Synthetic biology: Novel approaches for microbiology

In the past twenty years, molecular genetics has created powerful tools for genetic manipulation of living organisms. Whole genome sequencing has provided necessary information to assess knowledge on gene function and protein networks. In addition, new tools permit to modify organisms to perform desired tasks. Gene function analysis is speed up by novel approaches that couple both high throughput data generation and mining. Synthetic biology is an emerging field that uses tools for generating novel gene networks, whole genome synthesis and engineering. New applications in biotechnological, pharmaceutical and biomedical research are envisioned for synthetic biology. In recent years these new strategies have opened up the possibilities to study gene and genome editing, creation of novel tools for functional studies in virus, parasites and pathogenic bacteria. There is also the possibility to re-design organisms to generate vaccine subunits or produce new pharmaceuticals to combat multi-drug resistant pathogens. In this review we provide our opinion on the applicability of synthetic biology strategies for functional studies of pathogenic organisms and some applications such as genome editing and gene network studies to further comprehend virulence factors and determinants in pathogenic organisms. We also discuss what we consider important ethical issues for this field of molecular biology, especially for potential misuse of the new technologies. [Int Microbiol 2015; 18(2):71-84]Keywords: synthetic biology · genetic engineering · genomics · pathogenesis · bioethics · artificial cells · astrobiolog

La Iglesia Católica en México: en la arena política

En este trabajo se analizan las relaciones Iglesia Católica-Estado, la conflictiva relación entre ambos y el modo cómo la mutua cooperación y la simulación han favorecido un cambio en la percepción respecto a la Iglesia católica de enemiga a aliada circunstancial, para buscar legitimar un sistema político en bancarrota. Se analiza la transformación de las prioridades sociales y políticas en el seno de la Iglesia Católica mexicana, derivada de los cambios de estrategia política definidos directamente desde el Vaticano para consolidarla influencia social y política de la institución. Esta apertura hacia la Iglesia, finalmente, obedece a la necesidad de legitimación del Estado y de proyectar una imagen de ampliación de libertades políticas en el país.This essay attempts at analyzing Catholic Church-State relations, iheir conflicts, and how mutual cooperation and simulation have enabled a change in the traditional perception ol the Church as an enemy to circumstantial ally aiding in providing legitimacy to a banknipt political system. The transformations of the social and political priorities wilhin the Mexican Catholic Church due to changes in political strategy defined by the Vatican in order to strengtlien the srx ial and political clout of the institution, are also explored. This open attitude to the Church, finally responds to the State’s need for legitimization and its interest in projecting an image of broader political freedom in the country

La Iglesia Católica en México: en la arena política

En este trabajo se analizan las relaciones Iglesia Católica-Estado, la conflictiva relación entre ambos y el modo cómo la mutua cooperación y la simulación han favorecido un cambio en la percepción respecto a la Iglesia católica de enemiga a aliada circunstancial, para buscar legitimar un sistema político en bancarrota. Se analiza la transformación de las prioridades sociales y políticas en el seno de la Iglesia Católica mexicana, derivada de los cambios de estrategia política definidos directamente desde el Vaticano para consolidarla influencia social y política de la institución. Esta apertura hacia la Iglesia, finalmente, obedece a la necesidad de legitimación del Estado y de proyectar una imagen de ampliación de libertades políticas en el país.This essay attempts at analyzing Catholic Church-State relations, iheir conflicts, and how mutual cooperation and simulation have enabled a change in the traditional perception ol the Church as an enemy to circumstantial ally aiding in providing legitimacy to a banknipt political system. The transformations of the social and political priorities wilhin the Mexican Catholic Church due to changes in political strategy defined by the Vatican in order to strengtlien the srx ial and political clout of the institution, are also explored. This open attitude to the Church, finally responds to the State’s need for legitimization and its interest in projecting an image of broader political freedom in the country

The @Filosoclips project: teaching feminist philosophy through popular culture in Spain

This paper outlines the results of the multimodal education project @Filosoclips, carried out during the 2017/2018 academic year in the Faculty of Education at Universidad de Málaga with students aged 16 and 17. The purpose of this project was to test the possibility of introducing texts by feminist thinkers into the official curriculum of the Philosophy course offered in Spain’s Compulsory Secondary Education and Baccalaureate programmes. The project constituted an educational innovation with students in the first year of the Spanish Baccalaureate programme, focusing on three basic objectives: to experiment with the addition to the high school reading curriculum of texts typically included in feminist studies; to give visibility to female philosophers in the Philosophy curriculum; and to conduct a practical trial in the classroom of the use of popular culture (music videos, in this case) as an instrument for developing critical thinking skills. Notable among the results of the project was the recognition of the importance for female students of incorporating major women philosophers and exploring topics that directly affect them in their everyday lives, such as the International Women’s Day marches across Spain on 8 March.Depto. de Periodismo y Nuevos MediosFac. de Ciencias de la InformaciónTRUEpu

Experimenting with routing protocols in the data center : An ns-3 simulation approach

Massive scale data centers (MSDC) have become a key component of current content-centric Internet architecture. With scales of up to hundreds of thousands servers, conveying traffic inside these infrastructures requires much greater connectivity resources than traditional broadband Internet transit networks. MSDCs use Fat-Tree type topologies, which ensure multipath connectivity and constant bisection bandwidth between servers. To properly use the potential advantages of these topologies, specific routing protocols are needed, with multipath support and low control messaging load. These infrastructures are enormously expensive, and therefore it is not possible to use them to experiment with new protocols; that is why scalable and realistic emulation/simulation environments are needed. Based on previous experiences, in this paper we present extensions to the ns-3 network simulator that allow executing the Free Range Routing (FRR) protocol suite, which support some of the specific MSDC routing protocols. Focused on the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), we run a comprehensive set of control plane experiments over Fat-Tree topologies, achieving competitive scalability running on a single-host environment, which demonstrates that the modified ns-3 simulator can be effectively used for experimenting in the MSDC. Moreover, the validation was complemented with a theoretical analysis of BGP behavior over selected scenarios. The whole project is available to the community and fully reproducible

Carbon accumulation over 70 years of old-field succession driven by live biomass in a Mediterranean continental environment

Producción CientíficaForest expansion in abandoned agricultural lands entails the fixation of atmospheric CO2 in the live biomass, the soil as well as in other ecosystem compartments, and in turn, has strong implications for C budgets and the design of actions to mitigate climate change all over the world. However, changes in C stocks in these compartments are still poorly understood. We assessed the main patterns and drivers of C accumulation over spontaneous colonization of abandoned agricultural lands, considering the above- and below-ground biomass (AGB and BGB, respectively), the woody debris (WD), the litter and the surface soil (SS; 0–6 cm depth), in an area of Central-North Spain. To attain this objective, we established a chronosequence of 30 plots (0.0625 ha) located in agricultural lands abandoned in 1956–1977, 1977–2005 and 2005–2017, in four different forest types. We found that the AGB and the SS accounted for the major proportion of the total C stock, but the BGB was also relatively important. Carbon stocks in all these major compartments increased linearly with the age of tree colonization. But C in the SS did not significantly differ among plots abandoned in the three periods considered and showed decreasing rates of change from youngest (i.e. those in plots abandoned in 2005–2017) to oldest (i.e. those in plots abandoned in 1956–1977) stands. Carbon accumulation was mainly driven by adult stem density and age of tree colonization in the AGB and the BGB, and by the total nitrogen content in the SS. Our findings indicate that, in these new forests, C accumulation in the live biomass is still ongoing and proceeds relatively fast and at an increasing rate, which points toward a clear potential for atmospheric CO2 fixation over the next few decades. This process, however, proceeds more slowly and shows signals of an apparent deceleration in the SS. The C stock in the surface soil is, in fact, largely disconnected from that of live biomass and varies depending on pre-abandonment land-use differences among the study sites.European Commission through the project CASE-CO2 (H2020-MSCA-IF-2017, DLV; 799885)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación - project IMFLEX (PID2021-126275OB-C22)Junta de Castilla y León - project SMART (JCYL-VA183P20

Rediscovering the cardiorenal syndrome: from theory to practice

Cardiorenal syndrome (CRS) is a state of advanced involvement that occurs between the heart and the kidneys, with both organs being affected by multiple causes, either secondary to a systemic pathology, or the dysfunction of one of these organs causing dysfunction on the other, acutely or chronically. Typically, there are five different types with different pathophysiology, but with the same purpose: cardiac and renal involvement. Epidemiological data from meta-analysis carried out around the world indicate that it is a very common pathology, yet commonly missed by clinicians. In patients with kidney or heart disease, which places them in a position to develop the syndrome, the first contact doctor must actively search for the diagnosis. In hospitalized patients, especially among those with previous cardiac or renal pathology, this syndrome has an important relevance, since its incidence is very high and early diagnosis is extremely important for an adequate treatment and thus avoid the perpetuation of damage to both organs. An early diagnosis can reduce the mortality rate, since it has been estimated that it increases by approximately 15% for every 10 ml / min reduction in GFR

