ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF CO-EXISTENCE MEASURES IN MAIZE CROP AND SEED PRODUCTION - A CASE STUDY OF FRANCE

Paper prepared for presentation at the Second International Conference on Coexistence between Genetically Modified (GM) and non-GM based Agricultural Supply Chains (GMCC) Montpellier (France), 14th and 15th November 2005Genetic engineering, GMO, Maize, Co-existence, Agricultural and Food Policy, L51, O32,

BCI-Based Navigation in Virtual and Real Environments

A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a system that enables people to control an external device with their brain activity, without the need of any muscular activity. Researchers in the BCI field aim to develop applications to improve the quality of life of severely disabled patients, for whom a BCI can be a useful channel for interaction with their environment. Some of these systems are intended to control a mobile device (e. g. a wheelchair). Virtual Reality is a powerful tool that can provide the subjects with an opportunity to train and to test different applications in a safe environment. This technical review will focus on systems aimed at navigation, both in virtual and real environments.This work was partially supported by the Innovation, Science and Enterprise Council of the Junta de Andalucía (Spain), project P07-TIC-03310, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, project TEC 2011-26395 and by the European fund ERDF

Propuesta de BCI basado en RSVP con número reducido de estímulos usando el modo de escritura T9

Se propone un sistema de comunicación para personas con severas deficiencias motoras, como pacientes afectados de esclerosis lateral amiotrófica, usando una interfaz cerebro computadora. El sistema se basa en el paradigma Rapid Serial Visual Presentation que tiene la ventaja de no requerir control oculomotor. Para reducir el tiempo de escritura, hace uso de solo 12 estímulos, es decir, aproximadamente la mitad de los estímulos que usan sistemas para escritura con interfaces cerebro-computadora tradicionales. De forma similar a los sistemas de escritura con teclados predictivos T9, cada estímulo se asoció con varios caracteres por lo que el sistema es soportado por un programa de análisis de palabras para componer la palabra final deseada de entre las posibles alternativas en función de los estímulos seleccionados. El sistema propuesto se ha comparado con un sistema de escritura tradicional de 30 estímulos usando el mismo paradigma de presentación de estímulos. Los resultados obtenidos, aunque con pruebas realizadas sobre un solo usuario sano y, por tanto, muy preliminar, han permitido comprobar la viabilidad del sistema, verificándose que, efectivamente, esa reducción del número de estímulos mejora las prestaciones del sistema de escritura llegándose a doblar su velocidad. Como contrapartida, el sistema propuesto requiere un entrenamiento para su uso al tener que agrupar diferentes caracteres con cada estímulo presentado, pero la propuesta de agrupación realizada permite pensar que el tiempo de aprendizaje será reducido.Este trabajo ha sido financiado conjuntamente por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) a través del proyecto SICODIS, referencia: PID2021-127261OB- I00 y por la Universidad de Málaga

Evaluación de una interfaz cerebro-ordenador basada en potenciales relacionados con eventos para la detección de estímulos visuales en una tarea de vigilancia

Las interfaces cerebro-ordenador (BCI) permiten establecer un canal de comunicación entre un usuario y un dispositivo a través de su actividad cerebral. El presente trabajo explora el uso de una BCI basada en potenciales relacionados con eventos (ERP) para la detección automática de nuevos estímulos durante una tarea de vigilancia. La tarea de vigilancia consistió en detectar la presencia de nuevos aviones en un mapa. Asimismo, se estudio el impacto de las siguientes variables sobre el rendimiento: el tamaño de la superficie a vigilar, y la saliencia de la aparición de nuevos aviones manipulada a través del color. Para ello, 10 participantes controlaron tres condiciones: aparición de un avión rojo, diferente a los amarillos ya presentes, en un área pequeña a vigilar (RP); aparición de un avión amarillo, similar a los ya presentes, en un área pequeña a vigilar (AP); y aparición de un avión rojo, diferente a los amarillos ya presentes, en un área grande a vigilar (RG). La accuracy promedio de cada condición fue la siguiente: RP, 64.5%; AP, 67.5%; RG, 41%. Los resultados mostraron que el tamaño de la superficie a vigilar tenia un impacto negativo en el rendimiento del sistema, pero no la saliencia manipulada a través del color. Por tanto, futuros estudios podrían explorar cómo solucionar el problema del área a vigilar, o estudiar qué otras variables medien en el rendimiento de una BCI para la detección de estímulos en tareas de vigilancia.Esta investigación forma parte del proyecto SICODIS (PID2021-127261OB-I00), que ha sido financiado conjuntamente por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MCIU); la Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI); el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) y la Universidad de Málaga (UMA). Asimismo, los autores quieren agradecer la colaboración de todos los participantes durante las pruebas

