Revalidation of Pedaliodes lithochalcis BUTLER & DRUCE, description of a new species from Peru and Bolivia and of a new subspecies of P. napaea BATES from Honduras (Lepidoptera : Nymphalidae : Satyrinae)

Pedaliodes lithochalcis, occurring in Costa Rica and Panama, has been considered for more than a century a junior synonym of P. dejecta from Guatemala. It is reinstated here as a valid species. It is shown that the two species belong to different groups of species with sympatric representatives throughout Central America and the Andes characterized by common characters of adult morphology, particularly the male genitalia. Pedaliodes lithochalcis is closely related to P. napaea whose new subspecies, P. napaea naksi n. ssp., is described from the Celaque massif in Honduras. It is the first cloud forest Satyrinae butterfly described from this country. Pedaliodes dejecta is related to another Mesoamerican species, P. ereiba, and to P. pomponia from Ecuador and to a new species, P. peregrina n. sp., from Peru and Bolivia

Determination of contents based on learning styles through artificial intelligence

The study presents the development of a platform for structuring adaptive courses based on active, reflexive, theoretical and pragmatic learning styles using artificial intelligence techniques. To this end, the following phases were followed: search, analysis and classification of information about the process of generating content for courses; analysis and coding of the software component for generating content according to learning styles; and application of tests for validation and acceptance. The main contribution of the paper is the development of a model using neural networks and its integration in an application server to determine the contents that correspond to the active, reflexive, theoretical and pragmatic learning styles

Estudio funcional del cortisol y ACTH plasmáticos en perros : respuesta ante el estímulo con hormona liberadora de corticotrofina (CRF) en situación de anestesia

La acción de los agentes anestésicos sobre la ACTH y el cortisol es variable. Nos interesó ver el comportamiento del eje hipotálarno-hipófisoadrenal en situación de anestesia. Igualmente se estudia la capacidad de respuesta de este eje cuando, estando bajo el efecto de la anestesia, se somete a un estímulo fisiológico. Se observa que el pentotal sódico produce descenso del nivel de cortisol y ACTH.Aún estando el animal anestesiado, las glándulas adrenales tienen capacidad de respuesta ante estímulos fisiológicosThe action of the anaesthetic agents on ACTH and cortisol is variable. In the present paper we were interested to see the behauiour of the hypothalamus bypophysis-adrenal axis in a state of anaesthesia. In the same way we study the response capacity of this axis when, being under the effect of anaesthesia, it is submitted to a physiological stimulus. We observe sodium pentothal produces a decrease in the level of cortisol and ACTH. Even when the animal is anaesthetized, the adrenal glands have the response capacity in the presence of physiological stimuli

A holistic approach to dissecting SPARC family protein complexity reveals FSTL-1 as an inhibitor of pancreatic cancer cell growth.

SPARC is a matricellular protein that is involved in both pancreatic cancer and diabetes. It belongs to a wider family of proteins that share structural and functional similarities. Relatively little is known about this extended family, but evidence of regulatory interactions suggests the importance of a holistic approach to their study. We show that Hevin, SPOCKs, and SMOCs are strongly expressed within islets, ducts, and blood vessels, suggesting important roles for these proteins in the normal pancreas, while FSTL-1 expression is localised to the stromal compartment reminiscent of SPARC. In direct contrast to SPARC, however, FSTL-1 expression is reduced in pancreatic cancer. Consistent with this, FSTL-1 inhibited pancreatic cancer cell proliferation. The complexity of SPARC family proteins is further revealed by the detection of multiple cell-type specific isoforms that arise due to a combination of post-translational modification and alternative splicing. Identification of splice variants lacking a signal peptide suggests the existence of novel intracellular isoforms. This study underlines the importance of addressing the complexity of the SPARC family and provides a new framework to explain their controversial and contradictory effects. We also demonstrate for the first time that FSTL-1 suppresses pancreatic cancer cell growth

Compilation of a social network lexicon for determining the profile of authors

The use of social networks is steadily increasing worldwide. Hundreds of users daily register in the different existing platforms, therefore, the content extracted from the social networks is fundamental for tasks such as sentiment analysis, detection of author profiles, identification of authors, opinions mining, plagiarism detection, calculation of similarity between texts and to develop robust systems that help to make decisions in related areas such as politics, education, economy, among others. This paper provides a lexical aid for the pre-processing of texts posted in social networks evolved for the subsequent languages: English, Spanish, Dutch and Italian

Clinical–pathologic significance of cancer stem cell marker expression in familial breast cancers

Human breast cancer cells with a CD44(+)/CD24(−/low) or ALDH1+ phenotype have been demonstrated to be enriched for cancer stem cells (CSCs) using in vitro and in vivo techniques. The aim of this study was to determine the association between CD44(+)/CD24(−/low) and ALDH1 expression with clinical–pathologic tumor characteristics, tumor molecular subtype, and survival in a well characterized collection of familial breast cancer cases. 364 familial breast cancers from the Ontario Familial Breast Cancer Registry (58 BRCA1-associated, 64 BRCA2-associated, and 242 familial non-BRCA1/2 cancers) were studied. Each tumor had a centralized pathology review performed. TMA sections of all tumors were analyzed for the expression of ER, PR, HER2, CK5, CK14, EGFR, CD44, CD24, and ALDH1. The Chi square test or Fisher’s exact test was used to analyze the marker associations with clinical–pathologic tumor variables, molecular subtype and genetic subtype. Analyses of the association of overall survival (OS) with marker status were conducted using Kaplan–Meier plots and log-rank tests. The CD44(+)/CD24(−/low) and ALDH1+ phenotypes were identified in 16% and 15% of the familial breast cancer cases, respectively, and associated with high-tumor grade, a high-mitotic count, and component features of the medullary type of breast cancer. CD44(+)/CD24(−/low) and ALDH1 expression in this series were further associated with the basal-like molecular subtype and the CD44(+)/CD24(−/low) phenotype was independently associated with BRCA1 mutational status. The currently accepted breast CSCs markers are present in a minority of familial breast cancers. Whereas the presence of these markers is correlated with several poor prognostic features and the basal-like subtype of breast cancer, they do not predict OS