La dimensión internacional del pensamiento político Chileno. Aprendizaje y transferencia en el exilio

The thesis deals with the way in which western European political scene impacted the Chilean exiles’ political thinking. The methodological approach consists on the interaction of the concepts political transfer and political learning in the context of exile, the creative processing of political failure - both of ideas and alliances - became the centre of analysis. The latter led to the development of a new political proposal, expressed through the processes known as Socialist Renovation and Socialist Convergence in exile. Despite being a dark moment in the pages of Chilean history, exile proved to be a creative time for national political thought. It was in that context that political leaders developed the intellectual capacity to process failure and give new value to the democratic institutions. This, in turn, led to a process determined by the political transfer of those contextual elements that made more sense to rebuild a political project in Chile. Such political and intellectual reconstruction, not only of ideas but also of ways of doing politics, were on to the foundation of the Coalition of Political Parties for Democracy, which won the presidency in Chile in 1990 and held power until 2010

microRNA expression in the aging mouse lung

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a novel class of short double stranded RNA that mediate the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Previous studies have implicated changes in miRNA expression in the regulation of development and the induction of diseases such as cancer. However, although miRNAs have been implicated in the process of aging in C. elegans, nothing is known of their role in mammalian tissues. RESULTS: To address this question, we have used a highly-sensitive, semi-quantitative RT-PCR based approach to measure the expression profile of 256 of the 493 currently identified miRNAs in the lungs from 6 month (adult) and 18 month (aged) old female BALB/c mice. We show that, despite the characteristic changes in anatomy and gene expression associated with lung aging, there were no significant changes in the expression of 256 miRNAs. CONCLUSION: Overall, these results show that miRNA transcription is unchanged during lung aging and suggests that stable expression of miRNAs might instead buffer age related changes in the expression of protein-encoding gene

Genome-wide analysis of diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella L., from Brassica crops and wild host plants reveals no genetic structure in Australia

Molecular studies of population structure can reveal insight into the movement patterns of mobile insect pests in agricultural landscapes. The diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella L., a destructive pest of Brassica vegetable and oilseed crops worldwide, seasonally colonizes winter canola crops in southern Australia from alternative host plant sources. To investigate movement, we collected 59 P. xylostella populations from canola crops, Brassica vegetable and forage crops and brassicaceous wild host plants throughout southern Australia in 2014 and 2015 and genotyped 833 individuals using RAD-seq for genome-wide analysis. Despite a geographic sampling scale > 3,000 km and a statistically powerful set of 1,032 SNP markers, there was no genetic differentiation among P. xylostella populations irrespective of geographic location, host plant or sampling year, and no evidence for isolation-by-distance. Hierarchical STRUCTURE analysis at K = 2–5 showed nearly uniform ancestry in both years. Cluster analysis showed divergence of a small number of individuals at several locations, possibly reflecting an artefact of sampling related individuals. It is likely that genetic homogeneity within Australian P. xylostella largely reflects the recent colonization history of this species but is maintained through some level of present gene flow. Use of genome-wide neutral markers was uninformative for revealing the seasonal movements of P. xylostella within Australia, but may provide more insight in other global regions where the species has higher genetic diversity.Kym D. Perry, Michael A. Keller and Simon W. Baxte

El gusano tornillo: una amenaza para las plataneras.

El gusano tornillo (Castniomera humbolti) constituye una plaga de importancia económica en zonas plataneras de varios departamentos del país. Se describen las características morfológicas y duración de los distintos estados de este Lepidoptero, el tipo de daño que ocasiona, las plantas hospederas y las prácticas recomendadas para su contro

Opacity calculation for target physics using the ABAKO/RAPCAL code

Radiative properties of hot dense plasmas remain a subject of current interest since they play an important role in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research, as well as in studies on stellar physics. In particular, the understanding of ICF plasmas requires emissivities and opacities for both hydro-simulations and diagnostics. Nevertheless, the accurate calculation of these properties is still an open question and continuous efforts are being made to develop new models and numerical codes that can facilitate the evaluation of such properties. In this work the set of atomic models ABAKO/RAPCAL is presented, as well as a series of results for carbon and aluminum to show its capability for modeling the population kinetics of plasmas in both LTE and NLTE regimes. Also, the spectroscopic diagnostics of a laser-produced aluminum plasma using ABAKO/RAPCAL is discussed. Additionally, as an interesting application of these codes, fitting analytical formulas for Rosseland and Planck mean opacities for carbon plasmas are reported. These formulas are useful as input data in hydrodynamic simulation of targets where the computation task is so hard that in line computation with sophisticated opacity codes is prohibitive

Predictive value of lymphocytopenia and the neutrophil-lymphocyte count ratio for severe imported malaria

