Increased Brain Activation During the Processing of Spatially Invalidly Cued Targets

In a spatial central cue Posner´s paradigm, positions in the vertical meridian were cued in order to evaluate the neuro-cognitive consequences in the processing of validly cued (VC) and invalidly cued (IC) targets. Sixty-four EEG channels were recorded and analyzed showing that IC targets produced an enhanced P3 component with respect to VC targets. With the purpose of reinforcing the idea of increased activation during IC targets and to define the areas in which the increased activation would occur, source localization was applied to the ERPs. LORETA and single dipole localization showed that the early P3 presented a localization in the dorsal part of the anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), while the late P3 was fitted by single dipole more posterior than the early P3, and LORETA added a source in the parahippocampal gyrus in addition to the already activated dACC. LORETA results also showed a differential activation of the inferior frontal gyrus when IC targets were processed. The previous results suggest that subjects prepare to accomplish the task upon specification of the cue. Therefore, when the IC target appears, it induces the activation of the frontal cortex including areas related to the conflict monitoring system and to the processing of unexpected events. The IC targets also induce the revision of internal models about the task, possibly by activation of the temporo-mesial surface. All the obtained current source differences indicate that a higher brain activation during IC trials with respect to VC trials occurs

Exposure to Hurricanes Eta and Iota in Farming Communities in Northern and Central Nicaragua

Within just two weeks, Central America endured two late-season Category 4 hurricanes. On November 3rd, 2020, Hurricane Eta made landfall along Nicaragua’s northern Caribbean coast. On the 17th of the same month, Hurricane Iota brought further devastation, landing a mere 15 miles further south than Eta. Persistent rainfall and heavy winds resulted in flash floods, river floods, landslides, and extensive agricultural, institutional, and residential infrastructure damage. Overall, the storms affected about 7.5 million people across Central America and the Caribbean region. The rapid succession of the two storms made separating damages difficult, but it is estimated that Eta was directly responsible for at least 165 deaths and $6.8 billion worth of damage. Iota directly contributed to an additional 67 deaths and$1.4 billion worth of damage, nearly half of which comprised damage in Nicaragua alone. Many fatal events occurred in the Jinotega Department of Nicaragua, where one mudslide buried at least 30 people. Loss of power, water, food, shelter, and telephone service was widespread throughout the region. This poster presents a spatial analysis of the intensity and movement of both hurricanes across Nicaragua. We will share a preliminary analysis of vulnerability and impacts focusing on crop devastation and landslides in northern and central Nicaragua. Finally, we will share an initial assessment of institutional and community response in smallholder farming communities, together with plans for follow-up field research. Future evaluation of survey data collected from smallholder farms will better our understanding of long-term impacts and the success of different hazard responses

Conductance through a Ti-atom impurity in Ag(100) and Au(111): An ionic model considering spin fluctuations

We describe the interaction between a transition-metal atom and a noble-metal surface by using an ionic model in which the first Hund’s rule determines the filling of the atom’s d levels, and spin fluctuations occur due to the electron exchange between the metal band and the atom states. We apply our model to the case of adsorbed Ti atoms on noble-metal surfaces (Ag and Au) in which conductance measurements in scanning tunneling microscope experiments suggest a mixed-valence regime according to the position and width of the atomic resonance. By introducing, in our calculation, these two parameters as extracted from the experiment, we satisfactorily reproduce the experimental results in both cases. We find, in the Ag(100) surface, that the conductance spectrum reflects electronic characteristics of the metal surface modified by the presence of the magnetic atom; whereas, in the Au(111) case, only the projected density of states on the Ti atom determines the conductance spectrum shapeE.C.G., M.A.R., and C.S.G.C. acknowledge financial support from ANPCyT through Grant No. PICT2007-0811 and U.N.L. through a CAI + D grant. F.F. has been supported by the Spanish MICIIN under Contract No. FIS2010-16046 and the CAM under Contract No. S2009/MAT-146

Transformaciones de haz mediante microlentes selfoc activas

[EN]: In this paper light propagation in an active selfoc microlens with complex refractive index and gradient parameter are examined. The ray-transfer matrix of an active material regarded as a diffraction-free first order optical system is presented to describe the beam transformations in active selfoc microlenses. Results concerning Gaussian beam transformationsand on-axis irradiance through the active selfoc microlens are discussed and commented. © Sociedad Española de Óptica.[ES]: En este trabajo se estudia la propagación de la luz a través de una microlente selfoc activa con un índice de refracción y parámetro de gradiente complejos. La matriz de transferencia de rayos, vista como un sistema óptico de primer orden libre de efectos de difracción, es introducida para describir las transformaciones que puede sufrir un haz en microlentes selfoc activas. Por último se presentan y comentan los resultados correspondientes a las transformaciones de haces Gaussianos y a la irradiancia en eje a través de la microlente selfoc activa.This work has been sponsored by Xunta de Galicia/Feder (INCITE08PXIB206013PR), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MAT2010-18519) and CDTI (SURFALUX SOL-00030930), Spain. Besides, Ana I. Gomez-Varela wants to acknowledge the financial support from the FPU (Formación de Profesorado Universitario) grant 2009 (Ministerio de Educación, Spain).Peer Reviewe

Electrostatic interactions contribute to the control of intramolecular thiol-disulfide isomerization in a protein

