Maintenance of Microbial Cooperation Mediated by Public Goods in Single- and Multiple-Trait Scenarios

Microbes often form densely populated communities, which favor competitive and cooperative interactions. Cooperation among bacteria often occurs through the production of metabolically costly molecules produced by certain individuals that become available to other neighboring individuals; such molecules are called public goods. This type of cooperation is susceptible to exploitation, since nonproducers of a public good can benefit from it while saving the cost of its production (cheating), gaining a fitness advantage over producers (cooperators). Thus, in mixed cultures, cheaters can increase in frequency in the population, relative to cooperators. Sometimes, and as predicted by simple game-theoretic arguments, such increases in the frequency of cheaters cause loss of the cooperative traits by exhaustion of the public goods, eventually leading to a collapse of the entire population. In other cases, however, both cooperators and cheaters remain in coexistence. This raises the question of how cooperation is maintained in microbial populations. Several strategies to prevent cheating have been studied in the context of a single trait and a unique environmental constraint. In this review, we describe current knowledge on the evolutionary stability of microbial cooperation and discuss recent discoveries describing the mechanisms operating in multiple-trait and multiple-constraint settings. We conclude with a consideration of the consequences of these complex interactions, and we briefly discuss the potential role of social interactions involving multiple traits and multiple environmental constraints in the evolution of specialization and division of labor in microbes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Plasmid Interactions Can Improve Plasmid Persistence in Bacterial Populations

It is difficult to understand plasmid maintenance in the absence of selection and theoretical models predict the conditions for plasmid persistence to be limited. Plasmid-associated fitness costs decrease bacterial competitivity, while imperfect partition allows the emergence of plasmid-free cells during cell division. Although plasmid conjugative transfer allows mobility into plasmid-free cells, the rate of such events is generally not high enough to ensure plasmid persistence. Experimental data suggest several factors that may expand the conditions favorable for plasmid maintenance, such as compensatory mutations and accessory genes that allow positive selection. Most of the previous studies focus on bacteria that carry a single plasmid. However, there is increasing evidence that multiple plasmids inhabit the same bacterial population and that interactions between them affect their transmission and persistence. Here, we adapt previous mathematical models to include multiple plasmids and perform computer simulations to study how interactions among them affect plasmid maintenance. We tested the contribution of different plasmid interaction parameters that impact three biological features: host fitness, conjugative transfer and plasmid loss - which affect plasmid persistence. The interaction affecting conjugation was studied in the contexts of intracellular and intercellular interactions, i.e., the plasmids interact when present in the same cell or when in different cells, respectively. First, we tested the effect of each type of interaction alone and concluded that only interactions affecting fitness (epistasis) prevented plasmid extinction. Although not allowing plasmid maintenance, intracellular interactions increasing conjugative efficiencies had a more determinant impact in delaying extinction than the remaining parameters. Then, we allowed multiple interactions between plasmids and concluded that, in a few cases, a combined effect of (intracellular) interactions increasing conjugation and fitness lead to plasmid maintenance. Our results show a hierarchy among these interaction parameters. Those affecting fitness favor plasmid persistence more than those affecting conjugative transfer and lastly plasmid loss. These results suggest that interactions between different plasmids can favor their persistence in bacterial communities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Adaptation of the Electric Machines Learning Process to the European Higher, Education Area

In this paper the basic lines of a complete teaching methodology that has been developed to adaptthe electric machines learning process to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) arepresented. New teaching materials that are specific to Electric Machines have been created(textbooks, self-learning e-books, guidelines for achieving teamwork research, etc.). Working ingroups has been promoted, as well as problem solving and self-learning exercises, all of which areevaluated in a way that encourages students' participation. Finally, the students' learning process inthe lab has been improved by the development both of a new methodology to follow in the lab andnew workbenches with industrial machines that are easier to use and also enable the labexperiments to be automated. Finally, the first results obtained as a result of applying the proposedmethodology are presented

Una experiencia de trabajo en grupo de mujeres para la mejora de las habilidades de afrontamiento, en un Equipo de Salud Mental de Distrito

Evaluación como caso clínico de una experiencia de grupo de habilidades de afrontamiento, centrada en las estrategias de afrontamiento y reestructuración cognitiva a problemas cotidianos y de relación desarrollado en un Equipo de Salud Mental de Distrito. Ésta es realizada con una porción de la demanda femenina, con diagnósticos del ámbito de la ansiedad y depresión, que presenta pobre red social, aislamiento y conflictos en su relación de pareja.This paper is about the assesment of our experience in coping skill trainning group. It´s being made in the frame of a Community Mental Health Service. This experience is about women with anxiety and depressive disorders and severe problems of poor social net, isolation, sadness, and troubles in their marriage

Comunicação, participação e cultura na promoção da saúde: O campo da comunicação em saúde em contextos institucionais a partir da perspectiva construtivista (Estudo de caso na cidade de Córdoba, Argentina)

Artículo publicado en la Revista Eletrônica de Comunicação, Informação e Inovação em Saúde, vol. 6 (núm. 4), año 2012. La revista es editada por el Instituto de Comunicação e Informação Científica e Tecnológica em Saúde (Icict) da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz, Brasil).Focalizamos este trabalho no campo investigativo da promoção da saúde, rico em suas possibilidades de indagação a partir da articulação entre o social, o cultural e o comunicacional, e – paradoxalmente – pouco explorado através desse cruzamento tridimensional. Pesquisamos as experiências de promoção da saúde desenvolvidas entre 1998 e 2005 por mulheres promotoras da saúde em um centro de saúde municipal de um bairro de setores sociais vulneráveis da cidade de Córdoba, Argentina. Perguntamo-nos se a mudança das práticas comunicativas e de participação entre: equipe de saúde/população, equipe de saúde/promotoras e promotoras/população facilita ou não o surgimento de práticas transformadoras de promoção da saúde. Nosso objetivo geral foi dar conta de tais práticas – a partir de suas condições históricas de produção – bem como de suas transformações na trajetória dos agentes no campo social. A perspectiva Construtivista-Estruturalista de Bourdieu propiciou o enquadramento teórico geral. Complementamo-la com a Teoria da Estruturação de Giddens e a proposta sociológica cultural de Williams. A conceitualização específica originou-se dos estudos culturais da comunicação, da participação e da saúde.publishedVersio

Reflexiones sobre la lealtad y deslealtad de abogados y procuradores: evolución histórica y su reflejo en el código penal

Programa de Doctorado en Derecho por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Jacobo Dopico Gómez-Aller.- Secretaria: Amparo Martínez Guerra.- Vocal: Emilio Daniel Cortés Bechiarell

Conflicto y territorialidad: situación del pueblo tz’utujil de Santa María Visitación, Sololá, Guatemala.

El presente trabajo, pretende hacer y ofrecer una reflexión sobre la comprensión del conflicto territorial del pueblo tz’utujil de Santa María Visitación. Una manera de gestar procesos de conocimiento de la historia local tomando en cuenta variados sucesos ocurridos en la perspectiva territorial comunal. De aquí el título Conflicto y territorialidad: situación del pueblo tz’utujil de Santa María Visitación, Sololá, Guatemala. Para ello se analiza el contenido del “Título de tierras” del pueblo la Visitación de 1739, desde una base hermenéutica documental, para un mejor acercamiento y comprensión de la situación territorial; un documento que hasta el momento no ha sido trabajado en su totalidad. Asimismo, este trabajo incluye un breve estudio sobre las disputas territoriales que abarca más de cuatro siglos entre pueblos vecinos k’iche’s y tz’utujiles. De hecho, se toma en cuenta en esta reflexión la conceptualización sobre territorio y territorialidad desde la visión de los principales y ancianos del pueblo.Departamento de Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales, Sociales y de la MatemáticaDepartamento de Prehistoria, Arqueología, Antropología Social y Ciencias y Técnicas HistoriográficasMáster en Antropología de Iberoaméric

Overlapping Range Images using Genetics Algorithms

El artículo aborda el problema del encaje de diversas imágenes de una misma escena capturadas por escáner 3d para generar un único modelo tridimensional. Para ello se utilizaron algoritmos genéticos. ABSTRACT: This work introduces a solution based on genetic algorithms to find the overlapping area between two point cloud captures obtained from a three-dimensional scanner. Considering three translation coordinates and three rotation angles, the genetic algorithm evaluates the matching points in the overlapping area between the two captures given that transformation. Genetic simulated annealing is used to improve the accuracy of the results obtained by the genetic algorithm