Exploitation of nuclear and cytoplasm variability in Hordeum chilense for wheat breeding

Hordeum chilense Roem. et Schultz. is a diploid wild barley native to Chile and Argentina. The high crossability of this species with other members of the Triticeae tribe promoted the development of the new species × Tritordeum Ascherson et Graebner. Hexaploid tritordeum was developed from the hybrid derived from the cross between H. chilense (used as female parent) and durum wheat. The interest of H. chilense is based on the presence of traits potentially useful for wheat breeding, including high endosperm carotenoid content, septoria tritici blotch resistance and abiotic stress tolerance. Besides, the variability at cytoplasm level is also important in this species. The development of common wheat-H. chilense alloplasmic lines (nucleus from wheat and cytoplasm from H. chilense) results in fertile or male sterile genotypes, depending on the accession donating the cytoplasm. Furthermore, these alloplasmic lines constitute an ideal system for deepening our knowledge on nuclear-cytoplasm interactions. In conclusion, H. chilense is an interesting source of variability for wheat breeding. © 2011 NIAB.Our work in this area is supported by grants (to S. G. A.) AGL2008-03720, and P09-AGR-4817 from Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Junta de Andalucía and FEDER. C. R.-S. acknowledges financial support from CSIC (JAE-Doc program).Peer Reviewe

La competencia de liderazgo en el grado de enfermería: Un análisis factorial de componentes principales

L'aspecte competencial està cada dia més present en la societat, des dels nivells acadèmics als laborals. D'una bona base en l'adquisició de competències en depèn una bona part l'èxit professional dels graduats, per això l'anàlisi per potenciar la seva adquisició s'ha convertit en un tema d'estudi recurrent, tant en l'aspecte de les competències bàsiques/transversals, com en el de les específiques. Les darreres seran les que tindran una incidència diferent en funció del tipus d'estudi, al mateix temps que experimentaran variacions importants en funció dels reptes i projectes innovadors que les organitzacions hagin d'afrontar. Entre las primeres, una de les competències que exerceix un paper primordial, i en la que s'ha centrat l'estudi, és la capacitat de lideratge. En concret, aquest treball analitza com perceben i adquireixen la capacitat de lideratge els estudiants d'infermeria de la Universitat de Barcelona, ja que els resulta fonamental per exercir la influència en un grup i per aconseguir les metes proposades. Per això es va preparar un qüestionari amb 70 preguntes que recollien les competències transversals i específiques adquirides en el procés d'aprenentatge, així com l'actitud de l'estudiant davant del procés d'aprenentatge. La població subjecte d'estudi van ser els estudiants del grau d'infermeria de la Universitat de Barcelona durant el curs acadèmic 2012-2013; i la tècnica de mostreig seleccionada va ser el mostreig incidental. El treball aplica l'anàlisi multivariant per reduir la dimensionalitat de les variables estudiades. En concret, l'anàlisi factorial mitjançant components principals ha permès identificar els aspectes que resumeixen i agrupen les 20 variables estudiades en 4 factors: capacitació per a la professionalització, treball autònom, capacitat crítica i presa de decisions en equips. Posteriorment, a partir de les puntuacions d'aquests quatre factors i amb la inclusió de les variables edat, sexe i procedència, es va construir un model de regressió logísticomultinomial. Els resultats obtinguts indiquen que els quatre factors influeixen positivament a l'hora d'incrementar la probabilitat de passar d'una capacitat de lideratge d'un nivell nul a un nivell mig, mentre que en l'increment de la probabilitat de pas d'una capacitat de lideratge nul·la a una d'elevada només els tres darrers factors tenen influènci

Punts forts i punts febles en la recerca infermera realitzada a l’ atenció domiciliària

L'atenció domiciliària és el sector de salut que ha experimentat un major increment en els darrers anys al nostre país. No obstant això, la recerca en atenció domiciliària està encara poc desenvolupada. Objectiu: identificar els punts forts i els punts febles de la recerca infermera en l'àmbit domiciliari. Mètode: Un primer anàlisi realitzat per la investigadora principal permet conèixer les necessitats de les persones que són ateses per l'atenció domiciliària així com els aspectes de cures lligats a una major qualitat de vida. En un segon anàlisi es va realitzar un grup de discussió sobre els punts febles i els punts forts de la investigació infermera. Resultats: els punts forts estan relacionats amb la satisfacció professional, el millor coneixement de l'entorn i necessitats del pacient, els punts febles estan vinculats a la manca de recursos, a la manca de temps i formació, i a la falta de grups i línies d" investigació. Conclusions: Les dades obtingudes mitjançant l'anàlisi dels aspectes que envolten la investigació infermera en l'àmbit de l'atenció primària suggereixen una sèrie de propostes amb l'objectiu de disminuir les dificultats observades a més de potenciar la recerca. Les propostes són: en l'àmbit de la formació universitària, en l'àmbit de la gestió sanitària i en l'àmbit professional. Pensem que això pot servir de punt de reflexió a futures investigacions, de manera que augmenti el nombre d'infermeres que investiguin en els seus camps de treball

Actitudes hacia la diversidad. La discriminación y el estigma en estudiantes de trabajo social mexicanos

Socially certain traits or attributes are structurally devalued and generate processes in which it is ranked lower than those who are labeled under those characteristics. Thus generating processes of violation of Human Rights, discrimination and social exclusion that are produced and reproduced by society and its structures. Starting from the Mexican discrimination surveys ENADIS, a Likert scale is constructed to measure the degree of discomfort towards various stigmas and it is proposed to identify the reasons for the respective attitudes. For this, 375 Mexican students of Social Work have been taken into account. The results show that sexuality and issues derived from nationality and ethnicity are the most susceptible to stigma. Likewise, it is evident that the fact of knowing people with these characteristics, the sex and the formative level are determinant.Socialmente ciertos rasgos o atributos son estructuralmente devaluados y generan procesos en los que se jerarquiza de forma inferior a quienes se etiquetan bajo dichas características. Generando así procesos de violación de los Derechos Humanos, discriminación y exclusión social que son producidos y reproducidos por la sociedad y sus estructuras. Partiendo de las encuestas mexicanas de discriminación ENADIS se construye una escala Likert para medir el grado de incomodidad hacia diversos estigmas y se propone identificar los motivos por los que se producen las respectivas actitudes. Para ello se ha tomado en consideración a 375 estudiantes mexicanos de Trabajo Social. Los resultados evidencian que la sexualidad y las cuestiones derivadas de la nacionalidad y la etnia son los rasgos más susceptibles al estigma. Así mismo se evidencia que el hecho de conocer a personas con dichos características, el sexo y el nivel formativos son determinantes.Socially certain traits or attributes are structurally devalued and generate processes in which it is ranked lower than those who are labeled under those characteristics. Thus generating processes of violation of Human Rights, discrimination and social exclusion that are produced and reproduced by society and its structures. Starting from the Mexican discrimination surveys ENADIS, a Likert scale is constructed to measure the degree of discomfort towards various stigmas and it is proposed to identify the reasons for the respective attitudes. For this, 375 Mexican students of Social Work have been taken into account. The results show that sexuality and issues derived from nationality and ethnicity are the most susceptible to stigma. Likewise, it is evident that the fact of knowing people with these characteristics, the sex and the formative level are determinant

Genome-Wide Association Analysis for Stem Cross Section Properties, Height and Heading Date in a Collection of Spanish Durum Wheat Landraces

Durum wheat landraces have a high potential for breeding but they remain underexploited due to several factors, including the insufficient evaluation of these plant materials and the lack of efficient selection tools for transferring target traits into elite backgrounds. In this work, we characterized 150 accessions of the Spanish durum wheat collection for stem cross section, height and heading date. Continuous variation and high heritabilities were recorded for the stem area, pith area, pith diameter, culm wall thickness, height and heading date. The accessions were genotyped with DArTSeq markers, which were aligned to the durum wheat ‘Svevo’ genome. The markers corresponding to genes, with a minor allele frequency above 5% and less than 10% of missing data, were used for genome-wide association scan analysis. Twenty-nine marker-trait associations (MTAs) were identified and compared with the positions of previously known QTLs. MTAs for height and heading date co-localized with the QTLs for these traits. In addition, all the MTAs for stem traits in chromosome 2B were located in the corresponding synteny regions of the markers associated with lodging in bread wheat. Finally, several MTAs for stem traits co-located with the QTL for wheat stem sawfly (WSS) resistance. The results presented herein reveal the same genomic regions in chromosome 2B are involved in the genetic control of stem traits and lodging tolerance in both durum and bread wheat. In addition, these results suggest the importance of stem traits for WSS resistance and the potential of these landraces as donors for lodging tolerance and WSS resistance enhancement. In this context, the MTAs for stem-related traits identified in this work can serve as a reference for further development of markers for the introgression of target traits into elite materialThis research was funded by the Instituto de Investigación y Formación Agraria y Pesquera (IFAPA), Junta de Andalucía, grant number AVA-AVA2019.020 cofounded at 80% by FEDER. C.M.A., J.S. and S.G.A. are members of the FiRCMe Network, funded by Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (AGL2016-81855-REDT). M.D.R.-R. was the recipient of a fellowship from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (PRE2018-084037)

La gestión de la información en un enfoque a partir de la entropía

The entropy and information are related.  From the review of the mathematical theory involving these concepts, the objective are to analyze and synthesize the basic elements as well as to value the concept of entropy associated to the information management and its implications in the enterprise organization. In such context, the fundamental properties on entropy are discussed from the thermodynamic point of view and out of this frame as well as the features of information, which can give rise to a redimensioning of its management, taking into account stochastic factors that can produce disorders in the system.  It is concluded that such magnitude represents a methodological resource to focus the information management in the process of functioning of the enterprise as a system.La entropía y la información están íntimamente relacionadas. A partir de una revisión de la teoría matemática que involucra a estos conceptos, los objetivos se centran en sintetizar y analizar los elementos teóricos básicos así como valorar  el concepto de entropía asociado al manejo informacional y sus implicaciones en la organización de una entidad.  En tal contexto, se discuten las propiedades fundamentales de la entropía desde el punto de vista termodinámicos y fuera de éste marco, así como los rasgos de la información que pueden conducir a un redimensionamiento de su gestión teniendo en cuenta los  factores estocásticos que propician efectos  de desorganización sobre el sistema. Se concluye que dicha magnitud representa un recurso metodológico para enfocar la gestión de información en el proceso de funcionamiento de las entidades como un sistema

Earliest Porotic Hyperostosis on a 1.5-Million-year-old Hominin, olduvai gorge, Tanzania.

Meat-eating was an important factor affecting early hominin brain expansion, social organization and geographic movement. Stone tool butchery marks on ungulate fossils in several African archaeological assemblages demonstrate a significant level of carnivory by Pleistocene hominins, but the discovery at Olduvai Gorge of a child's pathological cranial fragments indicates that some hominins probably experienced scarcity of animal foods during various stages of their life histories. The child's parietal fragments, excavated from 1.5-million-year-old sediments, show porotic hyperostosis, a pathology associated with anemia. Nutritional deficiencies, including anemia, are most common at weaning, when children lose passive immunity received through their mothers' milk. Our results suggest, alternatively, that (1) the developmentally disruptive potential of weaning reached far beyond sedentary Holocene food-producing societies and into the early Pleistocene, or that (2) a hominin mother's meat-deficient diet negatively altered the nutritional content of her breast milk to the extent that her nursing child ultimately died from malnourishment. Either way, this discovery highlights that by at least 1.5 million years ago early human physiology was already adapted to a diet that included the regular consumption of meat

Recombination of the porcine X chromosome : a high density linkage map

Linkage maps are essential tools for the study of several topics in genome biology. High density linkage maps for the porcine autosomes have been constructed exploiting the high density data provided by the PorcineSNP60 BeadChip. However, a high density SSCX linkage map has not been reported up to date. The aim of the current study was to build an accurate linkage map of SSCX to provide precise estimates of recombination rates along this chromosome and creating a new tool for QTL fine mapping. A female-specific high density linkage map was built for SSCX using Sscrofa10.2 annotation. The total length of this chromosome was 84.61 cM; although the average recombination rate was 0.60 cM/Mb, both cold and hot recombination regions were identified. A Bayesian probabilistic to genetic groups and revealed that the animals used in the current study for linkage map construction were likely to be carriers of X chromosomes of European origin. Finally, the newly generated linkage map was used to fine-map a QTL at 16 cM for intramuscular fat content (IMF) measured on longissimus dorsi. The sulfatase isozyme S gene constitutes a functional and positional candidate gene underlying the QTL effect. The current study presents for the first time a high density linkage map for SSCX and supports the presence of cold and hot recombination intervals along this chromosome. The large cold recombination region in the central segment of the chromosome is not likely to be due to structural differences between X chromosomes of European and Asian origin. In addition, the newly generated linkage map has allowed us to fine-map a QTL on SSCX for fat deposition. The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12863-014-0148-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Aproximaciones metabolómica y transcriptómica a la gestión del metabolismo en las acículas de Pinus pinaster L. aiton

Aproximaciones metabolómica y transcriptómica a la gestión del metabolismo en las acículas de Pinus pinaster L. Aiton Rafael A. Cañas1, Javier Canales1, Carmen Muñoz2, Jose M. Granados1, Ma Belén Pascual1, Concepción Ávila1, María L. García-Martín2, Francisco M. Cánovas1. 1Departamento de Biología Molecular y Bioquímica, Facultad de Ciencias, Instituto Andaluz de Biotecnología, Universidad de Málaga, Campus Universitario de Teatinos s/n, 29071, MÁLAGA. [email protected] 2Unidad de Nanoimagen, Centro Andaluz de Nanomedicina y Biotecnología (BIONAND), Parque Tecnológico de Andalucía, C/ Severo Ochoa 35, 29590 Campanillas (MÁLAGA) El pino marítimo (Pinus pinaster L. Aiton) es una conífera de hoja perenne con un ciclo de vida largo y cuyas acículas pueden permanecer activas en el árbol varios años. Las coníferas y, en concreto, P. pinaster son especies modelo en el contexto de la producción de madera o de la síntesis de los flavonoides y terpenoides, componentes de la resina. A pesar de ello, el metabolismo y la biología molecular de las hojas (acículas) de las coníferas han sido escasamente estudiados por lo que las relaciones entre los tejidos productores o fuentes y los tejidos consumidores o sumideros no son bien conocidas en este grupo de plantas. En este trabajo nos proponemos el estudio de las acículas desde dos aproximaciones distintas: la metabolómica y la transcriptómica. Para ello se han obtenido muestras de acículas de P. pinaster en condiciones naturales a lo largo de un año completo separando las acículas por su edad. El estudio metabolómico se ha desarrollado mediante H1-NMR para lo que se ha desarrollado una librería de espectros de referencia de 70 metabolitos diferentes. Para el estudio transcriptómico se ha empleado un microarray de cDNA con 8.000 puntos de hibridación (PINARRAY2) y que ha sido desarrollado por nuestro grupo de investigación. Para el estudio de los datos obtenidos se ha empleado un análisis de redes de co-expresión (WGCNA).Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Persistent changes in exploration and hyperactivity coexist with cognitive impairment in mice withdrawn from chronic cocaine

Repeated cocaine exposure induces lasting neurobehavioral adaptations such as cognitive decline in animal models. However, persistent changes in spontaneous –unconditioned- motor and exploratory responses are scarcely reported. In this study, mice were administered with cocaine (20 mg/kg/day) or vehicle for 12 consecutive days. After 24 days of drug abstinence, a behavioral assessment was carried out in drug-free conditions and in unfamiliar environments (i.e. no cocaine-associated cues were presented). The cocaine-withdrawn mice showed cognitive deficits in spontaneous alternation behavior and place recognition memory. Importantly, they also displayed hyperlocomotion, increased rearing activity and altered exploratory patterns in different tasks. In the forced swimming test, they were more active (struggled/climbed more) when trying to escape from the water albeit showing normal immobility behavior. In conclusion, in addition to cognitive deficits, chronic cocaine in rodents may induce long-lasting alterations in exploratory activity and psychomotor activation that are triggered even in absence of drug-related stimuli.This study was funded by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO, Agencia Estatal de Investigación –AEI-) cofounded by the European Regional Development Fund-FEDER, UE- (PSI2015–73,156-JIN to E.C–O.; PSI2017–82604R to L.J.S.), RETICS Red de Trastornos Adictivos (ERDF-EU; RD16/0017/0001 to F.R.F.) and University of Málaga (B4: ‘Ayudas para Proyectos Puente’to E.C–O). Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga /CBUA. Authors M.C.M-P., F. A-G. and S. G-R. hold predoctoral grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (FPU17/00276 to M.C.M-P.; PRE2018–085673 to F.A-G.; and FPU18/00941 to S.G-R.). Author D.L.G.M. holds a postdoctoral grant from University of Málaga (A.3. Plan Propio de Investigación y Transferencia Universidad de Málaga)