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[This corrects the article DOI: 10.2471/BLT.18.213090.].

Invasive fungal infections, such as aspergillosis, candidiasis, and cryptococcosis, have significantly increased among immunocompromised people. To tackle these infections the first and most decisive step is the accurate identification of the causal pathogen. Routine identification of invasive fungal infections has progressed away from culture-dependent methods toward molecular techniques, including DNA barcoding, a highly efficient and widely used diagnostic technique. Fungal DNA barcoding previously relied on a single barcoding region, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region. However, this allowed only for 75% of all fungi to be correctly identified. As such, the translational elongation factor 1α (TEF1α) was recently introduced as the secondary barcode region to close the gap. Both loci together form the dual fungal DNA barcoding scheme. As a result, the ISHAM Barcoding Database has been expanded to include sequences for both barcoding regions to enable practical implementation of the dual barcoding scheme into clinical practice. The present study investigates the impact of the secondary barcode on the identification of clinically important fungal taxa, that have been demonstrated to cause severe invasive disease. Analysis of the barcoding regions was performed using barcoding gap analysis based on the genetic distances generated with the Kimura 2-parameter model. The secondary barcode demonstrated an improvement in identification for all taxa that were unidentifiable with the primary barcode, and when combined with the primary barcode ensured accurate identification for all taxa analyzed, making DNA barcoding an important, efficient and reliable addition to the diagnostic toolset of invasive fungal infections. Copyright © 2019 Hoang, Irinyi, Chen, Sorrell, the ISHAM Barcoding of Medical Fungi Working Group and Meyer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Dry root disease of yam (Dioscorea spp.), caused by Scutellonema bradys, Pratylenchus coffeae and brachyurus, isprominent among the plant disease problems of yam in Brazil. In order to evaluate the association of these nematode species withweeds, field sampling was performed during 2016 and 2017 in yam-growing areas with a history of the disease within the majorcounties in the state of Alagoas, Brazil. The frequency of occurrence of both weeds and nematodes was determined, in addition tothe estimated population of nematodes in roots. Forty-three weed species were found, of which 23 were infected with at least one ofthe causal agents of the dry rot disease, Pratylenchus spp. being the most prevalent in the fields. Ageratum conyzoides, Commelina benghalensisandEmilia coccinea (in Zona da Mata) and C. benghalensis (Agreste region) were especially important due to theirhigh frequency of occurrence and also for supporting populations of bradysan Pratylenchus spp. Cyperus flavus, coccinea and permacoce verticillataare now recorded as new weed species associated with. bradys. Made available in DSpace on 2020-01-15T00:37:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marissonia.NEMY3255DeAlmeida.pdf: 190800 bytes, checksum: 7558f1ac8512666fd7f56dcc2516f709 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019

Most inverse problems in the industry (and particularly in geophysical exploration) are highly underdetermined because the number of model parameters too high to achieve accurate data predictions and because the sampling of the data space is scarce and incomplete; it is always affected by different kinds of noise. Additionally, the physics of the forward problem is a simplification of the reality. All these facts result in that the inverse problem solution is not unique; that is, there are different inverse solutions (called equivalent), compatible with the prior information that fits the observed data within similar error bounds. In the case of nonlinear inverse problems, these equivalent models are located in disconnected flat curvilinear valleys of the cost-function topography. The uncertainty analysis consists of obtaining a representation of this complex topography via different sampling methodologies. In this paper, we focus on the use of a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to sample the region of equivalence in nonlinear inverse problems. Although this methodology has a general purpose, we show its application for the uncertainty assessment of the solution of a geophysical problem concerning gravity inversion in sedimentary basins, showing that it is possible to efficiently perform this task in a sampling-while-optimizing mode. Particularly, we explain how to use and analyze the geophysical models sampled by exploratory PSO family members to infer different descriptors of nonlinear uncertainty.

A utilização de material propagativo sadio constitui importante medida de controle para os nematoides da bananeira (Musa spp.), pois, assim, evita-se a introdução desses patógenos em áreas isentas. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o efeito da aplicação de Bacillus subtilis (Nemathel®) no tratamento de mudas, do tipo chifre, de bananeira subgrupo Terra cv. Comprida, infectadas por uma população mista com Radopholus similis, Meloidogyne spp., Pratylenchus spp. e Helicotylenchus spp. Foram testadas diferentes doses do produto (50; 100; 150; 200 e 250 mL/10 L de água) mais as testemunhas positiva (nematicida) e negativa (água). As mudas foram imersas em cada um dos tratamentos por 30 minutos e plantadas em vasos com solo esterilizado. A avaliação foi realizada após quatro meses e as doses de 200 e 250 mL do produto por 10 L de água proporcionaram as maiores reduções das populações dos nematoides em raízes e rizomas. Made available in DSpace on 2019-03-13T00:26:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ZeMauro.pdf: 279201 bytes, checksum: 19989ff2e145380cba20ecdb12d8c8aa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-03-12

What is driving the European Union (EU) to integrate in matters of security and defence? Why has the EU since the 1990s, and in fits and starts, built up defence institutions, published strategic documents, or launched security missions around the world? This dissertation suggests an answer to these questions that hinges on there being a security community in Europe within which states do not feel threatened by one another. Understanding the level of trust EU states have in one other as well as its bearing on the way they engage in negotiations about the management of their security is of fundamental importance when attempting to make sense of the emergence of the EU as a security actor. States within Europe’s security community and during the period covered by this thesis (1990-2016) suffered numerous external security shocks. These ranged from shifts in the geopolitical landscape surrounding them, to terrorist attacks to immigration crises. Shocks of this nature exposed the externalities of non-cooperation to policymaking elites in EU Member States, ultimately pushing them to seek the elevation of crisis management to the EU level. The outcome of the intergovernmental negotiations that followed each external shock depended on the degree of strategic interest overlap across EU states. This thesis makes evident that as EU integration in other fields progressed a form of spillover occurred where strategic interests converged and a common security and defence policy became an ever more attractive proposition. The narrative suggested in the following pages also explains why EU Member States have sometimes been forced to attend to their security and defence affairs alone. This occurred when they were faced with a crisis with little impact on the strategic interests of other members of the security community. The complicated interactions between the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in turn, can also be seen through this theoretical lens and with the Alliance shielding Europeans from shocks or from the management of their consequences, therefore disincentivizing further EU integration in the field of security. By taking the perspective of EU member states and looking at specific shocks and the reactions they produced the following pages provide an innovative take on a much-studied but poorly-understood subject. They also seek to bring together two relevant but almost entirely disconnected sets of literatures: broader international relations theory and empirical works on European security.