Automatic classification of oranges using image processing and data mining techniques

Data mining is the discovery of patterns and regularities from large amounts of data using machine learning algorithms. This can be applied to object recognition using image processing techniques. In fruits and vegetables production lines, the quality assurance is done by trained people who inspect the fruits while they move in a conveyor belt, and classify them in several categories based on visual features. In this paper we present an automatic orange’s classification system, which uses visual inspection to extract features from images captured with a digital camera. With these features train several data mining algorithms which should classify the fruits in one of the three pre-established categories. The data mining algorithms used are five different decision trees (J48, Classification and Regression Tree (CART), Best First Tree, Logistic Model Tree (LMT) and Random For- est), three artificial neural networks (Multilayer Perceptron with Backpropagation, Radial Basis Function Network (RBF Network), Sequential Minimal Optimization for Support Vector Machine (SMO)) and a classification rule (1Rule). The obtained results are encouraging because of the good accuracy achieved by the clas- sifiers and the low computational costs.Workshop de Agentes y Sistemas Inteligentes (WASI)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Efecto del estradiol y otros compuestos estrogénicos sobre la expresión de genes asociados a la longevidad.

RESUMEN Todos los seres vivos como condición natural tienen un instinto de supervivencia que les obliga a preservar la especie. Ya desde que el hombre es consciente de su evolución ha intentado prolongar su vida e incluso inmortalizarla. Una vez desechado el sueño de la inmortalidad, el hombre se ha centrado en el objetivo de incrementar su supervivencia con mejores condiciones físicas y mentales. Los hábitos saludables, la adecuada nutrición, la higiene, el diagnóstico precoz de enfermedades y el avance en los tratamientos de enfermedades, han logrado en los últimos 100 años, duplicar la expectativa de vida de la especie. De este modo la longevidad o supervivencia de la especie humana ha conseguido una mejora espectacular en la vida media aunque no en la vida máxima, La supervivencia es un parámetro específico de cada especie, en el que claramente existe una implicación genética que explicaría las diferentes tasas de supervivencia entre las especies. La longevidad de las especies viene determinada por su longevidad media y máxima. La longevidad máxima corresponde a la edad del individuo más longevo de la especie y la media corresponde a un dato estadístico en el cual el 50 % de la población sigue aún viva. Existen factores intrínsecos y extrínsecos que pueden afectar a las diferentes longevidades entre individuos. De este modo los factores extrínsecos afectarían principalmente a la vida media, por ejemplo un hábito de vida saludable está correlacionado con una mayor probabilidad de supervivencia. Existen numerosos datos estadísticos que muestran diferencias de longevidades entre países, hecho que se puede atribuir a los diferentes hábitos de vida. Respecto a la vida máxima de las especies, son los factores intrínsecos los que mas implicados están, de modo que el material genético es el que determinaría las diferentes longevidades (figura 5.2). En los estudios de modificaciones genéticas relacionadas con la longevidad, cabe destacar la creación de una mosca transgénica que sobreexpresa dos enzimas antioxidantes, la catalasa y la superóxido dismutasa (Orr and Sohal, 1994). Estas moscas presentan un incremento tanto en la vida media como en la máxima respecto de sus controles, este hecho demuestra en parte la teoría del estrés oxidativo y la longevidad, ya que individuos que presentan una mayor defensa frente al estrés oxidativo son significativamente más longevos. Además a lo largo de estos años se han identificado en Drosophila otros genes que al ser sobreexpresados o silenciados modifican la longevidad de la especie. Esta tesis trata de mostrar como podemos modificar genes que están directamente relacionados con la longevidad, simplemente cambiando nuestros hábitos alimenticios. De este modo, podemos cuidar nuestro envejecimiento comiendo sano hoy para encontrarnos mejor mañana. __________________________________________________________________________________________________Females live longer than males in many mammalian species, including humans. This natural phenomenon can be explained on the basis of the mitochondrial theory of aging. Mitochondria are a major source of free radicals in cells. Mitochondria from female rats generate half the amount of hydrogen peroxide than those of males and have higher levels of mitochondrial reduced glutathione. The latter is due to females behaving as double transgenic in over-expressing antioxidant enzymes. Estrogens bind to the estrogen receptors and subsequently activate the mitogen activated protein (MAP) kinase and nuclear factor kappa B (NFkappaB) signalling pathways, resulting in an up-regulation of antioxidant enzymes. Moreover, the 16S rRNA expression, which decreases significantly with aging, is four times higher in mitochondria from females than in those from males of the same chronological age. On the contrary, the oxidative damage of mitochondrial DNA is fourfold higher in males than in females. Ovariectomy abolishes the gender differences between males and females and estrogen replacement rescues the effect of ovariectomy. The challenge for the future is to find molecules that have the beneficial effects of estradiol, but without its feminizing effects. Phytoestrogens or phytoestrogen-related molecules may be good candidates to meet this challenge

Sistema de RV Google Cardboard para mejorar el nivel de la acrofobia de los pacientes de Psicosalud equilibrio, 2019

La empresa Psicosalud Equilibrio E.I.R.L. viene dedicándose a mejorar el bienestar emocional de sus clientes para que puedan vivir una vida plena y se sientan bien consigo mismos, uno de los desafíos a la hora de realizar los tratamientos de fobias es que los pacientes sientan seguridad y confianza en la sesión de exposición a su temor, proceso también conocido también como exposición en vivo. Es por eso que la presente investigación desarrolló un prototipo de Realidad virtual basado en el visor Google Cardboard con el objetivo de mejorar el nivel de acrofobia de los pacientes de Psicosalud Equilibrio. El proyecto se realizó desde el mes de septiembre hasta diciembre de este año con una población y muestra de 15 pacientes que disponía el consultorio, el método de análisis de datos fue Pre – Experimental con un solo grupo usando la prueba T-Student para muestras de distribución normal, la metodología desarrollo del software fue la metodología ágil Programación Extrema(XP) y en cuanto a las herramientas de desarrollo se usó el motor de videojuegos Unity 5, el kit de desarrollo de Google Cardboard que permite implementar la visión estereoscópica en la pantalla del teléfono inteligente, el cuál es colocado dentro de un visor para ser usado por un paciente permitiéndole fácilmente interactuar con entornos virtuales y enfrentar sus temores. Finalmente, luego de la implementación se concluyó que el prototipo logro mejorar los niveles de acrofobia de los pacientes de Psicosalud Equilibrio de la ciudad de Trujillo obteniendo un decremento del 2.44% en el nivel de ansiedad, un 4.68% en el nivel de evitación y una disminución del pulso cardiaco por minuto de los pacientes a niveles normales durante las pruebas del 2.43%

Protective Effects of Polyphenols Present in Mediterranean Diet on Endothelial Dysfunction

Endothelial dysfunction tends to be the initial indicator in proinflammatory state and macro- and microvascular complications, such as atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases. It has been shown that certain compounds in diet can generate beneficial effects on cardiovascular disease due to its interactions with endothelial cells. Thus, this review is aimed at investigating whether certain polyphenols present in the Mediterranean diet, specifically catechin, quercetin, resveratrol, and urolithin, could exert positive effects on endothelial dysfunction. After analysis of numerous papers, we found that polyphenols aiding endothelial function is beneficial not only for patients with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or endothelial dysfunction but for all people as it can improve the effects of aging on the endothelia. The additional benefit of these polyphenols on weight loss further improves health and lowers the risk of several diseases, including those caused by endothelial dysfunction. However, it is important to note that the dosages in the majorities of the studies mentioned in this review were of supplemental rather than nutritionally relevant quantities, and therefore, the recommended dosages are difficult to determine

Pharmacological properties of polyphenols : Bioavailability, mechanisms of action and biological effects in in vitro studies, animal models and humans

