The phonological and visual basis of developmental dyslexia in Brazilian Portuguese reading children

Evidence from opaque languages suggests that visual attention processing abilities in addition to phonological skills may act as cognitive underpinnings of developmental dyslexia. We explored the role of these two cognitive abilities on reading fluency in Brazilian Portuguese, a more transparent orthography than French or English. Sixty-six children with developmental dyslexia and normal Brazilian Portuguese children participated. They were administered three tasks of phonological skills (phoneme identification, phoneme, and syllable blending) and three visual tasks (a letter global report task and two non-verbal tasks of visual closure and visual constancy). Results show that Brazilian Portuguese children with developmental dyslexia are impaired not only in phonological processing but further in visual processing. The phonological and visual processing abilities significantly and independently contribute to reading fluency in the whole population. Last, different cognitively homogeneous subtypes can be identified in the Brazilian Portuguese population of children with developmental dyslexia. Two subsets of children with developmental dyslexia were identified as having a single cognitive disorder, phonological or visual; another group exhibited a double deficit and a few children showed no visual or phonological disorder. Thus the current findings extend previous data from more opaque orthographies as French and English, in showing the importance of investigating visual processing skills in addition to phonological skills in children with developmental dyslexia whatever their language orthography transparency.

Crystal structure of Staphylococcus aureus exfoliative toxin D-like protein: structural basis for the high specificity of exfoliative toxins

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Performance of aerodynamic baffles in cylindrical grinding analyzed on the basis of air layer pressure and speed

Over the years, grinding has been considered one of the most important manufacturing processes. Grinding is a high precision process, and the loss of a single workpiece in this stage of the production is unacceptable, fir the value added to the material is very high due to many processes it has already undergone prior to grinding. This study aims to contribute toward the development of an experimental methodology whereby the pressure and speed of the air layer produced by the high rotation of the grinding wheel is evaluated with and without baffles, i.e., in an optimized grinding operation and in a traditional one. Tests were also carried out with steel samples to check the difference in grinding wheel wear with and without the use of baffles.

Exact solution for a fermion in the background of a scalar inversely linear potential

The problem of a fermion subject to a general scalar potential in a two-dimensional world is mapped into a Sturm-Liouville problem for nonzero eigenenergies. The searching for possible bounded solutions is done in the circumstance of power-law potentials. The normalizable zero-eigenmode solutions are also searched. For the specific case of an inversely linear potential, which gives rise to an effective Kratzer potential, exact bounded solutions are found in closed form. The behaviour of the upper and lower components of the Dirac spinor is discussed in detail and some unusual results are revealed. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Novel insights into the genomic basis of citrus canker based on the genome sequences of two strains of Xanthomonas fuscans subsp aurantifolii

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Structural basis for the specificity of bipartite nuclear localization sequence binding by importin-alpha

Importin-alpha is the nuclear import receptor that recognizes cargo proteins carrying conventional basic monopartite and bipartite nuclear localization sequences (NLSs) and facilitates their transport into the nucleus. Bipartite NLSs contain two clusters of basic residues, connected by linkers of variable lengths. To determine the structural basis of the recognition of diverse bipartite NLSs by mammalian importin-alpha, we co-crystallized a non-autoinhibited mouse receptor protein with peptides corresponding to the NLSs from human retinoblastoma protein and Xenopus laevis phosphoprotein N1N2, containing diverse sequences and lengths of the linker. We show that the basic clusters interact analogously in both NLSs, but the linker sequences adopt different conformations, whereas both make specific contacts with the receptor. The available data allow us to draw general conclusions about the specificity of NLS binding by importin-alpha and facilitate an improved definition of the consensus sequence of a conventional basic/bipartite NLS (KRX10-12KRRK) that can be used to identify novel nuclear proteins.

