In temperate climates, beekeeping operations suffer colony losses and colony depopulation of Apis mellifera during overwintering, which are associated with biotic and abiotic stressors that impact bees’ health. In this work, we evaluate the impacts of abscisic acid (ABA) dietary supplementation on honey bee colonies kept in Langstroth hives. The effects of ABA were evaluated in combination with two different beekeeping nutritional strategies to confront overwintering: “honey management” and “syrup management”. Specifically, we evaluated strength parameters of honey bee colonies (adult bee and brood population) and the population dynamics of Nosema (prevalence and intensity) associated with both nutritional systems and ABA supplementation during the whole study (late autumn-winter-early spring). The entire experiment was designed and performed with a local group of beekeepers, “Azahares del sudeste”, who showed interest in answering problems associated with the management of honey bee colonies during the winter. The results indicated that the ABA supplementation had positive effects on the population dynamics of the A. mellifera colonies during overwintering and on the nosemosis at colony level (prevalence) in both nutritional strategies evaluated.

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Scorpion stings on humans are medically relevant because they may contain toxins that specifically target ion channels. During antivenom production, pharmaceutical companies must use a large number of experimental animals to ensure the antivenom’s efficacy according to pharmacopeia methods. Here we present an electrophysiological alternative for the evaluation of horse antivenoms produced against two species of Moroccan scorpions: Buthus mardochei and Androctonus mauretanicus. Human sodium and potassium channels and acetylcholine nicotinic receptors were analyzed by standard patch-clamp techniques. The results showed that the antivenom is capable of reversing ion current disruption caused by the venom application. We propose the use of this in vitro technique for antivenom evaluation as an alternative to using a large number of live animals.

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Association mining aims to find valid correlations among data attributes, and has been widely applied to many areas of data analysis. In this paper we present a semantic network based association analysis model including three spreading activation methods, and apply this model to assess the quality of a dataset, and generate semantically valid new hypotheses for adaptive study design that is especially useful in medical studies. We evaluate our approach on a real public health dataset, the Heartfelt study, and the experiment shows promising results.

Levantamento dos periódicos correntes produzidos no Brasil sobre educação, realizado em bibliotecas localizadas na cidade de São Paulo-SP. A análise feita classifica-os em duas categorias: periódicos científicos (gerais, especializados) e periódicos genéricos (de divulgação ampla, de divulgação restrita). O resultado é um catálogo com 120 referências que compreende periódicos e séries educacionais. Palavras-Chave: periódico; educação; catálogo. Abstract A survey for current perodicals in education was produced in local libraries in São Paulo, Brazil. The analyses classified the periodicals in two categories: scientific (general and especialized) and generic (mass expossure and restrict exposure). It resulted in a catalog with a 120 references including periodicals and educational series. Keywords: periodical; education; catalog.

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