Beneficial microorganisms for corals (BMC): proposed mechanisms for coral health and resilience

The symbiotic association between the coral animal and its endosymbiotic dinoflagellate partner Symbiodinium is central to the success of corals. However, an array of other microorganisms associated with coral (i.e., Bacteria, Archaea, Fungi, and viruses) have a complex and intricate role in maintaining homeostasis between corals and Symbiodinium. Corals are sensitive to shifts in the surrounding environmental conditions. One of the most widely reported responses of coral to stressful environmental conditions is bleaching. During this event, corals expel Symbiodinium cells from their gastrodermal tissues upon experiencing extended seawater temperatures above their thermal threshold. An array of other environmental stressors can also destabilize the coral microbiome, resulting in compromised health of the host, which may include disease and mortality in the worst scenario. However, the exact mechanisms by which the coral microbiome supports coral health and increases resilience are poorly understood. Earlier studies of coral microbiology proposed a coral probiotic hypothesis, wherein a dynamic relationship exists between corals and their symbiotic microorganisms, selecting for the coral holobiont that is best suited for the prevailing environmental conditions. Here, we discuss the microbial-host relationships within the coral holobiont, along with their potential roles in maintaining coral health. We propose the term BMC (Beneficial Microorganisms for Corals) to define (specific) symbionts that promote coral health. This term and concept are analogous to the term Plant Growth Promoting Rhizosphere (PGPR), which has been widely explored and manipulated in the agricultural industry for microorganisms that inhabit the rhizosphere and directly or indirectly promote plant growth and development through the production of regulatory signals, antibiotics and nutrients. Additionally, we propose and discuss the potential mechanisms of the effects of BMC on corals, suggesting strategies for the use of this knowledge to manipulate the microbiome, reversing dysbiosis to restore and protect coral reefs. This may include developing and using BMC consortia as environmental "probiotics" to improve coral resistance after bleaching events and/or the use of BMC with other strategies such as human-assisted acclimation/adaption to shifting environmental conditions

Hacia un proceso de migración de la seguridad de sistemas heredados al Cloud

El desarrollo de la computación en la nube es una tendencia fuerte en la industria de las TI que hace que los clientes de este nuevo modelo de prestación de servicios, sobre todo las empresas, se enfrenten a desafíos nuevos en lo que se refiere a la gestión de la seguridad de sus aplicaciones heredadas en el nuevo entorno. La cuestión es en cómo migrar de forma segura los sistemas de información heredados de estas empresas. Este artículo presenta un proceso (SMiLe2Cloud) y un marco de trabajo con el que se puede migrar de forma segura los sistemas corporativos heredados a infraestructuras o entornos en la nube, siguiendo los 14 dominios de seguridad del CSA y utilizando ingeniería inversa.Esta investigación es parte de los siguientes proyectos: GEODAS (TIN2012-37493-C03-01) y SIGMA-CC (TIN2012-36904) financiados por el “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional FEDER”, España

La Seguridad como una asignatura indispensable para un Ingeniero del Software

La seguridad informática ha venido cobrando mayor importancia para las organizaciones dado el marcado crecimiento de las nuevas tecnologías de la información, servicios Web, comercio electrónico, etc. Es por ello que existe la necesidad de contar con nuevos profesionales en este entorno. Para ello, es necesario contar con asignaturas de Seguridad en las escuelas universitarias, que doten al futuro profesional de los conocimientos necesarios para afrontar con éxito las necesidades que el mundo empresarial actual demanda. Así, aprovechando el estado actual de implantación del sistema europeo de créditos, en este artículo se resume una propuesta de grado de informática, y se presenta la asignatura de Seguridad de Sistemas Software, ubicada en el perfil de Ingeniería del Software, definiendo el contenido de dicha asignatura de acuerdo a las directrices del sistema ECTS, y a las necesidades reales que cualquier ingeniero del software puede encontrarse en el mundo empresarial actual.Peer Reviewe

