Sugar cane tolerance to sequential application of nematicides and herbicides

 Um experimento foi instalado em solo arenoso (85% de areia) na Usina Equipav, Promissão-SP, com o objetivo de estudar a possibilidade de ocorrência de interação entre nematicidas e herbicidas aplicados em seqüência, na cultura da canade- açúcar, variedade SP81-3250. O delineamento experimental adotado foi o de blocos ao acaso, com 4 repetições, no esquema fatorial, com 3 níveis da variável 1 (nematicidas) e 5 níveis da variável 2 (herbicidas). A aplicação dos nematicidas terbufós e carbofuran, ambos a 3000 g/ha, foi realizada manualmente, no fundo do sulco de plantio. Um outro tratamento foi utilizado, sem a aplicação de nematicida. Os herbicidas aplicados em pré-emergência da cultura e das plantas daninhas, foram: oxyfluorfen+ametryne (480+ 1500 g/ha), oxyfluorfen+diuron (480+2400 g/ha) e thiazopyr--arnetryne (360+ 1500 gI ha), além das testemunhas com e sem capina. As chuvas freqüentes ocorridas no primeiro mês do experimento proporcionaram uma situação interativa bastante drástica entre os produtos. Concluiu-se que não existiu interação significativa entre os nematicidas e herbicidas, que viesse a interferir na produtividade da cultura da cana-de-açúcar. O carbofuran conduziu a uma produtividade agrícola maior do que o terbufós, e este maior do que a testemunha; thiazopyr+arnetryne causou no início os maiores sintomas visuais de fitotoxicidade, os quais não foram responsáveis por quebra de produtividade agrícola; oxyfluorfen+arnetryne e oxyfluorfen+diuron, na ausência ou na presença de carbofuran ou terbufós, comportaram-se como os produtos mais seletivos para a cultura da cana-de-açúcar.A field experiment was carried out in a sandy soil (85 % of sand) aiming at studying herbicide/nematicide interaction in sugar cane. Terbufos and carbofuran, both applied at 3000 g/ha in the furrow at planting and the herbicides oxyfluorfen--ametryne (480+ 1500 g/ha), oxyfluorfen+diuron (480+2400 g/ha) and thiazopyr+ametryn (360+ 1500 g/ha) were studied. The herbicides were applied before emergence of the sugar cane plants, with a CO2 knapsack sprayer, equipped with 6 nozzles Teejet DO 80.02. The experimental design was a completely randomized block design in a factorial 3 x 5 arrangement, with four replications. The nematicides did not show any interaction with the herbicides. Carbofuran was better than terbufós, producing higher sugarcane yield. Thiazopyr + ametryn showed the most severe phytotoxic effects until 123 DAA (days after application). A tank mixture oxyfluorfen + ametryn and oxyfluorfen+diuron were the most selective products for the sugarcane plants. Sugarcane yield was not affected by any of the applied herbicides

The Prevalence and Correlation of Non-motor Symptoms in Adult Patients with Idiopathic Focal or Segmental Dystonia

Background: Idiopathic focal dystonia is a motor syndrome associated with dysfunction of basal ganglia circuits. Observations have suggested that many other non-motor symptoms may also be part of the clinical picture. The aim was to assess the prevalence and correlation of non-motor symptoms in patients with common idiopathic focal or segmental dystonia. Methods: In a single-center cross-sectional case–control study, we evaluated the presence of pain, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and sleep alterations in 28 patients with blepharospasm, 28 patients with cervical dystonia, 24 patients with writer’s cramp, and 80 control subjects matched for sex, age, and schooling. We obtained clinical and demographic data, and evaluated patients using the Fahn–Marsden Dystonia Rating Scale and other specific scales for dystonia. All subjects completed the following questionnaires: Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Social Phobia Inventory, Apathy Scale, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Brief Pain Scale, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life brief scale. Results: The patients presented more symptoms of depression, anxiety, and apathy than the control subjects. They also reported worse quality of sleep and more pain complaints. Patients with blepharospasm were the most symptomatic subgroup. The patients had worse quality of life, and the presence of pain and symptoms of apathy and depression were the main influences for these findings, but not the severity of motor symptoms. Discussion: Patients with dystonia, especially those with blepharospasm, showed higher prevalence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, apathy, worse quality of sleep, and pain. These symptoms had a negative impact on their quality of life

