Conservación de alimentos orgánicos de alto contenido lipídico mediante tecnologías de biomateriales nano y microestructurados

El presente proyecto intentó reunir conocimientos científicos que permitan el desarrollo de tecnologías basadas en biomateriales para preservar la calidad e inocuidad de alimentos orgánicos de alto contenido lipídico de la región de Entre Ríos, por ejemplo, nuez pecán. Dichas tecnologías implicaron la obtención de nano y microestructuras capaces de vehiculizar compuestos bioactivos provenientes de aceites esenciales y su incorporación en matrices alimenticias por espolvoreo. Los objetivos específicos que se plantearon fueron los siguientes: Obtención de nano y microestructuras biopoliméricas. Caracterización y obtención de polvos de nano y microestructuras biopoliméricas. Evaluación del impacto de la aplicación de nano y microestructuras por espolvoreo sobre la oxidación lipídica de nuez pecán.      El conocimiento adquirido podria promover el desarrollo de tecnologías innovadoras para la conservación de alimentos orgánicos de alto contenido lipídico y su extensión para la conservación de otros alimentos. Al mismo tiempo, se espera favorecer al sector agroindustrial implicado mediante la valorización de sus productos y su empleo en aplicaciones de creciente interés a nivel nacional e internacional.                                                                                                                                                                  ARK/CAICYT: http://id.caicyt.gov.ar/ark:/s22504559/vwu2gmaf

Conservación de alimentos orgánicos de alto contenido lipídico mediante tecnologías de biomateriales nano y microestructurados

El presente proyecto intentó reunir conocimientos científicos que permitan el desarrollo de tecnologías basadas en biomateriales para preservar la calidad e inocuidad de alimentos orgánicos de alto contenido lipídico de la región de Entre Ríos, por ejemplo, nuez pecán. Dichas tecnologías implicaron la obtención de nano y microestructuras capaces de vehiculizar compuestos bioactivos provenientes de aceites esenciales y su incorporación en matrices alimenticias por espolvoreo. Los objetivos específicos que se plantearon fueron los siguientes: Obtención de nano y microestructuras biopoliméricas. Caracterización y obtención de polvos de nano y microestructuras biopoliméricas. Evaluación del impacto de la aplicación de nano y microestructuras por espolvoreo sobre la oxidación lipídica de nuez pecán.      El conocimiento adquirido podria promover el desarrollo de tecnologías innovadoras para la conservación de alimentos orgánicos de alto contenido lipídico y su extensión para la conservación de otros alimentos. Al mismo tiempo, se espera favorecer al sector agroindustrial implicado mediante la valorización de sus productos y su empleo en aplicaciones de creciente interés a nivel nacional e internacional.                                                                                                                                                                  ARK/CAICYT: http://id.caicyt.gov.ar/ark:/s22504559/vwu2gmaf

Autonomous reagent-based microfluidic pH sensor platform

A portable sensor has been developed for in situ measurements of pH within aqueous environments. The sensor design incorporates microfluidic technology, allowing for the use of low volume of samples and reagents, and an integrated low cost detection system that uses a light emitting diode as light source and a photodiode as the detector. Different combination of dyes has been studied in order to allow for a broader pH detection range, than can be obtained using a single dye. The optimum pH range for this particular dye combination was found to be between pH 4 and pH 9. The reagents developed for pH measurement were first tested using bench-top instrumentation and once optimised, the selected formulation was then implemented in the microfluidic system. The prototype system has been characterised in terms of pH response, linear range, reproducibility and stability. Results obtained using the prototype system are in good agreement with those obtained using reference instrumentation, i.e. a glass electrode/pH meter and analysis via spectrophotometer based assays. The reagent (mixture #3) is shown to be stable for over 8 months, which is important for long term deployments. A high reproducibility is reported with a global RSD of ≤1.8% across measurements of 90 samples, i.e. with respect to concentrations reported by a calibrated pH meter. A series of real water samples from multiple sources were also analysed using the portable sensor system, of which the global error found was 3.84% showing its feasibility for real-world applications

The littoral sea cucumbers (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) of Guam re-assessed – a diversity curve that still does not asymptote

The Micronesian island of Guam has been an important site for the study of littoral tropical holothurian taxonomy for almost 200 years. Despite substantial attention by both expeditions and resident taxonomists, new records are still regularly added to the fauna, demonstrating the challenge of documenting even such large and well-known animals in a small hyper-diverse area. Guam is the type locality of species described by Quoy & Gaimard (1833) and Brandt (1835). A survey of the sea cucumber fauna by Rowe & Doty (1977) led to one of the most used guides for the identification of tropical Pacific sea cucumbers because of the color illustrations of living animals it presented. Focus on echinoderms including holothurians continued with numerous new records added in the following decades. Paulay (2003a) summarized the fauna last, recording 46-47 species. At this stage the fauna was thought to be well documented. A week-long workshop on holothurian systematics sponsored by the National Science Foundation PEET (Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy) project in 2010 included a substantial field work component, sampling both during the day and night, with snorkeling and SCUBA, across a variety of habitats. This survey yielded 40 species, including numerous new records and even species. Further sampling by Kerr’s lab since the workshop has added additional records. The littoral holothuroid fauna of Guam now comprises 65 species in 17 genera and 7 families. Half of the 19 newly recorded species are the result of unravelling cryptic species in complexes, the other half are based on new collections. Eleven species are known from single specimens, suggesting that much still remains to be learned about the fauna

The Glial Regenerative Response to Central Nervous System Injury Is Enabled by Pros-Notch and Pros-NFκB Feedback

Organisms are structurally robust, as cells accommodate changes preserving structural integrity and function. The molecular mechanisms underlying structural robustness and plasticity are poorly understood, but can be investigated by probing how cells respond to injury. Injury to the CNS induces proliferation of enwrapping glia, leading to axonal re-enwrapment and partial functional recovery. This glial regenerative response is found across species, and may reflect a common underlying genetic mechanism. Here, we show that injury to the Drosophila larval CNS induces glial proliferation, and we uncover a gene network controlling this response. It consists of the mutual maintenance between the cell cycle inhibitor Prospero (Pros) and the cell cycle activators Notch and NFκB. Together they maintain glia in the brink of dividing, they enable glial proliferation following injury, and subsequently they exert negative feedback on cell division restoring cell cycle arrest. Pros also promotes glial differentiation, resolving vacuolization, enabling debris clearance and axonal enwrapment. Disruption of this gene network prevents repair and induces tumourigenesis. Using wound area measurements across genotypes and time-lapse recordings we show that when glial proliferation and glial differentiation are abolished, both the size of the glial wound and neuropile vacuolization increase. When glial proliferation and differentiation are enabled, glial wound size decreases and injury-induced apoptosis and vacuolization are prevented. The uncovered gene network promotes regeneration of the glial lesion and neuropile repair. In the unharmed animal, it is most likely a homeostatic mechanism for structural robustness. This gene network may be of relevance to mammalian glia to promote repair upon CNS injury or disease

Observation of Markarian 421 in TeV gamma rays over a 14-year time span

The variability of the blazar Markarian 421 in TeV gamma rays over a 14-year time period has been explored with the Whipple 10 m telescope. It is shown that the dynamic range of its flux variations is large and similar to that in X-rays. A correlation between the X-ray and TeV energy bands is observed during some bright flares and when the complete data sets are binned on long timescales. The main database consists of 878.4 hours of observation with the Whipple telescope, spread over 783 nights. The peak energy response of the telescope was 400 GeV with 20% uncertainty. This is the largest database of any TeV-emitting active galactic nucleus (AGN) and hence was used to explore the variability profile of Markarian 421. The time-averaged flux from Markarian 421 over this period was 0.446$pm$0.008 Crab flux units. The flux exceeded 10 Crab flux units on three separate occasions. For the 2000-2001 season the average flux reached 1.86 Crab units, while in the 1996-1997 season the average flux was only 0.23 Crab units.Fil: Acciari, V. A.. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Estados UnidosFil: Arlen, T.. University of California; Estados UnidosFil: Aune, T.. University of California; Estados UnidosFil: Benbow, W.. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Estados UnidosFil: Bird, R.. University College Dublin; IrlandaFil: Bouvier, A.. University of California; Estados UnidosFil: Bradbury, S. M.. University of Leeds; Reino UnidoFil: Buckley, J. H.. University of Washington; Estados UnidosFil: Bugaev, V.. University of Washington; Estados UnidosFil: de la Calle Perez, I.. European Space Astronomy Center; EspañaFil: Carter Lewis, D. A.. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Cesarini, A.. National University of Ireland Galway; IrlandaFil: Ciupik, L.. Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum; Estados UnidosFil: Collins Hughes, E.. University College Dublin; IrlandaFil: Connolly, M. P.. National University of Ireland Galway; IrlandaFil: Cui, W.. Purdue University; Estados UnidosFil: Duke, C.. Grinnell College; Estados UnidosFil: Dumm, J.. University Of Minnesota; Estados UnidosFil: Falcone, A.. State University Of Pennsylvania; Estados UnidosFil: Federici, S.. University of Potsdam; AlemaniaFil: Fegan, D. J.. University College Dublin; IrlandaFil: Fegan, S. J.. University College Dublin; IrlandaFil: Finley, J. P.. Purdue University; Estados UnidosFil: Finnegan, G.. University of Utah; Estados UnidosFil: Fortson, L.. University Of Minnesota; Estados UnidosFil: Gaidos, J.. Purdue University; Estados UnidosFil: Galante, N.. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Estados UnidosFil: Gall, D.. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Pichel, Ana Carolina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciónes Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; ArgentinaFil: Rovero, Adrian Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciónes Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; ArgentinaFil: The Veritas Collaboration

Improved personalized survival prediction of patients with diffuse large B-cell Lymphoma using gene expression profiling

BACKGROUND: Thirty to forty percent of patients with Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) have an adverse clinical evolution. The increased understanding of DLBCL biology has shed light on the clinical evolution of this pathology, leading to the discovery of prognostic factors based on gene expression data, genomic rearrangements and mutational subgroups. Nevertheless, additional efforts are needed in order to enable survival predictions at the patient level. In this study we investigated new machine learning-based models of survival using transcriptomic and clinical data. METHODS: Gene expression profiling (GEP) of in 2 different publicly available retrospective DLBCL cohorts were analyzed. Cox regression and unsupervised clustering were performed in order to identify probes associated with overall survival on the largest cohort. Random forests were created to model survival using combinations of GEP data, COO classification and clinical information. Cross-validation was used to compare model results in the training set, and Harrel's concordance index (c-index) was used to assess model's predictability. Results were validated in an independent test set. RESULTS: Two hundred thirty-three and sixty-four patients were included in the training and test set, respectively. Initially we derived and validated a 4-gene expression clusterization that was independently associated with lower survival in 20% of patients. This pattern included the following genes: TNFRSF9, BIRC3, BCL2L1 and G3BP2. Thereafter, we applied machine-learning models to predict survival. A set of 102 genes was highly predictive of disease outcome, outperforming available clinical information and COO classification. The final best model integrated clinical information, COO classification, 4-gene-based clusterization and the expression levels of 50 individual genes (training set c-index, 0.8404, test set c-index, 0.7942). CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that DLBCL survival models based on the application of machine learning algorithms to gene expression and clinical data can largely outperform other important prognostic variables such as disease stage and COO. Head-to-head comparisons with other risk stratification models are needed to compare its usefulness

Time connectedness of fear

This paper examines the interconnection between four implied volatility indices representative of the investors' consensus view of expected stock market volatility at different maturities during the period January 3, 2011-May 4, 2018. To this end, we first perform a static analysis to measure the total volatility connectedness in the entire period using a framework proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2014). Second, we apply a dynamic analysis to evaluate both the net directional connectedness for each market using the TVP-VAR connectedness approach developed by Antonakakis and Gabauer (2017). Our results suggest that a 72.27%, of the total variance of the forecast errors is explained by shocks across the examined investor time horizons, indicating that the remainder 27.73% of the variation is due to idiosyncratic shocks. Furthermore, we find that volatility connectedness varies over time, with a surge during periods of increasing economic and financial instability. Finally, we also document a superior performance of the TVP-VAR approach to connectedness respect to the original one proposed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2014

Use of water-Cherenkov detectors to detect Gamma-Ray-Bursts at the Large Aperture GRB Observatory (LAGO)

The Large Aperture GRB Observatory (LAGO) project aims at the detection of high energy photons from Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) using the single particle technique in ground-based water-Cherenkov detectors (WCD). To reach a reasonable sensitivity, high altitude mountain sites have been selected in Mexico (Sierra Negra, 4550 m a.s.l.), Bolivia (Chacaltaya, 5300 m a.s.l.) and Venezuela (Me´ rida, 4765 m a.s.l.). We report on detector calibration and operation at high altitude, search for bursts in 4 months of preliminary data, as well as search for signal at ground level when satellites report a burst.Fil: Allard, D.. Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7; FranciaFil: Allekotte, Ingomar. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Alvarez, C.. Facultad de Ciencias Fısico-Matematicas; MéxicoFil: Asorey, Hernán Gonzalo. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Barros, H.. Universidad Simon Bolivar; VenezuelaFil: Bertou, Xavier Pierre Louis. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Burgoa, O.. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicas; BoliviaFil: Gomez Berisso, Mariano. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Martinez, O.. Facultad de Ciencias Fısico-Matematicas; MéxicoFil: Miranda Loza, P.. Instituto de Investigaciones Fısicas; BoliviaFil: Murrieta, T.. Facultad de Ciencias Fısico-Matematicas; MéxicoFil: Perez, G.. Facultad de Ciencias Fısico-Matematicas; MéxicoFil: Rivera, H.. Instituto de Investigaciones Fısicas; BoliviaFil: Rovero, Adrian Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciónes Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; ArgentinaFil: Saavedra, O.. Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare; ItaliaFil: Salazar, H.. Facultad de Ciencias Fısico-Matematicas ; MéxicoFil: Tello, J. C.. Universidad Simon Bolıvar; VenezuelaFil: Ticona Peralda, R.. Instituto de Investigaciones Fısicas; BoliviaFil: Velarde, A.. Instituto de Investigaciones Fısicas; BoliviaFil: Villaseñor, L.. Universidad de Michoacan; MéxicoFil: Areso, Omar Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciónes Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; ArgentinaFil: Arnaldi, Luis Horacio. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Dasso, Sergio Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciónes Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; ArgentinaFil: Gonzalez, M.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Gulisano, Adriana Maria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciónes Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio. - Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio; ArgentinaFil: Martin, R.. Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Comercio Interno y Culto. Dirección Nacional del Antártico. Instituto Antártico Argentino; ArgentinaFil: Masías Meza, Jimmy Joel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Sidelnik, Iván Pedro. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Alvarez, W.. Universidad de San Carlos; GuatemalaFil: The LAGO Collaboration