DISCRIMINAÇÃO ALGORÍTMICA: CONCEITO, FUNDAMENTO LEGAL E TIPOLOGIA

O artigo visa analisar o debate teórico sobre discriminação algorítmica, com a finalidade de esclarecer o potencial discriminatório de práticas baseadas em profiling e decisões automatizadas. Para tanto, discutir-se-á, primeiramente, os conceitos de algoritmo e discriminação algorítmica, buscando esclarecer porque tais conceitos são relevantes na economia movida a dados. Em seguida, o texto apresenta de que forma o Big Data, em conjunto com os algoritmos, alterou processos decisórios cotidianos para discutir de que forma tal cenário pode apresentar desafios, especialmente no que diz respeito ao risco de condutas discriminatórias. A última seção visa expor soluções para lidar com o tema da discriminação algorítmica, apresentando a literatura de governança algorítmica, bem como os principais debates entre especialistas no assunto, enfatizando as discussões sobre os limites da transparência enquanto alternativa apta a resolver as questões colocadas

DISCRIMINAÇÃO ALGORÍTMICA: CONCEITO, FUNDAMENTO LEGAL E TIPOLOGIA

O artigo visa analisar o debate teórico sobre discriminação algorítmica, com a finalidade de esclarecer o potencial discriminatório de práticas baseadas em profiling e decisões automatizadas. Para tanto, discutir-se-á, primeiramente, os conceitos de algoritmo e discriminação algorítmica, buscando esclarecer porque tais conceitos são relevantes na economia movida a dados. Em seguida, o texto apresenta de que forma o Big Data, em conjunto com os algoritmos, alterou processos decisórios cotidianos para discutir de que forma tal cenário pode apresentar desafios, especialmente no que diz respeito ao risco de condutas discriminatórias. A última seção visa expor soluções para lidar com o tema da discriminação algorítmica, apresentando a literatura de governança algorítmica, bem como os principais debates entre especialistas no assunto, enfatizando as discussões sobre os limites da transparência enquanto alternativa apta a resolver as questões colocadas

A cost-effectiveness analysis of seminatural wetlands and activated sludge wastewater-treatment systems

A cost-effectiveness analysis was performed to evaluate the competitiveness of seminatural Free Water Surface wetland (FWS) compared to traditional wastewater- treatment plants. Six scenarios of the service costs of three FWS wetlands and three different wastewater-treatment plants based on active sludge processes were compared. The six scenarios were all equally effective in their wastewater-treatment capacity. The service costs were estimated using real accounting data from an experimental wetland and by means of a market survey. Some assumptions had to be made to perform the analysis. A reference wastewater situation was established to solve the problem of the different levels of dilution that characterize the inflow water of the different systems; the land purchase cost was excluded from the analysis, considering the use of public land as shared social services, and an equal life span for both seminatural and traditional wastewater-treatment plants was set. The results suggest that seminatural systems are competitive with traditional biotechnological systems, with an average service cost improvement of 2.1-fold to 8- fold, according to the specific solution and discount rate. The main improvement factor was the lower maintenance cost of the seminatural systems, due to the self-regulating, low artificial energy inputs and the absence of waste to be disposed. In this work, only the waste-treatment capacity of wetlands was considered as a parameter for the economic competitiveness analysis. Other goods/services and environmental benefits provided by FWS wetlands were not considered

A cost-effectiveness analysis of seminatural wetlands and activated sludge wastewater-treatment systems

A cost-effectiveness analysis was performed to evaluate the competitiveness of seminatural Free Water Surface wetland (FWS) compared to traditional wastewater- treatment plants. Six scenarios of the service costs of three FWS wetlands and three different wastewater-treatment plants based on active sludge processes were compared. The six scenarios were all equally effective in their wastewater-treatment capacity. The service costs were estimated using real accounting data from an experimental wetland and by means of a market survey. Some assumptions had to be made to perform the analysis. A reference wastewater situation was established to solve the problem of the different levels of dilution that characterize the inflow water of the different systems; the land purchase cost was excluded from the analysis, considering the use of public land as shared social services, and an equal life span for both seminatural and traditional wastewater-treatment plants was set. The results suggest that seminatural systems are competitive with traditional biotechnological systems, with an average service cost improvement of 2.1-fold to 8- fold, according to the specific solution and discount rate. The main improvement factor was the lower maintenance cost of the seminatural systems, due to the self-regulating, low artificial energy inputs and the absence of waste to be disposed. In this work, only the waste-treatment capacity of wetlands was considered as a parameter for the economic competitiveness analysis. Other goods/services and environmental benefits provided by FWS wetlands were not considered

Il deposito d’abbandono (US 14=US 53)

La storia trentennale degli scavi e dei restauri dell’Insula delle Ierodule, le alterne vicende di seppellimenti “fisici e nella memoria” antichi e moderni che hanno riguardato l’edificio ci hanno portato a concepire un volume corale nel quale si potesse presentare il grande lavoro svolto, visto dalla prospettiva degli archeologi, dei restauratori, degli architetti, che hanno collaborato nell’impresa di restituire alla collettività un monumento antico nella sua leggibilit

Characterization of superoxide dismutases in the Antarctic scallop Adamussium colbecki.

