Phenological and molecular studies on the introduced seaweed Dictyota cyanoloma (Dictyotales, Phaeophyceae) along the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula

Dictyota cyanoloma, a distinctive brown algal species characterized by a blue-iridescent margin, was recently reported as an introduced species in the Mediterranean Sea but little is known about its distribution dynamics, morphological plasticity and genetic structure. In this integrative study, we evaluate its past and present occurrence along the Mediterranean Iberian coast, assess the species' phenology in Palamos (Girona, Spain) and analyze the haplotype diversity by sequencing 49 individuals from nine sampling sites for different chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA regions. Although D. cyanoloma currently occurs along all the Mediterranean Iberian coasts (in 19 of 36 localities sampled, mostly in marinas and harbour environments), we were not able to find any herbarium material of this species (at BCN-Phyc and MA) predating the year 1987. In Palamos, D. cyanoloma is present all through the year, with a maximum development in winter and a minimum in summer. Fertile specimens are absent during summer (July and August). Sporophytes are dominant from January to June and gametophytes were found only in February, March and June. Information about the antheridia, which has never been described before, is provided. Two chloroplast and three mitochondrial haplotypes were observed, indicating that multiple introductions of D. cyanoloma occurred in the study area. Additionally, the genetic structure suggests that spread did not occur through simple advancing wave fronts but by several longdistance dispersal events. Further studies employing microsatellite markers could potentially offer a better resolution to unravel expansion and colonisation dynamics of D. cyanoloma in the Mediterranean Sea

Directed differentiation of human pluripotent stem sells for the generation of high-order kidney organoids

Our understanding in the inherent properties of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have made possible the development of differentiation procedures to generate three-dimensional tissue-like cultures, so-called organoids. Here we detail a stepwise methodology to generate kidney organoids from hPSCs. This is achieved through direct differentiation of hPSCs in two-dimensional monolayer culture toward the posterior primitive streak fate, followed by induction of intermediate mesoderm-committed cells, which are further aggregated and cultured in three-dimensions to generate kidney organoids containing segmented nephron-like structures in a process that lasts 20 days. We also provide a concise description on how to assess renal commitment during the time course of kidney organoid generation. This includes the use of flow cytometry and immunocytochemistry analyses for the detection of specific renal differentiation markers

Classification of high dimensional and imbalanced hyperspectral imagery data

The present paper addresses the problem of the classification of hyperspectral images with multiple imbalanced classes and very high dimensionality. Class imbalance is handled by resampling the data set, whereas PCA is applied to reduce the number of spectral bands. This is a preliminary study that pursues to investigate the benefits of using together these two techniques, and also to evaluate the application order that leads to the best classification performance. Experimental results demonstrate the significance of combining these preprocessing tools to improve the performance of hyperspectral imagery classification. Although it seems that the most effective order of application corresponds to first a resampling algorithm and then PCA, this is a question that still needs a much more thorough investigationPartially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under grants CSD2007–00018, AYA2008–05965–0596–C04–04/ESP and TIN2009–14205–C04–04, and by Fundació Caixa Castelló–Bancaixa under grant P1–1B2009–0

Engineering physiological environments to advance kidney organoid models from human pluripotent stem cells

During embryogenesis, the mammalian kidney arises because of reciprocal interactions between the ureteric bud (UB) and the metanephric mesenchyme (MM), driving UB branching and nephron induction. These morphogenetic processes involve a series of cellular rearrangements that are tightly controlled by gene regulatory networks and signaling cascades. Here, we discuss how kidney developmental studies have informed the definition of procedures to obtain kidney organoids from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Moreover, bioengineering techniques have emerged as potential solutions to externally impose controlled microenvironments for organoid generation from hPSCs. Next, we summarize some of these advances with major focus On recent works merging hPSC-derived kidney organoids (hPSC-kidney organoids) with organ-on-chip to develop robust models for drug discovery and disease modeling applications. We foresee that, in the near future, coupling of different organoid models through bioengineering approaches will help advancing to recreate organ-to-organ crosstalk to increase our understanding on kidney disease progression in the human context and search for new therapeutics

Surrounding neighborhood-based SMOTE for learning from imbalanced data sets

Many traditional approaches to pattern classifi- cation assume that the problem classes share similar prior probabilities. However, in many real-life applications, this assumption is grossly violated. Often, the ratios of prior probabilities between classes are extremely skewed. This situation is known as the class imbalance problem. One of the strategies to tackle this problem consists of balancing the classes by resampling the original data set. The SMOTE algorithm is probably the most popular technique to increase the size of the minority class by generating synthetic instances. From the idea of the original SMOTE, we here propose the use of three approaches to surrounding neighborhood with the aim of generating artificial minority instances, but taking into account both the proximity and the spatial distribution of the examples. Experiments over a large collection of databases and using three different classifiers demonstrate that the new surrounding neighborhood-based SMOTE procedures significantly outperform other existing over-sampling algorithms

Data Reduction Method for Categorical Data Clustering

Categorical data clustering constitutes an important part of data mining; its relevance has recently drawn attention from several researchers. As a step in data mining, however, clustering encounters the problem of large amount of data to be processed. This article offers a solution for categorical clustering algorithms when working with high volumes of data by means of a method that summarizes the database. This is done using a structure called CM-tree. In order to test our method, the KModes and Click clustering algorithms were used with several databases. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed summarization method improves execution time, without losing clustering quality