Funding Information: Funding: This work was supported by the following grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III CB16/10/00435 (CIBERFES), (PID2019‐110906RB‐I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) from the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science, PROMETEO/2019/097 de “Consellería, de Sanitat de la Gener‐ alitat Valenciana”, and the EU Funded H2020‐DIABFRAIL‐LATAM (Ref: 825546), European Joint Programming Initiative “A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life” (JPI HDHL), and of the ERA‐NET Co‐ fund ERA‐HDHL (GA No. 696295 of the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program). Part of the equipment employed in this work has been funded by Generalitat Valenciana and co‐financed with ERDF funds (OP ERDF of Comunitat Valenciana 2014–2020). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Drugs are bioactive compounds originally discovered from chemical structures present in both the plant and animal kingdoms. These have the ability to interact with molecules found in our body, blocking them, activating them, or increasing or decreasing their levels. Their actions have allowed us to cure diseases and improve our state of health, which has led us to increase the longevity of our species. Among the molecules with pharmacological activity produced by plants are the polyphenols. These, due to their molecular structure, as drugs, also have the ability to interact with molecules in our body, presenting various pharmacological properties. In addition, these compounds are found in multiple foods in our diet. In this review, we focused on discussing the bioavailability of these compounds when we ingested them through diet and the specific mechanisms of action of polyphenols, focusing on studies carried out in vitro, in animals and in humans over the last five years. Knowing which foods have these pharmacological activities could allow us to prevent and aid as concomitant treatment against various pathologies.Peer reviewe

Automatic classification of oranges using image processing and data mining techniques

Data mining is the discovery of patterns and regularities from large amounts of data using machine learning algorithms. This can be applied to object recognition using image processing techniques. In fruits and vegetables production lines, the quality assurance is done by trained people who inspect the fruits while they move in a conveyor belt, and classify them in several categories based on visual features. In this paper we present an automatic orange’s classification system, which uses visual inspection to extract features from images captured with a digital camera. With these features train several data mining algorithms which should classify the fruits in one of the three pre-established categories. The data mining algorithms used are five different decision trees (J48, Classification and Regression Tree (CART), Best First Tree, Logistic Model Tree (LMT) and Random For- est), three artificial neural networks (Multilayer Perceptron with Backpropagation, Radial Basis Function Network (RBF Network), Sequential Minimal Optimization for Support Vector Machine (SMO)) and a classification rule (1Rule). The obtained results are encouraging because of the good accuracy achieved by the clas- sifiers and the low computational costs.Workshop de Agentes y Sistemas Inteligentes (WASI)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Influence of different types of pulp treatment during isolation in the obtention of human dental pulp stem cells

Background: Different methods have been used in order to isolate dental pulp stem cells. The aim of this study was to study the effect of different types of pulp treatment during isolation, under 3% O 2 conditions, in the time needed and the efficacy for obtaining dental pulp stem cells. Material and Methods: One hundred and twenty dental pulps were used to isolate dental pulp stem cells treating the pulp tissue during isolation using 9 different methods, using digestive, disgregation, or mechanical agents, or combining them. The cells were positive for CD133, Oct4, Nestin, Stro-1, CD34 markers, and negative for the hematopoietic cell marker CD-45, thus confirming the presence of mesenchymal stem cells. The efficacy of dental pulp stem cells obtention and the minimum time needed to obtain such cells comparing the 9 different methods was analyzed. Results: Dental pulp stem cells were obtained from 97 of the 120 pulps used in the study, i.e. 80.8% of the cases. They were obtained with all the methods used except with mechanical fragmentation of the pulp, where no enzymatic digestion was performed. The minimum time needed to isolate dental pulp stem cells was 8 hours, digesting with 2mg/ml EDTA for 10 minutes, 4mg/ml of type I collagenase, 4mg/ml of type II dispase for 40 minutes, 13ng/ ml of thermolysine for 40 minutes and sonicating the culture for one minute. Conclusions: Dental pulp stem cells were obtained in 97 cases from a series of 120 pulps. The time for obtaining dental pulp stem cells was reduced maximally, without compromising the obtention of the cells, by combining digestive, disgregation, and mechanical agent

Application of mesenchymal stem cells in bone regenerative procedures in oral implantology. A literature review

