Efeitos de potenciais de água no solo, em diferentes estádios fenológicos da cultura da cevada (Hordeum vulgare L.)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

DISTRIBUIÇÃO DE SUBSTRATOS NAS COLÔNIAS DE Atta laevigata (F. Smith, 1858) (HYMENOPTERA: FORMICIDAE)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Armazenamento refrigerado de banana 'Prata Anã' proveniente de cachos com 16, 18 e 20 semanas

Conduziu-se este trabalho, com o objetivo de verificar a influência da temperatura de refrigeração e idade do cacho sobre a conservação e qualidade pós-colheita da banana 'Prata Anã', produzida no Norte de Minas Gerais, visando a exportação. Utilizaram-se frutos de bananeira 'Prata Anã' provenientes do município de Nova Porteirinha, MG. A colheita foi realizada na 16ª, 18ª e 20ª semanas após a emissão floral. Dos cachos colhidos, utilizou-se às segundas pencas, separadas em buquês com 5 frutos, lavados e pesados (18 kg). em seguida, os frutos foram revestidos com embalagens de polietileno de baixa densidade, com 50m de espessura, sob vácuo parcial, acondicionados em caixas de papelão e distribuídos em paletes. Depois de embalados e paletizados, os frutos foram transportados para a EPAMIG/CTNM, onde foram armazenados em câmaras de refrigeração (10 e 12ºC) e umidade relativa de 95%, por um período de 35 dias, sendo analisados antes e após a refrigeração. O armazenamento de bananas 'Prata Anã', provenientes de cachos com 16, 18 e 20 semanas, por 35 dias a temperaturas de 10 e 12ºC, não promoveu chilling nos frutos. A temperatura de 10ºC foi mais eficaz em prevenir a evolução da coloração da casca de bananas provenientes de cachos com 18 semanas, que à temperatura de 12ºC, enquanto as temperaturas de 10 e 12ºC foram igualmente eficientes na contenção da mudança de cor de bananas provenientes de cachos com 16 semanas. Frutos provenientes de cachos com 20 semanas amadureceram desuniformemente, ao longo do armazenamento refrigerado.

Hausdorff dimension of non-hyperbolic repellers. I: Maps with holes

This is the first paper in a two-part series devoted to studying the Hausdorff dimension of invariant sets of non-uniformly hyperbolic, non-conformal maps. Here we consider a general abstract model, that we call piecewise smooth maps with holes. We show that the Hausdorff dimension of the repeller is strictly less than the dimension of the ambient manifold. Our approach also provides information on escape rates and dynamical dimension of the repeller.

UNRUH-DEWITT DETECTORS IN THE PRESENCE OF SCALAR SOURCES

We analyze the response of Unruh-DeWitt detectors in the presence of inertial scalar sources. We show that, in general, a detector responds to the corresponding Coulomb field. However, in some cases, pure vacuum contributions can overwhelm the influence of the Coulomb field rendering the effect of the external source on the detector's response arbitrarily small. We revisit in this context the celebrated question of whether uniformly accelerated observers can see the radiation coming from an inertial charge, and point out the present impediments to answering this question.

Non-periodic bifurcations of one-dimensional maps

We prove that a 'positive probability' subset of the boundary of '{uniformly expanding circle transformations}' consists of Kupka-Smale maps. More precisely, we construct an open class of two-parameter families of circle maps (f(alpha,theta))(alpha,theta) such that, for a positive Lebesgue measure subset of values of alpha, the family (f(alpha,theta))(theta) crosses the boundary of the uniformly expanding domain at a map for which all periodic points are hyperbolic (expanding) and no critical point is pre-periodic. Furthermore, these maps admit an absolutely continuous invariant measure. We also provide information about the geometry of the boundary of the set of hyperbolic maps.

ANTS AS POTENTIAL VECTORS OF PATHOGENS IN HOSPITALS IN THE STATE OF SAO-PAULO, BRAZIL

Baiting studies performed in large, medium and small hospitals in Brazil revealed the presence of 14 ant species, with up to nine recorded in one hospital. Dominant species were exotic ants, and in the large hospital, Tapinoma melanocephalum was the most prevalent. Ants were not uniformly spread through the hospitals, but tended to be found in the more critical areas, particularly in nursery, intensive care, obstetrics, neurology and dermatology units. Bacteriological studies using specific media for bacteria associated with intra-hospital infections indicated the potential for the mechanical vectoring of species of Staphylococcus, Serratia, Klebsiella, Acinetobacter, Enterobacter, Candida and Enterococcus by ants. Although T. melanocephalum did not have the highest rate of association with these bacteria, its ubiquitous occurrences resulted in the highest overall potential as a vector of these bacteria. Because of a large number of ant species occurring in Brazilian hospitals, ants pose a potential problem to the spread of diseases in hospitals. Because of the number of associated ant species in hospitals, the control of this potential problem is much more difficult than in registered temperate areas.

Abortion and background radiation in Brazil

It is well known that radiation causes mutation, and that mutations are generally deleterious. They can lead to disease, malformation and death. It is further known that we live in a radioactive world. The air, the soil, the water, the food, all are somewhat radioactive. Natural radiation is not uniformly distributed throughout the earth's crust. There are some areas, especially in Brazil and India, where the levels of background radiation are several times higher than generally obtains. We have undertaken a specially prepared house-to-house genetic-epidemiologic, retrospective survey in a large Brazilian area with levels of natural radiation ranging from 7 (normal) to 133 (high) micro-roentgens per hour. In all, 24 different localities were surveyed during a period of 10 months by a trained team of nurses and social assistants. Our total sample consists of more than 8,000 couples who have had almost 44,000 pregnancy terminations. Our results do not disprove that natural radiation is one of the causes of socalled spontaneous mutations. They only show that, under the conditions of this study, no detectable effect on abortion was found. Our results also attest to the importance of extraneous variables in the analysis of morbidity and mortality data.

Histochemical study of muscle fiber types in Synbranchus marmoratus Bloch, 1795

The myotomal muscle of Synbranchus marmoratus was investigated using histochemical and immunohistochemical reactions. This musculature is composed of a superficial red compartment, uniformly distributed around the trunk circumferentially and also in the lateral line. The red compartment fibers are small in diameter and have an oxidative metabolism, a high rate of glycogen and a negative reaction to alkaline and acid myofibrillar ATPase (mATPase). The white muscle forms the bulk of the muscle mass. Its fibers are large in diameter and have a glycolytic metabolism, a negative reaction to glycogen, a strong reaction to alkaline mATPase and a negative reaction to acid mATPase. Between these two compartments there is an intermediate layer of fibers presenting a mosaic metabolism pattern with a high rate of glycogen. These fibers stained moderately for alkaline and acid m-ATPase. Several clusters of red muscles were observed inside the white muscle. Each cluster is composed of three fiber types, with a predominance of red and intermediate fibers. Reactivity to anti-MHC BA-D5 was positive only in the intermediate fibers. Reactivity to anti-MHC SC-71 was negative in all fiber types.

Rindler and Minkowski particles relationship revisited

We show that the emission of a Minkowski particle by a general class of scalar sources as described by inertial observers corresponds to either the emission or the absorption of a Rindler particle as described by uniformly accelerated observers. Our results are discussed in connection with the current controversy whether uniformly accelerated detectors radiate.

Oriented texture classification based on self-organizing neural network and Hough transform

This paper presents a technique for oriented texture classification which is based on the Hough transform and Kohonen's neural network model. In this technique, oriented texture features are extracted from the Hough space by means of two distinct strategies. While the first operates on a non-uniformly sampled Hough space, the second concentrates on the peaks produced in the Hough space. The described technique gives good results for the classification of oriented textures, a common phenomenon in nature underlying an important class of images. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the new technique in comparison, with an implemented technique based on Gabor filters.

Do static sources outside a Schwarzschild black hole radiate?

We show that static sources coupled to a massless scalar field in Schwarzschild spacetime give rise to emission and absorption of zero-energy particles due to the presence of Hawking radiation. This is in complete analogy with the description of the bremsstrahlung by a uniformly accelerated charge from the coaccelerated observers' point of view. The response rate of the source is found to coincide with that in Minkowski spacetime as a function of its proper acceleration. It is interesting that this quantum result appears to reflect the classical equivalence principle.

Interaction of Hawking radiation and a static electric charge

We investigate whether the equality found for the response of static scalar sources interacting (i) with Hawking radiation in Schwarzschild spacetime and (ii) with the Fulling-Davies-Unruh thermal bath in the Rindler wedge is maintained in the case of electric charges. We find a finite result in the Schwarzschild case, which is computed exactly, in contrast with the divergent result associated with the infrared catastrophe in the Rindler case, i.e., in the case of uniformly accelerated charges in Minkowski spacetime. Thus the equality found for scalar sources does not hold for electric charges.

Interaction of Hawking radiation with static sources outside a Schwarzschild black hole

We show that the response rate of (i) a static source interacting with Hawking radiation of a massless scalar field in Schwarzschild spacetime (with the Unruh vacuum) and that of (ii) a uniformly accelerated source with the same proper acceleration in Minkowski spacetime (with the Minkowski vacuum) are equal. We show that this equality will not hold if the Unruh vacuum is replaced by the Hartle-Hawking vacuum. It is verified that the source responds to the Hawking radiation near the horizon as if it were at rest in a thermal bath in Minkowski spacetime with the same temperature. It is also verified that the response rate in the Hartle-Hawking vacuum approaches that in Minkowski spacetime with the same temperature far away from the black hole. Finally, we compare our results with others in the literature.

Structure of tick anticoagulant peptide at 1.6 Å resolution complexed with bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor

The structure of tick anticoagulant peptide (TAP) has been determined by X-ray crystallography at t.6 Å resolution complexed with bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI). The TAP-BPTI crystals are tetragonal, a = b = 46.87, c = 50.35 Å, space group P41, four complexes per unit cell. The TAP molecules are highly dipolar and form an intermolecular helical array along the c-axis with a diameter of about 45 Å. Individual TAP units interact in a head-to-tail fashion, the positive end of one molecule associating with the distal negative end of another, and vice versa. The BPTI molecules have a uniformly distributed positively charged surface that interacts extensively through 14 hydrogen bonds and two hydrogen bonded salt bridges with the helical groove around the helical TAP chains. Comparing the structure of TAP in TAP-BPTI with TAP bound to factor Xa(Xa) suggests a massive reorganization in the N-terminal tetrapeptide and the first disulfide loop of TAP (CyS5(T)- Cys 15(T)) upon binding to Xa. The Tyr1(T)OH atom of TAP moves 14.2 Å to interact with Asp189 of the S1 specificity site, Arg3(T)CZ moves 5.0 Å with the guanidinium group forming a cation-π-electron complex in the S4 subsite of Xa, while Lys7(T)NZ differs in position by 10.6 Å in TAP-BPTI and TAP-Xa, all of which indicates a different pre-Xa-bound conformation for the N- terminal of TAP in its native state. In contrast to TAP, the BPTI structure of TAP-BPTI is practically the same as all those of previously determined structures of BPTI, only arginine and lysine side-chain conformations showing significant differences.