Industry 4.0 is a new industrial paradigm that brings new challenges for workers as they have to actively collaborate with robots in an interconnected environment. The main purpose of this paper is to give a brief overview of how collaborative robots can be used to support human workers in Industry 4.0 manufacturing environments. The use of collaborative robots certainly brings many advantages as these machines enable more efficient product systems by supporting workers with both physical and cognitive tasks, as is the case of exoskeletons. On the other hand, human–robot interaction might also have some risks if human factors considerations are not well thought through throughout the process. Moreover, it becomes clear that the role that humans have been playing so far in a manufacturing environment is rapidly changing. Human workers will have to adapt to these new systems by acquiring and improving a set of skills that have sometime been neglected until nowadays.

Large-pore channels allow the exchange of ions and molecules between the intra- and extracellular compartments. These channels are structures formed by several protein families with little or no evolutionary linkages that include connexins (Cxs), pannexins (Panxs), innexins (Inxs), CALHM1, and LRRC8 proteins. Recently, we have described the unnexins (Unxs) proteins expressed in Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi) that also is like to form large-pore channels at the plasma membrane. In this chapter, we describe a dye uptake method for evaluating the unnexin-formed channel function in T. cruzi, as well as the methods for evaluating their participation in the transformation of trypomastigotes into amastigotes. These methods can facilitate understanding the role of large-pore channels in the parasite’s biology.

Leadership has a responsibility to subordinates and organisations, and abusive leadership needs further study to determine its effects on leaders, subordinates, and organisations. Abusive leadership is associated with different terms and generated by different situations, so the aim of this study is to establish a unified framework of the antecedents of abusive leadership, including its types, factors, and effects. This study conducted protocol research as a systematic review of the literature, and its objective was developed through an analysis of articles (n = 70) organised into four clusters. The analysis identified many types of leadership, leadership styles, and management styles, which developed according to the orientation of the leader (task and/or subordinate), and according to it, inefficient leadership could lead to an abusive leadership. Also, leadership in general is a product of contextual factors, personal (leader/supervisor) behaviour, and subordinate characteristics, and abusive leadership situations have effects on the subordinate and team levels. This study has multilevel theoretical and practical implications, including personal and organisational ones, and some limits, which are why further research on this topic is recommended.

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) and lupin (Lupinus spp.) are ancient nutritious crops cultivated in the Andean region. In addition to basic nutrients, quinoa and lupin contain a variety of bioactive components with potentially beneficial effects on health. The profile and content of bioactive components such as polyphenols, phytosterols, and carotenoids in quinoa grains and lupin beans, and the effect of processing (drying, milling, debittering, germination, kilning) on their nutritional properties and bioactive components are described. Red and black quinoa showed the highest total phenolic and total flavonoid content and the best radical scavenging activities. Recent studies suggest that the pigments of these colored quinoa varieties are betacyanins. In addition to flavonoid glycosides and other more familiar secondary bioactive metabolites, quinoa contains phytoecdosteroids, a class of triterpenoids. In some studies, they have demonstrated insulin-sensitizing, fat-reducing, and fitness-enhancing activities in mammals without inducing androgenic or estrogenic effects. Although the high nutritional quality of lupin has been recognized for decades, not much is known about the content of phytochemicals in this legume. Many of these compounds are bioactive and may exert beneficial effects on health. They include polyphenols, isoflavones, carotenoids, phytosterols, tocopherols, polysaccharides, and peptides with antioxidant, antimicrobial, anticarcinogenic, and anti-inflammatory activities. Processing of the crops to food products has an impact on the nutritional and sensory quality (e.g., germination may improve their nutritional quality even further).

Thyroid hormones (T3 and T4) are essential for the development and function of the mammalian central nervous system (CNS). For this reason, controlling the availability of thyroid hormones to neural cells is an essential step. This is probably why this is a complex process with several levels of regulation, with the ultimate goal of controlling the appropriate spatial and temporal levels of T3, the nuclear active thyroid hormone, in the CNS. The mechanisms responsible for an appropriate thyroid hormone availability and action during foetal brain development include the expression of thyroid hormone receptors, to which T3 binds to mediate its actions by regulating the expression of T3-target genes; transplacental passage of thyroid hormones to the foetus; expression of transmembrane transporter proteins with the ability to transport thyroid hormones across cell membranes and expression of deiodinase enzymes that can activate (T4 to T3 conversion) or inactivate thyroid hormone action. Lack of thyroid hormone action during brain development can lead to several brain impairments, which functional consequences depend on the timing and the cause for thyroid hormone deficiency.

The fields of artificial intelligence and bio-inspired robotics have proven to cross several other fields of expertise including Cognitive Neuroscience. Here, we review principles of interaction between a natural (or artificial) organism and the environment where it lives. Then we ask whether such structural coupling shapes the way it behaves. For instance, how the sensory processing of the external world controls actions, and finally, behavior? We remind the main sources of inspiration for bio-inspired robotics and relate them to currently active fields of research like Embodiment and Enaction. These latter concepts are illustrated by examples of recent researches on two main aspects: (i) bio-inspired algorithms processing sensory signals coming from the outer world and (ii) bio-inspired controllers based on human behavior and physiology. Finally, we include an example of a bio-inspired robot controller design based on the concepts here exposed.

Abstract In Chile the experiment shows that candidate gender typically is not a strong component of leadership templates for either male or female participants, yet when gender is significant women candidates are favored (to be a deputy and in feminine policy areas). The study also shows that women are evaluated as capable in masculine policy areas. Coalition, in contrast, regularly has a significant effect on candidate evaluations, and coalitions receive higher scores on policies associated with their issue ownership. Findings that women fit the leader image of Chilean urban young adults are notable given the long history of limited election of women to congress, paired with a woman president for eight years. These findings are also important given the context of political protest in the years surrounding the experiment, with protests often having young women as “on the street” leaders.

Abstract This chapter discusses general patterns of brooding in decapod crustaceans from aquatic to terrestrial environments, addressing behavioral adaptations as well as costs and benefits. Brooding embryos is a common feature among decapods. However, brooding exhibits a wide range of modes that are highly dependent on the environment. Brooding is less common in marine systems, whereas there is a general pattern of extended brooding with terrestrialization. Exceptions are crabs that have invaded land directly via the seashore, i.e. land crabs that have indirect development like their marine ancestors. During terrestrialization, adaption to environmental stressors like desiccation, UV radiation, temperature variability, mechanical support, and osmolality seemed to generally favor decreasing larval development and increasing duration of brood care. Thus, crustaceans developed more complex brooding mechanisms as adaptive responses to the colonization of land (e.g., osmoregulation of the maternal fluids, marsupial fluid, sealed and specialized marsupium, provision of nutritious material, grooming and cleaning, ventilation of the embryo masses). However, clear brooding behaviors are also observed among several marine species (e.g. grooming and cleaning, oxygen provision). The major efforts to characterize general brooding patterns among decapod crustaceans and describe brooding behaviors were not accompanied by comprehensive studies to understand the costs and the benefits of brooding. Several studies have addressed the positive influence of the mother on embryo development, but the efforts to quantify the impact on embryo survival are still limited. This chapter identifies problems that need further consideration to reach a deeper understanding of the evolution of brooding in decapod crustaceans.

This chapter presents an analysis of the main problems and challenges related to teaching and learning Chile's recent history. This analysis relates the authors' experience with theoretical production in the context of a transitional society characterized by post-conflict. The emergence and relevance of the typical matters of teaching recent history are based on a dialogue among disciplinary perspectives including the New Social History, theorizations about memory as an interdisciplinary category, and the materialization of the secondary students' historical learning through their narratives of the past. The discussion of memory and history are contextualized within the Hispano-American context, particularly in the Southern Cone of the continent. The chapter follows a socio-cultural theoretical perspective along with the theoretical contributions from an analysis of historical awareness. The findings describe historical explanations of Chilean students, which allow them to understand the present and recognize intersection points among their narratives and the reference frameworks established by a dominant national curriculum.

Native berries that grow in the southern area of Chile, including the Patagonia, are recognized as foods that exert beneficial effects on health, mainly due to their high content of phenolic compounds. The majority of native berry fruits belong to the Myrtaceae (Murtilla), Berberidaceae (Calafate), Ericaceae (Chaura), Elaeocarpaceae (Maqui), and Rosaceae (Chilean strawberry) families, many of which have been traditionally used by the locals as food and herbal medicines. These berry fruits have a high content of phenolic compounds (especially anthocyanins, responsible for their pink, red, blue, and purple colors) and exhibit very high antioxidant capacity in vitro, and relevant antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects in vivo. The results of randomized dietary intervention clinical trials with berries are also reported, and relevant mechanisms of protection against the oxidative stress/inflammation damage involved in the development of age-related diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes mellitus, and mental disorders, are described.

El Yali is a complex wetlands system composed by more than 14 waterbodies, located in central Chile and delimited by two basins of the most important rivers of the region. Among the waterbodies is a coastal lagoon, some estuaries, artificial wetlands, salt mine and inner lagoons that were coastal lagoons in the past but due to tectonic processes have been moved and raised to their current location. The damming of the river that delimits the system to the south in 1968 cutoff the natural the sedimentary supply to the extensive beach and dunes, leaving the wetlands in a situation of vulnerability before climate change and variability, anthropic pressure, ocean swells and tsunamis. In the present chapter is illustrated the degradation that the wetlands system is suffering, by means of the estimation of tendencies of the long term records available in the zone, antecedents about its natural history, anthropic pressure and natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, ocean swells and ENSO, along with field monitoring that has been carried out with the objective of implementing an ecological restoration. These antecedents show a decrease of precipitations and river discharges, an increase of ambient temperature and sea surface temperature, a rising of sea level and a change of the incident waves. El Yali was severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami in 2010, which destroyed 800 ha of beach and coastal dunes that provided natural protection. In many opportunities, El Yali was affected by earthquake and tsunamis, intense ocean swells and ENSO, all phenomena that dissipate energy destroying the natural barrier the dunes represent. However, before the construction of Rapel reservoir, the sedimentary supply allowed a rapid recovery of the beach, sandbar and dunes. When this sediment supply was cutoff, the dunes has enough material to support the equilibrium of the system for some decades, but when tsunami waves destroyed the dunes, there was no sand supply to restore the beach nor the dunes. This generated a substantial change in the system, turning it more vulnerable to tsunamis, even smaller, ocean swells, and sea-level raising associated to ENSO Kelvin waves and climate change. For this reason, the first proposed restoration action is to restore the dunes and plant a vegetal cover with native species that reinforce and maintain the dunes.

Gap junctions, pivotal intercellular conduits, serve as communication channels between adjacent cells, playing a critical role in modulating membrane potential distribution across cellular networks. The family of Pannexin (Panx) proteins, in particular Pannexin1 (Panx1), are widely expressed in vertebrate cells and exhibit sequence homology with innexins, the invertebrate gap junction channel constituents. Despite being ubiquitously expressed, detailed functional and pharmacological properties of Panx1 intercellular cell–cell channels require further investigation. In this chapter, we introduce optimized cell culture methodologies and electrophysiology protocols to expedite the exploration of endogenous Panx1 cell–cell channels in TC620 cells, a human oligodendroglioma cell line that naturally expresses Panx1. We anticipate these refined protocols will significantly contribute to future characterizations of Panx1-based intercellular cell–cell channels across diverse cell types and offer valuable insights into both normal cellular physiology and pathophysiology.

Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) confer substantial advancements across diverse sectors of society, education included. However, it is imperative to extend the discourse surrounding these interventions to align with ethical research principles, data usage, and prevailing legislation. Consequently, this study endeavors to scrutinize scholarly literature spanning the interval between 2011 and 2022, concentrating on the ethical facets recommended for inquiries that meld big data and artificial intelligence within educational contexts. Employing a bibliographic research approach, the inquiry was conducted on the CAPES Periodicals Portal, utilizing descriptors such as “ethics,” “big data,” “artificial intelligence,” and “education.“ Out of a corpus of 84 articles, nine were incorporated into this research subsequent to the application of inclusion and exclusion criteria. These works encompass both empirical and theoretical contributions, interlinking big data and AI with educational settings. Researchers employ documentary sources, questionnaires, and their individual pedagogical experiences for data collection. Methodologically, these studies lean towards techniques such as descriptive content analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and textual data mining for data analysis. With regard to ethical principles spotlighted in the studies, salient themes include responsibility, transparency, reliability, and privacy. The outcomes suggest that crucial lacunae still exist, particularly concerning aspects like informed consent and other pivotal ethical protocols.

