41 research outputs found
The reading of “Paisaje Cultural” as a didactic strategy in the teaching of Social Sciences: The example of Las Hurdes, Extremadura
El Paisaje Cultural entendido como síntesis histórica, donde convergen naturaleza y manifestaciones humanas, pasado y presente, lo material e inmaterial, ofrece muchas posibilidades como estrategia didáctica para la enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales. Su uso contribuye a conseguir una Educación más coherente con la sociedad actual, como se contempla en la Ley Orgánica de Educación, y con los nuevos métodos pedagógicos. En este trabajo se analiza el Paisaje Cultural de Las Hurdes, tanto los aspectos físicos como humanos, y, además, se valora su papel como recurso para apoyar nuevas formas de enseñanza desde la creatividad, tendentes a conseguir aprendizajes integradores y constructivistas, así como al desarrollo de un pensamiento social crítico para interpretar la realidad. Por otra parte, con la lectura de estos Paisajes se pretende fomentar la preocupación del alumnado por la conservación y protección del Patrimonio Cultural.The reading of “Paisaje Cultural” (Cultural Landscape) as a didactic strategy offers many possibilities to escape from a teaching of the Social Sciences which is based, almost exclusively, on the textbook and memory learning. Its use contributes to a teaching method which is more coherent with present day society as the L.O.E. (Organic Law of Education) stipulates and is in line with new teaching methodologies which set out to promote the development of critical social thought to interpret reality and to convert information into knowledge so that young people are shown how to form a critical interpretation of society and so contribute to the revaluation and protection of the Cultural Heritage.peerReviewe
Quantum entanglement patterns in the structure of atomic nuclei within the nuclear shell model
Quantum entanglement offers a unique perspective into the underlying
structure of strongly-correlated systems such as atomic nuclei. In this paper,
we use quantum information tools to analyze the structure of light and medium
mass berillyum, oxygen, neon and calcium isotopes within the nuclear shell
model. We use different entanglement metrics, including single-orbital
entanglement, mutual information, and von Neumann entropies for different
equipartitions of the shell-model valence space and identify mode/entanglement
patterns related to the energy, angular momentum and isospin of the nuclear
single-particle orbitals. We observe that the single-orbital entanglement is
directly related to the number of valence nucleons and the energy structure of
the shell, while the mutual information highlights signatures of proton-proton
and neutron-neutron pairing. Proton and neutron orbitals are weakly entangled
by all measures, and in fact have the lowest von Neumann entropies among all
possible equipartitions of the valence space. In contrast, orbitals with
opposite angular momentum projection have relatively large entropies. This
analysis provides a guide for designing more efficient quantum algorithms for
the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era.Comment: Submitted to EPJA Topical Issue "Quantum computing in low-energy
nuclear theory
The SLC7A11: sperm mitochondrial function and non-canonical glutamate metabolism
Spermatozoa are redox-regulated cells, and stallion spermatozoa, in particular, present an intense mitochondrial activity in which large amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are produced. To maintain the redox potential under physiological conditions, sophisticated mechanisms ought to be present, particularly in the mitochondria. In the present study, we investigated the role of the SLC7A11 antiporter. This antiporter exchanges intracellular glutamate for extracellular cystine. In the spermatozoa, cystine is reduced to cysteine and used for GSH synthesis. The importance of the antiporter for mitochondrial functionality was studied using flow cytometry and UHPLC/MS/MS approaches. Intracellular GSH increased in the presence of cystine, but was reduced in the presence of Buthionine sulphoximine (BSO), a γ-glutamylcysteine synthetase inhibitor (P < 0.001). Inhibition of the SLC7A11 antiporter with sulfasalazine caused a dramatic drop in intracellular GSH (P < 0.001) and in the percentage of spermatozoa showing active mitochondria (P < 0.001). These findings suggest that proper functionality of this antiporter is required for the mitochondrial function of spermatozoa. We also describe that under some conditions, glutamate may be metabolized following non-conventional pathways, also contributing to sperm functionality. We provide evidences, that the stallion spermatozoa have important metabolic plasticity, and also of the relation between redox regulation and metabolic regulation. These findings may have important implications for the understanding of sperm biology and the development of new strategies for sperm conservation and treatment of male factor infertility
Seminal plasma proteins as potential biomarkers for sperm motility and velocities
Seminal plasma proteins have important roles in sperm functionality, and different mechanisms including micro-vesicle transport of proteins are involved in the regulation of sperm biology. Due to the role of seminal plasma, we hypothesized that specific proteins present in seminal plasma may be used as discriminant variables with potential to identify stallions producing different quality ejaculates; 10 fertile stallions, with different motility and velocity values (although within normal ranges) were used in this study. Motilities and velocities were studied using computer assisted sperm analysis (CASA), while protein composition of the seminal plasma was studied using UHPLC-MS/MS. Specific proteins were more abundant in samples with poorer percentages of total motility, average path velocity and circular velocity, and were: Secreted phosphoprotein 1, Fructose-bisphosphate aldolase (p = 1,95E-09; q = 0.0005) and Malate dehydrogenase 1 (p = 1,41E-11; q = 0.002), to the contrary samples with better straight-line velocity values were enriched in Glutathione peroxidase (p=0.00013; q=0.04) and Triosephosphate isomerase (p=0.00015; q=0.04)
Multidataset Incremental Training for Optic Disc Segmentation
When convolutional neural networks are applied to image
segmentation results depend greatly on the data sets used to train the
networks. Cloud providers support multi GPU and TPU virtual machines
making the idea of cloud-based segmentation as service attractive. In this
paper we study the problem of building a segmentation service, where
images would come from different acquisition instruments, by training a
generalized U-Net with images from a single or several datasets. We also
study the possibility of training with a single instrument and perform
quick retrains when more data is available. As our example we perform
segmentation of Optic Disc in fundus images which is useful for glau coma diagnosis. We use two publicly available data sets (RIM-One V3,
DRISHTI) for individual, mixed or incremental training. We show that
multidataset or incremental training can produce results that are simi lar to those published by researchers who use the same dataset for both
training and validation
RICORS2040 : The need for collaborative research in chronic kidney disease
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a silent and poorly known killer. The current concept of CKD is relatively young and uptake by the public, physicians and health authorities is not widespread. Physicians still confuse CKD with chronic kidney insufficiency or failure. For the wider public and health authorities, CKD evokes kidney replacement therapy (KRT). In Spain, the prevalence of KRT is 0.13%. Thus health authorities may consider CKD a non-issue: very few persons eventually need KRT and, for those in whom kidneys fail, the problem is 'solved' by dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, KRT is the tip of the iceberg in the burden of CKD. The main burden of CKD is accelerated ageing and premature death. The cut-off points for kidney function and kidney damage indexes that define CKD also mark an increased risk for all-cause premature death. CKD is the most prevalent risk factor for lethal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the factor that most increases the risk of death in COVID-19, after old age. Men and women undergoing KRT still have an annual mortality that is 10- to 100-fold higher than similar-age peers, and life expectancy is shortened by ~40 years for young persons on dialysis and by 15 years for young persons with a functioning kidney graft. CKD is expected to become the fifth greatest global cause of death by 2040 and the second greatest cause of death in Spain before the end of the century, a time when one in four Spaniards will have CKD. However, by 2022, CKD will become the only top-15 global predicted cause of death that is not supported by a dedicated well-funded Centres for Biomedical Research (CIBER) network structure in Spain. Realizing the underestimation of the CKD burden of disease by health authorities, the Decade of the Kidney initiative for 2020-2030 was launched by the American Association of Kidney Patients and the European Kidney Health Alliance. Leading Spanish kidney researchers grouped in the kidney collaborative research network Red de Investigación Renal have now applied for the Redes de Investigación Cooperativa Orientadas a Resultados en Salud (RICORS) call for collaborative research in Spain with the support of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, Federación Nacional de Asociaciones para la Lucha Contra las Enfermedades del Riñón and ONT: RICORS2040 aims to prevent the dire predictions for the global 2040 burden of CKD from becoming true
Morphometric and immunohistochemical study of the reticulum of red deer during prenatal development
Iberian red deer need to be conserved for their economic role and for their genetic importance as an important component of the ecosystem. Modifications currently being made to traditional management systems require a better understanding of the structure, function and development of their alimentary system. Here we describe a histomorphometric and immunohistochemical analysis of the stomach of 25 red deer embryos and fetuses from 30 days of gestation until birth (235 days). Differentiation of the reticular compartment from the primitive gastric tube begins at 67 days, forming a three-layered structure: epithelium, pluripotential blastemal tissue and serosa. The primitive reticular cells are initiated as small epithelial evaginations (primary ribs) at 117 days. At 142 days, lateral growths appear from the primary reticular ribs, forming the corneum papillae. The secondary reticular ribs form at 142 days as growths from the primary ribs. The uneven height of primary and secondary reticular ribs leads to the formation of cells of varying size. Growth of the reticular ribs involves the lamina propria but not the submucosa, so clear separation of these layers is maintained during histodifferentiation. Formation of the tunica muscularis from the pluripotential blastemal tissue begins at 67 days of intrauterine life, as two layers of longitudinally and circularly arranged myoblasts. Differentiation of the muscularis from the mucosa occurs at approximately 205 days, as longitudinal projections of the internal bundles of the tunica muscularis form the musculature of the primary ribs. The secretion of neutral and acid mucopolysaccharides by the reticular epithelial layer begins at 67 days, establishing the gradual adaptation of the mucosa to its protective function in postnatal life. Neuroendocrine (non-neuron enolase) and glial cells (glial fibrillary acidic protein and vimentin) were detected by immunohistochemistry, in a similar localization and intensity to that reported in the rumen. The neuropeptides vasoactive intestinal peptide and neuropeptide Y showed a positive immunoreaction in the reticular epithelium from 142 days of prenatal life, again earlier than reported for the rumen. In comparison with domestic ruminants, deer were shown to be less precocious with regard to development of gastric tube, in their capacity to secrete neutral mucopolysaccharides, and in their neuroendocrine nature, as determined by the detection of positive neuroedocrine and/or glial cells