The predicted relative risk of premature ovarian failure for three radiotherapy modalities in a girl receiving craniospinal irradiation

In girls and young women, irradiation of the ovaries can reduce the number of viable ovarian primordial follicles, which may lead to premature ovarian failure (POF) and subsequently to sterility. One strategy to minimize this late effect is to reduce the radiation dose to the ovaries. A primary means of reducing dose is to choose a radiotherapy technique that avoids irradiating nearby normal tissue; however, the relative risk of POF (RRPOF) due to the various therapeutic options has not been assessed. This study compared the predicted RRPOF after craniospinal proton radiotherapy, conventional photon radiotherapy (CRT) and intensity-modulated photon radiotherapy (IMRT). We calculated the equivalent dose delivered to the ovaries of an 11-year-old girl from therapeutic and stray radiation. We then predicted the percentage of ovarian primordial follicles killed by radiation and used this as a measure of the RRPOF; we also calculated the ratio of the relative risk of POF (RRRPOF) among the three radiotherapies. Proton radiotherapy had a lower RRPOF than either of the other two types. We also tested the sensitivity of the RRRPOF between photon and proton therapies to the anatomic position of the ovaries, i.e., proximity to the treatment field (2 ≤ RRRPOF ≤ 10). We found that CRT and IMRT have higher risks of POF than passive-scattering proton radiotherapy (PRT) does, regardless of uncertainties in the ovarian location. Overall, PRT represents a lower RRPOF over the two other modalities. © 2013 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine

ABA-overproduction response under salinity

[SPA] Con el fin de comprender la influencia de la fitohormona ácido abscísico (ABA) en la adaptación al riego salino, dos líneas transgénicas independientes de tomate (Solanum lycopersicum L.), sp12 y sp5, que sobreexpresan constitutivamente el gen NCED1 (codifica para la enzima que cataliza un paso limitante en la biosíntesis de ABA) y la variedad silvestre Ailsa Craig, se han estudiado en experimentos o bien i) como planta entera o ii) como portainjerto bajo condiciones control y de estrés salino. Aunque la expresión constitutiva de NCED disminuye el crecimiento bajo condiciones control, minimiza los efectos producidos por la sal (planta completa) y mejora significativamente el crecimiento cuando se usa como portainjerto. El análisis de la savia xilemática de raíz mostró que los fenotipos resultantes bajo las diferentes condiciones de cultivo eran difíciles de explicar en términos de sobreproducción de ABA. Para intentar explicar estos resultados se llevó a cabo un análisis de expresión de un conjunto de genes relacionados con hormonas y estrés mediante PCR cuantitativa, así como un estudio transcriptómico mediante microarrays en la raíz. Los resultados sugieren que la sobreexpresión de NCED parece alterar diversas rutas de señalización, derivando en una respuesta adaptativa al estrés que podría ayudar a explicar los fenotipos observados. [ENG] With the aim of better understanding the influence of the plan hormone abscisic acid (ABA) in adaptation to saline irrigation, two independent transgenic tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) lines, sp12 and sp5, overexpressing constitutively NCED1 (the enzyme that catalyzes a key rate-limiting step in ABA biosynthesis) and the wild type Ailsa Craig, have been studied in experiments either i) as whole plants or ii) as rootstocks under control and salinity conditions. While NCED overexpression penalizes growth under control conditions, it minimized the effect of salinity (whole plants) or significantly improved plant growth and yield when used as rootstocks. The analysis of the root xylem sap revealed that the phenotypes resulting under the different conditions were difficult to explain in terms of ABA overproduction. With the aim of explaining these results, the expression of a set of hormone and stress associated genes (analysed by real time PCR) as well as a transcriptomic analysis (by using one-color microarray) were performed in roots. The results suggest that NCED overexpression seems to alter several signalling pathways leading to stress adaptive responses that could help to explain the observed phenotypes.The authors thank Andrew J. Thompson from Cranfield University, the NCED seeds set. This work was supported by CICYT-FEDER (project AGL2011-27996) and European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 289365(ROOTOPOWER project)

Interaction between ABA and cytokinins in salinized tomato plants

Abscisic acid (ABA) and cytokinins (CKs) are phytohormones that mediate plant responses to abiotic stress and are mainly considered to be produced in roots. These two plant hormones have long been considered antagonists, but the role of this antagonism in mediating abiotic stress resistance remains unknown. In this study we have used reciprocal grafting of transgenic lines with altered hormone synthesis (ABA or CK synthesis) with the aim of assessing the importance of ABA and CK interaction in mediating plant salinity responses in tomato. Preliminary results have shown a negative effect in ABA and CK on tomato plant biomass under salinity. Results have also indicated that jasmonic acid (JA) might be involved in the negative impact on tomato growth caused by ABA and CK interaction under salt conditions.The authors thank Andrew J. Thompson, from Cranfield Univertity (UK), and Ann C. Smigocki from Molecular Plant Pathology Laboratory (EEUU) the NCED and IPT seeds sets respectively. This work was supported by CICYT AGL2011‐27996 and ROOTOPOWER (REF: 289365. FP7‐KBBE‐2011‐5 European Union)

Root ABA signalling in salinized tomato

[SPA] Con el fin de comprender la influencia de la fitohormona ácido abscísico (ABA) en la adaptación al riego salino, dos líneas transgénicas independientes de tomate (Solanum lycopersicum L.), sp12 y sp5, que sobreexpresan constitutivamente el gen NCED1 (codifica para la enzima que cataliza un paso limitante en la biosíntesis de ABA) y la variedad silvestre Ailsa Craig, se han estudiado en experimentos o bien i) como planta entera o ii) como portainjerto bajo condiciones control y de estrés salino. Aunque la expresión constitutiva de NCED disminuye el crecimiento bajo condiciones control, minimiza los efectos producidos por la sal (planta completa) y mejora significativamente el crecimiento cuando se usa como portainjerto. El análisis de la savia xilemática de raíz mostró que los fenotipos resultantes bajo las diferentes condiciones de cultivo eran difíciles de explicar en términos de sobreproducción de ABA. Para intentar explicar estos resultados se llevó a cabo un análisis de expresión de un conjunto de genes relacionados con hormonas y estrés mediante PCR cuantitativa, así como un estudio transcriptómico mediante microarrays en la raíz. Los resultados sugieren que la sobreexpresión de NCED parece alterar diversas rutas de señalización, derivando en una respuesta adaptativa al estrés que podría ayudar a explicar los fenotipos observados. [ENG] With the aim of better understanding the influence of the plan hormone abscisic acid (ABA) in adaptation to saline irrigation, two independent transgenic tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) lines, sp12 and sp5, overexpressing constitutively NCED1 (the enzyme that catalyzes a key rate-limiting step in ABA biosynthesis) and the wild type Ailsa Craig, have been studied in experiments either i) as whole plants or ii) as rootstocks under control and salinity conditions. While NCED overexpression penalizes growth under control conditions, it minimized the effect of salinity (whole plants) or significantly improved plant growth and yield when used as rootstocks. The analysis of the root xylem sap revealed that the phenotypes resulting under the different conditions were difficult to explain in terms of ABA overproduction. With the aim of explaining these results, the expression of a set of hormone and stress associated genes (analysed by real time PCR) as well as a transcriptomic analysis (by using one-color microarray) were performed in roots. The results suggest that NCED overexpression seems to alter several signalling pathways leading to stress adaptive responses that could help to explain the observed phenotypes.The authors thank Andrew J. Thompson from Cranfield University, the NCED seeds set. This work was supported by CICYT-FEDER (project AGL2011-27996) and European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 289365(ROOTOPOWER project).. -2010-5 European Union)

Monetary policy regimes and the forward bias for foreign exchange

This paper provides a theoretical discussion of the forward premium anomaly. We reformulate the well-known Lucas (1982) model by allowing for the existence ofmonetarypolicy regimes. The monetary supply is viewed as having two stochastic components: (a) a persistent component that reflects the preferences of the central bank regarding the long-run money supply or inflation target, and (b) a transitory component that represents short-lived interventions. To generate agents’ forecasts, we consider two scenarios: (a) consumers can distinguish the permanent and the transitory components of the money supply (complete information), and (b) consumers face a signal-extraction problem to disentangle permanent and transitory components of the money supply (incomplete information). We simulate the model from a careful estimate of the parameters involved in the model. Numerical simulations reveal that, under complete information, forward unbiasedness cannot be rejected at conventionally significant levels. However, when learning about monetary policy is incorporated, the forward bias can be reproduced without artificially assuming an unreasonable degree of risk aversion

Efecto de un programa de intervención sobre el estrés percibido, autoestima y rendimiento en jóvenes pilotos de motociclismo de elite

In the motorcycling sport specialty, scientific literature has focused on technology, safety or even on injury variables; however there is little information regarding psychological variables. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effect of a technical and physical intervention on psychological variables such as self-esteem, self-assessment, appraisal of others and, finally, performance. The sample was made up of twenty-seven young elite road-race motorcyclists who competed in the Red Bull Moto GP Rookies Cup. 16 of whom completed an intervention program (Experimental Group, EG), while the other 14 belonged to the Control Group (CG). We collected the measurements in the first and last race of the season. Our results indicate the EG had controlled the stress level, had a better technique, physical, and psychological conditions, besides better competition performance, in comparison with the CG. We conclude that our intervention program has been effective at maintaining stress levels, bettering technical, tactical and psychological skills, and also improving performance throughout the competition period

First impressions: A survey on vision-based apparent personality trait analysis

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Personality analysis has been widely studied in psychology, neuropsychology, and signal processing fields, among others. From the past few years, it also became an attractive research area in visual computing. From the computational point of view, by far speech and text have been the most considered cues of information for analyzing personality. However, recently there has been an increasing interest from the computer vision community in analyzing personality from visual data. Recent computer vision approaches are able to accurately analyze human faces, body postures and behaviors, and use these information to infer apparent personality traits. Because of the overwhelming research interest in this topic, and of the potential impact that this sort of methods could have in society, we present in this paper an up-to-date review of existing vision-based approaches for apparent personality trait recognition. We describe seminal and cutting edge works on the subject, discussing and comparing their distinctive features and limitations. Future venues of research in the field are identified and discussed. Furthermore, aspects on the subjectivity in data labeling/evaluation, as well as current datasets and challenges organized to push the research on the field are reviewed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Programas de acondicionamiento físico para prevenir caidas en personas mayores.

The lack of muscular toning, less MMII mobility, greater joint stiffness and the loss of postural control cause weakness and falls in the elderly which can have serious consequences to maintain autonomy and self-reliance (fractures, anxiety of falling, ect). With age, the loss of strength in the legs, sensorial degradation and postural habits cause dynamic balance and quiescent to become affected. They produce changes in the visual system (loss of visual sharpness, depth perception, contrast sensitivity, and loss of field of vision) that negatively affect the ability of the elderly to accurately sense or to anticipate normal ground conditions, and the presence of danger around them. Aging also affects the somatosensory system (they give us information about spatial location and body movement in regards to ground bearings), provoking a reduction in the capacity to perceive affirmatively the contact between the legs and the ground. In regards to the vestibular system, ubicated/located in the inner ear and whose mission is to perceive movements of the head and to inform the brain, a gradual reduction begins of the sensorial cilia that act as biological sensors of movement of the head and that help us to align the body against the force of gravity. Specific physical training is crucial/essential for its prevention: strength training, balance, joint mobility, coordination, reaction speed, agility, aerobatic capacity, perception of space and time, ect.La falta de tonificación muscular, una menor movilidad en MMII, mayor rigidez articular y la pérdida del control postural provocan fragilidad y caídas en las personas mayores que pueden tener graves consecuencias para mantener la autonomía e independencia (fracturas, miedo a caerse,etc). Con la edad, la pérdida de fuerza en las piernas, el deterioro sensorial y los hábitos posturales hacen que el equilibrio dinámico y estático se vean afectados. Se producen cambios en el sistema visual (pérdida de agudeza visual, de profundidad de percepción, de sensibilidad a los contrastes y reducción del campo visual) que afectan negativamente a la capacidad de los mayores para percibir con precisión o anticiparse a las condiciones normales del suelo y a la presencia de peligros a su alrededor. El envejecimiento también afecta al sistema somatosensorial (nos proporciona información sobre la localización espacial y el movimiento del cuerpo respecto a la superficie de sustentación), provocando una reducción de la capacidad para percibir con calidad el contacto entre los pies y el suelo. Respecto al sistema vestibular, ubicado en el oído interno y cuya misión es percibir los movimientos de la cabeza e informar de ello al cerebro, se inicia una reducción gradual de los cilios sensoriales que actúan de sensores biológicos del movimiento de la cabeza y nos ayudan a alinear el cuerpo frente a la fuerza de gravedad. El entrenamiento físico específico es fundamental para su prevención: fortalecimiento muscular, equilibrio, movilidad articular, coordinación, velocidad de reacción, agilidad, capacidad aeróbica, percepción espacio temporal, etc

Feeding habits of young international elite motorcyclists

La alimentación es fundamental para rendir en el deporte, ya que una dieta inadecuada puede limitar el resultado. Por ello, el objetivo de este estudio ha sido conocer los hábitos nutricionales de 27 jóvenes pilotos de motociclismo de élite internacional a través de un cuestionario. Los resultados muestran cómo un 96.2% de los pilotos se alejan de las recomendaciones nutricionales de cinco comidas al día, así como de la recomendación de 3 raciones diarias de cereales y pan, que son cumplidas por 15,4% y 30,8% respectivamente. No existen diferencias estadísticamente significativas para ninguno de los macronutrientes entre los momentos de entrenamiento y justo antes de una competición. Respecto a la hidratación, existen diferencias significativas entre un día de entrenamiento y un día de competición (p= 0,008). Los resultados sugieren que los hábitos alimentarios de los jóvenes pilotos de motociclismo deberían ser mejorados, estableciéndose pautas de actuación e implicando a los deportistas, familias y entrenadores.Feeding is crutial to perform at the highest level in elite sport. So, to offer feeding patterns to the next Moto GP pilots, we have analyzed the feeding patterns of 27 elite young worldwide motorcycling pilots coming from the 5 continents, selected after a rigorous process developed by the organizers of the word motorcycling championship (Moto GP). It has been found that although pilots give a big importance to their weigth and feeding, their feeding habits are not adapted to the standards and recommendations for athletes. They are no big or meaningful differences for any of the macronutrients in the training sessions and the period before a competition. Regarding hidratation, there are significant differences between a training day and a competition one (p=0,008). Results suggest that feeding habits of the elite young motorcyclists should be clearly improved, stablishing patterns that involve athletes, parents, and coaches, all of them taking care about the nutrition

Impact of overexpression of 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase on growth and gene expression under salinity stress

To better understand abscisic acid (ABA)’s role in the salinity response of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), two independent transgenic lines, sp5 and sp12, constitutively overexpressing the LeNCED1 gene (encoding 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase, a key enzyme in ABA biosynthesis) and the wild type (WT) cv. Ailsa Craig, were cultivated hydroponically with or without the addition of 100 mM NaCl. Independent of salinity, LeNCED1 overexpression (OE) increased ABA concentration in leaves and xylem sap, and salinity interacted with the LeNCED1 transgene to enhance ABA accumulation in xylem sap and roots. Under control conditions, LeNCED1 OE limited root and shoot biomass accumulation, which was correlated with decreased leaf gas exchange. In salinized plants, LeNCED1 OE reduced the percentage loss in shoot and root biomass accumulation, leading to a greater total root length than WT. Root qPCR analysis of the sp12 line under control conditions revealed upregulated genes related to ABA, jasmonic acid and ethylene synthesis and signalling, gibberellin and auxin homeostasis and osmoregulation processes. Under salinity, LeNCED1 OE prevented the induction of genes involved in ABA metabolism and GA and auxin deactivation that occurred in WT, but the induction of ABA signalling and stress-adaptive genes was maintained. Thus, complex changes in phytohormone and stress-related gene expression are associated with constitutive upregulation of a single ABA biosynthesis gene, alleviating salinity-dependent growth limitation