The NER-related gene GTF2H5 predicts survival in high-grade serous ovarian cancer patients

Gayarre, Javier et al[Objective] We aimed to evaluate the prognostic and predictive value of the nucleotide excision repair-related gene GTF2H5, which is localized at the 6q24.2-26 deletion previously reported by our group to predict longer survival of high-grade serous ovarian cancer patients.[Methods] In order to test if protein levels of GTF2H5 are associated with patients' outcome, we performed GTF2H5 immunohistochemical staining in 139 high-grade serous ovarian carcinomas included in tissue microarrays. Upon stratification of cases into high- and low-GTF2H5 staining categories (> and ≤ median staining, respectively) Kaplan-Meier and logrank test were used to estimate patients’ survival and assess statistical differences. We also evaluated the association of GTF2H5 with survival at the transcriptional level by using the on-line Kaplan-Meier plotter tool, which includes gene expression and survival data of 855 high-grade serous ovarian cancer patients from 13 different datasets. Finally, we determined whether stable short hairpin RNA-mediated GTF2H5 downregulation modulates cisplatin sensitivity in the SKOV3 and COV504 cell lines by using cytotoxicity assays.[Results] Low expression of GTF2H5 was associated with longer 5-year survival of patients at the protein (hazard ratio [HR], 0.52; 95% CI, 0.29 to 0.93; p=0.024) and transcriptional level (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.65 to 0.97; p=0.023) in high-grade serous ovarian cancer patients. We confirmed the association with 5-year overall survival (HR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.38 to 0.78; p=0.0007) and also found an association with progression-free survival (HR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.54 to 0.96; p=0.026) in a homogenous group of 388 high-stage (stages III-IV using the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics staging system), optimally debulked high-grade serous ovarian cancer patients. GTF2H5- silencing induced a decrease of the half maximal inhibitory concentration upon cisplatin treatment in GTF2H5-silenced ovarian cancer cells.[Conclusion] Low levels of GTF2H5 are associated with enhanced prognosis in high-grade serous ovarian cancer patients and may contribute to cisplatin sensitization.This study was financially supported by the Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (FIS), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (grant PI12/01319) and by FEDER funds (2014-2020 Program). MJG is recipient of a research contract from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III of the Ministerio Español de Sanidad y Consumo (Miguel Servet tipo II Program, CPII 13/00047). JG has a contract from CIBERER and MMK was a holder of a La Caixa international PhD fellowship. LPA and JP are recipients of financial support from Red Temática de Investigación Cooperativa en Cáncer (RTICC) (grants RD12/0036/0028 and RD12/0036/0064, respectively). Gayarre, Javier et al.Peer Reviewe

Perception of employers and employees regarding the attitude of businesses toward the environment: a qualitative analysis

Commitment and involvement from the different members of an organization are two key elements for an organization to achieve its environmental excellence. Firstly, businesses are aware of the close relationship between their activities and the environment, for they are not only polluting agents but also agents with the capacity to reduce adverse environmental impacts. Secondly, the fact that employees can play a relevant role in terms of the socially responsible measures to be taken by organizations has started to become an irrefutably important issue. This piece of research is intended to help gain knowledge concerning the attitude of the two main actors in productive activity toward the environmental, that is, employers and employees; as well, this research intends to identify factors determining behaviour towards the environmental. For this, we have gathered the ideas and assessments contained in the discourse of a group of small and medium-sized businesses, large company owners and officers, employees, and work related risk prevention representatives. Qualitative work consisted of in-depth interviews and the creation of discussion groups

Female counsellors in the Spanish multinational listed companies (2012-2014)

One of the most important corporate governance controls widely studies the role performed by the board of directors and its consequences on the financial performance of companies. Different approaches analyse how a firm can improve its financial future and today parity on boards of directors represents a new research line. The presence of female counsellors may depend on legal and cultural approaches. As the institutional theory establishes, firms must be adapted to the countries where they operate in order to success when accessing financial markets. In this respect, this paper ads a new line of research based on whether a listed company operates in multiple countries or not and analyses the linkage between the multinational character of a company, the gender diversity of the board and the financial 2 performance of the firm. This paper focuses on Spain, which could be ground-breaking on female presence on boards, as Norway is, but only follow light recommendations. The method used is simple regression analysis. The results show that the multinational characteristic of listed companies has no effect on gender diversity but that gender has a negative relation with the financial performance of these firms. Our study also opens various lines of future research

Land-use change and windstorms legacies drove the recolonization dynamics of laurel forests in Tenerife, Canary islands

Laurel forests are quite relevant for biodiversity conservation and are among the island ecosystems most severely damaged by human activities. In the past, Canary laurel forests have been greatly altered by logging, livestock and agriculture. The remains of laurel forests are currently protected in the Canary Islands (Spain). However, we miss basic information needed for their restoration and adaptive management, such as tree longevity, growth potential and responsiveness to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Using dendrochronological methods, we studied how forest dynamic is related to land-use change and windstorms in two well-preserved laurel forests on Tenerife Island. Wood cores were collected from over 80 trees per stand at three stands per forest. We used ring-width series to estimate tree ages and calculate annual basal area increments (BAI), cumulative diameter increases, and changes indicative of released and suppressed growth. Twelve tree species were found in all stands, with Laurus novocanariensis, Ilex canariensis and Morella faya being the most common species. Although some individuals were over 100 years old, 61.8%–88.9% of the trees per stand established between 1940 and 1970, coinciding with a post-war period of land abandonment, rural exodus and the onset of a tourism economy. Some trees have shown growth rates larger than 1 ​cm diameter per year and most species have had increasing BAI trends over the past decades. Strong growth releases occurred after windstorms at both sites, but the effects of windstorms were site-dependent, with the 1958 storm affecting mainly the eastern tip of the island (Anaga massif) and the 1991 storm the western tip (Teno massif). Given the great ability of laurel forest trees to establish after land use cessation and to increase growth after local disturbances such as windstorms, passive restoration may be sufficient to regenerate this habitat in currently degraded areas.12 página

Tree-ring distinctness, dating potential and climatic sensitivity of laurel forest tree species in Tenerife Island

Producción CientíficaMacaronesian laurel forests are the only remnants of a subtropical palaeoecosystem dominant during the Tertiary in Europe and northern Africa. These biodiverse ecosystems are restricted to cloudy and temperate insular environments in the North Atlantic Ocean. Due to their reduced distribution area, these forests are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbances and changes in climatic conditions. The assessment of laurel forest trees’ response to climate variation by dendrochronological methods is limited because it was assumed that the lack of marked seasonality would prevent the formation of distinct annual tree rings. The aims of this study were to identify the presence of annual growth rings and to assess the dendrochronological potential of the most representative tree species from laurel forests in Tenerife, Canary Islands. We sampled increment cores from 498 trees of 12 species in two well-preserved forests in Tenerife Island. We evaluated tree-ring boundary distinctness, dating potential, and sensitivity of tree-ring growth to climate and, particularly, to drought occurrence. Eight species showed clear tree-ring boundaries, but synchronic annual tree rings and robust tree-ring chronologies were only obtained for Laurus novocanariensis, Ilex perado subsp. platyphylla, Persea indica and Picconia excelsa, a third of the studied species. Tree-ring width depended on water balance and drought occurrence, showing sharp reductions in growth in the face of decreased water availability, a response that was consistent among species and sites. Inter-annual tree-ring width variation was directly dependent on rainfall input in the humid period, from previous October to current April. The four negative pointer years 1995, 1999, 2008 and 2012 corresponded to severe drought events in the study area. This study gives the first assessment of dendrochronological potential and tree-ring climate sensitivity of tree species from the Tenerife laurel forest, which opens new research avenues for dendroecological studies in Macaronesian laurel forests.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (projects PID2019-109906RA-I00, PID2020-118444GA-100 and PID2019-106908RA-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033)Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (predoctoral contract PRE2018-084106)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (project CGL2017-87309-P and postdoctoral grant IJC2019-040571-I)Junta de Castilla y León (projects VA113G19 and IR2020-1-UVA08)Universidad de Valladolid (predoctoral contract 113-2019PREUVA22)Comunidad de Madrid (project S2018/EMT-4338

Ecosistema con creatividad, investigación e innovación basado en las competencias transversales frente a las exigencias profesionales del siglo XXI

The objective of the research was to determine if the Ecosystem with creativity, research and innovation, based on transversal competences, responds to the professional demands of the 21st century. For the study, the questionnaire of transversal competences, of the Tuning Project, was applied, aimed at 30 university students, in which case the achievement in their training was investigated, while, in the case of the 30 employers, it was to know the importance of assigned to the competencies that new professionals should possess. After testing the normality of the data distribution, the Student's t hypothesis test statistic was applied for independent samples, obtaining a highly significant value, with respect to the fact that the competences included in the Ecosystem with creativity, research and innovation, They are different, between what has been achieved by students and what is demanded of new professionals by the employers of 21st century organizations. It is recommended to reduce the gap between transversal skills, achieved by university students and those required by employers, through frequent updating of the study curriculum according to the demands of the labor market.El objetivo de la investigación fue determinar si el Ecosistema con creatividad, investigación e innovación, basado en las competencias transversales, responde a las exigencias profesionales del siglo XXI. Para el estudio se aplicó el cuestionario de competencias transversales, del Proyecto Tuning, dirigido a 30 estudiantes universitarios, en cuyo caso se indagó sobre el logro en su formación, mientras que, en el caso de los 30 empleadores, fue conocer la importancia que le asignan a las competencias que deben poseer los nuevos profesionales. Luego de probar la normalidad de la distribución de los datos, se aplicó el estadístico de prueba de hipótesis T de Student para muestras independientes, obteniendo un valor altamente significativo, con respecto a que las competencias comprendidas en el Ecosistema con creatividad, investigación e innovación, son distintas, entre lo logrado por los estudiantes y lo exigido a los nuevos profesionales por los empleadores de las organizaciones del siglo XXI.  Se recomienda disminuir la brecha entre las competencias transversales, logradas por los universitarios y las exigidas por los empleadores, mediante la actualización frecuente del currículo de estudio acorde a las demandas del mercado laboral

Allostatic load and executive functions in overweight adults

Background/objective: Overweight is linked to inflammatory and neuroendocrine responses potentially prompting deregulations in biological systems harmful to the brain, particularly to the prefrontal cortex. This structure is crucial for executive performance, ultimately supervising behaviour. Thus, in the present work, we aimed to test the relationship between allostatic load increase, a surrogate of chronic physiological stress, and core executive functions, such as cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory. Method Forty-seven healthy-weight and 56 overweight volunteers aged from 21 to 40 underwent medical and neuropsychological examination. Results: Overweight subjects exhibited a greater allostatic load index than healthy-weight individuals. Moreover, the allostatic load index was negatively related to inhibitory control. When separated, the link between allostatic load index and cognitive flexibility was more marked in the overweight group. Conclusions: An overweight status was linked to chronic physiological stress. The inverse relationship between the allostatic load index and cognitive flexibility proved stronger in this group. Set-shifting alterations could sustain rigid-like behaviours and attitudes towards food

Implementation of multi-layer techniques using FEDERICA, PASITO and OneLab network infrastructures

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. V. López, J. L. Añamuro, V. Moreno, J. E. L. De Vergara, J. Aracil, C. García, J. P. Fernández-Palacios, and M. Izal, "Implementation of multi-layer techniques using FEDERICA, PASITO and OneLab network infrastructures", in 17th IEEE International Conference on Networks, ICON 2011, p. 89-94This paper describes an implementation of multilayer techniques using the network infrastructure provided by FEDERICA, PASITO and OneLab projects. FEDERICA project provides a network infrastructure, based on virtualization capabilities in both network and computing resources, which creates custom-made virtual environments. PASITO is a layer- 2 network that connects universities and research centers in Spain. OneLab measurements tools allow carrying out highaccuracy active network measurements. Thanks to FEDERICA and PASITO, we have a multi-layer architecture where the traffic is routed based on the measurements of OneLab equipment. To carry out this experiment, we have developed a Multi-layer Traffic Engineering manager and an implementation of the Path Computation Element Protocol to solve the lack of a control plane in IP oriented networks. This work shows the feasibility of multilayer techniques as a convenient solution for network operators and it validates our Path Computation Element implementation.This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under project ANFORA (TEC2009-13385), by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade under PASITO project, and by the European Union under project OneLab2 (FP7-224263). Authors would like to thank Mauro Campanella (GARR, the project coordinator of FEDERICA) and Miguel Angel Sotos (RedIris) for their support to carry out this work

BURGRAM: Una herramienta interactiva para el estudio de los algoritmos de análisis sintáctico ascendente y descendente

“Cinco minutos interaccionando con la ejecución de un algoritmo vale más que media hora de clase magistral”, esta podría ser la versión del conocidísimo “una imagen vale más que mil palabras” que ha inspirado el desarrollo del presente recurso docente. El contexto es el de la docencia en Procesadores de Lenguajes, en concreto la enseñanza de los algoritmos de análisis sintáctico ascendente y descendente. BURGRAM es una herramienta que permite la ejecución interactiva de este tipo de algoritmos. Aunque existen otras herramientas, BURGRAM cubre sus deficiencias poniendo el énfasis en la interactividad y el diseño funcional de la interfaz gráfica. Es posible ejecutar los algoritmos paso a paso o deshacer el efecto de los pasos aplicados. Se visualiza simultáneamente la tabla de análisis, los contenidos de la pila y de la entrada, así como el árbol de análisis sintáctico. El docente o el estudiante pueden elegir los elementos en los que quieren centrase haciendo que éstos ocupen la totalidad de la ventana de la aplicación. También es posible generar un informe en formato PDF, RTF o HTML de la traza del algoritmo que el alumno puede utilizar para referencias posteriores, añadiéndolo a las notas tomadas en clase o para resolver dudas en tutorías