Estudio de la Flora Vascular de Ilundáin (Navarra).

En este trabajo hemos realizado un estudio de la Flora Vascular presente en Ilundáin (Navarra) en una superficie aproximada de 1.35 km2. Para ello se han recolectado los ejemplares presentes en la zona durante un periodo de tres años (de 1998 a 2001) mediante la realización de herborizaciones de los distintos ambientes, diferenciados por la vegetación dominante de cada uno (robledal, hayedo, pinar, matorral,...) y en las distintas estaciones del año. Así se han recolectado 730 ejemplares pertenecientes a 294 taxones diferentes. Se ha creado un Catálogo Florístico de la zona bajo estudio donde cada taxon está acompañado por información referente a la nomenclatura (sinónimos y nombres vulgares), información biogeográfica (tipo corológico) e información ecológicofuncional (hábitats o ambientes en los que aparece, especies acompañantes, fenología, tipo biológico,...) así como todas las citas tomadas de cada uno de ellos

Clean Development Mechanism Projects in Latin America : beyond reducing CO2 (e) emissions. A case study in Chile

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was created to compensate underdeveloped countries for their contribution to mitigate climate change. Under these rules, those projects showing the lower cost, in terms of investment, for each tonne of CO2 (e) saved, will be the ones selected. However, even if this selection process seems quite rational, it can result in a suboptimal allocation of resources, when other impacts of these projects, also having to do with social welfare, are considered. This point is illustrated in this paper by comparing the financial cost of CER credits of two current CDM projects in Chile, the Santa Marta Landfill Gas Capture Project and the Corneche‐Los Guindos Methane Capture from Swine Manure Project, with that of a third, “virtual” project, the upgrading of the Renca Generation Plant in Santiago de Chile to a gas fired combined cycle (CCGT) Plant. Even if this third project is much less efficient in financial terms, it shows a very important ancillary benefit: its impact on human health. When this impact is introduced, the result, as expected, is a drastic change in the relative social profitability of the three projects

Clean Development Mechanism Projects in Latin America : beyond reducing CO2 (e) emissions. A case study in Chile

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was created to compensate underdeveloped countries for their contribution to mitigate climate change. Under these rules, those projects showing the lower cost, in terms of investment, for each tonne of CO2 (e) saved, will be the ones selected. However, even if this selection process seems quite rational, it can result in a suboptimal allocation of resources, when other impacts of these projects, also having to do with social welfare, are considered. This point is illustrated in this paper by comparing the financial cost of CER credits of two current CDM projects in Chile, the Santa Marta Landfill Gas Capture Project and the Corneche‐Los Guindos Methane Capture from Swine Manure Project, with that of a third, “virtual” project, the upgrading of the Renca Generation Plant in Santiago de Chile to a gas fired combined cycle (CCGT) Plant. Even if this third project is much less efficient in financial terms, it shows a very important ancillary benefit: its impact on human health. When this impact is introduced, the result, as expected, is a drastic change in the relative social profitability of the three projects

Self-synchronized Encryption for Physical Layer in 10Gbps Optical Links

In this work a new self-synchronized encryption method for 10 Gigabit optical links is proposed and developed. Necessary modifications to introduce this kind of encryption in physical layers based on 64b/66b encoding, such as 10GBase-R, have been considered. The proposed scheme encrypts directly the 64b/66b blocks by using a symmetric stream cipher based on an FPE (Format Preserving Encryption) block cipher operating in PSCFB (Pipelined Statistical Cipher Feedback) mode. One of the main novelties in this paper is the security analysis done for this mode. For the first time, an expression for the IND-CPA (Indistinguishability under Chosen-Plaintext Attack) advantage of any adversary over this scheme has been derived. Moreover, it has been concluded that this mode can be considered secure in the same way of traditional modes are. In addition, the overall system has been simulated and implemented in an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). An encrypted optical link has been tested with Ethernet data frames, concluding that it is possible to cipher traffic at this level, getting maximum throughput and hiding traffic pattern from passive eavesdroppers

Self-Synchronized Encryption for Physical Layer in Gigabit Ethernet Optical Links

In this work a new self-synchronized symmetric encryption solution for high speed communication systems necessary to preserve the format of the plaintext is proposed, developed and tested. This new encryption mechanism is based on the block cipher operation mode called PSCFB (Pipelined Statistical Cipher Feedback) and the modulo operation. The confidentiality of this mode is analyzed in terms of its IND-CPA (Indistinguishability under Chosen-Plaintext Attack) advantage, concluding that it can be considered secure in the same way as traditional modes are. The encryption system has been integrated in the physical layer of a 1000Base-X Gigabit Ethernet Interface, where the 8b/10b symbol flow is encrypted at line rate. Moreover, an implementation of the proposed system has been carried out in an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) device. Finally, an encrypted optical link has been tested with real Ethernet frames, getting maximum throughput and protecting the data traffic from passive eavesdroppers

Genotoxicity of silver nanoparticles

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are widely used in diverse sectors such as medicine, food, cosmetics, household items, textiles and electronics. Given the extent of human exposure to AgNPs, information about the toxicological effects of such products is required to ensure their safety. For this reason, we performed a bibliographic review of the genotoxicity studies carried out with AgNPs over the last six years. A total of 43 articles that used well-established standard assays (i.e., in vitro mouse lymphoma assays, in vitro micronucleus tests, in vitro comet assays, in vivo micronucleus tests, in vivo chromosome aberration tests and in vivo comet assays), were selected. The results showed that AgNPs produce genotoxic effects at all DNA damage levels evaluated, in both in vitro and in vivo assays. However, a higher proportion of positive results was obtained in the in vitro studies. Some authors observed that coating and size had an effect on both in vitro and in vivo results. None of the studies included a complete battery of assays, as recommended by ICH and EFSA guidelines, and few of the authors followed OECD guidelines when performing assays. A complete genotoxicological characterization of AgNPs is required for decision-making

A new simple technique for improving the random properties of chaos-based cryptosystems

A new technique for improving the security of chaos-based stream ciphers has been proposed and tested experimentally. This technique manages to improve the randomness properties of the generated keystream by preventing the system to fall into short period cycles due to digitation. In order to test this technique, a stream cipher based on a Skew Tent Map algorithm has been implemented on a Virtex 7 FPGA. The randomness of the keystream generated by this system has been compared to the randomness of the keystream generated by the same system with the proposed randomness-enhancement technique. By subjecting both keystreams to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tests, we have proved that our method can considerably improve the randomness of the generated keystreams. In order to incorporate our randomness-enhancement technique, only 41 extra slices have been needed, proving that, apart from effective, this method is also efficient in terms of area and hardware resources

In Vitro Genotoxicity Evaluation of an Antiseptic Formulation Containing Kaolin and Silver Nanoparticles

Worldwide antimicrobial resistance is partly caused by the overuse of antibiotics as growth promoters. Based on the known bactericidal effect of silver, a new material containing silver in a clay base was developed to be used as feed additive. An in vitro genotoxicity evaluation of this silver-kaolin clay formulation was conducted, which included the mouse lymphoma assay in L5178Y TK+/- cells and the micronucleus test in TK6 cells, following the principles of the OECD guidelines 490 and 487, respectively. As a complement, the standard and Fpg-modified comet assays for the evaluation of strand breaks, alkali labile sites and oxidative DNA damage were also performed in TK6 cells. The formulation was tested without metabolic activation after an exposure of 3 h and 24 h; its corresponding release in medium, after the continuous agitation of the silver-kaolin for 24 h was also evaluated. Under the conditions tested, the test compound did not produce gene mutations, chromosomal aberrations or DNA damage (i.e., strand breaks, alkali labile sites or oxidized bases). Considering the results obtained in the present study, the formulation seems to be a promising material to be used as antimicrobial in animal feed. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland