Numerical Simulation of Saint-Venant Equations with Thermal Energy Dependency: Applications on Global Warming

Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has been intensifying the burning of fossil fuels and as a consequence, the average temperature on Earth has been increasing. The 20th century was the warmest and future prospects are not favorable, that is, even higher temperatures are expected. This demonstrates the importance of studies on the subject, mainly to predict possible environmental, social and economic consequences. The objective of this work was to identify the interference of the increase in ambient temperature in the dynamics of fluids, such as ocean waves advancing over the continent. For this, thermal energy was considered in the Saint-Venant equations and computational implementations were performed via Lax-Friedrichs and Adams-Moulton methods. The results indicated that, in fact, depending on the amount of thermal energy transferred to the fluid, the advance of water towards the continent can occur, even in places where such a phenomenon has never been observed.

Effect of Ultraviolet Radiation on Fungi <i>Beauveria bassiana</i>and <i>Metarhizium anisopliae</i>, Pure and Encapsulated, and Bio-Insecticide Action on <i>Diatraea saccharalis</i>

The effect of ultraviolet radiation on entomopathogenic fungi can be very prejudicial for causing damage to the conidia. Formulations can help protecting these fungal structures against radiation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of UV radiation on pure and encapsulated conidia Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae sensu lato, and to evaluate their pathogenicity on the sugarcane borer, Diatraea saccharalis. The pure conidia and the sodium alginate capsules containing the fungi were submitted to the ultraviolet radiation in different temperatures and exposure times. On the pure conidia, the radiation had a deleterious effect after 5 minutes of exposure, going from 94% to 52% germination for B. bassiana and from 96% to 54% for M. anisopliae. The alginate formulation protected the B. bassiana conidia against the radiation in all times they were evaluated (15 minutes to 48 hours), because, even after exposure, the fungi remained viable. The dry encapsulated conidia B. bassiana caused 79.6% mortality of the studied pest and the M. anisopliae caused only 10%.

Effect of Ultraviolet Radiation on Fungi Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae, Pure and Encapsulated, and Bio-Insecticide Action on Diatraea saccharalis

The effect of ultraviolet radiation on entomopathogenic fungi can be very prejudicial for causing damage to the conidia. Formulations can help protecting these fungal structures against radiation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of UV radiation on pure and encapsulated conidia Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae sensu lato, and to evaluate their pathogenicity on the sugarcane borer, Diatraea saccharalis. The pure conidia and the sodium alginate capsules containing the fungi were submitted to the ultraviolet radiation in different temperatures and exposure times. On the pure conidia, the radiation had a deleterious effect after 5 minutes of exposure, going from 94% to 52% germination for B. bassiana and from 96% to 54% for M. anisopliae. The alginate formulation protected the B. bassiana conidia against the radiation in all times they were evaluated (15 minutes to 48 hours), because, even after exposure, the fungi remained viable. The dry encapsulated conidia B. bassiana caused 79.6% mortality of the studied pest and the M. anisopliae caused only 10%.

Social Competence and Obesity in Teenagers: An Analysis of the Last Ten Years of Studies

Socially competent people using better strategies for solving interpersonal problems are more readily accepted by peers and valued by adults. Obese individuals, especially teenagers, have deficits in several social skills, which lead to damage to the relationships, self-esteem and in their valuation by social agents. This study examines how the literature of the last decade associates the components of social competence to obesity in adolescents. The research was carried out in electronic databases in the period between Jan. 2005 and Dec. 2015, resulting in 329 articles. 303 were excluded as they did not meet the inclusion criteria, and 26 original articles have been analyzed. The results showed that the components of social competence were negatively associated with obesity and most studies focused on self-esteem, pattern of interaction with peers and social relationship. The social competence was highlighted as important for interventions aimed at reducing weight.

A Neural Based Modeling Approach for Drying Kinetics Analysis of Mint Branches and Their Fractions (Leaves and Stems)

This work is aimed at investigating regular mint (Mentha × villosa) drying behavior and assessing how the heterogeneous composition of plants affects their drying kinetics. Drying kinetics and sorption isotherms were evaluated for whole branches and their fractions (leaves and stems). Stems and leaves were characterized by measurement of dimensions, apparent density and initial moisture content. The moisture sorption isotherms were obtained under temperatures of 30°C, 40°C and 50°C for branches, stems and leaves and the data were fitted to the GAB model. Mint branches and their fractions were oven dried at temperatures from 40°C to 70°C?and were obtained kinetic curves for each part. Water sorption patterns were similar for leaves and stems and the GAB model described well the sorption behavior of both materials. At a constant temperature, the drying rates were higher for leaves in comparison to stems and the differences increased as the temperature was raised. Therefore, depending on drying conditions, the moisture distribution in dried branches might be significantly different. Since the leaves constitute the major fraction in branches, the drying rates of branches were closer to those of leaves. The kinetic curves were fitted to a diffusion model based on an analytical solution of Fick’s second diffusion law and to an empirical model based on artificial neural network (ANN). The results showed that the model based on the ANN predicted the drying kinetics of the different parts better than the diffusive model. A single network was built to describe the kinetic behavior of branches and fractions in the whole range of temperatures investigated. The diffusive model based on fitting effective diffusivity did not provide good predictions of moisture content, probably because neither the dependence of effective diffusivity on the moisture content nor the heterogeneity and shrinking of static beds were considered.

Application of Simplex Method in the Radiotherapy Treatment

This work presents an application of the Simplex Method for solving an optimal planning problem for cancer treatment by radiotherapy. Linear Programming can aid the optimal planning for radiation therapy, where the concern is to apply a high enough radiation in the tumor while saving significantly healthy regions or critical organs.

Agriculture and Forest Transition: Understanding of Land Use Change in a Cultural Landscape

Land use trajectory analysis provides both the time and kind of land cover changes to monitor land use dynamics. Land cover change trajectories for three different dates (1965, 1989 and 2014) extracted from satellite images by vectorization of the thematic information were studied This study was carried out on a cultural landscape (S?o Carlos municipality, SP, Brazil) with three major land use-cover classes (forest, agriculture and other uses). The results showed the spatio temporal variability of landscape pattern and forest and agriculture change trajectories. Analysis based on these landscape trajectories demonstrates that agriculture and forest cover changes have been caused by human activities. The results reflect the conflicting interactions between environmental and human systems in the study area. A key question is that the pressure exerted on forest land use-cover depends on the incentives that move society from a conflicting relation with a municipal territory. A more sustainable landscape transition and trajectory for S?o Carlos municipality are extremely dependent on the regulatory role of the government through strategies related to the implementation of specific categories of legally protected areas (Legal Reserves and Areas of Permanent Preservation).

Identification of New Genes Related to Virulence of <i>Xanthomonas axonopodis</i>Pv. <i>Citri</i>during Citrus Host Interactions

A mutant library of the bacterium Xanthomonas citri subsp. citri strain 306 pathotype A (Xac), the causative agent of most aggressive Asiatic type A citrus canker, was screened regarding altered canker symptoms after inoculations into Citrus sinensis and Citrus limonia host leaves. Twenty-six mutants have shown phenotypic virulence changes and have respectively knocked out gene identified by sequencing. In vivo growth curves were obtained for nine mutants to quantify how the mutations could affect pathogen’s adaptability to growth inside and attack host plant infected tissue. Among identified genes in mutated strains, we could find those that until now had not been reported as being involved in Xac adaptation and/or virulence, such as predicted to encode for xylose repressor-like protein (XACΔxylR), Fe-S oxidoredutase (XACΔaslB), helicase IV (XACΔhelD), ubiquinol cytochrome c oxidoreductase iron-sulfur subunit (XACΔpetA), chromosome partitioning protein (XACΔparB) and cell division protein FtsB (XACΔftsB), in addition to genes predicted to encode for hypothetical proteins. The new genes found in this study as being relevant to adaptation and virulence, improve the understanding of Xac fitness during citrus plant attack and canker symptoms development.

Immunological Intolerance and Tolerance by Antigenic Co-Stimulation

The plasticity and dynamism in the immune responses to both self and environmental stimulation promote the maintenance and adaptation of a system that tends to harmoniously survive and evolve. Fluctuating antigenic forces coexist within the immune system and oscillate between order and chaos to the equilibrium. Thus, when mounting a response to internal or environmental antigens, the main host responses can be divided into two immunological categories. The first, a well-adapted mechanism of complex multi-cellular organisms classically known as tolerance, promotes persistent immunological responses. In the second, opposite way, the modulation of inflammatory immune responses occurs, which we call “intolerance”. Tolerance and intolerance can be mediated by humoral molecules, such as inflammatory compounds, complement, and antibodies, and by different cell types, such as sentinel cells, antigen-presenting cells, and cells that orchestrate the immune response. Tolerogenesis is important in vertebrates because it predisposes species to adapt to self and environmental negative-selective forces. This process depends, in large part, on antigenic co-stimulation (AgCS), which operates as a multi-integrated network formed by all immune and non-immune cells of the body that establishes tolerant immunoregulatory interactions from cells to cells and from cells to the environment. Antigenic distribution, quantity, nature, route of administration, and antigenic convergence on co-stimulatory pathways, and concurrent infections, and the presence of microorganisms (commensals and pathogens) in more than one site are important factors for activating AgCS. To conclude, the AgCS route is a natural immune response generated by heterogeneous APC profile with centralized regulation that promote the counterbalance between intolerant e tolerant status, which can have several applications in the medical and biological fields.

Reserpine-Induced Progressive Parkinsonism in Mice Predisposed and Non-Predisposed to Depressive-Like Behavior

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive degenerative condition that mainly affects the elderly. The disease comprises motor symptoms such as tremors at rest, loss of voluntary movement, decreased muscle strength, propensity to lean forward and acceleration of the walking pace. These signs are related to the degeneration of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic pathway. Patients also have non-motor symptoms, among which sleep alterations, cognitive deficits, fatigue, pain and depression stand out. Although depression has been described as the most prevalent non-motor symptom, it is not clear whether this mood disorder is due to PD or patients would already have a greater predisposition. The present study evaluated the relationship between the predisposition to depressive-like behavior and the development of motor alterations in a progressive pharmacological model of PD in mice. Mice were classified into groups of depressive-like propensities and submitted to the pharmacological model. Reserpine was administrated at 0.1 mg/kg on alternate days for 40 days. The catalepsy and oral movement tests were used to evaluate motor alterations, the sucrose preference test was used to evaluate anhedonia, and the open field test was applied to evaluate general activity. Reserpine promoted parkinsonian motor impairments, and there were no differences between animals from different depressive-like behavior profiles. Thus, it was not possible to find a relationship between parkinsonism and the propensity to depression based on the basal sucrose preference test. More studies with other evaluations of depressive-like behavior are needed to confirm the results found in our study.

Socio-Economic Metabolism and Sustainability at a Watershed

This research relates to the change in land use and land cover and to socio-economic metabolism, which constitute two approaches to interdisciplinary research on the society-nature relationship. The study focuses on relationships between the spatial pattern of land use, as exhibited through changes in Human Appropriation of Net Primary Productivity percentage (HANPP%), and socio- economic indicators (such as social exclusion/inclusion, income autonomy, human development, social equity and quality of life) of census sectors of a watershed. The analysis seeks to identify the existence of ecological and economic conflicts as a means of diagnosing the sustainability condition of the mid-upper Mogi Gua&ccedil;u River watershed in 2009. The spatial pattern of land use of the watershed in 2009 indicates that ecosystems and natural habitats had already been reduced to a fraction of their original sizes and that a significant portion of their primary productivity had been appropriated. The predominance of anthropogenic agricultural activities in the watershed was the main cause of the increase in the HANPP%. Lower HANPP% values are associated with census sectors in regions with legally protected conservation areas;higher values are associated with census sectors involved in anthropogenic agricultural and non-agricultural activities. A positive significant correlation was observed between HANPP% and social exclusion/inclusion, income autonomy and human development indicators, with values above the Basic Social Inclusion Standard, indicating lower trophic availability. With the exception of the quality of life indicator, lower (0.75 to 0.25) and higher (-0.75 to -0.25) social exclusion values were observed in rural and urban census sectors. The environmental sustainability of the middle Mogi Gua&ccedil;u River watershed has been compromised in terms of the amount of biomass available to the trophic community. However, socio-economic indicators demonstrate an improved quality of life for the populations of the census sectors of the middle Mogi Gua&ccedil;u River watershed.