Automatic interpretation of MSS-LANDSAT data applied to coal refuse site studies in southern Santa Catarina State, Brazil

The coal mining district in southeastern Santa Catarina State is considered one of the most polluted areas of Brazil. The author has identified significant preliminary results on the application of MSS-LANDSAT digital data to monitor the coal refuse areas and its environmental consequences in this region

The presence of women journalists in the screwball comedy: the main characters of His Girl Friday (1940) and Woman of the Year (1942)

Las películas sobre periodismo han tenido un notable desarrollo en el cine clásico (1927-1972). Este ámbito profesional se ha tratado en los diversos géneros narrativos, pero las mujeres periodistas no ocupaban roles principales. Durante la screwball comedy –años treinta y cuarenta-, los personajes femeninos adquirieron más protagonismo, y aparecieron ejerciendo profesiones liberales con éxito. Aquí destacaron Luna nueva (Howard Hawks, 1940) y La mujer del año (George Stevens, 1942), donde las protagonistas, Hildy Johnson y Tess Harding, se dedicaban a la crónica de sucesos y a la de política internacional. Con el objetivo de reflexionar sobre la presencia de las mujeres periodistas principales en la comedia, se analizan ambos seres de ficción como persona y como rol, según las teorías de Franceso Casetti y Federico Di Chio. Este trabajo pretende destacar la construcción de estos personajes en uno de los principales géneros de la Edad de Oro del Hollywood clásico.Films about journalism have been widely developed in classical cinema (1927-1972). This professional discipline has been treated in the different narrative genres, but women journalists hardly occupied main roles. During the 1930s and 1940s, the female characters in the screwball comedy films acquired more relevance, insomuch as they played successful liberal professions. For example, we can highlight His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940) and Woman of the Year (George Stevens, 1942). Hildy Johnson and Tess Harding, the protagonists of these films, were specifically responsible for writing chronicles of events and international politics. With the aim of reflecting on the presence of the main women journalists in the comedy, we analyze them as a person and as a role, according to the theories of Francesco Casetti y Federico Di Chio. Thus, this paper tries to highlight the construction of these characters in one of the prominent genres of classic Hollywood’s Golden Age

Drought constrains acorn production and tree growth in the Mediterranean holm oak and triggers weak legacy effects

Droughts are becoming more frequent in the Mediterranean basin due to warmer conditions. Droughts negatively impact forests growth for several years, often generating negative legacies or carryover effects. However, these legacies differ among tree species, sites and drought characteristics and have been mainly studied considering tree growth or canopy greenness, but ignoring reproductive phenomena. Here, we compare the legacy effects of drought on acorn and male inflorescence production and radial growth by using a 19-year series of 150 Quercus ilex individuals in three stands located in north-eastern Spain. We evaluate the relationships between monthly climate variables, tree-ring width, acorn production and male inflorescence production. For the two driest years considered (2005 and 2012), when very few acorns were produced, we did not find negative legacy effects on acorn production in the three years following droughts. The production of male inflorescences did not show any significant legacy after drought, although its annual variation was related to the climatic conditions of the year before acorn ripening. Acorn production was higher than expected for some of these years, apparently following the pattern of tree growth recovery with a certain lag. This compensatory response of acorn production differed between the two analysed droughts, in accordance with different conditions of drought timing and post-drought climate conditions. Even though few negative legacy effects of growth and acorn production were found, we confirmed the negative effect of drought stress on tree growth and acorn production, linked to dry winter conditions. Our findings confirm that drought features (timing, duration, intensity) and post-drought climate conditions influence tree growth and reproduction legacies

A semiautomatic methodology to detect fire scars in shrubs and evergreen forests with Landsat MSS time series.

This paper presents a semi-automatic methodology for fire scars mapping from a long time series of remote sensing data. Approximately, a hundred MSS images from different Landsat satellites were employed over an area of 32 100 km2 in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula. The analysed period was from 1975 to 1993. Results are a map series of fire history and frequencies. Omission errors are 23% for burned areas greater than 200 ha while commission errors are 8% for areas greater than 50 ha. Subsequent work based on the resultant fire scars will also help in describing fire regime and in monitoring post-fire regeneration dynamics.Peer Reviewe

A gradient-forming MipZ protein mediating the control of cell division in the magnetotactic bacterium Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense

Cell division needs to be tightly regulated and closely coordinated with other cellular processes to ensure the generation of fully viable offspring. Here, we investigate division site placement by the cell division regulator MipZ in the alphaproteobacterium Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense, a species that forms linear chains of magnetosomes to navigate within the geomagnetic field. We show that M. gryphiswaldense contains two MipZ homologs, termed MipZ1 and MipZ2. MipZ2 localizes to the division site, but its absence does not cause any obvious phenotype. MipZ1, by contrast, forms a dynamic bipolar gradient, and its deletion or overproduction cause cell filamentation, suggesting an important role in cell division. The monomeric form of MipZ1 interacts with the chromosome partitioning protein ParB, whereas its ATP-dependent dimeric form shows non-specific DNA-binding activity. Notably, both the dimeric and, to a lesser extent, the monomeric form inhibit FtsZ polymerization in vitro. MipZ1 thus represents a canonical gradient-forming MipZ homolog that critically contributes to the spatiotemporal control of FtsZ ring formation. Collectively, our findings add to the view that the regulatory role of MipZ proteins in cell division is conserved among many alphaproteobacteria. However, their number and biochemical properties may have adapted to the specific needs of the host organism

