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Abstract In the context of continuous emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs), one strategy to prevent the severe outcomes of COVID-19 is developing safe and effective broad-spectrum vaccines. Here, we present preclinical studies of a RBD vaccine derived from the Gamma SARS-CoV-2 variant adjuvanted with Alum. The Gamma-adapted RBD vaccine is more immunogenic than the Ancestral RBD vaccine in terms of inducing broader neutralizing antibodies. The Gamma RBD presents more immunogenic B-cell restricted epitopes and induces a higher proportion of specific-B cells and plasmablasts than the Ancestral RBD version. The Gamma-adapted vaccine induces antigen specific T cell immune responses and confers protection against Ancestral and Omicron BA.5 SARS-CoV-2 challenge in mice. Moreover, the Gamma RBD vaccine induces higher and broader neutralizing antibody activity than homologous booster vaccination in mice previously primed with different SARS-CoV-2 vaccine platforms. Our study indicates that the adjuvanted Gamma RBD vaccine is highly immunogenic and a broad-spectrum vaccine candidate.

Abstract A Gamma Variant RBD-based aluminum hydroxide adjuvanted vaccine called ARVAC CG was selected for a first in human clinical trial. Healthy male and female participants (18-55 years old) with a complete COVID-19-primary vaccine scheme were assigned to receive two intramuscular doses of either a low-dose or a high-dose of ARVAC CG. The primary endpoint was safety. The secondary objective was humoral immunogenicity. Cellular immune responses were studied as an exploratory objective. The trial was prospectively registered in PRIISA.BA (Registration Code 6564) and ANMAT and retrospectively registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05656508). Samples from participants of a surveillance strategy implemented by the Ministry of Health of the Province of Buenos Aires that were boosted with BNT162b2 were also analyzed to compare with the booster effect of ARVAC CG. ARVAC CG exhibits a satisfactory safety profile, a robust and broad booster response of neutralizing antibodies against the Ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2 and the Gamma, Delta, Omicron BA.1 and Omicron BA.5 variants of concern and a booster effect on T cell immunity in individuals previously immunized with different COVID-19 vaccine platforms.

Abstract Biology, like most scientific disciplines, emerged in the nineteenth century. However, disciplinary institutionalisation processes are not linear; a concept can be proposed, but not develop. Biology originated in the presence of established traditions such as anatomy, physiology, botany, and zoology, which represent the thematic and practical diversity under which it was understood. Based on the records of the annual meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the process by which biology emerged will be described. We will also recount how the discipline underwent changes throughout the century, where contrasting methodologies and theories were emphasized at different times.

The Polylepis australis forests in Central Argentina support a great biodiversity in a relative small area. As a result of this study focusing on the diversity and ecology of the lichen communities of these forests, we present five new species for South America: Rinodina ficta , R. malcolmii , R. obscura , Usnea glabrata , Tetramelas triphragmioides and eight taxa new for Argentina: Calicium abietinum , Erioderma leylandii subsp. leylandii , Leptogium microstictum , Phaeophyscia endococcinodes , Rinodina dolichospora , R. intermedia , Usnea cirrosa and U. flavocardia . Unidentified Usnea species, similar to U. silesiaca , were also characterized and discussed.

La literatura de género estudia de manera exhaustiva las brechas de género en términos de ingresos, y la desigualdad en las oportunidades de acceso al mercado laboral entre varones y mujeres. Sin embargo, estos estudios se realizan a nivel agregado de la economía, y muy pocas veces, a nivel de industrias. Es por ello, que el estudio de las brechas de género en términos salariales y de acceso laboral desde una perspectiva de sectores productivos es relevante. Más aún, dicho estudio en los sectores de la economía con mayor remuneración. Debido a esto, el presente trabajo pretende enfocarse en el estudio del acceso femenino en el mercado laboral de los Servicios Intensivos en Conocimiento, ya que las tareas que se realizan en estos sectores de la economía son las de remuneraciones más altas. Mediante los datos de la Encuesta Permanente de Hogares de Argentina para el cuarto trimestre de 2020, se encuentra que la probabilidad de la inserción laboral en los Servicios Intensivos en Conocimiento es mayor para los varones que para las mujeres, aunque la participación es heterogénea entre los diferentes sectores.

La Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires se caracteriza por una estructura productiva intensiva en servicios, tanto en su absorción de mano de obra como en su participación en el producto. Los servicios intensivos en conocimiento (SIC) explican, a su vez, una buena parte de estos, de modo que merecen un cuidadoso análisis del tipo de demanda laboral asociada. Buena parte de la discusión académica redunda en la importancia de la oferta de capital humano para el desarrollo de la industria del conocimiento, por eso, entendido su rol en la proliferación del sector SIC, el objetivo principal de este trabajo es comprender este mecanismo, pero de forma inversa; es decir, entender la morfología de la demanda de empleo generada con base tanto en la calificación de la mano de obra como en sus tareas realizadas. Además de los controles habituales, se incorpora la precisión de la actividad laboral realizada, entendida bajo un específico esquema de tareas. El análisis permite concluir, entre otras cosas, que, aun con remuneraciones muy por encima del promedio, el control por tareas muestra una notoria disparidad salarial y en términos de creación de empleo. Al mismo tiempo, sobresale el sector SIC en la demanda laboral de puestos con mayor complementariedad tecnológica —intensidad en tareas cognitivas no rutinarias— y de calificación profesional y técnica.

Background: Neurosurgical task shifting and task sharing (TS/S), delegating clinical care to non-neurosurgeons, is ongoing in many hospital systems in which neurosurgeons are scarce. Although TS/S can increase access to treatment, it remains highly controversial. This survey investigated perceptions of neurosurgical TS/S to elucidate whether it is a permissible temporary solution to the global workforce deficit. Methods: The survey was distributed to a convenience sample of individuals providing neurosurgical care. A digital survey link was distributed through electronic mailing lists of continental neurosurgical societies and various collectives, conference announcements, and social media platforms (July 2018–January 2019). Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and univariate regression of Likert Scale scores. Results: Survey respondents represented 105 of 194 World Health Organization member countries (54.1%; 391 respondents, 162 from high-income countries and 229 from low- and middle-income countries [LMICs]). The most agreed on statement was that task sharing is preferred to task shifting. There was broad consensus that both task shifting and task sharing should require competency-based evaluation, standardized training endorsed by governing organizations, and maintenance of certification. When perspectives were stratified by income class, LMICs were significantly more likely to agree that task shifting is professionally disruptive to traditional training, task sharing should be a priority where human resources are scarce, and to call for additional TS/S regulation, such as certification and formal consultation with a neurosurgeon (in person or electronic/telemedicine). Conclusions: Both LMIC and high-income countries agreed that task sharing should be prioritized over task shifting and that additional recommendations and regulations could enhance care. These data invite future discussions on policy and training programs. Key words: Global health, Global neurosurgery, LMIC, Neurotrauma, Task sharing, Task shifting, Workforce

With the widespread of modern technologies and social media networks, a new form of bullying occurring anytime and anywhere has emerged. This new phenomenon, known as cyberaggression or cyberbullying, refers to aggressive and intentional acts aiming at repeatedly causing harm to other person involving rude, insulting, offensive, teasing or demoralising comments through online social media. As these aggressions represent a threatening experience to Internet users, especially kids and teens who are still shaping their identities, social relations and well-being, it is crucial to understand how cyberbullying occurs to prevent it from escalating. Considering the massive information on the Web, the developing of intelligent techniques for automatically detecting harmful content is gaining importance, allowing the monitoring of large-scale social media and the early detection of unwanted and aggressive situations. Even though several approaches have been developed over the last few years based both on traditional and deep learning techniques, several concerns arise over the duplication of research and the difficulty of comparing results. Moreover, there is no agreement regarding neither which type of technique is better suited for the task, nor the type of features in which learning should be based. The goal of this work is to shed some light on the effects of learning paradigms and feature engineering approaches for detecting aggressions in social media texts. In this context, this work provides an evaluation of diverse traditional and deep learning techniques based on diverse sets of features, across multiple social media sites.

Recent Web technologies such as HTML5, JavaScript, and WebGL have enabled powerful and highly dynamic Web mapping applications executing on standard Web browsers. Despite the complexity for developing such applications has been greatly reduced by Web mapping libraries, developers face many choices to achieve optimal performance and network usage. This scenario is even more complex when considering different representations of geographical data (raster, raw data or vector) and variety of devices (tablets, smartphones, and personal computers). This paper compares the performance and network usage of three popular JavaScript Web mapping libraries for implementing a Web map using different representations for geodata, and executing on different devices. In the experiments, Mapbox GL JS achieved the best overall performance on mid and high end devices for displaying raster or vector maps, while OpenLayers was the best for raster maps on all devices. Vector-based maps are a safe bet for new Web maps, since performance is on par with raster maps on mid-end smartphones, with significant less network bandwidth requirements.

β-hydroxybutyrate is the main ketone body generated by the liver under starvation. Under these conditions, it can sustain ATP levels by its oxidation in mitochondria. As mitochondria can modify its shape and function under different nutritional challenges, we study the chronic effects of β-hydroxybutyrate supplementation on mitochondrial morphology and function, and its relation to exercise capacity. Male C57BL/6 mice were supplemented with β-hydroxybutyrate mineral salt (3.2%) or control (CT, NaCl/KCl) for six weeks and submitted to a weekly exercise performance test. We found an increase in distance, maximal speed, and time to exhaustion at two weeks of supplementation. Fatty acid metabolism and OXPHOS subunit proteins declined at two weeks in soleus but not in tibialis anterior muscles. Oxygen consumption rate on permeabilized fibers indicated a decrease in the presence of pyruvate in the short-term treatment. Both the tibialis anterior and soleus showed decreased levels of Mitofusin 2, while electron microscopy assessment revealed a significant reduction in mitochondrial cristae shape in the tibialis anterior, while a reduction in the mitochondrial number was observed only in soleus. These results suggest that short, but not long-term, β-hydroxybutyrate supplementation increases exercise capacity, associated with modifications in mitochondrial morphology and function in mouse skeletal muscle.

Mobile devices have evolved from single purpose devices, such as mobile phone, into general purpose multi-core computers with considerable unused capabilities. Therefore, several researchers have considered harnessing the power of these battery-powered devices for distributed computing. Despite their ever-growing capabilities, using battery as power source for mobile devices represents a major challenge for applying traditional distributed computing techniques. Particularly, researchers aimed at using mobile devices as resources for executing computationally intensive task. Different job scheduling algorithms were proposed with this aim, but many of them require information that is unavailable or difficult to obtain in real-life environments, such as how much energy would require a job to be finished. In this context, Simple Energy Aware Scheduler (SEAS) is a scheduling technique for computational intensive Mobile Grids that only require easily accessible information. It was proposed in 2010 and it has been the base for a range of research work. Despite being described as easily implementable in real-life scenarios, SEAS and other SEAS-improvements works have always been evaluated using simulations. In this work, we present a distributed computing platform for mobile devices that support SEAS and empirical evaluation of the SEAS scheduler. This evaluation followed the methodology of the original SEAS evaluation, in which Random and Round Robin schedulers were used as baselines. Although the original evaluation was performed by simulation using notebooks profile instead of smartphones and tablets, results confirms that SEAS outperforms the baseline schedulers.

Como parte de un trabajo taxonómico que tiene por objetivo revisar las especies foliosas de Physciaceae que crecen en el centro y norte de Argentina se describió la morfología, anatomía y química de especímenes de Heterodermia coleccionados recientemente en estas regiones. Se citan por primera vez para Argentina Heterodermia japonica y H. fertilis, se amplía el rango de distribución de once especies dentro del país y se presenta una clave dicotómica y una breve descripción de cada una las especies estudiadas.As part of a taxonomic study which aims to revise foliose species of Physciaceae growing in central and north of Argentina, the morphology, anatomy and chemistry of Heterodermia specimens collected recently in these regions were described. Heterodermia japonica and H. fertilis are cited for the first time from Argentina. The distributional range in the country of eleven species is extended. A dichotomous key and a brief description of each species studied are provided.

Los líquenes son reconocidos bioindicadores de la calidad del ambiente. Estudios de comunidades de líquenes en relación a los incendios forestales, han demostrado como responden al fuego por encima de las variables microambientales que modelan la comunidad en ausencia de este disturbio. El objetivo de la presente contribución es reconocer el efecto del fuego en la comunidad de líquenes del Bosque Serrano en Córdoba. Se seleccionaron dos zonas, una testigo y otra sometida a fuego en 1996. A través de un muestreo sistemático y estandarizado se relevó la presencia y cobertura de especies de líquenes en árboles y arbustos en las dos áreas estudiadas. Entre el área testigo y el incendiado la diversidad y cobertura de líquenes es similar pero varia su composición. Las especies en la zona incendiadas corresponden a líquenes heliófilos y adaptados a situaciones de estrés. El fuego como disturbio frecuente favorece la presencia de pocas especies con importantes coberturas que resistan las condiciones que el disturbio impone. Los incendios de alta intensidad y frecuencia dejan a la comunidad de líquenes sin posibilidades de desarrollo, disminuyendo la diversidad general y la calidad de los sistemas forestales en los que viven.Lichens are recognized bioindicators of environmental quality. Studies of lichen communities in relation to forest fires have shown the response to fire over micro-environmental variables that shape the community in the absence of this disturbance. The aim of this contribution is to recognize the effect of fire on the lichen community of Sierra Chaco in Cordoba province. Two areas were selected, one without past fire and the other with fire in 1996. Coverage and presence of lichen species on trees and shrubs were recorded in the two areas using systematic, standardized sampling. Diversity and coverage of lichens is similar between the two areas but composition varies. The lichen species in the burned area are heliophilous and adapted to stress conditions. Fire as a frequent disturbance promotes the growth of few species with high coverage that are resistant to the conditions imposed by disturbance. High intensity and high frequency fires limit development opportunities for the lichen community thus diminishing overall diversity and quality of forest systems in which they live.

El líquen fruticuloso Usnea amblyoclada es uno de los líquenes saxícolas más abundantes en Argentina. Es utilizado en medicina popular y como biomarcador de calidad de aire. Se describe y discute la morfología, anatomía y química de Usnea amblyoclada en Argentina. Se amplia el rango de distribución de la especie y del género.The fruticolous lichen Usnea amblyoclada is one of the most abundant saxicolous lichens in Argentina. It is used in popular medicine and as biomarker of air quality. The morphology, anatomy and chemistry of U. amblyoclada in Argentina are described and discussed. The distribution range of the species and genus is extended.

The Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) paradigm has gained a lot of attention in the software in- dustry since SOC represents a novel way of architecting distributed applications. SOC is mostly materialized via Web Services, which allow developers to expose their application as building blocks for other applications by defining a clear and public interface. Although conceptually and technologically mature, SOC still lacks adequate development support from a methodological point of view. We present the EasySOC project: a catalog of guidelines to build service-oriented applications and services. This catalog synthesizes best SOC development practices that arise as a result of several years of research in fundamental SOC-related topics, namely WSDL-based technical specification, Web Service discovery and Web Service outsourcing. In addition, we describe a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE that has been implemented to simplify the utilization of the guidelines. We believe that the practical nature of the guidelines, the empirical evidence that supports them, and the availability of IDE-integrated tools that enforces them will help software practitioners to rapidly exploit our ideas for building real SOC applications.