O amendoim é uma cultura de grande importância econômica que apresenta facilidade na sua condução e é cultivada em diversas regiões do Brasil como também no exterior. Portanto, objetivou-se com a presente pesquisa verificar a influência de ambientes protegido de cultivo e aplicações, via fertirrigação, de íons cálcio e potássio, sobre a cultura do amendoim, em dois ciclos distintos. O experimento foi instalado no posto agrometeorológico da ESALQ/USP, do Departamento de Engenharia de Biossistemas, e dividido em dois ciclos vegetativos, onde foram utilizados doze lisímetros, preenchidos com solo Argissolo Vermelho Amarelo. Foram considerados sobre os lisímetros três ambientes: a céu aberto e utilizando filmes plásticos (75 e 150 micrometros de espessura). Cada ambiente foi constituído por 4 lisímetros. As análises estatísticas foram realizadas separadamente, a saber: ambientes protegidos diferenciados pela espessura do filme plástico; ambiente a céu aberto. Para o manejo da irrigação a fertirrigação foi determinada em função do período das aplicações e do turno de rega. As variáveis climáticas foram coletadas por data logger (Hobbo) (temperatura do ar, umidade relativa do ar, temperatura do ponto de orvalho, densidade de fluxo radiante) e precipitação pluvial. Foram avaliados os parâmetros altura da planta e diâmetro do caule. Os parâmetros de pós-colheita avaliados foram produção, produtividade, número de vagens e umidade do grão. Foram determinadas as concentrações dos íons Ca++ e K+ e o potencial hidrogeniônico (pH). Pôde-se concluir que o íon potássio apresentou, no ciclo mais seco, uma baixa mobilidade no solo para os três ambientes estudados e o íon cálcio também apresentou baixa mobilidade no solo para os três ambientes, porém, para os dois ciclos da cultura. Dos três ambientes avaliados, o mais indicado para o cultivo do amendoim foi o instalado a céu aberto, no ciclo mais chuvoso da cultura. Em termos de ambiente protegido, o mais indicado para o cultivo e condução da cultura foi o de 75 µm. Os parâmetros vegetativos altura da planta e diâmetro de caule obtiveram resultados expressivos somente no primeiro ciclo da cultura nos três ambientes avaliados. Entre os ambientes protegidos, no qual foi instalado o filme plástico de 75 µm, para obtenção de uma boa produtividade no primeiro ciclo da cultura, deve ser aplicada uma faixa média de temperatura de ponto de orvalho de 20,1 0C; no ambiente a céu aberto, a faixa média de temperatura de ponto de orvalho deve estar em torno de 20,79 0C para obtenção de uma boa produtividade no ciclo mais chuvoso, ao passo que uma temperatura média de 6,22 0C no ciclo mais seco torna-se um fator limitante a não realização do plantio. A melhor época para o cultivo e condução do amendoim, seja num ambiente a céu aberto como num ambiente protegido, é a denominada amendoim das águas, compreendida geralmente entre setembro ou outubro até fevereiro do próximo ano. A concentração para uma aplicação ideal dos nutrientes estudados foi a de 100% da demanda requerida pela cultura, no período normal de cultivo do amendoim (ciclo chuvoso), considerando o fator pós-colheita. / The peanut is a crop of great economic importance that is easy to grow and is cultivated in several areas of Brazil and the world. The aim was to verify the influence of different environments and applications of calcium and potassium ions by fertigation on the peanut crop. The research was carried out at ESALQ/USP, of Biosystems Engineering Department. This was divided in two vegetative cycles, in which twelve lysimeters were used and filled with an Arenic Abruptic Paleudult soil. The treatments considered for the lysimeters was three solar environments of open sky and using two thicknesses of plastic films (75 and 150 micrometers of thickness). Each environment was replicated by 4 lysimeters. Irrigation management for the fertigation was determined as a function of the period of applications and the interval of irrigation. Climatic variables were collected by data logger (Hobo) (air temperature, air humidity, dew point temperature, density of radiant flow and precipitation. Crop height and stem diameter were evaluated as growth parameters. The parameters after harvest were total yield, number of nuts, and kernel moisture. Calcium and Potassium concentrations were also obtained as well as hydrogenionic potential. It was determine that the potassium ion presented in driest cycle with low mobility in soil for the three studied environments and the calcium ion also had low mobility in soil for the three environments for both cycles of the crop. Of the three evaluated environments, the best for tillage of peanut was that installed to open sky in the rainiest cycle of the crop. When considering the two protected environments, the best for tillage and growth of the crop was that of 75 µm. The vegetative parameters, plant height and stem diameter, only obtained expressive results in first cycle of the crop in the three evaluated environments. For protected environments, in which plastic film of 75 µm was installed, a good yield in first cycle of the crop required a medium value of dew point temperature of 20.1 oC, in the environment to open sky, the medium value of dew point temperature should be around 20.79 oC for obtaining of a good yield in the rainiest cycle. A medium temperature of 6.22 oC in the driest cycle becomes a limiting factor to the non development of the crop. The best time for tillage and growth of peanut in an environment to open sky and in a protected environment, is denominated \"waters peanut\", generally occurred between September or October through February of the following year. An ideal application of nutrients was 100% of the demand required by the crop, in normal period of peanuts tillage (raining cycle) considering factor after harvest.

Dam releases increase river stage and can reverse groundwater movement into and out of the river. As the flood, thermal, and solute waves travel downstream in a regulated river, the size of the waves is anticipated to be affected both by river processes and exchanges with near river groundwater. This study established a modeling framework to quantify the influences of the groundwater exchanges on the temperatures and solute concentration dynamics along regulated rivers. The wave properties, volume of exchanges, conservative solute mass exchanges, and heat energy exchanges were calculated as a function of time and distance downstream. Results show that the temperature and solute concentrations are influenced by the arrival of flood waves. Groundwater exchanges were found to affect temperatures along the river with a minimal effect on solute concentration. These findings provide insight regarding the influences of hydropeaking occurring in a large fraction of rivers in the world which has important implications for water quality and the ecology of regulated rivers.

I studied nine streams near Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, covering a land use gradient (urban, agricultural, and forested) to assess influences of land use on denitrification rates and hyporheic exchange. I hypothesized denitrification in the hyporheic zone is governed by availability of chemical substrates and hydrologic transport. I tested this hypothesis by coupling measurements of denitrification potentials in hyporheic sediments with a 2-storage zone solute transport model. Denitrification potentials were lowest on average in hyporheic sediments from forested streams and highest from agricultural streams. Modeling results suggest, on average, agricultural sites are transport-limited by having the slowest exchange rate with hyporheic zone and longest transport before entering storage. Land use influences the capacity for hyporheic denitrification in two ways 1) agricultural and urban practices supply substrates that build the microbial potential for denitrification and 2) agricultural and urban activities alter channel form and substrates, limiting hyporheic exchange.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The evolution of atomistic-level nanostructure during the early stages of both standard, high-temperature T6 heat treatment, and low-temperature secondary ageing after interruption of the former (T6I4), has been investigated in rapid hardening Al-Cu-Mg alloys using a variety of microscopy and microanalytical techniques, including transmission electron microscopy (TEM), positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) and atom probe tomography (APT). In order to carry out this objective, quantitative data-analysis methods were developed with respect to new cluster-finding algorithms, specifically designed for use with three-dimensional APT data. Prior to this detailed characterisation work, the actual thermal