Late Pleistocene climate of the northern Iberian Peninsula: New insights from palaeoglaciers at Fuentes Carrionas (Cantabrian Mountains)

Producción CientíficaNew Be dates for glacial landforms in the Fuentes Carrionas area (Cantabrian Mountains, nothern Spain) are presented. Mapped and dated landforms in Fuentes Carrionas made possible a palaeoglacier reconstruction for four glacial stages. Results were compared to other nearby palaeoenvironmental proxies, so a final approximation on the mean annual temperature and annual precipitation that caused the four glacial advance stages is proposed. Glaciers reached their maximum extension at 36 ka, in a cold and dry environment. A second advance stage took place between 18.5 and 19.5 ka, during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), when glaciers advanced in a wet environment, with positive rainfall anomalies. A third glacial advance was dated during the Oldest Dryas, in which climate shifted to extremely cold and dry conditions. Finally, a last stage has been identified and proposed to the Younger Dryas, in which precipitation anomalies are negligible. Our results confirm some of the previously made palaeoglacial and palaeoenvironmental inferences for the Iberian Peninsula, as well as provide Q4 valuable and accurate anomalies, which are useful for climate modelling.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (project CGL2015-68144-R

The imperative usage of an innovated Biscuit-Shaped Tenon Groove Machine towards Technology Model for interior design technology program in technical education

This study was conducted in order to create and effectively use an Innovated Biscuit-Shaped Tenon Groove Machine towards Technology Model for Interior Design technology program in Technical education so that the creative learners could use it to support instruction in school, the study was conducted at Cebu Technological University- Pinamungajan Campus, Pinamungajan, Cebu. The output of this study was regarded as an alternative technology tool of CTU- Pinamungajan Campus, Pinamungajan, Cebu where the study is being done. This study used quasi-experimental techniques, specifically survey research. 90 students and 5 professors/instructors were given questionnaires to complete for evaluation. Weighted mean and t-test were used to analyze the collected data. Based on the results and following a careful analysis, it is concluded that Innovative Biscuit-Shaped Tenon Groove Machine meets campus needs and standards

River Restoration in Spain: Theoretical and Practical Approach in the Context of the European Water Framework Directive.

River restoration is becoming a priority in many countries because of increasing the awareness of environmental degradation. In Europe, the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) has significantly reinforced river restoration, encouraging the improvement of ecological status for water bodies. To fulfill the WFD requirements, the Spanish Ministry of the Environment developed in 2006 a National Strategy for River Restoration whose design and implementation are described in this paper. At the same time many restoration projects have been conducted, and sixty of them have been evaluated in terms of stated objectives and pressures and implemented restoration measures. Riparian vegetation enhancement, weir removal and fish passes were the most frequently implemented restoration measures, although the greatest pressures came from hydrologic alteration caused by flow regulation for irrigation purposes. Water deficits in quantity and quality associated with uncontrolled water demands seriously affect Mediterranean rivers and represent the main constraint to achieving good ecological status of Spanish rivers, most of them intensively regulated. Proper environmental allocation of in-stream flows would need deep restrictions in agricultural water use which seem to be of very difficult social acceptance. This situation highlights the need to integrate land-use and rural development policies with water resources and river management, and identifies additional difficulties in achieving the WFD objectives and good ecological status of rivers in Mediterranean countries

Consequences of marine barriers for genetic diversity of the coral-specialist yellowbar angelfish from the Northwestern Indian Ocean

© 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Ocean circulation, geological history, geographic distance, and seascape heterogeneity play an important role in phylogeography of coral-dependent fishes. Here, we investigate potential genetic population structure within the yellowbar angelfish (Pomacanthus maculosus) across the Northwestern Indian Ocean (NIO). We then discuss our results with respect to the above abiotic features in order to understand the contemporary distribution of genetic diversity of the species. To do so, restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq) was utilized to carry out population genetic analyses on P. maculosus sampled throughout the species’ distributional range. First, genetic data were correlated to geographic and environmental distances, and tested for isolation-by-distance and isolation-by-environment, respectively, by applying the Mantel test. Secondly, we used distance-based and model-based methods for clustering genetic data. Our results suggest the presence of two putative barriers to dispersal; one off the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula and the other off northern Somalia, which together create three genetic subdivisions of P. maculosus within the NIO. Around the Arabian Peninsula, one genetic cluster was associated with the Red Sea and the adjacent Gulf of Aden in the west, and another cluster was associated with the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Oman in the east. Individuals sampled in Kenya represented a third genetic cluster. The geographic locations of genetic discontinuities observed between genetic subdivisions coincide with the presence of substantial upwelling systems, as well as habitat discontinuity. Our findings shed light on the origin and maintenance of genetic patterns in a common coral reef fish inhabiting the NIO, and reinforce the hypothesis that the evolution of marine fish species in this region has likely been shaped by multiple vicariance events

Yield-scaled mitigation of ammonia emission from N fertilization: the Spanish case

