Protection between strains of Passion fruit woodiness virus in sunnhemp

The main objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of the sunhemp (Crotalaria juncea) host species on the protective ability of two mild strains of Passion fruit woodiness virus (PWV), named F-101 and F-144, which had failed to protect passion flowers (Passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa) in previous experiments. The nucleotide sequences of the capsid protein (CP) gene and the 3'-non-translated region (3'-NTR) of these mild strains and the severe strain of PWV-SP were compared to confirm their relationship. The results of two protective tests with sunhemp plants in the greenhouse and one test under field conditions showed that all plants infected with either mild strain were protected against infection and/or symptom expression of the severe strain of PWV-SP. Evaluation of the relative concentration of the mild strains in sun hemp leaves showed an apparent uniformity in virus distribution in the leaf tissues, different than that which was previously reported for these mild strains in passion flower leaves. These results agree with previous studies that showed the effect of the concentration of the protective strains and the host species in the protection process.

Guava fruit loss caused by rust

The aim of this paper was to estimate the loss caused by rust (Puccinia psidii) to 'Paluma' guava production in orchards located in Rio de Janeiro State. The disease intensity on the reproductive organs of plants was observed during two chemical control experiments carried out in 2003 and 2004. The loss was estimated based on simple linear regression and the production reduction (fruit number and weight ha-1) on the incidence of diseased buds and fruits. In the first experiment, no relationship was established between incidence of diseased buds and loss since there was a delay in spraying and the incidence of buds showing rust was high (mean of 47%) at the beginning of flowering. In the second experiment (2003-2004), spraying occurred at the beginning of the epidemics and there was a linear relationship between incidence of diseased buds and loss, justifying fungicide intervention at this stage. For the fruiting stage, a significant relationship was found between incidence of diseased fruits and loss in both experiments. In the absence of chemical control, rust reduced fruit production by around 90%.

Costs and Benefits of a Shared Digital Long-Term Preservation System

Paper presented at the 40th Annual Conference of LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche - Association of European Research Libraries) on July 1st, 2011; with the slides used at the presentation.

Costs and Benefits of a Shared Digital Long-Term Preservation System

This paper describes the cost-benefit analysis of digital long-term preservation (LTP) that was carried out in the context of the Finnish National Digital Library Project (NDL) in 2010. The analysis was based on the assumption that as many as 200 archives, libraries, and museums will share an LTP system. The term ‘system’ shall be understood as encompassing not only information technology, but also human resources, organizational structures, policies and funding mechanisms. The cost analysis shows that an LTP system will incur, over the first 12 years, cumulative costs of €42 million, i.e. an average of €3.5 million per annum. Human resources and investments in information technology are the major cost factors. After the initial stages, the analysis predicts annual costs of circa €4 million. The analysis compared scenarios with and without a shared LTP system. The results indicate that a shared system will have remarkable benefits. At the development and implementation stages, a shared system shows an advantage of €30 million against the alternative scenario consisting of five independent LTP solutions. During the later stages, the advantage is estimated at €10 million per annum. The cumulative cost benefit over the first 12 years would amount to circa €100 million.

Practical Experiences with Ingesting Materials for Long-Term Preservation

The National Library of Finland is responsible for the collection, preservation and accessibility of Finland’s published national heritage, and for its other unique collections. This presentation will give a general overview of the several processes employed in the digitization and handling of electronic legal deposit. METS format has been chosen as the container format for digitized materials, and considerable amount of effort has been put into creating adequate METS profiles. As METS will be heavily relied as a container format, the practicalities are discussed in some depth. Regarding electronic legal deposit, the National Library has concentrated on large-scale web harvesting. Depositing of e-books is being tested with publishers. The future plans concerning digital preservation will be presented, especially the National Digital Library initiative.

FRUIT MORPHOLOGY AND PRODUCTIVITY OF BABASSU PALMS IN NORTHERN MINAS GERAIS STATE, BRAZIL1

ABSTRACT The objectives of this study were to morphologically characterize fruits of the babassu palm tree (Attalea vitrivir) and to estimate their productivity in the north of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Twenty mature fruits were collected from 10 plants in three different areas in Januária, Minas Gerais. Eighteen biometric parameters of the fruits were measured, the oil contents of the seeds was determined, the adherence to normal distribution was evaluated, distribution frequencies were evaluated and the effects of individuals and areas on the variables and the correlations between them were analyzed. The production of fruit bunches per plant and the number of fruits per bunch from 10 plants were quantified in three areas and the potential production under both natural harvesting and cultivation conditions were estimated. Significant differences were found among all of the biometric parameters examined between the different individuals and the different areas, which shows wide morphological variability in the fruits. The average oil content was 45.7%, but with significant differences among individuals. The observed variability favors the selection of productive individuals in genetic improvement programs. The potential productivity of endocarps and oil based on a density of 400/plants per hectare would be respectively 6.4 and 1.2 tons/ha, which indicates the possibility of using A. vitrivir for producing charcoal, bio fuels, and for carbon fixation.

PRESERVATION OF PRIMARY FOREST CHARACTERISTICS DESPITE FRAGMENTATION AND ISOLATION IN A FOREST REMNANT FROM VIÇOSA, MG, BRAZIL1

According to its owners, the Forest of Seu Nico (FSN) from the Viçosa municipality, Minas Gerais, Brazil, never has been logged and is therefore considered a primary forest. Nevertheless, the forest patch suffered impacts due to selective wood and non-timber extraction, fragmentation and isolation. Aim of this study was to test if the FSN, despite impacts, preserved characteristics of primary forests, which are elevated percentages of non-pioneer (>90%), animal-dispersed (>80 %), understory (>50%) and endemic species (~40%). For that, all trees with diameter at breast height equal or major than 3.2 cm within a plot of 100 x 100 m were identified. With 218 tree species found within this hectare, the FSN's species richness is outstanding for the region. The percentages of non-pioneer (92 %), animal-dispersed (85 %), understory (55 %) and endemic species (39.2 %) from the FSN fulfill the criteria proposed for primary forest. Therefore, we conclude that the FSN maintained its characteristics as a primary forest which highlights its importance for the conservation of biotic resources in the region, where similar fragments are lacking or not described yet.

EVALUATION OF THE POTENTIAL OF SEED RAIN AS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR FOREST RESTORATION IN PERMANENT PRESERVATION AREAS1

ABSTRACT The ecological restoration of degraded areas using seeds collected in forest remnants has shown significant results. This study was developed to verify the potential of seed rain to regenerate forest fragments of a Permanent Preservation Area (PPA) in the Apa River Basin which is located in the southwestern portion of the Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil. To develop the study, we installed 25 collectors measuring 1 m2 each, which were systematically distributed on an area of 1.5ha. Seed gathering was conducted in a monthly basis throughout the year of 2013. A total of 26.411 propagules were identified and distributed among 50 species, 45 genera and 32 families. In terms of the propagules distribution, 70.51% were identified as trees, 22.8% as lianas, 6.5% as shrubs, 0.1 as herbaceous, 0.05% as palm and 0.05% could not be classified. The value for the Shannon Diversity Index was (H') = 1.67 and the Pielou Evenness index was (J) = 0.42. These results indicate that the seeds rain has low species diversity with the abundance of a few species. The overall results suggest that seed rain can be a potential technique for restoration of the PPAs and other forested areas. However, it is necessary to enhance the diversity of tree species.

METHODOLOGY FOR AUTOMATICALLY DELIMITING PERMANENT PRESERVATION AREAS ALONG WATER COURSES - THE USE OF GIS IN THE HYDROLOGICAL BASIN OF THE SERGIPE RIVER, BRAZIL

ABSTRACT Permanent Preservation Areas (PPAs) along watercourses have been the focus of numerous studies, not only because of the fragility and ecological relevance of riverine vegetation, but also because of the inefficiency demonstrated in conforming to the legislation protecting it. One of the major difficulties encountered in terms of guaranteeing the effective conservation of these riverside areas is the absence of methodologies that can be used to define them rapidly and accurately without manually determining the widths of the rivers or assigning only uniform linear values for the entire watercourse. The present work sought to develop a spatial analysis methodology capable of automatically defining permanent preservation areas along watercourses using geographic information system (GIS) software. The present study was undertaken in the Sergipe River basin, "considering the river itself and its principal affluents. We used the database of the Digital Atlas of Hydrological Resources (SEMARH/SE), and the delimitations of the PPAs were performed using ArcGIS 10.1 and the XToolPro 9.0 extension. A total of 5,003.82 hectares of Permanent Preservation Areas were delimited along the margins of the rivers analyzed, with a margin of error of <1% in delimiting the widths of the rivers within the entire area considered. The methodology described here can be used to define PPAs efficiently, relatively rapidly, and with very small margins of error, thus representing a technological advance in terms of using GIS for land management.

Solar drying of jack fruit almonds

Dryers heated by solar energy have been constructed and used in drying whole and half jack fruit almonds. The samples were dried during the day in direct sun and in the conventional solar dryer prepared for this purpose. Another piece of equipment was built for reception and accumulation of sun energy in a body of water, which was used as a heat source for night drying. The drying with the sun energy was compared with artificial drying. The jack fruit almonds were dried whole, half, with pellicle and without it. The storage of solar energy in water was technically viable for use in night drying. The drying by combining solar dryers in the day and night periods were completed in approximately 35 hours, and were equivalent to artificial drying between 40ºC and 70ºC. Almond cut in half and the pellicle removed reduced the drying time.

Analysis of land use and occupancy in permanent preservation areas according to the hydrography of Ribeirão Água Fria - Bofete, SP - Brazil

The use conflicts are determined by the inadequate occupations of the soil, as it is the case of soil occupation inside of permanent preservation areas. This study aimed to determine the classes of the soil use and if there are conflicts inside of permanent preservation areas along the drainage network of the Água Fria Stream watershed, located in Bofete city - São Paulo, Brazil. It locates geographically between the coordinates: 48°09'30" to 48°18'30" longitude WGr., 22°58'30" to 23°04'30" latitude S, with an area of 15242.84 ha. The map of soil use was elaborated through the interpretation directly in the computer screen of satellite digital image. In the orbital data, the study area is inserted in the quadrant A, of image TM/Landsat - 5, orbit 220, point 76, passage 9/8th/2007. The Geographical Information System used was CartaLinx. The conflict areas of the watershed were obtained from the crossing between the maps of soil use and of PPAs. The results allowed the conclusion that more than half of the area (51.09%) is occupied by pastures, reflex of sandy soils and low fertility. It was also verified that although almost half of the watershed is covered with some type of vegetation (48.78% of natural forest /reforestation), it has approximately a third of permanent preservation areas used inappropriately by pastures (88.15%), reforestation (10.42%) and exposed soil (1.43%), totaling 343.07ha of conflicting areas, in a total of 993.26 ha of PPAs.

Technical and economic indicators of the yellow passion fruit tree irrigated with underground water supply

The research aimed to quantify technical and economic indicators of yellow passion fruit tree irrigated with fractions of irrigation with underground source of water, to generate information that helps farmers in decision making on the implementation of investment in irrigated fruit growing (yellow passion fruit). For this purpose, we used the passion fruit crop irrigated with Microjet type irrigation system, with conducting system in simple espaliers. The treatments consisted of five hours of application of the depth of water required by the crop with irrigation frequency of two days. The results showed that the highest yield (16660kg ha-1) was obtained with the fractionation of irrigation twice a day (50% to 7h and 50% to 21h30), which provided an increase in productivity of 54%, demonstrating the financial viability and being highly profitable to the interest rate of 2% per year, with low sensitivity of financial risk to real interest rates above the prevailing market.

