Browsing by Author "Soto, Daniel"

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    Current Animal Models for Understanding the Pathology Caused by the Respiratory Syncytial Virus.
    (2019) Altamirano-Lagos, María José; Díaz, Fabián E.; Mansilla, Miguel Andrés; Rivera-Pérez, Daniela; Soto, Daniel; McGill, Jodi L.; Vasquez, Abel E.; Kalergis, Alexis M.
    The human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) is the main etiologic agent of severe lower respiratory tract infections that affect young children throughout the world, associated with significant morbidity and mortality, becoming a serious public health problem globally. Up to date, no licensed vaccines are available to prevent severe hRSV-induced disease, and the generation of safe-effective vaccines has been a challenging task, requiring constant biomedical research aimed to overcome this ailment. Among the difficulties presented by the study of this pathogen, it arises the fact that there is no single animal model that resembles all aspects of the human pathology, which is due to the specificity that this pathogen has for the human host. Thus, for the study of hRSV, different animal models might be employed, depending on the goal of the study. Of all the existing models, the murine model has been the most frequent model of choice for biomedical studies worldwide and has been of great importance at contributing to the development and understanding of vaccines and therapies against hRSV. The most notable use of the murine model is that it is very useful as a first approach in the development of vaccines or therapies such as monoclonal antibodies, suggesting in this way the direction that research could have in other preclinical models that have higher maintenance costs and more complex requirements in its management. However, several additional different models for studying hRSV, such as other rodents, mustelids, ruminants, and non-human primates, have been explored, offering advantages over the murine model. In this review, we discuss the various applications of animal models to the study of hRSV-induced disease and the advantages and disadvantages of each model, highlighting the potential of each model to elucidate different features of the pathology caused by the hRSV infection.
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    Improved performance of a battery powered electric car, using photovoltaic cells
    (IEEE, 2003) Abusleme Hoffman, Ángel Christian; Dixon Rojas, Juan; Soto, Daniel
    One of the major problems for the massive applicability of electric vehicles (EVs) is the scarce capacity of conventional electrical energy storage systems. Although this constraint has been overcome in many cases using advanced technologies such as fuel cells and high-capacity batteries, it is still difficult to develop an economically viable and socially acceptable EV for massive use. In this context, solar energy is not a practical solution for satisfying this lack of energy. However, if a particular situation is considered, in which a small-sized, high-efficiency EV operates at low duty cycles in a sunny, predictable environment, solar power can become a solution for reducing transport costs. This paper deals with the reach of this approach.