Antimicrobial Activity of Chitosan Membranes Against Staphylococcus Aureus of Clinical Origin

Healthy human skin has beneficial microflora and many pathogens causing infections. Staphylococcus aureus is the most prevalent and can have multiresistance to antibiotics. Chitosan is a polysaccharide composed of glucosamine and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine, which is biodegradable and has antimicrobial activity. As part of a national scientific research project for the development and application of biomaterials, we decided to study the effect of different membranes based on chitosan against strains of S. aureus isolated from infected ulcers. The study found that seven of nine strains of S. aureus are sensitive to rifampin and the least eight of nine strains were multiresistant to more than ten antibiotics. All chitosan-based membranes confirm its antimicrobial effect on direct contact with an increase in its diameter. The contact area of the membranes is increased according to the concentration of chitosan. The highest average area increase was the chitosan membranes with honey and glycerin, 88.32%. Chitosan membranes have shown their effectiveness against S. aureus strains of clinical origin. Thus, these materials can be applied for the treatment of chronic ulcers without toxic hazards and resistance caused by antibiotics

Supramolecular bulky phosphines comprising 1,3,5-triaza-7-phosphaadamantane and Zn(salphen)s: structural features and application in hydrosilylation catalysis

International audienceThe use of the commercially available, bifunctional phosphine 1,3,5-triaza-7-phosphaadamantane (abbreviated as PN 3) in conjunction with a series of Zn(salphen) complexes leads to sterically encumbered phosphine ligands as a result of (reversible) coordinative Zn–N interactions. The solid state and solution phase behaviour of these supramolecular ligand systems have been investigated in detail and revealed their stoichiometries in the solid state observed by X-ray crystallography, and those determined in solution by NMR and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Also, upon application of these supramolecular bulky phosphines in hydrosilylation catalysis employing 1-hexene as a substrate, the catalysis data infer the presence of an active Rh species with two coordinated, bulky PN 3 /Zn(salphen) assembly units having a maximum of three Zn(salphen)s associated per PN 3 scaffold, with an excess of bulky phosphines hardly affecting the overall activity

Implementación de estrategias para la prevención y gestión integral de residuos sólidos urbanos en la comunidad de San Isidro Mazatepec, Tala

El documento recupera el proceso vivido para lograr contribuir a la concientización de la comunidad de San Isidro Mazatepec en cuanto a la prevención y el manejo de residuos. Las actividades realizadas fueron; talleres de concientización en primaria y preparatoria, planos para mejorar el funcionamiento del tratamiento de residuos orgánicos, exposiciones de documentales, implementación de herramienta para llevar control de entradas y salidas de dinero dentro del Centro de Acopio, y un manual para educar a la comunidad en San Isidro Mazatepec en tema de residuos.ITESO, A.C

Cambios diarios en la composición y abundancia de copépodos planctónicos al sur de Bahía de La Paz (Octubre 2002)

The goal of this work to analyze the changes in the copepods community, and its relationships with the sea temperature, chl-a concentration and tidal level south of Bahía de La Paz during October 2002. The statistical analysis split the study period with different communities. During the first phase, the oceanic and neritic-oceanic species were dominant (e.g. Labidocera acutifrons, L. acuta, L. diandra, and L. trispinosa), whereas during the second period an increase of the abundance and species richness of coastal and estuarine species was measured (e.g. Acartia lilljeborgii, A. clausi, Nannocalanus minor, and Canthocalanus pauper). These changes were mainly associated with changes in the tide level with respect to de mean sea level as well as with the chlorophyll-a concentration.El objetivo de este trabajo fue analizar los cambios de la comunidad de copépodos y su relación con la temperatura del mar, concentración de Cl a y la altura de la marea al sur de Bahía de La Paz durante octubre del 2002. El análisis estadístico dividió el periodo de estudio en dos etapas con distintas comunidades. En la primera etapa dominaron especies oceánicas y neríticooceánicas (Ej. Labidocera acutifrons, L. acuta, L. diandra, L. trispinosa), y en la segunda se incrementó la abundancia y número de especies costeras y lagunares (Ej. Acartia lilljeborgii, A. clausi, Nannocalanus minor y Canthocalanus pauper). Estos cambios, se asociaron principalmente a cambios en la altura de la marea con respecto al nivel medio del mar y a incrementos en la concentración de Cl a

Estimación de la madurez ósea en canales de bovino por fluorescencia diferencial

At present, carcass grading is dependent to a great degree on age of the animal. However, in México standards are vague on this matter, because the only requirement is stating if the animal is younger or older than 30 mo. This vagueness is the source of a need of developing objective systems for determining physiological maturity. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was estimating with great accuracy ossification of the cartilage in the 12th rib, as an indicator of bone ossification in bovine carcasses, by means of an electronic pattern obtained through artificial vision. In the model developed to this end, better use of fluorescence generated by the cartilage is made, in comparison to both bone and fat, and as a result the cartilage area stands out clearly, and by developing image processing algorithms for analyzing it, ossification percentage can be estimated with accuracy, and consequently, carcass physiological age. The artificial vision system developed in the present study allows evaluating bone maturity in a carcass in less than one second and data obtained is used for establishing carcass electronic grading in less than five seconds.Actualmente, el análisis de clasificación de calidad de la canal depende en gran medida de la edad del animal, sin embargo, el patrón en México es demasiado impreciso, pues sólo requiere identificar si éste es menor o mayor a 30 meses. Esta falta de precisión genera la necesidad de sistemas objetivos para medir la madurez fisiológica. El propósito de esta investigación fue estimar de manera precisa el porcentaje de osificación del cartílago en la 12ava costilla, como un indicador de madurez ósea en canales de bovino, utilizando un esquema electrónico por visión artificial. En el esquema desarrollado se aprovecha la mayor fluorescencia que genera el cartílago, en comparación con la del hueso y la grasa, sobresaliendo claramente la región del cartílago, desarrollando algoritmos de procesamiento de imágenes para analizar esta región, y estimar de manera precisa el porcentaje de osificación, y por tanto la edad fisiológica de la canal. El sistema de visión artificial desarrollado permitió evaluar la madurez ósea de una canal en menos de un segundo, y la información obtenida fue utilizada para establecer la clasificación electrónica de la canal en menos de cinco segundos

Implementación de estrategias para la prevención y gestión integral de residuos sólidos urbanos en la comunidad de San Isidro Mazatepec, Tala

En el presente documento, se narra el trabajo realizado en el periodo de primavera 2019 por un equipo de profesionales pertenecientes al Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO). El documento recupera el proceso vivido para lograr contribuir a la concientización de la comunidad de San Isidro Mazatepec en cuanto a la prevención y el manejo de residuos. Las actividades realizadas fueron; talleres de concientización en primaria y preparatoria, planos para mejorar el funcionamiento del tratamiento de residuos orgánicos, exposiciones de documentales, implementación de herramienta para llevar control de entradas y salidas de dinero dentro del Centro de Acopio, y un manual para educar a la comunidad en San Isidro Mazatepec en tema de residuos.ITESO, A.C

Analysis of gene expression profiles in HeLa cells in response to overexpression or siRNA-mediated depletion of NASP

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>NASP (Nuclear Autoantigenic Sperm Protein) is a linker histone chaperone required for normal cell division. Changes in NASP expression significantly affect cell growth and development; loss of gene function results in embryonic lethality. However, the mechanism by which NASP exerts its effects in the cell cycle is not understood. To understand the pathways and networks that may involve NASP function, we evaluated gene expression in HeLa cells in which NASP was either overexpressed or depleted by siRNA.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Total RNA from HeLa cells overexpressing NASP or depleted of NASP by siRNA treatment was converted to cRNA with incorporation of Cy5-CTP (experimental samples), or Cy3-CTP (control samples). The labeled cRNA samples were hybridized to whole human genome microarrays (Agilent Technologies, Wilmington, Delaware, USA). Various gene expression analysis techniques were employed: Significance Analysis of Microarrays (SAM), Expression Analysis Systematic Explorer (EASE), and Ingenuity Pathways Analysis (IPA).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>From approximately 36 thousand genes present in a total human genome microarray, we identified a set of 47 up-regulated and 7 down-regulated genes as a result of NASP overexpression. Similarly we identified a set of 56 up-regulated and 71 down-regulated genes as a result of NASP siRNA treatment. Gene ontology, molecular network and canonical pathway analysis of NASP overexpression demonstrated that the most significant changes were in proteins participating in organismal injury, immune response, and cellular growth and cancer pathways (major "hubs": TNF, FOS, EGR1, NFκB, IRF7, STAT1, IL6). Depletion of NASP elicited the changed expression of proteins involved in DNA replication, repair and development, followed by reproductive system disease, and cancer and cell cycle pathways (major "hubs": E2F8, TP53, FGF, FSH, FST, hCG, NFκB, TRAF6).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study has demonstrated that NASP belongs to a network of genes and gene functions that are critical for cell survival. We have confirmed the previously reported interactions between NASP and HSP90, HSP70, histone H1, histone H3, and TRAF6. Overexpression and depletion of NASP identified overlapping networks that included TNF as a core protein, confirming that both high and low levels of NASP are detrimental to cell cycle progression. Networks with cancer-related functions had the highest significance, however reproductive networks containing follistatin and FSH were also significantly affected, which confirmed NASP's important role in reproductive tissues. This study revealed that, despite some overlap, each response was associated with a unique gene signature and placed NASP in important cell regulatory networks.</p

From Examples to Rules: Neural Guided Rule Synthesis for Information Extraction

While deep learning approaches to information extraction have had many successes, they can be difficult to augment or maintain as needs shift. Rule-based methods, on the other hand, can be more easily modified. However, crafting rules requires expertise in linguistics and the domain of interest, making it infeasible for most users. Here we attempt to combine the advantages of these two directions while mitigating their drawbacks. We adapt recent advances from the adjacent field of program synthesis to information extraction, synthesizing rules from provided examples. We use a transformer-based architecture to guide an enumerative search, and show that this reduces the number of steps that need to be explored before a rule is found. Further, we show that without training the synthesis algorithm on the specific domain, our synthesized rules achieve state-of-the-art performance on the 1-shot scenario of a task that focuses on few-shot learning for relation classification, and competitive performance in the 5-shot scenario. © European Language Resources Association (ELRA), licensed under CC-BY-NC-4.0.Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

MathAlign: Linking formula identifiers to their contextual natural language descriptions

Extending machine reading approaches to extract mathematical concepts and their descriptions is useful for a variety of tasks, ranging from mathematical information retrieval to increasing accessibility of scientific documents for the visually impaired. This entails segmenting mathematical formulae into identifiers and linking them to their natural language descriptions. We propose a rule-based approach for this task, which extracts LATEX representations of formula identifiers and links them to their in-text descriptions, given only the original PDF and the location of the formula of interest. We also present a novel evaluation dataset for this task, as well as the tool used to create it. The data and the source code are open source and are available at https://osf.io/bdxmr/ and https://github.com/ml4ai/automates, respectively. © European Language Resources Association (ELRA), licensed under CC-BY-NCOpen access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]