Partial volume correction for arterial spin labeling sequences in magnetic resonance imaging. 3DSlicer extension

Arterial spin labeling is becoming an increasingly popular method for evaluating the cerebral blood flow. However, one of the major limitations of arterial spin labeling (and other perfusion assessment methods like PET) is the partial volume effect, by which each voxel of the image contains a mixture of tissues due to the low spatial resolution of ASL. Partial volume correction is required to retrieve the perfusion contribution of each of these tissues, which is important in the study of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. A new partial volume correction method (3D weighted least squares) based on an existing state-of-the-art method (Asllani’s algorithm) is presented in this work. The new algorithm improves the previous algorithm by operating in a 3D way instead of a 2D way and including a weighting to the regression problem as a function of the distance between the voxels.The new method was tested over simulated cerebral perfusion images, giving better results than the Asllani’s algorithm. The algorithm was also implemented as a graphical user interface extension for the open source platform 3DSlicer. This extension automates all the correction process and allows the researchers processing the ASL images rapidly and easily. Using this extension, a real perfusion study was conducted to compare the cerebral perfusion between Alzheimer and control groups in resting state. Alzheimer group showed a significantly lower perfusion in the thalamus, caudate nucleus, hippocampus and cuneus. These regions have been reported in the literature to present atrophies in Alzheimer subjects and are involved in cognitive functions that are negatively affected by the disease. These results provide further validation for the 3DWLS as a suitable correction method and for the extension as a useful research tool.Ingeniería Biomédic

An Experimental Study on Pitch Compensation in Pedestrian-Protection Systems for Collision Avoidance and Mitigation

This paper describes an improved stereovision system for the anticipated detection of car-to-pedestrian accidents. An improvement of the previous versions of the pedestrian-detection system is achieved by compensation of the camera's pitch angle, since it results in higher accuracy in the location of the ground plane and more accurate depth measurements. The system has been mounted on two different prototype cars, and several real collision-avoidance and collision-mitigation experiments have been carried out in private circuits using actors and dummies, which represents one of the main contributions of this paper. Collision avoidance is carried out by means of deceleration strategies whenever the accident is avoidable. Likewise, collision mitigation is accomplished by triggering an active hood system

Estructura tridimensional de cubierta vegetal sostenible

Número de publicación: 2 376 932 21 Número de solicitud: 200901772 51 Int. Cl.: A01G 9/02 (2006.01)Estructura tridimensional de cubierta vegetal sostenible. La invención se enmarca en la hidroponía y cultivo sin suelo aplicado a la jardinería moderna en las edificaciones sostenibles. Son unidades modulares de cultivo permite la superposición e independencia del resto, incluye el anclaje de unidades el fertirriego y recogida de los drenajes. Son autónomas y mimetizadas con el entorno donde está ubicada. Se instalan en superficies arquitectónicas tridimensionales. Los orificios de vegetación están diseñados de forma que evita, no solo la caída lateral del sustrato y extracción de las plantas individualmente por el observador. Cada unidad de cultivo es independiente en fertirriego y por tanto se permita la posibilidad de mezclas de plantas y vegetación con distintos requerimientos de consumo de agua. Las unidades de cultivo están regadas por goteros autocompensante y antidrenante, uno por unidad de cultivo.Universidad de Almerí

Método de acondicionamiento del compost con disolución de mezcla peroxiacética (MA)

Número de publicación: ES2316303 A1 (01.04.2009) También publicado como: ES2316303 B1 (05.02.2010) Número de Solicitud: Consulta de Expedientes OEPM (C.E.O.) P200702714 (25.09.2007)El proceso de acondicionamiento consiste en la saturación del sustrato con agua y posteriormente el lavado con un volumen de una disolución acuosa de MA entre 1 y 10 veces igual al volumen de compost. La mezcla peroxiacética (MA) es una disolución acuosa de peróxido de hidrógeno (PH) y ácido peracético (PAA) en distintas proporciones. La concentración de MA en la disolución acuosa que proponemos para su uso como acondicionamiento del compost está comprendida entre 1-10%. La concentración de peróxido de hidrógeno (H2O2) en el MA está comprendida entre 10-40% y la de ácido peroxiacético (C2H4O3) entre 1-10%. El método de acondicionamiento del compost con mezcla peroxiacética (MA) para su uso directo como sustrato agronómico tiene como objeto la obtención de compost de alta calidad, incluso con posibilidad de ser una alternativa a la turba de Sphagnum, presentando como aliciente que el coste medioambiental y económico de este proceso es menor que otras alternativas.Universidad de Almerí

Immune modulating capability of two exopolysaccharide-producing bifidobacterium strains in a wistar rat model

Fermented dairy products are the usual carriers for the delivery of probiotics to humans, Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus being the most frequently used bacteria. In this work, the strains Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis IPLA R1 and Bifidobacterium longum IPLA E44 were tested for their capability to modulate immune response and the insulin-dependent glucose homeostasis using male Wistar rats fed with a standard diet. Three intervention groups were fed daily for 24 days with 10% skimmed milk, or with 109 cfu of the corresponding strain suspended in the same vehicle. A significant increase of the suppressor-regulatory TGF-β cytokine occurred with both strains in comparison with a control (no intervention) group of rats; the highest levels were reached in rats fed IPLA R1. This strain presented an immune protective profile, as it was able to reduce the production of the proinflammatory IL-6. Moreover, phosphorylated Akt kinase decreased in gastroctemius muscle of rats fed the strain IPLA R1, without affecting the glucose, insulin, and HOMA index in blood, or levels of Glut-4 located in the membrane of muscle and adipose tissue cells. Therefore, the strain B. animalis subsp. lactis IPLA R1 is a probiotic candidate to be tested in mild grade inflammation animal models. © 2014 Nuria Salazar et al.This work was financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the FEDER European Union funds through the projects AGL2010-16525 and AGL2012-33278. The authors acknowledge Dr. Baltasar Mayo (IPLA-CSIC) for kindly supplying the strain IPLA E44.Peer Reviewe

Effect of an α-Tocopherol-Containing Antioxidant Parenteral Emulsion upon Gut Microbiota in Preterm Infants

Preterm babies are born with an immature intestine and are at higher risk for intestinal failure and needing for parenteral nutrition than full-term newborns. These babies show an altered intestinal microbiota, which may results of key importance for later health. However, there is a lack of information on effect of parenteral formulas upon the establishing infant microbiota. Moreover, the microbiota alterations present in preterm newborns have been related with an altered redox-potential which hinders the establishment of strict anaerobes. Thus, interventions aimed at reducing the oxidative stress in these infants, including those under parenteral nutrition, could also affect the intestinal microbiota composition. We assessed the effect upon the gut microbiota of the administration during 30 days of a lipid emulsion, containing ω3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and α-tocopherol, or a control emulsion containing soybean-bases lipids to parenterally-fed preterm newborns. In spite of its high antioxidant potential, the infants receiving the experimental fat emulsion showed a trend to increase of facultative anaerobes such as enterobacteria and specifically of Klebsiella. This study stresses the need of further work monitoring the impact of early-life parenteral nutrition on the establishment of the intestinal microbiota.This work was funded by the Luis Noé Fernández Award from Fundación Alimerka (Spain).Peer Reviewe

3D Visual Odometry for Road Vehicles

This paper describes a method for estimating the vehicle global position in a network of roads by means of visual odometry. To do so, the ego-motion of the vehicle relative to the road is computed using a stereo-vision system mounted next to the rear view mirror of the car. Feature points are matched between pairs of frames and linked into 3D trajectories. Vehicle motion is estimated using the non-linear, photogrametric approach based on RANSAC. This iterative technique enables the formulation of a robust method that can ignore large numbers of outliers as encountered in real traffic scenes. The resulting method is defined as visual odometry and can be used in conjunction with other sensors, such as GPS, to produce accurate estimates of the vehicle global position. The obvious application of the method is to provide on-board driver assistance in navigation tasks, or to provide a means for autonomously navigating a vehicle. The method has been tested in real traffic conditions without using prior knowledge about the scene nor the vehicle motion. We provide examples of estimated vehicle trajectories using the proposed method and discuss the key issues for further improvement

Effect of an α-Tocopherol-Containing Antioxidant Parenteral Emulsion upon Gut Microbiota in Preterm Infants

Preterm babies are born with an immature intestine and are at higher risk for intestinal failure and needing for parenteral nutrition than full-term newborns. These babies show an altered intestinal microbiota, which may results of key importance for later health. However, there is a lack of information on effect of parenteral formulas upon the establishing infant microbiota. Moreover, the microbiota alterations present in preterm newborns have been related with an altered redox-potential which hinders the establishment of strict anaerobes. Thus, interventions aimed at reducing the oxidative stress in these infants, including those under parenteral nutrition, could also affect the intestinal microbiota composition. We assessed the effect upon the gut microbiota of the administration during 30 days of a lipid emulsion, containing ω3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and α-tocopherol, or a control emulsion containing soybean-bases lipids to parenterally-fed preterm newborns. In spite of its high antioxidant potential, the infants receiving the experimental fat emulsion showed a trend to increase of facultative anaerobes such as enterobacteria and specifically of Klebsiella. This study stresses the need of further work monitoring the impact of early-life parenteral nutrition on the establishment of the intestinal microbiota

Induction of α-L-arabinofuranosidase activity by monomeric carbohydrates in Bifidobacterium longum and ubiquity of encoding genes

Bifidobacterium longum can be isolated from human faeces, some strains being considered probiotics. B. longum NIZO B667 produces an exo-acting α-L-arabinofuranosidase, AbfB, previously purified by us, that releases L-arabinose from arabinan and arabinoxylan. This activity was subjected to two-seven-fold induction by L-arabinose, D-xylose, L-arabitol and xylitol and to repression by glucose. Maximum activity was obtained at 48 h incubation except for D-xylose that was at 24 h. High concentrations (200 mM) of L-arabitol also caused repression of the arabinofuranosidase. A unique band of activity showing the same migration pattern as the purified AbfB was found in zymograms of cell free extracts, indicating that the activity was likely due to this sole enzyme. The assessment of the influence of inducers and repressors on the activity of AbfB and on the expression of the abfB gene by real time PCR indicated that regulation was transcriptional. DNA amplifications using a pair of degenerated primers flanking an internal fragment within α-L-arabinofuranosidase genes of the family 51 of glycoside hydrolases evidenced that these enzymes are widespread in Bifidobacterium. The aminoacidic sequences of bifidobacteria included a fragment of four to six residues in the position 136-141 that was absent in other microorganismsThis work was financed by European Union FEDER funds and the Spanish Plan Nacional de I + D (project AGL2004-06088-C02-01/ALI). L. Noriega was the recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from Fundación para la investigación Científica y Técnica (FICYT, Asturias, Spain). M. Gueimonde was funded by a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral contract from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.Peer reviewe

Dispositivo de riego de bajo caudal para ser usado en un sistema de fertirriego

Número de publicación: ES2696949 A1 (18.01.2019) También publicado como: ES2696949 B1 (29.10.2019) Número de Solicitud: Consulta de Expedientes OEPM (C.E.O.) P201700014 (20.12.2016)Dispositivo de riego de bajo caudal para ser usado en sistemas de fertirriego de fácil almacenado, transporte y utilización, que permite un mayor desarrollo del sistema radical. El dispositivo (1) de bajo caudal para fertirrigación, consta principalmente de tres partes: un depósito (3) que consiste en un contenedor de líquido, el cual es abierto en su parte superior y está formado por cuatro caras laterales (31) con forma de trapezoide isósceles y una cara de fondo (32) que tiene cuatro perforaciones (33); una tapa (4) que encaja en la parte superior abierta del depósito que tiene un agujero de inserción (41) para un microtubo, el que permite abastecer el depósito con una sustancia química adecuada para el fertirriego; y, por último, cuatro estacas que tienen un sistema de ralentización (2) de riego.Universidad de Almerí