Taxonomic studies on the Neotropical Landrevinae with description of new taxa (Orthoptera, Grylloidea, Gryllidae)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Archives information publishing new design in post-custodial regime: the national archives experience digital vaults

The uses of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Web environments for creation, treatment and availability of information have supported the emergence of new social-cultural patterns represented by convergences in textual, image and audio languages. This paper describes and analyzes the National Archives Experience Digital Vaults as a digital publishing web environment and as a cultural heritage. It is a complex system - synthesizer of information design options at information setting, provides new aesthetic aspects, but specially enlarges the cognition of the subjects who interact with the environment. It also enlarges the institutional spaces that guard the collective memory beyond its role of keeping the physical patrimony collected there. Digital Vaults lies as a mix of guide and interactive catalogue to be dealt in a ludic way. The publishing design of the information held on the Archives is meant to facilitate access to knowledge. The documents are organized in a dynamic and not chronological way. They are not divided in fonds or distinct categories, but in controlled interaction of documents previously indexed and linked by the software. The software creates information design and view of documental content that can be considered a new paradigm in Information Science and are part of post-custodial regime, independent from physical spaces and institutions. Information professionals must be prepared to understand and work with the paradigmatic changes described and represented by the new hybrid digital environments; hence the importance of this paper. Cyberspace interactivity between user and the content provided by the environment design provide cooperation, collaboration and sharing knowledge actions, all features of networks, transforming culture globally.

Postmodern archival science and contemporary diplomatics New approaches for archival knowledge organization

New information technologies and new forms of documentary production have led archivists to rethink the role of archival science in the so-called information age. Since the late 1980s, the principles, methods and concepts stated by the well-known manuals of the 19th and the 20th centuries have been reconsidered along with their application to the organic sets of document in the 21st century. In this new scenario of reformulation and reinterpretation regarding the perspectives on archival knowledge organization, two trends with different approaches have emerged in North America and Europe: postmodern archival science and contemporary diplomatics, respectively. The first one was introduced by Terry Cook, who proposed a reformulation of the basic concepts and the functional analysis method focusing on the process and context of document creation. The second approach originated in Italy and incorporated all the theoretical and methodological models of classic diplomatics. The studies following this new trend were disseminated by Luciana Duranti and aimed to ensure the production, access and use of the documentation generated in the present times focusing on document typology, as opposed by the postmodern approach. The purpose of this study is to elucidate the connection points and distinct features between the two trends concerning the organization of archival knowledge.

Taxonomic studies on the Neotropical Landrevinae with description of new taxa (Orthoptera, Grylloidea, Gryllidae)

The understanding of the subfamily Landrevinae has been modified by different authors since its creation. In the neotropics three genera are known to the present: Odontogryllus Saussure, 1877 (one from México, the others amazonian), Brasilodontus de Mello, 1992 with two species (from Brazilian Atlantic Forest), e Valchica de Mello, 1992 with one species (from Costa Rica). De Mello (1992) erroneously created the tribe Odontogryllini for this cluster of neotropical genera, here suppressed. In the present paper we revise and add new species to Brasilodontus and describe two monotypic genera, Xulavuna n. gen. and Yarrubura, n. gen. An identification key to the genera of neotropical Landrevinae is presented as well as one for the species of Brasilodontus. The male fore wings of Xulavuna adenoptera n. sp. is remarkable regarding its shape and its glandular condition

Open innovation and user s involvement in new product development: a case study in the automotive sector

Innovation is an essential factor for obtaining competitive advantages. The search for external knowledge sources for product creation, which can contribute to the innovation process, has become a constant among companies, and users play an important role in this search. In this study, we aimed to analyze user’s involvement in the product development process based on open innovation concepts. We used the unique case study research method. This study was carried out in an automotive company that has developed a project of a concept car involving user’s through the Web 2.0. With such scope, the research demonstrates that users can contribute not only with generation of ideas but also with the innovation process itself.

Particle creation due to tachyonic instability in relativistic stars

Dense enough compact objects were recently shown to lead to an exponentially fast increase of the vacuum energy density for some free scalar fields properly coupled to the spacetime curvature as a consequence of a tachyonic-like instability. Once the effect is triggered, the star energy density would be overwhelmed by the vacuum energy density in a few milliseconds. This demands that eventually geometry and field evolve to a new configuration to bring the vacuum back to a stationary regime. Here, we show that the vacuum fluctuations built up during the unstable epoch lead to particle creation in the final stationary state when the tachyonic instability ceases. The amount of created particles depends mostly on the duration of the unstable epoch and final stationary configuration, which are open issues at this point. We emphasize that the particle creation coming from the tachyonic instability will occur even in the adiabatic limit, where the spacetime geometry changes arbitrarily slowly, and therefore is quite distinct from the usual particle creation due to the change in the background geometry.

New cosmic accelerating scenario without dark energy

We propose an alternative, nonsingular, cosmic scenario based on gravitationally induced particle production. The model is an attempt to evade the coincidence and cosmological constant problems of the standard model (Lambda CDM) and also to connect the early and late time accelerating stages of the Universe. Our space-time emerges from a pure initial de Sitter stage thereby providing a natural solution to the horizon problem. Subsequently, due to an instability provoked by the production of massless particles, the Universe evolves smoothly to the standard radiation dominated era thereby ending the production of radiation as required by the conformal invariance. Next, the radiation becomes subdominant with the Universe entering in the cold dark matter dominated era. Finally, the negative pressure associated with the creation of cold dark matter (CCDM model) particles accelerates the expansion and drives the Universe to a final de Sitter stage. The late time cosmic expansion history of the CCDM model is exactly like in the standard Lambda CDM model; however, there is no dark energy. The model evolves between two limiting (early and late time) de Sitter regimes. All the stages are also discussed in terms of a scalar field description. This complete scenario is fully determined by two extreme energy densities, or equivalently, the associated de Sitter Hubble scales connected by rho(I)/rho(f) = (H-I/H-f)(2) similar to 10(122), a result that has no correlation with the cosmological constant problem. We also study the linear growth of matter perturbations at the final accelerating stage. It is found that the CCDM growth index can be written as a function of the Lambda growth index, gamma(Lambda) similar or equal to 6/11. In this framework, we also compare the observed growth rate of clustering with that predicted by the current CCDM model. Performing a chi(2) statistical test we show that the CCDM model provides growth rates that match sufficiently well with the observed growth rate of structure.

The use of parthenotegenetic and IVF bovine blastocysts as a model for the creation of human embryonic stem cells under defined conditions

Clinical application of human embryonic stem cells will be possible, when cell lines are created under xeno-free and defined conditions. We aimed to establish methodologies for parthenogenetic activation, culture to blastocyst and mechanical isolation of the inner cell mass (ICM) using bovine oocytes, as a model for derivation and proliferation of human embryonic stem cells under defined xeno-free culture conditions. Cumulus-oocyte-complexes were in vitro matured and activated using Ca(2+)Ionophore and 6-DMAP or in vitro fertilized (IVF). Parthenotes and biparental embryos were cultured to blastocysts, when their ICM was mechanically isolated and placed onto a substrate of fibronectin in StemProA (R) medium. After attachment, primary colonies were left to proliferate and stained for pluripotency markers, alkaline phosphatase and Oct-4. Parthenogenesis and fertilization presented significantly different success rates (91 and 79 %, respectively) and blastocyst formation (40 and 43 %, respectively). ICMs from parthenogenetic and IVF embryos formed primary and expanded colonies at similar rates (39 % and 33 %, respectively). Six out of eight parthenogenetic colonies tested positive for alkaline phosphatase. Three colonies were analyzed for Oct-4 and they all tested positive for this pluripotency marker. Our data show that Ca2+ Ionophore, and 6-DMAP are efficient in creating large numbers of blastocysts to be employed as a model for human oocyte activation and embryo development. After mechanical isolation, parthenogetic derived ICMs showed a good rate of derivation in fibronectin and Stem-Pro forming primary and expanded colonies of putative embryonic stem cells. This methodology may be a good strategy for parthenogenetic activation of discarded human oocytes and derivation in defined conditions for future therapeutic interventions.

Rag2-/-;gammac-/- immunodeficient mice, a new preclinical model to study antitumor approaches

Animal models have been relevant to study the molecular mechanisms of cancer and to develop new antitumor agents. Anyway, the huge divergence in mouse and human evolution made difficult the translation of the gained achievements in preclinical mouse based studies. The generation of clinically relevant murine models requires their humanization both concerning the creation of transgenic models and the generation of humanized mice in which to engraft a functional human immune system, and reproduce the physiological effects and molecular mechanisms of growth and metastasization of human tumors. In particular, the availability of genotypically stable immunodepressed mice able to accept tumor injection and allow human tumor growth and metastasization would be important to develop anti-tumor and anti-metastatic strategies. Recently, Rag2-/-;gammac-/- mice, double knockout for genes involved in lymphocyte differentiation, had been developed (CIEA, Central Institute for Experimental Animals, Kawasaki, Japan). Studies of human sarcoma metastasization in Rag2-/-; gammac-/- mice (lacking B, T and NK functionality) revealed their high metastatic efficiency and allowed the expression of human metastatic phenotypes not detectable in the conventionally used nude murine model. In vitro analysis to investigate the molecular mechanisms involved in the specific pattern of human sarcomas metastasization revealed the importance of liver-produced growth and motility factors, in particular the insulin-like growth factors (IGFs). The involvement of this growth factor was then demonstrated in vivo through inhibition of IGF signalling pathway. Due to the high growth and metastatic propensity of tumor cells, Rag2-/-;gammac-/- mice were used as model to investigate the metastatic behavior of rhabdomyosarcoma cells engineered to improve the differentiation. It has been recently shown that this immunodeficient model can be reconstituted with a human immune system through the injection of human cord blood progenitor cells. The work illustrated in this thesis revealed that the injection of different human progenitor cells (CD34+ or CD133+) showed peculiar engraftment and differentiation abilities. Experiments of cell vaccination were performed to investigate the functionality of the engrafted human immune system and the induction of specific human immune responses. Results from such experiments will allow to collect informations about human immune responses activated during cell vaccination and to define the best reconstitution and experimental conditions to create a humanized model in which to study, in a preclinical setting, immunological antitumor strategies.

Entrepreneurial opportunities, capability development and the performance of new firms

This study aims at providing a theoretical framework encompassing the two approaches towards entrepreneurial opportunity (opportunity discovery and opportunity creation) by outlining a trajectory from firm creation to capability development, to firm performance in the short term (firm survival) and the medium/long term (growth rate). A set of empirically testable hypotheses is proposed and tested by performing qualitative analyses on interviews on a small sample of entrepreneurs and event history analysis on a large sample of firms founded in the United States in 2004.

Design of a beam stopper for the new CERN linear accelerator Linac4

In this paper I will present the work I have completed during a five months work placement at CERN, European Organisation for Nuclear Research, from March to July 2011. This stage was done in the EN Department (ENgineering Department), STI Group (Sources, Targets and Interactions), TCD Section (Targets, Collimators and Dumps) under the supervision of Dr Cesare Maglioni. The task I was given concerned all the beam stoppers in the PS Complex, in detail: - General definition and requirements - Creation of a digital archive - Verification of the stoppers of the PS Complex - Design of the L4T.STP.1

A new double laser pulse pumping scheme for transient collisionally excited plasma soft X-ray lasers

Within this thesis a new double laser pulse pumping scheme for plasma-based, transient collisionally excited soft x-ray lasers (SXRL) was developed, characterized and utilized for applications. SXRL operations from ~50 up to ~200 electron volt were demonstrated applying this concept. As a central technical tool, a special Mach-Zehnder interferometer in the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) laser front-end was developed for the generation of fully controllable double-pulses to optimally pump SXRLs.rnThis Mach-Zehnder device is fully controllable and enables the creation of two CPA pulses of different pulse duration and variable energy balance with an adjustable time delay. Besides the SXRL pumping, the double-pulse configuration was applied to determine the B-integral in the CPA laser system by amplifying short pulse replica in the system, followed by an analysis in the time domain. The measurement of B-integral values in the 0.1 to 1.5 radian range, only limited by the reachable laser parameters, proved to be a promising tool to characterize nonlinear effects in the CPA laser systems.rnContributing to the issue of SXRL pumping, the double-pulse was configured to optimally produce the gain medium of the SXRL amplification. The focusing geometry of the two collinear pulses under the same grazing incidence angle on the target, significantly improved the generation of the active plasma medium. On one hand the effect was induced by the intrinsically guaranteed exact overlap of the two pulses on the target, and on the other hand by the grazing incidence pre-pulse plasma generation, which allows for a SXRL operation at higher electron densities, enabling higher gain in longer wavelength SXRLs and higher efficiency at shorter wavelength SXRLs. The observation of gain enhancement was confirmed by plasma hydrodynamic simulations.rnThe first introduction of double short-pulse single-beam grazing incidence pumping for SXRL pumping below 20 nanometer at the laser facility PHELIX in Darmstadt (Germany), resulted in a reliable operation of a nickel-like palladium SXRL at 14.7 nanometer with a pump energy threshold strongly reduced to less than 500 millijoule. With the adaptation of the concept, namely double-pulse single-beam grazing incidence pumping (DGRIP) and the transfer of this technology to the laser facility LASERIX in Palaiseau (France), improved efficiency and stability of table-top high-repetition soft x-ray lasers in the wavelength region below 20 nanometer was demonstrated. With a total pump laser energy below 1 joule the target, 2 mircojoule of nickel-like molybdenum soft x-ray laser emission at 18.9 nanometer was obtained at 10 hertz repetition rate, proving the attractiveness for high average power operation. An easy and rapid alignment procedure fulfilled the requirements for a sophisticated installation, and the highly stable output satisfied the need for a reliable strong SXRL source. The qualities of the DGRIP scheme were confirmed in an irradiation operation on user samples with over 50.000 shots corresponding to a deposited energy of ~ 50 millijoule.rnThe generation of double-pulses with high energies up to ~120 joule enabled the transfer to shorter wavelength SXRL operation at the laser facility PHELIX. The application of DGRIP proved to be a simple and efficient method for the generation of soft x-ray lasers below 10 nanometer. Nickel-like samarium soft x-ray lasing at 7.3 nanometer was achieved at a low total pump energy threshold of 36 joule, which confirmed the suitability of the applied pumping scheme. A reliable and stable SXRL operation was demonstrated, due to the single-beam pumping geometry despite the large optical apertures. The soft x-ray lasing of nickel-like samarium was an important milestone for the feasibility of applying the pumping scheme also for higher pumping pulse energies, which are necessary to obtain soft x-ray laser wavelengths in the water window. The reduction of the total pump energy below 40 joule for 7.3 nanometer short wavelength lasing now fulfilled the requirement for the installation at the high-repetition rate operation laser facility LASERIX.rn

Identity dynamics and the emergence of new organizational arrangements: A multi-level study

Organizational and institutional scholars have advocated the need to examine how processes originating at an individual level can change organizations or even create new organizational arrangements able to affect institutional dynamics (Chreim et al., 2007; Powell & Colyvas, 2008; Smets et al., 2012). Conversely, research on identity work has mainly investigated the different ways individuals can modify the boundaries of their work in actual occupations, thus paying particular attention to ‘internal’ self-crafting (e.g. Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Drawing from literatures on possible and alternative self and on positive organizational scholarship (e.g., Obodaru, 2012; Roberts & Dutton, 2009), my argument is that individuals’ identity work can go well beyond the boundaries of internal self-crafting to the creation of new organizational arrangements. In this contribution I analyze, through multiple case studies, healthcare professionals who spontaneously participated in the creation of new organizational arrangements, namely health structures called Community Hospitals. The contribution develops this form of identity work by building a grounded model. My findings disclose the process that leads from the search for the enactment of different self-concepts to positive identities, through the creation of a new organizational arrangement. I contend that this is a particularly complex form of collective identity work because it requires, to be successful, concerted actions of several internal, external and institutional actors, and it also requires balanced tensions that – at the same time - enable individuals’ aspirations and organizational equilibrium. I name this process organizational collective crafting. Moreover I inquire the role of context in supporting the triggering power of those unrealized selves. I contribute to the comprehension of the consequences of self-comparisons, organizational identity variance, and positive identity. The study bears important insights on how identity work originating from individuals can influence organizational outcomes and larger social systems.

A new 3D modelling paradigm for discrete model

Until few years ago, 3D modelling was a topic confined into a professional environment. Nowadays technological innovations, the 3D printer among all, have attracted novice users to this application field. This sudden breakthrough was not supported by adequate software solutions. The 3D editing tools currently available do not assist the non-expert user during the various stages of generation, interaction and manipulation of 3D virtual models. This is mainly due to the current paradigm that is largely supported by two-dimensional input/output devices and strongly affected by obvious geometrical constraints. We have identified three main phases that characterize the creation and management of 3D virtual models. We investigated these directions evaluating and simplifying the classic editing techniques in order to propose more natural and intuitive tools in a pure 3D modelling environment. In particular, we focused on freehand sketch-based modelling to create 3D virtual models, interaction and navigation in a 3D modelling environment and advanced editing tools for free-form deformation and objects composition. To pursuing these goals we wondered how new gesture-based interaction technologies can be successfully employed in a 3D modelling environments, how we could improve the depth perception and the interaction in 3D environments and which operations could be developed to simplify the classical virtual models editing paradigm. Our main aims were to propose a set of solutions with which a common user can realize an idea in a 3D virtual model, drawing in the air just as he would on paper. Moreover, we tried to use gestures and mid-air movements to explore and interact in 3D virtual environment, and we studied simple and effective 3D form transformations. The work was carried out adopting the discrete representation of the models, thanks to its intuitiveness, but especially because it is full of open challenges.