19 research outputs found
Caracterização do desenvolvimento de cultivares de feijão-caupi e do conteúdo e da qualidade proteica dos seus grãos
The objective of this work was to evaluate cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) cultivars regarding plant development and the quantity and quality of soluble proteins in their grains, for breeding purposes. The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse, in a completely randomized experimental design, with the Paulistinha, BRS Novaera, Epace 10, and BR 17-Gurguéia cultivars. Leaf area, shoot fresh and dry matter, leaf protein content, number of nodules, and nodule and root dry matter were evaluated. In mature grains, soluble fractions and soluble amino acids were also quantified, and the electrophoretic analysis was performed with protein denaturation. There were no differences between cultivars for the plant development variables. However, protein quantity and quality in the grain differed between cultivars. 'BRS Novaera' and 'BR 17-Gurguéia' showed a higher soluble protein content in their grains. 'BRS Novaera' exhibited higher contents of two soluble sulfur amino acids – methionine and cysteine – , not differing from 'BR 17-Gurguéia' regarding methionine content. Both cultivars presented protein band polymorphism, but BRS Novaera had an extra band for albumins. The BRS Novaera and BR 17-Gurguéia cultivars have the highest content of soluble proteins in their grains and the greatest protein polymorphism, which makes them suitable for improving the nutritional quality of cowpea.O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar cultivares de feijão-caupi (Vigna unguiculata) quanto ao desenvolvimento da planta e à quantidade e à qualidade de proteínas solúveis em seus grãos, com vistas ao melhoramento. O experimento foi conduzido em casa de vegetação, em delineamento experimental inteiramente casualizado, com as cultivares Paulistinha, BRS Novaera, Epace 10 e BR 17-Gurguéia. Avaliaram-se área foliar, peso fresco e seco da parte aérea, conteúdo de proteína foliar, número de nódulos, e massa seca de nódulos e de raiz. Nos grãos maduros, também quantificaram-se as frações solúveis e os aminoácidos solúveis, e a análise eletroforética foi realizada com desnaturação das proteínas. Não houve diferenças entre as cultivares quanto às variáreis do desenvolvimento da planta. No entanto, a quantidade e a qualidade das proteínas nos grãos diferiram entre as cultivares. 'BRS Novaera' e 'BR 17-Gurguéia' apresentaram maior teor de proteína solúvel nos seus grãos. 'BRS Novaera' apresentou maior teor de dois aminoácidos sulfurados solúveis – metionina e cisteína – , não tendo diferido de 'BR 17-Gurguéia' quanto ao conteúdo de metionina. Ambas as cultivares apresentaram polimorfismo de bandas, mas BRS Novaera apresentou uma banda extra para albuminas. As cultivares BRS Novaera e BR 17-Gurguéia apresentam o maior conteúdo de proteínas solúveis nos seus grãos e o maior polimorfismo de proteínas, o que as torna adequadas para o melhoramento nutricional do feijão-caupi
Negative symptoms mediate the relationship between social cognition and functioning in schizophrenia: a pilot study
In spite of significant advances in pharmacological and
psychological treatments, schizophrenia still ranks among the leading
causes of disability worldwide. People suffering from schizophrenia
have significant impairment in major areas of everyday life, such as
interpersonal relationships, work or school and even self-care.
Enhancing the understanding of factors that hinder real-life functioning
is therefore crucial for translating delivered care into more positive
outcomes.
Social cognition, defined as the mental operations that underlie social
interactions, including perceiving, interpreting, and generating
responses to the intentions, dispositions, and behaviors of others,
has been implicated in impaired functioning. It is typically broken
down into four domains: emotion processing, social perception,
attributional bias and theory of mind. Negative symptoms have also
been associated with patients' functional outcome; although generally
conceptualized as a unitary construct, the most recent literature
suggests that these symptoms are heterogeneous and include at least
two factors: amotivation and diminished emotional expression. The
aim of this study was to analyze the relationships between negative
symptoms, social cognition and real-life functioning in people with
schizophrenia.
Methods: 12 patients with diagnosis of schizophrenia according to
ICD-10 criteria were assessed cross-sectionally regarding relevant
dimensions to our study: general psychopathology (Positive and
Negative Syndrome Scale), social cognition (Face and Emotion
Identification Test, Schema Component Sequencing Test - Revised,
Social Perception Scale, Ambiguous Intentions and Hostility Questionnaire,
Reading the Mind in The Eyes Test), negative symptoms
(Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms – CAINS) and
general functioning (Personal and Social Performance scale – PSP).
Spearman correlations were examined and regression and mediation
models (Preacher and Hayes bootstrapping methodology) were
performed.
Results: In our preliminary results, emotion processing was the only
social cognition dimension significantly correlated with functioning
(rS = .87) and negative symptoms measured by the CAINS: rS = -.78
with amotivation; -.70 with diminished emotional expression and -.78
with total CAINS score (all Po.01). Both amotivation and diminished
emotional expression, as well as negative symptoms as a whole,
correlated with functioning (rS4.80, Po.01). Emotion processing was
a significant predictor of amotivation, diminished emotional expression
and total CAINS score (all Beta4-.65, p o.05). Both emotion
processing (Beta = .71, P = 0.3) and amotivation (Beta = -.84, P = 0.001)
were significant predictors of functioning. Finally, amotivation was
found to be a partial mediator of the relationship between emotion
processing and functioning (BCA 95% CI = .196 - 7.559).
Discussion: Our results are in partial agreement with previous studies
suggesting that emotional processing is the most relevant dimension
of social cognition to everyday functioning, despite a possible
contribution of theory of mind for such impairment in patients with
schizophrenia.
Regarding negative symptoms, amotivation seems to be the
dimension of most relevance to functioning. Altogether, negative
symptoms seem to be driven by social cognition deficits and, at least
partially, negative symptoms may play a role in the deleterious impact
of impaired social cognition on functional outcome. The complexity of
the crosstalk between negative symptoms, social cognition and
functioning will be better addressed in ongoing studies, as a greater
understanding of underlying mechanisms is critical to development of
effective treatments
Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research
Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4
While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge
of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In
the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of
Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus
crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced
environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian
Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by
2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status,
much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research
Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost
Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research
Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost
Negative symptoms mediate the relationship between social cognition and functioning in schizophrenia: a pilot study
In spite of significant advances in pharmacological and
psychological treatments, schizophrenia still ranks among the leading
causes of disability worldwide. People suffering from schizophrenia
have significant impairment in major areas of everyday life, such as
interpersonal relationships, work or school and even self-care.
Enhancing the understanding of factors that hinder real-life functioning
is therefore crucial for translating delivered care into more positive
outcomes.
Social cognition, defined as the mental operations that underlie social
interactions, including perceiving, interpreting, and generating
responses to the intentions, dispositions, and behaviors of others,
has been implicated in impaired functioning. It is typically broken
down into four domains: emotion processing, social perception,
attributional bias and theory of mind. Negative symptoms have also
been associated with patients' functional outcome; although generally
conceptualized as a unitary construct, the most recent literature
suggests that these symptoms are heterogeneous and include at least
two factors: amotivation and diminished emotional expression. The
aim of this study was to analyze the relationships between negative
symptoms, social cognition and real-life functioning in people with
schizophrenia.
Methods: 12 patients with diagnosis of schizophrenia according to
ICD-10 criteria were assessed cross-sectionally regarding relevant
dimensions to our study: general psychopathology (Positive and
Negative Syndrome Scale), social cognition (Face and Emotion
Identification Test, Schema Component Sequencing Test - Revised,
Social Perception Scale, Ambiguous Intentions and Hostility Questionnaire,
Reading the Mind in The Eyes Test), negative symptoms
(Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms – CAINS) and
general functioning (Personal and Social Performance scale – PSP).
Spearman correlations were examined and regression and mediation
models (Preacher and Hayes bootstrapping methodology) were
performed.
Results: In our preliminary results, emotion processing was the only
social cognition dimension significantly correlated with functioning
(rS = .87) and negative symptoms measured by the CAINS: rS = -.78
with amotivation; -.70 with diminished emotional expression and -.78
with total CAINS score (all Po.01). Both amotivation and diminished
emotional expression, as well as negative symptoms as a whole,
correlated with functioning (rS4.80, Po.01). Emotion processing was
a significant predictor of amotivation, diminished emotional expression
and total CAINS score (all Beta4-.65, p o.05). Both emotion
processing (Beta = .71, P = 0.3) and amotivation (Beta = -.84, P = 0.001)
were significant predictors of functioning. Finally, amotivation was
found to be a partial mediator of the relationship between emotion
processing and functioning (BCA 95% CI = .196 - 7.559).
Discussion: Our results are in partial agreement with previous studies
suggesting that emotional processing is the most relevant dimension
of social cognition to everyday functioning, despite a possible
contribution of theory of mind for such impairment in patients with
schizophrenia.
Regarding negative symptoms, amotivation seems to be the
dimension of most relevance to functioning. Altogether, negative
symptoms seem to be driven by social cognition deficits and, at least
partially, negative symptoms may play a role in the deleterious impact
of impaired social cognition on functional outcome. The complexity of
the crosstalk between negative symptoms, social cognition and
functioning will be better addressed in ongoing studies, as a greater
understanding of underlying mechanisms is critical to development of
effective treatments