Análisis de latencia de controladores de audio para aplicaciones de metrología acústica

La adquisición y reproducción en alta definición de señales acústicas implica cumplimentar diversos requisitos en función de las características de las señales y del sistema interviniente. La fidelidad del proceso de adquisición/reproducción de sonido, la latencia, la inmunidad al ruido y la diafonía son algunos de los factores que definen la calidad de un sistema de adquisición/reproducción de señales acústicas. Por lo general, en aplicaciones de metrología acústica, estos sistemas son de elevado costo y uso privativo. En este trabajo se presenta la comparación de la medición de latencia de dos controladores de audio que operan un sistema para aplicaciones de metrología acústica de bajo costo, evidenciando diferencias significativas entre ambos para dos condiciones de ensayo. Dicho sistema está conformado por computador personal, una tarjeta de adquisición/reproducción de sonido estándar y programas de cómputo numérico. El trabajo se presenta en el marco del proyecto de diseño y desarrollo de un sistema automático de medición de dispositivos acústicos, el cual permite caracterizar dispositivos acústicos activos y pasivos.Publicado en: Mecánica Computacional vol. XXXV, no. 3Facultad de Ingenierí

Análisis de latencia de controladores de audio para aplicaciones de metrología acústica

La adquisición y reproducción en alta definición de señales acústicas implica cumplimentar diversos requisitos en función de las características de las señales y del sistema interviniente. La fidelidad del proceso de adquisición/reproducción de sonido, la latencia, la inmunidad al ruido y la diafonía son algunos de los factores que definen la calidad de un sistema de adquisición/reproducción de señales acústicas. Por lo general, en aplicaciones de metrología acústica, estos sistemas son de elevado costo y uso privativo. En este trabajo se presenta la comparación de la medición de latencia de dos controladores de audio que operan un sistema para aplicaciones de metrología acústica de bajo costo, evidenciando diferencias significativas entre ambos para dos condiciones de ensayo. Dicho sistema está conformado por computador personal, una tarjeta de adquisición/reproducción de sonido estándar y programas de cómputo numérico. El trabajo se presenta en el marco del proyecto de diseño y desarrollo de un sistema automático de medición de dispositivos acústicos, el cual permite caracterizar dispositivos acústicos activos y pasivos.Publicado en: Mecánica Computacional vol. XXXV, no. 3Facultad de Ingenierí

Matrix gla protein in turbot (Scophthalmus maximus): gene expression analysis and identification of sites of protein accumulation

Matrix Gla protein (Mgp) is a secreted vitamin K-dependent extracellular matrix protein and a physiological inhibitor of calcification whose gene structure, amino acid sequence and tissue distribution have been conserved throughout evolution. In the present work, the turbot (Scophthalmus maximus) mgp cDNA was cloned and the sequence of the deduced protein compared to that of other vertebrates. As expected, it was closer to teleosts than to other vertebrate groups but there was a strict conservation of amino-acids thought to be important for protein function. Analysis of mgp gene expression indicated branchial arches as the site with higher levels of expression, followed by heart, vertebra and kidney. These results were confirmed by in situ hybridization with a strong mgp expression in branchial arch chondrocytes. Mgp was found to accumulate in gills where it appeared to be restricted to chondrocytes from branchial filaments, while in vertebrae it was localized in vertebral end plates, in growth zones, in vertebral arches and spines and in notochord cells. In the soft tissues analysed, Mgp was mainly detected in kidney and heart, consistent with previous data and providing further evidence for a role of Mgp as a calcification inhibitor and a modulator of the mineralization process. Our studies provide evidence that turbot, an important new species for aquaculture, is also a useful model to study function and expression of Mgp

Systematic Review of the Empirical Evidence of Study Publication Bias and Outcome Reporting Bias

BACKGROUND: The increased use of meta-analysis in systematic reviews of healthcare interventions has highlighted several types of bias that can arise during the completion of a randomised controlled trial. Study publication bias has been recognised as a potential threat to the validity of meta-analysis and can make the readily available evidence unreliable for decision making. Until recently, outcome reporting bias has received less attention. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We review and summarise the evidence from a series of cohort studies that have assessed study publication bias and outcome reporting bias in randomised controlled trials. Sixteen studies were eligible of which only two followed the cohort all the way through from protocol approval to information regarding publication of outcomes. Eleven of the studies investigated study publication bias and five investigated outcome reporting bias. Three studies have found that statistically significant outcomes had a higher odds of being fully reported compared to non-significant outcomes (range of odds ratios: 2.2 to 4.7). In comparing trial publications to protocols, we found that 40-62% of studies had at least one primary outcome that was changed, introduced, or omitted. We decided not to undertake meta-analysis due to the differences between studies. CONCLUSIONS: Recent work provides direct empirical evidence for the existence of study publication bias and outcome reporting bias. There is strong evidence of an association between significant results and publication; studies that report positive or significant results are more likely to be published and outcomes that are statistically significant have higher odds of being fully reported. Publications have been found to be inconsistent with their protocols. Researchers need to be aware of the problems of both types of bias and efforts should be concentrated on improving the reporting of trials

Mutagenesis Objective Search and Selection Tool (MOSST): an algorithm to predict structure-function related mutations in proteins

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Functionally relevant artificial or natural mutations are difficult to assess or predict if no structure-function information is available for a protein. This is especially important to correctly identify functionally significant non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs) or to design a site-directed mutagenesis strategy for a target protein. A new and powerful methodology is proposed to guide these two decision strategies, based only on conservation rules of physicochemical properties of amino acids extracted from a multiple alignment of a protein family where the target protein belongs, with no need of explicit structure-function relationships.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A statistical analysis is performed over each amino acid position in the multiple protein alignment, based on different amino acid physical or chemical characteristics, including hydrophobicity, side-chain volume, charge and protein conformational parameters. The variances of each of these properties at each position are combined to obtain a global statistical indicator of the conservation degree of each property. Different types of physicochemical conservation are defined to characterize relevant and irrelevant positions. The differences between statistical variances are taken together as the basis of hypothesis tests at each position to search for functionally significant mutable sites and to identify specific mutagenesis targets. The outcome is used to statistically predict physicochemical consensus sequences based on different properties and to calculate the amino acid propensities at each position in a given protein. Hence, amino acid positions are identified that are putatively responsible for function, specificity, stability or binding interactions in a family of proteins. Once these key functional positions are identified, position-specific statistical distributions are applied to divide the 20 common protein amino acids in each position of the protein's primary sequence into a group of functionally non-disruptive amino acids and a second group of functionally deleterious amino acids.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>With this approach, not only conserved amino acid positions in a protein family can be labeled as functionally relevant, but also non-conserved amino acid positions can be identified to have a physicochemically meaningful functional effect. These results become a discriminative tool in the selection and elaboration of rational mutagenesis strategies for the protein. They can also be used to predict if a given nsSNP, identified, for instance, in a genomic-scale analysis, can have a functional implication for a particular protein and which nsSNPs are most likely to be functionally silent for a protein. This analytical tool could be used to rapidly and automatically discard any irrelevant nsSNP and guide the research focus toward functionally significant mutations. Based on preliminary results and applications, this technique shows promising performance as a valuable bioinformatics tool to aid in the development of new protein variants and in the understanding of function-structure relationships in proteins.</p

Matrix Gla protein in turbot (Scophthalmus maximus): Gene expression analysis and identification of sites of protein accumulation

10 páginas, 8 figuras.Matrix Gla protein (Mgp) is a secreted vitamin K-dependent extracellular matrix protein and a physiological inhibitor of calcification whose gene structure, amino acid sequence and tissue distribution have been conserved throughout evolution. In the present work, the turbot (Scophthalmus maximus) mgp cDNA was cloned and the sequence of the deduced protein compared to that of other vertebrates. As expected, it was closer to teleosts than to other vertebrate groups but there was a strict conservation of amino-acids thought to be important for protein function. Analysis of mgp gene expression indicated branchial arches as the site with higher levels of expression, followed by heart, vertebra and kidney. These results were confirmed by in situ hybridization with a strong mgp expression in branchial arch chondrocytes. Mgp was found to accumulate in gills where it appeared to be restricted to chondrocytes from branchial filaments, while in vertebrae it was localized in vertebral end plates, in growth zones, in vertebral arches and spines and in notochord cells. In the soft tissues analysed, Mgp was mainly detected in kidney and heart, consistent with previous data and providing further evidence for a role of Mgp as a calcification inhibitor and a modulator of the mineralization process. Our studies provide evidence that turbot, an important new species for aquaculture, is also a useful model to study function and expression of Mgp.This work was partially funded by FCT (Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation), grant FISHDEV POCTI/CVT/42098/2001, including funding from POCI 2010 and UE funds from FEDER and by MCYT (Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología), grant SPARUGENES MCYT/AGL2003-03558. Vânia Roberto was a recipient of PhD fellowships (SFRH/BD/38607/2007).Peer reviewe

Matrix Gla protein in turbot (Scophthalmus maximus): Gene expression analysis and identification of sites of protein accumulation

10 páginas, 8 figuras.Matrix Gla protein (Mgp) is a secreted vitamin K-dependent extracellular matrix protein and a physiological inhibitor of calcification whose gene structure, amino acid sequence and tissue distribution have been conserved throughout evolution. In the present work, the turbot (Scophthalmus maximus) mgp cDNA was cloned and the sequence of the deduced protein compared to that of other vertebrates. As expected, it was closer to teleosts than to other vertebrate groups but there was a strict conservation of amino-acids thought to be important for protein function. Analysis of mgp gene expression indicated branchial arches as the site with higher levels of expression, followed by heart, vertebra and kidney. These results were confirmed by in situ hybridization with a strong mgp expression in branchial arch chondrocytes. Mgp was found to accumulate in gills where it appeared to be restricted to chondrocytes from branchial filaments, while in vertebrae it was localized in vertebral end plates, in growth zones, in vertebral arches and spines and in notochord cells. In the soft tissues analysed, Mgp was mainly detected in kidney and heart, consistent with previous data and providing further evidence for a role of Mgp as a calcification inhibitor and a modulator of the mineralization process. Our studies provide evidence that turbot, an important new species for aquaculture, is also a useful model to study function and expression of Mgp.This work was partially funded by FCT (Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation), grant FISHDEV POCTI/CVT/42098/2001, including funding from POCI 2010 and UE funds from FEDER and by MCYT (Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología), grant SPARUGENES MCYT/AGL2003-03558. Vânia Roberto was a recipient of PhD fellowships (SFRH/BD/38607/2007).Peer reviewe

Política, desarrollo y ciudadanía. Etapa II (PODECI II) 16H276

El Proyecto PODECI II plantea su continuidad como una propuesta de investigación básica y aplicada encaminada a producir conocimiento teórico y metodológico sobre: 1. el funcionamiento del sistema sociopolítico de la Provincia de Misiones, particularmente sobre los modos de hacer política y la dinámica que asumen las disputas por el poder en el nivel local, tanto en los períodos electorales como inter-electorales; 2. los procesos socio demográficos que están en la base de la estructuración territorial y la segregación de los espacios urbanos y 3. temáticas sociales acuciantes como el desarrollo humano sustentable, la salud o el trabajo. Asimismo, desde el PODECI II se acompañará en las etapas de formulación, ejecución y evaluación, experiencias concretas de desarrollo local en distintos municipios apuntando a transferir capacidades mediante la adopción de técnicas participativas; así como, reflexionar críticamente sobre esas experiencias, con el propósito de aportar a la producción de conocimiento. Adicionalmente es prioridad del Programa formar recursos humanos en el nivel de grado y postgrado capacitados para desempeñarse, tanto en el ámbito académico, como en el diseño e implementación de programas de desarrollo local imbuidos de los principios de la economía social, el asociativismo y la búsqueda de una mayor equidad social