Moving Toward a Strategy for Addressing Climate Displacement of Marine Resources: A Proof-of-Concept

Realistic predictions of climate change effects on natural resources are central to adaptation policies that try to reduce these impacts. However, most current forecasting approaches do not incorporate species-specific, process-based biological information, which limits their ability to inform actionable strategies. Mechanistic approaches, incorporating quantitative information on functional traits, can potentially predict species- and population-specific responses that result from the cumulative impacts of small-scale processes acting at the organismal level, and can be used to infer population-level dynamics and inform natural resources management. Here we present a proof-of-concept study using the European anchovy as a model species that shows how a trait-based, mechanistic species distribution model can be used to explore the vulnerability of marine species to environmental changes, producing quantitative outputs useful for informing fisheries management. We crossed scenarios of temperature and food to generate quantitative maps of selected mechanistic model outcomes (e.g., Maximum Length and Total Reproductive Output). These results highlight changing patterns of source and sink spawning areas as well as the incidence of reproductive failure. This study demonstrates that model predictions based on functional traits can reduce the degree of uncertainty when forecasting future trends of fish stocks. However, to be effective they must be based on high spatial- and temporal resolution environmental data. Such a sensitive and spatially explicit predictive approach may be used to inform more effective adaptive management strategies of resources in novel climatic conditions

Substrate Micropatterning as a New in Vitro Cell Culture System to Study Myelination

Artículo de publicación ISIMyelination is a highly regulated developmental process whereby oligodendrocytes in the central nervous system and Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system ensheathe axons with a multilayered concentric membrane. Axonal myelination increases the velocity of nerve impulse propagation. In this work, we present a novel in vitro system for coculturing primary dorsal root ganglia neurons along with myelinating cells on a highly restrictive and micropatterned substrate. In this new coculture system, neurons survive for several weeks, extending long axons on defined Matrigel tracks. On these axons, myelinating cells can achieve robust myelination, as demonstrated by the distribution of compact myelin and nodal markers. Under these conditions, neurites and associated myelinating cells are easily accessible for studies on the mechanisms of myelin formation and on the effects of axonal damage on the myelin sheath.Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine Initiative of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) RMF-7028 FONDECYT 1080252 CIHR Ministry of Industry of Canada Rio Tinto Alcan Molson Foundatio

An Expanded Multi-scale Monte Carlo Simulation Method for Personalized Radiobiological Effect Estimation in Radiotherapy: a feasibility study

A novel and versatile “bottom-up� approach is developed to estimate the radiobiological effect of clinic radiotherapy. The model consists of multi-scale Monte Carlo simulations from organ to cell levels. At cellular level, accumulated damages are computed using a spectrum-based accumulation algorithm and predefined cellular damage database. The damage repair mechanism is modeled by an expanded reaction-rate two-lesion kinetic model, which were calibrated through replicating a radiobiological experiment. Multi-scale modeling is then performed on a lung cancer patient under conventional fractionated irradiation. The cell killing effects of two representative voxels (isocenter and peripheral voxel of the tumor) are computed and compared. At microscopic level, the nucleus dose and damage yields vary among all nucleuses within the voxels. Slightly larger percentage of cDSB yield is observed for the peripheral voxel (55.0%) compared to the isocenter one (52.5%). For isocenter voxel, survival fraction increase monotonically at reduced oxygen environment. Under an extreme anoxic condition (0.001%), survival fraction is calculated to be 80% and the hypoxia reduction factor reaches a maximum value of 2.24. In conclusion, with biological-related variations, the proposed multi-scale approach is more versatile than the existing approaches for evaluating personalized radiobiological effects in radiotherapy

Jornades en recerca i docència artística

[cat] Jornada II: Experimentalitat i bones pràctiques: Integració, sostenibilitat i benestar. Debat, investigació, tallers oberts, accions artístiques i obres de co-creació

El joc com a espai de creació

Aquesta mostra gira en torn d'obres on el públic no només té un paper d'observador, sinó on aquest ha d'assumir un paper actiu i on les sensacions, transformacions i mutacions sofertes durant el joc seran construcció i reflexió de l'obra d'Art. Els diferents treballs aquí presents d'alumnes de la Facultat de Belles Arts de la Universitat de Barcelona plantegen, mitjançant un llenguatge lúdic, noves maneres de percebre, entendre i desconstruir realitats estètiques, sensorials i socials

Rapid and Long-Lasting Increase in Sites for Synapse Assembly during Late-Phase Potentiation in Rat Hippocampal Neurons

Long-term potentiation in hippocampal neurons has stages that correspond to the stages of learning and memory. Early-phase (10–30 min) potentiation is accompanied by rapid increases in clusters or puncta of presynaptic and postsynaptic proteins, which depend on actin polymerization but not on protein synthesis. We have now examined changes in pre- and postsynaptic puncta and structures during glutamate-induced late-phase (3 hr) potentiation in cultured hippocampal neurons. We find that (1) the potentiation is accompanied by long-lasting maintenance of the increases in puncta, which depends on protein synthesis, (2) most of the puncta and synaptic structures are very dynamic, continually assembling and disassembling at sites that are more stable than the puncta or structures themselves, (3) the increase in presynaptic puncta appears to be due to both rapid and more gradual increases in the number of sites where the puncta may form, and also to the stabilization of existing puncta, (4) under control conditions, puncta of postsynaptic proteins behave similarly to puncta of presynaptic proteins and share sites with them, and (5) the increase in presynaptic puncta is accompanied by a similar increase in presumably presynaptic structures, which may form at distinct as well as shared sites. The new sites could contribute to the transition between the early and late phase mechanisms of plasticity by serving as seeds for the formation and maintenance of new synapses, thus acting as local “tags” for protein synthesis-dependent synaptic growth during late-phase plasticity

Validation of clinical acceptability of deep-learning-based automated segmentation of organs-at-risk for head-and-neck radiotherapy treatment planning

IntroductionOrgan-at-risk segmentation for head and neck cancer radiation therapy is a complex and time-consuming process (requiring up to 42 individual structure, and may delay start of treatment or even limit access to function-preserving care. Feasibility of using a deep learning (DL) based autosegmentation model to reduce contouring time without compromising contour accuracy is assessed through a blinded randomized trial of radiation oncologists (ROs) using retrospective, de-identified patient data.MethodsTwo head and neck expert ROs used dedicated time to create gold standard (GS) contours on computed tomography (CT) images. 445 CTs were used to train a custom 3D U-Net DL model covering 42 organs-at-risk, with an additional 20 CTs were held out for the randomized trial. For each held-out patient dataset, one of the eight participant ROs was randomly allocated to review and revise the contours produced by the DL model, while another reviewed contours produced by a medical dosimetry assistant (MDA), both blinded to their origin. Time required for MDAs and ROs to contour was recorded, and the unrevised DL contours, as well as the RO-revised contours by the MDAs and DL model were compared to the GS for that patient.ResultsMean time for initial MDA contouring was 2.3 hours (range 1.6-3.8 hours) and RO-revision took 1.1 hours (range, 0.4-4.4 hours), compared to 0.7 hours (range 0.1-2.0 hours) for the RO-revisions to DL contours. Total time reduced by 76% (95%-Confidence Interval: 65%-88%) and RO-revision time reduced by 35% (95%-CI,-39%-91%). All geometric and dosimetric metrics computed, agreement with GS was equivalent or significantly greater (p<0.05) for RO-revised DL contours compared to the RO-revised MDA contours, including volumetric Dice similarity coefficient (VDSC), surface DSC, added path length, and the 95%-Hausdorff distance. 32 OARs (76%) had mean VDSC greater than 0.8 for the RO-revised DL contours, compared to 20 (48%) for RO-revised MDA contours, and 34 (81%) for the unrevised DL OARs.ConclusionDL autosegmentation demonstrated significant time-savings for organ-at-risk contouring while improving agreement with the institutional GS, indicating comparable accuracy of DL model. Integration into the clinical practice with a prospective evaluation is currently underway

Tiges prestades: Poètiques de resistència en temps de pandèmia

[cat] La mostra, combinatòria de formats, tècniques i processos, té un nexe comú: l’exploració –conceptual i formal– que han fet artistes-docents –sols o en companyia– en períodes de confinament –obligat o voluntari– i en els seus espais de treball personal. Compta amb la participació de: Anaïs Civit López, Andrea Martínez Arroyo, Eulàlia Grau i Costa, Jaume R. Vallverdú, Joan Miquel Porquer Rigo, Juancho Pacheco Puig, Julio César Ortega, Laia Moreto i Sara Sánchez, Lucido Petrillo, Pablo Romero i Rafael Romero. Amb la col·laboració de: Grup d’Innovació Docent Consolidat ATESI (Art, Territori, Estratègia docent, Sostenibilitat i Intervenció social, GINDOC-UB/162)