Quironomídeos (diptera: insecta) da ilha das Flores

XIII Expedição Científica do Departamento de Biologia - Flores e Corvo 2007.O presente trabalho surge no âmbito da XIII Expedição Científica às Ilhas das Flores e Corvo, organizada pelo Departamento de Biologia da Universidade dos Açores, onde durante este evento foram amostrados diferentes habitats dulciaquícolas que possibilitou a actualização da lista de espécies de Quironomídeos para a ilha das Flores. Foram adicionados 7 novos registos para as Flores e um novo género para o Arquipélago

Macrófitos da Ilha das Flores

XIII Expedição Científica do Departamento de Biologia - Flores e Corvo 2007.As ribeiras e lagoas das ilhas das Flores e Corvo foram prospectadas para a realização de um levantamento de macrófitos durante a Expedição às Ilhas das Flores e Corvo/2007 do Departamento de Biologia. Foram identificadas 43 espécies, 35 nas Flores e 13 no Corvo, das quais 15 são novos registos para o Arquipélago e 3 foram encontradas pela primeira vez no grupo ocidental. No entanto, a riqueza específica encontrada é baixa, comparativamente a sistemas equivalentes na Europa Continental

Peptidylprolyl isomerase C (Ppic) regulates invariant Natural Killer T cell (iNKT) differentiation in mice

© 2021 The Authors. European Journal of Immunology published by Wiley-VCH GmbH. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.Peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase C (Ppic) is expressed in several bone marrow (BM) hematopoietic progenitors and in T-cell precursors. Since the expression profile of Ppic in the hematoimmune system was suggestive that it could play a role in hematopoiesis and/or T lymphocyte differentiation, we sought to test that hypothesis in vivo. Specifically, we generated a Ppic-deficient mouse model by targeting the endogenous locus by CRISPR/Cas9 and tested the requirement of Ppic in hematopoiesis. Several immune cell lineages covering BM progenitors, lymphocyte precursors, as well as mature cells at the periphery were analyzed. While most lineages were unaffected, invariant NKT (iNKT) cells were reduced in percentage and absolute cell numbers in the Ppic-deficient thymus. This affected the most mature stages in the thymus, S2 and S3, and the phenotype was maintained at the periphery. Additionally, immature transitional T1 and T2 B lymphocytes were increased in the Ppic-deficient spleen, but the phenotype was lost in mature B lymphocytes. In sum, our data show that Ppic is dispensable for myeloid cells, platelets, erythrocytes, αβ, and γδ T lymphocytes in vivo in the steady state, while being involved in B- and iNKT cell differentiation.This work was supported by the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the Portuguese National Research Council (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia [FCT]) Grant PTDC/BIA-BID/30925/2017 to VCM, that also supports the salary of RSP. VCM is supported by an individual contract awarded by FCT (CEECIND/03106/2018). CVR is a PhD student of the IGC Integrative Biology and Biomedicine (IBB) PhD Program and supported by an individual FCT PhD Fellowship ref. PD/BD/139190/2018. This work had the support of the research infrastructures Congento LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-022170 and PPBI-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022122, both cofinanced by FCT and Lisboa2020, under PORTUGAL2020 agreement (European Regional Development Fund).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Efectos de la motivación académica y de la inteligencia emocional en el compromiso académico en adolescentes peruanos de educación secundaria

