COMPOSITION, BODY-SIZE STRUCTURE AND BIOMASS OF ZOOPLANKTON IN A HIGH-ELEVATION TEMPORARY POND (MINAS GERAIS, BRAZIL)

Small ponds are vital inland water bodies, recognized as small repositories of freshwater biodiversity, but neglected in terms of conservation. Although high-elevation ponds are difficult to sample and monitor, it is important to extend their study, in view of their importance to aquatic biodiversity. The aim of this study was to analyze the composition, size structure biomass and diversity of zooplankton community in a temporary pond (Lagoa Seca) of a low-alpine area in the southern part of Serra do Espinhaço mountain in Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Three ecological aspects were analyzed: (I) the taxonomic composition of the zooplankton assemblage, (II) the size structure and biomass of the main groups in the zooplankton community and (III) whether the morphometric characteristics and biomass of the zooplankton result from the dominance of the microzooplankton, as expected in habitats subjected to frequent and strong disturbances, such as temporary ponds. Zooplankton samples were taken during the rainy period (Oc­tober 2010 to January 2011) in different mesohabitats, from the shallowest areas covered by emergent macrophytes to the open water area covered mainly by submerged macrophytes. The zooplankton community consisted of a small number of taxa (29). Rotifera showed the highest richness, with 21 taxa recorded, of which the most constant species were the cosmopolitan Lecane lunaris, L. obtusa and Lepadella patella. Among the Cladocera, Bosmina freyi and Moina minuta were the pelagic species recorded. The other cladoceran species observed are associated with littoral vegetation, and represented mainly by Alona ossiani, Chydorus pubescens, Ephemeroporus tridentatus and Ilyocryptus spinifer. The zooplankton biomass was very low (the maximum dry weight, observed at the peak of the rainy period in January was 62 ?g.m-3). The zooplankton community was dominated by the microzooplankton, with the maximum body length below 900 ?m. This assemblage was very changeable in the short term, both in numerical density and size structure, probably because of the highly variable hydrological regime of the pond. The results from zooplankton composition, including the first record of the rotifer Microcodon clavus to Minas Gerais state and the second in Brazil, highlighted the important role that high-elevation temporary ponds can play as aquatic biodiversity reserves. These unique ecosystems deserve greater efforts of research and monitoring, including studies of their hydrological pat­terns, biological diversity, and adaptive mechanisms of the zooplankton community.Small ponds are vital inland water bodies, recognized as small repositories of freshwater biodiversity, but neglected in terms of conservation.  Although high-elevation ponds are difficult to sample and monitor, it is important to extend their study, in view of their importance to aquatic biodiversity. The aim of this study was to analyze the composition, size structure biomass and diversity of zooplankton community in a temporary pond (Lagoa Seca) of a low-alpine area in the southern part of Serra do Espinhaço mountain in Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Three ecological aspects were analyzed: (I) the taxonomic composition of the zooplankton assemblage, (II) the size structure and biomass of the main groups in the zooplankton community and (III) whether the morphometric characteristics and biomass of the zooplankton result from the dominance of the microzooplankton, as expected in habitats subjected to frequent and strong disturbances, such as temporary ponds. Zooplankton samples were taken during the rainy period (October 2010 to January 2011), in different mesohabitats, from the shallowest areas covered by emergent macrophytes to the open water area, covered mainly by submerged macrophytes. The zooplankton community consisted of a small number of taxa (29). Rotifera showed the highest richness, with 21 taxa recorded, of which the most constant species were the cosmopolitan: Lecane lunaris, L. obtusa and Lepadella patella. Among the Cladocera, Bosmina freyi and Moina minuta were the pelagic species recorded. The other cladoceran species observed are associated with littoral vegetation, and represented mainly by Alona ossiani, Chydorus pubesceus, Ephemeroporus tridentatus and Ilyocryptus spinifer. The zooplankton biomass was very low (the maximum dry weight, observed at the peak of the rainy period in January was 62 µg.m-3). The zooplankton community was dominated by the microzooplankton, with the maximum body length below 900 µm. This assemblage was very changeable in the short term, both in numerical density and size structure, probably because of the highly variable hydrological regime of the pond.  The results from zooplankton composition, including the first record of the rotifer Microcodon clavus to Minas Gerais state and the second in Brazil, highlightedt the important role that high-elevation temporary ponds can play as aquatic biodiversity reserves. These unique ecosystems deserve greater efforts of research and monitoring, including studies of their hydrological patterns, biological diversity and adaptive mechanisms of the zooplankton community.Small ponds are vital inland water bodies, recognized as small repositories of freshwater biodiversity, but neglected in terms of conservation.  Although high-elevation ponds are difficult to sample and monitor, it is important to extend their study, in view of their importance to aquatic biodiversity. The aim of this study was to analyze the composition, size structure biomass and diversity of zooplankton community in a temporary pond (Lagoa Seca) of a low-alpine area in the southern part of Serra do Espinhaço mountain in Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Three ecological aspects were analyzed: (I) the taxonomic composition of the zooplankton assemblage, (II) the size structure and biomass of the main groups in the zooplankton community and (III) whether the morphometric characteristics and biomass of the zooplankton result from the dominance of the microzooplankton, as expected in habitats subjected to frequent and strong disturbances, such as temporary ponds. Zooplankton samples were taken during the rainy period (October 2010 to January 2011), in different mesohabitats, from the shallowest areas covered by emergent macrophytes to the open water area, covered mainly by submerged macrophytes. The zooplankton community consisted of a small number of taxa (29). Rotifera showed the highest richness, with 21 taxa recorded, of which the most constant species were the cosmopolitan: Lecane lunaris, L. obtusa and Lepadella patella. Among the Cladocera, Bosmina freyi and Moina minuta were the pelagic species recorded. The other cladoceran species observed are associated with littoral vegetation, and represented mainly by Alona ossiani, Chydorus pubesceus, Ephemeroporus tridentatus and Ilyocryptus spinifer. The zooplankton biomass was very low (the maximum dry weight, observed at the peak of the rainy period in January was 62 µg.m-3). The zooplankton community was dominated by the microzooplankton, with the maximum body length below 900 µm. This assemblage was very changeable in the short term, both in numerical density and size structure, probably because of the highly variable hydrological regime of the pond.  The results from zooplankton composition, including the first record of the rotifer Microcodon clavus to Minas Gerais state and the second in Brazil, highlightedt the important role that high-elevation temporary ponds can play as aquatic biodiversity reserves. These unique ecosystems deserve greater efforts of research and monitoring, including studies of their hydrological patterns, biological diversity and adaptive mechanisms of the zooplankton community

