Does Cell Lineage in the Developing Cerebral Cortex Contribute to its Columnar Organization?

Since the pioneer work of Lorente de Nó, Ramón y Cajal, Brodmann, Mountcastle, Hubel and Wiesel and others, the cerebral cortex has been seen as a jigsaw of anatomic and functional modules involved in the processing of different sets of information. In fact, a columnar distribution of neurons displaying similar functional properties throughout the cerebral cortex has been observed by many researchers. Although it has been suggested that much of the anatomical substrate for such organization would be already specified at early developmental stages, before activity-dependent mechanisms could take place, it is still unclear whether gene expression in the ventricular zone (VZ) could play a role in the development of discrete functional units, such as minicolumns or columns. Cell lineage experiments using replication-incompetent retroviral vectors have shown that the progeny of a single neuroepithelial/radial glial cell in the dorsal telencephalon is organized into discrete radial clusters of sibling excitatory neurons, which have a higher propensity for developing chemical synapses with each other rather than with neighboring non-siblings. Here, we will discuss the possibility that the cell lineage of single neuroepithelial/radial glia cells could contribute for the columnar organization of the neocortex by generating radial columns of sibling, interconnected neurons. Borrowing some concepts from the studies on cell–cell recognition and transcription factor networks, we will also touch upon the potential molecular mechanisms involved in the establishment of sibling-neuron circuits

Functional properties of neurons derived from in vitro reprogrammed postnatal astroglia

With the exception of astroglia-like cells in the neurogenic niches of the telencephalic subependymal or hippocampal subgranular zone, astroglia in all other regions of the adult mouse brain do not normally generate neurons. Previous studies have shown, however, that early postnatal cortical astroglia in culture can be reprogrammed to adopt a neuronal fate after forced expression of Pax6, a transcription factor (TF) required for proper neuronal specification during embryonic corticogenesis. Here we show that also the proneural genes neurogenin-2 and Mash1 (mammalian achaete schute homolog 1) possess the ability to reprogram astroglial cells from early postnatal cerebral cortex. By means of time-lapse imaging of green fluorescent astroglia, we provide direct evidence that it is indeed cells with astroglial characteristics that give rise to neurons. Using patch-clamp recordings in culture, we show that astroglia-derived neurons acquire active conductances and are capable of firing action potentials, thus displaying hallmarks of true neurons. However, independent of the TF used for reprogramming, astroglia-derived neurons appear to mature more slowly compared with embryonic-born neurons and fail to generate a functional presynaptic output within the culturing period. However, when cocultured with embryonic cortical neurons, astroglia-derived neurons receive synaptic input, demonstrating that they are competent of establishing a functional postsynaptic compartment. Our data demonstrate that single TFs are capable of inducing a remarkable functional reprogramming of astroglia toward a truly neuronal identity

A Neural Approach to Language Variety Translation

In this paper we present the first neural-based machine translation system trained to translate between standard national varieties of the same language. We take the pair Brazilian - European Portuguese as an example and compare the performance of this method to a phrase-based statistical machine translation system. We report a performance improvement of 0.9 BLEU points in translating from European to Brazilian Portuguese and 0.2 BLEU points when translating in the opposite direction. We also carried out a human evaluation experiment with native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese which indicates that humans prefer the output produced by the neural-based system in comparison to the statistical system.Comment: Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on NLP for Similar Languages, Varieties and Dialects (VarDial

A doutrina cosmológico/soteriológica ontológico/materialista dualista maniqueísta

Fundado na Asia, no seculo III, por Mani, o maniqueismo se constituia, do ponte de vista doutrinal, numa gnose que misturava principios das seitas/religioes orientais, especialmente do Zoroastrismo e do Budismo, da Filosofia Grego-Romana e do Cristianismo. Sua tese fundamental consistia na afirma.yao de dois principios ontológicos do mundo: o Bern ou a Luz, representado no sol, e o Mal ou as Trevas, per-sonificado na materia. Desse dualismo ontológico nascia uma cosmologia/soteriologia que apresentava a história da salvaçao do mundo em tres tempos: o primeiro, inicial, engloba as origens cósmicas dos dois principios e seus primeiros afrontamentos. O segundo, médio, è o tempo da mistura entre os dois Reines, que se caracteriza pela queda de uma parte da Luz na materia, bern como, e o tempo da criaçao dos seres no universe. Enfim, o terceiro, final, marca a libertaçao de todas as particulas da Luz imbricadas na matéria, com o retorno da Luz ao reino do Pai e a queda definitiva da materia no inferno.Founded in Asia, in the third century, by Mani, manicheism constituted, by itself, in a doctrinal view-point, in a gnosis that mixed oriental principles of sects/religions, specially from Zoroastrism and Budism, Greek-Roman Philosophy and Christianism. His basic thesis consisted of statement of two ontological principles: Good or Light, presented by the sun, and Evil or Darkness, personified in matter. From this ontological Dualism arose a cosmology/soteriology that presented the salvation history of world in three moments: the first-one, initial, embodies the two principles cosmic origins and their first conflicts. The second-one, medial, is the mixture time is characterized by the downfall of one the Light parts in the matter, as well as it is the universe being creation time. At last, the third-one, final, marks the liberation of all Light particles, imbricated in the matter, meaning the Light return to Father's kingdom and the matter's definitive downfall into the hell

Expression of Sox family genes in early lamprey development

Members of the Sox (Sry-related high mobility group box) family of transcription factors play a variety of roles during development of both vertebrates and invertebrates. A marked expansion in gene number occurred during the emergence of vertebrates, apparently via gene duplication events that are thought to have facilitated new functions. By screening a macroarrayed library as well as the lamprey genome, we have isolated genes of the Sox B, D, E and F subfamilies in the basal jawless vertebrate, lamprey. The expression patterns of all identified Sox genes were examined from gastrulation through early organogenesis (embryonic day 4-14), with particular emphasis on the neural crest, a vertebrate innovation. Coupled with phylogenetic analysis of these Sox genes, the results provide insight into gene duplication and divergence in paralog deployment occurring during early vertebrate evolution

Reversed rainbow with a nonlocal metamaterial

WOS:000347171300050 (Nº de Acesso Web of Science)One of the intriguing potentials of metamaterials is the possibility to realize a nonlocal electromagnetic reaction, such that the effective medium response at a given point is fundamentally entangled with the macroscopic field distribution at long distances. Here, it is experimentally and numerically verified that a microwave nonlocal metamaterial formed by crossed metallic wires enables a low-loss broadband anomalous material response such that the refractive index decreases with frequency. Notably, it is shown that an electromagnetic beam refracted by our metamaterial prism creates a reversed microwave rainbow

Taxonomy, distribution and ecology of the order Phyllodocida (Annelida, Polychaeta) in deep-sea habitats around the Iberian margin

The polychaetes of the order Phyllodocida (excluding Nereidiformia and Phyllodociformia incertae sedis) collected from deep-sea habitats of the Iberian margin (Bay of Biscay, Horseshoe continental rise, Gulf of Cadiz and Alboran Sea), and Atlantic seamounts (Gorringe Bank, Atlantis and Nameless) are reported herein. Thirty-six species belonging to seven families – Acoetidae, Pholoidae, Polynoidae, Sigalionidae, Glyceridae, Goniadidae and Phyllodocidae, were identified. Amended descriptions and/or new illustrations are given for the species Allmaniella setubalensis, Anotochaetonoe michelbhaudi, Lepidasthenia brunnea and Polynoe sp.. Relevant taxonomical notes are provided for other seventeen species. Allmaniella setubalensis, Anotochaetonoe michelbhaudi, Harmothoe evei, Eumida longicirrata and Glycera noelae, previously known only from their type localities were found in different deep-water places of the studied areas and constitute new records for the Iberian margin. The geographic distributions and the bathymetric range of thirteen and fifteen species, respectively, are extended. The morphology-based biodiversity inventory was complemented with DNA sequences of the mitochondrial barcode region (COI barcodes) providing a molecular tag for future reference. Twenty new sequences were obtained for nine species in the families Acoetidae, Glyceridae and Polynoidae and for three lineages within the Phylodoce madeirensis complex (Phyllodocidae). A brief analysis of the newly obtained sequences and publicly available COI barcode data for the genera herein reported, highlighted several cases of unclear taxonomic assignments, which need further study.Thanks are due to the chief-scientists, scientific parties and crews of the 17 cruises that originated the material examined herein. We would like to thank Clara F. Rodrigues who participated in most of the cruises, often assisting with sample collection and sorting, and also provided the map with the location of sampling sites, and João Gil for his very useful comments and indispensable help with bibliography. This work was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under the strategic programmes PEst-C/MAR/LA0017/2013 and UID/AMB/50017/2013, and the projects CHEMECO (EURODEEP/0001/2007, ESF EuroDEEP programme) SWIMGLO; the European Commission under the projects HERMES (EC contract GOCE-CT-511234 FP6) and HERMIONE (EC contract 226354, FP7). The first author was supported by the postdoctoral grants BPD/UI88/2911/2013 (Universidade de Aveiro, project MARES (CENTRO-07-ST24 FEDER-002033) co-funded by QREN Mais Centro (Programa Operacional do Centro) and EU structural funds (European Regional Development Funds)), and SFRH/BPD/112408/2015 (FCT). Sequencing at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario was supported by funding of the International Barcode of Life Project (iBOL) through the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding, from the Ontario Genomics Institute, Genome Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. CBMA researchers were supported by the strategic programme UID/BIA/04050/2013 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007569) funded by national funds through the FCT I.P. and by the ERDF through the COMPETE2020 - Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ASA-SimaaS: Advancing Digital Transformation through Simulation Services in the Brazilian Air Force

This work explores the use of military simulations in predicting and evaluating the outcomes of potential scenarios. It highlights the evolution of military simulations and the increased capabilities that have arisen due to the advancement of artificial intelligence. Also, it discusses the various applications of military simulations, such as developing tactics and employment doctrines, training decision-makers, evaluating new acquisitions, and developing new technologies. The paper then focuses on the Brazilian Air Force's efforts to create its own simulation tool, the Aerospace Simulation Environment (Ambiente de Simula\c{c}\~ao Aeroespacial -- ASA in Portuguese), and how this cloud-based service called ASA Simulation as a Service (ASA-SimaaS) can provide greater autonomy and economy for the military force. The main contribution of this work is to present the ASA-SimaaS solution as a means of empowering digital transformation in defense scenarios, establishing a partnership network, and improving the military's simulation capabilities and competitiveness

Secondary Metabolites

Plants are the main source for obtaining secondary metabolites that are used in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food industries. In nature, the performance of bioactive compounds is affected by biotic and abiotic factors, an alternative to overcome this adversity is in vitro plant cultures and particularly plant cell culture that has multiple advantages, highlighting the possibility of controlling variables to increase the content. of compounds of interest. The objective of this research was to determine and optimize the effect of some elicitors on the production of secondary flavonoid metabolites in suspension cell cultures of Thevetia peruviana on a shake flask scale. The experimental part was performed from cell cultures in suspension cells of T. peruviana maintained by the Bioconversion Laboratory of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Medellin. Firstly, methyl jasmonate (MeJa) 3 µM and salicylic acid (SA) 300 µM were added to two los of cell cultures, that circumstantially they differed in their time suspension state lot 1 (9 months) and lot 2 (3 months). Secondly, certain were evaluated, in order to be optimized; the operational parameters cosidered were: day of addition, concentration and hours of harvest. Finally, the combined effect of MeJa (0.3 µM) and SA (100 µM) was determined in different proportions, the day of elicitation and the hours of harvest were constant. Flavonoid content was quantified by UV-vis spectrophotometry usinfg the AlCl3 complexation method and was evaluated at extracellular and intracellular level. In the first part, at intracellular level, SA generated 14.6 % and 9.56 % more flavonoid content than MeJa in lots 1 and 2, respectively. In the second part, 4.14 mg EQ/g DW were generated with MeJa 0.3 µM, elicitation day 5 and harvest at 90 h; 3.75 mg EQ/g DW were generated with 100 µM SA, elicitation day 0 and harvests at 96 h. In the third part, 4.62 mg EQ / g DW were generated with the combination of MeJa (0.3 µM) – SA (100 µM) in a ratio of 20-80, elicitation on day 0 and harvest at 96 h. Eliciting cell cultures of Thevetia peruviana with MeJa and SA under optimal conditions of concentration, day of addition and hours of harvest increased the content of flavonoid compounds. The results obtained could serve as a basis for the development of investigations at the bioreactor scale.Las plantas son la principal fuente para la obtención de metabolitos secundarios que se usan en la industria farmacéutica, cosmética y alimentaria. En la naturaleza el rendimiento de compuestos bioactivos se ve afectado por factores bióticos y abióticos, una alternativa para superar esta adversidad son los cultivos vegetales in vitro y particularmente el cultivo de células en suspensión que presenta múltiples ventajas destacándose la posibilidad de controlar variables para aumentar el contenido de compuestos de interés. El objetivo del presente trabajo de investigación fue determinar y optimizar el efecto de algunos elicitores sobre la producción de metabolitos secundarios tipo flavonoides en cultivos de células en suspensión de Thevetia peruviana a escala de matraz agitado. La parte experimental se realizó a partir de cultivos de células en células en suspensión de T. peruviana que mantenía el laboratorio de bioconversiones de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Medellín. Primeramente, metil jasmonato (MeJa) 3 μM y ácido salicílico (AS) 300 μM se adicionaron a dos lotes de cultivos de células; que circunstancialmente diferían en su tiempo en estado de suspensión lote 1 (9 meses) y lote 2 (3 meses). Segundamente, determinadas condiciones fueron evaluadas, con el fin de ser optimizadas; los parámetros operacionales que se consideraron fueron: día de adición, concentración y las horas de cosecha. Por último, el efecto combinado de MeJa (0,3 μM) – AS (100 μM) se determinó en diferentes proporciones, el día de elicitación y las horas de cosecha fueron constantes. El contenido de flavonoides se cuantificó por espectrofotometría UV – vis por el método de complejación de AlCl3 y se evaluaron a nivel extracelular e intracelular. En la primera parte, a nivel intracelular AS generaron 14,6 % y 9,56 % más contenido de flavonoides que MeJa en lotes 1 y 2, respectivamente. En la segunda parte, 4,14 mg EQ/g MS fueron generados con MeJa 0,3 μM, elicitación día 5 y cosecha a 90 h; por otro lado, 3,75 mg EQ/g MS fueron generados con AS 100 μM, elicitación día 0 y cosecha a 96 h. En la tercera parte, 4,62 mg EQ/g MS fueron generados con la combinación de MeJa (0,3 μM) – AS (100 μM) en proporción 20 – 80, elicitación el día 0 y cosecha a las 96 h. Elicitar cultivos celulares de Thevetia peruviana con MeJa y AS en condiciones óptimas de concentración, día de adición y horas de cosecha incrementaron el contenido de compuestos flavonoides. Los resultados obtenidos podrían servir como base para el desarrollo de investigaciones a escala de biorreactor.Maestrí