CRECIMIENTO Y CONTENIDO TOTAL DE CAROTENOIDES EN CUATRO CEPAS CHILENAS DE HAEMATOCOCCUS PLUVIALIS FLOTOW, BAJO CONDICIONES DE LABORATORIO

Haematococcus pluvialis is a unicellular green microalga cultivated on a large scale as a natural source of astaxanthin, aketocarotenoid of high commercial value due to its colorant and antioxidant properties. The aim of this study was tocompare growth and total carotenoids among four strains of H. pluvialis isolated from different microhabitats in twogeographical locations in Chile. Growth was carried out under autotrophic and mixotrophic conditions and under twophoton flux densities (PFD) (20 and 85 µmol m-2s -1). Total carotenoid content was estimated on day 45. Most of thestrains grew better under the autotrophic conditions; the highest exponential growth rates were exhibited at the high PFDin all the strains (ranging from 0.73 to 1.20 div day-1) with the exception of CCM-UDEC 023 which showed the sameexponential growth rate with either PFD (0.73 div day-1). However, the cell density estimated on day 14 was higher at thelow PFD in CCM-UDEC 022 and CCM-UDEC 023 (4.4 x 105 and 8.9 x 104 cells ml-1, respectively). The mixotrophiccondition slightly improved the growth rate of the strain CCM-UDEC 021 at the high PFD (from 1.04 div day-1 atautotrophic condition to 1.25 and 1.14 div day-1 at 2mMand 10mM sodium acetate, respectively). The algal dry weightestimated on day 14 was not significantly correlated with the cell density, but it was, to a certain extent, related to theproportion and size of the different cell types quantified on that day. The strain with the highest dry weight at the endof the experimental period and under all the assayed conditions was CCM-UDEC 023. It was also the strain thatproduced the highest total carotenoid content under both autotrophic (5.6 mg l-1 and 95.6 pg cell-1 at the high PFD) andmixotrophic (with 2mM acetate) conditions (10.8 mg l-1 and 297 pg cell-1 at the high PFD). A high intraspecific variabilityin the physiological attributes analyzed existed among the strains under study. Even though the mixotrophic conditionassayed did not substantially improve the growth rate of any strain, it did improve the total carotenoid yield in the strainCCM-UDEC 023.Haematococcus pluvialis es una microalga unicelular verde cultivada masivamente como fuente natural de astaxantina,un cetocarotenoide de alto valor comercial debido a sus propiedades como colorante y antioxidante. El objetivo de esteestudio fue comparar el crecimiento y el contenido de carotenoides totales en 4 cepas de H. pluvialis aisladas dediferentes microhabitats de dos regiones geográficas de Chile. El crecimiento se llevó a cabo en condiciones autotróficasy mixotróficas a dos densidades de flujo fotónico (DFF) (20 y 85 µmol m-2s -1). El contenido de carotenoides totales seestimó el día 45. La mayoría de las cepas crecieron mejor en condiciones autotróficas; las más altas tasas de crecimientoexponencial se presentaron a la mayor DFF en todas las cepas (fluctuó entre 0,73 y 1,20 div día-1) a excepción de lacepa CCM-UDEC 023 la cual mostró la misma tasa de crecimiento exponencial a cualquier DFF (0,73 div día-1). Sinembargo, la densidad celular estimada el día 14 fue mayor a la menor DFF en CCM-UDEC 022 y CCM-UDEC 023(4,4 x 105 y 8,9 x 104 céls ml-1, respectivamente). La condición mixotrófica mejoró levemente la tasa de crecimiento dela cepa CCM-UDEC 021 a la mayor DFF (de 1,04 div día-1 en condición autotrófica a 1,25 y 1,14 div día-1 a 2mM y10mM de acetato de sodio, respectivamente). El peso seco algal estimado el día 14 no mostró correlación significativa con la densidad celular, pero sí, en un cierto sentido, con la proporción y el tamaño de los diferentes tipos celulares a esedía. La cepa que presentó el mayor peso seco al final del periodo experimental y bajo todas las condiciones ensayadas fueCCM-UDEC 023. Esta fue también la cepa que produjo la cantidad de carotenoides totales más alta, tanto en condicionesautotróficas (5,6 mg l-1 y 95,6 pg cél-1 a la mayor DFF) como mixotróficas (con 2mM acetato) (10,8 mg l-1 y 297 pg cél-1 a lamayor DFF). Las cepas en estudio presentaron una alta variabilidad intraespecífica en los atributos fisiológicos analizados.Aún cuando las condiciones mixotróficas ensayadas no aumentaron sustancialmente las tasas de crecimiento de alguna de lascepas (CCM-UDEC 020, CCM-UDEC 022), esta condición sí mejoró la producción de carotenoides totales en la cepaCCM-UDEC 023

Desarrollo de formulado para teñido orgánico con añil

Una investigación ha sido conducida para el desarrollo de un formulado orgánico en el teñido con añil de telas de fibras naturales, el cual sea amigable al medio ambiente, y con cero impacto en la salud de los y las teñidoras. La investigación acá reportada encontró que es posible teñir telas de fibras 100% de algodón con un proceso enteramente orgánico, en donde los componentes del formulado son productos naturales que no causan ningún impacto negativo al medio ambiente, como se detalla a continuación: Afrecho de trigo y melaza como agentes reductores y cal hidratada como agente de control de la alcalinidad. Como se puede observar a continuación, se establecieron los parámetros ideales en la concentración de cada uno de los componentes: tamaño mínimo del baño, orden de mezcla de los componentes, protocolos de los procesos de fermentación y de teñido. Los resultados de teñido demostraron que con el formulado orgánico establecido se pueden teñir telas de 100% algodón con buena solidez al lavado y al frote, con muy poco sangrado posterior de las telas por excedentes de colorante añil

Con Respeto: A Conceptual Model for Building Healthy Community-University Partnerships Alongside Mexican Migrant Families

In this paper we grapple with the question of how healthy community and university partnerships can be formed in order to support migrant students’ access to higher education. Employing autoethnographic and narrative research, and drawing from our work within the context of the migrant family conference at California State University, Fullerton from 2011 to 2013, we outline a conceptual model for building healthy partnerships. The first section of this paper offers a general overview of the literature on community-university engagement and collaboration as well as provides background information about the migrant farmworker community. The next section puts forward a new conceptualization of community-university partnerships encompassing the dimensions of trust, validation, reciprocity, and interdependence. These dimensions are framed within the notion of respeto. Finally, the third section of this paper discusses challenges that surface in creating new collaborations as well as addresses practical implications in response to obstacles faced by migrant families. Ultimately, the problems, questions, and proposed frameworks are designed to open a dialogue on the language and lenses we use to characterize the quality of partnerships we seed with historically underserved communities

Arte y música en la educación en México: discursos, realidades y retos

En este artículo se presenta una revisión y análisis de las políticas educativas en México en materia de educación del arte y la música, en el marco de la Reforma Educativa de 2016, la cual en muy diversos sentidos ha sido controversial y no ha tenido la acogida esperada por los agentes educativos involucrados en el sistema educativo nacional y por la ciudadanía en general. Además, ante los recientes cambios políticos, el próximo gobierno federal presidido por Andrés Manuel López Obrador se ha encaminado a realizar una consulta nacional para la derogación de dicha reforma. Dada la incertidumbre actual en materia educativa, este análisis presenta el panorama actual de la educación artística, en pleno proceso de transición política. El análisis sugiere que tanto la legislación como los planes y programas de estudio muestran consistencia con el discurso político, orientado hacia el logro de una educación de calidad, con sustentos teóricos y fundamentos curriculares alineados a las tendencias internacionales en materia de educación. Sin embargo, la operacionalización del nuevo modelo educativo, en lo referente a la educación artística y musical, presenta problemas y retos sustanciales para su adecuada implementación, más aún enfrenta el reto de su propia permanencia ante este devenir histórico. El análisis de los programas de artes actuales revela un retroceso en el posicionamiento de la educación artística dentro del currículo, en comparación con anteriores planes de estudio. En qué medida este posicionamiento de la educación artística mejora, en virtud de la actual transición política, está aún por verse.Palabras clave: artes y educación; reforma educativa; planes y programas de estudio: educación musical; políticas educativa

Physical Education Classes as a Precursor to the Mediterranean Diet and the Practice of Physical Activity

Physical activity and a healthy, balanced diet are remaining unresolved issues among young people. According to the World Health Organization, young people do not get enough exercise during the week, and physical education classes are the best way to promote healthy habits. This study aims to analyze how the role of the teacher influences the frustration of psychological needs, coping strategies, motivation, and the adoption of healthy eating habits through the Mediterranean diet and the regular practice of physical activity. The study involved 1031 boys and 910 girls between the ages of 13 and 18. To explain the relationships between the different variables included in this study, a model of structural equations has been developed. The results showed that autonomy support negatively predicted the frustration of four psychological needs. The failure to meet four psychological needs negatively predicted resilience. Likewise, resilience positively predicted autonomous motivation, and this positively predicted the Mediterranean diet and the practice of physical activity. Thus, the results obtained in the present study are in line with those of various studies wherein physical education classes were seen to help consolidate healthy living habits