Usable Privacy Preservation in Mobile Electronic Personality

Personalised ubiquitous services have rapidly proliferated due technological advancements in sensing, ubiquitous and mobile computing. Evolving societal trends, business and the economic potential of Personal Information (PI) have overlapped the service niches. At the same time, the societal thirst for more personalised services has increased and are met by soliciting deeper and more privacy invasive PI from customers. Consequentially, reinforcing traditional privacy challenges and unearthed new risks that render classical safeguards ine ective. The absence of solutions to criticise personalised ubiquitous services from privacy perspectives, aggravates the situation. This thesis presents a solution permitting users' PI, stored in their mobile terminals to be disclosed to services in privacy preserving manner for personalisation needs. The approach termed, Mobile Electronic Personality Version 2 (ME2.0), is compared to alternative mechanisms. Within ME2.0, PI handling vulnerabilities of ubiquitous services are identi ed and sensitised on their practices and privacy implications. Vulnerability where PI may leak through covert solicits, excessive acquisitions and legitimate data re-purposing to erode users privacy are also considered. In this thesis, the design, components, internal structures, architectures, scenarios and evaluations of ME2.0 are detailed. The design addresses implications and challenges leveraged by mobile terminals. ME2.0 components and internal structures discusses the functions related to how PI pieces are stored and handled by terminals and services. The architecture focusses on di erent components and their exchanges with services. Scenarios where ME2.0 is used are presented from di erent environment views, before evaluating for performance, privacy and usability.

Preliminary study of coconut water for graft tissues preservation in transplantation

OBJECTIVE: to verify the effectiveness of coconut water in preserving tissues for transplant. METHODS: Fifty male Wistar rats were randomly distributed in five groups, according to the following preservation solutions for tissue grafts: Group 1: Lactated Ringer; Group 2: Belzer solution; Group 3: mature coconut water; Group 4: green coconut water; Group 5: modified coconut water. In Group 5, the green coconut water has been modified like the Belzer solution. From each animal we harvasted the spleen, ovaries and skin of the back segment. These tissues were preserved for six hours in one of the solutions. Then, the grafts were reimplanted. The recovery of the function of the implanted tissues was assessed 90 days after surgery, by splenic scintigraphy and blood exame. The implanted tissues were collected for histopathological examination. RESULTS: The serum levels did not differ among groups, except for the animals in Group 5, which showed higher levels of IgG than Group 1, and differences in relation to FSH between groups 1 and 2 (p <0.001), 4 and 2 (p = 0.03) and 5 and 2 (p = 0.01). The splenic scintigraphy was not different between groups. The ovarian tissue was better preserved in mature coconut water (p <0.007). CONCLUSION: the coconut water-based solutions preserves spleen, ovary, and rat skin for six hours, maintaining their normal function.

Efficacy of varicose vein surgery with preservation of the great safenous vein

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of surgical treatment of varicose veins with preservation of the great saphenous vein. METHODS: We conducted a prospective study of 15 female patients between 25 and 55 years of age with clinical, etiologic, anatomic and pathophysiologic (CEAP) classification 2, 3 and 4. The patients underwent surgical treatment of primary varicose veins with great saphenous vein (GSV) preservation. Doppler ultrasonography exams were carried out in the first and third months postoperatively. The form of clinical severity of venous disease, Venous Clinical Severity Score (VCSS) was completed before and after surgery. We excluded patients with history of deep vein thrombosis, smoking or postoperatively use of elastic stockings or phlebotonics. RESULTS: All patients had improved VCSS (p <0.001) and reduction in the diameter of the great saphenous vein (p <0.001). There was a relationship between VCSS and the GSV caliber, as well as with preoperative CEAP. There was improvement in CEAP class in nine patients when compared with the preoperative period (p <0.001). CONCLUSION: The varicose vein surgery with preservation of the great saphenous vein had beneficial effects to the GSV itself, with decreasing caliber, and to the symptoms when the vein had maximum caliber of 7.5 mm, correlating directly with the CEAP. The decrease in GSV caliber, even without complete abolition of reflux, leads to clinical improvement by decreasing the reflux volume.