Advantages and disadvantages on photosynthesis measurement techniques: A review

Through photosynthesis, green plants and cyanobacteria are able to transfer sunlight energy to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100% efficiency. Speed is the key as the transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously such that little energy is wasted as heat. How photosynthesis achieves this near instantaneous energy transfer is a longstanding mystery that may have finally been solved. Measurements of this process are useful in order to understand how it might be controlled and how the phytomonitoring of plant development to increase productivity can be carried out. Techniques in this sense have evolved and nowadays several have been used for this purpose. Thus, the aim of this paper is to present a review of the various methods and principles that have been used in measuring photosynthesis presenting the advantages and disadvantages of various existing measurement methodologies in order to recommend the most appropriate method according to the needs of specific investigations

Potential of mathematical modeling in fruit quality

A review of mathematical modeling applied to fruit quality showed that these models ranged inresolution from simple yield equations to complex  representations of processes as respiration, photosynthesis and assimilation of nutrients. The latter models take into account complex  genotype environment interactions to estimate their effects on growth and yield. Recently, models are used to estimate seasonal changes in quality traits as fruit size, dry matter, water content and the concentration of sugars and acids, which are very important for flavor and aroma. These models have demonstrated their ability to generate relationships between physiological variables and quality attributes (allometric relations). This new kind of hybrid models has sufficient complexity to predict quality traits behavior

Competencies of the nurses in the limitation of therapeutic effort in the intensive care unit: An integrative review

Objective: Nurses inevitably encounter patients who require care aimed at limiting therapeutic effort (LTE), even though many of them are not prepared to provide support to individuals with terminal illnesses and their families. One of the contexts in which the LTE is considered is the intensive care unit (ICU). This review is to describe the competencies for the execution of a nursing professional role in the LTE in the ICU. Method: An integrative review of the literature published between the years 2010 and 2023. The search was carried out in five databases: Medline, Wiley Online Library, SciELO, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme in Spanish was used as the template for study evaluation. The methodology of the Oxford Center for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) was used to assess the level of evidence and the degree of recommendation. Result: A total of 25 articles in a wide range of studies were included. The findings suggest that the competencies for LTE in the ICU are direct patient care, family-centered care, and the role of the nurse within the team. However, more high-quality studies are needed to confirm these conclusions. Three categories were identified: (a) competencies as defender agent between the patient, his family, and the interdisciplinary team; (b) competencies for decision-making in limiting the therapeutic effort; and (c) competencies for nursing therapeutic interventions at the end of life. Conclusion: The competencies of the nursing professionals who work in the adult ICU in the LTE are essential to the patient's quality of life, dignity of their death, and comprehensive family support for coping with grief

Nucleobindin-1 regulates ECM degradation by promoting intra-Golgi trafficking of MMPs.

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) degrade several ECM components and are crucial modulators of cell invasion and tissue organization. Although much has been reported about their function in remodeling ECM in health and disease, their trafficking across the Golgi apparatus remains poorly understood. Here we report that the cis-Golgi protein nucleobindin-1 (NUCB1) is critical for MMP2 and MT1-MMP trafficking along the Golgi apparatus. This process is Ca2+-dependent and is required for invasive MDA-MB-231 cell migration as well as for gelatin degradation in primary human macrophages. Our findings emphasize the importance of NUCB1 as an essential component of MMP transport and its overall impact on ECM remodeling. © 2020 Pacheco-Fernandez et al

