Esta tese apresenta uma reflexão acerca dos conhecimentos sobre a fauna e a flora do Novo Mundo produzidos pelas instituições vinculadas à Coroa espanhola entre os anos de 1570 e 1620. Para tanto, optou-se pela análise das crônicas oficiais e dos documentos expedidos pelo Consejo de Indias que demandavam informações sobre o mundo natural americano. As configurações e as funções que assumiam os saberes sobre os animais e as plantas nas estruturas burocráticas e no espaço discursivo das crônicas oficiais são elementos analisados ao longo dos quatro capítulos que compõem a tese. No primeiro apartado, além de discussões teóricas e historiográficas sobre as relações entre império, conhecimento e ciência, foram examinadas algumas das cédulas e instruções enviadas pelo Consejo de Indias a diferentes partes do continente no período anterior a 1570. O segundo capítulo foi dedicado à análise da reforma empreendida por Juan de Ovando no Consejo de Indias, sobretudo, em relação às leis e demandas relativas à coleta de dados e construção de conhecimentos sobre o continente americano, também foram discutidos aspectos relacionados à criação do cargo de cosmógrafo o cronista maior das Índias. O terceiro capítulo está dedicado ao exame das obras do primeiro cosmógrafo e cronista maior das Índias, Juan López de Velasco. O último capítulo está centrado no estudo dos dois cronistas oficiais das Índias que atuaram durante o reinado de Felipe III: Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas e Pedro de Valencia. Com a análise desse conjunto documental, pretendemos evidenciar a configuração de uma cultura epistêmica no seio das instituições oficiais, a qual estava em diálogo com tradições letradas e científicas do período, bem como com os anseios de constituição de uma ideia de império para a Monarquia Hispânica. / This thesis presents a reflection about the knowledge of the New Worlds fauna and flora, generated by the institutions linked to the Spanish Crown between the years of 1570 and 1620. For this, it was opted for the analysis of the official chronicles and documents issued by Consejo de Indias that demanded information about the American natural world. The configurations and the functions that took on the knowledge about animals and plants in the bureaucratic structures and in the discursive space of the official chronicles are analyzed elements during the four chapters that compound the thesis. In the first part, beyond the theoretical and historiographical discussions about the relationships among the empire, knowledge and science, were examined some of the documents and instructions sent by Consejo de Indias to different parts of the continent in the period before 1570. The second chapter was dedicated to the analysis of the reform made by Juan de Ovando in Consejo de Indias, mainly with regard to laws and demands linked to data gathering and knowledge building about the American continent and also were discussed aspects related to the creation of the cosmographer-chronicler major of Indies position. The third chapter is dedicated to the examination of the first cosmographer-chronicler major of Indies Juan Lopez de Velascos work. The last chapter is focused on the analysis of two Indies official chroniclers that acted during Felipe IIIs reign: Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas and Pedro de Valencia. With the analysis of this documentation, it is intended to emphasize the configuration of an epistemic culture within the official institutions, culture related to literate and scientific traditions of that period as well as to the desire to establish an idea of empire for the Hispanic monarchy.

INTRODUÇÃO: As mucopolissacaridoses (MPSs), consideradas doenças de depósito lisossomal, são classificadas, de acordo com a deficiência enzimática, em sete tipos de doenças metabólicas hereditárias de caráter crônico, progressivo e sistêmico. OBJETIVOS: Caracterizar os achados clínicos e avaliar a evolução dos pacientes com diferentes tipos de MPS. MÉTODOS: Trata-se de um estudo retro e prospectivo de 30 pacientes com diferentes tipos de MPSs atendidos na Unidade de Genética do Instituto da Criança do Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade de São Paulo. Para a realização do estudo foi elaborado um protocolo de pesquisa, que compreendeu de uma avaliação clínica e laboratorial. RESULTADOS: Foram estudados 30 pacientes, assim distribuídos: seis MPS I, dois MPS II, sete MPS III, sete MPS IV, seis MPS VI e dois MPS VII. Dezesseis pacientes eram femininos e 14 masculinos. A idade variou entre 2 anos e 22 anos e 4 meses, média de 12 anos e 1 mês. As complicações clínicas detectadas foram: cardiopatia (90%), opacidade de córneas (70%), infecções de repetição (63%), síndrome da apnéia noturna do sono (SAOS) (37%), diarréia (33%), convulsão (17%) e hipertensão artéria sistêmica (HAS) (10%). Cinqüenta por cento dos pacientes foram internados em enfermaria e 13% em UTI, sendo que a s infecções respiratórias foram os principais motivos para as internações hospitalares. O uso do CPAP foi necessário em quatro pacientes, a média de idade para iniciar o uso foi 9 anos e 3 meses. Vinte pacientes foram operados e submetidos a 37 procedimentos anestésicos e 46 procedimentos cirúrgicos (média de 2,3 cirurgia/paciente), sendo que quatro pacientes apresentaram intercorrências: dificuldade de intubação (3), HAS (1) e sangramento (1). A obstrução das vias aéreas superiores e a complicação cardíaca resultaram no óbito de dois pacientes: um MPS I, aos 8 anos e 9 meses, e um com MPS II, aos 12 anos. Quanto aos exames laboratoriais, o teste de toluidina apresentou resultados falsonegativos em 44%, a dosagem de glicosaminoglicanos (GAGs) urinários foi aumentada em todos os pacientes, a cromatografia de GAGs foi normal em quatro pacientes com MPS IV e dosagem enzimática definiu o diagnóstico e o tipo de MPS. Em relação aos outros exames, as alterações radiológicas, disostose múltipla, foram detectadas em 100% dos pacientes, 90% apresentaram achados ecocardigráficos, 27% SAOS de grau acentuado na polissonografia e 57% ventriculomegalia na tomografia computadorizada de crânio. CONCLUSÃO: Os pacientes necessitam de um acompanhamento periódico, por meio de uma equipe multidisciplinar, com o objetivo de se estabelecer um manejo adequado das freqüentes complicações clinicas / INTRODUCTION: mucopolysaccharidoses (MPSs) are a group of lysosomal storage disorders classified, according to specific enzyme deficiency, into seven types of hereditary metabolic diseases of chronic, progressive, and systemic character. OBJECTIVES: to characterize clinical findings and to evaluate the evolution of patients with different types of MPSs seen at the Genetics Division of the Children\'s Hospital of the University of Sao Paulo Clinical Hospital. For the present study, we devised a research protocol including clinical evaluation and laboratory tests. RESULTS: we studied 30 patients, including six MPS I, two MPS II, seven MPS III, seven MPS IV, six MPS VI, and two MPS VII. Sixteen patients were female, and 14 male. Age ranged between 2 years and 22 years and 4 months, mean 12 years and 1 month. Clinical complications detected included: cardiopathy (90%), corneal opacity (70%), recurrent infections (63%), sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) (37%), diarrhea (33%), seizures (17%), and systemic arterial hypertension (SAH) (10%). Fifty percent of patients were admitted to regular wards, and 13% to intensive care units, respiratory infections being the most frequent reason for hospital admission. CPAP was required for four patients; mean age for onset of CPAP use was 9 years and 3 months. Twenty patients underwent surgery, leading to a total 37 anesthetic procedures and 46 surgical procedures (mean 2.3 surgeries/patient); four patients had complications during surgery; these included intubation difficulties (3), SAH (1), and bleeding (1). Obstruction of the upper airways and cardiac complications led to the death of two patients, one MPS I (age 8 years and 9 months) and one MPS II (age 12 years). Regarding laboratory tests, toluidine blue staining showed false-negative results in 44% of patients, urine glycosaminoglycan (GAG) levels were increased in all patients, GAG chromatography was normal in four patients with MPS IV, and enzyme quantification defined the diagnosis and type of MPS. Radiological alterations (multiple dysostosis) were detected in all patients; 90% of patients showed echocardiographic alterations; polysomnography showed marked SAS in 27% of patients; and cranial CAT scans showed ventriculomegaly in 57% of patients. CONCLUSION: MPS patients require regular follow-up by a multidisciplinary team in order to achieve adequate management of frequent clinical complications

This dissertation examines encounters between humans and snakes from the 1780s to the 1860s, principally focusing upon Britain and British India, to reassess the production and circulation of natural historical knowledge. Serpents were at once familiar and ambiguous in nineteenth-century Britain and its empire, present at every level of society through Scripture, works of natural history, and imperial print culture. They appeared across literary genres - in works of art, as dead specimens in museums, and living attractions in shows and menageries - and their material and figurative presence in London was dependent upon British imperial networks. Snakes loomed disproportionately large in the imperial imaginary, where they were entangled in a discourse of difference. The practices of the natural history of snakes were harnessed to personal ambition and colonial exigencies. By analyzing scientific books and papers, newspapers and periodicals, taxidermy and cartoons, travel accounts, and government archives from Britain and India, this study provides a connected account of how snakes were collected, transported, described, experimented with, and used for a variety of ends. Following an animal around, whether as material, textual, or visual representation, reveals a more comprehensive picture of how people engaged with animals in the nineteenth century, not confined by disciplinary or institutional boundaries at a time when these were being constructed. The cultural and emotive power of snakes makes visible the heterogeneous nature of those contributing to the production of natural historical knowledge. This thesis shows how the moral character of snakes was implicated in how they were encountered and understood by a range of actors, from museum naturalists to imperial agents, and Indian snake-charmers to working-class visitors to the zoo. The chapters examine different but overlapping modes of encounter with snakes: collecting, preserving, and presenting them in museum settings; the imbrication of anthropocentric concerns in attempts to classify and anatomize them; the mechanisms and motivations behind attempts to produce authoritative 'useful knowledge' incorporating vivisectional experiments in the Madras Presidency in the late eighteenth century; Orientalist representations of non-European interactions with snakes in nascent print culture; and the emotional economy of educational displays of living snakes in metropolitan Britain, especially with the emergence of new spaces for natural history, notably the first reptile house at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park. The approach brings together insights from from history of science, animal history, and new imperial histories to recover an affective dimension of natural history in imperial encounters.

abstract: Understanding the diversity, evolutionary relationships, and geographic distribution of species is foundational knowledge in biology. However, this knowledge is lacking for many diverse lineages of the tree of life. This is the case for the desert stink beetles in the tribe Amphidorini LeConte, 1862 (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) – a lineage of arid-adapted flightless beetles found throughout western North America. Four interconnected studies that jointly increase our knowledge of this group are presented. First, the darkling beetle fauna of the Algodones sand dunes in southern California is examined as a case study to explore the scientific practice of checklist creation. An updated list of the species known from this region is presented, with a critical focus on material now made available through digitization and global aggregation. This part concludes with recommendations for future biodiversity checklist authors. Second, the psammophilic genus Trogloderus LeConte, 1879 is revised. Six new species are described, and the first, multi-gene phylogeny for the genus is inferred. In addition, historical biogeographic reconstructions along with novel hypotheses of speciation patterns within the Intermountain Region are given. In particular, the Kaibab Plateau and Kaiparowitz Formation are found to have promoted speciation on the Colorado Plateau. The Owens Valley and prehistoric Bouse Embayment are similarly hypothesized to drive species diversification in southern California. Third, a novel phylogenomic analysis for the tribe Amphidorini is presented, based on 29 de novo partial transcriptomes. Three putative ortholog sets were discovered and analyzed to infer the relationships between species groups and genera. The existing classification of the tribe is found to be highly inadequate, though the earliest-diverging relationships within the tribe are still in question. Finally, the new phylogenetic framework is used to provide a genus-level revision for the Amphidorini, which previously contained six valid genera and 253 valid species. This updated classification includes more than 100 taxonomic changes and results in the revised tribe consisting of 16 genera, with three being described as new to science. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Evolutionary Biology 2018

