How Bees Respond Differently to Field Margins of Shrubby and Herbaceous Plants in Intensive Agricultural Crops of the Mediterranean Area

(1) Intensive agriculture has a high impact on pollinating insects, and conservation strategies targeting agricultural landscapes may greatly contribute to their maintenance. The aim of this work was to quantify the effect that the vegetation of crop margins, with either herbaceous or shrubby plants, had on the abundance and diversity of bees in comparison to non-restored margins. (2) The work was carried out in an area of intensive agriculture in southern Spain. Bees were monitored visually and using pan traps, and floral resources were quantified in crop margins for two years. (3) An increase in the abundance and diversity of wild bees in restored margins was registered, compared to non-restored margins. Significant differences in the structure of bee communities were found between shrubby and herbaceous margins. Apis mellifera and mining bees were found to be more polylectic than wild Apidae and Megachilidae. The abundance of A. mellifera and mining bees was correlated to the total floral resources, in particular, to those offered by the Boraginaceae and Brassicaceae; wild Apidae and Megachilidae were associated with the Lamiaceae. (4) This work emphasises the importance of floral diversity and shrubby plants for the maintenance of rich bee communities in Mediterranean agricultural landscapes

Advanced therapies for the treatment of hemophilia: future perspectives

Monogenic diseases are ideal candidates for treatment by the emerging advanced therapies, which are capable of correcting alterations in protein expression that result from genetic mutation. In hemophilia A and B such alterations affect the activity of coagulation factors VIII and IX, respectively, and are responsible for the development of the disease. Advanced therapies may involve the replacement of a deficient gene by a healthy gene so that it generates a certain functional,structural or transport protein (gene therapy); the incorporation of a full array of healthy genes and proteins through perfusion or transplantation of healthy cells (cell therapy); or tissue transplantation and formation of healthy organs (tissue engineering). For their part, induced pluripotent stem cells have recently been shown to also play a significant role in the fields of cell therapy and tissue engineering.Hemophilia is optimally suited for advanced therapies owing to the fact that, as a monogenic condition, it does not require very high expression levels of a coagulation factor to reach moderate disease status. As a result, significant progress has been possible with respect to these kinds of strategies, especially in the fields of gene therapy (by using viral and non-viral vectors) and cell therapy (by means of several types of target cells). Thus, although still considered a rare disorder, hemophilia is now recognized as a condition amenable to gene therapy, which can be administered in the form of lentiviral and adeno-associated vectors applied to adult stem cells, autologous fibroblasts, platelets and hematopoietic stem cells; by means of non-viral vectors; or through the repair of mutations by chimeric oligonucleotides. In hemophilia, cell therapy approaches have been based mainly on transplantation of healthy cells (adult stem cells or induced pluripotent cell-derived progenitor cells)in order to restore alterations in coagulation factor expression

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Therapeutic Applications in Monogenic and Metabolic Diseases, and Regulatory and Bioethical Considerations

Depto. de Genética, Fisiología y MicrobiologíaFac. de Ciencias BiológicasTRUEpu

Revisiting the mortality of France and Italy with the multiple-cause-of-death approach

In this paper, we use the multiple cause-of-death approach to compare the mortality profiles of France and Italy in 2003. Our analysis leads to a substantial re-evaluation of the role played by certain conditions in the process leading to death. Regarding the associations of causes, we distinguish three patterns that are common to both countries. The numerous similarities that emerge from the comparison of the two countries are a clear indication that, contrary to what is generally thought, misreporting by the certifying physicians generally do not distort the observation.cause of death, France, international comparisons, Italy, mortality, multiple causes of death

Natural Resources, Demand for Skills, and Schooling Choices

This paper studies the consequences of the buildup of a new economic sector—the Norwegian petroleum industry—on investment in human capital. We assess both short-term and long-term effects for a broad set of educational margins, by comparing individuals in regions exposed to the new sector with individuals in unexposed regions. Importantly, we analyze how the effects and the mechanisms change as the sector develops. Our results indicate that an initial increase in the high school dropout rate is short-lived both because dropouts get their degrees later as adults, and because later-born cohorts adapt to the new needs of the industry by enrolling more in vocational secondary education. We also observe a decrease in academic high school and college enrollment except for engineering degrees. Financial incentives to both completing high school and field of study, are the most likely channels driving these effects

