Enhancement of Brassica napus Tolerance to High Saline Conditions by Seed Priming.

Plants grown in saline soils undergo osmotic and oxidative stresses, affecting growth and photosynthesis and, consequently, the yield. Therefore, the increase in soil salinity is a major threat to crop productivity worldwide. Plant’s tolerance can be ameliorated by applying simple methods that induce them to adopt morphological and physiological adjustments to counteract stress. In this work, we evaluated the effects of seed priming on salt stress response in three cultivars of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) that had different tolerance levels. Seed chemical priming was performed with 2.5 mM spermine (SPM), 5 mM spermidine (SPD), 40 mM NaCl and 2.5 mM Ca (NO3 )2 . Primed and not primed seeds were sown on saline and not saline (controls) media, and morphological and physiological parameters were determined. Since SPD treatment was effective in reducing salinity negative effects on growth, membrane integrity and photosynthetic pigments, we selected this priming to further investigate plant salt stress response. The positive effects of this seed treatment on growth and physiological responses were evident when primed plants were compared to not primed ones, grown under the same saline conditions. SPD priming ameliorated the tolerance towards saline stress, in a genotype-independent manner, by increasing photosynthetic pigments, proline amounts and antioxidant responses in all cultivars exposed to salt. These results may open new perspectives for crop productivity in the struggle against soil salinization

Is there a potential of misuse for venlafaxine and bupropion?

© 2018 Schifano and Chiappini. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Objective: Traditionally, studies on the nonmedical use of pharmaceutical products have focused on controlled substances; e.g. opiates/opioids; and benzodiazepines. Although both bupropion and venlafaxine have been reported as being misused, only anecdotal reports have been made available so far. Hence, the European Monitoring Agency (EMA) Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs), misuse/abuse/dependence and withdrawal, venlafaxine- and bupropion-related, database was here analyzed. Methods: All EMA spontaneous reports relating to venlafaxine (2005-2016) and bupropion (2003-2016) notifications were here analyzed, to provide a descriptive analysis by source, gender, age, and type of report. The UK-based, 2000-2016, Yellow Card Scheme pharmacovigilance database, bupropion and venlafaxine withdrawal reports were compared as well with those pertaining to fluoxetine and paroxetine. Results: Out of 20,720 (bupropion) and 47,516 (venlafaxine) total number of ADRs, some 2,232 (10.8%), and 4,071 (8.5%) misuse/abuse/dependence ADRs were respectively associated with bupropion and venlafaxine. Conversely, bupropion withdrawal-related ADRs were here reported in 299/20,720 (1.44%) cases and in 914/47,516 (1.92%) cases for venlafaxine. Overall, all bupropion and venlafaxine misuse-/abuse-/dependence- and withdrawal-ADRs were related to a respective number of 264 and 447 patients. According to the Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) computation, in comparison with venlafaxine bupropion resulted to be more frequently misused/abused (PRR: 1.50), but less frequently associated with both dependence (PRR: 0.92) and withdrawal (PRR: 0.77) issues. Yellow Card Scheme data suggested that paroxetine and venlafaxine, in comparison with fluoxetine and bupropion, were associated with higher number of withdrawal-related reports. Conclusions: The dopaminergic, stimulant-like, bupropion activities may be associated with its possible recreational value. Present data may confirm that the occurrence of a withdrawal syndrome may be a significant issue for venlafaxine-treated patients.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

En busca del tiempo elástico : Una lectura de El Perseguidor de Julio Cortázar

El cuento largo (o novela corta) El Perseguidor de Julio Cortazar, publicado en 1959 en el volumen titulado Las armas secretas, está inspirado en la vida del músico de jazz Charlie Parker, muerto a los 35 años, y es la historia del saxofonista Johnny Carter (JC), contada por el autor de su biografía. Es considerado por la crítica, y por el mismo autor, como “la pequeña Rayuela” (su novela más famosa). Este trabajo propone una interpretación de la obra basada en la atribución de significado temático a diversos elementos literarios de la obra, y consiste en el estudio de la caracterización de los personajes, de la sintaxis actancial y de artificios de orden técnico-formal como metáforas e imágenes simbólicas. Consideramos El Perseguidor una novela existencial cuya edificación temática gira alrededor del concepto de la inquietud existencial humana, del ansia y de la urgencia metafísica, e innata, del ser humano, de posesión de la realidad y su deseo de alcanzar la intemporalidad. Nuestro análisis se sirve del concepto greimasiano de isotopía y se ha concentrado en la recurrencia, a lo largo del texto, de categorías sémicas abstractas o figurativas y en su definición como variaciones de la misma isotopía temática, la (meta)isotopía del tiempo en su vertiente de dicotomía entre tiempo cronológico y tiempo experimentado como no lineal; del contraste entre tiempo “rígido” y tiempo “elástico”