Métricas para la medición de las competencias generales y específicas para el Grado en Ingeniería Informática

El proceso de elaboración de las memorias de grado se ha basado en un conjunto de competencias generales y específicas que, en la mayoría de los casos, entrañan un alto nivel de abstracción y ambigüedad. Por otro lado, la aparición de las competencias no ha ayudado a los alumnos a entender mejor en qué medida alcanzan los objetivos de las diferentes asignaturas, ni a tomar mejores decisiones sobre los pasos a seguir en su carrera profesional. En este artículo se pretende mostrar los resultados obtenidos durante la investigación realizada, que ha tenido como objetivo desgranar las competencias generales y específicas del Grado en Ingeniería Informática, de modo que se ofrezca un acercamiento mucho más concreto y detallado con las asignaturas y, consecuentemente, que pueda justificarse adecuadamente la forma en que las asignaturas permiten alcanzar parcial o completamente las competencias para el grado. Este enfoque, y su orientación a obtener métricas sobre las que valorar el grado en que se han alcanzado los objetivos, también permitirá que los alumnos puedan tomar mejores decisiones a la hora de seleccionar las diferentes asignaturas del grado y conocer para qué competencias están mejor cualificados.SUMMARY -- The process of writing honours theses is based on a set of general and specific competences which, in the majority of cases, entail a high level of abstraction and ambiguity. What is more, the apparition of these competences has not helped students towards a better understanding of the extent to which they attain the objectives of their various subjects, or to make better decisions as regards the steps to follow in their professional careers. The intention of this paper is to show the results obtained during research whose objective was to separate the general and specific competences involved in the Computer Engineering Degree in order to provide a much more concrete and detailed approach to the subjects, which will consequently allow the way in which the subjects permit the partial or total attainment of the competences for the degree to be justified. This approach, and its orientation towards obtaining metrics with which to evaluate the degree to which the objectives have been attained, will also allow students to make better decisions when selecting various degree subjects and to discover for which competences they are best qualified.Peer Reviewe

An ontology-based secure design framework for graph-based databases

Graph-based databases are concerned with performance and flexibility. Most of the existing approaches used to design secure NoSQL databases are limited to the final implementation stage, and do not involve the design of security and access control issues at higher abstraction levels. Ensuring security and access control for Graph-based databases is difficult, as each approach differs significantly depending on the technology employed. In this paper, we propose the first technology-ascetic framework with which to design secure Graph-based databases. Our proposal raises the abstraction level by using ontologies to simultaneously model database and security requirements together. This is supported by the TITAN framework, which facilitates the way in which both aspects are dealt with. The great advantages of our approach are, therefore, that it: allows database designers to focus on the simultaneous protection of security and data while ignoring the implementation details; facilitates the secure design and rapid migration of security rules by deriving specific security measures for each underlying technology, and enables database designers to employ ontology reasoning in order to verify whether the security rules are consistent. We show the applicability of our proposal by applying it to a case study based on a hospital data access control.This work has been developed within the AETHER-UA (PID2020-112540RB-C43), AETHER-UMA (PID2020-112540RB-C41) and AETHER-UCLM (PID2020-112540RB-C42), ALBA (TED2021-130355B-C31, TED2021-130355B-C33), PRESECREL (PID2021-124502OB-C42) projects funded by the “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación”, Andalusian PAIDI program with grant (P18-RT-2799) and the BALLADER Project (PROMETEO/2021/088) funded by the “Consellería de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia Sociedad Digital”, Generalitat Valenciana

Formación integral en la intensificación de Ingeniería del Software en el grado en Ingeniería Informática