Liriomyza bryoniae is an economically important pest of vegetable and ornamental crops in European glasshouse agriculture. Diglyphus isaea is a parasitoid of Liriomyza leaf miners and is commercially available as a biological control agent. Anecdotal reports made to commercial producers of the parasitoid suggest that the efficacy of D. isaea varies between crops. This study examines the tritrophic interactions between crop plant, L. bryoniae and D. isaea. Host plant was found to influence the abundance of L. bryoniae and D. isaea with larger populations establishing in the culturing host than in the novel host, tomato. Individual size of L. bryoniae also varies with host plant. These patterns are consistent in L. bryoniae across three generations of rearing on tomato. Habituation of L. bryoniae to tomato does not affect D. isaea efficacy nor does the natal plant host of D. isaea. Both L. bryoniae and D. isaea are affected by plant host ontogenetic stage, becoming most numerous on juvenile plants. The D. isaea natal insect-plant complex showed no effect on D. isaea olfactory preferences. Diglyphus isaea demonstrated greater thermal tolerance than its host. These results are discussed in relation to biological control and also in terms of their wider ecological implications.

The peptide hormone, ghrelin, exerts its physiological effects through a G-protein-coupled receptor called the ghrelin-R. The ghrelin-R displays a high degree of constitutive activity, signalling through the inositol phosphate pathway in the absence of bound agonist. TMs III and VI have been reported to be central to the activation of Family A GPCRs, with interactions between the two helices stabilising the ground state. During activation conformational rearrangements result in these interactions being broken, with new contacts forming and stabilising the active state. Investigation of the ghrelin-R constitutive activity gives an insight into the mechanisms involved in receptor activation. In this study the role of specific individual residues in the ghrelin-R has been investigated and the effect of disrupting or introducing intramolecular interactions was addressed. Site-directed mutagenesis and functional assays revealed that ghrelin-R constitutive activity can be increased and decreased with mutation of residues within the TM domains, specifically TMs III, VI and VII. The extracellular loops have been found to be involved in ligand binding and activation in a number of Family A GPCRs. The residues within ECL2 of the ghrelin-R were systematically mutated to alanine to determine their role. In particular, one residue, Asn196, was identified as being critical in ghrelin-R function and may be forming stabilising interactions which maintain ghrelin-R constitutive activity. The data presented in this thesis provide an insight into the structure and function of the ghrelin-R and the underlying molecular mechanisms of ghrelin-R constitutive activity.

Circadian rhythms are biochemical, physiological, or behavioural over 24 hours. The avian circadian system is complex, involving numerous oscillators in the brain. I characterised two hypothalamic input mechanism (melatonin receptors and light) and one output mechanism (vasotocin) in the zebra finch. Melatonin receptors were cloned and expression levels investigated in the brain and in peripheral tissues. Receptors were found in all tissues, with some pronounced rhythmic mRNA expression. Tissue-specific differences in temporal distribution, peak expression and amplitude suggests melatonin have varied roles in different tissues and different receptors control/influence these roles. Effect of light in the hypothalamus was investigated by exposing light into the dark phase of an LD cycle and studying the difference in C-FOS expression. C-FOS was found in hypothalamic nuclei associated with photic transduction. C-FOS-IR cells were also found in the two known avian hypothalamic oscillators, the LHN and SCN. Arginine-Vasotocin is a neuropeptide involved in numerous bodily and nervous tissue functions, secreted within the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. Immunofluorescent experiments showed marked differences in expression, as different zeitgeber times and between species. This study has improved our understanding of avian circadian systems, providing new insights into the hypothalamic oscillator of a complex circadian organisation.

No description available.

Early nineteenth-century Eurocentric perceptions of natural history led to the flora and fauna of Australia being thought of as deficient and inferior compared with those of other lands. By the 1820s, Australia had become known as ???the land of contrarieties???. This, and Eurocentric attitudes to nature in general, influenced the expectations and perceptions of immigrants throughout the century. Yet at the same time there was developing an aesthetic appreciation of the natural history of Australia. This thesis examines the tension between these two perceptions in the popular natural history writing of the nineteenth century, mainly through the writing of five authors ??? George Bennett (1804-1893), Louisa Anne Meredith (1812-1895), Samuel Hannaford (1937-1874), Horace Wheelwright (1815-1865) and Donald Macdonald (1859?-1932). George Bennett was a scientist, who saw Australian plants and animals more as scientific specimens than objects of beauty. Louisa Meredith perceived them in the familiar language of English romantic poetry. Samuel Hannaford used another language, that of popular British natural history writers of the mid-nineteenth century. To Horace Wheelwright, Australian animals were equally valuable to the sportsman???s gun as to the naturalist???s pen. Donald Macdonald was the only one of these major writers to have been born in Australia. Although proud of his British heritage, he rejoiced in the beauty of his native land. His writing demonstrates his joy, and his novel attitude to Australian natural history continued and developed in the present century.

<p><p><p>Uppsatsens syfte var att undersöka hur gymnasielärare vill använda Göteborgs Naturhistoriska Museum (GNM) i sin undervisning om evolution samt att ta reda på vilka didaktiska inslag som</p><p>behövs för att motivera och inspirera fler lärare att använda museet i sin evolutionsundervisning.</p><p>Uppsatsen tar sin utgångspunkt i läroplanens styrdokument och fem begrepp som Ann Zetterqvist i sin forskning utpekar som centrala och viktiga för att kunna förstå evolutionsteorin. Forskningen visar att undervisningen om evolutionsteori är en utmaning för lärarna och slår fast att det kan behövas stöd från skolan och även från institutioner utanför. Min utgångspunkt är att GNM kan bidra till och är värdefullt för lärandet i ämnet evolution.</p><p>Undersökningens urvalskriterium är gymnasielärare som har använt museet under de senaste två åren i samband med en lektion om evolution. Undersökningen bygger i huvudsak på semistrukturerade intervjuer kompletterade med ett mindre antal enkätsvar. Forskning visar att förekomsten av en väl grundad pedagogisk policy är viktigt för museerna för att det pedagogiska budskapet skall nå fram till besökaren. Forskningen visar vidare att det är mycket viktigt att museibesöket kopplas till läroplanen. Vidare pekar forskningen på att eleverna ofta inte uppnår kunskapsmålen gällande evolutionsteorin Resultaten visar att lärarna inte medvetet planerar sitt museibesök utifrån skolans styrdokument, men deras önskemål om ämnesområden visar på en tydlig koppling till styrdokumenten. Resultaten visar även att lärarna värdesätter GNM för dess undervisning av evolutionsteorin, men för att lärarna skall känna sig motiverade att på egen hand undervisa på museet behöver de vissa didaktiska inslag och handledning. Detta arbete resulterar i ett antal didaktiska förslag baserade på lärarnas och museipedagogens önskemål.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p></p></p> / <p> </p><p>The main objective with this paper was to investigate how college teachers wish to use The Natural History Museum of Gothenburg (GNM) when teaching evolution, and also to determine which didactic elements are required to motivate other teachers to use the museum when teaching evolution. The foundation of this study is built on the school curriculum and five concepts which Ann Zetterqvist identifies in her research as central and necessary for understanding evolution. Research indicates that teaching the theory of evolution is a challenge for teachers and also emphasizes the importance of internal and external support. I propose that GNM is valuable for teaching evolution. The criteria for the selection of candidates are college teachers who have used the museum during the last two years to teach evolution. The study is based on semi-structured interviews completed with questionnaires. Research reveals that without a conscious educational policy the museums pedagogic message may not reach the visitor. Research also shows that it is very important that museums school programme is based on the national curriculum. Results from previous research reveal that students have difficulty in reaching the curricular goals concerning evolution.The results from this study show that teachers had not consciously followed the curriculum when planning their visit, their subject request is however clearly applicable to the curriculum. The teachers interviewed clearly value GNM as a place to teach the theory of evolution, but request certain didactic elements and teacher guides to motivate teaching without the aid of a museum teacher. This study results in a number of didactic elements based upon the teachers and museum teachers' requests.</p>