Online supplementary data available from stacks.iop.org/ERL/9/125005/mmedia[EN] Synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizer and field application of livestock manure are the major sources of ammonia (NH3) volatilization. This N loss may decrease crop productivity and subsequent deposition promotes environmental problems associated with soil acidification and eutrophication. Mitigation measures may have associated side effects such as decreased crop productivity (e.g. if N fertilizer application is reduced), or the release of other reactive N compounds (e.g. N2O emissions if manure is incorporated). Here, we present a novel methodology to provide an integrated assessment of the best strategies to abate NH3 from N applications to crops. Using scenario analyses, we assessed the potential of 11 mitigation measures to reduce NH3 volatilization while accounting for their side effects on crop productivity, N use efficiency (NUE) and N surplus (used as an indicator of potential N losses by denitrification/nitrification and NO3 − leaching/run-off). Spain, including its 48 provinces, was selected as a case study as it is the third major producer of agricultural goods in Europe, and also the European country with the highest increase in NH3 emissions from 1990 to 2011. Mitigation scenarios comprised of individual measures and combinations of strategies were evaluated at a country- and regional level. Compared to the reference situation of standard practices for the year 2008, implementation of the most effective region-specific mitigation strategy led to 63% NH3 mitigation at the country level. Implementation of a single strategy for all regions reduced NH3 by 57% at the highest. Strategies that involved combining mitigation measures produced the largest NH3 abatement in all cases, with an 80% reduction in some regions. Among the strategies analyzed, only suppression of urea application combined with manure incorporation and incorporation of N synthetic fertilizers other than urea showed a fully beneficial situation: yieldscaled NH3 emissions were reduced by 82%, N surplus was reduced by 9%, NUE was increased by 19% and yield was around 98% that of the reference situation. This study shows that the adoption of viable measures may provide an opportunity for countries like Spain to meet the international agreements on NH3 mitigation, while maintaining crop yields and increasing NUEThe authors are grateful to the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Autonomous Community of Madrid for their economic support through the NEREA project (AGL2012-37815- C05-01, AGL2012-37815-C05-04) and GASPORC (AGL2011-30023-C03) projects. We wish to thank the FIRE (Federation Ile de France de Recherche en Environment, CNRS and UPMC) as well as the Agrisost Project (S2009/AGR-1630). Eduardo Aguilera gratefully acknowledges funding by the 895-2011-1020 project (Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council). This paper has been produced within the context of the REMEDIA network (http://redremedia.wordpress.com).Sanz-Cobeña, A.; Lassaletta, L.; Estellés, F.; Del Prado, A.; Guardia Guardia, G.; Abalos, D.; Aguilera, E.... (2014). Yield-scaled mitigation of ammonia emission from N fertilization: the Spanish case. Environmental Research Letters. 9(12):1-12. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/12/125005S11291

The Problem of Signal and Symbol Integration: A Study of Cooperative Mobile Autonomous Agent Behaviors

This paper explores and reasons about the interplay between symbolic and continuous representations. We first provide some historical perspective on signal and symbol integration as viewed by the Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics and Computer Vision communities. The domain of autonomous robotic agents residing in dynamically changing environments anchors well different aspects of this integration and allows us to look at the problem in its entirety. Models of reasoning, sensing and control actions of such agents determine three different dimensions for discretization of the agent-world behavioral state space. The design and modeling of robotic agents, where these three aspects have to be closely tied together, provide a good experimental platform for addressing the signal-to-symbol transformation problem. We present some experimental results from the domain of cooperating mobile agents involved in tasks of navigation and manipulation

Kidney cancer mortality in Spain: geographic patterns and possible hypotheses

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Since the second half of the 1990s, kidney cancer mortality has tended to stabilize and decline in many European countries, due to the decrease in the prevalence of smokers. Nevertheless, incidence of kidney cancer is rising across the sexes in some of these countries, a trend which may possibly reflect the fact that improvements in diagnostic techniques are being outweighed by the increased prevalence of some of this tumor's risk factors. This study sought to: examine the geographic pattern of kidney cancer mortality in Spain; suggest possible hypotheses that would help explain these patterns; and enhance existing knowledge about the large proportion of kidney tumors whose cause remains unknown.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Smoothed municipal relative risks (RRs) for kidney cancer mortality were calculated in men and women, using the conditional autoregressive model proposed by Besag, York and Molliè. Maps were plotted depicting smoothed relative risk estimates, and the distribution of the posterior probability of RR>1 by sex.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Municipal maps displayed a marked geographic pattern, with excess mortality in both sexes, mainly in towns along the Bay of Biscay, including areas of Asturias, the Basque Country and, to a lesser extent, Cantabria. Among women, the geographic pattern was strikingly singular, not in evidence for any other tumors, and marked by excess risk in towns situated in the Salamanca area and Extremaduran Autonomous Region. This difference would lead one to postulate the existence of different exposures of environmental origin in the various regions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The reasons for this pattern of distribution are not clear, and it would thus be of interest if the effect of industrial emissions on this disease could be studied. The excess mortality observed among women in towns situated in areas with a high degree of natural radiation could reflect the influence of exposures which derive from the geologic composition of the terrain and then become manifest through the agency of drinking water.</p