Detecting microorganisms producing surface active compounds in mangrove sediments in São Luís, Maranhão

Mangroves are areas of sediment transitions, favoring the cycling of materials associated with high concentration of microorganisms, presenting vulnerability to anthropogenic actions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of microbiota in mangrove sediments of the Anil River, in the city of São Luís, Maranhão. To produce surface active compounds (SACs), samples were collected according to the EMBRAPA methodology by inoculating them in the Bushnell Haas medium, with carbon sources varying at 3% (v/v). From the production obtained, the supernatants of each culture were submitted to E24 analysis, drop spreading, thermal stability/pressure and pH variation. The SAC-producing species were identified using the MALDI-QTOF MS method. The producing species were identified as Serratia marcescens (2), Ochrobactrum spp. (3). E24 values ranged from 33% to 48% yield, with stability increase after autoclaving of 3% to 6% and of 17% for basic pH ranges, demonstrating the feasibility of using regional microorganisms present in mangroves to produce SACs from different carbon sources, as they have good rates of emulsification and stability to the diverse environmental factors

Reconhecimento de Dígitos de Medidores de Energia por meio da Voz no Contexto de um Aplicativo de Autoleitura / Digit Recognition of Energy Meters through Voice in the Context of an Authentication Application

A Agência Nacional de Energia Elétrica (ANEEL) destaca que perdas não-técnicas estão relacionadas a entraves no processo de leitura de consumo. Para a redução dessas falhas, uma alternativa factível e de menor custo seria a leitura realizada pelo próprio consumidor, denominada de autoleitura.  Este processo leva em consideração o uso de plataformas digitais, através das quais o consumidor registraria e enviaria as informações de consumo.  Uma etapa importante desse processo é o reconhecimento automático de dígitos de medidores por meio da voz.  Este trabalho, portanto, propõe um método para a realização dessa tarefa, que utiliza processamento de áudio e inteligência computacional. Para a extração de características de áudio, utiliza-se Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) e MelSpectrogram de forma combinada. O método apresenta Recall de 94,74%; Precision de 94,91%; F1 score de 94,72% e 0,9419 de índice Kappa utilizando-se o classificador Support Vector Machine (SVM)

description of the methodological approach

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A list of land plants of Parque Nacional do Caparaó, Brazil, highlights the presence of sampling gaps within this protected area

Brazilian protected areas are essential for plant conservation in the Atlantic Forest domain, one of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots. A major challenge for improving conservation actions is to know the plant richness, protected by these areas. Online databases offer an accessible way to build plant species lists and to provide relevant information about biodiversity. A list of land plants of “Parque Nacional do Caparaó” (PNC) was previously built using online databases and published on the website "Catálogo de Plantas das Unidades de Conservação do Brasil." Here, we provide and discuss additional information about plant species richness, endemism and conservation in the PNC that could not be included in the List. We documented 1,791 species of land plants as occurring in PNC, of which 63 are cited as threatened (CR, EN or VU) by the Brazilian National Red List, seven as data deficient (DD) and five as priorities for conservation. Fifity-one species were possible new ocurrences for ES and MG states

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Antigen-Specific Antibody Signature Is Associated with COVID-19 Outcome

Numerous studies have focused on inflammation-related markers to understand COVID-19. In this study, we performed a comparative analysis of spike (S) and nucleocapsid (N) protein-specific IgA, total IgG and IgG subclass response in COVID-19 patients and compared this to their disease outcome. We observed that the SARS-CoV-2 infection elicits a robust IgA and IgG response against the N-terminal (N1) and C-terminal (N3) region of the N protein, whereas we failed to detect IgA antibodies and observed a weak IgG response against the disordered linker region (N2) in COVID-19 patients. N and S protein-specific IgG1, IgG2 and IgG3 response was significantly elevated in hospitalized patients with severe disease compared to outpatients with non-severe disease. IgA and total IgG antibody reactivity gradually increased after the first week of symptoms. Magnitude of RBD-ACE2 blocking antibodies identified in a competitive assay and neutralizing antibodies detected by PRNT assay correlated with disease severity. Generally, the IgA and total IgG response between the discharged and deceased COVID-19 patients was similar. However, significant differences in the ratio of IgG subclass antibodies were observed between discharged and deceased patients, especially towards the disordered linker region of the N protein. Overall, SARS-CoV-2 infection is linked to an elevated blood antibody response in severe patients compared to non-severe patients. Monitoring of antigen-specific serological response could be an important tool to accompany disease progression and improve outcomes