Monitoring system for agronomic variables based in WSN technology on cassava crops

Agriculture, and natural resources associated to its development like water, soils and forests, have a relevant role in the future of countries and environmental conservation. The optimization of these resources is made with the implementation of technological strategies and tools that make it possible. In this sense, we developed a monitoring prototype for agronomic variables in cassava crops (Manihot Esculenta Crantz) in the Atlántico department (Colombia) based in WSN using Z1 motes as hardware platform and the temperature and soil moisture sensor SHT11. The operating system used was Contiki, and the routing protocol was RPL. The Network Performance Metrics evaluated were packet loss, RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator), LQI (Link Quality Indicator) and network convergence time. Then, a deployment model using Schläfli notation to determine the location and number of nodes, also we calculated the coverage range of the nodes to keep network uniformity. With these calculations, we obtained the linkage budgets between specks, and results were validated with RadioMobile software. Then, test fields were made in a cassava crop located in the city of Manati, Atlántico. Finally, with the help of server client architecture XAMPP, all data was stored and visualized through SIMCA (Agricultural Crop Information and Monitoring System), a web application developed by authors

Cancer gene prioritization by integrative analysis of mRNA expression and DNA copy number data: a comparative review

A variety of genome-wide profiling techniques are available to probe complementary aspects of genome structure and function. Integrative analysis of heterogeneous data sources can reveal higher-level interactions that cannot be detected based on individual observations. A standard integration task in cancer studies is to identify altered genomic regions that induce changes in the expression of the associated genes based on joint analysis of genome-wide gene expression and copy number profiling measurements. In this review, we provide a comparison among various modeling procedures for integrating genome-wide profiling data of gene copy number and transcriptional alterations and highlight common approaches to genomic data integration. A transparent benchmarking procedure is introduced to quantitatively compare the cancer gene prioritization performance of the alternative methods. The benchmarking algorithms and data sets are available at http://intcomp.r-forge.r-project.orgComment: PDF file including supplementary material. 9 pages. Preprin

Unveiling the effect of dietary essential oils supplementation in Sparus aurata gills and its efficiency against the infestation by Sparicotyle chrysophrii

A microencapsulated feed additive composed by garlic, carvacrol and thymol essential oils (EOs) was evaluated regarding its protective effect in gills parasitized by Sparicotyle chrysophrii in Sparus aurata. A nutritional trial (65 days) followed by a cohabitation challenge with parasitized fish (39 days) were performed. Transcriptomic analysis by microarrays of gills of fish fed the EOs diet showed an up-regulation of genes related to biogenesis, vesicular transport and exocytosis, leukocyte-mediated immunity, oxidation–reduction and overall metabolism processes. The functional network obtained indicates a tissue-specific pro-inflammatory immune response arbitrated by degranulating acidophilic granulocytes, sustained by antioxidant and anti-inflammatory responses. The histochemical study of gills also showed an increase of carboxylate glycoproteins containing sialic acid in mucous and epithelial cells of fish fed the EOs diet, suggesting a mucosal defence mechanism through the modulation of mucin secretions. The outcomes of the in vivo challenge supported the transcriptomic results obtained from the nutritional trial, where a significant reduction of 78% in the abundance of S. chrysophrii total parasitation and a decrease in the prevalence of most parasitic developmental stages evaluated were observed in fish fed the EOs diet. These results suggest that the microencapsulation of garlic, carvacrol and thymol EOs could be considered an effective natural dietary strategy with antiparasitic properties against the ectoparasite S. chrysophrii.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Unveiling the effect of dietary essential oils supplementation in Sparus aurata gills and its efficiency against the infestation by Sparicotyle chrysophrii

A microencapsulated feed additive composed by garlic, carvacrol and thymol essential oils (EOs) was evaluated regarding its protective effect in gills parasitized by Sparicotyle chrysophrii in Sparus aurata. A nutritional trial (65 days) followed by a cohabitation challenge with parasitized fish (39 days) were performed. Transcriptomic analysis by microarrays of gills of fish fed the EOs diet showed an up-regulation of genes related to biogenesis, vesicular transport and exocytosis, leukocyte-mediated immunity, oxidation–reduction and overall metabolism processes. The functional network obtained indicates a tissue-specific pro-inflammatory immune response arbitrated by degranulating acidophilic granulocytes, sustained by antioxidant and anti-inflammatory responses. The histochemical study of gills also showed an increase of carboxylate glycoproteins containing sialic acid in mucous and epithelial cells of fish fed the EOs diet, suggesting a mucosal defence mechanism through the modulation of mucin secretions. The outcomes of the in vivo challenge supported the transcriptomic results obtained from the nutritional trial, where a significant reduction of 78% in the abundance of S. chrysophrii total parasitation and a decrease in the prevalence of most parasitic developmental stages evaluated were observed in fish fed the EOs diet. These results suggest that the microencapsulation of garlic, carvacrol and thymol EOs could be considered an effective natural dietary strategy with antiparasitic properties against the ectoparasite S. chrysophrii.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Unveiling the effect of dietary essential oils supplementation in Sparus aurata gills and its efficiency against the infestation by Sparicotyle chrysophrii

Altres ajuts: Industrial PhD program of Generalitat de Catalunya (Doctorats Industrials) and TECNOVIT-FARMFAES S.L. (No. 2017 DI 017)A microencapsulated feed additive composed by garlic, carvacrol and thymol essential oils (EOs) was evaluated regarding its protective effect in gills parasitized by Sparicotyle chrysophrii in Sparus aurata. A nutritional trial (65 days) followed by a cohabitation challenge with parasitized fish (39 days) were performed. Transcriptomic analysis by microarrays of gills of fish fed the EOs diet showed an up-regulation of genes related to biogenesis, vesicular transport and exocytosis, leukocyte-mediated immunity, oxidation-reduction and overall metabolism processes. The functional network obtained indicates a tissue-specific pro-inflammatory immune response arbitrated by degranulating acidophilic granulocytes, sustained by antioxidant and anti-inflammatory responses. The histochemical study of gills also showed an increase of carboxylate glycoproteins containing sialic acid in mucous and epithelial cells of fish fed the EOs diet, suggesting a mucosal defence mechanism through the modulation of mucin secretions. The outcomes of the in vivo challenge supported the transcriptomic results obtained from the nutritional trial, where a significant reduction of 78% in the abundance of S. chrysophrii total parasitation and a decrease in the prevalence of most parasitic developmental stages evaluated were observed in fish fed the EOs diet. These results suggest that the microencapsulation of garlic, carvacrol and thymol EOs could be considered an effective natural dietary strategy with antiparasitic properties against the ectoparasite S. chrysophrii

Impact of Linear-PWM and MPC controllers on the power device losses in a grid-tied two-level inverter

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the estimated power losses and device junction temperatures in a two-level grid-tied converter commanded by a linear current controller with a pulse-with-modulator (PWM) or a finite-control-set (FCS) model predictive controller (MPC). This analysis is performed for two points of operation: (a) converter delivering only active power to the grid, (b) exchanging capacitive-reactive power with the grid (STATCOM). Using an electrothermal model based on the firing signals and measured converter currents, the simulation results show the important role of the operating point and control methodology of the converter losses and device junction temperature excursions. The results show that using the MPC controller improves the converter performance when the converter delivers only active power to the grid. In the case of STATCOM operation the total losses are similar, but there is a relative increase of the losses on the diodes. The use of SiC Schottky diodes has been evaluated, with an improvement of the converter performance for both controllers

Power device losses in two-level converters with direct current controllers for grid connected applications

Direct current controllers have been widely used in grid-tied applications and electric drives. Direct controllers select the switching states of the converter without the intervention of a modulation stage. In comparison with PWM based controllers, direct controllers have a faster dynamic response to reference-tracking and disturbance rejection. The different control strategies can affect the total converter losses and device loss distribution; hence it is important to evaluate them when novel control methodologies are presented and compare them to the conventional PWM current controllers. To this end, fully electrothermal simulations can be paramount. Using a grid connected two-level converter, this paper evaluates the power device losses and the resulting junction temperatures excursions of the power semiconductors chips when a direct current controller is used and compares the results to those obtained with PWM controllers working at the same operating points

Creación de un Laboratorio de Análisis Socio-Político de América Latina (AMELAT -LAB)

El objetivo principal de este proyecto era crear un espacio de colaboración entre estudiantes, investigadores y profesores para el análisis y comprensión de problemáticas y fenómenos sociales y politicos actuales en América Latina

Combined clinical and genomic signatures for the prognosis of early stage non-small cell lung cancer based on gene copy number alterations

BACKGROUND: The development of a more refined prognostic methodology for early non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is an unmet clinical need. An accurate prognostic tool might help to select patients at early stages for adjuvant therapies. RESULTS: A new integrated bioinformatics searching strategy, that combines gene copy number alterations and expression, together with clinical parameters was applied to derive two prognostic genomic signatures. The proposed methodology combines data from patients with and without clinical data with a priori information on the ability of a gene to be a prognostic marker. Two initial candidate sets of 513 and 150 genes for lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), respectively, were generated by identifying genes which have both: a) significant correlation between copy number and gene expression, and b) significant prognostic value at the gene expression level in external databases. From these candidates, two panels of 7 (ADC) and 5 (SCC) genes were further identified via semi-supervised learning. These panels, together with clinical data (stage, age and sex), were used to construct the ADC and SCC hazard scores combining clinical and genomic data. The signatures were validated in two independent datasets (n = 73 for ADC, n = 97 for SCC), confirming that the prognostic value of both clinical-genomic models is robust, statistically significant (P = 0.008 for ADC and P = 0.019 for SCC) and outperforms both the clinical models (P = 0.060 for ADC and P = 0.121 for SCC) and the genomic models applied separately (P = 0.350 for ADC and P = 0.269 for SCC). CONCLUSION: The present work provides a methodology to generate a robust signature using copy number data that can be potentially used to any cancer. Using it, we found new prognostic scores based on tumor DNA that, jointly with clinical information, are able to predict overall survival (OS) in patients with early-stage ADC and SCC