The search for improved teaching methods and a more personalized education has been a constant challenge in the educational field. Learning Analytics (LA), the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about students and their contexts, has emerged as a promising approach to understand and optimize learning environments. This paper focuses on identifying the expectations of high school teachers in the southern region of Santa Catarina, Brazil, regarding the use of LA. Through a questionnaire distributed to high school teachers, the study investigated their perceptions and opinions about the application of LA in their pedagogical practices. The results indicate that teachers have positive expectations regarding the potential impact of LA on improving teaching and learning. They understand the concept of LA and believe that the feedback provided by the system should be presented in a clear and accessible format. Furthermore, the study reveals that teachers expect support and guidance from educational institutions in accessing and interpreting analytical results. They emphasize the importance of proper training for all stakeholders involved in the implementation of LA. Overall, the study highlights the teachers’ positive attitudes towards utilizing LA as a powerful tool to enhance education and promote students’ academic and professional development in the southern region of Santa Catarina.

The placenta is an intriguing organ that allows us to survive intrauterine life. This essential organ connects both mother and fetus and plays a crucial role in maternal and fetal well-being. This chapter presents an overview of the morphological and functional aspects of human placental development. First, we describe early human placental development and the characterization of the cell types found in the human placenta. Second, the human placenta from the second trimester to the term of gestation is reviewed, focusing on the morphology and specific pathologies that affect the placenta. Finally, we focus on the placenta’s primary functions, such as oxygen and nutrient transport, and their importance for placental development.

In this article we propose S2C, a strategy-to-code methodological approach to integrate organisational, business process, and information system modelling levels to support strategic alignment in software development. Through a model-driven approach and under the Conceptual-Model Programming paradigm, the proposal supports the semi-automatic generation of working software, as well as traceability among the modelling levels. Via a working example, we illustrate how strategic definitions can be traced into specific software components by the integration of three modelling methods: Lite*, for modelling strategic reaction to external influences, Communication Analysis, for business process modelling, and the OO-Method, for modelling the conceptual schema of the information system. We discuss how this approach not only supports strategic alignment, but fosters the elicitation of business process performance measurement requirements, as well as its relevance considering the business and code alignment of the most recent enterprise architecture and agile software development initiatives.

A mature field requires researchers who are able to analyze and synthesize research to draw deeper, more meaningful conclusions. As a research area matures there is often a sharp increase in the number of research reports and results made available. With this increase, it is important to perform secondary studies that summarize results and provide an overview of the area. Methodologies exist for various types of secondary studies (i.e. systematic literature reviews and systematic mapping studies), which have been extensively used in evidence-based medicine and and software engineering. Secondary studies are less common in security engineering. However, a general trend toward more empirical studies in software security and evidence-based software security engineering has led to an increased focus on systematic research methods.

Proteoglycans (PGs) are non-fibrillar extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules composed by a protein core and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) chains. These molecules are present in all tissues playing essential structural, biomechanical, and biological roles. In addition, PGs can regulate cell behavior due to their versatility and ability to interact with other ECM molecules, growth factors, and cells. The distribution of PGs can be evaluated by histochemical and immunohistochemical methods. Histochemical methods aimed to provide a useful overview of the presence and distribution pattern of certain groups of PGs. In contrast, immunohistochemical procedures aimed the identification of highly specific target molecules. In this chapter we described Alcian Blue, Safranin O, and Toluidine Blue histochemical methods for the screening of PGs in tissue sections. Finally, we describe the immunohistochemical procedures for specific identification of PGs (decorin, biglycan, and versican) in formaldehyde-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissues.

Alejandro Cassini and Juan Redmond offer an elementary but fairly complete and extensive introduction to the present state of the philosophy of scientific models. It was written with the purpose of providing the readers an accessible account of the main topics that have been discussed and elaborated on by the most distinguished philosophers of science in the last two decades. It also provides a brief historical narrative of the rise and the early development of the philosophy on scientific models since the middle of the twentieth century.

Chromaffin granules isolated from adrenal glands constitute a powerful experimental tool to the study of secretory vesicle components and their participation in fusion and docking processes, vesicle aggregation, and interactions with cytosolic components. Although it is possible to isolate and purify chromaffin granules from adrenal glands of different species, bovine adrenal glands are the most used tissue source due to its easy handling and the large amount of granules that can be obtained from this tissue. In this chapter, we describe an easy-to-use and short-term protocol for efficiently obtaining highly purified chromaffin granules from bovine adrenal medulla. We additionally include protocols to isolate granules from cultured bovine chromaffin cells and PC12 cells, as well as a section to obtain chromaffin granules from mouse adrenal glands.