Soil uses in the sugarcane fallow period to improve chemical and physical properties of two latosols (oxisols)

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

Effect of estradiol benzoate microinjection into the median raphe nucleus on contextual conditioning

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

Limiarização contextual automática de imagens coloridas: aplicação na extração de sementes de rodovia

In this paper is a totally automatic strategy proposed to reduce the complexity of patterns ( vegetation, building, soils etc.) that interact with the object 'road' in color images, thus reducing the difficulty of the automatic extraction of this object. The proposed methodology consists of three sequential steps. In the first step the punctual operator is applied for artificiality index computation known as NandA ( Natural and Artificial). The result is an image whose the intensity attribute is the NandA response. The second step consists in automatically thresholding the image obtained in the previous step, resulting in a binary image. This image usually allows the separation between artificial and natural objects. The third step consists in applying a preexisting road seed extraction methodology to the previous generated binary image. Several experiments carried out with real images made the verification of the potential of the proposed methodology possible. The comparison of the obtained result to others obtained by a similar methodology for road seed extraction from gray level images, showed that the main benefit was the drastic reduction of the computational effort.

Both alpha(1)- and beta(1)-adrenoceptors in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis are involved in the expression of conditioned contextual fear

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

Paracoccidioides brasiliensis Uses Endogenous and Exogenous Arachidonic Acid for PGE(x) Production

Paracoccidioides brasiliensis is the agent of paracoccidioidomycosis, the most prevalent deep mycosis in Latin America. Production of eicosanoids during fungal infections plays a critical role on fungal biology as well as on host immune response modulation. The purpose of our study was to assess whether P. brasiliensis strains with different degree of virulence (Pb18, Pb265, Bt79, Pb192) produce prostaglandin E-x (PGE(x)). Moreover, we asked if P. brasiliensis could use exogenous sources of arachidonic acid (AA), as well as metabolic pathways dependent on cyclooxygenase (COX) enzyme, as reported for mammalian cells. A possible association between this prostanoid and fungus viability was also assessed. Our results showed that all strains, independently of their virulence, produce high PGE(x) levels on 4 h culture that were reduced after 8 h. However, in both culture times, higher prostanoid levels were detected after supplementation of medium with exogenous AA. Treatment with indomethacin, a COX inhibitor, induced a reduction on PGEx, as well as in fungus viability. The data provide evidence that P. brasiliensis produces prostaglandin-like molecules by metabolizing either endogenous or exogenous AA. Moreover, the results suggest the involvement of these mediators on fungal viability.

Folk uses and pharmacological properties of Casearia sylvestris: a medicinal review

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

Regulation of contextual conditioning by the median raphe nucleus

The median raphe nucleus (MRN) has been suggested as the origin of a behavioral inhibition system that projects to the septum and hippocampus. Electrical stimulation of this mesencephalic area causes behavioral and autonomic manifestations characteristic of fear such as, freezing, defecation and micturition. In this study we extend these observations by analyzing the behavioral and autonomic responses of rats with lesions in the MRN submitted to a contextual conditioning paradigm. The animals underwent electrolytic or sham lesions of the median raphe nucleus. One day (acute) or 7 days (chronic) later they were tested in an experimental chamber where they received 10 foot-shocks (0.7 mA, 1 s with 20-s interval). The next day, sham and MRN-lesioned animals were tested again either in the same or in a different experimental chamber. During this, the duration of freezing, rearings, bouts of micturition and number of fecal boli were recorded. Sham-operated rats placed in the same chamber showed more freezing than rats exposed to a different context. This freezing behavior was clearly suppressed in rats with acute or chronic lesions in the MRN. MRN lesions also reduced the bouts of micturition and number of fecal boli. These rats showed a reduced number of rearings than sham-lesioned rats. This effect is probably the result of the displacement effect provoked by freezing since no significant differences in the number of rearings could be observed between these animals and the NMR-lesioned rats tested in an open field. This lesion produced higher horizontal locomotor activity in this test than the controls (sham-lesioned rats). These results point to the importance of the median raphe nucleus in the processing of fear conditioning with freezing being the most salient feature of it. Behavioral inhibition is also under control of MRN but its neural substrate seems to be dissociated from that of contextual fear. (C) 1998 Elsevier B.V. B.V.

