RESUMO
Identifying the particular guilds of herbivore arthropods that affect the production of crops is key to developing sustainable pest-management strategies; however, there is incomplete information about the identity of herbivore arthropods that could potentially damage the production of both highland and lowland quinoa landraces grown in Chile. By both reviewing the literature and conducting field collections across a large latitudinal gradient, we generated an updated list of 43 herbivore arthropods associated with quinoa production in Chile. In general, most species are polyphagous feeders, and only seven are specialists. The number and identity of species varied in relation with the latitude, such that four distinctive assemblages of herbivores were identified, each containing 32, 27, 34, and 22 species between latitudes 18-26, 26-32, 32-40, and 40-44° S, respectively. The most northern production area (18-26° S) is affected by nine unique species, including the major quinoa pest Eurysacca quinoae Povolný (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae). Similarly, the central area (32-40° S) contains four unique species, including Eurysacca media Povolný (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) and Orthotylus flavosparsus (Sahlberg) (Hemiptera: Miridae). The particular species assemblages described here will help further development of local pest-management practices.
RESUMO
This article reports the results concerning the design and manufacture of a novel polymeric film for ocular administration of acetazolamide (AZM), and a patent document presented to INPI- National Institute of Industrial/Intelectual Property. The system was designed using mucoadhesive polymers, such as carbomer (CB974P) and sodium carboxymethylcellulose (NaCMC), combined with the poloxamer (POL407) which behaves as a swelling modulator, surfactant and slightly plasticizer. The maximum amount of AZM to be incorporated without loss of homogeneity or precipitation of the drug, was 0.04 mg AZM/mg of the film. The addition of a polymeric coating based on Eudragit RSPO (cationic permeable polymethacrylate polymer) allowed optimizing drug release. The coating in a proportion of 10% (determined as percentage of total weight of the film) seemed to be the most adequate, since 80% of controlled drug release was achieved along 240 minutes. This coating membrane did not affect the mucoadhesive properties of the swellable polymers. Thus, the system obtained, showed good efficiency and the intra ocular pressure (IOP) decreased according to the results derived from in vivo studies performed on normotensive rabbits. Finally, irritation scored studies demonstrated that these systems were not irritant for rabbit´s ocular mucosa.
