Biogeography of Glandulocaudinae (Teleostei : Characiformes : Characidae) revisited: phylogenetic patterns, historical geology and genetic connectivity

The biogeography of the Glandulocaudinae ( former Glandulocaudini) is reviewed. The major pattern of diversification presented by this group of freshwater fishes can be clearly associated to the main aspects of the tectonic evolution of the southern portion of the Cis-Andean South American Platform. The phylogenetic relationships within the group suggest that the clade represented by Lophiobrycon is the sister-group of the more derived clade represented by the genus Glandulocauda and Mimagoniates. Lophiobrycon and Glandulocauda occur in areas of the ancient crystalline shield of southeastern Brazil and their present allopatric distribution is probably due to relict survival and tectonic vicariant events. Populations of Glandulocauda melanogenys are found in contiguous drainages in presently isolated upper parts of the Tiete, Guaratuba, Itatinga, and Ribeira de Iguape basins and this pattern of distribution is probably the result of river capture caused by tectonic processes that affected a large area in eastern and southeastern Brazil. The species of Mimagoniates are predominantly distributed along the eastern and southeastern coastal areas, but M. microlepis is additionally found in the rio Iguacu and Tibagi basins. Mimagoniates barberi occurs in both SW margin of the upper rio Parana basin and the lower Paraguay and Mimagoniates sp. occurs in the upper Paraguay river basin. Tectonic activations of the Continental Rift of Southeastern Brazil along the eastern margin of the Upper Parana basin promoted population fragmentation responsible of the present day distribution presented by Glandulocauda melanogenys. We hypothesize that occurrence of Mimagoniates along the lowland area around the Parana basin was due to a single or a multiple fragmentation of populations along the W-SW border of the upper Parana Basin, probably due to the major tectonic origin of the Chaco-Pantanal wetland foreland basins since the Miocene as well as Cenozoic tectonic activity along the borders of the upper Parana basin, such as in the eastern Paraguay, in the Asuncion Rift. Distributional pattern of Mimagoniates suggests that its initial diversification may be related to the tectonic evolution of the Chaco-Pantanal foreland basin system and a minimum age of 2.5 M.Y are proposed for this monophyletic group. Previous hypotheses on sea level fluctuations of the late Quaternary as being the main causal mechanism promoting cladogenesis and speciation of the group are critically reviewed. Phylogeographic studies based on molecular data indicate significant differences among the isolated populations of M. microlepis. These findings suggest that a much longer period of time and a paleogeographic landscape configuration of the Brazilian southeastern coastal region explain the present observed phylogenetic and biogeographic patterns.

The Nine Circles of Surveillance Hell: An Institutional View of Information Flows and Information Threats in Libraries

In the past few years, libraries have started to design public programs that educate patrons about different tools and techniques to protect personal privacy. But do end user solutions provide adequate safeguards against surveillance by corporate and government actors? What does a comprehensive plan for privacy entail in order that libraries live up to their privacy values? In this paper, the authors discuss the complexity of surveillance architecture that the library institution might confront when seeking to defend the privacy rights of patrons. This architecture consists of three main parts: physical or material aspects, logical characteristics, and social factors of information and communication flows in the library setting. For each category, the authors will present short case studies that are culled from practitioner experience, research, and public discourse. The case studies probe the challenges faced by the library—not only when making hardware and software choices, but also choices related to staffing and program design. The paper shows that privacy choices intersect not only with free speech and chilling effects, but also with questions that concern intellectual property, organizational development, civic engagement, technological innovation, public infrastructure, and more. The paper ends with discussion of what libraries will require in order to sustain and improve efforts to serve as stewards of privacy in the 21st century.

