On the Credibility of the Irish Pound in the EMS

This paper assesses the degree of credibility of the Irish Pound in the European Monetary System between 1983 and 1997. Different credibility indicators proposed in the literature are used to measure agents’ perceptions of the credibility of the ERM commitment in an attempt to distinguish between events stemming from problems in the ERM itself and those that appear to have been exclusive to Ireland.

The impact of SARS-CoV-2 in dementia across Latin America: A call for an urgent regional plan and coordinated response

The SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic will disproportionately impact countries with weak economies and vulnerable populations including people with dementia. Latin American and Caribbean countries (LACs) are burdened with unstable economic development, fragile health systems, massive economic disparities, and a high prevalence of dementia. Here, we underscore the selective impact of SARS-CoV-2 on dementia among LACs, the specific strain on health systems devoted to dementia, and the subsequent effect of increasing inequalities among those with dementia in the region. Implementation of best practices for mitigation and containment faces particularly steep challenges in LACs. Based upon our consideration of these issues, we urgently call for a coordinated action plan, including the development of inexpensive mass testing and multilevel regional coordination for dementia care and related actions. Brain health diplomacy should lead to a shared and escalated response across the region, coordinating leadership, and triangulation between governments and international multilateral networks

Prospeccion de la necesidad de formacion de tecnicos en servicios turisticos para la explotacion turistica del Radal Siete Tazas : Caso Liceo Polivalente de Molina

180 p.La presente investigación tiene como propósito prospectar la necesidad de formación de técnicos en turismo en el Liceo Polivalente de Molina, para la explotación turística del Radal Siete Tazas. Para dar cumplimiento a los objetivos planteados se realizó una investigación cualitativa y cuantitativa. La investigación cualitativa permitió determinar la fuente de financiamiento para la capacitación a los profesores, a través de entrevistas en profundidad con el director comunal de educación de Molina; competencias requeridas por los egresados de la carrera, información obtenida a través del Ministerio de Educación; costo del programa de capacitación de los profesores, objetivo que se pretendió lograr a través de entrevistas a docentes del área turismo; las actividades turísticas que se pueden realizar dentro del Radal Siete Tazas, otorgadas por la Ilustre Municipalidad de Molina y consultas realizadas a CONAF. Dentro de la investigación cuantitativa se diseñaron dos encuestas estadísticas, una dirigida a los alumnos del liceo, para determinar el conocimiento que poseen sobre el Radal Siete Tazas y grado de interés por la carrera de servicios turísticos. La segunda encuesta fue dirigida a los profesores del establecimiento, cuya finalidad es determinar el grado de interés para capacitarse en turismo. Previo a ejecutar el trabajo en terreno, se realizó un piloteo de cada encuesta. En el caso de los alumnos se debió extraer una muestra de la población en estudio y en el caso de los profesores se realizó un censo. Además, fue necesario consultar a las agencias y operadores de tour, como también a las instituciones educacionales que imparten cameras de turismo. Finalmente, se determinó un alto grado de interés de los alumnos por la carrera propuesta. El técnico-profesional debe poseer alto conocimiento cultural, histórico, geográfico y administrativo en el ámbito turístico, además debe mantener buenas relaciones sociales y un manejo de idiomas. Por otra parte los docentes se encuentran interesados en capacitarse para impartir dicha carrera. El Ministerio de Educación otorga el financiamiento respectivo para los programas de capacitación, junto con la Ilustre Municipalidad de Molina, la cual concursa para obtener mas financiamiento de otros fondos estatales. Además se logro determinar la alta demanda y una oferta limitada del lugar en estudio. Las palabras claves del estudio son: necesidad, turismo, capacitación y financiamient

CO2 capture and conversion: A homemade experimental approach

During the SARS-2-Covid pandemic our institution sought to continue the teaching and learning of experimental laboratories by designing, assembling, and delivering a microscale chemistry kit to the students’ homes. Thanks to this approach students were able to perform ~25 experiments during each one of the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters in an elective Electrochemistry and Corrosion course offered to Chemical Engineering undergraduates. In addition to performing traditional experiments, students were encouraged to design some of their own and have the entire group reproduce them. One of such student-designed experiments involved the capture of CO2 and its reduction with a readily available active metal (i.e., Al foil) in aqueous media to generate potentially useful products. The highly negative standard potential of Al is exploited for the reduction of lab-generated CO2, and the products are chemically tested. Al as a foil has been reported to be electrochemically inactive for carbon dioxide reduction. However, encouraged by an earlier report of the reduction of CO2 to CO, the Al surface is activated in the present experiment by removal of its natural oxide layer with a solution of CuCl 2 produced in an electrochemical cell. This procedure enables Al to react with CO2 and yield useful chemistry. This experiment turned to be a discovery trip. The detailed procedure is discussed here, as well as the teaching methodology, grading scheme, and student outcomesPeer Reviewe

Evaluation of gene-based family-based methods to detect novel genes associated with familial late onset Alzheimer disease

