Varietats tradicionals, obtenció de cultivars amb característiques organolèptiques superiors i agricultura en espais periurbans catalans

En les societats riques, on els membres tenen majoritàriament cobertes les necessitats nutricionals, hi ha ara una demanada creixent de menjar que satisfaci també desitjos sensorials. Les necessitats sensorials tenen un component generalista (per exemple, preferència pel dolç) i un altre de particular. Les poques varietats tradicionals que han resistit la competència de les varietats millorades per producció acostumen a tenir un gran prestigi gastronòmic en les seves zones d'origen tot i que presenten problemes agronòmics perquè no han estat sotmeses a millora genètica. Són un bon punt de partida per crear nous productes destinats als mercats de proximitat (o més amplis, si són molt bones) i també una font de gens per introduir en cultivars seleccionats per a producció. Treballar amb varietats tradicionals té, a més, l'avantatge d'aprofitar els valors culturals que tenen aquestes varietats. Catalunya reuneix per la seva climatologia, orografia i història un bon nombre de varietats tradicionals candidates a ser recuperades per a aquest segment de consumidors. Paral·lelament, l'emergent agricultura periurbana les ha de tenir en compte com una peça clau en el nou model d'explotacions que s'està modelitzant

A Bayesian data assimilation framework for lake 3D hydrodynamic models with a physics-preserving particle filtering method using SPUX-MITgcm v1

We present a Bayesian inference for a threedimensional hydrodynamic model of Lake Geneva with stochastic weather forcing and high-frequency observational datasets. This is achieved by coupling a Bayesian inference package, SPUX, with a hydrodynamics package, MITgcm, into a single framework, SPUX-MITgcm. To mitigate uncertainty in the atmospheric forcing, we use a smoothed particle Markov chain Monte Carlo method, where the intermediate model state posteriors are resampled in accordance with their respective observational likelihoods. To improve the uncertainty quantification in the particle filter, we develop a bi-directional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) neural network to estimate lake skin temperature from a history of hydrodynamic bulk temperature predictions and atmospheric data. This study analyzes the benefit and costs of such a stateof- the-art computationally expensive calibration and assimilation method for lakes.Swiss Data Science Center (SDSC) DATALAKES C17-17Eawag Discretionary Fundin

Flushing the Lake Littoral Region: The Interaction of Differential Cooling and Mild Winds

The interaction of a uniform cooling rate at the lake surface with sloping bathymetry efficiently drives cross-shore water exchanges between the shallow littoral and deep interior regions. The faster cooling rate of the shallows results in the formation of density-driven currents, known as thermal siphons, that flow downslope until they intrude horizontally at the base of the surface mixed layer. Existing parameterizations of the resulting buoyancy-driven cross-shore transport assume calm wind conditions, which are rarely observed in lakes and thereby restrict their applicability. Here, we examine how moderate winds (≲5 m s −1) affect this convective cross-shore transport. We derive simple analytical solutions that we further test against realistic three-dimensional numerical hydrodynamic simulations of an enclosed stratified basin subject to uniform and steady surface cooling rate and cross-shore winds. We show cross-shore winds modify the convective circulation, stopping or even reversing it in the upwind littoral region and enhancing the cross-shore exchange in the downwind region. The analytical parameterization satisfactorily predicted the magnitude of the simulated offshore unit-width discharges in the upwind and downwind littoral regions. Our scaling expands the previous formulation to a regime where both wind and buoyancy forces drive cross-shore discharges of similar magnitude. This range is defined by the non-dimensional Monin-Obukhov length scale, χMO: 0.1 ≲ χMO ≲ 0.5. The information needed to evaluate the scaling formula can be readily obtained from a traditional set of in situ observations.Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) European Commission 175919ETH-Bereich Forschungsanstalte

La introducción de las familias léxicas de fàcil y difícil en catalán a partir de un corpus histórico

Actualmente todas las lenguas románicas comparten los adjetivos fácil y dífícil, junto con otros términos que pertenecen a la misma familia léxica como los adverbios modales fácilmente y difícilmente o los sustantivos facilidad y dificultad. Se trata de latinismos o cultismos que se introducen en la Baja Edad Media y forman parte de un proceso de relatinización de las lenguas románicas, al que en catalán contribuyen decisivamente Ramón Llull y otros autores medievales. Siguiendo el modelo de investigación desarrollado por R. Eberenz (1998), en este trabajo se presenta el estudio de la introducción de fàcil y difícil, y su familia en los textos catalanes de los siglos XIII-XV con el fin de determinar el momento de su introducción, sus valores semánticos y sus usos, la relación semántica que entablan las dos familias, y su integración en el sistema léxico del catalán por la relación que establecen con voces ya existentes en la lengua como lleu o greu. El trabajo utiliza como base fundamental de análisis los datos extraídos del Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), el cual contiene más de nueve millones de palabras de las cuales casi siete millones pertenecen a los siglos XIII-XV.At the moment all the Romance languages share the adjectives fàcil and difícil together with other terms that belong to the same lexical family as modal adverbs fàcilment and difícilment and nouns as facilitat and dificultat. They are Latinisms or Cultisms that were introduced in the Low Middle Ages and they form part of the «relatinisation» of Romance languages, to which Catalan decisively contributed with Ramon Llull and other Medieval authors. Following the research model developed by R. Eberenz (1998), this work presents a study of the introduction of fàcil and difícil and its family in Catalan texts from 13th-15th centuries with the aim to know the moment they were introduced in the language, their semantic meanings and their uses, the semantic relation that interact with the two word families, its integration in the Catalan lexical system and the connection they established with already existing words such as lleu and greu. This work uses data extracted from the Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA) as a fundamental base. This corpus contains more than nine million words, from which nearly seven million belong to or are from the 13th-15th centuries

Development of overturning circulation in sloping waterbodies due to surface cooling

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (project Buoyancy driven nearshore transport in lakes, HYPOlimnetic THErmal SIphonS, HYPOTHESIS, reference 175919) and by the Physics of Aquatic Systems Laboratory (APHYS), EPFL.Cooling the surface of freshwater bodies, whose temperatures are above the temperature of maximum density, can generate differential cooling between shallow and deep regions. When surface cooling occurs over a long enough period, the thermally induced cross-shore pressure gradient may drive an overturning circulation, a phenomenon called ‘thermal siphon’. However, the conditions under which this process begins are not yet fully characterised. Here, we examine the development of thermal siphons driven by a uniform loss of heat at the air–water interface in sloping, stratified basins. For a two-dimensional framework, we derive theoretical time and velocity scales associated with the transition from Rayleigh–Bénard type convection to a horizontal overturning circulation across the shallower sloping basin. This transition is characterised by a three-way horizontal momentum balance, in which the cross-shore pressure gradient balances the inertial terms before reaching a quasi-steady regime. We performed numerical and field experiments to test and show the robustness of the analytical scaling, describe the convective regimes and quantify the cross-shore transport induced by thermal siphons. Our results are relevant for understanding the nearshore fluid dynamics induced by nighttime or seasonal surface cooling in lakes and reservoirs.Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) European Commission 175919Physics of Aquatic Systems Laboratory (APHYS), EPF

Is it still necessary to continue to collect crop genetic resources in the Mediterranean area? a case study in Catalonia

© 2017 The New York Botanical Garden Crop genetic resources have been extensively collected in Europe in the last century, creating large, publicly available ex situ collections. While this huge genetic diversity is often underutilized, in recent decades, several initiatives have emerged at the local level to collect germplasm cultivated on farm. Uncoordinated actors often carry out these collecting missions without considering previously collected data. To explore whether new collecting missions are likely to be worthwhile, we studied the crop genetic resources conservation network in Catalonia by analyzing the passport data and geographical distribution of germplasm stored in seed banks. Moreover, to determine whether this germplasm was representative of the diversity cultivated on farm, we performed new collecting missions in four randomly selected areas in the European Union’s Natura 2000 network and compared the results with the ex situ databases. Seed banks currently hold a large germplasm collection (2931 accessions), although most materials are conserved in private collections without regulated systems for seed regeneration and are not present as duplicates in the National Inventory. One important shortcoming of the ex situ network is that the germplasm conserved ex situ shows a low geographical coverage, representing only 35.3% of the municipalities in Catalonia. Our new missions allowed us to collect 234 accessions, mostly tomatoes (17.5%) and beans (16.2%). The ecological indicators’ richness (both at species (S) and variety (V) levels), total abundance (A), and the Shannon-Weaver diversity index calculated at species (H2, considering the different accessions of each variety as a single population) and variety levels (H3, considering the intra-varietal genetic diversity) were higher in the newly collected germplasm than in the ex situ collections, suggesting that seed banks do not accurately represent the genetic diversity still cultivated on farm. Moreover, some important landraces from each area were absent or underrepresented in the ex situ collections. Thus, it is necessary to continue to devote efforts to collecting germplasm; better organization between actors and targeting specific species/varieties can increase the efficiency of new collecting missions. As a conclusion, we propose different criteria to guide new missions and to improve the network’s conservation activities.Postprint (updated version

India: aliado o verdugo del sector farmacéutico colombiano

Trabajo de investigaciónEste análisis histórico descriptivo de como surgen los acuerdos comerciales o tratados de libre comercio en el contexto de la globalización; validando los acuerdos comerciales vigentes que tiene Colombia, para así enfocarse en determinar a gran, mediana y pequeña escala (nación, farmacéutica y persona) las repercusiones en la industria farmacéutica en el caso de un acuerdo comercial de Colombia con India.Trabajo de investigaciónRESUMEN ABSTRACT INTRODUCCIÓN PROLOGO 1. COLOMBIA Y SUS ACUERDOS COMERCIALES VIGENTES 2. ESTUDIO DE LAS RELACIONES COMERCIALES ACTUALES ENTRE INDIA Y COLOMBIA 3. TENDENCIA DE LA INDUSTRIA FARMACÉUTICA COLOMBIANA E IMPLICACIONES DE UN TLC CON INDIA 4. CONCLUSIONES BIBLIOGRAFÍAEspecializaciónEspecialista en Análisis y Administración Financier