Nitrogen enrichment in macroalgae following mass coral mortality

Scleractinian corals are engineers on coral reefs that provide both structural complexity as habitat and sustenance for other reef-associated organisms via the release of organic and inorganic matter. However, coral reefs are facing multiple pressures from climate change and other stressors, which can result in mass coral bleaching and mortality events. Mass mortality of corals results in enhanced release of organic matter, which can cause significant alterations to reef biochemical and recycling processes. There is little known about how long these nutrients are retained within the system, for instance, within the tissues of other benthic organisms. We investigated changes in nitrogen isotopic signatures (δ15N) of macroalgal tissues (a) ~ 1 year after a bleaching event in the Seychelles and (b) ~ 3 months after the peak of a bleaching event in Mo’orea, French Polynesia. In the Seychelles, there was a strong association between absolute loss in both total coral cover and branching coral cover and absolute increase in macroalgal δ15N between 2014 and 2017 (adjusted r2 = 0.79, p = 0.004 and adjusted r2 = 0.86, p = 0.002, respectively). In Mo’orea, a short-term transplant experiment found a significant increase in δ15N in Sargassum mangarevense after specimens were deployed on a reef with high coral mortality for ~ 3 weeks (p < 0.05). We suggest that coral-derived nutrients can be retained within reef nutrient cycles, and that this can affect other reef-associated organisms over both short- and long-term periods, especially opportunistic species such as macroalgae. These species could therefore proliferate on reefs that have experienced mass mortality events, because they have been provided with both space and nutrient subsidies by the death and decay of corals. © 2021, The Author(s)

Effectiveness of the flipped classroom methodology In the performance of higher education students: systematic review with meta-analysis

Introduction: The methodology Flipped Classroom (FC) consists in individual activities that the student has to do at home through the use of technologies which help the student to prepare for class, and during classes, activities are performed as more dynamic classes centered on the student. Through the years, the success has reached the maximum levels of performance and satisfaction in the teaching sessions in different areas of education compared to the classical methods, and there are no conclusive and considerable studies that compile and analyze this information succinctly. Objective: To analyze experimental and quasi-experimental studies that evaluate the methodology database in FC in performance and student satisfaction in comparison with the expository methodology. Methodology: This article is a systematic review that analyzes the randomized controlled trial (RCT) and Quasi-experimental studies selected with the methodology FC, which measures the efficacy through the results achieved in the realization and evaluation of the students. These articles were found in EBSCOhost and PubMed. Results: We selected 41 articles, that fulfilled all inclusion criteria established by the authors, for the accomplishment of this systematic review. Discussion: The results of our meta-analysis, both RCTs and quasi-experimental studies, point to a better effectiveness of the FC methodology compared to the expository methodology in academic performance. However, there is a heterogeneity in planned and developed activities during class, which means that our conclusions can’t be generalized. The poor methodological quality of the included studies, especially quasi-experimental studies, does not allow our conclusions about efficacy to be vigorous. Nevertheless, based on these first promising data, it seems to us that this methodology offers learning opportunities that aren’t possible in a classroom based on lectures and subject matter exposition. Conclusion: Although the articles selected have poor methodological quality, and it is necessary more rigorous investigations on this methodology, we believe that the FC methodology could revolutionize teaching methods and replace traditional teaching, which is so deeply rooted in today's society and doesn’t seems to favor the achievement of transversal competences.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Avaliação da viabilidade polínica e da hibridização de seis espécies de Passiflora L. do Banco Ativo de Germoplasma da Embrapa Semiárido.

Nesse trabalho, objetivou-se analisar a viabilidade do pólen nos estádios de pré-antese e antese, de seis espécies de Passiflora (P. alata Curtis, P. cincinnata Mast., P. edulis f. flavicarpa Deg., P. laurifolia L., P. luetzelburgii Harms e P. quadrangularis L.) provenientes do BAG da Embrapa Semiárido, visando a sua utilização em cruzamentos interespecíficos. Botões florais foram coletados e fixados em Carnoy (3:1 álcool etílico/ácido acético). Grãos de pólen das anteras em antese foram analisados após a coleta. As anteras foram esmagadas entre lâmina e lamínula e coradas com carmim acético 1,2%. De acordo com a colorabilidade, os grãos de pólen foram contados e classificados como viáveis ou inviáveis, calculando-se os índices médios de viabilidade com seus respectivos desvios padrão. Para a polinização artificial, botões florais foram protegidos na préantese. Foram realizados, no mínimo, 10 cruzamentos entre espécies. Os frutos desenvolvidos foram avaliados 7 dias após a hibridização. Observou-se alto percentual médio (>91%) de viabilidade de pólen nas espécies estudadas. Os maiores percentuais de frutos desenvolvidos foram obtidos das polinizações feitas em estádio de antese. No entanto, polinizações com grãos de pólen obtidos em pré-antese também foram viáveis, mostrando que as hibridizações podem ser realizadas com sucesso nos dois estádios de desenvolvimento

Germinação de sementes e produção de mudas de maracujá-do-mato.

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Desing and development of a robotic platform for the evaluation of search algorithms

Plant diseases represent a major economic and environmental problem in agriculture and forestry. Upon infection, a plant develops symptoms that affect different parts of the plant causing a significant agronomic impact. As many such diseases spread in time over the whole crop, a system for early disease detection can aid to mitigate the losses produced by the plant diseases and can further prevent their spread [1]. In recent years, several mathematical algorithms of search have been proposed [2,3] that could be used as a non-invasive, fast, reliable and cost-effective methods to localize in space infectious focus by detecting changes in the profile of volatile organic compounds. Tracking scents and locating odor sources is a major challenge in robotics, on one hand because odour plumes consists of non-uniform intermittent odour patches dispersed by the wind and on the other hand because of the lack of precise and reliable odour sensors. Notwithstanding, we have develop a simple robotic platform to study the robustness and effectiveness of different search algorithms [4], with respect to specific problems to be found in their further application in agriculture, namely errors committed in the motion and sensing and to the existence of spatial constraints due to land topology or the presence of obstacles