Report CR-A-219-B - Cabo Verde Estudo do Sector Agrícola

A. A Singularidade de Cabo Verde Cabo Verde e unica entre a familia de na90es. ~ uma republica de ilhas (Fig. 1.1) suficientemente distanciadas umas das outras e do continente africano (600 km) para dissuadir visitas imprevistas ou fortuitas. Seu isolamento serviu para fortalecer sua singular cultura crioula, porem a cllsta de contactos frequentes com influencias e inforrna90es externas. Cabo Verde e muito pequeno. Sua popula9ao de 300.000 habitantes, que mal chegaria para tornar uma cidade auto-suficiente num complexo industrial, esta dividida entre nove ilhas. A capital, Praia, conta somente com 23.000 habitantes, e e, essencialmente, urna pequena e simpatica cidade onde a maior parte dos vercursos pode ser feita a pe e onde encontros casuais entre funcionarios do governo sao provavelmente tao irnportantes quanto os formais meios de comunica9ao pelo telefone ou por escrito. Cabo Verde e tambem pequeno ern termos de area territorial, embora ocupe urna area relativamente grande de ocea~o. Sua superficie total e pouco mais de 4.000 km2 , porem suas nove ilhas principais estao espalhadas por uma POr9aO grande, quadrangular, do Atlantico medindo aproximadamente 240 qUilometros de urn lado. A superficie total (nao incluindo partes da plataforma continental que se estende para alem do litoral externo das ilhas) e comparavel as republicas de Togo ou Sri Lanka, ou cerca de metade da Guatemala. A nao ser pelo servi90 de barcas entre Fogo e Brava, e entre Sao Vicente e Santo Antao, as ilhas estao demasiado distantes entre si para urn conveniente transporte maritimo. Avioes sao, portanto, essenciais as comunica90es e trafego entre as ilhas, embora para transac90es lentas e volurnosas 0 transporte maritimo, seja por embarca90es a vela ou a motor, e sempre urna alternativa devido aos ventos constantes e condi90es atmosfericas geralmente boas

Breadth verses depth: the impact of tree structure on cultural influence

Cultural spread in social networks and organisations is an important and longstanding issue. In this paper we assess this role of tree structures in facilitating cultural diversity. Cultural features are represented using abstract traits that are held by individual agents, which may transfer when neighbouring agents interact through the network structure. We use an agent-based model that incorporates both the combined social pressure and influence from an agent's neighbours. We perform a multivariate study where the number of features and traits representing culture are varied, alongside the breadth and depth of the tree. The results reveal interesting findings on cultural diversity. Increasing the number of features promotes strong convergence in flatter trees as compared to narrower and deeper trees. At the same time increasing features causes narrower deeper trees to show greater cultural pluralism while flatter trees instead show greater cultural homogenisation. We also find that in contrast to previous work, the polarisation between nodes does not rise steadily as the number of traits increase but under certain conditions may also fall. The results have implications for organisational structures - in particular for hierarchies where depth supports cultural divergence, while breadth promotes greater homogeneity, but with increased coordination overhead on the root nodes. These observations also support subsidiarity in deep organisational structures - it is not just a case of communication length promoting subsidiarity, but local cultural differences are more likely to be sustained within these structures

Breadth verses depth: the impact of tree structure on cultural influence

Cultural spread in social networks and organisations is an important and longstanding issue. In this paper we assess this role of tree structures in facilitating cultural diversity. Cultural features are represented using abstract traits that are held by individual agents, which may transfer when neighbouring agents interact through the network structure. We use an agent-based model that incorporates both the combined social pressure and influence from an agent's neighbours. We perform a multivariate study where the number of features and traits representing culture are varied, alongside the breadth and depth of the tree. The results reveal interesting findings on cultural diversity. Increasing the number of features promotes strong convergence in flatter trees as compared to narrower and deeper trees. At the same time increasing features causes narrower deeper trees to show greater cultural pluralism while flatter trees instead show greater cultural homogenisation. We also find that in contrast to previous work, the polarisation between nodes does not rise steadily as the number of traits increase but under certain conditions may also fall. The results have implications for organisational structures - in particular for hierarchies where depth supports cultural divergence, while breadth promotes greater homogeneity, but with increased coordination overhead on the root nodes. These observations also support subsidiarity in deep organisational structures - it is not just a case of communication length promoting subsidiarity, but local cultural differences are more likely to be sustained within these structures

Glucocorticoids regulate AKR1D1 activity in human liver in vitro and in vivo

Steroid 5β-reductase (AKR1D1) is highly expressed in human liver where it inactivates endogenous glucocorticoids and catalyses an important step in bile acid synthesis. Endogenous and synthetic glucocorticoids are potent regulators of metabolic phenotype and play a crucial role in hepatic glucose metabolism. However, the potential of synthetic glucocorticoids to be metabolised by AKR1D1 as well as to regulate its expression and activity has not been investigated. The impact of glucocorticoids on AKR1D1 activity was assessed in human liver HepG2 and Huh7 cells; AKR1D1 expression was assessed by qPCR and Western blotting. Genetic manipulation of AKR1D1 expression was conducted in HepG2 and Huh7 cells and metabolic assessments were made using qPCR. Urinary steroid metabolite profiling in healthy volunteers was performed pre- and post-dexamethasone treatment, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. AKR1D1 metabolised endogenous cortisol, but cleared prednisolone and dexamethasone less efficiently. In vitro and in vivo, dexamethasone decreased AKR1D1 expression and activity, further limiting glucocorticoid clearance and augmenting action. Dexamethasone enhanced gluconeogenic and glycogen synthesis gene expression in liver cell models and these changes were mirrored by genetic knockdown of AKR1D1 expression. The effects of AKR1D1 knockdown were mediated through multiple nuclear hormone receptors, including the glucocorticoid, pregnane X and farnesoid X receptors. Glucocorticoids down-regulate AKR1D1 expression and activity and thereby reduce glucocorticoid clearance. In addition, AKR1D1 down-regulation alters the activation of multiple nuclear hormone receptors to drive changes in gluconeogenic and glycogen synthesis gene expression profiles, which may exacerbate the adverse impact of exogenous glucocorticoids

Glucocorticoids regulate AKR1D1 activity in human liver in vitro and in vivo

Steroid 5β-reductase (AKR1D1) is highly expressed in human liver where it inactivates endogenous glucocorticoids and catalyses an important step in bile acid synthesis. Endogenous and synthetic glucocorticoids are potent regulators of metabolic phenotype and play a crucial role in hepatic glucose metabolism. However, the potential of synthetic glucocorticoids to be metabolised by AKR1D1 as well as to regulate its expression and activity has not been investigated. The impact of glucocorticoids on AKR1D1 activity was assessed in human liver HepG2 and Huh7 cells; AKR1D1 expression was assessed by qPCR and Western blotting. Genetic manipulation of AKR1D1 expression was conducted in HepG2 and Huh7 cells and metabolic assessments were made using qPCR. Urinary steroid metabolite profiling in healthy volunteers was performed pre- and post-dexamethasone treatment, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. AKR1D1 metabolised endogenous cortisol, but cleared prednisolone and dexamethasone less efficiently. In vitro and in vivo, dexamethasone decreased AKR1D1 expression and activity, further limiting glucocorticoid clearance and augmenting action. Dexamethasone enhanced gluconeogenic and glycogen synthesis gene expression in liver cell models and these changes were mirrored by genetic knockdown of AKR1D1 expression. The effects of AKR1D1 knockdown were mediated through multiple nuclear hormone receptors, including the glucocorticoid, pregnane X and farnesoid X receptors. Glucocorticoids down-regulate AKR1D1 expression and activity and thereby reduce glucocorticoid clearance. In addition, AKR1D1 down-regulation alters the activation of multiple nuclear hormone receptors to drive changes in gluconeogenic and glycogen synthesis gene expression profiles, which may exacerbate the adverse impact of exogenous glucocorticoids

3D time series analysis of cell shape using Laplacian approaches

Background: Fundamental cellular processes such as cell movement, division or food uptake critically depend on cells being able to change shape. Fast acquisition of three-dimensional image time series has now become possible, but we lack efficient tools for analysing shape deformations in order to understand the real three-dimensional nature of shape changes. Results: We present a framework for 3D+time cell shape analysis. The main contribution is three-fold: First, we develop a fast, automatic random walker method for cell segmentation. Second, a novel topology fixing method is proposed to fix segmented binary volumes without spherical topology. Third, we show that algorithms used for each individual step of the analysis pipeline (cell segmentation, topology fixing, spherical parameterization, and shape representation) are closely related to the Laplacian operator. The framework is applied to the shape analysis of neutrophil cells. Conclusions: The method we propose for cell segmentation is faster than the traditional random walker method or the level set method, and performs better on 3D time-series of neutrophil cells, which are comparatively noisy as stacks have to be acquired fast enough to account for cell motion. Our method for topology fixing outperforms the tools provided by SPHARM-MAT and SPHARM-PDM in terms of their successful fixing rates. The different tasks in the presented pipeline for 3D+time shape analysis of cells can be solved using Laplacian approaches, opening the possibility of eventually combining individual steps in order to speed up computations

Single hadron response measurement and calorimeter jet energy scale uncertainty with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The uncertainty on the calorimeter energy response to jets of particles is derived for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). First, the calorimeter response to single isolated charged hadrons is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo simulation using proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of sqrt(s) = 900 GeV and 7 TeV collected during 2009 and 2010. Then, using the decay of K_s and Lambda particles, the calorimeter response to specific types of particles (positively and negatively charged pions, protons, and anti-protons) is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo predictions. Finally, the jet energy scale uncertainty is determined by propagating the response uncertainty for single charged and neutral particles to jets. The response uncertainty is 2-5% for central isolated hadrons and 1-3% for the final calorimeter jet energy scale.Comment: 24 pages plus author list (36 pages total), 23 figures, 1 table, submitted to European Physical Journal

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011