Mexico’s Tradition and Culture Entering the Digital Age: The Mexican Cultural Heritage Repository Project

Mexico is a country with a vast and extraordinary cultural heritage, which is the result of a rich history of cultural exchange, syncretism and transculturation. This rich culture has been materialized through the consolidation of a long and prestigious museum tradition, which at the same time is sadly characterized by an endemic lack of technological resources rather than professional skills. As a result, we have found that Mexican museums produce very heterogeneous forms of documentation, which are often not even managed using information technologies. Furthermore, most museums deploy ad hoc solutions that directly limit the usefulness and value of the documentation process itself. In response, the recently founded Mexican Ministry of Culture is undertaking the development of the Mexican cultural heritage data model (Modelo de Datos México), which is aimed at contributing to the cultural heritage domain of our country through the correct characterization and documentation of its cultural objects. It is the first documented experience in Mexico of a large-scale data model inspired by CIDOC-CRM, which is complemented by a set of terminological tools that attempt to capture the singularities and idiosyncrasies of the Mexican cultural sector. In the present paper, we will describe the motivations and decisions made so far to optimize the data model to the Mexican reality and the development of the project that will define a set of local terminologies built on the expertise of linguists, information architects, developers and especially, museum professionals.This research was funded by the Secretaría de Cultura of Mexico

Lumbalgia durante la práctica del windsurfing

El windsurfing es, posiblemente, el deporte náutico más practicado hoy en el mundo. Pero tiene un aspecto negativo: las lesiones que provoca. Existe poca experiencia al respecto y la información no es abundante. Por estas razones, los autores realizaron una encuesta clínica a 55 personas que pratican este deporte para comprobar la incidencia de tales afecciones, especialmente de la lumbalgia, así como las razones de su presentación, muy frecuente entre ellos. Hallaron que el 66 % habían padecido dolor lumbar después de su práctica. Concluyen que la adopción de una postura incorrecta, motivada por el poco dominio de la técnica, el no poseer una buena preparación física previa y no efectuar un calentamiento muscular antes de cada sesión, constituyen las principales causas de las lesiones y molestias musculares causadas por la sobrecarga que debe enfrentar el sistema muscular, especialmente la región lumba

Abrogating mitochondrial ROS in neurons or astrocytes reveals cell-specific impact on mouse behaviour

Article 101917, (2021)[EN]Cells naturally produce mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mROS), but the in vivo pathophysiological significance has long remained controversial. Within the brain, astrocyte-derived mROS physiologically regulate behaviour and are produced at one order of magnitude faster than in neurons. However, whether neuronal mROS abundance differentially impacts on behaviour is unknown. To address this, we engineered genetically modified mice to down modulate mROS levels in neurons in vivo. Whilst no alterations in motor coordination were observed by down modulating mROS in neurons under healthy conditions, it prevented the motor discoordination caused by the pro-oxidant neurotoxin, 3-nitropropionic acid (3-NP). In contrast, abrogation of mROS in astrocytes showed no beneficial effect against the 3-NP insult. These data indicate that the impact of modifying mROS production on mouse behaviour critically depends on the specific cell-type where they are generated

Association of Adherence to Specific Mediterranean Diet Components and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Young Adults

Objective: Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and a healthy diet may be part of an overall healthy lifestyle. The association between cardiorespiratory fitness and adherence to an overall Mediterranean Diet (MedD) pattern and specific MedD foods has been assessed. Design: Subjects completed a lifestyle survey and dietary pattern, using the validated MedD Adherence 14-item questionnaire and two self-reported 24-h dietary recalls. Participants' height, body weight, waist circumference (WC), and CRF (maximum oxygen uptake, VO2max, ml/kg/min) were measured. Setting: University of Cadiz, Spain. Subjects: A sample of young adults (n = 275, 22.2 +/- 6.3 years). Results: Mean VO2max was 43.9 mL/kg/min (SD 8.5 mL/kg/min). Most participants had healthy CRF (75.9%). The average MedD score was 6.2 points (SD 1.8 points). Participants who consumed more servings of nuts had higher VO2max. Those who showed low CRF performed less physical activity (PA) and had a higher body mass index (BMI) and WC compared with those classified as having healthy CRF. Nut consumption was positively associated with VO2max (beta = 0.320; 95% CI 2.4, 10.7; p < 0.002), adjusting for sex, age, smoking PA, BMI, WC, and energy intake, showing the subjects who consumed more nuts were fitter than young adults who consumed less. Conclusions: CRF is positively associated with nut consumption but not with the overall MedD pattern and all other MedD foods in the young adults. The subjects who consumed more servings of nuts were fitter than young adults who consumed less. Moreover, fitter subjects performed more PA and had a lower BMI and WC than those who had lower fitness levels

La minería de sílex en Casa Montero. El espacio de la producción.

Este trabajo presenta resultados preliminares de la excavación de la mina del Neolítico Antiguo de Casa Montero (Madrid). Se tratan aspectos descriptivos de las estructuras mineras, el encuadre geológico y los primeros resultados sobre la clasificación petrológica de las muestras de sílex

Warming rate shapes the thermal tolerance of freshwater phytoplankton.

The impact of global warming on phytoplankton species in freshwater ecosystems could vary depending on their capacity for adapting and acclimating to changes in temperature. To make better predictions under different global warming scenarios, it is crucial to perform long-term experiments where the selection of new genetic variants could occur in addition to potential gene expression changes. Here we aimed to explore the differential evolutionary potential of two freshwater phytoplankton species growing under increasing temperatures, the bloom forming cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa (Kützing) Kützing and the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii P. A. Dang. We performed an evolutionary ratchet experiment lasting over 60 generations to detect the limit of resistance to high temperatures of both species. Populations were initially maintained at 25 ºC and then subjected to a slow (+2 ºC) or to a rapid (+4 ºC) temperature increase. To characterize the increase in thermal tolerance of the derived populations, we compared the growth rate and photosynthetic performance of derived and ancestral populations at control (25 ºC), sublethal and lethal temperatures of ancestral populations. We observed that slow warming facilitates the increase of thermal tolerance of both species. Specifically, the lethal temperature of ancestral populations was only surpassed by derived populations under slow warming conditions. Thermo-tolerant derived strains showed higher photosynthetic capacity than ancestral ones at high temperatures, but at the cost of a limited capacity to dissipate energy via non-photochemical pathways. Our results suggested that the rate of global warming could modulate the thermal tolerance limit and resilience of phytoplanktonic species and alter the primary production and resilience of freshwater ecosystems.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Editor's note

2020 European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (“Paving the way towards Human-Centric AI”)[Abstract]: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become nowadays one of the main relevant technologies that is driven us to a new revolution, a change in society, just as well as other human inventions, such as navigation, steam machines, or electricity did in our past. There are several ways in which AI might be developed, and the European Union has chosen a path, a way to transit through this revolution, in which Artificial Intelligence will be a tool at the service of Humanity

Editor's Note

Artificial Intelligence has become nowadays one of the main relevant technologies that is driven us to a new revolution, a change in society, just as well as other human inventions, such as navigation, steam machines, or electricity did in our past. There are several ways in which AI might be developed, and the European Union has chosen a path, a way to transit through this revolution, in which Artificial Intelligence will be a tool at the service of Humanity. That was precisely the motto of the 2020 European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (“Paving the way towards Human-Centric AI”), of which these special issue is a selection of the best papers selected by the organizers of some of the Workshops in ECAI 2020

Drivers of the Ectoparasite Community and Co-Infection Patterns in Rural and Urban Burrowing Owls

We analyzed the ectoparasite community of a monomorphic and non-social bird, the burrowing owl, Athene cunicularia, breeding in rural and urban habitats. Such community was composed by two lice, one mite and one flea species. Rural individuals had more fleas and less mites than urban ones. Adult birds harbored less ectoparasites than young ones and females harbored more lice than males. The presence of lice was positively related to the presence of fleas. On the contrary, the presence of mites was negatively related to the presence of fleas and lice. The study of parasite communities in urban and rural populations of the same species can shed light on how urban stressor factors impact the physiology of wildlife inhabiting cities and, therefore, the host-parasite relationships. Urbanization creates new ecological conditions that can affect biodiversity at all levels, including the diversity and prevalence of parasites of species that may occupy these environments. However, few studies have compared bird-ectoparasite interactions between urban and rural individuals. Here, we analyze the ectoparasite community and co-infection patterns of urban and rural burrowing owls, Athene cunicularia, to assess the influence of host traits (i.e., sex, age, and weight), and environmental factors (i.e., number of conspecifics per nest, habitat type and aridity) on its composition. Ectoparasites of burrowing owls included two lice, one flea, and one mite. The overall prevalence for mites, lice and fleas was 1.75%, 8.76% and 3.50%, respectively. A clear pattern of co-infection was detected between mites and fleas and, to less extent, between mites and lice. Adult owls harbored fewer ectoparasites than nestlings, and adult females harbored more lice than males. Our results also show that mite and flea numbers were higher when more conspecifics cohabited the same burrow, while lice showed the opposite pattern. Rural individuals showed higher flea parasitism and lower mite parasitism than urban birds. Moreover, mite numbers were negatively correlated with aridity and host weight. Although the ectoparasitic load of burrowing owls appears to be influenced by individual age, sex, number of conspecifics per nest, and habitat characteristics, the pattern of co-infection found among ectoparasites could also be mediated by unexplored factors such as host immune response, which deserves further research