Background: Lymphocytopenia has frequently been described in patients with malaria, but studies on its association with disease severity have yielded conflicting results. The neutrophil/lymphocyte count ratio (NLCR) has been introduced as a parameter for systemic inflammation in critically ill patients and was found, together with lymphocytopenia, to be a better predictor of bacteraemia than routine parameters like C-reactive protein and total leukocyte count. In the present study, the predictive value of the NLCR and lymphocytopenia for severe disease was evaluated in patients with imported malaria. Methods. All patients diagnosed with malaria at the Harbour Hospital between January 1§ssup§st§esup§ 1999 and January 1§ssup§st§esup§ 2012 with differential white cell counts determined within the first 24 hours after admission were included in this retrospective study. Severe malaria was defined according to the WHO criteria. The performance of the NLCR and lymphocytopenia as a marker of severe malarial disease was compared back-to-back with that of C-reactive protein as a reference biomarker. Results: A total of 440 patients (severe falciparum malaria n = 61, non-severe falciparum malaria n = 259, non-falciparum malaria n=120) were included in the study. Lymphocytopenia was present in 52% of all patients and the median NLCR of all patients was 3.2. Total lymphocyte counts and NLCR did not differ significantly between groups. A significant correlation of total leukocyte count and NLCR, but not lymphocyte count, with parasitaemia was found. ROC analysis revealed a good negative predictive value but a poor positive predictive value of both lymphocytopenia and NLCR and performance was inferior to that of C-reactive protein. After complete parasite clearance a significant rise in total leukocyte count and lymphocyte count and a significant decrease in NLCR was observed. Conclusion: The NLCR was found to correlate with parasitaemia, but b

Dissecting DNA repair in adult high grade gliomas for patient stratification in the post-genomic era

Deregulation of multiple DNA repair pathways may contribute to aggressive biology and therapy resistance in gliomas. We evaluated transcript levels of 157 genes involved in DNA repair in an adult glioblastoma Test set (n=191) and validated in ‘The Cancer Genome Atlas’ (TCGA) cohort (n=508). A DNA repair prognostic index model was generated. Artificial neural network analysis (ANN) was conducted to investigate global gene interactions. Protein expression by immunohistochemistry was conducted in 61 tumours. A fourteen DNA repair gene expression panel was associated with poor survival in Test and TCGA cohorts. A Cox multivariate model revealed APE1, NBN, PMS2, MGMT and PTEN as independently associated with poor prognosis. A DNA repair prognostic index incorporating APE1, NBN, PMS2, MGMT and PTEN stratified patients in to three prognostic sub-groups with worsening survival. APE1, NBN, PMS2, MGMT and PTEN also have predictive significance in patients who received chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. ANN analysis of APE1, NBN, PMS2, MGMT and PTEN revealed interactions with genes involved in transcription, hypoxia and metabolic regulation. At the protein level, low APE1 and low PTEN remain associated with poor prognosis. In conclusion, multiple DNA repair pathways operate to influence biology and clinical outcomes in adult high grade gliomas

Scholarly communication in transition: The use of question marks in the titles of scientific articles in medicine, life sciences and physics 1966–2005

The titles of scientific articles have a special significance. We examined nearly 20 million scientific articles and recorded the development of articles with a question mark at the end of their titles over the last 40 years. Our study was confined to the disciplines of physics, life sciences and medicine, where we found a significant increase from 50% to more than 200% in the number of articles with question-mark titles. We looked at the principle functions and structure of the titles of scientific papers, and we assume that marketing aspects are one of the decisive factors behind the growing usage of question-mark titles in scientific articles

Role of non-coding RNAs in maintaining primary airway smooth muscle cells

BACKGROUND: The airway smooth muscle (ASM) cell maintains its own proliferative rate and contributes to the inflammatory response in the airways, effects that are inhibited by corticosteroids, used in the treatment of airways diseases. OBJECTIVE: We determined the differential expression of mRNAs, microRNAs (miRNAs) and long noncoding RNA species (lncRNAs) in primary ASM cells following treatment with a corticosteroid, dexamethasone, and fetal calf serum (FCS). METHODS: mRNA, miRNA and lncRNA expression was measured by microarray and quantitative real-time PCR. RESULTS: A small number of miRNAs (including miR-150, −371-5p, −718, −940, −1181, −1207-5p, −1915, and −3663-3p) were decreased following exposure to dexamethasone and FCS. The mRNA targets of these miRNAs were increased in expression. The changes in mRNA expression were associated with regulation of ASM actin cytoskeleton. We also observed changes in expression of lncRNAs, including natural antisense, pseudogenes, intronic lncRNAs, and intergenic lncRNAs following dexamethasone and FCS. We confirmed the change in expression of three of these, LINC00882, LINC00883, PVT1, and its transcriptional activator, c-MYC. We propose that four of these lincRNAs (RP11-46A10.4, LINC00883, BCYRN1, and LINC00882) act as miRNA ‘sponges’ for 4 miRNAs (miR-150, −371-5p, −940, −1207-5p). CONCLUSION: This in-vitro model of primary ASM cell phenotype was associated with the regulation of several ncRNAs. Their identification allows for in-vitro functional experimentation to establish causality with the primary ASM phenotype, and in airway diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)