Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation revealed an alkaline phytoceramidase that is required in pathogenicity of Colletotrichum kahawae to Coffea arabica

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Evaluating The Effects Of Different Vegetation Types On Necrophagous Fly Communities (diptera: Calliphoridae; Sarcophagidae): Implications For Conservation

The present study was conducted in five different phytogeographic zones of the Brazilian state of Maranhão, three of which (the Amazon Forest, Cerrado, and Palm Groves) are more heterogeneous, whereas the other two (Marshlands and Mangroves) are more homogeneous. In each zone, nine sites were visited for the collection of necrophagous flies using bait traps in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The calliphorid and sarcophagid communities observed at each site were compared in terms of species richness, composition, and abundance. The more heterogeneous zones had higher species richness, except in the case of the sarcophagids in the forest habitats. The calliphorids Chloroprocta idioidea (Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830), Mesembrinella bicolor (Fabricius, 1805), Hemilucilia semi-diaphana (Rondani, 1850) and Lucilia eximia (Wiedemann, 1819) were more closely associated with the Cerrado, Palm Grove and Amazon Forest zones, and Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius, 194) with the Mangrove. In the sarcophagids, Peckia (Euboettcheria) subducta (Lopes, 1935) and P. (Pattonella) palidipilosa (Curran & Walley, 1934) were associated with the Amazon Forest, and P. (Sarcodexia) lambens (Wiede-mann, 1830) and Tricharaea (Sarcophagula) occidua (Fabricius, 1794) with the Palm Grove and Cerrado zones. In the calliphorids, the greatest dissimilarity was recorded between the Amazon Forest and the Mangrove and Lowland grassland zones. In the sar-cophagids, by contrast, the greatest dissimilarities were recorded between the Amazon Forest and all the other four zones. In general, then, the phytogeographic zones with the highest environmental heterogeneity were characterized by the greatest species richness and abundance of necrophagous flies. © 2016 Pereira de Sousa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.111

Using discrete simulation to support internal logistics process design

The objective of this paper is to present the developments of an ongoing project that aims at implementing an internal materials movement system using autonomous vehicles for supporting logistics processes. In particular the project focus on the movement of final products, from assembly lines to the expedition warehouse and the supply of packaging materials (customer packages), from the raw materials warehouse to the assembly lines. This process is currently carried out by two stackers, in a milk-run environment and, in the context of this project, an innovative solution is proposed to improve the performance of the supply and pickup processes, transforming and optimizing an entirely manual process into an automated one. The main challenge was to investigate the impact on the existing internal logistic system of the new solution and, simultaneously, to explore if new management strategies are needed to satisfy both throughput levels and overall supply chain needs. A simulation model was developed using ARENA Simulation Software to get insights concerning the new challenges posed by the solution to be adopted. Results have revealed that the use of simulation allowed the assessment of the impact of the new internal logistics solution and played a critical role to identify the best dispatching rules to schedule transportation orders in such a complex system. This research shows the flexibility of the simulation tool to address several complex management issues simultaneously that arises in the context of innovative solutions aligned with industry 4.0 challenges.This work has been financially supported by the Portugal Incentive System for Research and Technological Development in scope of the projects in co-promotion nº 002814/2015 (iFACTORY 20152018).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cistercian Pavements from Santa Maria de Alcobaça Abbey: first examples of tin-glazed tiles in Portugal

The Mosteiro de Alcobaça (Alcobaça Monastery, founded in 1153) was built to the image of Clairvaux Abbey, founded by the Cistercian abbot St. Bernard. In many ways Alcobaça mirrored the original concepts of the Cistercian Order, with an austere architectural style and shedding signs of richness. The glazed tiles found on the pavement of the deambulatory and some adjacent chapels are some of the first examples of lead-tin glazes in Christian Portugal. For the first time, these tiles were analytically characterized, to determine their chemical composition, production technology and decoration technique. The analytical techniques used were μ-PIXE (particle-induced X-ray emission), SEM-EDS (scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry), and μ-Raman spectroscopy

The INTERFRUTA II project and the study of phytossanitary problems that affect Azorean fruit orchards and vineyards

The INTERFRUTA project is financed by the European Commission Interreg III-B Programme and was developed for the islands of “Madeira”, “Tenerife” and “Terceira”, for the improvement of fruit and vineyard production in these three Atlantic regions. The project goal is a better knowledge of the phytossanitary problems that affect apples, bananas, chestnut and vineyards, applying methods that will contribute to solutions based on the survey of key pests, diseases and beneficial organisms. In the three fruit crops and vineyards analyzed, the methodology used was mainly direct observation of predefined parts of each plant (such as leaves and flowers) on which pests might be expected to occur. The key pest C. capitata was monitored as adults using sexual lures in a net of traps around the island of “Terceira” up to 200 meters altitude. The beneficial insect survey was conducted using the beating technique. For diseases, a direct sampling was carried out by the observation of 10 % of the plants in each orchard or vineyard plot looking for visible symptoms. In apples and vineyards, flowers and branches were collected and tested for microorganisms using serologic and molecular techniques (Elisa and PCR). In banana plantations, the most damaging pests were banana weevil, thrips and a fungi complex that causes symptoms similar to Fusarium wilt. In chestnut, the pest that causes the most severe damage, affecting around 40 % of the nuts produced, is the Chestnut tortrix, but there were some difficulties in identifying which of the three known species was present in the Azores islands. In vineyards, diseases that are most frequent and important include grapevine downy mildew, powdery mildew and Botrytis. Invertebrate pests included grape leafhoppers, thrips and eriophyid mites. The European vine moth was also surveyed but none were found and is still not present. In apple orchards the most important problems were thrips, mites, oriental fruit moth and codling moth. Anarsia lineatella Zeller, the peach twig borer, was not detected and new Eriophyid species have been recorded for the first time in the Azores as a result of the surveys. With the information collected it was possible to create a phytossanitary diagnostic database for the Macaronesian islands (PROFITOMAC) on the project internet pages (www.interfruta.uac.pt), to help users to identify problems that affect the studied cultures