APORTES AL CONOCIMIENTO DE LA BIOLOGÍA REPRODUCTIVA DEL PINCHAFLOR SATINADO (DIGLOSSA LAFRESNAYII)

Resumen ∙ Describimos algunos aspectos desconocidos sobre la biología reproductiva del Pinchaflor Satinado (Diglossa lafresnayii), en base a observaciones de un nido activo registrado en el sector de Cerro de Arcos, límite provincial de El Oro y Loja, Ecuador. El nido tenia forma de copa, con similares medidas al único nido previamente descrito de la especie. En su interior se encontró un polluelo completamente emplumado y un huevo no eclosionado, el cual se describe por primera vez. Además, se reportan datos de cuidado parental sobre la eliminación y consumo de sacos fecales provenientes de la nidada.Abstract ∙ Additional notes on the breeding of Glossy Flowerpiercer (Diglossa lafresnayii) We describe some unknown aspects of the reproductive biology of the Glossy Flowerpiercer (Diglossa lafresnayii), based on observations of an active nest recorded in the Cerro de Arcos sector, the provincial boundary of El Oro and Loja, Ecuador. The nest was cup-shaped, with measures similar to the only nest previously described for the species. Inside, a fully feathered chick and an unhatched egg were found, which is described for the first time. In addition, parental care data are reported on elimination and consumption of fecal sacs from the brood.

A de novo reference transcriptome for Bolitoglossa vallecula, an Andean mountain salamander in Colombia

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Arenas Gomez, C. M., Woodcock, M. R., Smith, J. J., Voss, S. R., & Delgado, J. P. A de novo reference transcriptome for Bolitoglossa vallecula, an Andean mountain salamander in Colombia. Data in Brief, 29, (2020): 105256, doi:10.1016/j.dib.2020.105256.The amphibian order Caudata, contains several important model species for biological research. However, there is need to generate transcriptome data from representative species of the primary salamander families. Here we describe a de novo reference transcriptome for a terrestrial salamander, Bolitoglossa vallecula (Caudata: Plethodontidae). We employed paired-end (PE) illumina RNA sequencing to assemble a de novo reference transcriptome for B. vallecula. Assembled transcripts were compared against sequences from other vertebrate taxa to identify orthologous genes, and compared to the transcriptome of a close plethodontid relative (Bolitoglossa ramosi) to identify commonly expressed genes in the skin. This dataset should be useful to future comparative studies aimed at understanding important biological process, such as immunity, wound healing, and the production of antimicrobial compounds.This work was funded by a research grant from COLCIENCIAS 569 (GRANT 027-2103) and CODI (Programa Sostenibilidad) 2013–2014 of the University of Antioquia. A PhD fellowship to the first author, Claudia Arenas was funded by the COLCIENCIAS 567 Grant. We thank the lab of Juan Fernando Alzate from the University of Antioquia for their help in developing our bioinformatic methodological approach. We thank Andrea Gómez and Melisa Hincapie for their help in animal collection and husbandry

Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to Compare Cortical Excitability Among Depressed Patients, Sleep-Deprived Controls, and Rested Controls

Objective: To compare cortical excitability among sleep-deprived and rested controls, and depressed subjects. Methods: 3 controls and 4 depressed patients (average HAM-D 19) wererecruited. Sleep-deprived controls were instructed to sleep \u3c=4 hours the previous night. TMS-produced motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were measured before and after subjects engaged in sets of non-fatiguing manual exercise. Results: Post-exercise MEP increased 71+1-19% for rested controls, 28+1-32% for sleep deprived controls, and 8+1-15% for depressed patients. This increase, facilitation, was significantly greater in rested controls than in depressed patients (p=0.011). No significant difference in facilitation was found between sleep-deprived controls and depressed patients. Conclusion: Sleep-deprivation may partially account for reduced cortical excitability in depressed patients

Gibbs Sampling with Low-Power Spiking Digital Neurons

Restricted Boltzmann Machines and Deep Belief Networks have been successfully used in a wide variety of applications including image classification and speech recognition. Inference and learning in these algorithms uses a Markov Chain Monte Carlo procedure called Gibbs sampling. A sigmoidal function forms the kernel of this sampler which can be realized from the firing statistics of noisy integrate-and-fire neurons on a neuromorphic VLSI substrate. This paper demonstrates such an implementation on an array of digital spiking neurons with stochastic leak and threshold properties for inference tasks and presents some key performance metrics for such a hardware-based sampler in both the generative and discriminative contexts.Comment: Accepted at ISCAS 201

Modelling passengers in air-rail multimodality

Air-rail mobility has the potential to play a significant role in addressing European mobility challenges such as emissions reduction and capacity shortages. Rail can complement the air network in different ways: enlarging airport catchment areas, supporting operations in case of disruption or replacing air links to obtain environmental benefits. There is, however, still a need to better understand the potential role of rail when substituting current air links both from a strategic and a tactical mobility perspective, particularly when passenger connections are considered. This was initially assessed, considering passengers' door-to-door itineraries, as part of the Modus project (H2020 - SESAR 2020) with an innovative approach towards data driven, integrated air-rail modelling. Further considerations, such as the evaluation of strategic and tactical multimodal solutions, will be explored in the MultiModX project (Horizon Europe - SESAR 3). This discussion paper presents the modelling challenges addressed in Modus and the approach defined for MultiModX to evaluate and model multimodal door-to-door solutions

Counselor Educator Perceptions: College and Career Readiness of African-American Males

This paper presents the findings of a pilot quantitative study, investigating counselor educators’ perceptions of the importance of pre-service school counselor training in college and career readiness of African American males, and the ability to train pre-service counselors to facilitate the college and career readiness of African-American males. A significant difference was detected between groups in terms of their perceived ability to prepare school counselors who could implement college and career readiness programs for African American males