach

Using the information theory approach, in both its extensive and nonextensive versions, we estimate the inelasticity parameter $K$ of hadronic reactions together with its distribution and energy dependence from $p\bar{p}$ and $pp$ data. We find that the inelasticity remains essentially constant in energy except for a variation around $K\sim 0.5$, as was originally expected.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures. Misprints correcte

Limit cycles in uniform isochronous centers of discontinuous differential systems with four zones

We apply the averaging theory of first order for discontinuous differential systems to study the bifurcation of limit cycles from the periodic orbits of the uniform isochronous center of the differential systems ẋ = -y+x, y = x + xy, and ẋ = -y + xy, y = x + xy, when they are perturbed inside the class of all discontinuous quadratic and cubic polynomials differential systems with four zones separately by the axes of coordinates, respectively. Using averaging theory of first order the maximum number of limit cycles that we can obtain is twice the maximum number of limit cycles obtained in a previous work for discontinuous quadratic differential systems perturbing the same uniform isochronous quadratic center at origin perturbed with two zones separately by a straight line, and 5 more limit cycles than those achieved in a prior result for discontinuous cubic differential systems with the same uniform isochronous cubic center at the origin perturbed with two zones separately by a straight line. Comparing our results with those obtained perturbing the mentioned centers by the continuous quadratic and cubic differential systems we obtain 8 and 9 more limit cycles respectively