Dormancy in cereals (not too much, not so little): about the mechanisms behind this trait

As in other cultivated species, dormancy can be seen as a problem in cereal production, either due to its short duration or to its long persistence. Indeed, cereal crops lacking enough dormancy at harvest can be exposed to pre-harvest sprouting damage, while a long-lasting dormancy can interfere with processes that rely on rapid germination, such as malting or the emergence of a uniform crop. Because the ancestors of cereal species evolved under very diverse environments worldwide, different mechanisms have arisen as a way of sensing an appropriate germination environment (a crucial factor for winter or summer annuals such as cereals). In addition, different species (and even different varieties within the same species) display diverse grain morphology, allowing some structures to impose dormancy in some cereals but not in others. As in seeds from many other species, the antagonism between the plant hormones abscisic acid and gibberellins is instrumental in cereal grains for the inception, expression, release and re-induction of dormancy. However, the way in which this antagonism operates is different for the various species and involves different molecular steps as regulatory sites. Environmental signals (i.e. temperature, light quality and quantity, oxygen levels) can modulate this hormonal control of dormancy differently, depending on the species. The practical implications of knowledge accumulated in this field are discussed.Fil: Rodríguez, María Verónica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas A la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Barrero, J. M.. CSIRO Agriculture Flagship; AustraliaFil: Corbineau, Francoise. Universite Pierre et Marie Curie; FranciaFil: Gubler, Frank. CSIRO Agriculture Flagship; AustraliaFil: Benech-arnold, Roberto Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas A la Agricultura; Argentin

Sistemas de introducción de texto en aplicaciones de TV interactiva

En los últimos años se han llevado a cabo cambios regulatorios en muchos países para la implantación de servicios de televisión digital interactivos. La aparición de estos servicios conduce a un clima de mayor competencia, en el que los proveedores de contenidos ofrecen servicios cada vez más innovadores. Muchos de estos servicios requieren capacidades de interacción y, más concretamente, de inserción de texto. No obstante, surge un nuevo problema que emana del hecho de que el principal dispositivo de interacción en estos servicios es el mando a distancia (control remoto), elemento que no ha sido pensado para la escritura de texto. En este trabajo se presenta un proyecto que persigue encontrar métodos efectivos de escritura de texto para entornos de Televisión Digital Interactiva mediante un mando a distancia convencional.Facultad de Informátic

Sistemas de introducción de texto en aplicaciones de TV interactiva

En los últimos años se han llevado a cabo cambios regulatorios en muchos países para la implantación de servicios de televisión digital interactivos. La aparición de estos servicios conduce a un clima de mayor competencia, en el que los proveedores de contenidos ofrecen servicios cada vez más innovadores. Muchos de estos servicios requieren capacidades de interacción y, más concretamente, de inserción de texto. No obstante, surge un nuevo problema que emana del hecho de que el principal dispositivo de interacción en estos servicios es el mando a distancia (control remoto), elemento que no ha sido pensado para la escritura de texto. En este trabajo se presenta un proyecto que persigue encontrar métodos efectivos de escritura de texto para entornos de Televisión Digital Interactiva mediante un mando a distancia convencional.Facultad de Informátic

Sistemas de introducción de texto en aplicaciones de TV interactiva

En los últimos años se han llevado a cabo cambios regulatorios en muchos países para la implantación de servicios de televisión digital interactivos. La aparición de estos servicios conduce a un clima de mayor competencia, en el que los proveedores de contenidos ofrecen servicios cada vez más innovadores. Muchos de estos servicios requieren capacidades de interacción y, más concretamente, de inserción de texto. No obstante, surge un nuevo problema que emana del hecho de que el principal dispositivo de interacción en estos servicios es el mando a distancia (control remoto), elemento que no ha sido pensado para la escritura de texto. En este trabajo se presenta un proyecto que persigue encontrar métodos efectivos de escritura de texto para entornos de Televisión Digital Interactiva mediante un mando a distancia convencional.Facultad de Informátic