Objective: The aim of this work was to review de literature about the role of mesenchymal stem cells in bone regenerative procedures in oral implantology, specifically, in the time require to promote bone regeneration. Study Desing: A bibliographic search was carried out in PUBMED with a combination of different key words. Animal and human studies that assessed histomorphometrically the influence of mesenchymal stem cells on bone regeneration procedures in oral implantology surgeries were examined. Reults: - Alveolar regeneration: Different controlled histomorphometric animal studies showed that bone regeneration is faster using stem cells seeded in scaffolds than using scaffolds or platelet rich plasma alone. Human studies revealed that stem cells increase bone regeneration. - Maxillary sinus lift: Controlled studies in animals and in humans showed higher bone regeneration applying stem cells compared with controls. - Periimplantary bone regeneration and alveolar distraction: Studies in animals showed higher regeneration when stem cells are used. In humans, no evidence of applying mesenchymal stem cells in these regeneration procedures was found. Conclusion: Stem cells may promote bone regeneration and be useful in bone regenerative procedures in oral implantology, but no firm conclusions can be drawn from the rather limited clinical studies so far performed

Preliminary in vivo characterization of a theranostic aptamer: Sgc8-c- DOTA-67Ga

Nucleic acid aptamers can recognise their target with high affinity and specificity, and their potential as molecular imaging agents and use in theranostics are being explored. Compared with antibodies, aptamers can be easily synthesized and chemically modified, rendering them a valuable tool for in vivo approaches. Herein, we investigated a 41nt DNA aptamer as a theranostic agent for lymphoma and melanoma. This aptamer exhibits specific binding and high affinity for the PTK7 receptor that is overexpressed in many cancer cells. A 5’-amino-derivative of the Sgc8-c aptamer was bound to the metal chelator DOTA (1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane- 1,4,7,10-tetraacetic acid) and labelled with the radionuclide 67Ga, forming the aptamer probe Sgc8- c-DOTA-67Ga. Different conditions during synthesis, purification and identification of the intermediate and final radiolabelled probe, were examined. Aptamer modification and radiolabelling were performed with high yields, resulting in a probe that was stable in neutral buffered solution. Binding to PTK7 was studied in CCRFCEM, A20 and B16F1 cell lines, and in purified PTK7-1 receptor, to confirm specificity. The in vitro cell lines showed different levels of uptake, and the signal increased over time. In vivo binding properties were studied in A20 and B16F10 tumour-bearing mice and images were acquired using X-rays and gamma imaging modalities for both models. Preliminary results in both tumour models showed good aptamer uptake by tumour. Hepatobiliar metabolism was observed with Sgc8-c-DOTA-67Ga and no signal was detected in normal tissue. In summary, these results support the utility of labelled aptamers as theranostic agents in different imaging modalities and theranostic

PTEN Mediates the Antioxidant Effect of Resveratrol at Nutritionally Relevant Concentrations

Introduction. Antioxidant properties of resveratrol have been intensively studied for the last years, both in vivo and in vitro. Its bioavailability after an oral dose is very low and therefore it is very important to make sure that plasma concentrations of free resveratrol are sufficient enough to be active as antioxidant. Aims. In the present study, using nutritionally relevant concentrations of resveratrol, we aim to confirm its antioxidant capacity on reducing peroxide levels and look for the molecular pathway involved in this antioxidant effect. Methods. We used mammary gland tumor cells (MCF-7), which were pretreated with different concentrations of resveratrol for 48 h, and/or a PTEN inhibitor (bpV: bipy). Hydrogen peroxide levels were determined by fluorimetry, PTEN levels and Akt phosphorylation by Western Blotting, and mRNA expression of antioxidant genes by real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results. Resveratrol treatment for 48 h lowered peroxide levels in MCF-7, even at low nutritional concentrations (1 nM). This effect was mediated by the activation of PTEN/Akt pathway, which resulted in an upregulation of catalase and MnSOD mRNA levels. Conclusion. Resveratrol acts as an antioxidant at nutritionally relevant concentrations by inducing the expression of antioxidant enzymes, through a mechanism involving PTEN/Akt signaling pathway