Protein unfolding and refolding as transitions through virtual states

Single-molecule atomic force spectroscopy probes elastic properties of titin, ubiquitin and other relevant proteins. We explain bioprotein folding dynamics under both length- and force-clamp by modeling polyprotein modules as particles in a bistable potential, weakly connected by harmonic spring linkers. Multistability of equilibrium extensions provides the characteristic sawtooth force-extension curve. We show that abrupt or stepwise unfolding and refolding under force-clamp conditions involve transitions through virtual states (which are quasi-stationary domain configurations) modified by thermal noise. These predictions agree with experimental observations

The perception of families about the teaching of second languages

El dominio de pluralidad de lenguas se ha convertido en una de las competencias profesionales más demandadas, de ahí, la relevancia socioeducativa que ha adquirido el aprendizaje de segundas o terceras lenguas, abriendo un nuevo campo de investigación que ha sido abordado principalmente desde un planteamiento didáctico. En este artículo se recoge parte de una investigación sobre la enseñanza de segundas lenguas que penetra en el análisis del bilingüismo escolar. En concreto se hace referencia a la opinión de las familias del alumnado de educación secundaria sobre las actitudes y grado de satisfacción que presentan ante la modalidad de bilingüismo implantada en los centros escolares. Con una muestra participante formada por 150 familias, se desarrolla un estudio descriptivo-transversal. Para ello se diseñó un cuestionario ad hoc compuesto por 45 ítems y validado por expertos. Los resultados señalan que las familias están satisfechas con el aprendizaje del inglés de sus hijos, sin embargo, aquellas madres que poseen un nivel de inglés menor tienen peores actitudes hacia el aprendizaje de una segunda lengua extranjera. Estos hallazgos confirman la importancia de las relaciones e implicaciones de los docentes con las familias y viceversa promoviendo un mayor conocimiento y satisfacción hacia la modalidad bilingüe.The knowledge of plurality of languages has become one of the most demanded professional competences, for this reason, the socio-educational relevance that has acquired the learning of second or third languages, in such a way that it has opened a new field of research approached mainly from a didactic approach. This article contains part of a research about teaching of second languages and penetrates in the analysis of school bilingualism. Specifically, it makes reference to the opinions of the families of secondary education students about the attitudes and degree of satisfaction that they present regarding the modality of bilingualism implanted in the schools. With a participant sample of 150 families, a descriptive-transversal study is developed. An ad hoc questionnaire composed of 45 and validated by experts was designed. The results show that families are satisfied with their children's English learning in bilingualism, however, those mothers who have a lower level of English have worse attitudes towards learning a second foreign language. These findings confirm the importance of teachers' relationships and implications with families and vice versa, promoting greater knowledge and satisfaction towards the bilingual modalit

Using NASA's Giovanni Web Portal to Access and Visualize Satellite-based Earth Science Data in the Classroom

One of the biggest obstacles for the average Earth science student today is locating and obtaining satellite-based remote sensing data sets in a format that is accessible and optimal for their data analysis needs. At the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES-DISC) alone, on the order of hundreds of Terabytes of data are available for distribution to scientists, students and the general public. The single biggest and time-consuming hurdle for most students when they begin their study of the various datasets is how to slog through this mountain of data to arrive at a properly sub-setted and manageable data set to answer their science question(s). The GES DISC provides a number of tools for data access and visualization, including the Google-like Mirador search engine and the powerful GES-DISC Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure (Giovanni) web interface

Regression of established subcutaneous B16-F10 murine melanoma tumors after gef gene therapy via the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway

ovel treatment modalities, including gene therapy, are needed for patients with advanced melanoma. We evaluated whether the gef gene, a suicide gene from Escherichia coli, had a significant cytotoxic impact on melanoma in vivo. First, we used a non-viral gene delivery approach (pcDNA3.1/gef) to study the inhibition of melanoma cells (B16-F10) proliferation in vitro. Secondly, we used direct intra-tumoral injection of pcDNA3.1/gef complexed with jetPEI to deliver gef cDNA to rapidly growing murine melanomas. We demonstrated that gef gene not only has an antiproliferative effect on B16-F10 cells in vitro, but also induces an important decrease in melanoma tumor volume (77.7% in 8 days) in vivo. Interestingly, after gef gene treatment, melanoma showed apoptosis activation associated with the mitochondrial pathway, suggesting that the induction of this death mechanism may be an effective strategy for its treatment. Our in vivo results indicate that gef gene might become a suitable therapeutic strategy for patients with advanced melanoma

Characterization of a Fetal Liver Cell Population Endowed with Long-Term Multiorgan Endothelial Reconstitution Potential.

Stable reconstitution of vascular endothelial beds upon transplantation of progenitor cells represents an important challenge due to the paucity and generally limited integration/expansion potential of most identified vascular related cell subsets. We previously showed that mouse fetal liver (FL) hemato/vascular cells from day 12 of gestation (E12), expressing the Stem Cell Leukaemia (SCL) gene enhancer transgene (SCL-PLAP+ cells), had robust endothelial engraftment potential when transferred to the blood stream of newborns or adult conditioned recipients, compared to the scarce vascular contribution of adult bone marrow cells. However, the specific SCL-PLAP+ hematopoietic or endothelial cell subset responsible for the long-term reconstituting endothelial cell (LTR-EC) activity and its confinement to FL developmental stages remained unknown. Using a busulfan-treated newborn transplantation model, we show that LTR-EC activity is restricted to the SCL-PLAP+ VE-cadherin+ CD45- cell population, devoid of hematopoietic reconstitution activity and largely composed by Lyve1+ endothelial-committed cells. SCL-PLAP+ Ve-cadherin+ CD45- cells contributed to the liver sinusoidal endothelium and also to the heart, kidney and lung microvasculature. LTR-EC activity was detected at different stages of FL development, yet marginal activity was identified in the adult liver, revealing unknown functional differences between fetal and adult liver endothelial/endothelial progenitors. Importantly, the observations that expanding donor-derived vascular grafts colocalize with proliferating hepatocyte-like cells and participate in the systemic circulation, support their functional integration into young livers. These findings offer new insights into the engraftment, phonotypical, and developmental characterization of a novel endothelial/endothelial progenitor cell subtype with multiorgan LTR-EC activity, potentially instrumental for the treatment/genetic correction of vascular diseases. Stem Cells 2017;35:507-521.Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Grant IDs: BFU2010- 15801, CSD-2007-00008), Junta de Andalucıa Regional Government (Grant ID: CVI-295), European Regional Development Funds, Wellcome Trust, Medical Research CouncilThis is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/stem.249

Differences between young and old university students on lexical decision task: evidence through an ex-Gaussian approach

This work compared two common variants of a lexical decision task (LDT) through two different analysis procedures: first, the classical ANOVA method, and second, by fitting the data to an ex-Gaussian distribution function. Two groups of participants (old and young university students) had to perform, blocks of go/no-go and yes/no tasks. Reaction times and error rates were much lower in the go/no-go task than in the yes/no task. Changes in the ex-Gaussian parameter related to attention were found with word frequency but not with the type of LDT tasks. These findings suggest that word frequency shows an attentional cost that is independent of age

Provenance in Data Interoperability for Multi-Sensor Intercomparison

As our inventory of Earth science data sets grows, the ability to compare, merge and fuse multiple datasets grows in importance. This requires a deeper data interoperability than we have now. Efforts such as Open Geospatial Consortium and OPeNDAP (Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol) have broken down format barriers to interoperability; the next challenge is the semantic aspects of the data. Consider the issues when satellite data are merged, cross-calibrated, validated, inter-compared and fused. We must match up data sets that are related, yet different in significant ways: the phenomenon being measured, measurement technique, location in space-time or quality of the measurements. If subtle distinctions between similar measurements are not clear to the user, results can be meaningless or lead to an incorrect interpretation of the data. Most of these distinctions trace to how the data came to be: sensors, processing and quality assessment. For example, monthly averages of satellite-based aerosol measurements often show significant discrepancies, which might be due to differences in spatio- temporal aggregation, sampling issues, sensor biases, algorithm differences or calibration issues. Provenance information must be captured in a semantic framework that allows data inter-use tools to incorporate it and aid in the intervention of comparison or merged products. Semantic web technology allows us to encode our knowledge of measurement characteristics, phenomena measured, space-time representation, and data quality attributes in a well-structured, machine-readable ontology and rulesets. An analysis tool can use this knowledge to show users the provenance-related distrintions between two variables, advising on options for further data processing and analysis. An additional problem for workflows distributed across heterogeneous systems is retrieval and transport of provenance. Provenance may be either embedded within the data payload, or transmitted from server to client in an out-of-band mechanism. The out of band mechanism is more flexible in the richness of provenance information that can be accomodated, but it relies on a persistent framework and can be difficult for legacy clients to use. We are prototyping the embedded model, incorporating provenance within metadata objects in the data payload. Thus, it always remains with the data. The downside is a limit to the size of provenance metadata that we can include, an issue that will eventually need resolution to encompass the richness of provenance information required for daata intercomparison and merging

Proceso y dispositivo de ozonización para el tratamiento de aguas contaminadas con pesticidas y otros contaminantes orgánicos de origen agrícola

Número de publicación: ES2178561 A1 (16.12.2002) También publicado como: ES2178561 B1 (01.12.2003) Número de Solicitud: Consulta de Expedientes OEPM (C.E.O.)P200002112 (22.08.2000)Proceso y dispositivo de ozonización para el tratamiento de aguas contaminadas con pesticidas y otros contaminantes orgánicos de origen agrícola en el que un volumen de agua se introduce en un reactor, haciéndose burbujear en el mismo una mezcla de aire y ozono a través del agua. En la fase acuosa se mantienen determinadas condiciones de pH y concentración de agua oxigenada de forma automatizada, generándose una concentración alta de especies radicales que producen la oxidación de los contaminantes. De esta forma se consigue la eliminación de los contaminantes originales y de los productos intermedios, llegándose a la mineralización total o reducción a moléculas orgánicas pequeñas muy oxidadas -ácido oxálico, ácido fórmico- de baja peligrosidad, que permite la reutilización o vertido posterior de las aguas.Universidad de Almería. Otro/s solicitante/s: Universidad de Alcalá de Henares

Information and studies on education as an object of territorial cooperation (II): Cooperation in Europe through the Eurydice network as a model of cooperation between education administrations through the spanish network Redie

On the occasion of the European double ephemeris which JOSPOE is currently celebrating, the Eurydice Spanish Unit (Eurydice Spain-REDIE) has wished to accept their invitation to participate in this extraordinary issue alongside the European Unit, the information network coordinator on European Commission’s education. The reason is, none other than, because of the good model of cooperation it offers Spain when it comes to reporting on education management. The first article has been prepared by the heads of both units, describing the trajectory of the European and Spanish information networks on education, evolving into what they are today; the second article has been written by analysts from the European unit and technical and external experts from the Spanish unit, and presents the work they carry out in order to fulfil commitments undertaken through the annual work plansCon motivo de la doble efeméride europea que celebra JOSPOE, la Unidad española de Eurydice (Eurydice España-REDIE) ha querido responder a la invitación a participar en este número extraordinario de la mano de la Unidad europea, coordinadora de la Red de información sobre educación de la Comisión Europea. La razón no es otra que el buen modelo de cooperación que ofrece a España a la hora de informar sobre la gestión de la educación. El primer artículo está elaborado por los responsables de ambas Unidades y describe la trayectoria de las redes europea y española de información sobre educación hasta convertirse en lo que son hoy en día; este segundo está redactado por los analistas de la Unidad europea y los técnicos y expertos externos de la Unidad española, y presenta el trabajo que realizan con el fin de dar cumplimiento a los compromisos adquiridos a través de los planes de trabajo anuale