impact from both heat treatment and quenching of small, lab-scale specimens was determined through correlation of both experimental results and calculations that modelled the heat transfer conditions using the lumped capacitance method. Subsequently, the maximum diffusion distance by random walk of the solute atoms was calculated for these periods, bearing significance on the propensity for these atoms to have the ability to cluster together, rather than segregate to the dislocation loops in the microstructure, which have a relatively larger interspacing distance. Age-hardening curves for the Al-1.1Cu-xMg (x = 0, 0.2, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.7 at.%) alloys at 150ºC show that the rapid hardening phenomenon (RHP) exists for Mg compositions ≥ 0.5Mg. Given that zone-like precipitate structures were unable to be detected by TEM or APT during the early stages of ageing at 150ºC, and that statistically significant dispersions of clusters were found in the APT data after ageing for 60 s, the RHP is attributed to these clustering reactions. Identification of clusters in the APT data has been achieved using the core-linkage algorithm and they have been found to be quite small, containing only a few atoms up to a couple of tens of atoms. The RHP is governed by some critical number density of both Mg clusters and Cu-Mg co-clusters of a critical size, whereas Cu clusters do not contribute significantly to the hardening mechanism. Significance testing indicates that Mg clusters are more significant at smaller clusters sizes and Cu-Mg co-clusters more important at larger cluster sizes. Hardness results also confirm the existence of rapid early hardening during secondary ageing at 65ºC in Al-1.1Cu-1.7Mg. The mechanism of secondary rapid hardening involves a combination of both secondary clustering from solute (mainly Mg atoms) residual in solution, and pre-existing amorphous primary clusters that have slower growth kinetics at the lower secondary ageing temperature. The latter occurs mainly by vacancy-assisted diffusion of Mg atoms as evidenced by the gradual increase of the Mg:Cu ratio of co-clusters. From an alloy design point of view it is important to fully understand the solute distribution in the microstructure to be able to subsequently optimise the configuration for enhanced material properties. The change in dispersion of solute atoms during ageing was determined by combining calculations of % vacancy-solute associations with detailed measurements of the dislocation loops to estimate the solute distribution within the microstructure. The implication of the balance of solute atoms segregated to the loops compared with that in the matrix is then discussed in the context of hardnening mechanisms.

The classical Fickian model for solute transport in porous media cannot correctly predict the spreading (the dispersion) of contaminant plumes in a heterogeneous subsoil unless its structure is completely characterized. Although the required precision is outside the reach of current field characterization methods, the classical Fickian model remains the most widely used model among practitioners. Two approaches can be adopted to solve the effect of physical heterogeneity on transport. First, upscaling methods allow one to compute “apparent” scale-dependent parameters to be used in the classical Fickian model. In the second approach, upscaled (non-Fickian) transport equations with scale-independent parameters are used. This research aims at comparing upscaling methods for Fickian transport parameters with non-Fickian upscaled transport equations, and evaluate their capabilities to predict solute transport in heterogeneous media. The models were tested using simplified numerical examples (perfectly stratified aquifers and bidimensional heterogeneous media). Hypothetical lognormal permeability fields were investigated, for different values of variance, correlation length and anisotropy ratio. Examples exhibiting discrete and multimodal permeability distributions were also investigated using both numerical examples and a physical laboratory experiment. It was found that non-Fickian transport equations involving fractional derivatives have higher upscaling capabilities regarding the prediction of contaminant plume migration and spreading, although their key parameters can only be inferred from inverse modelling of test data.

