The Argentine labour market in a financially globalized world

Includes bibliography

Heterogeneous demand and market segmentation: the Argentine pension funds system

Includes bibliography

What are fiscal rules for?: a critical analysis of the Argentine experience

Includes bibliography

The new urban poverty: global, regional and Argentine dynamics during the last two decades

Includes bibliography

Argentine industry in the early twenty-first century (2003-2008)

Includes bibliography

The structural crisis in Argentine industry

Includes bibliography

A simple, rapid method for the extraction of whole fire ant venom (Insecta: Formicidae: Solenopsis)

The invasive fire ant Solenopsis invicta is medically important because its venom is highly potent. However, almost nothing is known about fire ant venom proteins because obtaining even milligram-amounts of these proteins has been prohibitively challenging. We present a simple and fast method of obtaining whole venom compounds from large quantities of fire ants. For this, we separate the ants are from the nest soil, immerse them in dual-phase mixture of apolar organic solvent and water, and evaporate each solvent phase in separate. The remaining extract from the aqueous phase is largely made up of ant venom proteins. We confirmed this by using 2D gel electrophoresis while also demonstrating that our new approach yields the same proteins obtained by other authors using less efficient traditional methods. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Foraging of psilocybe basidiocarps by the leafcutting ant acromyrmex lobicornis in Santa Fé, Argentina

Background It is generally accepted that material collected by leaf-cutting ants of the genus Acromyrmex consists solely of plant matter, which is used in the nest as substrate for a symbiotic fungus providing nutrition to the ants. There is only one previous report of any leaf-cutting ant foraging directly on fungal basidiocarps. Findings Basidiocarps of Psilocybe coprophila growing on cow dung were actively collected by workers of Acromyrmex lobicornis in Santa Fé province, Argentina. During this behaviour the ants displayed typical signals of recognition and continuously recruited other foragers to the task. Basidiocarps of different stages of maturity were being transported into the nest by particular groups of workers, while other workers collected plant material. Conclusions The collection of mature basidiocarps with viable spores by leaf-cutting ants in nature adds substance to theories relating to the origin of fungiculture in these highly specialized social insects. © 2013 Masiulionis et al.

Toxicity of hydramethylnon to the leaf-cutting ant Atta sexdens rubropilosa forel (hymenoptera: Formicidae)

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

Microsatellite loci characterized in the leaf-cutter ant Atta laevigata

Background: The leaf-cutter ant Atta laevigata (Formicidae: Attini) is an agricultural pest largely distributed in the Neotropics and a model organism for studies of evolution, speciation and population genetics. Microsatellites are a very powerful tool for these kind of studies, but such markers are not available for studies on A. laevigata. In the present report, we describe the isolation and characterization of nine microsatellite loci in A. laevigata and the testing of these markers across other species of leaf-cutter ants. Findings. Nine microsatellite loci, consisting of six dinucloeotide, one trinucleotide, one tetranucleotide, and one di/trinucleotide repeat motifs, were isolated and characterized. Primers and protocols were successfully designed to selectively amplify these markers. To test effectiveness of these markers for detailed population genetic studies, we genotyped female workers collected from 36 monogynic nests of A. laevigata and found that eight loci were within Hardy-Weinberg expectations, while the remaining locus had a deficiency of heterozygotes. Micro-Checker analysis of individuals from 55 monogynic nests indicated that loci Alae11, Alae24, Alae18 showed signs of null alleles. For the remaining six loci, the number of alleles per locus ranged between 2 and 11, with expected heterozygosity ranging between 0.07 and 0.88. All of these loci cross-amplified in other species of Atta. Conclusions: These six polymorphic microsatellite loci should prove useful for future genetic investigations of the pest species Atta laevigata, as well as studies of other species of leaf-cutter ants in the genus Atta. © 2013 Kakazu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Algoritmos de alinhamento múltiplo e técnicas de otimização para esses algoritmos utilizando Ant Colony

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Computação - IBILCE

Final report: innovative processes in SMEs: some considerations about the Argentine case

Includes bibliography