1,529 research outputs found
Capacidades prospectivas y de defensa en la lucha contra el Ciberterrorismo
The cyberattacks and cybercrime (attacks with economic motivation or against national interests) are real every day in Spain and in entire the world. This cyberattack can be a part of cyberterrorism case. The cyberterrorism is the union of terrorism and cyberspace (or technology) to generate fear in the people with an ideological goal. First, we analyze the cyberterrorism threat, and, second, we ask is the preventive capacities (prospective and defense) of the States, with the analysis of Spain capabilities, would be prepared fight against fenomena. We have been verified the different capacities existing in Spain and we have presented their degree of coordination and collaboration. Finaly, conclusions and future implications are discused.Es indudable que los ciberataques y el cibercrimen (disrupciones con motivación económica o de intereses nacionales extranjeros) son una realidad diaria patente y en auge también en España y en el mundo. Dentro de los ciberataques se pueden encontrar casos referidos a ciberterrorismo, es decir, la unión del terrorismo y el ciberespacio (o la tecnología), con la finalidad de generar miedo o intimidar a una sociedad dirigiéndola hacia una meta ideológica. Tras el análisis de la amenaza, la pregunta que nos hacemos es si las capacidades preventivas (prospectivas y de defensa) de los Estados, tras el análisis concreto de España, estarían preparadas para hacer frente a una amenaza de estas características. Aquí hemos podido comprobar las diferentes capacidades existentes en España y conocer su grado de coordinación y colaboración para llegar a una serie de conclusiones sobre su idoneidad en la lucha de este fenómeno en plena expansión
Association between sleep-disordered breathing and breast cancer aggressiveness
Background
Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) has been associated with cancer aggressiveness, but studies focused on specific tumors are lacking. In this pilot study we investigated whether SDB is associated with breast cancer (BC) aggressiveness.
Methods
83 consecutive women <65 years diagnosed with primary BC underwent a home respiratory polygraphy. Markers of SDB severity included the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) and the 4% oxygen desaturation index (ODI4). The Ki67 proliferation index, lack of hormone receptors (HR-), Nottingham Histological Grade (NHG), and tumor stage were used as markers of BC aggressiveness. The association between SDB and molecular subtypes of BC was also assessed.
Results
The mean (SD) age was 48.8 (8.8) years and body mass index was 27.4 (5.4) Kg/m2. 42 women (50.6%) were post-menopausal. The median (IQR) AHI was 5.1 (2–9.4), and ODI4 was 1.5 (0.5–5.8). The median (IQR) AHI did not differ between the groups with Ki67>28% and Ki6728% and Ki67<29% (51.2% vs 52.3%, p = 0.90), HR- and HR+ (58.3% vs 49.1%, p = 0.47), NHG categories (p = 0.89), different tumor stages (p = 0.71), or molecular subtypes (p = 0.73). These results did not change when the ODI4 was used instead of the AHI.
