Electrical discharges in planetary upper atmospheres: thermal and chemical effects

Seminario impartido el día 9 de marzo de 2017 en las oficinas del Centro de Investigación Atmosférica de Izaña en Santa Cruz de Tenerife. El autor impartió el seminario sobre el trabajo de investigación de su tesis doctoral defendida en la Universidad de Granada en 2015.Los TLEs (Transient Luminous Events) son enormes estructuras luminosas muy breves (< 100 ms), asociadas a una fuerte actividad tormentosa, que se desarrollan entre la estratosfera (15 km) y la ionosfera (100 km) y fueron descubiertos en 1989. De la amplia variedad de tipos de TLEs, los sprites y los halos son los más comunes. En este seminario se presentan los estudios, tanto con simulaciones numéricas como en experimentos de laboratorio, de la evolución química y térmica de la atmósfera terrestre bajo la acción de sprites y halos, así como el análisis de su señal espectral. También se presentarán los resultados de simulaciones de los efectos químicos del campo eléctrico cuasiestático generado por rayos internube en la atmósfera de Saturno

Chemical and thermal impacts of sprite streamers in the Earth's mesosphere

A one-dimensional self-consistent model has been developed to study the chemical and thermal effects of a single sprite streamer in the Earth's mesosphere. We have used sprite streamer profiles with three different driving current durations (5 ms, 50 ms, and 100 ms) between 50 and 80 km of altitude and considering a kinetic scheme of air with more than 90 chemical species. Our model predicts strong increases in practically all the concentrations of the species studied at the moment of the streamer head passage. Moreover, their densities remain high during the streamer afterglow phase. The concentration of electrons can reach values of up to 10 cm in the three cases analyzed. The model also predicts an important enhancement, of several orders of magnitude above ambient values, of nitrogen oxides and several metastables species. On the other hand, we found that the 4.26 μm IR emission brightness of CO can reach 10 GR at low altitudes (< 65 km) for the cases of intermediate (50 ms) and long (100 ms) driving currents. These results suggest the possibility of detecting sprite IR emissions from space with the appropriate instrumentation. Finally, we found that the thermal impact of sprites in the Earth's mesosphere is proportional to the driving current duration. This produces variations of more than 40 K (in the extreme case of a 100 ms driving current) at low altitudes (< 55 km) and at about 10 s after the streamer head. Key Points Chemical and thermal impacts of sprites in the mesosphere are calculated The calculated concentration of electrons exhibits a significant enhancement The model predicts an increase in the gas temperature at low altitudes.©2016. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, MINECO, under projects AYA2011-29936-C05-02 and ESP2013-48032-C5-5-R and by the Junta de Andalucia, Proyecto de Excelencia, FQM-5965. F.C.P.R. acknowledges MINECO for the FPI grant BES-2010-042367. A.L. was supported by a Ramon y Cajal contract, code RYC-2011-07801Peer Reviewe

The ROCK inhibitor Fasudil prevents chronic restraint stress-induced depressive-like behaviors and dendritic spine loss in rat hippocampus

Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.Background: Dendritic arbor simplification and dendritic spine loss in the hippocampus, a limbic structure implicated in mood disorders, are assumed to contribute to symptoms of depression. These morphological changes imply modifications in dendritic cytoskeleton. Rho GTPases are regulators of actin dynamics through their effector Rho kinase. We have reported that chronic stress promotes depressive-like behaviors in rats along with dendritic spine loss in apical dendrites of hippocampal pyramidal neurons, changes associated with Rho kinase activation. The present study proposes that the Rho kinase inhibitor Fasudil may prevent the stress-induced behavior and dendritic spine loss. Methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with saline or Fasudil (i.p., 10 mg/kg) starting 4 days prior to and maintained during the restraint stress procedure (2.5 h/d for 14 days). Nonstressed control animals were injected with saline or Fasudil for 18 days. At 24 hours after treatment, forced swimming test, Golgi-staining, and immuno-western blot were performed. Results: Fasudil prevented stress-induced immobility observed in the forced swimming test. On the other hand, Fasudiltreated control animals showed behavioral patterns similar to those of saline-treated controls. Furthermore, we observed that stress induced an increase in the phosphorylation of MYPT1 in the hippocampus, an exclusive target of Rho kinase. This change was accompanied by dendritic spine loss of apical dendrites of pyramidal hippocampal neurons. Interestingly, increased pMYPT1 levels and spine loss were both prevented by Fasudil administration. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that Fasudil may prevent the development of abnormal behavior and spine loss induced by chronic stress by blocking Rho kinase activity.https://academic.oup.com/ijnp/article/20/4/336/263217

Uncertainties in TOC retrieval for Brewer and Dobson data and the role of cross-correlations among influence parameters

Presentación realizada en: ATMOZ workshop at 11th RBCC-E, celebrado en El Arenosillo, Huelva, el 1 de junio de 2017

