Desnutrición Infantil y su Relación con el Tiempo y las Habilidades de la Madre

Experimental studies and reported low calorie income elasticities suggest that private benefits from increased food intake must diverge from the social benefits envisioned by the proponents of food transfer programs. That families with malnourished childr

Optical determination and identification of organic shells around nanoparticles: application to silver nanoparticles

We present a simple method to prove the presence of an organic shell around silver nanoparticles. This method is based on the comparison between optical extinction measurements of isolated nanoparticles and Mie calculations predicting the expected wavelength of the Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance of the nanoparticles with and without the presence of an organic layer. This method was applied to silver nanoparticles which seemed to be well protected from oxidation. Further experimental characterization via Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) measurements allowed to identify this protective shell as ethylene glycol. Combining LSPR and SERS measurements could thus give proof of both presence and identification for other plasmonic nanoparticles surrounded by organic shells

Spatial multi-criteria decision analysis to predict suitability for African swine fever endemicity in Africa

Background African swine fever (ASF) is endemic in several countries of Africa and may pose a risk to all pig producing areas on the continent. Official ASF reporting is often rare and there remains limited awareness of the continent-wide distribution of the disease. In the absence of accurate ASF outbreak data and few quantitative studies on the epidemiology of the disease in Africa, we used spatial multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to derive predictions of the continental distribution of suitability for ASF persistence in domestic pig populations as part of sylvatic or domestic transmission cycles. In order to incorporate the uncertainty in the relative importance of different criteria in defining suitability, we modelled decisions within the MCDA framework using a stochastic approach. The predictive performance of suitability estimates was assessed via a partial ROC analysis using ASF outbreak data reported to the OIE since 2005. Results Outputs from the spatial MCDA indicate that large areas of sub-Saharan Africa may be suitable for ASF persistence as part of either domestic or sylvatic transmission cycles. Areas with high suitability for pig to pig transmission (‘domestic cycles’) were estimated to occur throughout sub-Saharan Africa, whilst areas with high suitability for introduction from wildlife reservoirs (‘sylvatic cycles’) were found predominantly in East, Central and Southern Africa. Based on average AUC ratios from the partial ROC analysis, the predictive ability of suitability estimates for domestic cycles alone was considerably higher than suitability estimates for sylvatic cycles alone, or domestic and sylvatic cycles in combination. Conclusions This study provides the first standardised estimates of the distribution of suitability for ASF transmission associated with domestic and sylvatic cycles in Africa. We provide further evidence for the utility of knowledge-driven risk mapping in animal health, particularly in data-sparse environments.</p

Recent advances using gold nanoparticles as a promising multimodal tool for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Uncorrected proofGold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have arisen a lot of interest in the clinical realms of nanomedicine. Despite the large ad- vances made in cancer research using AuNPs, their use in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM) is still in its infancy. Herein, it is discussed the properties, functionalization, and emerging use of AuNPs as a multifunctional and multimodal platform for drug delivery, phototherapy, diagnostic and cell imaging purposes. Moreover, the recent reports related to the ability of AuNPs to enhance stem cell differentiation for bone tissue engineering, to enhance the mechanical and adhesive properties of scaffolds and surface topography to guide cell behaviors are addressed.The authors would like to thank QREN (ON.2 – NORTE-01-0124-FEDER-000018) co-financed by North Portugal Regional Operational Program (ON.2 – O Novo Norte), under the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for providing financial support to this project. The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) distinction attributed to J.M. Oliveira under the FCT Investigator program (IF/00423/2012) is also greatly acknowledged. The authors also thank the financial support provided under the ERC funded project ComplexiTE (Grant ERC-2012-ADG_20120216-321266)

The effect of fatigue on climbing fluidity and hand movements

In rock climbing, climbers use their arms to regulate their posture on the wall, which can lead to localised muscle fatigue. Evidence shows fatigue is the primary cause of falls, but little is known about how fatigue specifically affects climbing rhythm and hand movements. The present study examined climbing fluidity and hand movements on an indoor climbing wall before and after a specific fatiguing protocol. Seventeen climbers completed three repetitions of a challenging climbing route (21 on Ewbank scale) with different levels of localised arm fatigue. Climbers’ movements were tracked using 3D motion capture, and their hand actions assessed using notational analysis. Seventy markers were used to create 15 rigid body segments and the participants\u27 centre of mass. The global entropy index was calculated on the path of the participants\u27 centre of mass. Climbers fell more often when fatigued, but there were no significant differences in hip jerk or global entropy index when fatigued. No significant differences were found between the number of exploratory or performatory hand movements with different amounts of fatigue. The results suggest that localised arm fatigue affects a climber’s ability to prevent themselves from falling, but it does not specifically affect their fluidity

