Astrocyte Clocks and Glucose Homeostasis

The endogenous timekeeping system evolved to anticipate the time of the day through the 24 hours cycle of the Earth’s rotation. In mammals, the circadian clock governs rhythmic physiological and behavioral processes, including the daily oscillation in glucose metabolism, food intake, energy expenditure, and whole-body insulin sensitivity. The results from a series of studies have demonstrated that environmental or genetic alterations of the circadian cycle in humans and rodents are strongly associated with metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Emerging evidence suggests that astrocyte clocks have a crucial role in regulating molecular, physiological, and behavioral circadian rhythms such as glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity. Given the concurrent high prevalence of type 2 diabetes and circadian disruption, understanding the mechanisms underlying glucose homeostasis regulation by the circadian clock and its dysregulation may improve glycemic control. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge on the tight interconnection between the timekeeping system, glucose homeostasis, and insulin sensitivity. We focus specifically on the involvement of astrocyte clocks, at the organism, cellular, and molecular levels, in the regulation of glucose metabolismOB-M is supported with a Ramón y Cajal award (RYC2018‐026293‐I.) from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades of Spain; by Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (PID2019-109556RB-I00) and the Xunta de Galicia-Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria (ED431F 2020/009)S

Sobre los verbos umbílicos de la semántica topológica

In this paper we propose a verbs classification from the Topological Semantic. A distinction is made between semiophysic verbs, mainly linked to «world behaviors» and non-semiophysic verbs, which are generally metalinguistic. Among the semiophysic verbs, we essentially deal with parabolic, elliptic and hyperbolic-type verbs

Alteration mechanisms on the stones of the Cathedral of Granada (Spain)

Español: Se analizan los diversos mecanismos de alteración que actúan sobre los materiales pétreos usados en la Catedral de Granada. Se estudia con detalle la acción del agua, influencia antropogénica, oscilaciones térmicas, factores de incompatibilidad, movimientos sísmicos y factores de tipo biológico. Inglés: Alteration mechanisms on the stones of the Catedral of Granada, Spai

Determination of the Most Influential Factors in the Concentration of Bacteria in Coastal Waters

Control of water quality of coastal waters is essential to ensure the safety of bathers. Therefore, the current legislation establishes maximum concentration levels of faecal bacteria, in particular Escherichia coli and intestinal Enterococci. After several studies, it is known that there are environmental and physical factors such as the level of urbanization of the beach, sediment type, rainfall, salinity and water temperature, which influence the concentration of these bacteria. However, there are many other factors, such as the morphology of the beach, its orientation relative to waves and the proximity of spills, that can affect the survival of these bacteria and therefore directly influence the water quality in the coastal zone. In this article, 270 beaches between the provinces of Valencia and Granada (Spain) were analysed. It was observed that the local factors that further affect the concentration of faecal bacteria in coastal water are the presence of meadows of Posidonia oceanica, the orientation of the beach with respect to the direction of the most common incident waves and the agricultural discharges in the sea.This research has been partially funded by Universidad de Alicante through the project ‘Estudio sobre el perfil de equilibrio y la profundidad de cierre en playas de arena’ (YGRE15-02)

Vision-based interface applied to assistive robots

This paper presents two vision-based interfaces for disabled people to command a mobile robot for personal assistance. The developed interfaces can be subdivided according to the algorithm of image processing implemented for the detection and tracking of two different body regions. The first interface detects and tracks movements of the user's head, and these movements are transformed into linear and angular velocities in order to command a mobile robot. The second interface detects and tracks movements of the user's hand, and these movements are similarly transformed. In addition, this paper also presents the control laws for the robot. The experimental results demonstrate good performance and balance between complexity and feasibility for real-time applications.Fil: Pérez Berenguer, María Elisa. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Soria, Carlos Miguel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan. Instituto de Automática. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Automática; ArgentinaFil: López Celani, Natalia Martina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica y Automática. Gabinete de Tecnología Médica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Nasisi, Oscar Herminio. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Automática; ArgentinaFil: Mut, Vicente Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan. Instituto de Automática. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Automática; Argentin

Regulation of NR4A by nutritional status, gender, postnatal development and hormonal deficiency

The NR4A is a subfamily of the orphan nuclear receptors (NR) superfamily constituted by three well characterized members: Nur77 (NR4A1), Nurr1 (NR4A2) and Nor 1 (NR4A3). They are implicated in numerous biological processes as DNA repair, arteriosclerosis, cell apoptosis, carcinogenesis and metabolism. Several studies have demonstrated the role of this subfamily on glucose metabolism, insulin sensitivity and energy balance. These studies have focused mainly in liver and skeletal muscle. However, its potential role in white adipose tissue (WAT), one of the most important tissues involved in the regulation of energy homeostasis, is not well-studied. The aim of this work was to elucidate the regulation of NR4A in WAT under different physiological and pathophysiological settings involved in energy balance such as fasting, postnatal development, gender, hormonal deficiency and pregnancy. We compared NR4A mRNA expression of Nur77, Nurr1 and Nor 1 and found a clear regulation by nutritional status, since the expression of the 3 isoforms is increased after fasting in a leptin-independent manner and sex steroid hormones also modulate NR4A expression in males and females. Our findings indicate that NR4A are regulated by different physiological and pathophysiological settings known to be associated with marked alterations in glucose metabolism and energy status.This work has been supported by grants from Fondo Investigaciones Sanitarias (ST: PI12/02842), Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (RN: RYC-2008-02219 and BFU2012-35255; MMM: BFU2010-17116), Xunta de Galicia (ML: 10PXIB208164PR and 2012-CP070; RN: EM 2012/039 and 2012-CP069), Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red (CIBER) de Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición. CIBERobn is an initiative of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) of Spain which is supported by FEDER funds. The research leading to these results has also received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme under the following grant: ML and RN: FP7/2007-2013: n° 245009: NeuroFASTS

Morfología macroscópica de alteración de la piedra del conjunto catedralicio de Granada/España

Los principales factores de alteración que actúan en el conjunto catedralicio de Granada son, uno natural de origen térmico, dadas las bajas temperaturas que se alcanzan en invierno, y las grandes oscilaciones térmicas que se registran durante gran parte del año, y los de origen antropogénico, fundamentalmente los de mal uso de elementos de sujeción metálicos oxidables y los de contaminación atmosférica debida a productos de combustión. De esta forma, los mecanismos de alteración primordiales son los de heladicidad por la expansión producida por la congelación del agua retenida en los poros y microgrietas, sobre todo en los elementos arquitectónicos de mayor superficie de exposición y en su orientación umbría. Los indicadores a que ello conduce son las fisuras y fragmentaciones. Así, muchos elementos de piedra de Santa Pudia de la crestería de la Capilla Real se han perdido y los que quedan se encuentran muy degradados. La piedra de Sierra Elvira de las cornisas, más compacta, también se ve afectada por este mecanismo, iniciado por las microgrietas provocadas por dilataciones diferenciales debidas a oscilaciones térmicas, que facilitaron el acceso al agua. La expansión de hierros al oxidarse ha provocado la fracturación y fisuración de gran número de elementos ornamentales como bolas, pináculos, etc, que han obligado al desmontaje de muchos de ellos por el riesgo de caída, sobre todo en las terrazas superiores del monumento. Los mecanismos de disolución, ciclos de cristalización y acción química han conducido a la pérdida abundante de materia, tanto en forma de arenizaciones, sobre todo en las zonas de mayor humedad, como de formación de huecos (picados, alveolizaciones, estriados), en aquellas zonas más expuesta al viento. Esto afecta de forma generalizada a las zonas bajas en todo el perímetro del edificio, excepto en gran parte de la fachada principal, así como en todos los antepechos y en las superficies situadas debajo de las cornisas. Estas arenizaciones se ven favorecidas cuando existen placas biológicas o depósitos de inquemados, siendo estos últimos de mayor abundancia en las superficies más cercanas a la Gran Vía y en su orientación hacia ésta. Por último, y sobre todo por su repercusión estética, es necesario mencionar los abundantes depósitos de guano de palomino, cuya mayor presencia se da en la fachada principal.The main factors of deterioration that affect the Cathedral Whole of Granada are one of natural thermic origin due to the low temperatures during the winters and the higher thermic oscillations and those of anthropogenical origin: fundamentally the oxidation of metallic elements and atmospheric pollution due to burnt products. For this reason, the more important deterioration mechanisms arethe freezing ones due to the expansión produced in the v^ater retained inside the pores and microcracks, fundamentally in the architectonic elements with high expositional surface and in their shady orientation; the main indicators produced are fissuring and spalling. In this way, a lot of elements of Santa Pudia stone located in the Royal Chapel crenellations have disappeared and the rest are very deteriorated. The more compact Sierra Elvira stone used on the upper zone of the cornices has also been affected by the freezing mechanism, which starts with the microcracks produced by differential dilatations due to the thermic oscillations which made the water access easy. The iron corrosión and later expansión of the oxidation products has provoked the cracking and fissuring of many ornamental elements like balls, pinnacles, etc, and this situation has obliged their dismantling on the upper zones due to the danger to the public. The mechanisms of dissotution, crystallization cycles and Chemical action have led to abundant material loosening in the form of grain disgregation overcoats on the higher humidity zones, and formation of hollows (pitting, alveolar erosión, striations) in the zones more exposed to the winds. This situation is generalized in the lower zones of the monument, except on the main fagade, and in the parapets and lower zones of the cornices. The grain disgregations are more important when biological crusts or unburned deposits exist, the latter being of major abundance on the surfaces near the Gran Vía and in its orientation. It is necessary to mention the pigeon dung deposits, very important in the main fagade, with greater stetical repercussion

