CRISPR-Cas9: A Revolutionary Tool for Cancer Modelling

The cancer-modelling field is now experiencing a conversion with the recent emergence of the RNA-programmable CRISPR-Cas9 system, a flexible methodology to produce essentially any desired modification in the genome. Cancer is a multistep process that involves many genetic mutations and other genome rearrangements. Despite their importance, it is difficult to recapitulate the degree of genetic complexity found in patient tumors. The CRISPR-Cas9 system for genome editing has been proven as a robust technology that makes it possible to generate cellular and animal models that recapitulate those cooperative alterations rapidly and at low cost. In this review, we will discuss the innovative applications of the CRISPR-Cas9 system to generate new models, providing a new way to interrogate the development and progression of cancers.This work was supported by FIS project no PI14/01884 to Sandra Rodriguez-Perales from the Spanish plan nacional I+d+, Instituto de Salud Carlos III FEDER. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish nor preparation of the manuscript.S

A Novel Set of Directives for Multi-device Programming with OpenMP

This work was supported by MEEP project, which has received funding from the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 946002. The JU receives support from theEuropean Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Spain, Croatia, Turkey.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Automatic Summarization of Soccer Highlights Using Audio-visual Descriptors

Automatic summarization generation of sports video content has been object of great interest for many years. Although semantic descriptions techniques have been proposed, many of the approaches still rely on low-level video descriptors that render quite limited results due to the complexity of the problem and to the low capability of the descriptors to represent semantic content. In this paper, a new approach for automatic highlights summarization generation of soccer videos using audio-visual descriptors is presented. The approach is based on the segmentation of the video sequence into shots that will be further analyzed to determine its relevance and interest. Of special interest in the approach is the use of the audio information that provides additional robustness to the overall performance of the summarization system. For every video shot a set of low and mid level audio-visual descriptors are computed and lately adequately combined in order to obtain different relevance measures based on empirical knowledge rules. The final summary is generated by selecting those shots with highest interest according to the specifications of the user and the results of relevance measures. A variety of results are presented with real soccer video sequences that prove the validity of the approach

A Chemokine Targets the Nucleus: Cxcl12-Gamma Isoform Localizes to the Nucleolus in Adult Mouse Heart

Chemokines are extracellular mediators of complex regulatory circuits involved principally in cell-to-cell communication. Most studies to date of the essential chemokine Cxcl12 (Sdf-1) have focused on the ubiquitously expressed secreted isoforms α and β. Here we show that, unlike these isoforms and all other known chemokines, the alternatively transcribed γ isoform is an intracellular protein that localizes to the nucleolus in differentiated mouse Cardiac tissue. Our results demonstrate that nucleolar transportation is encoded by a nucleolar-localization signal in the unique carboxy-terminal region of Sdf-1γ, and is competent both in vivo and in vitro. The molecular mechanism underlying these unusual chemokine properties involves cardiac-specific transcription of an mRNA containing a unique short-leader sequence lacking the signal peptide and translation from a non-canonical CUG codon. Our results provide an example of genome economy even for essential and highly conserved genes such as Cxcl12, and suggest that chemokines can exert tissue specific functions unrelated to cell-to-cell communication

The “cushion effect” revisited:

Background: It is known the pattern and severity of injuries sustained during a motor vehicle accident depend on many variables. An interesting avenue for research is obesity as a positive or negative modifier for injury distribution patterns in MVA. We hypothesize that body mass index (BMI) will influence MVC related injury patterns. Methods: We queried STRAC data for DHR - Edinburg for the years 2014 to 2018 using CPT codes for MVC/MVA, IS \u3e 8, age 15 - 64. Interactions between injury location, BMI, seatbelt and gender were analyzed. Results: We had 191 detailed crashes, we found increasing age to be protective for abdomen and pelvis (OR .94), increasing BMI to be predisposing for extremity injuries (OR 1.06) and increasing BMI and female gender together to be protecting for head and neck injury (OR .98). Patient without abdominal injuries were younger with lower BMI. However sample size small (46). Conclusion: BMI seems to have an exacerbating effect on extremity injuries and a protective effect for head and neck injuries driven predominantly by females. We believe this likely due to increase in momentum effect of each appendage and a decrease in torque of neck. Age seems to be a protective and we believe this is primarily due to hormonal deposition of adipose tissue. Overall it remains important to maintain a high index of suspicion when dealing with MVC triage patients and treat each individually

Indoor positioning technologies for academic libraries: towards the smart library

Se presenta un caso de uso de la aplicación de tecnologías geoespaciales en una biblioteca universitaria. En concreto, se han desarrollado dos aplicaciones capaces de obtener la localización de los ejemplares buscados por los usuarios, una para dispositivos móviles con sistema operativo Android y la otra para su uso en navegadores web. Dichas aplicaciones permiten dibujar la ruta desde el punto en el que el usuario se sitúa hasta la estantería donde se encuentran los ejemplares, mejorando así la experiencia del usuario. Adicionalmente, el artículo investiga las posibilidades de aplicación de sistemas de información geográfica (SIG) y tecnologías geoespaciales para la mejora de los servicios ofrecidos por la biblioteca.This article is a case study of the application of geospatial technologies in an academic library. More specifically, two applications were developed to assist users in finding the location of books, one for Android mobile devices and the other for web browsers. These applications provide users with the ability to plot the path from the point where the user is located to the shelf where the items are found, thereby improving the user experience. Additionally, this article investigates the possibility of applying geographic information systems (GIS) and geospatial technologies to library services

Prediction of the performance of an ion thruster using Buckminsterfullerene as propellant

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1993.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-127).by Esteban Raul Torres.M.S

Proceso de transformación institucional : alcances e influencia en el desempeño

La presente investigación describe e identifica los cambios administrativos y operativos asociados al proceso de cambio organizacional y su efecto en el desempeño a nivel táctico y operacional en el área funcional de la Seguridad y Defensa. Método. El estudio se realizó de forma cualitativa descriptiva, la recolección de los datos se efectuó a través de un protocolo de entrevistas semiestructuradas, las cuales se realizaron a 9 militares de las jerarquías de Oficiales y Suboficiales abarcando en los Oficiales los niveles superiores y subalternos de los grados Teniente Coronel, Mayor, Capitán y Teniente, para el caso de los Suboficiales se abarcarán los grados Técnico Subjefe, Técnico Primero y Técnico Segundo, todos de la Especialidad Defensa de Bases, incluyendo personas a cargo del proceso de cambio organizacional y personal encargado de ejecutar los cambios ordenados por el área funcional y el equipo de la mesa de transformación. Resultados. Los resultados permitieron conocer como los niveles operacionales y tácticos tienen dos perspectivas de los efectos generados del proceso de cambio organizacional en una Institución de carácter Militar, identificando y comprendiendo, cuáles fueron las implicaciones administrativas y operativas que cambiaron y como esto ha impactado en el desempeño del personal de Seguridad y Defensa de Bases. Conclusiones. Estas permitieron evidenciar dos tendencias encontradas en la percepción frente al proceso de cambio, así mismo, se evidencio las motivaciones propias del personal de la especialidad de Defensa de Bases para no ser inferiores al cumplimiento misional y como los lideres enfrentan retos para aportar a que esa motivación impacte en el desempeño a nivel organizacional como producto de los cambios efectuados a nivel funcional (Seguridad y Defensa)