KBOC: Keystroke Biometrics OnGoing Competition

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other worksThis paper presents the first Keystroke Biometrics Ongoing evaluation platform and a Competition (KBOC) organized to promote reproducible research and establish a baseline in person authentication using keystroke biometrics. The ongoing evaluation tool has been developed using the BEAT platform and includes keystroke sequences (fixedtext) from 300 users acquired in 4 different sessions. In addition, the results of a parallel offline competition based on the same data and evaluation protocol are presented. The results reported have achieved EERs as low as 5.32%, which represent a challenging baseline for keystroke recognition technologies to be evaluated on the new publicly available KBOC benchmarkA.M. and M. G.-B. are supported by a JdC contract (JCI-2012- 12357) and a FPU Fellowship from Spanish MINECO and MCD, respectively. J.M. and J.C. are supported by CAPES and CNPq (grant 304853/2015-1). This work was partially funded by the projects: CogniMetrics (TEC2015-70627-R) from MINECO FEDER and BEAT (FP7-SEC-284989) from E

Evolutionary conserved microRNAs are ubiquitously expressed compared to tick-specific miRNAs in the cattle tick Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that act as regulators of gene expression in eukaryotes modulating a large diversity of biological processes. The discovery of miRNAs has provided new opportunities to understand the biology of a number of species. The cattle tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, causes significant economic losses in cattle production worldwide and this drives us to further understand their biology so that effective control measures can be developed. To be able to provide new insights into the biology of cattle ticks and to expand the repertoire of tick miRNAs we utilized Illumina technology to sequence the small RNA transcriptomes derived from various life stages and selected organs of R. microplus. Results: To discover and profile cattle tick miRNAs we employed two complementary approaches, one aiming to find evolutionary conserved miRNAs and another focused on the discovery of novel cattle-tick specific miRNAs. We found 51 evolutionary conserved R. microplus miRNA loci, with 36 of these previously found in the tick Ixodes scapularis. The majority of the R. microplus miRNAs are perfectly conserved throughout evolution with 11, 5 and 15 of these conserved since the Nephrozoan (640 MYA), Protostomian (620MYA) and Arthropoda (540 MYA) ancestor, respectively. We then employed a de novo computational screening for novel tick miRNAs using the draft genome of I. scapularis and genomic contigs of R. microplus as templates. This identified 36 novel R. microplus miRNA loci of which 12 were conserved in I. scapularis. Overall we found 87 R. microplus miRNA loci, of these 15 showed the expression of both miRNA and miRNA* sequences. R. microplus miRNAs showed a variety of expression profiles, with the evolutionary-conserved miRNAs mainly expressed in all life stages at various levels, while the expression of novel tick-specific miRNAs was mostly limited to particular life stages and/or tick organs. Conclusions: Anciently acquired miRNAs in the R. microplus lineage not only tend to accumulate the least amount of nucleotide substitutions as compared to those recently acquired miRNAs, but also show ubiquitous expression profiles through out tick life stages and organs contrasting with the restricted expression profiles of novel tick-specific miRNAs

Applications of cellulose-based agents for flocculation processes: a bibliometric analysis

Not surprisingly, cellulose-based agents for wastewater treatments, and more precisely for coagulation-flocculation processes, raise growing interest, boosted not only by the high availability, functionality, renewability, and biodegradability of cellulose, but also by the outstanding performance of their derivatives. The analysis of 460 publications including review papers, research articles and book chapters, among others, reveals a multidisciplinary approach, where the fields Materials Science, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Environmental Science play a major role. In terms of institutions, some of the most relevant contributors are the Wuhan University, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, to name a few. The most relevant journals were found to be Carbohydrate Polymers, International Journal of Applied Polymer Science and Cellulose. An analysis of 332 keywords allowed us to classify works into three major clusters (besides two minor ones): one mostly defined by cellulose and coagulation; a second one championed by flocculation and cellulose derivatives; and a third one including wastewater treatment and polysaccharides. While the evolution of the scientific production leaves little doubt about it, as depicted in this bibliometric study, this is the first work providing an in-depth assessment and classification of the literature on cellulose for particle aggregation purposes.Departamento de Biología Molecular e Ingeniería BioquímicaDepartment of Chemistry, CQC, Universidade de CoimbraDepartment of Chemical Engineering, Universidad de Almerí

Evidence of a tick RNAi pathway by comparative genomics and reverse genetics screen of targets with known loss-of-function phenotypes in Drosophila

Background The Arthropods are a diverse group of organisms including Chelicerata (ticks, mites, spiders), Crustacea (crabs, shrimps), and Insecta (flies, mosquitoes, beetles, silkworm). The cattle tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus, is an economically significant ectoparasite of cattle affecting cattle industries world wide. With the availability of sequence reads from the first Chelicerate genome project (the Ixodes scapularis tick) and extensive R. microplus ESTs, we investigated evidence for putative RNAi proteins and studied RNA interference in tick cell cultures and adult female ticks targeting Drosophila homologues with known cell viability phenotype. Results We screened 13,643 R. microplus ESTs and I. scapularis genome reads to identify RNAi related proteins in ticks. Our analysis identified 31 RNAi proteins including a putative tick Dicer, RISC associated (Ago-2 and FMRp), RNA dependent RNA polymerase (EGO-1) and 23 homologues implicated in dsRNA uptake and processing. We selected 10 R. microplus ESTs with >80% similarity to D. melanogaster proteins associated with cell viability for RNAi functional screens in both BME26 R. microplus embryonic cells and female ticks in vivo. Only genes associated with proteasomes had an effect on cell viability in vitro. In vivo RNAi showed that 9 genes had significant effects either causing lethality or impairing egg laying. Conclusion We have identified key RNAi-related proteins in ticks and along with our loss-of-function studies support a functional RNAi pathway in R. microplus. Our preliminary studies indicate that tick RNAi pathways may differ from that of other Arthropods such as insects

Genome Sequence of the Pathogenic Intestinal Spirochete Brachyspira hyodysenteriae Reveals Adaptations to Its Lifestyle in the Porcine Large Intestine

Brachyspira hyodysenteriae is an anaerobic intestinal spirochete that colonizes the large intestine of pigs and causes swine dysentery, a disease of significant economic importance. The genome sequence of B. hyodysenteriae strain WA1 was determined, making it the first representative of the genus Brachyspira to be sequenced, and the seventeenth spirochete genome to be reported. The genome consisted of a circular 3,000,694 base pair (bp) chromosome, and a 35,940 bp circular plasmid that has not previously been described. The spirochete had 2,122 protein-coding sequences. Of the predicted proteins, more had similarities to proteins of the enteric Escherichia coli and Clostridium species than they did to proteins of other spirochetes. Many of these genes were associated with transport and metabolism, and they may have been gradually acquired through horizontal gene transfer in the environment of the large intestine. A reconstruction of central metabolic pathways identified a complete set of coding sequences for glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, a non-oxidative pentose phosphate pathway, nucleotide metabolism, lipooligosaccharide biosynthesis, and a respiratory electron transport chain. A notable finding was the presence on the plasmid of the genes involved in rhamnose biosynthesis. Potential virulence genes included those for 15 proteases and six hemolysins. Other adaptations to an enteric lifestyle included the presence of large numbers of genes associated with chemotaxis and motility. B. hyodysenteriae has diverged from other spirochetes in the process of accommodating to its habitat in the porcine large intestine

The aesthetic of Lisbon: Writing and practices during the early 20th century

[eng] This study tries to tackle the notion of “urban aesthetics” as it was articulated throughout the first three decades of the 20th century in Portuguese writing on the city, and practised in different forms of spatial production. A diffuse vocabulary – estética urbana, estética citadina, estética da cidade, das edificações, da rua… – signals a persistent understanding of the city as a work of art, both in the way it was experienced – an “urban aesthetic” – and contrived – an “urban aesthetics.” The general ambition of this study is to give visibility to and to reconstruct the conditions of legibility of this set of writings and practices which responded to the once alluring call of the aesthetic. The territory elected to trace the conceptual and practical unravelling of these ideas – so intricately linked to the particularities of place – is Lisbon. In this city, the topic becomes almost unavoidable in writings on urban presents and futures after 1900. Aesthetic arguments were consistently and insistently employed to critically describe urban beauty or, more frequently, urban ugliness, to advocate aesthetic improvement and to justify or criticize concrete ideas and projects. This phenomenon is studied against a background of intense international exchange during this formative phase of the modern planning disciplines, from Town and City Planning to Städtebau and Urbanisme. Aesthetic considerations were manifestly present, and it is argued that aesthetic discourse in Lisbon signals the reception of internationally circulating ideas, words, images and people. More precisely, this study proceeds to a kind of archaeology of the gaze and discourse of “urban aesthetics,” studying the functions it performed within different social, cultural and political contexts and the relations and tensions with relevant urban realities which pervaded it. One conclusion is that the notion of an “urban aesthetics” remained ill-defined, a common place relying on shared adversity to the modern urban landscape rather than any explicit program or solution. Subsequently, the assimilation by municipal regulation and institutions of public demands of “aesthetic supervision” is reconstructed. The four years of municipal council activity of the architect Miguel Ventura Terra, from 1908 to 1913, were crucial in this tentative articulation of actual practices of aesthetic control and urban design, even if along the subsequent decades they were never given the desired legal and institutional breath. Finally, during the 1930s the vocabulary of “urban aesthetics” was appropriated by a new generation of architects, urban planners and politicians and put at the service of the urban ideals of a dictatorial New State, signalling the persistence of aesthetic considerations in the local institution of the discipline of planning. An epilogue proposes that the viewpoint of urban aesthetics can contribute to new perspectives over the production and experience of Lisbon during the first decades of the 20th century.[spa] ciudad y los diferentes modos de hacer cuidad durante las primeras tres décadas del siglo XX. Un copioso vocabulario – estética urbana, estética citadina, estética da cidade, das edificações, da rua… – señala un entendimiento persistente de la ciudad experimentada y deseada como obra de arte. La aspiración global de la investigación es dar visibilidad y reconstruir las condiciones de legibilidad a este conjunto de escritos y prácticas que respondían a la llamada antes atractiva del estético. Lisboa es el territorio elegido para rastrear su enredo conceptual y material. Sobre todo a partir de 1900 el tema se http://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/password-loginvuelve una parada casi obligatoria en escritos sobre el presente y futuro de la ciudad. El uso de argumentos de carácter estético para describir críticamente la belleza o, más comúnmente, la fealdad urbana, para promover mejoras estéticas o para justificar o criticar ideas y proyectos concretos era consistente e insistente. En el trasfondo se apunta el cerrado intercambio internacional durante la formación de las modernas disciplinas urbanísticas, de la Town and City Planning a la Städtebau y el Urbanisme. Dentro del horizonte disciplinar, las consideraciones estéticas tenían lugar relevante, y el desarrollo de la “estética urbana” en Lisboa es interpretado como manifestación de la recepción de ideas, palabras, imágenes y personas que circulaban