Effect of the temperature and relative humidity in stored sotol (Dasylirion cedrosanum Trel.) seeds on fungi biodiversity

The objective of the research was to identify the fungi in sotol seeds at different conditions of temperature and relative humidity. Seeds were collected at Buñuelos, municipality, and taken to the Laboratory of the Center for Training and Development in Seed Technology (CCDTS) at Universidad Autonoma Agraria Antonio Narro. The seed was stored for a period of 90 days, whit conditions of 60, 75, 80 and 85% of relative humidity kept at 5, 15 and 25 °C. Fungi identifying by morphological criteria. A completely randomized experiment using R software, with factorial arrangement whit two replications. Pathogens identified were: Aspergillus glaucus, Aspergillus niger, Fusarium sp., Penicillium sp., Aspergillus candidus, Cladosporiun sp., Alternaria sp. and Aspergillus chraceus, the results showed that the higher the humidity, temperature and storage time, the incidence of fungi tends to be higher. Fungi with a higher presence in sotol seeds were: Aspergillus glaucus and Penicillium sp. Safe storage environments for sotol seeds reported in this work are 5 °C and a relative humidity of 60-75%. Sotol seeds tolerates conditions of 15 °C and a relative humidity up to 75%.&nbsp

Education, Culture and Learning in Response to Conflict and Protracted Crisis

Panel Session on ‘Education, Culture and Learning in Response to Conflict and Protracted Crisis’ at the Annual CIES Conference 2021. Chaired by Moskal, five papers addressed both the lived experiences and actions - in policy and practice - in conflict, post-conflict and UK contexts. A discussant (Odena) offered reflections on common threads and issues to reconsider, drawing on his experience leading The Arts of Inclusion network. Presenters examined youth policies in Colombia and Mexico (Arizpe & Gormally), experiences of doctoral students from Middle-Eastern conflict zones in the UK (Pacheco), skills development of refugees in India (Dagar), Arabic teaching with refugees in Italy (Aldegheri), and workshops with Syrian and Iraqi refugees at a UK university (Moskal). These studies engage in discussions of issues confronting youth in particular, their wellbeing, aspirations, learning and skills development. The papers contribute understanding to education in crises, one of the major global challenges in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG4). Education is crucial in establishing peace-building processes, and for the wellbeing and economic integration of all individuals affected by conflict. Formal and non-formal learning has a strategic role to play in peace building, and promotion of equity and diversity

Meaning-making from wordless (or nearly wordless) picturebooks: what educational research expects and what readers have to say

Wordless (or nearly wordless) picturebooks are intriguing in terms of how readers make meaning from them. This article offers a conceptualization of existing studies in the field of education that use wordless picturebooks with young readers. While some of these studies contribute to understanding meaning-making, the pragmatic use of wordless picturebooks often does not take account of their particular nature and of the heightened role of the reader, leading to a mismatch between what the picturebook expects from the implied reader and the researchers’ expectations of what ‘real’ readers must do with these books. By highlighting observations from children’s literature scholarship and reader-response studies, this article aims to encourage a more interdisciplinary understanding of meaning-making. It also seeks to persuade educational researchers and mediators to consider investigative approaches that are not based on verbalization but are more in tune with the invitations that wordless picturebooks extend to young readers

Photoluminescence Stokes shift and exciton fine structure in CdTe nanocrystals

The photoluminescence spectra of spherical CdTe nanocrystals with zincblende structure are studied by size-selective spectroscopic techniques. We observe a resonant Stokes shift of 15 meV when the excitation laser energy is tuned to the red side of the absorption band at 2.236 eV. The experimental data are analyzed within a symmetry-based tight-binding theory of the exciton spectrum, which is first shown to account for the size dependence of the fundamental gap reported previously in the literature. The theoretical Stokes shift presented as a function of the gap shows a good agreement with the experimental data, indicating that the measured Stokes shift indeed arises from the electron-hole exchange interaction.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, LaTe

Sleeping-tree fidelity of the spider monkey shapes community-level seed-rain patterns in continuous and fragmented rain forests

Repeated use of sleeping trees (STs) by frugivores promotes the deposition and aggregation of copious amounts of seed, thus having key implications for seed dispersal and forest regeneration. Seed-rain patterns produced by this behaviour likely depend on the frequency of use of these sites, yet this hypothesis has been poorly tested. We evaluated community-level seed-rain patterns produced by the spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) over 13 mo in latrines located beneath 60 STs in the Lacandona rain forest, Mexico. Because this primate is increasingly ‘forced’ to inhabit fragmented landscapes, we tested whether sleeping-tree fidelity (STF) differed among sites and between continuous and fragmented forests. We also tested whether seed-rain patterns were associated with STF within each site and forest type. STF was highly variable among STs (average = 7 mo, range = 1–12 mo), but did not differ among study sites or forest types. STF was positively associated with seed abundance, species diversity and species turnover. Nevertheless, STF tended to be negatively related to seed community evenness. These results are likely due to the most frequently used STs being in areas with greater food density. Our results demonstrate that site fidelity shapes community-level seed-rain patterns and thus has key ecological implications

Clinical trial evaluating the effectiveness of biocompound IMMUNEPOTENT CRP in the third-molar extraction

ABSTRACT A controlled, parallel, randomized and comparative trial was carried out to evaluate the antiinflammatory efficacy of IMMUNEPOTENT CRP versus ibuprofen in patients after third-molar surgery over seven days. The anti-inflammatory efficacy of IMMUNEPOTENT CRP was evaluated using the method of Amin and Laskin, and the analysis of cytokine production (IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-a, INF-g) in saliva was done by flow cytometry. The swelling process after surgery was significant (p < 0.05) and the treatments with IMMUNEPOTENT CRP or ibuprofen controlled this process properly; no difference between the groups was found (p < 0.05). Both treatments were shown to modulate the cytokine production. These results demonstrate the anti-inflammatory activity of the natural compound IMMUNEPOTENT CRP and suggest it could be used in clinical dental practice

Evaluating SKI as a candidate gene for non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate

Non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NSCL/P) is one of the most common of all congenital malformations and has a multifactorial etiology. Findings in mice suggest that the v-ski sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (SKI) gene is a candidate gene for orofacial clefting. In humans, a significant association between rs2843159 within SKI and NSCL/P has been reported in patients from the Philippines and South America. In the South American patients, the association was driven by the subgroup of patients with non-syndromic cleft lip only (NSCLO). Here we investigated the association with rs2843159 in a Mayan Mesoamerican population (172 NSCL/P patients and 366 controls). In addition, we analyzed the phenotypic subgroups NSCLO and non-syndromic cleft of lip and palate (NSCLP). A trend towards association between rs2843159 and NSCL/P was observed in the Mayan cohort (P = 0.097), and we found a stronger association in the NSCLP subgroup (P = 0.072) despite a limited sample size. To investigate whether other common variants within the SKI gene contribute to NSCL/P susceptibility in European and Asian populations, we also analyzed genotypic data from two recent genome-wide association studies using set-based statistical approaches. These analyses detected a trend toward association in the European population. Our data provide limited support for the hypothesis that common SKI variants are susceptibility factors for NSCL/P

Evolution of the electronic structure with size in II-VI semiconductor nanocrystals

In order to provide a quantitatively accurate description of the band gap variation with sizes in various II-VI semiconductor nanocrystals, we make use of the recently reported tight-binding parametrization of the corresponding bulk systems. Using the same tight-binding scheme and parameters, we calculate the electronic structure of II-VI nanocrystals in real space with sizes ranging between 5 and 80 {\AA} in diameter. A comparison with available experimental results from the literature shows an excellent agreement over the entire range of sizes.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev.

