Cell death and the immune response of the sipunculid worm Themiste petricola

We have recently studied the role of cell death in the immune system of the sipunculan worm Themiste petricola. Typical biochemical and morphological changes of apoptosis were induced in celomocytes of these marine worms after in vitro exposure of cells to hydrogen peroxide. Apoptosis was time and dose dependent, and required several hours to become apparent. Surprisingly, in unexposed samples a subtype of granulocyte was observed to undergo homotypic aggregation, extensive cytoskeletal changes, and degranulation followed by cell death. This spontaneous response ending in cell death occurred in a divalent cation-dependent manner, served to entrap foreign particles, and was blocked by EDTA-containing saline solutions. Even though the mode of granulocyte cell death shares some features with apoptosis, it appears to be a different form of programmed cell death since it occurs within minutes and does not produce single cell-derived apoptotic bodies but transforms itself into one or several syncytial masses with haemostatic and immune purposes. Since numerous granulocyte types and multicellular masses involved in cellular immunity have been described in sipunculan worms, the review also discusses the potential influence of activation of granulocytes by sea water in expanding the variety of morphological types and multicellular structures identified through morphological studies among sipunculan species.Fil: Blanco, Guillermo Armando C.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Oficina de Coordinacion Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Estudios de la Inmunidad Humoral "Profesor R. A. Margni"; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica; Argentin

Descentralización, finanzas públicas y desarrollo

La evaluación que se presenta en este documento del proceso de descentralización en Colombia señala que los avances logrados en dicho proceso fueron pobres, en especial en gobernabilidad territorial, democracia local, descentralización fiscal, autonomía regional y de ordenamiento territorial y que será difícil superarlos si no se acuerdan reformas de fondo al modelo de descentralización vigente y a la relación fiscal entre el Gobierno Nacional y los Gobiernos Locales.The evaluation that appears of the process of decentralization in Colombia in this document, indicates that the advances obtained in this process were low, specially in territorial governability, local democracy, fiscal decentralization, regional autonomy and territorial orderíng and that will be difficult to surpass them if reforms do not remember bottom to the model of effective decentralization and the fiscal relation between the National Government and the Local Governments

Planes de estudio de Licenciaturas en Matemáticas y LEBEM1 y etnomatemáticas en Colombia

Se presentan los resultados de una investigación que tenía como objetivos a). Reflexionar sobre la importancia de incluir la etnomatemática en los planes de estudio de los profesores en formación en matemáticas de Colombia y b). Establecer el estado actual de la inclusión de la etnomatemática en los Planes de Estudio. Se utilizó una metodología de análisis de contenido a los diferentes planes de estudio de diferentes universidades que ofrecen los programas de Licenciatura en Matemáticas (LM) y las Licenciaturas en Educación con énfasis en Educación Matemática (LEBEM) en Colombia. Finalmente, concluimos, por un lado, que el acercamiento a los pensamientos matemáticos desde la etnomatemática trae ventajas al mostrar las matemáticas como un producto cultural y hacerlas más cercanas a las prácticas culturales de las personas, por el otro, que la inclusión de la etnomatemática en los planes de estudio es incipiente

Collaborative text-annotation resource for disease-centered relation extraction from biomedical text

Agglomerating results from studies of individual biological components has shown the potential to produce biomedical discovery and the promise of therapeutic development. Such knowledge integration could be tremendously facilitated by automated text mining for relation extraction in the biomedical literature. Relation extraction systems cannot be developed without substantial datasets annotated with ground truth for benchmarking and training. The creation of such datasets is hampered by the absence of a resource for launching a distributed annotation effort, as well as by the lack of a standardized annotation schema. We have developed an annotation schema and an annotation tool which can be widely adopted so that the resulting annotated corpora from a multitude of disease studies could be assembled into a unified benchmark dataset. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we provide an overview of available benchmark corpora and derive a simple annotation schema for specific binary relation extraction problems such as protein–protein and gene–disease relation extraction. Second, we present BioNotate: an open source annotation resource for the distributed creation of a large corpus. Third, we present and make available the results of a pilot annotation effort of the autism disease networkP08-TIC-4299 of J. A., Sevilla and TIN2006-13177 of DGICT, MadridMilton foundationNational Science Foundation under Grant No. 054348

Theoretical and empirical considerations on the internationalization of the economy

In recent economic literature there is a tendency to identify the restructure-oriented development strategy with the neoliberal conception. The analysis of the experience of some countries, particularly those of the Southern Cone, which in the framework of internationalization processes followed the liberalizing alignment, would be supporting this appreciation.The interna tionaliza tion of the economy can very well be framed, however, within different political modalities. It may be selective, with a control of the capital account, strategically planned through an institutional device and following a process of macroeconomical adjustment and stabilization, as shown by the successful experiences of the Pacific Basin countries. In this essay, which retakes some of the issues by heterodox economists of a neo-keynesian orientation, which are based on recent analyses on the perfomance of world's economy, it may be gathered not only that many of its proposals are consistent, but that, therefore, they may be used as a frame of reference for the analysis of the recent internationalization process of Colombian economy.En la literatura económica reciente se tiende a identificar la estrategia de desarrollo aperturista con la concepción neoliberal. El análisis de la experiencia de algunos países, en particular de los del Cono Sur, que en el marco de procesos de apertura se ciñeron a los lineamientos liberalizantes, estaría reforzando esta apreciación. La apertura hacia el exterior bien puede enmarcarse, sin embargo, en modalidades de política diferentes. Puede ser selectiva, con control de la cuenta de capitales, planificada estratégicamente por un dispositivo institucional, y posterior a un proceso de ajuste y estabilización macroeconómica, tal como lo señalan las exitosas experiencias de los países de la Cuenca del Pacífico. En este ensayo, que retoma algunos planteamientos de economistas heterodoxos de orientación neokeynesiana, que se basan en análisis recientes sobre el desempeño de la economía mundial, se deduce no sólo que muchas de sus propuestas son consistentes, si no que, por tanto, pueden ser utilizadas como marco referencial para el análisis del reciente proceso de apertura de la economía colombiana

Etnomatemática y formación inicial de profesores de matemáticas: el caso colombiano / Ethnomathematical and initial training of mathematics teachers: the Colombian case

Se analizan aquí las razones de por qué la Etnomatemática ha tenido tan poca receptividad en los procesos de formación inicial de los profesores de matemáticas en Colombia. Se aplicó una encuesta con preguntas abiertas a diversos profesores de universidades que ofrecen los programas de Licenciatura en Matemáticas (LM) o Licenciatura en Educación Básica con énfasis en Matemáticas (LEBEM). Entre los hallazgos se encontró que las justificaciones para su integración tienen que ver con: la diversidad étnica, aporte de la Etnomatemática a ampliar la mirada sobre la naturaleza de las matemáticas y las relaciones entre la Etnomatemática, la educación matemática y la didáctica de las matemáticas. Por otro lado, los obstáculos encontrados para la no integración de la etnomatemática a los programas de LM y LEBEM tienen que ver con: la matematización del currículo, la falta de recurso humano formado en Etnomatemática y la tensión administrativa. The reasons why Ethnomathematics has received very little receptivity in the process of initial training of mathematics teachers in Colombia are discussed here. A survey open to various teachers of universities offering degree programs in mathematics (LM) or Bachelor of basic education with an emphasis in math (LEBEM) questions was applied. It was found that the justifications for integration are related: ethnic diversity, contribution Ethnomathematics a broader perspective on the nature of mathematics and the relationships between Ethnomathematics, mathematics education and mathematics education. Moreover, the obstacles to the non-integration of Ethnomathematics LM programs and LEBEM deal with the mathematization of the curriculum, the lack of human resources trained in Ethnomathematics and administrative pressur

Scientific goals for the observation of Venus by VIRTIS on ESA/Venus Express mission

The Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on board the ESA/Venus Express mission has technical specifications well suited for many science objectives of Venus exploration. VIRTIS will both comprehensively explore a plethora of atmospheric properties and processes and map optical properties of the surface through its three channels, VIRTIS-M-vis (imaging spectrometer in the 0.3–1 micron range), VIRTIS-M-IR (imaging spectrometer in the 1–5 micron range) and VIRTIS-H (aperture highresolution spectrometer in the 2–5 micron range). The atmospheric composition below the clouds will be repeatedly measured in the night side infrared windows over a wide range of latitudes and longitudes, thereby providing information on Venus’s chemical cycles. In particular, CO, H2O, OCS and SO2 can be studied. The cloud structure will be repeatedly mapped from the brightness contrasts in the near-infrared night side windows, providing new insights into Venusian meteorology. The global circulation and local dynamics of Venus will be extensively studied from infrared and visible spectral images. The thermal structure above the clouds will be retrieved in the night side using the 4.3 micron fundamental band of CO2. The surface of Venus is detectable in the short-wave infrared windows on the night side at 1.01, 1.10 and 1.18 micron, providing constraints on surface properties and the extent of active volcanism. Many more tentative studies are also possible, such as lightning detection, the composition of volcanic emissions, and mesospheric wave propagation