Technological innovation in creative clusters. The case of laser in conservation of artworks in Florence

The field of laser application to the restoration and cleaning of cultural assets is amongst the most thriving developments of recent times. Ablative laser technological systems are able to clean and protect inestimable works of art subject to atmospheric agents and degradation over time. This new technology, which has been developing for the last forty year, is now available to restorers and has received a significant success all over Europe. An important contribution in the process of laser innovation has been carried out in Florence by local actors belonging to a creative cluster. The objects of the analysis are the genesis of this innovation in this local Florentine context, and the relationships among the main actors who have contributed in it. The study investigates how culture can play a part in the generation of ideas and innovations, and which are the creative environments that can favour it. In this context, the issue of laser technologies for the restoration of cultural heritage has been analysed as a case study in the various paths taken by the Creative Capacity of the Culture (CCC).

El impacto de las aplicaciones intensivas de E/S en la planificación de trabajos en clusters no-dedicados

Con la mayor capacidad de los nodos de procesamiento en relación a la potencia de cómputo, cada vez más aplicaciones intensivas de datos como las aplicaciones de la bioinformática, se llevarán a ejecutar en clusters no dedicados. Los clusters no dedicados se caracterizan por su capacidad de combinar la ejecución de aplicaciones de usuarios locales con aplicaciones, científicas o comerciales, ejecutadas en paralelo. Saber qué efecto las aplicaciones con acceso intensivo a dados producen respecto a la mezcla de otro tipo (batch, interativa, SRT, etc) en los entornos no-dedicados permite el desarrollo de políticas de planificación más eficientes. Algunas de las aplicaciones intensivas de E/S se basan en el paradigma MapReduce donde los entornos que las utilizan, como Hadoop, se ocupan de la localidad de los datos, balanceo de carga de forma automática y trabajan con sistemas de archivos distribuidos. El rendimiento de Hadoop se puede mejorar sin aumentar los costos de hardware, al sintonizar varios parámetros de configuración claves para las especificaciones del cluster, para el tamaño de los datos de entrada y para el procesamiento complejo. La sincronización de estos parámetros de sincronización puede ser demasiado compleja para el usuario y/o administrador pero procura garantizar prestaciones más adecuadas. Este trabajo propone la evaluación del impacto de las aplicaciones intensivas de E/S en la planificación de trabajos en clusters no-dedicados bajo los paradigmas MPI y Mapreduce.

Progesterone down-regulates the open probability of the amiloride-sensitive epithelial sodium channel via a Nedd4-2-dependent mechanism.

Activation of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase cascade by progesterone in Xenopus oocytes leads to a marked down-regulation of activity of the amiloride-sensitive epithelial sodium channel (ENaC). Here we have studied the signaling pathways involved in progesterone effect on ENaC activity. We demonstrate that: (i) the truncation of the C termini of the alphabetagammaENaC subunits results in the loss of the progesterone effect on ENaC; (ii) the effect of progesterone was also suppressed by mutating conserved tyrosine residues in the Pro-X-X-Tyr (PY) motif of the C termini of the beta and gamma ENaC subunits (beta(Y618A) and gamma(Y628A)); (iii) the down-regulation of ENaC activity by progesterone was also suppressed by co-expression ENaC subunits with a catalytically inactive mutant of Nedd4-2, a ubiquitin ligase that has been previously demonstrated to decrease ENaC cell-surface expression via a ubiquitin-dependent internalization/degradation mechanism; (iv) the effect of progesterone was significantly reduced by suppression of consensus sites (beta(T613A) and gamma(T623A)) for ENaC phosphorylation by the extracellular-regulated kinase (ERK), a MAP kinase previously shown to facilitate the binding of Nedd4 ubiquitin ligases to ENaC; (v) the quantification of cell-surface-expressed ENaC subunits revealed that progesterone decreases ENaC open probability (whole cell P(o), wcP(o)) and not its cell-surface expression. Collectively, these results demonstrate that the binding of active Nedd4-2 to ENaC is a crucial step in the mechanism of ENaC inhibition by progesterone. Upon activation of ERK, the effect of Nedd4-2 on ENaC open probability can become more important than its effect on ENaC cell-surface expression.

Tight open knots.

The tightest open conformations of a few prime knots (3(1), 4(1), 5(1), 5(2), and 6(3)) found with the use of the SONO algorithm are presented and discussed. The conformations are obtained from the tightest closed conformations of the knots by cutting and opening them at different locations. The length of the rope engaged in each of the open conformations is calculated. The curvature and torsion profiles of the unique tightest conformations of the 3(1) and 4(1) open knots are presented and discussed. In particular, symmetry properties of the knots reflected within their curvature and torsion profiles are analysed. Connections with the physics of polymers are discussed.

Synthesis and characterization of a new class of anti-angiogenic agents based on ruthenium clusters.

New triruthenium-carbonyl clusters derivatized with glucose-modified bicyclophosphite ligands have been synthesized. These compounds were found to have cytostatic and cytotoxic activity and depending on the number of bicyclophosphite ligands, and could be tuned for either anti-cancer or specific anti-angiogenic activity. While some compounds had a broad cellular toxicity profile in several cell types others showed endothelial cell specific dose-dependent anti-proliferative and anti-migratory efficacy. A profound inhibition of angiogenesis was also observed in the in vivo chicken chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model, and consequently, these new compounds have considerable potential in drug design, e.g. for the treatment of cancer.

