One-year study of airborne sugar compounds: cross-interpretation with other chemical species and meteorological conditions

The daily evolution of seventeen sugar compounds (seven saccharides, seven alcohol-saccharides and three anhydrosaccharides) in atmospheric aerosol samples collected between 9 March 2016 and 14 March 2017 was studied in León (Spain). The main links between the concentration of sugar compounds and various chemical species, pollen, fungal spores and meteorological conditions were investigated. The results showed that, in spring, when high levels of metabolic activity of the plants occur and temperatures increase, glucose, sucrose, 2-methyl-erithritol, mannitol, arabitol and inositol, are significantly correlated with airborne pollen concentrations. Between spring and autumn, Alternaria air concentrations are significantly correlated with temperatures, arabitol and sorbitol + adonitol concentrations. Furthermore, during rainy days, Alternaria is also correlated with mannitol. In autumn, lower temperatures cause an increase in the concentrations of levoglucosan, mannosan and galactosan, probably due to the increased use of domestic heating devices. These anhydrosugars and arabinose, fructose and glucose, are significantly correlated with K, NO3−, EC, OC, Cu, Zn, Se, Pb, V and Ni, while mannosan also correlates with As, showing that these anhydrosaccharides can be emitted from different anthropogenic sources. Precipitation causes an increase in glucose and sucrose concentrations, due to the break of pollen particles that produce hundreds of fine size particles. Besides, precipitation causes an increase in arabitol concentrations, due to the release and growth of fungi.publishe

Efficacy of Three Low-Intensity, Internet-Based Psychological Interventions for the Treatment of Depression in Primary Care: Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND: Primary care is a major access point for the initial treatment of depression, but the management of these patients is far from optimal. The lack of time in primary care is one of the major difficulties for the delivery of evidence-based psychotherapy. During the last decade, research has focused on the development of brief psychotherapy and cost-effective internet-based interventions mostly based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Very little research has focused on alternative methods of treatment for depression using CBT. Thus, there is a need for research into other therapeutic approaches. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of 3 low-intensity, internet-based psychological interventions (healthy lifestyle psychoeducational program [HLP], focused program on positive affect promotion [PAPP], and brief intervention based on mindfulness [MP]) compared with a control condition (improved treatment as usual [iTAU]). METHODS: A multicenter, 4-arm, parallel randomized controlled trial was conducted between March 2015 and March 2016, with a follow-up of 12 months. In total, 221 adults with mild or moderate major depression were recruited in primary care settings from 3 Spanish regions. Patients were randomly distributed to iTAU (n=57), HLP (n=54), PAPP (n=56), and MP (n=54). All patients received iTAU from their general practitioners. The main outcome was the Spanish version of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) from pretreatment (time 1) to posttreatment (time 2) and up to 6 (time 3) and 12 (time 4) months'' follow-up. Secondary outcomes included the visual analog scale of the EuroQol, the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), and the Pemberton Happiness Index (PHI). We conducted regression models to estimate outcome differences along study stages. RESULTS: A moderate decrease was detected in PHQ-9 scores from HLP (ß=-3.05; P=.01) and MP (ß=-3.00; P=.01) compared with iTAU at posttreatment. There were significant differences between all intervention groups and iTAU in physical SF-12 scores at 6 months after treatment. Regarding well-being, MP and PAPP reported better PHI results than iTAU at 6 months post treatment. PAPP intervention significantly decreased PANAS negative affect scores compared with iTAU 12 months after treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The low-intensity, internet-based psychological interventions (HLP and MP) for the treatment of depression in primary care are more effective than iTAU at posttreatment. Moreover, all low-intensity psychological interventions are also effective in improving medium- and long-term quality of life. PAPP is effective for improving health-related quality of life, negative affect, and well-being in patients with depression. Nevertheless, it is important to examine possible reasons that could be implicated for PAPP not being effective in reducing depressive symptomatology; in addition, more research is still needed to assess the cost-effectiveness analysis of these interventions

The Chub Mackerel (Scomber Colias) in the Atlantic Spanish Waters (ICES Divisions 8.c and 9.a): Biological, fishery and survey data

Atlantic chub mackerel (Scomber colias , Gmelin, 1978) is a middle-sized pelagic fish distributed in warm and temperate Northeast Atlantic waters. The bulk of the catches takes place in north western waters of Africa, but landing are significantly increased in the most recent years in the Iberian Peninsula, resulting a new target species for both Portuguese and Spanish purse seiner fleets which partially replaces the important drop of sardine landings in both countries. Given this increasing importance and the lack, for the time being, of any scientific assessment, nor management plan and in order to update the available biological and catch information on this specie in Spanish Atlantic waters, this paper working document compile, review and analyze the existing data of biology, fisheries, and surveys to further enhance knowledge on chub mackerel in Atlantic Iberian waters (ICES Subdivisions 9.a South & North and Division 8.c), specifically: (i) stock structure, (ii) spatial distribution (iii) growth and reproduction and (iv) fisheries exploitation. This analysis suggests an increasing trend in Atlantic waters (9a) in both spatial distribution and abundance, mainly due to the strength of the 2015 and 2016 cohorts. This area, besides, could be considered as a nursery area while the Cantabrian Sea (8c) is rather main spawning area. The increase of such availability is also discussed within the frame of the North East Atlantic warming

Long-term precipitation in Southwestern Europe reveals no clear trend attributable to anthropogenic forcing

We present a long-term assessment of precipitation trends in Southwestern Europe (1850-2018) using data from multiple sources, including observations, gridded datasets and global climate model experiments. Contrary to previous investigations based on shorter records, we demonstrate, using new long-term, quality controlled precipitation series, the lack of statistically significant long-term decreasing trends in precipitation for the region. Rather, significant trends were mostly found for shorter periods, highlighting the prevalence of interdecadal and interannual variability at these time-scales. Global climate model outputs from three CMIP experiments are evaluated for periods concurrent with observations. Both the CMIP3 and CMIP5 ensembles show precipitation decline, with only CMIP6 showing agreement with long term trends in observations. However, for both CMIP3 and CMIP5 large interannual and internal variability among ensemble members makes it difficult to identify a trend that is statistically different from observations. Across both observations and models, our results make it difficult to associate any declining trends in precipitation in Southwestern Europe to anthropogenic forcing at this stage

Dynamic Scaling in Diluted Systems Phase Transitions: Deactivation trough Thermal Dilution

Activated scaling is confirmed to hold in transverse field induced phase transitions of randomly diluted Ising systems. Quantum Monte Carlo calculations have been made not just at the percolation threshold but well bellow and above it including the Griffiths-McCoy phase. A novel deactivation phenomena in the Griffiths-McCoy phase is observed using a thermal (in contrast to random) dilution of the system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, RevTe

Hunting for open clusters in Gaia EDR3: 628 new open clusters found with OCfinder

Stars and planetary system

Logarithmic Corrections to Rotating Extremal Black Hole Entropy in Four and Five Dimensions

We compute logarithmic corrections to the entropy of rotating extremal black holes using quantum entropy function i.e. Euclidean quantum gravity approach. Our analysis includes five dimensional supersymmetric BMPV black holes in type IIB string theory on T^5 and K3 x S^1 as well as in the five dimensional CHL models, and also non-supersymmetric extremal Kerr black hole and slowly rotating extremal Kerr-Newmann black holes in four dimensions. For BMPV black holes our results are in perfect agreement with the microscopic results derived from string theory. In particular we reproduce correctly the dependence of the logarithmic corrections on the number of U(1) gauge fields in the theory, and on the angular momentum carried by the black hole in different scaling limits. We also explain the shortcomings of the Cardy limit in explaining the logarithmic corrections in the limit in which the (super)gravity description of these black holes becomes a valid approximation. For non-supersymmetric extremal black holes, e.g. for the extremal Kerr black hole in four dimensions, our result provides a stringent testing ground for any microscopic explanation of the black hole entropy, e.g. Kerr/CFT correspondence.Comment: LaTeX file, 50 pages; v2: added extensive discussion on the relation between boundary condition and choice of ensemble, modified analysis for slowly rotating black holes, all results remain unchanged, typos corrected; v3: minor additions and correction