Multi-technique approach to rockfall monitoring in the Montserrat massif (Catalonia, NE Spain)

Montserrat Mountain is located near Barcelona in Catalonia, in the northeast of Spain, and its massif is formed by conglomerate interleaved by siltstone/sandstone with steep slopes very prone to rockfalls. The increasing number of visitors in the monastery area, reaching 2.4 million per year, has highlighted the risk derived from rockfalls for this building area and also for the terrestrial accesses, both roads and the rack railway. A risk mitigation plan has been launched, and its first phase during 2014-2016 has been focused largely on testing several monitoring techniques for their later implementation. The results of the pilot tests, performed as a development from previous sparse experiences and data, are presented together with the first insights obtained. These tests combine four monitoring techniques under different conditions of continuity in space and time domains, which are: displacement monitoring with Ground-based Synthetic Aperture Radar and characterization at slope scale, with an extremely non-uniform atmospheric phase screen due to the stepped topography and atmosphere stratification; Terrestrial Laser Scanner surveys quantifying the frequency of small or even previously unnoticed rockfalls, and monitoring rock block centimetre scale displacements; the monitoring of rock joints implemented through a wireless sensor network with an ad hoc design of ZigBee loggers developed by ICGC; and, finally, monitoring singular rock needles with Total Station.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Indoor experiments on polarimetric SAR interferometry

A coherence optimization method, which makes use of polarimetry to enhance the quality of SAR interferograms, has been experimentally tested under laboratory conditions in an anechoic chamber. By carefully selecting the polarization in both images, the resulting interferogram exhibits an improved coherence above the standard HH or VV channel. This higher coherence produces a lower phase variance, thus estimating the underlying topography more accurately. The potential improvement that this technique provides in the generation of digital elevation models (DEM) of non-vegetated natural surfaces has been observed for the first time on some artificial surfaces created with gravel. An experiment on a true outdoor DEM has not been accomplished yet, but the first laboratory results show that the height error for an almost planar surface can be drastically reduced within a wide range of baselines by using the optimization algorithm. This algorithm leads to three possible interferograms associated with statistically independent scattering mechanisms. The phase difference between those interferograms has been employed for extracting the height of vegetation samples. This retrieval technique has been tested on three different samples: maize, rice, and young fir trees. The inverted heights are compared with ground truth for different frequency bands. The estimates are quite variable with frequency, but their complete physical justification is still in progress. Finally, an alternative simplified scheme for the optimization is proposed. The new approach (called polarization subspace method) yields suboptimum results but is more intuitive and has been used for illustrating the working principle of the original optimization algorithm.Peer Reviewe

Efecto de diferentes estrategias de riego sobre la nutrición, la calidad y el pardeamiento interior de la corteza de la granada.

El granado (Punica granatum L.) es un frutal tradicional en zonas subtropicales cálidas y semi-áridas, recientemente considerado como cultivo alternativo. La disponibilidad de agua para el riego es un factor limitante en el sureste peninsular español, la zona de producción más importante de la granada en España. En los últimos años se está observando una alteración fisiológica en la granada que ocasiona el pardeamiento de la cara interior de la corteza y que se muestra más aparente tras la conservación en cámara frigorífica. El presente ensayo trata de determinar el efecto manejo de riego sobre la nutrición de la planta, la calidad de la fruta y el pardeamiento interior de la corteza del fruto. Los tratamientos ensayados (T1 a T6) han sido de aplicación de dos dosis de riego (para reponer el 100% de la ETc y de riego deficitario sostenido (RDS, restricción del 50 % durante todo el ciclo de cultivo) con el empleo en las líneas portagoteros de emisores de diferente caudal (8, 4 y 2 L/h, respectivamente). Se ha realizado el análisis de macro y microelementos minerales en el fruto y los parámetros de calidad de la fruta de color exterior de la corteza y del zumo (CIELab*), SST (ºBrix), pH, acidez titulable e índice de madurez del zumo y el índice de pardeamiento de la corteza. En los resultados obtenidos, no se encontraron diferencias significativas en los parámetros medidos debidas al caudal del emisor. El RDS aumentó la coloración externa del fruto, el rendimiento en zumo y el índice de madurez, redujo el espesor de la corteza y no afectó al color del zumo. El riego deficitario redujo la afección de pardeamiento interno tras la conservación

Systematic Production of Inactivating and NonInactivating Suppressor Mutations at the relA Locus That Compensate the Detrimental Effects of Complete spoT Loss and Affect Glycogen Content in Escherichia coli

In Escherichia coli, ppGpp is a major determinant of growth and glycogen accumulation. Levels of this signaling nucleotide are controlled by the balanced activities of the ppGpp RelA synthetase and the dual-function hydrolase/synthetase SpoT. Here we report the construction of spoT null (DspoT) mutants obtained by transducing a DspoT allele from DrelADspoT double mutants into relA+ cells. Iodine staining of randomly selected transductants cultured on a rich complex medium revealed differences in glycogen content among them. Sequence and biochemical analyses of 8 DspoT clones displaying glycogen-deficient phenotypes revealed different inactivating mutations in relA and no detectable ppGpp when cells were cultured on a rich complex medium. Remarkably, although the co-existence of DspoT with relA proficient alleles has generally been considered synthetically lethal, we found that 11 DspoT clones displaying high glycogen phenotypes possessed relA mutant alleles with non-inactivating mutations that encoded stable RelA proteins and ppGpp contents reaching 45–85% of those of wild type cells. None of the DspoT clones, however, could grow on M9-glucose minimal medium. Both Sanger sequencing of specific genes and high-throughput genome sequencing of the DspoT clones revealed that suppressor mutations were restricted to the relA locus. The overall results (a) defined in around 4 nmoles ppGpp/g dry weight the threshold cellular levels that suffice to trigger net glycogen accumulation, (b) showed that mutations in relA, but not necessarily inactivating mutations, can be selected to compensate total SpoT function(s) loss, and (c) provided useful tools for studies of the in vivo regulation of E. coli RelA ppGpp synthetaseFil: Montero, Manuel. Gobierno de Navarra. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología; EspañaFil: Rahimpour, Mehdi. Gobierno de Navarra. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología; EspañaFil: Viale, Alejandro Miguel. Gobierno de Navarra. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología; España. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas. Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Almagro, Goizeder. Gobierno de Navarra. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología; EspañaFil: Eydallin, Gustavo. Gobierno de Navarra. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología; EspañaFil: Sevilla, Angel. Universidad de Murcia; EspañaFil: Canovas, Manuel. Universidad de Murcia; EspañaFil: Bernal, Cristina. Universidad de Murcia; EspañaFil: Lozano, Ana Belen. Universidad de Murcia; EspañaFil: Muñoz, Francisco Jose. Gobierno de Navarra. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología; EspañaFil: Bora Fernandez, Edurne. Gobierno de Navarra. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología; EspañaFil: Bahaji, Abdellatif. Gobierno de Navarra. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología; EspañaFil: Mori, Hirotada. Nara Institute of Science and Technology. Graduate School of Biological Sciences; JapónFil: Codoñer, Francisco M.. Lifesequencing SL. Valencia; EspañaFil: Potueza Romeo, Javier. Gobierno de Navarra. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología; Españ

The atypical CDK activator RingoA/Spy1 regulates exit from quiescence in neural stem cells

In the adult mammalian brain, most neural stem cells (NSCs) are held in a reversible state of quiescence, which is essential to avoid NSC exhaustion and determine the appropriate neurogenesis rate. NSCs of the mouse adult subependymal niche provide neurons for olfactory circuits and can be found at different depths of quiescence, but very little is known on how their quiescence-to-activation transition is controlled. Here, we identify the atypical cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) activator RingoA as a regulator of this process. We show that the expression of RingoA increases the levels of CDK activity and facilitates cell cycle entry of a subset of NSCs that divide slowly. Accordingly, RingoA-deficient mice exhibit reduced olfactory neurogenesis with an accumulation of quiescent NSCs. Our results indicate that RingoA plays an important role in setting the threshold of CDK activity required for adult NSCs to exit quiescence and may represent a dormancy regulator in adult mammalian tissues.© 2023 The Author(s)

Experimental comparison of different scattering mechanism selections for vegetation height retrieval by POLINT

The application of polarimetric radar interferometry to the estimation of vegetation height is studied. A comparison between different choices for the scattering mechanisms employed in the retrieval algorithm is presented. When applied to crops, the best results are derived from the height difference between interferograms generated at HH+VV and HH-VV polarizationsPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Current professional standing of young medical oncologists in Spain : a nationwide survey by the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology + MIR section

There is a lack of knowledge about the career paths and employment situation of young medical oncologists. The aim of our study was to evaluate the current professional standing of these professionals in Spain. The Spanish Society of Medical Oncology + MIR section conducted a national online survey in May 2021 of young medical oncology consultants (< 6 years of expertise) and final year medical oncology residents. A total of 162 responses were eligible for analysis and included participants from 16 autonomous communities; 64% were women, 80% were consultants, and 20% were residents. More than half of the participants performed routine healthcare activity and only 7% research activity. Almost three quarters (73%) were subspecialized in a main area of interest and almost half of these chose this area because it was the only option available after residency. Half of the respondents (51%) considered working abroad and 81% believed the professional standing in Spain was worse than in other countries. After finishing their residency, only 22 were offered a job at their training hospital. Just 16% of participants had a permanent employment contract and 87% were concerned (score of ≥ 5 on a scale of 1-10) about their job stability. In addition, one quarter of the participants in our study showed an interest in increasing their research activity. The choice of subspecialty in medical oncology may depend on job opportunities after residency rather than personal interest. The abundance of temporary contracts may have influenced the job stability concerns observed. Future mentoring strategies should engage in building a long-term career path for young medical oncologists. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12094-022-02989-3