La matanza del cerdo en Cataluña

El objetivo de este trabajo es la caracterización de la tradición de la matanza del cerdo en Cataluña en su dimensión antropológica y de salud pública, así como la descripción de sus bases técnicas y de los cambios diacrónicos observados

La matanza del cerdo en Cataluña : resultados preliminares

La matanza del cerdo es una fiesta tradicional de origen ancestral en la que se celebra un rito sacrificial doméstico. En Cataluña, es una tradición no regulada como actividad particular. Los productos procedentes de la matanza del cerdo constituyen parte de la reserva cultural gastronómica catalana

Stunning pigs with different gas mixtures : Aversion in pigs

The objective of this study was to assess the aversion to exposure of 90% argon, 70% N2/30% CO2 and 85% N2/15% CO 2 by volume in atmospheric air in 24 halothane-free slaughter-weight pigs using aversion learning techniques and behavioural studies in an experimental slaughterhouse. Pigs were subjected to the treatments individually during 2 separate trials of 12 animals each. The time of exposure to the gases was 46 and 32 s, respectively. When the pit contained any of the 3 gas mixtures, the time taken to cross the raceway and enter the cradle (TCREC) increased compared with the training sessions (atmospheric air). The incidence of pigs showing retreat and escape attempts and gasps and the number of times that this behaviour was performed was lower in 90% argon than in the gas mixtures with N2 and CO2. On the other hand, the time to loss of posture was lower with 70% N2/30% CO2 than with argon. The second exposure to all gas mixtures was more aversive than the first and the loss of posture also occurred earlier in the second exposure. In conclusion, pigs showed more aversion to gas mixtures with N2 and either 15% or 30% CO 2 by volume than 90% argon by volume

3D Face Recognition with Sparse Spherical Representations

This paper addresses the problem of 3D face recognition using simultaneous sparse approximations on the sphere. The 3D face point clouds are first aligned with a novel and fully automated registration process. They are then represented as signals on the 2D sphere in order to preserve depth and geometry information. Next, we implement a dimensionality reduction process with simultaneous sparse approximations and subspace projection. It permits to represent each 3D face by only a few spherical functions that are able to capture the salient facial characteristics, and hence to preserve the discriminant facial information. We eventually perform recognition by effective matching in the reduced space, where Linear Discriminant Analysis can be further activated for improved recognition performance. The 3D face recognition algorithm is evaluated on the FRGC v.1.0 data set, where it is shown to outperform classical state-of-the-art solutions that work with depth images

Spatial parcellations, spectral filtering, and connectivity measures in fMRI: Optimizing for discrimination.

The analysis of Functional Connectivity (FC) is a key technique of fMRI, having been used to distinguish brain states and conditions. While many approaches to calculating FC are available, there have been few assessments of their differences, making it difficult to choose approaches and compare results. Here, we assess the impact of methodological choices on discriminability, using a fully controlled dataset of continuous active states involving basic visual and motor tasks, providing robust localized FC changes. We tested a range of anatomical and functional parcellations, including the AAL atlas, parcellations derived from the Human Connectome Project and Independent Component Analysis (ICA) of many dimensionalities. We measure amplitude, covariance, correlation and regularized partial correlation under different temporal filtering choices. We evaluate features derived from these methods for discriminating states using MVPA. We find that multidimensional parcellations derived from functional data performed similarly, outperforming an anatomical atlas, with correlation and partial correlation (p<0.05, FDR). Partial correlation, with appropriate regularization, outperformed correlation. Amplitude and covariance generally discriminated less well, although gave good results with high-dimensionality ICA. We found that discriminative FC properties are frequency specific; higher frequencies performed surprisingly well under certain configurations of atlas choices and dependency measures, with ICA-based parcellations revealing greater discriminability at high frequencies compared to other parcellations. Methodological choices in FC analyses can have a profound impact on results and can be selected to optimize accuracy, interpretability, and sharing of results. This work contributes to a basis for consistent selection of approaches to estimating and analyzing FC

Búsqueda de indicadores de interdisciplinariedad/integración en las ciencias naturales en la EGB3