Creativity in preschoolers, a challenge of the contemporary education

La persona creativa se puede desenvolver amplia y acertadamente en los diversos escenarios de actuación porque tiene la agudeza mental para poner en práctica sus destrezas y competencias en la resolución de problemas de la vida y de su contexto. La investigación aborda el desarrollo de la creatividad en los niños de cinco años de la Educación Inicial. Responde a una convocatoria del Ministerio de Educación del Perú orientada a hacer propuestas para mejorar la práctica pedagógica desde el Programa de Maestría en Educación. Metodológicamente se basa en el enfoque cualitativo educacional de tipo aplicada. La muestra fue intencionada y seleccionada mediante el muestreo criterial. Se emplearon métodos, técnicas e instrumentos que evidenciaron el nivel de desarrollo de la creatividad en los prescolares, visto en los indicadores: fluidez, originalidad y motivación; y la manera de conducir el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje por las docentes. Los fundamentos epistemológicos y las reflexiones científicas contrastadas con los resultados prácticos permitieron aportar como conclusión esencial, una estrategia didáctica que contribuyó al desarrollo de la capacidad creativa en los niños de la Educación Inicial en Puno (Perú)The creative person can develop broadly and accurately in the various performance scenarios because he has the mental acuity to put into practice his skills and competences in solving problems of life and its context. The research addresses the development of creativity in the five-year-old children of Preschool Education. It responds to a call from the Ministry of Education of Peru aimed at making proposals to improve the pedagogical practice from the Master's Program in Education. Methodologically, it is based on the qualitative educational approach. The sample was intentional and selected through criterion sampling. We used methods, techniques and instruments that showed the level of development of creativity in preschool, as seen in the indicators: fluency, originality and motivation, and the way of conducting the teaching-learning process by teachers. The epistemological foundations and the scientific reflections contrasted with the practical results allowed to contribute as essential conclusion, a didactic strategy that contributed to the development of the creative capacity in the children of the Preschool Education in Puno (Peru

APROXIMACIONES A LA ETNOMICOLOGÍA MAYA

Los pueblos mayas habitan una región biológicamente megadiversa y tradicionalmente hacen uso diversificado de sus recursos. Desde la etnomicología —disciplina que estudia la relación entre grupos humanos y hongos— se cuenta con amplia evidencia del conocimiento y uso de estos organismos entre tales grupos étnicos. Tal evidencia se extiende hasta tiempos prehispánicos con hongos piedra, códices y crónicas. Actualmente se tiene conocimiento de 134 especies comestibles —ya sean para autoconsumo o venta— y alrededor de 40 hongos medicinales en la región. Asociados con estos usos, existen conocimientos morfológicos, fenológicos, ecológicos y culinarios de los hongos, así como desarrollados esquemas de nomenclatura y clasificación, el reconocimiento de 36 especies consideradas tóxicas y la presencia de hongos en diferentes narrativas. APPROACHES TO MAYAN ETHNOMYCOLOGY The Mayan peoples inhabit a biologically megadiverse region and have traditionally made a diversified use of their resources. Ethnomycology —the discipline that studies the relationship between human groups and mushrooms— provides extensive evidence of the knowledge these ethnic groups have of mushrooms and their use. Evidence can be traced back to pre-Hispanic times with mushrooms carved in stone and their presence in codices and chronicles. In the region, 134 edible species —either for consumption or for trade— are currently known, as well as about 40 medicinal mushrooms. Morphological, phenological, ecological and culinary data as well as nomenclature and classification schemes are associated with these uses. The identification of 36 species considered toxic and the presence of mushrooms in different narratives is also part of this body of knowledge

UNIVERSIDAD Y SEGURIDAD ALIMENTARIA: PAPEL DEL CENTRO UNIVERSITARIO MUNICIPAL JESÚS MENÉNDEZ

The universities have the capacity to support the fight against the hunger, and they are aware that by means of the formation of the human resource, the scientific-technological investigation and the extension work, in a systematic way it should cooperate, with an interdisciplinary focus, inter institutional, national and international, to fight for the alimentary security. The objective of the present work is to document the paper of the University Municipality Center Jesus Menéndez in the Alimentary Security sustaining that she has an important list, so much in the formation of professionals committed in the search of alternative, like in the articulation with the necessities and demands of the community and to the accompaniment of the leaders of the municipality. Some results are shown obtained in the development of the investigations.  Las universidades tienen la capacidad de apoyar la lucha contra el hambre, y están conscientes de que mediante la formación del recurso humano, la investigación científico-tecnológica y el trabajo de extensión, de manera sistemática debe coadyuvar, con un enfoque interdisciplinario, interinstitucional, nacional e internacional, a luchar por la seguridad alimentaria. El objetivo del presente trabajo es documentar el papel del Centro Universitario Municipal Jesús Menéndez en la Seguridad Alimentariasosteniendo que tiene un rol importante, tanto en la formación de profesionales comprometidos en la búsqueda de alternativas, como en la articulación con las necesidades y demandas de la comunidad y al acompañamiento de los decisores del municipio. Se muestran algunos resultados obtenidos en el desarrollo de las investigaciones