Valoració dels estudiants de l’assignatura pràcticum del grau en infermeria en les unitats de salut maternal i salut sexual i reproductiva

Estudi vinculat al projecte: ACOPI-UB - Aprenentatge de Competències Professionals en Infermeria. GINDOC-UB/145[cat] Introducció. Estudi sobre la valoració dels estudiants que han cursat l'assignatura Pràcticum i realitzat la formació clínica, en les unitats de salut maternal i salut sexual i reproductiva en els centres assistencials de Barcelona ciutat. Objectiu. Identificar el grau de satisfacció dels estudiants en relació a l'assignatura pràcticum del Grau en Infermeria. Mètode. Disseny. Estudi descriptiu i transversal. Subjectes i emplaçament. N=170 estudiants de pràcticum de l'Escola d'Infermeria de la UB, de quatre cursos acadèmics. Unitats d'hospitalització de ginecologia, obstetrícia, urgències, cures obstètriques intensives de l'HCB i seu Maternitat, i atenció a la salut sexual i reproductiva (ASSIR) d'atenció primària de Barcelona ciutat. Recollida de dades. Qüestionari que recollia entre altres variables: grau d'assoliment dels objectius, grau de satisfacció activitats d'aprenentatge programades i la unitat de pràctiques. Els ítems s’avaluaven mitjançant una escala tipus Lickert (1-10). Anàlisi estadística programa PASW.22. Resultats. Es van obtenir 87 enquestes (51,2%). Principals resultats: grau d'assoliment dels objectius (mitjana) de 8,70 ± 0,94 (6-10), grau de satisfacció dels seminaris (mitjana) 8,05 ± 1,65 (1-10), grau de satisfacció del diari reflexiu (mitjana) 7,43 ± 1,65 (1-10), grau de satisfacció del procés de cures (mitjana) 7,15 ± 1,75 (1-10) i la unitat de pràctiques és adequada per a la consecució dels objectius (mitjana) 8,46 ± 1,33 (5-10). Conclusió. A partir dels resultats plantegem revisar les activitats programades per millorar el procés d'aprenentatge en les pràctiques clíniques.[spa] Introducción. Estudio sobre la valoración de los estudiantes que han cursado la asignatura Prácticum y realizado la formación clínica, en las unidades de salud maternal y salud sexual y reproductiva en los centros asistenciales de Barcelona ciudad. Objetivo. Identificar el grado de satisfacción de los estudiantes en relación a la asignatura Prácticum del Grado en Enfermería. Método. Diseño. Estudio descriptivo y transversal. Sujetos y emplazamiento. N = 170 estudiantes de prácticum de la Escuela de Enfermería de la UB, de cuatro cursos académicos. Unidades de hospitalización de ginecología, obstetricia, urgencias, cuidados obstétricos intensivos del HCB y sede Maternidad, y atención a la salud sexual y reproductiva (ASSIR) de atención primaria de Barcelona ciudad. Recogida de datos. Cuestionario que recogía entre otras variables: grado de consecución de los objetivos, grado de satisfacción de las actividades de aprendizaje programadas y la unidad de prácticas. Los ítems se evaluaban mediante una escala tipo Likert (1-10). Análisis estadístico programa PASW.22. Resultados. Se obtuvieron 87 encuestas (51,2%). Principales resultados: grado de consecución de los objetivos (media) de 8,70 ± 0,94 (6-10), grado de satisfacción de los seminarios (media) 8,05 ± 1,65 (1-10), grado de satisfacción del diario reflexivo (media) 7,43 ± 1,65 (1-10), grado de satisfacción del proceso de cuidados (media) 7,15 ± 1,75 (1-10) y la unidad de prácticas es adecuada para la consecución de los objetivos (media) 8,46 ± 1,33 (5-10). Conclusión. A partir de los resultados planteamos revisar las actividades programadas para mejorar el proceso de aprendizaje en las prácticas clínicas.Programa de Millora i Innovació Docent (PMID). Universitat de Barcelona

Mediterranean species of Caulerpa are polyploid with smaller genomes in the invasive ones

Caulerpa species are marine green algae, which often act as invasive species with rapid clonal proliferation when growing outside their native biogeographical borders. Despite many publications on the genetics and ecology of Caulerpa species, their life history and ploidy levels are still to be resolved and are the subject of large controversy. While some authors claimed that the thallus found in nature has a haplodiplobiontic life cycle with heteromorphic alternation of generations, other authors claimed a diploid or haploid life cycle with only one generation involved. DAPI-staining with image analysis and microspectrophotometry were used to estimate relative nuclear DNA contents in three species of Caulerpa from the Mediterranean, at individual, population and species levels. Results show that ploidy levels and genome size vary in these three Caulerpa species, with a reduction in genome size for the invasive ones. Caulerpa species in the Mediterranean are polyploids in different life history phases; all sampled C. taxifolia and C. racemosa var. cylindracea were in haplophasic phase, but in C. prolifera, the native species, individuals were found in both diplophasic and haplophasic phases. Different levels of endopolyploidy were found in both C. prolifera and C. racemosa var. cylindracea. Life history is elucidated for the Mediterranean C. prolifera and it is hypothesized that haplophasic dominance in C. racemosa var. cylindracea and C. taxifolia is a beneficial trait for their invasive strategies