Extração de nemátodes de quisto de amostras de solo: método de decantação e crivagem de Cobb vs. método de Fenwick

Potato cyst nematodes are a threat to several agricultural crops around the world with some species considered quarantine pests and subjected to strict regulatory measures in many countries. Usually, cysts nematodes co-exist in the soil with other species of plant-parasitic nematodes, so, a time and cost-efficient extraction technique becomes of primary importance. The ideal extraction method should be able to obtain cysts as well as detecting the presence of other motile plant-parasitic nematodes with a potential impact on potato farming (such as Meloidogyne sp. and Pratylenchus sp.). In recent years, studies have been carried out to test the efficiency of various methods of nematode extraction but few results have been published. Therefore, to test if a method that extracts simultaneously cysts and motile nematodes can be used instead of the reference method that extracts cysts only, the efficiency of Cobb’s decanting and sieving technique was compared to Fenwick’s technique. As a result, in the 74 samples evaluated, a greater number of cysts were extracted from 24 samples using Fenwick’s method and from 11 samples employing Cobb’s decanting and sieving technique. The statistics results showed a significance level of 0,05 using Fenwick’s can allowing to conclude that this method is much more efficient than Cobb’s decanting and sieving technique, and confirming it should not be replaced by alternative methods for cysts extractioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Physical Connectivity Between the NE Atlantic Seamounts

Within the Portuguese Exclusive Economic Zone, the Great Meteor and Madeira-Tore complexes are highly productive areas, which are likely to be classified as marine protected areas (MPAs) due to their ecological vulnerability. This was the main focus of the BIOMETORE project and, framed on it, the aim of the present study was to investigate the physical connectivity between both seamount complexes. Using the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model coupled with the Connectivity Modeling System (CMS) (a Lagrangian tool), a series of experiments was conducted in order to determine the influence of the main oceanographic phenomena governing the area in: (i) the origin of the particles that reach each complex, (ii) their capacity to capture and retain incoming particles, and (iii) the physical connectivity between them as well as the intra-connectivity within each seamount system. Due to the geographical location of both groups of seamounts, the Azores Current (AzC) and its associated eddies were identified as the main transport pathways, its influence being stronger at intermediate waters and decreasing with depth. Notwithstanding, the Great Meteor and the MadeiraTore were mainly affected by the AzC southward and eastward branches, respectively, resulting in a non-significant connectivity between the two groups. Meanwhile, the inter-connectivity between seamounts slightly varied with depth at the Great Meteor complex while increasing at Madeira-Tore. In addition, the Plateau, Irving, and Cruiser (PIC) seamounts from the Great Meteor complex and Gorringe and Coral from the Madeira-Tore complex proved to incorporate the regional connectivity routes. Although containing the three smallest seamounts, Madeira-Tore showed the higher capturing capacity per square kilometer, highlighting the influence of the "sticky water effect." In the Great Meteor complex, the "seamount effect" seems to be the main phenomenon responsible for the greater retention and self-recruitment abilities of these seamounts. The presented results provide valuable information for the design of a MPA to preserve these vulnerable habitat

Discriminação baseada no peso: representações sociais de internautas sobre a gordofobia

The concept of fat phobia has been usually used to define ways of discrimination towards overweight bodies. The present work aimed to know the social representations of fat phobia elaborated by internet users. A documental research was conducted based on internet comments on an article about fat phobia published by the Superinteressante magazine. Selected opinions comprised a textual corpus which was submitted to a lexical analysis through IRAMUTEQ, revealing five thematic classes: (i) "Health as discourse to justify discrimination", (ii) "Fat versus Slim: instituting differences", (iii) "Weight loss: reinforcement versus deconstruction of the standard", (iv) "Fat phobia: invention or reality?" and (v) "Fat phobia and the (in)appropriateness of affirmative actions". Anchored on the technical and scientific argument which affirms that obesity is an epidemic disease, the representations of internet users legitimized discrimination and prejudice processes against overweight people. Moreover, ironic propositions against quota policy for overweight people showed a dissatisfaction about the existence of affirmative actions that promote equality among social groups, ratifying the idea that the privileges cannot be granted to “inferior groups” or depreciated groups, and these groups, in order to be respected by society, should try to fit their bodies into the refined standard. In this context, aiming to make fat phobia an irrelevant topic, disqualifying the magazine’s approach on this topic, representational strategies directed to deny its existence by comparing suffering between groups or setting differences (fats x thins) was observed. Considering the lack of researches about discrimination against overweight in Brazil, other studies on this topic are suggested

The organisation of spinoparabrachial neurons in the mouse

The anterolateral tract (ALT), which originates from neurons in lamina I and the deep dorsal horn, represents a major ascending output through which nociceptive information is transmitted to brain areas involved in pain perception. Although there is detailed quantitative information concerning the ALT in the rat, much less is known about this system in the mouse, which is increasingly being used for studies of spinal pain mechanisms because of the availability of genetically modified lines. The aim of this study was therefore to determine the extent to which information about the ALT in the rat can be extrapolated to the mouse. Our results suggest that as in the rat, most lamina I ALT projection neurons in the lumbar enlargement can be retrogradely labelled from the lateral parabrachial area, that the great majority of these cells (~90%) express the neurokinin 1 receptor (NK1r), and that these are larger than other NK1r-expressing neurons in this lamina. This means that many lamina I spinoparabrachial cells can be identified in NK1r-immunostained sections from animals that have not received retrograde tracer injections. However, we also observed certain species differences, in particular we found that many spinoparabrachial cells in lamina III-IV lack the NK1r, meaning that they cannot be identified based solely on expression of this receptor. We also provide evidence that the vast majority of spinoparabrachial cells are glutamatergic, and that some express substance P. These findings will be important for studies designed to unravel the complex neuronal circuitry that underlies spinal pain processing

