Respiratory outcomes and atopy in school-age children who were preterm at birth, with and without bronchopulmonary dysplasia

OBJECTIVE: To assess pulmonary function and the prevalence of atopy in school-age children who were very low birth weight as infants and to compare those who had bronchopulmonary dysplasia to those who did not. METHOD: We studied 85 (39 male and 46 female) at a mean age of 84 (range, 62 to 107) months who were very low birth weight infants. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia was defined as oxygen dependency at 36 weeks gestational age. We excluded 8 patients (4 for cerebral palsy and 4 for no collaboration). Detailed perinatal and clinical data were collected. Lung function was evaluated using conventional spirometry. Atopy (assessed by the allergy skin-prick test) was considered when at least one positive skin test occurred in a panel of the most common environmental allergens in the local region. Comparisons between the bronchopulmonary dysplasia and no bronchopulmonary dysplasia groups were performed using the Mann-Whitney, x2 and Fisher's exact tests. RESULTS: We compared the bronchopulmonary dysplasia (n = 13) and no bronchopulmonary dysplasia (n = 64) groups. Atopy was observed in 4 (30.8%) of the bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients and in 17 (26.6%) of the no bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients (p = 0.742). Two (15.4%) patients with bronchopulmonary dysplasia had a family history of atopy vs. 17 (26.6%) in the no bronchopulmonary dysplasia group (p = 0.5). Lung function tests showed airway obstruction in 2 (15.4%) of the bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients and in 10 (15.6%) of the no bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients (p = 1.0). Four (33.3%) of the bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients had small airway obstruction vs. 14 (22.2%) of the no bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients (p = 0.466). CONCLUSION: Our data showed no significant differences in lung function between bronchopulmonary dysplasia and no bronchopulmonary dysplasia patients at school age and no evidence of an association between atopy and bronchopulmonary dysplasia

Desafios da sociedade do conhecimento e gestão de pessoas em sistemas de informação

Após passarmos de uma economia essencialmente agrícola para a industrial, pode-se dizer que a informação hoje é um novo tipo de "economia" que tanto pode dominar os setores quanto desenvolvê-los, e um dos grandes desafios da sociedade do conhecimento é a formação de líderes para a gestão de pessoas. Os líderes devem ter a capacidade de criar, motivar, manter o trabalho em equipe, visando sempre aos objetivos almejados de uma organização

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ATLANTIC EPIPHYTES: a data set of vascular and non-vascular epiphyte plants and lichens from the Atlantic Forest

Epiphytes are hyper-diverse and one of the frequently undervalued life forms in plant surveys and biodiversity inventories. Epiphytes of the Atlantic Forest, one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world, have high endemism and radiated recently in the Pliocene. We aimed to (1) compile an extensive Atlantic Forest data set on vascular, non-vascular plants (including hemiepiphytes), and lichen epiphyte species occurrence and abundance; (2) describe the epiphyte distribution in the Atlantic Forest, in order to indicate future sampling efforts. Our work presents the first epiphyte data set with information on abundance and occurrence of epiphyte phorophyte species. All data compiled here come from three main sources provided by the authors: published sources (comprising peer-reviewed articles, books, and theses), unpublished data, and herbarium data. We compiled a data set composed of 2,095 species, from 89,270 holo/hemiepiphyte records, in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, recorded from 1824 to early 2018. Most of the records were from qualitative data (occurrence only, 88%), well distributed throughout the Atlantic Forest. For quantitative records, the most common sampling method was individual trees (71%), followed by plot sampling (19%), and transect sampling (10%). Angiosperms (81%) were the most frequently registered group, and Bromeliaceae and Orchidaceae were the families with the greatest number of records (27,272 and 21,945, respectively). Ferns and Lycophytes presented fewer records than Angiosperms, and Polypodiaceae were the most recorded family, and more concentrated in the Southern and Southeastern regions. Data on non-vascular plants and lichens were scarce, with a few disjunct records concentrated in the Northeastern region of the Atlantic Forest. For all non-vascular plant records, Lejeuneaceae, a family of liverworts, was the most recorded family. We hope that our effort to organize scattered epiphyte data help advance the knowledge of epiphyte ecology, as well as our understanding of macroecological and biogeographical patterns in the Atlantic Forest. No copyright restrictions are associated with the data set. Please cite this Ecology Data Paper if the data are used in publication and teaching events. © 2019 The Authors. Ecology © 2019 The Ecological Society of Americ

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações do Instituto de Geociências da USP: acervo retrospectivo

Para comemorar os 40 anos da defesa da primeira tese do Programa de Pós-Graduação do Instituto de Geociências da Universidade de São Paulo foi proposto este projeto de digitalização e disponibilização em acesso aberto do acervo retrospectivo das teses e dissertações, para completar a coleção já incluída na Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da Universidade. O objetivo é aumentar a visibilidade do conhecimento produzido no Instituto, facilitar a disseminação deste conhecimento, além de preservar os originais em papel existentes no acervo da Biblioteca. Tal projeto vem sendo implantado sob a responsabilidade da Equipe do Serviço de Biblioteca e Documentação do IGc/USP juntamente com os Setores de Gráfica, Pós-Graduação e Informática da Unidade. Estabeleceu-se um fluxo de procedimentos e um cronograma de atividades de modo a viabilizar questões como a divulgação do projeto, obtenção de autorização dos autores para disponibilização em acesso aberto, a digitalização das teses originais em papel, sua verificação e finalmente, a submissão, revisão e disponibilização dos arquivos digitais na BDTD/USP. Após três meses do início do projeto, alguns resultados já foram obtidos. Conseguiram-se autorizações de todas as teses defendidas por docentes e funcionários da casa, e tantas outras de ex-alunos. Cerca de 60 teses já foram digitalizadas e conferidas e 21 já estão disponíveis em acesso aberto na BDTD/USP. Através de dados estatísticos levantados em um mês após a liberação de algumas teses digitais em acesso aberto, já foi possível evidenciar o quanto foi aumentada a visibilidade das pesquisas desenvolvidas na Instituição

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved