Estudos químicos, biológicos e ecotoxicológicos de Schinus terebinthifolia Raddi para o controle de Aedes aegypti

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências da Saúde, 2020.Aedes aegypti é o principal vetor transmissor de arboviroses como dengue, Zika e chikungunya. As estratégias de combate a este vetor são limitadas por resistência múltipla a inseticidas, impactos deletérios ao ambiente e toxicidade em organismos não-alvo. Na busca de alternativas para o combate do Ae. aegypti, o potencial de componentes da espécie de planta Schinus terebinthifolia foi estudado. Análises quimiométricas demonstraram que o perfil metabólico de amostras ativas é claramente diferente da composição metabólica de amostras inativas no mosquito. Adicionalmente, estas análises aceleraram o processo de purificação bioguiada, que resultou no isolamento do alquilresorcinol conhecido como bilobol, que demonstrou potente atividade larvicida em Ae. aegypti (CL50 7,67 mg/L em menos de 24 h). Para assegurar que o bilobol é um candidato viável como larvicida ecologicamente seguro, o processo de degradação e a toxicidade aguda deste alquilresorcinol em peixe-zebra, um organismo não-alvo, foram explorados. Um método de quantificação com parâmetros validados foi desenvolvido e utilizado para avaliar a degradação de bilobol em água ao longo de tempo. O teste Fish Embryo Toxicity (FET) foi aplicado para avaliar a toxicidade aguda de bilobol e seus produtos de degradação. Os resultados demonstraram que o bilobol degrada gradualmente com o passar do tempo e desaparece quase totalmente após 96 h, transformando-se em pequenas cadeias alifáticas. Quando submetido ao teste FET, bilobol apresentou CL50 6,00 mg/L em 96 horas pós-fertilização (hpf). Após 24 e 96 horas de degradação (hod), CL50 diminuiu para 18,88 e > 40 mg/L, respectivamente. Estes resultados indicaram que os produtos de degradação são menos tóxicos que o bilobol em sua forma fundamental. Portanto, foi possível concluir que o bilobol não apresenta toxicidade significativa para embriões de peixe-zebra, e nem mostra sinais de persistência no ambiente. Adicionalmente, o bilobol pode ser encontrado em grandes quantidades não só em S. terebinthifolia, mas também no resíduo industrial da castanha de caju. Sendo assim, o bilobol é uma alternativa de larvicida ecologicamente sustentável, já que não é persistente, tem indicação de baixa toxicidade em organismos não-alvo e representa uma forma de aproveitar enormes quantidade de material descartado pela indústria alimentícia.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).Aedes aegypti is the main transmitting vector of arboviruses such as chikungunya, Zika and dengue. The current vector control strategies are limited due to multiple insecticide resistance, deleterious impacts on the environment, and toxicity to non-target organisms. In the search of new alternatives for Ae. aegypti combat, the potential of components from the plant species Schinus terebinthifolia was studied. Chemometric analyses demonstrated that the metabolic profile of active samples clearly differentiated from the metabolic composition of inactive samples in Ae. aegypti. Furthermore, these analyses helped speed the bioguided purification process that resulted in isolation an alkylresorcinol known as bilobol. Bilobol demonstrated potent larvicidal activity against Ae. aegypti (LC50 7.67 mg/L in less than 24 h). To ensure that bilobol is a viable alternative as an eco-friendly larvicide, the degradation process and acute toxicity of this alkylresorcinol in zebrafish, a non-target organism, were explored. A quantification method with validated parameters was developed and used to evaluate bilobol degradation in water over time. The Fish Embryo Toxicity (FET) test was applied to evaluate the acute toxicity of bilobol along with its degradation derivates. Results demonstrated that bilobol gradually degrades over time and almost completely disappears after 96 h, turning into small aliphatic chains. When submitted to the FET test, bilobol presented LC50 6.00 mg/L at 96 hpf. After 24 and 96 h of degradation, LC50 dropped to 18.88 and > 40 mg/L, respectively. These results indicated that the degradation derivates are less toxic than bilobol in its fundamental form. Therefore, it was possible to conclude that bilobol does not present significant toxicity to zebrafish embryos nor does it show signs of persistence in the environment. Additionally, bilobol can be found in high quantities not only in S. terebinthifolia, but also in cashew nut industry waste. Thus, bilobol constitutes an alternative environmentally friendly larvicide since it is not persistent, has indications of low toxicity to non- target organisms and presents a way to seize massive quantities of material discarded by the food industry

Investigação da atividade de extratos de Schinus terebinthifolia em larvas de Aedes aegypti

Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (graduação)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde, Departamento em Farmácia, 2017.Aedes aegypti é o principal vetor transmissor de arboviroses como dengue, Zika, chikungunya e febre amarela, doenças que tem sido motivo de grande preocupação em inúmeros países. Apesar dos avanços no desenvolvimento de vacinas, apenas a imunização contra febre amarela está disponível, tornando o combate ao vetor a principal arma no controle da transmissão de arboviroses. Além disso, a resistência aos inseticidas mais utilizados, assim como seus efeitos deletérios ao ambiente, fazem necessária a busca por agentes alternativos para auxiliar no controle do vetor. Sendo assim, o objetivo deste estudo foi investigar a atividade de extratos de Schinus terebinthifolia em larvas de Aedes aegypti. Essa pesquisa esta inserida dentro do Componente 1 do projeto ArboControl – pesquisa para o controle do vetor Aedes aegypti, no âmbito da investigação larvicida do Banco de Extratos de Plantas do Bioma Cerrado do Laboratório de Farmacognosia/FS/UnB. Foram testados 12 diferentes extratos de S. terebinthifolia, dos quais sete apresentaram mortalidade acumulada superior a 90% das larvas testadas. A atividade larvicida se concentrou nos extratos de baixa a média polaridade. Quatro destes extratos foram préfracionados em SPE-Diol, e as frações resultantes foram testadas em larvas do 3° estádio. As frações ativas foram analisadas por RMN 1H, e revelaram a presença predominante de ácidos graxos insaturados. Essa observação preliminar do perfil químico sugere possível atividade larvicida de ácidos graxos insaturados presentes em extratos de Schinus terebinthifolia. Estes extratos terão sua atividade investigada mais afundo e, com continuidade do fracionamento, objetivando a identificação e isolamento das substâncias larvicidas.Aedes aegypti is the main vector of arboviruses such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever, diseases that are cause of great concern worldwide. Despite advances in vaccine development, only immunization against yellow fever is currently available, making vector control the main weapon in controlling arboviruses transmission. In addition, resistance to the most frequently used insecticides, as well as their deleterious effects on the environment, make it necessary to search for alternative agents to aid in vector control. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the activity of extracts of Schinus terebinthifolia in Aedes aegypti larvae. This research is part of Component 1 of the ArboControl project - search for control of the vector Aedes aegypti, in the scope of larvicidal investigation of the Bank of Plant Extracts of the Cerrado Biome from Laboratório de Farmacognosia/FS/UnB. Twelve different S. terebinthifolia extracts were tested, of which seven presented cumulative larvae mortality higher than 90%. The larvicidal activity was concentrated in the extracts of low to medium polarity. Four of these extracts were pre-fractionated in SPE-Diol. The most active fractions in this assay were subjected to 1H NMR analysis, which revealed predominant presence of unsaturated fatty acids in all samples. Therefore, it was possible to suggest that the larvicidal activity found in extracts of Schinus terebinthifolia is related to the presence of unsaturated fatty acids. All extracts will have their activity further investigated and fractionated in the follow-up of this project, aiming at the identification and isolation of larvicidal compounds

Open video data sharing in developmental and behavioural science

Video recording is a widely used method for documenting infant and child behaviours in research and clinical practice. Video data has rarely been shared due to ethical concerns of confidentiality, although the need of shared large-scaled datasets remains increasing. This demand is even more imperative when data-driven computer-based approaches are involved, such as screening tools to complement clinical assessments. To share data while abiding by privacy protection rules, a critical question arises whether efforts at data de-identification reduce data utility? We addressed this question by showcasing the Prechtl's general movements assessment (GMA), an established and globally practised video-based diagnostic tool in early infancy for detecting neurological deficits, such as cerebral palsy. To date, no shared expert-annotated large data repositories for infant movement analyses exist. Such datasets would massively benefit training and recalibration of human assessors and the development of computer-based approaches. In the current study, sequences from a prospective longitudinal infant cohort with a total of 19451 available general movements video snippets were randomly selected for human clinical reasoning and computer-based analysis. We demonstrated for the first time that pseudonymisation by face-blurring video recordings is a viable approach. The video redaction did not affect classification accuracy for either human assessors or computer vision methods, suggesting an adequate and easy-to-apply solution for sharing movement video data. We call for further explorations into efficient and privacy rule-conforming approaches for deidentifying video data in scientific and clinical fields beyond movement assessments. These approaches shall enable sharing and merging stand-alone video datasets into large data pools to advance science and public health

SiDroForest: a comprehensive forest inventory of Siberian boreal forest investigations including drone-based point clouds, individually labeled trees, synthetically generated tree crowns, and Sentinel-2 labeled image patches

