Características anatômicas de Tectona grandis L.f de sítios distintos do estado do Mato Grosso

The anatomical characteristics of the wood are influenced by the quality of the sites of the material provenance, which, consequently, leads to alterations in its physical and mechanical properties. The aim of this paper was to assess and characterize the organoleptic and anatomical properties of the teak (Tectona grandis) from different sites in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Regarding the anatomical characteristics the length, width, diameter and the thickness of the wall for fiber were assessed; the length and diameter of the vessels; the length, width and frequency of the rays. The results obtained showed that the organoleptic properties do not present variations between the different sites. The effect of the site, where the teak plantation is established, produced significant variations in the parameters of the fibers (length, width of the fiber, lumen diameter and thickness of the wall) and in the rays (length, width and frequency). However, no significant vessel-related changes were seen.As características anatômicas da madeira são influenciadas pelas qualidades dos sítios de procedência do material, que por consequência leva a alterações em suas propriedades físicas e mecânicas. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar e caracterizar as propriedades organolépticas e anatômicas da madeira de teca (Tectona grandis), proveniente de diferentes sítios do Estado do Mato Grosso, Brasil. Para as características anatômicas foram avaliados comprimento, largura, diâmetro e espessura da parede para fibra; comprimento e diâmetro dos vasos; comprimento, largura e frequência dos raios. Os resultados mostraram que as propriedades organolépticas não apresentaram diferenças entre os diferentes sítios. O efeito sítio, no qual estão estabelecidos os plantios de teca produziram variações significativas nos parâmetros das fibras (comprimento, largura da fibra, diâmetro do lume e espessura da parede) e nos raios (comprimento, largura e frequência). No entanto, não foram evidenciadas mudanças significativas relacionadas aos vasos

Overexpression of Adenosine A2A receptors in rats: effects on depression, locomotion, and anxiety

Copyright: © 2014 Coelho, Alves, Canas, Valadas, Shmidt, Batalha, Ferreira, Ribeiro, Bader, Cunha, do Couto and Lopes. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Adenosine A2A receptors (A2AR) are a sub-type of receptors enriched in basal ganglia, activated by the neuromodulator adenosine, which interact with dopamine D2 receptors. Although this reciprocal antagonistic interaction is well-established in motor function, the outcome in dopamine-related behaviors remains uncertain, in particular in depression and anxiety. We have demonstrated an upsurge of A2AR associated to aging and chronic stress. Furthermore, Alzheimer's disease patients present A2AR accumulation in cortical areas together with depressive signs. We now tested the impact of overexpressing A2AR in forebrain neurons on dopamine-related behavior, namely depression. Adult male rats overexpressing human A2AR under the control of CaMKII promoter [Tg(CaMKII-hA2AR)] and aged-matched wild-types (WT) of the same strain (Sprague-Dawley) were studied. The forced swimming test (FST), sucrose preference test (SPT), and the open-field test (OFT) were performed to evaluate behavioral despair, anhedonia, locomotion, and anxiety. Tg(CaMKII-hA2AR) animals spent more time floating and less time swimming in the FST and presented a decreased sucrose preference at 48 h in the SPT. They also covered higher distances in the OFT and spent more time in the central zone than the WT. The results indicate that Tg(CaMKII-hA2AR) rats exhibit depressive-like behavior, hyperlocomotion, and altered exploratory behavior. This A2AR overexpression may explain the depressive signs found in aging, chronic stress, and Alzheimer's disease.Joana E. Coelho, Vânia L. Batalha and Diana G. Ferreira were supported by a grant from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT); Paula M. Canas and Rodrigo A. Cunha were supported by FCT (PTDC/SAU-NSC/122254/2010) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, grant 09-68-ESR- FP-010). Luísa V. Lopes is an Investigator FCT, funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (PTDC-099853/2009) and Bial.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Following Darwin’s footsteps: Evaluating the impact of an activity designed for elementary school students to link historically important evolution key concepts on their understanding of natural selection

While several researchers have suggested that evolution should be explored from the initial years of schooling, little information is available on effective resources to enhance elementary school students’ level of understanding of evolution by natural selection (LUENS). For the present study, we designed, implemented, and evaluated an educational activity planned for fourth graders (9 to 10 years old) to explore concepts and conceptual fields that were historically important for the discovery of natural selection. Observation field notes and students’ productions were used to analyze how the students explored the proposed activity. Additionally, an evaluation framework consisting of a test, the evaluation criteria, and the scoring process was applied in two fourth-grade classes (N = 44) to estimate elementary school students’ LUENS before and after engaging in the activity. Our results show that our activity allowed students to link the key concepts, resulting in a significant increase of their understanding of natural selection. They also reveal that additional activities and minor fine-tuning of the present activity are required to further support students’ learning about the concept of differential reproduction.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluation of push and pull communication models on a VANET with virtual traffic lights

It is expected in a near future that safety applications based on vehicle-to-everything communications will be a common reality in the traffic roads. This technology will contribute to improve the safety of vulnerable road users, for example, with the use of virtual traffic light systems (VTLS) in the intersections. This work implements and evaluates a VTLS conceived to help the pedestrians pass safely the intersections without real traffic lights. The simulated VTLS scenario used two distinct communication paradigms—the pull and push communication models. The pull model was implemented in named data networking (NDN), because NDN uses natively a pull-based communication model, where consumers send requests to pull the contents from the provider. A distinct approach is followed by the push-based model, where consumers subscribe previously the information, and then the producers distribute the available information to those consumers. Comparing the performance of the push and pull models on a VANET with VTLS, it is observed that the push mode presents lower packet loss and generates fewer packets, and consequently occupies less bandwidth, than the pull mode. In fact, for the considered metrics, the VTLS implemented with the pull mode presents no advantage when compared with the push mode.This work has been supported by national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2020 and by the European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project nº 039334; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-039334]

A new approach on communications architectures for intelligent transportation systems

A Vehicular Adhoc Network (VANET) is a generic communications conceptualization that can be applied to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and its main goal is to allow exchange of information between moving vehicles, fixed infrastructures, pedestrians with personal devices, and all other electronic devices able to connect to a VANET environment. Information exchange between different stakeholders brings a relevant potential to the development of applications to help users in different areas such as traffic safety and efficiency, infotainment and personal comfort. However, due to the expected heterogeneity (different processing power and storage capabilities, communications technologies and mobility patterns) and large scale on the number of devices involved, application interoperability in VANET contexts can be a challenging problem. Non-agnostic standard communications architectures for ITS systems have some deploying limitations and lack important specific implementation details. This paper presents an agnostic VANET architecture (it permits the use of several communication technologies in an open and modular framework), which is an adaption of present standards approach, to be deployed on ITS systems as a mean to overcome their main limitations. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.This work has been sponsored by the Portugal Incentive System for Research and Technological Development. Project in co-promotion no 002797/2015 (INNOVCAR 2015-2018), and also by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013

Agnostic and Modular Architecture for the Development of Cooperative ITS Applications

A Vehicular Adhoc Network (VANET) is a generic conceptualisation that can be applied to the communications domain of an Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). It defines requirements that allow the exchange of information between applications and services running on equipment that form a VANET, mainly moving vehicles, fixed road infrastructure's systems and mobile personal devices. In this unique and demanding environment, interoperability is attained through the use of specific wireless communications technologies and protocols which have been addressed by several international standardisation organisations in an effort to boost the development of applications that could help users in very important application areas such as traffic safety and efficiency, infotainment and personal comfort. The great heterogeneity on the capabilities of the interconnected devices, the scale of the number of devices that could be involved, the various degrees of density and the complexity on the mobility patterns, makes interoperability at the application level a challenging problem.Apart from the technical restrictions imposed by those specific technologies, standard communications architectures for ITS present additional limitations due to the strategy used to access the communications technologies inside an ITS station, which is based on classic routing and switching mechanisms, signalling methodologies and facilities middle-ware layers. They also lack important implementation details for deployment of collaborative applications in real-world heterogeneous scenarios, favouring the development of these applications in a closed ecosystem, mainly dominated by the automotive industry leaders.This paper presents an agnostic VANET architecture, adapted from ETSI and ISO modern standards, to be deployed on ITS as a mean to overcome those limitations. This new approach permits the use of different communication technologies and network/transport protocol stacks in an open and modular framework, facilitating the creation of ITS cooperative applications and services, using traditional network programming paradigms where applications use the available medium transparently.The proposed architecture and its design principles have been used during the development, implementation and deployment of a Platooning application that the authors have developed on top of commercially available On Board Units

Ocorrência de surto de tuberculose causada pelo complexo Mycobacterium tuberculosis em uma criação de suínos

A tuberculose continua sendo um importante problema de saúde pública, por ser uma zoonose que tornou-se reemergente devido, principalmente, a grande incidência entre portadores de imunodeficiências. A tuberculose, causada por micobactérias do grupo mamífero, em suínos criados em sistemas comerciais, é uma doença raramente encontrada. Neste trabalho, foram necropsiados três animais, provenientes de uma granja de suínos com aproximadamente 90 animais alimentados com resíduos alimentares. Alguns animais apresentavam tosse, anorexia e dor a palpação torácica. Linfonodos e fragmentos de vísceras com lesões macroscópicas foram submetidos a exames histopatológicos e microbiológico, além da tuberculinização em 62 animais adultos da propriedade. A prova dupla comparativa com tuberculinas mamífera e aviária foi realizada em 14 fêmeas da maternidade. Foram observadas lesões características de tuberculose (forma miliar e perolada) nos animais necropsiados no período de janeiro a março de 2000. O isolamento e cultivo foram compatíveis com Mycobacterium bovis. Na leitura das tuberculinizações foram observadas 49 reações positivas, sendo que nas duplas comparativas, 14 fêmeas foram reagentess apenas para tuberculina mamífera. Todos animais da propriedade foram encaminhados para o abate e coletados materiais para exame histopatológico e microbiológico e diagnóstico pela técnica de reação em cadeia pela polimerase (PCR). Após confirmação do diagnóstico de tuberculose foi elaborado um programa de eliminação do plantel, desinfecção e vazio sanitário. Este comunicado alerta para os riscos de tuberculose em suínos criados sem cuidados de biosseguridade, sobretudo aqueles alimentados com resíduos alimentares, e suas implicações na saúde pública

Enhanced role of adenosine A2A receptors in the modulation of LTP in the rat hippocampus upon ageing

Adenosine neuromodulation depends on a balanced activation of inhibitory A1 (A1R) and facilitatory A2A receptors (A2AR). Both A1R and A2AR modulate hippocampal glutamate release and NMDA-dependent long-term potentiation (LTP) but ageing affects the density of both A1R and A2AR. We tested the effects of selective A1R and A2AR antagonists in the modulation of synaptic transmission and plasticity in rat hippocampal slices from three age groups (young adults, 2–3 month; middle-aged adults, 6–8 months; aged, 18–20 months). The selective A2AR antagonist SCH58261 (50 nm) attenuated LTP in all age groups, with a larger effect in aged ()63 ± 7%) than in middle-aged adults ()36 ± 9%) or young adult rats ()36 ± 9%). In contrast, the selective A1R antagonist DPCPX (50 nm) increased LTP magnitude in young adult rats (+42 ± 6%), but failed to affect LTP magnitude in the other age groups. Finally, in the continuous presence of DPCPX, SCH58261 caused a significantly larger inhibition of LTP amplitude in aged ()71 ± 45%) than middle-aged ()28 ± 9%) or young rats ()11 ± 2%). Accordingly, aged rats displayed an increased expression of A2AR mRNA in the hippocampus and a higher number of glutamatergic nerve terminals equipped with A2AR in aged (67 ± 6%) compared with middle-aged (34 ± 7%) and young rats (25 ± 5%). The results show an enhanced A2AR-mediated modulation of LTP in aged rats, in accordance with the age-associated increased expression and density of A2AR in glutamatergic terminals. This age-associated gain of function of A2AR modulating synaptic plasticity may underlie the ability of A2AR antagonists to prevent memory dysfunction in aged animals

Avaliação do fungicida vessarya no controle de doenças na cultura da soja no sudoeste Goiano / Avaliação do fungicida vessarya no controle de doenças na cultura da soja no sudoeste Goiano

O experimento foi conduzido pelo Núcleo de Estudo e Pesquisa em Fitotecnia no município de Jataí, estado Goiás. A área experimental foi instalada em uma lavoura comercial de Soja cultivar Desafio RR. Este trabalho objetivou avaliar a eficiência de programas de pulverizações de fungicidas para o manejo das doenças prevalentes no sudoeste de Goiás, sob as condições de inoculação natural a campo e avaliar o posicionamento de Vessarya recomendado na primeira aplicação no estádio reprodutivo. O delineamento experimental foi em blocos casualizados com quatro repetições. Os fungicidas foram aplicados no estádio reprodutivo (R1, R3, R5.1 e R5.3). Foram levantadas variáveis tecnológicas, doenças de final de ciclo, ferrugem asiática da soja e nível de desfolha. A sequência de aplicações de fungicidas (Vessarya) => (Elatus+ Cypress+ Ochima) => (Cronnos+ Rumba) => (Aproach Prima+ Unizeb Gold+ Nimbus) aplicados preventivamente na floração (R1) e reaplicados em intervalos de 14 dias, pode ser recomendado para o controle de doenças no sudoeste de Goiás para as doenças de final de ciclo.