Superoxide dismutases (SODs) are considered the most important and ubiquitous antioxidant enzymes, involved in cellular antioxidant defenses, maintaining the redox homeostasis during the aerobic cell metabolism. Moreover, SODs are also closely involved in the innate immune response of animals, as evidenced by the rapid modulation of transcription during challenges with endotoxins, bacteria or viruses. During infection, the host often uses reactive oxygen species (ROS) to react to pathogenic invaders via phagocytosis. However, excess ROS generated during the respiratory burst may also be harmful to the host, that use the antioxidant machinery to maintain low ROS concentration in the cytoplasm. Antarctic species are characterized by a large number of special physiological features that allow the life in the extreme environment. First of all, low temperature and salt concentration are physicochemical conditions that increase oxygen solubility and, consequently, the rate of ROS formation. For this reason, a finely modulated antioxidant system is essential to prevent macromolecules oxidation that could result in DNA damage, loss of membrane integrity and changes of protein activities. Despite numerous previous studies on SODs from aquatic animals, only few data are available for the SODs of Antarctic mollusks. In the present work, we studied the Antarctic scallop Adamussium colbecki, a bivalve mollusk widely distributed in the Antarctic Ocean; for the first time we characterized the gene structure and expression of Adamussium SOD. Specimens were sampled in the Ross Sea (Terra Nova Bay, 74\ub042\u2019S, 164\ub07\u2019E) during the XXI Italian Antarctic Expedition. Partial cDNA sequences of Cu,Zn SOD and Mn SOD were obtained from gonadic tissue by RT-PCR and TA-cloning. The obtained nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences were compared with those of orthologous genes already available in GenBank and the protein phylogenies were reconstructed. We also studied the gene transcription and enzyme activity in various organs and tissues, to investigate the biological fraction of SODs in molluscs living in extreme environmental conditions

The plant pathogen Pseudomonas fuscovaginae contains two conserved quorum sensing systems involved in virulence and negatively regulated by RsaL and the novel regulator RsaM.

Pseudomonas fuscovaginae is a Gram-negative fluorescent pseudomonad pathogenic towards several plant species. Despite its importance as a plant pathogen, no molecular studies of virulence have thus far been reported. In this study we show that P. fuscovaginae possesses two conserved N-acyl homoserine lactone (AHL) quorum sensing (QS) systems which we designated PfsI/R and PfvI/R. The PfsI/R system is homologous to the BviI/R system of Burkholderia vietnamiensis and produces and responds to C10-HSL and C12-HSL whereas PfvI/R is homologous to the LasI/R system of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and produces several long-chain 3-oxo-HSLs and responds to 3-oxo-C10-HSL and 3-oxo-C12-HSL and at high AHL concentrations can also respond to structurally different long-chain AHLs. Both systems were found to be negatively regulated by a repressor protein which was encoded by a gene located intergenically between the AHL synthase and LuxR-family response regulator. The pfsI/R system was regulated by a novel repressor designated RsaM while the pfvI/R system was regulated by both the RsaL repressor and by RsaM. The two systems are not transcriptionally hierarchically organized but share a common AHL response and both are required for plant virulence. Pseudomonas fuscovaginae has therefore a unique complex regulatory network composed of at least two different repressors which directly regulate the AHL QS systems and pathogenicity

The developmental transcriptome of Drosophila melanogaster

Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most well studied genetic model organisms; nonetheless, its genome still contains unannotated coding and non-coding genes, transcripts, exons and RNA editing sites. Full discovery and annotation are pre-requisites for understanding how the regulation of transcription, splicing and RNA editing directs the development of this complex organism. Here we used RNA-Seq, tiling microarrays and cDNA sequencing to explore the transcriptome in 30 distinct developmental stages. We identified 111,195 new elements, including thousands of genes, coding and non-coding transcripts, exons, splicing and editing events, and inferred protein isoforms that previously eluded discovery using established experimental, prediction and conservation-based approaches. These data substantially expand the number of known transcribed elements in the Drosophila genome and provide a high-resolution view of transcriptome dynamics throughout development. Drosophila melanogaster is an important non-mammalian model system that has had a critical role in basic biological discoveries, such as identifying chromosomes as the carriers of genetic information and uncovering the role of genes in development. Because it shares a substantial genic content with humans, Drosophila is increasingly used as a translational model for human development, homeostasis and disease. High-quality maps are needed for all functional genomic elements. Previous studies demonstrated that a rich collection of genes is deployed during the life cycle of the fly. Although expression profiling using microarrays has revealed the expression of, 13,000 annotated genes, it is difficult to map splice junctions and individual base modifications generated by RNA editing using such approaches. Single-base resolution is essential to define precisely the elements that comprise the Drosophila transcriptome. Estimates of the number of transcript isoforms are less accurate than estimates of the number of genes. Whereas, 20% of Drosophila genes are annotated as encoding alternatively spliced premRNAs, splice-junction microarray experiments indicate that this number is at least 40% (ref. 7). Determining the diversity of mRNAs generated by alternative promoters, alternative splicing and RNA editing will substantially increase the inferred protein repertoire. Non-coding RNA genes (ncRNAs) including short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAS (miRNAs) (reviewed in ref. 10), and longer ncRNAs such as bxd (ref. 11) and rox (ref. 12), have important roles in gene regulation, whereas others such as small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs)and small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) are important components of macromolecular machines such as the ribosome and spliceosome. The transcription and processing of these ncRNAs must also be fully documented and mapped. As part of the modENCODE project to annotate the functional elements of the D. melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans genomes, we used RNA-Seq and tiling microarrays to sample the Drosophila transcriptome at unprecedented depth throughout development from early embryo to ageing male and female adults. We report on a high-resolution view of the discovery, structure and dynamic expression of the D. melanogaster transcriptome