Synaptic Integration of Adult-Born Hippocampal Neurons Is Locally Controlled by Astrocytes.

Adult neurogenesis is regulated by the neurogenic niche, through mechanisms that remain poorly defined. Here, we investigated whether niche-constituting astrocytes influence the maturation of adult-born hippocampal neurons using two independent transgenic approaches to block vesicular release from astrocytes. In these models, adult-born neurons but not mature neurons showed reduced glutamatergic synaptic input and dendritic spine density that was accompanied with lower functional integration and cell survival. By taking advantage of the mosaic expression of transgenes in astrocytes, we found that spine density was reduced exclusively in segments intersecting blocked astrocytes, revealing an extrinsic, local control of spine formation. Defects in NMDA receptor (NMDAR)-mediated synaptic transmission and dendrite maturation were partially restored by exogenous D-serine, whose extracellular level was decreased in transgenic models. Together, these results reveal a critical role for adult astrocytes in local dendritic spine maturation, which is necessary for the NMDAR-dependent functional integration of newborn neurons.

Influencia de la percepción de apoyo y del funcionamiento social en la calidad de vida de pacientes con esquizofrenia y sus cuidadores

Perception of social support and functioning of patients with schizophrenia and their primary caregivers and its relationship to quality of life are described. Forty-five patients and their 45 relatives, treated at the Mental Health Services in Arica, Chile, participated. Both patients and caregivers in the study have a poor perception of social support with regard to extra-family people, as well as a low social integration. However, patients showed adequate capacity to function within their immediate family. Unlike what was found in developed countries, these patients showed moderate levels of quality of life, with a strong relationship with perceptions of the social support they receive from family and significant others and the ability to establish and maintain social contacts. Quality of life of primary caregivers is linked to patients´ ability to establish and maintain social contacts within the family group, as in other social instances, such as keeping a job. The results of the study suggest the need to consider the design and application of programs of support for these patients and their caregivers, with the central aim of the social functioning of the above-mentioned patients and their familiar and community integration.

Content and Language Integration as a part of a degree reform at Tampere University of Technology

Tampere University of Technology is undergoing a degree reform that started in 2013. One of the major changes in the reform was the integration of compulsory Finnish, Swedish and English language courses to substance courses at the bachelor level. The integration of content and language courses aims at higher quality language learning, more fluency in studies, and increased motivation toward language studies. In addition, integration is an opportunity to optimize the use of resources and to offer courses that are more tailored to the students' field of study and to the skills needed in working life. The reform also aims to increase and develop co-operation between different departments at the university and to develop scientific follow up. This paper gives an overview of the integration process conducted at TUT and gives examples of adjunct CLIL implementations in three different languages.

Maturation and Functional Integration of New Granule Cells into the Adult Hippocampus.

The adult hippocampus generates functional dentate granule cells (GCs) that release glutamate onto target cells in the hilus and cornus ammonis (CA)3 region, and receive glutamatergic and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic inputs that tightly control their spiking activity. The slow and sequential development of their excitatory and inhibitory inputs makes them particularly relevant for information processing. Although they are still immature, new neurons are recruited by afferent activity and display increased excitability, enhanced activity-dependent plasticity of their input and output connections, and a high rate of synaptogenesis. Once fully mature, new GCs show all the hallmarks of neurons generated during development. In this review, we focus on how developing neurons remodel the adult dentate gyrus and discuss key aspects that illustrate the potential of neurogenesis as a mechanism for circuit plasticity and function.

An affected core drives network integration deficits of the structural connectome in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome.

Chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is a genetic disease known to lead to cerebral structural alterations, which we study using the framework of the macroscopic white-matter connectome. We create weighted connectomes of 44 patients with 22q11DS and 44 healthy controls using diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, and perform a weighted graph theoretical analysis. After confirming global network integration deficits in 22q11DS (previously identified using binary connectomes), we identify the spatial distribution of regions responsible for global deficits. Next, we further characterize the dysconnectivity of the deficient regions in terms of sub-network properties, and investigate their relevance with respect to clinical profiles. We define the subset of regions with decreased nodal integration (evaluated using the closeness centrality measure) as the affected core (A-core) of the 22q11DS structural connectome. A-core regions are broadly bilaterally symmetric and consist of numerous network hubs - chiefly parietal and frontal cortical, as well as subcortical regions. Using a simulated lesion approach, we demonstrate that these core regions and their connections are particularly important to efficient network communication. Moreover, these regions are generally densely connected, but less so in 22q11DS. These specific disturbances are associated to a rerouting of shortest network paths that circumvent the A-core in 22q11DS, "de-centralizing" the network. Finally, the efficiency and mean connectivity strength of an orbito-frontal/cingulate circuit, included in the affected regions, correlate negatively with the extent of negative symptoms in 22q11DS patients, revealing the clinical relevance of present findings. The identified A-core overlaps numerous regions previously identified as affected in 22q11DS as well as in schizophrenia, which approximately 30-40% of 22q11DS patients develop.

