Current situation of feeding and social intervention in Mexico: A critical review / Situación actual de la alimentación e intervención social en México: Una revisión crítica

Since socioeconomic and political conditions influence eating behavior, the number of studies and interventions developed in Mexico has increased, where there is a long history of implementing policies and institutional programs aimed at malnutrition. Under this context, the purpose of this review was to analyze the current situation of food interventions implemented in Mexico, with emphasis on the actions of university institutions. The search was carried out at the Scielo, Elsevier and Latindex bases, focusing on the editorial production of the last decade. It was notorious that intersectoral policies and strategies to address malnutrition are far from local interventions, and its impact is not assessed. Biomedical approaches tend to be individualistic and prescriptive-normative; while the social, based on "educate in health", involves essentially informative strategies. Regard studies focused on young university students, exploratory and descriptive approaches predominate, leaving aside health promotion approaches. In general, the efforts made have been operated in isolation, with a predominance of the curative-informative approach rather than preventive and health promotion. Therefore, in order to enrich the understanding of the food phenomenon, it is urgent to resume sociocultural approaches.ResumenDado que las condiciones socioeconómicas y políticas influyen en el comportamiento alimentario, ha incrementado el número de estudios e intervenciones desarrolladas en México, en donde existe una larga historia de implementación de políticas y programas institucionales dirigidos a la malnutrición. Bajo este contexto, el propósito del presente estudio documental fue analizar la situación actual de las intervenciones alimentarias implementadas en México, con énfasis en las acciones de las instituciones universitarias. La búsqueda se realizó en las bases SciELO, Elsevier y Latindex, enfocándose en la producción editorial de la última década. Resultó notorio que las políticas y estrategias intersectoriales para atender la malnutrición están distantes de las intervenciones locales, y sin evaluación de su impacto. Los abordajes biomédicos tienden a ser individualistas y prescriptivos-normativos; mientras que los sociales, que parten de “educar en salud”, supone estrategias esencialmente informativas. En cuanto a los estudios enfocados en jóvenes estudiantes universitarios, predominan las aproximaciones exploratorias y descriptivas, quedando de lado los abordajes de promoción de la salud. En general, los esfuerzos realizados se han operado de manera aislada, con predominio del enfoque curativo-informativo más que preventivo y de promoción de la salud. Por tanto, en vistas de enriquecer la comprensión del fenómeno alimentario, resulta apremiante retomar los enfoques socioculturales.

An increase of phosphatidylcholines in follicular fluid implies attenuation of embryo quality on day 3 post-fertilization

Background Although oocyte quality is the dominant factor determining embryo quality, few studies have been conducted to evaluate embryo quality based on the metabolites related to the oocyte. With quantification of the follicular fluid (FF) metabolites, in assisted reproductive technology (ART), this study sought to evaluate the embryo or oocyte quality through an informative approach. Results An evaluation model consisting of 17 features was generated to distinguish the embryo quality on day 3 post-fertilization, and phosphatidylcholines (PCs) were the key contributors to the evaluation. The model was extended to the patients under different ages and hyperstimulations, and the features were further enriched to facilitate the evaluation of the embryo quality. The metabolites were clustered through pathway analysis, leading to a hypothesis that accumulation of arachidonic acid induced by PCs might weaken embryo quality on day 3 post-fertilization. Conclusions A discriminating model with metabolic features elicited from follicular fluid was established, which enabled the evaluation of the embryo or oocyte quality even under certain clinical conditions, and the increase of PCs in follicular fluid implies the attenuation of embryo quality on day 3 post-fertilization.

Solid state NMR of membrane proteins: methods and applications

Membranes of cells are active barriers, in which membrane proteins perform essential remodelling, transport and recognition functions that are vital to cells. Membrane proteins are key regulatory components of cells and represent essential targets for the modulation of cell function and pharmacological intervention. However, novel folds, low molarity and the need for lipid membrane support present serious challenges to the characterisation of their structure and interactions. We describe the use of solid state NMR as a versatile and informative approach for membrane and membrane protein studies, which uniquely provides information on structure, interactions and dynamics of membrane proteins. High resolution approaches are discussed in conjunction with applications of NMR methods to studies of membrane lipid and protein structure and interactions. Signal enhancement in high resolution NMR spectra through DNP is discussed as a tool for whole cell and interaction studies.

Leishmania Sexual Reproductive Strategies as Resolved through Computational Methods Designed for Aneuploid Genomes

A cryptic sexual reproductive cycle in Leishmania has been inferred through population genetic studies revealing the presence of hybrid genotypes in natural isolates, with attempts made to decipher sexual strategies by studying complex chromosomal inheritance patterns. A more informative approach is to study the products of controlled, laboratory-based experiments where known strains or species are crossed in the sand fly vector to generate hybrid progeny. These hybrids can be subsequently studied through high resolution sequencing technologies and software suites such as PAINT that disclose inheritance patterns including ploidies, parental chromosome contributions and recombinations, all of which can inform the sexual strategy. In this work, we discuss the computational methods in PAINT that can be used to interpret the sexual strategies adopted specifically by aneuploid organisms and summarize how PAINT has been applied to the analysis of experimental hybrids to reveal meiosis-like sexual recombination in Leishmania.

Cobertura gráfica e informativa de accidentes y suicidios en la prensa digital española

This research is based on the inclusion of graphic elements as an indication of the relevance given to news by the different media. From this starting point, the work compares the weight and importance that each media attaches to different information about death events due to external causes: traffic accidents, falls, drowning and suicides. For them, it has carried out a content analysis on the graphic elements present (photography, video or infographics) in a representative sample of news (n = 4,733). Likewise, the number of elements used in each news item has been measured and if these graphic documents are linked to any specific element of the news item. The informative approach has also been studied, so that a distinction is made between ‘preventive’ and ‘sensationalist’. The results confirm the informative role of traffic accidents, the only cause of death that presents sensational features in all media studied.

Two Lineages of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Filamentous Phages: Structural Uniformity over Integration Preferences

Pseudomonas aeruginosa filamentous (Pf) bacteriophages are important factors contributing to the pathogenicity of this opportunistic bacterium, including biofilm formation and suppression of bacterial phagocytosis by macrophages. In addition, the capacity of Pf phages to form liquid crystal structures and their high negative charge density makes them potent sequesters of cationic antibacterial agents, such as aminoglycoside antibiotics or host antimicrobial peptides. Therefore, Pf phages have been proposed as a potential biomarker for risk of antibiotic resistance development. The majority of studies describing biological functions of Pf viruses have been performed with only three of them: Pf1, Pf4, and Pf5. However, our analysis revealed that Pf phages exist as two evolutionary lineages (I and II), characterized by substantially different structural/morphogenesis properties, despite sharing the same integration sites in the host chromosomes. All aforementioned model Pf phages are members of the lineage I. Hence, it is reasonable to speculate that their interactions with P. aeruginosa and impact on its pathogenicity may be not completely extrapolated to the lineage II members. Furthermore, in order to organize the present numerical nomenclature of Pf phages, we propose a more informative approach based on the insertion sites, that is, Pf-tRNA-Gly, -Met, -Sec, -tmRNA, and -DR (direct repeats), which are fully compatible with one of five types of tyrosine integrases/recombinases XerC/D carried by these viruses. Finally, we discuss possible evolutionary mechanisms behind this division and consequences from the perspective of virus–virus, virus–bacterium, and virus–human interactions.

Comparing Facebook as an interactive communication tool for companies in LatAm and worldwide

Social networks have changed the communication rules between companies and their stakeholders. Facebook became an important tool of communication strategies to promote interaction and dialogue. The objective of this study is to analyze how companies in LatAm and worldwide are managing the interaction with their stakeholders on Facebook. For this paper, 159 corporate profiles and 32,760 posts were analyzed through the methodology of content analysis. The categories selected were communication approach, communication resources, interaction level, and interaction rate. Results illustrate that the communication of companies in LatAm and worldwide mainly involves an informative approach on Facebook. The content disseminated by companies is not promoting interaction with the stakeholders. In contrast, companies are managed in a unidirectional way, meaning that it is not managed to establish and strengthen relationships, but rather to get visibility.

Contemporary issues and mobile application development learning: where is the connection?

As a result of discussions about the studies on Science, Technology, and Society (STS) we identified the need to understand how to promote discussions about those subjects on mobile programming learning. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to introduce subjects that are relevant to society’s problems in a discipline with a high technical focus. Therefore, the present work contains an informative approach and becomes a possible subsidy to aid teachers who wish to establish, in their mobile programming classes, STS discussions. The suggestions here documented characterize themselves as resources for a probable improvement of the critical thinking, civil conduct of the students and also raise discussions and reflections among students and future professionals about the current reality, leading to imminent educational changes.