The Brazilian Military Dictatorship: a Present Past

The 1964 coup in Brazil launched a military dictatorship that for two decades subjected diverse social groups to authoritarianism and repressive violence. In 1985, the last military president was replaced by a civilian government following an agreement between dissident factions of the dictatorship and a section of the democratic opposition. This agreed transition allowed the military institutions to remain untouched and united, preserved from punishment or any need to express regret, while the Constitution approved in 1988 tried to set the grounds for a lasting democracy. These events from the 1980s have continued to shape politics in Brazil, including the more recent political scenario, which from 2014 experienced a radical shift rightwards that strengthened those discourses nostalgic for the dictatorship and gave rise to the Bolsonarist phenomenon. The purpose of my presentation is to synthesize this process as a means to understand the present political situation. In the conclusion, I comment on the role of the military corporation in the current Lula government and develop some hypotheses concerning the political future of the armed forces in Brazil

Purges of 1964 and anticorruption discourse in the caricature by mainstream press

This article addresses the visual and verbal discourses of mainstream press in the context of the 1964 Brazilian Coup, with an emphasis on the ‘secondary target’ of the purges undertaken by the new regime, namely, corruption. The study analyzes the role played by periodicals – especially caricatures – in building representations that provided the dictatorship with support, mainly regarding the fight against corruption. In order to adequately approach the object, we try to grasp the political aims and discursive manipulations of the players involved, who were often driven by reasons very far from fighting against corruption. Keywords: Caricature; Politics; Dictatorship;Brazil – History – 1964 - 1985

Unveiling common responses of Medicago truncatula to appropriate and inappropriate rust species.

Little is known about the nature of effective defense mechanisms in legumes to pathogens of remotely related plant species. Some rust species are among pathogens with broad host range causing dramatic losses in various crop plants. To understand and compare the different host and nonhost resistance (NHR) responses of legume species against rusts, we characterized the reaction of the model legume Medicago truncatula to one appropriate (Uromyces striatus) and two inappropriate (U. viciae-fabae and U. lupinicolus) rusts. We found that similar pre and post-haustorial mechanisms of resistance appear to be operative in M. truncatula against appropriate and inappropriate rust fungus. The appropriate U. striatus germinated better on M. truncatula accessions then the inappropriate U. viciae-fabae and U. lupinicolus, but once germinated, germ tubes of the three rusts had a similar level of success in finding stomata and forming an appressoria over a stoma. However, responses to different inappropriate rust species also showed some specificity, suggesting a combination of non-specific and specific responses underlying this legume NHR to rust fungi. Further genetic and expression analysis studies will contribute to the development of the necessary molecular tools to use the present information on host and NHR mechanisms to breed for broad-spectrum resistance to rust in legume species.Financial support by Spanish AGL2011-22524 and Portuguese PEst-OE/EQB/LA0004/2011 grants is acknowledged. Maria Carlota Vaz Patto was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Incentivos 2014 program).Peer Reviewe

Maize open-pollinated populations physiological improvement: validating tools for drought response participatory selection

Participatory selection—exploiting specific adaptation traits to target environments—helps to guarantees yield stability in a changing climate, in particular under low-input or organic production. The purpose of the present study was to identify reliable, low-cost, fast and easy-to-use tools to complement traditional selection for an e ective participatory improvement of maize populations for drought resistance/tolerance. The morphological and eco-physiological responses to progressive water deprivation of four maize open-pollinated populations were assessed in both controlled and field conditions. Thermography and Chl a fluorescence, validated by gas exchange indicated that the best performing populations under water-deficit conditions were ‘Fandango’ and to a less extent ‘Pigarro’ (both from participatory breeding). These populations showed high yield potential under optimal and reduced watering. Under moderate water stress, ‘Bilhó’, originating from an altitude of 800 m, is one of the most resilient populations. The experiments under chamber conditions confirmed the existence of genetic variability within ‘Pigarro’ and ‘Fandango’ for drought response relevant for future populations breeding. Based on the easiness to score and population discriminatory power, the performance index (PIABS) emerges as an integrative phenotyping tool to use as a refinement of the common participatory maize selection especially under moderate water deprivationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pancreatic tubercular abscess in a patient of disseminated tuberculosis

Pancreatic tuberculosis is a rare clinical entity, despite the high prevalence of tuberculosis worldwide. When present pancreatic TB is seen usually associated with military/ disseminated TB in  immuno-compromised patients with HIV topping the list in recent times. Here we present an unusual case of an immuno-competent individual with disseminated tuberculosis including pancreatic tubercular abscess a 30-year- old female was admitted with 3 months history of productive cough, constitutional symptoms and persistent epigastric discomfort. Patient had pallor and was febrile with no mass palpable per abdomen. Ultrasonography (USG)/ Contrast enhanced computed tomography (CECT) of abdomen showed cystic pancreatic lesion. Acid fast bacilli (AFB) were demonstrated in sputum as well as  material obtained from USG guided  fine needle aspiration (FNA) of pancreatic lesion which after 6 weeks of incubation showed growth of mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) confirming diagnosis of disseminated tuberculosis with pancreatic involvement. Patient was put on antitubercular therapy (ATT) and response was excellent. This case highlights that TB can affect nearly every organ of the body. It should be kept among differentials while evaluating pancreatic lesions. With adequate treatment it is curable

The genetics and mechanism of avoidance of rust infection in Hordeum chilense

Hordeum chilense is a perennial species occurring in Chile and Argentina. This wild barley species shows a very wide range of variation of morphological and agronomic characters and crosses easily with other members of the Triticeae tribe.H. chilense is one of the five wild barley species in which avoidance of rust fungi as been reported. The avoidance mechanism to rust fungi is characterised by stomata overgrowth by the fungal germ tube, with no appressorium formation or penetration of the stomata, resulting in early failure of the infection process. This avoidance is an interesting mechanism of defence against rust infection, especially when it could be transferred to cultivated cereal species.In this thesis the genetic basis of this avoidance mechanism and associations of avoidance with other characters in H. chilense were established.We tested the hypothesis that the avoidance character occurs in a certain morphologically and molecularly distinct ecotype of H. chilense . A H. chilense collection of 88 accessions was characterised for morphological and agronomic traits, level of avoidance of Puccinia hordei , habitat of origin and AFLP fingerprint. Cluster analysis using both morphological/agronomic and AFLP fingerprint data suggested three distinct clusters of accessions. High avoidance was typical to the accessions of one of these three clusters. The accessions in the cluster with the higher levels of avoidance had been collected in humid habitats. This putative subspecific taxon was further characterised by shorter and wider spikes, more erect culms, a shorter uppermost internode until flag leaf and a greater amount of stomata density on the abaxial leaf side. We conclude that H. chilense consists of at least three rather well defined morphologically and genetically distinct subspecific taxa, one of which has a very high level of avoidance of barley leaf rust.We studied the effect of the cuticular wax layer on the orientation of germ tube growth and on appressorium differentiation of P. hordei . Several orientation parameters and appressorium differentiation of P. hordei germ tubes were measured on H. chilense leaves with and without the wax layer.Removal of the cuticular wax layer did not result in poor and also not in better germ tube orientation. Evidence was obtained that epidermal cell junctions rather than the wax crystals provided the landmarks to guide germ tubes along the transverse axis of the leaf. On high avoidance accessions the removal of the wax layer allowed appressoria to develop over stomata that would otherwise be overgrown. This suggests that the overgrowth of stomata on H. chilense leaves by P. hordei germ tubes is mainly due to the wax covering of the stomatal apparatus.A molecular map of the wild barley H. chilense would greatly facilitate to map and efficiently transfer agronomic traits from H. chilense to cereal genomes. As a first step towards a map construction, we evaluated AFLP markers in H. chilense using diploid wheat ( Triticum monococcum ) and cultivated barley ( H. vulgare ) as references. H. chilense showed a higher percentage of polymorphisms than diploid wheat. It was remarkable that, based on AFLP markers generated by 12 Eco RI/ Mse I primer combinations, the cultivated barley was more similar to diploid wheat than to H. chilense . Even more surprisingly, the genetic distance between the interfertile H. chilense accessions (H1 and H7) was almost as large as the genetic distance between the non-crossable cultivated barley and diploid wheat. Eco RI/ Mse I AFLP fingerprints revealed more polymorphism than Pst I/ Mse I AFLP fingerprints for all species tested and were chosen for generating the first AFLP linkage map of H. chilense .The mapping population consisted of 100 F 2 plants derived from a cross between two genetically distinct H. chilense accessions that were contrasting for the level of avoidance, H1 and H7. The constructed map contained 443 AFLP markers, on nine long and ten shorter linkage groups, covering a genetic distance of 714 cM. Nine of these linkage groups were assigned to H. chilense chromosomes using a set of H. chilense in T. aestivum addition and substitution lines. Strong clustering of AFLP markers was observed at putative centromeric regions. A skeletal map with a uniform distribution of markers was extracted from this linkage map. This skeletal map was applied to detect and map QTLs underlying avoidance and stoma density on the abaxial leaf epidermis.Three QTLs were detected for avoidance and three other QTLs for stoma density. Both traits segregated independently in the F 2 .Avoidance on H. chilense is effective to barley leaf rust, wheat leaf rust and rye leaf rust. As H. chilense shows good crossability with several cultivated cereals avoidance of leaf rusts may be introgressed into these cultivated cereals, especially wheat. Addition and substitution lines of H. chilense in Chinese Spring wheat cv. are already available or being developed as a first step towards transfer of the genes governing the avoidance trait.</p

