Parameterization of the Construction Promoter\u27s Responsibilities throughout the project\u27s life cycle

Europe, and especially Spain has been suffering an ongoing economic, social and political crisis. The construction industry sector has been one of the most affected. Project Management professionals in the construction industry are obliged to make a critical analysis of their results and methodology applications used in recent years. In this paper a methodology has been developed for parameterization and monitoring of projects, portfolios and programs from both the public or private Construction Promoter\u27s point of view -the real engine of the project-. This methodology analyses their responsibilities and those of the stakeholders throughout the project\u27s lifecycle, and allows the Promoter to make decisions based on accurate, realistic and factual knowledge. The project\u27s full data is completely accessible by the Promoter. Thus the Promoter is able to develop a Project Portfolio Management and Business Intelligence. The Next step in the methodology evolution is transferring it to an ICT tool, for a promoter\u27s systematic application. Project management will assist in providing a social improvement, this method is associated with current social demands at all levels and sectors -Transparency- thus allowing realtime monitoring of the building project\u27s status throughout all stages of the project\u27s life cycle

The role of Cis-Regulatory elements in morphological adaptation to cave environment in Astyanax mexicanus

Trabajo presentado en EMBO Workshop Enhanceropathies: Understanding enhancer function to understand human disease, celebrado en Santander (España) del 06 al 09 de octubre de 2021

Genome evolution in morphological adaptation to cave environment in Astyanax mexicanus

Trabajo presentado en el EMBO Workshop The evolution of animal genomes, celebrado en modalidad virtual del 13 al 17 de septiembre de 2021

A Comparative Study of Owner, Contractor, and Consultant Perspective on the Selection Criteria for Subcontractors.

Up till now, most research on the selection of subcontractors in construction projects has focused on the factors considered by the main (general) contractors. The goal of this study is to identify the factors that other main stakeholders, namely clients and consultants, believe should be taken into account when selecting subcontractors. The paper presents the results of a survey of experts from various backgrounds in the construction industry and conducts a comparative study of their perspectives in factors that should be considered in selecting subcontractors. The results of the survey show that there are similarities and dissimilarities between perceptions of respondents with different background. For example, nearly all the respondents identified subcontractor’s past experience in similar projects and subcontractor’s available resources, as the most important factors that should be considered in selecting subcontractors. However, while respondents from contractor organizations identified the lowest bid as one of the most important factors, those from consultant and client organizations identified subcontractor’s safety record, compliance with project schedule, and safety programs and past safety record as their top considerations in selecting subcontractors. The paper provides an extensive statistical analysis to identify the impact of stakeholder’s background on their perspective in the importance of factors that should be considered in selecting subcontractors and discusses the similarities and dissimilarities in their perspectives

Gain of gene regulatory network interconnectivity at the origin of vertebrates

Signaling pathways control a large number of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) during animal development, acting as major tools for body plan formation [A. Pires-daSilva, R. J. Sommer, Nat. Rev. Genet. 4, 39-49 (2003)], although only a few of these pathways operate during this period [J. J. Sanz-Ezquerro, A. E. Munsterberg, € S. Stricker, Front. Cell Dev. Biol. 5, 76 (2017)]. Moreover, most of them have been largely conserved during metazoan evolution [L. S. Babonis, M. Q. Martindale, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 372, 20150477 (2017)]. How evolution has generated a vast diversity of animal morphologies with such a limited number of tools is still largely unknown. Here, we show that gain of interconnectivity between signaling pathways and the GRNs they control may have critically contributed to the origin of vertebrates. We perturbed the retinoic acid, Wnt, FGF, and Nodal signaling pathways during gastrulation in the invertebrate chordate amphioxus and zebrafish and compared the effects on gene expression and cis-regulatory elements (CREs). We found that multiple developmental genes gain response to these pathways through vertebrate-specific CREs. Moreover, in contrast to amphioxus, many of these CREs responded to multiple pathways in zebrafish, which reflects their high interconnectivity. Furthermore, we found that vertebrate-specific cell types are more enriched in highly interconnected genes than in tissues with more ancient origin. Thus, the increase of CREs in vertebrates integrating inputs from different signaling pathways probably contributed to gene expression complexity and to the formation of new cell types and morphological novelties in this lineage.This project has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant agreement no. 740041) and the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Grants BFU2016-74961-P and PID2019-103921GB-I00 to J.L.G.-S. and J.J.T.). This work was also supported by the institutional grant Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu (Grant MDM-2016-0687 to the Department of Gene regulation and morphogenesis of Centro Andaluz de Biología del Desarrollo). M.F. was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement [#800396]. M.S., H.E., and S.B. were supported by the CNRS, and H.E. and S.B. additionally by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) CHORELAND (Grant ANR-16-CE12-0008-01) and the Institut Universitaire de France. Y.-H.S. and J.-K.Y. are supported by intramural funds from Academia Sinica and grants from Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (Grants 110-2326-B-001-006 to Y.-H.S. and 110-2621-B-001-001-MY3 to J.-K.Y.)

Improving Aboveground Forest Biomass Maps: From High-Resolution to National Scale

Forest aboveground biomass (AGB) estimation over large extents and high temporal resolution is crucial in managing Mediterranean forest ecosystems, which have been predicted to be very sensitive to climate change effects. Although many modeling procedures have been tested to assess forest AGB, most of them cover small areas and attain high accuracy in evaluations that are difficult to update and extrapolate without large uncertainties. In this study, focusing on the Region of Murcia in Spain (11,313 km2), we integrated forest AGB estimations, obtained from high-precision airborne laser scanning (ALS) data calibrated with plot-level ground-based measures and bio-geophysical spectral variables (eight different indices derived from MODIS computed at different temporal resolutions), as well as topographic factors as predictors. We used a quantile regression forest (QRF) to spatially predict biomass and the associated uncertainty. The fitted model produced a satisfactory performance (R2 0.71 and RMSE 9.99 t·ha−1) with the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as the main vegetation index, in combination with topographic variables as environmental drivers. An independent validation carried out over the final predicted biomass map showed a satisfactory statistically-robust model (R2 0.70 and RMSE 10.25 t·ha−1), confirming its applicability at coarser resolutions

Neural Regulation of Bone Mineral Homeostasis in Fish: Functional and Transcriptional Characterization of pth4 Neurons

6th International Symposium on Genomics in Aquaculture, Granada (Spain) from May 4 to 6, 2022Understanding the mechanism of bone mineralization and skeletal development is key to prevent skeletal deformities, which still represent one of the major problems in aquaculture. Our previous studies revealed that the novel Pth4 peptide was involved in bone metabolism through phosphate regulation. The pth4 gene is specifically expressed in two bilateral groups of neurons in the hypothalamic area of the zebrafish brain. To characterize the pth4 neurons and their role in bone metabolism, we performed a targeted cell ablation using a stable transgenic pth4 promoter-driven EGFP (pth4:EGFP) zebrafish line. This resulted in impaired mineralization and altered expression of phosphate regulation and osteoblast differentiation genes. To understand the basic biological properties of Pth4 neurons, we examined the transcriptome of adult zebrafish Pth4 neurons. EGFP-labeled Pth4 neurons were isolated from the brain of pth4:EGFP transgenic zebrafish. Four hundred Pth4 neurons (from 10 brains) were collected for each biological replicate using the FACS technique. RNA sequencing of two biological replicates was performed and analyzed. The pth4 neurons showed a transcriptional profile similar to that from other hypothalamic dopaminergic neurons. Our dataset provides an extensive resource for understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying function of adult zebrafish Pth4 neurons. It also establishes a framework for the future characterization of genes expressed in Pth4 neurons and the study of Pth4 neuron evolutionThis research was funded by the MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 grant numbers AGL2014-52473R and AGL2017-89648P to JR and by “ERDF A way of making Europe”N

Creación de un atlas ATAC-seq para evaluar la accesibilidad a la cromatina en todo el genoma durante el proceso de metamorfosis en rodaballo (Scophthalmus maximus)

Poster.-- XVIII Congreso Nacional de Acuicultura “Acuicultura: mares y ríos de oportunidades”, Cádiz, del 21 al 24 de noviembre de 2022[EN] Metamorphosis is a fascinating process of change by which the morphology of the larvae is reshaped into a completely different one to face the new challenges related to adult life. Via metamorphosis, flatfishes change from a symmetrical pelagic larva to an asymmetric benthic juvenile. Although flatfish metamorphosis is well described and the central role of thyroid hormone is well established, few data are available concerning the regulation of potential specific target genes in the context of the gene network responsible for metamorphic remodeling of larval tissues. While protein-coding genes in turbot have been annotated, regulatory sequences of the genome, such as promoters and enhancers, have been poorly studied. To achieve a comprehensive profile of accessible chromatin regions and provide a landscape of gene expression, we performed RNA-seq and ATAC-seq (Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin with high-throughput sequencing) techniques on turbot samples derived from four key metamorphic developmental stages: early development, pre-metamorphic larvae, climax of metamorphosis and post-metamorphic juvenile. Both, accessible chromatin regions and gene expression pattern thorough metamorphic developmental stages were identified using bioinformatic tools. Using different quality measurement and metric methods, we demonstrate that our data is reliable and reproducible, providing an accessible and reliable tool for further studies. Our study will provide an important source, not only for uncovering regulatory elements in turbot genome, but also for expanding our understanding of the gene regulatory networks (GRN) responsible for metamorphic remodeling of an important aquaculture species, the flatfish (Scophthalmus maximus)[ES] La metamorfosis es un fascinante proceso de cambio por el que la morfología de una larva se convierte en otra completamente diferente para afrontar los nuevos retos de la vida adulta. Mediante la metamorfosis, los peces planos pasan de ser una larva pelágica simétrica a un juvenil bentónico asimétrico. Aunque la metamorfosis de los peces planos está bien descrita y el papel central de la hormona tiroidea está bien establecido, se dispone de pocos datos sobre la red de genes responsable de la remodelación metamórfica. Aunque se han anotado los genes codificantes de proteínas en el rodaballo, las secuencias reguladoras del genoma, como los promotores y potenciadores “enhancers”, han sido poco estudiadas. Para conseguir un atlas completo de las regiones de cromatina accesibles y proporcionar un perfil de la expresión génica, utilizamos las técnicas de RNA-seq y ATACseq en muestras de rodaballo en cuatro etapas clave del desarrollo metamórfico: desarrollo temprano, larvas pre-metamórficas, clímax de la metamorfosis y juvenil post-metamórfico. Tanto las regiones accesibles de cromatina como el patrón de expresión génica obtenidas fueron identificados utilizando herramientas bioinformáticas. Usando distintos métodos de medición de calidad, demostramos que nuestros datos son fiables y reproducibles, proporcionando una herramienta accesible y robusta para estudios posteriores. Nuestro estudio proporcionará una fuente importante, no sólo para descubrir elementos reguladores en el genoma del rodaballo, sino también para ampliar el conocimiento sobre las redes reguladoras de genes (GRN) responsables del proceso de metamorfosis de una importante especie acuícola como es el rodaballo (Scophthalmus maximus)Este trabajo es parte del proyecto de I+D+i AGL2014-52473R, financiado por MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ y FEDER Una manera de hacer Europa.N

Genome-wide chromatin accessibility and gene expression profiling during flatfish metamorphosis

7 pages, 5 figures.-- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International LicenseMetamorphosis is a widely studied post-embryonic process in which many tissues undergo dramatic modifications to adapt to the new adult lifestyle. Flatfishes represent a good example of metamorphosis in teleost fishes. During metamorphosis of flatfish, organ regression and neoformation occur, with one of the most notable changes being the migration of one of the eyes to the other side of the body. In order to create a useful and reliable tool to advance the molecular study of metamorphosis in flatfish, we generated a chromatin accessible atlas as well as gene expression profile during four developmental stages ranging from a phylotypic to a post-metamorphic stage. We identified 29,019 differentially accessible chromatin regions and 3,253 differentially expressed genes. We found stage-specific regulatory regions and gene expression profiles, supporting the quality of the results. Our work provides strongly reproducible data for further studies to elucidate the regulatory elements that ensure successful metamorphosis in flatfish speciesPeer reviewe