Cuban Jam Sessions In Miniature: A Novel In Tracks

This is the collection of a novel, Cuban Jam Sessions in Miniature: A Novel in Tracks, and an embedded short story, Shred Me Like the Cheese You Use to Make Buñuelos. The novel tells the story of Palomino Mondragón, a Colombian mercenary who has arrived in New York after losing his leg to a mortar in Korea. Reclusive, obsessive and passionate, Palomino has reinvented himself as a mambo musician and has fallen in love with Etiwanda, a dancer at the nightclub in which he plays—but he cannot bring himself to declare his love to her. His life changes when he is deported from the United States at the height of the Cuban Missile crisis without having declared his love. Through the thirty years chronicled in the novel, Palomino does all possible in his quest to return to the United States to find Etiwanda despite the fact that he knows she has grown to be a fantasy, an obsession of his imagination. Palomino’s quest takes him to the United States and back three times, as he becomes more and more desperate, as he becomes involved with drug traffickers and for-hire murderers like Polo Norte, as he loses track of what it means to feel alive. Palomino is trapped in a tug-of-war between his rational desire for a normal existence and his irrational but inescapable longing for Etiwanda. In the end, his desperation to get to Etiwanda brings the underworld of Polo Norte to her doorstep. Shred Me Like the Cheese You Use to Make Buñuelos tells the story of Polo Norte, Palomino’s antagonist, on his last day on earth, as he is followed by a writer who has agreed to watch him commit suicide. Together, the stories explore the history and nature of the Colombian Diaspora in the United States, and the violent circumstances surrounding the relationship between both countries and the migrants stuck in the middle of it

Insights from Drosophila on Aβ- and tau-induced mitochondrial dysfunction: mechanisms and tools

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative dementia in older adults worldwide. Sadly, there are no disease-modifying therapies available for treatment due to the multifactorial complexity of the disease. AD is pathologically characterized by extracellular deposition of amyloid beta (Aβ) and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles composed of hyperphosphorylated tau. Increasing evidence suggest that Aβ also accumulates intracellularly, which may contribute to the pathological mitochondrial dysfunction observed in AD. According with the mitochondrial cascade hypothesis, mitochondrial dysfunction precedes clinical decline and thus targeting mitochondria may result in new therapeutic strategies. Unfortunately, the precise mechanisms connecting mitochondrial dysfunction with AD are largely unknown. In this review, we will discuss how the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is contributing to answer mechanistic questions in the field, from mitochondrial oxidative stress and calcium dysregulation to mitophagy and mitochondrial fusion and fission. In particular, we will highlight specific mitochondrial insults caused by Aβ and tau in transgenic flies and will also discuss a variety of genetic tools and sensors available to study mitochondrial biology in this flexible organism. Areas of opportunity and future directions will be also considered

Avances en las aleaciones magnéticas blandas ; Advances in soft magnetic alloys

El presente trabajo pretende dar una visión general de los avances de los últimos tres años en los materiales magnéticos blandos, con especial interés en las aleaciones ricas en contenido de Fe del tipo nanocristalinas, y en algunos casos amorfas. Se hará foco en los tratamientos térmicos y en las velocidades de calentamiento, en la adición en componentes en la estructura de aleaciones magnéticas blandas, y en la composición de la matriz amorfa y los tamaños de grano. Este estudio pone de manifiesto que la habilidad de formación vítrea (GFA) es una propiedad clave en la obtención de la aleación amorfa, y representa un inconveniente en el proceso de fabricación de aleaciones amorfas y nanocristalinas. Además, métodos de tratamiento térmico como el calentamiento por efecto Joule (Joule Heating) abren nuevas posibilidades para la obtención de aleaciones magnéticas blandas nano-cristalinas. Se estudia, además, la evolución estructural de la aleación, dentro de los rangos del equipo JHS3 utilizado en este trabajo; por ello, las propiedades magnéticas reportadas son similares a las obtenidas en la literatura con otros tipos de equipamientos. Este método de trabajo también presenta medidas de resistencia eléctrica y dilatometría durante la evolución estructural de la aleación estudiada. Una buena opción es la familia Nanomet, que plantea nuevas configuraciones de recocido. This work intends to give a general overview of the advances of the last three years in soft magnetic materials, with special interest in Ferich alloys of nanocrystalline type, and in some cases amorphous. Focus will be on heat treatments and heating rates, on the addition of components in the structure of soft magnetic alloys, and on amorphous matrix composition and grain sizes. This study shows that the GFA glassforming ability is a key property in obtaining the amorphous alloy, and represents a drawback in the manufacturing process of amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys. In addition, heat treatment methods such as Joule Heating open new possibilities for obtaining nanocrystalline soft magnetic alloys. It allows the structural evolution of the alloy to be studied, provided that its variables remain within the equipment’s ranges. The structural evolution of the alloy is also studied, within the ranges of the JHS3 equipment used in this work; therefore, the magnetic properties reported are similar to those obtained in the literature with other types of equipment. This working method also presents electrical resistance and dilatometry measurements during the structural evolution of the alloy under study. A good option is the Nanomet family, proposing new annealing configurations.Fil: Rincon, Diego Lisandro. Universidad Católica de Salta. Facultad de Ingeniería; Argentina

