Detection and Mapping of Decoupled Stellar and Ionized Gas Structures in the Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy IRAS 12112+0305

Integral field optical spectroscopy with the INTEGRAL fiber-fed system and HST optical imaging are used to map the complex stellar and warm ionized gas structure in the ultraluminous infrared galaxy IRAS 12112+0305. Images reconstructed from wavelength-delimited extractions of the integral field spectra reveal that the observed ionized gas distribution is decoupled from the stellar main body of the galaxy, with the dominant continuum and emission-line regions separated by projected distances of up to 7.5 kpc. The two optical nuclei are detected as apparently faint emission-line regions, and their optical properties are consistent with being dust-enshrouded weak-[OI] LINERs. The brightest emission-line region is associated with a faint (m_{I}= 20.4), giant HII region of 600 pc diameter, where a young (about 5 Myr) massive cluster of about 2 $\times$ 10$^7$ $M_{\odot}$ dominates the ionization. Internal reddening towards the line-emitting regions and the optical nuclei ranges from 1 to 8 magnitudes, in the visual. Taken the reddening into aacount, the overall star formation in IRAS 12112+0305 is dominated by starbursts associated with the two nuclei and corresponding to a star formation rate of 80 $M_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$.Comment: 2 figures, accepted to Ap.J. Letter

Antifungal and antiaflatoxigenic properties of Lactobacillus species

Molds play an important role in spoilage of food products. It is estimated that 5 to 10% of the world foods production is lost due to fungal contamination. Further, certain fungal species produce highly toxic metabolites designated as mycotoxins. According to FAO, up to 25% of the worlds food crops have been estimated to be significantly contaminated with mycotoxins. Among all known mycotoxins, aflatoxins are the most relevant ones because they are carcinogenic. Biopreservation, defined as the control of one organism by another, has received much attention by researchers in recent years. In this field, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are of great interest to be used as natural biopreservatives of food and feed since they have extensive probiotic properties and have been traditionally used in fermentation processes. The aim of this work is to demonstrate the potential of Lactobacillus species to control the occurrence of aflatoxigenic fungi and aflatoxins in agricultural commodities. For that several aflatoxigenic species such as Aspergillus flavus, A. parasiticus, A. nomius, A. tamari, A. arachidicola, and A. minisclerotigenes were inoculated in triplicate in MEA supplemented with 10% of sterile supernatants of different Lactobacillus species obtained from liquid MRS cultures. Supernatants of most active strains inactivated with heat, proteases and NaOH (for pH neutralization) were also tested and compared with untreated ones. The fungal radial growth and the aflatoxin concentration produced in each plate were recorded and compared. L. casei and L. plantarum supernatants were found to be most active. Growth of Aspergillus flavus in MEA after 7 days was reduced approx. by 31% and 25%, respectively for each bacteria. Aflatoxins B1 and B2 production were inhibited approx. by 97 and 87%, respectively. The antifungal and antiaflatoxigenic activity of those strains was reverted when supernatants were treated with proteolytic enzymes or their pH adjusted to 7

Delivery and communication of severe weather events in Basque Country: the Euskalmet case

In this work we briefly introduce some aspects about delivery and communication of severe weather events in Basque Country, explaining what is considered severe weather by the Basque Meteorology Agency (Euskalmet) in the context of Basque Country. We include a short description of some products generated for different purposes during such events, presenting different aspects related with delivery and communication processes in the operational context of Euskalmet. We review some real examples on severe weather communication and message dissemination in Basque Country. Finally, some conclusions about our experience are presented.The authors would like to thank the Emergencies and Meteorology Directorate – Security Department – Basque Government for public provision of data and operational service financial support

Effect of thermal and ultrasound treatments on denaturation and allergenic potential of Pru p 3 protein from peach