La implementación del Tercer Ciclo de la Educación General Básica constituyó un desafío en Argentina. Construyó su identidad a partir de la vieja escuela secundaria y primaria, integrando saberes académicos y prácticas educativas heterogéneas. Santa Fe organizó las Cs. Naturales (CN) aglutinando disciplinas diversas (Física, Química, Biología, Geología, Astronomía). Se presentan resultados emergentes de entrevistas a informantes claves, que permitieron conformar categorías de análisis para elaborar un cuestionario a fin de caracterizar las condiciones en que se gestionaron las CN. Se registró una postura crítica de los profesores ante la falta de alternativas orientadas a un enfoque integrador, si bien abordaron situaciones cotidianas en el aula. Tales situaciones se tomaron, en general, de la Biología, y en pocos casos la Física y la Química las explican

Early socialization and environmental enrichment of lactating piglets affects the caecal microbiota and metabolomic response after weaning

The aim of this study was to determine the possible impact of early socialization and an enriched neonatal environment to improve adaptation of piglets to weaning. We hypothesized that changes in the microbiota colonization process and in their metabolic response and intestinal functionality could help the animals face weaning stress. A total of 48 sows and their litters were allotted into a control (CTR) or an enriched treatment (ENR), in which piglets from two adjacent pens were combined and enriched with toys. The pattern of caecal microbial colonization, the jejunal gene expression, the serum metabolome and the intestinal physiology of the piglets were assessed before (-2 d) and after weaning (+ 3d). A differential ordination of caecal microbiota was observed after weaning. Serum metabolome suggested a reduced energetic metabolism in ENR animals, as evidenced by shifts in triglycerides and fatty acids, VLDL/LDL and creatine regions. The TLR2 gene showed to be downregulated in the jejunum of ENR pigs after weaning. The integration of gene expression, metabolome and microbiota datasets confirmed that differences between barren and enriched neonatal environments were evident only after weaning. Our results suggest that improvements in adaptation to weaning could be mediated by a better response to the post-weaning stress.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The atypical CDK activator RingoA/Spy1 regulates exit from quiescence in neural stem cells

In the adult mammalian brain, most neural stem cells (NSCs) are held in a reversible state of quiescence, which is essential to avoid NSC exhaustion and determine the appropriate neurogenesis rate. NSCs of the mouse adult subependymal niche provide neurons for olfactory circuits and can be found at different depths of quiescence, but very little is known on how their quiescence-to-activation transition is controlled. Here, we identify the atypical cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) activator RingoA as a regulator of this process. We show that the expression of RingoA increases the levels of CDK activity and facilitates cell cycle entry of a subset of NSCs that divide slowly. Accordingly, RingoA-deficient mice exhibit reduced olfactory neurogenesis with an accumulation of quiescent NSCs. Our results indicate that RingoA plays an important role in setting the threshold of CDK activity required for adult NSCs to exit quiescence and may represent a dormancy regulator in adult mammalian tissues.© 2023 The Author(s)

UCYN-A3, a newly characterized open ocean sublineage of the symbiotic N2-fixing cyanobacterium Candidatus Atelocyanobacterium thalassa

The symbiotic unicellular cyanobacterium Candidatus Atelocyanobacterium thalassa (UCYN-A) is one of the most abundant and widespread nitrogen (N2)-fixing cyanobacteria in the ocean. Although it remains uncultivated, multiple sublineages have been detected based on partial nitrogenase (nifH) gene sequences, including the four most commonly detected sublineages UCYN-A1, UCYN-A2, UCYN-A3 and UCYN-A4. However, very little is known about UCYN-A3 beyond the nifH sequences from nifH gene diversity surveys. In this study, single cell sorting, DNA sequencing, qPCR and CARD-FISH assays revealed discrepancies involving the identification of sublineages, which led to new information on the diversity of the UCYN-A symbiosis. 16S rRNA and nifH gene sequencing on single sorted cells allowed us to identify the 16S rRNA gene of the uncharacterized UCYN-A3 sublineage. We designed new CARD-FISH probes that allowed us to distinguish and observe UCYN-A2 in a coastal location (SIO Pier; San Diego) and UCYN-A3 in an open ocean location (Station ALOHA; Hawaii). Moreover, we reconstructed about 13% of the UCYN-A3 genome from Tara Oceans metagenomic data. Finally, our findings unveil the UCYN-A3 symbiosis in open ocean waters suggesting that the different UCYN-A sublineages are distributed along different size fractions of the plankton defined by the cell-size ranges of their prymnesiophyte host