Amplificação, clonagem e sequenciamento de promotores de café (Coffea arabica cv Mundo Novo) específicos de fruto e ubíquos

The Coffee Genome Project made available to the scientific community relevant information that made practical the identification and cloning of important genes, as well as the identification of the major sequences involved on their regulation. The aim of the present study was to amplify, clone and sequence coffee promoters with specific expression patterns. For that, coffee ESTs which known expression profiles were employed. First, the promoter regions of coffee genes showing, respectively, fruitspecific and ubiquitous expression were amplified using the Genome Walking strategy. Amplified sequences were then inserted in the pGEM-Teasy vector (Promega) and sequenced. Once completed the sequencing, an expression cassette was constructed using the binary vector pCAMBIA-1381z (Cambia). These expression cassettes were cloned into Agrobacterium tumefaciens, and transgenic tobacco plants were generated aiming the functional characterization of these promoters

Generalized linear mixed models for the genetic evaluation of binary reproductive traits: a simulation study

The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of probit and logit link functions for the genetic evaluation of early pregnancy using simulated data. The following simulation/analysis structures were constructed: logit/logit, logit/probit, probit/logit, and probit/probit. The percentages of precocious females were 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30% and were adjusted based on a change in the mean of the latent variable. The parametric heritability (h²) was 0.40. Simulation and genetic evaluation were implemented in the R software. Heritability estimates (ĥ²) were compared with h² using the mean squared error. Pearson correlations between predicted and true breeding values and the percentage of coincidence between true and predicted ranking, considering the 10% of bulls with the highest breeding values (TOP10) were calculated. The mean ĥ² values were under- and overestimated for all percentages of precocious females when logit/probit and probit/logit models used. In addition, the mean squared errors of these models were high when compared with those obtained with the probit/probit and logit/logit models. Considering ĥ², probit/probit and logit/logit were also superior to logit/probit and probit/logit, providing values close to the parametric heritability. Logit/probit and probit/logit presented low Pearson correlations, whereas the correlations obtained with probit/probit and logit/logit ranged from moderate to high. With respect to the TOP10 bulls, logit/probit and probit/logit presented much lower percentages than probit/probit and logit/logit. The genetic parameter estimates and predictions of breeding values of the animals obtained with the logit/logit and probit/probit models were similar. In contrast, the results obtained with probit/logit and logit/probit were not satisfactory. There is need to compare the estimation and prediction ability of logit and probit link functions.

Resonances and subharmonic bifurcations of large amplitude periodic orbits of planar polynomial vector fields

In this work are studied periodic perturbations, depending on two parameters, of planar polynomial vector fields having an annulus of large amplitude periodic orbits, which accumulate on a symmetric infinite heteroclinic cycle. Such periodic orbits and the heteroclinic trajectory can be seen only by the global consideration of the polynomial vector fields on the whole plane, and not by their restriction to any compact set. The global study involving infinity is performed via the Poincare Compactification. It is shown that, for certain types of periodic perturbations, one can seek, in a neighborhood of the origin in the parameter plane, curves C-(m) of subharmonic bifurcations, for which the periodically perturbed system has subharmonics of order m, for any integer m.

Periodic perturbations of quadratic planar polynomial vector fields

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Attraction of the cutaneous leishmaniasis vector Nyssomyia neivai (Diptera: Psychodidae) to host odour components in a wind tunnel

Background: Laboratory studies of host-seeking olfactory behaviour in sandflies have largely been restricted to the American visceral leishmaniasis vector Lutzomyia longipalpis. In comparison, almost nothing is known about the chemical ecology of related species, which transmit American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL), due in part to difficulties in raising these insects in the laboratory. Understanding how ACL vectors locate their hosts will be essential to developing new vector control strategies to combat this debilitating disease.Methods: This study examined host-odour seeking behaviour of the ACL vector Nyssomyia neivai (Pinto) (=Lutzomyia neivai) using a wind tunnel olfactometer. The primary aim was to determine whether field-collected female N. neivai would respond to host odours in the laboratory, thereby eliminating the need to maintain colonies of these insects for behavioural experiments. Responses to two key host odour components, 1-octen-3-ol and lactic acid, and a commercially-available mosquito lure (BG-Lure (TM)) were assessed and compared relative to an air control. We also tested whether trials could be conducted outside of the normal evening activity period of N. neivai without impacting on fly behaviour, and whether the same flies could be used to assess baseline responses to air without affecting responses to octenol, thereby reducing the number of flies required for experiments.Results: Octenol was found to both activate host-seeking behaviour and attract female N. neivai in the wind tunnel, while lactic acid elicited weaker responses of activation and attractiveness under identical conditions. The BG-Lure did not activate or attract N. neivai under test conditions. Further experiments showed that sandfly behaviour in the wind tunnel was not affected by time of day, such that experiments need not be restricted to nocturnal hours. Moreover, using the same flies to measure both baseline responses to air and attraction to test compounds did not affect odour-seeking behaviour.Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrate that N. neivai taken from the field are suitable for use in laboratory olfactometer experiments. It is hoped this work will facilitate further research into chemical ecology of this species, and other ACL vectors.

