Legal and Cultural Factors as Catalysts for Promoting Women in the Boardroom

12 p.This study focuses on whether regulation as well as national cultures play significant roles in defining women’s role in society. We are contributing to the existing debate by providing the first empirical analysis to calibrate which legal mechanisms and cultural dimensions are more efficient in achieving boardroom gender equality. We have highlighted the impact of regulation by distinguishing between those countries that have passed positive laws imposing gender quotas in the boardroom and those applying the ‘comply or explain’ recommendation in their good governance codes. We have monitored enforcement levels among countries and tested the validity of Hofstede’s cultural factors in impacting on gender quotas. The emerging picture is that of gender diversity being triggered by the adoption of positive laws rather than by soft recommendations. Moreover, gender diversity policies are more commonly promoted in countries where governments, corporations and institutions are characterized by less masculinity and lower power distance.S

Mitochondrial ATP-Mg/pi carrier SCaMC-3/Slc25a23 counteracts PARP-1-dependent fall in mitochondrial ATP caused by excitotoxic insults in neurons

Glutamate excitotoxicity is caused by sustained activation of neuronal NMDA receptors causing a large Ca2+and Na+ influx, activation of poly(ADP ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1), and delayed Ca2+ deregulation. Mitochondria undergo early changes in membrane potential during excitotoxicity, but their precise role in these events is still controversial. Using primary cortical neurons derived from mice, we show that NMDA exposure results in a rapid fall in mitochondrial ATP in neurons deficient in SCaMC-3/Slc25a23, a Ca2+-regulated mitochondrial ATP-Mg/Pi carrier. This fall is associated with blunted increases in respiration and a delayed decrease in cytosolic ATP levels, which are prevented by PARP-1 inhibitors or by SCaMC-3 activity promoting adenine nucleotide uptake into mitochondria. SCaMC-3 KO neurons show an earlier delayed Ca2+ deregulation, and SCaMC-3-deficient mitochondria incubated with ADP or ATP-Mg had reduced Ca2+retention capacity, suggesting a failure to maintain matrix adenine nucleotides as a cause for premature delayed Ca2+ deregulation. SCaMC-3 KO neurons have higher vulnerability to in vitro excitotoxicity, and SCaMC-3 KO mice are more susceptible to kainate-induced seizures, showing that early PARP-1-dependent fall in mitochondrial ATP levels, counteracted by SCaMC-3, is an early step in the excitotoxic cascade.This work was supported by Ministerio de Economía Grant BFU2011-30456, by Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Raras [an initiative of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII)], by Comunidad de Madrid Grant S2010/BMD-2402 MITOLAB-CM (to J.S.), by ISCIII Grant PI080610 (to A.d.A.), and by an institutional grant from the Fundación Ramón Areces to the Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa. C.B.R. is the recipient of an Formacion Personal Universitario fellowship from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia. P.G.-S. is a recipient of a Formacion Personal Investigador-UAM fellowship from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.Peer Reviewe

Master regulators of FGFR2 signalling and breast cancer risk.

The fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2) locus has been consistently identified as a breast cancer risk locus in independent genome-wide association studies. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying FGFR2-mediated risk are still unknown. Using model systems we show that FGFR2-regulated genes are preferentially linked to breast cancer risk loci in expression quantitative trait loci analysis, supporting the concept that risk genes cluster in pathways. Using a network derived from 2,000 transcriptional profiles we identify SPDEF, ERα, FOXA1, GATA3 and PTTG1 as master regulators of fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 signalling, and show that ERα occupancy responds to fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 signalling. Our results indicate that ERα, FOXA1 and GATA3 contribute to the regulation of breast cancer susceptibility genes, which is consistent with the effects of anti-oestrogen treatment in breast cancer prevention, and suggest that fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 signalling has an important role in mediating breast cancer risk.This is the final version of the article. It was originally published in Nature Communications here: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130917/ncomms3464/full/ncomms3464.html

Chloride Nutrition Regulates development, Water Balance and Drought Resistance in Plants

