Genome analysis and characterisation of the exopolysaccharide produced by Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum 35624™

The Bifibobacterium longum subsp. longum 35624™ strain (formerly named Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis) is a well described probiotic with clinical efficacy in Irritable Bowel Syndrome clinical trials and induces immunoregulatory effects in mice and in humans. This paper presents (a) the genome sequence of the organism allowing the assignment to its correct subspeciation longum; (b) a comparative genome assessment with other B. longum strains and (c) the molecular structure of the 35624 exopolysaccharide (EPS624). Comparative genome analysis of the 35624 strain with other B. longum strains determined that the sub-speciation of the strain is longum and revealed the presence of a 35624-specific gene cluster, predicted to encode the biosynthetic machinery for EPS624. Following isolation and acid treatment of the EPS, its chemical structure was determined using gas and liquid chromatography for sugar constituent and linkage analysis, electrospray and matrix assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry for sequencing and NMR. The EPS consists of a branched hexasaccharide repeating unit containing two galactose and two glucose moieties, galacturonic acid and the unusual sugar 6-deoxy-L-talose. These data demonstrate that the B. longum 35624 strain has specific genetic features, one of which leads to the generation of a characteristic exopolysaccharide.

Geochemistry of lower sheeted dike complex samples of ODP Holes 137-504B and 140-504B

Rocks of the lower sheeted dike complex of Hole 504B sampled during Leg 140 were analyzed for major and trace element compositions to investigate the effects of igneous processes and hydrothermal alteration on the compositions of the rocks. The rocks are relatively uniform in composition and similar to the shallower dikes. They are moderately evolved mid-ocean-ridge basalts (MORB) with relatively high MgO (7.9-10 wt%) and Mg# (0.60-0.70), and have unusually low incompatible element contents (TiO2 = 0.42-1.1 wt%, Zr = 23-62 ppm). Discrete compositional intervals in the hole reflect varying degrees of differentiation, and olivine and plagioclase accumulation in the rocks, and may be related to injection of packets of dikes having similar compositions. Systematic depletions of total REE, Zr, Y, TiO2, and P2O5 in centimeter-size patches are most likely attributed to exclusion of highly differentiated, late-stage interstitial liquids from small portions of the rocks. The rocks exhibit increased H2O+ reflecting hydrothermal alteration. Replacement of primary plagioclase by albite and oligoclase led to local gains of Na2O, losses of CaO, and slightly positive Eu anomalies. Some mobility of P2O5 led to minor increases and decreases in P2O5 contents, and some local mobility of Ti may have occurred during alteration of titanomagnetite to titanite. Higher temperatures of alteration in the lower sheeted dikes led to breakdown of pyroxene and sulfide minerals and losses of Zn, Cu, and S to hydrothermal fluids. Later addition of anhydrite to the rocks in microfractures and replacing plagioclase caused local increases in sulfur contents. The lower sheeted dikes are a major source of metals to hydrothermal fluids for the formation of metal sulfide deposits on and within the seafloor.

(Table 3) Geochemistry of borehole fluids of ODP Hole 137-504B

Circulation of seawater through basaltic basement for several million years after crustal emplacement has been inferred from studies of surface heat flow, and may play a significant role in the exchange of elements between the oceanic crust and seawater. Without direct observation of the fluid chemistry, interpretations regarding the extent and timing of this exchange must be based on the integrated signal of alteration found in sampled basalts. Much interest has thus been expressed in obtaining and analyzing fluids directly from basaltic formations. It has been proposed that open oceanic boreholes can be used as oceanic groundwater wells to obtain fluids that are circulating within the formation. Water samples were collected from the open borehole in Hole 504B prior to drilling operations on Leg 137, with the original intention of collecting formation fluids from the surrounding basaltic rocks. Past results have yielded ambiguous conclusions as to the origin of the fluids recovered-specifically, whether or not the fluids were true formation fluids or merely the result of reaction of seawater in the borehole environment. The chemistry of eight borehole fluid samples collected during Leg 137 is discussed in this paper. Large changes in major, minor, and isotopic compositions relative to unaltered seawater were observed in the borehole fluids. Compositional changes increased with depth in the borehole. The samples exhibit the effect of simple mixing of seawater, throughout the borehole, with a single reacted fluid component. Analysis and interpretation of the results from Leg 137 in light of past results suggest that the chemical signals observed may originate predominantly from reaction with basaltic rubble residing at the bottom of the hole during the interim between drilling legs. Although this endeavor apparently did not recover formation waters, information on the nature of reaction between seawater and basalt at the prevalent temperatures in Hole 504B (>160°C) has been gained that can be related to reconstruction of the alteration history of the oceanic crust. Isotopic analyses allow calculation of element-specific water/rock mass ratios (Li and Sr) and are related to the extent of chemical exchange between the borehole fluids and basalt.

(Table 1) Results of pore water analyses, including boron content and boron isotope ratios

Drilling a transect of holes across the Costa Rica forearc during ODP Leg 170 demonstrated the margin wedge to be of continental, non accretionary origin, which is intersected by permeable thrust faults. Pore waters from four drillholes, two of which penetrated the décollement zone and reached the underthrust lower plate sedimentary sequence of the Cocos Plate, were examined for boron contents and boron isotopic signatures. The combined results show dilution of the uppermost sedimentary cover of the forearc, with boron contents lower than half of the present-day seawater values. Pore fluid "refreshening" suggests that gas hydrate water has been mixed with the sediment interstitial water, without profoundly affecting the d11B values. Fault-related flux of a deeply generated fluid is inferred from high B concentration in the interval beneath the décollement, being released from the underthrust sequence with incipient burial. First-order fluid budget calculations over a cross-section across the Costa Rica forearc indicate that no significant fluid transfer from the lower to the upper plate is inferred from boron fluid profiles, at least within the frontal 40 km studied. Expulsed lower plate pore water, which is estimated to be 0.26-0.44 km3 per km trench, is conducted efficiently along and just beneath the décollement zone, indicating effective shear-enhanced compaction. In the upper plate forearc wedge, dewatering occurs as diffuse transport as well as channelled flow. A volume of approximately 2 km3 per km trench is expulsed due to compaction and, to a lesser extent, lateral shortening. Pore water chemistry is influenced by gas hydrate instability, so that it remains unknown whether deep processes like mineral dehydration or hydrocarbon formation may play a considerable role towards the hinterland.

The roles of EFN-1 and seam cell V2 in the transmission of a stop cue for the posterior lateral microtubule in Caenorhabditis elegans

A functional nervous system requires the precise arrangement of all nerve cells and their neurites. To achieve this correct assembly, a myriad of molecular guidance cues works together to direct the outgrowth of neurites to their correct positions. The small nematode C. elegans provides the ideal model system to study the complex mechanisms of neurite guidance due to its relatively simple nervous system, composed of 302 neurons. I used two mechanosensory neurons, called the posterior lateral microtubule (PLM), to investigate the role of the ephrin and Eph receptor protein family in neurite termination in C. elegans. Activation of the C. elegans Eph receptor VAB-1 on the PLM growth cone is sufficient to cause PLM termination, but the identity and location of the activating ligand has not been established. In my thesis I investigated the ability of the ephrin ligand EFN-1 to activate VAB-1 to cause PLM termination when expressed on the same cell (in cis) and on opposing cells (in trans) to the receptor. I showed that EFN-1 is able to activate VAB-1 in cis and in trans to cause PLM termination. I also assessed the hypodermal seam cells as the source of the ephrin stop cue using fluorescently labelled and seam cell mutant transgenic worms. I found that although the PLM shows consistent termination on the seam cell V2 in wild type worms independent of PLM length, this process is not significantly disrupted in seam cell mutants. With this information I have created a new hypothesis that the PLM neurite is able the provide a positional cue for the developing seam cells, and have created a new transgenic strain which can be used to assess the impact of PLM and ALM cell ablation on seam cell position. My research is the first to demonstrate the ability of an ephrin ligand to activate its ephrin receptor in cis, and further research can investigate if this finding has in vivo applications.

