Estrutura de populações e inoculações recíprocas de Xylella fastidiosa subsp. pauca com ocorrência em cultivos vizinhos de Citrus sinensis e Coffea arabica sob condições do estado de São Paulo

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Genética e Melhoramento de Plantas) - FCAV

Reconstructing past ecological networks: the reconfiguration of seed-dispersal interactions after megafaunal extinction

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

Um mundo radicalmente melhor: criatividade, colaboração e padrão de redes como estratégias para o desenvolvimento sustentável

There are substantial evidences that the period experienced by humanity globally is unprecedented and is heading towards a major transformation that results from the Globalization. Totally conditioned to the addictions of the dominant and predatory capitalism, humanity has, for decades, exhausted natural resources, disregarded the nature of its own social existence and walked away from its humanity. It is notable, however, an impressive flow of factors that dialogue and support each other as trends that go towards sustainable development, based on the harmonious integration between Technology, Culture, Society, Environment and Economy. This emerging moment can be seen from the perspectives of the Creative Economy as economic paradigm centered on the subjectivity and the human capacity to undertake innovative services, products and solutions guided by social values. Within this fluid and dynamic global context, initiatives that legitimately intend to act sustainably are gaining space. This socioeconomic moment fosters and is fostered by new kinds of work and organization guided by the Collaboration and social structuring on Network Patterns. These new social models significantly transform the understanding and insights about the Communication flows. The HUB São Paulo, as creative and social organization that operates under the logic of Collaboration through a Network Structure, was the subject of a case study used to sustain the defense of this emerging scenario and also to perform an analysis on the new role of Communication, at perspectives of transformation of mental paradigms towards sustainability and establishment of meaningful connections

Biocellulose-based flexible magnetic paper

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

The taxonomic distinctness of macroinvertebrate communities of Atlantic Forest streams cannot be predicted by landscape and climate variables, but traditional biodiversity indices can

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

O papel das redes de transformação no processo de inovação: estudos de caso sobre a descoberta e a comercialização da inovação

Innovation is widely recognized as important. In addition, in this context, innovation networks have gained importance in academic studies, since an organization alone, does not always have access to all necessary resources. Gobbo Junior and Olsson (2010) proposed a model of network innovation whereby the transformation networks would be the linking structures between exploration and exploitation networks. In this context, this paper presents two case studies of innovation networks, aiming to increase the understanding on transformation networks. The objective was to understand how they interconnect exploration and exploitation networks; the main actors present in this interface; and to evaluate whether these actors can act as agents, to accelerate the innovation process. It was possible to verify how the transformation networks interconnect exploration and exploitation, and identify the practices and their main actors.

Redes de inovação: mapeamento de inventores de patentes em uma empresa do setor de cosméticos

This article aims to identify patterns in the organization of innovation network by mapping the network inventors of a cosmetics company and identifying ways to promote innovation capacity through interconnectivity. The research was conducted through case study methods, and, for this, inventors mappings were made, based on the records of patents previously surveyed, taking into consideration the linkage (internal or external) of each inventor with the company and also the amount of patent citations. It was identified higher hierarchy in networks with the presence of collaborators externals to the company as well as a possible higher technological content, since the amount of citations was higher compared to other networks. It is verified, finally, that inventors mappings (although a patent is not the only measuring factor of innovation) can identify key features to help a better management of innovation.

MICROSATELLITE LOCI FOR TUCUMA OF AMAZONAS (ASTROCARYUM ACULEATUM) AND AMPLIFICATION IN OTHER ARECACEAE

Premise of the study: Microsatellite loci were developed for tucuma of Amazonas (Astrocaryum aculeatum), and cross-species amplification was performed in six other Arecaceae, to investigate genetic diversity and population structure and to provide support for natural populations management. Methods and Results: Fourteen microsatellite loci were isolated from a microsatellite-enriched genomic library and used to characterize two wild populations of tucuma of Amazonas (Manaus and Manicore cities). The investigated loci displayed high polymorphism for both A. aculeatum populations, with a mean observed heterozygosity of 0.498. Amplification rates ranging from 50% to 93% were found for four Astrocaryum species and two additional species of Arecaceae. Conclusions: The information derived from the microsatellite markers developed here provides significant gains in conserved allelic richness and supports the implementation of several molecular breeding strategies for the Amazonian tucuma.