Corpus construction and social media analysis about immigration in Chile

Treball fi de màster de: Master's Degree in Data Science: Master Program in Data Science for Decision Making. Curs 2021-2022Tutors: Jesús Cerquides; Hannes MuellerThis thesis presents a general-purpose corpus construction methodology with Twitter data for a given political topic in a given country. It applies the methodology to immigration in Chile from November 2021 to April 2022, resulting in a corpus with 573,999 tweets. Our results indicate increasing antiimmigration views from Chilean Twitter users. Right-leaning users are more active and more anti-immigration. Left-leaning users are mostly concerned with xenophobia and racism. Utilizing network analysis methods, we find that right-leaning users are also more influential and interconnected. The results are consistent with previous studies and the methodology is robust to other political topics such as feminism.Esta tesis presenta una metodología de construcción de corpus con datos de Twitter para un tema político dado en un país dado. Aplicamos la metodología al tema de inmigración en Chile desde noviembre de 2021 hasta abril de 2022, resultando en un corpus con 573.999 tuits. Nuestros resultados indican un aumento de las opiniones contra la inmigración de los usuarios chilenos de Twitter. Los usuarios de derecha son más activos y antinmigración. Los usuarios de tendencia izquierdista se preocupan principalmente por la xenofobia y el racismo. Utilizando métodos de análisis de red, encontramos que los usuarios de derecha también son más influyentes e interconectados. Los resultados son consistentes con estudios previos y la metodología fue testeada para otros temas políticos de interés como el feminismo

Amelioration of salt stress tolerance in rapeseed (Brassica napus ) cultivars by seed inoculation with Arthrobacter globiformis.

Salt stress represents one of the most problematic abiotic stress affecting plants worldwide. In saline soils, plants try to counteract the consequences of salt stress by physiological changes, leading to the decreasing of both osmotic and oxidative stresses. Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) can ameliorate plant stress response by several mechanisms. In this work, we focused on the effects of halotolerant strain Arthrobacter globiformis on salt stress response in Brassica napus. The strain was inoculated on seeds of three rapeseed cultivars with different levels of salt tolerance; seed germination and following first phases of development were examined in plants exposed to high salinity. Compared to not inoculated plants under the same saline conditions, the inoculated showed a better stress response in the seedling phase. Moreover, a significant increase in phenolic compounds, as well as in Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) and Superoxide dismutase (SOD) enzymatic activities were observed in inoculated plants; the concentration of the osmolyte proline was also significantly enhanced in comparison to the not inoculated ones. A. globiformis was proved to be a promising PGPB strain and it can be a tool to counteract salt stress in quite an effective manner, even at high saline conditions

Enhancement of Brassica napus Tolerance to High Saline Conditions by Seed Priming

Plants grown in saline soils undergo osmotic and oxidative stresses, affecting growth and photosynthesis and, consequently, the yield. Therefore, the increase in soil salinity is a major threat to crop productivity worldwide. Plant’s tolerance can be ameliorated by applying simple methods that induce them to adopt morphological and physiological adjustments to counteract stress. In this work, we evaluated the effects of seed priming on salt stress response in three cultivars of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) that had different tolerance levels. Seed chemical priming was performed with 2.5 mM spermine (SPM), 5 mM spermidine (SPD), 40 mM NaCl and 2.5 mM Ca (NO3)2. Primed and not primed seeds were sown on saline and not saline (controls) media, and morphological and physiological parameters were determined. Since SPD treatment was effective in reducing salinity negative effects on growth, membrane integrity and photosynthetic pigments, we selected this priming to further investigate plant salt stress response. The positive effects of this seed treatment on growth and physiological responses were evident when primed plants were compared to not primed ones, grown under the same saline conditions. SPD priming ameliorated the tolerance towards saline stress, in a genotype-independent manner, by increasing photosynthetic pigments, proline amounts and antioxidant responses in all cultivars exposed to salt. These results may open new perspectives for crop productivity in the struggle against soil salinization