Rethinking Care Through Social Reproduction: Articulating Circuits of Migration

Care has come to dominate much feminist research on globalized migrations and the transfer of labor from the South to the North, while the older concept of reproduction had been pushed into the background but is now becoming the subject of debates on the commodification of care in the household and changes in welfare state policies. This article argues that we could achieve a better understanding of the different modalities and trajectories of care in the reproduction of individuals, families, and communities, both of migrant and nonmigrant populations by articulating the diverse circuits of migration, in particular that of labor and the family. In doing this, I go back to the earlier North American writing on racialized minorities and migrants and stratified social reproduction. I also explore insights from current Asian studies of gendered circuits of migration connecting labor and marriage migrations as well as the notion of global householding that highlights the gender politics of social reproduction operating within and beyond households in institutional and welfare architectures. In contrast to Asia, there has relatively been little exploration in European studies of the articulation of labor and family migrations through the lens of social reproduction. However, connecting the different types of migration enables us to achieve a more complex understanding of care trajectories and their contribution to social reproduction.

Understandings of transnational families in debates on Migration and development

International migration sets in motion a range of significant transnational processes that connect countries and people. How migration interacts with development and how policies might promote and enhance such interactions have, since the turn of the millennium, gained attention on the international agenda. The recognition that transnational practices connect migrants and their families across sending and receiving societies forms part of this debate. The ways in which policy debate employs and understands transnational family ties nevertheless remain underexplored. This article sets out to discern the understandings of the family in two (often intermingled) debates concerned with transnational interactions: The largely state and policydriven discourse on the potential benefits of migration on economic development, and the largely academic transnational family literature focusing on issues of care and the micro-politics of gender and generation. Emphasizing the relation between diverse migration-development dynamics and specific family positions, we ask whether an analytical point of departure in respective transnational motherhood, fatherhood or childhood is linked to emphasizing certain outcomes. We conclude by sketching important strands of inclusions and exclusions of family matters in policy discourse and suggest ways to better integrate a transnational family perspective in global migration-development policy.

Perspectives on gender, migration and transnational work: joint work of social reproduction and care in Southern Europe

This paper presents the "state of the art" and some of the main issues discussed in relation to the topic of transnational migration and reproductive work in southern Europe. We start doing a genealogy of the complex theoretical development leading to the consolidation of the research program, linking consideration of gender with transnational migration and transformation of work and ways of survival, thus making the production aspects as reproductive, in a context of globalization. The analysis of the process of multiscale reconfiguration of social reproduction and care, with particular attention to its present global dimension is presented, pointing to the turning point of this line of research that would have taken place with the beginning of this century, with the rise notions such as "global care chains" (Hochschild, 2001), or "care drain" (Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2013). Also, the role of this new agency, now composed in many cases women who migrate to other countries or continents, precisely to address these reproductive activities, is recognized. Finally, reference is made to some of the new conceptual and theoretical developments in this area.

La selección de textos literarios en el contexto del español como segunda lengua. Investigación cualitativa con adolescentes inmigrantes

En este artículo se proponen claves de selección de textos literarios para adolescentes inmigrantes de niveles A2 de competencia comunicativa en español. El diseño de la investigación se configura a partir del paradigma cualitativo/interpretativo de corte etnográfico y de la investigación-acción en el escenario de cuatro aulas de español. El análisis de una muestra de treinta jóvenes inmigrantes ante el corpus leído durante el trabajo de campo, aporta seis variables menos centradas en la proyección explícita de la migración, y más sujetas al concepto de distancia como elemento transcendente de la lectura literaria.