Genetic basis of the resistance to Strongyloides venezuelensis (Nematoda, Rhabdiasidae) infection in mice (Mus musculus)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Phosphate closes the solution structure of the 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis

The 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase catalyses the sixth step of the shikimate pathway that is responsible for synthesizing aromatic compounds and is absent in mammals, which makes it a potential target for drugs development against microbial diseases. Here, we report the phosphate binding effects at the structure of the 5-enolpyruvyl shikimate-3-phosphate synthase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This enzyme is formed by two similar domains that close on each other induced by ligand binding, showing the occurrence of a large conformation change. We have monitored the phosphate binding effects using analytical ultracentrifugation, small angle X-ray scattering and, circular dichroism techniques. The low resolution results showed that the enzyme in the presence of phosphate clearly presented a more compact structure. Thermal-induced unfolding experiments followed by circular dichroism suggested that phosphate rigidified the enzyme. Summarizing, these data suggested that the phosphate itself is able to induce conformational change resulting in the closure movement in the M. tuberculosis 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The symmetry group of Z(q)(n) in the Lee space and the Z(qn)-linear codes

The Z(4)-linearity is a construction technique of good binary codes. Motivated by this property, we address the problem of extending the Z(4)-linearity to Z(q)n-linearity. In this direction, we consider the n-dimensional Lee space of order q, that is, (Z(q)(n), d(L)), as one of the most interesting spaces for coding applications. We establish the symmetry group of Z(q)(n) for any n and q by determining its isometries. We also show that there is no cyclic subgroup of order q(n) in Gamma(Z(q)(n)) acting transitively in Z(q)(n). Therefore, there exists no Z(q)n-linear code with respect to the cyclic subgroup.

On the solution of the extended linear complementarity problem

The extended linear complementarity problem (XLCP) has been introduced in a recent paper by Mangasarian and Pang. In the present research, minimization problems with simple bounds associated to this problem are defined. When the XLCP is solvable, their solutions are global minimizers of the associated problems. Sufficient conditions that guarantee that stationary points of the associated problems are solutions of the XLCP will be proved. These theoretical results support the conjecture that local methods for box constrained optimization applied to the associated problems could be efficient tools for solving the XLCP. (C) 1998 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

On the hardy space H¹ on products of half-spaces

We show that the Hardy space H¹ anal (R2+ x R2+) can be identified with the class of functions f such that f and all its double and partial Hubert transforms Hk f belong to L¹ (R2). A basic tool used in the proof is the bisubharmonicity of |F|q, where F is a vector field that satisfies a generalized conjugate system of Cauchy-Riemann type.

Influence of the solution pH on the morphological, structural and electrical properties of Bi3.50La0.50Ti3O12 thin films obtained by the polymeric precursor method

Lanthanum-doped Bi4Ti3O12 thin films (BLT) were deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates using a polymeric precursor solution. The spin-coated films were specular, crack-free and crystalline after annealing at 700 degrees C for 2 h. Crystallinity and morphological evaluation were examined by X ray diffraction (YRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The stability of the formed complex is of extreme importance for the formation of the perovskite phase. Films obtained from acid pH solution present elongated grains around 200 ran in size, whereas films obtained from basic solution present a dense microstructure with spherical grains (100 nm). The dielectric and ferroelectric properties of the BLT films are strongly affected by the solution pH. The hysteresis loops are fully saturated with a remnant polarization and coercive voltage of P-r=20.2 mu C/cm(2) and V-c = 1.35 V and P-r= 15 mu C/cm(2) and V-c = 1.69 V for the films obtained from basic and acid solutions, respectively. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Polar Multiplicities and Euler obstruction of the stable types in weighted homogeneous map germs from C-n to C-3 n >= 3

In this article we show that for corank 1, quasi-homogeneous and finitely determined map germs f : (C-n, 0)-> (C-3, 0), n >= 3 one can obtain formulae for the polar multiplicities defined on the following stable types of f, f(Delta(f) and f(Sigma(n-2,1)(f), in terms of the weights and degrees of f. As a consequence we show how to compute the Euler obstruction of such stable types, also in terms of the weights and degrees of f.

A new approach to the solution of the optimal power flow problem based on the modified Newton's method associated to an augmented Lagrangian function

This paper presents a new algorithm for optimal power flow problem. The algorithm is based on Newton's method which it works with an Augmented Lagrangian function associated with the original problem. The function aggregates all the equality and inequality constraints and is solved using the modified-Newton method. The test results have shown the effectiveness of the approach using the IEEE 30 and 638 bus systems.