Mass spectrometry coupled to imaging techniques: The better the view the greater the challenge

These are definitively exciting times for membrane lipid researchers. Once considered just as the cell membrane building blocks, the important role these lipids play is steadily being acknowledged. The improvement occurred in mass spectrometry techniques (MS) allows the establishment of the precise lipid composition of biological extracts. However, to fully understand the biological function of each individual lipid species, we need to know its spatial distribution and dynamics. In the past 10 years, the field has experienced a profound revolution thanks to the development of MS-based techniques allowing lipid imaging (MSI). Images reveal and verify what many lipid researchers had already shown by different means, but none as convincing as an image: each cell type presents a specific lipid composition, which is highly sensitive to its physiological and pathological state. While these techniques will help to place membrane lipids in the position they deserve, they also open the black box containing all the unknown regulatory mechanisms accounting for such tailored lipid composition. Thus, these results urges to different disciplines to redefine their paradigm of study by including the complexity revealed by the MSI techniques.

Intensive Program ERASMUS: TOPCART. Geometric Documentation of the Heritage (administrative and academic documentation)

[EN] This academic activity has been the origin of other work that are also located in this repository. The first one is the dataset of information about the geometry of the Monastery recorded during the two years of fieldwork, then some bachelor thesis and papers are listed:

Towards complex system design and management in the engineering domain – the smart grid challenge

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in “Emergence: Complexity and Organization”, 15 (2), pp. 14-22 (2013), copyright Taylor & Francis.

Keep an "eye" on the text: The Use of Self-mention in the Academic Writing of Experts

One of the most controversial inquiries in academic writing is whether it is admissible to use first person pronouns in a scientific paper or not. Many professors discourage their students from using them, rather favoring a more passive tone, and thus causing novices to avoid inserting themselves into their texts in an expert-like manner. Abundant research, however, has recently attested that negotiation of identity is plausible in academic prose, and there is no need for a paper to be void of an authorial identity. Because in the course of the English Studies Degree we have received opposing prompts in the use of I, the aim of this dissertation is to throw some light upon this vexed issue. To this end, I compiled a corpus of 16 Research Articles (RAs) that comprises two sub-corpora, one featuring Linguistics RAs and the other one Literature RAs, and each, in turn, consists of articles written by American and British authors. I then searched for real occurrences of I, me, my, mine, we, us, our and ours, and studied their frequency, rhetorical functions and distribution along each paper. The results obtained certainly show that academic writing is no longer the faceless prose that it used to be, for I is highly used in both disciplines and varieties of English. Concerning functions, the most typically used roles were the use of I to take credit for the writer’s research process, and also those involving plural forms. With respect to the spatial disposition, all sections welcomed first person pronouns, but the Method and the Results/Discussion sections seem to stimulate their appearance. On the basis of these findings, I suggest that an L2 writing pedagogy that is mindful not only of the language proficiency, but also of the students’ own identity may have a beneficial effect on the composition of their texts.

Academic spin-offs incubation strategies: the case of the Andalusian region

[EN] The objective of this paper is to analyze the incubation strategies developed in the universities of Andalusia, a relatively low-income region of Spain, to promote the creation of university spin-offs. These strategies are also compared to the incubation models noted in the literature. The performance of the university spin-offs created and its relation to the incubation strategies developed by the university are also analysed. The analysis is based on data from a survey of nine public universities that carry out strategies for the promotion of university spin-offs. The result of the analysis shows that university spin-off incubation strategies in Andalusia present specific characteristics not covered by certain models that are well-known in the literature on innovation. Then, a new stage in the process of the university spin-off incubation is proposed. We consider it to be a pre-strategic stage to the academic spin-off incubation strategies. The analysis also finds certain environmental factors associated to those spin-offs promoted by Andalusian universities that achieve the highest level of performance. This result suggests that previous to making any decision involving investment into developing incubation strategies, universities should gauge whether they have sufficient resources and the possibilities of connecting with a Technology Park.

Cerebral hemodynamics during graded Valsalva maneuvers

The Valsalva maneuver (VM) produces large and abrupt changes in mean arterial pressure (MAP) that challenge cerebral blood flow and oxygenation. We examined the effect of VM intensity on middle cerebral artery blood velocity (MCAv) and cortical oxygenation responses during (phases I-III) and following (phase IV) a VM. Healthy participants (n = 20 mean +/- SD: 27 +/- 7 years) completed 30 and 90% of their maximal VM mouth pressure for 10 s (order randomized) whilst standing. Beat-to-beat MCAv, cerebral oxygenation (NIRS) and MAP across the different phases of the VM are reported as the difference from standing baseline. There were significant interaction (phase * intensity) effects for MCAv, total oxygenation index (TOI) and MAP (all P < 0.01). MCAv decreased during phases II and III (P < 0.01), with the greatest decrease during phase III (-5 +/- 8 and -19 +/- 15 cm.s(-1) for 30 and 90% VM, respectively). This pattern was also evident in TOI (phase III: -1 +/- 1 and -5 +/- 4%, both P < 0.05). Phase IV increased MCAv (22 +/- 15 and 34 +/- 23 cm.s(-1)), MAP (15 +/- 14 and 24 +/- 17 mm Hg) and TOI (5 +/- 6 and 7 +/- 5%) relative to baseline (all P < 0.05). Cerebral autoregulation, indexed, as the % MCAv/%MAP ratio, showed a phase effect only (P < 0.001), with the least regulation during phase IV (2.4 +/- 3.0 and 3.2 +/- 2.9). These data illustrate that an intense VM profoundly affects cerebral hemodynamics, with a reactive hyperemia occurring during phase IV following modest ischemia during phases II and III.

We can work it out: an enactive look at cooperation

The past years have seen an increasing debate on cooperation and its unique human character. Philosophers and psychologists have proposed that cooperative activities are characterized by shared goals to which participants are committed through the ability to understand each other’s intentions. Despite its popularity, some serious issues arise with this approach to cooperation. First, one may challenge the assumption that high-level mental processes are necessary for engaging in acting cooperatively. If they are, then how do agents that do not possess such ability (preverbal children, or children with autism who are often claimed to be mind-blind) engage in cooperative exchanges, as the evidence suggests? Secondly, to define cooperation as the result of two de-contextualized minds reading each other’s intentions may fail to fully acknowledge the complexity of situated, interactional dynamics and the interplay of variables such as the participants’ relational and personal history and experience. In this paper we challenge such accounts of cooperation, calling for an embodied approach that sees cooperation not only as an individual attitude toward the other, but also as a property of interaction processes. Taking an enactive perspective, we argue that cooperation is an intrinsic part of any interaction, and that there can be cooperative interaction before complex communicative abilities are achieved. The issue then is not whether one is able or not to read the other’s intentions, but what it takes to participate in joint action. From this basic account, it should be possible to build up more complex forms of cooperation as needed. Addressing the study of cooperation in these terms may enhance our understanding of human social development, and foster our knowledge of different ways of engaging with others, as in the case of autism.

Diseño y fabricación de un basculante para moto de competición.

[ES]El presente documento expone el trabajo realizado en el diseño y la fabricación de un basculante para una moto de competición el cual deberá cumplir unos requisitos técnicos, formando parte del conjunto de la moto y principalmente de la suspensión trasera, teniendo presente que dicho basculante corresponderá a una moto de competición, cuyo objetivo será el de medirse con otros prototipos en una carrera y no el de una moto de calle, en la cual las prestaciones buscadas no tienen porqué ser las mismas, también se buscará cumplir unos requisitos estéticos ya que dicho basculante ha de ser también atractivo visualmente. A su vez se expondrá el método de fabricación del mismo atendiendo a criterios económicos y de obtención de los requisitos que dicho basculante debe cumplir. El método de fabricación del basculante condicionará en gran parte su diseño. A lo largo del presente documento se expondrán también diferentes alternativas a la finalmente escogida, analizando las posibles ventajas y desventajas de las mismas y justificando así la solución escogida. Dicho trabajo se enmarca en el contexto de la competición internacional MotoStudent, que se celebra en el circuito de Aragón, en el cual cada dos años universidades de todo el mundo se miden en el desafío de diseñar y fabricar una moto de 250cc con la que se medirán con sus competidores en una serie de pruebas, entre ellas, una carrera en la que se pondrán a prueba la aplicación directa de los conocimientos y experiencia adquiridos a lo largo de la vida académica de los participantes.