Influência do contexto emocional no testemunho olfativo

Mestrado em Psicologia ForenseO sistema olfativo é de extrema importância para a sobrevivência das espécies, embora o ser humano não lhe atribua muita relevância. O processamento de estímulos olfativos pode moldar as nossas preferências sociais, alterar estados de humor ou mesmo influenciar a escolha do parceiro sexual. Sabe-se que a saliência das experiências emocionais pode condicionar estados emocionais aos odores associados, sendo a sua valência emocional determinante nos processos de recordação e reconhecimento. Cada individuo possui um odor específico, permitindo a sua identificação. O seu processamento neuronal distingue-se do processamento dos odores comuns pela sua importância ecológica. Neste sentido, um estudo recente demonstrou que os seres humanos, quando testemunhas de situações de maior vulnerabilidade emocional e física, são capazes de identificar suspeitos através do odor corporal, o que poderá ter implicações na investigação criminal. Assim, o presente estudo pretende complementar este estudo anterior, tendo como principal objetivo avaliar se a congruência do contexto emocional influencia o desempenho no reconhecimento de estímulos olfativos. Os filmes apresentados nas condições congruentes eram da mesma natureza (crime/crime ou neutro/neutro) nos momentos da codificação e da recordação, enquanto que os filmes apresentados nas condições incongruentes eram de natureza distinta (crime/neutro ou neutro/crime). Todos os participantes cheiraram um odor corporal durante o momento da codificação e enquanto visualizavam um primeiro filme, sendo instruídos que este pertencia ao ator do filme. Após uma pausa de 15 minutos, e terminada a apresentação do segundo filme (momento da recordação), procedia-se ao reconhecimento do odor corporal a que o participante esteve exposto no momento da codificação. Os resultados revelaram que os grupos nas condições congruentes “crimecrime” apresentaram uma taxa de acerto de 77% e na condição “neutro-neutro” de 74%. Os grupos nas condições incongruentes “crime–neutro” apresentaram uma taxa de reconhecimento de 52% e na condição “neutro-crime” de 68%. Os resultados não revelaram diferenças estatisticamente significativas entre as condições. Estes resultados sugerem um elevado desempenho no reconhecimento do odor- alvo, independentemente da manipulação do contexto emocional, o que poderá ser explicado pelo facto de serem utilizados odores corporais, que são por si só estimulos ecologicamente relevantes para a sobrevivência. Assim, a congruência emocional entre a codificação e recordaçao parece não ser preponderante para o reconhecimento de odores corporais. Em termos de investigação criminal, e em concordância com outros estudos na área, este estudo poderá representar um avanço para a área do recentemente proposto testemunho olfativo.Athough human beings do not usually give it much credit, the olfactory system plays a major role in the species’ survival. The processing of olfactory stimuli can shape our social preferences, influence our mood, and even affect the choice of a sexual partner. It is known that emocional valence is critical to the recall and recognition processes. Moreover, each individual has a specific and unique odour, wich allows its identification. Its neural processing differs from the common odours due to its ecological importance. A recent study showed that humans are able, while witnessing situations of emotional and physical vulnerability, to identify suspects by means of their body odour, which might be helpful in criminal investigations. The current research is aimed at complementing this previous study, and its main goal is to determine if the congruency of emotional context has influence in the performance of the recall process of olfactory stimuli. The movies presented to the groups of congruent conditions were all the same nature (crime or neutral), and the movies presented to the groups of incongruent conditions had all distinct nature at the moment of encoding and recall. All subjects smelled a body odour during encoding moment, and were told that it was the odour of the movie’s actor. After a break of 15 minutes and at the end of the second movie (recall moment), it was time a recognize the body odour to wich they were exposed during the encoding moment. The results show that the congruent group’s “crime-crime” success rate was about 77% and “neutral-neutral” was 74%. The groups in incongruent conditions “crime-neutral” exhibited a success rate of 52%, while the “neutral-crime” had a success rate of 68%. The results show that there are not statistically significant differences between conditions. These results suggest a high recognition performance of the body odor, regardless of manipulation of the emotional context, witch may be explained by the fact that use body odors, witch are themselves higly relevant ecologically stimuli regarding survival. Thus, the emotional congruence between the encoding and recall seems not to be prepoderant for the recognition of body odors. In criminal investigation terms, and in convergence with other research, this study may represent an advance in the area of the recently proposed olfactory testimony

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

10.1111/gcb.14904GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY261119-18

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortiu (INICC) report, data summary of 43 countries for 2007-2012. Device-associated module

We report the results of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2007-December 2012 in 503 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the 6-year study using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) U.S. National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care–associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 605,310 patients hospitalized in the INICC's ICUs for an aggregate of 3,338,396 days. Although device utilization in the INICC's ICUs was similar to that reported from ICUs in the U.S. in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals: the pooled rate of central line–associated bloodstream infection in the INICC's ICUs, 4.9 per 1,000 central line days, is nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.9 per 1,000 central line days reported from comparable U.S. ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher (16.8 vs 1.1 per 1,000 ventilator days) as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (5.5 vs 1.3 per 1,000 catheter days). Frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (42.8% vs 10%) and imipenem (42.4% vs 26.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (71.2% vs 28.8%) and imipenem (19.6% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC's ICUs compared with the ICUs of the CDC's NHSN