Web services and workflow management for biological resources

BACKGORUND: The completion of the Human Genome Project has resulted in large quantities of biological data which are proving difficult to manage and integrate effectively. There is a need for a system that is able to automate accesses to remote sites and to "understand" the information that it is managing in order to link data properly. Workflow management systems combined with Web Services are promising Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools. Some have already been proposed and are being increasingly applied to the biomedical domain, especially as many biology-related Web Services are now becoming available. Information on biological resources and on genomic sequences mutations are two examples of very specialized datasets that are useful for specific research domains. RESULTS: The architecture of a system that is able to access and execute predefined workflows is presented in this paper. Web Services allowing access to the IARC TP53 Mutation Database and CABRI catalogues of biological resources have been implemented and are available on-line. Example workflows which retrieve data from these Web Services have also been created and are available on-line. CONCLUSION: We present a general architecture and some building blocks for the implementation of a system that is able to remotely execute workflows of biomedical interest and show how this approach can effectively produce useful outputs. The further development and implementation of Web Services allowing access to an exhaustive set of biomedical databases and the creation of effective and useful workflows will improve the automation of in-silico analysis

An Italian Adaptation of the Burnout Assessment Tool-Core Symptoms (BAT-C) for Students

Burnout is psychological, physical, and emotional suffering that may affect students with low or inadequate resources to face stressful events at school. Although the existing instruments are used worldwide to assess school burnout risk, they show several flaws and mainly focus on the emotional facets of the syndrome. No previous studies have developed a multi-component tool to reveal students' burnout by simultaneously analyzing cognitive, behavioral, and emotional problems. The central core of the current study is to adapt the Burnout Assessment Tool-Core symptoms (BAT-C; Schaufeli et al., 2020), comprising four subscales, exhaustion, mental distance, cognitive impairment, and emotional impairment, for a sample of Italian students. The factor structure, the reliability, and the validity of the scale are investigated. The participants are 745 middle school students (male, 52.2%; aged 9-13, M = 11.84, and SD = 1.21). Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the best fit of the second-order model (four first-order factors and one second-order factor). Specifically, four factors were loaded onto a main high-order factor, which constitutes the BAT-C. Our findings support the Italian adaptation of the BAT-C for students' samples as a valid instrument for measuring the core symptoms of school burnout

Diet of <i>Tyto alba</i> in a urban and a rural locality in the pampean region of Argentina

Se estudió la composición de la dieta de Tyto alba en un área rural y otra urbana ubicadas en la región pampeana de Argentina. Durante el período comprendido entre diciembre de 1993 y enero de 1995 se colectaron 175 egagrópilas, de las cuales fueron recuperadas 475 presas. Se detectó una dieta diferente en las dos áreas, que se aprecia en la marcada variación estacional para la urbana y en la diferencia de los taxa hallados entre ambas. En el área urbana se encontró un alto porcentaje de quirópteros durante la época primavero-estival y de roedores durante otoño e invierno. En el área rural los roedores constituyeron las presas más consumidas durante todo el año, incluyendo un pequeño porcentaje de anfibios en primavera-verano y de aves, distribuidas de manera constante a lo largo del año. Se discuten las causas de la variación encontrada entre áreas y estaciones, así como el alto porcentaje de quirópteros, lo que constituye un hecho poco frecuente. Este trabajo amplía el conocimiento de la dieta de Tyto alba en el ámbito regional, y muestra interesantes resultados con relación a la presencia de especies problemáticas para la salud pública.Diet of Tyto alba in both rural and urban areas in the Pampean region of Argentina were described and compared. A total of 175 pellets was collected between December 1993 and January 1995, from which 475 individual prey were identified. Diet differed between areas in composition and in seasonal variability. In the urban area, an unusual high percentage of bats was found in pellets during spring-summer, whereas rodents were the most abundant type of prey during autumn-winter. In contrast, rodents were the primary food found in pellets in the rural area all year round, including also amphibians in spring-summer and birds all year round. The causes of the variation between areas and seasons are discussed, and also the high percentage of bats which constitutes an unusual finding. This study contributes to the knowledge of Tyto alba diet at a regional scale, and it shows interesting results in relation to the presence of some species of health concern

Trends in modeling Biomedical Complex Systems.

In this paper we provide an introduction to the techniques for multi-scale complex biological systems, from the single bio-molecule to the cell, combining theoretical modeling, experiments, informatics tools and technologies suitable for biological and biomedical research, which are becoming increasingly multidisciplinary, multidimensional and information-driven. The most important concepts on mathematical modeling methodologies and statistical inference, bioinformatics and standards tools to investigate complex biomedical systems are discussed and the prominent literature useful to both the practitioner and the theoretician are presented.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Students’ Trait Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Teacher Emotional Support in Preventing Burnout: The Moderating Role of Academic Anxiety

The current study sought to investigate the role of trait emotional intelligence and perceived teacher emotional support in school burnout. Furthermore, the moderating role of academic anxiety in these relationships was examined. A sample of 493 Italian high school students (81.9% female) aged 14–19 years (M = 16.27, SD = 1.48) was involved in the study. A latent moderated structural equation approach was performed to test the hypothesized model. The results showed that both trait emotional intelligence and perceived teacher emotional support were negatively associated with school burnout. Moreover, academic anxiety moderated the relation between perceived teacher emotional support and school burnout. Specifically, when the level of anxiety was high, the protective role of perceived teacher emotional support toward burnout was weakened. Findings are discussed in light of the protective role of resources on burnout and considering the detrimental impact of academic anxiety in school settings