“My Hideous progeny”: creative monstrosity in the works of Kiki Smith, Abigail Lane and Cindy Sherman

Maria Antónia Lima Universidade de Évora / CEAUL “My Hideous progeny”: creative monstrosity in the works of Kiki Smith, Abigail Lane and Cindy Sherman The expression “My Hideous Progeny” is widely known to be taken from Mary Shelley's preface to the revised (1831) edition of Frankenstein, in which she wrote, of the novel itself and of its creature, Frankenstein's monster, “And now once again I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper”. If the monster was not only the product of Frankenstein's “workshop of filthy creation”, but also the “child” from whom Frankenstein as parent recoils in horror, the works of Kiki Smith, Abigail Lane and Cindy Sherman, created out of body parts, can also be considered hideous progenies of female creativity. Like in Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, the body, in the works of these three American artists, is not only the raw material of their art, but also the screen on which we project our bad dreams, because as Christoph Grunenberg notes, in Gothic: Transmutations of Horror in Late 20th Century Art, postmodern Gothic takes the shape of “formless, horrendous, shocking images of mutilated and rotting bodies with limbs covered in boils and wounds,” of disjoined body parts uncannily “transformed into nightmares.” Through the art of Smith, Lane and Sherman, we can certainly feel the shudder of body horror that ripples through the Gothic canon from Frankenstein, whose manmade monster’s “yellow skin barely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath”, a monstrosity also common to Kiki Smith’s Virgin Mary, a sculpture where the woman's nude body is flayed, with the skin removed to reveal bare muscle tissue, which shows that the monstrous feminine in contemporary art can be grounded in a very famous hallmark work of Gothic literature

"The Oval Portait" (1842) : retrato de um artista perverso

Livro de homenagem à professora Maria Laura Bettencourt Pire

Evil Writers: The Obsessive Effect of Gothic Writing

Maria Antónia Lima (Assistant Professor, University of Évora - Portugal) “Evil writers - the obsessive effect of gothic writing” To consider writing as an addictive practice, that leads to obsession and madness, is a point of view from which some gothic writers depart to reflect on the dangerous effects of the creative process, when it becomes a Faustian enterprise that exceeds all its reasonable limits. Gothic fiction involves high levels of ambivalence, which are sometimes translated by a curious similarity between hero and villain, and by a fatal attraction between victim and criminal. A possible identification between the writer and his villain is an important aspect of the ambiguity and transgressive power of gothic narratives. The intention to give gothic fiction a high degree of reality, in order to produce strong emotions, has always been a central motive for many gothic writers. In John Carpenter’s famous film, In the Mouth of Madness (1995), we can find an expert in fantastic literature, Sutter Can, who is able to affect the mental state of his readers by the power of his writing, a special gift that any other author, such as Lovecraft and Stephen King can possess. Jack Torrance in The Shining, Ben Mears in Salem’s Lot, Thaddeus Beaumont in The Dark Half and Paul Sheldon in Misery can be good examples to illustrate the obsessions and existential crisis provoked by gothic writing. Gothic terrors can subvert and transgress social and moral values as well as any kind of aesthetic limits, but they are also paradoxically used to reaffirm those limits underlying their value. Gothic fiction can become a warning against the dangers of transgression, presenting them in their darkest and most threatening form. However, many of the bestselling gothic novels can only produce a high level of alienation, extracting only a very superficial aesthetical pleasure from destruction. As Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose reminds us, the threat may not be a supernatural creature, but a text

A Vida sem Qualidade: o efeito catártico da Literatura Gótica

Permitindo-nos confrontar o terror subjacente ao nosso tempo, a literatura gótica concede-nos um elevado grau de resistência aos aspetos mais negativos da existência. Por nos colocar em contacto muito próximo com o mal e a morte, este modo literário reactiva em nós os mais elementares desejos de uma vida mais intensa e justa, onde os valores éticos sejam rapidamente resgatados. Ao representar, através das suas personagens mais negras, a nossa própria perda de fé num mundo que permite o holocausto e o genocídio, construindo, ao mesmo tempo, um retrato sombrio de uma civilização Ocidental estilhaçada por traumas sociais e pessoais, a melhor ficção gótica apresenta-se, hoje em dia, como um dos mais eficazes meios de aprofundamento de consciências, sem as quais nunca se viverá plenamente. Reunindo todas as energias para exorcizar demónios que, longe de se apoderarem somente de personagens de ficção, possuem uma terrível atração pela vida de todos nós, os escritores góticos sabem, como o padre Merrin, em The Exorcist, que “the demon’s target is not the possessed; it is us … the observers … every person in this house”. Expondo o vazio de uma vida sem qualidades, o Gótico criará, assim, um efeito catártico necessário a uma muito desejada e efetiva libertação. Abstract Allowing us to confront the terror of our present time, Gothic literature gives us a high degree of resistance to the most negative aspects of existence. Putting its readers in very close contact with evil and death, this literary mode awakens in us the most basic desires of a more intense and fair life where ethical values are quickly rescued. By representing, through their darkest characters, our own loss of faith in a world that allows the holocaust and the genocide, building at the same time, a bleak portrait of a Western civilization shattered by social and personal traumas, the best Gothic fiction presents itself today as one of the most effective means of deepening our consciousness, without which we can never fully live. Bringing together all the energies to exorcise demons, that not only seize the lives of fictional characters but they also have a terrible attraction for the life of us all, Gothic writers know, as Father Merrin in The Exorcist, that “the demon’s target is not the possessed, it is us ... the observers ... every person in this house.” Exposing the emptiness of a life without qualities, Gothic creates a necessary cathartic effect to a much desired and true freedom