El álbum poético en portugués y en español: sinergia estética entre palabras e ilustraciones

Este estudo procurou problematizar a relação textual que se observa entre a palavra e a imagem em um tipo de texto especialmente concebido para crianças: o álbum poético. Para tal, utilizamos alguns exemplos textuais significativos desse subgênero literário/editorial ainda em emergência tanto em Portugal quanto na Espanha, e propusemos uma definição e uma caracterização baseadas no comentário de sequências poéticas nas quais a ilustração sustenta o conteúdo verbal. Efetivamente, centrando a atenção no álbum poético de potencial recepção infanto-juvenil, sugere-se uma análise de diversos títulos de autoria portuguesa e espanhola, assente em uma leitura dialógica do texto verbal e do visual. A sinergia que se concretiza entre as duas componentes enunciadas alicerça essa nova construção estética que tem, na verdade e na sua essência, a poesia como matriz e, em larga medida, é devedora dos efeitos expressivos da metáfora.This study aimed to discuss the relation between words and images in a type of text especially directed to children: the picture-poetry book. From significant examples of this literary subgenre still emerging in both Portugal and Spain, we propose a definition and characterization based on the review of poetic sequences in which illustrations support the verbal content. By focusing on picture-poetry books potentially aimed for adolescents and children, we present an analysis of several titles by Portuguese and Spanish authors, based on the dialogic reading between verbal and visual texts. The synergy found between these two components creates de foundantions of a new aesthetic construction which, in truth and in essence, has poetry as its matrix and owes its expressive effects to metaphors.Este estudio ha tenido como objetivo discutir la relación textual que existe entre la palabra y la imagen en un tipo texto especialmente creado para niños: el álbum poético. Para ello, utilizamos algunos ejemplos textuales significativos de un subgénero literario en emergencia tanto en Portugal cuanto en España, y hemos propuesto una definición de este subgénero y su caracterización a partir del comentario de secuencias poéticas en las cuales la imagen sustenta el contenido verbal. De hecho, centrando la atención en el álbum poético de potencial recepción infantil y juvenil, proponemos un análisis de diversos títulos de autoría portuguesa y española basado en la lectura dialógica entre el texto verbal y el texto ilustrativo. La sinergia que se establece entre estos dos componentes enunciados facilita una nueva construcción estética que da pie, en su esencia, a un tipo de poesía que, en gran medida, es deudora de los efectos expresivos de la metáfora.CIEC - Centro de Investigação em Estudos da Criança, IE, UMinho (UI 317 da FCT), Portugal. Fundos Nacionais através da FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) e cofinanciado pelo Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) através do COMPETE 2020 – Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) no âmbito do CIEC (Centro de Investigação em Estudos da Criança, da Universidade do Minho) com a referência POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007562info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The North American tree-ring fire-scar network

Fire regimes in North American forests are diverse and modern fire records are often too short to capture important patterns, trends, feedbacks, and drivers of variability. Tree-ring fire scars provide valuable perspectives on fire regimes, including centuries-long records of fire year, season, frequency, severity, and size. Here, we introduce the newly compiled North American tree-ring fire-scar network (NAFSN), which contains 2562 sites, >37,000 fire-scarred trees, and covers large parts of North America. We investigate the NAFSN in terms of geography, sample depth, vegetation, topography, climate, and human land use. Fire scars are found in most ecoregions, from boreal forests in northern Alaska and Canada to subtropical forests in southern Florida and Mexico. The network includes 91 tree species, but is dominated by gymnosperms in the genus Pinus. Fire scars are found from sea level to >4000-m elevation and across a range of topographic settings that vary by ecoregion. Multiple regions are densely sampled (e.g., >1000 fire-scarred trees), enabling new spatial analyses such as reconstructions of area burned. To demonstrate the potential of the network, we compared the climate space of the NAFSN to those of modern fires and forests; the NAFSN spans a climate space largely representative of the forested areas in North America, with notable gaps in warmer tropical climates. Modern fires are burning in similar climate spaces as historical fires, but disproportionately in warmer regions compared to the historical record, possibly related to under-sampling of warm subtropical forests or supporting observations of changing fire regimes. The historical influence of Indigenous and non-Indigenous human land use on fire regimes varies in space and time. A 20th century fire deficit associated with human activities is evident in many regions, yet fire regimes characterized by frequent surface fires are still active in some areas (e.g., Mexico and the southeastern United States). These analyses provide a foundation and framework for future studies using the hundreds of thousands of annually- to sub-annually-resolved tree-ring records of fire spanning centuries, which will further advance our understanding of the interactions among fire, climate, topography, vegetation, and humans across North America