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Photoperiodism is the ability of plants and animals to utilize day length or night length to mitigate seasonal exigencies. The circadian clock allows organisms to organize daily demands. Both process are set by light, and for more than 80 years a functional relationship has been pursued. Previous experiments have revealed, through phenotypic expression, that the daily circadian clock and seasonal photoperiodic timer have evolved independently, yet molecular evidence is lacking. Herein, we use the mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii, to understand the relationship between the photoperiodic response, diapause, and the daily circadian clock. We measured variation in the formal properties of the core circadian clock over a latitudinal and altitudinal gradient which we compare to the critical photoperiod, a measure of diapause, over the same geographic gradient. We found that there is no correlation with any of the formal properties of the core circadian clock and critical photoperiod, indicating independent evolution.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Essa dissertação faz parte da linha de pesquisa Currículo: sujeitos, conhecimento e cultura do grupo de pesquisa Currículo, identidade e diferença, coordenado pela professora doutora Elizabeth Fernandes de Macedo. Em meu trabalho, investigo como se pode estabelecer uma leitura que cruza saberes distintos entre si. Assim, parto da leitura de que o conhecimento na obra de Jorge Luis Borges é simples e uno, o que traz como consequência principal a ideia de que as especializações são efetivamente variações. Para efetuar uma análise no interior desse cenário, extraio também da obra de Borges a ferramenta da enumeração via princípios, buscando mostrar que um ponto de cruzamento reconcilia saberes, mas sem que este seja determinado previamente. Em outras palavras, esse ponto de cruzamento é forjado na articulação da linguagem. Feita essa nuance, localizo no primeiro capítulo a discussão da interdisciplinaridade, dialogando com a bibliografia acerca do tema, explorando nestes debates alguns dos seus intervalos e retirando daí possibilidades. No segundo capítulo, conjugo mais propriamente saberes distantes entre si como a filosofia, literatura, matemática e religião, justamente para enfatizar que essas manifestações do saber são variações do mesmo. E este mesmo não é inerte, mas sempre mais complexo, envolvendo sempre novas e bifurcadas manifestações. No terceiro capítulo, levo esse modo de leitura para abordar conceitos clássicos da pedagogia, uma vez mais para explorar intervalos. Portanto, ao longo da dissertação, costuro uma atitude interdisciplinar num horizonte em que o conhecimento é simples e uno como um modo de leitura em que o cruzamento dos saberes não é essencial e prévio

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-03-18Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:31:20Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 saad_e_me_botfm.pdf: 33538599 bytes, checksum: 7da3936c04f4568697b6251d1fd6b720 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) / O veneno de Bothrops jararaca é constituído de misturas complexas de toxinas e entre os principais componentes estão as lectinas, metaloproteinases, serinoproteinases, desintegrinas, fosfolipases e os peptídeos. Esta composição pode variar de acordo com a idade, o sexo e a região da serpente. Este trabalho avaliou a variação individual do veneno de Bothrops jararaca da região de Botucatu – São Paulo, por meio da sua caracterização enzimática, bioquímica e farmacológica. Foram utilizados testes in vitro e ensaios biológicos. As atividades dos venenos foram comparadas ao Veneno Referência Nacional. A dosagem protéica apresentou variações entre os grupos de serpentes adultas (80% proteínas) e filhotes (40% proteínas). O perfil eletroforético apresentou perfis similares, geralmente com massas moleculares de 50 a 25 kDa, porém com variações intraespecíficas. O RP-HPLC revelou variações na concentração das proteínas. Na atividade coagulante não houve variação entre os grupos formados por adultos, no entanto, houve uma grande variação entre os grupos de filhotes e Veneno Referência Nacional, sendo estes mais coagulantes. A atividade hemorrágica mostrou maior atividade nos venenos de animais adultos, principalmente em machos recém chegados da natureza. Entretanto, os filhotes mantidos em regime de cativeiro apresentaram valores elevados, ficando muito próximos aos valores obtidos de machos adultos. Na atividade edematogênica, verificou-se um aumento do edema em todos os grupos de estudo não sendo possível avaliar se houve uma variação ontogenética entre os grupos estudados. Na dose letal média (DL50) houve uma grande variação de toxicidade em relação aos venenos, sendo as fêmeas cativas, três vezes mais tóxicas comparadas aos filhotes. Os resultados deste estudo ilustram a complexidade intra e interespecífica presentes em venenos de serpentes... / Bothrops jararaca venom comprises a complex mixture of toxins. Among its main components are: lectins, metalloproteinases, serine proteinases, disintegrins, phospholipases, and peptides. The venom composition can be present age, sex and region variation. This present study evaluated the individual variation of Bothrops jararaca venom in Botucatu region, São Paulo state, through enzymatic, biochemical and pharmacological characterizations of snake venoms which employed in vitro techniques and in vivo analysis. Venoms actions were compared with those of the National Venom Reference. Protein dosage varied between adult (80% proteins) and newborn (40% proteins). The electrophoretic profiles were similar, usually presenting molecular masses from 25 to 50 kDa; however, intraspecies variations were present. Due to the complexity of the technique, it was not possible to detect the individual chromatographic variations by means of RP-HPLC revealed individual protein variations on venom composition. There was no variation in the coagulant activity among adult groups; however, a great variation was observed between newborn groups and the National Venom Reference, the latter showing higher coagulant activity. Venoms from adult animals revealed greater hemorrhagic activity, mainly in newly captured males. Nevertheless, newborn kept in captivity also presented elevated hemorrhagic activity, close to that of adult males. Regarding the edematous activity, there was edema increase in all studied groups, therefore, it was not possible to evaluate if ontogenetic variations were present among studied animals. Concerning the median lethal dose (LD50), a great variation in venom toxicity was observed and captive females were three times more toxic when compared to newborn. Our findings showed the intraand interspecies complexity of snake venoms possibly represented by ontogenetic, sexual and environmental... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Essa dissertação faz parte da linha de pesquisa Currículo: sujeitos, conhecimento e cultura do grupo de pesquisa Currículo, identidade e diferença, coordenado pela professora doutora Elizabeth Fernandes de Macedo. Em meu trabalho, investigo como se pode estabelecer uma leitura que cruza saberes distintos entre si. Assim, parto da leitura de que o conhecimento na obra de Jorge Luis Borges é simples e uno, o que traz como consequência principal a ideia de que as especializações são efetivamente variações. Para efetuar uma análise no interior desse cenário, extraio também da obra de Borges a ferramenta da enumeração via princípios, buscando mostrar que um ponto de cruzamento reconcilia saberes, mas sem que este seja determinado previamente. Em outras palavras, esse ponto de cruzamento é forjado na articulação da linguagem. Feita essa nuance, localizo no primeiro capítulo a discussão da interdisciplinaridade, dialogando com a bibliografia acerca do tema, explorando nestes debates alguns dos seus intervalos e retirando daí possibilidades. No segundo capítulo, conjugo mais propriamente saberes distantes entre si como a filosofia, literatura, matemática e religião, justamente para enfatizar que essas manifestações do saber são variações do mesmo. E este mesmo não é inerte, mas sempre mais complexo, envolvendo sempre novas e bifurcadas manifestações. No terceiro capítulo, levo esse modo de leitura para abordar conceitos clássicos da pedagogia, uma vez mais para explorar intervalos. Portanto, ao longo da dissertação, costuro uma atitude interdisciplinar num horizonte em que o conhecimento é simples e uno como um modo de leitura em que o cruzamento dos saberes não é essencial e prévio

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-07-13Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:39:52Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 fonseca_amh_me_sjrp.pdf: 1042737 bytes, checksum: f9dd75259f6eb37c6e7099009f8f986f (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / O presente trabalho tem como tema central a perífrase verbal ir+infinitivo. Sob o ponto de vista da Gramaticalização, tratamos da formação da perífrase e de sua multifuncionalidade no Português Brasileiro, mais especificamente na variedade falada no interior do Estado de São Paulo. As amostras de fala integram o banco de dados Iboruna. Além da função de futuridade, a perífrase expressa também funções aspectuais, modais e de marcador discursivo, multifuncionalidade decorrente de diferentes estágios de sua gramaticalização. A partir das funções identificadas, relacionamos os graus de gramaticalidade da perífrase com a escala universal de gramaticalização das categorias verbais flexionais do complexo TAM (Tempo, Aspecto, Modo/Modalidade), comprovando a hipótese de que a escala de gramaticalização de ir+infinitivo obedece à ordem “universal” dos morfemas verbais flexionais como postulado em Bybee (1985). Sob o enfoque da Sociolinguística, procedemos ao tratamento variável da expressão de futururidade codificada por [IRPRESENTE INDICATIVO + Infinitivo] vs. [Futuro do Presente], no caso de Futuro do Presente, e por [IRPRETÉRITO IMPERFEITO + Infinitivo] vs. [Futuro do Pretérito], no caso de Futuro do Pretérito. Enquanto a expressão de Futuro do Presente não constitui regra variável na comunidade de fala investigada, visto que a mudança já se instaurou em favor da variante analítica, a expressão de Futuro do Pretérito na forma analítica é condicionada pelos seguintes fatores: estatuto sintático da oração (orações subordinadas), paradigma verbal do verbo principal (verbos regulares), tipo de estado de coisas (estado), tipo de texto (narrativo) e idade do informante (faixa etária mais jovem). Ao final, consideramos que a principal contribuição do trabalho foi a de mostrar o êxito da abordagem de um mesmo fenômeno na interface... / This study focuses on the ir+infinitive verbal periphrasis. From the aspect of Grammaticalization, this study approaches the formation of the periphrasis and its multifunctionality in Brazilian Portuguese language, especially in the variety used in the interior of São Paulo State. The samples of speech integrate the Iboruna database. Besides the function of futurity, the periphrasis also expresses aspectual and modal functions, and acts as discourse marker. This multifunctionality derives from different stages of its grammaticalization. Based on the functions identified, we have related the grammaticality degrees of the periphrasis to the universal scale of grammaticalization of flexional verbal categories of the TAM complex (Time, Aspect, Mode/Modality), proving the hypothesis that the grammaticalization scale of ir+infinitive follows the “universal” order of flexional verbal morphemes, as postulated in Bybee (1985). Under the focus of Sociolinguistics, we proceed to the variable treatment of the expression of futurity encoded by [IRPRESENT INDICATIVE + Infinitive] vs. [Future of Present], in the case of the Future of Present, and by [IRIMPERFECT PRETERITE + Infinitive] vs. [Future of Preterite], in the case of the Future of Preterite. While the expression of the Future of Present does not constitute a variable rule in the speech community investigated – due to the fact that the change has already been established in favor of the analytical variant –, the expression of the Future of Preterite is conditioned by the following factors: syntactic statute of the clause (subordinate clause), verbal paradigm of the main verb (regular verbs), type of state of things (state), type of text (narrative) and age of the informer (youngest age-group). Finally, it is possible to consider that the main contribution of this study was to show the success of approaching the same phenomenon... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Introduction: There is an increasing number of Canadians living with end stage renal disease (ESRD). Kidney transplantation is currently the best treatment for ESRD but long-term outcomes remain suboptimal. Identifying factors associated with better outcomes may lead to interventions or practice change that could improve patient survival or quality of life. The objectives of this thesis were to: i) systematically review the literature to examine centre variation in kidney transplantation outcomes and identify centre and provider level factors that may contribute to variation in outcomes; ii) describe differences that may exist at the patient, centre and provider level at the time of kidney transplantation across the six transplant centres in Ontario, Canada; iii) examine variation in graft and patient survival rates across transplant centres in Ontario; and iv) examine whether patient, centre and provider level characteristics contribute to variation in graft and survival rates across transplant centres. Methods: The first objective of this thesis was met by conducting a systematic review of the literature according to a predefined protocol. The last three objectives of the thesis were met by conducting a population based retrospective cohort study using administrative data from Ontario. Differences at the patient, centre and provider level were described at the time of kidney transplantation. Outcomes of interest included total graft loss; graft loss with follow-up censored at death; death with graft function; and total mortality. All outcomes were assessed at one year post transplantation and at the end of study follow up. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to obtain hazard ratios (HR) for each centre relative to the average across all centres. The independent effect of centre volume and provider characteristics on outcomes was also examined. Results: The systematic review identified 24 eligible studies. Outcomes included graft survival (n=24) and patient survival (n=9). The main characteristics evaluated were centre volume (n=17) and provider volume (n=2). Centre variation in graft survival was described in 80% (12/15) of studies, while less than half of studies (8/17) found a significant association between volume and graft survival. The population based retrospective cohort included 5092 adults (≥18 years) who received a primary solitary kidney transplant across 6 transplant centres in Ontario between January 1st 2000 and December 31st 2013. Variation in patient, centre and provider level factors existed across centres at the time of transplantation. At the end of study follow-up, case-mix adjusted HRs for total graft loss ranged from 0.84 (95% CI 0.53-1.33) to 1.16 (95% CI 1.00-1.34) across centres (p-value for between centre variation 0.46). After adjusting for centre and provider factors, differences across centres persisted. Centre volume, provider experience and provider type were not independently associated with either short or long-term outcomes (all p>0.05) with the exception of graft loss with follow-up censored at death. Discussion: This thesis suggests that there is variation in clinical outcomes across transplant centres in Ontario which is not explained by patient factors, centre volume or provider characteristics at the time of transplantation. Additionally centre volume, provider type and experience were not independently associated with outcomes. Future prospective studies with a larger sample size of transplant centres that examine follow-up care after discharge from hospital (e.g. frequency of visits) are required to better understand this phenomenon.