Glassy State and Cryopreservation of Mint Shoot Tips

Vitrification refers to the physical process by which a liquid supercools to very low tem- peratures and finally solidifies into a metastable glass, without undergoing crystallization at a practical cooling rate. Thus, vitrification is an effective freeze-avoidance mechanism and living tissue cryopreservation is, in most cases, relying on it. As a glass is exceedingly vis- cous and stops all chemical reactions that require molecular diffusion, its formation leads to metabolic inactivity and stability over time. To investigate glassy state in cryopreserved plant material, mint shoot tips were submitted to the different stages of a frequently used cryopreservation protocol (droplet-vitrification) and evaluated for water content reduction and sucrose content, as determined by ion chromatography, frozen water fraction and glass transitions occurrence by differential scanning calorimetry, and investigated by low-tempera- ture scanning electron microscopy, as a way to ascertain if their cellular content was vitri- fied. Results show how tissues at intermediate treatment steps develop ice crystals during liquid nitrogen cooling, while specimens whose treatment was completed become vitrified, with no evidence of ice formation. The agreement between calorimetric and microscopic observations was perfect. Besides finding a higher sucrose concentration in tissues at the more advanced protocol steps, this level was also higher in plants precultured at 25/21?C than in plants cultivated at 25?C

Fast measurement of cooling and heating rates in standard cryopreservation protocols based on vitrification

Estudio de la cinética de la crioconservación de tejidos vegetale

Improving up-conversion with PBS quantum dots

This paper evaluates the enhancement of the up-conversion phenomena by combining rare-earth doped phosphors with PbS quantum dots (QDs). We present results on the characterization of two different ways of adhering the up-converter with this fluorescent material to bifacial solar cells: by dissolving the powder in a spin-on oxide and by dissolving it in a silicone gel. The improvement in photocurrent detected for both the oxide and silicone alternatives when including the QDs is 60% better than without them. It is shown that the absorption and emission characteristics of the PbS QDs embedded in oxide and silicone can be tuned into to the desired spectral region. Keywords: quantum dots, up-converter, solar cel

Memória indígena e reparações pedagógicas na região de fronteira.

Trata-se de uma ação de extensão em curso, que pretende ser um espaço de dialógico sobre memória e história Guarani. A ação dialoga com lideranças, professores e comunidades indígenas Guarani do oeste paranaense, Puerto Iguazu (AR) e comunidades desalojadas por Itaipu Binacional no Paraguai, todas em região de fronteira. Como recorte temático atuamos com as ações do Estado como violador de direitos na segunda metade do século XX, quando a referida população perdeu suas terras em três processos distintos: colonização; criação do Parque Nacional do Iguaçu; e construção da Hidrelétrica Itaipu Binacional. Nossa atuação terá como referência as recomendações apresentadas em dezembro de 2014 no Relatório Final publicado pela Comissão Nacional da Verdade (CNV), no que concernem as “recomendações pedagógicas” encaminhadas ao Estado brasileiro

Curso de extensão em Histórias e Culturas Indígenas

Anais do 35º Seminário de Extensão Universitária da Região Sul - Área temática: Direitos Humanos e JustiçaDurante a gestão do Presidente Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, a trajetória de lutas dos movimentos sociais negros e indígenas levou a conquista da Lei 11.645/2008, que modifica as diretrizes e bases da educação nacional, para incluir no currículo oficial da rede de ensino a obrigatoriedade da temática História e Cultura Afro-Brasileira e Indígena. A política pública afirmativa incide na larga procura por informações e materiais acerca da temática indígena entre educadores populares, professores e pedagogos, devido à grande defasagem e desconhecimento sobre o tema. Como demanda a tais incidências foi proposto o Curso de Extensão em Histórias e Culturas Indígenas, elaborado pela Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana (Unila) em parceria com o Conselho Indigenista Missionário (Cimi). O avanço socio-educacional da ementa política por si só não desempenha total efetividade. Os extensos e violentos processos de apagamento e homogeneização da pluralidade sociocultural dos povos indígenas são perpetuados nas práticas educacionais que refletidas na colonialidade do conhecimento, impossibilita a construção de narrativas que evoquem a extensão histórica e cultural dos povos originários. Assim, se constrói o objetivo da extensão universitária em fomento à Lei Federal – que implica na formação de multiplicadores sociais – potencializar as iniciativas de desconstrução de noções equivocadas nos espaços coletivos e educacionais através da descoberta e apropriação de metodologias descolonizadora