Women from the point of view of the Bukowskian narrator: the representation of the feminine universe in Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness

Pós-graduação em Letras - IBILCE

Determination of a point sufficiently close to the asymptote in nonlinear growth functions

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Visual communication in Brazilian species of anurans from the Atlantic forest

Visual communication is widespread among several anuran families, but seems to be more common than currently thought. We investigated and compared visual communication in six species of an anuran community in the Brazilian Atlantic forest. Four are nocturnal species: Hyalinobatrachium uranoscopum (Centrolenidae), Hyla albomarginata, Hyla sp. (aff. ehrhardti), and Scinax eurydice (Hylidae), and two are diurnal species: Hylodes phyllodes and Hylodes asper ( Leptodactylidae). For H. uranoscopum, H. albomarginata, S. eurydice, and H. phyllodes, this is the first record of visual communication. Observations were made at Nucleo Picinguaba, Parque Estadual da Serra do Mar, in the Municipality of Ubatuba, State of São Paulo, Brazil. Descriptions of behaviour were based on individuals observed in the field, using sequence sampling with continuous tape recording for behavioural observations. Eight new behaviours are described: body wiping, face wiping, jump display, leg kicking, limb lifting, mouth opening, toe flagging, and vocal sac display. of the 42 anuran species known from Nucleo Picinguaba, at least six ( approximately 14%) display visual communication. The evolution of visual signals in these species may be related to the availability of ambient light, the structural complexity of the habitat, and/or the ambient noise. They may also have evolved to aid in the location of the individual, to avoid physical combat, and/or may be a by-product of seismic communication.

Modulation of Maternal Immune System During Pregnancy in the Cow

There is a molecular crosstalk between the trophoblast and maternal immune cells of bovine endometrium. The uterine cells are able to secrete cytokine/chemokines to either induce a suppressive environment for establishment of the pregnancy or to recruit immune cells to the endometrium to fight infections. Despite morphological differences between women and cows, mechanisms for immune tolerance during pregnancy seem to be conserved. Mechanisms for uterine immunesuppression in the cow include: reduced expression of major histocompatability proteins by the trophoblast; recruitment of macrophages to the pregnant endometrium; and modulation of immune-related genes in response to the presence of the conceptus. Recently, an eGFP transgenic cloned embryo model developed by our group showed that there is modulation of foetal proteins expressed at the site of syncytium formation, suggesting that foetal cell can regulate not only by the secretion of specific factors such as interferon-tau, but also by regulating their own protein expression to avoid excessive maternal recognition by the local immune system. Furthermore, foetal DNA can be detected in the maternal circulation; this may reflect the occurrence of an invasion of trophoblast cells and/or their fragment beyond the uterine basement membrane in the cow. In fact, the newly description of exosome release by the trophoblast cell suggests that could be a new fashion of maternal-foetal communication at the placental barrier. Additionally, recent global transcriptome studies on bovine endometrium suggested that the immune system is aware, from an immunological point of view, of the presence of the foetus in the cow during early pregnancy.

Behavior of Triton X-114 cloud point in the presence of inorganic electrolytes

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Organizational communication and innovation in micro and small companies: a study on the application of the Innovation Radar

This paper is a study on corporate communication and the ability to innovate in small businesses. The guiding question seeks to respond whether organizational communication is able to make progress and / or support innovation in micro and small companies, and the main objective is to analyze the relationship between innovation and organizational communication. It was applied the case study method and document research for interpreting a diagnosis instru- ment called “Innovation Radar” in a small business company located in the countryside of São Paulo state. The diagnosis is made based on assessment dimensions aimed at checking the maturity and the degree of innovation in micro and small companies. By evaluating these di- mensions it was possible to build analytical frameworks and highlight the influence of corporate communication in promoting innovation. The results indicate that every dimension of the “In- novation Radar” can improve their performance by means of corporate communication.