Clonación, caracterización y análisis de expresión de genes que codifican asparragina sintetasa en Phaseolus vulgaris

En el proyecto desarrollado en esta Tesis Doctoral se ha llevado a cabo la clonación de dos genes que codifican sendas asparragina sintetasas (AS) de una leguminosa ureida, como es Phaseolus vulgaris. Teniendo en cuenta la hipótesis de que existen factores moleculares responsables de la integración y corregulación de la biosíntesis de ureidos y amidas en raíces de leguminosas, y con el objetivo último de determinar los mecnismos de control de estos procesos, se ha iniciado un aproximación molecular al estudio de la asparragina sintetasa, una de las enzimas clave en el proceso de movilización del nitrógeno desde las raíces hacia las partes aéreas de la planta. Así, se han clonado y caracterizado los genes PVAS1 y PVAS2 de Phaseolus Vulgaris, que codifican asparragina sintetasas de tipo I y II, ambas dependientes de glutamina. El promotor de PVAS1 contiene motivos de secuencias relacionadas con la regulación por luz presentes en el promotor del gen AS1 de guisante. La expresión de PVAS1 y de PVAS2 complemetó la mutación de una estirpe de Escherichia coli auxótrofa para la asparragina, lo que indica que tanto PVAS1 como PVAS2 son funcionales. Estos genes se expresan mayoritatiamente en raíces, y en mucha menor medida en raíces de plátulas, cotiledones en germinación y frutos en desarrollo. PVSA2 se expresa además, en las etapas tempranas del desarrollo nodular antes de que este adquiera capacidad fijadora de nitrógeno. La expresión de PVAS1 y PVAS2 está regulada metabólicamente por la relación C/N

Block matching algorithm for motion estimation based on Artificial Bee Colony (ABC)

Block matching (BM) motion estimation plays a very important role in video coding. In a BM approach, image frames in a video sequence are divided into blocks. For each block in the current frame, the best matching block is identified inside a region of the previous frame, aiming to minimize the sum of absolute differences (SAD). Unfortunately, the SAD evaluation is computationally expensive and represents the most consuming operation in the BM process. Therefore, BM motion estimation can be approached as an optimization problem, where the goal is to find the best matching block within a search space. The simplest available BM method is the full search algorithm (FSA) which finds the most accurate motion vector through an exhaustive computation of SAD values for all elements of the search window. Recently, several fast BM algorithms have been proposed to reduce the number of SAD operations by calculating only a fixed subset of search locations at the price of poor accuracy. In this paper, a new algorithm based on Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) optimization is proposed to reduce the number of search locations in the BM process. In our algorithm, the computation of search locations is drastically reduced by considering a fitness calculation strategy which indicates when it is feasible to calculate or only estimate new search locations. Since the proposed algorithm does not consider any fixed search pattern or any other movement assumption as most of other BM approaches do, a high probability for finding the true minimum (accurate motion vector) is expected. Conducted simulations show that the proposed method achieves the best balance over other fast BM algorithms, in terms of both estimation accuracy and computational cost.Comment: 22 Pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1405.4721, arXiv:1406.448

Relying on critical articulators to estimate vocal tract spectra in an articulatory-acoustic database

We present a new phone-dependent feature weighting scheme that can be used to map articulatory configurations (e.g. EMA) onto vocal tract spectra (e.g. MFCC) through table lookup. The approach consists of assigning feature weights according to a feature's ability to predict the acoustic distance between frames. Since an articulator's predictive accuracy is phone-dependent (e.g., lip location is a better predictor for bilabial sounds than for palatal sounds), a unique weight vector is found for each phone. Inspection of the weights reveals a correspondence with the expected critical articulators for many phones. The proposed method reduces overall cepstral error by 6\% when compared to a uniform weighting scheme. Vowels show the greatest benefit, though improvements occur for 80\% of the tested phones

Estudio de los mensajes de control del protocolo multicast PIM SM

OPNET es una herramienta de simulación de redes muy potente, donde se puede configurar cualquier tipo de red existente. Esta herramienta nos ayuda a "probar" sin tener que montar ninguna red física, una gran ventaja sobre todo para protocolos experimentales o para el diseño de los mismos. En este proyecto se utiliza el OPNET para explotar el protocolo multicast PIM-SM. Se establecerá un modelo de red, donde estarán configurados los nodos de forma estratégica para intentar extraer el máximo de información del comportamiento en esta situación del protocolo PIM-SM.OPNET és una eina de simulació de xarxes molt potent, on es pot configurar qualsevol tipus de xarxa existent. Aquesta eina ens ajudarà a "provar" sense haver de muntar cap xarxa física, un gran avantatge sobretot per protocols experimentals o pel disseny d'aquests. En aquest projecte s'utilitza l'OPNET per explotar el protocol multicast PIM-SM. S'establirà un model de xarxa, on estaran configurats els nodes de forma estratègica per intentar extreure el màxim d'informació del comportament en aquesta situació del protocol PIM-SM

El nombre de los hoteles españoles. Un análisis del naming de los hoteles en Benidorm y Alicante

The importance of branding in tourism and hospitality has been the subject of study by the scientific community. However, there is little specific work on brand names in this sector. It is necessary to delve deeper into the predominant naming criteria in the names of hotels and other types of tourist accommodations. We have analyzed the hotel company name in a sample of 212 tourist accommodations, mostly SMEs and family businesses. The results indicate that, regarding the chosen naming criteria, there is mainly a difference between the criteria chosen to name hotels and those chosen to name other types of tourist accommodations, with the latter being more descriptive and less suggestive or evocative. The most recurring naming criterion in the sector is “fantasy” or “creative”. This research aims to expand knowledge about the choice of corporate name in the hospitality sector, based on the typology established by the scientific community, so that it can serve as a reference point for future research on naming or branding.La importancia del branding en el turismo y la hostelería ha sido objeto de estudio por parte de la comunidad científica. Sin embargo, hay poco trabajo específico sobre los nombres de marca en este sector. Es necesario conocer con mayor profundidad cuáles son los criterios denominativos predominantes en los nombres de hoteles y en otros tipos de alojamientos turísticos. Hemos analizado el nombre de la empresa hotelera en una muestra de 212 alojamientos turísticos (pymes y empresas familiares, en su gran mayoría). Los resultados obtenidos indican que, con respecto a los criterios denominativos elegidos, existe sobre todo diferencia entre los criterios elegidos para nombrar a los hoteles y los criterios elegidos para nombrar en los otros tipos de alojamientos turísticos, siendo estos últimos más descriptivos y menos implicativos o evocadores. El criterio denominativo más recurrente en el sector es el “fantasía” o “creativo”. Esta investigación tiene como objetivo ampliar el conocimiento sobre la elección del nombre corporativo en el sector del hospitality, basándose en la tipología establecida por la comunidad científica, para que pueda servir como punto de referencia para futuras investigaciones sobre nombre de marca corporativo o branding

Interaction of hydrated cations with mica-n (n = 2, 3 and 4) surface

High charged swelling micas, with layer charge between 2 and 4, have been found to readily swell with water, and complete cation exchange (CEC) can be achieved. Because of their high CEC, applications like radioactive cation fixation or removal of heavy metal cations from wastewater were proposed. Their applicability can be controlled by the location of the interlayer cation in a confined space with a high electric field. In synthetic brittle micas, the interlayer cation has a low water coordination number; therefore, their coordination sphere would be completed by the basal oxygen of the tetrahedral layer as inner-sphere complexes (ISC). However, no direct evidence of these complexes formation in brittle micas has been reported yet. In this contribution, we mainly focus on the understanding the mechanisms that provoke the formation of ISC in high charge swelling micas, Mica-n. A whole series of cations (X) were used to explore the influence of the charge and size of the interlayer cation. Three brittle swelling micas, Mica-n (n = 4, 3 and 2), were selected in order to analyze the influence of the layer charge in the formation of ISC. The contribution of the ISC has been analyzed thorough the evolution of the 060 reflection and the changes in the short-range order of the tetrahedral cations will be followed 29Si and 27Al MAS NMR. The results showed that ISC was favored in X-Mica-4 and that provoked a high distortion angle between the Si-Al tetrahedra. When the content of aluminum decreases, the electrostatic forces between the layers are relaxed, and the hydrated cations did not interact so strongly with the tetrahedral sheet, having the opportunity to complete their hydration sphere. © 2014 American Chemical Society.Peer Reviewe

Impacts of Saharan dust intrusions on bacterial communities of the low troposphere

We have analyzed the bacterial community of a large Saharan dust event in the Iberian Peninsula and, for the frst time, we ofer new insights regarding the bacterial distribution at diferent altitudes of the lower troposphere and the replacement of the microbial airborne structure as the dust event receeds. Samples from diferent open-air altitudes (surface, 100m and 3km), were obtained onboard the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA) C-212 aircrafts. Samples were collected during dust and dust-free air masses as well two weeks after the dust event. Samples related in height or time scale seems to show more similar community composition patterns compared with unrelated samples. The most abundant bacterial species during the dust event, grouped in three diferent phyla: (a) Proteobacteria: Rhizobiales, Sphingomonadales, Rhodobacterales, (b) Actinobacteria: Geodermatophilaceae; (c) Firmicutes: Bacillaceae. Most of these taxa are well known for being extremely stress-resistant. After the dust intrusion, Rhizobium was the most abundant genus, (40–90% total sequences). Samples taken during the fights carried out 15 days after the dust event were much more similar to the dust event samples compared with the remaining samples. In this case, Brevundimonas, and Methylobacterium as well as Cupriavidus and Mesorizobium were the most abundant genera

Transcriptome-Wide Mapping of Pea Seed Ageing Reveals a Pivotal Role for Genes Related to Oxidative Stress and Programmed Cell Death

Understanding of seed ageing, which leads to viability loss during storage, is vital for ex situ plant conservation and agriculture alike. Yet the potential for regulation at the transcriptional level has not been fully investigated. Here, we studied the relationship between seed viability, gene expression and glutathione redox status during artificial ageing of pea (Pisum sativum) seeds. Transcriptome-wide analysis using microarrays was complemented with qRT-PCR analysis of selected genes and a multilevel analysis of the antioxidant glutathione. Partial degradation of DNA and RNA occurred from the onset of artificial ageing at 60% RH and 50 degrees C, and transcriptome profiling showed that the expression of genes associated with programmed cell death, oxidative stress and protein ubiquitination were altered prior to any sign of viability loss. After 25 days of ageing viability started to decline in conjunction with progressively oxidising cellular conditions, as indicated by a shift of the glutathione redox state towards more positive values (>-190 mV). The unravelling of the molecular basis of seed ageing revealed that transcriptome reprogramming is a key component of the ageing process, which influences the progression of programmed cell death and decline in antioxidant capacity that ultimately lead to seed viability loss.Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y CienciaJunta de Castilla y Leon/BIO2011-26940Junta de Castilla y Leon/CSD2007-00057Junta de Castilla y Leon/SA048A10-2DFG/Le720/7Chinese Academy of Sciences/KSCX2-EW-J-24Chinese Academy of Sciences/Y3221411W1Millenium CommissionWellcome TrustOrange PlcDefr