Assessing the impact of the awareness level on a co-operative game

Context: When playing a co-operative game, being aware of your collaborators (where they are playing, what they are doing, the abilities they have, etc.) is essential for achieving the game's goals. This led to the definition of Gamespace Awareness in order to guide in the identification of the awareness needs in the form of a compilation of the awareness elements that a co-operative game should feature. Objective: Gamespace Awareness does not establish how much awareness information players must be provided with. This constitutes the main motivation for this work: to assess the impact of different levels of Gamespace Awareness elements on a co-operative game. Method: A multiplayer action game was developed that supports three different awareness configurations, each one featuring different awareness levels (high, medium and low). The impact of these awareness levels was measured as regards game score, time, players’ happiness while playing, enjoyment and perceived usefulness. Several techniques such as subjective surveys and facial expression analysis were used to measure these factors. Results: The analysis of the results shows that the higher the awareness, the better the game score. However, the highest level of player happiness was not achieved with the most awareness-enabled configuration; we found that the players’ enjoyment depends not only on their awareness level but also on their expertise level. Finally, the awareness elements related to the present and the future were the most useful, as could be expected in a multiplayer action game. Conclusions: The results showed that the medium level awareness obtained the best results. We therefore concluded that a certain level of awareness is necessary, but that excessive awareness could negatively affect the game experience

Parameter estimation in large-scale systems biology models: a parallel and self-adaptive cooperative strategy

[Abstract] Background The development of large-scale kinetic models is one of the current key issues in computational systems biology and bioinformatics. Here we consider the problem of parameter estimation in nonlinear dynamic models. Global optimization methods can be used to solve this type of problems but the associated computational cost is very large. Moreover, many of these methods need the tuning of a number of adjustable search parameters, requiring a number of initial exploratory runs and therefore further increasing the computation times. Here we present a novel parallel method, self-adaptive cooperative enhanced scatter search (saCeSS), to accelerate the solution of this class of problems. The method is based on the scatter search optimization metaheuristic and incorporates several key new mechanisms: (i) asynchronous cooperation between parallel processes, (ii) coarse and fine-grained parallelism, and (iii) self-tuning strategies. Results The performance and robustness of saCeSS is illustrated by solving a set of challenging parameter estimation problems, including medium and large-scale kinetic models of the bacterium E. coli, bakerés yeast S. cerevisiae, the vinegar fly D. melanogaster, Chinese Hamster Ovary cells, and a generic signal transduction network. The results consistently show that saCeSS is a robust and efficient method, allowing very significant reduction of computation times with respect to several previous state of the art methods (from days to minutes, in several cases) even when only a small number of processors is used. Conclusions The new parallel cooperative method presented here allows the solution of medium and large scale parameter estimation problems in reasonable computation times and with small hardware requirements. Further, the method includes self-tuning mechanisms which facilitate its use by non-experts. We believe that this new method can play a key role in the development of large-scale and even whole-cell dynamic models.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; DPI2011-28112-C04-03Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; DPI2011-28112-C04-04Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; DPI2014-55276-C5-2-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad; TIN2013-42148-PMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad; TIN2016-75845-PGalicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; R2014/041Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; R2016/045Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; GRC2013/05

Assessment of the wintering area of Red Knots in Maranhão, northern Brazil, in February 2005

To assess population size and the conservation status of the Red Knot Calidris canutus rufa population in Maranhão, N Brazil, an aerial census and field studies were conducted in February 2005. The aerial count showed a population of 7,575 Knots, which is down about 600 from a previous census in the 1980s. However, the count for all shorebird species combined was only 24,000 compared to 198,600 in the 1980s, paralleling a world-wide trend of population decline in shorebirds. Resightings of colour-banded knots confirmed that this is a separate population from the larger wintering population in Tierra del Fuego. All species of shorebirds captured in Maranhão were found to be infested with feather lice and mites. Body masses of knots in Maranhão were significantly lower than in Tierra del Fuego, and about half the birds were below the hypothesized fat-free mass of the species. Blood and feather samples were taken from 38 Knots for subsequent assessment of virus loads, and for detecting sites where primary feather moult had occurred. This will enable us to establish whether significant mortality is associated with pathogen loads and the energetic demands of delayed moulting. The small size of the Maranhão population and the loss of another 13,000 knots this winter from the Tierra del Fuego population means that both are now endangered. Brochures on the need for Red Knot conservation were designed and printed, and have been circulated among fishing communities and school classes in Maranhão.Fil: Baker,Allan J.. Royal Ontario Museum; CanadáFil: González, Patricia M.. Fundación Inalafquen; ArgentinaFil: Serrano, Ines L.. CEMAVE, Centro Nacional de Pesquisa para Conservação das Aves Silvestres; BrasilFil: Júnior, Wallace R. T.. CEMAVE, Centro Nacional de Pesquisa para Conservação das Aves Silvestres; BrasilFil: Efe, Marcio A.. Universidade Federal de Alagoas; BrasilFil: Rice, Susan. Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge; Estados UnidosFil: D'amico, Veronica Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico; ArgentinaFil: Rocha, Marcia C.. Belém, Pará; BrasilFil: Echave, María Eugenia. Fundación Inalafquen; Argentin

Caracterización ultraestructural y molecular de cepas de Tetraselmis (Chlorodendrophyceae, Chlorophyta) aisladas de Chile

Species of the genus Tetraselmis (Chlorodendrophyceae, Chlorophyta) have traditionally been used in aquaculture facilities as food forlarval varieties of marine organisms. Recently, some strains with high lipid content have been considered as having potential for biofuelproduction. Although many Tetraselmis species are relatively well-characterized using light and electron microscopical methods,there are still taxonomic ambiguities among the species. DNA sequence analysis, which provides a reliable and more convenient toolfor species delimitation, has been poorly used in Tetraselmis. In this study, three strains of Tetraselmis, isolated from coastal Chileanwaters, have been characterized using an integrative approach (light and electron microscopy, molecular phylogeny of ITS, includingsecondary structure analysis). According to the pyrenoid ultrastructure of the strains investigated two of them (from Dichato andColiumo) belong to the subgenus Parviselmis, while the Caldera strain corresponds to the subgenus Tetrathele. Even though it was notpossible to identify the strains at species level, it was clearly demonstrated by phylogenetic analyses of ITS-1 and ITS-2 sequencesand by ITS-2 secondary structure that the Dichato and Coliumo strains are the same species, and could belong either to T. suecica or T.chui. However, the Caldera strain might correspond to an undescribed species. As our study has shown, the genus Tetraselmis needs tobe taxonomically revised using an integrative approach, which includes the investigations of authentic strains of this genus.Especies del género Tetraselmis (Chlorodendrophyceae, Chlorophyta) han sido tradicionalmente usadas en centros acuícolas comoalimento para larvas de una variedad de organismos marinos. Adicionalmente, algunas cepas con alto contenido de lípidos hansido recientemente consideradas como fuente potencial para la producción de biodiesel. Aunque muchas especies de Tetraselmis seencuentran morfológica y ultraestructuralmente bien caracterizadas, todavía hay ambigüedades taxonómicas al interior del género. Elanálisis de secuencias de ADN, una herramienta complementaria y conveniente para delimitar especies, ha sido pobremente utilizadoen Tetraselmis. En este estudio, se caracterizaron tres cepas de Tetraselmis, aisladas de aguas costeras chilenas, utilizando un enfoqueintegrativo (morfología, ultraestructura y filogenia molecular). Basado en la ultraestructura del pirenoide de las cepas estudiadas,dos de ellas (Dichato y Coliumo) pertenecen al subgénero Parviselmis, mientras que la cepa de Caldera corresponde al subgéneroTetrathele. Aunque no fue posible identificar las cepas a nivel específico, el análisis filogenético de las secuencias ITS-1 e ITS-2y la estructura secundaria del ITS-2 demostraron claramente que las cepas de Dichato y Coliumo son la misma especie, y podríanpertenecer a T. suecica o a T. chui, mientras que la cepa de Caldera podría corresponder a una especie no descrita aún para la ciencia.Los resultados obtenidos demuestran la necesidad de llevar a cabo una revisión taxonómica del género Tetraselmis, utilizando unenfoque integrativo, el cual incluya las cepas auténticas de las especies

Anti-inflammatory and regenerative effects of MKARE® Eggshell Membrane: An in vitro osteoarthritis model and placebo-controlled clinical study

[EN]MKARE®, a 100% natural ingredient derived from fresh eggshell membrane (ESM), has a rich composition in bioactive compounds like collagen, hyaluronic acid, and elastin. These components are beneficial for managing osteoarthritis (OA) due to their anti-inflammatory and regenerative properties. Highlighting the significance of freshness, our research has shown that the effectiveness of MKARE® is higher than that of other commercial products based on ESM that have been stored for several days at room temperature, losing their bioactive compounds. This study explores the MKARE® anti-inflammatory capacity through an in vitro and clinical analyses, demonstrating its ability to alleviate OA symptoms and improve joint health. This underscores the crucial role of freshness in optimizing the therapeutic benefits.S