A Practical Approach for Biochemical Modeling in the CFD Evaluation of Novel Anaerobic Digester Concepts for Biogas Production

The detailed physics-based description of anaerobic digesters is characterized by their multiscale and multiphysics nature, with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations being the most comprehensive approach. In practice, difficulties in obtaining a detailed characterization of the involved biochemical reactions hinder its application in the design of novel reactor concepts, where all physics interplays in the reactor must be considered. To solve this limitation, a practical approach is introduced where a calibration step using actual process data was applied for the simplified biochemical reactions involved, allowing us to efficiently manage uncertainties arising when characterizing biochemical reactions with lab scale facilities. A complete CFD modeling approach is proposed for the anaerobic digestion of wastewater, including heat transfer and multiphasic flow. The proposed multiphase model was verified using reference data and, jointly with the biochemical modeling approach, applied to a lab-scale non-conventional anaerobic digester for winery wastewater treatment. The results showed qualitative improvement in predicting methane production when the diameter of the particles was reduced, since larger particles tend to move downwards. The biochemistry of the process could be simplified introducing a preexponential factor of 380 (kmol/m3)(1 – n)/s for each considered chemical reaction. In general, the proposed approach can be used to overcome limitations when using CFD to scale-up optimization of non-conventional reactors involving biochemical reactions

Principios básicos de resonancia magnética cardiovascular (RMC): secuencias, planos de adquisición y protocolo de estudio

ABSTRACT Evaluation of the cardiovascular system with magnetic resonance (CMR) has become one of the most relevant and up-to-the-minute clinical applications of this diagnostic technique, as CMR makes possible an exact and reproducible study of the anatomy and function of the heart and great vessels. The complexity of this technique is mainly due to the anatomical location and orientation of the cardiovascular structures, the specific CMR sequences that have to be used and a lack of familiarity amongst radiologists regarding cardiovascular pathology. In this report the most basic principles of CMR are described. The clinical usefulness of anatomical, functional, and flow quantification sequences are discussed, conventional CMR acquisition planes are described, and an easy CMR study protocol is proposed

Gender Specific Effect of Psychological Stress and Cortisol Reactivity on Adolescent Risk Taking

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how psychological stress, gender and cortisol response to stress relate to risk behavior among 132 14–18 year old adolescents. Participants completed a laboratory based risk task prior to and immediately after a computerized psychological stress task, and salivary cortisol was collected from pre-stress to 60 minutes following initial stress exposure. Results indicate that adolescent boys (n = 59) and girls (n = 73) demonstrate different patterns of risk taking (RT) in response to stress, such that boys evidenced an increase in RT following stress exposure, whereas girls evidenced a decrease in RT. In addition, a gender by cortisol interaction demonstrated that for boys, both a smaller total cortisol output (AUCg) and peak cortisol response to stress (PC) was associated with greater stress-induced RT. Both cortisol measures were unrelated to stress-induced RT among girls. Taken together, data suggest that among boys, a blunted cortisol response to stress underlies an increase in risk taking in the context of psychological stress. Further research with an additional behavioral stress task is needed prior to drawing conclusions regarding the relation between female gender, cortisol response to stress, and risk taking in the context of psychological stress

Adolescent Friendships in the Context of Dual Risk: The Roles of Low Adolescent Distress Tolerance and Harsh Parental Response to Adolescent Distress

©American Psychological Association, 2013. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. The final article is available, upon publication, at: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032587Given extensive evidence about the importance of relationships with friends during development, a large body of research has examined the correlates of these significant social experiences. Most of this research, however, has examined either individual characteristics (e.g., behavior, personality) or contextual factors (e.g., family), and most of the work has studied relationships during childhood. The present study extended previous research by examining how both an individual factor (adolescent distress tolerance) and a contextual factor (parental response to adolescent distress) are linked to adolescents’ friendships. Adolescents (N = 161) completed two behavioral measures of distress tolerance, and parents reported about their responses to adolescent distress. Although distress tolerance and parental responses to distress were not directly associated with adolescents’ positive or negative friendship experiences, for adolescents with low distress tolerance, harsh parental responses were negatively associated with adolescents’ positive friendship quality. Further, for adolescents whose parents used harsh responses to distress, distress tolerance was negatively associated with adolescents’ positive friendship quality. Results highlight the importance of studying both individual and familial factors related to adolescents’ social functioning. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)https://doi.org/10.1037/a003258

Adaptations to Climate-Mediated Selective Pressures in Humans

Humans inhabit a remarkably diverse range of environments, and adaptation through natural selection has likely played a central role in the capacity to survive and thrive in extreme climates. Unlike numerous studies that used only population genetic data to search for evidence of selection, here we scan the human genome for selection signals by identifying the SNPs with the strongest correlations between allele frequencies and climate across 61 worldwide populations. We find a striking enrichment of genic and nonsynonymous SNPs relative to non-genic SNPs among those that are strongly correlated with these climate variables. Among the most extreme signals, several overlap with those from GWAS, including SNPs associated with pigmentation and autoimmune diseases. Further, we find an enrichment of strong signals in gene sets related to UV radiation, infection and immunity, and cancer. Our results imply that adaptations to climate shaped the spatial distribution of variation in humans.</p

Maternal and adolescent distress tolerance: The moderating role of gender.

Distress tolerance is defined behaviorally as the ability to maintain goal directed behavior while experiencing physical or psychological distress. Distress tolerance is closely related to emotion regulation, and is a clinically relevant construct contributing to psychopathology across adults and adolescents, yet limited research has examined the development of this construct. A number of studies suggest the importance of parenting in the emergence of emotion regulation capacities in childhood and adolescence. In the current study, we utilize a behavioral measure of distress tolerance to examine whether maternal distress tolerance is related to adolescent distress tolerance, and if this association differs as a function of gender. We also examine the influence of family emotional climate, namely maternal response to adolescent distress and adolescent attachment. Results indicate a significant maternal distress tolerance by adolescent gender interaction, such that maternal distress tolerance predicts adolescent distress tolerance in daughters, but not sons. The family emotional climate variables were unrelated to maternal or adolescent distress tolerance. Taken together, data indicate that maternal distress tolerance is significantly related to the distress tolerance of adolescent daughters, and indicates the potential utility of addressing maternal distress tolerance in clinical work with adolescents

The role of gender and race in the relation between adolescent distress tolerance and externalizing and internalizing psychopathology

Distress tolerance (DT) is an established construct contributing to the onset and maintenance of psychopathology in adulthood; however, few studies have examined the role of DT in older adolescent psychopathology. Emerging data suggest that gender and race may influence this relation. Therefore, the current study examined the relation between gender, race, and DT on parent-reported internalizing and externalizing DSM-oriented symptoms among a community sample of 128, 14 to 18 year old adolescents. Results indicated a moderating effect of gender on affective problems, such that females with low DT, but not males, displayed significantly greater affective problems. Findings also indicated a significant moderating effect of race, such that Caucasians with low DT, but not African Americans, displayed significantly higher somatic, oppositional defiant, and conduct problems. These findings suggest that DT is an important clinical variable in older adolescence, particularly among Caucasians and females

A NOVEL INDEX OF ABUNDANCE OF JUVENILE YELLOWFIN TUNA IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN DERIVED FROM ECHOSOUNDER BUOYS

The collaboration with the Spanish vessel-owners associations and the buoy-providers companies, has made it possible the recovery of the information recorded by the satellite linked GPS tracking echosounder buoys used by the Spanish tropical tuna purse seiners and associated fleet in the Atlantic since 2010. These instrumental buoys inform fishers remotely in real-time about the accurate geolocation of the FAD and the presence and abundance of fish aggregations underneath them. Apart from its unquestionable impact in the conception of a reliable CPUE index from the tropical purse seine tuna fisheries fishing on FADs, echosounder buoys have also the potential of being a privileged observation platform to evaluate abundances of tunas and accompanying species using catch-independent data. Current echosounder buoys provide a single acoustic value without discriminating species or size composition of the fish underneath the FAD. Therefore, it has been necessary to combine the echosounder buoys data with fishery data, species composition and average size, to obtain a specific indicator. This paper presents a novel index of abundance of juvenile yellowfin tuna in the Atlantic Ocean derived from echosounder buoys for the period 2010-2018