Interação social entre agentes em ambientes de recursos limitados

Trabalho final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia de Redes de Comunicação e MultimédiaO estudo da interação social entre agentes inteligentes é cada vez mais um tema central da investigação em inteligência artificial. Atualmente inseridos numa realidade onde veículos navegam autonomamente, não é difícil imaginar cenários onde estas máquinas poderão trabalhar em conjunto, maximizando as suas capacidades e tornando-se mais eficientes na utilização de recursos e na concretização dos respetivos objetivos. Devido à elevada complexidade computacional dos seus processos internos, ainda é difícil, sobretudo para máquinas com locomoção autónoma no mundo, desenvolver raciocínio social de forma complexa, pelo que este trabalho pretende contribuir com uma abordagem que aproxime a investigação de uma solução viável para cenários reais onde um sistema multi-agente, limitado pelos seus recursos, tem de produzir soluções em tempo real. Este trabalho integra-se na área dos agentes inteligentes, sendo desenvolvido o tema da interação social em arquiteturas de agentes com limitação de recursos. É apresentado um estudo sobre as arquiteturas de agentes reativas e deliberativas e as respetivas potencialidades na constituição de sistemas multi-agente num contexto de limitação de recursos. É feito o estudo do problema da delegação de tarefas numa abordagem de limitação de recursos, onde se propõe um modelo de coordenação com base em mecanismos emocionais para a sua solução.Abstract: The study of social interaction between intelligent agents is increasingly becoming a central topic of research in artificial intelligence. Living in a reality where vehicles navigate autonomously, it is not hard to imagine scenarios in which these machines could work together, maximizing their skills, making better use of their resources and being more eficient on the achievement of objectives. Due to the high computational complexity of the internal processes, it is still dificult, especially for machines with autonomous locomotion, to develop complex social reasoning, so this work aims to contribute to an approach that approximates the research to a viable solution for real scenarios where a multi-agent system, limited by its resources, has to produce solutions in real-time. This work is part of the area of intelligent agents, developing the theme of social interaction on agent architectures working with bounded-resources. It is presented a study about the reactive and deliberative architectures and their potential in the formation of multi-agent systems in a boundedresources context. It is also made a study about the task delegation problema from the resource-bounded point of view, proposing a coordenation model, based on emotional mechanisms

Alpine ethnobotany in Italy: traditional knowledge of gastronomic and medicinal plants among the Occitans of the upper Varaita valley, Piedmont

A gastronomic and medical ethnobotanical study was conducted among the Occitan communities living in Blins/Bellino and Chianale, in the upper Val Varaita, in the Piedmontese Alps, North-Western Italy, and the traditional uses of 88 botanical taxa were recorded. Comparisons with and analysis of other ethnobotanical studies previously carried out in other Piemontese and surrounding areas, show that approximately one fourth of the botanical taxa quoted in this survey are also known in other surrounding Occitan valleys. It is also evident that traditional knowledge in the Varaita valley has been heavily eroded. This study also examined the local legal framework for the gathering of botanical taxa, and the potential utilization of the most quoted medicinal and food wild herbs in the local market, and suggests that the continuing widespread local collection from the wild of the aerial parts of Alpine wormwood for preparing liqueurs (Artemisia genipi, A. glacialis, and A. umbelliformis) should be seriously reconsidered in terms of sustainability, given the limited availability of these species, even though their collection is culturally salient in the entire study area

Comparing the short-term memory binding test and RAVLT as predictors of hippocampal atrophy

BACKGROUND: The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) assesses the long-term verbal episodic memory, while the short-term memory binding (STMB) tests assess conjunctive memory binding. In the STMB, participants should remember the integration of shapes (or objects) and colors, forming a unique representation in memory. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to compare the STMB and the RAVLT as predictors of hippocampal atrophy. METHODS: All participants underwent neuropsychological assessment and MRI data were collected. Participants were 17 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 12 patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). All participants performed the RAVLT test and two different paradigms of the STMB test: change detection and free recall. In the change detection task, patients need to recognize if there was a difference in shapes and colors (unbound) or shape-color integrations (bound) between two consecutive screens. In the free recall task, patients were asked to recall aloud objects and colors individually (unbound condition) or object-color integrations (bound condition) that they had just seen in a screen. The groups were compared using ANCOVA analyses, and regression analyses were used to evaluate which cognitive paradigm better predicted the hippocampal atrophy. RESULTS: 10 patients showed no hippocampal atrophy (all were MCI patients) and 19 had atrophy (7 MCI and 12 AD). The group with atrophy was older and showed worse performance in the cognitive tasks. The regression model using the atrophy (positive or negative) as the dependent variable, and the STMB tasks, RAVLT delayed score, age and education as the predictors, indicated that only the STMB change detection bound task was retained in the model (R = 0.517, R2 = 0.268, p = 0.004), explaining 26,8% of the variance. Present findings suggest that the change detection STMB task may be a better marker of neurodegeneration than the other tests