Estudo das áreas de ocorrência e dos criadouros preferenciais de Aedes albopictus Skuse, 1894 (Diptera: Culicidae) em Manaus, Amazonas, Brasil

Objetivos: determinar as áreas de ocorrência de A. albopictus em Manaus e os criadouros preferencialmente utilizados para o desenvolvimento da formas imaturas. Métodos: as áreas de ocorrência foram determinadas por meio de inspeções em matas urbanas e periurbanas, análise das fichas da visita domiciliar dos Agentes (FAD) e de armadilhas de larvas instaladas em locais estratégicos. Foram realizadas inspeções em 21 áreas de matas urbanas, periurbanas e de locais de invasão. A pesquisa larvária foi realizada em criadouros que foram classificados em seis grupos de naturais e em sete grupos de artificiais. Os imaturos foram identificados e obteve-se um mapeamento das áreas positivas para o A. albopictus, e os criadouros preferencialmente utilizados pela espécie. Resultados: Registrou-se a presença de A. albopictus em 42 áreas, sendo 12 por meio das investigações nas matas e 30 por meio da análise das planilhas da SUSAM. A. albopictus foi registrado nos criadouros como única espécie; em coexistência com A. aegypti; e/ou com outras espécies de culicídeos. Os resultados indicaram que o vetor ocorre com maior incidência em recipientes artificiais, sendo o grupo Peças de metal o preferencialmente utilizado. A profundidade do grupo de criadouros que produziu maior quantidade de imaturos foi a de 6 a 10 cm e o volume de água de maior produtividade foi o de criadouros que continham até 100 ml de água Conclusões: A. albopictus mostra extensa distribuição na periferia de Manaus, podendo ser encontrado, com maior freqüência, em recipientes artificiais localizados na interface mata/perímetro urbano e periurbano, e nos recipientes naturais situados em áreas de alterações antrópicas. Os dados indicaram que as fêmeas de A. albopictus mostraram preferência por criadouros do grupo Peças de metais com profundidade de 6 a 10 cm contendo até 100 ml de água, porém, os imaturos foram também bastante freqüentes nos demais criadouros, com os diferentes volumes d´água e profundidades disponíveis

Prevalência da paracoccidioidomicose por intradermorreação em áreas rurais de Alfenas, Minas Gerais, Brasil

This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of paracoccidioidal infection by intradermal reaction (Delayed-Type Hypersensitivity, DTH) to Paracoccidioides brasiliensis in rural areas in Alfenas, Southern Minas Gerais (MG) State, Brazil, and to assess risk factors (gender, occupation, age, alcohol intake and smoking) associated with infection. We conducted a population-based cross-sectional study using intradermal tests with gp 43 paracoccidioidin in 542 participants, who were previously contacted by local health agents and so spontaneously attended the test. Participants underwent an interview by filling out a registration form with epidemiological data and were tested with an intradermal administration of 0.1 mL of paracoccidioidin in the left forearm. The test was read 48 hours after injection and was considered positive if induration was greater than or equal to 5 mm. Out of 542 participants, 46.67% were positive to the skin test. Prevalence increased in accordance with an increase of age. There was statistical significance only for males. Occupation, alcohol intake and smoking habits were not significantly associated with the risk of paracoccidioidomycosis infection. There is relevance of paracoccidioidomycosis infection in such rural areas, which suggests that further epidemiological and clinical studies on this mycosis should be done in the southern part of Minas Gerais State.Este estudo teve como objetivo estimar a prevalência de sensibilização da pele pelo Paracoccidioides brasiliensis em áreas rurais em Alfenas, MG, Brasil, e avaliar os fatores de risco associados à infecção. Foi realizado um estudo transversal de base populacional utilizando testes intradérmicos com paracoccidioidina em 542 indivíduos selecionados por demanda espontânea. Os participantes foram submetidos a uma entrevista através do preenchimento de um formulário de inscrição com os dados epidemiológicos e os testes com a administração intradérmica de 0,1 mL de paracoccidioidina no antebraço esquerdo. O teste foi lido 48 h após a injeção e foi considerado positivo se enduramento era maior ou igual a 5 mm. De 542, 46,67% participantes foram positivos ao teste de pele. Prevalência aumentou de acordo com o aumento da idade. Houve significância estatística apenas para o sexo masculino. Profissão, alcoolismo e tabagismo não foram significativamente associados com o risco de infecção paracoccidioidomicose. Há relevância da infecção paracoccidioidomicose em áreas rurais, o que sugere mais estudos epidemiológicos e clínicos sobre esta micose no sul do estado de Minas Gerais

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Search for supersymmetry in events with one lepton and multiple jets in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

Peer reviewe

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV