Modelling and genetic dissection of staygreen under heat stress

Staygreen traits are associated with heat tolerance in bread wheat. QTL for staygreen and related traits were identified across the genome co-located with agronomic and physiological traits associated to plant performance under heat stress. Plant chlorophyll retention-staygreen-is considered a valuable trait under heat stress. Five experiments with the Seri/Babax wheat mapping population were sown in Mexico under hot-irrigated environments. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) during plant growth was measured regularly and modelled to capture the dynamics of plant greenness decay, including staygreen (Stg) at physiological maturity which was estimated by regression of NDVI during grainfilling. The rate of senescence, the percentage of plant greenness decay, and the area under the curve were also estimated based on NDVI measurements. While Stg and the best fitted curve were highly environment dependent, both traits showed strong (positive for Stg) correlations with yield, grainfilling rates, and extended grainfilling periods, while associations with kernel number and kernel weight were weak. Stg expression was largely dependent on rate of senescence which was related to the pattern of the greenness decay curve and the initial NDVI. QTL analyses revealed a total of 44 loci across environments linked to Stg and related traits, distributed across the genome, with the strongest and most repeatable effects detected on chromosomes 1B, 2A, 2B, 4A, 4B and 7D. Of these, some were common with regions controlling phenology but independent regions were also identified. The co-location of QTL for Stg and performance traits in this study confirms that the staygreen phenotype is a useful trait for productivity enhancement in hot-irrigated environments.R. Suzuky Pinto, Marta S. Lopes, Nicholas C. Collins, Matthew P. Reynold

Mitochondrial SNP markers to monitor evolutionary lineage ancestry in Apis mellifera mellifera conservation programs

The European dark honey bee, Apis mellifera mellifera , is threatened inmost of its native range, in part, due to introgressive hybridization with bees from the highly divergent C-lineage, mainly Apis mellifera carnica and Apis mellifera ligustica (De la Rúa et al. 2009; Pinto et al. 2014). Yet, the maintenance of locally adapted genetic diversity is critical for the population long-term survival and sustainability (De la Rúa et al. 2009; Meixner 2010). The growing awareness that genetic diversity is important for sustainable beekeeping led to implementation of different conservation and breeding programs throughout Europe, which are in need of reliable and costefficient molecular tools to accurately monitor Clineage introgression into A. m. mellifera (De la Rúa et al. 2009; Henriques et al. 2018a, b; Meixner 2010). The large mating flight distances and the polyandrous mating system make it challenging to preserve honey bee subspecies in an open conservation area where intruders can fly in (Neumann et al. 1999). It is therefore necessary to regularly control the genetic ancestry of new or superseded colonies.This work was financed by FEDER (Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional) through the program COMPETE 2020–POCI (Programa Operacional para a Competitividade e Internacionalização) and by Portuguese funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) in the framework of the project BeeHappy (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029871). Melanie Parejo was supported by a mobility fellowship awarded from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The new SWOT for a sustainable world

In today’s complex and changing business environment the concern with sustainability has gained more notoriety. However, companies still do not have a sustainable perspective, but a short-term one, where their values are constantly forgotten and this concept is no longer welcomed. This research demonstrates the need for companies to adapt and to start acting in this direction. Following a set of interviews conducted with professionals with management positions of high responsibility, findings reveal that although sustainability is on the management mind, strategies and tools need to be adapted to be at the core of the organization’s strategic formulation. To support this process, a new SWOT analysis to fit a forward-looking sustainable world is proposed. Furthermore, due to the aggregative nature of the model, it represents an essential tool for an open innovation. “SWOT i” integrates the concern with sustainability as one of its pillars, placing the values and impacts that each decision can have at the center of the strategic formulation, allowing their performance to leverage.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Optimizing Opponents Selection in Bilateral Contracts Negotiation with Particle Swarm

This paper proposes a model based on particle swarm optimization to aid electricity markets players in the selection of the best player(s) to trade with, to maximize their bilateral contracts outcome. This approach is integrated in a Decision Support System (DSS) for the pre-negotiation of bilateral contracts, which provides a missing feature in the state-of-art, the possible opponents analysis. The DSS determines the best action of all the actions that the supported player can take, by applying a game theory approach. However, the analysis of all actions can easily become very time-consuming in large negotiation scenarios. The proposed approach aims to provide the DSS with an alternative method with the capability of reducing the execution time while keeping the results quality as much as possible. Both approaches are tested in a realistic case study where the supported player could take almost half a million different actions. The results show that the proposed methodology is able to provide optimal and near-optimal solutions with an huge execution time reduction.This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 641794 (project DREAM-GO) and grant agreement No 703689 (project ADAPT); from the CONTEST project - SAICT-POL/23575/2016; and from FEDER Funds through COMPETE program and from National Funds through FCT under the project UID/EEA/00760/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Fecal Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4: An Emergent Biomarker in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

