CONSIDERAÇÕES HISTÓRICAS SOBRE O PDCT/NE/UFRPE

No período de 1983 a 1990, o Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) coordenou no Semiárido do Nordeste brasileiro, por meio de empréstimo do Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento (BID), o Programa de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico para o Nordeste (PDCT/NE)

CONSIDERAÇÕES SOBRE NUTRIÇÃO MINERAL E O CASO DO FEIJÃO VIGNA

A nutrição mineral de plantas tem como objetivo estudar quais são os elementos químicos essenciais para o ciclo vital das plantas, como são absorvidos, translocados, as funções que desempenham, as exigências nutricionais e os distúrbios causados quando em concentrações insuficientes ou excessivas. Apresenta estreita relação com a agronomia, em especial com a fertilidade do solo e a adubação das culturas. Os nutrientes essenciais são: C, H e O (organógenos), N, P, K, Ca, Mg e S (macronutrientes) e Fe, Cu, Zn, Mn, Mo, Cl, B e Ni (micronutrientes). Os teores dos macronutrientes (g kg-1) considerados adequados para o bom desenvolvimento do feijão-vigna são: 18 a 22 (N), 1,2 a 1,5 (P), 30 a 35 (K), 50 a 55 (Ca), 5 a 8 (Mg) e 1,5 a 2,0 (S). E dos micronutrientes (mg kg-1) são: 700 a 900 (Fe), 400 a 425 (Mn), 150 a 200 (B), 40 a 50 (Zn) e 5 a 7 (Cu)

DETERMINAÇÃO DO TEOR DE CARBONO ORGÂNICO TOTAL EM AMOSTRA VEGETAL PELO MÉTODO VOLUMÉTRICO COM DIFERENTES VOLUMES DE ÁCIDO SULFÚRICO

É imprescindível aprimorar e adaptar os métodos de determinação de carbono, para reduzir os custos e o descarte desnecessário de resíduos químicos. Com objetivo de reduzir o custo da operação e o descarte de ácido sulfúrico, que pode causar contaminação ambiental, o trabalho testou diferentes concentrações do ácido para observar se existia diferença significativa entre os teores de carbono determinados por diferentes volumes de ácido sulfúrico. Para tanto foi utilizada 0,1 g de amostra seca de madeira de juazeiro (Ziziphus joazeiro Mart.), digerida em ácido sulfúrico e dicromato de potássio, aquecida em bloco digestor e titulada com solução de sulfato ferroso amoniacal 0,5 N.  Como a metodologia tomada como referência utiliza 40 mL do ácido sulfúrico P.A., este volume foi adotado como testemunha e os demais tratamentos foram 10 mL, 20 mL e 30 mL, com cinco repetições para cada volume. O cálculo estatístico foi realizado por meio da análise de variância (ANOVA) e as médias comparadas pelo teste de Tukey a 5% de probabilidade. Como padrão de comparação foi utilizada a glicose por apresentar teor de carbono conhecido. Observou-se que os diferentes volumes de ácido não apresentaram diferença significativa, o que indica a viabilidade de utilização de 10 mL para análise e uma redução de 75% do material químico

CRESCIMENTO E ACÚMULO DE SOLUTOS ORGÂNICOS NO FEIJÃO VIGNA SUBMETIDO AO ESTRESSE SALINO

Foi conduzido um experimento em condições de casa de vegetação, pertencente à Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, em Recife, PE., Brasil, com o objetivo de serem avaliados efeitos do estresse salino no crescimento e acúmulo de solutos orgânicos, em feijoeiro vigna, cultivar “pele de moça”. Os tratamentos foram organizados em arranjo fatorial, composto por duas texturas de solo: franco-arenosa e franco-argilosa, quatro níveis de salinidade: 0,0 (Testemunha), 4,0; 8,0 e 12,0 dS m-1 a 25ºC, com cinco repetições. A salinização foi feita pela aplicação de 2/3 NaCl e 1/3 CaCl2. A colheita das plantas ocorreu aos 28 dias após a semeadura. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que houve redução de biomassa seca da parte aérea (62,7%) e aumento nos teores de prolina (72,2%) nas plantas submetidas ao tratamento salino mais alto. Não houve relação significativa entre teor de glicina-betaína e salinidade do solo. Entretanto, o teor de carboidratos solúveis totais nas folhas aumentou 26,6%, quando se comparou o tratamento de mais alta salinidade com a testemunha. Os teores de clorofila das plantas submetidas à salinidade (12 dS m-1) tiveram valores superiores em relação à testemunha; 60,7% para clorofila a e 45,6% para clorofila b. Deste modo, observou-se que o feijoeiro vigna, quando submetido ao estresse salino, desenvolveu mecanismos de tolerância, denotados pelo acúmulo de alguns solutos orgânicos

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries(1,2). However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world(3) and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health(4,5). However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol-which is a marker of cardiovascular riskchanged from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million-4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.Peer reviewe

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost