Robustness of reserve selection procedures under temporal species turnover

Complementarity-based algorithms for the selection of reserve networks emphasize the need to represent biodiversity features efficiently, but this may not be sufficient to maintain those features in the long term. Here, we use data from the Common Birds Census in Britain as an exemplar data set to determine guidelines for the selection of reserve networks which are more robust to temporal turnover in features. The extinction patterns found over the 1981-1991 interval suggest that two such guidelines are to represent species in the best sites where they occur (higher local abundance) and to give priority to the rarer species. We tested five reserve selection strategies, one which finds the minimum representation set and others which incorporate the first or both guidelines proposed. Strategies were tested in terms of their efficiency (inversely related to the total area selected) and effectiveness (inversely related to the percentage of species lost) using data on eight pairs of ten-year intervals. The minimum set strategy was always the most efficient, but suffered higher species loss than the others, suggesting that there is a trade-off between efficiency and effectiveness. A desirable compromise can be achieved by embedding the concerns about the long-term maintenance of the biodiversity features of interest in the complementarity-based algorithms

Who's who in the Spanish archaeology businesses? A roadmap to understand relationships

Trabajo presentado al EU-SPRI Forum Conference: Management of Innovation Policies: new forms of collaboration in policy design, implementation and evaluation, celebrado en Madrid (España) del 10 al 12 de Abril de 2013.Peer Reviewe

Fuentes de conocimiento externo en el sector arqueológico español: Mapeo de la fase emergente en una actividad empresarial

[EN] Recent studies of innovation highlight the importance of external knowledge sourcing. Existing empirical works are based on national surveys and specific industries. The present study contributes to the analysis of strategies for sourcing external knowledge, based on a specific case study and moment in time: the Spanish archaeological sector and its emergence as a new business activity. Our results show that external knowledge sourcing involves diverse mechanisms, agents and two main strategies: cooperation and knowledge acquisition. In an expanding knowledge-based sector emerging in an uncertain context and whose sources of knowledge are scattered, innovation strategy should focus on the search for external knowledge ¿cooperation and acquisition strategies-, rather than on internal sources.[ES] Estudios recientes señalan la importancia de las fuentes externas de conocimiento como estrategia para innovar. La evidencia empírica se fundamenta en encuestas nacionales y en industrias específicas. El presente estudio contribuye al análisis de las estrategias de incorporación de conocimiento externo mediante un caso de estudio y en un momento concreto: el sector arqueológico español y su emergencia como nueva actividad económica. Los resultados muestran que las fuentes de conocimiento externo implican diversos mecanismos, agentes y dos estrategias principalmente: cooperar y adquirir conocimiento. En un sector en expansión, basado en el conocimiento, que surge en un contexto incierto y cuyas fuentes de conocimiento están dispersas, el foco de la innovación puede encontrarse en las estrategias de búsqueda de conocimiento externo -cooperación y adquisición-, más que en fuentes internas.This work was supported by the ACE (Archaeology in Contemporary Europe) Project, funded by the European Commission Cultural Programme between 2008 and 2012. The authors are grateful to the archaeologists and archaeological firms that participated in the study. Special thanks go to the Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit-CSIC) and INGENIO (CSIC-UPV) for the support and help. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Finally, we appreciate the English text editing by Cynthia Little, a specialist in our area, which always helps us in this activity.Parga-Dans, E.; Castro-Martínez, E.; Sánchez-Barrioluengo, M. (2017). External knowledge sourcing in the Spanish archaeological sector: Mapping the emergent stage of a business activity. Revista española de Documentación Científica. 40(1):1-14. doi:10.3989/redc.2017.1.1380S114401Langvall, O. (2011). Impact of climate change, seedling type and provenance on the risk of damage to Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) seedlings in Sweden due to early summer frosts. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 26(S11), 56-63. doi:10.1080/02827581.2011.564399Nielsen, U. B., Madsen, P., Hansen, J. K., Nord-Larsen, T., & Nielsen, A. T. (2014). Production potential of 36 poplar clones grown at medium length rotation in Denmark. Biomass and Bioenergy, 64, 99-109. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2014.03.03

Efectividad y seguridad derivados del empleo de balones intragástricos en el tratamiento de la obesidad

La obesidad es una enfermedad crónica multifactorial fruto de la interacción entre genes y ambiente. Dado que afecta a un alto porcentaje de la población de los paises desarrollados y a que su prevalencia aumenta progresivamente, la Organización Mundial de la Salud ha llegado a considerarla como “una epidemia global”. El indicador más ampliamente utilizado para su medida es el índice de Quetelet o índice de masa corporal (I.M.C.), que se define como IMC=peso (en Kg.)/ talla2 (en m.). De acuerdo con ese índice, se considera como obeso todo sujeto con un IMC>30 Kg/m2. La obesidad aumenta sustancialmente el riesgo de padecer diabetes, hipertensión arterial, dislipemia y enfermedad cardiovascular, así como ciertos tipos de cáncer. Los sujetos obesos presentan por tanto un aumento de la mortalidad, tienen una esperanza y una calidad de vida reducidas y requieren la utilización de recursos sanitarios con mayor frecuencia que las personas no obesas. El objetivo del tratamiento médico empleado en la obesidad es conseguir una reducción razonable de peso y su mantenimiento a largo plazo. Se considera que una reducción de entre el 5 y 10% del peso corporal inicial cumple estos objetivos, determinando una mejora de las comorbilidades asociadas a la obesidad que se puede objetivar en la reducción de las cifras de hipertensión arterial, y de los niveles analíticos de dislipemia y diabetes. La utilización temporal de balones gástricos en el tratamiento de los pacientes obesos se fundamenta en los efectos que estos dispositivos producen sobre la regulación gástrica del apetito, ya sea enlenteciendo el vaciamiento gástrico o modificando la liberación de hormonas que se producen en el tracto digestivo (como ghrelina o colecistoquinina), y que intervienen en la regulación neuroendocrina del apetito y de la saciedad. De esta manera, la sensación de saciedad que producen estos dispositivos permite a los pacientes mantener una ingesta reducida, posibilitando el aprendizaje de unos hábitos alimentarios adecuados que deben mantenerse tras su retirada

Network-based analysis reveals differences in plant assembly between the native and the invaded ranges

Associated with the introduction of alien species in a new area, interactions with other native species within the recipient community occur, reshaping the original community and resulting in a unique assemblage. Yet, the differences in community assemblage between native and invaded ranges remain unclear. Mediterranean grasslands provide an excellent scenario to study community assembly following transcontinental naturalisation of plant species. Here, we compared the community resemblance of plant communities in Mediterranean grasslands from both the native (Spain) and invaded (Chile) ranges. We used a novel approach, based on network analysis applied to co-occurrence analysis in plant communities, allowing us to study the co-existence of native and alien species in central Chile. This useful methodology is presented as a step forward in invasion ecology studies and conservation strategies. We found that community structure differed between the native and the invaded range, with alien species displaying a higher number of connections and, therefore, acting as keystones to sustain the structure within the invaded community. Alien species acting like keystones within the Chilean grassland communities might exacerbate the threat posed by biological invasions for the native biodiversity assets. Controlling the spread of the alien species identified here as keystones should help managing potential invasion in surrounding areas. Network analyses is a free, easy-to-implement and straightforward visual tool that can be widely used to reveal shifts in native communities and elucidate the role of multiple invaders into communitie

The performance of existing networks of conservation areas in representing biodiversity

It is widely held that existing reserve systems are inadequate in representing the diversity of biological features of the regions in which they reside. Evidence for this argument has, however, derived principally from analyses of the efficiency of networks when compared with a minimum set that represents each species at least once. Here, we examine the efficiency of the system of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in representing wetland plants in fen sites in the Scottish Borders, a region where reserve networks might be expected a priori to perform reasonably well in this regard. The results support the general contention that networks have been designated in an inefficient manner. However, examined in terms of effectiveness (measured as the gap between the representation target required and the one attained by the existing network), the SSSI system is actually a rather good way of representing diversity. This result is consistent when each of several very different representation targets is evaluated, and suggests that a more balanced approach to evaluating the performance of reserve networks should be employed, and that general statements based on existing analyses should be treated cautiously

Identificación de doble vena cava superior tras inserción de catéter central.

Persistent left superior vena cava (PLSVC) is an incidental anomaly in diagnostic images. It has an incidence of 0.3% which increases to 10% in patients with congenital heart diseases. We present the case of a 3-month-old patient in who a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) was placed. La persistencia de la vena cava superior izquierda (VCSI) es una anomalía diagnosticada de forma casual mediante pruebas radiográficas. Presenta una incidencia actual 0.3% en la población general y hasta del 10% en paciente con cardiopatías congénitas. Presentamos el caso de un varón de 3 meses en el que se llevó a cabo la canalización de un catéter central de inserción periférica (PICC).

Liouville field theory coupled to a critical Ising model: Non-perturbative analysis, duality and applications

Two different kinds of interactions between a ${Z}_{n}$-parafermionic and a Liouville field theory are considered. For generic values of $n$, the effective central charges describing the UV behavior of both models are calculated in the Neveu-Schwarz sector. For $n=2$ exact vacuum expectation values of primary fields of the Liouville field theory, as well as the first descendent fields are proposed. For $n=1$, known results for Sinh-Gordon and Bullough-Dodd models are recovered whereas for $n=2$, exact results for these two integrable coupled Ising-Liouville models are shown to exchange under a weak-strong coupling duality relation. In particular, exact relations between the parameters in the actions and the mass of the particles are obtained. At specific imaginary values of the coupling and $n=2$, we use previous results to obtain exact information about: (a) Integrable coupled models like Ising-${\cal M}_{p/p'}$, homogeneous sine-Gordon model $SU(3)_2$ or the Ising-XY model; (b) Neveu-Schwarz sector of the $\Phi_{13}$ integrable perturbation of N=1 supersymmetric minimal models. Several non-perturbative checks are done, which support the exact results.Comment: 29 pages, 1 fig., LaTeX file with epsfig, amssymb, 3 references added. To appear in Nucl. Phys.

Gauge fields, ripples and wrinkles in graphene layers

We analyze elastic deformations of graphene sheets which lead to effective gauge fields acting on the charge carriers. Corrugations in the substrate induce stresses, which, in turn, can give rise to mechanical instabilities and the formation of wrinkles. Similar effects may take place in suspended graphene samples under tension.Comment: contribution to the special issue of Solid State Communications on graphen