Towards reactive navigation and attention skills for 3D intelligent characters

This paper presents a neural design which is able to provide the necessary reactive navigation and attention skills for 3D embodied agents (virtual humanoids or characters). Based on Grossberg’s neural model of conditioning [6], as recently implemented by Chang and Gaudiando [7], and according to the Adaptative Resonance Theory (ART) and the neuroscientific concepts associated, the neural design introduced has been divided in two main phases. Firstly, an environmentcategorization phase, where an on-line pattern recognition and categorization of the current agent sensory input data is carried out by a self organizing neural network, which will finally provide the agent’s short term memory layer(STM). Secondly, and based on the classical conditioning paradigm, the model will associate the interesting STM states, from the navigation or attention points of view, to finally simulate these necessary skills for 3D characters or humanoids. Finally, we will show some experimental navigational results, through the integration of the model presented in 3D virtual environments.Partially supported by the GVA-project CTIDIB-2002-182 (Spain)

Intestinal microbiota and colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer may be influenced by changes in the intestinal microbiota that affect the mucosa and cause an immune response capable of producing inflammatory effects. Although there are still few studies in this regard, it is necessary to emphasize the need to expand the studies on this topic and to state the usefulness of the new technologies based on metagenomics.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Case study of the intestinal microbiota using the XGN-MBI metagenomic assay

The microbiota of the colon and rectum is the most abundant and diverse of the human body, with a density of up to 1-2 kg of weight and a diversity that exceeds a thousand species. Metagenomics can be defined as the application of modern genomic techniques for the direct study of communities of microorganisms in their natural environment The aim of this study is to prove the usefulness of new technologies based on metagenomics, such as the XGN-MBI assay to realize gut microbiota studies.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Preclinical Evidence for the Use of Oral Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles in Bone Regenerative Therapy: A Systematic Review

Tissue engineering is a relatively recent research area aimed at developing artificial tissues that can restore, maintain, or even improve the anatomical and/or functional integrity of injured tissues. Otolaryngology, as a leading surgical specialty in head and neck surgery, is a candidate for the use of these advanced therapies and medicinal products developed. Nevertheless, a knowledge-based analysis of both areas together is still needed. The dataset was retrieved from the Web of Science database from 1900 to 2020. SciMAT software was used to perform the science mapping analysis and the data for the biomedical translation identification was obtained from the iCite platform. Regarding the analysis of the cognitive structure, we find consolidated research lines, such as the generation of cartilage for use as a graft in reconstructive surgery, reconstruction of microtia, or the closure of perforations of the tympanic membrane. This last research area occupies the most relevant clinical translation with the rest of the areas presenting a lower translational level. In conclusion, Tissue engineering is still in an early translational stage in otolaryngology, otology being the field where most advances have been achieved. Therefore, although otolaryngologists should play an active role in translational research in tissue engineering, greater multidisciplinary efforts are required to promote and encourage the translation of potential clinical applications of tissue engineering for routine clinical useUniversidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, Lima, Perú (UPC-ExPost-2023-2)The PECART-0027-2020 (Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de Andalucía, Spain)ProyExcel_00875 (Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades, Junta de Andalucía, Spain)Research Group #CTS-1028 (MP-M and PG-M, Junta de Andalucía, Spain

Colloidal systems in bone regeneration. Is the size important

Poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) is one of the most widely used synthetic polymers for development of delivery systems for drugs and therapeutic biomolecules. Its properties and versatility make it a reference polymer in the manufacturing of nano and microparticles to encapsulate and deliver a wide variety of hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules, including biomolecules such as proteins or nucleic acids that must be released in a controlled way [1]. Delivery of growth factors such as bone morphogenetic proteins, and specially BMP-2, is an attractive therapeutic strategy for bone tissue engineering. However, their administration is problematic due to their short biological half-lives, localized action and rapid clearance. Consequently, its clinical use requires high doses far exceeding its physiological concentration which implies possible side effects and high costs. These barriers might be overcome by developing new delivery systems which allow a better control of the release rate in order to achieve the desired concentrations in specific site and time [2]. With this aim, in this preliminary study we have synthesized PLGA particles with different diameters, from nano (200 nm) to micro scale (12.5 μm) via double emulsion procedure, in order to study the influence of size in the release profile of lysozyme, which has been selected as an appropriate model for BMP2. A physico-chemical characterization of the particles was done, followed by a complete study on the encapsulation efficiency, cumulative protein release and bioactivity of the released enzyme with and without co-encapsulated bovine serum albumin, a protective biomolecule that can prevent protein instability during emulsification process. Additionally, fluorescently labeled lysozyme was used to study the protein distribution and the influence of particle size on the in vitro cellular uptake.Universidad de Málaga. Campus Internacional de Andalucía Tec

Requirements analysis using BPMN

El éxito de un proyecto de implementación de software depende de un buen proceso de levantamiento de requerimientos y un buen entendimiento del negocio, para lograrlo, todos los interesados en el proyecto deben ver reflejadas sus necesidades e intenciones en el producto terminado, para ello se requiere la utilización de modelos entendibles y estandarizados. La notación de modelo de procesos empresariales, nombrado BPMN por sus siglas en ingles y el lenguaje de modelado unificado, por sus siglas en ingles UML, son dos lenguajes de modelado que complementan el levantamiento de requerimientos. Este artículo plantea como apoyándose en los dos lenguajes mencionados se puede lograr un acercamiento entre los interesados del proyecto y el proceso de levantamiento de requerimientos.Success of a project of a software implementation depends on a good requirements elicitation process and a good understanding of the business, to obtain it, all the interested stakeholders in the project must see reflected their necessities and intentions in the finished product, in order to do so, the use of understandable and standardized models is required. The Bussiness Process Management Notation (BPMN) and the Unified Modeling Language (UML), are two modeling languages that complement the requirements elicitation process. This article propoces a model which leans in both mentioned languages an achieves closenes between the interested stakeholders of the project and the requirements elicitation process

Análisis de requerimientos usando BPMN

El éxito de un proyecto de implementación de software depende de un buen proceso de levantamiento de requerimientos y un buen entendimiento del negocio, para lograrlo, todos los interesados en el proyecto deben ver reflejadas sus necesidades e intenciones en el producto terminado, para ello se requiere la utilización de modelos entendibles y estandarizados. La notación de modelo de procesos empresariales, nombrado BPMN por sus siglas en ingles y el lenguaje de modelado unificado, por sus siglas en ingles UML, son dos lenguajes de modelado que complementan el levantamiento de requerimientos. Este artículo plantea como apoyándose en los dos lenguajes mencionados se puede lograr un acercamiento entre los interesados del proyecto y el proceso de levantamiento de requerimientos

Inferior alveolar nerve trajectory, mental foramen location and incidence of mental nerve anterior loop

Background: Injury of the inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) is a serious intraoperative complication that may occur during routine surgical procedures, such as dental implant placement or extraction of impacted teeth. Thus, the purpose of this study was to analyze the trajectory of the mandibular canal (MC), the location of the mental foramen (MF) and the presence and extension of an anterior loop of the mental nerve (AL). Study Design: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 348 CBCTs were analyzed. Distances from MC to the surface of the basal, medial and lateral cortical of the mandible were measured at the level of the second molar, first molar and second premolar. Location of the MF relative to the apices of the premolars, as well as incidence and anterior extent of the AL were also determined. Results: Significant and clinically relevant correlations were found between the position of the MC in women, which was located more caudal (r=-0.219, p=0.007; r=-0.276, p<0.001; right and left, respectively) and lateral (r=-0.274, p=0.001; r=-0.285, p<0.001; right and left, respectively), particularly at the level of the premolars. Additionally, the presence (r=-0.181, p=0.001; r=-0.163, p=0.002; right and left, respectively) and anterior extension (r=-0.180, p=0.009; r=-0.285, p=0.05; right and left, respectively) of the AL was found to be inversely correlated with the age of the patient. Conclusions: This analysis of a Caucasian population has found that the older the patient, the lower the incidence of the loop and the shorter its anterior extension. Key words:Cone-beam computed tomography, mandibular nerve, mental foramen

Characterization and visualization of voltage dips in wind power installations

The purpose of this paper is to describe and assess a new characterization and classification method of voltage dips. The proposed method allows us to classify multistage and real voltage dips when measurement errors or transients are present in the recorded data. Different real voltage dips are used to assess this method, comparing the results with previous approaches. For visualization purposes, a voltage-space vector representation is introduced in order to clarify the global voltage dip evolution along the time. The classification of all the voltage dips, measured from a one-year field measurement campaign in wind farms located in the Spanish region of Castilla-La Mancha, is also presented and characterized according to the proposed method.This work was supported in part by the “Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia”—ENE2006-15422-C02-01/ALT, in part by ENE2006-15422-C02-02/ALT—, and in part by “Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha” (PAI08-0145-9976). Paper no. TPWRD-00237-200

ACME: Automatic feature extraction for cell migration examination through intravital microscopy imaging.

Cell detection and tracking applied to in vivo fluorescence microscopy has become an essential tool in biomedicine to characterize 4D (3D space plus time) biological processes at the cellular level. Traditional approaches to cell motion analysis by microscopy imaging, although based on automatic frameworks, still require manual supervision at some points of the system. Hence, when dealing with a large amount of data, the analysis becomes incredibly time-consuming and typically yields poor biological information. In this paper, we propose a fully-automated system for segmentation, tracking and feature extraction of migrating cells within blood vessels in 4D microscopy imaging. Our system consists of a robust 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) for joint blood vessel and cell segmentation, a 3D tracking module with collision handling, and a novel method for feature extraction, which takes into account the particular geometry in the cell-vessel arrangement. Experiments on a large 4D intravital microscopy dataset show that the proposed system achieves a significantly better performance than the state-of-the-art tools for cell segmentation and tracking. Furthermore, we have designed an analytical method of cell behaviors based on the automatically extracted features, which supports the hypotheses related to leukocyte migration posed by expert biologists. This is the first time that such a comprehensive automatic analysis of immune cell migration has been performed, where the total population under study reaches hundreds of neutrophils and thousands of time instances.This work has been partially supported by the National Grant TEC2017-84395-P of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Madrid Regional Government and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid through the project SHARON-CM-UC3M, RTI2018- 095497-B-I00 from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) and HR17_00527 from Fundación La Caixa to A.H. M.M-M. is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports FPU Grant FPU18/02825. M.P-S. is supported by a Federation of European Biochemical Societies long-term fellowship. J.S. is supported by a fellowship (PRE2019-089130) from MICINN.S