The study aims to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of academic motivation and emotional intelligence on academic engagement. It is a quantitative and predictive research composed of 416 Peruvian students through structural equation analysis (SEM), who answered three instruments to evaluate the variables. The results refer significant effects of emotional intelligence and motivation on school engagement, simultaneously emotional intelligence predicted motivation with optimal SEM goodnessof- fit indices. Additionally, a multigroup SEM analysis was performed to determine the structural invariance of the predictive model as a function of sex and age. We conclude the mediating role of academic motivation between emotional intelligence and academic engagement, which is important for better academic performance and achievement. The mediating model was equivalent between females and males, as well as between younger and older adolescents.El estudio tiene como objetivo evaluar los efectos directos e indirectos de la motivación académica y la inteligencia emocional en el compromiso académico. Es una investigación cuantitativa y predictiva, mediante el análisis de ecuaciones estructurales (SEM), compuesta por 416 estudiantes peruanos que respondieron a tres instrumentos para evaluar las variables. Los resultados refirieron efectos significativos de la inteligencia emocional y la motivación en el compromiso escolar; simultáneamente la inteligencia emocional predijo la motivación con óptimos índices de bondad de ajuste. También se realizó un análisis multigrupo SEM que determinó la invarianza estructural del modelo predictivo en función del sexo y la edad. Se concluye que el rol mediador de la motivación académica entre la inteligencia emocional y el compromiso académico es importante para un mejor rendimiento académico. El modelo mediador fue equivalente entre mujeres y hombres, así como entre adolescentes más jóvenes y mayores

Formalization of gene regulation knowledge using ontologies and gene ontology causal activity models

Gene regulation computational research requires handling and integrating large amounts of heterogeneous data. The Gene Ontology has demonstrated that ontologies play a fundamental role in biological data interoperability and integration. Ontologies help to express data and knowledge in a machine processable way, which enables complex querying and advanced exploitation of distributed data. Contributing to improve data interoperability in gene regulation is a major objective of the GREEKC Consortium, which aims to develop a standardized gene regulation knowledge commons. GREEKC proposes the use of ontologies and semantic tools for developing interoperable gene regulation knowledge models, which should support data annotation. In this work, we study how such knowledge models can be generated from cartoons of gene regulation scenarios. The proposed method consists of generating descriptions in natural language of the cartoons; extracting the entities from the texts; finding those entities in existing ontologies to reuse as much content as possible, especially from well known and maintained ontologies such as the Gene Ontology, the Sequence Ontology, the Relations Ontology and ChEBI; and implementation of the knowledge models. The models have been implemented using Protégé, a general ontology editor, and Noctua, the tool developed by the Gene Ontology Consortium for the development of causal activity models to capture more comprehensive annotations of genes and link their activities in a causal framework for Gene Ontology Annotations. We applied the method to two gene regulation scenarios and illustrate how to apply the models generated to support the annotation of data from research articles

Deep Herschel observations of the 2Jy sample: assessing the non-thermal and AGN contributions to the far-IR continuum

The far-IR/sub-mm wavelength range contains a wealth of diagnostic information that is important for understanding the role of radio AGN in galaxy evolution. Here we present the results of Herschel PACS and SPIRE observations of a complete sample of 46 powerful 2Jy radio AGN at intermediate redshifts (0.05 < z < 0.7), which represent the deepest pointed observations of a major sample of radio AGN undertaken by Herschel. In order to assess the importance of non-thermal synchrotron emission at far-IR wavelengths, we also present new APEX sub-mm and ALMA mm data. We find that the overall incidence of non-thermal contamination in the PACS bands (<200 μm) is in the range 28 – 43 per cent; however, this rises to 30 – 72 per cent for wavelengths (>200 μm) sampled by the SPIRE instrument. Non-thermal contamination is strongest in objects with compact CSS/GPS or extended FRI radio morphologies, and in those with type 1 optical spectra. Considering thermal dust emission, we find strong correlations between the 100 and 160 μm monochromatic luminosities and AGN power indicators, providing further evidence that radiation from the AGN may be an important heating source for the far-IR emitting dust. Clearly, AGN contamination – whether by the direct emission from synchrotron-emitting lobes and cores, or via radiative heating of the cool dust – needs to be carefully considered when using the far-IR continuum to measure the star formation rates in the host galaxies of radio AGN

Los Poyos del Molinillo (Frigiliana): new site of the Bronze Age in the East Axarquía (Málaga, Andalucía)

En este trabajo damos a conocer un nuevo yacimiento descubierto recientemente en el municipio de Frigiliana. La delimitación del área denominada Los Poyos del Molinillo permitió definir la existencia de un poblado y una covacha con restos de una inhumación. El estudio de los materiales arqueológicos, que incluye cerámica, piezas metálicas o elementos de molturación, o la datación AMS obtenida, permiten adscribir el yacimiento a la Edad del Bronce y ampliar el conocimiento de esta etapa en la Axarquía oriental (Málaga, Andalucía).In this work we present a new site recently discovered in the Frigiliana municipality (Málaga). The spatial delimitation of the so called Los Poyos del Molinillo area let us define a Bronze age settlement and an inhumation burial cave. The archaeological record includes ceramic, metallic items or grinding elements, all of them belonging to the Bronze Age, as well as an AMS Radiocarbon data. This site extends the knowledge about this period in the Eastern Axarquía (Málaga, Andalucía)

Identification of a critical binding site for local anaesthetics in the side pockets of Kv1 channels

© 2021 The Authors.[Background and Purpose]: Local anaesthetics block sodium and a variety of potassium channels. Although previous studies identified a residue in the pore signature sequence together with three residues in the S6 segment as a putative binding site, the precise molecular basis of inhibition of Kv channels by local anaesthetics remained unknown. Crystal structures of Kv channels predict that some of these residues point away from the central cavity and face into a drug binding site called side pockets. Thus, the question arises whether the binding site of local anaesthetics is exclusively located in the central cavity or also involves the side pockets. [Experimental Approach]: A systematic functional alanine mutagenesis approach, scanning 58 mutants, together with in silico docking experiments and molecular dynamics simulations was utilized to elucidate the binding site of bupivacaine and ropivacaine. [Key Results]: Inhibition of Kv1.5 channels by local anaesthetics requires binding to the central cavity and the side pockets, and the latter requires interactions with residues of the S5 and the back of the S6 segments. Mutations in the side pockets remove stereoselectivity of inhibition of Kv1.5 channels by bupivacaine. Although binding to the side pockets is conserved for different local anaesthetics, the binding mode in the central cavity and the side pockets shows considerable variations. [Conclusion and Implications]: Local anaesthetics bind to the central cavity and the side pockets, which provide a crucial key to the molecular understanding of their Kv channel affinity and stereoselectivity, as well as their spectrum of side effects.The study was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN, Spain) Grants SAF2016-75021-R and PID2019-104366RB-C21 (to C.V. and T.G.); the European Regional Development Fund (Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional [FEDER]) and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III CIBERCV programme CB/11/00222 (to C.V. and T.G.); the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) Grants PIE201820E104 and 2019AEP148 (to C.V.); the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT) 1191133 and the Fondo de Equipamiento Científico y Tecnológico (FONDEQUIP) 160063 grants from ANID (to W.G.); and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Grant DE1482-4/1 to N.D

Psychometric evaluation and invariance of the Spanish version of the Block Fat Screener (BFS-E) in university students

IntroductionUniversity students constantly face a number of health challenges related to an unhealthy diet, characterized by a high intake of saturated fats.ObjectiveThis study aimed to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Block Fat Screener (BFS-E) food frequency questionnaire in a university population.MethodsAn observational analytical study of instrumental type was carried out in 5608 Peruvian university students. Based on the Block Fat Screener questionnaire, a back-translation and cultural adaptation process was carried out. The validity of the questionnaire was determined through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), hypothesizing a unidimensional structure. For the determination of reliability, the alpha coefficients were considered; likewise, the ω and H coefficients were used to evaluate the construct. The model explained 63% of the cumulative variance.ResultsThe CFA confirmed the unidimensionality of the 16-item questionnaire with appropriate goodness-of-fit indicators; therefore, which model of the Peruvian version adequately fits the observed data. The values of the reliability coefficients were higher than 0.90, with ordinal α = 0.94, ω = 0.94, and H = 0.95.ConclusionThe Spanish version of the Block Fat Screener food frequency questionnaire presents adequate psychometric properties and is therefore a valid scale to quickly measure fat intake in university students in a Latin American context