FACTORES DE VULNERABILIDAD EN LA POBLACIÓN DE 65 AÑOS Y MÁS EN EL ESTADO DE MÉXICO

El presente artículo analiza los factores de vulnerabilidad de las personas de 65 años y más en el Estado de México con información del Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) en el XIII Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010, específicamente utilizando la base de datos del cuestionario ampliado (microdatos) se efectuó un análisis de cluster o conglomerados a través del método de asociación no jerárquica de k-medias en donde se estudia la condición de las personas envejecidas y el riesgo de éstas a ser vulnerables. La población en estudio se clasificó en tres condiciones de riesgo: las personas escasamente vulnerables, las medianamente vulnerables y las altamente vulnerables. Los resultados más representativos son: el reconocimiento de las características y cúmulo de desventajas que debe ostentar una persona envejecida para clasificar su situación como precaria

Effect of Tuned Parameters on a LSA MCQ Answering Model

This paper presents the current state of a work in progress, whose objective is to better understand the effects of factors that significantly influence the performance of Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). A difficult task, which consists in answering (French) biology Multiple Choice Questions, is used to test the semantic properties of the truncated singular space and to study the relative influence of main parameters. A dedicated software has been designed to fine tune the LSA semantic space for the Multiple Choice Questions task. With optimal parameters, the performances of our simple model are quite surprisingly equal or superior to those of 7th and 8th grades students. This indicates that semantic spaces were quite good despite their low dimensions and the small sizes of training data sets. Besides, we present an original entropy global weighting of answers' terms of each question of the Multiple Choice Questions which was necessary to achieve the model's success.Comment: 9 page

Vast TVB parameter space exploration: A Modular Framework for Accelerating the Multi-Scale Simulation of Human Brain Dynamics

Global neural dynamics emerge from multi-scale brain structures, with neurons communicating through synapses to form transiently communicating networks. Network activity arises from intercellular communication that depends on the structure of connectome tracts and local connection, intracellular signalling cascades, and the extracellular molecular milieu that regulate cellular properties. Multi-scale models of brain function have begun to directly link the emergence of global brain dynamics in conscious and unconscious brain states to microscopic changes at the level of cells. In particular, AdEx mean-field models representing statistical properties of local populations of neurons have been connected following human tractography data to represent multi-scale neural phenomena in simulations using The Virtual Brain (TVB). While mean-field models can be run on personal computers for short simulations, or in parallel on high-performance computing (HPC) architectures for longer simulations and parameter scans, the computational burden remains high and vast areas of the parameter space remain unexplored. In this work, we report that our TVB-HPC framework, a modular set of methods used here to implement the TVB-AdEx model for GPU and analyze emergent dynamics, notably accelerates simulations and substantially reduces computational resource requirements. The framework preserves the stability and robustness of the TVB-AdEx model, thus facilitating finer resolution exploration of vast parameter spaces as well as longer simulations previously near impossible to perform. Given that simulation and analysis toolkits are made public as open-source packages, our framework serves as a template onto which other models can be easily scripted and personalized datasets can be used for studies of inter-individual variability of parameters related to functional brain dynamics.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure

Fishing, pollution, climate change, and the long-term decline of coral reefs off Havana, Cuba

Understanding temporal and spatial variation of coral reef communities allows us to analyze the relative effects of local stressors, such as fishing and eutrophication, and global stressors, such as ocean warming. To test for spatial and temporal changes in coral reef communities, we combined recent benthic and fish surveys from 2016 with long-term data, dating back to the late 1990s, from four zones located at different distances from Central Havana, Cuba’s largest population center. These changes may indicate the shifting importance of local vs global stressors affecting reef communities. Regardless of the distance from Havana, we found that coral cover was uniformly low (approximately 10%), whereas macroalgal abundance was often high (approximately 65%). Similarly, fish biomass was low across zones, particularly for herbivorous fishes (approximately 12 g m−2) that are critical ecological drivers of reef structure and coral resilience. Analyses of longer-term trends revealed that coral cover near Havana has been below about 10% since at least 1995, potentially because of local stressors. In contrast, reefs farther from Havana maintained relatively high coral cover (approximately 30%) until the early 2000s, but declined more recently to approximately 15%, putting them near the Caribbean-wide average. These distinct spatial and temporal trajectories of reef communities may be the result of the expansion of local stressors away from Havana as the human population increased, or as fishers ventured farther away to exploit new resources. Alternatively, the more recent decline of reefs farther from population centers may have resulted from increasingly frequent global stressors, such as bleaching events and hurricanes

Primary and Secondary Sequence Structure Requirements for Recognition and Discrimination of Target RNAs by Pseudomonas aeruginosa RsmA and RsmF

ABSTRACT CsrA family RNA-binding proteins are widely distributed in bacteria and regulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level. Pseudomonas aeruginosa has a canonical member of the CsrA family (RsmA) and a novel, structurally distinct variant (RsmF). To better understand RsmF binding properties, we performed parallel systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) experiments for RsmA and RsmF. The initial target library consisted of 62-nucleotide (nt) RNA transcripts with central cores randomized at 15 sequential positions. Most targets selected by RsmA and RsmF were the expected size and shared a common consensus sequence (CANGGAYG) that was positioned in a hexaloop region of the stem-loop structure. RsmA and RsmF also selected for longer targets (≥96 nt) that were likely generated by rare PCR errors. Most of the long targets contained two consensus-binding sites. Representative short (single consensus site) and long (two consensus sites) targets were tested for RsmA and RsmF binding. Whereas RsmA bound the short targets with high affinity, RsmF was unable to bind the same targets. RsmA and RsmF both bound the long targets. Mutation of either consensus GGA site in the long targets reduced or eliminated RsmF binding, suggesting a requirement for two tandem binding sites. Conversely, RsmA bound long targets containing only a single GGA site with unaltered affinity. The RsmF requirement for two binding sites was confirmed with tssA1 , an in vivo regulatory target of RsmA and RsmF. Our findings suggest that RsmF binding requires two GGA-containing sites, while RsmA binding requirements are less stringent. IMPORTANCE The CsrA family of RNA-binding proteins is widely conserved in bacteria and plays important roles in the posttranscriptional regulation of protein synthesis. P. aeruginosa has two CsrA proteins, RsmA and RsmF. Although RsmA and RsmF share a few RNA targets, RsmF is unable to bind to other targets recognized by RsmA. The goal of the present study was to better understand the basis for differential binding by RsmF. Our data indicate that RsmF binding requires target RNAs with two consensus-binding sites, while RsmA recognizes targets with just a single binding site. This information should prove useful to future efforts to define the RsmF regulon and its contribution to P. aeruginosa physiology and virulence

Are conductance plateaus independent events in atomic point contact measurements ? A statistical approach

Room temperature conductance-elongation curves of gold atomic wires are measured using a Scanning Tunnelling Microscope Break Junction technique. Landauer's conductance plateaus are individually identified and statistically analysed. Both the probabilities to observe, and the lengths of the two last plateaus (at conductance values close to 2e2/h and 4e2/h) are studied. All results converge to show that the occurrence of these two conductance plateaus on a conductance-elongation curve are statistically independent events.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Nanotechnolog

A quoi reconnaît-on une ville internationale ? Tentative de réponse par consultation d'experts. (Méthode Delphi)

En jetant un regard sur les écrits qui concernent le thème de la ville international, on aperçoit trois séries d'interrogation qui se complètent et suggèrent une progression très classique, depuis une compréhension élémentaire des choses jusqu'à des prescriptions de politiques économiques : le pourquoi, les enjeux et le comment. Pourquoi ce thème a-t-il émergé aussi nettement à la fin des années 80 ? De nombreuses explications ont pu être avancées, qui très vraisemblablement se conjuguent : la crise des Etats, débordés dans leurs fonctions centralisées par la complexité croissante des réalités du terrain ; l'internationalisation de la production et des échanges qui s'appuie sur des réseaux dont les fonctions nodales se multiplient et se diversifient ; la mondialisation des relations financières, ou, comme le disent les anglo-saxons, leur globalisation ; et peut-être surtout, au-delà des services financiers, l'explosion des " invisibles ", qui représentent aujourd'hui plus du tiers des échanges marchands internationaux. Les enjeux de l'accès au statut de ville internationale sont encore mal connus et pourtant déjà enviés. C'est que sont généralement concernés des activités à forte valeur ajoutée, des services auxiliaires du " haut de gamme " et, plus généralement, une image, bien faite pour que soit auto-entretenu le processus de développement des activités internationales. Le comment devient alors une question bien naturelle, qui consiste à repérer les voies et moyens d'accès à cette situation enviée ou à distinguer, du moins, les initiatives qui pourraient en favoriser l'approche.Delphi (méthode) ; ville internationale ; Enquête d'opinion

Migrânea e cognição em crianças: um estudo controlado

OBJECTIVE: Evaluate the cognitive functions of children with migraine and compare them to A control group. METHOD: 30 migraineur children and 30 control group children without migraine, age ranging from 8 to 12 years old, were subjected to a cognitive functions assessment with Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISCIII). RESULTS: Although both groups had a normal cognitive performance, children with migraine had significantly worse scores compared to the control group in the subtests of Information, Arithmetic, Vocabulary, Object Assembly and in the Indexes of Perceptual Organization, Resistance to Distraction and Processing Speed. CONCLUSION: Children with migraine had impairment in some cognitive functions such as attention, memory, information speed, and perceptual organization compared to the control group.OBJETIVO: Avaliar as funções cognitivas de crianças com e sem migrânea, utilizando a Escala de Inteligência Wechsler para Crianças (WISC-III). MÉTODO: A amostra foi composta por 30 crianças com diagnóstico de migrânea na idade entre 8 a 12 anos e grupo controle de 30 crianças sem migrânea na mesma faixa etária. Todas foram avaliadas pela Escala de WISC-III. RESULTADOS: Embora ambos os grupos tenham demonstrado um quociente de inteligência dentro da média, as crianças com migrânea, quando comparados aos controles, tiveram desempenho inferior nos subtestes de Informação, Aritmética, Vocabulário, Armar Objetos e nos Índices de Compreensão verbal, Organização Perceptual, Resistência à Distração e Velocidade de Processamento. CONCLUSÃO: Quando comparadas aos controles, crianças com migrânea apresentaram desempenhos inferiores em vários domínios cognitivos como atenção, velocidade de processamento, memória e organização perceptual.Federal University of São Paulo Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery Division of Investigation and Treatment of HeadachesUNIFESP, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery Division of Investigation and Treatment of HeadachesSciEL

Disease-causing mutations in BEST1 gene are associated with altered sorting of bestrophin-1 protein

Doumanov, Jordan A. et al.Mutations in BEST1 gene, encoding the bestrophin-1 (Best1) protein are associated with macular dystrophies. Best1 is predominantly expressed in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), and is inserted in its basolateral membrane. We investigated the cellular localization in polarized MDCKII cells of disease-associated Best1 mutant proteins to study specific sorting motifs of Best1. Real-time PCR and western blots for endogenous expression of BEST1 in MDCK cells were performed. Best1 mutant constructs were generated using site-directed mutagenesis and transfected in MDCK cells. For protein sorting, confocal microscopy studies, biotinylation assays and statistical methods for quantification of mislocalization were used. Analysis of endogenous expression of BEST1 in MDCK cells revealed the presence of BEST1 transcript but no protein. Confocal microscopy and quantitative analyses indicate that transfected normal human Best1 displays a basolateral localization in MDCK cells, while cell sorting of several Best1 mutants (Y85H, Q96R, L100R, Y227N, Y227E) was altered. In contrast to constitutively active Y227E, constitutively inactive Y227F Best1 mutant localized basolaterally similar to the normal Best1 protein. Our data suggest that at least three basolateral sorting motifs might be implicated in proper Best1 basolateral localization. In addition, non-phosphorylated tyrosine 227 could play a role for basolateral delivery. © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This work was supported by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (Chaire d’Excellence to Shomi S. Bhattacharya), Fondation Voir et Entendre (Young Investigator Grants to Christina Zeitz and Emeline F. Nandrot), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Fondation Bettencourt Schueller (to Emeline F. Nandrot), Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris6 (Bonus Qualité Recherche to Christina Zeitz), Foundation Fighting Blindness (grant number CD-CL-0808-0466-CHNO to Isabelle Audo), Centre d’Investigation Clinique 503 recognized as a Foundation Fighting Blindness Center (grant number C-CMM-0907-0428-INSERM04), Fundacion Progreso y Salud (to Shomi S. Bhattacharya, Maria Luz Bellido Diaz, Abhay Krishna and Paloma Dominguez Gimenez), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (grant number CM06/00183 to Maria Luz Bellido Diaz) and Bulgarian National Science Fund (grant number DDVU 02/10). Additionally, the Institut de la Vision is funded by Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Départment de Paris.Peer Reviewe