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Parental care directly affects the fitness of individuals because it increases the probability of offspring survival. Therefore, it is expected that parents be particularly motivated to return (i.e., exhibit homing behavior) and resume care if they are moved away from offspring by disturbances. Yet, despite several studies on the behavioral ecology of homing in vertebrates, aspects underlying the relationship between movement and offspring care in anurans remain largely unknown. We tested the relative importance of parental care as a driver of homing in Ikakogi tayrona, the only glassfrog with demonstrated prolonged maternal care. We carried out translocation experiments in 58 calling males, 23 gravid females, and 19 females caring for eggs. Contrary to expectations, females did not exhibit homing despite the risk of increased offspring mortality. On the other hand, males exhibit homing (they returned from translocation distances up to 320 m), possibly to recover a specific territory that is important for attracting mates. Taken together, our work documents a paradoxical result that may lead to future research testing specific hypothesis about the causes of sex differences in homing and the associated cognitive process.

HLA-G expression has been detected in early preimplantation embryos and it has been postulated that a relationship between embryonic expression of this factor and successful pregnancy may exist. Forty-six patients were prospectively selected from our centre ‘Unidad de Reproducción Humana, Hospital Universitario de Canarias’ for conducting this study. In all cases, metaphase II (MII) oocytes were fertilized using intracytoplasmic sperm injection 2–4 h after retrieval. Embryos were cultured individually in 20 µl droplets of G-1 medium (VitroLife) under oil at 37°C and a 6% CO2 environment. Fertilization was assessed at 18 h postinsemination and all oocytes fertilized were passed into a new culture plaque individually in 300 µl culture medium until day 3 of culture. The culture medium was examined for the expression and secretion of sHLA-G with a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit (BioVendor, Heidelberg, Germany) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. We found statistical significance between higher levels of sHLA-G secretion and pregnancy rate. When both groups were compared there was no difference in embryo quality of transferred embryos, but a significant difference in the number of oocytes and the embryo quality of the cohort existed that was greater in the pregnant group. A standardized sHLA-G assay with a specifically defined range and standard units provides a non-invasive method to identify the most competent embryos for transfer.

Echolocating animals that forage in social groups can potentially benefit from eavesdropping on other group members, cooperative foraging or social defence, but may also face problems of acoustic interference and intra-group competition for prey. Here, we investigate these potential trade-offs of sociality for extreme deep-diving Blainville′s and Cuvier's beaked whales. These species perform highly synchronous group dives as a presumed predator-avoidance behaviour, but the benefits and costs of this on foraging have not been investigated. We show that group members could hear their companions for a median of at least 91% of the vocal foraging phase of their dives. This enables whales to coordinate their mean travel direction despite differing individual headings as they pursue prey on a minute-by-minute basis. While beaked whales coordinate their echolocation-based foraging periods tightly, individual click and buzz rates are both independent of the number of whales in the group. Thus, their foraging performance is not affected by intra-group competition or interference from group members, and they do not seem to capitalize directly on eavesdropping on the echoes produced by the echolocation clicks of their companions. We conclude that the close diving and vocal synchronization of beaked whale groups that quantitatively reduces predation risk has little impact on foraging performance.

Oxidative damage plays a key role in alcohol-mediated liver alterations. Selenium, a potent antioxidant, is decreased in alcoholics. This study was conducted to analyse if the supplementation with selenium may alter liver changes in a murine model fed ethanol and/or a 2 % protein-containing diet, following the Lieber–DeCarli design. Adult male Sprague Dawley rats were divided into eight groups which received the Lieber–DeCarli control diet; an isocaloric, 36 % ethanol-containing diet; an isocaloric, 2 % protein-containing diet; and an isocaloric diet containing 2 % protein and 36 % ethanol diet; and other similar four groups to which selenomethionine (1 mg/kg body weight) was added. After sacrifice (5 weeks later), liver fat amount and hepatocyte areas of pericentral and periportal cells were measured, and liver and serum selenium, activity of liver glutathione peroxidase (GPX), and liver malondialdehyde were determined. Ethanol-fed rats showed increased hepatocyte areas and fat accumulation especially when ethanol was added to a 2 % protein diet. Selenium caused a decrease in hepatocyte ballooning and liver fat amount, but an increase in GPX activity, and a marked increase in serum and liver selenium. The present study demonstrates that selenium, added to the diet of rats in the form of seleniomethionine, prevents the appearance of early signs of ethanol-mediated liver injury under the conditions of the Lieber–DeCarli experimental design.

In this research work, the effect of the change in the surface area of silicon dioxide nanoparticles of the same size on mechanical properties of poly(lactic acid) nanocomposites (PLA) was studied, as well as the role of coupling agent amount in the compatibility of these nanomaterials. We consider a spherical silicon dioxide with a surface area of 170–200 m 2 /g (labeled as S–SiO 2 ) and another considered amorphous with a surface area of 180–600 m 2 /g (labeled as P-SiO 2 ). This surface areas difference plays an important role in modifying of nanoparticles polarity by incorporating a coupling agent and its integration into partially polar polymers. According to obtained results, for nanomaterials with high surface area, it was observed while increasing coupling agent amount, the elasticity of the composite was observed to increase. In contrast, in nanomaterials with spherical nanoparticles, it was observed that as the amount of coupling agent decreases, the resistance of the material increases, reaching a maximum when a 10:2 ratio is used. It was observed that behaviors for both nanoparticles were different, which gives an idea that the incorporation of nanoparticles in polymers is not an issue of coupling agent or quantity only, it is more important as it is arranged on the surface. This kind of couplings does not only affect mechanical properties, since the thermal behavior of the material was also influenced, where it was observed that particles with low surface area modify the crystallization rate when they have different percentages of coupling agent on the surface. Furthermore, it is observed that the incorporation of nanoparticles with high surface areas area does not modify the crystallization rate significantly. Besides, in both cases, it was observed that the highest crystallization rate is reached when a 10:2 ratio is used. However, the energy required to form crystals remains unchanged. Therefore, it is considered that the incorporation of nanoparticles only affects the crystal formation rate without disturbing the energy requirement for crystal formation. Finally, a maximum in the 10:2 ratio was observed for the compatibility in both particles, which was manifested in an increase in the storage module through a dynamic mechanical analysis. The rate of crystal formation as well as the number of formed crystals have a considerable effect on mechanical properties of nanocomposites when the surface area is modified.

Basic population parameters such as age, size, and distribution have been poorly evaluated for the Shortfin Mako Isurus oxyrinchus in the Mexican Pacific Ocean. According to data collected by scientific observers on board medium‐size fishing vessels during the period of 2006–2013, size as TL was obtained for 5,740 individual sharks. The range of TL was 70–362 cm for females and 71–296 cm for males. Weight (W), measured randomly from 1,409 individuals, ranged from 2 to 90 kg for females and from 2 to 80 kg for males. The weight‐to‐TL ratio was best fitted by the equation W = 4 × 10−5(TL)2.59 (r2 = 0.6532). No sex‐specific difference was found in the weight‐to‐TL relationship between males and females, nor in W or TL separately. By using the inverse von Bertalanffy equation and parameters described by other authors for the same study area, we determined the age range for individuals captured on the basis of their TL. The age ranged from 0 to 39 years in females and from 0 to 21 years in males. Using a logistic model, the mean length at sexual maturity was obtained for 2,532 males (TL = 190 cm). The quarterly distribution of young of the year and 1‐year‐old juveniles showed that there is a tendency for these sharks to move northward as sea surface temperature increases. Our findings shed new light on how Shortfin Mako juveniles use a habitat that has been proposed by other authors as a nursery area for this species, information that is valuable for the sustainability of the Mexican Pacific fisheries.