The effect of thermal and ultrasound treatments on denaturation and allergenicity of Pru p 3, the major peach allergenic protein, was determined. The degree of denaturation of Pru p 3 was estimated by sandwich ELISA using specific rabbit IgG, that was previously developed. Validation of ELISA test showed high sensitivity and specificity, and acceptable results of precision and robustness. Allergenicity of Pru p 3 was determined by immunofluorescent assay using three pools of sera from peach allergic individuals. Denaturation of Pru p 3 was dependent on the intensity of the thermal treatment applied and the treatment medium. Thus, the degree of denaturation of Pru p 3 treated at 95 °C for 40 min was about 60% and 95%, for the protein heated in peach extract and in buffer, respectively. Ultrasound treatments denatured Pru p 3 up to 60%, being dependent on amplitude and pressure. However, both heat and ultrasound treatments at the most severe conditions applied inhibited less than 10% the IgE-binding of Pru p 3. These results indicate that although heat and ultrasound treatments induce a considerable denaturation of Pru p 3, they are not effective in reducing its allergenicity

Diversity of plant growth-promoting bacteria associated with sugarcane

The sugarcane (Saccharum spp) presents economic importance, mainly for tropical regions, being an important Brazilian commodity. However, this crop is strongly dependent on fertilizers, mainly nitrogen (N). This study assessed the plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) associated with sugarcane that could be used as a potential inoculant to the crop. We evaluated the genetic diversity of PGPB in the plant tissue of sugarcane varieties (RB 867515, RB 1011, and RB 92579). The primer BOX-A1R was used to differentiate the similar isolated and further sequencing 16S rRNA ribosomal gene. The 16S rRNA gene showed the presence of seven different genera distributed into four groups, the genus Bacillus, followed by Paenibacillus (20%), Burkholderia (14%), Herbaspirillum (6%), Pseudomonas (6%), Methylobacterium (6%), and Brevibacillus (3%). The molecular characterization of endophytic isolates from sugarcane revealed a diversity of bacteria colonizing this plant, with a possible biotechnological potential to be used as inoculant and biofertilizers

An innovative optimization approach for energy management of a microgrid system

The local association of electrical generator including renewable energies and storage technologies approximately installed to the client made way for a small-scale power grid called a microgrid. In certain cases, the random nature of renewable energy sources, combined with the variable pattern of demand, results in issues concerning the sustainability and reliability of the microgrid system. Furthermore, the cost of the energy coming from conventional sources is considering as matter to the private consumer due to its high fees. An improved methodology combining the simplex-based linear programming with the particle swarm optimisation approach is employed to implement an integrated power management system. The energy scheduling is done by assuming the consumption profile of a smart city. two scenarios of energy management have been suggested to illustrate the behaviour of cost and gas emissions for an optimised energy management. The results showed the reliability of the energy management system using an improvemed approach in scheduling of the energy flows for the microgrid producers, limiting the utility’s cost versus an experiment that had already been done for a similar system using the identical data. The outcome of the computation identified the ideal set points of the power generators in a smart city supplied by a microgrid, while guaranteeing the comfort of the customers i.e without intermetency in the supply, also, reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases and providing an optimal exploitation cost for all smart city users. Morover, the proposed energy management system gave an inverse relation between economic and environmental aspects, in fact, a multi-objective optimization approach is performed as a continuation of the work proposed in this paperinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Abnormal processing of emotional prosody in Williams syndrome: an event-related potentials study

