Acoustics in water: synergies with marine biology

This paper presents some of the bioacoustics related analysis that was performed on the ANTARES data, focussing on the year 2014. The data was processed for sperm whale, dolphin and shipping presence and grouped by hour of the day. It seemed that dolphins were more socially active during the day and foraging during the night. Sperm whales were mostly foraging during the day, but they may have been moving to other areas during the night. The most intense shipping noise came from a ferry that passed the platform twice a day. Although beaked whales were expected to be present in the area, so far their biosonar signal has not been conclusively found.Postprint (published version

Projected social costs of CO2 emissions from forest losses far exceed the sequestration benefits of forest gains under global change

Forest cover gains and losses occur in response to complex environmental and anthropogenic pressures. Yet the impact of forest gains and losses on the provision of ecosystem services differs markedly. Here we investigate the social costs of potential forest carbon change in Australia's intensive agricultural region from 2015 to 2050 using spatial forest cover change and forest carbon models combined with climate and socioeconomic projections. More than 24,000 possible scenarios were used to identify the trend and lower and upper bounds of forest cover/carbon change. Net deforestation (3.5 million hectares, Mha)under the lower bound forest cover (LBFC)projection was around one-third less than net reforestation (4.8 Mha)under the upper bound forest cover (UBFC)projection by 2030. However, the CO emissions (1.3 Gigatons of CO , GtCO )from deforestation were more than double the sequestration (0.5 GtCO )from reforestation. The social costs (up to 134 billion dollars)of the LBFC were almost five times the benefits of the UBFC (up to 28 billion dollars). The asymmetry decreased over time but persisted to 2050. This shows the markedly different social costs of potential forest carbon losses and gains under global change, evidence which can be useful to policymakers, stakeholders, and practitioners

Periodontal Condition and Subgingival Microbiota Characterization in Subjects with Down Syndrome

The aim was to study the subgingival microbiota in subjects with Down syndrome (DS) with different periodontal health status, using cultural and molecular microbiological methods. In this cross-sectional study, DS subjects were selected among those attending educational or occupational therapy centers in Galicia (Spain). Medical histories, intraoral and periodontal examinations and microbiological sampling were performed. Samples were processed by means of culture and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Microbiological data were compared, by one-way ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis and chi-square or Fisher tests, according to their periodontal status. 124 subjects were included, 62 with a healthy periodontium, 34 with gingivitis and 28 with periodontitis. Patients with periodontitis were older (p < 0.01) and showed lower prevalence of hypothyroidism and levothyroxine intake (p = 0.01), presented significantly deeper pockets and more attachment loss (p ≤ 0.01). Both gingivitis and periodontitis subjects showed higher levels of bleeding and dental plaque. PCR counts of T. forsythia and culture counts of E. corrodens and total anaerobic counts were significantly higher in periodontitis patients. Relevant differences were observed in the subgingival microbiota of DS patients with periodontitis, showing higher levels of anaerobic bacteria, T. forsythia and E. corrodens, when compared with periodontally healthy and gingivitis subjects. Moreover, periodontitis subjects were older, had lower frequency of hypothyroidism and higher levels of dental plaqueThis project was co-funded by Xunta de Galicia under Ignicia Programme, Axencia Galega de Innovación, GAIN (12/08/2016; GRANT_NUMBER: IN855A). The participation of M.C. Sánchez in the project occurred within the activities of the Extraordinary Chair of DENTAID in Periodontal Research, University Complutense of Madrid, SpainS

Forecasting Electricity Prices and their volatilities using Unobserved Components.

The liberalization of electricity markets more than ten years ago in the vast majority of developed countries has introduced the need of modelling and forecasting electricity prices and volatilities, both in the short and long term. Thus, there is a need of providing methodology that is able to deal with the most important features of electricity price series, which are well known for presenting not only structure in conditional mean but also time-varying conditional variances. In this work we propose a new model, which allows to extract conditionally heteroskedastic common factors from the vector of electricity prices. These common factors are jointly estimated as well as their relationship with the original vector of series, and the dynamics affecting both their conditional mean and variance. The estimation of the model is carried out under the state-space formulation. The new model proposed is applied to extract seasonal common dynamic factors as well as common volatility factors for electricity prices and the estimation results are used to forecast electricity prices and their volatilities in the Spanish zone of the Iberian Market. Several simplified/alternative models are also considered as benchmarks to illustrate that the proposed approach is superior to all of them in terms of explanatory and predictive power

Influence of fruit maturation process on the sensory quality of virgin olive oils from Picual, Hojiblanca and Picudo cultivars

La calidad sensorial del aceite de oliva virgen (AOV) está estrechamente relacionada con la variedad y el grado de maduración de la aceituna. El objetivo del presente trabajo fue investigar la influencia del grado de maduración sobre el perfil sensorial de aceites de oliva virgen monovarietales con el fin de establecer el momento óptimo de recolección. Los frutos de tres variedades diferentes, Picual, Picudo y Hojiblanca fueron recolectados en nueve etapas de maduración diferentes. Los parámetros de calidad fueron evaluados y las características organolépticas se determinaron por un panel de cata. Los resultados muestran que los parámetros analíticos disminuyeron ligeramente en todas las variedades. Para cada variedad se describe la evolución de las características organolépticas de los aceites de oliva virgen así como sus flavores típicos. En todas las variedades estudiadas, los atributos «frutado» (afrutado) y «amargo» disminuyeron durante la maduración, por el contrario el atributo «dulce» se incrementó. Los resultados mostrados pueden ser de gran utilidad para proveer información sobre la evolución de la calidad sensorial de los aceites de oliva virgen durante la maduración para obtener aceites basados en las preferencias del mercado.The sensory quality of virgin olive oil is closely correlated with the cultivar and the degree of ripening of the olive fruit. The aim of the present work was to investigate the influence of ripening degree on sensory profile of monovarietal virgin olive oils (VOO) in order to establish an optimum harvesting time. Fruit obtained from three different cultivars, Picual, Picudo and Hojiblanca were picked at nine different stages of ripeness. The quality parameters were evaluated and the sensory characteristics were determinate by a sensor panel. The analytical parameters decrease slightly in all cultivars. The evolution of the organoleptic characteristics of the virgin olive oil is reported and typical flavors are described for each cultivar. In all studied cultivar, “fruity” and “bitter” attributes decreased during the ripening and conversely “sweet” attribute increased. The results showed in this work could be considered useful for providing information about the evolution of sensory quality of virgin olive oils during ripening to obtain those based on market preferences

Histological basis of laminar MRI patterns in high resolution images of fixed human auditory cortex

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of the auditory region of the temporal lobe would benefit from the availability of image contrast that allowed direct identification of the primary auditory cortex, as this region cannot be accurately located using gyral landmarks alone. Previous work has suggested that the primary area can be identified in magnetic resonance (MR) images because of its relatively high myelin content. However, MR images are also affected by the iron content of the tissue and in this study we sought to confirm that different MR image contrasts did correlate with the myelin content in the grey matter and were not primarily affected by iron content as is the case in the primary visual and somatosensory areas. By imaging blocks of fixed post-mortem cortex in a 7 Tesla scanner and then sectioning them for histological staining we sought to assess the relative contribution of myelin and iron to the grey matter contrast in the auditory region. Evaluating the image contrast in T2*-weighted images and quantitative R2* maps showed a reasonably high correlation between the myelin density of the grey matter and the intensity of the MR images. The correlation with T1-weighted phase sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) images was better than with the previous two image types, and there were clearly differentiated borders between adjacent cortical areas in these images. A significant amount of iron was present in the auditory region, but did not seem to contribute to the laminar pattern of the cortical grey matter in MR images. Similar levels of iron were present in the grey and white matter and although iron was present in fibres within the grey matter, these fibres were fairly uniformly distributed across the cortex. Thus we conclude that T1- and T2*-weighted imaging sequences do demonstrate the relatively high myelin levels that are characteristic of the deep layers in primary auditory cortex and allow it and some of the surrounding areas to be reliably distinguished

The Academic Resilience Scale (ARS-30) : a new multidimensional construct measure

Resilience is a psychological construct observed in some individuals that accounts for success despite adversity. Resilience reflects the ability to bounce back, to beat the odds and is considered an asset in human characteristic terms. Academic resilience contextualises the resilience construct and reflects an increased likelihood of educational success despite adversity. The paper provides an account of the development of a new multidimensional construct measure of academic resilience. The 30 item Academic Resilience Scale (ARS-30) explores process—as opposed to outcome—aspects of resilience, providing a measure of academic resilience based on students’ specific adaptive cognitive-affective and behavioural responses to academic adversity. Findings from the study involving a sample of undergraduate students (N=532) demonstrate that the ARS-30 has good internal reliability and construct validity. It is suggested that a measure such as the ARS-30, which is based on adaptive responses, aligns more closely with the conceptualisation of resilience and provides a valid construct measure of academic resilience relevant for research and practice in university student populations