Ascenso de las publicaciones biomédicas colombianas

Q4270In 1998, the Colombia Médica journal published an article describing the poor presence of Colombia in the context of Latin American biomedical publication

Diseño y construcción de un generador de impulso de voltaje de 10 KV

En este articulo se presenta el diseño y construcción de un generador de impulso de voltaje tipo rayo de 10 kV desarrollado en la Universidad del Valle. El generador se concibió con fines académicos y se construyo para que permitiera un fácil entendimiento del principio de funcionamiento del generador de un generador multietapastipo Marx. Los requerimientos para este generador incluyeron portabilidad, modularidad, y que sus elementos de construcción fueran comerciales y de bajo costo. El diseño y la construcción incluyeron las etapas de potencia, la fuente de alimentación, el sistema de control de ignición y un divisor capacitivo amortiguado para la medición de las ondas generadas. Para el diseño se empleo la herramienta OrCAD y la validación de su funcionamiento se realizo mediante pruebas de laboratorio de alta tensión de la Universidad del Valle

Bringing Light to Transcription: The Optogenetics Repertoire

The ability to manipulate expression of exogenous genes in particular regions of living organisms has profoundly transformed the way we study biomolecular processes involved in both normal development and disease. Unfortunately, most of the classical inducible systems lack fine spatial and temporal accuracy, thereby limiting the study of molecular events that strongly depend on time, duration of activation, or cellular localization. By exploiting genetically engineered photo sensing proteins that respond to specific wavelengths, we can now provide acute control of numerous molecular activities with unprecedented precision. In this review, we present a comprehensive breakdown of all of the current optogenetic systems adapted to regulate gene expression in both unicellular and multicellular organisms. We focus on the advantages and disadvantages of these different tools and discuss current and future challenges in the successful translation to more complex organisms

Embedding the effect of environmental conditions on recruitment and survival of the European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) : a Bayesian model with dual-time resolution

Many studies underscore the importance of incorporating the effect of environmental data within a life-history-stage-specific framework for determining the recruitment and survival of small pelagic fish. The recruitment of anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) in the Gulf of Cadiz (NE Atlantic) is sensitive to the effect of intense easterlies, stratification of the water column, and discharges from the Guadalquivir River on early life stages. As a proof of concept, we have developed the basis for a new Bayesian model with a dual time step resolution: monthly for juveniles and adults, and weekly for earlier life stages. This dual time step resolution resolves environmental effects on prerecruits while simulating the effect of fishing on recruits. Our estimates for juvenile abundances are validated with field data. The Bayesian framework accounts for the uncertainty, thus providing consistent length-frequency estimates and a plausible environmentally driven stock-recruitment relationship.Peer reviewe

A clone-free, single molecule map of the domestic cow (Bos taurus) genome.

BackgroundThe cattle (Bos taurus) genome was originally selected for sequencing due to its economic importance and unique biology as a model organism for understanding other ruminants, or mammals. Currently, there are two cattle genome sequence assemblies (UMD3.1 and Btau4.6) from groups using dissimilar assembly algorithms, which were complemented by genetic and physical map resources. However, past comparisons between these assemblies revealed substantial differences. Consequently, such discordances have engendered ambiguities when using reference sequence data, impacting genomic studies in cattle and motivating construction of a new optical map resource--BtOM1.0--to guide comparisons and improvements to the current sequence builds. Accordingly, our comprehensive comparisons of BtOM1.0 against the UMD3.1 and Btau4.6 sequence builds tabulate large-to-immediate scale discordances requiring mediation.ResultsThe optical map, BtOM1.0, spanning the B. taurus genome (Hereford breed, L1 Dominette 01449) was assembled from an optical map dataset consisting of 2,973,315 (439 X; raw dataset size before assembly) single molecule optical maps (Rmaps; 1 Rmap = 1 restriction mapped DNA molecule) generated by the Optical Mapping System. The BamHI map spans 2,575.30 Mb and comprises 78 optical contigs assembled by a combination of iterative (using the reference sequence: UMD3.1) and de novo assembly techniques. BtOM1.0 is a high-resolution physical map featuring an average restriction fragment size of 8.91 Kb. Comparisons of BtOM1.0 vs. UMD3.1, or Btau4.6, revealed that Btau4.6 presented far more discordances (7,463) vs. UMD3.1 (4,754). Overall, we found that Btau4.6 presented almost double the number of discordances than UMD3.1 across most of the 6 categories of sequence vs. map discrepancies, which are: COMPLEX (misassembly), DELs (extraneous sequences), INSs (missing sequences), ITs (Inverted/Translocated sequences), ECs (extra restriction cuts) and MCs (missing restriction cuts).ConclusionAlignments of UMD3.1 and Btau4.6 to BtOM1.0 reveal discordances commensurate with previous reports, and affirm the NCBI's current designation of UMD3.1 sequence assembly as the "reference assembly" and the Btau4.6 as the "alternate assembly." The cattle genome optical map, BtOM1.0, when used as a comprehensive and largely independent guide, will greatly assist improvements to existing sequence builds, and later serve as an accurate physical scaffold for studies concerning the comparative genomics of cattle breeds