Exploration of the visual system : Part 2. In vivo analysis methods : virtual-reality optomotor system, fundus examination and fluorescent angiography

The mouse has emerged as an animal model for many diseases. At IRO, we have used this animal to understand the development of many eye diseases and treatment of some of them. Precise evaluation of vision is a prerequisite for both these approaches. In this unit we describe three ways to measure vision: testing the optokinetic response, and evaluating the fundus by direct observation and by fluorescent angiography.

Gestión de centros deportivos: Virtual Trainer Web Ed.

Virtual Trainer Web Edition proporciona un sistema de gestión, planificación y control de un centro deportivo, ofreciendo interactividad entre técnicos, socios y personal de gerencia y facilitando todo el trabajo de un mantenimiento de información tradicional. A través de cualquier PC con conexión a Internet y sin instalación de software adicional, se accede a una completa aplicación con contenidos multimedia.

Pautes per a la implementació i el manteniment de serveis de referència virtual

Actualment, gràcies a la tecnologia, els usuaris poden accedir als recursos de les biblioteques sense limitacions de temps ni espai. Per tal de satisfer les necessitats dels usuaris no presencials, moltes biblioteques i consorcis bibliotecaris estan ampliant els seus serveis de referència per prestar serveis de referència virtual. Les pautes que s'ofereixen en aquest article pretenen servir d'orientació a les diverses institucions, a l'hora d'implementar i mantenir serveis de referència virtual.

Heterogeneity of atherosclerotic plaque phenotypes and composition in four different arterial beds: an intravascular ultrasound virtual histology study

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the plaque morphology between coronary and peripheral arteries using intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). Methods: IVUS was performed in 68 patients with coronary and 93 with peripheral artery lesions (29 carotid, 50 renal, and 14 iliac). Plaques were classified as fibroatheroma (VH-FA) (further subclassified as thin-capped [VH-TCFA] and thick-capped [VH-ThCFA]), fibrocalcific plaque (VH-FC) and pathological intimal thickening (VH-PIT). Results: Plaque rupture (13% of coronary, 7% of carotid, 6% of renal, and 7% of iliac arteries; P=NS) and VH-TCFA (37% of coronary, 24% of carotid, 16% of renal, and 7% of iliac arteries; P=0.02) was observed in all arteries. Compared to coronary arteries, VH-FA was less frequently observed in renal (P<0.001) and iliac arteries (P<0.006), while VH-PIT and VH-FC were prevalent in both of these peripheral arteries. Lesions with positive remodeling demonstrated more characteristics of VH-FA in coronary, carotid, and renal arteries compared to those with intermediate/negative remodeling (all P<0.01). There was positive relationship between RI and percent necrotic core area in all four arteries. Conclusions: Atherosclerotic plaque phenotypes were heterogeneous among four different arteries. In contrast, the associations of remodeling mode with plaque phenotype and composition were similar among the various arterial beds.

Hidratar el metabolismo socioeconómico: los flujos de agua virtual y el metabolismo hídirico: una aproximación al sector hortofrutícola andaluz

La base de este trabajo se sustenta en que la Sociedad tiene unos requerimientos fisiológicos y psicológicos que satisface con materia y energía. Esta materia y energía, recursos, se hacen escasos en relación a las necesidades y deseos subjetivos de los agentes, que dependen en gran medida de los valores asociados a los mismos. Desde la Economía se trata de buscar la mejor forma de distribuir esos recursos entre aquellos deseos o necesidades y, en su evolución científica, ha desarrollado el análisis de la naturaleza física de los procesos económicos que ha sido, hasta hace relativamente poco tiempo, un objeto escasamente estudiado por los economistas, centrándose éstos en los estudios de las valoraciones monetarias más que en las valoraciones físicas. La aportación de este trabajo, se podría sintetizar en tres ideas. En primer lugar, la introducción de un concepto (creemos que no utilizado aún por la literatura) que hemos denominado “Metabolismo Hídrico”, y la idea derivada de la Contabilidad de los Flujos de Agua, como parte importante del Metabolismo Socioeconómico. En segundo lugar, el trabajo se separa de la línea reduccionista complementando el análisis físico con un análisis monetario para tratar de entender las causas de la escasez de agua. En nuestra opinión, el análisis monetario complementa al físico y no al revés, como más adelante explicaremos. En tercer lugar, el trabajo aporta la idea de la territorialidad, estimando no sólo el volumen de los flujos sino también su procedencia y destino.

Integració d'una wiki al Campus Virtual de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Aquest projecte presenta una sol·lució per tal d’incorporar una eina wiki al Campus Virtual de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Enfront de la metodologia docent clàssica, la wiki oferirà funcionalitats orientades al treball col·laboratiu i fomentarà la participació de l’alumne. L’objectiu final és tenir una eina completament integrada al Campus Virtual, que aprofiti l’aplicatiu existent i s’interrelacioni amb la resta de mòduls presents.

Spatial modelling of biodiversity at the community level

1. Statistical modelling is often used to relate sparse biological survey data to remotely derived environmental predictors, thereby providing a basis for predictively mapping biodiversity across an entire region of interest. The most popular strategy for such modelling has been to model distributions of individual species one at a time. Spatial modelling of biodiversity at the community level may, however, confer significant benefits for applications involving very large numbers of species, particularly if many of these species are recorded infrequently. 2. Community-level modelling combines data from multiple species and produces information on spatial pattern in the distribution of biodiversity at a collective community level instead of, or in addition to, the level of individual species. Spatial outputs from community-level modelling include predictive mapping of community types (groups of locations with similar species composition), species groups (groups of species with similar distributions), axes or gradients of compositional variation, levels of compositional dissimilarity between pairs of locations, and various macro-ecological properties (e.g. species richness). 3. Three broad modelling strategies can be used to generate these outputs: (i) 'assemble first, predict later', in which biological survey data are first classified, ordinated or aggregated to produce community-level entities or attributes that are then modelled in relation to environmental predictors; (ii) 'predict first, assemble later', in which individual species are modelled one at a time as a function of environmental variables, to produce a stack of species distribution maps that is then subjected to classification, ordination or aggregation; and (iii) 'assemble and predict together', in which all species are modelled simultaneously, within a single integrated modelling process. These strategies each have particular strengths and weaknesses, depending on the intended purpose of modelling and the type, quality and quantity of data involved. 4. Synthesis and applications. The potential benefits of modelling large multispecies data sets using community-level, as opposed to species-level, approaches include faster processing, increased power to detect shared patterns of environmental response across rarely recorded species, and enhanced capacity to synthesize complex data into a form more readily interpretable by scientists and decision-makers. Community-level modelling therefore deserves to be considered more often, and more widely, as a potential alternative or supplement to modelling individual species.

J2EE tienda virtual application framework

En el siguiente documento podrá encontrar de una forma clara y entendedora, a través de la creación de un sencillo aplicativo, el mecanismo para la creación de una aplicación J2EE basada en el framework de desarrollo Yakarta Struts. En el mismo partirá desde cero, desde el inicio en la captación de requerimientos, pasando por la etapa de análisis y diseño y la posterior implementación.

Bacterial community structure of a pesticide-contaminated site and assessment of changes induced in community structure during bioremediation.

The introduction of culture-independent molecular screening techniques, especially based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, has allowed microbiologists to examine a facet of microbial diversity not necessarily reflected by the results of culturing studies. The bacterial community structure was studied for a pesticide-contaminated site that was subsequently remediated using an efficient degradative strain Arthrobacter protophormiae RKJ100. The efficiency of the bioremediation process was assessed by monitoring the depletion of the pollutant, and the effect of addition of an exogenous strain on the existing soil community structure was determined using molecular techniques. The 16S rRNA gene pool amplified from the soil metagenome was cloned and restriction fragment length polymorphism studies revealed 46 different phylotypes on the basis of similar banding patterns. Sequencing of representative clones of each phylotype showed that the community structure of the pesticide-contaminated soil was mainly constituted by Proteobacteria and Actinomycetes. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis showed only nonsignificant changes in community structure during the process of bioremediation. Immobilized cells of strain RKJ100 enhanced pollutant degradation but seemed to have no detectable effects on the existing bacterial community structure.

Implicit attitudes and self-concepts towards transgression and aggression: Differences between male community and offender adolescents, and associations with psychopathic traits.

Research suggests that implicit attitudes play a key role in the occurrence of antisocial behaviours. This study assessed implicit attitudes and self-concepts related to aggression and transgression in community and offender adolescents, using a new set of Implicit Association Tests (IATs), and examined their association with of psychopathic traits. Thirty-six offenders and 66 community adolescents performed 4 IATs assessing 1) implicit attitudes about a) aggression and b) transgression as good, and 2) implicit self-concepts about a) aggression and b) transgression as self-descriptive. They filled in self-report questionnaires: the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory, the Child Behaviour Checklist, and explicit measures of their attitudes and self-concepts towards transgression and aggression. Results showed few differences between community and offender adolescents on implicit attitudes and self-concepts, and unexpected negative associations between some implicit attitudes and psychopathic traits, while the association was positive for the corresponding explicit attitudes. Possible explanations of these findings are discussed.

Personal indebtedness, community characteristics and theft crimes

Becker (1968) and Stigler (1970) provide the germinal works for an economic analysis of crime, and their approach has been utilised to consider the response of crime rates to a range of economic, criminal and socioeconomic factors. Until recently however this did not extend to a consideration of the role of personal indebtedness in explaining the observed pattern of crime. This paper uses the Becker (1968) and Stigler (1970) framework, and extends to a fuller consideration of the relationship between economic hardship and theft crimes in an urban setting. The increase in personal debt in the past decade has been significant, which combined with the recent global recession, has led to a spike in personal insolvencies. In the context of the recent recession it is important to understand how increases in personal indebtedness may spillover into increases in social problems like crime. This paper uses data available at the neighbourhood level for London, UK on county court judgments (CCJ's) granted against residents in that neighbourhood, this is our measure of personal indebtedness, and examines the relationship between a range of community characteristics (economic, socio-economic, etc), including the number of CCJ's granted against residents, and the observed pattern of theft crimes for three successive years using spatial econometric methods. Our results confirm that theft crimes in London follow a spatial process, that personal indebtedness is positively associated with theft crimes in London, and that the covariates we have chosen are important in explaining the spatial variation in theft crimes. We identify a number of interesting results, for instance that there is variation in the impact of covariates across crime types, and that the covariates which are important in explaining the pattern of each crime type are largely stable across the three periods considered in this analysis.

New roles for community pharmacists in modern health care systems: a challenge for pharmacy education and research.

The academic activities led by the Unit of Community Pharmacy can be classified as translational. Our group is interested in person-centered pharmaceutical services aimed at a more responsible use of drugs (effectiveness, safety, efficiency) in collaboration with physicians and other health care professionals in a primary care setting. The following domains of education and research are high priorities for our group: medication therapy management, medication adherence, integrated care, individualization of therapies, care management for the elderly and e-health.