(1R,4R,5R)-1,3,4-Triphenyl-7-[(R)-1-phenyl­ethyl]-2-oxa-3,7-diaza­spiro­[4.5]decan-10-one

In the title compound, C33H32N2O2, the polysubstituted piperidine ring adopts a chair conformation. The isoxazolidine ring is in an envelope conformation. In the crystal structure, intra- and inter­molecular C—H⋯π inter­actions involving the phenyl rings are observed

An estimate of the time variation of the O/H radial gradient from planetary nebulae

Radial abundance gradients are a common feature of spiral galaxies, and in the case of the Galaxy both the magnitude of the gradients and their variations are among the most important constraints of chemical evolution models. Planetary nebulae (PN) are particularly interesting objects to study the gradients and their variations. Owing to their bright emission spectra, they can be observed even at large galactocentric distances, and the derived abundances are relatively accurate, with uncertainties of about 0.1 to 0.2 dex, particularly for the elements that are not synthesized in their progenitor stars. On the other hand, as the offspring of intermediate mass stars, with main sequence masses in the interval of 1 to 8 solar masses, they are representative of objects with a reasonable age span. In this paper, we present an estimate of the time variation of the O/H radial gradient in a sample containing over 200 nebulae with accurate abundances. Our results are consistent with a flattening of the O/H gradient roughly from -0.11 dex/kpc to -0.06 dex/kpc during the last 9 Gyr, or from -0.08 dex/kpc to -0.06 dex/kpc during the last 5 Gyr.Comment: 9 pages, 7 encapsulated postscript figures, LaTeX, uses Astronomy and Astrophysics macro aa.cls, graphicx package, to be published in Astronomy and Astrophysics (2002), Also available at: http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/~macie

Efecto de la variedad y localización en la composición química de guisante y soja destinadas a la alimentación animal

El guisante es una buena fuente de PB, especialmente las variedades cultivadas en Asturias pero siem - pre con un menor contenido en PB y GB que la soja. En las dietas para monogástricos hay que recomendar el procesamiento de la cv Furious y las cv obtenidas en Aragón para reducir los posibles problemas causados por los inhibidores de la tripsina. En la soja, la cv Panoramix presentó el mejor con tenido en PB en las tres localizaciones.Proyecto INPULSE, Gobierno de Aragón (grupo de investigación INPASS), personal técnico del Laboratorio de Valoración Nutritiva y Digestibilidad del CITA

Impact of gilt immunocastration on weight losses and instrumental and chemical characteristics of Teruel dry-cured ham

A total of 32 fresh hams intended for the Spanish Protected Designation of Origin “Teruel ham” were used to evaluate the impact of gilt immunocastration (vs. entire gilts) on weight losses during the dry-curing process. After processing, 20 dry-cured hams (10 of each group) were chosen at random to assess instrumental and chemical characteristics. Hams from immunocastrated gilts tended (P = 0.057) to present lower weight losses, they were fattier (P 0.05). It can be concluded that, in general, immunocastration could be a good strategy in gilts to improve the quality of Teruel dry-cured ham.Jamón de TeruelPublishe

Galactic chemical abundance evolution in the solar neighborhood up to the Iron peak

We have developed a detailed standard chemical evolution model to study the evolution of all the chemical elements up to the iron peak in the solar vicinity. We consider that the Galaxy was formed through two episodes of exponentially decreasing infall, out of extragalactic gas. In a first infall episode, with a duration of $\sim$ 1 Gyr, the halo and the thick disk were assembled out of primordial gas, while the thin disk formed in a second episode of infall of slightly enriched extragalactic gas, with much longer timescale. The model nicely reproduces the main observational constraints of the solar neighborhood, and the calculated elemental abundances at the time of the solar birth are in excellent agreement with the solar abundances. By the inclusion of metallicity dependent yields for the whole range of stellar masses we follow the evolution of 76 isotopes of all the chemical elements between hydrogen and zinc. Those results are confronted with a large and recent body of observational data, and we discuss in detail the implications for stellar nucleosynthesis.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, submitted to A&

Overlapping promoter targeting by Elk-1 and other divergent ETS-domain transcription factor family members

ETS-domain transcription factors play important roles in controlling gene expression in a variety of different contexts; however, these proteins bind to very similar sites and it is unclear how in vivo specificity is achieved. In silico analysis is unlikely to reveal specific targets for individual family members and direct experimental approaches are therefore required. Here, we take advantage of an inducible dominant-negative expression system to identify a group of novel target genes for the ETS-domain transcription factor Elk-1. Elk-1 is thought to mainly function through cooperation with a second transcription factor SRF, but the targets we identify are largely SRF-independent. Furthermore, we demonstrate that there is a high degree of overlapping, cell type-specific, target gene binding by Elk-1 and other ETS-domain transcription factors. Our results are therefore consistent with the notion that there is a high degree of functional redundancy in target gene regulation by ETS-domain transcription factors in addition to the specific target gene regulation that can be dictated through heterotypic interactions exemplified by the Elk-1-SRF complex

New results on the time variation of the radial abundance gradients from planetary nebulae

New results on the time variation of the radial abundance gradients in the galactic disk are presented on the basis of four different samples of planetary nebulae. These comprise both smaller, homogeneous sets of data, and larger but non-homogeneous samples. Four different chemical elements are considered, namely, O, S, Ar, and Ne. Other objects such as open clusters, cepheids and HII regions are also taken into account. Our analysis support our earlier conclusions in the sense that, on the average, the radial abundance gradients have flattened out during the last 6 to 8 Gyr, with important consequences for models of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX, To be published in the Proceedings of the IAU Symposium 234: Planetary Nebulae in Our Galaxy and Beyond, ed. M. J. Barlow, R. H. Mende

HumMeth27QCReport: an R package for quality control and primary analysis of Illumina Infinium methylation data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The study of the human DNA methylome has gained particular interest in the last few years. Researchers can nowadays investigate the potential role of DNA methylation in common disorders by taking advantage of new high-throughput technologies. Among these, Illumina Infinium assays can interrogate the methylation levels of hundreds of thousands of CpG sites, offering an ideal solution for genome-wide methylation profiling. However, like for other high-throughput technologies, the main bottleneck remains at the stage of data analysis rather than data production.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>We have developed <it>HumMeth27QCReport</it>, an R package devoted to researchers wanting to quickly analyse their Illumina Infinium methylation arrays. This package automates quality control steps by generating a report including sample-independent and sample-dependent quality plots, and performs primary analysis of raw methylation calls by computing data normalization, statistics, and sample similarities. This package is available at CRAN repository, and can be integrated in any Galaxy instance through the implementation of ad-hoc scripts accessible at Galaxy Tool Shed.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our package provides users of the Illumina Infinium Methylation assays with a simplified, automated, open-source quality control and primary analysis of their methylation data. Moreover, to enhance its use by experimental researchers, the tool is being distributed along with the scripts necessary for its implementation in the Galaxy workbench. Finally, although it was originally developed for HumanMethylation27, we proved its compatibility with data generated with the HumanMethylation450 Bead Chip.</p

GeneSrF and varSelRF: a web-based tool and R package for gene selection and classification using random forest

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Microarray data are often used for patient classification and gene selection. An appropriate tool for end users and biomedical researchers should combine user friendliness with statistical rigor, including carefully avoiding selection biases and allowing analysis of multiple solutions, together with access to additional functional information of selected genes. Methodologically, such a tool would be of greater use if it incorporates state-of-the-art computational approaches and makes source code available.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have developed GeneSrF, a web-based tool, and varSelRF, an R package, that implement, in the context of patient classification, a validated method for selecting very small sets of genes while preserving classification accuracy. Computation is parallelized, allowing to take advantage of multicore CPUs and clusters of workstations. Output includes bootstrapped estimates of prediction error rate, and assessments of the stability of the solutions. Clickable tables link to additional information for each gene (GO terms, PubMed citations, KEGG pathways), and output can be sent to PaLS for examination of PubMed references, GO terms, KEGG and and Reactome pathways characteristic of sets of genes selected for class prediction. The full source code is available, allowing to extend the software. The web-based application is available from <url>http://genesrf2.bioinfo.cnio.es</url>. All source code is available from Bioinformatics.org or The Launchpad. The R package is also available from CRAN.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>varSelRF and GeneSrF implement a validated method for gene selection including bootstrap estimates of classification error rate. They are valuable tools for applied biomedical researchers, specially for exploratory work with microarray data. Because of the underlying technology used (combination of parallelization with web-based application) they are also of methodological interest to bioinformaticians and biostatisticians.</p