Using data from Arizona, United States, the present study seeks to further our understanding of lone other language items (LOLIs) in bilingual discourse and their status as either borrowings or codeswitches by measuring the degree of incorporation that can indicate a LOLI's status as a borrowing or codeswitching. To accomplish this aim, nouns from 40 sociolinguistic interviews from 8 Spanish monolingual speakers from Sonora, Mexico, 8 English monolingual speakers from Arizona, and 24 Spanish-English bilinguals from Arizona (from Sonoran families) are compared. Codeswitching can be defined as the "juxtaposition of sentences or sentence fragments, each of which is internally consistent with the morphological and syntactic (and optionally, phonological) rules of the language of its provenance" (Poplack, 1993, p. 255). Borrowing involves the incorporation of LOLIs from a donor language incorporated into a recipient language and need to be morphologically and syntactically adapted into the recipient language (Poplack, Sankoff, and Miller, 1988; Sankoff, Poplack, and Vanniarajan, 1990). Accordingly, the key difference between codeswitching and borrowing is that borrowings are morphosyntactically incorporated into the recipient language while codeswitches are not incorporated. It is important to note that in terms of LOLIs' status, phonological integration has been discarded for being too variable and therefore not a reliable factor in discerning one-item codeswitches from borrowings (Poplack and Sankoff, 1984; Poplack, Sankoff, and Miller, 1988). In order to measure the degree of incorporation that can in turn indicate the LOLI's status as a borrowing or a codeswitch, the present study applies a sociolinguistic comparative method to loanwords, following Poplack and Meechan (1995, 1998) by comparing nouns from Spanish (recipient language), nouns from English (donor language), and LOLIs from English in Spanish discourse. Since phonology has not been applied to the method of analysis, this study also seeks to explore if phonological integration is correlated to morphosyntactic integration of determiner realization of LOLIs. The results show, in accordance to previous studies, that the LOLIs overall act morphosyntactically like patrimonial Spanish words in terms of the variables that condition determiner usage. In terms of how phonological integration interacts with morphosyntactic integration, it does seem that the two correlate. LOLIs with Spanish morphology are more morphosyntactically similar to Spanish patrimonial nouns and LOLIs with English phonology are more morphosyntactically similar to English patrimonial nouns in both overall frequencies and the factors that condition determiner usage, leading to the hypothesis that LOLIs that are integrated phonologically are established borrowings and LOLIs that are not integrated phonologically are either codeswitches or nonce borrowings. We provide further evidence for this hypothesis by examining the pauses and false starts that are present before LOLIs with Spanish versus English phonology. The results indicate that LOLIs with English phonology are more often preceded with pauses and false starts than LOLIs with Spanish phonology. The findings of this study suggest that phonological integration is a factor that should be brought back to the discussion on discerning LOLIs' status as a borrowing or a codeswitch.

Morphological variation was examined in 58 species of Canthon and 18 species of other genera of the subtribe Canthonina (Anisocanthon, Canthonella, Cryptocanthon, Deltochilum, Hansreia, Holocanthon, Malagoniella, Melam canthon, Scybalocanthon, and Sylvicanthon). A total of 667 specimens was used for examination of morphological characters. Variation in head structures such as clypeus, eyes, labium, gula, and epipharynx is described. Thoracic structures examined include the pronotum, prosternum, and posterior and medial tibiae. Other structures examined were the elytra, pygidium, and male genitalia, including the sclerites and bushes of the internal sac of the aedeagus. Secondary sexual features (shape of anterior tibial spur and shape of last abdominal segment) were also examined. The characteristics examined include diagnostic characters for the genus Canthon. This analysis revealed that Canthon is a very heterogeneous and artificial group, the limits of which are based on a combination of characters that is not exclusive to genus. Many characters that have been used in the diagnosis of Canthon are general characters that show wide variation within Canthon as well as in other genera of Canthonina. Only a few derived characters were exclusively shared by species of Canthon. However, several genera of Canthonina shared with Canthon some characters, mainly in structures such as the epipharynx and the internal sac of the aedeagus, (epipharynx with two well-defined lateral combs, internal sac with a complete ring-shaped sclerite, reduction in the postero-dorsal aperture of the eye, and reduction in the setae of the anterior margin of the mentum). Due to the fact that the external morphology shows great variation, it is important to consider the study of the other possible sources of characters to resolve the phylogenetic relationships among groups. / Dissertation (MSc (Entomology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Zoology and Entomology / unrestricted

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