Rheological, mechanical and mucoadhesive properties of thermoresponsive, bioadhesive binary mixtures composed of poloxamer 407 and carbopol 974P designed as platforms for implantable drug delivery systems for use in the oral cavity

This study described the formulation and characterisation of the viscoelastic, mechanical and mucoadhesive properties of thermoresponsive, binary polymeric systems composed of poloxamer (P407) and poly(acrylic acid, C974P) that were designed for use as a drug delivery platform within the oral cavity. Monopolymeric and binary polymeric formulations were prepared containing 10, 15 and 20% (w/w) poloxamer (407) and 0.10-0.25% (w/w) poly(acrylic acid, 934P). The flow theological and viscoelastic properties of the formulations were determined using controlled stress and oscillatory rheometry, respectively, the latter as a function of temperature. The mechanical and mucoadhesive properties (namely the force required to break the bond between the formulation and a pre-hydrated mucin disc) were determined using compression and tensile analysis, respectively. Binary systems composed of 10% (w/w) P407 and C934P were elastoviscous, were easily deformed under stress and did not exhibit mucoadhesion. Formulations containing 15 or 20% (w/w) Pluronic P407 and C934P exhibited a sol-gel temperature T(sol/gel), were viscoelastic and offered high elasticity and resistance to deformation at 37 degrees C. Conversely these formulations were elastoviscous and easily deformed at temperatures below the sol-gel transition temperature. The sol-gel transition temperatures of systems containing 15% (w/w) P407 were unaffected by the presence of C934P; however, increasing the concentration of C934P decreased the T(sol/gel) in formulations containing 20%(w/w) P407. Rheological synergy between P407 and C934P at 37 degrees C was observed and was accredited to secondary interactions between these polymers, in addition to hydrophobic interactions between P407 micelles. Importantly, formulations composed of 20% (w/w) P407 and C934P exhibited pronounced mucoadhesive properties. The ease of administration (below the T(sol/gel)) in conjunction with the viscoelastic (notably high elasticity) and mucoadhesive properties (at body temperature) render the formulations composed of 20% (w/w) P407 and C934P as potentially useful platforms for mucoadhesive, controlled topical drug delivery within the oral cavity. (c) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.

HOW FAR do WE GET USING MACHINE LEARNING BLACK-BOXES?

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

Influence of Heat Treatment and Oxygen Doping on the Mechanical Properties and Biocompatibility of Titanium-Niobium Binary Alloys

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Influence of the Substitutional Solute on the Mechanical Properties of Ti-Nb Binary Alloys for Biomedical Use

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

On 3-Parameter Families of Piecewise Smooth Vector Fields in the Plane

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

Binary integer programming formulations for scheduling in market-driven foundries

This paper describes the development and solution of binary integer formulations for production scheduling problems in market-driven foundries. This industrial sector is comprised of small and mid-sized companies with little or no automation, working with diversified production, involving several different metal alloy specifications in small tailor-made product lots. The characteristics and constraints involved in a typical production environment at these industries challenge the formulation of mathematical programming models that can be computationally solved when considering real applications. However, despite the interest on the part of these industries in counting on effective methods for production scheduling, there are few studies available on the subject. The computational tests prove the robustness and feasibility of proposed models in situations analogous to those found in production scheduling at the analyzed industrial sector. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Bounded solutions of fermions in the background of mixed vector-scalar inversely linear potentials

The problem of a fermion subject to a general mixing of vector and scalar potentials in a two-dimensional world is mapped into a Sturm-Liouville problem. Isolated bounded solutions are also searched. For the specific case of an inversely linear potential, which gives rise to an effective Kratzer potential in the Sturm-Liouville problem, exact bounded solutions are found in closed form. The case of a pure scalar potential with their isolated zero-energy solutions, already analyzed in a previous work, is obtained as a particular case. The behavior of the upper and lower components of the Dirac spinor is discussed in detail and some unusual results are revealed. The nonrelativistic limit of our results adds a new support to the conclusion that even-parity solutions to the nonrelativistic one-dimensional hydrogen atom do not exist. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of a mixed vector-scalar screened coulomb potential for spinless particles

The problem of a spinless particle subject to a general mixing of vector and scalar screened Coulomb potentials in a two-dimensional world is analyzed and its bounded solutions are found. Some unusual results, including the existence of a bona fide solitary zero-eigenmode solution, are revealed for the Klein-Gordon equation. The cases of pure vector and scalar potentials, already analyzed in previous works, are obtained as particular cases.

Unified treatment of mixed vector-scalar screened Coulomb potentials for fermions

The problem of a fermion subject to a general mixing of vector and scalar screened Coulomb potentials in a two-dimensional world is analyzed and quantization conditions are found.

Bounded solutions of fermions in the background of mixed vector-scalar Poeschl-Teller-like potentials

The problem of a fermion subject to a convenient mixing of vector and scalar potentials in a two-dimensional space-time is mapped into a Sturm-Liouville problem. For a specific case which gives rise to an exactly solvable effective modified Poschl-Teller potential in the Sturm-Liouville problem, bound-state solutions are found. The behaviour of the upper and lower components of the Dirac spinor is discussed in detail and some unusual results are revealed. The Dirac delta potential as a limit of the modified Poschl-Teller potential is also discussed. The problem is also shown to be mapped into that of massless fermions subject to classical topological scalar and pseudoscalar potentials. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2007.