Atypical enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (aEPEC) in children under five years old with diarrhea in Quito (Ecuador)

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) remain one the most important pathogens infecting children and they are one of the main causes of persistent diarrhea worldwide. In this study, we have isolated EPEC from 94 stool samples of children under five years old with diarrheal illness in the area of Quito (Ecuador), and we have determined the occurrence of the two subtypes of EPEC, typical EPEC (tEPEC) and atypical (aEPEC), by PCR amplification of the genes eae (attaching and effacing) and bfp (bundle- forming pilus). Typical EPEC is positive for eae and bfp genes while aEPEC is positive only for eae. Our results suggest that aEPEC is the most prevalent subtype in Quito (89.36 %), while subtype tEPEC is less prevalent (10.64 %). [Int Microbiol 19(3):157-160 (2016)]Keywords: Escherichia coli · atypical EPEC · genes eae and bfp · diarrhea in children · Quito (Ecuador

Onset of Phase Synchronization in Neurons Conneted via Chemical Synapses

We study the onset of synchronous states in realistic chaotic neurons coupled by mutually inhibitory chemical synapses. For the realistic parameters, namely the synaptic strength and the intrinsic current, this synapse introduces non-coherences in the neuronal dynamics, yet allowing for chaotic phase synchronization in a large range of parameters. As we increase the synaptic strength, the neurons undergo to a periodic state, and no chaotic complete synchronization is found.Comment: to appear in Int. J. Bif. Chao

The Curious Case of the Spanish Televisual Vampire

This article explores the birth and development of the Spanish televisual vampire within the context of a similarly nascent national television industry and, more specifically, that of its first horror programme, Historias para no dormir / Stories to Stay Awake (1966–82), and the career of its director and scriptwriter, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador. The article reads the intrinsic qualities of the first Spanish televisual vampire, its literary credentials, as well as its reliance on adaptation from canonical sources, as more largely indicative of the role and perception of horror television in that country. Substantial space is dedicated to a study of the historical and contextual coordinates of the vampire as it manifests in the Historias episode ‘La pesadilla’ / ‘The Nightmare’ (1967), but a brief overview of the legacy of this figure in later Spanish television is also provided. The main aim is to understand the ways in which the vampire has been adapted and appropriated in Spain, and, to this end, the article considers its parallel appearance in national literary and cinematic production

The Cultural Capital of the Gothic Horror Adaptation: The Case of Dario Argento’s The Phantom of the Opera and Dracula 3D

Dario Argento is the best-known living Italian horror director, but despite this, his career is perceived to be at an all-time low. I propose that the nadir of Argento’s filmography coincides, in part, with his embrace of the gothic adaptation, and that at least two of his late films, The Phantom of the Opera (1998) and Dracula 3D (2012), are borne out of the tensions between his desire to achieve auteur status by choosing respectable and literary sources as his primary material and the bloody and excessive nature of the product that he has come to be known for. My contention is that to understand the role that these films play within the director’s oeuvre, as well as their negative reception among critics, it is crucial to consider how they negotiate the dichotomy between the positive critical discourse currently surrounding gothic cinema and the negative one applied to visceral horror

77^{77}Se and 63^{63}Cu NMR studies of the electronic correlations in Cux_xTiSe2_2 (x=0.05,0.07x=0.05, 0.07)

We report $^{77}$Se and $^{63}$Cu nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) investigation on the charge-density-wave (CDW) superconductor Cu$_x$TiSe$_2$ ($x=0.05$ and 0.07). At high magnetic fields where superconductivity is suppressed, the temperature dependence of $^{77}$Se and $^{63}$Cu spin-lattice relaxation rates 1/T_{1}$follow a linear relation. The slope of$^{77}1/T_{1}$ vs \emph{T} increases with the Cu doping. This can be described by a modified Korringa relation which suggests the significance of electronic correlations and the Se 4\emph{p}- and Ti 3\emph{d}-band contribution to the density of states at the Fermi level in the studied compounds.Comment: Revised manuscript. Submitted to Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte

Energy Efficient Smartphone-Based Activity Recognition Using Fixed-Point Arithmetic

In this paper we propose a novel energy efficient approach for the recog- nition of human activities using smartphones as wearable sensing devices, targeting assisted living applications such as remote patient activity monitoring for the disabled and the elderly. The method exploits fixed-point arithmetic to propose a modified multiclass Support Vector Machine (SVM) learning algorithm, allowing to better pre- serve the smartphone battery lifetime with respect to the conventional floating-point based formulation while maintaining comparable system accuracy levels. Experiments show comparative results between this approach and the traditional SVM in terms of recognition performance and battery consumption, highlighting the advantages of the proposed method

Ser y hacer: Factores para la conformación del habitus de la comunicadora de ciencia en México

La presente investigación presenta un estudio exploratorio que tiene como eje la búsqueda por conocer a la comunicadora de ciencia mexicana. Desde la perspectiva de la conformación del habitus y la subjetividad a través de la revisión de la Teoría de campos de Bourdieu, observando los conceptos de capital social, cultural y habitus, se realizó un proceso de descubrimiento de las comunicadoras de ciencia en México desde sus concepciones del oficio, formación, prácticas, experiencias y relación con la ciencia. La propuesta teórico-metodológica de este trabajo es de carácter mixto, plantea un mapeo de comunicadoras de ciencia en el país, que obtuvo 186 respuestas de mujeres de las cinco regiones geográficas de México, que realizan dicha práctica en diversos espacios, y profundiza en un proceso cualitativo enfocado en la trayectoria, para conocer la conformación del habitus de las mismas. El acercamiento al universo de significaciones y la construcción de un habitus de la comunicadora de la ciencia permiten observarla no sólo como un agente de prácticas en un campo que a su vez se construye poco a poco, sino como sujetos que hacen de su práctica una herramienta para relacionarse y para comprender el mundo que las rodea, mientras se ven interpeladas por un rol que les ha sido asignado históricamente dentro de la sociedad.ITESO, A.C

SYMPA, a dedicated instrument for Jovian Seismology. II. Real performance and first results

Context. Due to its great mass and its rapid formation, Jupiter has played a crucial role in shaping the Solar System. The knowledge of its internal structure would strongly constrain the solar system formation mechanism. Seismology is the most efficient way to probe directly the internal structure of giant planets. Aims. SYMPA is the first instrument dedicated to the observations of free oscillations of Jupiter. Principles and theoretical performance have been presented in paper I. This second paper describes the data processing method, the real instrumental performance and presents the first results of a Jovian observation run, lead in 2005 at Teide Observatory. Methods. SYMPA is a Fourier transform spectrometer which works at fixed optical path difference. It produces Doppler shift maps of the observed object. Velocity amplitude of Jupiter's oscillations is expected below 60 cm/s. Results Despite light technical defects, the instrument demonstrated to work correctly, being limited only by photon noise, after a careful analysis. A noise level of about 12 cm/s has been reached on a 10-night observation run, with 21 % duty cycle, which is 5 time better than previous similar observations. However, no signal from Jupiter is clearly highlighted.Comment: 13 pages, 26 figure

Inter-annual ciliate distribution variation within the late stratification oxycline in a monomictic lake, Lake Alchichica (Mexico)

Deep stratified tropical water bodies pass through prolonged periods of meta-hypolimnetic anoxia, and ciliates might play a very important role in the plankton community budget there. We analysed changes in the composition and biomass of the ciliate assemblage and other microbial loop components throughout the oxycline just at the end of stratification in a warm-monomictic lake, Lake Alchichica, Mexico (four samplings: 2006-2008, 2010); the results were compared with those obtained from another lake from the re- gion, La Preciosa, sampled in 2010. Bacteria, autotrophic picoplankton (APP) and flagellates were analysed using epifluorescence microscopy. Ciliates were evaluated either in DAPI stained samples (looking for pigmented organelles and/or ingested phototrophs) or in quantitative protargol stain (QPS) permanent preparations, where they were identified at the genus or species level. The end of the stratification period in Lake Alchichica was characterized by almost uniform heterotrophic picoplankton (HPP) numbers (106 cells mL–1 ) throughout the water column. Meanwhile, APP showed epilimnetic and/or metalimnetic maxima of 105 cells mL–1 followed by an order of magnitude drop in the hypolimnion. A very important peak (105 cells mL–1 ) of the autotrophic or mixotrophic flagellate Pyramimonas sp. was observed repeatedly above and within the oxycline of Lake Alchichica. Ciliate biomass maxima were found around the oxycline and in the above-bottom layer. The top of the oxycline was dominated by Euplotes spp. and Spirostomum teres fine- to coarse-filter feeders (feeding upon APP, nanodiatoms and algae). Raptorial haptorids (in particular, Phialina sp.) were the second most important group, generally occupying the layer below euplotids, followed by Holophrya and Prorodon facultative anaer- obic prostomes. Sometimes, strictly anaerobic Caenomorpha sp. was found to be important in the anoxic hypolimnion. Minute pi- coplankton feeding species (both APP and heterotrophic bacteria feeders) were important throughout the water column: in the epilimnion, vorticellids (2006-2008) or scuticociliates (2010) dominated. Typically, the scuticociliate maximum was located in the oxycline and/or above the bottom. Some microaerophilic species were isolated; thus, their identification could be carried out. However, the apparent polymorphic ciliate life cycles were not described completely, and the species composition was only estimated: two dom- inant species (SC 1 - Cristigera-like and SC 2 - Cyclidim-like) covered nearly the total scuticociliate biomass. Strictly anaerobic scu- ticociliates were not isolated but observed in the deepest layers of the lake (bacteria symbiotic Isocyclidium globosum and Cristigera sp.). Significant statistical relation within the ciliate distribution and environmental variables was not confirmed due to unique species composition in the respective years. However, general trends in the distribution of ciliates on a species level were observed. Scutic- ociliates, including two important tentatively identified species, did not present unambiguous ecological position, and the study of their live cycle should be the next step in investigations