Educational gender gap, inequality and growth: a gender sensitive analysis

Adopting a gender-aware perspective, this paper investigates the controversial relationship of inequality and growth studying the effects of income disparity on the differences between male and female schooling in the presence of liquidity constraints and inefficient financial markets. In cultural contexts where male education is considered more profitable, financial markets’ inefficiency has biased effects on human capital accumulation; given the significant contribution of women’s education to economic prosperity, a theoretical model and a panel data analysis of sixty three countries for six five years periods from 1965 to 1994 show a negative impact of income inequality on economic growth through the disincentives to invest in female schooling. A financial markets’ reform to improve efficiency and increase available liquidity could offer an important contribution to the closure of the gender educational gap

Manipulation of ovarian and uterine function to increase conception rates in cattle.

In cattle, embryonic and fetal losses are the major causes of reproductive failureo Losses associated with failure in the process of maternal recognition of pregnancy can amount to as much as 30%0 Successful establishment of pregnancy depends on a delicate balance between luteolytic mechanisms inherent to the endometrium at the end of diestrus and antiluteolytic mechanisms, orchestrated by the conceptus to change endometrial function and, ultimately, block luteolysis. Antiluteolytic strategies are pharmacological, mechanical, nutritional and management manipulations of the process of maternal recognition of pregnancy that aim to increase the probability of successful gestations. Objective of the present paper is to review the recent literature on antiluteolytic strategies in cattle. Specifically, we focused on strategies to stimulate production of progesterone, strategies to reduce production of estradiol and other sttategies. Future directions for research in this area are proposedo

Direction Specific Analysis of Psychoacoustics Parameters inside Car Cockpit: A Novel Tool for NVH and Sound Quality

Psychoacoustics parameters are widely employed in automotive field for objective evaluation of Sound Quality (SQ) of vehicle cabins and their components. The standard approach relies on binaural recordings from which numerical values and curves are calculated. In addition, head-locked binaural listening playback can be performed. The Virtual Reality (VR) technology recently started to diffuse also in automotive field, bringing new possibilities for enhanced and immersive listening sessions, thanks to the usage of massive microphone arrays instead of binaural microphones. In this paper, we combine both solutions: the principal SQ parameters are derived from multichannel recordings. This allows computing a map of direction-dependent values of SQ parameters. The acquisition system consists in a spherical microphone array with 32 capsules and a multiple-lens camera for capturing a panoramic equirectangular background image. The audio recording is encoded into High Order Ambisonics (HOA) format for being compared with a classic omnidirectional microphone and into Spatial PCM Sampling (SPS) format for producing 360° equirectangular color maps. The SPS encoding is used to plot over the background image the distribution of SPL values in dB (A) and of the SQ parameters: by adding to them the directional information, it results into a novel 360° diagnostic tool for localizing the most annoying sources. Furthermore, the playback of the HOA soundtrack can be performed both on a loudspeaker rig inside an Ambisonics listening room or on binaural headphones attached to a Head Mounted Display (HMD), benefiting from head-tracking and personalized Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs), allowing to make quick subjective evaluations with a degree of realism unattainable with the older static binaural approach

Estratégias para reduzir a mortalidade embrionária em bovinos: I. Alternativas farmacológicas para otimizar a função luteínica de vacas de corte.

A mortalidade embrionária precoce é a maior causa de perdas reprodutivas em bovinos europeus criados no hemisfério norte. Uma vez que a eficiência reprodutiva do gado de corte nacional é baixa, conjetura-se que tais perdas também ocorram com bovinos de corte zebu criados no Brasil. Para aprofundar os conhecimentos sobre esse tema e propor possíveis estratégias que minimizem as perdas de prenhez, foi desenvolvido na Embrapa Pecuária Sudeste o projeto ?Mortalidade embrionária em bovinos e estratégias para a sua redução? que, além de ter como objetivo principal a determinação das taxas e da cronologia das perdas reprodutivas em vacas nelore inseminadas artificialmente, estabeleceu como meta o desenvolvimento de uma alternativa farmacológica de otimização da função luteínica de vacas de corte. Para tanto, avaliou-se o efeito de diferentes protocolos de suporte hormonal sobre as funções luteínicas e foliculares de vacas das raças Nelore e Red Angus. O alcance dessa meta, ou seja, o desenvolvimento de um protocolo de otimização da função luteínica de vacas de corte disponibiliza uma prática pecuária inovadora, a qual está descrita detalhadamente no presente Boletim de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento.bitstream/item/43525/1/Boletim26.pd

Removal of metallic elements from real wastewater using zebra mussel bio-filtration process

The metallic element pollution is a serious environmental problem but still unsolved since these contaminants are released mainly by human activity, reaching all the environmental compartments. Traditional wastewater treatment plants are very efficient in removing metallic elements only when their concentration is in the order of mg/L, but are not able to remove them until \u3bcg/L, as it would be needed to cope with the water quality standards in low flow receptors. Therefore, the aim of our study was to evaluate the potential removal of some recalcitrant metallic elements to the classical treatments, by the natural process of bio-filtration performed by the invasive zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha). For this purpose we built a pilot-plant at the Milano-Nosedo wastewater treatment plant, where we placed about 40,000 D. polymorpha specimens appointed to the wastewater bio-filtration. The metallic element removal due to zebra mussel activity was evaluated in the treated wastewater with a plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Data obtained in these experiments showed an encouraging metallic element removal due to D. polymorpha activity; in particular, the total abatement (100%) of Cr after one day of bio-filtration exposure is remarkable. Therefore, this study encourages further research related with the use of bivalves as a new tool for the wastewater depuration process; in this regard, the contaminated mollusks used in the bio-filtration could be incinerated or stored in special landfills, as is also the case of traditional sewage sludge

First evidence of protein modulation by polystyrene microplastics in a freshwater biological model

Microplastics (MPs)are now one of the major environmental problems due to the large amount released in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as their diffuse sources and potential impacts on organisms and human health. Still the molecular and cellular targets of microplastics\u2019 toxicity have not yet been identified and their mechanism of actions in aquatic organisms are largely unknown. In order to partially fill this gap, we used a mass spectrometry based functional proteomics to evaluate the modulation of protein profiling in zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha), one of the most useful freshwater biological model. Mussels were exposed for 6 days in static conditions to two different microplastic mixtures, composed by two types of virgin polystyrene microbeads (size = 1 and 10 \u3bcm)each one. The mixture at the lowest concentration contained 5 7 105 MP/L of 1 \u3bcm and 5 7 105 MP/L of 10 \u3bcm, while the higher one was arranged with 2 7 106 MP/L of 1 \u3bcm and 2 7 106 MP/L of 10 \u3bcm. Proteomics\u2019 analyses of gills showed the complete lack of proteins\u2019 modulation after the exposure to the low-concentrated mixture, while even 78 proteins were differentially modulated after the exposure to the high-concentrated one, suggesting the presence of an effect-threshold. The modulated proteins belong to 5 different classes mainly involved in the structure and function of ribosomes, energy metabolism, cellular trafficking, RNA-binding and cytoskeleton, all related to the response against the oxidative stress

Metodologia para obtenção de concepto bovino

bitstream/CPPSE-2009/18334/1/Boletim19.pdfISSN 1517-198