Structural equation modelling of mercury intra-skeletal variability on archaeological human remains

Archaeological burial environments are useful archives to investigate the long-term trends and the behaviour of mercury. In order to understand the relationship between mercury, skeletons and soil, we applied Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to a detailed, multisampling (n = 73 bone samples +37 soil samples) design of two archaeological graves dating to the 6th to 7th centuries CE (A Lanzada site, NW Spain). Mercury content was assessed using a DMA-80, and data about bone structure and the grave soil/sediments were obtained using FTIR-ATR spectroscopy. The theoretical model is supported by proxies of bone structure, grave soil/sediments, and location of the bone within the skeleton. The general model explained 61 % of mercury variance. Additionally, Partial Least Square – Prediction Oriented Segmentation (PLS-POS) was also used to check for segmentation in the dataset. POS revealed two group of samples depending on the bone phase (hydroxyapatite or collagen) controlling the Hg content, and the corresponding models explained 86 % and 76 % of Hg variance, respectively. The results suggest that mercury behaviour in the graves is complex, and that mercury concentrations were influenced by i) the ante-mortem status of the bone matrix, related to the weight of each bone phase; ii) post-mortem evolution of bone crystallinity, where bone loses mercury with increasing alteration; and iii) the proximity of the skeletal pieces to mercury target organs, as decomposition and collapse of the thoracic and abdominal soft tissues causes a secondary mercury enrichment in bones from the body trunk during early post-mortem. Skeletons provide a source of mercury to the soil whereas soil/sediments contribute little to skeletal mercury contentPresent research was funded by Estudo de esqueletos humanos e de secuencias edafosedimentarias do xacemento de A Lanzada (2017-CP035) funded by Deputación Provincial de Pontevedra. The study was also supported by the projects “Pollutio” Plan Nacional (PID2019-111683RJ-I00) Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion, “Epidemias del hambre” Beca Leonardo a Investigadores y Creadores Culturales 2020 (2020-PO048) de la Fundación BBVA and “Grupos de Referencia Competitiva” (ED431C 2021/32) by Xunta de Galicia. NAF was funded by Convenio de Colaboración entre a Axencia Galega de Innovación, a Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Universidade, a USC e CSIC para fomentar a actividade Investigadora do persoal investigador finalista nas convocatorias de axudas do ERC no Marco do H2020. OLC is funded by a Ramón y Cajal senior fellowship (RYC2020-030531-I)S

Approaching mercury distribution in burial environment using PLS‑R modelling

Present research was funded by Estudo de esqueletos humanos e de secuencias edafosedimentarias do xacemento de A Lanzada (2017-CP035) funded by Deputación Provincial de Pontevedra. It was supported by the project Fomentar a actividade investigadora do persoal investigador finalista nas convocatorias de axudas da ERC do H2020 by GAIN (2021-CP052). We thank Deputación de Pontevedra, Museum of Pontevedra and the Dirección Xeral de Patrimonio da Xunta de Galicia for providing access to the archaeological soil samples. Special thanks go to the director or archaeological campaign Rafael Rodríguez Martinez for his support in all studies related to A Lanzada. Thanks to the Ecoloxicoloxía e Ecofisioloxía Vexetal research group and Jesús Aboal as well as to RIAIDT for providing access to equipment facilities. This project is funded by Grupos de Referencia Competitiva (ED431C 2021/32) by Xunta de Galicia. Authors would like to thank the use of RIAIDT-USC analytical facilities. OLC is funded by JIN project (PID2019-111683RJ-I00) Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion and Beca Leonardo a Investigadores y Creadores Culturales 2020 (2020-PO048) de la Fundación BBVA. NAF and ZGL are funded by the project Fomentar a actividade investigadora do persoal investigador finalista nas convocatorias de axudas da ERC do H2020 by GAIN (2021-CP052).Mercury environmental cycle and toxicology have been widely researched. Given the long history of mercury pollution, researching mercury trends in the past can help to understand its behaviour in the present. Archaeological skeletons have been found to be useful sources of information regarding mercury loads in the past. In our study we applied a soil multi-sampling approach in two burials dated to the 5th to 6th centuries AD. PLRS modelling was used to elucidate the factors controlling mercury distribution. The model explains 72% of mercury variance and suggests that mercury accumulation in the burial soils is the result of complex interactions. The decomposition of the bodies not only was the primary source of mercury to the soil but also responsible for the pedogenetic transformation of the sediments and the formation of soil components with the ability to retain mercury. The amount of soft tissues and bone mass also resulted in differences between burials, indicating that the skeletons were a primary/secondary source of mercury to the soil (i.e. temporary sink). Within burial variability seems to depend on the proximity of the soil to the thoracic area, where the main mercury target organs were located. We also conclude that, in coarse textured soils, as the ones studied in this investigation, the finer fraction (i.e. silt + clay) should be analysed, as it is the most reactive and the one with the higher potential to provide information on metal cycling and incipient soil processes. Finally, our study stresses the need to characterise the burial soil environment in order to fully understand the role of the interactions between soil and skeleton in mercury cycling in burial contexts.Deputación Provincial de PontevedraERC do H2020Estudo de esqueletos humanos e de secuencias edafosedimentarias do xacemento de A Lanzada 2017-CP035JIN PID2019-111683RJ-I00Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion 2020-PO048Fundación BBVAAxencia Galega de Innovación 2021-CP052, ED431C 2021/32Xunta de Galici

NFV and SDN-based differentiated traffic treatment for residential networks

Producción CientíficaResidential networks play a critical role in assuring that services or applications such as tele-work, tele-education, medical care, entertainment, home automation, among others, have the required resources to obtain an optimal performance. Although current residential gateways try to meet the Quality of Service (QoS) demands, the traditional networking paradigm does not have the appropriate mechanisms to address the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of the services running at home. In this context, a feasible solution consists of leveraging the flexibility and adaptability of the Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) paradigms to provide a differentiated traffic treatment intended to improve the QoS support of residential networks. The proposal takes advantage of the Service Function Chaining (SFC) concept intrinsic to NFV as well as the capacity of an SDN-based residential gateway to differentiate the traffic of a certain application. Thus, an association between an SFC and the differentiated traffic is stablished to apply a specific treatment. Besides, a comprehensive architecture composed of the software defined residential network (SDRN), the software defined access network (SDOAN) and the NFV-compliant ISP's edge cloud infrastructure is envisioned. This architecture would allow dramatically improving the life cycle management of the residential network from a centralized point which follows a user-centric approach.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (grants TEC2015-67834-R, TEC2017-84423-C3-1-P, RED2018-102585-T and 0677_DISRUPTIVE_2_E

ABCG2 transporter plays a key role in the biodistribution of melatonin and its main metabolites

[EN] The ATP-binding cassette G2 (ABCG2) is an efflux transporter expressed in the apical membrane of cells from a large number of tissues, directly affecting bioavailability, tissue accumulation, and secretion into milk of both xenobiotics and endogenous compounds. The aim of this work was to characterize the role of ABCG2 in the systemic distribution and secretion into milk of melatonin and its main metabolites, 6-hydroxymelatonin, and 6-sulfatoxymelatonin. For this purpose, we first showed that these three molecules are transported by this transporter using in vitro transepithelial assays with MDCK-II polarized cells transduced with different species variants of ABCG2. Second, we tested the in vivo effect of murine Abcg2 in the systemic distribution of melatonin and its metabolites using wild-type and Abcg2−/− mice. Our results show that after oral administration of melatonin, the plasma concentration of melatonin metabolites in Abcg2−/− mice was between 1.5 and 6-fold higher compared to the wild-type mice. We also evaluated in these animals differences in tissue accumulation of melatonin metabolites. The most relevant differences between both types of mice were found for small intestine and kidney (>sixfold increase for 6-sulfatoxymelatonin in Abcg2−/− mice). Finally, melatonin secretion into milk was also affected by the murine Abcg2 transporter, with a twofold higher milk concentration in wild-type compared with Abcg2−/− lactating female mice. In addition, melatonin metabolites showed a higher milk-to-plasma ratio in wild-type mice. Overall, our results show that the ABCG2 transporter plays a critical role in the biodistribution of melatonin and its main metabolites, thereby potentially affecting their biological and therapeutic activity.SIPublicación en abierto financiada por el Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de Castilla y León (BUCLE), con cargo al Programa Operativo 2014ES16RFOP009 FEDER 2014-2020 DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN, Actuación:20007-CL - Apoyo Consorcio BUCL

Humoral Responses and Ex Vivo IFN-γ Production after Canine Whole Blood Stimulation with Leishmania infantum Antigen or KMP11 Recombinant Protein

The effect of Leishmania infantum soluble antigen (LSA) and recombinant Kinetoplastid Membrane Protein 11 (rKMP11) on the induction of ex vivo specific IFN-γ (n = 69) and antibody responses (n = 108) was determined in dogs. All dogs were tested for serological response to both antigens and divided into Group 1: healthy (Asturias, Spain, n = 26), Group 2: sick (n = 46), Group 3: healthy Ibizan hounds (Mallorca, Spain, n = 22) and Group 4: healthy (Bari, Italy, n = 14). Antibody levels were higher for LSA when compared to rKMP11 (p = 0.001). Ibizan hounds were all seronegative to rKMP11 and 18% were low seropositive to LSA. Sick dogs presented higher antibody response to both antigens compared to the rest of the groups (p < 0.0001). All groups showed higher IFN-γ levels after LSA compared to rKMP11 responses (p < 0.05). The highest response to LSA was found in Ibizan hounds (p < 0.05). IFN-γ to LSA and rKMP11 stimulation was observed in 34% and in 2.8% of the sick dogs, respectively. Here, we demonstrated that anti-rKMP11 antibodies are mainly present in dogs with moderate to severe disease. Furthermore, cellular immune response measured by specific ex vivo IFN-γ production was more intense to LSA than stimulated to rKMP11

