What should a virtual University Library environment look like?

Over the past year, the Open University of Catalonia library has been designing its new website with this question in mind. Our main concern has been how to integrate the library in the student day to day study routine to not to be only a satellite tool. We present the design of the website that, in a virtual library like ours, it is not only a website but the whole library itself. The central point of the web is my library, a space that associates the library resources with the student's curriculum and their course subjects. There the students can save the resources as favourites, comment or share them. They have also access to all the services the library offers them. The resources are imported from multiple tools such as Millennium, SFX, Metalib and Dspace to the Drupal CMS. Then the resources' metadata can be enriched with other contextual information from other sources, for example the course subjects. And finally they can be exported in standard, open data formats making them available for linked data applications.

The Role of Information in Contemporary Migration. More Sources but Less Informed

La migració internacional contemporània és integrada en un procés d'interconnexió global definit per les revolucions del transport i de les tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació. Una de les conseqüències d'aquesta interconnexió global és que les persones migrants tenen més capacitat per a processar informació tant abans com després de marxar. Aquests canvis podrien tenir implicacions inesperades per a la migració contemporània pel que fa a la capacitat de les persones migrants per a prendre decisions més informades, la reducció de la incertesa en contextos migratoris, el desdibuixament del concepte de distància o la decisió d'emigrar cap a llocs més llunyans. Aquesta recerca és important, ja que la manca de coneixement sobre aquesta qüestió podria contribuir a fer augmentar la distància entre els objectius de les polítiques de migració i els seus resultats. El paper que tenen els agents de la informació en els contextos migratoris també podria canviar. En aquest escenari, perquè les polítiques de migració siguin més efectives, s'haurà de tenir en compte la major capacitat de la població migrant de processar la informació i les fonts d'informació en què es confia. Aquest article demostra que l'equació més informació equival a més ben informat no es compleix sempre. Fins i tot en l'era de la informació, les fonts no fiables, les expectatives falses, la sobreinformació i els rumors encara són presents en els contextos migratoris. Tanmateix, defensem l'argument que aquests efectes no volguts es podrien reduir complint quatre requisits de la informació fiable: que sigui exhaustiva, que sigui rellevant, que s'hi confiï i que sigui actualitzada.

Toxoplasma gondii in animals used for human consumption

Food-borne toxoplasmosis in humans may result from exposure to different stages of Toxoplasma gondii, in particular from the ingestion of tissue cysts or tachyzoites contained in meat, primary offal (viscera) or meat-derived products of many different animals, or the ingestion of sporulated oocysts that are contained in the environment and may contaminate food and water. Although the potential for transmission of the parasite to humans via food has been known for several decades, it is not known which routes are most important from a public health point of view. It is likely that transmission of the parasite to humans is influenced not only by the potential contamination of various food sources, but also by the individual behaviour of consumers in different ethnic groups and geographical regions. Most current methods for detection of T. gondii in meat-producing animals, in products of animal origin, or in the environment are insufficient because they do not allow quantification of infectious stages. Hence, most studies report only qualitative data from which it is difficult to assess the true risk of infection in individual cases. There is a need for quantitative data so that efficient strategies to reduce food-borne transmission of T. gondii to humans can be developed.

Population structure and diversity of the pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus isolated from different sources and geographic origins

Fifty-five clinical and environmental Aspergillus fumigatus isolates from Mexico, Argentina, France and Peru were analyzed to determine their genetic variability, reproductive system and level of differentiation using amplified fragment length polymorphism markers. The level of genetic variability was assessed by measuring the percentage of polymorphic loci, number of effective alleles, expected heterozygocity and by performing an association index test (I A). The degree of genetic differentiation and variation was determined using analysis of molecular variance at three levels. Using the paired genetic distances, a dendrogram was built to detect the genetic relationship among alleles. Finally, a network of haplotypes was constructed to determine the geographic relationship among them. The results indicate that the clinical isolates have greater genetic variability than the environmental isolates. The I A of the clinical and environmental isolates suggests a recombining population structure. The genetic differentiation among isolates and the dendrogram suggest that the groups of isolates are different. The network of haplotypes demonstrates that the majority of the isolates are grouped according to geographic origin.

Nouveautés thérapeutiques 2008 en médecine interne hospitalière: perspective des chefs de clinique [Highlights 2008 in a university hospital-based internal medicine: the point of view from the chief residents]

Doctors must regularly adjust their patients' care according to recent relevant publications. The chief residents from the Department of Internal Medicine of a university hospital present some major themes of internal medicine treated during the year 2008, such as heart failure, diabetes, COPD, and thromboembolic disease. Emphasis will be placed primarily on changes in the daily hospital practice induced by these recent studies. This variety of topics illustrates both the broad spectrum of the current internal medicine, and the many uncertainties associated with modem medical practice based on evidence.