INTRODUCTION: Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) is a membrane-bound glycoprotein that acts as a receptor but also exists in a soluble form. It has been recognized as a mediator of inflammation and considered a biomarker in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). METHODS: We evaluated a prospectively recruited cohort, consisting of 101 patients with IBD, using validated clinical indexes; 22 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) underwent endoscopic evaluation. Fecal DPP-4 (fDPP-4) levels were analyzed and correlated with clinical scores, Mayo endoscopic score (in UC patients), serum DPP-4, C-reactive protein, and fecal calprotectin. Immunohistochemical staining for DPP-4 in intestinal biopsies was also performed. RESULTS: When compared with remitters, median fDPP-4 levels were higher in patients with ileal Crohn's disease (CD) (7,584 [1,464-7,816] vs 2,104 [630-2,676] ng/mL, P = 0.015) and lower in patients with UC exhibiting clinical activity (1,213 [559-1,682] vs 7,814 [2,555-7,985] ng/mL, P < 0.001). Patients with UC presenting endoscopic activity also had lower levels than remitters (939 [559-1,420] vs 7,544 [4,531-7,940] ng/mL, P = 0.006). Fecal DPP-4 discriminated clinical activity from remission with areas under the curve of 0.76 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.58-0.94, P = 0.015) and 0.80 (95% CI 0.68-0.93, P < 0.001) in CD and UC, respectively; it allowed to differentiate endoscopic activity in patients with UC, with areas under the curve of 0.84 (95% CI 0.63-1.00, P = 0.009). Immunohistochemical analysis revealed higher DPP-4 apical expression in UC remitters, but no statistically significant differences were revealed between patients with ileal CD. DISCUSSION: Our results suggest that fDPP-4 can be used as a biomarker of IBD activity, particularly in UC. The expression profiles in intestinal tissue might represent a functional compartmentalization of DPP-4 expression

The 20 February 2010 Madeira flash-floods: synoptic analysis and extreme rainfall assessment

This study aims to characterise the rainfall exceptionality and the meteorological context of the 20 February 2010 flash-floods in Madeira (Portugal). Daily and hourly precipitation records from the available rain-gauge station networks are evaluated in order to reconstitute the temporal evolution of the rainstorm, as its geographic incidence, contributing to understand the flash-flood dynamics and the type and spatial distribution of the associated impacts. The exceptionality of the rainstorm is further confirmed by the return period associated with the daily precipitation registered at the two long-term record stations, with 146.9 mm observed in the city of Funchal and 333.8 mm on the mountain top, corresponding to an estimated return period of approximately 290 yr and 90 yr, respectively. Furthermore, the synoptic associated situation responsible for the flash-floods is analysed using different sources of information, e.g., weather charts, reanalysis data, Meteosat images and radiosounding data, with the focus on two main issues: (1) the dynamical conditions that promoted such anomalous humidity availability over the Madeira region on 20 February 2010 and (2) the uplift mechanism that induced deep convection activity

Synchronization time in a hyperbolic dynamical system with long-range interactions

We show that the threshold of complete synchronization in a lattice of coupled non-smooth chaotic maps is determined by linear stability along the directions transversal to the synchronization subspace. We examine carefully the sychronization time and show that a inadequate observation of the system evolution leads to wrong results. We present both careful numerical experiments and a rigorous mathematical explanation confirming this fact, allowing for a generalization involving hyperbolic coupled map lattices.Comment: 22 pages (preprint format), 4 figures - accepted for publication in Physica A (June 28, 2010

Caracterização geotécnica dos solos da Região de Bom Jesus, Luanda, Angola

Este trabalho tem como principal objectivo, contribuir para a caracterização geológica e geotécnica dos maciços terrosos da região de Bom Jesus, uma das principais áreas interessadas pela futura expansão urbana da cidade de Luanda em Angola, com a finalidade de identificar as potenciais zonas de risco associadas à instabilidade de taludes. A área de estudo fica situada na região de Bom Jesus, província de Luanda, município do Icolo-Bengo, tendo como acesso a estrada nacional (EN120) que liga as cidades de Luanda e N’dalatando, e a estrada principal de Bom Jesus, a qual atravessa a área em estudo. Na área ocorre uma série sedimentar com uma espessura que admite-se poder ser superior a 4000 m e que está assente em discordância sobre o soco cristalino Pré-Câmbrico, sendo constituída por distintas sequências correspondentes a diferentes condições na deposição das formações sedimentares da Bacia do Kwanza, com idades entre o Cretácico inferior e o Quaternário [Morais, 1993]

SIAMVITI – Viticultura portuguesa num cenário de alterações climáticas: Impactos e medidas de adaptação

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio