Sequence heterogeneity and phylogenetic relationships between the copia retrotransposon in Drosophila species of the repleta and melanogaster groups

Although the retrotransposon copia has been studied in the melanogaster group of Drosophila species, very little is known about copia dynamism and evolution in other groups. We analyzed the occurrence and heterogeneity of the copia 5'LTR-ULR partial sequence and their phylogenetic relationships in 24 species of the repleta group of Drosophila. PCR showed that copia occurs in 18 out of the 24 species evaluated. Sequencing was possible in only eight species. The sequences showed a low nucleotide diversity, which suggests selective constraints maintaining this regulatory region over evolutionary time. On the contrary, the low nucleotide divergence and the phylogenetic relationships between the D. willistoni/Zaprionus tuberculatus/melanogaster species subgroup suggest horizontal transfer. Sixteen transcription factor binding sites were identified in the LTR-ULR repleta and melanogaster consensus sequences. However, these motifs are not homologous, neither according to their position in the LTR-ULR sequences, nor according to their sequences. Taken together, the low motif homologies, the phylogenetic relationship and the great nucleotide divergence between the melanogaster and repleta copia sequences reinforce the hypothesis that there are two copia families

Heavy Majorana Neutrinos in the Effective Lagrangian Description: Application to Hadron Colliders

We consider the effects of heavy Majorana neutrinos N with sub-TeV masses. We argue that the mere presence of these particles would be a signal of physics beyond the minimal seesaw mechanism and their interactions are, therefore, best described using an effective Lagrangian. We then consider the complete set of leading effective operators (up to dimension 6) involving the N and Standard Model fields and show that these interactions can be relatively easy to track at high-energy colliders. For example, we find that an exchange of a TeV-scale heavy vector field can yield thousands of characteristic same-sign lepton number violating l^+ l^+ j j events (j=light jet) at the LHC if m_N < 600 GeV, which can also have a distinctive forward-backward asymmetry signal; even the Tevatron has good prospects for this signature if m_N < 300 GeV.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Quantum Effects in Neural Networks

We develop the statistical mechanics of the Hopfield model in a transverse field to investigate how quantum fluctuations affect the macroscopic behavior of neural networks. When the number of embedded patterns is finite, the Trotter decomposition reduces the problem to that of a random Ising model. It turns out that the effects of quantum fluctuations on macroscopic variables play the same roles as those of thermal fluctuations. For an extensive number of embedded patterns, we apply the replica method to the Trotter-decomposed system. The result is summarized as a ground-state phase diagram drawn in terms of the number of patterns per site, $\alpha$, and the strength of the transverse field, $\Delta$. The phase diagram coincides very accurately with that of the conventional classical Hopfield model if we replace the temperature T in the latter model by $\Delta$. Quantum fluctuations are thus concluded to be quite similar to thermal fluctuations in determination of the macroscopic behavior of the present model.Comment: 34 pages, LaTeX, 9 PS figures, uses jpsj.st

Beneficios en la microbiota intestinal después de la suplementación con inulina y la goma guar parcialmente hidrolizada: un ensayo clínico aleatorizado en mujeres con estreñimiento

Introduction: Prebiotics positively affect gut microbiota composition, thus improving gut function. These properties may be useful for the treatment of constipation.Objectives: This study assessed the tolerance and effectiveness of a prebiotic inulin/partially hydrolyzed guar gum mixture (I-PHGG) for the treatment of constipation in females, as well as its influence on the composition of intestinal microbiota and production of short chain fatty acids.Methods: Our study enrolled 60 constipated female health worker volunteers. Participants reported less than 3 bowel movements per week. Volunteers were randomized to treatment with prebiotic or placebo. Treatment consisted of 3 weeks supplementation with 15 g/d I-PHGG (fiber group) or maltodextrin (placebo group). Abdominal discomfort, flatulence, stool consistency, and bowel movements were evaluated by a recorded daily questionnaire and a weekly interview. Changes in fecal bacterial population and short chain fatty acids were assessed by real-time PCR and gas chromatography, respectively.Results: There was an increased frequency of weekly bowel movements and patient satisfaction in both the fiber and placebo groups with no significant differences. Total Clostridium sp significantly decreased in the fiber group (p = 0.046) and increased in the placebo group (p = 0.047). There were no changes in fecal short chain fatty acid profile.Conclusions: Consumption of I-PHGG produced clinical results comparable to placebo in constipated females, but had additional protective effects on gut rnicrobiota by decreasing the amount of pathological bacteria of the Clostridium genera.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Univ São Paulo, Fac Med, Sch Med, Dept Gastroenterol,Surg Gastroenterol Discipline, BR-01246903 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biociences, Santos, BrazilGANEP Nutr Humana, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biociences, Santos, BrazilFAPESP: 07/58600-2Web of Scienc

Bose Glass in Large N Commensurate Dirty Boson Model

The large N commensurate dirty boson model, in both the weakly and strongly commensurate cases, is considered via a perturbative renormalization group treatment. In the weakly commensurate case, there exists a fixed line under RG flow, with varying amounts of disorder along the line. Including 1/N corrections causes the system to flow to strong disorder, indicating that the model does not have a phase transition perturbatively connected to the Mott Insulator-Superfluid (MI-SF) transition. I discuss the qualitative effects of instantons on the low energy density of excitations. In the strongly commensurate case, a fixed point found previously is considered and results are obtained for higher moments of the correlation functions. To lowest order, correlation functions have a log-normal distribution. Finally, I prove two interesting theorems for large N vector models with disorder, relevant to the problem of replica symmetry breaking and frustration in such systems.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

A Factorization Law for Entanglement Decay

We present a simple and general factorization law for quantum systems shared by two parties, which describes the time evolution of entanglement upon passage of either component through an arbitrary noisy channel. The robustness of entanglement-based quantum information processing protocols is thus easily and fully characterized by a single quantity.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Proteomics and the search for welfare and stress biomarkers in animal production in the one-health context

Stress and welfare are important factors in animal production in the context of growing production optimization and scrutiny by the general public. In a context in which animal and human health are intertwined aspects of the one-health concept it is of utmost importance to define the markers of stress and welfare. These are important tools for producers, retailers, regulatory agents and ultimately consumers to effectively monitor and assess the welfare state of production animals. Proteomics is the science that studies the proteins existing in a given tissue or fluid. In this review we address this topic by showing clear examples where proteomics has been used to study stress-induced changes at various levels. We adopt a multi-species (cattle, swine, small ruminants, poultry, fish and shellfish) approach under the effect of various stress inducers (handling, transport, management, nutritional, thermal and exposure to pollutants) clearly demonstrating how proteomics and systems biology are key elements to the study of stress and welfare in farm animals and powerful tools for animal welfare, health and productivity

Compact Trip Representation over Networks

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46049-9_23[Abstract] We present a new Compact Trip Representation ( CTRCTR ) that allows us to manage users’ trips (moving objects) over networks. These could be public transportation networks (buses, subway, trains, and so on) where nodes are stations or stops, or road networks where nodes are intersections. CTRCTR represents the sequences of nodes and time instants in users’ trips. The spatial component is handled with a data structure based on the well-known Compressed Suffix Array ( CSACSA ), which provides both a compact representation and interesting indexing capabilities. We also represent the temporal component of the trips, that is, the time instants when users visit nodes in their trips. We create a sequence with these time instants, which are then self-indexed with a balanced Wavelet Matrix ( WMWM ). This gives us the ability to solve range-interval queries efficiently. We show how CTRCTR can solve relevant spatial and spatio-temporal queries over large sets of trajectories. Finally, we also provide experimental results to show the space requirements and query efficiency of CTRCTR .Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; TIN2013-46238-C4-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad; TIN2013-47090-C3-3-PMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad; IDI-20141259Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; ITC-20151305Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; ITC-20151247Xunta de Galicia; GRC2013/053Chile.Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico; 1140428Chile. Instituto de Sistemas Complejos de Ingeniería ; FBO 1

A cultura da interpretação das doenças infecto - contagiosas

As autoras referem comportamentos, atitudes e conhecimentos expressos pelas mães em relação a doenças como: sarampo, varíola, varicela, parotidite, tuberculose e difteria. Trata-se de um relato das informações de mães de baixo nível sócio-econômico que frequentam os Centros de Saúde da cidade do Salvador - Bahia