Evaluating the suitability of several AR devices and tools for industrial applications

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in Industrial Augmented Reality (IAR) due to its prominent role in the ongoing revolution known as Industry 4.0. For companies and industries it is essential to evaluate carefully which of the developed AR-based technologies to adopt, and when, for tasks such as training, maintenance, assistance, and collaborative design. There is also a wide array of hardware and software alternatives on the market, characterized by a significant heterogeneity in terms of functionalities, performance and cost. With this work, our objective is to study and compare some widely available devices and Software Development Kits (SDKs) for AR by leveraging a set of evaluation criteria derived from the actual literature which have been deemed capable to qualify the above assets as suitable for industrial applications. Such criteria include the operative range, robustness, accuracy and stability. Both marker-based and marker-less solutions have been considered, in order to investigate a wide range of possible use cases

Freezing and water availability structure the evolutionary diversity of trees across the Americas

The historical course of evolutionary diversification shapes the current distribution of biodiversity, but the main forces constraining diversification are still a subject of debate. We unveil the evolutionary structure of tree species assemblages across the Americas to assess whether an inability to move or an inability to evolve is the predominant constraint in plant diversification and biogeography. We find a fundamental divide in tree lineage composition between tropical and extratropical environments, defined by the absence versus presence of freezing temperatures. Within the Neotropics, we uncover a further evolutionary split between moist and dry forests. Our results demonstrate that American tree lineages tend to retain their ancestral environmental relationships and that phylogenetic niche conservatism is the primary force structuring the distribution of tree biodiversity. Our study establishes the pervasive importance of niche conservatism to community assembly even at intercontinental scales

Contribution of microscopy for understanding the mechanism of action against trypanosomatids

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has proved to be a useful tool to study the ultrastructural alterations and the target organelles of new antitrypanosomatid drugs. Thus, it has been observed that sesquiterpene lactones induce diverse ultrastructural alterations in both T. cruzi and Leishmania spp., such as cytoplasmic vacuolization, appearance of multilamellar structures, condensation of nuclear DNA, and, in some cases, an important accumulation of lipid vacuoles. This accumulation could be related to apoptotic events. Some of the sesquiterpene lactones (e.g., psilostachyin) have also been demonstrated to cause an intense mitochondrial swelling accompanied by a visible kinetoplast deformation as well as the appearance of multivesicular bodies. This mitochondrial swelling could be related to the generation of oxidative stress and associated to alterations in the ergosterol metabolism. The appearance of multilamellar structures and multiple kinetoplasts and flagella induced by the sesquiterpene lactone psilostachyin C indicates that this compound would act at the parasite cell cycle level, in an intermediate stage between kinetoplast segregation and nuclear division. In turn, the diterpene lactone icetexane has proved to induce the external membrane budding on T. cruzi together with an apparent disorganization of the pericellar cytoskeleton. Thus, ultrastructural TEM studies allow elucidating the possible mechanisms and the subsequent identification of molecular targets for the action of natural compounds on trypanosomatids.Fil: Lozano, Esteban Sebastián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Medicina y Biología Experimental de Cuyo; ArgentinaFil: Spina Zapata, Renata María. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Histología y Embriología de Mendoza Dr. Mario H. Burgos. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Histología y Embriología de Mendoza Dr. Mario H. Burgos; ArgentinaFil: Barrera, Patricia Andrea. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Histología y Embriología de Mendoza Dr. Mario H. Burgos. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Histología y Embriología de Mendoza Dr. Mario H. Burgos; ArgentinaFil: Tonn, Carlos Eugenio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis. Instituto de Investigaciones en Tecnología Química. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Química, Bioquímica y Farmacia. Instituto de Investigaciones en Tecnología Química; ArgentinaFil: Sosa Escudero, Miguel Angel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Histología y Embriología de Mendoza Dr. Mario H. Burgos. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Histología y Embriología de Mendoza Dr. Mario H. Burgos; Argentin

A Mitochondrial DNA Phylogeny Indicates Close Relationships between Populations of Lutzomyia whitmani (Diptera: Psychodidae, Phlebotominae) from the Rain-forest Regions of Amazônia and Northeast Brazil

Phylogenetic analysis of all 31 described mitochondrial (cytochrome b) haplotypes of Lutzomyia whitmani demonstrated that new material from the State of Rondônia, in southwest Amazônia, forms a clade within a lineage found only in the rain-forest regions of Brazil. This rain-forest lineage also contains two other clades of haplotypes, one from eastern Amazônia and one from the Atlantic forest zone of northeast Brazil (including the type locality of the species in Ilhéus, State of Bahia). These findings do not favour recognizing two allopatric cryptic species of L. whitmani, one associated with the silvatic transmission of Leishmania shawi in southeast Amazônia and the other with the peridomestic transmission of Le. braziliensis in northeast Brazil. Instead, they suggest that there is (or has been in the recent past) a continuum of inter-breeding populations of L. whitmani in the rain-forest regions of Brazil

On domain walls in a Ginzburg-Landau non-linear S^2-sigma model

The domain wall solutions of a Ginzburg-Landau non-linear $S^2$-sigma hybrid model are unveiled. There are three types of basic topological walls and two types of degenerate families of composite - one topological, the other non-topological- walls. The domain wall solutions are identified as the finite action trajectories (in infinite time) of a related mechanical system that is Hamilton-Jacobi separable in sphero-conical coordinates. The physical and mathematical features of these domain walls are thoroughly discussed.Comment: 26 pages, 18 figure

Services just for men? Insights from a national study of the well men services pilots.

Men continue to have a lower life expectancy in most countries compared to women. Explanations of this gendered health inequality tend to focus on male risk taking, unhealthy lifestyle choices and resistance to seeking help from health services. In the period 2005-2008 the Scottish Government funded a nationwide community health promotion programme aimed at improving men's health, called Well Men Service Pilots (henceforth WMS)

Cardiac-Oxidized Antigens Are Targets of Immune Recognition by Antibodies and Potential Molecular Determinants in Chagas Disease Pathogenesis

Trypanosoma cruzi elicits reactive oxygen species (ROS) of inflammatory and mitochondrial origin in infected hosts. In this study, we examined ROS-induced oxidative modifications in the heart and determined whether the resultant oxidized cardiac proteins are targets of immune response and of pathological significance in Chagas disease. Heart biopsies from chagasic mice, rats and human patients exhibited, when compared to those from normal controls, a substantial increase in protein 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), malondialdehyde (MDA), carbonyl, and 3-nitrotyrosine (3-NT) adducts. To evaluate whether oxidized proteins gain antigenic properties, heart homogenates or isolated cardiomyocytes were oxidized in vitro and one- or two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2D-GE)/Western blotting (WB) was performed to investigate the proteomic oxidative changes and recognition of oxidized proteins by sera antibodies in chagasic rodents (mice, rats) and human patients. Human cardiomyocytes exhibited LD50 sensitivity to 30 µM 4-HNE and 100 µM H2O2 at 6 h and 12 h, respectively. In vitro oxidation with 4-HNE or H2O2 resulted in a substantial increase in 4-HNE- and carbonyl-modified proteins that correlated with increased recognition of cardiac (cardiomyocytes) proteins by sera antibodies of chagasic rodents and human patients. 2D-GE/Western blotting followed by MALDI-TOF-MS/MS analysis to identify cardiac proteins that were oxidized and recognized by human chagasic sera yielded 82 unique proteins. We validated the 2D-GE results by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and WB and demonstrated that oxidation of recombinant titin enhanced its immunogenicity and recognition by sera antibodies from chagasic hosts (rats and humans). Treatment of infected rats with phenyl-α-tert-butyl nitrone (PBN, antioxidant) resulted in normalized immune detection of cardiac proteins associated with control of cardiac pathology and preservation of heart contractile function in chagasic rats. We conclude that ROS-induced, cardiac-oxidized antigens are targets of immune recognition by antibodies and molecular determinants for pathogenesis during Chagas disease