Scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea) of ornamental plants from Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo, Brazil

A list of 35 scale insects collected from 72 ornamental plant species in Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo, Brazil is provided. Regarding host specificity, 30 scale insects were polyphagous, 4 oligophagous, and 1 monophagous. A total of 102 coccoid/plant associations are recorded, 29 of which are new host records for the species; 60 are new host records for the species in Brazil. Pulvinaria urbicola Cockerell, 1893 (Coccidae), Phenacoccus similis Granara de Willink, 1983 (Pseudococcidae), and Orthezia molinarii (Morrison, 1952) (Ortheziidae) are recorded for the first time in Brazil. In addition, we describe the injury caused by scale insects on ornamental plants

The Effect of Different Forms of Synaptic Plasticity on Pattern Recognition in the Cerebellar Cortex

“The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com”. Copyright Springer.Many cerebellar learning theories assume that long-term depression (LTD) of synapses between parallel fibres (PFs) and Purkinje cells (PCs) provides the basis for pattern recognition in the cerebellum. Previous work has suggested that PCs can use a novel neural code based on the duration of silent periods. These simulations have used a simplified learning rule, where the synaptic conductance was halved each time a pattern was learned. However, experimental studies in cerebellar slices show that the synaptic conductance saturates and is rarely reduced to less than 50% of its baseline value. Moreover, the previous simulations did not include plasticity of the synapses between inhibitory interneurons and PCs. Here we study the effect of LTD saturation and inhibitory synaptic plasticity on pattern recognition in a complex PC model. We find that the PC model is very sensitive to the value at which LTD saturates, but is unaffected by inhibitory synaptic plasticity.Peer reviewe

Alterações nas características químicas de um latossolo amarelo sob sistemas agroflorestais com cupuaçuzeiro no município de Presidente Figueiredo, AM.

Avaliação de algumas características químicas de um latossolo amarelo distrófico, sob dois sistemas agroflorestais com três tipos de manejo de adubação, durante oito anos

Desenvolvimento da técnica TRAP (Target region amplification polymorphism) para caracterização genética de guaranazeiro.

O objetivo desse trabalho foi desenhar e otimizar a técnica de TRAP (Target Region Amplification Polymorphism) para as aplicações diversas das análises de diversidade genética em guaranazeiro

A simple deterministic self-organized critical system

We introduce a new continuous cellular automaton that presents self-organized criticality. It is one-dimensional, totally deterministic, without any kind of embedded randomness, not even in the initial conditions. This system is in the same universality class as the Oslo rice pile system, boundary driven interface depinning and the train model for earthquakes. Although the system is chaotic, in the thermodynamic limit chaos occurs only in a microscopic level.Comment: System slightly modified. New results on Liapunov exponents. Submitted for publication (8 pages

Knowledge management and gamification in Pharma: an approach in pandemic times to develop product quality reviews

The Pharma sector is a much‑regulated market, and this means that this industry must test their products to comply with existing standards to assure the required level of quality and safety before being authorized to lunch those products to the market. Supply chains, data integrity, and tightening regulations are just examples of business process issues that affect quality strategies on a day‑to‑day basis. Besides, regulatory bodies are increasingly focused not only on compliance but also on building a culture of quality management. In this domain, the Quality Management System (QMS)is a well‑known system to support processes, procedures, and responsibilities for achieving quality policies and objectives.The QMS also drives consistent metrics, risk calculations, and other trend analysis in developing periodical Product Quality Reviews (PQRs), usually corresponding to one year periods, related to the product and with its active substance. The PQRs development process requires proper management of knowledge so that it can be replicated in different activities. This paper proposes the adoption of Gamification techniques in each phase of PQRs. In pandemic times, it is importante to improve the performance of each activity, gathering the engagement of the employees. Gamification is usually related to employee motivation, which, in turn, is conducive to the achievement of better results in the organization. In this context, it is necessary to understand how the commitment of stakeholders evolves and if the application of Gamification techniques allows enhancing this variable, taking the evolution of the performance as another variable that could be evaluated. This paper focuses on innovation in the area of knowledge management, based on the projection of a Gamified model related to managing activities of a PQR development project at the level of the active substance. The paper presents a case study where the proposed model was applied to analyze the performance achieves in a national pharmaceutical industry in Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio