La cúpula del vestíbulo del Palacio Omeya de Amman (Jordania)

Con el objeto de poder reutilizar el gran vestíbulo del alcázar omeya de Amman, un conjunto áulico de comienzos del siglo VIII ubicado en el centro mismo de la capital de Jordania, se ha cubierto su espacio central con una cúpula realizada en madera laminada encolada. La elección de esta solución se ha basado en las posibilidades que ofrece para realizar piezas curvas, así como en su inconfundible diferenciación como obra contemporánea.Peer reviewe

Investigación y restauración en el Alcázar de Sevilla

The interventions that have been accomplished in the last years at the Alcazar of Seville, coordinated by the School of Arabic Studies (CSIC), are an interesting case that shows the relations among restoration, historic research, application of analytic techniques and diffusion of the results. Interdisciplinary actions carried out with the constant reference to historical values of the monument by a large and varied group of researchers and professionals have allowed not only important results regarding its physical conservation but also significant advances in the knowledge of its history and meaning. Using always rigorous photogrammetric plans as a basis, important original remains have been recuperated, some significative parts have been consolidated and restored and virtual reconstruction have been produced as the result of the historic research.Las intervenciones que durante estos últimos años se han llevado a cabo en el Alcázar de Sevilla coordinadas desde la Escuela de Estudios Árabes (CSIC) constituyen un interesante caso de interrelación entre restauración, investigación histórica, aplicación de técnicas analíticas y difusión de los resultados. Las acciones inter-disciplinares llevadas a cabo por un extenso y variado grupo de investigadores y profesionales con la referencia constante a los valores históricos del monumento han permitido lograr junto a importantes resultados en su conservación física, avances significativos en el conocimiento de su historia y su significado. Usando siempre como base una rigurosa planimetría fotogramétrica, se han recuperado importantes vestigios originales, se han consolidado y restaurado partes especialmente significativas y se han realizado reconstrucciones virtuales como resultado de la investigación histórica

Estudio del funcionamiento de dos albercas del palacio Sa’adí de al-Badi’ (s. XVI), en Marrakech (Marruecos) mediante un modelo real a escala reducida

In this study the behavior of water in the pools which existed within the interior hall of the Western Pavilion of the central courtyard of the Palace of al-Badi’ in Marrakech, Morocco, is analyzed. The study was made through an actual reduced scale (1:3) model that reproduces the shape, proportions and water supply and evacuation systems of these pools. The constant vibration of the surface of the water, a unique feature, was produced through various devices and was likely intended to impress the visitors thus achieving effects which alluded to poetic texts which were an integral part of the decoration of the room.Se analiza en este estudio el comportamiento del agua en las albercas que existieron dentro de la sala del pabellón occidental del patio central del palacio de al-Badi’ de Marrakech, realizado a través de un modelo real a escala reducida que reproduce la forma, proporciones y sistema de suministro y evacuación del agua de estos estanques. La permanente vibración de la superficie del líquido lograda con el dispositivo utilizado obedecía sin duda al objetivo de impresionar a los visitantes mediante distintos artificios, logrando efectos a los que también aludían los textos poéticos que formaban parte de la decoración del salón

Use of a tyrosine kinase inhibitor as neoadjuvant therapy for non-small cell lung cancer: A case report

We report here a 66-year-old woman diagnosed with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma of the right lung cT4N2M0. The patient was from the Philippines, had never smoked, and tested positive for an EGFR mutation. She received gefitinib as neoadjuvant therapy for two months and displayed a partial response. The tumour was resected by performing a right pneumonectomy. The residual viable tumour accounted for less than 10%. Adjuvant chemotherapy with carboplatin-taxol was administered for four cycles. Fifteen months post-surgery, two brain metastases were found. Gefitinib was prescribed, and one month later complete radiological response was assessed. The patient remains asymptomatic and without visible disease four months later. Controlled randomised trials are needed to clarify the role of these target therapies in the neoadjuvant settin

De la casa del señor a la casa del labrador. Recorrido y caracterización tipológica en el campo de Murcia

Una radiografía desde las casas de labor hasta llegar a las casas del señor, desde los lugares de residencia de la clase trabajadora a los lugares de grandes terratenientes, señores de la nobleza, que convivían en el espacio geográfico del Campo de Murcia. Palacetes, casonas solariegas, ermitas inmersas en estas grandes mansiones, y a su vez humildes moradas de labradores y campesinos, con sus pequeños oratorios, sus patios de labor, sus cuadras, sus aljibes. Una manera de entender la realidad social rural, el diálogo existente entre los diferentes estratos sociales y su diferenciación económica, cultural, religiosa, etc. El recorrido histórico y la situación actual nos da a entender la importancia de estas construcciones, y la defensa de las mismas, en base a la conservación de un patrimonio arquitectónico de suma importancia y muy peculiar en la Región de Murcia. Algunas construcciones han variado de utilidad o bien se han reconvertido en otro tipo de infraestructuras; otras se encuentran en una fase de rehabilitación o reconstrucción; algunas de ellas han pasado a una situación lamentable de deterioro y ruina, para el pesar histórico y de raigambre popular; y otras han desaparecido de su ubicación primitiva, unas veces por el propio paso del tiempo y ruina natural, otras veces por la destructiva mano del hombre, sin tener en cuenta la pérdida irremediable de un patrimonio irrecuperable

Estimating soil organic carbon changes in managed temperate moist grasslands with RothC

Temperate grassland soils store significant amounts of carbon (C). Estimating how much livestock grazing and manuring can influence grassland soil organic carbon (SOC) is key to improve greenhouse gas grassland budgets. The Rothamsted Carbon (RothC) model, although originally developed and parameterized to model the turnover of organic C in arable topsoil, has been widely used, with varied success, to estimate SOC changes in grassland under different climates, soils, and management conditions. In this paper, we hypothesise that RothC-based SOC predictions in managed grasslands under temperate moist climatic conditions can be improved by incorporating small modifications to the model based on existing field data from diverse experimental locations in Europe. For this, we described and evaluated changes at the level of: (1) the soil water function of RothC, (2) entry pools accounting for the degradability of the exogenous organic matter (EOM) applied (e.g., ruminant excreta), (3) the month-on-month change in the quality of C inputs coming from plant residues (i.e above-, below-ground plant residue and rhizodeposits), and (4) the livestock trampling effect (i.e., poaching damage) as a common problem in areas with higher annual precipitation. In order to evaluate the potential utility of these changes, we performed a simple sensitivity analysis and tested the model predictions against averaged data from four grassland experiments in Europe. Our evaluation showed that the default model''s performance was 78% and whereas some of the modifications seemed to improve RothC SOC predictions (model performance of 95% and 86% for soil water function and plant residues, respectively), others did not lead to any/or almost any improvement (model performance of 80 and 46% for the change in the C input quality and livestock trampling, respectively). We concluded that, whereas adding more complexity to the RothC model by adding the livestock trampling would actually not improve the model, adding the modified soil water function and plant residue components, and at a lesser extent residues quality, could improve predictability of the RothC in managed grasslands under temperate moist climatic conditions. © 2021 Jebari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Active mesh and neural network pipeline for cell aggregate segmentation

Segmenting cells within cellular aggregates in 3D is a growing challenge in cell biology due to improvements in capacity and accuracy of microscopy techniques. Here, we describe a pipeline to segment images of cell aggregates in 3D. The pipeline combines neural network segmentations with active meshes. We apply our segmentation method to cultured mouse mammary gland organoids imaged over 24 h with oblique plane microscopy, a high-throughput light-sheet fluorescence microscopy technique. We show that our method can also be applied to images of mouse embryonic stem cells imaged with a spinning disc microscope. We segment individual cells based on nuclei and cell membrane fluorescent markers, and track cells over time. We describe metrics to quantify the quality of the automated segmentation. Our segmentation pipeline involves a Fiji plugin that implements active mesh deformation and allows a user to create training data, automatically obtain segmentation meshes from original image data or neural network prediction, and manually curate segmentation data to identify and correct mistakes. Our active meshes-based approach facilitates segmentation postprocessing, correction, and integration with neural network prediction

Artificial termite-fishing tasks as enrichment for sanctuary-housed chimpanzees: Behavioral effects and impact on welfare

The welfare of captive animals is nowadays a topic of major concern. In order to express their natural behavioral repertoires, however, animals require complex environments and stimuli which are difficult to reproduce in captivity. To overcome this, environmental enrichment is considered one of the most successful tools to increase behavioral opportunities and enhance animal welfare. In this study, we explored whether providing an artificial termite-fishing task, and whether participation in this task, predicted changes in the solitary and social behavior of sanctuary-housed chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). We compared chimpanzee behavior when the enrichment was presented to different periods without enrichment. We found that the presence of the enrichment predicted an increase in tool use and feeding behavior and a decrease in inactivity, especially for those chimpanzees with higher participation. However, we did not detect significant changes in abnormal or self-directed behaviors. Furthermore, we found no variation in affiliation- or aggression-related behaviors, but social proximity increased in chimpanzees that participated more. Our results support previous studies demonstrating that artificial termite-fishing promotes species-typical behaviors in captive chimpanzees with no major effects on social activities

Plant residue chemical quality modulates the soil microbial response related to decomposition and soil organic carbon and nitrogen stabilization in a rainfed Mediterranean agroecosystem

Soils play a major role in the global carbon cycle and are crucial to the management of climate change. Changes in plant cover derived from different agricultural practices induce variations in the quality of plant residue inputs and in the soil microbial community structure and activity, which may enhance the storage and protection of organic carbon (OC) and nitrogen (N) within aggregates. The aim of this study was to assess how differences in the chemical composition of plant residues in combination with tillage management practices affect the local microbial community activity and structure, and subsequent soil aggregation and OC and N dynamics in an organic, rainfed almond (Prunus dulcis Mill.) orchard. In the laboratory, three types of plant residue (shoots, roots, and the combination of both) coming from different species belonging to each agricultural practice (reduced tillage, reduced tillage plus green manure, reduced tillage plus organic manure, and no-tillage) were mixed with their respective soils and the CO2 released was measured over 243 days at 60% WHC and 28 °C. Water-stable aggregates (including microaggregates within macroaggregates), enzymatic activities related to carbon (dehydrogenase and ß-glucosidase) and N (urease) cycling, and the microbial biomass and community structure through phospholipid fatty acid analysis, were measured at the end of the incubation period. Our results indicate that the chemical composition of plant residues controls the microbial community response, mediating decomposition and the incorporation of OC and N in stable aggregates. Therefore, the incorporation of labile and N-rich plant residues into the soil by reduced tillage is recommended since mixing roots and shoots from green manure increased the formation of free micro-aggregates and improved OC and N stabilization in our semiarid agroecosystem. © 2021 Elsevier LtdThis research was supported with funds from the Fundaci?n S?neca of the Murcia Region (projects 08757/PI/08, EMISEMUR 19350/PI/14 and DECADE 20917/PI/18). Parts of this research were performed within the framework of the project IMPASEC AGL2011-25069 funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Econom?a y Competitividad. Mar?a Almagro was supported by the Juan de la Cierva Program (Grant IJCI-2015-23500) and Antonio Ruiz-Navarro by the Fundaci?n General from the Spanish Research Council (CSIC, ConFuturo Progamme). We thank members of the Soil and Water Conservation Group - Eloisa Garc?a, Inmaculada Montoya, and Mar?a Jos? Espinosa - for helping us with the field and laboratory work, and Gonzalo Barber? for his useful advice with statistical analyses. We also thanks Gonzalo Herv?s, from the Instituto de Ganader?a de Monta?a of the Spanish Research Council, for performing the fiber fraction analysis. We are also grateful to Claire Chenu and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript