A rapid, non invasive and simple molecular method for sex determination in pygoscelis penguins

En los pingüinos Adelia (Pygoscelis adeliae) y pingüinos papua (Pygoscelis papua), no existe un dimorfismo sexual conspicuo y a menudo resulta difícil determinar el sexo en base a la morfología externa. La información sobre el sexo es importante en muchos estudios de ecología y conservación. En este artículo se evaluó el uso de un par de cebadores (2550F/2718R) para identificar el sexo en aves sexualmente monomórficas. Para ambas especies de pingüinos la amplificación produjo dos bandas discretas, CHD1Z y CHD1W, que permitieron la identificación sexual. Se trata de un sistema sencillo, rápido y económico para el sexaje molecular de los pingüinos papua y Adelia.In Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) and gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua), the conspicuous sexual dimorphism often makes it difficult to determine sex on the basis of external morphology. The information about sex is important in many ecology and conservation studies. In this paper we evaluated the use of an established primer pair (2550F/2718R) to identify sex in sexually monomorphic birds. In both penguin species, it resulted in two distinct CHD1Z and CHD1W PCR bands, allowing sex identification. This is a simple, rapid and cheap system for molecular sexing of gentoo and Adélie penguins.Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología CelularFacultad de Ciencias Naturales y MuseoConsejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnica

Adaptação portuguesa do questionário de qualidade de vida (SAQLI) nos doentes com síndrome de apneia obstructiva do sono

Objetivo: A Síndrome da Apneia Obstrutiva do Sono é a patologia do sono mais prevalente e afeta os vários domínios de qualidade de vida destes doentes, sendo necessária a sua avaliac¸ão objetiva. O objetivo do presente estudo foi o de validar, para a populac¸ão portuguesa, uma medida específica de qualidade de vida relacionada com a apneia do sono - o SAQLI. Material e métodos: Uma amostra de 206 pacientes portugueses com apneia do sono completou a versão portuguesa do SAQLI para avaliac¸ão da sua compreensibilidade, validade de construto e confiabilidade, e repetiu as mesmas medidas após um e três meses de terapia com CPAP. A medida de ansiedade e depressão hospitalares (HADS) foi também utilizada para testar a validade de construto. Resultados: Os resultados de validade interna revelados pelo coeficiente de alfa de Cronbach foram acima do padrão (0,70) para todos os domínios. A análise fatorial mostrou que os itens de funcionamento diário, emocional e sintomas saturaram nos domínios originais da escala. Os dados longitudinais revelaram uma diferenc¸a significativa (p < 0,001) em cada domínio do SAQLI e entre o resultado total, antes e após o uso do CPAP. Em termos de validade externa, todos os domínios SAQLI se correlacionaram negativamente com as escalas de ansiedade e depressão. Conclusões: Os resultados do presente estudo demonstraram que a versão em português do SAQLI apresenta uma boa qualidade psicométrica e é válida para avaliar o impacto da apneia do sono e tratamento com CPAP em pacientes portugueses.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

System for monitoring and supporting the treatment of sleep apnea using IoT and big data

[EN] Sleep apnea has become in the sleep disorder that causes greater concern in recent years due to its morbidity and mortality, higher medical care costs and poor people quality of life. Some proposals have addressed sleep apnea disease in elderly people, but they have still some technical limitations. For these reasons, this paper presents an innovative system based on fog and cloud computing technologies which in combination with IoT and big data platforms offers new opportunities to build novel and innovative services for supporting the sleep apnea and to overcome the current limitations. Particularly, the system is built on several low-power wireless networks with heterogeneous smart devices (i.e, sensors and actuators). In the fog, an edge node (Smart IoT Gateway) provides IoT connection and interoperability and pre-processing IoT data to detect events in real-time that might endanger the elderly's health and to act accordingly. In the cloud, a Generic Enabler Context Broker manages, stores and injects data into the big data analyzer for further processing and analyzing. The system's performance and subjective applicability are evaluated using over 30 GB size datasets and a questionnaire fulfilled by medicals specialist, respectively. Results show that the system data analytics improve the health professionals' decision making to monitor and guide sleep apnea treatment, as well as improving elderly people's quality of life. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This research was supported by the Ecuadorian Government through the Secretary of Higher Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation (SENESCYT) and has received funding from the European Union's "Horizon 2020'' research and innovation program as part of the ACTIVAGE project under Grant 732679 and the Interoperability of Heterogeneous IoT Platforms project (INTER-IoT) under Grant 687283.Yacchirema-Vargas, DC.; Sarabia-Jácome, DF.; Palau Salvador, CE.; Esteve Domingo, M. (2018). System for monitoring and supporting the treatment of sleep apnea using IoT and big data. Pervasive and Mobile Computing. 50:25-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmcj.2018.07.007S25405

Large genomic introgression blocks of Phaseolus parvifolius Freytag bean into the common bean enhance the crossability between tepary and common beans

The production of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), one of the most important sources of protein and minerals and one of the most consumed grain legumes globally, is highly affected by heat and drought constraints. In contrast, the tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius A. Gray), a common bean-related species, is adapted to hot and dry climates. Hybridization to introduce complex traits from the tepary bean into the common bean has been challenging, as embryo rescue is required. In this study, we report three novel interspecific lines that were obtained by crossing lines from prior common bean tepary bean hybridization with Phaseolus parvifolius Frey tag in order to increase the male gametic diversity to facilitate interspecific crosses. These interspecific lines enhanced the crossability of the common bean and tepary bean species while avoiding the embryo rescue process. Crossing these three interspecific lines with tepary beans resulted in 12-fold more hybrid plants than crossing traditional common beans with tepary beans. Whole-genome sequencing analysis of these three interspecific lines shows large introgressions of genomic regions corresponding to P. parvifolius on chromosomes that presumably contribute to reproductive barriers between both species. The development of these lines opens up the possibility of increasing the introgression of desirable tepary bean traits into the common bean to address constraints driven by climate change

Methodology for the evaluation of environmental costs in thermal generation in Peru

Evaluating the costs of electricity generation is important to be able to estimate the variable costs, characterized by the maintenance costs of the generation, transmission and distribution systems. In this work we evaluate the plants that use Camisea natural gas, which is an alternative to the plants that use fossil fuels, not only in terms of costs, but also in terms of the levels of contamination that they cause. The method presented can be taken as a reference for other evaluation mechanisms with similar characteristics.Campus At

Spin polarization of carriers in InGaAs self-assembled quantum rings inserted in GaAs-AlGaAs resonant tunneling devices

In this work, we have investigated transport and polarization resolved photoluminescence (PL) of n-type GaAs-AlGaAs resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) containing a layer of InGaAs self-assembled quantum rings (QRs) in the quantum well (QW). All measurements were performed under applied voltage, magnetic fields up to 15 T and using linearly polarized laser excitation. It was observed that the QRs’ PL intensity and the circular polarization degree (CPD) oscillate periodically with applied voltage under high magnetic fields at 2 K. Our results demonstrate an effective voltage control of the optical and spin properties of InGaAs QRs inserted into RTDs