Development of a Novel Algorithm to Calculate the Optic Properties of Temporal Aerosols Through Remote Sensing Data Measurements: Prospective Study

Satellite’ sensors as well as ground-based sun photometers instruments surface are utilized gather data about the quantitative composition of components in the Earth’s atmosphere. The relationships among these components produce effects in different phenomena, like regional climate change. Aerosols, consisting of particles from 0.01 to 10 m, are atmosphere components, whose effects are still poorly understood. Through Remote Sensing, it is possible to classify them and gain information about their role in different atmospheric processes: low visibility, solar energy balance, cloud formation and increases or decreases of the quantity of precipitation. This paper describes how the study and analysis of satellite-based and ground-based measurements can be used to develop and validate a novel procedure to calculate the optical properties of temporal aerosols found in and around Guadalajara, based on previous algorithms:, to determine the aerosol size distribution function, scattering phase function, single scattering albedo, complex refractive index and asymmetry parameter. The quantifiable knowledge about the temporal and regional aerosols’ optical properties will contribute to future investigations related to their quantitative effects on atmospheric processes in this region. These effects include: alteration of weather and climate, change of the tropospheric temperature, contribution to environmental ills, the formation and properties of the clouds, effects on the ecosystems, local solar energy balance, and the impacts on human health.ITESO, A.C.ITESMNASA Goddard Space Flight Cente

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Coordinated Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Expression and Signaling During Skeletal Myogenic Differentiation

Angiogenesis is largely controlled by hypoxia-driven transcriptional up-regulation and secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its binding to the endothelial cell tyrosine receptor kinases, VEGFR1 and VEGFR2. Recent expression analysis suggests that VEGF is expressed in a cell-specific manner in normoxic adult tissue; however, the transcriptional regulation and role of VEGF in these tissues remains fundamentally unknown. In this report we demonstrate that VEGF is coordinately up-regulated during terminal skeletal muscle differentiation. We reveal that this regulation is mediated in part by MyoD homo- and hetero-dimeric transcriptional mechanisms. Serial deletions of the VEGF promoter elucidated a region containing three tandem CANNTG consensus MyoD sites serving as essential sites of direct interaction for MyoD-mediated up-regulation of VEGF transcription. VEGF-null embryonic stem (ES) cells exhibited reduced myogenic differentiation compared with wild-type ES cells, suggesting that VEGF may serve a role in skeletal muscle differentiation. We demonstrate that VEGFR1 and VEGFR2 are expressed at low levels in myogenic precursor cells and are robustly activated upon VEGF stimulation and that their expression is coordinately regulated during skeletal muscle differentiation. VEGF stimulation of differentiating C2C12 cells promoted myotube hypertrophy and increased myogenic differentiation, whereas addition of sFlt1, a VEGF inhibitor, resulted in myotube hypotrophy and inhibited myogenic differentiation. We further provide evidence indicating VEGF-mediated myogenic marker expression, mitogenic activity, migration, and prosurvival functions may contribute to increased myogenesis. These data suggest a novel mechanism whereby VEGF is coordinately regulated as part of the myogenic differentiation program and serves an autocrine function regulating skeletal myogenesis