Does functional soil microbial diversity contribute to explain within-site plant beta-diversity in an alpine grassland and a <i>dehesa</i> meadow in Spain?

Questions: Once that the effects of hydrological and chemical soil properties have been accounted for, does soil microbial diversity contribute to explain change in plant community structure (i.e. within-site beta-diversity)? If so, at which spatial scale does microbial diversity operate? Location: La Mina in Moscosa Farm, Salamanca, western Spain (dehesa community) and Laguna Larga in the Urbión Peaks, Soria, central-northern Spain (alpine grassland). Methods: The abundance of vascular plant species, soil gram-negative microbial functional types and soil chemical properties (pH, available phosphorus, and extractable cations) were sampled at both sites, for which hydrological models were available. Redundancy analysis (RDA) was used to partition variation in plant community structure into hydrological, chemical and microbial components. Spatial filters, arranged in scalograms, were used to test for the spatial scales at which plant community structure change. Results: In the case of the dehesa the diversity of soil gram-negative microbes, weakly driven by soil pH, contributed to a small extent (adj-R2 = 2%) and at a relative medium spatial scale to explain change in plant community structure. The abundance of a few dehesa species, both annual (Trifolium dubium, Vulpia bromoides) and perennial (Poa bulbosa, Festuca ampla), was associated with either increasing or decreasing soil microbial diversity. In the alpine meadow the contribution was negligible. Conclusions: Microbial diversity can drive community structure, though in the hierarchy of environmental factors structuring communities it appears to rank lower than other soil factors. Still, microbial diversity appears to promote or restrain individual plant species. This paper aims to encourage future studies to use more comprehensive and insightful techniques to assess microbial diversity and to combine this with statistical approaches such as the one used here

Carbon and oxygen in HII regions of the Magellanic Clouds: abundance discrepancy and chemical evolution

We present C and O abundances in the Magellanic Clouds derived from deep spectra of HII regions. The data have been taken with the Ultraviolet-Visual Echelle Spectrograph at the 8.2-m VLT. The sample comprises 5 HII regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and 4 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We measure pure recombination lines (RLs) of CII and OII in all the objects, permitting to derive the abundance discrepancy factors (ADFs) for O^2+, as well as their O/H, C/H and C/O ratios. We compare the ADFs with those of other HII regions in different galaxies. The results suggest a possible metallicity dependence of the ADF for the low-metallicity objects, but more uncertain for high-metallicity objects. We compare nebular and B-type stellar abundances and we find that the stellar abundances agree better with the nebular ones derived from collisionally excited lines (CELs). Comparing these results with other galaxies we observe that stellar abundances seem to agree better with the nebular ones derived from CELs in low-metallicity environments and from RLs in high-metallicity environments. The C/H, O/H and C/O ratios show almost flat radial gradients, in contrast with the spiral galaxies where such gradients are negative. We explore the chemical evolution analysing C/O vs. O/H and comparing with the results of HII regions in other galaxies. The LMC seems to show a similar chemical evolution to the external zones of small spiral galaxies and the SMC behaves as a typical star-forming dwarf galaxy.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 17 pages, 11 figures, 8 table

Agrio et Emulsio – development of fruity mustard creams

Agrio et Emulsio project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-023583) presents an proposal in the areas of vinegar products and food emulsions. Combining technical features with mediterranean traditions and Nouvelle Cuisine, two prototypes of fruity mustards are undergoing final development, valuing regional raw materials and profiling into the gourmet/vegan/veggie markets. Mustard creams are oil-in-water emulsions but its practice is linked to vinegar traditions since the thirteenth century, in France, with the foundation of the first confraternity of Maîtres Vinaigrier-Moutardier. Thus, by applying the ancestral practice, mustard (seeds, fragments, powder) was first submitted to maturation studies, varying the type of vinegar and the time of immersion/contact. Maturation reached equilibrium on the 16th day, but pH evolution shows a practically stationary state from the 7th. Best results were obtained with seeds and powdered mustards in red wine vinegar, 4 %(m/v) acidity. The assays were carried out at room temperature using Sinapis Alba (Linnaeus) mustard species. Prototyping articulated technical, analytical (physicochemical, rheological, microbiological) and sensory tests. Each final prototype has a distinct profile of ingredients, mustard, fruits (raspberry and beet or blueberry), olive oil, water, salt, sugar, honey and spices. Both creams retain the sui generis taste of mustard tinted with the fruit flavour plus an innovative pink colour.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Probing Non-Standard Neutrino Interactions with Neutrino Factories

