Marked decline in forest-dependent small mammals following habitat loss and fragmentation in an Amazonian deforestation frontier

Agricultural frontier expansion into the Amazon over the last four decades has created million hectares of fragmented forests. While many species undergo local extinctions within remaining forest patches, this may be compensated by native species from neighbouring open-habitat areas potentially invading these patches, particularly as forest habitats become increasingly degraded. Here, we examine the effects of habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation on small mammal assemblages in a southern Amazonian deforestation frontier, while accounting for species-specific degree of forest-dependency. We surveyed small mammals at three continuous forest sites and 19 forest patches of different sizes and degrees of isolation. We further sampled matrix habitats adjacent to forest patches, which allowed us to classify each species according to forest-dependency and generate a community-averaged forest-dependency index for each site. Based on 21,568 trap-nights, we recorded 970 small mammals representing 20 species: 12 forest-dependents, 5 matrix-tolerants and 3 open-habitat specialists. Across the gradient of forest patch size, small mammal assemblages failed to show the typical species-area relationship, but this relationship held true when either species abundance or composition was considered. Species composition was further mediated by community-averaged forest-dependency, so that smaller forest patches were occupied by a lower proportion of forest-dependent rodents and marsupials. Both species richness and abundance increased in less isolated fragments surrounded by structurally simplified matrix habitats (e.g. active or abandoned cattle pastures). While shorter distances between forest patches may favour small mammal abundances, forest area and matrix complexity dictated which species could persist within forest fragments according to their degree of forest-dependency. Small mammal local extinctions in small forest patches within Amazonian deforestation frontiers are therefore likely offset by the incursion of open-habitat species. To preclude the dominance of those species, and consequent losses of native species and associated ecosystem functions, management actions should limit or reduce areas dedicated to pasture, additionally maintaining more structurally complex matrix habitats across fragmented landscapes

Characterizing and Detecting Hateful Users on Twitter

Most current approaches to characterize and detect hate speech focus on \textit{content} posted in Online Social Networks. They face shortcomings to collect and annotate hateful speech due to the incompleteness and noisiness of OSN text and the subjectivity of hate speech. These limitations are often aided with constraints that oversimplify the problem, such as considering only tweets containing hate-related words. In this work we partially address these issues by shifting the focus towards \textit{users}. We develop and employ a robust methodology to collect and annotate hateful users which does not depend directly on lexicon and where the users are annotated given their entire profile. This results in a sample of Twitter's retweet graph containing $100,386$ users, out of which $4,972$ were annotated. We also collect the users who were banned in the three months that followed the data collection. We show that hateful users differ from normal ones in terms of their activity patterns, word usage and as well as network structure. We obtain similar results comparing the neighbors of hateful vs. neighbors of normal users and also suspended users vs. active users, increasing the robustness of our analysis. We observe that hateful users are densely connected, and thus formulate the hate speech detection problem as a task of semi-supervised learning over a graph, exploiting the network of connections on Twitter. We find that a node embedding algorithm, which exploits the graph structure, outperforms content-based approaches for the detection of both hateful ($95\%$ AUC vs $88\%$ AUC) and suspended users ($93\%$ AUC vs $88\%$ AUC). Altogether, we present a user-centric view of hate speech, paving the way for better detection and understanding of this relevant and challenging issue.Comment: This is an extended version of the homonymous short paper to be presented at ICWSM-18. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1801.0031

Preparation of tetrahydro-1H-xanthen-1-one and chromen-1-one derivatives via a Morita-Baylis-Hillman/oxa-Michael/elimination cascade

The Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) reaction is a carbon-carbon bond forming transformation between an electrophile, typically an aldehyde, and an activated olefin. MBH adducts obtained from 2-hydroxy- benzaldehydes and cyclic enones are potential substrates for the synthesis of xanthenone and chromenone derivatives. In this work, we investigated conditions to obtain tetrahydro-1H-xanthen-1-ones and chromen- 1-ones directly via a Morita-Baylis-Hillman/oxa-Michael/elimination cascade catalyzed by a bifunctional, bicyclic imidazolyl alcohol (BIA), which proved to be an effective catalyst for this transformation. The reactions were performed at room temperature in water to give the products in 10-74 % yield

Relationship between income, work and quality of life of patients submitted to bone marrow transplantation

