The influence of massive stars in the interstellar medium of IC 1613: the supernova remnant S8 and the nebula S3 associated with a WO star

We present a detailed kinematical analysis of two selected nebulae in the Local Group irregular galaxy IC 1613. The nebulae are: S8, the only known supernova remnant in this galaxy, and S3, a Wolf-Rayet nebula associated with the only WO star in this galaxy. For S8, we have obtained and analyzed its radial velocity field, where we found complex profiles which can be fitted by several velocity components. These profiles also show the presence of high velocity, low density gas. From this, we have obtained the expansion velocity, estimated the preshock density and calculated the basic kinematical parameters of this SNR. We suggest that in S8 we are seing a SNR partially hidden by dust. This suggestion comes from the fact that the SNR is located between two superbubbles where a ridge of obscured material unveils the existence of dust. Moreover, we show that this hypothesis prevails when energetic arguments are taken into account. In the case of S3, this nebula shows bipolar structure. By means of its kinematics, we have analyzed its two lobes, the ``waist'', as well as its relation with the nearest superbubbles. For the first time we are able to see closed the NW lobe, showing a clover leaf shape. This fact allows a better quantitative knowledge of the nebula as a whole. Furthermore, we found evidence of an expansion motion in the NW lobe. In the light of our results, we can express that these nebulae are the product of very massive stellar evolution. It is surprising the influence these stars still have in shaping their surrounding gas, and on the energy liberation towards the interstellar medium of this galaxy.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, July issue. 11 pages, 12 figures. High resolution figures can be found at http://www.inaoep.mx/~mago/PAPERS/AJ

Actualidad del sistema productivo tradicional de panela en Colombia : análisis de mejoras y alternativas tecnológicas.

(Eng) Panela, or unrefined non centrifugal brown sugar, is a natural sweetener obtained from the evaporation and concentration of sugarcane juice (Saccharum officinarum), essential for food security, agricultural economics and rural development in Latin America. The degree of process efficiency and the marketing evaluation for this product in Colombia is as yet incipient. This study presents the traditional system for panela production, from a technical and engineering perspective, also highlighting some aspects of qual - ity and innovation. Improvements to the traditional furnace design, extraction and milling, clarification, and heat transfer are analyzed. By criteria of competitiveness and efficiency, was evidenced the need to continue the development and transfer of innovative technological alternatives. It is also imperative the participation of the panela producers in new and potential markets.(Spa) La panela es un edulcorante obtenido de la evaporación y concentración de los jugos de caña de azúcar (Saccharum officinarum), fundamental para la seguridad alimentaria, la economía agraria y el progreso rural en Latinoamérica. El grado de tecnificación de la agroindustria panelera en Colombia y la comer - cialización de sus productos derivados es hasta ahora incipiente. El presente estudio expone el sistema productivo tradicional de la panela desde una perspectiva técnica y de ingeniería, destacando además algunos aspectos de calidad e innovación. Se analizan las mejoras al diseño de la hornilla panelera tradi - cional, y opciones eficientes de extracción, clarificación, generación y transferencia de calor. Mediante criterios de competitividad y eficiencia, se evidencia la necesidad de continuar con el perfeccionamiento y la transferencia de alternativas tecnológicas innovadoras. Resulta también primordial la participación del sector panelero en mercados nuevos y potenciale

Single-Stranded Condensation Stochastically Blocks G-Quadruplex Assembly in Human Telomeric RNA

"This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b00722."[EN] TERRA is an RNA molecule transcribed from human subtelomeric regions toward chromosome ends potentially involved in regulation of heterochromatin stability, semiconservative replication, and telomerase inhibition, among others. TERRA contains tandem repeats of the sequence GGGUUA, with a strong tendency to fold into a four-stranded arrangement known as a parallel G-quadruplex. Here, we demonstrate by using single-molecule force spectroscopy that this potential is limited by the inherent capacity of RNA to self-associate randomly and further condense into entropically more favorable structures. We stretched RNA constructions with more than four and less than eight hexanucleotide repeats, thus unable to form several G-quadruplexes in tandem, flanked by non-G-rich overhangs of random sequence by optical tweezers on a one by one basis. We found that condensed RNA stochastically blocks G-quadruplex folding pathways with a near 20% probability, a behavior that is not found in DNA analogous molecules.Dedicated to the memory of Alfredo Villasante. The authors thank E. Poyatos-Racionero for auxiliary experiments. I.G. is supported by Fundacion IMDEA Nanociencia and M.G. by a Juan de la Cierva contract (FJCI-2016-28474). This research received grants from the MINECO (MAT2015-71806-R and BFU2017-89707-P). IMDEA Nanociencia acknowledges support from the "Severo Ochoa" Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (MINECO, Grant SEV-2016-0686).Gutiérrez, I.; Garavís, M.; De Lorenzo, S.; Villasante, A.; González, C.; Arias-Gonzalez, JR. (2018). Single-Stranded Condensation Stochastically Blocks G-Quadruplex Assembly in Human Telomeric RNA. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. 9(10):2498-2503. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b00722S2498250391

!Agree Studio: a Platform to Edit and Validate Ws-Agreement Documents

The widespread use of SLA-regulated Cloud services, in which the violation of SLA terms may imply a penalty for the parties, have increased the importance and complexity of systems supporting the SLA lifecycle. Although these systems can be very different from each other, ranging from service monitoring platforms to auto-scaling solutions according to SLAs, they all share the need of having machine-processable and semantically valid SLAs. in this paper we present iAgree studio, the first application, up to our knowledge, that is able to edit and semantically validate agreement documents that are compliant with the WS–Agreement specification by checking properties such as its consistency, and the compliance between templates and agreement offers. in addition, it reports explanations when documents are not valid. Moreover, it allows users to combine the validation and explanation operations by means of a scenarios develope

Extending WS-Agreement to Support Automated Conformity Check on Transport and Logistics Service Agreements

Checking whether the agreed service quality attributes are fulfilled or maintained during the service life-cycle is a very important task for SLA (Service Level Agreement) enforcement. in this paper, we leverage conformance checking techniques developed for computational services to automate the conformity checking of transport & logistics services. Our solution extends the WS-Agreement metamodel to support the definition of frame and specific SLAs. With this extension, we define a new validation operation for the conformity check of transport & logistics SLAs based on CSPs solvers. The key contribution of our work is that, as far as we know, it is the first definition of an automated conformity check solution for long term agreements in the transport & logistics domain. Nonetheless, other domains in which similar SLAs are defined can also benefit from our solution

Alpha-tocopherol affects gene expression patterns of rabbit cumulus complexes and reduces apoptosis rate during in vitro maturation

Oxidative stress compromises oocyte developmental competence during in vitro maturation (IVM). Antioxidants such as vitamin E may avoid this imbalance. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a-Tocopherol (α-TocOH) on the relative mRNA abundance of genes involved in cumulus expansion (GJA1, PTGS2), cell cycle and viability (AKT1), cell cycle regulation and apoptosis (Tp53, CASP3) and antioxidant response (SOD2, GPX1, CAT) in rabbit cumulus oocyte complexes (COCs) in vitro matured. The apoptosis index in cumulus cells (CCs) and the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) released by the COCs in maturation media were also assessed. For these purposes, COCs from follicles ≥1mm were recovered, selected and in vitro-matured for 16h (38ºC, 5% CO2) in a medium containing TCM-199 (Sigma, Madrid, Spain) with 0.3% bovine serum albumin (Sigma, Madrid, Spain) and 10 ng/mL Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) (Sigma, Madrid, Spain) supplemented with 0, 100, 200 or 400 μM α- TocOH (Sigma, Madrid, Spain), named as 0E, 100E, 200E and 400E groups, respectivel

In vivo and in vitro maturation of rabbit oocyte affects gene expression, mitochondrial distribution and apoptosis

In vivo-matured cumulus–oocyte complexes are valuable models in which to assess potential biomarkers of rabbit oocyte quality that contribute to enhanced IVM systems. In the present study we compared some gene markers of oocytes and cumulus cells (CCs) from immature, in vivo-matured and IVM oocytes. Moreover, apoptosis in CCs, nuclear maturation, mitochondrial reallocation and the developmental potential of oocytes after IVF were assessed. In relation to cumulus expansion, gene expression of gap junction protein, alpha 1, 43 kDa (Gja1) and prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2 (Ptgs2) was significantly lower in CCs after in vivo maturation than IVM. In addition, there were differences in gene expression after in vivo maturation versus IVM in both oocytes and CCs for genes related to cell cycle regulation and apoptosis (V-Akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homologue 1 (Akt1), tumour protein 53 (Tp53), caspase 3, apoptosis-related cysteine protease (Casp3)), oxidative response (superoxide dismutase 2, mitochondrial (Sod2)) and metabolism (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6pd), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (Gapdh)). In vivo-matured CCs had a lower apoptosis rate than IVM and immature CCs. Meiotic progression, mitochondrial migration to the periphery and developmental competence were higher for in vivo-matured than IVM oocytes. In conclusion, differences in oocyte developmental capacity after IVM or in vivo maturation are accompanied by significant changes in transcript abundance in oocytes and their surrounding CCs, meiotic rate, mitochondrial distribution and apoptotic index. Some of the genes investigated, such as Gja1, could be potential biomarkers for oocyte developmental competence in the rabbit model, helping improve in vitro culture systems in these species

DISEÑO DE UN CONTROL ÓPTIMO PARA REGULAR LA CONCENTRACIÓN DE CO2 AL INTERIOR DE UN INVERNADERO (OPTIMAL CONTROL DESIGN TO REGULATE THE CONCENTRATION OF CO2 INSIDE A GREENHOUSE)

En este trabajo optimizamos el enriquecimiento de la concentración de CO2 en la producción del cultivo de tomate en un invernadero. Consideramos un modelo dinámico integrado, tres variables de estado relacionadas al cultivo y tres variables de estado relacionadas al invernadero. Dicho modelo integrado se validó mediante la construcción de una estación meteorológica ubicada en la sierra norte de Puebla. Se pretende maximizar la producción y minimizar el consumo de energía mediante la teoría de control óptimo. La simulación de la ley de control sintetizada, se hizo en un periodo de cosecha de 80 días.Palabra(s) Clave: Control óptimo, Cultivo de Tomate, Enriquecimiento de dióxido de carbono, Invernadero. Abstract In this work we optimize the enrichment of the concentration of CO2 in the production of the tomato crop. We consider an integrated dynamic model, three state variables related to the crop and three state variables related to the greenhouse. This integrated model was validated through the construction of meteorological station located in the northern highlands of Puebla. We maximize production and minimize energy consumption through optimal control theory. The simulation of the synthesized control law was done in a harvest period of 80 days.Keywords: Dioxide carbon enrichment, Greenhouse, Optimal control, Tomato crop

Towards Compensable SLAs

In Cooperative Information Systems, service level agreements (SLA) can be used to describe the rights and obligations of parties involved in the transaction (typically the service consumer and the service provider); amongst other information, SLA could define guarantees associated with the idea of service level objectives (SLOs) that normally represent key performance indicators of either the consumer or the provider. in case the guarantee is under-fulfilled or over-fulfilled SLAs could also define some compensations (i.e. penalties or rewards). in such a context, during the last years there have been important steps towards the automation of the management of SLAs, however the formalization of compensations in SLAs still remains as an important challenge. in this paper we aim to provide a characterization model to create SLAs with compensations; specifically, the main contributions are twofold: (i) the conceptualization of the Compensation Function to express consistently penalties and rewards and (ii) a model for Compensable Guarantees that associate SLOs with Compensation Functions. This formalization models aims to establish a foundation to elaborate tools that could provide an automated support to the modeling and analysis of SLAs with compensations. Additionally, in order to validate our approach, we model and analyze a set of guarantee terms from three real world examples of SLAs and our formalization proves to be useful for detecting mistakes that are ty