AbstractGene-based tests to study the combined effect of rare variants towards a particular phenotype have been widely developed for case-control studies, but their evolution and adaptation for family-based studies, especially for complex incomplete families, has been slower. In this study, we have performed a practical examination of all the latest gene-based methods available for family-based study designs using both simulated and real datasets. We have examined the performance of several collapsing, variance-component and transmission disequilibrium tests across eight different software and twenty-two models utilizing a cohort of 285 families (N=1,235) with late-onset Alzheimer disease (LOAD). After a thorough examination of each of these tests, we propose a methodological approach to identify, with high confidence, genes associated with the studied phenotype with high confidence and we provide recommendations to select the best software and model for family-based gene-based analyses. Additionally, in our dataset, we identified PTK2B, a GWAS candidate gene for sporadic AD, along with six novel genes (CHRD, CLCN2, HDLBP, CPAMD8, NLRP9, MAS1L) as candidates genes for familial LOAD.</jats:p

Situated affective and social neuroscience

This Research Topic features several papers tapping the situated nature of emotion and social cognition processes. The volume covers a broad scope of methodologies [behavioral assessment, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), structural neuroimaging, event-related potentials (ERPs), brain connectivity, and peripheral measures], populations (non-human animals, neurotypical participants, developmental studies, and neuropsychiatric and pathological conditions), and article types (original research, review papers, and opinion articles). Through this wide-ranging proposal, we introduce a fresh approach to the study of contextual effects in emotion and social cognition domains. We report four levels of evidence. First, we present studies examining how cognitive and neural functions are influenced by basic affective processes (interoception, motivation and reward, emotional impulsiveness, and appraisal of violent stimuli). A second set of behavioral and neuroscientific studies addresses how performance is modulated by different emotional variables (categorical and dimensional approaches to emotion, language-as-context for emotion, emotional suppression of the attentional blink, and reappraisal effects on the up-regulation of emotions). The studies in our third selection deal with different influences in social cognition (SC) domains (human and non-human comparative studies, long-term effects of social and physical stress, developmental theory of mind, neural bases of passionate love for others, social decision making in normal and psychopathic participants, and frontal lobe contributions to psychosocial adaptation models). Finally, the fourth set of papers investigates the blending of social and emotion-related processes (valence and social salience in amygdala networks, emotional contributions to identification of genuine and faked social expressions, emotional predispositions and social decision making bias, valence of fairness and social decisions, structural neuroimaging of emotional and social impairments in neurodegenerative diseases, and subjective reactivity to emotional stimuli and their association with moral cognition). A brief summary of all these studies is offered in the following sections.Agustin Ibanez is supported by CONICET, CONICYT/FONDECYT Regular (1130920 and 1140114), FONCyT-PICT 2012-0412/2012-1309, and INECO Foundation. Maria Ruz is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, “Ramón y Cajal” fellowship (RYC-2008-03008) and grant PSI2013-45567-P. Jorge Moll is supported by intramural grants, D'Or Institute for Research and Education, and FAPERJ (Rio de Janeiro State Foundation for Research). Sonja A. Kotz is supported by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR: 62867) and German Science Foundation (KO-2268/6-1)

Distinct prostate cancer-related mRNA cargo in extracellular vesicle subsets from prostate cell lines

Background: Multiple types of extracellular vesicles (EVs), including microvesicles (MVs) and exosomes (EXOs), are released by all cells constituting part of the cellular EV secretome. The bioactive cargo of EVs can be shuffled between cells and consists of lipids, metabolites, proteins, and nucleic acids, including multiple RNA species from non-coding RNAs to messenger RNAs (mRNAs). In this study, we hypothesized that the mRNA cargo of EVs could differ based on the EV cellular origin and subpopulation analyzed. Methods: We isolated MVs and EXOs from PC-3 and LNCaP prostate cancer cells by differential centrifugation and compared them to EVs derived from the benign PNT2 prostate cells. The relative mRNA levels of 84 prostate cancer-related genes were investigated and validated using quantitative reverse transcription PCR arrays. Results: Based on the mRNA abundance, MVs rather than EXOs were enriched in the analyzed transcripts, providing a snapshot of the tumor transcriptome. LNCaP MVs specifically contained significantly increased mRNA levels of NK3 Homeobox 1 (NKX3-1), transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2), and tumor protein 53 (TP53) genes, whereas PC-3 MVs carried increased mRNA levels of several genes including, caveolin-2 (CAV2), glutathione S-transferase pi 1 (GSTP1), pescadillo ribosomal biogenesis factor 1 (PES1), calmodulin regulated spectrin associated protein 1 (CAMSAP1), zinc-finger protein 185 (ZNF185), and others compared to PNT2 MVs. Additionally, ETS variant 1 (ETV1) and fatty acid synthase (FASN) mRNAs identified in LNCaP-and PC-3-derived MVs highly correlated with prostate cancer progression. Conclusions: Our study provides new understandings of the variability of the mRNA cargo of MVs and EXOs from different cell lines despite same cancer origin, which is essential to better understand the the proportion of the cell transcriptome that can be detected within EVs and to evaluate their role in disease diagnosis.Peer reviewe