O gênero Geastrum Pers. (Geastraceae, Basidiomycota): ocorrência, chave taxonômica e descrições de novas espécies do Nordeste brasileiro

Geastraceae is a monophyletic family included in the gomphoid-phalloid clade, it is composed only by two genus: Geastrum and Myriostoma. These genus are closely related in their morphology and phylogeny, both showing angiocarpic basidiomata, apical stoma, basidiospores passively released by the bellows mechanism and exoperidium dehiscent in rays, these genus are distinct by the number of stomas and pedicels. Because of dehiscense of exoperidium they are popularly known as “earthstars”. Usually they occur on decomposing leaf-litter and decaying wood. They are, thus, saprophytic, with rare exceptions of ectomycorrhizal species. Geastrum is the most diverse gasteroid genus in Brazil, with an estimated 51 records. However, there are large gaps in the geographic distribution and systematics studies about the Geastrum in this country, especially because of the characteristics found in the Brazilian territory (megadiverse, hotspots and continental size), which makes it a priority area for species inventory. Thus, this work was aimed at realizing inventory of species of Geastrum, which occur in Caatinga and Northeastern Atlantic Rainforest. At least two field expeditions were realized, during about four days on rainy season of 2013 and 2014 in the areas: Reserva Biológica de Guaribas, located in Atlantic Rainforest domain, Paraíba State and Reserva Ecológica Estadual Mata do Pau Ferro, located on “Brejos Paraibanos”, Paraíba State. Furthermore, specimens deposited in the Herbarium of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, which were collected in Parque Nacional Vale do Catimbau, Caatinga of Pernambuco State, were analyzed. The specimens were identified according to analysis of macro and micro morphology based on specific literature. Approximately 400 basidiomata, distributed in 73 exsiccates were analyzed. 21 species were identified, 19 are in specie level, which two are proposed to new species. (Geastrum magnosporum sp. nov. e G. pusillupilosum sp. nov.) and two in genera level (sp. e aff.). We emphasize one new record for Brazil, 12 new records for Paraíba State, four new records for semiarid region in Brazil and six new records to Atlantic Rainforest relicts “Brejo de Altitude”. So, the results improved the knowledge about Geastrum in Paraíba State by 200%, 24 % in Brazilian semiarid region and 55% in Atlantic Rainforest relicts “Brejo de Altitude”, evincing that Northeastern Brazil has high species richness.

Fatores de longevidade do programa Central do Cidadão no Rio Grande do Norte

The public management reform in Brazil, since 1995, provoked new experiences in public administration. Among the new models of public service the one-stop shopping has distinguished and was adopted at Rio Grande do Norte with the Citizens Center Program. The one-stop shopping assembles in the same place many public services with appropriate structure, enabled human resources and citizens focus processes. The goal of this research was understand how citizens focus processes help to explain Citizens Center Program s longevity. It was made a case study and the research tools were applied with Citizen Center Programs workers and citizen-users at South Unit of Citizen Center Program placed at Via Direta Mall, Natal. The major contributions for Citizen Center Program s longevity were imputed to Basic Operation Processes. The most spoken features in Citizen Center Program mentioned were quality, efficiency, celerity e personal appearance, what demonstrate concern and care with citizen-users. Worker s personal appearance, accommodation, celerity, politeness and attending capacity planning were high evaluated by citizen-users revealing the wisely choice of use a large quality concept and citizenship concept in public administration. Citizen-users also pointed the necessity of refine and enlarge the communication ways that form an essential mechanism to public citizen focus administration. Not ignoring the policy aspect citizen focus processes were noticed like especial management actions that make easier citizen s activities and public service access, what generate satisfaction to citizen-users. It s possible to conclude that the high level approving evaluation of Citizen Center Program consolidates it an especial public policy that serves citizen s necessities e create appropriate legitimacy conditions of the public policy making harder the choice of ending the policy even in more fragile moments strongly contributing for its longevity