Low back pain represents a significant concern in the United States, with 70% of individuals experiencing symptoms at some point in their lifetime. Although the specific cause of low back pain remains unclear, symptoms have been strongly associated with degeneration of the intervertebral disc. Insufficient nutritional supply to the disc is believed to be a major mechanism for tissue degeneration. Understanding nutrients' transport in intervertebral disc is crucial to elucidate the mechanisms of disc degeneration, and to develop strategies for tissue repair (in vivo), and tissue engineering (in vitro). Transport in intervertebral disc is complex and involves a series of electromechanical, chemical and biological coupled events. Despite of the large amount of studies performed in the past, transport phenomena in the disc are still poorly understood. This is partly due to the limited number of available experimental techniques for investigating transport properties, and the paucity of theoretical or numerical methods for systematically predicting the mechanisms of solute transport in intervertebral disc. In this dissertation, a theoretical and experimental approach was taken in order to investigate the mechanisms of solute transport and binding interactions in intervertebral disc. New imaging techniques were developed for the experimental determination of diffusive and binding parameters in biological tissues. The techniques are based on the principle of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching, and allow the determination of the anisotropic diffusion tensor, and the rates of binding and unbinding of a solute to the extracellular matrix of a biological tissue. When applied to the characterization of transport properties of intervertebral disc, these methods allowed the establishment of a relationship between solute anisotropic and inhomogeneous diffusivity and the unique morphology of human lumbar annulus fibrosus. A mixture theory for charged hydrated soft tissues was presented as a framework for theoretical investigations on solute transport and binding interactions in cartilaginous tissues. Based on this theoretical framework and on experimental observations, a finite element model was developed to predict solute diffusive-convective-reactive transport in cartilaginous tissues. The numerical model was applied to simulate the effect of mechanical loading on solute transport and binding interactions in cartilage explants and intervertebral disc.

Motivations and research objectives: During the passage of rain water through a forest canopy two main processes take place. First, water is redistributed; and second, its chemical properties change substantially. The rain water redistribution and the brief contact with plant surfaces results in a large variability of both throughfall and its chemical composition. Since throughfall and its chemistry influence a range of physical, chemical and biological processes at or below the forest floor the understanding of throughfall variability and the prediction of throughfall patterns potentially improves the understanding of near-surface processes in forest ecosystems. This thesis comprises three main research objectives. The first objective is to determine the variability of throughfall and its chemistry, and to investigate some of the controlling factors. Second, I explored throughfall spatial patterns. Finally, I attempted to assess the temporal persistence of throughfall and its chemical composition. Research sites and methods: The thesis is based on investigations in a tropical montane rain forest in Ecuador, and lowland rain forest ecosystems in Brazil and Panama. The first two studies investigate both throughfall and throughfall chemistry following a deterministic approach. The third study investigates throughfall patterns with geostatistical methods, and hence, relies on a stochastic approach. Results and Conclusions: Throughfall is highly variable. The variability of throughfall in tropical forests seems to exceed that of many temperate forests. These differences, however, do not solely reflect ecosystem-inherent characteristics, more likely they also mirror management practices. Apart from biotic factors that influence throughfall variability, rainfall magnitude is an important control. Throughfall solute concentrations and solute deposition are even more variable than throughfall. In contrast to throughfall volumes, the variability of solute deposition shows no clear differences between tropical and temperate forests, hence, biodiversity is not a strong predictor of solute deposition heterogeneity. Many other factors