Williams syndrome (WS), a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder due to a microdeletion in chromosome 7, is described as displaying an intriguing socio-cognitive phenotype. Deficits in prosody production and comprehension have been consistently reported in behavioral studies. It remains, however, to be clarified the neurobiological processes underlying prosody processing in WS. This study aimed at characterizing the electrophysiological response to neutral, happy, and angry prosody in WS, and examining if this response was dependent on the semantic content of the utterance. A group of 12 participants (5 female and 7male), diagnosed with WS, with age range between 9 and 31 years, was compared with a group of typically developing participants, individually matched for chronological age, gender and laterality. After inspection of EEG artifacts, data from 9 participants with WS and 10 controls were included in ERP analyses. Participants were presented with neutral, positive and negative sentences, in two conditions: (1) with intelligible semantic and syntactic information; (2) with unintelligible semantic and syntactic information (‘pure prosody’ condition). They were asked to decide which emotion was underlying the auditory sentence. Atypical event-related potentials (ERP) components were related with prosodic processing (N100, P200, N300) in WS. In particular, reduced N100 was observed for prosody sentences with semantic content; more positive P200 for sentences with semantic content, in particular for happy and angry intonations; and reduced N300 for both types of sentence conditions. These findings suggest abnormalities in early auditory processing, indicating a bottomup contribution to the impairment in emotional prosody processing and comprehension. Also, at least for N100 and P200, they suggest the top-down contributions of semantic processes in the sensory processing of speech. This study showed, for the first time, that abnormalities in ERP measures of early auditory processing in WS are also present during the processing of emotional vocal information. This may represent a physiological signature of underlying impaired on-line language and socio-emotional processing.This work was supported by a Doctoral Grant (SFRH/BD/35882/2007) awarded to APP, as well as by the grant PIC/IC/83290/2007Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Tecnología y desarrollo en la niñez : evidencia del programa Una Laptop por Niño

Aunque muchos países están implementando masivamente el programa Una Laptop por Niño (OLPC, por sus siglas en inglés), hay poca evidencia empírica de sus efectos. En este trabajo se presentan los resultados de la primera evaluación aleatoria a gran escala del programa mencionado, utilizando datos recolectados tras 15 meses de implementación en 319 escuelas primarias de zonas rurales de Perú. Los resultados indican que el programa aumentó el número de computadoras por estudiante de 0,12 a 1,18 en las escuelas beneficiarias. Esta expansión en el acceso se tradujo en un aumento considerable del uso de las computadoras tanto en la escuela como en el hogar. No se encontró evidencia de efectos sobre la matrícula ni el rendimiento académico en matemática y lenguaje. Sin embargo, sí se hallaron algunos efectos positivos en habilidades cognitivas generales, medidas con las Matrices Progresivas de Raven, con un test de fluidez verbal y con una prueba de códigos

Las nuevas formas de turismo receptivo en Uruguay. Estudio de caso de las estadías por estudios de maestría y doctorado (2005-2010)

O turismo no Uruguai se tornou, na primeira década do século XXI, uma importante atividade econômica geradora de divisas devido ao aumento do turismo receptor internacional, que escolhe este referido país do Cone Sul como receptivo. As formas adotadas por este turismo receptor internacional se enquadram nas tradicionais de sol e mar e turismo termal – turismo recreativo – e também outras formas, dentre elas, a estada de estudos. Este artigo analisa esta última, tomando como foco o caso de estadas de estudos de pós-graduação – mestrado e doutorado – realizadas por estudantes brasileiros. O enfoque metodológico é quantitativo, ao qual foi aplicada uma análise descritiva estatística, acompanhada de interpretações provenientes da temática do campo teórico do turismo. Estas interpretações apresentaram como resultado um significativo aumento no receptivo entre os anos de 2005 a 2010, vislumbrando que seguirão esta tônica, tendo com isso um aumento no gasto médio dos estudantes de pós-graduação durante suas estadas

Box counting dimension of red blood cells samples when filtered with wavelet transform

Automatic recognizing of different populations of several millions of red blood cells (RBCs) is a useful tool in Hematology and Clinical Diagnosis. In this work we studied samples of several millions of RBCs: on one hand healthy control RBCs and on the other hand control RBCs incubated with Trichinella spiralis larval parasites. The alteration on the cells membrane with the parasite can be studied with box-counting dimension on both samples. Previously we applied wavelet transform to all the samples in order to improve the results. The procedure to remove noise from an image is based on the decomposition of the observed signal in a set of wavelets and taking threshold values to select the appropriate coefficients through which the signal can be reconstructed. In our work we compared the results obtained when analyzing the raw signals and the ones obtained after applying wavelet transform, and the results were different and more clearly characterized when the signal were treated with wavelet transform. Finally, the present method using wavelet transform is suitable to optimize the characterization of the RBCs damage when incubated with the larval parasites.Publicado en: Mecánica Computacional vol. XXXV, no. 43Facultad de Ingenierí