Thinking outside the black box:are the brain endothelial cells the new main target in Alzheimer's disease?

The blood-brain barrier is the interface through which the brain interacts with the milieu and consists mainly of a sophisticated network of brain endothelial cells that forms blood vessels and selectively moves molecules inside and outside the brain through multiple mechanisms of transport.Although brain endothelial cell function is crucial for brain homeostasis,their role in neurodegenerative diseases has historically not been considered with the same importance as other brain cells such as microglia,astroglia,neurons,or even molecules such as amyloid beta,Tau,or alpha-synuclein.Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disease,and brain endothelial cell dysfunction has been reported by several groups.However,its impairment has barely been considered as a potential therapeutic target.Here we review the most recent advances in the relationship between Alzheimer's disease and brain endothelial cells commitment and analyze the possible mechanisms through which their alterations contribute to this neurodegenerative disease,highlighting their inflammatory phenotype and the possibility of an impaired secretory pattern of brain endothelial cells that could contribute to the progression of this ailment.Finally,we discuss why shall brain endothelial cells be appreciated as a therapeutic target instead of solely an obstacle for delivering treatments to the injured brain in Alzheimer's disease.

Functional diversity in an Andean subparamo affected by wildfire in Colombia

Recently,the Andean subparamo in Colombia has experienced severe wildfires,but little is known about the functional composition of recovering or not after a wildfire.Therefore,we examined the functional community composition subparamo affected byfire in 2016.We documented how functional traits changed 31 months after the disturbance and compared them with an unburned site.We sampled from one to two years after the fire every four months,then registered all recruits in 1655m plots.New individuals were classified into strategy functional groups based on the traits of persistence and dispersal.The first group was stem type and regeneration mechanism(seedling and resprout),and the second was fruit type and dispersal mode.We investigated the degree to which functional diversity changes plant communities over time(woody and non-woody),and we compared it with an unburned site.The most relevant results showed that resprouts and seed regenerated increased post-fire time and significant differences between sampling periods.The anemochory is the most relevant dispersal mode that indicates the community capacity to colonize the new gaps opened by the fire rapidly.We discuss how wildfire appears to be a triggering factor for persistence and dispersal strategy groups in subparamo burned given their characteristics of tolerance to stress.For this reason,a greater functional divergence between the ecosystems studied post-fire recovery has been related to higher levels of biodiversity at the landscape scale due to the high degree of endemism and significant differences in species composition between paramos.

Mathematical Model and Intelligent Control of a Quadcopter, with Non-conventional Membership Functions

This paper shows detailed steps for modeling a quadcopter with Euler-Lagrange equations, followed by controlling it with intelligent control that includes states decoupling. In addition, this control shows non-conventional membership functions for the most instable states, in order to get a fast and effective response.

Alternative approaches for estimating missing climate data:application to monthly precipitation records in South- Central Chile

Background: Over the last decades interest has grown on how climate change impacts forest resources. However,one of the main constraints is that meteorological stations are riddled with missing climatic data. This study compared five approaches for estimating monthly precipitation records: inverse distance weighting(IDW), a modification of IDW that includes elevation differences between target and neighboring stations(IDW_m), correlation coefficient weighting(CCW), multiple linear regression(MLR) and artificial neural networks(ANN).Methods: A complete series of monthly precipitation records(1995-2012) from twenty meteorological stations located in central Chile were used. Two target stations were selected and their neighboring stations, located within a radius of25 km(3 stations) and 50 km(9 stations), were identified. Cross-validation was used for evaluating the accuracy of the estimation approaches. The performance and predictive capability of the approaches were evaluated using the ratio of the root mean square error to the standard deviation of measured data(RSR), the percent bias(PBIAS), and the NashSutcliffe efficiency(NSE). For testing the main and interactive effects of the radius of influence and estimation approaches,a two-level factorial design considering the target station as the blocking factor was used.Results: ANN and MLR showed the best statistics for all the stations and radius of influence. However, these approaches were not significantly different with IDW_m. Inclusion of elevation differences into IDW significantly improved IDW_m estimates. In terms of precision, similar estimates were obtained when applying ANN, MLR or IDW_m, and the radius of influence had a significant influence on their estimates, we conclude that estimates based on nine neighboring stations located within a radius of 50 km are needed for completing missing monthly precipitation data in regions with complex topography.Conclusions: It is concluded that approaches based on ANN, MLR and IDWm had the best performance in two sectors located in south-central Chile with a complex topography. A radius of influence of 50 km(9 neighboring stations) is recommended for completing monthly precipitation data.

Effect of the Type of Pasture on the Meat Characteristics of Chilote Lambs

Chilote sheep are a native breed from Chiloé Archipelago in the southern Chile. They are descendants from sheep originally introduced by the Spaniards in the 1600s, and then evolved in a harsh environment in relative isolation from the continent. There is little information about the quality of the meat of the Chilote lambs (Ch). The objective of this study was to compare the quality of Ch lamb meat with two types of marginal pastures. The two treatments were: 1) Ch lambs, naturalized grassland (n = 13) and 2) Ch lambs, rangeland (n = 11). Rangeland is composed of both grasses and native shrubs. All lambs were kept with their mothers until slaughter at 90 days of age. Instrumental color, shear force, pH levels, and chemical and fatty acid content were analyzed. The pasture type did affect the results, given that Ch lambs fed on naturalized pasture had a lower shear force and higher intramuscular fat levels whereas Ch lambs fed on rangeland pasture showed higher percentages of n-3, n-6 fatty acids and Polyunsaturated fatty acids. However, the concentrations of fatty acids were similar in both groups. The results indicated some evidences that the type of pasture of Chiloe archipelago confers specific differences of quality that could form the basis to generate a premium product.

Lower marine productivity increases agonistic interactions between sea lions and fur seals in Northern Pacific Patagonia

Interspecific interactions are key drivers of individual and population-level fitness in a wide range of animals.However,in marine ecosystems,it is relatively unknown which biotic and abiotic factors impact behavioral interactions between competing species.We assessed the impact of weather,marine productivity,and population structure on the behavioral agonistic interactions between South American fur seals(SAFSs),Arctocephalus australis,and South American sea lions(SASLs),Otaria byronia,in a breeding colony of SAFS.We hypothesized that agonistic interactions between SAFSs and SASLs respond to biotic and abiotic factors such as SAFS population structure,marine productivity,and weather.We found that SASL and SAFS interactions almost always resulted in negative impacts on the social structure or reproductive success of the SAFS colony.SASL adult males initiated stampedes of SAFS and/or abducted and predated SAFS pups.Adult SAFS males abundance and severe weather events were negatively correlated with agonistic interactions between species.However,proxies for lower marine productivity such as higher sea surface temperature and lower catches of demerso-pelagic fish were the most important predictors of more frequent agonistic interactions between SAFS and SASL.Under the current scenario of decline in marine biomass due to global climate change and overfishing,agonistic interactions between competing marine predators could increase and exacerbate the negative impacts of environmental change in these species.