Training in realistic virtual environments: Impact on user performance in a motor imagery-based Brain-Computer-Interface

A brain–computer interface (BCI) is a system that enables people to control an external device by means of their brain activity, without the need of performing muscular activity. BCI systems are normally first tested on a controlled environment before being used in a real, daily scenario. While this is due to security reasons, the conditions that BCI systems users will eventually face in their usual environment may affect their performance in an unforeseen way. In this paper, we try to bridge this gap by presenting a trained BCI user a virtual environment that includes realistic distracting stimuli and testing whether the complexity or the type of such stimuli affects user performance. 11 subjects navigated two virtual environments: a static park and the same one with visual and auditory stimuli simulating typical distractors from a real park. No significant differences were found when using a realistic environment; in other words, the presence of different distracting stimuli did not worsen user performance.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Application of DEXiPM as a tool to co-design pome fruit systems towards sustainability

The design of fruit production systems considering the latest innovations is a real challenge. Before being tested in an experimental station or in real farm conditions, the global sustainability of these newly designed orchards needs to be evaluated. Based on the DEXiPM® model, the DEXiPM-pomefruit tool has been designed to make an ex ante assessment of the sustainability of innovative orchard systems. This model is based on a decision tree breaking the decisional problems of sustainability assessment into simpler units, referring to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Based on two case studies, we present here the steps and thought process of our group to improve fruit production systems towards innovative and integrated production systems. DEXiPM-pomefruit tool has been tested on apple and pear production systems in the frame of a working group of European researchers. It proved to be sufficiently reliable to select the most promising innovations in a given context. DEXiPM-pomefruit was also used as a dashboard to determine strengths and weaknesses of the tested production systems and therefore to identify improvements

Gene expression profile of peripheral blood lymphocytes from renal cell carcinoma patients treated with IL-2, Interferon-α and dendritic cell vaccine

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 7 (2012): e50221, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050221.Lymphocytes are a key component of the immune system and their differentiation and function are directly influenced by cancer. We examined peripheral blood lymphocyte (PBL) gene expression as a biomarker of illness and treatment effect using the Affymetrix Human Gene ST1 platform in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) who received combined treatment with IL-2, interferon-?-2a and dendritic cell vaccine. We examined gene expression, cytokine levels in patient serum and lymphocyte subsets as determined by flow cytometry (FCM). Pre-treatment PBLs from patients with mRCC exhibit a gene expression profile and serum cytokine profile consistent with inflammation and proliferation not found in healthy donors (HD). PBL gene expression from patients with mRCC showed increased mRNA of genes involved with T-cell and TREG-cell activation pathways, which was also reflected in lymphocyte subset distribution. Overall, PBL gene expression post-treatment (POST) was not significantly different than pre-treatment (PRE). Nevertheless, treatment related changes in gene expression (post-treatment minus pre-treatment) revealed an increased expression of T-cell and B-cell receptor signaling pathways in responding (R) patients compared to non-responding (NR) patients. In addition, we observed down-regulation of TREG-cell pathways post-treatment in R vs. NR patients. While exploratory in nature, this study supports the hypothesis that enhanced inflammatory cytotoxic pathways coupled with blunting of the regulatory pathways is necessary for effective anti-cancer activity associated with immune therapy. This type of analysis can potentially identify additional immune therapeutic targets in patients with mRCC.This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (RO1 CA5648, R21CA112761, P20RR016437, and P30CA023108)

AusTraits, a curated plant trait database for the Australian flora

We introduce the AusTraits database - a compilation of values of plant traits for taxa in the Australian flora (hereafter AusTraits). AusTraits synthesises data on 448 traits across 28,640 taxa from field campaigns, published literature, taxonomic monographs, and individual taxon descriptions. Traits vary in scope from physiological measures of performance (e.g. photosynthetic gas exchange, water-use efficiency) to morphological attributes (e.g. leaf area, seed mass, plant height) which link to aspects of ecological variation. AusTraits contains curated and harmonised individual- and species-level measurements coupled to, where available, contextual information on site properties and experimental conditions. This article provides information on version 3.0.2 of AusTraits which contains data for 997,808 trait-by-taxon combinations. We envision AusTraits as an ongoing collaborative initiative for easily archiving and sharing trait data, which also provides a template for other national or regional initiatives globally to fill persistent gaps in trait knowledge