The idea of closed-loop interaction in in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology has been successfully implemented in the dynamic clamp concept strongly impacting the research of membrane and synaptic properties of neurons. In this paper we show that this concept can be easily generalized to build other kinds of closed-loop protocols beyond (or in addition to) electrical stimulation and recording in neurophysiology and behavioral studies for neuroethology. In particular, we illustrate three different examples of goal-driven real-time closed-loop interactions with drug microinjectors, mechanical devices and video event driven stimulation. Modern activity-dependent stimulation protocols can be used to reveal dynamics (otherwise hidden under traditional stimulation techniques), achieve control of natural and pathological states, induce learning, bridge between disparate levels of analysis and for a further automation of experiments. We argue that closed-loop interaction calls for novel real time analysis, prediction and control tools and a new perspective for designing stimulus-response experiments, which can have a large impact in neuroscience research.

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<p>Una de las principales corrientes de trabajo dentro del estudio de los efectos mediáticos se ha centrado en el análisis de la contribución de los medios al desarrollo de actitudes políticas, entre ellas, la sofisticación política. De hecho, el consumo mediático, aunque también la comunicación interpersonal, puede suponer una contribución al desarrollo democrático de los países a través de la formación de ciudadanos experimentados y comprometidos en el terreno político, en especial de aquellos más jóvenes.</p><p>Se realizó una encuesta entre estudiantes de los últimos semestres de preparatoria de la zona metropolitana de Monterrey para determinar su nivel de sofisticación política, la contribución de las variables comunicacionales a su desarrollo y si ésta favorece la participación política. Los resultados muestran que cerca del 30% tenía una sofisticación política aceptable, la cual venía explicada por la búsqueda de información política en medios, el consumo de medios escritos y el mantenimiento de conversación política. Además, aquellos sofisticados políticamente también tendían a desarrollar mayor participación política, pero no cívica.</p>

Las situaciones de crisis, como la suscitada con el inicio de la gripe AH1N1en México, generan en la población una mayor necesidad de estar informados. La búsqueda de información a través de los medios de comunicación o mediante conversaciones con otras personas, puede hacer aumentar la percepción de verse afectadas por el problema (Morton y Duck, 2001). Se realizó una encuesta con 237 sujetos, a través de internet, para conocer los factores que explicaban la percepción de riesgo personal ante la gripe AH1N1. Los resultados mostraron que la exposición a la televisión y la comunicación interpersonal generaron mayor riesgo, especialmente entre los sujetos con fuerte dependencia del sistema mediático (MSD). Sin embargo, el consumo de internet hacía que el riesgo disminuyera, sobre todo entre los sujetos con baja dependencia mediática.

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This study focuses on a news framing analysis of Latin America and LatinAmericans in the Spanish press. For this purpose 1,271 news articles with different Latin American countries or their citizens as main actors were examined. These news stories had been published by the main Spanish newspapers in 1999. The results reveal that attribution of responsibility, human interest, and conflict constitute the prevailing frames used by the Spanish press. Furthermore, significant differences in the considered variables in terms of main country actor were observed. Venezuela and Colombia, in particular, are associated with armed conflicts, natural disasters, crimes, and accidents using human interest and conflict news frames. This leads to a necessary consideration of the consequences this type of news coverage on Latin America may generate, and whether it will reinforce stereotypes or prejudices in the Spanish audience against peoples from these countries, especially those with a high migratory influx to Spain.

A grand challenge in Computational Neuroscience is the integration of data arising from experimental techniques and theoretical work that involves large regions of unconstrained parameter space. Neural systems have drift, adaptation and learning mechanisms that result in transient behavior. Many information-processing mechanisms take place in this nonstationary activity that extends over several spatial and temporal scales. Studying this type of activity requires the use of activity-dependent stimulation techniques that can probe transient input/output relationships of neurons and circuits over different timescales (including under the millisecond). This requirement points towards the creation of new real-time software protocols to perform closed-loop adaptive interaction with neural systems to observe, manipulate and actively probe their function. These protocols may include the use of models that interact with living neurons to constrain their parameter space and even to refine themselves through this interaction [1]. RT activity-dependent stimulation can involve many types of stimuli (electrical, chemical, mechanical, etc.) and monitoring techniques (intra-or extracellular recordings, imaging, etc).Here we present RTBiomanager, a real-time software platform that can help to study neural transient dynamics. This platform can be used to build activity-dependent stimulus-response loops to interact with living systems below the millisecond time scale. So far, RT technology has been used to introduce artificial membrane or synaptic conductances and to create hybrid circuits of real and electronic neurons [2][3][4]. Generalizing the principles underlying dynamic-clamp, new protocols of RT eventdependent control, stimulation, and recording can be developed with applications in a broad spectrum of biomedical research. RTBiomanager is a multipurpose platform to control bi-directional interactions among living RT agents and artificial RT agents. Examples of living RT agents are cells, neurons, membranes, synapses, neural network and tissues. Examples of artificial RT agents are computer models, electronic devices, artificial neurons, sensors, microinjectors, motors [5], lasers and CCD cameras. RTBiomanager runs under RTAI (Real-Time Application Interface), a hard real-time layer over the Linux operating system to assure that the timing constraints in the detection, stimulation and control of artificial RT agents involved in physiological experiments can be accomplished.RTBiomanager is a user-friendly and customizable application that provides its own data monitor and analysis tools. This platform is designed for neuroscientists to explore the use of real-time technology to build a set of novel experiments that combine different recording and stimulation techniques. RTBiomanager will be available for free to download from our webpage.

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