Embora a literatura aponte a necessidade de avaliação das condições de trabalho, suporte social e familiar dos pacientes submetidos ao transplante de medula óssea (TMO), são poucas as pesquisas nacionais acerca da influência do perfil socioeconômico sobre a qualidade de vida do paciente transplantado. Resultados de estudos internacionais não são conclusivos quanto à associação entre estas variáveis e a readaptação pós-TMO. O objetivo do presente estudo foi identificar possíveis relações entre renda, trabalho e qualidade de vida em pacientes submetidos ao TMO. A amostra foi composta por 62 pacientes adultos, com 4,3 anos de transplante em média. Para a coleta de dados foram utilizados: Instrumental de Avaliação Socioeconômica, Entrevista de Recuperação Pós-TMO, SF-36 e FACT-BMT. Os resultados mostraram que 43,5% dos pacientes tinham renda familiar de até dois salários mínimos. A situação de afastamento do trabalho foi encontrada em 46,7% dos pacientes. A variável renda foi significativamente associada com qualidade de vida, sentimento de competência pessoal e ajustamento psicológico do paciente.Although the literature points towards the need to assess the work conditions and the social and familiar support of patients submitted to BMT, few Brazilian data are available about the influence of the socio-economic profile on the quality of life. Results of international studies about the association between these variables and post-BMT re-adaptation are inconclusive. This study aims to identify possible relationships between income, work and quality of life in patients submitted to BMT. The study sample consisted of 62 adult patients, with an average adaptation period of 4.3 years after transplant. To collect data, we used: the Socio-economic Assessment Instrument, Post-TMO Recovery Interview, SF-36 and FACT-BMT. Results showed that 43.5% of the patients had a family income of up to two minimum wages and 46.7% of the patients were absent from work at some time during the follow-up. A significant relationship was observed between income, patient's quality of life, feeling of personal competence and psychological adjustment

Avaliação da vulnerabilidade natural de aquíferos cársticos: subsídios para uma gestão dos recursos hídricos subterrâneos (TEXTO DIDÁTICO)

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo discutir as representações cartográficas da vulnerabilidade como instrumento importante para a gestão dos recursos hídricos em ambientes cársticos. Para tanto, serão abordados alguns conceitos de vulnerabilidade natural de aqüíferos e os meios de análises necessários para definir seus parâmetros. O conhecimento da dinâmica hidrogeológica em aqüíferos cársticos é de fundamental importância para se analisar o grau de sensibilidade desse sistema, bem como identificar as fontes potenciais de poluição. Dessa forma, o desenvolvimento de técnicas de mapeamento da vulnerabilidade natural das águas subterrâneas tem-se mostrado como um caminho seguro para o gerenciamento desses recursos hídricos

Association of 2D and 3D transvaginal ultrasound findings with adenomyosis in symptomatic women of reproductive age: a prospective study

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) transvaginal ultrasound (TVUS) findings with adenomyosis symptoms. METHODS: This prospective study conducted between January and December 2018 enrolled 78 women aged 18 to 40 years with abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB), infertility, and/or pelvic pain. All patients underwent 2D and 3D TVUS. Signs of adenomyosis on TVUS were identified according to the consensus of the Morphological Uterus Sonographic Assessment group. RESULTS: The prevalence of adenomyosis on TVUS was 55.12%. Patients with adenomyosis were older (p=0.002) and had more dysmenorrhea, AUB, and endometriosis than those without adenomyosis. When comparing the presence of symptoms with each adenomyosis feature, on 2D TVUS, severe dyspareunia was significantly associated with the presence of a poorly defined junctional zone (JZ) (p=0.023) and on 3D TVUS, patients with AUB had a more irregular (p=0.003), poorly defined (p=0.028), and interrupted JZ (p=0.011). After logistic regression analysis, signs of adenomyosis on TVUS remained significantly associated only with age over 30 years (OR: 1.2; 95% CI: 1.0-1.2) and AUB (OR: 7.65; 95% CI: 2-29). Patients with diffuse adenomyosis were older and presented with more infertility and AUB than patients with focal or no adenomyosis. CONCLUSION: The findings of adenomyosis by 2D and 3D TVUS showed association with age and AUB. 3D TVUS alterations in the JZ were associated with AUB and dyspareunia. Diffuse adenomyosis was associated with older age, a greater prevalence of infertility, and AUB

One-pot organocatalyzed synthesis of tricyclic indolizines

Indolizines and their saturated derivatives are important structural motifs present in several biologically active compounds of both natural and synthetic origin. We describe herein a one-pot approach for the synthesis of tricyclic indolizines catalyzed by a bicyclic imidazole-alcohol. The protocol is based on an aqueous Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction between pyridine-2-carboxaldehydes and six- or seven-membered cyclic enones, followed by sequential intramolecular cyclization and dehydration. So, in a single operational step two new bonds (C-C and C-N) are formed in an organocatalyzed process that takes place in simple conditions (stirring in water at 60 °C for 12 h) and with great atom economy (water as the sole byproduct), affording the purified compounds in yields ranging from 19 to 70%. The facility of the cyclization strongly depends on the size of the cycloalkenone ring: while MBH adducts derived from six-, seven- or eight-membered cycloenones are readily transformed into the corresponding indolizines, cyclopentenone-derived MBH adducts do not cyclize. A competition experiment revealed that cycloheptenone- derived MBH adducts cyclize faster than cyclohexenone-derived adducts. Model DFT calculations have been performed to rationalize these reactivity trends