Absence of the Filarial Endosymbiont Wolbachia in Seal Heartworm (Acanthocheilonema spirocauda) but Evidence of Ancient Lateral Gene Transfer

The symbiotic relationship of Wolbachia spp. was first observed in insects and subsequently in many parasitic filarial nematodes. This bacterium is believed to provide metabolic and developmental assistance to filarial parasitic nematodes, although the exact nature of this relationship remains to be fully elucidated. While Wolbachia is present in most filarial nematodes in the familyOnchocercidae, it is absent in several disparate species such as the human parasite Loa loa. All tested members of the genusAcanthocheilonema, such as Acanthocheilonema viteae, have been shown to lack Wolbachia. Consistent with this, we show thatWolbachia is absent from the seal heartworm (Acanthocheilonema spirocauda), but lateral gene transfer (LGT) of DNA sequences between Wolbachia and A. spirocauda has occurred, indicating a past evolutionary association. Seal heartworm is an important pathogen of phocid seals and understanding its basic biology is essential for conservation of the host. The findings presented here may allow for the development of future treatments or diagnostics for the disease and also aid in clarification of the complicated nematode–Wolbachia relationship

EFFECTS OF COPPER ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND YIELD OF COWPEA BEAN GRAINS IN OXISOL

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of Cu doses on the development and yield of cowpea bean grains, cultivars BR3 Tracuateua and Canapu, in terms of fertility in a medium texture Oxisol in the eastern Amazon, Brazil. The experiment was carried out in a greenhouse at the Universidade Federal Rural (UFRA), on the Capanema Campus, Pará. The experimental design was a completely randomized arrangement of 5x2 factorial, with five repetitions, where the first factor is the use of five doses (0, 10, 20, 30 and 60 mg dm-3 of Cu) having copper sulfate as a source, while the second factor is the use of cultivars BR3 Tracuateua and Canapu. Cowpea bean cultivars have different behaviors in terms of Cu requirement and cultivar BR3 Tracuateua, in general, is more responsive to Cu supply than Canapu. The estimated dose of 32.5 g kg-1 of Cu provided the maximum production of TDM of cultivar BR3 Tracuateua at in 60 days after planting.Os índices de produção são obtidos pelos constituintes entre macro e micronutrientes do metabolismo das plantas. O muito-caupi é uma importância cultural, tanto como alimento quanto como gerador de emprego e feijão cultivado no Nordeste e Norte do Brasil, abrangendo-se para o Centro-Oeste. Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar o efeito do micronutriente cobre (Cu) no desenvolvimento e produção de grãos de cultivares de feijãocaupi Vigna unguiculata (L.) WALP.O experimento foi instalado na unidade experimental (casa de vegetação) da Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia (UFRA), no município de Capanema-PA (latitude de 01°11'45'' sul e longitude de 47°10'50” oeste) em Latossolo Amarelo textura média, o clima predominante da localidade é do tipo Am-tropical úmido ou sub úmido segundo a classificação de Köppen e Geiger (1928), com pluviosidade média anual de 2.495 mm, e temperatura em torno de 26,4 °C . O delineamento adotado, foi o inteiramente casualizado, em esquema 5x10; 20 e 60 mg kg -1 ). Os resultados para as cultivares de feijão-caupi foram diferenciados, quanto a aplicação de cobre. A cultivar BR3 Tracuateua de modo geral é mais responsiva às doses de cobre em comparação a Canapu

CMS Monte Carlo production in the WLCG computing Grid

Monte Carlo production in CMS has received a major boost in performance and scale since the past CHEP06 conference. The production system has been re-engineered in order to incorporate the experience gained in running the previous system and to integrate production with the new CMS event data model, data management system and data processing framework. The system is interfaced to the two major computing Grids used by CMS, the LHC Computing Grid (LCG) and the Open Science Grid (OSG). Operational experience and integration aspects of the new CMS Monte Carlo production system is presented together with an analysis of production statistics. The new system automatically handles job submission, resource monitoring, job queuing, job distribution according to the available resources, data merging, registration of data into the data bookkeeping, data location, data transfer and placement systems. Compared to the previous production system automation, reliability and performance have been considerably improved. A more efficient use of computing resources and a better handling of the inherent Grid unreliability have resulted in an increase of production scale by about an order of magnitude, capable of running in parallel at the order of ten thousand jobs and yielding more than two million events per day

Design, performance, and calibration of CMS forward calorimeter wedges

We report on the test beam results and calibration methods using high energy electrons, pions and muons with the CMS forward calorimeter (HF). The HF calorimeter covers a large pseudorapidity region (3 <= vertical bar eta vertical bar <= 5), and is essential for a large number of physics channels with missing transverse energy. It is also expected to play a prominent role in the measurement of forward tagging jets in weak boson fusion channels in Higgs production. The HF calorimeter is based on steel absorber with embedded fused-silica-core optical fibers where Cherenkov radiation forms the basis of signal generation. Thus, the detector is essentially sensitive only to the electromagnetic shower core and is highly non-compensating (e/h approximate to 5). This feature is also manifest in narrow and relatively short showers compared to similar calorimeters based on ionization. The choice of fused-silica optical fibers as active material is dictated by its exceptional radiation hardness. The electromagnetic energy resolution is dominated by photoelectron statistics and can be expressed in the customary form as a/root E circle plus b. The stochastic term a is 198% and the constant term b is 9%. The hadronic energy resolution is largely determined by the fluctuations in the neutral pion production in showers, and when it is expressed as in the electromagnetic case, a = 280% and b = 11%

A aplicabilidade do Princípio da Proibição do Retrocesso Social como meio de garantia constitucional ao direito à saúde

O presente artigo se propôs a analisar possíveis retrocessos sociais advindos da Emenda Constitucional nº 86, de 2015, e da Lei nº 13.097, de 2015. Trata-se de pesquisa quantiqualitativa, de caráter descritivo analítico, realizada por meio de pesquisa documental. De forma complementar, foi realizada revisão bibliográfica sobre o princípio da proibição do retrocesso social. Concluiu pela existência de retrocesso social em ambos os textos legais, uma vez que as mudanças legislativas propostas conduzem à fragilização do direito à saúde e do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS), notadamente no aspecto do financiamento que pode afetar a sua própria sustentabilidade. Quanto à Lei nº 13.097, de 2015 verificou-se retrocesso no art. 142, que ao permitir a participação direta ou indireta do capital estrangeiro em todas as atividades de assistência à saúde, até mesmo em instituições filantrópicas, pode propiciar a expansão do setor privado e consequente mercantilização do direito à saúde acentuando as desigualdades de acesso ao sistema de saúde. Já a Emenda Constitucional nº 86, de 2015, que inclui uma nova base de cálculo para a aplicação do governo federal na saúde, verifica-se o retrocesso social ao não observar o caráter progressivo de investimentos em saúde, quando comparado com os investimentos realizados no ano de 2014, promovendo a reduções dos níveis de efetividade e eficácia do direito à saúde. O princípio da proibição do retrocesso social pode ser utilizado como instrumento para garantia do direito à saúde, do núcleo essencial do SUS e da preservação das conquistas alcançadas pela sociedade.