MICROSATELLITE MARKERS DEVELOPED FOR UTRICULARIA RENIFORMIS (LENTIBULARIACEAE)

Premise of the study: Microsatellite markers were developed to study the genetic diversity and population structure of the carnivorous bladderwort Utricularia reniformis, which is endemic to the Atlantic Forest of southern and southeastern Brazil. Cross-species amplification was tested in U. gibba, U. neottioides, U. subulata, and Pinguicula benedicta. Methods and Results: The U. reniformis genome was sequenced in a 454 GS FLX sequencer, and eight primer sets were developed based on the microsatellites identified from the reads. All loci are polymorphic, showing 1.6 to 4.8 alleles per population. Preliminary results show that primer sets are suitable for population-level studies. Cross-species amplifi cation was successful in three other Utricularia species and one Pinguicula species. Conclusions: Markers developed in this study provide tools for analyses of intra- and interpopulation genetic diversity in Utricularia and Pinguicula.

DEVELOPMENT OF MICROSATELLITE MARKERS FOR QUALEA GRANDIFLORA (VOCHYSIACEAE), A TYPICAL SPECIES OF THE BRAZILIAN CERRADO

Premise of the study: Microsatellite primers were developed to investigate genetic diversity and population structure of Qualea grandiflora, a typical species of the Brazilian cerrado. Methods and Results: Eight microsatellite loci were isolated using an enrichment cloning protocol. These loci were tested on a population of 110 individuals of Q. grandiflora collected from a cerrado fragment in Sao Paulo State, Brazil. The loci polymorphism ranges from seven to 19 alleles and the average heterozygosity value is 0.568, while the average polymorphic information content is 0.799. Conclusions: The developed markers were found to be highly polymorphic, indicating their applicability to studies of population genetic diversity in Q. grandiflora

Habitat alteration and community-level effects of an invasive ecosystem engineer: a case study along the coast of NSW, Australia

We investigated the effects of the habitat-modifying green algae Caulerpa taxifolia on meiobenthic communities along the coast of New South Wales, Australia. Samples were taken from unvegetated sediments, sediments underneath the native seagrass Zostera capricorni, and sediments invaded by C. taxifolia at 3 sites along the coast. Meiofaunal responses to invasion varied in type and magnitude depending on the site, ranging from a slight increase to a substantial reduction in meiofauna and nematode abundances and diversity. The multivariate structure of meiofauna communities and nematode assemblages, in particular, differed significantly in sediments invaded by C. taxifolia when compared to native habitats, but the magnitude of this dissimilarity differed between the sites. These differential responses of meiofauna to C. taxifolia were explained by different sediment redox potentials. Sediments with low redox potential showed significantly lower fauna abundances, lower numbers of meiofaunal taxa and nematode species and more distinct assemblages. The response of meiofauna to C. taxifolia also depended on spatial scale. Whereas significant loss of benthic biodiversity was observed locally at one of the sites, at the larger scale C. taxifolia promoted an overall increase in nematode species richness by favouring species that were absent from the native environments. Finally, we suggest there might be some time-lags associated with the impacts of C. taxifolia and point to the importance of considering the time since invasion when evaluating the impact of invasive species.

Predicting the connectivity of primate cortical networks from topological and spatial node properties

Abstract Background The organization of the connectivity between mammalian cortical areas has become a major subject of study, because of its important role in scaffolding the macroscopic aspects of animal behavior and intelligence. In this study we present a computational reconstruction approach to the problem of network organization, by considering the topological and spatial features of each area in the primate cerebral cortex as subsidy for the reconstruction of the global cortical network connectivity. Starting with all areas being disconnected, pairs of areas with similar sets of features are linked together, in an attempt to recover the original network structure. Results Inferring primate cortical connectivity from the properties of the nodes, remarkably good reconstructions of the global network organization could be obtained, with the topological features allowing slightly superior accuracy to the spatial ones. Analogous reconstruction attempts for the C. elegans neuronal network resulted in substantially poorer recovery, indicating that cortical area interconnections are relatively stronger related to the considered topological and spatial properties than neuronal projections in the nematode. Conclusion The close relationship between area-based features and global connectivity may hint on developmental rules and constraints for cortical networks. Particularly, differences between the predictions from topological and spatial properties, together with the poorer recovery resulting from spatial properties, indicate that the organization of cortical networks is not entirely determined by spatial constraints.

Essays on Bayesian Inference for Social Networks

This thesis presents Bayesian solutions to inference problems for three types of social network data structures: a single observation of a social network, repeated observations on the same social network, and repeated observations on a social network developing through time. A social network is conceived as being a structure consisting of actors and their social interaction with each other. A common conceptualisation of social networks is to let the actors be represented by nodes in a graph with edges between pairs of nodes that are relationally tied to each other according to some definition. Statistical analysis of social networks is to a large extent concerned with modelling of these relational ties, which lends itself to empirical evaluation. The first paper deals with a family of statistical models for social networks called exponential random graphs that takes various structural features of the network into account. In general, the likelihood functions of exponential random graphs are only known up to a constant of proportionality. A procedure for performing Bayesian inference using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods is presented. The algorithm consists of two basic steps, one in which an ordinary Metropolis-Hastings up-dating step is used, and another in which an importance sampling scheme is used to calculate the acceptance probability of the Metropolis-Hastings step. In paper number two a method for modelling reports given by actors (or other informants) on their social interaction with others is investigated in a Bayesian framework. The model contains two basic ingredients: the unknown network structure and functions that link this unknown network structure to the reports given by the actors. These functions take the form of probit link functions. An intrinsic problem is that the model is not identified, meaning that there are combinations of values on the unknown structure and the parameters in the probit link functions that are observationally equivalent. Instead of using restrictions for achieving identification, it is proposed that the different observationally equivalent combinations of parameters and unknown structure be investigated a posteriori. Estimation of parameters is carried out using Gibbs sampling with a switching devise that enables transitions between posterior modal regions. The main goal of the procedures is to provide tools for comparisons of different model specifications. Papers 3 and 4, propose Bayesian methods for longitudinal social networks. The premise of the models investigated is that overall change in social networks occurs as a consequence of sequences of incremental changes. Models for the evolution of social networks using continuos-time Markov chains are meant to capture these dynamics. Paper 3 presents an MCMC algorithm for exploring the posteriors of parameters for such Markov chains. More specifically, the unobserved evolution of the network in-between observations is explicitly modelled thereby avoiding the need to deal with explicit formulas for the transition probabilities. This enables likelihood based parameter inference in a wider class of network evolution models than has been available before. Paper 4 builds on the proposed inference procedure of Paper 3 and demonstrates how to perform model selection for a class of network evolution models.

Comparison of epifaunal assemblages between Cymodocea nodosa and Caulerpa prolifera meadows in Gran Canaria (eastern Atlantic)

Máster en Oceanografía

TNFRSF13B Genetic variability an anthropological - evolutionary approach to Biomedical Research

In the recent years TNFRSF13B coding variants have been implicated by clinical genetics studies in Common Variable Immunodeficiency (CVID), the most common clinically relevant primary immunodeficiency in individuals of European ancestry, but their functional effects in relation to the development of the disease have not been entirely established. To examine the potential contribution of such variants to CVID, the more comprehensive perspective of an evolutionary approach was applied in this study, underling the belief that evolutionary genetics methods can play a role in dissecting the origin, causes and diffusion of human diseases, representing a powerful tool also in human health research. For this purpose, TNFRSF13B coding region was sequenced in 451 healthy individuals belonging to 26 worldwide populations, in addition to 96 control, 77 CVID and 38 Selective IgA Deficiency (IgAD) individuals from Italy, leading to the first achievement of a global picture of TNFRSF13B nucleotide diversity and haplotype structure and making suggestion of its evolutionary history possible. A slow rate of evolution, within our species and when compared to the chimpanzee, low levels of genetic diversity geographical structure and the absence of recent population specific selective pressures were observed for the examined genomic region, suggesting that geographical distribution of its variability is more plausibly related to its involvement also in innate immunity rather than in adaptive immunity only. This, together with the extremely subtle disease/healthy samples differences observed, suggests that CVID might be more likely related to still unknown environmental and genetic factors, rather than to the nature of TNFRSF13B variants only.