Shared latent structures between imaging features and biomarkers in early stages of Alzheimer's disease: a predictive study

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides high resolution brain morphological information and is used as a biomarker in neurodegenerative diseases. Population studies of brain morphology often seek to identify pathological structural changes related to different diagnostic categories (e.g: controls, mild cognitive impairment or dementia) which normally describe highly heterogeneous groups with a single categorical variable. Instead, multiple biomarkers are used as a proxy for pathology and are more powerful in capturing structural variability. Hence, using the joint modeling of brain morphology and biomarkers, we aim at describing structural changes related to any brain condition by means of few underlying processes. In this regard, we use a multivariate approach based on Projection to Latent Structures in its regression variant (PLSR) to study structural changes related to aging and AD pathology. MRI volumetric and cortical thickness measurements are used for brain morphology and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers (t-tau, p-tau and amyloid-beta) are used as a proxy for AD pathology. By relating both sets of measurements, PLSR finds a low-dimensional latent space describing AD pathological effects on brain structure. The proposed framework allows to separately model aging effects on brain morphology as a confounder variable orthogonal to the pathological effect. The predictive power of the associated latent spaces (i.e. the capacity of predicting biomarker values) is assessed in a cross-validation framework.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Morphogenetic and histogenetic roles of the temporal-spatial organization of cell proliferation in the vertebrate corticogenesis as revealed by inter-specific analyses of the optic tectum cortex development

The central nervous system areas displaying the highest structural and functional complexity correspond to the so called cortices, i.e. concentric alternating neuronal and fibrous layers. Corticogenesis, i.e. the development of the cortical organization, depends on the temporal-spatial organization of several developmental events: (a) the duration of the proliferative phase of the neuroepithelium, (b) the relative duration of symmetric (expansive) versus asymmetric (neuronogenic) sub phases, (c) the spatial organization of each kind of cell division, (e) the time of determination and cell cycle exit and (f) the time of onset of the post-mitotic neuronal migration and (g) the time of onset of the neuronal structural and functional differentiation. The first five events depend on molecular mechanisms that perform a fine tuning of the proliferative activity. Changes in any of them significantly influence the cortical size or volume (tangential expansion and radial thickness), morphology, architecture and also impact on neuritogenesis and synaptogenesis affecting the cortical wiring. This paper integrates information, obtained in several species, on the developmental roles of cell proliferation in the development of the optic tectum (OT) cortex, a multilayered associative area of the dorsal (alar) midbrain. The present review (1) compiles relevant information on the temporal and spatial organization of cell proliferation in different species (fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals), (2) revises the main molecular events involved in the isthmic organizer (IsO) determination and localization, (3) describes how the patterning installed by IsO is translated into spatially organized neural stem cell proliferation (i.e. by means of growth factors, receptors, transcription factors, signaling pathways, etc.) and (4) describes the morpho- and histogenetic effect of a spatially organized cell proliferation in the above mentioned species. A brief section on the OT evolution is also included. This section considers how the differential operation of cell proliferation could explain differences among species.Fil: Rapacioli, Melina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Favaloro. Área de Investigación y Desarrollo; ArgentinaFil: Palma, Verónica. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Flores, Domingo Vladimir. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Favaloro. Área de Investigación y Desarrollo; Argentin

Integration of Food Waste Composting and Vegetable Gardens in a University Campus

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG[Abstract] Local composting (household, community and small scale applications) is considered a sustainable option for bio-waste recovery and is receiving increasing demand from society. Higher education institutions are no exception, but detailed and comprehensive long-term studies on composting programs on university campuses are lacking. The local composting program of the University of A Coruña (UDC) offers a decentralized service for the treatment of food waste from 11 university canteens using static and dynamic composters located in 9 different composting areas. Considering the three pillars of sustainability, this work describes the characteristics of the different composting technologies used and their investment and operational costs, the routine monitoring process and product quality, the integration of the composting systems as living labs for biotechnology and environmental engineering courses, and the use of compost in the university vegetable gardens. The agents involved in the project are the canteen staff, the university gardening company, external composting operators, university researchers and teachers, sustainability scholarship students and volunteer people. Organic waste is usually delivered directly by canteen staff to composters. The gardening service provides green waste from UDC campus (crushed pruning) that is used as bulking material. The monitoring and maintenance of the composting areas is currently in charge of external staff provided by a local NGO dedicated to cooperation and job reintegration of the unemployed. The service also allows the incorporation of volunteers and scholarship students as operators and process monitoring supervisors. The main result of this project was the prevention of a large amount of waste that did not require collection and transportation, or disposal or incineration. This is being done in an economically sustainable way, as decentralized composting costs have been lower than the average costs of municipal solid waste treatment in the region. The lower investment costs of static composters largely offset the higher labour costs and result in lower overall costs than those of the dynamic composter. The dissemination of composting practice to society was another important outcome of the project

Diseño y aplicación de una herramienta computacional para el análisis espacial de parámetros acústicos en recintos

El objetivo de este proyecto crear una aplicación para el análisis espacial de parámetros acústicos en un recinto y evaluar su efectividad con ejemplos de simulaciones acústicas realizadas con el programa Odeon del Auditorio Fernando Remacha. Se desea comprobar la utilidad de la aplicación y no desarrollar una caracterización de la sala ni un análisis de calidad de los parámetros obtenidos.Ingeniería Técnica de Telecomunicación, especialidad Sonido e ImagenTelekomunikazio Ingeniaritza Teknikoa. Soinua eta Irudia Berezitasun

¿Cómo se puede querer la Red y el aula a la vez y no estar loco? Un paradigma de relación "cliente‐empresa" como base de un método docente no magistral, con evaluación continuada y sin exámenes

Hoy la información está en La Red. Lo que Google no encuentra, o no existe o es irrelevante. ¿Tiene algún sentido dar clase de espaldas a esta realidad? Aprovechar este magnífico instrumento y hacer que su uso tenga valor formativo para nuestros alumnos parece una opción más útil. La convergencia europea, y también el sentido común, demandan una educación comprometida con la formación. Los contenidos importan, pero también el entrenamiento de habilidades para afrontar el futuro profesional con autonomía, con mayor posibilidad de éxito, tal vez de supervivencia, en un mercado laboral y profesional globalizado donde Europa es ya una isla de bienestar en riesgo. ¿Cómo sumar contenidos con habilidades y reducir horas? ¿Cómo valorar el trabajo fuera del aula? ¿Se puede evaluar con equidad sin exámenes? ¿Cómo repartir los papeles entre profesor y tecnología? Nosotros hemos desarrollado y aplicado un método docente sobre un paradigma “cliente-empresa” como modelo de relación “profesor-alumno”, que se basa en el uso de la Red como fuente de información primaria. El profesor y la relación presencial son centrales, pero con un nuevo sentido. El profesor pasa a ser un consultor experto, un consejero, un tutor, y la relación presencial adquiere así un valor formativo de mayor profundidad. La tecnología no pretende aquí sustituir al profesor ni a la relación presencial con los alumnos. Sólo se utiliza como una herramienta de trabajo real, en la misma forma y para los mismos fines que en una actividad profesional. La experiencia se ha puesto en práctica, hasta la fecha, en dos cursos académicos sucesivos y en dos asignaturas considerablemente dispares. Consideramos que este método tiene aplicabilidad muy general y que aborda la práctica totalidad de los retos y objetivos que se plantean en la adaptación al Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior con resultados muy favorables.Today the information is in the Web. What Google does not find, it does not exist or else it is irrelevant. Does it make any sense to teach ignoring this reality? To take advantage of this magnificent instrument and to make it a formative value for our students seems to be a more useful option. The European convergence, but also the common sense, demands an education compromised with formation. The contents are important, but also the training in abilities to confront the professional future with autonomy, with greater possibility of success, perhaps of survival, in global professional market where Europe is already an island of comfort at risk. How can we keep contents plus abilities in fewer hours? How can we evaluate the work outside the classroom? Is it possible to evaluate with fairness without examinations? How to distribute roles between teacher and technology? We have developed and applied a docent methodology based on a “client‐company” paradigm as a model for the relationship “teacher‐student”. The method is heavily based on the use of the Web as the primary source of information. The professor and the actual relation are central, but with a new sense. The teacher takes the role of an expert consultant, an advisor, a tutor, and the actual relation acquires therefore a formative value of greater depth. Here technology does not replace the teacher nor the actual relation with the students. It is only used like a tool for real work, in the same form and for such aims that in a professional activity. The experience has been put in practice, up to date, in two successive academic courses and two considerably different subjects. This method may have very general applicability and approaches the practical totality of the challenges and objectives of the adaptation to the European Space of Superior Education with very favorable results

Una aproximación a la dieta consumida por las poblaciones constructoras de túmulos

Una aproximación a la dieta consumida por las poblaciones constructoras de túmulos en el Valle de Azapa (Chile) mediante análisis de isótopos estables del carbono y nitrógeno

Arenaviruses and lethal mutagenesis. prospects for new ribavirin-based interventions

Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) has contributed to unveil some of the molecular mechanisms of lethal mutagenesis, or loss of virus infectivity due to increased mutation rates. Here we review these developments, and provide additional evidence that ribavirin displays a dual mutagenic and inhibitory activity on LCMV that can be relevant to treatment designs. Using 5-fluorouracil as mutagenic agent and ribavirin either as inhibitor or mutagen, we document an advantage of a sequential inhibitor-mutagen administration over the corresponding combination treatment to achieve a low LCMV load in cell culture. This advantage is accentuated in the concentration range in which ribavirin acts mainly as an inhibitor, rather than as mutagen. This observation reinforces previous theoretical and experimental studies in supporting a sequential inhibitor-mutagen administration as a possible antiviral design. Given recent progress in the development of new inhibitors of arenavirus replication, our results suggest new options of ribavirin-based anti-arenavirus treatments. © 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Fundacion Ramón Areces; The Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas (CIBERehd); Instituto de Salud Carlos III; Junta de AndalucíaPeer Reviewe

‘Campus, Home, City: Laboratories of Change’, the Education or Sustainability Program of the University of a Coruña

The program 'Campus, home, city: laboratories of change', aims to promote the students and citizenship formation in the basic concepts of environmental and social sustainability, responding to the priority challenges for our society such as climate change, waste production, circular economy or sustainable mobility. The proposed service-learning, hands-on activities takes advantage of the housing, the university and the city as places for researching and experimentation. A feature of this program is the use of online ICT tools for fieldwork, in particular the survey and mapping of waste generation and footprint, water use efficiency, transport footprint and consumption of energy. The project has the collaboration of the Alcoa Foundation and is now in its 6th Edition, adding up the participation of more than 11,000 people. In the last two editions, the project has been extended to primary, secondary and vocational training centers in the region of A Mariña

Efectos de la inmunoterapia en el paciente adulto en el domicilio: revisión sistemática

Objective: To review the scientific literature related to the effects of immunotherapy in the adult patient with home health care.Method: Critical analysis of the works recovered by systematic review. The data were obtained from direct consultation and access, on the Internet, in the following bibliographic databases in the area of health sciences: MEDLINE (via PubMed), The Cochrane Library, Scopus, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINHAL) and Web of Science. The database of the Miguel Hernández University Library was also used. The use of the Descriptors “Immunotherapy” and “Home Care Services” was considered appropriate, adding the filters: “Humans”, “Adult 19+ years” and “Comparative Study” or “Clinical Trial”. Date of search: February 2017.Results: Attributing the inclusion and exclusion criteria to the search, 7 studies were accepted for review and critical analysis. The quality of the selected articles was evaluated through the CONSORT questionnaire, obtaining scores that ranged from 9 to 18 over a maximum score of 25.Conclusions: Due to the lack of contemporary articles covering both immunotherapy and its administration outside the hospital, as well as the presence of numerous works that cannot be classified within the group of high-evidence studies. This analysis can be concluded that current therapy requires new trials and investigations that allow finding more innovative ways of immunology to be able to be applied to a wider range of immune pathologies, and in this way be able to generalize them to groups of different ages.Objetivo: Revisar la literatura científica relacionada con los efectos de la inmunoterapia en el paciente adulto con atención de salud en el domicilio.Método: Análisis crítico de los trabajos recuperados mediante revisión sistemática. Los datos se obtuvieron de la consulta directa y acceso, vía Internet, a las siguientes bases de datos bibliográficas del ámbito de las ciencias de la salud: MEDLINE (vía PubMed), The Cochrane Library, Scopus, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINHAL) y Web of Science. También se hizo uso de la base de datos de la Biblioteca de la Universidad Miguel Hernández. Se consideró adecuado el uso de los Descriptores “Immunotherapy” y “Home Care Services”, añadiendo los filtros: “Humans”, “Adult 19+ years” y “Comparative Study” o “Clinical Trial”. Fecha de la búsqueda: febrero de 2017.Resultados: Al atribuir los criterios de inclusión y exclusión a la búsqueda se aceptaron 7 estudios para su revisión y análisis crítico. Se evaluó la calidad de los artículos seleccionados mediante el cuestionario CONSORT, obteniendo puntuaciones que oscilaron entre 9 y 18 sobre una puntuación máxima de 25.Conclusiones: Debido a la falta de artículos coetáneos que abarquen tanto la inmunoterapia como la administración de la misma fuera del servicio hospitalario, así como la presencia de numerosos trabajos que no se pueden enmarcar dentro del grupo de estudios de alta evidencia, mediante este análisis se puede concluir que la terapia actual precisa de nuevos ensayos e investigaciones que permitan encontrar formas más innovadoras de inmunología para poder ser aplicadas a un rango más amplio de patologías inmunitarias, y de esta forma poder generalizarlas a grupos de distintas edades

Microarray-based identification of antigenic variants of foot-and-mouth disease virus: a bioinformatics quality assessment

BACKGROUND: The evolution of viral quasispecies can influence viral pathogenesis and the response to antiviral treatments. Mutant clouds in infected organisms represent the first stage in the genetic and antigenic diversification of RNA viruses, such as foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV), an important animal pathogen. Antigenic variants of FMDV have been classically diagnosed by immunological or RT-PCR-based methods. DNA microarrays are becoming increasingly useful for the analysis of gene expression and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Recently, a FMDV microarray was described to detect simultaneously the seven FMDV serotypes. These results encourage the development of new oligonucleotide microarrays to probe the fine genetic and antigenic composition of FMDV for diagnosis, vaccine design, and to gain insight into the molecular epidemiology of this pathogen. RESULTS: A FMDV microarray was designed and optimized to detect SNPs at a major antigenic site of the virus. A screening of point mutants of the genomic region encoding antigenic site A of FMDV C-S8c1 was achieved. The hybridization pattern of a mutant includes specific positive and negative signals as well as crosshybridization signals, which are of different intensity depending on the thermodynamic stability of each probe-target pair. Moreover, an array bioinformatic classification method was developed to evaluate the hybridization signals. This statistical analysis shows that the procedure allows a very accurate classification per variant genome. CONCLUSION: A specific approach based on a microarray platform aimed at distinguishing point mutants within an important determinant of antigenicity and host cell tropism, namely the G-H loop of capsid protein VP1, was developed. The procedure is of general applicability as a test for specificity and discriminatory power of microarray-based diagnostic procedures using multiple oligonucleotide probes