Comparison of the antioxidant defense system in Crassostrea rhizophorae and Crassostrea gigas exposed to domestic sewage discharges

Oysters Crassostrea rhizophorae and Crassostrea gigas were kept for fourteen days at four sites in S?o José, SC, Brazil, chosen according to a sewage discharge contamination gradient. Enzymatic activities of CAT, GST, G6PDH and GR were evaluated in gills and digestive glands. Higher CAT activity was observed in tissues of C. rhizophorae in response to sewage contamination possibly indicating peroxisome proliferation induction. C. gigas showed elevated G6PDH activity in digestive gland, and GR in gills, after domestic sewage exposure. In conclusion, C. rhizophorae and C. gigas showed different biochemical responses after in situ exposure to domestic sewage. However, C. rhizophorae showed more significant changes in CAT suggesting that this organism could be a better monitor to this kind of effluent.     

Interpretation in terms of gravity waves of structures observed at the mesopause level by photogrammetry and lidar

Experiment data of the vertical distribution of sodium density measured by lidar are compared with the horizontal structures observed by photogrammetry on the sodium emissive layer. The gravity wave induced variations seen in the vertical distribution are used to define a 2-dimensional model of the layer, which is shown to explain the observed horizontal patterns. It is strongly suggested that the structures currently seen on OH can be also related to gravity waves and that their sporadic occurrence in specific angular directions is explained by the wave characteristic and by wave or wind induced chemistry.     

The Solar Spectral Irradiance as a Function of the Mg <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">ii</Emphasis> Index for Atmosphere and Climate Modelling

We present a new method to reconstruct the solar spectrum irradiance in the Ly α – 400 nm region, and its variability, based on the Mg ii index and neutron-monitor measurements. Measurements of the solar spectral irradiance available in the literature have been made with different instruments at different times and different spectral ranges. However, climate studies require harmonised data sets. This new approach has the advantage of being independent of the absolute calibration and aging of the instruments. First, the Mg ii index is derived using solar spectra from Ly α (121 nm) to 410 nm measured from 1978 to 2010 by several space missions. The variability of the spectra with respect to a chosen reference spectrum as a function of time and wavelength is scaled to the derived Mg ii index. The set of coefficients expressing the spectral variability can be applied to the chosen reference spectrum to reconstruct the solar spectra within a given time frame or Mg ii index values. The accuracy of this method is estimated using two approaches: direct comparison with particular cases where solar spectra are available from independent measurements, and calculating the standard deviation between the measured spectra and their reconstruction. From direct comparisons with measurements we obtain an accuracy of about 1 to 2%, which degrades towards Ly α. In a further step, we extend our solar spectral-irradiance reconstruction back to the Maunder Minimum introducing the relationship between the Mg ii index and the neutron-monitor data. Consistent measurements of the Mg ii index are not available prior to 1978. However, we remark that over the last three solar cycles, the Mg ii index shows strong correlation with the modulation potential determined from the neutron-monitor data. Assuming that this correlation can be applied to the past, we reconstruct the Mg ii index from the modulation potential back to the Maunder Minimum, and obtain the corresponding solar spectral-irradiance reconstruction back to that period. As there is no direct measurement of the spectral irradiance for this period we discuss this methodology in light of the other proposed approaches available in the literature. The use of the cosmogenic-isotope data provides a major advantage: it provides information about solar activity over several thousands years. Using technology of today, we can calibrate the solar irradiance against activity and thus reconstruct it for the times when cosmogenic-isotope data are available. This calibration can be re-assessed at any time, if necessary.     

Petrogenesis of A-type Granitoids from the Alto Moxoto and Alto Pajeu Terranes of the Borborema Province, ne Brazil: Constraints from Geochemistry and Isotopic Composition

A-type granitoids (512 Ma) either intruded into Paleoproterozoic gneiss of the Alto Moxoto Terrane (Prata Complex and Serra da Engabelada Pluton) or into Early Neoproterozoic metavolcanic metasedimentary sequence of the Alto Pajeu Terrane (Serrote Santo Antonio Pluton), constitute a small proportion of Brasiliano (= Pan-African) granitoids in the Central Tectonic Domain of the Borborema Province, northeastern Brazil. The Prata Complex consists of syenogranites, monzogranites, mafic enclaves of diorites and norites. The felsic and mafic members are not genetically related through fractionation. Mingling and mixing were extensive processes within the Prata Complex. The granites evolution appears to have involved fractionation of alkali feldspar, biotite, apatite and sphene without significant wall-rock assimilation. The Serra da Engabelada and Serrote Santo Antonio plutons consist of biotite syenogranites, with rare mafic enclaves. The studied granitoids are dominantly metaluminous, characterized by Fe-rich biotite and Fe-hornblende. High total alkalis, Y, Nb and REE and low CaO, MgO and Sr abundances and high FeO/(FeO+MgO) ratios characterize these granitoids. Chondrite-normalized REE patterns show enriched LREE, moderate to strong negative Eu anomalies and more or less flat heavy REE.The studied granitoids and diabase from dykes and enclaves show negative eNd _(512Ma) values (-14 to -10), high incompatible elements such as LILE, HFSE and REE, suggesting important contribution of Paleoproterozoic crust. The origin of the granites is thought to have involved partial melting of granodioritic or tonalitic lower crust. Such isotopic signature of the diabase from the dykes also reflects a Paleoproterozoic enriched lithospheric mantle in the area. The intrusion of the studied granitoids contemporary with sub-volcanic bimodal magmatism and deposition of many Cambrian "pull-apart" basins in the north and central tectonic Domain of the Borborema Province, suggest intrusion during post-tectonic relaxation of the Brasiliano orogeny following the assembly of West Gondwana.     

A comparison between diatom-based pH inference models using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Weighted Averaging (WA) and Weighted Averaging Partial Least Squares (WA-PLS) regressions

We explored the possibility of using artificial neural networks (ANN) to develop quantitative inference models in paleolimnology. ANNs are dynamic computer systems able to learn the relations between input and output data. We developed ANN models to infer pH from fossil diatom assemblages using a calibration data set of 76 lakes in Quebec. We evaluated the predictive power of these models in comparison with the two most commonly methods used in paleolimnology: Weighted Averaging (WA) and Weighted Averaging Partial Least Squares (WA-PLS). Results show that the relationship between species assemblages and environmental variables of interest can be modelled by a 3-layer back-propagation network, with apparent R² and RMSE of 0.9 and 0.24 pH units, respectively. Leave-one-out cross-validation was used to access the reliabilities of the WA, WA-PLS and ANN models. Validation results show that the ANN model (R² _jackknife = 0.63, RMSE_jackknife = 0.45, mean bias = 0.14, maximum bias = 1.13) gives a better predictive power than the WA model (R² _jackknife = 0.56, RMSE_jackknife = 0.5, mean bias = –0.09, maximum bias = –1.07) or WA-PLS model (R² _jackknife = 0.58, RMSE_jackknife = 0.48, mean bias = –0.15, maximum bias = –1.08). We also evaluated whether the removal of certain taxa according to their tolerance changed the performance of the models. Overall, we found that the removal of taxa with high tolerances for pH improved the predictive power of WA-PLS models whereas the removal of low tolerance taxa lowered its performance. However, ANN models were generally much less affected by the removal of taxa of either low or high pH tolerance. Moreover, the best model was obtained by averaging the predictions of WA-PLS and ANN models. This implies that the two modelling approaches capture and extract complementary information from diatom assemblages. We suggest that future modelling efforts might achieve better results using analogous multi-model strategies.     

Application of Multi-Temporal MODIS NDVI Data to Assess Practiced Maize Calendars in Rwanda

Crop calendar is an important tool providing relevant information on crops cycles in a specific area for effective agricultural management. Crop calendars vary in different areas given dissimilarities in agro-ecosystems’ characteristics. This research used multi-temporal MODIS NDVI stratification to assess differences in practiced maize crop calendars in various areas of Rwanda. Four (4) sample NDVI strata dominated by agriculture were purposively chosen, and 433 local farmers were randomly selected from the strata for interviews. The collected information helped to know about their maize planting as well as harvesting dates in order to generate maize calendars per NDVI strata. The generated crop calendars were later classified using k-means unsupervised classification, and produced 4 groupings of practiced maize calendars irrespective of NDVI strata. ANOVA results revealed significant differences between both the generated maize crop calendars by NDVI strata and the practiced crop calendars irrespective of NDVI strata, at p = 0.05. Moreover, chi-square tests and t-tests revealed not only a significant relationship between maize calendars and number of crop growing seasons, but also a significant relationship between maize calendars and NDVI strata, at p = 0.05. Finally, findings of this research contrasted the present conviction that there exist a single general maize calendar all over the country. Instead, the results were in accordance with the fact that Rwanda agro-ecosystems differ from East to West in terms of, mainly, altitude and rainfall patterns variations.     

Automated Geocoding of Textual Documents: A Survey of Current Approaches

This survey article describes previous research addressing text‐based document geocoding, i.e. the task of predicting the geospatial coordinates of latitude and longitude, that best correspond to an entire document, based on its textual contents. We describe (1) early document geocoding systems that use heuristics over place names mentioned in the text (e.g. names of cities and states), (2) probabilistic language modeling approaches, where generative models are built for different regions in the world (usually considering a discretization based on a rectangular grid) from the words occurring in a set of georeferenced training documents, which are then used to predict per‐region probabilities for previously unseen test documents, (3) combinations of different models and heuristics, including clustering procedures, feature selection approaches, and/or language models built from different sources, and (4) recent approaches based on discriminative classification models.     

Voronoi Diagrams and Spatial Analysis of Crime

A range of spatial analyses are used in the field of crime mapping, such as kernel density estimation, Ripley's K-function, and spatial autocorrelation, but there is limited use of Voronoi diagrams (VDs). The goal of this article is to contribute to the spatial analysis of crime through the use of VDs. We use four years of commercial robbery data from Campinas, Brazil, and employ several VD techniques: (1) We analyze crime concentrations through the properties of VDs—area and number of vertices—and coverage curve; (2) we introduce a new crime geovisualization with VD in three dimensions; and (3) we apply a network VD technique to crime analysis. The results demonstrate associations between these VD techniques and the ability of the researcher to recognize crime patterns associated with crime concentration, crime along pathways, and the highly regularized distribution of crime in limited areas spatially.     

The copper–gold and gold deposits of the Neoproterozoic Mara Rosa magmatic arc, central Brazil

Mineral exploration in the Neoproterozoic Goiás Magmatic Arc, central Brazil, dates back to the beginning of the 1970s. The Goiás Magmatic Arc extends for more than 1000 km in the western and northern parts of Goiás, into Tocantins, and disappears under the Phanerozoic Parnaíba Basin. Two main areas of Neoproterozoic juvenile crust, the Arenópolis and the Mara Rosa arcs, are identified. They lie in the southern and northern sectors of the Goiás Arc, respectively, and are relatively well studied.The Goiás Magmatic Arc dominantly comprises tonalitic/dioritic orthogneisses and narrow NNE-striking volcano-sedimentary belts. Recent U–Pb zircon data indicate crystallization of the tonalite protoliths in two main episodes: the older between ca. 890 and 790 Ma and the younger at 670–600 Ma. Nd isotopic data indicate the very primitive nature of the original magmas, with T_DM model ages mostly within the interval between 0.9 and 1.0 Ga and _Nd(T) values between +3.0 and +4.6. In the Chapada–Mara Rosa area, the supracrustal rocks form three individual NNE belts, known as the eastern, central and western belts, separated from each other by metatonalites/metadiorites.Gold and Cu–Au deposits of the Mara Rosa area occur in four main associations: (i) Au–Ag–Ba (e.g., Zacarias), which are interpreted as stratiform, disseminated volcanogenic deposits, (ii) Cu–Au (e.g., Chapada) which has been interpreted either as volcanogenic or as a porphyry-type deposit, (iii) Au-only deposits (e.g., Posse), interpreted as an epigenetic disseminated deposit controlled by a mesozonal shear zone and (iv) Au–Cu–Bi (e.g., the Mundinho occurrence), which are considered as vein-type deposits controlled by magnetite-rich diorites.The gold and Cu–Au deposits located within the Goiás Magmatic Arc can be spatially and temporally related to the magmatic evolution of a collisional belt or, in other words, to an orogenic gold deposit model. These models are based on the continuous evolution of collisional plates, which can be subdivided into four stages with distinct magmatic characteristics: (i) subduction stage, (ii) syntectonic collisional magmatism stage, (iii) post-tectonic collisional magmatism stage and (iv) post-orogenic extension stage.