Utilização da Técnica de Moiré para detectar alterações posturais

The appearance of spinal deformities occurs in children and adolescents during the growth phase could cause to serious deformities committing theposture. Several techniques exist to detect the scoliosis and postural deformities, one of them is the moiré topography, which it is an observation technique through the projection of the light on a screen doing a shade with fringes (moiré fringes) in the examined trunk. This work aimed to make a screen for using the tecnique of the moiré topography looking for detecting postural deformities in the children's screening programs. 186 children between 6 and 13 years old of a public school of Uberaba-MG where evaluated and analyzed of the symmetry of the fringes, the presence of the hump, asymmetry of the shoulders and of the triangle of Tales. Of the evaluated children they found the four concomitant alterations in 22 (12%), at least three alterations in 65 (35%), two alterations in 48 (26%), an only alteration in 30 (16%) and any alteration in 21 (11%). In only 4 (2%) of the children those alterations were considered important for them to be submitted to the radiography, for clinical treatment and physical therapy. The statistical analysis for the exact test of Fisher showed a significant dependence between fringes and shoulders for the girls' group and between fringes and triangle of Tales as well as between the fringes and shoulders for the boys' group. The moiré technique demonstrated to be easy handling for the analysis postural of children.O aparecimento de desvios na coluna ocorre em crianças e adolescentesdurante a fase de crescimento, podendo levar a deformidades graves e comprometer a postura. Existem várias técnicas para se detectar escolioses e alterações posturais, uma delas é a topografia de moiré que é uma técnica de observação através da projeção da luz sobre uma tela formando uma sombra com franjas no tronco do examinado. O objetivo desse trabalho foi confeccionar uma tela para utilização da técnica da topografia de moiré, buscando detectar alterações posturais em crianças de uma escola pública da cidade de Uberaba. Foram avaliadas 186 crianças de uma escola pública de Uberaba-MG, com idade entre 6 e 13 anos, e observadas a assimetria das franjas, a presença da giba, a assimetria dos ombros e do triângulo de Tales. Das crianças avaliadas foram encontradas as quatro alterações concomitantes em 22 (12%), pelo menos três alterações em 65 (35%), duas alterações em 48 (26%), uma única alteração em 30 (16%) e nenhuma alteração em 21 (11%). Em apenas 4 (2%) crianças essas alterações posturais foram consideradas importantes para serem submetidas ao exame radiológico, tratamento clínico e fisioterapêutico. A análise estatística pelo teste exato de Fisher mostrou uma dependência significativa entre franjas e ombros para o grupo das meninas e entre franjas e triângulo de Tales, como tambémentre as franjas e ombros, para o grupo dos meninos. A técnica de moiré demonstrou ser de fácil manuseio, de baixo custo e confiável para a análise postural de crianças

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

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

Educomunicação e suas áreas de intervenção: Novos paradigmas para o diálogo intercultural

oai:omp.abpeducom.org.br:publicationFormat/1O material aqui divulgado representa, em essência, a contribuição do VII Encontro Brasileiro de Educomunicação ao V Global MIL Week, da UNESCO, ocorrido na ECA/USP, entre 3 e 5 de novembro de 2016. Estamos diante de um conjunto de 104 papers executivos, com uma média de entre 7 e 10 páginas, cada um. Com este rico e abundante material, chegamos ao sétimo e-book publicado pela ABPEducom, em seus seis primeiros anos de existência. A especificidade desta obra é a de trazer as “Áreas de Intervenção” do campo da Educomunicação, colocando-as a serviço de uma meta essencial ao agir educomunicativo: o diálogo intercultural, trabalhado na linha do tema geral do evento internacional: Media and Information Literacy: New Paradigms for Intercultural Dialogue

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

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

Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions

Equation for analyzing the peak power in aquatic environment: An alternative for olympic rowing athletes.

PurposeTo develop an equation to provide the peak power (PP) through a specific stimulus performed in an aquatic environment, as well as to correlate morphological, anthropometric and strength variables with rowing performance.MethodsThe sample consisted of 16 elite young rowing athletes of both sexes (15.7 ± 1.21 years). The strength of upper limbs and lower limbs was verified. To analyze the PP, a 100-m Sprint test was performed on an indoor rowing type ergometer, and after a 72-hour wash-out, the test was repeated in an aquatic environment on a vessel equipped with a global position system. Body composition was analyzed by examining bone densitometry with an X-ray source and maturation was verified by anthropometry.ResultsThe tests for water sprint and indoor rowing showed significant reliability (ICC = 0.695; p = 0.0007). The PP aquatic showed reliability with that acquired in indoor rowing (ICC = 0.897; pConclusionThe equation for the PP in aquatic environment presented by the present study is highly reliable with an indoor ergometer digital ergometer