Study of protein expresion [sic] in peri-infarct tissue after cerebral ischemia

In this work, we report our study of protein expression in rat peri-infarct tissue, 48 h after the induction of permanent focal cerebral ischemia. Two proteomic approaches, gel electrophoresis with mass spectrometry and combined fractional diagonal chromatography (COFRADIC), were performed using tissue samples from the periphery of the induced cerebral ischemic lesions, using tissue from the contra-lateral hemisphere as a control. Several protein spots (3408) were identified by gel electrophoresis, and 11 showed significant differences in expression between peri-infarct and contralateral tissues (at least 3-fold, p < 0.05). Using COFRADIC, 5412 proteins were identified, with 72 showing a difference in expression. Apart from blood-related proteins (such as serum albumin), both techniques showed that the 70 kDa family of heat shock proteins were highly expressed in the peri-infarct tissue. Further studies by 1D and 2D western blotting and immunohistochemistry revealed that only one member of this family (the inducible form, HSP72 or HSP70i) is specifically expressed by the peri-infarct tissue, while the majority of this family (the constitutive form, HSC70 or HSP70c) is expressed in the whole brain. Our data support that HSP72 is a suitable biomarker of peri-infarct tissue in the ischemic brain

Performance analysis of massively parallel embedded hardware architectures for retinal image processing

This paper examines the implementation of a retinal vessel tree extraction technique on different hardware platforms and architectures. Retinal vessel tree extraction is a representative application of those found in the domain of medical image processing. The low signal-to-noise ratio of the images leads to a large amount of low-level tasks in order to meet the accuracy requirements. In some applications, this might compromise computing speed. This paper is focused on the assessment of the performance of a retinal vessel tree extraction method on different hardware platforms. In particular, the retinal vessel tree extraction method is mapped onto a massively parallel SIMD (MP-SIMD) chip, a massively parallel processor array (MPPA) and onto an field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA)This work is funded by Xunta de Galicia under the projects 10PXIB206168PR and 10PXIB206037PR and the program Maria BarbeitoS

PRECISION: A Reconfigurable SIMD/MIMD Coprocessor for Computer Vision Systems-on-Chip

Computer vision applications have a large disparity in operations, data representation and memory access patterns from the early vision stages to the final classification and recognition stages. A hardware system for computer vision has to provide high flexibility without compromising performance, exploiting massively spatial-parallel operations but also keeping a high throughput on data-dependent and complex program flows. Furthermore, the architecture must be modular, scalable and easy to adapt to the needs of different applications. Keeping this in mind, a hybrid SIMD/MIMD architecture for embedded computer vision is proposed. It consists of a coprocessor designed to provide fast and flexible computation of demanding image processing tasks of vision applications. A 32-bit 128-unit device was prototyped on a Virtex-6 FPGA which delivers a peak performance of 19.6 GOP/s and 7.2 W of power dissipationThis work is funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Government of Spain (projects TIN2013-41129-P and TEC2012-38921-C02-02) and the Xunta de Galicia (contract GRC 2014/008)S

Corporate social responsibility practices in the hotel sector. Case studies in Santa Marta city, Colombia

[ES] El presente trabajo tiene como fin identificar, diagnosticar y evaluar las prácticas de Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (RSE) de ocho hoteles de diferentes tamaños ubicados en la ciudad de Santa Marta, Colombia. A partir de la teoría del desarrollo sostenible fundamentada en la ética, fue aplicado el método del estudio de caso, para concluir que las empresas hoteleras se ubican dentro de un rango de aplicación mínimo, bajo y medio. De igual manera, se encuentran clasificadas en los grupos de reactivas-filantrópicas, reactivas-legales y activas, dando una mayor importancia y valoración al desarrollo de actividades económicas relacionadas con clientes, producto, trabajadores y proveedores locales. En relación a las implicaciones, el estudio brinda información útil en materia de RSE, para mejorar la toma decisiones, tanto de los propietarios de los hoteles, como de sus stakeholders más influyentes. En concreto, para el empresario, en gestión y operación; para el dirigente político, en política pública del sector; para el cliente, en decisiones de compra; para la academia, en decisiones sobre investigaciones en marcha o nuevas investigaciones; y para la comunidad local, en control y seguimiento que permita legitimar o no la actividad empresarial. Futuras investigaciones deberían incluir más stakeholders y empresas de otros sectores económicos de la zona del estudio.[EN] This paper aims to identify, diagnose and evaluate the practices of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of eight hotels of different sizes located in Santa Marta, Colombia. From the theory of sustainable development based on ethic, the case study method was applied. It was found that hotel companies are located within a range of minimum, low and medium application, classified in philanthropic-reactive, legal-reactive and active groups, giving greater importance and value to the development of economic activities related to customers, product, workers and local suppliers. The study provides useful information on CSR, to improve decision making, both hotel owners, and their most influential stakeholders. Specifically, for employers, management and operation; for political leaders, public policy in the sector; for customers, in purchasing decisions; for academy, in decisions about ongoing investigations or further research; for local community, enabling control and monitoring legitimize or business. Future research should include more stakeholders and companies from other economic sectors in the study area.Este artículo es resultado de la Pasantía de Investigación en el marco del Programa de Doctorado Interuniversitario en Turismo de la Universidad de Málaga del primer autor en el Grupo de Investigación en Sistemas Costeros (COL 087006) de la compañía Playas Corporación Ltd. (Santa Marta, Colombia)

Glutamate Excitoxicity Is the Key Molecular Mechanism Which Is Influenced by Body Temperature during the Acute Phase of Brain Stroke

Glutamate excitotoxicity, metabolic rate and inflammatory response have been associated to the deleterious effects of temperature during the acute phase of stroke. So far, the association of temperature with these mechanisms has been studied individually. However, the simultaneous study of the influence of temperature on these mechanisms is necessary to clarify their contributions to temperature-mediated ischemic damage. We used non-invasive Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to simultaneously measure temperature, glutamate excitotoxicity and metabolic rate in the brain in animal models of ischemia. The immune response to ischemia was measured through molecular serum markers in peripheral blood. We submitted groups of animals to different experimental conditions (hypothermia at 33°C, normothermia at 37°C and hyperthermia at 39°C), and combined these conditions with pharmacological modulation of glutamate levels in the brain through systemic injections of glutamate and oxaloacetate. We show that pharmacological modulation of glutamate levels can neutralize the deleterious effects of hyperthermia and the beneficial effects of hypothermia, however the analysis of the inflammatory response and metabolic rate, demonstrated that their effects on ischemic damage are less critical than glutamate excitotoxity. We conclude that glutamate excitotoxicity is the key molecular mechanism which is influenced by body temperature during the acute phase of brain stroke

Spatio-temporal profile, phenotypic diversity, and fate of recruited monocytes into the post-ischemic brain

Infiltrating CX3CR1GFP/+ and CCR2RFP/+ cells are monocyte/macrophages. (A) Representative fluorescent merged images and orthogonal views of CX3CR1GFP/+ (green) and Iba1+ (red) ramified (upper panels) and amoeboid cells (lower panels) showing co-localization of both markers. The images were taken from the ischemic hemisphere at 14 days post-MCAo. Scale bar represent 20 μm. (B) Representative fluorescent merged images and orthogonal views of co-localization for the markers CCR2GFP/+ (red) and Iba1+ (blue). The images were taken from the ischemic hemisphere at 3 days post-MCAo. Scale bar represent 20 μm. (PDF 10117 kb