Tradicionalmente, los estudiantes de Ingeniería del Software adquieren las competencias de cada asignatura mediante trabajos no reales que están acotados en complejidad y alcance. En este artículo se presenta una propuesta de formación con un enfoque transversal, uniendo varias asignaturas para plantear casos de desarrollo de software más complejos y realistas. Como primera aproximación se ha realizado una experiencia que engloba 3 asignaturas de la intensificación, abordando tanto la perspectiva técnica como la gestión en un proyecto común. Se abordan las principales restricciones como la temporalidad de las asignaturas, matriculación de los estudiantes, sistema de evaluación homogéneo, formación de equipos, calendario, revisiones conjuntas con los estudiantes, etc. Además, se presentan unas primeras evidencias de la viabilidad de la propuesta, mostrando los resultados de su aplicación en el curso 2017/2018 así como la opinión de los estudiantes matriculados, demostrando una buena aceptación.Traditionally, Software Engineering students have acquired competencies basing their learning in not real projects due to constrains in effort and time are limited in complexity and extent. In this paper, we propose a transversal approach for Software Engineering Education integrating related subjects and with special emphasis in proposing more complex and realistic assignments. As a starting approach we have carried out a experience of transversal education encompassing three Software Engineering subjects, forcing the students to work in a complex common project from both technical and management perspectives. In this approach, we have faced new challenges and restrictions, such as time ordering of the subjects, students’ enrollment, homogeneous evaluation system, team creation and management, common schedule, common reviews, and so on. Also, here we present the first evidences of proposal feasibility, showing the results of the project application during the 2017/2018 course along with the students’ opinion, which demonstrated a good acceptance

Non-Destructive Inspection of High Temperature Piping Combining Ultrasound and Eddy Current Testing

Project Hi2TRUST—Second generation platform for high-temperature component inspection, (Ref. 3335), supported by Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER), Programa Operacional Regional de Lisboa (Lisb@2020 and Portugal2020). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.This paper presents an automated Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) system for the in-service inspection of orbital welds on tubular components operating at temperatures as high as 200 °C. The combination of two different NDT methods and respective inspection systems is here proposed to cover the detection of all potential defective weld conditions. The proposed NDT system combines ultrasounds and Eddy current techniques with dedicated approaches for dealing with high temperature conditions. Phased array ultrasound was employed, searching for volumetric defects within the weld bead volume while Eddy currents were used to look for surface and sub-surface cracks. The results from the phased array ultrasound results showed the effectiveness of the cooling mechanisms and that temperature effects on sound attenuation can be easily compensated for up to 200 °C. The Eddy current results showed almost no influence when temperatures were raised up to 300 °C.publishersversionpublishe

Impact of the Mk VI SkinSuit on skin microbiota of terrestrial volunteers and an International Space Station-bound astronaut.

Microgravity induces physiological deconditioning due to the absence of gravity loading, resulting in bone mineral density loss, atrophy of lower limb skeletal and postural muscles, and lengthening of the spine. SkinSuit is a lightweight compression suit designed to provide head-to-foot (axial) loading to counteract spinal elongation during spaceflight. As synthetic garments may impact negatively on the skin microbiome, we used 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene amplicon procedures to define bacterial skin communities at sebaceous and moist body sites of five healthy male volunteers undergoing SkinSuit evaluation. Each volunteer displayed a diverse, distinct bacterial population at each skin site. Short (8 h) periods of dry hyper-buoyancy flotation wearing either gym kit or SkinSuit elicited changes in the composition of the skin microbiota at the genus level but had little or no impact on community structure at the phylum level or the richness and diversity of the bacterial population. We also determined the composition of the skin microbiota of an astronaut during pre-flight training, during an 8-day visit to the International Space Station involving two 6-7 h periods of SkinSuit wear, and for 1 month after return. Changes in composition of bacterial skin communities at five body sites were strongly linked to changes in geographical location. A distinct ISS bacterial microbiota signature was found which reversed to a pre-flight profile on return. No changes in microbiome complexity or diversity were noted, with little evidence for colonisation by potentially pathogenic bacteria; we conclude that short periods of SkinSuit wear induce changes to the composition of the skin microbiota but these are unlikely to compromise the healthy skin microbiome