Efecto de la densidad de siembra sobre el rendimiento de la okra (Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench), en el valle de Lerma, Salta, Argentina

La okra es una malvácea anual cultivada como hortaliza adaptada a climas tropicales y subtropicales. El manejo del cultivo es poco conocido en Salta y Argentina. El objetivo fue determinar la densidad de siembra más adecuada en el valle de Lerma evaluando su efecto sobre las componentes del rendimiento. Con un diseño de bloques completos al azar, con 12 réplicas, se compararon cuatro densidades de siembra de okra variedad Blue Sky que fueron 1, 2, 3 y 4 plantas por pozo, (T1, T2, T3 y T4), con filas a 70 cm y hoyos a 30 cm. Se sembró el 25/10/11 y la emergencia fue a los 21 días. Se cosecharon frutos inmaduros entre el 23/12/11 y el 28/03/12, con un tamaño entre 7-10 cm de largo. Se evaluó el nú- mero y peso total de frutos cosechados en todo el ciclo de producción y por fecha de cosecha. Para todas las variables analizadas, los menores valores promedio se observaron en T1, mientras que entre T2, T3 y T4, si bien se vio una tendencia en aumento, no existieron diferencias estadísticamente significativas. Por consiguiente y debido a la dificultad de conseguir la semilla en el país y por su alto costo, se recomienda sembrar dos semillas por pozo.Okra is an annual Malvaceae cultivated as a vegetable crop and adapted to tropical and subtropical climate. There is no much crop management information in Salta and Argentina. The goal of this research was to determine the best plant density in the Lerma valley, Salta, Argentina. Treatments were four okra plant populations, cultivar Blue Sky (1, 2, 3 and 4 plants per hill: T1, T2, T3 y T4) evaluating its effect on the yield components. Experimental design was a randomized complete block with 12 blocks. The experiment was sown on October 25, 2011 and seed emergency happen 21 days after sowing. Fruits were harvested at immature stage from 23/12/11 to 28/03/12, with a size length from 7 to 10 cm. The parameters measured were: number and total fruit weight harvested in the whole production cycle and for each harvest date. For all parameters analyzed, the lower average values were observed in T1, but there were not statiscally differences between T2, T3 and T4. Nevertheless, there was a growing trend, although not statistically significant. It is recommended to plant two seeds per well (8 plants·m-2), because off the seed costs and for the difficulty of getting them in the Argentina.Fil: Lozano, L.. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales; ArgentinaFil: Tálamo, Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Salta. Instituto de Bio y Geociencias del Noroeste Argentino; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Salta; ArgentinaFil: Galarce, M.. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales; ArgentinaFil: Ruiz de los Llanos, R.. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales; Argentin

Control of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, a neglected disease: results of a control programme in Satipo Province, Peru.

Mucocutaneous leishmaniasis (MCL) is an important health problem in many rural areas of Latin America, but there are few data on the results of programmatic approaches to control the disease. We report the results of a control programme in San Martin de Pangoa District, which reports one of the highest prevalences of MCL in Peru. For 2 years (2001--2002), the technicians at the health post were trained in patient case management, received medical support and were supplied with antimonials. An evaluation after 2 years showed the following main achievements: better diagnosis of patients, who were confirmed by microscopy in 34% (82/240) of the cases in 2001 and 60% of the cases (153/254) in 2002; improved follow-up during treatment: 237 of 263 (90%) patients who initiated an antimonial therapy ended the full treatment course; improved follow-up after treatment: 143 of 237 (60%) patients who ended their full treatment were correctly monitored during the required period of 6 (cutaneous cases) or 12 (mucosal cases) months after the end of treatment. These achievements were largely due to the human and logistical resources made available, the constant availability of medications and the close collaboration between the Ministry of Health, a national research institute and an international non-governmental organization. At the end of this period, the health authorities decided to register a generic brand of sodium stibogluconate, which is now in use. This should allow the treatment of a significant number of additional patients, while saving money to invest in other facets of the case management

Implementation of a motion estimation algorithm for Intel FPGAs using OpenCL

Producción CientíficaMotion Estimation is one of the main tasks behind any video encoder. It is a compu- tationally costly task; therefore, it is usually delegated to specific or reconfigurable hardware, such as FPGAs. Over the years, multiple FPGA implementations have been developed, mainly using hardware description languages such as Verilog or VHDL. Since programming using hardware description languages is a complex task, it is desirable to use higher-level languages to develop FPGA applications.The aim of this work is to evaluate OpenCL, in terms of expressiveness, as a tool for devel- oping this kind of FPGA applications. To do so, we present and evaluate a parallel implementation of the Block Matching Motion Estimation process using OpenCL for Intel FPGAs, usable and tested on an Intel Stratix 10 FPGA. The implementa- tion efficiently processes Full HD frames completely inside the FPGA. In this work, we show the resource utilization when synthesizing the code on an Intel Stratix 10 FPGA, as well as a performance comparison with multiple CPU implementations with varying levels of optimization and vectorization capabilities. We also compare the proposed OpenCL implementation, in terms of resource utilization and perfor- mance, with estimations obtained from an equivalent VHDL implementation.Junta de Castilla y León - Consejería de Educación de la Proyecto PROPHET-2 (VA226P20)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad: (PID2019- 104834 GB-I00) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) program: Project PCAS (TIN2017-88614-R)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2019-104184RB-I00 / AEI / 10.13039/501100011033)Xunta de Galicia y fondos FEDER de la UE (Centro de Investigación de Galicia acreditación 2019-2022, ref. ED431G 2019/01; Consolidation Program of Competitive Reference Groups, ref. ED431C 2021/30Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Agencia Estatal de Investigación y “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR” : (MCIN/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033) - grant TED2021-130367B-I00Publicación en abierto financiada por el Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de Castilla y León (BUCLE), con cargo al Programa Operativo 2014ES16RFOP009 FEDER 2014-2020 DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN, Actuación:20007-CL - Apoyo Consorcio BUCL

Biosynthesis of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in Octopus vulgaris: Molecular Cloning and Functional Characterisation of a Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase and an Elongation of Very Long-Chain Fatty Acid 4 Protein

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have been acknowledged as essential nutrients for cephalopods but the specific PUFAs that satisfy the physiological requirements are unknown. To expand our previous investigations on characterisation of desaturases and elongases involved in the biosynthesis of PUFAs and hence determine the dietary PUFA requirements in cephalopods, this study aimed to investigate the roles that a stearoyl-CoA desaturase (Scd) and an elongation of very long-chain fatty acid 4 (Elovl4) protein play in the biosynthesis of essential fatty acids (FAs). Our results confirmed the Octopus vulgaris Scd is a D9 desaturase with relatively high affinity towards saturated FAs with C18 chain lengths. Scd was unable to desaturate 20:1n-15 (D520:1) suggesting that its role in the biosynthesis of non-methylene interrupted FAs (NMI FAs) is limited to the introduction of the first unsaturation at D9 position. Interestingly, the previously characterised D5 fatty acyl desaturase was indeed able to convert 20:1n-9 (D1120:1) to D5,1120:2, an NMI FA previously detected in octopus nephridium. Additionally, Elovl4 was able to mediate the production of 24:5n-3 and thus can contribute to docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) biosynthesis through the Sprecher pathway. Moreover, the octopus Elovl4 was confirmed to play a key role in the biosynthesis of very long-chain (>C24) PUFAs

Enhancing methane production from the invasive macroalga Rugulopteryx okamurae through anaerobic co-digestion with olive mill solid waste: process performance and kinetic analysis

The biomass valorisation of the invasive brown alga Rugulopteryx okamurae (Dictyotales, Phaeophyceae) is key to curbing the expansion of this invasive macroalga which is generating tonnes of biomass on southern Spain beaches. As a feasible alternative for the biomass management, anaerobic co-digestion is proposed in this study. Although the anaerobic digestion of macroalgae barely produced 177 mL of CH4 g−1 VS, the co-digestion with a C-rich substrate, such as the olive mill solid waste (OMSW, the main waste derived from the two-phase olive oil manufacturing process), improved the anaerobic digestion process. The mixture improved not only the methane yield, but also its biodegradability. The highest biodegradability was found in the mixture 1 R. okamurae—1 OMSW, which improved the biodegradability of the macroalgae by 12.9% and 38.1% for the OMSW. The highest methane yield was observed for the mixture 1 R. okamurae—3 OMSW, improving the methane production of macroalgae alone by 157% and the OMSW methane production by 8.6%. Two mathematical models were used to fit the experimental data of methane production time with the aim of assessing the processes and obtaining the kinetic constants of the anaerobic co-digestion of different combination of R. okamurae and OMSW and both substrates independently. First-order kinetic and the transference function models allowed for appropriately fitting the experimental results of methane production with digestion time. The specific rate constant, k (first-order model) for the mixture 1 R. okamurae- 1.5 OMSW, was 5.1 and 1.3 times higher than that obtained for the mono-digestion of single OMSW and the macroalga, respectively. In the same way, the transference function model revealed that the maximum methane production rate (Rmax) was also found for the mixture 1 R. okamurae—1.5 OMSW (30.4 mL CH4 g−1 VS day−1), which was 1.6 and 2.2 times higher than the corresponding to the mono-digestions of the single OMSW and sole R. okamurae (18.9 and 13.6 mL CH4 g−1 VS day−1), respectively.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PID2020-114975RB-10

Aceite de cáscara de citrus reticulata con potencial terapéuticos para el tratamiento de la aterosclerosis : estudios bioquímicos, moleculares y bioinformáticos

La aterosclerosis es una enfermedad cardiovascular (ECV) caracterizada por un engrosamiento de las paredes arteriales debido al depósito de lípidos principalmente el colesterol (Col) y a una respuesta inflamatoria crónica promovida por macrófagos y células espumosas. Las ECVs son la principal causa de muerte y discapacidad a nivel mundial siendo la hipercolesterolemia el factor que contribuye al 56% de los casos de cardiopatía coronaria. Los niveles de Col plasmático se regulan por mecanismos como la síntesis de novo del Col o vía del mevalonato (VM) principalmente activa en hepatocitos. En las primeras etapas de la VM (reacciones pre-escualeno) se generan isoprenoides no esteroideos como ubiquinona, dolicol y grupos prenilos.Fil: Castro, M.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y TécnicasFil: Llanos, M.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y TécnicasFil: Rodenak-kladniew, B.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y TécnicasFil: Gavernet, L. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y TécnicasFil: García de Bravo, M. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y TécnicasFil: Crespo, R.. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnica

Specific microbiota direct the differentiation of Th17 cells in the mucosa of the small intestine

IL-17-producing T-helper cells (Th17) are potent effectors of inflammation, but little is known about the requirements for their differentiation in vivo at steady state. We found that specific commensal microbiota are required for Th17 cell differentiation in the lamina propria (LP) of the small intestine. Differentiation of Th17 cells correlated with presence of Cytophaga-Flavobacter-Bacteroidetes bacteria in the intestine, was independent of TLR, IL-21 or IL-23 signaling, but required appropriate activation of TGF-β. Absence of Th17 cell-inducing bacteria was accompanied by increased Foxp3+ regulatory T cells in the LP. Our results suggest that the composition of the microbiota regulates the Th17:Treg balance in the lamina propria and may thus influence intestinal immunity, tolerance, and susceptibility to inflammatory bowel diseases

High prognostic value of measurable residual disease detection by flow cytometry in chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients treated with front-line fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab, followed by three years of rituximab maintenance

It has been postulated that monitoring measurable residual disease (MRD) could be used as a surrogate marker of progression-free survival (PFS) in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients after treatment with immunochemotherapy regimens. In this study, we analyzed the outcome of 84 patients at 3 years of follow-up after first-line treatment with fludarabine, cyclophosphamide and rituximab (FCR) induction followed by 36 months of rituximab maintenance thearpy. MRD was assessed by a quantitative four-color flow cytometry panel with a sensitivity level of 10-4. Eighty out of 84 evaluable patients (95.2%) achieved at least a partial response or better at the end of induction. After clinical evaluation, 74 patients went into rituximab maintenance and the primary endpoint was assessed in the final analysis at 3 years of follow-up. Bone marrow (BM) MRD analysis was performed after the last planned induction course and every 6 months in cases with detectable residual disease during the 36 months of maintenance therapy. Thirty-seven patients (44%) did not have detectable residual disease in the BM prior to maintenance therapy. Interestingly, 29 patients with detectable residual disease in the BM after induction no longer had detectable disease in the BM following maintenance therapy. After a median followup of 6.30 years, the median overall survival (OS) and PFS had not been reached in patients with either undetectable or detectable residual disease in the BM, who had achieved a complete response at the time of starting maintenance therapy. Interestingly, univariate analysis showed that after rituximab maintenance OS was not affected by IGHV status (mutated vs. unmutated OS: 85.7% alive at 7.2 years vs. 79.6% alive at 7.3 years, respectively). As per protocol, 15 patients (17.8%), who achieved a complete response and undetectable peripheral blood and BM residual disease after four courses of induction, were allowed to stop fludarabine and cyclophosphamide and complete two additional courses of rituximab and continue with maintenance therapy for 18 cycles. Surprisingly, the outcome in this population was similar to that observed in patients who received the full six cycles of the induction regimen. These data show that, compared to historic controls, patients treated with FCR followed by rituximab maintenance have high-quality responses with fewer relapses and improved OS. The tolerability of this regime is favorable. Furthermore, attaining an early undetectable residual disease status could shorten the duration of chemoimmunotherapy, reducing toxicities and preventing long-term side effects. The analysis of BM MRD after fludarabine-based induction could be a powerful predictor of post-maintenance outcomes in patients with CLL undergoing rituximab maintenance and could be a valuable tool to identify patients at high risk of relapse, influencing further treatment strategies

A 3-Biomarker 2-Point-Based Risk Stratification Strategy in Acute Heart Failure

Altres ajuts: ISCIII/RD06-0003-0000Altres ajuts: ISCIII/RD12/0042/0002Introduction and Objectives: Most multi-biomarker strategies in acute heart failure (HF) have only measured biomarkers in a single-point time. This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic yielding of NT-proBNP, hsTnT, Cys-C, hs-CRP, GDF15, and GAL-3 in HF patients both at admission and discharge. Methods: We included 830 patients enrolled consecutively in a prospective multicenter registry. Primary outcome was 12-month mortality. The gain in the C-index, calibration, net reclassification improvement (NRI), and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) was calculated after adding each individual biomarker value or their combination on top of the best clinical model developed in this study (C-index 0.752, 0.715-0.789) and also on top of 4 currently used scores (MAGGIC, GWTG-HF, Redin-SCORE, BCN-bioHF). Results: After 12-month, death occurred in 154 (18.5%) cases. On top of the best clinical model, the addition of NT-proBNP, hs-CRP, and GDF-15 above the respective cutoff point at admission and discharge and their delta during compensation improved the C-index to 0.782 (0.747-0.817), IDI by 5% (p < 0.001), and NRI by 57% (p < 0.001) for 12-month mortality. A 4-risk grading categories for 12-month mortality (11.7, 19.2, 26.7, and 39.4%, respectively; p < 0.001) were obtained using combination of these biomarkers. Conclusion: A model including NT-proBNP, hs-CRP, and GDF-15 measured at admission and discharge afforded a mortality risk prediction greater than our clinical model and also better than the most currently used scores. In addition, this 3-biomarker panel defined 4-risk categories for 12-month mortality