control solute deposition patterns, for instance, solute concentration in rainfall and antecedent dry period. The temporal variability of the latter factors partly accounts for the low temporal persistence of solute deposition. In contrast, measurements of throughfall volume are quite stable over time. Results from the Panamanian research site indicate that wet and dry areas outlast consecutive wet seasons. At this research site, throughfall exhibited only weak or pure nugget autocorrelation structures over the studies lag distances. A close look at the geostatistical tools at hand provided evidence that throughfall datasets, in particular those of large events, require robust variogram estimation if one wants to avoid outlier removal. This finding is important because all geostatistical throughfall studies that have been published so far analyzed their data using the classical, non-robust variogram estimator. / Motivation und Zielsetzung: Wenn Regen durch ein Kronendach fällt lassen sich zwei Prozesse beobachten: das Regenwasser wird umverteilt und die chemische Qualität des Wassers verändert sich erheblich. Die Prozesse im Kronenraum resultieren in einer hohen Variabilität des Bestandsniederschlags und dessen chemischer Zusammensetzung. Bestandsniederschlag beeinflusst eine Reihe von physikalischen, chemischen und biologischen Prozessen am Waldboden. Daher können Untersuchungen zur Variabilität und zu Mustern im Bestandsniederschlag helfen, bodennahe Prozesse besser zu verstehen. Diese Dissertation behandelt hauptsächlich drei Aspekte. Erstens, die Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Erfassung der Variabilität im Bestandsniederschlag und dessen chemischer Zusammensetzung, zudem werden Einflussfaktoren dieser Variabilität untersucht. Des Weiteren beschäftigt sich die Arbeit mit räumlichen Mustern des Bestandsniederschlagswassers, und drittens wird die zeitliche Stabilität des Bestandsniederschlags und dessen chemischer Zusammensetzung betrachtet. Untersuchungsgebiete und Methoden: Diese Dissertation basiert auf Untersuchungen in einem tropischen Bergregenwald in Ecuador, sowie Studien in tropischen Tieflandregenwäldern in Brasilien und Panama. Die ersten zwei Studien untersuchen Bestandsniederschlag und dessen chemische Zusammensetzung mit Hilfe deterministischer Methoden. Die Arbeit in Panama nutzt geostatistische Methoden zur Beschreibung von Bestandsniederschlagsmustern und verfolgt somit einen stochastischen Ansatz. Ergebnisse und Schlussfolgerungen: Die Variabilität des Bestandsniederschlages ist hoch; das heißt, die Menge des auf den Waldboden tropfenden Wassers kann sich je nach Standort stark unterscheiden. Diese räumliche Variabilität des Bestandsniederschlags ist in tropischen Wäldern höher als in vielen gemäßigten Waldökosystemen, was nicht allein auf verschiedenen Eigenschaften der Ökosysteme zurückzuführen ist. Vielmehr erklären sich die Unterschiede auch aus verschiedenen Waldnutzungen. Abgesehen von biologischen Faktoren beeinflusst die Regenmenge die Variabilität des Bestandsniederschlags erheblich. Die chemische Zusammensetzung des Bestandsniederschlags weist eine noch höhere Variabilität als der Bestandsniederschlag selbst auf. Unterschiede zwischen tropischen und gemäßigten Wäldern lassen sich hier allerdings nicht erkennen, weshalb die hohe Diversität tropischer Ökosysteme die Heterogenität der chemischen Zusammensetzung des Bestandsniederschlags nicht ausreichend erklärt. Eine Vielzahl anderer Faktoren kontrolliert deshalb die Variabilität der Bestandsniederschlagschemie, beispielsweise die Konzentration gelöster Stoffe im Regenwasser oder die Dauer von Trockenperioden. Deren hohe temporale Variabilität ist verantwortlich für die geringe zeitliche Stabilität von Depositionsmessungen. Im Gegensatz dazu ist die temporale Persistenz von Messungen der Bestandsniederschlagsmenge hoch. Insbesondere die Ergebnisse aus Panama zeigen, dass feuchte und trockene Messpunkte über einen Zeitraum von zwei Regenzeiten fortbestehen. Die räumlichen Bestandsniederschlagsmuster im letztgenannten Untersuchungsgebiet sind schwach bzw. weisen die Struktur eines reinen Nugget-Models auf. Die geostatistische Analyse zeigt, dass vor allem die Daten großer Regenereignisse eine robuste Modellierung des Variogramms erfordern, wenn die willkürliche Entfernung von Fernpunkten in den Daten vermieden werden soll. Dieses Resultat ist insbesondere deshalb von Bedeutung, da alle bisherigen Bestandsniederschlagsstudien den klassischen, nicht-robusten Schätzer benutzen, obwohl das Auftreten von Extremwerten in Bestandsniederschlagsdaten für viele Ökosysteme zu erwarten ist.

Rain fall-runoff response in temperate humid headwater catchments is mainly controlled by hydrolo gical processes at the hillslope scale. Applied tracer experiments with fluore scent dye and salt tracers are well known tools in groundwater studies at the large scale and vadose zone studies at the plot scale, where they provide a means to characterise subsurface flow. We extend this approach to the hillslope scale to investigate saturated and unsaturated flow path s concertedly at a forested hill slope in the Austrian Alps. Dye staining experiments at the plot scale revealed that crack s and soil pipe s function as preferential flow path s in the fine-textured soils of the study area, and these preferenti al flow structures were active in fast subsurface transport of tracers at the hillslope scale. Breakthrough curves obtained under steady flow conditions could be fitted well to a one-dimensional convection-dispersion model. Under natural rain fall a positive correlation of tracer concentrations to the transient flows was observed. The results of this study demon strate qualitative and quantitative effects of preferential flow feature s on subsurface stormflow in a temperate humid headwater catchment. It turn s out that / at the hill slope scale, the interaction s of structures and processes are intrinsically complex, which implies that attempts to model such a hillslope satisfactorily require detailed investigation s of effective structures and parameters at the scale of interest.

Poly(vinyl alcohol) and polyethylene polymer systems werebuilt in order to study their transport properties (diffusion).First a verification of the AMBER force field was conducted fora poly(vinyl alcohol) system built from a chain with 145repeating units. NPT-molecular dynamics simulations attemperatures between 400 and 527 K were performed. The resultsof the simulations were compared withpressure-volume-temperature data, solubility parameter, X-rayscattering pattern and data for the characteristic ratio. Thefractional free volume distribution was computed and thediffusion characteristics of water in the polymer werestudied. Further another poly(vinyl alcohol) system, with 600repeating units, was used to study oxygen diffusion in dry andwet poly(vinyl alcohol). In these systems the focus was toinvestigate the oxygen paths relative to the backbone and alsothe effect of water on the diffusion coefficients. Jump mapsand correlation function between the velocity of the oxygen wascalculated. The water has a huge impact on the oxygen diffusionand the preferred paths. A larger molecule (limonene) was studied in a polyethylenematrix consisting of 6000 anisotropic united atoms. A 100 nslong trajectory was recorded and also shortertrajectories atdifferent temperatures, which gave the temperature dependenceof the diffusion coefficients. Correlation functions for thelimonene molecule shows that it rotates and tumbles when movingthru the matrix. The main results from the molecular dynamics simulationsshowed that diffusion of larger molecules are possible and alsothat molecular dynamics simulations can predict plasticizationeffects. A new fast experimental method for determining diffusioncoefficients with non iso thermal thermogravimetry weredeveloped. The advantage is that the experiments only takesminutes instead of days with a small effect on theaccuracy.

Membrane proteins constitute approximately 30% of all genes in the human genome and two large families of membrane proteins are G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and Solute Carriers (SLCs) with about 800 and 380 human genes, respectively. In Papers I, II and IV, we report 16 novel human Adhesion GPCRs found by searches in NCBI and Celera databases. In Paper I, we report eight novel human GPCRs, and six in Paper II. We identified two new human Adhesion GPCRs and 17 mouse orthologs in Paper IV. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrates that the 16 novel human genes are additional members of the Adhesion GPCR family and can be divided into eight phylogenetic groups. EST expression charts for the entire repertoire of Adhesions in human and mouse were established, showing widespread distribution in both central and peripheral tissues. Different domains were found in their N-terminus, some, such as pentraxin in GPR112, indicates that they take part in immunological processes. In Paper III, we discovered seven new human Rhodopsin GPCRs. In Paper V, we present the identification of two new human genes, termed SLC6A17 and SLC6A18 from the Solute Carriers family 6 (SLC6). We also identified the corresponding orthologs and additional genes from the mouse and rat genomes. We analysed, in total, 430 unique SLC6 proteins from 10 animal, one plant, two fungi and 196 bacterial genomes. In Paper VI, we provide the first systematic analysis of the evolutionary history of the different SLC families in Eukaryotes. In all, we analysed 2403 sequences in eight species and we delineate the evolutionary history of each of the 46 SLC families.