Using the trajectory of the shuttlecock as a measure of performance accuracy in the badminton short serve

Accuracy of a projectile is typically quantified as the proportion of successful target hits, or the distance an object finishes from the target. Serving in sports such as badminton differs since the shuttlecock is usually intercepted by the opponent before landing on the target (i.e. court surface). Therefore, landing accuracy measures are inappropriate and a new method of determining accuracy of the serve is needed. During interviews, elite coaches and players described an accurate short serve as crossing the net with low clearance and having an apex before the net. Three-dimensional trajectory of the shuttlecock was therefore tracked from eight national-level players who performed 30 short serves in simulated match conditions (i.e. with an opponent); 27% of all serves were classified as ‘accurate’, 27% of serves as ‘inaccurate’, 21% with a ‘good apex’ position, and 25% with a ‘good clearance’ height. The proposed method of assessing shuttlecock trajectory as a measure of accuracy could be adopted by coaches and players to assess and improve short serve accuracy. Furthermore, this method is more representative of a match environment since the shuttlecock rarely lands because the opponent returns the serve

Anxiety, depression, and attachment before and after the first-trimester screening for Down syndrome: comparing couples who undergo ART with those who conceive spontaneously.

OBJECTIVES: This study's aim was to describe the emotional status of parents to be before and after the first-trimester combined prenatal screening test. METHODS: One hundred three couples participated, of which 52 had undergone an in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection treatment [assisted reproductive technology (ART)] and 51 had conceived spontaneously. Participants completed the state scale of the State-trait Anxiety Inventory, the Edinburgh Depression Scale, and the Maternal and Paternal Antenatal Attachment Questionnaire before the first-trimester combined prenatal screening test at around 12 weeks of gestational age (T1) and just after receiving the results at approximately 14 weeks of gestational age (T2). RESULTS: We observed a significant decrease in anxiety and depression symptoms and a significant increase in attachment from T1 to T2. Results showed no differences between groups at either time point, which suggests that ART parents are more similar to than different from parents conceiving spontaneously. Furthermore, given the importance of anxiety during pregnancy, a subsample of women with clinical anxiety was identified. They had significantly higher rates of clinical depression and lower attachment. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that, regardless of whether conception was through ART or spontaneous, clinical anxiety in women over the prenatal testing period is associated with more vulnerability during pregnancy (i.e. clinical depression and less attachment to fetus). © 2015 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd

Ancestral genome estimation reveals the history of ecological diversification in Agrobacterium

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is considered as a major source of innovation in bacteria, and as such is expected to drive adaptation to new ecological niches. However, among the many genes acquired through HGT along the diversification history of genomes, only a fraction may have actively contributed to sustained ecological adaptation. We used a phylogenetic approach accounting for the transfer of genes (or groups of genes) to estimate the history of genomes in Agrobacterium biovar 1, a diverse group of soil and plant-dwelling bacterial species. We identified clade-specific blocks of cotransferred genes encoding coherent biochemical pathways that may have contributed to the evolutionary success of key Agrobacterium clades. This pattern of gene coevolution rejects a neutral model of transfer, in which neighboring genes would be transferred independently of their function and rather suggests purifying selection on collectively coded acquired pathways. The acquisition of these synapomorphic blocks of cofunctioning genes probably drove the ecological diversification of Agrobacterium and defined features of ancestral ecological niches, which consistently hint at a strong selective role of host plant rhizospheres

Monte-Carlo simulations of the recombination dynamics in porous silicon

A simple lattice model describing the recombination dynamics in visible light emitting porous Silicon is presented. In the model, each occupied lattice site represents a Si crystal of nanometer size. The disordered structure of porous Silicon is modeled by modified random percolation networks in two and three dimensions. Both correlated (excitons) and uncorrelated electron-hole pairs have been studied. Radiative and non-radiative processes as well as hopping between nearest neighbor occupied sites are taken into account. By means of extensive Monte-Carlo simulations, we show that the recombination dynamics in porous Silicon is due to a dispersive diffusion of excitons in a disordered arrangement of interconnected Si quantum dots. The simulated luminescence decay for the excitons shows a stretched exponential lineshape while for uncorrelated electron-hole pairs a power law decay is suggested. Our results successfully account for the recombination dynamics recently observed in the experiments. The present model is a prototype for a larger class of models describing diffusion of particles in a complex disordered system.Comment: 33 pages, RevTeX, 19 figures available on request to [email protected]