Microrna Expression Profile in Fibromyalgia Patients: A Pilot Matched Case Control Study

The objective of this study was to determine whether an association between an altered miRNAs expression profile and fibromyalgia exists.Medicin

Identification of a microRNA signature for the diagnosis of fibromyalgia

Diagnosis of fibromyalgia (FM), a chronic musculoskeletal pain syndrome characterized by generalized body pain, hyperalgesia and other functional and emotional comorbidities, is a challenging process hindered by symptom heterogeneity and clinical overlap with other disorders. No objective diagnostic method exists at present. The aim of this study was to identify changes in miRNA expression profiles (miRNome) of these patients for the development of a quantitative diagnostic method of FM. In addition, knowledge of FM patient miRNomes should lead to a deeper understanding of the etiology and/or symptom severity of this complex disease.Genome-wide expression profiling of miRNAs was assessed in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) of FM patients (N=11) and population-age-matched controls (N=10) using human v16-miRbase 3D-Gene microarrays (Toray Industries, Japan). Selected miRNAs from the screen were further validated by RT-qPCR. Participating patients were long term sufferers (over 10 years) diagnosed by more than one specialist under 1990 American College of Rheumatology criteria.Microarray analysis of FM patient PBMCs evidenced a marked downregulation of hsa-miR223-3p, hsa-miR451a, hsa-miR338-3p, hsa-miR143-3p, hsa-miR145-5p and hsa-miR-21-5p (4-fold or more). All but the mildest inhibited miRNA, hsa-miR-21-5p, were validated by RT-qPCR. Globally, 20% of the miRNAs analyzed (233/1212) showed downregulation of at least 2-fold in patients. This might indicate a general de-regulation of the miRNA synthetic pathway in FM. No significant correlations between miRNA inhibition and FM cardinal symptoms could be identified. However, the patient with the lowest score for mental fatigue coincided with the mildest inhibition in four of the five miRNAs associated with the FM-group.We propose a signature of five strikingly downregulated miRNAs (hsa-miR223-3p, hsa-miR451a, hsa-miR338-3p, hsa-miR143-3p and hsa-miR145-5p) to be used as biomarkers of FM. Validation in larger study groups is required before the results can be transferred to the clinic.The study was funded by the Fundación Universidad Católica de Valencia “San Vicente Mártir”(UCV) Research Grant Program (2011-011-02, 2011-011-04 and 2012-011-008) the Fundación Cátedra Umivale at the UCV and the 3D-Gene International Competition Award to EOMedicin

Rapid and comprehensive evaluation of (poly)phenolic compounds in pomegranate (punica granatum L.) juice by UHPLC-MSn

The comprehensive identification of phenolic compounds in food and beverages is a crucial starting point for assessing their biological, nutritional, and technological properties. Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) has been described as a rich source of (poly)phenolic components, with a broad array of different structures (phenolic acids, flavonoids, and hydrolyzable tannins) and a quick, high throughput, and accurate screening of its complete profile is still lacking. In the present work, a method for UHPLC separation and linear ion trap mass spectrometric (MSn) characterization of pomegranate juice phenolic fraction was optimized by comparing several different analytical conditions. The best solutions for phenolic acids, anthocyanins, flavonoids, and ellagitannins have been delineated and more than 70 compounds have been identified and fully characterized in less than one hour total analysis time. Twenty-one compounds were tentatively detected for the first time in pomegranate juice. The proposed fingerprinting approach could be easily translated to other plant derived food extracts and beverages containing a wide array of phytochemical compounds

Methodologies for Assessing Sustainability in Farming Systems

Development of composite indicators is considered an important approach for evaluating sustainable development. For agriculture, different indicators have been developed such as Delphi, IDEA, MESMIS, MOTIFS, RISE, or SAFE. For its construction, usually bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques were employed. These are pragmatic tools used to simplify the description of complex systems by the use of three functions: to simplify, to quantify, and to communicate easily. Criteria for indicator selection include policy relevance, validity, accessibility, and measurability. However, operational evaluation of agricultural sustainability presents problems, because it requires analyzing the future production of goods and services, which need to be observed on a reasonable time horizon, and other difficulties involve interpreting the combination of indicators required for such analyses. This chapter realizes a review of these methodologies and its applications

Evaluation of the radar cross section of circular microstrip patches on anisotropic and chiral substrates

Galerkin's method in the Hankel transform domain (HTD) is applied to the determination of the radar cross section (RCS) of a circular microstrip patch printed on a substrate which may be an uniaxial anisotropic dielectric, a magnetized ferrite, or a chiral material. The results obtained for circular patches on magnetized ferrites show that the RCS of these patches can be substantially reduced in a tunable frequency band when a bias magnetic field is applied. It is also shown that the results obtained for the RCS of circular patches printed on chiral materials can be substantially different from those obtained when substrate chirality is ignored

Radar cross section of stacked circular microstrip patches on anisotropic and chiral substrates

Galerkin's method in the Hankel transform domain (HTD) is applied to the determination of the radar cross section (RCS) of stacked circular microstrip patches fabricated on a two-layered substrate which may be made of a uniaxial anisotropic dielectric, a magnetized ferrite or a chiral material. Concerning the case of stacked patches printed on magnetized ferrites, the results show that substantial RCS reduction can be achieved inside the tunable frequency band where magnetostatic mode propagation is allowed. It is also shown that both the frequency and the level of the RCS peaks obtained for circular patches fabricated on anisotropic dielectrics or chiral materials may be substantially different from those obtained when substrate anisotropy or substrate chirality are ignored.Centro de Investigación Científicas y Tecnológicas TIC98-063

Determination of the radar cross section of stacked circular microstrip patches

Galerkin's method in the Hankel transform domain (HTD) was used to determine the radar cross section (RCS) of stacked circular microstrip patches. Numerical results show that the RCS values of a pair of stacked circular patches may be very different from those obtained for one patch in the absence of the other patch

Implementación de la metodología de los siete pasos de calidad, en una planta de alimentos balanceados para incrementar la efectividad global de los equipos (OEE)

El autor no autoriza la publicación de la tesis

Programación anual de Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación de 1º de Bachillerato. Edición y Diseño Asistido por Ordenador

Máster Univ. en Formación del Profes. en E.S.O., Bachillerato, F.P. y E.Ii

Primordial Power Spectrum in Modified Cosmology: From Thermodynamics of Spacetime to Loop Quantum Cosmology

We investigate the implications for cosmology of a phenomenological quantum gravity approach based on thermodynamics. We analyze in detail the corresponding primordial power spectrum. The considered modified cosmological scenario has similarities with Loop Quantum Cosmology. Actually, one recovers the same effective background dynamics by fixing the value of the free parameter of the modified approach. In particular, the background experiences a bounce that solves the initial singularity. Adopting background-dependent equations for the primordial perturbations like those derived in General Relativity, the studied model can be considered a generalization of the dressed metric formalism in Loop Quantum Cosmology. We focus our discussion on the spectrum of tensor perturbations. For these perturbations, we compute the exact form of the background-dependent effective mass that affects their propagation. Since there are background regimes in the modified cosmology that are far away from slow-roll inflation, we do not have at our disposal a privileged vacuum like the Bunch-Davies state. We then select the state of the perturbations by a recently proposed criterion that removes unwanted oscillations in the power spectrum. Finally, we numerically compute the spectrum of this vacuum and compare it with other spectra obtained in the literature, especially with one corresponding to an alternative quantization prescription in Loop Quantum Cosmology (called the hybrid prescription).Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure