Shape of the oxygen abundance profiles in CALIFA face-on spiral galaxies

Astronomy & Astrophysics 587 (2016): A70 reproduced with permission from Astronomy & AstrophysicsWe measured the gas abundance profiles in a sample of 122 face-on spiral galaxies observed by the CALIFA survey and included all spaxels whose line emission was consistent with star formation. This type of analysis allowed us to improve the statistics with respect to previous studies, and to properly estimate the oxygen distribution across the entire disc to a distance of up to 3-4 disc effective radii (re). We confirm the results obtained from classical H ii region analysis. In addition to the general negative gradient, an outer flattening can be observed in the oxygen abundance radial profile. An inner drop is also found in some cases. There is a common abundance gradient between 0.5 and 2.0 re of αO/H =-0.075 dex/re with a scatter of σ = 0.016 dex/re when normalising the distances to the disc effective radius. By performing a set of Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, we determined that this slope is independent of other galaxy properties, such as morphology, absolute magnitude, and the presence or absence of bars. In particular, barred galaxies do not seem to display shallower gradients, as predicted by numerical simulations. Interestingly, we find that most of thegalaxies in the sample with reliable oxygen abundance values beyond ~2 effective radii (57 galaxies) present a flattening of the abundance gradient in these outer regions. This flattening is not associated with any morphological feature, which suggests that it is a common property of disc galaxies. Finally, we detect a drop or truncation of the abundance in the inner regions of 27 galaxies in the sample; this is only visible for the most massive galaxiesWe acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) via grant AYA2012-31935, and from the “Junta de Andalucía” local government through the FQM-108 project. We also acknowledge support to the ConaCyt funding program 180125. Y.A. acknowledges fi- nantial support from the Ramón y Cajal programme (RyC-2011-09461). Y.A. and A.I.D. acknowledge support from the project AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P from the Spanish MINECO, as well as the “Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy” (SELGIFS) programme, funded by the EU (FP7- PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701). Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. LG acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. R.M.G.D. acknowledges support from the Spanish grant AYA2014-57490-P, and from the “Junta de Andalucía” P12-FQM2828 project. RAM thanks the Spanish program of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). IM and A.d.O. acknowledge support from the Spanish MINECO grant AYA2013-42227P. JMA acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph, P.I. V. Wild). Support for MM has been provided by DGICYT grant AYA2013-47742-C4-4-P. PSB acknowledges support from the Ramón y Cajal programme, grant ATA2010-21322-C03-02 from the Spanish MINECO. CJW acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Grant Integration 30391

Communication, development, and social change in Spain: A field between institutionalization and implosion

This paper renders an account of the rapid institutionalization of the academic field of Communication for Development and Social Change (CDCS) in Spain in recent years following a period of neglect and marginalization. The ongoing expansion of the field of CDSC in the Spanish context is understood as a process of implosion, i.e. a collapse inwards, which results from the inconsistencies and weaknesses of fast and late institutionalization. The methodological approach for this inquiry is a documental review of both academic literature and research and institutional reports produced in Spain between 1980 and 2010. Based on this review, the paper contrasts the trajectory of the field in Spain with the debates at the international level, establishing relevant continuities and differences.This article is part of the Research Project (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Spain) CSO2014-52005-R titled ‘Evaluation and Monitoring of Communication for Development and Social Change in Spain: design of indicators to measure its social impact’ (2015–2017)17 página

Arm and interarm abundance gradients in CALIFA spiral galaxies

Spiral arms are the most singular features in disc galaxies. These structures can exhibit different patterns, namely grand design and flocculent arms, with easily distinguishable characteristics. However, their origin and the mechanisms shaping them are unclear. The overall role of spirals in the chemical evolution of disc galaxies is another unsolved question. In particular, it has not been fully explored if the H ii regions of spiral arms present different properties from those located in the interarm regions. Here we analyse the radial oxygen abundance gradient of the arm and interarm star forming regions of 63 face-on spiral galaxies using CALIFA Integral Field Spectroscopy data. We focus the analysis on three characteristic parameters of the profile: slope, zero-point, and scatter. The sample is morphologically separated into flocculent versus grand design spirals and barred versus unbarred galaxies. We find subtle but statistically significant differences betweenthe arm and interarm distributions for flocculent galaxies, suggesting that the mechanisms generating the spiral structure in these galaxies may be different to those producing grand design systems, for which no significant differences are found. We also find small differences in barred galaxies, not observed in unbarred systems, hinting that bars may affect the chemical distribution of these galaxies but not strongly enough as to be reflected in the overall abundance distribution. In light of these results, we propose bars and flocculent structure as two distinct mechanisms inducing differences in the abundance distribution between arm and interarm star forming regions