Alternative uses for vinasse, an alcohol industry residue. A review

Recent studies on the recycling of vinasse, its potential use in agriculture and possible environmental problems resulting from the use and disposal of this residue are reviewed.

Uses of QCD sumrules (QCDSR) from different points of view

We support the idea that the baryon, B with mass MB, couples to its current with a coupling λ2 B ∼ 0.71 M6 B from an analysis of magnetic moment sum rules. And we find a sum rule among the experimental magnetic moments which is independent of the parameters of QCDSR. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Involvement of the insular cortex in the consolidation and expression of contextual fear conditioning

The insular cortex (IC) has been reported to be involved in the modulation of memory and autonomic and defensive responses. However, there is conflicting evidence about the role of the IC in fear conditioning. To explore the IC involvement in both behavioral and autonomic responses induced by contextual fear conditioning, we evaluated the effects of the reversible inhibition of the IC neurotransmission through bilateral microinjections of the non-selective synapse blocker CoCl2 (1 mm) 10 min before or immediately after the conditioning session or 10 min before re-exposure to the aversive context. In the conditioning session, rats were exposed to a footshock chamber (context) and footshocks were used as the unconditioned stimulus. Forty-eight hours later, the animals were re-exposed to the aversive context for 10 min, but no shock was given. Behavioral (freezing) as well as cardiovascular (arterial pressure and heart rate increases) responses induced by re-exposure to the aversive context were analysed. It was observed that the local IC neurotransmission inhibition attenuated freezing and the mean arterial pressure and heart rate increase of the groups that received the CoCl2 either immediately after conditioning or 10 min before re-exposure to the aversive context, but not when the CoCl2 was injected before the conditioning session. These findings suggest the involvement of the IC in the consolidation and expression of contextual aversive memory. However, the IC does not seem to be essential for the acquisition of memory associated with aversive context. © 2013 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Multiple ornamental uses of Costus stenophyllus standi. & L.O. Williams

Costus stenophyllus or bamboo costus, despite its high ornamental potential, is still little known in the cut flower and ornamental plant market. The bamboo costus is a spiral ginger admired for its beautiful stems that are lined with brown colored alternating bands. This costus has rather straight and upright stems. Conical red inflorescences, which resemble the head of a snake, emerge from the base of the plants. The flowers are light yellow and emerge between the red scales on the rather long-lasting, attractive inflorescences. This study was carried out to evaluate the possibility of using these species as a garden plant, cut flower and cut stem. Thus, the characterization was made based on 28 characters of the plant, the leaves, the flower stem, the flowers, as well as season blooming characteristics and flower postharvest longevity.

OPF-MRF: Optimum-path forest and Markov random fields for contextual-based image classification

Some machine learning methods do not exploit contextual information in the process of discovering, describing and recognizing patterns. However, spatial/temporal neighboring samples are likely to have same behavior. Here, we propose an approach which unifies a supervised learning algorithm - namely Optimum-Path Forest - together with a Markov Random Field in order to build a prior model holding a spatial smoothness assumption, which takes into account the contextual information for classification purposes. We show its robustness for brain tissue classification over some images of the well-known dataset IBSR. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.

A partícula QUE: funções, usos e equivalências em espanhol e português

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Padrão contextual e efeito estilístico

Com fundamento no método de análise formal e estrutural, é realizado o estudo estilístico de um segmento do conto O Burrinho Pedrês, de Guimarães Rosa. Fatos lingüísticos de diferentes níveis são avaliados por sua articulação coesa centrada em direções comuns que tomam dentro do texto, o que conduz à identificação de isomorfias, convergências e padrões contextuais. A intensificação estilística á apreendida na superposição seqüencial de padrões e nos contrastes que daí resultam.

Methods for obtaining reabsorbable composites, composites, membrane, scaffold and its uses

The present invention relates to novel methods of obtaining reabsorbable composites, based on bacterial cellulose and collagen, for application in tissue repairing Additionally, the present invention relates to the composites obtained by the methods described herein and their uses.