The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Policies on the Employees´ Psychological Contract

(WP33/02 Clave pdf) The relations between the organizations and their employees are governed by a highly complex framework of motives and perceptions difficult to unravel. As a result of the daily practice of such relationship, there is a permanent exchange of individual efforts and incentives for the sake of satisfaction of organizational needs. The objective of the present work is to look into the essence of such exchanges and specifically to analyse the power of certain corporate policies, such as Social Responsibility ones, as incentives both for stimulating employee´s willingness to cooperate and for enriching his/her commitment with the company...Business alliances, Business ethics, Corporate social responsibility, Psychological contract, Social cause

Internal Languages of Finitely Complete (∞,1)(\infty, 1)-categories

We prove that the homotopy theory of Joyal's tribes is equivalent to that of fibration categories. As a consequence, we deduce a variant of the conjecture asserting that Martin-L\"of Type Theory with dependent sums and intensional identity types is the internal language of $(\infty, 1)$-categories with finite limits.Comment: 41 pages, minor revision

The impact of brain lesion characteristics and the corticospinal tract wiring on mirror movements in unilateral cerebral palsy.

Mirror movements (MM) influence bimanual performance in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (uCP). Whilst MM are related to brain lesion characteristics and the corticospinal tract (CST) wiring pattern, the combined impact of these neurological factors remains unknown. Forty-nine children with uCP (mean age 10y6mo) performed a repetitive squeezing task to quantify similarity (MM-similarity) and strength (MM-intensity) of the MM activity. We used MRI data to evaluate lesion type (periventricular white matter, N = 30; cortico-subcortical, N = 19), extent of ipsilesional damage, presence of bilateral lesions, and damage to basal ganglia, thalamus and corpus callosum. The CST wiring was assessed with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (17 CSTcontralateral, 16 CSTipsilateral, 16 CSTbilateral). Data was analyzed with regression analyses. In the more-affected hand, MM-similarity and intensity were higher with CSTbilateral/ipsilateral. In the less-affected hand, MM-similarity was higher in children with (1) CSTcontra with CSC lesions, (2) CSTbilat/ipsi with PVL lesions and (3) CSTbilat/ipsi with unilateralized lesions. MM-intensity was higher with larger damage to the corpus callosum and unilateral lesions. A complex combination of neurological factors influences MM characteristics, and the mechanisms differ between hands

Effect of sugammadex on processed EEG parameters in patients undergoing robot-assisted radical prostatectomy

Background: Sugammadex has been associated with increases in the bispectral index (BIS). We evaluated the effects of sugammadex administration on quantitative electroencephalographic (EEG) and electromyographic (EMG) measures. Methods: We performed a prospective observational study of adult male patients undergoing robot-assisted radical prostatectomy. All patients received a sevoflurane-based general anaesthetic and a continuous infusion of rocuronium, which was reversed with 2 mg kg1 of sugammadex i.v. BIS, EEG, and EMG measures were captured with the BIS Vista™ monitor. Results: Twenty-five patients were included in this study. Compared with baseline, BIS increased at 4e6 min (b coefficient: 3.63; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.22e5.04; P<0.001), spectral edge frequency 95 (SEF95) increased at 2e4 min (b coefficient: 0.29; 95% CI: 0.05e0.52; P¼0.016) and 4e6 min (b coefficient: 0.71; 95% CI: 0.47e0.94; P<0.001), and EMG increased at 4e6 min (b coefficient: 1.91; 95% CI: 1.00e2.81; P<0.001) after sugammadex administration. Compared with baseline, increased beta power was observed at 2e4 min (b coefficient: 93; 95% CI: 1e185; P¼0.046) and 4e6 min (b coefficient: 208; 95% CI: 116e300; P<0.001), and decreased delta power was observed at 4e6 min (b coefficient: 526.72; 95% CI: 778 to 276; P<0.001) after sugammadex administration. Neither SEF95 nor frequency band data analysis adjusted for EMG showed substantial differences. None of the patients showed clinical signs of awakening. Conclusions: After neuromuscular block reversal with 2 mg kg1 sugammadex, BIS, SEF95, EMG, and beta power showed small but statistically significant increases over time, while delta power decreased

Effects of dexmedetomidine on subthalamic local field potentials in parkinson's disease

Background: Dexmedetomidine is frequently used for sedation during deep brain stimulator implantation in patients with Parkinson's disease, but its effect on subthalamic nucleus activity is not well known. The aim of this study was to quantify the effect of increasing doses of dexmedetomidine in this population. Methods: Controlled clinical trial assessing changes in subthalamic activity with increasing doses of dexmedetomidine (from 0.2 to 0.6 μg kg-1 h-1) in a non-operating theatre setting. We recorded local field potentials in 12 patients with Parkinson's disease with bilateral deep brain stimulators (24 nuclei) and compared basal activity in the nuclei of each patient and activity recorded with different doses. Plasma levels of dexmedetomidine were obtained and correlated with the dose administered. Results: With dexmedetomidine infusion, patients became clinically sedated, and at higher doses (0.5-0.6 μg kg-1 h-1) a significant decrease in the characteristic Parkinsonian subthalamic activity was observed (P<0.05 in beta activity). All subjects awoke to external stimulus over a median of 1 (range: 0-9) min, showing full restoration of subthalamic activity. Dexmedetomidine dose administered and plasma levels showed a positive correlation (repeated measures correlation coefficient=0.504; P<0.001). Conclusions: Patients needing some degree of sedation throughout subthalamic deep brain stimulator implantation for Parkinson's disease can probably receive dexmedetomidine up to 0.6 μg kg-1 h-1 without significant alteration of their characteristic subthalamic activity. If patients achieve a 'sedated' state, subthalamic activity decreases, but they can be easily awakened with a non-pharmacological external stimulus and recover baseline subthalamic activity patterns in less than 10 min

Predicting AT(N) pathologies in Alzheimer’s disease from blood-based proteomic data using neural networks

Background and objective: Blood-based biomarkers represent a promising approach to help identify early Alzheimer's disease (AD). Previous research has applied traditional machine learning (ML) to analyze plasma omics data and search for potential biomarkers, but the most modern ML methods based on deep learning has however been scarcely explored. In the current study, we aim to harness the power of state-of-the-art deep learning neural networks (NNs) to identify plasma proteins that predict amyloid, tau, and neurodegeneration (AT[N]) pathologies in AD. Methods: We measured 3,635 proteins using SOMAscan in 881 participants from the European Medical Information Framework for AD Multimodal Biomarker Discovery study (EMIF-AD MBD). Participants underwent measurements of brain amyloid β (Aβ) burden, phosphorylated tau (p-tau) burden, and total tau (t-tau) burden to determine their AT(N) statuses. We ranked proteins by their association with Aβ, p-tau, t-tau, and AT(N), and fed the top 100 proteins along with age and apolipoprotein E (APOE) status into NN classifiers as input features to predict these four outcomes relevant to AD. We compared NN performance of using proteins, age, and APOE genotype with performance of using age and APOE status alone to identify protein panels that optimally improved the prediction over these main risk factors. Proteins that improved the prediction for each outcome were aggregated and nominated for pathway enrichment and protein-protein interaction enrichment analysis. Results: Age and APOE alone predicted Aβ, p-tau, t-tau, and AT(N) burden with area under the curve (AUC) scores of 0.748, 0.662, 0.710, and 0.795. The addition of proteins significantly improved AUCs to 0.782, 0.674, 0.734, and 0.831, respectively. The identified proteins were enriched in five clusters of AD-associated pathways including human immunodeficiency virus 1 infection, p53 signaling pathway, and phosphoinositide-3-kinase-protein kinase B/Akt signaling pathway. Conclusion: Combined with age and APOE genotype, the proteins identified have the potential to serve as blood-based biomarkers for AD and await validation in future studies. While the NNs did not achieve better scores than the support vector machine model used in our previous study, their performances were likely limited by small sample size. Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; amyloid β; artificial neural networks; machine learning; neurodegeneration; plasma proteomics; ta

Basal oxidation of conserved cysteines modulates cardiac titin stiffness and dynamics

Titin, as the main protein responsible for the passive stiffness of the sarcomere, plays a key role in diastolic function and is a determinant factor in the etiology of heart disease. Titin stiffness depends on unfolding and folding transitions of immunoglobulin-like (Ig) domains of the I-band, and recent studies have shown that oxidative modifications of cryptic cysteines belonging to these Ig domains modulate their mechanical properties in vitro. However, the relevance of this mode of titin mechanical modulation in vivo remains largely unknown. Here, we describe the high evolutionary conservation of titin mechanical cysteines and show that they are remarkably oxidized in murine cardiac tissue. Mass spectrometry analyses indicate a similar landscape of basal oxidation in murine and human myocardium. Monte Carlo simulations illustrate how disulfides and S-thiolations on these cysteines increase the dynamics of the protein at physiological forces, while enabling load- and isoform-dependent regulation of titin stiffness. Our results demonstrate the role of conserved cysteines in the modulation of titin mechanical properties in vivo and point to potential redox-based pathomechanisms in heart disease.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación grants BIO2014-54768-P, BIO2017-83640-P, RYC-2014-16604 to JAC and PGC2018-097019-B-I00 to JV, the Regional Government of Madrid grants S2018/NMT-4443 and PEJ16/MED/TL-1593 to JAC and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria grant PRB3 (PT17/0019/0003- ISCIII-SGEFI /ERDF, ProteoRed), and “la Caixa” Banking Foundation (project code HR17-00247) to JV. We acknowledge funding from the European Research Area Network on Cardiovascular Disease through grant MINOTAUR to SS (The Austrian Science Fund – FWF, I3301) and JAC (ISCIII-AC16/00045). The CNIC is supported by ISCIII, the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and the Pro CNIC Foundation, and was a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (SEV-2015-0505). IMM was the recipient of a CNIC-ACCIONA Masters Fellowship and holds a fellowship from “La Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434, fellowship code LCF/BQ/DR20/11790009). CSC is the recipient of an FPI-SO predoctoral fellowship BES-2016-076638. We thank Wolfgang A. Linke and Pablo García-Pavía for critical feedback. We are also thankful for the insights of three anonymous reviewers.S

A comparison of RNA-Seq results from paired formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded and fresh-frozen glioblastoma tissue samples.

The molecular classification of glioblastoma (GBM) based on gene expression might better explain outcome and response to treatment than clinical factors. Whole transcriptome sequencing using next-generation sequencing platforms is rapidly becoming accepted as a tool for measuring gene expression for both research and clinical use. Fresh frozen (FF) tissue specimens of GBM are difficult to obtain since tumor tissue obtained at surgery is often scarce and necrotic and diagnosis is prioritized over freezing. After diagnosis, leftover tissue is usually stored as formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue. However, RNA from FFPE tissues is usually degraded, which could hamper gene expression analysis. We compared RNA-Seq data obtained from matched pairs of FF and FFPE GBM specimens. Only three FFPE out of eleven FFPE-FF matched samples yielded informative results. Several quality-control measurements showed that RNA from FFPE samples was highly degraded but maintained transcriptomic similarities to RNA from FF samples. Certain issues regarding mutation analysis and subtype prediction were detected. Nevertheless, our results suggest that RNA-Seq of FFPE GBM specimens provides reliable gene expression data that can be used in molecular studies of GBM if the RNA is sufficiently preserved

The ocean sampling day consortium

Ocean Sampling Day was initiated by the EU-funded Micro B3 (Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology) project to obtain a snapshot of the marine microbial biodiversity and function of the world’s oceans. It is a simultaneous global mega-sequencing campaign aiming to generate the largest standardized microbial data set in a single day. This will be achievable only through the coordinated efforts of an Ocean Sampling Day Consortium, supportive partnerships and networks between sites. This commentary outlines the establishment, function and aims of the Consortium and describes our vision for a sustainable study of marine microbial communities and their embedded functional traits