6 páginas.-- 5 figuras.-- 9 referencias.-- Poster presentado en el XII Luso-Spanish Symposium on Plant Water Relations – Water to Feed the World. 30th of September – 3rd of October (Evora) PortugalCl- is a strange micronutrient since actual Cl- concentration in plants is about two orders of magnitude higher than the content required as essential micronutrient. This accumulation requires a high cost of energy, and since Cl- is a major osmotically active solute in the vacuole, we propose that Cl- plays a role in the regulation of water balance in plants. We show here that, when accumulated to macronutrient levels, Cl- specifically regulates leaf cell elongation and water balance parameters, improving water relations at both the leaf tissue and the whole plant levels, increasing drought resistance in higher plants.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation-FEDER grant AGL2009-08339/AGR.Peer Reviewe

Synchrony Matters More than Species Richness in Plant Community Stability at a Global Scale

The stability of ecological communities is critical for the stable provisioning of ecosystem services, such as food and forage production, carbon sequestration, and soil fertility. Greater biodiversity is expected to enhance stability across years by decreasing synchrony among species, but the drivers of stability in nature remain poorly resolved. Our analysis of time series from 79 datasets across the world showed that stability was associated more strongly with the degree of synchrony among dominant species than with species richness. The relatively weak influence of species richness is consistent with theory predicting that the effect of richness on stability weakens when synchrony is higher than expected under random fluctuations, which was the case in most communities. Land management, nutrient addition, and climate change treatments had relatively weak and varying effects on stability, modifying how species richness, synchrony, and stability interact. Our results demonstrate the prevalence of biotic drivers on ecosystem stability, with the potential for environmental drivers to alter the intricate relationship among richness, synchrony, and stability.National Science Foundation DEB-8114302, DEB8811884, DEB-9411972, DEB-0080382, DEB-0620652, DEB-1234162, DEB0618210National Science Foundation Research Coordination Network DEB-1042132Institute on the Environment DG-0001-13Agency of the Czech Republic GACR16-15012SCzech Academy of Sciences RVO 67985939Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid 2017-T2/AMB-5406Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council BBS/E/C/000J030

Copynumber: Efficient algorithms for single- and multi-track copy number segmentation.

BACKGROUND: Cancer progression is associated with genomic instability and an accumulation of gains and losses of DNA. The growing variety of tools for measuring genomic copy numbers, including various types of array-CGH, SNP arrays and high-throughput sequencing, calls for a coherent framework offering unified and consistent handling of single- and multi-track segmentation problems. In addition, there is a demand for highly computationally efficient segmentation algorithms, due to the emergence of very high density scans of copy number. RESULTS: A comprehensive Bioconductor package for copy number analysis is presented. The package offers a unified framework for single sample, multi-sample and multi-track segmentation and is based on statistically sound penalized least squares principles. Conditional on the number of breakpoints, the estimates are optimal in the least squares sense. A novel and computationally highly efficient algorithm is proposed that utilizes vector-based operations in R. Three case studies are presented. CONCLUSIONS: The R package copynumber is a software suite for segmentation of single- and multi-track copy number data using algorithms based on coherent least squares principles.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

Identifying sustainability priorities among value chain actors in artisanal common octopus fisheries

The United Nations (UN) Decade of Ocean Science highlights a need to improve the way in which scientific results effectively inform action and policies regarding the ocean. Our research contributes to achieving this goal by identifying practical actions, barriers, stakeholder contributions and resources required to increase the sustainability of activities carried out in the context of artisanal fisheries to meet UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA) Global Action Plan (GAP) Pillar targets. We conducted a novel ‘social value chain analysis’ via a participatory workshop to elicit perspectives of value chain actors and fisheries stakeholders associated with two Spanish artisanal common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) fisheries (western Asturias—Marine Stewardship Council [MSC] certified, and Galicia—non-MSC certified) about their priorities regarding sustainable octopus production and commercializationOpen Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Cephs and Chefs Project (https://www.cephsandchefs.com/) funded by the European Regional Development Fund (https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/funding/erdf/) through the Interreg Atlantic Area Programme grant number EAPA_282/2016. CP, TF, KR and DC would also like to acknowledge financial support to CESAM by FCT/MCTES (UIDP/50017/2020 + UIDB/50017/2020 + LA/P/0094/2020), through national funds. CP acknowledges the FCT research contract 2020.02510.CEECIND. SV and PP acknowledge the financial support from the Xunta de Galicia (https://www.xunta.gal/portada) (RECREGES II project under Grant 1400 ED481B2018/017 and Grupo de Referencia Competitiva GI-2060 AEMI, under Grant 1401 ED431C2019/11). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscriptS