Host-Microbiome Interaction and Cancer: Potential Application in Precision Medicine

It has been experimentally shown that host-microbial interaction plays a major role in shaping the wellness or disease of the human body. Microorganisms coexisting in human tissues provide a variety of benefits that contribute to proper functional activity in the host through the modulation of fundamental processes such as signal transduction, immunity and metabolism. The unbalance of this microbial profile, or dysbiosis, has been correlated with the genesis and evolution of complex diseases such as cancer. Although this latter disease has been thoroughly studied using different high-throughput technologies, its heterogeneous nature makes its understanding and proper treatment in patients a remaining challenge in clinical settings. Notably, given the outstanding role of host-microbiome interactions, the ecological interactions with microorganisms have become a new significant aspect in the systems that can contribute to the diagnosis and potential treatment of solid cancers. As a part of expanding precision medicine in the area of cancer research, efforts aimed at effective treatments for various kinds of cancer based on the knowledge of genetics, biology of the disease and host-microbiome interactions might improve the prediction of disease risk and implement potential microbiota-directed therapeutics. In this review, we present the state of the art of sequencing and metabolome technologies, computational methods and schemes in systems biology that have addressed recent breakthroughs of uncovering relationships or associations between microorganisms and cancer. Together, microbiome studies extend the horizon of new personalized treatments against cancer from the perspective of precision medicine through a synergistic strategy integrating clinical knowledge, high-throughput data, bioinformatics and systems biology

Enhancing the context-aware FOREX market simulation using a parallel elastic network model

[EN] Foreign exchange (FOREX) market is a decentralized global marketplace in which different participants, such as international banks, companies or investors, can buy, sell, exchange and speculate on currencies. This market is considered to be the largest financial market in the world in terms of trading volume. Indeed, the just-in-time price prediction for a currency pair exchange rate (e.g., EUR/USD) provides valuable information for companies and investors as they can take different actions to improve their business. The trading volume in the FOREX market is huge, disperses, in continuous operations (24 h except weekends), and the context significantly affects the exchange rates. This paper introduces a context-aware algorithm to model the behavior of the FOREX Market, called parallel elastic network model (PENM). This algorithm is inspired by natural procedures like the behavior of macromolecules in dissolution. The main results of this work include the possibility to represent the market evolution of up to 21 currency pair, being all connected, thus emulating the real-world FOREX market behavior. Moreover, because the computational needs required are highly costly as the number of currency pairs increases, a hybrid parallelization using several shared memory and message passing algorithms studied on distributed cluster is evaluated to achieve a high-throughput algorithm that answers the real-time constraints of the FOREX market. The PENM is also compared with a vector autoregressive (VAR) model using both a classical statistical measure and a profitability measure. Specifically, the results indicate that PENM outperforms VAR models in terms of quality, achieving up to 930xspeed-up factor compared to traditional R codes using in this field.This work was jointly supported by the Fundación Séneca (Agencia Regional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Región de Murcia) under Grant 20813/PI/18 and by the Spanish MEC and European Commission FEDER under Grants TIN2016-78799-P and TIN2016-80565-R (AEI/FEDER, UE).Contreras, AV.; Llanes, A.; Herrera, FJ.; Navarro, S.; López-Espin, JJ.; Cecilia-Canales, JM. (2020). Enhancing the context-aware FOREX market simulation using a parallel elastic network model. The Journal of Supercomputing. 76(3):2022-2038. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-019-02838-1S20222038763Bahrepour M, Akbarzadeh-T MR, Yaghoobi M, Naghibi-S MB (2011) An adaptive ordered fuzzy time series with application to FOREX. Expert Syst Appl 38(1):475–485Bank for International Settlements. https://www.bis.org/ . Accessed 13 Feb 2013Bhattacharyya S, Pictet OV, Zumbach G (2002) Knowledge-intensive genetic discovery in foreign exchange markets. IEEE Trans Evolut Comput 6(2):169–181Bank of International Settlements (2016) Triennial central bank survey: foreign exchange turnover in April 2016, BaselCaporale GM, Gil-Alana L, Plastun A (2017) Searching for inefficiencies in exchange rate dynamics. Comput Econ 49(3):405–432De Grauwe P, Markiewicz A (2013) Learning to forecast the exchange rate: two competing approaches. J Int Money Finance 32:42–76Fama E (1970) Efficient capital markets: a review of theory and empirical work. J Finance 25(2):383–417Fama EF (1965) The behavior of stock-market prices. J Bus 38(1):34–105Fama EF (1970) Efficient capital markets: a review of theory and empirical work. J Finance 25(2):383–417Fuglebakk E, Reuter N, Hinsen K (2013) Evaluation of protein elastic network models based on an analysis of collective motions. J Chem Theory Comput 9(12):5618–5628Hanssens DM, Parsons LJ, Schultz RL (2003) Market response models: econometric and time series analysis, vol 12. Springer, New YorkKamruzzaman J, Sarker RA (2003) Forecasting of currency exchange rates using ANN: a case study. In: Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on Neural Networks and Signal Processing, 2003, vol 1. IEEE, pp 793–797Kamruzzaman J, Sarker RA, Ahmad I (2003) SVM based models for predicting foreign currency exchange rates. In: Third IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, 2003. ICDM 2003, IEEE, pp. 557–560Karplus M, McCammon JA (2002) Molecular dynamics simulations of biomolecules. Nat Struct Mol Biol 9(9):646–652Kleen A (2015) Intel PMU profiling tools. https://github.com/andikleen/pmu-tools/tree/d70840ba . Accessed 15 Mar 2019Kuo RJ, Chen C, Hwang Y (2001) An intelligent stock trading decision support system through integration of genetic algorithm based fuzzy neural network and artificial neural network. Fuzzy Sets Syst 118(1):21–45LeBaron B, Arthur WB, Palmer R (1999) Time series properties of an artificial stock market. J Econ Dyn Control 23(9):1487–1516Li Q, Chen Y, Wang J, Chen Y, Chen H (2017) Web media and stock markets: a survey and future directions from a big data perspective. IEEE Trans Knowl Data Eng 30:381–399Luetkepohl H (2009) Econometric analysis with vector autoregressive models. In: Belsley DA, Kontoghiorghes EJ (eds) Handbook of computational econometrics. Wiley, New York, pp 281–319Makovskỳ P (2014) Modern approaches to efficient market hypothesis of FOREX—the central European case. Proc Econ Finance 14:397–406Meade N (2002) A comparison of the accuracy of short term foreign exchange forecasting methods. Int J Forecast 18(1):67–83Meese RA, Rogoff K (1983) Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies: do they fit out of sample? J Int Econ 14(1–2):3–24Mockus J, Raudys A (2010) On the efficient-market hypothesis and stock exchange game model. Expert Syst Appl 37(8):5673–5681Nassirtoussi AK, Aghabozorgi S, Wah TY, Ngo DCL (2014) Text mining for market prediction: a systematic review. Expert Syst Appl 41(16):7653–7670Neely C, Weller P, Dittmar R (1997) Is technical analysis in the foreign exchange market profitable? A genetic programming approach. J Financial Quant Anal 32(4):405–426Pincak R (2013) The string prediction models as invariants of time series in the FOREX market. Phys A: Stat Mech Appl 392(24):6414–6426Samuelson PA (2016) Proof that properly anticipated prices fluctuate randomly. In: The World Scientific Handbook of Futures Markets, pp 25–38Sarantis N, Stewart C (1995) Structural, VAR and BVAR models of exchange rate determination: a comparison of their forecasting performance. J Forecast 14(3):201–215Schmidhuber J (2015) Deep learning in neural networks: an overview. Neural Netw 61:85–117Sims CA (1980) Macroeconomics and reality. Econ: J Econ Soc. 48:1–48Ţiţan AG (2015) The efficient market hypothesis: review of specialized literature and empirical research. Proc Econ Finance 32:442–449Yao J, Tan CL (2000) A case study on using neural networks to perform technical forecasting of FOREX. Neurocomputing 34(1):79–9

