The discovery of plant biodiversity by children through the animated movies: Alice in Wonderland

The discovery of biodiversity in childs occurs through various channels: either through direct contact with the outside world, and indirectly through paintings, games and the media. Since 1937, Walt Disney Animation Studios realized animated movies inspired from novels. The first feature film was \u201cSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs\u201d. Since this, Disney\u2019s studios realized more than 10 dozen movies. The feature that distinguishes these works from a technical point of view is the attention to detail especially for the scene where the action takes place. Animals are often the protagonists of these stories, rarely plants. A good example of the latter is in \u201cAlice in wonderland\u201d, a movie distributed in 1951 that tells the story of the discovery by Alice of an unmusical, fantasy-filled world beyond her imagination populated by odd human and plant and animal characters. The plot of this film is taken from \u201cAlice's Adventures in Wonderland\u201d, an 1865 novel written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll with several inclusions of the sequel \u201cThrough the Looking-Glass\u201d another novel by the same Lewis Carroll, published in 1871. Both are novels full of symbolism, mathematical allusions and satire and contain the customs of England in the Victorian Age. Alice, in the real and in in her imaginary world, moves within scenarios in which plants are the main background. But it happens in the scene in which Alice is in the flower garden that flowers come alive and become characters of the story. This scene is inspired by the second chapter of the \u201cThrough the Looking- Glass\u201d titled \u201cThe garden of live flowers\u201d. In the novel, Alice comes up a hill along a winding path, that houses a flower garden populated by daisies, a weeping willow, a lily, a rose, a larkspur and a violet. The real work of exaltation of plant biodiversity is made in the film by Walt Disney where in a scene of about 5 minutes more than 20 flowers are presented. In the scene are clearly identifiable: Bellis perennis, Cestrum elegans, Chrysanthemum indicum, Convallaria majalis, Cyclamen persicum, Delphinium sp., Hyancinthoides non-scripta, Ipomoea violacea, Iris germanica, Leucanthemum 7superbum, Leucanthemum vulgare, Lilium candidum, L. davidii, Narcissus incomparabilis, N. pseudonarcissus, Nelumbo nucifera, Ranunculus asiaticus, Rosa indica, Salix babylonica, Syringa vulgaris, Taraxacum sect. Taraxacum, Viola odorata, V. 7wittrockiana and Zinnia sp. It is a real triumph of sounds and colours that leave the spectator delighted. The theme of the plants between knowledge and representation has been the subject of international meetings and scientific contributions. Studies about the representation of plants in pre-Christian (1), during the Middle Ages and in European art of the XIV - XVII have been done (2). In our case the plants drawn in Alice in Wonderland seems to belong more to the plants cultivated in the Americans gardens of during 1950\u2019s, when the film was made, rather than to the English gardens of the Victorian era where the novel is set. Nevertheless these drawings approach children, and the adults accompanying them in the vision, to the biodiversity of flowering plants cultivated. Offering to the spectator a wide representation of plants commonly grown with their shape and colours. Certainly, "Alice in wonderland" is a good example of how even cartoons, such as fairy tales, can play an educational role, as they allow the child to learn while having fun. In particular, this cartoon can be a good teaching tool for knowledge of plant biodiversity. In fact, it can provide many ideas for developing a number of educational activities to be proposed in both the kindergarten and in the primary school, intended to make understand even the youngest children the meaning and the value of plant biodiversity, as well as to know some plants and their growth environments. Therefore, it would be desirable in the future to take into account such aspects, uncommon in animated films for children. In consideration of the now urgent need to fill several gaps of knowledge, widespread in the younger generation (3) in respect of the plants and the environment in general

Особенности «до-синергетического» и синергетического подходов к познанию бытия

The peculiarities of pre-synergetic and synergetic approaches to the cognition of existence (complex objects) are studied in the article. The necessity to change theoretical and methodological principles of cognition of existence is proved, Daoism of synergetics and poly-variability of recovery of ontology of complex objects’ development processes are inferredРассмотрены особенности до-синергетического и синергетического подходов к познанию бытия (сложных объектов). Обоснована необходимость изменения теоретико- методологических принципов познания бытия, сделан вывод о даоистичности синергетики, о поливариантности восстановления онтологии процессов развития сложных объекто

Modelling solute transport in soil columns using advective-dispersive equations with fractional spatial derivatives

Solute transport in soils is commonly simulated with the advective–dispersive equation, or ADE. It has been reported that this model cannot take into account several important features of solute movement through soil. Recently, a new model has been suggested that results in a solute transport equation with fractional spatial derivatives, or FADE. We have assembled a database on published solute transport experiments in soil columns to test the new model. The FADE appears to be a useful generalization of the ADE. The order of the fractional differentiation reflects differences in physical conditions of the solute transport in soi

Use of groundwater lifetime expectancy for the performance assessment of a deep geologic waste repository: 1. Theory, illustrations, and implications

Long-term solutions for the disposal of toxic wastes usually involve isolation of the wastes in a deep subsurface geologic environment. In the case of spent nuclear fuel, if radionuclide leakage occurs from the engineered barrier, the geological medium represents the ultimate barrier that is relied upon to ensure safety. Consequently, an evaluation of radionuclide travel times from a repository to the biosphere is critically important in a performance assessment analysis. In this study, we develop a travel time framework based on the concept of groundwater lifetime expectancy as a safety indicator. Lifetime expectancy characterizes the time that radionuclides will spend in the subsurface after their release from the repository and prior to discharging into the biosphere. The probability density function of lifetime expectancy is computed throughout the host rock by solving the backward-in-time solute transport adjoint equation subject to a properly posed set of boundary conditions. It can then be used to define optimal repository locations. The risk associated with selected sites can be evaluated by simulating an appropriate contaminant release history. The utility of the method is illustrated by means of analytical and numerical examples, which focus on the effect of fracture networks on the uncertainty of evaluated lifetime expectancy.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures; Water Resources Research, Vol. 44, 200

Diffusive transport of light in two-dimensional granular materials

We study photon diffusion in a two-dimensional random packing of monodisperse disks as a simple model of granular material. We apply ray optics approximation to set up a persistent random walk for the photons. We employ Fresnel's intensity reflectance with its rich dependence on the incidence angle and polarization state of the light. We present an analytic expression for the transport-mean-free path in terms of the refractive indices of grains and host medium, grain radius, and packing fraction. We perform numerical simulations to examine our analytical result.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Intraluminal administration of poly I:C causes an enteropathy that is exacerbated by administration of oral dietary antigen

Systemic administration of polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (poly I:C), mimics virally-induced activation of TLR3 signalling causing acute small intestine damage, but whether and how mucosal administration of poly I:C causes enteropathy is less clear. Our aim was to investigate the inflammatory pathways elicited after intraluminal administration of poly I:C and determine acute and delayed consequences of this locally induced immune activation. Intraluminal poly I:C induced rapid mucosal immune activation in C57BL/6 mice involving IFNβ and the CXCL10/CXCR3 axis, that may drive inflammation towards a Th1 profile. Intraluminal poly I:C also caused enteropathy and gut dysfunction in gliadin-sensitive NOD-DQ8 mice, and this was prolonged by concomitant oral administration of gliadin. Our results indicate that small intestine pathology can be induced in mice by intraluminal administration of poly I:C and that this is exacerbated by subsequent oral delivery of a relevant dietary antigen.Laboratorio de Investigaciones del Sistema Inmun

Phase‐amplitude coupling profiles differ in frontal and auditory cortices of bats

Neural oscillations are at the core of important computations in the mammalian brain. Interactions between oscillatory activities in different frequency bands, such as delta (1–4 Hz), theta (4–8 Hz) or gamma (>30 Hz), are a powerful mechanism for binding fundamentally distinct spatiotemporal scales of neural processing. Phase‐amplitude coupling (PAC) is one such plausible and well‐described interaction, but much is yet to be uncovered regarding how PAC dynamics contribute to sensory representations. In particular, although PAC appears to have a major role in audition, the characteristics of coupling profiles in sensory and integration (i.e. frontal) cortical areas remain obscure. Here, we address this question by studying PAC dynamics in the frontal‐auditory field (FAF; an auditory area in the bat frontal cortex) and the auditory cortex (AC) of the bat Carollia perspicillata. By means of simultaneous electrophysiological recordings in frontal and auditory cortices examining local‐field potentials (LFPs), we show that the amplitude of gamma‐band activity couples with the phase of low‐frequency LFPs in both structures. Our results demonstrate that the coupling in FAF occurs most prominently in delta/high‐gamma frequencies (1‐4/75‐100 Hz), whereas in the AC the coupling is strongest in the delta‐theta/low‐gamma (2‐8/25‐55 Hz) range. We argue that distinct PAC profiles may represent different mechanisms for neuronal processing in frontal and auditory cortices, and might complement oscillatory interactions for sensory processing in the frontal‐auditory cortex network

Abstract basins of attraction

Abstract basins appear naturally in different areas of several complex variables. In this survey we want to describe three different topics in which they play an important role, leading to interesting open problems

Echolocation-related reversal of information flow in a cortical vocalization network

The mammalian frontal and auditory cortices are important for vocal behavior. Here, using local-field potential recordings, we demonstrate that the timing and spatial patterns of oscillations in the fronto-auditory network of vocalizing bats (Carollia perspicillata) predict the purpose of vocalization: echolocation or communication. Transfer entropy analyses revealed predominant top-down (frontal-to-auditory cortex) information flow during spontaneous activity and pre-vocal periods. The dynamics of information flow depend on the behavioral role of the vocalization and on the timing relative to vocal onset. We observed the emergence of predominant bottom-up (auditory-to-frontal) information transfer during the post-vocal period specific to echolocation pulse emission, leading to self-directed acoustic feedback. Electrical stimulation of frontal areas selectively enhanced responses to sounds in auditory cortex. These results reveal unique changes in information flow across sensory and frontal cortices, potentially driven by the purpose of the vocalization in a highly vocal mammalian model