A New Species of Simulium (Diptera: Simuliidae) from Open Areas in Central Amazonia, Brazil

The larva, pupa, male and female of Simulium daltanhani n. sp. are described and illustrated. This species shares diagnostic characteristics with Simulium quadrifidum Lutz, Simulium cauchense Floch & Abonnenc, Simulium brevifurcatum Lutz and Simulium siolii Py-Daniel. It was collected in three counties (Manaus, Presidente Figueiredo and Itacoatiara) in the State of Amazonas, Brazil. Its habitat includes streams in disturbed, open areas where the forest has been cut for road construction; it was not collected in adjacent forested streams, suggesting that it colonizes disturbed habitats. The larval subesophageal ganglion is discussed as a useful character, when pigmented, to distinguish this species within a limited geographic area.

A New open economy macroeconomic model with endogenous portfolio diversification and firms entry

This paper provides a new benchmark for the analysis of the international diversi…cation puzzle in a tractable new open economy macroeconomic model. Building on Cole and Obstfeld (1991) and Heathcote and Perri (2009), this model speci…es an equilibrium model of perfect risk sharing in incomplete markets, with endogenous portfolios and number of varieties. Equity home bias may not be a puzzle but a perfectly optimal allocation for hedging risk. In contrast to previous work, the model shows that: (i) optimal international portfolio diversi…cation is driven by home bias in capital goods, independently of home bias in consumption, and by the share of income accruing to labour. The model explains reasonably well the recent patterns of portfolio allocations in developed economies; and (ii) optimal portfolio shares are independent of market dynamics.

Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate clusters act as molecular beacons for vesicle recruitment.

Synaptic-vesicle exocytosis is mediated by the vesicular Ca(2+) sensor synaptotagmin-1. Synaptotagmin-1 interacts with the SNARE protein syntaxin-1A and acidic phospholipids such as phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2). However, it is unclear how these interactions contribute to triggering membrane fusion. Using PC12 cells from Rattus norvegicus and artificial supported bilayers, we show that synaptotagmin-1 interacts with the polybasic linker region of syntaxin-1A independent of Ca(2+) through PIP2. This interaction allows both Ca(2+)-binding sites of synaptotagmin-1 to bind to phosphatidylserine in the vesicle membrane upon Ca(2+) triggering. We determined the crystal structure of the C2B domain of synaptotagmin-1 bound to phosphoserine, allowing development of a high-resolution model of synaptotagmin bridging two different membranes. Our results suggest that PIP2 clusters organized by syntaxin-1 act as molecular beacons for vesicle docking, with the subsequent Ca(2+) influx bringing the vesicle membrane close enough for membrane fusion.

Institute of Public Health in Ireland's (IPH) Open Access Statement

This document states the Institute of Public Health in Ireland’s (IPH) commitment to an Open Access policy and outlines how it implements that policy. "Open Access is the immediate, online, free availability of research outputs without restrictions on use commonly imposed by publisher copyright agreements. Open Access includes the outputs that scholars normally give away for free for publication; it includes peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers and data of various kinds."1 The Open Access (OA) movement aims to: Provide access to scientific outputs in publications that are freely available Foster the adoption of open access publication models

Millora i implementació de l’eina Open-Source AC2GeoNetwork per ArcCatalog

L’ETC-LUSI ha modificat l’aplicació de publicació de les metadades al portal de GeoNetwork amb l’objectiu de presentar i millorar la publicació de les mateixes, adaptant-se a la nova tipologia d’arxius d’emmagatzematge de les darreres versions del software de la casa ESRI, així com poder-les fer arribar al major nombre d’usuaris possible interessats en el intercanvi d’informació cartogràfica

Integración de Hadoop con planificadores batch

Cada vez es mayor el número de aplicaciones desarrolladas en el ámbito científico, como en la Bioinformática o en las Geociencias, escritas bajo el modelo MapReduce, empleando herramientas de código abierto como Apache Hadoop. De la necesidad de integrar Hadoop en entornos HPC, para posibilitar la ejecutar aplicaciones desarrolladas bajo el paradigma MapReduce, nace el presente proyecto. Se analizan dos frameworks diseñados para facilitar dicha integración a los desarrolladores: HoD y myHadoop. En este proyecto se analiza, tanto las posibilidades en cuanto a entornos que ofrecen dichos frameworks para la ejecución de aplicaciones MapReduce, como el rendimiento de los clúster Hadoop generados con HoD o myHadoop respecto a un clúster Hadoop físico.

Detecting the number of clusters of individuals using the software STRUCTURE: a simulation study.

The identification of genetically homogeneous groups of individuals is a long standing issue in population genetics. A recent Bayesian algorithm implemented in the software STRUCTURE allows the identification of such groups. However, the ability of this algorithm to detect the true number of clusters (K) in a sample of individuals when patterns of dispersal among populations are not homogeneous has not been tested. The goal of this study is to carry out such tests, using various dispersal scenarios from data generated with an individual-based model. We found that in most cases the estimated 'log probability of data' does not provide a correct estimation of the number of clusters, K. However, using an ad hoc statistic DeltaK based on the rate of change in the log probability of data between successive K values, we found that STRUCTURE accurately detects the uppermost hierarchical level of structure for the scenarios we tested. As might be expected, the results are sensitive to the type of genetic marker used (AFLP vs. microsatellite), the number of loci scored, the number of populations sampled, and the number of individuals typed in each sample.