Institutional legacies, employment and professional integration of non EU/EEA doctors in France

Internationally, policies for attracting highly-skilled migrants have become the guidelines mainly used by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Governments are implementing specific procedures to capture and facilitate their mobility. However, all professions are not equal when it comes to welcoming highly-skilled migrants. The medical profession, as a protective market, is one of these. Taking the case of non-EU/EEA doctors in France, this paper shows that the medical profession defined as the closed labour market, remains the most controversial in terms of professional integration of migrants, protectionist barriers to migrant competition and challenge of medical shortage. Based on the path-dependency approach, this paper argues that non-EU/EEA doctors' issues in France derive from a complex historical process of interaction between standards settled in the past, particularly the historical power of medical corporatism, the unexpected long-term effects of French hospital reforms of 1958, and budgetary pressures. Theoretically, this paper shows two significant findings. Firstly, the French medical system has undergone a series of transformations unthinkable in the strict sense of a path-dependence approach: an opening of the medical profession to foreign physicians in the context of the Europeanisation of public policy, acceptance of non-EU/EEA doctors in a context of medical shortage and budgetary pressures. Secondly, there is no change of the overall paradigm: significantly, the recruitment policies of non-EU/EEA doctors continue to highlight the imprint of the past and reveal a significant persistence of prejudices. Non-EU/EEA doctors are not considered legitimate doctors even if they have the qualifications of physicians which are legitimate in their country and which can be recognised in other receiving countries.

jxSensor: a sensor network integration layer for JXTA

Nowadays, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) arealready a very important data source to obtain data about the environment. Thus, they are key to the creation of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Given the popularity of P2P middlewares as ameans to efficiently process information and distribute services, being able to integrate them to WSN¿s is an interesting proposal. JXTA is a widely used P2P middleware that allows peers to easily exchange information, heavily relying on its main architectural highlight, the capability to organize peers with common interests into peer groups. However, right now, approaches to integrate WSNs to a JXTA network seldom take advantage of peer groups. For this reason, in this paper we present jxSensor, an integrationlayer for sensor motes which facilitates the deployment of CPS¿s under this architecture. This integration has been done taking into account JXTA¿s idiosyncrasies and proposing novel ideas,such as the Virtual Peer, a group of sensors that acts as a single entity within the peer group context.

Synergy Sources, Target Autonomy and Integration in Acquisitions

Determining the appropriate level of integration is crucial to realizing value from acquisitions. Most prior research assumes that higher integration implies the removal of autonomy from target managers, which in turn undermines the functioning of the target firm if it entails unfamiliar elements for the acquirer. Using a survey of 86 acquisitions to obtain the richness of detail necessary to distinguish integration from autonomy, the authors argue and find that integration and autonomy are not the opposite ends of a single continuum. Certain conditions (e.g., when complementarity rather than similarity is the primary source of synergy) lead to high levels of both integration and autonomy. In addition, similarity negatively moderates the relationship between complementarity and autonomy when the target offers both synergy sources. In contrast, similarity does not moderate the link between complementarity and integration. The authors' findings advance scholarly understanding about the drivers of implementation strategy and in particular the different implementation strategies acquiring managers deploy when they attempt to leverage complementarities, similarities, or both.

Mentoring in the acquisition of professional skills through practices in companies by degree students

Abstract This work has had as objective to analyze the skills acquired through internships in business companies by students of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University Pompeu Fabra. The internship is a basic item in order to obtain a hard connection between the University and social-economic world where University and Enterprises develop their activity. In this study we want to know about two aspects. The first one, we want to know the profit that is obtained from the Student as a consequence of internship and mentoring. Also, we want to study about the importance of mentoring as a principal element that establishes the relationship between the Student and the Company. Moreover, it has sought to analyze if certain factors such as the size of the company where the practices has been performed, the study rank level that was achieved or the fact of being a man or a woman, were among the determining factors at the time of acquiring the skills. The results presented here indicate that the size of the company that have been making the practices and the gender of the student are related to the acquisition of certain skills. There was not a statistically significant relationship related to the rank level have by the students in the practice. In the future we are going to study if the labor market Integration is easier if the Student has performed work placement. Keywords Skills; employability; internship; meatoring.

Job loss among immigrant and native workers: evidence from Spain's economic downturn

The profound crisis that has affected the Spanish economy since mid - 2008 has been characterized by significant job losses and a marked rise in the country´s unemployment rate. However, unemployment has had a differential impact on different population groups. Compared to native, immigrant workers have experienced higher rates of job loss. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the differences between immigrants and natives (distinguished by gender) in terms of their probability of suffering job loss in the downturn of late 2008 and 2009. Our results indicate that the higher rate of job loss among female immigrant workers can be fully explained by their lower endowment of human capital. By contrast, human capital endowment and over-representation in certain occupations, sectors and regions in which the crisis had greatest impact do not appear to be the only reason for the penalty suffered by immigrant males in terms of their chances of losing their job in the downturn.

A evolução da indústria petroquímica brasileira

The Brazilian Petrochemical Industry is about to turn fifty years old, and endures profound changes. In less than four years, it has moved from a system of centralized decisions and a national lever of planning, to another which is spread, without massive actions and with less integration with the raw material supplying company. On this issue it is presented, briefly, a small history of the development of this industrial type, including issues on how the growth of this activity, so important to the development of Brazil, shall be lead.

Vaatimustiedon hallinta rakennusteollisuuden tuotanto- ja suunnitteluyrityksessä

Diplomityön ensisijaisena tavoitteena on luoda yleinen vaatimustiedon hallinnan malli, jonka avulla yrityksen toimintaympäristössä vaikuttavat vaatimukset voidaan tunnistaa ja kommunikoida koko organisaation tietoisuuteen. Kohdeyrityksen näkökulmasta mielenkiinto kohdistuu erityisesti käytännön työn kautta saataviin lopputuloksiin. Tavoitteena on luoda yritykseen pohja vaatimustiedon hallinnalle sekä samalla kehittää sähköistä vaatimustietojärjestelmää. Diplomityö on toteutettu konstruktiivisena tutkimuksena. Tutkittavasta aiheesta on saatavilla teoriatietoa hyvin rajallisesti. Tämän vuoksi vaatimustiedon hallinnan malli toteutetaan vahvasti käytännön työn havaintojen ja analysoinnin pohjalta. Lähtökohdaksi käytännön työlle esitellään laadunhallinnan, tiedonhallinnan sekä prosessien näkökulmia sekä perinteisiä vaatimusten hallinnan teorioita. Tiedot, joiden avulla valmis malli on luotu, kerättiin haastattelemalla yrityksen prosessien omistajia. Työn tuloksina esitellään vaatimustiedon hallinnan malli sekä yrityksessä saatuja käytännön työn lopputuloksia. Vaatimustiedon hallinnalla tarkoitetaan yrityksen toimintaympäristössä, prosesseissa sekä tuotteissa vaikuttavien vaatimusten saattamista organisaation tietoisuuteen mahdollisimman käyttäjäystävällisellä tavalla. Mallissa esiintyvät vaatimukset ovat sidosryhmien tai yrityksen itsensä ilmaisuja liittyen tuotteen tai palvelun ominaisuuksiin sekä suorituskykyyn. Valmis malli voidaan jakaa neljään eri vaiheeseen, jotka ovat suunnittelu ja esitutkimus, toteutus, käyttöönotto, sekä muutostenhallinta ja ylläpito. Laajimmillaan toteutettuna vaatimustiedon hallinta auttaa yritystä parhaiden käytäntöjen tunnistamisessa ja prosessien kehittämisessä, mahdollistaa tasalaatuisen toiminnan ja tuotteet sekä toimivan tiedon ja osaamisen hallinnan.

Liitetietojen hallinta sähköisessä liiketoiminnassa

Viime vuosikymmenen aikana avoimet ja alustariippumattomat XML-pohjaiset standardikehikot ovat nousseet vakavaksi haastajiksi vanhoille EDI-järjestelmille. Uusilla menetelmillä tavoitellaan joustavampia toimintatapoja, laajempaa yhteensopivuutta ja alustariippumattomuutta. Työn tarkoituksena oli kehittää avoimia standardeja hyödyntävä rajapinta aiemmin toteutettuun WWW-palveluun. Teoriaosuudessa esitellään kolme avointa sähköisen liiketoiminnan kehikkoa, RosettaNet, Web service ja ebXML. Työn käytännön osuudessa toteutettiin sähköisen liiketoiminnan palvelu, jonka avulla organisaatiot voivat välittää dokumentteja keskenään. Palvelu toteutetiin Web service -tyylillä; se käyttää HTTP-protokollaa tiedonsiirtoon ja lähettää ja vastaanottaa tarkasti määriteltyjä XML-sanomia. Eräs keskisuuri suomalainen yritys käyttää toteutettua palvelua verkkolaskujen liitetietojen lähetyksen ja vastaanoton automatisointiin.

Combining Customer Requirements and Modularity in Complete Tap Water Solution

This thesis studies forming a complete solution concept for tap water systems in project business environment. The aim of the study is to find tools and means for the target company to determine the scope of their tap water solution offering and to research what kind of organizational capabilities and resources are needed to supply such system solutions. With the help of literature, the characteristics of systems selling and project business and thematics of systems integration and integrated solutions are examined, and the significance of modularity and customer requirements in the given operational environment is discussed. After this, a checklist tool for customer requirements management is developed for the tap water system along with a module allocation method. The study proposes that with the checklist and module allocation the technical specifications can be extensively and innovatively defined for the system. The tools developed are a part of a complete tap water solution concept, which suggests that integrated solutions might constitute possibilities for the company to outperform its competitors when the traditional business methods of the industry are becoming obsolete.