(Un)ethical leadership, organizational identification and sensemaking: the BES case and its impact on employees

This paper provides an ongoing analysis to one of the biggest ethical and financial scandals in Portugal – Banco Espírito Santo (BES). BES was considered one of the three best banks but it went bankrupted and its employees were transferred to a new entity – Novo Banco. This study was conducted in order to provide an understanding of the employees’ side, which has been forgotten so far. An ethical scandal (sensebreaking) creates ambiguity and uncertainty which triggers new sensemaking processes in order to understand and derive meaning from the new reality. The methodology followed was semi-structured interviews to employees both from the branches and the central services. We found evidence that in organizations with strong identification, unethical behavior has a significant impact on followers’ – the new process of sensemaking is particularly important in this situation because employees suffer more from the disruption of their reality.

Environmental isolation, biochemical identification, and antifungal drug susceptibility of Cryptococcus species

Introduction The incidence of opportunistic fungal infections has increased in recent years and is considered an important public health problem. Among systemic and opportunistic mycoses, cryptococcosis is distinguished by its clinical importance due to the increased risk of infection in individuals infected by human immunodeficiency virus. Methods To determine the occurrence of pathogenic Cryptococcus in pigeon excrement in the City of Araraquara, samples were collected from nine environments, including state and municipal schools, abandoned buildings, parks, and a hospital. The isolates were identified using classical tests, and susceptibility testing for the antifungal drugs (fluconazole, itraconazole, voriconazole, and amphotericin B) independently was also performed. After collection, the excrement samples were plated on Niger agar and incubated at room temperature. Results A total of 87 bird dropping samples were collected, and 66.6% were positive for the genus Cryptococcus. The following species were identified: Cryptococcus neoformans (17.2%), Cryptococcus gattii (5.2%), Cryptococcus ater (3.5%), Cryptococcus laurentti (1.7%), and Cryptococcus luteolus (1.7%). A total of 70.7% of the isolates were not identified to the species level and are referred to as Cryptococcus spp. throughout the manuscript. Conclusions Although none of the isolates demonstrated resistance to antifungal drugs, the identification of infested areas, the proper control of birds, and the disinfection of these environments are essential for the epidemiological control of cryptococcosis.

Performance of the Vitek 2 system software version 5.03 in the bacterial identification and antimicrobial susceptibility test: evaluation study of clinical and reference strains of Gram-positive cocci

Introduction. The genera Enterococcus, Staphylococcus and Streptococcus are recognized as important Gram-positive human pathogens. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of Vitek 2 in identifying Gram-positive cocci and their antimicrobial susceptibilities. Methods. One hundred four isolates were analyzed to determine the accuracy of the automated system for identifying the bacteria and their susceptibility to oxacillin and vancomycin. Results. The system correctly identified 77.9% and 97.1% of the isolates at the species and genus levels, respectively. Additionally, 81.8% of the Vitek 2 results agreed with the known antimicrobial susceptibility profiles. Conclusion. Vitek 2 correctly identified the commonly isolated strains; however, the limitations of the method may lead to ambiguous findings.

Molecular identification and antifungal susceptibility profiles of Candida parapsilosis complex species isolated from culture collection of clinical samples

AbstractINTRODUCTION:Candida parapsilosis is a common yeast species found in cases of onychomycosis and candidemia associated with infected intravascular devices. In this study, we differentiated Candida parapsilosis sensu stricto, Candida orthopsilosis , and Candida metapsilosis from a culture collection containing blood and subungual scraping samples. Furthermore, we assessed the in vitro antifungal susceptibility of these species to fluconazole, itraconazole, voriconazole, posaconazole, amphotericin B, and caspofungin.METHODS:Differentiation of C. parapsilosis complex species was performed by amplification of the secondary alcohol dehydrogenase (SADH) gene and digestion by the restriction enzyme Ban I. All isolates were evaluated for the determination of minimal inhibitory concentrations using Etest, a method for antifungal susceptibility testing.RESULTS:Among the 87 isolates, 78 (89.7%) were identified as C. parapsilosis sensu stricto , five (5.7%) were identified as C. orthopsilosis , and four (4.6%) were identified as C. metapsilosis . Analysis of antifungal susceptibility showed that C. parapsilosis sensu strictoisolates were less susceptible to amphotericin B and itraconazole. One C. parapsilosis sensu stricto isolate was resistant to amphotericin B and itraconazole. Moreover, 10.2% of C. parapsilosis sensu stricto isolates were resistant to caspofungin. Two C. parapsilosis sensu strictoisolates and one C. metapsilosis isolate were susceptible to fluconazole in a dose-dependent manner.CONCLUSIONS:We reported the first molecular identification of C. parapsilosiscomplex species in State of Goiás, Brazil. Additionally, we showed that although the three species exhibited differences in antifungal susceptibility profiles, the primary susceptibility of this species was to caspofungin.

