Very Rare Complementation between Mitochondria Carrying Different Mitochondrial DNA Mutations Points to Intrinsic Genetic Autonomy of the Organelles in Cultured Human Cells

In the present work, a large scale investigation was done regarding the capacity of cultured human cell lines (carrying in homoplasmic form either the mitochondrial tRNALys A8344G mutation associated with the myoclonic epilepsy and ragged red fiber (MERRF) encephalomyopathy or a frameshift mutation, isolated in vitro, in the gene for the ND4 subunit of NADH dehydrogenase) to undergo transcomplementation of their recessive mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations after cell fusion. The presence of appropriate nuclear drug resistance markers in the two cell lines allowed measurements of the frequency of cell fusion in glucose-containing medium, non-selective for respiratory capacity, whereas the frequency of transcomplementation of the two mtDNA mutations was determined by growing the same cell fusion mixture in galactose-containing medium, selective for respiratory competence. Transcomplementation of the two mutations was revealed by the re-establishment of normal mitochondrial protein synthesis and respiratory activity and by the relative rates synthesis of two isoforms of the ND3 subunit of NADH dehydrogenase. The results of several experiments showed a cell fusion frequency between 1.4 and 3.4% and an absolute transcomplementation frequency that varied between 1.2 × 10^-5 and 5.5 × 10^-4. Thus, only 0.3-1.6% of the fusion products exhibited transcomplementation of the two mutations. These rare transcomplementing clones were very sluggish in developing, grew very slowly thereafter, and showed a substantial rate of cell death (22-28%). The present results strongly support the conclusion that the capacity of mitochondria to fuse and mix their contents is not a general intrinsic property of these organelles in mammalian cells, although it may become activated in some developmental or physiological situations

Stationary foreground detection using background subtraction and temporal difference in video surveillance

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. Á. Bayona, J. C. SanMiguel, and Martínez, "Stationary foreground detection using background subtraction and temporal difference in video surveillance", in 17th IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, ICIP 2010, p. 4657 - 4660In this paper we describe a new algorithm focused on obtaining stationary foreground regions, which is useful for applications like the detection of abandoned/stolen objects and parked vehicles. Firstly, a sub-sampling scheme based on background subtraction techniques is implemented to obtain stationary foreground regions. Secondly, some modifications are introduced on this base algorithm with the purpose of reducing the amount of stationary foreground detected. Finally, we evaluate the proposed algorithm and compare results with the base algorithm using video surveillance sequences from PETS 2006, PETS 2007 and I-LIDS for AVSS 2007 datasets. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm increases the detection of stationary foreground regions as compared to the base algorithm.Work supported by the Spanish Government (TEC2007- 65400 SemanticVideo), by Cátedra Infoglobal-UAM for “Nuevas Tecnologías de video aplicadas a la seguridad”, by the Consejería de Educación of the Comunidad de Madrid and by the European Social Fund

Comparative evaluation of stationary foreground object detection algorithms based on background subtraction techniques

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. Á. Bayona, J. C. SanMiguel, and J. M. Martínez, "Comparative evaluation of stationary foreground object detection algorithms based on background subtraction techniques" in Sixth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Video and Signal Based Surveillance. AVSS 2009, p. 25 - 30In several video surveillance applications, such as the detection of abandoned/stolen objects or parked vehicles,the detection of stationary foreground objects is a critical task. In the literature, many algorithms have been proposed that deal with the detection of stationary foreground objects, the majority of them based on background subtraction techniques. In this paper we discuss various stationary object detection approaches comparing them in typical surveillance scenarios (extracted from standard datasets). Firstly, the existing approaches based on background-subtraction are organized into categories. Then, a representative technique of each category is selected and described. Finally, a comparative evaluation using objective and subjective criteria is performed on video surveillance sequences selected from the PETS 2006 and i-LIDS for AVSS 2007 datasets, analyzing the advantages and drawbacks of each selected approach.This work has partially supported by the Cátedra UAMInfoglobal ("Nuevas tecnologías de vídeo aplicadas a sistemas de video-seguridad"), the Spanish Administration agency CDTI (CENIT-VISION 2007-1007), by the Spanish Government (TEC2007-65400 SemanticVideo), by the Comunidad de Madrid (S-050/TIC-0223- ProMultiDis), by the Consejería de Educación of the Comunidad de Madrid, and by The European Social Fund

La Problemática de los gatos cimarrones

Treball presentat a la Facultat de Veterinària de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Treball presentat a l'assignatura de Deontologia i Veterinària Legal (21223

On a Holographic Model for Confinement/Deconfinement

We study the thermodynamics of the hard wall model, which consists in the introduction of an infrared cut-off in asymptotically AdS spaces. This is a toy model for confining backgrounds in the context of the gauge/gravity correspondence. We use holographic renormalization and reproduce the existence of a Hawking Page phase transition recently discussed by Herzog. We also show that the entropy jumps from $N^0$ to $N^2$, which reinforces the interpretation of this transition as the gravity dual of confinement/deconfinement. We also show that similar results hold for the phenomenologically motivated soft wall model, underlining the potential universality of our analysis.Comment: 14 pages. V2: We included a new section discussing the soft wall model and new references. V3: We clarified some points and updated the references. Results unchanged. Version published in PR

Elucidating Cause-Effect Relationships between Extracellular Matrix Signaling and Mesenchymal Stem Cell Differentiation

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) differentiation is known to be influenced by a range of environmental stimuli. MSC-based bone regeneration strategies would benefit from the identification of scaffold material properties which intrinsically promote osteoblast lineage progression. The aim of this work was to contribute to the understanding of elucidating cause-effect relationships between extracellular matrix (ECM) signaling and osteogenic MSC differentiation using poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) hydrogels as a material platform. First, the effect of several ECM proteins associated with bone morphogenesis or bone fracture healing on MSC osteogenesis was investigated. Second, collagen-mimetic proteins (Scl2) were modified in order to incorporate them in a 3D network, and cell adhesion and activation of cell signaling were evaluated, as well. Finally, the influence of integrin α1 and α2 binding on human MSC (hMSC) osteogenesis was investigated toward the goal of deconvoluting the impact of integrin-based interactions on associated cell behavior. In terms of the osteoinductivity of select ECM components, the results showed that both FG and LN enhanced the osteogenic response of encapsulated MSC cells. In addition, the integrin-based interactions supported by these ECM components indicated that integrin α2 and α6 appeared to play an important role in MSC osteogenesis. Regarding Scl2 protein studies, Scl2-1, Scl2-2, and Scl2-3 were functionalized with photocrosslinking sites to enable incorporation into a 3D hydrogel matrix. characterization studies confirmed that the functionalization of the Scl2 proteins did not disrupt triple helix conformation, integrin binding, or cell adhesion. Also, initial cell studies confirmed specific hMSC adhesion to Scl2 proteins and appropriate activation of different MAP kinase pathways. Finally, Scl2 proteins were conjugated into PEGDA hydrogels and their effect on hMSC osteogenesis was evaluated. The results indicated that both PEG-Scl2-2 and PEG-Scl2-3 were osteoinductive, but in different ways. Therefore, to gain insight into the origins of the observed osteogenic responses, the influence of p38 pathway in osteogenesis of hMSC was investigated in order to establish its potential causative relationship with Scl2 proteins. The results of the p38 inhibition studies suggested p38 pathway may regulate osteogenesis in hMSCs. Further research is needed for investigation of detailed mechanism of osteogenesis regulation

Assessment of fruit quality of grapefruit at postharvest influenced by reclaimed water and deficit irrigation

[SPA] El objetivo de la investigación fue evaluar los efectos a largo plazo del riego con agua regenerada (AR) y agua del trasvase (AT) y diferentes estrategias de riego (control, C, y riego deficitario controlado, RDC) sobre la calidad de pomelos durante su almacenamiento en frío. Los resultados mostraron que el riego con AR y, principalmente, el RDC incrementaron la cantidad de solidos solubles, mejorando así el índice de madurez. Sin embargo, el AR combinada con RDC disminuyó el nº de frutos de la categoría de mayor tamaño al final del almacenaje y AT-RDC presentó el menor contenido en zumo. [ENG] The aim of our research was to discover the effects of the long-term irrigation with saline reclaimed (RW) and transfer (TW) water and different irrigation strategies: control (C) and regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) on fruit quality of grapefruit during cold storage. Result showed sugar/acid ratio was mainly increased by RDI, but also by RW, due to an important increase in soluble solid content. However, RDI combined with RW, significantly decreased the number of fruits in the largest category 5 at the end of cold storage and TW-RDI showed lower values of juice content.This study was supported by two CICYT projects (AGL2010-17553 and AGL2013-49047-C2- 515 2-R) projects and SENECA–Excelencia Científica (19903/GERM/15)