Molecular Signatures of Sexual Communication in the Phlebotomine Sand Flies

Phlebotomine sand flies employ an elaborate system of pheromone communication wherein males produce pheromones that attract other males to leks (thus acting as an aggregation pheromone) and females to the lekking males (sex pheromone). In addition, the type of pheromone produced varies among populations. Despite the numerous studies on sand fly chemical communication, little is known of their chemosensory genome. Chemoreceptors interact with chemicals in an organism’s environment to elicit essential behaviors such as the identification of suitable mates and food sources. Thus, they play important roles during adaptation and speciation. Major chemoreceptor gene families, odorant receptors (ORs), gustatory receptors (GRs) and ionotropic receptors (IRs) together detect and discriminate the chemical landscape. Here, we annotated the chemoreceptor repertoire in the genomes of Lutzomyia longipalpis and Phlebotomus papatasi, major phlebotomine vectors in the New World and Old World, respectively. Comparison with other sequenced Diptera revealed a large and unique expansion where over 80% of the ~140 ORs belong to a single, taxonomically restricted clade. We next conducted a comprehensive analysis of the chemoreceptors in 63 L. longipalpis individuals from four different locations in Brazil representing allopatric and sympatric populations and three sex-aggregation pheromone types (chemotypes). Population structure based on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and gene copy number in the chemoreceptors corresponded with their putative chemotypes, and corroborate previous studies that identified multiple populations. Our work provides genomic insights into the underlying behavioral evolution of sexual communication in the L. longipalpis species complex in Brazil, and highlights the importance of accounting for the ongoing speciation in central and South American Lutzomyia that could have important implications for vectorial capacity

The Lutzomyia longipalpis complex:a brief natural history of aggregation-sex pheromone communication

In this paper we review the natural history of pheromone communication and the current diversity of aggregation-sex pheromones in the sand fly Lutzomyia longipalpis. This species complex is the main vector of Leishmania infantum, the agent of visceral leishmaniasis in the Americas. The identification of variation in pheromone chemotypes combined with molecular and sound analyses have all contributed to our understanding of the extent of divergence among cryptic members of this complex. The importance of chemical signals as pre-mating barriers and drivers of speciation is discussed. Moreover, the importance of aggregation-sex pheromones as sexually selected signals is highlighted with evidence from the literature suggesting their potential role in species and mate recognition as well as mate assessment. The distinct evolutionary forces possibly involved are briefly reviewed and discussed in the context of this intriguing insect

A reconstructed discontinuous Galerkin method based on a Hierarchical WENO reconstruction for compressible flows on tetrahedral grids

A reconstructed discontinuous Galerkin (RDG) method based on a hierarchical WENO reconstruction, termed HWENO (P1P2) in this paper, designed not only to enhance the accuracy of discontinuous Galerkin methods but also to ensure the nonlinear stability of the RDG method, is presented for solving the compressible Euler equations on tetrahedral grids. In this HWENO (P1P2) method, a quadratic polynomial solution (P-2) is first reconstructed using a Hermite WENO reconstruction from the underlying linear polynomial (P-1) discontinuous Galerkin solution to ensure the linear stability of the RDG method and to improve the efficiency of the underlying DG method. By taking advantage of handily available and yet invaluable information, namely the derivatives in the DG formulation, the stencils used in the reconstruction involve only von Neumann neighborhood (adjacent face-neighboring cells) and thus are compact. The first derivatives of the quadratic polynomial solution are then reconstructed using a WENO reconstruction in order to eliminate spurious oscillations in the vicinity of strong discontinuities, thus ensuring the nonlinear stability of the RDG method. The developed HWENO (P1P2) method is used to compute a variety of flow problems on tetrahedral meshes to demonstrate its accuracy, robustness, and non-oscillatory property. The numerical experiments indicate that the HWENO (P1P2) method is able to capture shock waves within one cell without any spurious oscillations, and achieve the designed third-order of accuracy: one order accuracy higher than the underlying DG method

SJUKSKÖTERSKAN OCH DEN VÅLDTAGNA KVINNANS UPPLEVELSER AV ATT MÖTA VARANDRA UNDER VÅRDFÖRLOPPET

Bakgrund: Det förekommer fler offer av kvinnor som utsätts för våld än vad det gör vid exempelvis trafikolyckor och malaria tillsammans. Sexuellt våld mot kvinnor är idag ett stort folkhälsoproblem. Sålunda måste allmänsjuksköterskan bemöta den våldtagna kvinnan med värdighet och agerar professionellt när svåra situationer uppkommer, eftersom ett bemötande med god omvårdnad speglar kvinnans framtida agerande och bearbetning av problemet. Syfte: Syftet med litteraturstudien var att beskriva sjuksköterskors upplevelser av att möta våldtagna kvinnor samt att beskriva kvinnors upplevelser av att möta sjuksköterskor i vårdförloppet. Metod: En litteraturstudie där tio vetenskapliga artiklar granskades och analyserades. Sju av artiklarna var kvalitativa och tre var kvantitativa. Resultat: Två huvudkategorier påträffades; ur sjuksköterskans perspektiv samt ur den våldtagna kvinnans perspektiv. Resultatet visade att allmänsjuksköterskan led av kunskapsbrist, led av känslomässiga påverkan p.g.a. möten med kvinnor som blivit våldtagna, hade svårigheter med att hantera svåra situationer som exempelvis bemötandet samt att det fanns ett behov av stöd. Resultatet visade även att den våldtagna kvinnan led av olika känslomässiga påverkan av mötet, upplevde faktorer som bidrog till en bra relation vid bemötandet av sjuksköterskan som exempelvis tillräcklig information samt faktorer som bidrog till en sämre relation som exempelvis ingen medkänsla av sjuksköterskan. Konklusion: Sjuksköterskor behöver mer kunskap om problemet samt stöd för att lära sig hantera upplevelser och känslor. Författarna har under arbetets gång förstått att mer forskning behövs om problemområdet.Background: There are more victims of sexual assaulted women than for example, traffic accidents and malaria combined. Sexual violence against women is currently a major public health problem. Thus, the nurse should treat the raped woman with dignity and act professionally when difficult situations arise, because good treatment with good nursing care reflects the woman's future conduct and adaptation of the problem. Aim: The purpose of this study was to describe nurses' experiences of meeting raped women and to describe women's experiences of meeting nurses during the care process. Methods: A literature review where ten scientific articles were reviewed and analyzed. Seven of the articles were qualitative and three were quantitative. Results: Two main categories were found: the nurses’ perspective and the raped women’s perspective. The result showed that nurses suffered from a lack of knowledge and emotional impact due to meetings with women who have been raped. They had difficulties in dealing with difficult situations such as the meeting and that there was a need for support. Results also showed that the raped woman suffered from various emotional impact of the meeting, experienced factors that contributed to a good relationship with the nurse, such as adequate information as well as factors that contributed to a weaker relationship such as no feeling of compassion from the nurse. Conclusion: Nurses need more knowledge about the problem and support to learn to deal with experiences and feelings. The authors have during the work understood that more research is needed on the problem area

Molecular signatures of sexual communication in the phlebotomine sand flies.

Phlebotomine sand flies employ an elaborate system of pheromone communication wherein males produce pheromones that attract other males to leks (thus acting as an aggregation pheromone) and females to the lekking males (sex pheromone). In addition, the type of pheromone produced varies among populations. Despite the numerous studies on sand fly chemical communication, little is known of their chemosensory genome. Chemoreceptors interact with chemicals in an organism's environment to elicit essential behaviors such as the identification of suitable mates and food sources. Thus, they play important roles during adaptation and speciation. Major chemoreceptor gene families, odorant receptors (ORs), gustatory receptors (GRs) and ionotropic receptors (IRs) together detect and discriminate the chemical landscape. Here, we annotated the chemoreceptor repertoire in the genomes of Lutzomyia longipalpis and Phlebotomus papatasi, major phlebotomine vectors in the New World and Old World, respectively. Comparison with other sequenced Diptera revealed a large and unique expansion where over 80% of the ~140 ORs belong to a single, taxonomically restricted clade. We next conducted a comprehensive analysis of the chemoreceptors in 63 L. longipalpis individuals from four different locations in Brazil representing allopatric and sympatric populations and three sex-aggregation pheromone types (chemotypes). Population structure based on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and gene copy number in the chemoreceptors corresponded with their putative chemotypes, and corroborate previous studies that identified multiple populations. Our work provides genomic insights into the underlying behavioral evolution of sexual communication in the L. longipalpis species complex in Brazil, and highlights the importance of accounting for the ongoing speciation in central and South American Lutzomyia that could have important implications for vectorial capacity

Avaliação de saberes sobre célula apresentados por alunos ingressantes em cursos superiores da área biomédica

Submitted by Sandra Infurna ([email protected]) on 2016-09-08T16:59:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 julio_barbosa_etal_IOC_2012.pdf: 199475 bytes, checksum: 893e043c1e1d1ed267dc8c3d2bddbd61 (MD5)Approved for entry into archive by Sandra Infurna ([email protected]) on 2016-09-08T17:14:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 julio_barbosa_etal_IOC_2012.pdf: 199475 bytes, checksum: 893e043c1e1d1ed267dc8c3d2bddbd61 (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-08T17:14:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 julio_barbosa_etal_IOC_2012.pdf: 199475 bytes, checksum: 893e043c1e1d1ed267dc8c3d2bddbd61 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012Universidade Gama Filho. Núcleo de Disciplinas de Ciências Biomédicas. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.Universidade Gama Filho. Núcleo de Disciplinas de Ciências Biomédicas. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.CNEN. IEN. Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil / Universidade Gama Filho. Ciências da Computação. Laboratório de Computação Avançada. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.Universidade Federal Fluminense. Instituto de Biologia. Departamento de Biologia Celular e Molecular. Niterói, RJ, Brasil / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. Laboratório de Avaliação em Ensino e Filosofia das Biociências - LAEFIB. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. Laboratório de Educação em Ambiente e Saúde. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.Universidade Federal Fluminense. Instituto de Biologia. Departamento de Biologia Celular e Molecular. Niterói, RJ, Brasil / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. Laboratório de Inovações em Terapias, Ensino e Bioprodutos, LITEB. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.Neste trabalho objetivamos avaliar a qualidade de saberes referentes à área de biologia celular apresentados por 235 alunos ingressantes em uma Universidade pública federal situada no Estado do Rio de Janeiro bem como investigar alguns aspectos referentes aos recursos pedagógicos acessíveis aos alunos durante o ensino médio. Para tal, questionários foram aplicados no primeiro dia de aula. Os resultados revelam que um terço do total dos entrevistados demonstraram compreender a célula como unidade morfofisiológica dos seres vivos. Conceitos corretos sobre célula foram apresentados de forma simplista. Identificamos a limitação dos alunos para definir termos mais complexos da biologia celular. Referente aos recursos pedagógicos utilizados no ensino médio, os resultados mostram que: a metade dos alunos entrevistados nunca havia utilizado microscópio; o livro didático foi apontado como principal instrumento pedagógico; ausência quase completa de aulas práticas; utilização expressiva da mídia impressa para leitura de notícias científicas. Concluímos que os alunos ingressantes avaliados nessa pesquisa, em sua maioria, não apresentaram saberes prévios bem sedimentados na área de Biologia Celular e que o ensino tradicional persiste nas escolas do ensino médio.This work aimed to assess cell biology knowledge among 235 entering undergraduate students in a federal public university in Rio de Janeiro State and also investigated some aspects related to pedagogical resources to which these students had access during high school. Questionnaires were applied on the first school day. Only a third of the total students demonstrated to comprehend cell as a morphophysiological unity of the living beings. Even correct concepts were presented in a simplistic way, pointing to the need to reconstruct prior meanings. It was also identified limited knowledge when students were asked to define more complex terms related to cell biology. About pedagogical resources that were used in high school, the following results are highlighted: half of the evaluated students had never used a microscope; didactic book was the main pedagogical instrument; lack of practical lessons; use of printed press to read scientific news, especially high circulation newspapers and magazines. The conclusion of this work reveal that most of the students lack the basic knowledge about cell and the traditional teaching persists in the high schools