First isolation of Cryptococcus gattii molecular type VGII and Cryptococcus neoformans molecular type VNI from environmental sources in the city of Belém, Pará, Brazil

Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii are important agents of meningoencephalitis in humans in the city of Belém. This clinical data suggests that the region may be a highly endemic area for the pathogenic Cryptococcus species within the state of Pará (PA), Northern Brazil. Preliminary analysis of 11 environmental samples from the city of Belém showed two positive locations, including a hollow of a kassod tree (Senna siamea) colonized simultaneously by C. gattii molecular type VGII and C. neoformans molecular type VNI, and a birdcage in a commercial aviary positive for C. neoformans, molecular type VNI. This is the first evidence of an environmental occurrence of molecular types VNI and VGII in PA.

Remodeling of DNA replication structures by the branch point translocase FANCM

Fanconi anemia (FA) is a genetically heterogeneous chromosome instability syndrome associated with congenital abnormalities, bone marrow failure, and cancer predisposition. Eight FA proteins form a nuclear core complex, which promotes tolerance of DNA lesions in S phase, but the underlying mechanisms are still elusive. We reported recently that the FA core complex protein FANCM can translocate Holliday junctions. Here we show that FANCM promotes reversal of model replication forks via concerted displacement and annealing of the nascent and parental DNA strands. Fork reversal by FANCM also occurs when the lagging strand template is partially single-stranded and bound by RPA. The combined fork reversal and branch migration activities of FANCM lead to extensive regression of model replication forks. These observations provide evidence that FANCM can remodel replication fork structures and suggest a mechanism by which FANCM could promote DNA damage tolerance in S phase

Correction of shading effects in vision-based UUV localization

This paper describes the improvements achieved in our mosaicking system to assist unmanned underwater vehicle navigation. A major advance has been attained in the processing of images of the ocean floor when light absorption effects are evident. Due to the absorption of natural light, underwater vehicles often require artificial light sources attached to them to provide the adequate illumination for processing underwater images. Unfortunately, these flashlights tend to illuminate the scene in a nonuniform fashion. In this paper a technique to correct non-uniform lighting is proposed. The acquired frames are compensated through a point-by-point division of the image by an estimation of the illumination field. Then, the gray-levels of the obtained image remapped to enhance image contrast. Experiments with real images are presented

On optimal computation of MPLS label binding for multipoint-to-point connections

Most network operators have considered reducing Label Switched Routers (LSR) label spaces (i.e. the number of labels that can be used) as a means of simplifying management of underlaying Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and, hence, reducing operational expenditure (OPEX). This letter discusses the problem of reducing the label spaces in Multiprotocol Label Switched (MPLS) networks using label merging - better known as MultiPoint-to-Point (MP2P) connections. Because of its origins in IP, MP2P connections have been considered to have tree- shapes with Label Switched Paths (LSP) as branches. Due to this fact, previous works by many authors affirm that the problem of minimizing the label space using MP2P in MPLS - the Merging Problem - cannot be solved optimally with a polynomial algorithm (NP-complete), since it involves a hard- decision problem. However, in this letter, the Merging Problem is analyzed, from the perspective of MPLS, and it is deduced that tree-shapes in MP2P connections are irrelevant. By overriding this tree-shape consideration, it is possible to perform label merging in polynomial time. Based on how MPLS signaling works, this letter proposes an algorithm to compute the minimum number of labels using label merging: the Full Label Merging algorithm. As conclusion, we reclassify the Merging Problem as Polynomial-solvable, instead of NP-complete. In addition, simulation experiments confirm that without the tree-branch selection problem, more labels can be reduced

Attraction of Chagas disease vectors (Triatominae) to artificial light sources in the canopy of primary Amazon rainforest

Adult triatomines occasionally fly into artificially lit premises in Amazonia. This can result in Trypanosoma cruzi transmission to humans either by direct contact or via foodstuff contamination, but the frequency of such behaviour has not been quantified. To address this issue, a light-trap was set 45 m above ground in primary rainforest near Manaus, state of Amazonas, Brazil and operated monthly for three consecutive nights over the course of one year (432 trap-hours). The most commonly caught reduviids were triatomines, including 38 Panstrongylus geniculatus, nine Panstrongylus lignarius, three Panstrongylus rufotuberculatus, five Rhodnius robustus, two Rhodnius pictipes, one Rhodnius amazonicus and 17 Eratyrus mucronatus. Males were collected more frequently than females. The only month without any catches was May. Attraction of most of the known local T. cruzi vectors to artificial light sources is common and year-round in the Amazon rainforest, implying that they may often invade premises built near forest edges and thus become involved in disease transmission. Consequently, effective Chagas disease prevention in Amazonia will require integrating entomological surveillance with the currently used epidemiological surveillance.