We discuss the sensitivity reach of a neutrino factory measurement to non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI), which may exist as a low-energy manifestation of physics beyond the Standard Model. We use the muon appearance mode \nu_e --> \nu_\mu and consider two detectors, one at 3000 km and the other at 7000 km. Assuming the effects of NSI at the production and the detection are negligible, we discuss the sensitivities to NSI and the simultaneous determination of \theta_{13} and \delta by examining the effects in the neutrino propagation of various systems in which two NSI parameters \epsilon_{\alpha \beta} are switched on. The sensitivities to off-diagonal \epsilon's are found to be excellent up to small values of \theta_{13}. We demonstrate that the two-detector setting is powerful enough to resolve the \theta_{13}-NSI confusion problem. We believe that the results obtained in this paper open the door to the possibility of using neutrino factory as a discovery machine for NSI while keeping its primary function of performing precision measurements of the lepton mixing parameters.Comment: 47 pages, 22 figures. Color version of Figs. 18, 19 and 22 can be found in the article published in JHE

A Comparison of Warm-up Effects on Maximal Aerobic Exercise Performance in Children

poste

Fokker-Planck type equations with Sobolev diffusion coefficients and BV drift coefficients

In this paper we give an affirmative answer to an open question mentioned in [Le Bris and Lions, Comm. Partial Differential Equations 33 (2008), 1272--1317], that is, we prove the well-posedness of the Fokker-Planck type equations with Sobolev diffusion coefficients and BV drift coefficients.Comment: 11 pages. The proof has been modifie

Probing Nonstandard Neutrino Physics by Two Identical Detectors with Different Baselines

The Kamioka-Korea two detector system is a powerful experimental setup for resolving neutrino parameter degeneracies and probing CP violation in neutrino oscillation. In this paper, we study sensitivities of this same setup to several nonstandard neutrino physics such as quantum decoherence, tiny violation of Lorentz symmetry, and nonstandard interactions of neutrinos with matter. In most cases, the Kamioka-Korea two-detector setup is more sensitive than the one-detector setup, except for the Lorentz symmetry violation with CPT violation, and the nonstandard neutrino interactions with matter. It can achieve significant improvement on the current bounds on nonstandard neutrino physics.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

Fruit quality of Chenin Blanc grape influenced by different rootstocks during a production cycle in the second half.

This study aimed to evaluate the influence of different rootstocks on physico-chemical characteristics of the fruits of Chenin Blanc grapes produced in the second half of the year

Análise sensorial e microbiológica da carne ovina submetida a diferentes formas de conservação no pós-abate.

Foram utilizados seis cordeiros machos da raça Santa Inês, castrados, com idade média de quatro meses, que foram abatidos com peso entre 30-35 kg com o objetivo de avaliar o e feito de três tipos de acondicionamento da carne ovina (natural, resfriada e congelada) na qualidade sensorial e microbiológica da carne. Para a análise sensorial foi separado e preparado o músculo Longissimus dorsi para um painel de provadores que avaliaram a carne quanto ao aroma, sabor, maciez, suculência, mastigabilidade e aparência geral. O mesmo músculo foi utilizado para a análise microbiológica onde se determinaram coliformes totais e fecais, bolores e leveduras. A carne in natura foi mais macia e de melhor mastigabilidade (p<0,05) em relação à resfriada e congelada. Observou-se também nas carcaças não resfriadas maior incidência de bolores e leveduras e presença de coliformes fecais. Apesar da carne in natura ter apresentado maior maciez, o crescimento microbiano foi maior neste tipo de conservação pós abate, o que pode comprometer a saúde humana