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On the way to the construction of the social community, citizens participate through their rights as main actors, granting continuous development based on democracy and equality, with the Constitution guaranteeing the exercise of citizen rights in every society. In the application of the aforementioned rights, it is citizen participation that creates a space for intervention by the people, citizen action is managed by organs of public power and democratic means. However, determining the course taken by citizen participation and social control has become a transcendental task to obtain real data that corroborates the correct application of the constitutional rights that are granted to the people, that is, a scenario has been proposed where These rights are not applicable in the event of ignorance or noncompliance with citizen participation, as is the case of the empty chair in Ecuador. Keywords: Citizen participation, the empty chair, rights, citizenship, society.

Multiple seasonalities often appear in high-frequency data. In this context multiple seasonal components are usually modelled in a deterministic way by trigonometric functions or dummy variables. This assumption may be too strict. Instead, a more flexible model is to allow the seasonality to slowly change as a seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average model, where the seasonality is modelled as a stochastic processes. In this study, we propose to model them iteratively, combining different seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average models. To this end, we test the proposed methodology with Madrid's NO2 hourly measurements of pollutants with daily, weekly and annual seasonalities, due to human activity and weather conditions. Here, we demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by comparing it with other methodological approaches proposed for this type of data. In an extensive exercise involving 15-year hourly forecasts, we show that the proposed procedure performs very well in predicting hourly pollution over a 24-h horizon and improves on alternative procedures. Additionally, the impact on the predictions of covariates such as wind speed, temperature and festivities were evaluated.

This work presents a novel approach for monocular dense Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. The surface to be estimated is represented as a piecewise planar surface, defined as a group of surfels each having as parameters its position and normal. These parameters are then directly estimated from the raw camera pixels measurements, by a Gauss-Newton iterative process. The representation of the surface as a group of surfels has several advantages. It allows the recovery of robust and accurate pixel depths, without the need to use a computationally demanding depth regularization schema. This has the further advantage of avoiding the use of a physically unlikely surface smoothness prior. New surfels can be correctly initialized from the information present in nearby surfels, avoiding also the need to use an expensive initialization routine commonly needed in Gauss-Newton methods. The method was written in the GLSL shading language, allowing the usage of GPU thus achieving real-time. The method was tested against several datasets, showing both its depth and normal estimation correctness, and its scene reconstruction quality. The results presented here showcase the usefulness of the more physically grounded piecewise planar scene depth prior, instead of the more commonly pixel depth independence and smoothness prior.

Submitted by Jeferson Carlos da Veiga Rodrigues (jveigar@unisinos.br) on 2022-12-01T14:25:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Bruno Luis Avila Freischlag_PROTEGIDO.pdf: 9579499 bytes, checksum: 6eb77b2dd1b210046063c07ff9293532 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2022-12-01T14:25:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bruno Luis Avila Freischlag_PROTEGIDO.pdf: 9579499 bytes, checksum: 6eb77b2dd1b210046063c07ff9293532 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2022-08-15 CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior O empreendedorismo social é considerado um fenômeno no século XXI, endossado por personalidades mundialmente conhecidas, como Muhammad Yunus, que mudou para sempre os conceitos de empreendedorismo social e inclusão financeira. No entanto, apesar de suas conquistas inquestionáveis, ainda há cerca de 1,7 bilhão de adultos considerados sem conta bancária em todo o mundo. A exclusão financeira priva os indivíduos do acesso a produtos e serviços financeiros úteis e acessíveis que atendem às suas necessidades, levando a altos níveis de pobreza e subdesenvolvimento. A Inclusão Financeira Digital, definida como o acesso e utilização digital de serviços financeiros formais por populações excluídas e desassistidas, é hoje considerada uma solução moderna e poderosa aliada à agenda de inclusão financeira. As fintechs são caracterizadas pelo uso de tecnologias para serviços financeiros, portanto, seu potencial para lidar com problemas relacionados à exclusão financeira é cada vez mais destacado por pesquisadores e profissionais. No entanto, o tema da inclusão financeira e das fintechs ainda é incipiente, levando à existência de diversas lacunas teóricas e práticas. A importância da inclusão financeira para a sociedade, e o potencial das fintechs como promotoras dessa inclusão deixa bem clara a necessidade de instrumentos que auxiliem no desenvolvimento de negócios que resolvam especialmente o problema da inclusão financeira. Esta pesquisa visa suprir essa lacuna perguntando: quais os desafios de um empreendedor orientado para a inclusão? Portanto, o objetivo principal desta pesquisa é propor um artefato que compile os desafios e as possíveis linhas de ação para os principais desafios percebidos por esses empreendedores. Para atingir o objetivo, esta pesquisa faz uso da metodologia Design Science Research, propondo um artefato. Acredita-se que a escolha do método seja adequada pelo seu poder de resolver problemas reais de forma colaborativa entre pesquisador e empreendedores, e pela alta aplicabilidade prática, permitindo também melhorias contínuas do modelo proposto em pesquisas futuras. Esta pesquisa da luz a um tema ainda pouco explorado pela literatura, tendo uma contribuição teórica através da validação de alguns dos desafios já encontrados na literatura e discutindo vários outros que ainda não foram explorados. Não só isso, mas a contribuição teórica também é evidenciada pelo avanço nos fatores que formam a intenção empreendedora, uma vez que os desafios estão diretamente ligados à viabilidade percebida do negócio pelo empreendedor. Quanto à contribuição prática, espera-se que o artefato proposto possa ter um impacto significativo no surgimento de novas fintechs voltadas para a inclusão ao permitir que os empreendedores entendam quais os potenciais desafios que estão à sua frente e quais são os possíveis cursos de ação que ele pode superá-los mais facilmente. Social entrepreneurship it is considered a trendy twenty-first century phenomenon, endorsed by worldwide know personalities such as the Muhammad Yunus, one that forever changed the concepts of social entrepreneurship and financial inclusion. Yet, despite his unquestionable achievements, there is still about 1.7 billion adults considered unbanked worldwide. Financial exclusion deprives individuals of access to useful and affordable financial products and ser-vices that meet their needs, leading to high levels of poverty and undeveloped. Digital Finan-cial Inclusion, defined as digital access to and use of formal financial services by excluded and underserved populations, it is now considered as a modern solution and a powerful allied to the financial inclusão agenda. Fintechs is characterized by the use of technologies to finan-cial services, hence, its potential to deal with problems related to financial exclusion is increas-ingly highlighted by researchers and practitioners alike. Nonetheless, the topic of financial inclusion and fintechs is yet in its infancy, leading to the existence of several theoretical and practical gaps. The importance of financial inclusion for society, and the potential of fintechs as promoters of this inclusion makes very clear the need for instruments that help in the devel-opment of businesses that especially solve the problem of financial inclusion. This research aims to address this gap by asking: what the challenges of an inclusion-oriented entrepreneur? Therefore, this research main objective is to propose an artifact that compiles the challenges and the possible course of action to the main challenges perceived by these entrepreneurs. To achieve the objective, this research makes use of the Design Science Research methodology, by proposing an artefact. It is believed that the choice of method is appropriate for its power to solve real problems in a collaborative way between the researcher and entrepreneurs, and for the high practical applicability, also allowing continuous improvements of the proposed model in future research. This research raises awareness to a yet very unexplored topic by the literature, having a theoretical contribution validating some of the challenges already encoun-tered in the literature, but also discussing several others that have not yet been explored. Not only that, but the theoretical contribution is also evidenced by the advance in the factors that form the entrepreneurial intention, since the challenges are linked to the perceived viability of the business by the entrepreneur. Going even beyond, this is one of the first research that also has a concern to bring a practical solution to the most recurrent challenges faced by the entre-preneurs. As for a practical contribution, it is expected that the proposed artifact can have a meaningful impact on the emergence of new inclusion-oriented fintech by allowing the entre-preneurs to understand what the potential challenges are ahead of him and what are course of actions that he can to overcome them more easily.

The synthesis of natural carbazoles O-demethylmurrayanine and murrastanine A starting from the title exo-heterocyclic diene­ is described. In the synthesis of murrastanine A, its symmetric C4,C4′ dimer can be obtained as the sole product under rather mild conditions. In all cases, the key intermediate is the same diarylamine. The carbazole nucleus is obtained through a Pd-promoted cyclization of the appropriate diarylamine. For the synthesis of O-demethylmurrayanine, the cyclization takes place on a silylated derivative. The crystal structures of murrayanine, two diarylamines, and two non-natural carbazole intermediates are also presented.

RNA interference (RNAi) is a next-generation technology for weed management. Weeds would be sprayed with small RNAs (sRNAs) capable of inducing gene silencing (referred to as spray-induced gene silencing, SIGS) without involving the use of transgenes, reaching traditional targets in chemical control, targets that are not today more sensitive to herbicides and even new targets. Here we present the main challenges and opportunities for using SIGS as a practical tool for weed management. The development of SIGS in weed science has been slower compared to other crop protection areas such as entomology and plant pathology due to the difficulty of obtaining stable molecules that easily enter the plant, without off-target risks to crops, and that in small amounts guarantee systemic silencing with effectiveness. To overcome the challenges, it is necessary to achieve the synthesis of sRNAs on a large scale, making the field application practical and economical, develop formulations that protect sRNAs inside and outside the plant, and substantially increase the genomic and transcriptomic information available for weeds. Once these barriers have been overcome, SIGS technology could be similarly used in the field as herbicides are used today, spraying directly on the crop and selectively controlling weeds. This will provide a new tool for weed management, herbicide resistance management, and potentially exploration of new plant enzyme targets never before achieved by chemical control.

Liquid biopsies are gaining more traction as non-invasive tools for the diagnosis and monitoring of cancer. In a new paradigm of cancer treatment, a synergistic botanical drug combination (APG-157) consisting of multiple molecules, is emerging as a new class of cancer therapeutics, targeting multiple pathways and providing a durable clinical response, wide therapeutic window and high level of safety. Monitoring the efficacy of such drugs involves assessing multiple molecules and cellular events simultaneously. We report, for the first time, a methodology that uses circulating plasma cell-free RNA (cfRNA) as a sensitive indicator of patient response upon drug treatment. Plasma was collected from six patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) and four healthy controls receiving three doses of 100 or 200 mg APG-157 or placebo through an oral mucosal route, before treatment and on multiple points post-dosing. Circulating cfRNA was extracted from plasma at 0-, 3- and 24-hours post-treatment, followed by RNA sequencing. We performed comparative analyses of the circulating transcriptome and were able to detect significant perturbation following APG-157 treatment. Transcripts associated with inflammatory response, leukocyte activation and cytokine were upregulated upon treatment with APG-157 in cancer patients, but not in healthy or placebo-treated patients. A platelet-related transcriptional signature could be detected in cancer patients but not in healthy individuals, indicating a platelet-centric pathway involved in the development of HNC. These results from a Phase 1 study are a proof of principle of the utility of cfRNAs as non-invasive circulating biomarkers for monitoring the efficacy of APG-157 in HNC.

An increase in 2,4-D use is expected as tolerant crops have been approved to use in Brazil, which may negatively affect important crops such as tobacco. Our objective was to determine safe distances between 2,4-D applications and tobacco fields considering herbicide contamination to the harvested product. A field experiment was conducted, consisting of a 2,4-D application done perpendicularly to the wind direction, using a tractor sprayer. Drifted herbicide was collected using tobacco plants placed at various points (-50 up to 400 meters from application zone), following three schemes: a) 0 to 0.5 hours after application (HAT); b) 0 to 24 HAT; and c) 0.5 to 24 HAT. Environmental conditions were recorded. Herbicide in tobacco leaves was quantified. Drift was detected up to 200 m in both years. Vapor movement of 2,4-D was detected up to 400 m from the application strip in 2016, on plants taken to the field after herbicide application. Environmental conditions in 2015 favored off-target movement (higher wind speed and air temperature and lower humidity); although, in 2016 the herbicide traveled further due to wet deposition. These results indicated that a 100-meter buffer zone is enough to significantly decrease chances of tobacco contamination above the tolerated threshold, and highlighted the importance of environmental conditions in the transport processes for 2,4-D under field conditions.

This work proposes the use of reinforcement learning (RL) techniques with deep-learning models to address the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control problem of a photovoltaic (PV) array. We implemented the deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) method, the inverted gradient (IGDDPG) method and the delayed twins (TD3) method to solve the MPPT control problem. Several simulation experiments were performed in the OpenAI Gym platform aiming to evaluate the performance of the proposed control strategies, under different operating conditions in terms of temperature and solar irradiance. The obtained results show that the use of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) achieves a successful performance for the MPPT control problem with a fast response and a stable behavior. Moreover, the algorithms do not require any previous knowledge about the dynamic behavior of the photovoltaic array.

Several phthalides were semisynthesized, including a 3,8-dihydrodiligustilide with progesterone-like activity, previously isolated from Ligusticum chuanxiong, the structure of which was earlier assigned to a semisynthetic product with nonidentical spectroscopic constants. The structure of this natural phthalide was reassigned with a proposal of its absolute configuration. Phthalides acted as progestins in cell viability assays, immunofluorescence microscopy, and docking analysis. Therefore, the structures for natural and semisynthetic phthalides with potential use in hormone-related therapies were reassigned.

In the near future, most of the industrial robots will serve as assistants involved in targeted complex manufacturing tasks which are difficult to be automated. To achieve this, it is crucial to enhance the ability of manipulators to pick and place objects from the assembly line. Reorienting and picking up pieces for assembly are difficult tasks to be done by manipulators since, for different pieces, shapes and physical properties vary. In this work, we use Convolutional Neural Networks for recognizing a selected production piece on a cluster. Once the selected piece has been recognized, a grasping algorithm estimates the best gripper configuration so that the robot is able to pick the piece up. Wetested our algorithm on grasping experiments with an ABB robot and using a common webcam as image input. We found that our implementations perform well and the robot was able to pick up a variety of objects.

(1) Background: The Clearfield™ system (CL) is currently the primary tool for selective weedy-rice management in irrigated rice. However, herbicide persistence in the soil may cause damage to successive crops. Thus, it is necessary to understand agricultural practices that can favor the dissipation of these herbicides. The objective of this study was to analyze the factors that affect the persistence of imidazolinones and to use this information to provide management strategies to mitigate carryover in lowland rice. (2) Methods: A literature review was performed, and the publications were selected using the soil half-life parameter. The data were summarized according to the biotic conditions, soil parameters, and environmental variables. (3) Results: Imidazolinone dissipation in soil occurs primarily through biodegradation. The herbicide biodegradation rate depends on environmental conditions such as temperature and bioavailability of the herbicide in the soil. Herbicide bioavailability is affected by soil conditions, with higher bioavailability in soil with higher pH, less clayey texture, moderate organic matter content, and higher soil moisture levels. Therefore, environmental conditions that favor biological activity, especially high temperatures, reduce the herbicide half-life in the soil. Strategies to mitigate carryover should focus on improving herbicide availability and enhancing biological activity in the soil, especially in the rice off-season, when low temperatures limit herbicide biodegradation. Cover and rotational crops, such as ryegrass and soybean, are recommended, with the potential to mitigate soil residues. (4) Conclusions: The establishment of crops other than rice would automatically enhance degradation rates as soil amendment practices such as pH correction and drainage practices would favor soil availability and biological activity.

Photovoltaic systems (PV) are having an increased importance in modern smart grids systems. Usually, in order to maximize the energy output of the PV arrays a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm is used. However, once deployed, weather conditions such as clouds can cause shades in the PV arrays affecting the dynamics of each panel differently. These conditions directly affect the available energy output of the arrays and in turn make the MPPT task extremely difficult. For these reasons, under partial shading conditions, it is necessary to have algorithms that are able to learn and adapt online to the changing state of the system. In this work we propose the use of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) techniques to address the MPPT problem of a PV array under partial shading conditions. We develop a model free RL algorithm to maximize the efficiency in MPPT control. The agent's policy is parameterized by neural networks, which take the sensory information as input and directly output the control signal. Furthermore, a PV environment under shading conditions was developed in the open source OpenAI Gym platform and is made available in an open repository. Several tests are performed, using the developed simulated environment, to test the robustness of the proposed control strategies to different climate conditions. The obtained results show the feasibility of our proposal with a successful performance with fast responses and stable behaviors. The best results for the presented methodology show that the maximum operating power point achieved has a deviation less than 1% compared to the theoretical maximum power point. Fil: Avila, Luis Omar. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Ciencias Físico Matemáticas y Naturales. Departamento de Informática. Laboratorio Investigación y Desarrollo en Inteligencia Computacional; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: de Paula, Mariano. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. - Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Centro de Investigaciones en Física e Ingeniería del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; Argentina Fil: Trimboli, Maximiliano Daniel. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Agropecuarias. Laboratorio de Control Automático; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Carlucho, Ignacio. State University of Louisiana; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

Microbial communities have inherently high levels of metabolic flexibility and functional redundancy, yet the structure of microbial communities can change rapidly with environmental perturbation. To understand whether such changes observed at the taxonomic level translate into differences at the functional level, we analyzed the structure of taxonomic and functional gene distribution across Arctic and Antarctic locations. Taxonomic diversity (in terms of alpha diversity and species richness) differed significantly with location. However, we found that functional genes distributed evenly across bacterial networks and that this functional distribution was also even across different geographic locations. For example, on average 15% of the functional genes were related to carbon cycling across all bacterial networks, slightly over 21% of the genes were stress-related and only 0.5% of the genes were linked to carbon degradation functions. In such a distribution, each bacterial network includes all of the functional groups distributed following the same proportions. However, the total number of functional genes that is included in each bacterial network differs, with some clusters including many more genes than others. We found that the proportion of times a specific gene must occur to be linked to a specific cluster is 8%, meaning the relationship between the total number of genes in the cluster and the number of genes per function follows a linear pattern: smaller clusters require a gene to appear less frequently to get fixed within the cluster, while larger clusters require higher gene frequencies. We suggest that this mechanism of functional association between equally rare or equally abundant genes could have implications for ecological resilience, as non-dominant genes also associate in fully functioning ecological networks, potentially suggesting that there are always pre-existing functional networks available to exploit new ecological niches (where they can become dominant) as they emerge, for example, in the case of rapid or sudden environmental change. Furthermore, this pattern did not correlate with taxonomic distribution, suggesting that bacteria associate based on functionality and this is independent of its taxonomic position. Our analyses based on ecological networks also showed no clear evidence of recent environmental impact on polar marine microbial communities at the functional level, unless all communities analyzed have changed exactly in the same direction and intensity, which is unlikely given we are comparing areas changing at different rates.

Sulfentrazone is a pre-emergence herbicide that inhibits protoporphyrinogen oxidase (Protox). Its use has emphasis on areas like soybeans planted in lowlands, soybean, and sugarcane in areas of cerrado, and also in the implementation of eucalyptus afforestation. The use of sulfentrazone into resistant weed management programs mainly to glyphosate and acetolactate synthase (ALS) inhibitors has been successful. However, the information on the environmental behavior of this herbicide is limited, even more restricted when it refers to the lowland areas where problems are frequently observed regarding the selectivity of sulfentrazone, due to the soil and climatic peculiarities of this environment. In this context, the present review aims to describe the main characteristics of sulfentrazone to its environmental dynamics.

Purpose: Music therapy has a long history of treating the physiological, psychological, and neurological injuries of war. Recently, there has been an increase in the use of music therapy and other creative arts therapies in the care of combat injured service members returning to the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan, especially those with complex blast-related injuries. This case report describes the role of music therapy in the interdisciplinary rehabilitation of a severely injured service member. Methods: Music therapy was provided as stand-alone treatment and in co-treatment with speech language pathology, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. The report is based on clinical notes, self-reports by the patient and his wife, and interviews with rehabilitation team members. Results: In collaboration with other treatment disciplines, music therapy contributed to improvements in range of motion, functional use of bilateral upper extremities, strength endurance, breath support, articulation, task-attention, compensatory strategies, social integration, quality of life, and overall motivation in the recovery process. The inclusion of music therapy in rehabilitation was highly valued by the patient, his family, and the treatment team. Conclusions: Music therapy has optimized the rehabilitation of a service member through assisting the recovery process on a continuum from clinic to community. Implications for Rehabilitation Music therapy in stand-alone sessions and in co-treatment with traditional disciplines can enhance treatment outcomes in functional domains of motor, speech, cognition, social integration, and quality of life for military populations. Music therapists can help ease discomfort and difficulty associated with rehabilitation activities, thereby enhancing patient motivation and participation in interdisciplinary care. Music therapy assists treatment processes from clinic to community, making it highly valued by the patient, family, and interdisciplinary team members in military healthcare. Music therapy provides a platform to prevent social isolation by promoting community integration through music performance.

Certain species of assassin bugs have evolved the sticky trap strategy to capture prey using adhesive substances on their legs. The resin bug Heniartes stali collects a sticky exudate from the trichomes of a blackberry plant and smears its legs with it through an intriguing gathering process. We report laboratory experiments aimed at understanding the capture behavior of H. stali when it encountered three insect prey species with different mobility: the coleopteran larvae of Tribolium castaneum, a slow-moving organism; workers of the aggressive and highly mobile ant Camponotus rufipes; and winged prey, the fly Drosophila sp. Bugs stalked prey approaching within reach of their forelegs. After the bug threw forwards its forelegs, the prey became stuck and was subsequently held firmly by clutching with the aid of the middle legs, also smeared with trichome exudate. The bugs took longer to catch ants and immobilize them than larvae. Attacks on flies were unsuccessful because of flight escape before contact with H. stali occurred. A clear association between exudate harvesting and prey-capture behavior was unequivocally demonstrated. This is the first detailed description of a sticky leg trap from harvested plant exudate in Heniartes and related prey-capture behavior.

This article presents the design of a multipurpose system for sending and receiving information remotely (long range) using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology. The system is composed of a device connected to different sensors and actuators, and a low-cost web platform for viewing information and controlling actuators. As an application example, a real-time vehicle monitoring system is shown.

In the near future, most of the industrial robots will serve as assistants involved in targeted complex manufacturing tasks which are difficult to be automated. To achieve this, it is crucial to enhance the ability of manipulators to pick and place objects from the assembly line. Reorienting and picking up pieces for assembly are difficult to be done by manipulators since, for different pieces, shapes and physical properties vary. In this work, we use Convolutional Neural Networks for recognizing a selected production piece on a cluster. Once the selected piece has been recognized, a grasping algorithm estimates the best gripper configuration so that the robot is able to pick the piece up. We tested our algorithm on grasping experiments with an ABB robot and using a common webcam as image input. We found that our implementations perform well and the robot was able to pick up a variety of objects.

The defensive characteristics of the sawflies have received special attention due to the involvement of toxic compounds obtained from host plants. In this context, the haemolymph-based defense is one of the strategies known in sawflies to dissuade the attack of predators. Aneugmenus merida is a neotropical sawfly whose larvae are herbivorous on the toxic bracken fern Pteridium spp. The present study examines the defensive properties of the A. merida larval haemolymph and its possible link with the chemistry of its host plant. We report the behavior of the solitary hunter ant Odontomachus chelifer towards A. merida larvae under laboratory conditions. In addition, we studied the liquid intake behavior of the ants provided with solutions of crude haemolymph, bracken extracts, and its fractions. A. merida larvae showed a marked defensive capacity against the ants. The inhibition of the attack was observed during the stages of antennal contact and mandibular blow, suggesting that larval defensive capacity is due to factors present in the integument and haemolymph. Aqueous and methanolic fractions of haemolymph and bracken also deterred feeding. Although some common compounds were detected in the haemolymph and bracken fractions, they were in very small quantities, suggesting that they are not responsible for the bioactivity. Therefore, the hypothetical connection between the host plant chemistry and larval defensive capacity could not be evidenced. We suggest that the deterrent compounds present in the haemolymph and integument could be jointly acting in the sawfly’s defensive strategy.

Long term infection of Helicobacter pylori (Hp) virulent strains is a key factor in the genesis of human gastric cancer, and so are certain dietary proinflammatory and genotoxic compounds. Carcinogenic bracken fern (Pteridium spp.) is one of these. Toxins from this plant are consumed as bracken culinary preparations, through milk and meat of bracken-exposed livestock, and drain waters from bracken swards. Bracken toxin ptaquiloside (PtQ), a suspected human carcinogen, elicits complex responses in animals leading to death. PtQ and Hp might cooperate in gastric pathologies. This paper presents an hypothesis on PtQ-Hp association leading to the enhancement of carcinogenesis in the human gastric environment that might explain the high gastric cancer incidence and death rates among Hp-infected people living in bracken zones at two levels: (1) The macroscopic scale comprising the flow of PtQ in the human diet. (2) the microscopic scale encompassing (A) gastric luminal medium; (B) gastric mucus structure and mucin degradation elicited by Hp; (C) bacterial pH gradient modification of the gastric mucosa that favors PtQ survival and its penetration into epithelial tissue; (D) combined PtQ/Hp effects on gastric immune and inflammatory responses; (E) PtQ-Hp complementary activity at selected cell signaling cascades and genome disturbance.

Resin bugs are a group of reduviids which collect viscous substances from plants with their legs and use them as an aid in prey capture and to protect eggs against predators. We designed the present investigation to examine aspects of the natural history and biology of Heniartes stali (Wygodzinsky) in association with Rubus cf. adenotrichos (Schltdl.), an Andean wild blackberry covered with trichomes that secrete a sticky fluid. We surveyed the occupancy of this plant by the bugs in five localities in the Venezuelan Andes and the sticky material source was determined. Nymphs, and in minor proportion, adults were frequently found on the blackberry plants. We also document the harvesting and handling of this exudate by H. stali under laboratory conditions. The bugs invested several hours to gather the sticky material using the forelegs, transferred it to the midlegs, and subsequently stored it in a conspicuously hairy area of the hindlegs. Portions of the accumulated material were smeared on the genital are...

Fil: Martinez, Ernesto Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Centro Cientifico Tecnologico Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo y Diseno (i); Argentina

The latest advances in human-robot interaction make possible the spread of collaborative robotic systems in the industrial environment. In this context, most of the industrial robots will serve as human assistants in assembly lines, involved in complex manufacturing tasks. This implies the need to improve the ability of robots to manipulate objects in unstructured scenarios that are often prohibitively expensive to model. In this work, we use a convolutional network for recognising different objects on the work plane. Later, a grasping algorithm is used to estimate the best robot gripper posture so that the robot can pick up the desired object from the cluster. We use the Hough transform and the friction cones theory to identify a set of candidate grasping points on the piece. In general, we found that our implementation performs well and the robot was able to pick up a variety of objects.