Reduction of a metapopulation genetic model to an effective one island model

We explore a model of metapopulation genetics which is based on a more ecologically motivated approach than is frequently used in population genetics. The size of the population is regulated by competition between individuals, rather than by artificially imposing a fixed population size. The increased complexity of the model is managed by employing techniques often used in the physical sciences, namely exploiting time-scale separation to eliminate fast variables and then constructing an effective model from the slow modes. Remarkably, an initial model with 2$\mathcal{D}$ variables, where $\mathcal{D}$ is the number of islands in the metapopulation, can be reduced to a model with a single variable. We analyze this effective model and show that the predictions for the probability of fixation of the alleles and the mean time to fixation agree well with those found from numerical simulations of the original model.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary material: 22 pages, 3 figure

Differences in the fly-load of Haematobia irritans (Diptera: Muscidae) on cattle is modified by endophyte infection of pastures

Background: The horn fly, Haematobia irritans, is an obligate bloodsucking ectoparasite of pastured cattle and is a major pest of livestock production in North and South America and Europe. In this study, we investigated the potential to use cattle pastures, infected with non-toxic, "friendly" fungal-endophyte-infected (E+) tall fescue, Festuca arundinacea Schreb., as a strategy for reducing horn fly loads in cattle, and to evaluate the possible bioinsecticide effect on horn fly larvae. Results: When cattle grazed in E+ tall fescue, a decrease in fly-load was observed, compared with other pastures (endophyte-free (E-) pastures). The infestation of horn fly load decreased according to an increase in the percentage of endophyte present in the different pastures (0 to 100%). Moreover, two groups of animals with significant differences in the fly-load (high and low fly-load) in the same herd were observed (P < 0.05). Additionally, it was possible to determine a bioinsecticide effect of cattle dung, upon horn fly larvae (80%), from animals fed E+ tall fescue. Conclusions: These results constitute the first report on the potential for exploiting pasture management for controlling 1) horn fly-loads on cattle and 2) the normal development of horn fly larvae. In conclusion, this information provides preliminary understanding of the role of cattle pasture diet management for controlling horn fliesas part of an integrated pest management strategy for this major pest of farmed livestock

Coupling between atmospheric layers in gaseous giant planets due to lightning-generated electromagnetic pulses

©2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Atmospheric electricity has been detected in all gaseous giants of our solar system and is therefore likely present also in extrasolar planets. Building upon measurements from Saturn and Jupiter, we investigate how the electromagnetic pulse emitted by a lightning stroke affects upper layers of a gaseous giant. This effect is probably significantly stronger than that on Earth. We find that electrically active storms may create a localized but long-lasting layer of enhanced ionization of up to 103 cm-3 free electrons below the ionosphere, thus extending the ionosphere downward. We also estimate that the electromagnetic pulse transports 107 J to 1010 J toward the ionosphere. There emissions of light of up to 108 J would create a transient luminous event analogous to a terrestrial >elve.> Key Points The EMP from lightning has a stronger effect in gaseous planets than on EarthThe EMP creates ionization and light upper atmosphere of Saturn and JupiterLight emitted by the EMP is one tenth of the light from the lightning strokeThis work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under projects AYA2011-29936-C05-02 and ESP2013-48032-C5-5-R and by the Junta de Andalucia, Proyecto de Excelencia FQM-5965. D. D. and Y.Y. were supported by the Israeli Ministry of Science, scholarship in Memory of Col. Ilan Ramon and by the Israeli Science Foundation grant 117/09.Peer Reviewe

Aplicación para el monitoreo de la frecuencia cardíaca

This paper shows in detail the steps to carry out the realization of a system for monitoring heart rate. This system is developed using a wristband Global Mio company known as Mio Link, to take the data that is sent via Bluetooth communication to a Smartphone device with pre-installed application, it is responsible for keeping managing a database with the values taken, plot them, compared with normalized heart rate values and send an alarm via text message reporting any abnormality, also send the database with a e-mail.En este artículo se muestra detalladamente la aplicación para llevar a cabo la medición de frecuencia cardíaca. Este sistema se desarrolla utilizando una pulsera de la compañía Mio Global conocida como Mio Link, para tomar los datos que son enviados mediante comunicación bluetooth a un dispositivo Smartphone con la aplicación previamente instalada, esta se encarga de llevar el manejo de una base de datos con los valores tomados, graficarlos, compararlos con los valores de frecuencia cardíaca normalizada y de enviar una alarma mediante un mensaje texto informando de cualquier anormalidad, también envía la base de datos vía correo electrónico si se desea

Twelfth Intercomparison Campaign of the Regional Brewer Calibration Center Europe: El Arenosillo Atmospheric Sounding Station, Huelva, Spain, 29 May to 9 June 2017

Editado por Alberto Redondas y Stoyka NetchevaThe twelfth European Brewer Intercomparison Campaign was organized by the Regional Brewer Calibration Center for Europe (RBCC-E) in collaboration with the “Area of Instrumentation and Atmospheric Research Area” of Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial (INTA), with the support of the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Programme of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the EUBREWNET ES1207 COST Action. Alongside the campaign, the ATMOZ (Traceability of Atmospheric Total Ozone) project workshop took place at the station. In addition, this event was also used as a demonstration exercise of the calibration methodologies and error assessment developed by the project (Gröbner et al., 2018)