The complex organization of human cognitive domains and their heritability: a systematic review

Una revisión sistemática de la organización compleja de los dominios cognitivos humanos y su heredabilidad. Antecedentes: se ha propuesto que la estructura de la cognición humana respondería a un sistema jerárquico, donde las secuencias propias a una acción se organizarían desde sub-unidades de análisis hasta funciones de nivel superior relativamente complejas. Esta estructura organizacional estaría reflejada en las representaciones neurales que subyacen al comportamiento humano, así como también en sus sustratos genéticos. El objetivo del presente estudio fue explorar la posible organización jerárquica de las influencias genéticas subyacentes a los dominios cognitivos humanos. Método: se revisaron treinta y cuatro estudios de la heredabilidad de la cognición en muestras de la población general, que incluyeron medidas de inteligencia, habilidades verbales y manipulativas, memoria, memoria de trabajo y velocidad de procesamiento. Resultados: diversos dominios cognitivos mostraron distintas proporciones de influencias genéticas, con las mayores estimaciones de heredabilidad halladas para las funciones cognitivas de nivel superior y las menores estimaciones para las funciones de orden medio o inferior. Conclusiones: tomando como referencia los conocimientos actuales acerca del neurodesarrollo humano, las contribuciones genéticas de las habilidades cognitivas parecen organizarse paralelamente al crecimiento ontogénico del cerebro. Se discuten estos resultados en relación a la interacción entre el control genético de las funciones cognitivas y sus influencias ambientales.

Work Organization Practices for Lean Production: A Study in Spanish and Brazilian Manufacturers

This work aims to discuss particular work organization practices in human resources reported as successful by companies adopting lean production principles, and investigate them through real examples observed on manufacturing plants in Spain and Brazil. A set of work organization practices was previously established by one of the authors, through interviews with practitioners of lean production and review of the literature. A series of visits and informal interviews at Spanish and Brazilian automotive parts manufacturers that follow lean production were conducted to verify that the set of policies are indeed practiced.

La atención a la diversidad cultural en Cataluña: exclusión, segregación e interculturalidad

La diversidad cultural se ha incrementado notablemente en los centros escolares españoles por la llegada de alumnado de origen inmigrado y esto, más los discursos de toma en consideración de las diferencias culturales que han realizado la Unión Europea y las administraciones autonómicas, ha contribuido a la aparición del discurso intercultural. Este artículo presenta la evolución realizada hasta llegar al discurso dominante actual basándose en un trabajo empírico de análisis de documentación editada por la Generalitat de Cataluña sobre política de integración y de escolarización de los inmigrados y entrevistas en profundidad a políticos y técnicos de los diferentes niveles de la administración catalana. De ello se concluye la existencia de tres etapas en la política de integración de los inmigrados en Cataluña: un primer momento de mera observación del fenómeno; una segunda etapa en la que sin abandonar la observación se insiste en la organización vertical y horizontal de la administración para trabajar de forma coordinada un fenómeno que empieza a despertar preocupación; y, una tercera, en la que sin abandonar la necesaria observación y organización, el énfasis se sitúa en la intervención. Estas fases son el marco de lo realizado a nivel educativo donde observamos la dificultad de traducción del discurso intercultural a la práctica cotidiana de los centros escolares, de los noventa, es necesario incrementar los esfuerzos para incorporar al alumnado de origen inmigrado en el dominio de la creencia de que la educación intercultural (en contra de lo que esta implica) es cuestión que deben trabajar los centros con inmigrantes y, ante la presión existente en las aulas (por el incremento del alumnado, la matrícula viva, etc.), el retorno a prácticas potencialmente segregacionistas que nos recuerdan actuaciones implementadas para escolarizar a los gitanos años atrás. Sin negar los avances realizados desde mediados aulas y centros de Cataluña.

