The first INTEGRAL-OMC catalogue of optically variable sources

The Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC) onboard INTEGRAL provides photometry in the Johnson V-band. With an aperture of 50 mm and a field of view of 5deg x 5deg, OMC is able to detect optical sources brighter than V~18, from a previously selected list of potential targets of interest. After more than nine years of observations, the OMC database contains light curves for more than 70000 sources (with more than 50 photometric points each). The objectives of this work have been to characterize the potential variability of the objects monitored by OMC, to identify periodic sources and to compute their periods, taking advantage of the stability and long monitoring time of the OMC. To detect potential variability, we have performed a chi-squared test, finding 5263 variable sources out of an initial sample of 6071 objects with good photometric quality and more than 300 data points each. We have studied the periodicity of these sources using a method based on the phase dispersion minimization technique, optimized to handle light curves with very different shapes.In this first catalogue of variable sources observed by OMC, we provide for each object the median of the visual magnitude, the magnitude at maximum and minimum brightness in the light curve during the window of observations, the period, when found, as well as the complete intrinsic and period-folded light curves, together with some additional ancillary data.Comment: Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics; 13 pages, 16 figures. Figures' resolution has been degraded to fit astro-ph constraint

Chirality in Bare and Passivated Gold Nanoclusters

Chiral structures have been found as the lowest-energy isomers of bare (Au$_{28}$ and Au$_{55}) and thiol-passivated (Au$_{28}(SCH$_{3})$_{16}$and Au$_{38}(SCH_{3})_{24}) gold nanoclusters. The degree of chirality existing in the chiral clusters was calculated using the Hausdorff chirality measure. We found that the index of chirality is higher in the passivated clusters and decreases with the cluster size. These results are consistent with the observed chiroptical activity recently reported for glutahione-passivated gold nanoclusters, and provide theoretical support for the existence of chirality in these novel compounds.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Submitted to PR

Secondary homotopy groups

Secondary homotopy groups supplement the structure of classical homotopy groups. They yield a track functor on the track category of pointed spaces compatible with fiber sequences, suspensions and loop spaces. They also yield algebraic models of homotopy types with homotopy groups concentrated in two consecutive dimensions.Comment: We added further commets and references to make the paper more easily readabl

Predictive modelling of magnesium concentration in grapevine petioles as a basis for liming recommendations in vineyard acid soils

Soil acidification is a natural process which can either be accelerated by the activity of plants, animals and humans, but can be controlled through appropriate soil management. The main aim of this work was to develop a predictive modelling of magnesium concentration in grapevine petioles for liming amendment recommendation in vineyard acid soils. One liming material, dolomite, has been added to the soil at three doses: 0.9, 1.8 and 2.7 t CaCO3 ha-1. Magnesium exchangeable content in soil surface and concentrations of this nutrient in petioles of leaf samples were investigated during three years. Exchangeable magnesium in soil tended to increase with increasing dolomite application rate. These increases were significant among all the doses and the control, except for the dose of 0.9. However, only between the highest dose and the control significant differences in magnesium concentration in petioles could be detected. In addition, one linear model has been proposed to make liming recommendations in vineyard acid soils based on petiole magnesium concentrations.

Repercussions in the Landscape of Colombian Amazonas (Caquetá and Putumayo Region) Caused by Deforestation and Illicit Crops During the Internal Armed Conflict; a Review

Colombia has lived in the last sixty years trapped between the claws of an internal conflict with special characteristics, which have led to serious consequences on its development and very high-cost of human lives. However, these consequences are not limited to economic and social fields only; it has also resulted in several effects on the environment as well as notorious changes in the landscape, especially in the country boundaries and more neglected zones as the Amazonas region. The Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world in terms of size and diversity, is recognized as a source of ecological services for both local and worldwide communities. Ten percent of its territory belongs to Colombia, covering approximately 35% of the country\u27s total area. In spite of global efforts, it continues to be vulnerable to deforestation pressures changing the land use and consequently, the landscape. In the Amazonian departments of Caquetá and Putumayo, human activities such as logging and illicit crops are the main causes of deforestation, which is increasing the department\u27s vulnerability to climate change and natural hazards, especially in the foothills between the Amazonas and Andes region, that works as a greenway (transition zone) linking these two important ecosystems, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. This paper seeks to collect data from several sources in order to give an integral and general approach based on mixed methods. It also involves an analysis of drivers including the internal armed conflict in the forest cover and the landscape in the last 16 years. The methodology used in the review paper comprised comparing and crossing data of the conflict, deforestation and illicit crops, private and public sources as United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), The Monitoring Project of the Andean Amazon (MAAP), The “Peace and Reconciliation Foundation”, “Dejusticia Study Centre” and The Alexander von Humboldt Institute. In addition, using remote sensing and GFW data generating indicators of degradation and affectation in the Land Use and Land Cover. Nowadays after the agreement with the “FARC” guerrilla in 2016, the discussion focus with the threat that post-conflict could have on the development of potentialities of affected areas. The government is now focusing on decreasing the number of Illicit Crops and increasing the reforestation and therefore recovering the original landscape. Thus, the end of the armed conflict results in opportunities to repair the environmental damage and the possibility of a rethink about the development of the country