Goals Software Construction Process

Generalized hyper competitiveness in the world markets has determined the need to offer better products to potential and actual clients in order to mark an advantagefrom other competitors. To ensure the production of an adequate product, enterprises need to work on the efficiency and efficacy of their business processes (BPs) by means of the construction of Interactive Information Systems (IISs, including Interactive Multimedia Documents) so that they are processed more fluidly and correctly.The construction of the correct IIS is a major task that can only be successful if the needs from every intervenient are taken into account. Their requirements must bedefined with precision, extensively analyzed and consequently the system must be accurately designed in order to minimize implementation problems so that the IIS isproduced on schedule and with the fewer mistakes as possible. The main contribution of this thesis is the proposal of Goals, a software (engineering) construction process which aims at defining the tasks to be carried out in order to develop software. This process defines the stakeholders, the artifacts, and the techniques that should be applied to achieve correctness of the IIS. Complementarily, this process suggests two methodologies to be applied in the initial phases of the lifecycle of the Software Engineering process: Process Use Cases for the phase of requirements, and; MultiGoals for the phases of analysis and design. Process Use Cases is a UML-based (Unified Modeling Language), goal-driven and use case oriented methodology for the definition of functional requirements. It uses an information oriented strategy in order to identify BPs while constructing the enterprise’s information structure, and finalizes with the identification of use cases within the design of these BPs. This approach provides a useful tool for both activities of Business Process Management and Software Engineering. MultiGoals is a UML-based, use case-driven and architectural centric methodology for the analysis and design of IISs with support for Multimedia. It proposes the analysis of user tasks as the basis of the design of the: (i) user interface; (ii) the system behaviour that is modeled by means of patterns which can combine Multimedia and standard information, and; (iii) the database and media contents. This thesis makes the theoretic presentation of these approaches accompanied with examples from a real project which provide the necessary support for the understanding of the used techniques.

Hudumia: a platform to support spontaneous volunteers' situational awareness, coordination and safety underemergency scenarios

Spontaneous volunteers always emerge under emergency scenarios and are vital to a successful community response, yet some uncertainty subsists around their role and its inherent acceptance by official entities under emergency scenarios. In our research we have identified that most of the spontaneous volunteers do have none or little support from official entities, hence they end up facing critical problems as situational awareness, safety instructions and guidance, motivation and group organization. We argue that official entities still play a crucial role and should change some of their behaviors regarding spontaneous volunteerism. We aim with this thesis to design a software architecture and a framework in order to implement a solution to support spontaneous volunteerism under emergency scenarios along with a set of guidelines for the design of open information management systems. Together with the collaboration from both citizens and emergency professionals we have been able to attain several important contributions, as the clear identification of the roles taken by both spontaneous volunteers and professionals, the importance of volunteerism in overall community response and the role which open collaborative information management systems have in the community volunteering efforts. These conclusions have directly supported the design guidelines of our software solution proposal. In what concerns to methodology, we first review literature on technologies support to emergencies and how spontaneous volunteers actually challenge these systems. Following, we have performed a field research where we have observed that the emerging of spontaneous volunteer’s efforts imposes new requirements for the design of such systems, which leaded to the creation of a cluster of design guidelines that supported our software solution proposal to address the volunteers’ requirements. Finally we have architected and developed an online open information management tool which has been evaluated via usability engineering methods, usability user tests and heuristic evaluations.

Open and Standardized Resources for Smart Transducer Networking

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

STREAM-AP: um processo para sistematizar a escolha de padrões arquiteturais baseado em requisitos não-funcionais

The importance of non-functional requirements for computer systems is increasing. Satisfying these requirements requires special attention to the software architecture, since an unsuitable architecture introduces greater complexity in addition to the intrinsic complexity of the system. Some studies have shown that, despite requirements engineering and software architecture activities act on different aspects of development, they must be performed iteratively and intertwined to produce satisfactory software systems. The STREAM process presents a systematic approach to reduce the gap between requirements and architecture development, emphasizing the functional requirements, but using the non-functional requirements in an ad hoc way. However, non-functional requirements typically influence the system as a whole. Thus, the STREAM uses Architectural Patterns to refine the software architecture. These patterns are chosen by using non-functional requirements in an ad hoc way. This master thesis presents a process to improve STREAM in making the choice of architectural patterns systematic by using non-functional requirements, in order to guide the refinement of a software architecture

Cytoarchitecture and musculotopic organization of the facial motor nucleus in Cebus apella monkey

The architecture and musculotopic organization of the facial motor nucleus in the Cebus apella monkey (a New World primate) were investigated using histological techniques and a multiple labelling strategy, in which horseradish peroxidase-conjugated neuroanatomical tracers (CTB-HRP and WGA-HRP) and fluorescent tracers were injected into individual facial muscles. The facial motor nucleus was formed by multipolar motoneurons and had an ovoid shape, with its rostrocaudal axis measuring on average 1875 mum. We divided the nucleus into four different subnuclei: medial, intermediate, dorsal and lateral. Retrograde labelling patterns revealed that individual muscles were innervated by longitudinal functional columns of motoneurons. The columns of the orbicularis oculi, zygomaticus, orbicularis oris, auricularis superior, buccinator and platysma muscles were located in the dorsal, intermediate, lateral, medial, lateral and intermediate subnuclei, respectively. However, the motoneuron columns of the levator labii superioris alaeque nasi muscle and frontalis muscle could not be associated with a specific subnucleus. The present results confirm previous studies regarding the musculotopic organization of the facial motor nucleus. However, we observed some particularities in terms of the relative size of each column in C. apella, which might be related to the functional and behavioral importance of each muscle in the particular context of this primate.