Human identification and analysis of DNA in bones

The introduction of molecular biology techniques, especially of DNA analysis, for human identification is a recent advance in legal medicine. Substantial effort has continuously been made in an attempt to identify cadavers and human remains after wars, socio-political problems and mass disasters. In addition, because of the social dynamics of large cities, there are always cases of missing people, as well as unidentified cadavers and human remains that are found. In the last few years, there has also been an increase in requests for exhumation of human remains in order to determine genetic relationships in civil suits and court action. The authors provide an extensive review of the literature regarding the use of this new methodology for human identification of ancient or recent bones.

Identification and energy calibration of hadronically decaying tau leptons with the ATLAS experiment in pp collisions at s√=8 TeV

This paper describes the trigger and offline reconstruction, identification and energy calibration algorithms for hadronic decays of tau leptons employed for the data collected from pp collisions in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC center-of-mass energy s√ = 8 TeV. The performance of these algorithms is measured in most cases with Z decays to tau leptons using the full 2012 dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1. An uncertainty on the offline reconstructed tau energy scale of 2% to 4%, depending on transverse energy and pseudorapidity, is achieved using two independent methods. The offline tau identification efficiency is measured with a precision of 2.5% for hadronically decaying tau leptons with one associated track, and of 4% for the case of three associated tracks, inclusive in pseudorapidity and for a visible transverse energy greater than 20 GeV. For hadronic tau lepton decays selected by offline algorithms, the tau trigger identification efficiency is measured with a precision of 2% to 8%, depending on the transverse energy. The performance of the tau algorithms, both offline and at the trigger level, is found to be stable with respect to the number of concurrent proton--proton interactions and has supported a variety of physics results using hadronically decaying tau leptons at ATLAS.

Identification and characterization of deforestation hot spots in Venezuela using MODIS satellite images

Land cover changes over time as a result of human activity. Nowadays deforestation may be considered one of the main environmental problems. The objective of this study was to identify and characterize changes to forest cover in Venezuela between 2005-2010. Two maps of deforestation hot spots were generated on the basis of MODIS data, one using digital techniques and the other by means of direct visual interpretation by experts. These maps were validated against Landsat ETM+ images. The accuracy of the map obtained digitally was estimated by means of a confusion matrix. The overall accuracy of the maps obtained digitally was 92.5%. Expert opinions regarding the hot spots permitted the causes of deforestation to be identified. The main processes of deforestation were concentrated to the north of the Orinoco River, where 8.63% of the country's forests are located. In this region, some places registered an average annual forest change rate of between 0.72% and 2.95%, above the forest change rate for the country as a whole (0.61%). The main causes of deforestation for the period evaluated were agricultural and livestock activities (47.9%), particularly family subsistence farming and extensive farming which were carried out in 94% of the identified areas.

Polyphasic approach including MALDI-TOF MS/MS analysis for identification and characterisation of Fusarium verticillioides in Brazilian corn kernels

Fusarium verticillioides is considered one of the most important global sources of fumonisin contamination in food and feed. Corn is one of the main commodities produced in the Northeastern Region of Brazil. The present study investigated potential mycotoxigenic fungal strains belonging to the F. verticillioides species isolated from corn kernels in 3 different Regions of the Brazilian State of Pernambuco. A polyphasic approach including classical taxonomy, molecular biology, MALDI-TOF MS and MALDI-TOF MS/MS for the identification and characterisation of the F. verticillioides strains was used. Sixty F. verticillioides strains were isolated and successfully identified by classical morphology, proteomic profiles of MALDI-TOF MS, and by molecular biology using the species-specific primers VERT-1 and VERT-2. FUM1 gene was further detected for all the 60 F. verticillioides by using the primers VERTF-1 and VERTF-2 and through the amplification profiles of the ISSR regions using the primers (GTG)5 and (GACA)4. Results obtained from molecular analysis shown a low genetic variability among these isolates from the different geographical regions. All of the 60 F. verticillioides isolates assessed by MALDI-TOF MS/MS presented ion peaks with the molecular mass of the fumonisin B1 (721.83 g/mol) and B2 (705.83 g/mol)

Priming of a DNA metabarcoding approach for species identification and inventory in marine macrobenthic communities

Dissertação de mestrado em Molecular Genetics

Structure and classification of zoophytes. By James D. Dana.

c. 2

Optimal experimental design for parameter identification and model selection

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik, Diss., 2014

Visual analysis, clustering, and classification of contrast-enhanced tumor perfusion MRI data

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Inf., Diss., 2014

Evolution and classification of the Osteostraci. The exoskeleton of early Osteostraci. / Robert H. Denison --

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