Identification of novel bioactive peptides

Motivation: Targeting agents are the most commonly used strategies in therapeutics and diagnostic treatment.They can be classified in two main classes: chemicals and biologicals. Chemicals (farmaceutics and related) have been used for years, but nowadays biologicals experience an increasing demand because of their potentially higher specificity and affinity. Bioactive peptides from rational design can act as targeting agents that specifically interact with, and mostly inhibit, a biomolecule of interest (Seignauric et al., 2011).Methods: We have built a large library of peptides, and are screening for those that have biological activity, specially related to cell proliferation inhibition. The initial inconvenience is that small peptides cannot be expressed from single transcription unit as larger proteins, as they will be destroyed by cell proteases system. It is necessary to include the peptide library into a protein scaffold. We have designed a novel structure that includes the variable peptide sequence from the library between two mini-domains "EFLIVIKS" (one letter aminoacid code) able to form a noncovalent loop (Gururaja et al., 2010). In one of our constructs we have included a T7 promoter to allow conditional expression in bacteria. For its expression, we have designed two large nucleotide sequences (79 and 124 nucleotides, the large one includes the variable peptide sequence) that assemble by 20 complementary nucleotides in their 3' ends. By polymerization, both oligos strings are filled and form a two-chain structure, that will be inserted in a expression vector to obtain our peptide library. We transform bacteria (E. coli) and yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) in order to identify those colonies excpressing the bioactive peptides that kill the cells or interrupt cell cycle

Computational modeling of the mechanical modulation of the growth plate by sustained loading

This paper presents a computational model that describes the growth of the bone as a function of the proliferation and hypertrophy of chondrocytes in the growth plate. We have included the effects of the mechanical loads on the sizes of the proliferative and hypertrophic areas, the number of proliferative chondrocytes and the final size of the hypertrophic chondrocytes. The validation of the model was performed with experimental data published on other investigations about proximal tibia of rats, subjected to sustained axial stresses of 0.1 MPa, 0.0 MPa, -0.1 MPa and −0.2 MPa. Growth was simulated during 23 days, obtaining numerical errors between 2.77% and 3.73% with respect to experimental growth rates. The results obtained show that the model adequately simulates the behavior of the growth plate and the effect of mechanical loads over its cellular activity

Effects of Replacing Dry-rolled Corn with Increasing Levels of Corn Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles on Characteristics of Digestion, Microbial Protein Synthesis and Digestible Energy of Diet in Hair Lambs Fed High-concentrate Diets.

Four male lambs (Katahdin; average live weight 25.9±2.9 kg) with "T" type cannulas in the rumen and proximal duodenum were used in a 4×4 Latin square experiment to evaluate the influence of supplemental dry distillers grain with solubles (DDGS) levels (0, 10, 20 and 30%, dry matter basis) in substitution for dry-rolled (DR) corn on characteristics of digestive function and digestible energy (DE) of diet. Treatments did not influence ruminal pH. Substitution of DR corn with DDGS increased ruminal neutral detergent fiber (NDF) digestion (quadratic effect, p<0.01), but decreased ruminal organic matter (OM) digestion (linear effect, p<0.01). Replacing corn with DDGS increased (linear, p≤0.02) duodenal flow of lipids, NDF and feed N. But there were no treatment effects on flow to the small intestine of microbial nitrogen (MN) or microbial N efficiency. The estimated UIP value of DDGS was 44%. Postruminal digestion of OM, starch, lipids and nitrogen (N) were not affected by treatments. Total tract digestion of N increased (linear, p = 0.04) as the DDGS level increased, but DDGS substitution tended to decrease total tract digestion of OM (p = 0.06) and digestion of gross energy (p = 0.08). However, it did not affect the dietary digestible energy (DE, MJ/kg), reflecting the greater gross energy content of DDGS versus DR corn in the replacements. The comparative DE value of DDGS may be considered similar to the DE value of the DR corn it replaced up to 30% in the finishing diets fed to lambs