Companies face the challenge of managing customer relationships (CRM) in a context marked by a drastic digital transformation and unbridled evolution of consumer behavior, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The customer is more demanding, has access to the global market and interacts with companies through multiple digital channels, such as email, social networks, mobile apps or instant messaging. In this situation, the success of a CRM implementation highly depends on information technology and the applications used. To harmonize this new business context with the development of information systems (IS), a suitable CRM ontology and enterprise architecture (EA) is needed. While an ontology-based conceptual model provides a unifying framework, aids sharing and reusing knowledge, and facilitates communication within a domain, an EA-based model unequivocally describes, analyzes, and visualizes how an organization should operate from the perspective of business, application, and technology. The purpose of the paper is the proposal of CURIE-O, a CRM OntoUML UFO-based ontology, together with CURIE-EA, a CRM ArchiMate-based EA to serve business managers and IS specialists an updated unifying framework of reference in the CRM domain as well as a highly efficient tool to support application development and maintenance in this changing and increasingly digital context. Modeling has proven to be an essential element to achieve high-performance information systems. In order to apply the ontology and the EA proposed here, the authors developed a CRM task management application prototype that was implemented as a case study in a consulting company. The methodology followed was design science research (DSR), in order to design and validate the artifacts. Within the DSR framework, other complementary research methods have been used, in particular literature research, interviews and focus groups carried out with several hotel chains in Tenerife (Canary Islands). The main existing CRM models in the scientific literature have also been analyzed together with the leading CRM market solutions.

Background The Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) MinION portable sequencer makes it possible to use cutting-edge genomic technologies in the field and the academic classroom. Results We present NanoDJ, a Jupyter notebook integration of tools for simplified manipulation and assembly of DNA sequences produced by ONT devices. It integrates basecalling, read trimming and quality control, simulation and plotting routines with a variety of widely used aligners and assemblers, including procedures for hybrid assembly. Conclusions With the use of Jupyter-facilitated access to self-explanatory contents of applications and the interactive visualization of results, as well as by its distribution into a Docker software container, NanoDJ is aimed to simplify and make more reproducible ONT DNA sequence analysis. The NanoDJ package code, documentation and installation instructions are freely available at https://github.com/genomicsITER/NanoDJ .

In the last decade, numerous investigations have been devoted to the preparation of polypropylene–multiwalled carbon nanotubes (PP/MWCNT) nanocomposites having enhanced properties, and in particular, high electrical conductivities (> 1 S cm−1). The present work establishes that the highest electrical conductivity in PP/MWCNT nanocomposites is limited by the amount of nanofiller content which can be incorporated in the polymer matrix, namely, about 20 wt%. This concentration of MWCNT in PP leads to a maximum electrical conductivity slightly lower than 8 S cm−1, but only by assuring an adequate combination of dispersion and spatial distribution of the carbon nanotubes. The realization of such an optimal microstructure depends on the characteristics of the production process of the PP/MWCNT nanocomposites; in our experiments, involving composite fabrication by melt mixing and hot pressing, a second re-processing cycle is shown to increase the electrical conductivity values by up to two orders of magnitude, depending on the MWCNT content of the nanocomposite. A modest increase of the highest electrical conductivity obtained in nanocomposites with 21.5 wt% MWCNT content has been produced by the combined use of carbon nanofibers (CNF) and MWCNT, so that the total nanofiller content was increased to 30 wt% in the nanocomposite with PP—15 wt% MWCNT—15 wt%CNF.

The California antitobacco culture may have influenced home smoking bans in Mexico. Based on the Behavioral Ecological Model, exposure to socially reinforcing contingencies or criticism may explain adoption of home smoking bans in Tijuana, Mexico, approximating rates relative to San Diego, California, and higher than those in Guadalajara, Mexico. A representative cross-sectional population survey of Latinos (N = 1,901) was conducted in San Diego, Tijuana, and Guadalajara between June 2003 and September 2004. Cities were selected to represent high-, medium-, and low-level exposure to antitobacco social contingencies of reinforcement in a quasiexperimental analysis of possible cultural influences across borders. Complete home smoking ban prevalence was 91% in San Diego, 66% in Tijuana, and 38% in Guadalajara (p < .001). Sample cluster-adjusted logistic regression showed significantly lower odds of complete home smoking bans in Guadalajara (odds ratio [OR] = .048) and in Tijuana (OR = .138) compared to San Diego after control for demographics. Odds of complete home smoking bans in both Guadalajara and Tijuana in comparison with San Diego were weakened when mediators for bans were controlled in predictive models. Direction of association was consistent with theory. When theoretical mediators were explored as possible moderators, weak and nonsignificant associations were obtained for all interaction terms. Bootstrap analyses demonstrated that our multivariable logistic regression results were reliable. Results suggest that California antismoking social contingencies mediate complete home smoking bans in all 3 cities and may account for the greater effects in Tijuana contrasted with Guadalajara.