The SiDroForest (Siberian drone-mapped forest inventory) data collection is an attempt to remedy the scarcity of forest structure data in the circumboreal region by providing adjusted and labeled tree-level and vegetation plot-level data for machine learning and upscaling purposes. We present datasets of vegetation composition and tree and plot level forest structure for two important vegetation transition zones in Siberia, Russia; the summergreen–evergreen transition zone in Central Yakutia and the tundra–taiga transition zone in Chukotka (NE Siberia). The SiDroForest data collection consists of four datasets that contain different complementary data types that together support in-depth analyses from different perspectives of Siberian Forest plot data for multi-purpose applications. i. Dataset 1 provides unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-borne data products covering the vegetation plots surveyed during fieldwork (Kruse et al., 2021, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.933263). The dataset includes structure-from-motion (SfM) point clouds and red–green–blue (RGB) and red–green–near-infrared (RGN) orthomosaics. From the orthomosaics, point-cloud products were created such as the digital elevation model (DEM), canopy height model (CHM), digital surface model (DSM) and the digital terrain model (DTM). The point-cloud products provide information on the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the forest at each plot.ii. Dataset 2 contains spatial data in the form of point and polygon shapefiles of 872 individually labeled trees and shrubs that were recorded during fieldwork at the same vegetation plots (van Geffen et al., 2021c, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.932821). The dataset contains information on tree height, crown diameter, and species type. These tree and shrub individually labeled point and polygon shapefiles were generated on top of the RGB UVA orthoimages. The individual tree information collected during the expedition such as tree height, crown diameter, and vitality are provided in table format. This dataset can be used to link individual information on trees to the location of the specific tree in the SfM point clouds, providing for example, opportunity to validate the extracted tree height from the first dataset. The dataset provides unique insights into the current state of individual trees and shrubs and allows for monitoring the effects of climate change on these individuals in the future.iii. Dataset 3 contains a synthesis of 10 000 generated images and masks that have the tree crowns of two species of larch (Larix gmelinii and Larix cajanderi) automatically extracted from the RGB UAV images in the common objects in context (COCO) format (van Geffen et al., 2021a, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.932795). As machine-learning algorithms need a large dataset to train on, the synthetic dataset was specifically created to be used for machine-learning algorithms to detect Siberian larch species.iv. Dataset 4 contains Sentinel-2 (S-2) Level-2 bottom-of-atmosphere processed labeled image patches with seasonal information and annotated vegetation categories covering the vegetation plots (van Geffen et al., 2021b, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.933268). The dataset is created with the aim of providing a small ready-to-use validation and training dataset to be used in various vegetation-related machine-learning tasks. It enhances the data collection as it allows classification of a larger area with the provided vegetation classes. The SiDroForest data collection serves a variety of user communities. The detailed vegetation cover and structure information in the first two datasets are of use for ecological applications, on one hand for summergreen and evergreen needle-leaf forests and also for tundra–taiga ecotones. Datasets 1 and 2 further support the generation and validation of land cover remote-sensing products in radar and optical remote sensing. In addition to providing information on forest structure and vegetation composition of the vegetation plots, the third and fourth datasets are prepared as training and validation data for machine-learning purposes. For example, the synthetic tree-crown dataset is generated from the raw UAV images and optimized to be used in neural networks. Furthermore, the fourth SiDroForest dataset contains S-2 labeled image patches processed to a high standard that provide training data on vegetation class categories for machine-learning classification with JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) labels provided. The SiDroForest data collection adds unique insights into remote hard-to-reach circumboreal forest regions.</p

Larix species range dynamics in Siberia since the Last Glacial captured from sedimentary ancient DNA

Climate change is expected to cause major shifts in boreal forests which are in vast areas of Siberia dominated by two species of the deciduous needle tree larch (Larix). The species differ markedly in their ecosystem functions, thus shifts in their respective ranges are of global relevance. However, drivers of species distribution are not well understood, in part because paleoecological data at species level are lacking. This study tracks Larix species distribution in time and space using target enrichment on sedimentary ancient DNA extracts from eight lakes across Siberia. We discovered that Larix sibirica, presently dominating in western Siberia, likely migrated to its northern distribution area only in the Holocene at around 10,000 years before present (ka BP), and had a much wider eastern distribution around 33 ka BP. Samples dated to the Last Glacial Maximum (around 21 ka BP), consistently show genotypes of L. gmelinii. Our results suggest climate as a strong determinant of species distribution in Larix and provide temporal and spatial data for species projection in a changing climate

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Search for direct stau production in events with two hadronic tau-leptons in root s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of the supersymmetric partners ofτ-leptons (staus) in final stateswith two hadronically decayingτ-leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of139fb−1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LargeHadron Collider at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant deviation from the expected StandardModel background is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of direct production of stau pairs with eachstau decaying into the stable lightest neutralino and oneτ-lepton in simplified models where the two staumass eigenstates are degenerate. Stau masses from 120 GeV to 390 GeV are excluded at 95% confidencelevel for a massless lightest neutralino

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV

Landscape homogenization due to agricultural intensification disrupts the relationship between reproductive success and main prey abundance in an avian predator

Selecting high-quality habitat and the optimal time to reproduce can increase individual fitness and is a strong evolutionary factor shaping animal populations. However, few studies have investigated the interplay between land cover heterogeneity, limitation in food resources, individual quality and spatial variation in fitness parameters. Here, we explore how individuals of different quality respond to possible mismatches between a cue for prey availability (land cover heterogeneity) and the actual fluctuating prey abundance.Peer reviewe