Association of a non-synonymous functional variant of the ITGAM gene with systemic sclerosis.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic fibrotic autoimmune disease of complex aetiology which shares genetic similarities with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).1 2 One of the novel risk loci that have been recently associated with SLE is the integrin α M (ITGAM) gene, which encodes the α subunit of the αMβ2-integrin.3 4 The most likely causal polymorphism that best explains this association is a non-synonymous single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) at the exon 3, rs1143679, which changes the 77th amino acid residue arginine to histidine (R77H). This functional SNP represents one of the highest associated signals with SLE and is predicted to alter the structure and function of the integrin.4 5 To determine whether ITGAM rs1143679 is also associated with SSc susceptibility and clinical manifestations, we genotyped a total of 3735 SSc patients and 3930 matched healthy individuals from seven independent European cohorts of Caucasian origin (Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Sweden and UK) using a predesigned TaqMan® assay (ID: C___2847895_1_) in an ABI 7900HT (both from Applied Biosystems, Foster City, California, USA). Case …Peer Reviewe

Monitoring changes in the demographic and genealogical structure of the main Spanish local beef breeds

Demographic and pedigree analyses describe the structure and dynamics of livestock populations. We studied information recorded in the herdbooks of Asturiana de los Valles (AV; N = 458,806), Avileña–Negra Ibérica (ANI; N = 204,623), Bruna dels Pirineus (BP; N = 62,138), Morucha (Mo; N = 65,350), Pirenaica (Pi; N = 217,428), Retinta (Re; N = 135,300), and Rubia Gallega (RG; N = 235,511) beef breeds from their creation until 2009. All breeds have increased in the number of registered cows in recent years. In all breeds, herds do not behave as isolated entities and a high rate of exchange of breeding males between herds exists. A percentage of herds (12–52%) make some type of selection and sell bulls to other herds. There were large differences in average number of progeny per bull, ranging from 15.6 (AV) to 373.7 animals (RG, with a high incidence of AI). Generation interval estimates ranged from 4.7 (AV) to 7.6 (RG) yr in the sire pathway and from 5.95 (AV) to 7.8 (Mo) yr in the dam pathway. Density of pedigrees varied among breeds, with Pi, ANI, and Re having the more dense pedigrees, with average completeness indexes of more than 96% in the first generation and 80% when 6 generations were considered. A general increase in average inbreeding was observed in all breeds in the years analyzed. For animals born in 2009, average inbreeding coefficients ranged from 0.6 (BP) to 7.2% (Re) when all animals were considered and from 3.6 (Pi) to 17.6% (BP) when only inbred animals were considered. Due to the lack of completeness of pedigrees in most populations, inbreeding coefficients may be considered as a lower bound of the true parameters. The proportion of inbred animals tended to increase in the periods analyzed in all breeds. Differences between inbreeding and coancestry rates (except in RG) suggest the presence of population structure. Effective population size (Ne) based on the inbreeding rate estimated by regression ranged from 43 to 378 for Re and BP, whereas Ne estimates based on coancestry were greater, with a range of 100 for RG to 9,985 for BP. These facts suggest that an adequate mating policy can help to monitor inbreeding so as not to lose genetic variability. Effective number of ancestors in 2009 for 6 of the breeds ranged from 42 (RG) to 220 (AV), with BP having much a greater value, and was lower than was the effective number of founders in all breeds, suggesting the existence of bottlenecks. © 2014 American Society of Animal Science. All rights reserved

Application of synchrotron infrared micro-reflectance for the study of diverse materials

Madrid from October 9-11, 2017. -- https://w3.ual.es/Congresos/AUSE/CONGRESO2017/index_congreso.htmlEIGC acknowledges a PhD grant from the CONACYT (Mexico). SQD and PEJ acknowledge FPI Fellowships, and PSS a Ramón y Cajal PostDoc Fellowship, from the MINECO (Spain). MINECO also provided financial support through Grants MAT2014-54231-C4-4P, MAT2014-59674-JIN, MAT2013-47898-C2-1R and MAT2013-47898-C2-2R.Peer Reviewe

Antioxidant and antimutagenic activities of <i>Acacia pennatula</i> pods

859-864Methanolic extracts of Acacia pennatula pods (MEA) were screened for antioxidant and antimutagenic properties by 1,1- diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2´-azinobis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and Kado microsuspension assays, respectively. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents as well as HPLC identification and quantification of gallic acid and (+)-catechin were also carried out. MEA were capable of significant antioxidant capacity by DPPH, ABTS and FRAP methods. MEA inhibited > 80% mutagenicity induced either by 4-nitro-O-phenylenediamine or sodium azide. Thus phenolics-containing extracts of A. pennatula pods display biological activities with potential application in pharmaceutical and food sectors

The ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Evolution of the Molecular Gas in CO-selected Galaxies

Large scale structure and cosmolog