28,392 research outputs found
Monitoring of Iberian wolf expansion in Sabugal: Malcata Region
Relatório de projecto no âmbito de Bolsa Universidade de Lisboa/Fundação Amadeu Dias (2008/2009)Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de LisboaScholarship Fundação Amadeu Dias/Universidade de LisboaWind farm construction may cause an effect of repulse on the wildlife. Sabugal – Malcata region has a new
wind farm in a zone where the situation of the Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus, Cabrera 1907) is considered as
precarious. In this context a monitoring project was begun to assess the impact of this infrastructure on the Iberian wolf
population. Here are presented the results of eight months of monitoring and some information received during the
project about the wolf presence in this region. Every month, signs of wolf presence were prospected in twelve transects
in the wind farm adjacent area and fourteen inquires were done to people that can contact with this predator. In all the
eight months only two scats were detected and two wolf tracks after a snowfall. The presence of wolves was referred in
the inquires as constant before 1990. However, some recent livestock damages were reported. The Roe deer
(Capreolus capreolus) seems to be in expansion in this area, being reported in more than half of the inquires. This
situation may reveal a new opportunity for settlement of dispersing wolves. The occurrence of the Iberian Wolf in
Sabugal – Malcata region continues not to be confirmed, but the designation of probable presence is reinforced.Universidade de Lisboa; Fundação Amadeu Dia
Human Dimensions of Marine Fisheries: Using GIS to Illustrate Land-Sea Connections in the Northeast U.S. Herring, Clupea harengus, Fishery
Geographic Information Systems can help improve ocean literacy and inform our understanding of the human
dimensions of marine resource use. This paper describes a pilot project where GIS is used to illustrate the connections between fish stocks and the social, cultural, and economic components of the fishery on land. This method of presenting and merging qualitative and quantitative data represents a new approach to assist fishery managers,
participants, policy-makers, and other stakeholders in visualizing an often confusing and poorly understood web of interactions. The Atlantic herring fishery serves as a case study and maps from this pilot project are presented and methods reviewed
Using Cost Observation to Regulate Bureaucratic Firms
We study regulation of a bureaucratic provider of a public good in the presence of moral hazard and adverse selection. By bureaucratic we mean that it values output in itself, and not only profit. Three different financing systems are studied - cost reimbursement, prospective payment, and the optimal contract. In all cases, the output level increases with the bureaucratic bias. We find that the optimal contract is linear in cost (fixed payment plus partial cost-reimbursement). A stronger preference for high output reduces the tendency of the firm to announce a high cost (adverse selection), allowing a more powered incentive scheme (a lower fraction of the costs is reimbursed), which alleviates the problem of moral hazard.Procurement, Regulation, Adverse selection, Moral hazard, Bureaucracy
Procedimentos e aspectos necessários para a análise da relação força/EMG do músculo quadríceps femoral avaliado em condição isométrica e dinâmica
The electromyography (EMG) has been used as a resource related to clinical interventions, as well as control of the adjustments resulting from physical training, especially the muscular strength. The muscular electrical activity allows the investigation of which muscles are used in a motion, the level of muscle activation during the course of movement, intensity and duration of muscular demand. Due to the great usefulness of the study of muscle electrical signal and its complex relationship with the force production, both the relation to physiological and non physiological aspects as well as the procedures needed for the collection of EMG signal in isometric and dynamic activity took place this review. Therefore, the EMG signal presents relation with the strength production of the knee extensor muscles. This relationship has been better demonstrated in isometric assessments than in dynamic conditions, what stimulates further scientific production in this area to better understand and explain the relationship of the contraction dynamics, the production of force and changes in EMG signal and improve their applicability not only in the scientific scope, but in clinical tool, since the dynamic activities are similar to the sports gestures and activities of daily living
Homogeneous abundance analysis of dwarf, subgiant and giant FGK stars with and without giant planets
We have analyzed high-resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio optical
spectra of nearby FGK stars with and without detected giant planets in order to
homogeneously measure their photospheric parameters, mass, age, and the
abundances of volatile (C, N, and O) and refractory (Na, Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, V, Mn,
Fe, Ni, Cu, and Ba) elements. Our sample contains 309 stars from the solar
neighborhood (up to the distance of 100 pc), out of which 140 are dwarfs, 29
are subgiants, and 140 are giants. The photospheric parameters are derived from
the equivalent widths of Fe I and Fe II lines. Masses and ages come from the
interpolation in evolutionary tracks and isochrones on the HR diagram. The
abundance determination is based on the equivalent widths of selected atomic
lines of the refractory elements and on the spectral synthesis of C_2, CN, C I,
O I, and Na I features. We apply a set of statistical methods to analyze the
abundances derived for the three subsamples. Our results show that: i) giant
stars systematically exhibit underabundance in [C/Fe] and overabundance in
[N/Fe] and [Na/Fe] in comparison with dwarfs, a result that is normally
attributed to evolution-induced mixing processes in the envelope of evolved
stars; ii) for solar analogs only, the abundance trends with the condensation
temperature of the elements are correlated with age and anticorrelated with the
surface gravity, which is in agreement with recent studies; iii) as in the case
of [Fe/H], dwarf stars with giant planets are systematically enriched in [X/H]
for all the analyzed elements, except for O and Ba (the former due to
limitations of statistics), confirming previous findings in the literature that
not only iron has an important relation with the planetary formation; and iv)
giant planet hosts are also significantly overabundant for the same metallicity
when the elements from Mg to Cu are combined together.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, 8 table
Early Cognitive/Social Deficits and Late Motor Phenotype in Conditional Wild-Type TDP-43 Transgenic Mice
Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are two neurodegenerative diseases associated to mislocalization and aggregation of TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43). To investigate in depth the behavioral phenotype associated with this proteinopathy, we used as a model transgenic (Tg) mice conditionally overexpressing human wild-type TDP 43 protein (hTDP-43-WT) in forebrain neurons. We previously characterized these mice at the neuropathological level and found progressive neurodegeneration and other features that evoke human TDP-43 proteinopathies of the FTD/ALS spectrum. In the present study we analyzed the behavior of mice at multiple domains, including motor, social and cognitive performance. Our results indicate that young hTDP-43-WT Tg mice (1 month after post-weaning transgene induction) present a normal motor phenotype compared to control littermates, as assessed by accelerated rotarod performance, spontaneous locomotor activity in the open field test and a mild degree of spasticity shown by a clasping phenotype. Analysis of social and cognitive behavior showed a rapid installment of deficits in social interaction, working memory (Y-maze test) and recognition memory (novel object recognition test) in the absence of overt motor abnormalities. To investigate if the motor phenotype worsen with age, we analyzed the behavior of mice after long-term (up to 12 months) transgene induction. Our results reveal a decreased performance on the rotarod test and in the hanging wire test, indicating a motor phenotype that was absent in younger mice. In addition, long-term hTDP-43-WT expression led to hyperlocomotion in the open field test. In sum, these results demonstrate a time-dependent emergence of a motor phenotype in older hTDP-43-WT Tg mice, recapitulating aspects of clinical FTD presentations with motor involvement in human patients, and providing a complementary animal model for studying TDP-43 proteinopathies.Fil: Alfieri, Julio Armando. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Fisiología y Biofísica Bernardo Houssay. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Fisiología y Biofísica Bernardo Houssay; ArgentinaFil: Silva Pinto, Pablo Roberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Fisiología y Biofísica Bernardo Houssay. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Fisiología y Biofísica Bernardo Houssay; ArgentinaFil: Müller Igaz, Lionel Ivan. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Fisiología y Biofísica Bernardo Houssay. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Fisiología y Biofísica Bernardo Houssay; Argentin
Regulating a monopolist with unknown bureaucratic tendencies
We determine the optimal contract for the regulation of a bureaucratic firm in the case in which the bureaucratic bias is firm's private information. We find that output is distorted upward when the bureaucratic bias is low, downward when it is high, and equals a reference output when it is intermediate (in this case, the participation constraint is binding). We also determine an endogenous reference output (equal to the expected output, which depends on the reference output), and find that the response of output to cost is null in the short-run (in which the reference output is fixed) whenever the managers' types are in the intermediate range and negative in the long-run (after the adjustment of the reference output to equal expected output).Procurement, Regulation, Adverse selection, Bureaucracy, Reservation utility
The determinants of success in university entrance
This paper proposes that high school graduates applying to higher education institutions do not have equal chances of succeeding. Therefore, admission outcomes must be taken into account by researchers and policy makers analysing college-going behaviour and the equity and efficiency of higher education systems.Educational economics, higher education, chances of success
Guardare oltre il tempo
È nostra convinzione che gli argomenti della dissoluzione del luogo contribuiscono a ideare una
città che va aggiungendo architetture atopici, architetture dove si può manifestare più facilmente
la spettacolarità delle sue forme, e dove la rottura spaziale della città diventa più evidente.
D'altra parte, la difesa dell’anti-storicità del processo creativo architettonico, nel confronto con la
città e la sua architettura in nome del progresso e del futuro, crea le forme di rottura e di disagio
e dà forza ad una nuova visione puramente funzionalista. Oggi l'architettura appare come
controllata d’altre aree del sapere, manifestandosi, tuttavia, esuberante nelle sue forme, in
un’autonomia illusoria, e prigioniera di presupposti che le superano e svalutano. L'architettura
contemporanea deve chiamare di nuovo a sé il concetto di continuità e permanenza, della
prospettiva di creare nuove memorie e di contribuire alla definizione di riferimenti collettivi che
possano edificare le forme della nostra storia attuale, e le forme di una città in crescita che oggi
è già difficile da identificare. Siamo preoccupati, tuttavia, in un altro ordine, l'ordine che
possiamo trovare attraverso esempi che mostrano una sequenza 'genomica', una struttura che
stabilisca la continuità dei fatti che hanno determinato la città e che la hanno configurato in molti
modi, nel corso della sua storia. In un processo dicotomico di causa ed effetto, la città
contemporanea può anche vedere la sua forma descritta con la precisazione della forma dei
suoi spazi pubblici (Il suo design e la sua posizione – una grammatica operativa), ma anche con
il rapporto e i legami tra loro, (un ordine – una sintassi efficiente).We are convinced that the arguments surrounding the dissolution of place tend toward the
materialization of a city which continues to amass atopic architectures, architectures that
facilitate the spectacularism of their forms and where the spatial rupture of the city becomes
more discernible. On the other hand, the vindication of the architectural creative process as
anti-historical creates forms of rupture and discomfort, and empowers a new, merely
functionalist, vision. Today architecture is seen as subsidiary to other branches of knowledge,
and, despite its exuberant forms, it retains an illusory autonomy, confined by assumptions that
surpass and depreciate it. Contemporary architecture must reclaim the notion of perpetuity and
permanence, so as to create new memories and contribute to the maintenance of collective
references that solidify our current history’s forms and the forms of a growing city increasingly
difficult to identify. We are interested in the order that we can find by way of examples that
feature a ‘genomic’ sequence, a structure capable of establishing the continuity of facts that
throughout history have determined and configured the city in so many ways. By means of a dichotomous cause and effect process, we may also describe the contemporary city’s form by
clarifying the form of public spaces (their design and position – an operative grammar) and the
relation and articulation between public spaces (an order – an efficient syntax).Peer Reviewe
- …