Conclusion
Our results do not support an association between the presence or severity of SDB and BC aggressiveness.Asociación de Neumología y Cirugía Torácica del Sur (NEUMOSUR) 1/201
Fricke and polymer gel 2D dosimetry validation using Monte Carlo simulation
Complexity in modern radiotherapy treatments demands advanced dosimetry systems for quality control. These systems must have several characteristics, such as high spatial resolution, tissue equivalence, three-dimensional resolution, and dose-integrating capabilities. In this scenario, gel dosimetry has proved to be a very promising option for quality assurance. In this study, the feasibility of Fricke and polymer gel dosimeters suitably shaped in form of thin layers and optically analyzed by visible light transmission imaging has been investigated for quality assurance in external radiotherapy. Dosimeter irradiation was carried out with a 6-MV photon beam (CLINAC 600C). The analysis of the irradiated dosimeters was done using two-dimensional optical transmission images. These dosimeters were compared with a treatment plan system using Monte Carlo simulations as a reference by means of a gamma test with parameters of 1 mm and 2%. Results show very good agreement between the different dosimetric systems: in the worst-case scenario, 98% of the analyzed points meet the test quality requirements. Therefore, gel dosimetry may be considered as a potential tool for the validation of other dosimetric systems.Fil: Vedelago, José Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Chacón Obando, D.. Universidad Nacional. Physics Department; Costa Rica. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Malano, Francisco Mauricio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Conejeros, R.. Servicio de Radioterapia, Icos. Temuco, Chile;Fil: Figueroa, R.. Universidad de la Frontera; ChileFil: Garcia, D.. Servicio de Imagenes por Resonancia Magnética; ChileFil: González, G.. Servicio de Imagenes por Resonancia Magnética; ChileFil: Romero, Marcelo Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Santibañez, M.. Servicio de Imagenes por Resonancia Magnética; ChileFil: Strumia, Miriam Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Velásquez, J.. Servicio de Radioterapia; ChileFil: Mattea, Facundo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Departamento de Química Orgánica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Valente, M.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola; Argentina. Universidad de La Frontera. Departamento de Ciencias Físicas; Chil
Life-long spontaneous exercise does not prolong lifespan but improves health span in mice
BackgroundLife expectancy at birth in the first world has increased from 35 years at the beginning of the 20th century to more than 80 years now. The increase in life expectancy has resulted in an increase in age-related diseases and larger numbers of frail and dependent people. The aim of our study was to determine whether life-long spontaneous aerobic exercise affects lifespan and healthspan in mice.ResultsMale C57Bl/6J mice, individually caged, were randomly assigned to one of two groups: sedentary (n = 72) or spontaneous wheel-runners (n = 72). We evaluated longevity and several health parameters including grip strength, motor coordination, exercise capacity (VO2max) and skeletal muscle mitochondrial biogenesis. We also measured the cortical levels of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a neurotrophin associated with brain plasticity. In addition, we measured systemic oxidative stress (malondialdehyde and protein carbonyl plasma levels) and the expression and activity of two genes involved in antioxidant defense in the liver (that is, glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD)). Genes that encode antioxidant enzymes are considered longevity genes because their over-expression may modulate lifespan. Aging was associated with an increase in oxidative stress biomarkers and in the activity of the antioxidant enzymes, GPx and Mn-SOD, in the liver in mice. Life-long spontaneous exercise did not prolong longevity but prevented several signs of frailty (that is, decrease in strength, endurance and motor coordination). This improvement was accompanied by a significant increase in the mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle and in the cortical BDNF levels.ConclusionLife-long spontaneous exercise does not prolong lifespan but improves healthspan in mice. Exercise is an intervention that delays age-associated frailty, enhances function and can be translated into the clinic
Injecting domain knowledge in multi-objective optimization problems: A semantic approach
In the field of complex problem optimization with me-taheuristics, semantics has been used for modeling different aspects, such as: problem characterization, parameters, decision-maker's preferences, or algorithms. However, there is a lack of approaches where ontologies are ap-plied in a direct way into the optimization process, with the aim of enhancing it by allowing the systematic incorporation of additional domain knowledge. This is due to the high level of abstraction of ontologies, which makes them difficult to be mapped into the code implementing the problems and/or the specific operators of metaheuristics. In this paper, we present a strategy to inject domain knowledge (by reusing existing ontologies or creating a new one) into a problem implementation that will be optimized using a metaheu-ristic. Thus, this approach based on accepted ontologies enables building and exploiting complex computing systems in optimization problems. We describe a methodology to automatically induce user choices (taken from the ontology) into the problem implementations provided by the jMetal op-timization framework. With the aim of illustrating our proposal, we focus on the urban domain. Concretely, We start from defining an ontology repre-senting the domain semantics for a city (e.g., building, bridges, point of inte-rest, routes, etc.) that allows defining a-priori preferences by a decision ma-ker in a standard, reusable, and formal (logic-based) way. We validate our proposal with several instances of two use cases, consisting in bi-objective formulations of the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and the Radio Net-work Design problem (RND), both in the context of an urban scenario. The results of the experiments conducted show how the semantic specification of domain constraints are effectively mapped into feasible solutions of the tackled TSP and RND scenarios. TUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech
Apoptosis and apoptotic pathway in actinic prurigo by immunohistochemistry
Background: Actinic prurigo (AP) is an idiopathic photodermatosis, this entity requires exposure to UV-B and
-A to develop lesions. Apoptosis is a physiological death program that can be initiated by a permanently active
mechanism (extrinsic pathway) or irreparable damage (intrinsic pathway).
Material and methods: Descriptive study, the sample size comprised 64 paraffin blocks of tissue with a diagnosis
of AP. In H&E-stained slides, the diagnosis of AP was corroborated, and 1-µm-thick sections were processed for
immunohistochemistry (IHC). A database was constructed with SPSS version 20, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA, and
descriptive statistics were analyzed by X2 test and comparison of means.
Results: A total of 64 cases were processed, of which 40 (62.5%) were cheilitis AP and 24 (37.5%) were AP in
the skin. Of the 40 cheilitis samples, 27 were positive for Bcl-2 and caspase 3 (67.5%), p53 was expressed in 30
(75%). Of the skin lesions, p53 and caspase 3 were expressed in 18 of 24 cases (75%), and 13 were positive for
Bcl-2 (54%).
Conclusions: We propose that apoptosis is the last step in the type IV subtype a-b hypersensitivity responseactivation
of the intrinsic pathway indicates that external factors, such as UV-A and -B are the trigger
Evaluation and assessment of professional skills in the Final Year Project
In this paper, we present a methodology for Final Year Project (FYP) monitoring and assessment that considers the inclusion of the professional skills required in the particular engineering degree. This proper monitoring and clear evaluation framework provides the student with valuable support for the project implementation as well as for improving the quality of the projects, thereby reducing the academic drop-out rate. The proposed methodology has been implemented at the Barcelona School of Informatics at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech. The FYP is structured around three milestones: project definition, project monitoring and project completion.
Skills are assigned to each milestone according to the tasks required in that phase, and a list of indicators is defined for each phase. The evaluation criteria for each indicator at each phase are specified in a rubric, and are made public both to students and teachers. Thus, the FYP includes an exhaustive evaluation method distributed throughout the whole project implementation, thereby facilitating project organization for the student as well as providing a clear and homogeneous assessment framework. The methodology for the FYP organization, assessment and evaluation was launched and piloted over two semesters. We believe the experience to be general in the sense that it has been conducted as part of an ICT engineering degree, but may easily be extended to any other engineering degree.Postprint (author’s final draft
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Rhodamine 6G and 800 intermolecular heteroaggregates embedded in PMMA for near-infrared wavelength shifting
The opto-electronic properties of small-molecules and functional dyes usually differ when incorporated into solid matrices with respect to their isolated form due to an aggregation phenomenon that alters their optical and fluorescent properties. These spectroscopic modifications are studied in the framework of the exciton theory of aggregates, which has been extensively applied in the literature for the study of molecular aggregates of the same type of molecules (homoaggregation). Despite the demonstrated potential of the control of the heteroaggregation process (aggregation of different types of molecules), most of the reported works are devoted to intramolecular aggregates, complex molecules formed by several chromophores attached by organic linkers. The intramolecular aggregates are specifically designed to hold a certain molecular structure that, on the basis of the exciton theory, modifies their optical and fluorescent properties with respect to the isolated chromophores that form the molecule. The present article describes in detail the incorporation of Rhodamine 6G (Rh6G) and 800 (Rh800) into polymeric matrices of poly-(methyl methacrylate), PMMA. The simultaneous incorporation of both dyes results in an enhanced fluorescent emission in the near-infrared (NIR), originating from the formation of ground-state Rh6G–Rh800 intermolecular heteroaggregates. The systematic control of the concentration of both rhodamines provides a model system for the elucidation of the heteroaggregate formation. The efficient energy transfer between Rh6G and Rh800 molecules can be used as wavelength shifters to convert effectively the light from visible to NIR, a very convenient wavelength range for many practical applications which make use of inexpensive commercial detectors and systems
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