IWQoS 2017

Producción CientíficaThe promises of SDN and NFV technologies to boost innovation and to reduce the time-to-market of new services is changing the way in which residential networks will be deployed, managed and maintained in the near future. New user-centric management models for residential networks combining SDN-based residential gateways and cloud technologies have already been proposed, providing flexibility and ease of deployment. Extending the scope of SDN technologies to optical access networks and bringing cloud technologies to the edge of the network enable the creation of advanced residential networks in which complex service function chains can be established to provide traffic differentiation. In this context, this paper defines a novel network management model based on a user-centric approach that allows residential users to define and control access network resources and the dynamic provision of traffic differentiation to fulfill QoS requirements.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (context of GREDOS project TEC2015 -67834- R, TEC2014-53071- C3 -2P and Elastic Networks TEC2015-71932- REDT

SIMAGRO: Un prototipo para la detección de anomalías en entornos IoT para el sector agroalimentario

El sector primario es uno de los m ́as relevantes en Andalucía. Una de las ́areas m ́as importantes dentro de este sector es la agricultura, destacando la producción de aceituna, frutas y hortalizas tropicales, además de los cultivos ecológicos (estos últimos suponen la mitad del total en España). Tras los a ̃nos que se han sucedido de crisis, uno de los pilares fundamentales para que se reactive este sector es la optimización de las técnicas de cultivo, lo que implica la necesidad de una transformación digital profunda. Por esta razón, la sensorización de plantaciones agrarias y la implantación del IoT (del inglés, Internet of Things) como mecanismo de monitorización de los cultivos supone un gran avance para las entidades que lo están implantando. ÉGIDA es la primera Red de Excelencia Cervera para la privacidad y la seguridad de los datos. Uno de los objetivos de esta Red es concienciar sobre la necesidad de llevar a cabo una digitalización segura. En este sentido, existe una alta implicación con la securizaci ́on activa de los entornos IoT, concretamente en el sector agroalimentario. En este contexto, y fruto de la colaboración activa entre la Universidad de Granada (UGR) y Fidesol, se ha llevado a cabo el desarrollo un prototipo para la detecci ́on de anomalías en entornos IoT para el sector agroalimentario. Este prototipo aplica por primera vez el sensor MSNM (MSNM-S) en un escenario IoT. El objetivo de este artículo es doble: por un lado, probar el funcionamiento de Atenea Lab y, por otro, presentar los resultados de la evaluación de este prototipo y resolver las siguientes cuestiones: i) ¿Es aplicable MSNM jerárquico a entornos IoT? y ii) ¿Cómo afecta la configuración de MSNM-S a entornos IoT? Además, se pretende identificar posibles puntos de mejora para continuar evolucionando tanto el prototipo obtenido para IoT como el sensor de MSNMEste trabajo está financiado en parte por las Ayudas Cervera para Centros Tecnológicos del Centro Españool para el Desarrollo de Tecnolog ́ıa Industrial (CDTI) en el marco del proyecto EGIDA (CER-20191012) y por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICIN) MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, bajo los proyectos PID2020-113462RB-I00 y PID2020- 114495RB-I00, así como los proyectos PPJIA2022-51 y PPJIA2022-52 de ayudas del plan propio de la UGR

Characterization of the Sauce Grande river, main supplier to the Paso de Las Piedras reservoir, in drought period

Se aborda el análisis de la variabilidad temporal y espacial de caudales en dos estaciones limnigráficas; parámetros fisicoquímicos, evaluación del estado trófico mediante el Índice de Estado Trófico y concentración de nutrientes en dos sitios ubicados sobre el río Sauce Grande durante tres muestreos correspondientes a un período de lluvias escasas, incendios y predominio de flujo base. Posterior a un caudal pico de 12 m3/s, en la estación más alejada a la naciente, el hidrograma asociado inicia un decaimiento que se extiende por tres meses y que aporta 24 hm3 al Embalse Paso de las Piedras. Nitrato aumenta en el sentido del flujo particularmente en C1 y C3, siendo la especie que contribuye en mayor medida al N inorgánico disponible. El análisis de la relación N/P sugiere que en C3 se observan condiciones de limitación de nutrientes. La oxigenación es buena, con valores de sobresaturación asociados con elevada producción primaria.Centro de Investigaciones Geológica

Characterization of the Sauce Grande river, main supplier to the Paso de Las Piedras reservoir, in drought period

Se aborda el análisis de la variabilidad temporal y espacial de caudales en dos estaciones limnigráficas; parámetros fisicoquímicos, evaluación del estado trófico mediante el Índice de Estado Trófico y concentración de nutrientes en dos sitios ubicados sobre el río Sauce Grande durante tres muestreos correspondientes a un período de lluvias escasas, incendios y predominio de flujo base. Posterior a un caudal pico de 12 m3/s, en la estación más alejada a la naciente, el hidrograma asociado inicia un decaimiento que se extiende por tres meses y que aporta 24 hm3 al Embalse Paso de las Piedras. Nitrato aumenta en el sentido del flujo particularmente en C1 y C3, siendo la especie que contribuye en mayor medida al N inorgánico disponible. El análisis de la relación N/P sugiere que en C3 se observan condiciones de limitación de nutrientes. La oxigenación es buena, con valores de sobresaturación asociados con elevada producción primaria.Centro de Investigaciones Geológica