Il·lustrar els clàssics (a propòsit de l’adaptació de Tirant lo Blanc amb il·lustracions de Paula Bonet)

Il·lustrar els clàssics (a propòsit de l’adaptació de Tirant lo Blancamb il·lustracions de Paula Bonet

Miguel Calatayud: aproximació a l'obra infantil il·lustrada

Aquesta investigació proposa endinsar-se en un context delimitat com és la il·lustració infantil valenciana i, més concretament, en l'anàlisi de les obres infantils il·lustrades de l'artista gràfic Miguel Calatayud amb el propòsit de posar en valor creacions amb unes qualitats com les que presenten la resta de disciplines artístiques

Self-assembly of human latexin into amyloid-like oligomers

Background: In conformational disorders, it is not evident which amyloid aggregates affect specific molecular mechanisms or cellular pathways, which cause disease because of their quantity and mechanical features and which states in aggregate formation are pathogenic. Due to the increasing consensus that prefibrillar oligomers play a major role in conformational diseases, there is a growing interest in understanding the characteristics of metastable polypeptide associations. Results: Here, we show that human latexin, a protein that shares the same fold with cystatin C, assembles into stable spherical amyloid-like oligomers that bind thioflavin-T and congo red similarly to common amyloid structures but do not evolve into fibrils. Latexin self-assembly correlates with the formation of a mostly denaturated state rather than with the population of partially structured intermediates during the unfolding process. The results suggest that unfolding of α-helix 3 might be involved in the transition of latexin toward amyloidotic species, supporting the notion of the protective role of the native protein structure against polymerization. Conclusion: Overall the data herein indicate that latexin could be a good model for the study of the structural and sequential determinants of oligomeric assemblies in protein aggregation processes

AVALIAÇÃO DA EXPERIÊNCIA DOS ESTUDANTES COM METODOLOGIAS ATIVAS

Este artigo apresenta um estudo referente aos sentimentos hedônicos despertados nos estudantes em relação a um conjunto de metodologias ativas aplicadas nas aulas de Interação Humano-Computador. Para a coleta dos dados foi aplicada a técnica de autorrelato Affect Grid utilizada em avaliações de User eXperience (UX). O estudo foi realizado com a participação de alunos de Engenharia da Computação ao longo de três meses. Os dados capturados durante a condução do experimento permitiram identificar os sentimentos hedônicos causados aos alunos, possibilitando ao professor identificar quais metodologias ativas são mais adequadas para a geração de sentimentos positivos.

Development of exfoliated layered stannosilicate for hydrogen adsorption

The use of hydrogen as an energy vector leads to the development of materials with high hydrogen adsorption capacity. In this work, a new layered stannosilicate, UZAR-S3, is synthesized and delaminated, producing UZAR-S4. UZAR-S3, with the empirical formula Na4SnSi5O14·3.5H2O and lamellar morphology, is a layered stannosilicate built from SnO6 and SiO4 polyhedra. The delamination process used here comprises three stages: protonation with acetic acid, swelling with nonylamine and the delamination itself with an HCl/H2O/ethanol solution. UZAR-S4 is composed of sheets a few nanometers thick with a high aspect ratio and a surface area of 236 m2/g, twenty times higher than that of UZAR-S3. At −196 °C for UZAR-S4, H2 adsorption reached remarkable values of 3.7 and 4.2 wt% for 10 and 40 bar, respectively, the latter value giving a high volumetric H2 storage capacity of 26.2 g of H2/L.Financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) is gratefully acknowledged through projects with grant numbers: MAT2010-15870, CTQ2012-31229 and CTQ2012-31762, as well as from the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), Regional Government of Aragón (DGA) and the European Social Fund (ESF). A. Berenguer-Murcia and C. Casado-Coterillo thank the MINECO for Ramón y Cajal fellowships (RyC 2009-03913 at the University of Alicante and RYC-2011-08550 at the University of Cantabria)

Variants in Miro1 cause alterations of ER-mitochondria contact sites in fibroblasts from Parkinson's disease patients

Background: Although most cases of Parkinson´s disease (PD) are idiopathic with unknown cause, an increasing number of genes and genetic risk factors have been discovered that play a role in PD pathogenesis. Many of the PD‐associated proteins are involved in mitochondrial quality control, e.g., PINK1, Parkin, and LRRK2, which were recently identified as regulators of mitochondrial‐endoplasmic reticulum (ER) contact sites (MERCs) linking mitochondrial homeostasis to intracellular calcium handling. In this context, Miro1 is increasingly recognized to play a role in PD pathology. Recently, we identified the first PD patients carrying mutations in RHOT1, the gene coding for Miro1. Here, we describe two novel RHOT1 mutations identified in two PD patients and the characterization of the cellular phenotypes. Methods: Using whole exome sequencing we identified two PD patients carrying heterozygous mutations leading to the amino acid exchanges T351A and T610A in Miro1. We analyzed calcium homeostasis and MERCs in detail by live cell imaging and immunocytochemistry in patient‐derived fibroblasts. Results: We show that fibroblasts expressing mutant T351A or T610A Miro1 display impaired calcium homeostasis and a reduced amount of MERCs. All fibroblast lines from patients with pathogenic variants in Miro1, revealed alterations of the structure of MERCs. Conclusion: Our data suggest that Miro1 is important for the regulation of the structure and function of MERCs. Moreover, our study supports the role of MERCs in the pathogenesis of PD and further establishes variants in RHOT1 as rare genetic risk factors for neurodegeneration

Je li privatnost informacija zaštićena u neonatalnoj jedinici intenzivnog liječenja? Opservacijska studija

Respecting patients’ intimacy and confidentiality can be a challenge in the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) designed according to traditional standards (e.g. a single big room with a number of cots and incubators located close one to another). Concerned about this topic, two members of the team designed a study to check the quality of the confidentiality in the NICU area, and identify opportunities for improvement. This is an observational study performed for a period of one month. The observed team was not aware of being observed. During observation time, a total of 147 hours, 25 confidentiality violation situations were encountered. Twelve (48%) were comments, spoken with a loud voice, about the patients in the NICU area or in adjacent areas, 24% (6/25) were related to the privacy issues due to leaving medical documentation or computer screens available for anybody to see or informing parents in a way that could be heard by parents of other babies, 12% (3/25) were phone conversations about patients in a loud voice, 4% (1/25) were answering questions to parents or relatives about other babies. The medical and personal information of the patients in the NICU is often exposed and shared with parents of other patients and nonrelated professionals. The architectural design of the traditional NICUs, some socio-cultural issues in South European countries, and the difficulties in changing attitudes are the critical points to focus on to start a quality educational project to protect the right to intimacy and confidentiality of vulnerable children and parents admitted to the NICUs.Poštovanje privatnosti i povjerljivosti pacijenata može biti izazov u neonatalnim jedinicama intenzivnog liječenja (NJIL) koje su dizajnirane prema tradicionalnim standardima (npr. jedna velika soba s određenim brojem krevetića i inkubatora smještenih jedni blizu drugih). Zabrinuti zbog ove teme, dva člana tima osmislila su studiju koja će provjeriti kvalitetu povjerljivosti u neonatalnim jedinicama intenzivnog liječenja i pronaći mogućnosti za poboljšanje. Ova opservacijska studija provodi se tijekom jednog mjeseca. Tim koji je bio promatran nije bio svjestan našeg promatranja. Tijekom vremena promatranja, ukupno 147 sati, primijećeno je ukupno 25 situacija u kojima je prekršena povjerljivost. Bilo je dvanaest (48 %) komentara koji su bili glasnije izgovoreni o pacijentima u neonatalnim jedinicama intenzivnog liječenja ili u bližoj okolini, 24 % (6/25) situacija odnosilo se na pitanja privatnosti, bilo zbog ostavljanja medicinske dokumentacije ili računala bez nadzora ili zbog informiranja roditelja, tako da su ih mogli čuti i roditelji druge novorođenčadi, 12 % (3/25) su bili telefonski razgovori o pacijentima i to glasnijim tonom glasa, 4 % (1/25) su bili odgovori na pitanja roditelja ili rodbine o drugoj novorođenčadi-pacijentima. Medicinski i osobni podaci pacijenata na odjelu NJIL-a često su izloženi i podijeljeni s roditeljima drugih pacijenata i profesionalcima koji nisu ni u kakvoj vezi s tim pacijentima. Arhitektonski dizajn tradicionalnih jedinica NJIL-a, neka sociokulturna pitanja u južnoeuropskim zemljama i poteškoće u promjeni stavova kritične su točke na koje se treba usredotočiti kako bi se pokrenuo kvalitetan obrazovni projekt za zaštitu prava na intimu i povjerljivost ranjive djece i roditelja koji borave na odjelu NJIL-a

Dynamics of alternative splicing during somatic cell reprogramming reveals functions for RNA-binding proteins CPSF3, hnRNP UL1, and TIA1

C.V. was recipient of an FPI-Severo Ochoa Fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Work in J.V. laboratory is supported by the European Research Council (ERC AdvG 670146), AGAUR, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BFU 2017 89308-P) and the Centre of Excellence Severo Ochoa. Work in T.G.'s laboratory was supported by the European Research Council FP7/2007-2013 (ERC Synergy Grant 4D-Genome) the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (SAF.2012-37167) and AGAUR. We acknowledge support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to the EMBL partnership and the CERCA Programme / Generalitat de Catalunya.UDTRIASBackground: Somatic cell reprogramming is the process that allows differentiated cells to revert to a pluripotent state. In contrast to the extensively studied rewiring of epigenetic and transcriptional programs required for reprogramming, the dynamics of post-transcriptional changes and their associated regulatory mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here we study the dynamics of alternative splicing changes occurring during efficient reprogramming of mouse B cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and compare them to those occurring during reprogramming of mouse embryonic fibroblasts. Results: We observe a significant overlap between alternative splicing changes detected in the two reprogramming systems, which are generally uncoupled from changes in transcriptional levels. Correlation between gene expression of potential regulators and specific clusters of alternative splicing changes enables the identification and subsequent validation of CPSF3 and hnRNP UL1 as facilitators, and TIA1 as repressor of mouse embryonic fibroblasts reprogramming. We further find that these RNA-binding proteins control partially overlapping programs of splicing regulation, involving genes relevant for developmental and morphogenetic processes. Conclusions: Our results reveal common programs of splicing regulation during reprogramming of different cell types and identify three novel regulators of this process and their targets

Generation of two induced pluripotent stem cell lines and the corresponding isogenic controls from Parkinson’s disease patients carrying the heterozygous mutations c.815G>A (p.R272Q) or c.1348C>T (p.R450C) in the RHOT1 gene encoding Miro1

Fibroblasts from two Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients carrying either the heterozygous mutation c.815G>A (Miro1 p.R272Q) or c.1348C>T (Miro1 p.R450C) in the RHOT1 gene, were converted into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) using RNA-based and episomal reprogramming, respectively. The corresponding isogenic gene-corrected lines have been generated using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. These two isogenic pairs will be used to study Miro1-related molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration in relevant iPSC-derived neuronal models (e.g., midbrain dopaminergic neurons and astrocytes)

La docencia y la evaluación del Derecho en las enseñanzas oficiales de Grado de perfil no jurídico

La enseñanza del Derecho resulta particularmente compleja en los casos en que el profesorado tiene enfrente un alumnado que cursa una titulación de las denominadas “no jurídicas”, entendiendo por tales aquellas donde resultan muy escasas y residuales las materias de contenido jurídico. Es el caso de titulaciones actualmente impartidas en la Universidad de Alicante como los Grados en Criminología, Turismo, Trabajo Social, Arquitectura Técnica, etc. El docente en este tipo de enseñanzas afronta el problema de la menor motivación de los discentes, su nula o escasa formación previa en la materia objeto de enseñanza y, en muchos casos, su menor implicación pues asumen que los contenidos que van a estudiar y la formación que, en consecuencia, recibirán no tendrá una traslación práctica en el ejercicio de las principales competencias que desarrollarán posteriormente como egresados. Los profesores de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Alicante estamos convencidos de que en este tipo de enseñanzas no es dable emplear la misma metodología docente y el mismo sistema de evaluación que se utiliza en la enseñanza del Derecho en los Grados de Derecho y DADE. El particular perfil del alumnado y de la titulación donde cursan estudios plantea la exigencia de adoptar enfoques metodológicos bien distintos