internacionalmente. Asimismo, se propone una especie de arqueología de la mirada y del discurso de la “estética urbana,” estudiando las funciones que la noción ejercía en distintos contextos sociales, culturales y políticos y las relaciones y tensiones que nacían del embate con realidades urbanas relevantes. Una de las conclusiones es que la noción de “estética urbana” apenas se definía; era un lugar común que se alimentaba más de la hostilidad compartida ante el moderno paisaje urbano que de un programa o solución explícito. Por otro lado, se indaga como las exigencias de la opinión pública de “supervisión estética” eran asimiladas o no en ordenanzas e instituciones municipales o nacionales. Los cuatro años en los que el arquitecto Miguel Ventura Terra integró el ayuntamiento de la ciudad, de 1908 a 1913, resultan decisivos en el pretendido despliegue de prácticas eficaces de controlo estético y diseño urbano, incluso cuando no recibieron la deseada amplitud legal e institucional durante las dos décadas siguientes. Después de 1926 el vocabulario de la “estética urbana” fue, por ende, apropiado por una nueva generación de arquitectos, urbanistas y políticos y puesta al servicio de los ideales urbanos de la dictadura del Estado Novo, sugiriendo que motivos estéticos persistan en la constitución de la moderna disciplina urbanística. Un epílogo propone que la mirada hacia y desde la estética urbana puede contribuir a esbozar nuevas perspectivas sobre la producción y experiencia de la ciudad de Lisboa durante las primeras décadas del siglo XX.[por] Este estudo aborda a noção de “estética urbana” ou “da cidade,” tal como foi formulada durante as primeiras três décadas do século XX em escritos sobre a cidade, e praticada em diferentes formas de produção de espaço. Um profuso vocabulário – estética urbana, estética citadina, estética da cidade, das edificações, da rua… – assinala um entendimento persistente da cidade experimentada e desejada como obra de arte. A ambição global deste estudo é a de dar visibilidade a e reconstruir as condições de legibilidade deste conjunto de escritos e práticas que respondiam ao apelo outrora tentador do estético. O território elegido para rastrear a trama conceptual e prática destas ideias – tão intrincadamente ligadas às especificidades do lugar – é Lisboa. Sobretudo a partir de 1900 o tema torna-se passagem quase obrigatória em escritos sobre o presente e o futuro da cidade. Argumentos de carácter estético eram mobilizados de forma consistente e insistente para descrever criticamente a beleza e, mais comummente, a fealdade urbanas, para promover “embelezamentos” e para justificar ou criticar ideias e projectos concretos. Este fenómeno é visto contra o fundo de um denso intercâmbio internacional durante a formação das modernas disciplinas urbanísticas, da Town and City Planning à Städtebau e ao Urbanisme. Neste panorama, considerações estéticas marcavam presença, e o florescimento da “estética urbana” em Lisboa é entendida como sintoma da recepção desta circulação internacional de ideias, palavras, imagens e pessoas. Mais especificamente, este estudo propõe uma espécie de arqueologia do olhar e do discurso da “estética urbana,” estudando as funções desempenhadas por este termo em diferentes contextos sociais, culturais e políticos e as relações e tensões que nasciam do seu confronto com realidades urbanas relevantes. Uma conclusão é que a noção de “estética urbana” ficou por definir; era um lugar comum que dependia mais de uma animosidade partilhada perante a moderna paisagem urbana do que um programa ou solução explícita. De seguida, a assimilação (e não-assimilação) das exigências públicas de “supervisão estética” em regulamentos e instituições municipais ou nacionais é rastreada. Os quatro anos em que o arquitecto Miguel Ventura Terra foi vereador da cidade, entre 1908 e 1913, revelam-se cruciais nesta tentativa de articular práticas efectivas de controlo estético e desenho urbano, mesmo se durante as duas décadas subsequentes estas nunca receberam a desejada abrangência legal e institucional. A partir de 1926 o vocabulário da “estética urbana” foi apropriado por uma nova geração de arquitectos, urbanistas e políticos, e posto ao serviço dos ideais urbanos da ditadura do Estado Novo, sinalizando a persistência de motivos estéticos na constituição da moderna disciplina urbanística. Um epílogo propõe que o olhar para e desde a estética urbana pode contribuir a trazer novas perspectivas sobre a produção e experiência da cidade de Lisboa durante as primeiras décadas do século XX