Optimizing dual-mode EEE interfaces: Deep-Sleep is healthy

The IEEE 802.3bj standard defines two potential low power operating modes for high speed energy efficient ethernet (EEE) physical interfaces working at 40 and 100 Gb/s: a not-so-efficient low power mode that requires very short transition times to restore normal operation (Fast-Wake) and a highly efficient low power mode with longer transition times (Deep-Sleep). In this paper, we present a new frame coalescing mechanism that dynamically adjusts the coalescing queue threshold in order to minimize the energy consumption of dual-mode EEE interfaces and maintains, at the same time, the average frame delay close to a target value. The proposed mechanism has been validated through simulation under different types of traffic (Poisson, self-similar, and real Internet traffic). In addition, we show that, with the current transition times and efficiency profiles of the standardized low power modes, our proposal renders the Fast-Wake mode unnecessary in most practical scenarios.Xunta de Galici

Enhancing LoRaWAN scalability with Longest First Slotted CSMA

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISUGCompelling features such as low power consumption and low complexity make LoRaWAN one of the most promising technologies to provide long-range connectivity to resource-constrained devices. However, LoRaWAN suffers from limited scalability since it uses an Aloha-based protocol for accessing the channel that causes a huge amount of frame collisions when the number of devices (or the network load) is high. This paper presents LFS-CSMA, a new medium access control mechanism that enhances the scalability of LoRaWAN networks by just combining the well-known slotted Aloha and CSMA schemes in a novel manner. With LFS-CSMA, longer frames are transmitted earlier within a given timeslot. Thus, devices with short frames to be transmitted can check the channel availability before sending them and avoid collisions if they detect an ongoing transmission. Performance results show that LFS-CSMA causes far less collisions than traditional MAC mechanisms, thus improving the scalability of LoRaWAN networks significantly.Agencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. PID2020-113240RB-I00Xunta de Galici

Participación cooperativa en la asignatura de Psicología de la Educación

La Educación Superior está inmersa en un proceso de transformación. Estos cambios se han apoyado en el Plan de Bolonia que ha ido diseñando una respuesta a las necesidades económicas y sociales derivadas de las diferentes políticas desarrolladas en Europa. Desde nuestro punto de vista, nos encontramos en un espacio educativo caracterizado por una enseñanza orientada a la formación continua del alumnado, en la cual se van a priorizar de igual forma contenidos teóricos y prácticos. También estamos integrando una educación que priorice habilidades de investigación y cooperación en los alumnos que les permitan su máximo desarrollo y buscando una enseñanza de calidad para todos los miembros de la educación superior. De esta manera, podemos introducir en los programas universitarios objetivos, contenidos y criterios de evaluación relacionados con el desarrollo de una educación orientada a la igualdad de oportunidades y a la realización de ejercicios teórico-prácticos de manera cooperativa. El objetivo de nuestro trabajo es favorecer en los alumnos de la asignatura de Psicología de la Educación el desarrollo de estas habilidades a través de una metodología colaborativa que estimule, además, su motivación para aprender y la formación integral del sujeto indispensable para una futura adaptación a su contexto socioeconómico