Interpretation and typology Spanish indefinite pronoun uno in three discoursive genres

This study investigates the Spanish indefinite pronoun uno (“one”). After a detailed analysis of its occurrences in authentic language, we find that its interpretation varies depending on the linguistic context. Therefore, we examine which elements of the context - we focus on the broader context, beyond the sentence – have an impact on its interpretation and develop a typology of the indefinite pronoun as to its interpretation. The pronoun may be interpreted as completely generic or specific (referring to the speaker, the listener or a third person). Its interpretation can also be located in an intermediate position between these interpretive extremes.In addition, we compare its use in various discursive genres - spontaneous conversations, academic essays and web forum - which are distinguished by the presence or absence of interactivity and of more or less subjectivity / intersubjectivity. The comparison shows that pronoun use depends on these characteristics.

La inevitable inconsistencia del Zeus/Júpiter épico

Durante años la investigación literaria ha encontrado fruición en buscar y encontrar inconsistencias narrativas en la Tebaida de Estacio. Concretamente, hay cierto grado de consenso respecto a que las incongruencias en que incurre Júpiter son debidas a negligencia o incuria por parte del poeta. De hecho, no se puede negar que el soberano del cielo se contradice en las ocasiones en que alude a su relación con el Destino. No obstante, no será únicamente el poeta flavio el objeto de mi atención en este artículo. Hoy día se continúa acudiendo a la autoridad filosófica de Séneca (fundamentalmente a Dial. 1.5.8) siempre que el Zeus/Júpiter poshomérico (también el virgiliano) incurre en lo que hemos dado en considerar «incoherencias». Sin embargo, excepción hecha de las composiciones hesiódicas, el estatuto teológico de Zeus/Júpiter es altamente inestable en toda la tradición literaria griega y romana. Quizá deberíamos aceptar, entonces, que durante siglos los que estudiamos literatura antigua hemos tendido a prescindir de la voz autorial y de su autoridad omnímoda para manipular el material literario preexistente con el objeto de generar nuevos significados y nuevas cosmovisiones. En definitiva, nos hemos mostrado proclives a calificar de inconsistencias todo aquello que no se adecua a nuestras expectativas o prejuicios.

Gutes Lernen und gute Lehre. Welchen Beitrag leistet die Qualitätssicherung. Beiträge zur 3. AQ Austria Jahrestagung 2015

Die Publikation zur AQ Austria Jahrestagung 2015 widmet sich dem Lernen und Lehren an Hochschulen und den vielfältigen Wandlungsprozessen durch die zunehmende biographische, soziale und kulturelle Diversität der Studierenden sowie elektronischen Medien. Student-centred Learning (SCL) gewinnt verstärkt an Bedeutung. Diese Wandlungsprozesse treffen nicht nur Studierende, Lehrende und die Hochschulen als Institutionen, auch die Qualitätssicherung in Studium und Lehre. Der Beitrag von Prof. Nacken zeigt auf, welche Chancen und Herausforderungen sich durch SCL in verschiedensten Bereichen ergeben. Er geht auf das Projekt „Studierende im Fokus der Exzellenz“, die Entwicklung der Charta für gute Lehre und aktuelle Trends und Probleme bei digitaler Lehre ein. Die studentische Perspektive zeigt Umsetzungsmöglichkeiten und Maßnahmen in Richtung Studierendenzentrierung auf. In den weiteren Beiträgen wird auf Didaktik und Qualitätssicherung, Determinanten studentischen Lernerfolgs, alternative Formen der Lehrevaluation und die Sichtbarmachung von non-formal und informell erworbenen Kompetenzen eingegangen und zwei beschäftigen sich mit Einsatzmöglichkeiten und Veränderungen durch neue Medien. Mit Beiträgen von: Nacken, Heribert; Hanft, Anke; Pichl, Elmar; Treml, Beate; Pellert, Ada; Künzel, Manfred; Haas, Lena; Martens, Thomas; Metzger, Christiane; Haag, Johann; Froschauer-Neuhauser, Elisabeth; Meyer Richli, Christine; Schulz, Ramona; Kämmerer, Frauke; Gornik, Elke A.; Freiberger, Diane; Birke, Barbara; Müller, Claude; Woschnack, Ute; Baumgartner, Alexander; Erlemann, Jennifer; Penßler-Beyer, Anja; Bergsmann, Evelyn; Weißemböck, Josef.

Guía de procedimientos contables para el adecuado registro y presentación de la información financiera en la empresa PLARCO S.A. de C.V. dedicada a la industria de la construcción, de acuerdo a la sección 23 de NIIF para PYMES.

La actividad de la construcción es uno de los sectores productivos que más aporta al crecimiento de las economías de los países y regiones. Es un sector de suma importancia no solo por la gran cantidad de empresas y trabajadores que involucra de forma directa, sino también por su efecto dinamizador en una variada gama de insumos que el propio desarrollo de la actividad demanda y en cierto modo es uno de los principales motores de la actividad productiva y económica en general, al ser el primer eslabón en las actividades económicas. Entre las exigencias que son necesarias cumplir por parte de las empresas de hoy en día, está la implementación de la Norma Internacional de Información Financiera para Pequeñas y Medianas Entidades (NIIF para PYMES), la cual es un marco normativo contable para la presentación de los estados financieros. En el presente documento, se han estudiado los aspectos importantes que las empresas constructoras ubicadas en el municipio de Santa Ana deben tomar en cuenta al momento del reconocimiento y contabilización de los ingresos ordinarios provenientes de un contrato de Construcción, criterios basados en la Sección 23 de la NIIF para PYMES.

Disappeared Persons and Homicide in El Salvador

During 2012-2013, the homicide rate in El Salvador came down from 69.9 to 42.2 per 100,000 population following a truce between the leaders of the two major gangs, “Mara Salvatrucha” and “Barrio 18”, and government. But despite the apparent successes of the truce, it was speculated that the drop in murders could have been due to the killers simply hid the bodies of their victims. This paper aims at determining whether gangs effectively disappeared their victims to cut down the official counts of murders, or they committed these crimes for other reasons. The results from this study suggest that Salvadoran gangs had been using disappearance as a resource to gain sustained social control among residents of already gang-dominated areas, that together with homicide, disappearance is part of a process of territorial spread and strategic strengthening by which these groups are enhancing their capabilities to interfere in the alliances of Mexican drug trafficking organizations with Central American criminal organizations specializing in the transshipment of drugs and in providing access to local markets to distribute and sell drugs. Our findings show that the risk for disappearance has been large even before the truce was in place and that actually, it continues as such and going through a process of geographic expansion.

Trabajo en equipo: ¿Es posible formar equipos médicos expertos a partir de profesionales expertos?

El trabajo en equipo multidisciplinario aumenta la seguridad de los pacientes, minimiza los errores médicos, mejora la satisfacción y el rendimiento del personal de salud y posiblemente evita gastos generados por mala praxis y complicaciones. Sin embargo, la implementación del trabajo médico en equipos es compleja y parecería ser una utopía principalmente en países con escasos recursos dedicados a la salud. A pesar de los esfuerzos por cambiar el paradigma de la asistencia médica, este aún se basa en la adquisición de conocimientos individuales más que en la interacción colectiva. El desarrollo de las habilidades necesarias para trabajar en equipo no forma parte del programa curricular en medicina en nuestro país. En este artículo, nos hemos apoyado en literatura indexada (PUBMED-MEDLINE Y LATININDEX) para explicar los pilares y las ventajas del trabajo en equipo. Nuestro objetivo es generar conciencia para iniciar el difícil camino hacia esa forma de trabajo en Uruguay.