Contemporary pollen flow, mating patterns and effective population size inferred from paternity analysis in a small fragmented population of the Neotropical tree Copaifera langsdorffii Desf. (Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae)

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

A tobacco cDNA reveals two different transcription patterns in vegetative and reproductive organs

In order to identify genes expressed in the pistil that may have a role in the reproduction process, we have established an expressed sequence tags project to randomly sequence clones from a Nicotiana tabacum stigma/style cDNA library. A cDNA clone (MTL-8) showing high sequence similarity to genes encoding glycine-rich RNA-binding proteins was chosen for further characterization. Based on the extensive identity of MTL-8 to the RGP-1a sequence of N. sylvestris, a primer was defined to extend the 5′ sequence of MTL-8 by RT-PCR from stigma/style RNAs. The amplification product was sequenced and it was confirmed that MTL-8 corresponds to an mRNA encoding a glycine-rich RNA-binding protein. Two transcripts of different sizes and expression patterns were identified when the MTL-8 cDNA insert was used as a probe in RNA blots. The largest is 1,100 nucleotides (nt) long and markedly predominant in ovaries. The smaller transcript, with 600 nt, is ubiquitous to the vegetative and reproductive organs analyzed (roots, stems, leaves, sepals, petals, stamens, stigmas/styles and ovaries). Plants submitted to stress (wounding, virus infection and ethylene treatment) presented an increased level of the 600-nt transcript in leaves, especially after tobacco necrosis virus infection. In contrast, the level of the 1,100-nt transcript seems to be unaffected by the stress conditions tested. Results of Southern blot experiments have suggested that MTL-8 is present in one or two copies in the tobacco genome. Our results suggest that the shorter transcript is related to stress while the larger one is a flower predominant and nonstress-inducible messenger.

Open and standardized tools for smart transducer networking

IEEE 1451 Standard is intended to address the smart transducer interfacing problematic in network environments. Usually, proprietary hardware and software is a very efficient solution to in planent the IEEE 1451 normative, although can be expensive and inflexible. In contrast, the use of open and standardized tools for implementing the IEEE 1451 normative is proposed in this paper. Tools such as Java and Phyton programming languages, Linux, programmable logic technology, Personal Computer resources and Ethernet architecture were integrated in order to constructa network node based on the IEEE 1451 standards. The node can be applied in systems based on the client-server communication model The evaluation of the employed tools and expermental results are presented. © 2005 IEEE.

The application of distributed virtual machines for enterprise computer management: A two-tier network file system for image provisioning and management

In order to simplify computer management, several system administrators are adopting advanced techniques to manage software configuration of enterprise computer networks, but the tight coupling between hardware and software makes every PC an individual managed entity, lowering the scalability and increasing the costs to manage hundreds or thousands of PCs. Virtualization is an established technology, however its use is been more focused on server consolidation and virtual desktop infrastructure, not for managing distributed computers over a network. This paper discusses the feasibility of the Distributed Virtual Machine Environment, a new approach for enterprise computer management that combines virtualization and distributed system architecture as the basis of the management architecture. © 2008 IEEE.

A tool to simplify the management of homogeneous and heterogeneous grids

To simplify computer management, several system administrators are adopting advanced techniques to manage software configuration on grids, but the tight coupling between hardware and software makes every PC an individual managed entity, lowering the scalability and increasing the costs to manage hundreds or thousands of PCs. This paper discusses the feasibility of a distributed virtual machine environment, named Flexlab: a new approach for computer management that combines virtualization and distributed system architectures as the basis of a management system. Flexlab is able to extend the coverage of a computer management solution beyond client operating system limitations and also offers a convenient hardware abstraction, decoupling software and hardware, simplifying computer management. The results obtained in this work indicate that FlexLab is able to overcome the limitations imposed by the coupling between software and hardware, simplifying the management of homogeneous and heterogeneous grids. © 2009 IEEE.

