Search results for "Information System"

Small RNA-seq analysis of circulating miRNAs to identify phenotypic variability in Friedreich's ataxia patients.

2018

AbstractFriedreich’s ataxia (FRDA; OMIM 229300), an autosomal recessive neurodegenerative mitochondrial disease, is the most prevalent hereditary ataxia. In addition, FRDA patients have shown additional non-neurological features such as scoliosis, diabetes, and cardiac complications. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is found in two thirds of patients at the time of diagnosis, is the primary cause of death in these patients. Here, we used small RNA-seq of microRNAs (miRNAs) purified from plasma samples of FRDA patients and controls. Furthermore, we present the rationale, experimental methodology, and analytical procedures for dataset analysis. This dataset will facilitate the identificatio…

An effective extension of the applicability of alignment-free biological sequence comparison algorithms with Hadoop

2016

Alignment-free methods are one of the mainstays of biological sequence comparison, i.e., the assessment of how similar two biological sequences are to each other, a fundamental and routine task in computational biology and bioinformatics. They have gained popularity since, even on standard desktop machines, they are faster than methods based on alignments. However, with the advent of Next-Generation Sequencing Technologies, datasets whose size, i.e., number of sequences and their total length, is a challenge to the execution of alignment-free methods on those standard machines are quite common. Here, we propose the first paradigm for the computation of k-mer-based alignment-free methods for…

Changes in the international wine market competitiveness

2017

This study offers a contribution to understanding the complexity of the international wine trade analysing the specialisation patterns of 14 among the most important wine world actors in the period 2007–2016, in order to verify if the patterns of comparative advantages for the trade of this countries have experienced significant changes. Using the Lafay index, as a comparative advantage measure, our results reveal deep changes in the global wine market exchange. Our result constitutes a base element for the future development of the competitive scenario and provides some both theoretical and practical implications. In the baseline projection, the maintenance of the competitive position is…

Decentralised trust-management inspired by ant pheromones

2017

Computational trust is increasingly utilised to select interaction partners in open technical systems consisting of heterogeneous, autonomous agents. Current approaches rely on centralised elements for managing trust ratings (i.e. control and provide access to aggregated ratings). Consider a grid computing application as illustrating example: agents share their computing resources and cooperate in terms of processing computing jobs. These agents are free to join and leave, and they decide on their own with whom to interact. The impact of malicious or uncooperative agents can be countered by only cooperating with agents that have shown to be benevolent: trust relationships are established. T…

Text mining and expert curation to develop a database on psychiatric diseases and their genes

2017

Psychiatric disorders constitute one of the main causes of disability worldwide. During the past years, considerable research has been conducted on the genetic architecture of such diseases, although little understanding of their etiology has been achieved. The difficulty to access up-to-date, relevant genotype-phenotype information has hampered the application of this wealth of knowledge to translational research and clinical practice in order to improve diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric patients. PsyGeNET (http://www.psygenet.org/) has been developed with the aim of supporting research on the genetic architecture of psychiatric diseases, by providing integrated and structured accessi…

The Software Crisis of Synthetic Biology

2016

In fifteen years, Synthetic Biology (SB) has moved from proof-of-concept designs to several flagship achievements. Standardisation efforts are still under way, basic engineering concepts such as modularity and orthogonality are still controversial in biology, and making predictions from computer models is still unreliable. A deep characterization in the pattern of re-use of biological blocks in SB has not been attempted to date. We have compared the topological organisation of two different technological networks, one associated to a standard, large-scale software repository and the second provided by the Registry of Standard Biological Parts (RSBP). Our results strongly suggest that softwa…

2020

Hierarchy and centrality are two popular notions used to characterize the importance of entities in complex systems. Indeed, many complex systems exhibit a natural hierarchical structure, and centrality is a fundamental characteristic allowing to identify key constituents. Several measures based on various aspects of network topology have been proposed in order to quantify these concepts. While numerous studies have investigated whether centrality measures convey redundant information, how centrality and hierarchy measures are related is still an open issue. In this paper, we investigate the association between centrality and hierarchy using several correlation and similarity evaluation mea…

Comunicación política y discursos sobre el poder

2017

Se analizan los principales enfoques teoricos vinculados con el estudio de la comunicacion politica, entendida como la interaccion entre partidos politicos, medios de comunicacion y ciudadanos. Se resumen en dos grandes corrientes: por un lado, los estudios que ponen el enfasis en la mediatizacion de la politica, esto es, la adecuacion de los mensajes politicos al discurso, estrategias, intereses y logica de los medios de comunicacion. Por otro, las escuelas y enfoques que advierten de la dependencia de los medios de comunicacion respecto de actores externos, asi como de su perdida de influencia y peso especifico en los ultimos anos.

Methodological Approach for Identifying Mechanisms in ICT4D: A Critical Realism Perspective

2017

Part 4: Social Mechanisms of ICT-Enabled Development; International audience; The ontological questions ‘What is ICT?’ and ‘What is development?’ are described and documented in literature. Similarly, methodological approaches for understanding how ICT leads to development or for measuring the impact of ICT are described. However, explaining ‘why’ ICT works or not in the contexts of developing countries needs further investigation. We propose a critical realism based methodological approach for answering the above mentioned ‘why’-question. The core of a critical realism based approach is to identify the underlying mechanism(s) that may explain a phenomenon of why ICT leads to development. W…

Vigilar y castigar: el papel de militares, policías y guardias civiles en la comunicación de la crisis del Covid-19 en España

2020

Se analiza el papel de las Fuerzas Armadas y las Fuerzas y Cuerpos de Seguridad del Estado españolas como actores y como recurso discursivo en la comunicación del Gobierno español durante la crisis del Covid-19. El análisis abarca dos cuestiones complementarias. Por una parte, la presencia de militares, policías y guardias civiles en los medios de comunicación y en las ruedas de prensa diarias del Comité de Gestión Técnica de la crisis del coronavirus desde el Gobierno español. Por otra parte, el discurso en Twitter de los principales protagonistas políticos de la crisis en España: los líderes de los cinco partidos de ámbito nacional con grupo parlamentario (PSOE, PP, Vox, Unidas Podemos y …