Redes interorganizacionais e inovação: o caso do pólo joalheiro de Belém

This work is a case study based on Belém Jewelry Pole, whose main issue is to understand how the social network (which the Pole is inserted) influences on innovation process on this area. The main objective is to analyze how interorganizational networks impacted/impact on the potential for innovation, creating both limits and opportunities for the companies development. The adopted method analyzed the historical jewelry industry trajectory since the beginning of mineral extraction in the city of Itaituba (in the Pará State) until nowadays. Primary and secondary data were used allowing the view of the dynamics of the network during transformation periods of the main involved actors in the process. The prospect of embeddedness structural as analysis technique allowed verifying the quality of interactors ties, as well as the visualization of their structures. During the jewelry industry trajectory was verified a change in the quality of social relations, modifying the information flow, trust and associations of various links in the production chain. Both direct and indirect ties facilitated the access to remote networks entering new information related to new products, processes and market aspects. This interaction has led to raising the innovation potential causing a qualitative and quantitative improvement in competitiveness of organizations. Some embedded ties allowed the formation of partnerships bringing various economic earnings for those involved in the relationship. Thus, it is understood how aspects related to the position, architecture and quality of ties in a wide social network influenced on the innovation process and eventual jewelry industry trajectory

Modelo de decisão multicritério para seleções interciclo das universidades novas: estudo na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

The discussions wherein develop proposals for university reform in Brazil include, among other things, the conception of the university titled "New University", whose structural origin comes from the bill of higher education reform and unification of the foundations of education European upper (Bologna process). At its core, the Bologna process has imposed a series of transformations, among which, the promotion of mobility, as a stimulus to interinstitutional cooperation to enable an better and bigger qualification of the students. Nevertheless, what we see is that this point is one of the main points made flawed by Brazilian institutions that have adopted this model of higher education. An example is the Bachelor of Science and Technology - BC&T, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte - UFRN, where there are problems of the internal order, represented by the problem of the reusing of the disciplines, such also of external order, in cases of transfers interinstitutional. Because of this, and knowing that this is a typical problem in which multiple criteria are involved, the aim of this study is to propose a multicriteria model for selection of interciclo of the BC&T of the UFRN which addresses the issue of mobility. For this, this study was of exploratory and study case nature, use as tools of data collection, the bibliographic and documentary research, as well as semi-structured interviews. For the elaboration of the model, were used the five phases most commonly used in the modeling of problems in operational research in a sample of 91 students of BC&T. As a result, we obtained a model that addresses the issue of internal and external mobility of the school and that, moreover, was also more robust and fair than the current model of BC&T and also what is used in other courses of the UFRN, taking into consideration the expected results by the decision makers

Novas propriedades do SKTI (Inibidor de tripsina de soja): inibição para elastase neutrofílica humana e efeitos no processo de injúria pulmonar aguda

Seeds from legumes including the Glycine max are known to be a rich source of protease inhibitors. The soybean Kunitz trypsin inhibitor (SKTI) has been well characterised and has been found to exhibit many biological activities. However its effects on inflammatory diseases have not been studied to date. In this study, SKTI was purified from a commercial soy fraction, enriched with this inhibitor, using anion exchange chromatography Resource Q column. The purified protein was able to inhibit human neutrophil elastase (HNE) and bovine trypsin. . Purified SKTI inhibited HNE with an IC50 value of 8 µg (0.3 nM). At this concentration SKTI showed neither cytotoxic nor haemolytic effects on human blood cell populations. SKTI showed no deleterious effects on organs, blood cells or the hepatic enzymes alanine amine transferase (ALT) and aspartate amino transferase (AST) in mice model of acute systemic toxicity. Human neutrophils incubated with SKTI released less HNE than control neutrophils when stimulated with PAF or fMLP (83.1% and 70% respectively). These results showed that SKTI affected both pathways of elastase release by PAF and fMLP stimuli, suggesting that SKTI is an antagonist of PAF/fMLP receptors. In an in vivo mouse model of acute lung injury, induced by LPS from E. coli, SKTI significantly suppressed the inflammatory effects caused by elastase in a dose dependent manner. Histological sections stained by hematoxylin/eosin confirmed this reduction in inflammation process. These results showed that SKTI could be used as a potential pharmacological agent for the therapy of many inflammatory diseases