Differences in dietary pattern between obese and eutrophic children

Background: Excessive consumption of energy is a decisive factor of obesity, but a simple quantitative assessment of consumption between obese and eutrophic individuals not always explains the problem, raising questions about the importance of the qualitative aspects of food. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the differences in nutrient composition and meal patterns between eutrophic and obese schoolchildren. Methods. The diet of 83 children (42 obese and 41 eutrophic), aged between 7 and 11 years of age, was assessed by two non-consecutive dietary recalls. After the software analysis of macro and micronutrients composition, the different types and amount of legumes, fruits and vegetables were analyzed to verify the dietary patterns. Results: No differences were verified in energy consumption between the groups (eutrophic = 1934.2 672.7 kcal, obese = 1835.8 621.2 kcal). In general, children showed consumption within the recommended ranges of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins. The average consumption of fiber was higher in the eutrophic group (20.7 g) when compared to the obese group (14.8 g). The dietary fiber was strongly correlated with the number of servings of beans (r = 0.77), when compared to fruits (r = 0.44) and leafy vegetables (r = 0.13). It was also observed that the higher the consumption of fiber and beans, the lower the proportion of dietary fat (r = -0.22) in the diet. Generally, there was a low consumption of fiber (20.7 g = eutrophic group/14.8 g = obese group), beans (1.1 portions in the eutrophic and obese groups), fruits (0.7 portions eutrophic group and 0.6 obese group) and vegetables (1.3 eutrophic group and 1.1 obese group). Conclusions: It is concluded that the obesity was more related to a dietary pattern of low intake of dietary fiber than excessive energy consumption and macronutrients imbalance. © 2011 de Oliveira et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Energy-performance tradeoffs in software transactional memory

Transactional memory (TM) is a new synchronization mechanism devised to simplify parallel programming, thereby helping programmers to unleash the power of current multicore processors. Although software implementations of TM (STM) have been extensively analyzed in terms of runtime performance, little attention has been paid to an equally important constraint faced by nearly all computer systems: energy consumption. In this work we conduct a comprehensive study of energy and runtime tradeoff sin software transactional memory systems. We characterize the behavior of three state-of-the-art lock-based STM algorithms, along with three different conflict resolution schemes. As a result of this characterization, we propose a DVFS-based technique that can be integrated into the resolution policies so as to improve the energy-delay product (EDP). Experimental results show that our DVFS-enhanced policies are indeed beneficial for applications with high contention levels. Improvements of up to 59% in EDP can be observed in this scenario, with an average EDP reduction of 16% across the STAMP workloads. © 2012 IEEE.

IPSFlow: Um framework para Sistema de Prevenção de Intrusão baseado em Redes Definidas por Software

Os Sistemas de Detecção e Prevenção de Intrusão (Intrusion Detection Systems – IDS e Intrusion Prevention Systems - IPS) são ferramentas bastante conhecidas e bem consagradas no mundo da segurança da informação. Porém, a falta de integração com os equipamentos de rede como switches e roteadores acaba limitando a atuação destas ferramentas e exige um bom dimensionamento de recursos de hardware como processamento, memória e interfaces de rede de alta velocidade, utilizados para implementá-las. Diante de diversas limitações deparadas por pesquisadores e administradores de redes, surgiu o conceito de Rede Definida por Software (Software Defined Network – SDN), que ao separar os planos de controle e de dados, permite adaptar o funcionamento da rede de acordo com as necessidades de cada um. Desta forma, devido à padronização e flexibilidade propostas pelas SDNs, e das limitações apresentadas dos IPSs, esta dissertação de mestrado propõe o IPSFlow, um framework que utiliza uma rede baseada na arquitetura SDN e o protocolo OpenFlow para a criação de um IPS com ampla cobertura e que permite bloquear um tráfego caracterizado pelos IDS(s) como malicioso no equipamento mais próximo da origem. Para validar o framework, experimentos no ambiente virtual Mininet foram realizados utilizando-se o Snort como IDS para analisar tráfego de varredura (scan) gerado pelo Nmap de um host ao outro. Os resultados coletados apresentam que o IPSFlow funcionou conforme planejado ao efetuar o bloqueio de 85% do tráfego de varredura.