Infección natural por Fasciola hepatica en cérvidos del Perú

Natural infection by Fasciola hepatica is recorded in a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and a taruca (Hippocamelus antisensis), both from the department of Cusco. Animals were remitted to the Veterinary Institute (IVITA-Maranganí, FMV, UNMSM) by the authorities of the National Service of Flora and Fauna (SERFOR, Cusco Headquarters). Six trematodes were collected from the bile ducts during the necropsy of the animals, and they were preserved in 70% ethanol. Morphological analysis indicated that they correspond to F. hepatica. This was confirmed by analyzing of the mitochondrial DNA of the parasites by partially amplifying the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1 (nad1) genes. Analysis of these genes had an identity greater than 99% compared to genes from GenBank. The present study demonstrates the occurrence of F. hepatica in these cervids, thus adding two new definitive hosts for the parasite.En el presente trabajo se registra la infección natural por Fasciola hepaticaen un venado de cola blanca (Odocoileus virginianus) y en una taruca (Hippocamelus antisensis), ambos procedentes del departamento de Cusco. Los animales fueron remitidos al Instituto Veterinario (IVITA-Maranganí, FMV, UNMSM) por las autoridades del Servicio Nacional de Flora y Fauna (SERFOR, Sede Cusco). Durante la necropsia de los animales se colectaron seis trematodos de los conductos biliares, los cuales fueron preservados en etanol al 70%. Las observaciones morfológicas indicaron que se trataban de F. hepatica. Esto fue confirmado analizando el ADN mitocondrial de los parásitos amplificando parcialmente los genes citocromo c oxidasa subunidad 1 (cox1) y el NADH deshidrogenasa subunidad 1 (nad1). El análisis de estos genes tuvo una identidad mayor al 99% comparado con registros del banco de genes (GenBank). El presente estudio demuestra la presencia de F. hepatica en estos cérvidos, agregando así dos nuevos hospederos definitivos para el parásito

A new method to quantify and compare the multiple components of fitness-A study case with kelp niche partition by divergent microstage adaptations to Temperature

Point 1 Management of crops, commercialized or protected species, plagues or life-cycle evolution are subjects requiring comparisons among different demographic strategies. The simpler methods fail in relating changes in vital rates with changes in population viability whereas more complex methods lack accuracy by neglecting interactions among vital rates. Point 2 The difference between the fitness (evaluated by the population growth rate.) of two alternative demographies is decomposed into the contributions of the differences between the pair-wised vital rates and their interactions. This is achieved through a full Taylor expansion (i.e. remainder = 0) of the demographic model. The significance of each term is determined by permutation tests under the null hypothesis that all demographies come from the same pool. Point 3 An example is given with periodic demographic matrices of the microscopic haploid phase of two kelp cryptic species observed to partition their niche occupation along the Chilean coast. The method provided clear and synthetic results showing conditional differentiation of reproduction is an important driver for their differences in fitness along the latitudinal temperature gradient. But it also demonstrated that interactions among vital rates cannot be neglected as they compose a significant part of the differences between demographies. Point 4 This method allows researchers to access the effects of multiple effective changes in a life-cycle from only two experiments. Evolutionists can determine with confidence the effective causes for changes in fitness whereas population managers can determine best strategies from simpler experimental designs.CONICYT-FRENCH EMBASSADY Ph.D. gran

Linear, Deterministic, and Order-Invariant Initialization Methods for the K-Means Clustering Algorithm

Over the past five decades, k-means has become the clustering algorithm of choice in many application domains primarily due to its simplicity, time/space efficiency, and invariance to the ordering of the data points. Unfortunately, the algorithm's sensitivity to the initial selection of the cluster centers remains to be its most serious drawback. Numerous initialization methods have been proposed to address this drawback. Many of these methods, however, have time complexity superlinear in the number of data points, which makes them impractical for large data sets. On the other hand, linear methods are often random and/or sensitive to the ordering of the data points. These methods are generally unreliable in that the quality of their results is unpredictable. Therefore, it is common practice to perform multiple runs of such methods and take the output of the run that produces the best results. Such a practice, however, greatly increases the computational requirements of the otherwise highly efficient k-means algorithm. In this chapter, we investigate the empirical performance of six linear, deterministic (non-random), and order-invariant k-means initialization methods on a large and diverse collection of data sets from the UCI Machine Learning Repository. The results demonstrate that two relatively unknown hierarchical initialization methods due to Su and Dy outperform the remaining four methods with respect to two objective effectiveness criteria. In addition, a recent method due to Erisoglu et al. performs surprisingly poorly.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, 5 tables, Partitional Clustering Algorithms (Springer, 2014). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1304.7465, arXiv:1209.196

Hawking radiation and thermodynamics of dynamical black holes in phantom dominated universe

The thermodynamic properties of dark energy-dominated universe in the presence of a black hole are investigated in the general case of a varying equation-of-state-parameter $w(a)$. We show that all the thermodynamics quantities are regular at the phantom divide crossing, and particularly the temperature and the entropy of the dark fluid are always positive definite. We also study the accretion process of a phantom fluid by black holes and the conditions required for the validity of the generalized second law of thermodynamics. As a results we obtain a strictly negative chemical potential and an equation-of-state parameter $w<-5/3.$Comment: 22 pages,3 figure