The INTEGRAL-OMC Scientific Archive

The Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC) on-board the INTEGRAL satellite has, as one of its scientific goals, the observation of a large number of variable sources previously selected. After almost 6 years of operations, OMC has monitored more than 100 000 sources of scientific interest. In this contribution we present the OMC Scientific Archive (http://sdc.laeff.inta.es/omc/) which has been developed to provide the astronomical community with a quick access to the light curves generated by this instrument.We describe the main characteristics of this archive, as well as important aspects for the users: object types, temporal sampling of light curves and photometric accuracy.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. "Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics V" Proceedings of the VIII Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA) held in Santander, July 7-11, 200

Chimeric NANOG repressors inhibit glioblastoma growth in vivo in a context-dependent manner

Targeting stemness promises new therapeutic strategies against highly invasive tumors. While a number of approaches are being tested, inhibiting the core transcription regulatory network of cancer stem cells is an attractive yet challenging possibility. Here we have aimed to provide the proof of principle for a strategy, previously used in developmental studies, to directly repress the targets of a salient stemness and pluripotency factor: NANOG. In doing so we expected to inhibit the expression of so far unknown mediators of pro-tumorigenic NANOG function. We chose NANOG since previous work showed the essential requirement for NANOG activity for human glioblastoma (GBM) growth in orthotopic xenografts, and it is apparently absent from many adult human tissues thus likely minimizing unwanted effects on normal cells. NANOG repressor chimeras, which we name NANEPs, bear the DNA-binding specificity of NANOG through its homeodomain (HD), and this is linked to transposable human repressor domains. We show that in vitro and in vivo, NANEP5, our most active NANEP with a HES1 repressor domain, mimics knock-down (kd) of NANOG function in GBM cells. Competition orthotopic xenografts also reveal the effectiveness of NANEP5 in a brain tumor context, as well as the specificity of NANEP activity through the abrogation of its function via the introduction of specific mutations in the HD. The transcriptomes of cells expressing NANEP5 reveal multiple potential mediators of pro-tumorigenic NANEP/NANOG action including intercellular signaling components. The present results encourage further studies on the regulation of context-dependent NANEP abundance and function, and the development of NANEP-based anti-cancer therapies.This work was supported by a James McDonnell Brain Cancer Award, Fondation Eclosion funds and by the Département d’Instruction Publique de Genève to ARA. C.M. and M.K. were fellows of the ITN-EU networks CAPPELLA and HEALING, respectively

Iahris: New Software to Assess Hydrologic Alteration

Indicators of Hidrologic Alteration in RIverS (IAHRIS) is a software designed to fulfill: 1. Parameters for the characterization of the natural or regulated flow regime, in a section of the river. These parameters evaluate those aspects of the flow regime with the highest environmental meaning (magnitude, variability, seasonality and duration). Their definition has given priority to the consideration of the singular characteristics of the Mediterranean regimes. 2. If the user enters data of the natural flow regime and data for any other flow regime in the same section or reach (altered regime, environmental regime, management scenario, …) the software calculates, furthermore, a set of indicators that assess the degree of hydrologic alteration in comparison with the natural regime. These indicators of alteration have been defined attending to the CIS-WFD recommendations for the Ecological Quality Ratios. The software requires, at least, 15 entire years with data (daily average flows and/or monthly volumes). The type of data entered in IAHRIS determines, directly, the results accomplished. In particular, they depend on the data periodicity –daily or monthly-, and the simultaneous character of the data associated to the natural and the altered flow regimes. IAHRIS is free software, available at the website of the Spanish Ministry of the Environment

Wnt Signaling in Zebrafish Fin Regeneration: Chemical Biology Using GSK3b Inhibitors

poster abstractBone growth can be impaired due to disease, such as osteoporosis, and Wnt signaling pathways regulate bone growth. The parathyroid hormone (PTH) is therapeutic for anabolic bone growth (bone building), which activates Wnt signaling, leading to bone growth. GSK3b (glycogen synthetase kinase 3 beta) protein inhibitors activate Wnt signaling, including in bone growth models. Our study utilized a zebrafish model system to study Wnt activated fin regeneration and bone growth. Wnt signaling is the first genetically identified step in fin regeneration, and bony rays are the main differentiated cell type in fins. Thus, zebrafish fin regeneration may be a useful model to study Wnt signaling mediated bone growth. Fin regeneration experiments were conducted using various concentrations of GSK3b inhibitor compound for different treatment periods and regenerative outgrowth was measured at 4 and 7 days post amputation. Experiments revealed continuous low concentration (5-6 nM) treatment to be most effective at increasing regeneration. Higher concentrations inhibited fin growth, perhaps by excessive stimulation of differentiation programs. In situ hybridization experiments were performed to examine effects of Gsk3b inhibitor on Wnt responsive gene expression. Initial experiments show temporal and spatial changes on individual gene markers following GSK3b inhibitor treatment. Additionally, confocal microscopy and immunofluorescence labeling data indicated that the Wnt signaling intracellular signal transducer, betacatenin, accumulates throughout Gsk3b inhibitor treated tissues. Finally, experiments are underway to quantify phosphohistone-3 staining in regenerating tissue to measure effects of Gsk3b inhibitor on cell proliferation. Together, these data indicate that bone growth in zebrafish fin regeneration is improved by activating Wnt signaling. Zebrafish Wnt signaling experiments provide good model to study bone growth and bone repair mechanisms, and may provide an efficient drug discovery platform

Chiral porous organic frameworks: synthesis, chiroptical properties, and asymmetric organocatalytic applications

Chiral porous organic frameworks have emerged in the last decade as candidates for heterogeneous asymmetric organocatalysis. This review aims to provide a summary of the synthetic strategies towards the design of chiral organic materials, the characterization techniques used to evaluate their chirality, and their applications in asymmetric organocatalysis. We briefly describe the types of porous organic frameworks, including crystalline (covalent organic frameworks, COFs) and amorphous (conjugated microporous polymers, CMPs; covalent triazine frameworks, CTFs and porous aromatic frameworks, PAFs) materials. Furthermore, the strategies reported to incorporate chirality in porous organic materials are presented. We finally focus on the applications of chiral porous organic frameworks in asymmetric organocatalytic reactions, summarizing and categorizing all the available literature in the field.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. PRE2020-092295Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. TED2021-131760B-I00Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431C 2017/51Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Ministerio de Universidades y Unión Euopea | Ref. CA3/RSUE/2021-00648Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. RYC2020-030414-IMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. PID2019–110637RB-I0

Real-Time Position Reconstruction with Hippocampal Place Cells

Brain–computer interfaces (BCI) are using the electroencephalogram, the electrocorticogram and trains of action potentials as inputs to analyze brain activity for communication purposes and/or the control of external devices. Thus far it is not known whether a BCI system can be developed that utilizes the states of brain structures that are situated well below the cortical surface, such as the hippocampus. In order to address this question we used the activity of hippocampal place cells (PCs) to predict the position of an rodent in real-time. First, spike activity was recorded from the hippocampus during foraging and analyzed off-line to optimize the spike sorting and position reconstruction algorithm of rats. Then the spike activity was recorded and analyzed in real-time. The rat was running in a box of 80 cm × 80 cm and its locomotor movement was captured with a video tracking system. Data were acquired to calculate the rat's trajectories and to identify place fields. Then a Bayesian classifier was trained to predict the position of the rat given its neural activity. This information was used in subsequent trials to predict the rat's position in real-time. The real-time experiments were successfully performed and yielded an error between 12.2 and 17.4% using 5–6 neurons. It must be noted here that the encoding step was done with data recorded before the real-time experiment and comparable accuracies between off-line (mean error of 15.9% for three rats) and real-time experiments (mean error of 14.7%) were achieved. The experiment shows proof of principle that position reconstruction can be done in real-time, that PCs were stable and spike sorting was robust enough to generalize from the training run to the real-time reconstruction phase of the experiment. Real-time reconstruction may be used for a variety of purposes, including creating behavioral–neuronal feedback loops or for implementing neuroprosthetic control

Assessment of the Impact of Long Integration Time in Geosynchronous SAR Imagery of Agricultural Fields by Means of GB-SAR Data

Geosynchronous Synthetic Aperture Radar (GeoSAR) missions offer the advantage of near-continuous monitoring of specific regions on Earth, making them essential for applications that require continuous information. However, wind induced motion along the inherent long integration time can result in image defocusing, with potential degradation of retrieved information. This paper aims to investigate the impact of GEOSAR long integration time in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging and derived products (time series of backscatter and coherence) required to extract agriculture relevant soil or crop parameters of interest. The study is based on the extensive HydroSoil data acquisition campaign carried out over barley and corn crops, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA). The collected raw data are used to synthesize equivalent apertures with integration times of up to 4 hours, similar to those acquired with a GeoSAR. These Ultra Slow apertures facilitate the assessment of the impact of agricultural scene decorrelation on the generation of images with extended integration times.This work was funded by the European Space Agency (ESA Contract No. 4000132509/20/NL/FF/ab with UPC), supported by the Spanish MCINN funds Unidad de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu MDM-2016-0600 and under projects PID2020-117303GB-C21/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and PID2020-117303GB-C22/AEI/10.13039/501100011033

An Incremental On-line Parsing Algorithm for Recognizing Sketching Diagrams

International audienceThis paper presents a syntactic recognition approach for on-line drawn graphical symbols. The proposed method consists in an incremental on-line predictive parser based on symbol descriptions by an adjacency grammar. The parser analyzes input strokes as they are drawn by the user and is able to get ahead which symbols are likely to be recognized when a partial subshape is drawn in an intermediate state. In addition, the parser takes into account two issues. First, symbol strokes are drawn in any order by the user and second, since it is an on-line framework, the system requires real-time response. The method has been applied to an on-line sketching interface for architectural symbols

Service Learning and Music Education: New formative horizons for a committed citizenship

La educación no puede ni debe quedarse al margen de la sociedad en la que participa. Desde las instituciones educativas debemos dar respuesta a las exigencias de este nuevo contexto diverso que demanda impulsar el desarrollo de competencias actitudinales. En este artículo se reflexiona sobre los cambios y retos de la sociedad actual y sobre propuestas adaptadas a esta nueva realidad. Se revisa la vinculación de las iniciativas socioeducativas a través del arte con proyectos de ApS como elementos que fortalecen el desarrollo de contenidos y habilidades musicales y, promocionan el pensamiento crítico y solidario.Education cannot and should not remain outside the society in which it participates. From educational institutions we must respond to the demands of this new diverse context that demands to promote the development of attitudinal skills. This article reflects on the changes and challenges of today's society and on proposals adapted to this new reality. The link between socio-educational initiatives through art with SL projects is reviewed as elements that strengthen the development of musical content and skills and promote critical and supportive thinking