Publications by authors named "Francisco Nascimento"

Objective: to understand the perception of teachers from the municipal education network regarding the inclusion of children with special healthcare needs in the school context.

Method: qualitative research carried out through semi-structured interviews with 22 teachers from nine public schools in southern Brazil between November and December 2023. The selection strategy was conducted by educational clusters, schools were selected by probabilistic sampling and participants by convenience.

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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) constitutes a significant global health threat, exacerbated using antimicrobials in aquaculture, which accelerates the spread of resistant bacteria. In fish and aquaculture water, Escherichia coli acts as a key reservoir and vector for AMR, facilitating the dissemination of strains resistant to critically important antibiotics such as carbapenems and colistin, often through the production of enzymes such as extended-spectrum ß-lactamases. This review aimed to synthesize recent findings on AMR patterns and associated genes in E.

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Coastal areas including fjords, emit substantial amounts of methane (CH) and nitrous oxide (NO), that may partially offset their carbon dioxide (CO) sink potential. Expanding coastal marine aquaculture may impact greenhouse gas dynamics. The role of mussel farming as a CO sink or source and its potential for nutrient removal is well investigated, but its effects on sea-air greenhouse gas emissions remain unclear.

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Background: Antimicrobial resistance is a major global health concern, with the environment playing a key role in its emergence and spread. Understanding the relationships between environmental factors, microbial communities, and resistance mechanisms is vital for elucidating environmental resistome dynamics. In this study, we characterized the environmental resistome of the Baltic Sea and evaluated how environmental gradients and spatial variability, alongside its microbial communities and associated functional genes, influence resistome diversity and composition across geographic regions.

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Acanthocinini is a tribe of Lamiinae with questionable monophyly and close affinity with Acrocinini and Colobotheini. Despite being the tribe with the largest number of known immature forms, it is poorly characterized, only by arbitrary features of adults. Here we describe and illustrate larva and pupa of four species of Acanthocinini: Baryssinus marisae Martins & Monné, 1974, Oedopeza umbrosa (Germar, 1823), Oxathres sparsa Melzer, 1927 (based on exuviae) and Xylergatoides asper (Bates, 1864), all but O.

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Two new species are described for the genus Xenocona Gilmour, 1960 (Cerambycidae, Lamiinae, Acanthocinini): Xenocona plagiata sp. nov. from Colombia and X.

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This paper identifies the top-50 priority questions for meiofaunal research, highlighting their critical roles in biogeochemical cycles and biodiversity. It calls for a balanced research agenda, international cooperation, and advances in technology to overcome current challenges and unlock meiofauna’s full potential.

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In 2019, COVID-19 began one of the greatest public health challenges in history, reaching pandemic status the following year. Systems capable of predicting individuals at higher risk of progressing to severe forms of the disease could optimize the allocation and direction of resources. In this work, we evaluated the performance of different Machine Learning algorithms when predicting clinical outcomes of patients hospitalized with COVID-19, using clinical data from hospital admission alone.

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A new sesquiterpene, 8,11-epoxy-cadi-3,9-diene (), along with nine known compounds (-), were isolated from the heartwood of . Their structures were elucidated based on NMR spectroscopic data, and by comparison with data previously reported in literature. The hexane extract from the heartwood of , the EtOH extract from the heartwood of , the CHCl-soluble fraction of the EtOH extract, the EtOAc-soluble fraction of the EtOH extract and the compounds - have been evaluated as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, and among these, the extracts and fractions exhibited satisfactory results.

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The development of sustainable and controlled microalgae bioprocesses relies on robust and rapid monitoring tools that facilitate continuous process optimization, ensuring high productivity and minimizing response times. In this work, we analyse the influence of medium formulation on the growth and productivity of axenic Phaeodactylum tricornutumcultures and use the resulting data to develop machine learning (ML) models based on spectroscopy. Our culture assays produced a comprehensive dataset of 255 observations, enabling us to train 55 (24+31) robust models that predict cells or fucoxanthin directly from either absorbance or 2D-fluorescence spectroscopy.

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Edessinae is one of the ten subfamilies of Pentatomidae, and it is further divided into seven genera. Among these, Edessa Fabricius, 1803 is the most diverse genus, boasting around 300 species recognized for their ecological and economic significance worldwide. The inclusion of various pentatomids in the Edessa genus has led to mistakes in its taxonomy due to common morphological features and misidentifications.

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Three species are recorded from Panama for the first time: Lagocheirus cristulatus Bates, 1872; Leptostylus guianensis Vlasak & Santos-Silva, 2021; and Nealcidion cephaliferum Vlasak & Santos-Silva, 2022. Lepturges (Lepturges) brechlini Santos-Silva et al., 2019 is synonymized with L.

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In this study, we investigated the male reproductive system and sperm morphology of Phaleria testacea using both light and transmission electron microscopy. Our findings revealed important testicular features, such as the antiparallel arrangement of sperm in the testicular cysts, limited sperm prodution in adult males, defective spermatozoa, and bodies of cellular membranes in deterioration. We also observed more spermatids per cyst than in most Tenebrionoidea.

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Article Synopsis
  • Plasticizers like phthalate esters (PAEs) are common in consumer and industrial products, leading to environmental concerns, especially in vulnerable lagoon ecosystems.
  • A study measuring PAE concentrations in the water and sediments of three European lagoons found moderate levels, with certain compounds like DEHP and DOP posing notable risks to aquatic life.
  • Additionally, the research revealed active microbial communities capable of breaking down PAEs, which primarily operates in sediment layers, suggesting potential natural remediation processes in these environments.
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We investigate the nonequilibrium phase transition in the S-state majority-vote model for S=2,3, and 4. Each site, k, is characterized by a distinct noise threshold, qk, which indicates its resistance to adopting the majority state of its Nv nearest neighbors. Precisely, this noise threshold is governed by a hyperbolic distribution, P(k)∼1/k, bounded within the limits e-α/2 View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Interstitial meiofauna, organisms smaller than 500 μm that live between sediment grains, are the most abundant animals on Earth. They play crucial roles in biogeochemical cycles, but their responses to microplastics (MPs) remain understudied. Due to their size, meiofauna may be particularly vulnerable to MPs.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study details the whole-genome sequences of seven different marine bacteria found in Portugal that can help improve the growth of a specific type of diatom.
  • - These bacteria were chosen because of their unique characteristics and potential benefits to the diatom, which is a model organism in research.
  • - The genome sequences aim to enhance our understanding of the genetic and molecular processes that govern interactions between these marine bacteria and diatoms.
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Auxins, mainly in the form of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), regulate several aspects of plant and algal growth and development. Consequently, plant and algae-associated bacteria developed the ability to modulate IAA levels, including IAA catabolism. In this work, we present and analyse the genome sequence of the IAA-degrading and marine algae-associated bacterium, sp.

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The study presents the whole genome sequence of the carotenoid-producing sp. NFXS7, isolated from a marine saltern in Setúbal, Portugal. The carotenoid-producing strain NFXS7 contains homologs of the genes involved in astaxanthin biosynthesis, making it a promising candidate for biotechnological applications.

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Sediments polluted with hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs) and metals can pose environmental risks, yet effective remediation remains a challenge. We investigated a new composite sorbent comprising granular activated carbon (GAC) and a calcium-silicate (Polonite®, PO) for thin-layer capping of polluted sediment, with the aim to sequester both HOCs and metals. Box cores were collected in polluted Oskarshamn harbor, Sweden, and the sediments were treated with GAC and/or Polonite in a 10-week mesocosm study to measure endpoints ranging from contaminant immobilization to ecological side effects on native fauna and biogeochemical processes.

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Coastal areas are an important source of methane (CH). However, the exact origins of CH in the surface waters of coastal regions, which in turn drive sea-air emissions, remain uncertain. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the current and future climate change feedbacks, it is crucial to identify these CH sources and processes that regulate its formation and oxidation.

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We used confocal microscopy and spectrofluorescence to characterize the emission spectra in hop flowers, to follow the isomerization processes in different hop preparations, and beers, to compare with HPLC extracted samples. Flowers of different hop cultivars produced in three regions of Brazil, were quantitated by HPLC and GC-MS. The fluorescence spectra showed two characteristic emission bands evaluated from different preparations.

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Soft sediment marine benthic ecosystems comprise a diverse community of bacteria, meiofauna and macrofauna, which together support a range of ecosystem processes such as biogeochemical cycling. These ecosystems are also fishing grounds for demersal species that are often caught using bottom trawling. This fishing method can have deleterious effects on benthic communities by causing injury or mortality, and through alteration of sediment properties that in turn influence community structure.

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Coastal ecosystems dominate oceanic methane (CH4) emissions. However, there is limited knowledge about how biotic interactions between infauna and aerobic methanotrophs (i.e.

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