Atypical language organization in temporal lobe epilepsy revealed by a passive semantic paradigm

Background Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is the most common type of focal epilepsy in adults and can be successfully cured by surgery. One of the main complications of this surgery however is a decline in language abilities. The magnitude of this decline is related to the degree of language lateralization to the left hemisphere. Most fMRI paradigms used to determine language dominance in epileptic populations have used active language tasks. Sometimes, these paradigms are too complex and may result in patient underperformance. Only a few studies have used purely passive tasks, such as listening to standard speech. Methods In the present study we characterized language lateralization in patients with MTLE using a rapid and passive semantic language task. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study 23 patients [12 with Left (LMTLE), 11 with Right mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (RMTLE)] and 19 healthy right-handed controls using a 6 minute long semantic task in which subjects passively listened to groups of sentences (SEN) and pseudo sentences (PSEN). A lateralization index (LI) was computed using a priori regions of interest of the temporal lobe. Results The LI for the significant contrasts produced activations for all participants in both temporal lobes. 81.8% of RMTLE patients and 79% of healthy individuals had a bilateral language representation for this particular task. However, 50% of LMTLE patients presented an atypical right hemispheric dominance in the LI. More importantly, the degree of right lateralization in LMTLE patients was correlated with the age of epilepsy onset. Conclusions The simple, rapid, non-collaboration dependent, passive task described in this study, produces a robust activation in the temporal lobe in both patients and controls and is capable of illustrating a pattern of atypical language organization for LMTLE patients. Furthermore, we observed that the atypical right-lateralization patterns in LMTLE patients was associated to earlier age at epilepsy onset. These results are in line with the idea that early onset of epileptic activity is associated to larger neuroplastic changes.

Phenol-Explorer 3.0: a major update of the Phenol-Explorer database to incorporate data on the effects of food processing on polyphenol content

Polyphenols are a major class of bioactive phytochemicals whose consumption may play a role in the prevention of a number of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes and cancers. Phenol-Explorer, launched in 2009, is the only freely available web-based database on the content of polyphenols in food and their in vivo metabolism and pharmacokinetics. Here we report the third release of the database (Phenol-Explorer 3.0), which adds data on the effects of food processing on polyphenol contents in foods. Data on >100 foods, covering 161 polyphenols or groups of polyphenols before and after processing, were collected from 129 peer-reviewed publications and entered into new tables linked to the existing relational design. The effect of processing on polyphenol content is expressed in the form of retention factor coefficients, or the proportion of a given polyphenol retained after processing, adjusted for change in water content. The result is the first database on the effects of food processing on polyphenol content and, following the model initially defined for Phenol-Explorer, all data may be traced back to original sources. The new update will allow polyphenol scientists to more accurately estimate polyphenol exposure from dietary surveys. Database URL: http://www.phenol-explorer.eu

The hpx genetic system for hypoxanthine assimilation as a nitrogen source in Klebsiella pneumoniae: gene organization and transcriptional regulation.

Growth experiments showed that adenine and hypoxanthine can be used as nitrogen sources by several strains of K. pneumoniae under aerobic conditions. The assimilation of all nitrogens from these purines indicates that the catabolic pathway is complete and proceeds past allantoin. Here we identify the genetic system responsible for the oxidation of hypoxanthine to allantoin in K. pneumoniae. The hpx cluster consists of seven genes, for which an organization in four transcriptional units, hpxDE, hpxR, hpxO and hpxPQT, is proposed. The proteins involved in the oxidation of hypoxanthine (HpxDE) or uric acid (HpxO) did not display any similarity to other reported enzymes known to catalyze these reactions, but instead are similar to oxygenases acting on aromatic compounds. Expression of the hpx system is activated by nitrogen limitation and by the presence of specific substrates, with hpxDE and hpxPQT controlled by both signals. Nitrogen control of hpxPQT transcription, which depends on 54, is mediated by the Ntr system. In contrast, neither NtrC nor NAC is involved in the nitrogen control of hpxDE, which is dependent on 70 for transcription. Activation of these operons by the specific substrates is also mediated by different effectors and regulatory proteins. Induction of hpxPQT requires uric acid formation, whereas expression of hpxDE is induced by the presence of hypoxanthine through the regulatory protein HpxR. This LysR-type regulator binds to a TCTGC-N4-GCAAA site in the intergenic hpxD-hpxR region. When bound to this site for hpxDE activation, HpxR negatively controls its own transcription.

Emergent patterns of social organization in captive Cercocebus torquatus: Testing the GrooFiWorld agent-based model

We empirically applied the GrooFiWorld agent-based model (Puga-González et al. 2009) in a group of captive mangabeys (Cercocebus torquatus). We analysed several measurements related to aggression and affiliative patterns. The group adopted a combination of despotic and egalitarian behaviours resulting from the behavioural flexibility observed in the Cercopithecinae subfamily. Our study also demonstrates that the GrooFiWorld agent-based model can be extended to other members of the Cercopithecinae subfamily generating parsimonious hypotheses related to the social organization.