Statistical analysis of CSP plants by simulating extensive meteorological series

AIP Conference Proceedings 1850, 160020-1–160020-8The feasibility analysis of any power plant project needs the estimation of the amount of energy it will be able to deliver to the grid during its lifetime. To achieve this, its feasibility study requires a precise knowledge of the solar resource over a long term period. In Concentrating Solar Power projects (CSP), financing institutions typically requires several statistical probability of exceedance scenarios of the expected electric energy output. Currently, the industry assumes a correlation between probabilities of exceedance of annual Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) and energy yield. In this work, this assumption is tested by the simulation of the energy yield of CSP plants using as input a 34-year series of measured meteorological parameters and solar irradiance. The results of this work show that, even if some correspondence between the probabilities of exceedance of annual DNI values and energy yields is found, the intraannual distribution of DNI may significantly affect this correlation. This result highlights the need of standardized procedures for the elaboration of representative DNI time series representative of a given probability of exceedance of annual DNI

Fisheries and Prestige. Review and update of studies on the effects of the Prestige oil spill

The Prestige oil tanker sank in November 2002 and leaked around 60 000 mt. of heavy oil (type M-100) into the sea. Immediately after the accident, closed areas were established. Among the fleets affected by the closures were four of the most important in ICES Division VIIIc and Sub-division IXa North (bottom trawl, pair trawl, purse seine targeting sardine and hand line targeting mackerel) as they exploit considerable resources, some outside biological safety limits. A fall in effort was observed in all of them, mainly in the first quarter and in sub-divisions VIIIc West and IXa North, although it failed to lead to a very large reduction in the total annual effort of each of the fleets, with the exception of hand line. Pair trawlers can make two types of fishing trip, but differences in specific composition among the three years analysed were not found in either of them. In the case of trawl, five kinds of fishing trips were identified, and changes were only found in the type that targets Norway lobster, hake, megrim and monk (HMMN), with a fall in the presence of Norway lobster

Los desafíos del cambio : investigación en diseño

1 archivo PDF (194 páginas)Aborda los desafíos del cambio y la investigación en diseño - a 30 años de distancia de la creación de la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana y de ejercer la figura de profesor investigador, signo distintivo de nuestra Institución -trata los cambios y desafíos que se han presentado durante este tiempo, con relación a su objeto de estudio, la manera como se concibe y realiza la investigación, como en la práctica se ha dado - o no- el binomio investigación docencia y cómo se enfrentan las dificultades y las soluciones que han tomado los profesores-investigadores

Clinical inertia in poorly controlled elderly hypertensive patients: a cross-sectional study in Spanish physicians to ascertain reasons for not intensifying treatment

Background Clinical inertia, the failure of physicians to initiate or intensify therapy when indicated, is a major problem in the management of hypertension and may be more prevalent in elderly patients. Overcoming clinical inertia requires understanding its causes and evaluating certain factors, particularly those related to physicians. Objective The objective of our study was to determine the rate of clinical inertia and the physician-reported rea- sons for it. Conclusion Physicians provided reasons for not intensi- fying treatment in poorly controlled patients in only 30 % of instances. Main reasons for not intensifying treatment were borderline BP values, co-morbidity, suspected white coat effect, or perceived difficulty achieving target. nJCI was associated with high borderline BP values and car- diovascular diseas

Probiotics and Prebiotics as a Therapeutic Strategy to Improve Memory in a Model of Middle-Aged Rats

Aging is associated with morphological, physiological and metabolic changes, leading to multiorgan degenerative pathologies, such as cognitive function decline. It has been suggested that memory loss also involves a decrease in neurotrophic factors, including brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). In recent years, microbiota has been proposed as an essential player in brain development, as it is believed to activate BDNF secretion through butyrate production. Thus, microbiota modulation by supplementation with probiotics and prebiotics may impact cognitive decline. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of probiotics and prebiotics supplementation on the memory of middle-aged rats. Sprague-Dawley male rats were randomized in four groups (n = 13 per group): control (water), probiotic (E. faecium), prebiotic (agave inulin), symbiotic (E. faecium + inulin), which were administered for 5 weeks by oral gavage. Spatial and associative memory was analyzed using the Morris Water Maze (MWM) and Pavlovian autoshaping tests, respectively. Hippocampus was obtained to analyze cytokines [interleukin (IL-1β) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α)], BDNF and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Butyrate concentrations were also evaluated in feces. The symbiotic group showed a significantly better performance in MWM (p < 0.01), but not in Pavlovian autoshaping test. It also showed significantly lower concentrations of pro-inflammatory cytokines (p < 0.01) and the reduction in IL-1β correlated with a better performance of the symbiotic group in MWM (p < 0.05). Symbiotic group also showed the highest BDNF and butyrate levels (p < 0.0001). Finally, we compared the electrophysiological responses of control (n = 8) and symbiotic (n = 8) groups. Passive properties of CA1 pyramidal cells (PCs) exhibited changes in response to the symbiotic treatment. Likewise, this group showed an increase in the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA)/AMPA ratio and exhibited robust long-term potentiation (LTP; p < 0.01). Integrated results suggest that symbiotics could improve age-related impaired memory

A teoria dos conceitos nucleares e as suas aplicações em Ciências Sociais, Educação, Matemática e Engenharia

El presente artículo tiene como principal objetivo dar a conocer la Teoría de los Conceptos Nucleares y la técnica de Redes Asociativas Pathfinder. El enfoque metodológico se enmarca en los métodos mixtos, con sistemas de apoyo digitales (webQDA y GOLUCA) susceptibles de realizar análisis tanto cualitativos como cuantitativos. El artículo empieza por presentar la Teoría de los Conceptos Nucleares y su técnica asociada para posteriormente mostrar ejemplos de su aplicación dentro de distintos campos de estudio, nombradamente en las Ciencias Sociales a través del estudio sobre las trayectorias educativas en relación al abandono y retorno al sistema educativo, en las Matemáticas a través del estudio de unidades didácticas y recursos educativos digitales aplicados al tema de las operaciones aritméticas, trigonometría y probabilidad, en las Ingeniería Telemática e Ingeniería Informática a través del análisis del proceso de enseñanza de los alumnos de la asignatura de Base de Datos del Grado de Ingeniería Informática en Tecnologías de la Información (GIITI) del Centro Universitario de Mérida – Universidad de Extremadura.The main objective of this article is to disseminate the Theory of Nuclear Concepts and the Pathfinder Associative Networks technique. The methodological approach is based on mixed methods, with digital support systems (webQDA and GOLUCA) that allow qualitative and quantitative analysis. The article presenting the Theory of Nuclear Concepts and the associated technique to later and show examples of its application in different areas of study, namely in the Social Sciences through the study of educational trajectories in relation to abandonment and return to the educational system , in Mathematics through the study of didactic units and digital educational resources applied to the topic of arithmetic operations, trigonometry and probabilities, in Telematics Engineering and Computer Engineering, through the analysis of the teaching process of the students of the Database discipline of Degree in Engineering in Information Technology (GIITI) of the University Center of Mérida - University of Extremadura.O principal objetivo deste artigo é divulgar a Teoria dos Conceitos Nucleares e técnica e a técnica Pathfinder Associative Networks. A abordagem metodológica enquadra-se nos métodos mistos, com sistemas digitais deapoio (webQDA e GOLUCA) que permitem a realização de análises qualitativas e quantitativas. O artigo começa por apresentar a Teoria dos Conceitos Nucleares e a técnica associada para, posteriormente, mostrar exemplos da sua aplicação em diferentes áreas de estudo, nomeadamente nas Ciências Sociais através do estudo sobre as trajetórias educativas em relação ao abandono e ao retorno ao sistema educativo, em Matemática através do estudo de unidades didáticas e de recursos educativos digitais aplicados ao tema das operações aritméticas, da trigonometria e da probabilidades, em Engenharia Telemática e Engenharia Informática, através da análise do processo de ensino dos estudantes da disciplina de Bases de Dados da Licenciatura em Engenharia em Tecnologias da Informação (GIITI) do Centro Universitário de Mérida - Universidade de Extremadura.peerReviewe

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London