Students’ Trait Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Teacher Emotional Support in Preventing Burnout: The Moderating Role of Academic Anxiety

The current study sought to investigate the role of trait emotional intelligence and perceived teacher emotional support in school burnout. Furthermore, the moderating role of academic anxiety in these relationships was examined. A sample of 493 Italian high school students (81.9% female) aged 14–19 years (M = 16.27, SD = 1.48) was involved in the study. A latent moderated structural equation approach was performed to test the hypothesized model. The results showed that both trait emotional intelligence and perceived teacher emotional support were negatively associated with school burnout. Moreover, academic anxiety moderated the relation between perceived teacher emotional support and school burnout. Specifically, when the level of anxiety was high, the protective role of perceived teacher emotional support toward burnout was weakened. Findings are discussed in light of the protective role of resources on burnout and considering the detrimental impact of academic anxiety in school settings

Gender Prejudice Within the Family: The Relation Between Parents' Sexism and Their Socialization Values

Gender inequalities are still persistent despite the growing policy efforts to combat them. Sexism, which is an evaluative tendency leading to different treatment of people based on their sex and to denigration (hostile sexism) or enhancement (benevolent sexism) of certain dispositions as gendered attributes, plays a significant role in strengthening these social inequalities. As it happens with many other attitudes, sexism is mainly transmitted by influencing parental styles and socialization practices. This study focused on the association between parents' hostile and benevolent sexism toward women and their socialization values (specifically, conservation and self-transcendence), that are the values parents would like their children to endorse. We took both parents' and children's sex into account in the analyses. One-hundred-sixty-five Italian parental couples with young adult children participated in the study. Parents, both the mother and the father, individually filled in a self-report questionnaire composed of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and the Portrait Values Questionnaire. Findings showed that mothers' benevolent sexism was positively related to their desire to transmit conservation values to their sons and daughters. This result was also found for fathers, but with a moderation effect of children's sex. Indeed, the positive relationship between fathers' benevolent sexism and conservation was stronger in the case of sons than of daughters. Moreover, fathers' benevolent sexism was positively associated with self-transcendence values. Finally, fathers' hostile sexism was positively associated with conservation and negatively with self-transcendence. Limitations of the study, future research developments, and practical implications of the results are discussed

MODO DE SUBSISTENCIA Y CAMBIOS ENTESIALES EN NORPATAGONIA (HOLOCENO TARDÍO) A TRAVÉS DE LA APLICACIÓN DE BIOMECÁNICA MORFOGEOMÉTRICA Y MÉTODO COIMBRA

Mi plan de investigación se enmarca dentro de la Antropología, puntualmente bajo la Bioarqueología, es decir que se basa en estudio restos óseos humanos con el fin de reconstruir el modo de vida de las poblaciones pasadas. Puntualmente mi plan de investigación busca a partir del estudio de cambios que se dan a nivel de las inserciones musculares (cambios entesiales) indagar sobre el uso del cuerpo y el nivel de actividad física de poblaciones que vivieron en el pasado. Las actividades realizadas por los seres humanos varían de acuerdo al modo en que explotan el ambiente y obtienen recursos, esas actividades derivan en movimientos y posturas corporales recurrentes que son capaces de generar cambios a nivel óseo. De este modo, el estudio de distintos marcadores de estrés óseo ha mostrado que, en individuos pertenecientes a sistemas de subsistencia contrastantes mostraban distintos patrones de uso del cuerpo y de actividad física, así por ejemplo en sociedades cazadoras y altamente móviles, los miembros inferiores suelen presentar mayor estrés mecánico que los superiores, al contrario de lo observado en individuos de sociedades agrícolas y sedentarias. Es así como este proyecto propone evaluar si el modo de subsistencia cazador-recolector generalizado con movilidad moderada, característico de los individuos del valle del río Negro durante el Holoceno tardío, implicó niveles de uso del cuerpo y actividad física diferenciables de los observados en individuos con subsistencia y movilidad diferentes. Para ello se propone comparar las entesis (inserciones musculares) de individuos del área con las de cazadores más especializados y de mayor movilidad (de Patagonia meridional), y con las de agricultores sedentarios (del noroeste argentino). El registro de los cambios entesiales se realiza mediante la aplicación de dos métodos: a) el “Método Coimbra”, basado en variables cualitativas y de mayor aplicación en bioarqueología, y b) la “Biomecánica Morfogeométrica” (BMG), basada en variables cuantitativas y de uso en paleontología

Subsistence Mode and Enthesial Changes in North Patagonia (Late Holocene) Through the Application of Morphogeometric Biomechanics and the Coimbra Method

Mi plan de investigación se enmarca dentro de la Antropología, puntualmente bajo la Bioarqueología, es decir que se basa en estudio restos óseos humanos con el fin de reconstruir el modo de vida de las poblaciones pasadas. Puntualmente mi plan de investigación busca a partir del estudio de cambios que se dan a nivel de las inserciones musculares (cambios entesiales) indagar sobre el uso del cuerpo y el nivel de actividad física de poblaciones que vivieron en el pasado.Universidad Nacional de La Plat