A case of pigmented fungiform papillae of tongue in a young female with iron deficiency anaemia

Fungiform papillae are red/pink, mushroom shaped projections located on the tip and dorsolateral part of tongue. It harbours several taste buds. Pigmented fungiform papillae is a not so common benign condition which involves pigment deposition in fungiform papillae. Authors report a case of 35 years female who presented with history of blackish spots over tongue for past 10 years with no other associated symptom. Patient had conjunctival pallor (moderate) and rest of the examination was normal. Investigations showed iron deficiency anaemia with Hb. of 9.5 mg/dl. A clinical diagnosis of Pigmented Fungiform Papillae (PFP) with associated Iron Deficiency Anaemia (IDA) was made. Patient was explained in detail about the benign nature of disease and was put on oral iron therapy. Follow up after 2 months was advised

Genotypes x environment interaction in maize half-sib progenies evaluation

Neste trabalho 400 progênies de meios-irmãos de milho (Zea mays L.) foram avaliadas com o objetivo de avançar um ciclo de seleção (ciclo I) entre e dentro de progênies e estimar a interação progênies x locais e outros parâmetros genéticos. O estudo foi desenvolvido nos municípios de Ijaci e Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais, em quatro látices 10 x 10, com duas repetições, em parcelas constituídas de uma linha de 5,0 m de comprimento, com 25 plantas e espaçamento de 1,0 m, onde foi observada a característica peso de espigas despalhadas. A população utilizada foi a CMS-39, sintetizada pela Embrapa-Centro Nacional de Pesquisa de Milho e Sorgo (CNPMS), a partir da recombinação de 55 materiais identificados como promissores pelos Ensaios Nacionais de Cultivares de Milho, e submetida ao primeiro ciclo de seleção (ciclo zero) no ano agrícola de 1984/85. Os resultados obtidos permitiram concluir que a estimativa da interação progênies x locais (σ2px1) foi da mesma magnitude da estimativa da variância genética entre progênies de meios-irmãos (σ2p) e não sofreram alterações significativas em relação às σ2px1 e σ2p obtidas no ciclo anterior, confirmando a importância de se avaliar as progênies de meios-irmãos em mais de um ambiente, para melhorar a eficiência do processo seletivo e obter estimativas da variância genética aditiva (σ2A) livres desta interação.The evaluation of half-sib maize (Zea mays L.) families has been done usually in one environment, without considering the genotype x environment interaction in the selection scheme. This study used two different environment for testing 400 half-sib families divided in four 10 x 10 lattice design with two replication per environment. The plots were five meters long and one meter apart with 25 plants, per row in both environments (Ijaci and Sete Lagoas, in Minas Gerais State). The trait analyzed was ear weight. The objectives were to make one more cycle of half-sib selection in the population (2nd cycle) and obtain data to estimate the magnitude of the genotype x environment interaction as well as other genetic parameters. The select population was CMS-39. This population was developed at Embrapa-Centro Nacional de Pesquisa de Milho e Sorgo, through the recombination of 55 different genotypes tested at national level for adaptation. The first cycle of selection in CMS 39 was done in 1984/85. It was concluded that the genotype x environment interaction estimate was about the same magnitude of the variance among half-sib families estimate and did not differ significantly from the estimates obtained for the previous cycle of selection (original cycle) for both parameters. These results indicate the necessity of testing half-sib families in more than one environment in order to improve the selection efficiency and avoid an overestimation of the additive genetic variance due to the interaction effect