The roles of structural factors and of electrostatic interactions with the environment on the outcome of thiol–disulfide exchange reactions were investigated in a mutated immunoglobulin domain (I27*) under mechanical stress. An extensive ensemble of molecular dynamics trajectories was generated by means of QM/MM simulations for a total sampling of 5.7 μs. A significant number of thiol–disulfide exchanges were observed, and the Cys32 thiolate preferred to attack Cys55 over Cys24, in agreement with previous experimental and computational studies. The structural features as well as electronic structures of the thiol–disulfide system along the reaction were analyzed, as were the electrostatic interactions with the environment. The previous findings of better accessibility of Cys55 were confirmed. Additionally, the reaction was found to be directed by the electrostatic interactions of the involved sulfur atoms with the molecular environment. The relationships of atomic charges, which stem from the electrostatic interactions, lead to the kinetic preference of the attack on Cys55. Further, QM/MM metadynamics simulations of thiol–disulfide exchange in a small model system with varied artificial external electric potentials revealed changes in reaction kinetics of the same magnitude as in I27*. Therefore, the electrostatic interactions are confirmed to play a role in the regioselectivity of the thiol–disulfide exchange reactions in the protein

Inverse Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (iLGADs) for precise tracking and timing applications

Low Gain Avalanche Detector (LGAD) is the baseline sensing technology of the recently proposed Minimum Ionizing Particle (MIP) end-cap timing detectors (MTD) at the Atlas and CMS experiments. The current MTD sensor is designed as a multi-pad matrix detector delivering a poor position resolution, due to the relatively large pad area, around 1 $mm^2$; and a good timing resolution, around 20-30 ps. Besides, in his current technological incarnation, the timing resolution of the MTD LGAD sensors is severely degraded once the MIP particle hits the inter-pad region since the signal amplification is missing for this region. This limitation is named as the LGAD fill-factor problem. To overcome the fill factor problem and the poor position resolution of the MTD LGAD sensors, a p-in-p LGAD (iLGAD) was introduced. Contrary to the conventional LGAD, the iLGAD has a non-segmented deep p-well (the multiplication layer). Therefore, iLGADs should ideally present a constant gain value over all the sensitive region of the device without gain drops between the signal collecting electrodes; in other words, iLGADs should have a 100${\%}$ fill-factor by design. In this paper, tracking and timing performance of the first iLGAD prototypes is presented.Comment: Conference Proceedings of VCI2019, 15th Vienna Conference of Instrumentation, February 18-22, 2019, Vienna, Austri

Perceived organizational support and organizational commitment in a private company in Lima, Perú

En la presenta investigación se busca determinar la correlación entre las variables Apoyo Organizacional Percibido y Compromiso Organizacional en una institución privada de Lima. Se utilizó una muestra representativa de 135 teleoperadores de una empresa dedicada a un call center. La muestra estuvo conformada por un 56% de mujeres y un 44% de hombres, la edad promedio de ambos sexos fue de 24 años, el 73% ha nacido en Lima, el 26% en provincia y el 1% en el extranjero. Asimismo, en esta investigación se empleó la escala de Apoyo Organizacional Percibido de Eisenberger (1986) y la escala de Compromiso Organizacional de Meyer y Allen (1991). En esta investigación se concluyó que efectivamente el apoyo organizacional percibido y el compromiso organizacional presentan una relación positiva. La permanencia de un colaborador en la empresa dependerá de la percepción positiva de apoyo organizacional y la conformidad con el trabajo. Asimismo, si la persona tiene una percepción negativa de apoyo organizacional es muy probable que se sienta disconforme con su trabajo y por ende, abandone su puesto de trabajo

A genetic interaction between RAP1 and telomerase reveals an unanticipated role for RAP1 in telomere maintenance

RAP1 is one of the components of shelterin, the capping complex at chromosome ends or telomeres, although its role in telomere length maintenance and protection has remained elusive. RAP1 also binds subtelomeric repeats and along chromosome arms, where it regulates gene expression and has been shown to function in metabolism control. Telomerase is the enzyme that elongates telomeres, and its deficiency causes a premature aging in humans and mice. We describe an unanticipated genetic interaction between RAP1 and telomerase. While RAP1 deficiency alone does not impact on mouse survival, mice lacking both RAP1 and telomerase show a progressively decreased survival with increasing mouse generations compared to telomerase single mutants. Telomere shortening is more pronounced in Rap1-/- Terc-/- doubly deficient mice than in the single-mutant Terc-/- counterparts, leading to an earlier onset of telomere-induced DNA damage and degenerative pathologies. Telomerase deficiency abolishes obesity and liver steatohepatitis provoked by RAP1 deficiency. Using genomewide ChIP sequencing, we find that progressive telomere shortening owing to telomerase deficiency leads to re-localization of RAP1 from telomeres and subtelomeric regions to extratelomeric sites in a genomewide manner. These findings suggest that although in the presence of sufficient telomere reserve RAP1 is not a key factor for telomere maintenance and protection, it plays a crucial role in the context of telomerase deficiency, thus in agreement with its evolutionary conservation as a telomere component from yeast to humans.Research in the Blasco laboratory is funded by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO and FEDER) Project RETOS (SAF2013-45111-R), the European Research Council (ERC) Project TEL STEM CELL (ERC-2008-AdG/232854), and Fundacion Botin.S

La formación del concepto de función en alumnos de educación media superior

En este artículo se describe la realización de un taller cuyo diseño responde al marco de una investigación en proceso, que explora los saberes que sobre el concepto de función tienen los alumnos de educación media superior (EMS) y pretende analizar los efectos que presenta la puesta en escena de situaciones didácticas sobre la formación del concepto de función. En la primera etapa de la investigación se están explorando dichos saberes en 30 alumnos de EMS y 10 de los primeros semestres de la licenciatura en matemáticas en Acapulco, Guerrero, México. También se han diseñado situaciones didácticas para abordar este concepto, a fin de que se instrumenten en la escuela. Con estos avances se estructuró el taller para interesados en este campo y realizado en Relme 17 con la participación de siete profesores