Suchergebnisse

Over the last few years, much online volunteered geographic information (VGI) has emerged and has been increasingly analyzed to understand places and cities, as well as human mobility and activity. However, there are concerns about the quality and usability of such VGI. In this study, we demonstrate a complete process that comprises the collection, unification, classification and validation of a type of VGI—online point-of-interest (POI) data—and develop methods to utilize such POI data to estimate disaggregated land use (i.e., employment size by category) at a very high spatial resolution (census block level) using part of the Boston metropolitan area as an example. With recent advances in activity-based land use, transportation, and environment (LUTE) models, such disaggregated land use data become important to allow LUTE models to analyze and simulate a person's choices of work location and activity destinations and to understand policy impacts on future cities. These data can also be used as alternatives to explore economic activities at the local level, especially as government-published census-based disaggregated employment data have become less available in the recent decade. Our new approach provides opportunities for cities to estimate land use at high resolution with low cost by utilizing VGI while ensuring its quality with a certain accuracy threshold. The automatic classification of POI can also be utilized for other types of analyses on cities. ; Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (Singapore. National Research Foundation) ; Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (MIT-Portugal Program) ; Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (Grant PTDC/ECM-TRA/1898/2012)

15 páginas, 8 figuras, 1 tabla ; SpainFestuca rubra subsp. pruinosa is a perennial grass that inhabits sea cliffs, a habitat where salinity and low nutrient availability occur. These plants have a rich fungal microbiome, and particularly common are their associations with Epichloë festucae in aboveground tissues and with Fusarium oxysporum and Periconia macrospinosa in roots. In this study, we hypothesized that these fungi could affect the performance of F. rubra plants under salinity, being important complements for plant habitat adaptation. Two lines of F. rubra, each one consisting of Epichloë-infected and Epichloë-free clones, were inoculated with the root endophytes (F. oxysporum and P. macrospinosa) and subjected to a salinity treatment. Under salinity, plants symbiotic with Epichloë had lower Na+ content than non-symbiotic plants, but this effect was not translated into plant growth. P. macrospinosa promoted leaf and root growth in the presence and absence of salinity, and F. oxysporum promoted leaf and root growth in the presence and absence of salinity, plus a decrease in leaf Na+ content under salinity. The growth responses could be due to functions related to improved nutrient acquisition, while the reduction of Na+ content might be associated with salinity tolerance and plant survival in the long term. Each of these three components of the F. rubra core mycobiome contributed with different functions, which are beneficial and complementary for plant adaptation to its habitat in sea cliffs. Although our results do not support an obvious role of Epichloë itself in FRP salt tolerance, there is evidence that Epichloë can interact with root endophytes, affecting host plant performance ; This study has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 676480 and from the project "CLU-2019-05 – IRNASA/CSIC Unit of Excellence," funded by the Junta de Castilla y León and co-financed by the European Union (ERDF "Europe drives our growth"). ; Peer reviewed

14 páginas, 6 tablas, 7 figuras. -- The first publication by Frontiers Media is avalilable at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2018.03321/full ; Festuca rubra subsp. pruinosa is a perennial grass that inhabits sea cliffs of the Atlantic coasts of Europe. In this unhospitable environment plants grow in rock crevices and are exposed to abiotic stress factors such as low nutrient availability, wind, and salinity. Festuca rubra subsp. pruinosa is a host of the fungal endophyte Epichloë festucae, which colonizes aerial organs, but its root mycobiota is unknown. The culturable endophytic mycobiota of FRP roots was surveyed in a set of 105 plants sampled at five populations in marine cliffs from the northern coast of Spain. In total, 135 different fungal taxa were identified, 17 of them occurred in more than 10% of plants and in two or more populations. Seven taxa belonging to Fusarium, Diaporthe, Helotiales, Drechslera, Slopeiomyces, and Penicillium appeared to be constituents of the core microbiome of Festuca rubra subsp. pruinosa roots because they occurred in more than 20% of the plants analyzed, and at three or more populations. Most fungal strains analyzed (71.8%) were halotolerant. The presence of Epichloë festucae in aboveground tissue was detected in 65.7% of the plants, but its presence did not seem to significantly affect the structure of the core or other root microbiota, when compared to that of plants free of this endophyte. When plants of the grass Lolium perenne were inoculated with fungal strains obtained from Festuca rubra subsp. pruinosa roots, a Diaporthe strain significantly promoted leaf biomass production under normal and saline (200 mM NaCl) watering regimes. These results suggest that the core mycobiome of Festuca rubra subsp. pruinosa could have a role in host plant adaptation, and might be useful for the improvement of agricultural grasses. ; This study has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under theMarie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 676480. LS was funded through a Talent Recruitment grant from "Obra Social La Caixa– Fundación CAN". We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI). ; Peer reviewed

This work received financial support from the European Union (FEDER funds through COMPETE), National Funds (FCT, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) through project UID/QUI/50006/2013. A.P. and M.F.B. are grateful to FCT grants SFRH/BD/97995/2013 and SFRH/BPD/78845/2011, financed by POPH–QREN–Tipologia 4.1–Formação Avançada, subsidized by Fundo Social Europeu and Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior. C.P. thanks FCT for the FCT Investigator contract IF/01080/2015.

Abstract In the 1970s, the social impacts of protected areas (PAs) began to be widely recognized as conservationist thinking and human rights evolved to an acceptance that conservation can be achieved in collaboration with traditional communities. However, such a 'human face' given to conservation is still not present in some 21st century PAs: Catimbau National Park - CNP (Northeast Brazil) is a strict protection park which does not allow people residing inside its borders. Thirteen years after its creation, people are still confused about the monetary compensations and displacements strategies. In this study, a review of the bibliography concerning the CNP is performed and a proposal is made to change the current park classification from National Park to Natural Monument, allowing for private areas and their residents, providing that their use of its natural resources is compatible with the conservation objectives stipulated.

Despite the environmental and economic importance of Pantanal, there are few studies quantifying the influence of sazonality and spatial variation on biological diversity in this ecosystem. In this context, the present work aimed to study the assemblage of ants associated with macrophytes during the flood and dry period of Paraguay river, in marginal environments in the Pantanal of Porto Murtinho, Mato Grosso do Sul. We observed a wide variation in the temporal distribution of the diversity of the assemblages of ants, since from 37 species, 36 occurred in the dry and 20 in the flood period. Of the total of macrophyte species observed, in only 12.5% we found a more specific correlation with ants that were nesting in spaces provided by plants representing a total of 10.52% of the species analized.

Abstract. Seven soil-gas radon monitoring stations were placed along the active front of a granite quarry in Canas de senhorim, Central Portugal, recording continuously for 81 days. Important differences in the radon concentration were found between stations, with average values comprised between 102 and 2982 Bq m−3, which can be explained by the local presence of uranium anomalies in the regional late-orogenic Hercynian granite, usually associated with faults. One of the boreholes exhibits large radon anomalies lasting for several days, and two, contrary to the others, show a clear daily periodic behaviour, with minima around 19:00 LT and maxima around 07:00 LT. The different patterns observed in stations placed at such a short distance (<100 m) has no clear explanation and deserves further investigation. Data analysis shows no evidence of soil-gas radon concentration changes during explosions carried out at the quarry. This is likely to result from the absence of a progressive stress field affecting the rock, as typically occurs before an earthquake.

A chemical derivative of xanthan gum polysaccharide is investigated as a new artificial matrix for the encapsulation of chondrocytic cells. Toward this goal, a novel micro-droplet generator is developed to produce microcapsules. Microcapsules with an average diameter of 500 mm, smooth surface, and homogeneous size distribution are obtained. ATDC5 cells encapsulated in carboxymethyl xanthan (CMX) microcapsules remain viable and are observed to proliferate for prolonged culture periods with enhanced metabolic activity. Furthermore, retention of the chondrogenic phenotype is exhibited by the cells within CMX, suggesting the ability of this material to be applied in cell-delivery therapies. ; This work was supported through the European Union funded project "Find and Bind" (NMP4-SL-2009-229292) under FP7. A. C. M. thanks the Portuguese Foundation for Science Technology for a PhD grant (SFRH/BD/42161/2007). We thank Prof. Manuel Coimbra and Dr. Claudia Nunes from Aveiro University for their assistance with xanthan molecular weight ...

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to assess the oral health of patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) undergoing hemodialysis in Brazil. A dentist examined 160 subjects aged 40 to 85 years of age.Data was collected on dental caries, use of and need for dentures, oral mucosa, periodontal disease and temporomandibular joint status. All subjects were interviewed about their socioeconomic status, dental and medical history, and oral hygiene habits.Most subjects had hypertension (49.4%); used the public service for their medical care (69.4%); had a middle school educational level (83.1%); and did not complain of xerostomia (60.0%). The majority used private oral healthcare services and used a toothbrush only for oral hygiene. The mean DMFT was 26.0 (standard deviation 7.7). Moat individuals did not wear dentures, but needed some type of prosthesis. Lesions of the oral mucosa (3.1 %), signs (2.5%) and symptoms (3.8%) of temporomandibular dysfunction could be observed in only a few patients.The oral health of the subjects examined was poor. These persons needed their oral condition monitored by a dentist and their oral disease treated as well as receiving instruction on oral hygiene.

Male reproductive tissues are strongly susceptible to several environmental and lifestyle stressors. In general, male reproductive health is highly sensitive to oxidative stress, which results in reversible and/or irreversible changes in testosterone-producing cells, spermatogenesis, and sperm quality. Chromium compounds are widely used in the +3 and +6 valence states, as food supplements, and in the industrial field, respectively. Chromium (III) compounds, i.e., Cr(III)-tris-picolinate, [Cr(pic)(3)], known as chromium picolinate, are used as nutritional supplements for the control of diabetes, body weight, and muscular growth. However, previous studies showed that animal models exposed to chromium picolinate experienced degenerative changes in spermatogenesis. Contradictory results are documented in the literature and deserve discussion. Furthermore, the long-term effects of chromium picolinate on the antioxidant system of treated subjects have not been properly studied. Comprehensive studies on the role of this compound will help to establish the safe and useful use of chromium supplementation. On the other hand, chromium (VI) compounds are widely used in several industries, despite being well-known environmental pollutants (i.e., welding fumes). Chromium (VI) is known for its deleterious effects on male reproductive health as toxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic. Previous studies have demonstrated severe lesions to mouse spermatogenesis after exposure to chromium (VI). However, workers worldwide are still exposed to hexavalent chromium, particularly in electronics and military industries. Data from the literature pinpoints mechanisms of oxidative stress induced by chromium compounds in somatic and germ cells that lead to apoptosis, thus underlining the impairment of fertility potential. In this review, we analyze the benefits and risks of chromium compounds on male fertility, as well as the mechanisms underlying (in)fertility outcomes. Although supplements with antioxidant properties may maximize male ...