Use of a polyphasic approach including MALDI-TOF MS for identification of Aspergillus section Flavi strains isolated from food commodities in Brazil

Brazil is one the largest producers and exporters of food commodities in the world. The evaluation of fungi capable of spoilage and the production mycotoxins in these commodities is an important issue that can be of help in bioeconomic development. The present work aimed to identify fungi of the genus Aspergillus section Flavi isolated from different food commodities in Brazil. Thirty-five fungal isolates belonging to the section Flavi were identified and characterised. Different classic phenotypic and genotypic methodologies were used, as well as a novel approach based on proteomic profiles produced by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Type or reference strains for each taxonomic group were included in this study. Three isolates that presented discordant identification patterns were further analysed using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and calmodulin gene sequences. The data obtained from the phenotypic and spectral analyses divide the isolates into three groups, corresponding to taxa closely related to Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus parasiticus, and Aspergillus tamarii. Final polyphasic fungal identification was achieved by joining data from molecular analyses, classical morphology, and biochemical and proteomic profiles generated by MALDI-TOF MS.

Curry-Howard for sequent calculus at last!

This paper tries to remove what seems to be the remaining stumbling blocks in the way to a full understanding of the Curry-Howard isomorphism for sequent calculus, namely the questions: What do variables in proof terms stand for? What is co-control and a co-continuation? How to define the dual of Parigot's mu-operator so that it is a co-control operator? Answering these questions leads to the interpretation that sequent calculus is a formal vector notation with first-class co-control. But this is just the "internal" interpretation, which has to be developed simultaneously with, and is justified by, an "external" one, offered by natural deduction: the sequent calculus corresponds to a bi-directional, agnostic (w.r.t. the call strategy), computational lambda-calculus. Next, the duality between control and co-control is studied and proved in the context of classical logic, where one discovers that the classical sequent calculus has a distortion towards control, and that sequent calculus is the de Morgan dual of natural deduction.

Como o videojogo se afastou do jogo, através da narrativa e criatividade

(Excerto) Continuamos a confundir o jogo com o videojogo, assumindo na maior parte das vezes, o segundo como um mero sucedâneo digital do primeiro. Contudo esta não passa de uma ideia simplista da arte dos videojogos que se transformou por completo desde que surgiu em meados do século vinte. O jogo enquanto estrutura sistémica criada pelo ser-humano responde por um lado às necessidades sociais e culturais de aprendizagem (Huizinga, 1939; Caillois, 1958; Gee, 2003), e por outro às necessidades cognitivas de recompensa na forma de resolução de problemas (Kenrick e Griskevicius, 2013). Ou seja, enquanto artefacto cultural o jogo permite-nos apreender o desconhecido, interagir com o outro e optimizar as nossas respostas sociais. Enquanto estímulo cognitivo o jogo atua de forma a recompensar o nosso esforço, engajando-nos através da insistência e da repetição com descargas de prazer. E é por isso que o jogo tem sido visto pela cultura humana como um dos mais importantes exercícios no processo de construção civilizacional.