Earthworms and Vermicomposting

Vermicomposting, the conversion of organic waste into vermicompost, is mediated by the combined action of earthworms and microorganisms. This interesting and attractive alternative to regular composting turns organic waste into a substrate that can be used as a soil amendment and as a growing medium for use in horticulture. Soil is not required in vermicomposting as the organic matter acts as both the substrate and food, and therefore only epigeic earthworms can be used in the process. Several earthworm species have been evaluated for their potential use in vermicomposting, including Eisenia fetida (Savigny), Eisenia andrei (Bouché), Dendrobaena veneta (Rosa), Dendrobaena hortensis (Michaelsen) Eudrilus eugeniae (Kinberg), and Perionyx excavatus (Perrier). The species most commonly used in vermicomposting and vermiculture facilities worldwide are Eisenia andrei and Eisenia fetida. This chapter reviews and updates the controversy surrounding the taxonomic differentiation between E. andrei and E. fetida, and between D. veneta and D. hortensis, showing that these are all different species and emphasizing the importance of maintaining pure cultures in vermicomposting systems. In the final section, methods of cultivating epigeic earthworms to ensure high rates of growth and reproduction are described

Virtualisation of the test environment for signalling

ERTMS is a well-known, well-performing technology applied all over the world but it still lacks flexibility when it comes to authorisation and certification procedures. The key of its success in the future lies as much in cost reduction as in simplification of placing in service procedures. This holds true for the implementation of a new subsystem and even more so for new software releases related to subsystems already in service. Currently the placing in service process of ETCS components and subsystems requires a large amount of tests due to the complexity of the signalling systems and the different engineering rules applied. The S2R Multi-Annual Action Plan states that the effort and time consumption of these onsite tests are at least 30% for any particular project. VITE research project (VIrtualisation of the Test Environment) aims at reducing these onsite tests to a minimum while ensuring that laboratory tests can serve as evidence for valid system behaviour and are accepted by all stakeholders involved in the placing in service process. This paper presents the first VITE results

Reconstrucción discursiva del pasado y reescritura de la historia

This paper aims to review some of the basic assumptions that operate in the usual image of historical time. For this it is necessary to discuss the theoretical attacks that the constructivist view has wielded against cognitive positivism, especially regarding the debate on the character and the nature of the historiographical operation.Esta ponencia pretende revisar algunos de los supuestos básicos que operan en la imagen habitual del tiempo histórico. Para ello será preciso adentrarse en los ataques teóricos que la visión constructivista ha ejercido contra el positivismo cognoscitivo, especialmente en lo que concierne al debate sobre el carácter y la naturaleza de la operación historiográfica

Earthworm Effects without Earthworms: Inoculation of Raw Organic Matter with Worm-Worked Substrates Alters Microbial Community Functioning

Earthworms are key organisms in organic matter decomposition because of the interactions they establish with soil microorganisms. They enhance decomposition rates through the joint action of direct effects (i.e. effects due to direct earthworm activity such as digestion, burrowing, etc) and indirect effects (i.e. effects derived from earthworm activities such as cast ageing). Here we test whether indirect earthworm effects affect microbial community functioning in the substrate, as when earthworms are present (i. e., direct effects).To address these questions we inoculated fresh organic matter (pig manure) with worm-worked substrates (vermicompost) produced by three different earthworm species. Two doses of each vermicompost were used (2.5 and 10%). We hypothesized that the presence of worm-worked material in the fresh organic matter will result in an inoculum of different microorganisms and nutrients. This inoculum should interact with microbial communities in fresh organic matter, thus promoting modifications similar to those found when earthworms are present. Inoculation of worm-worked substrates provoked significant increases in microbial biomass and enzyme activities (β-glucosidase, cellulase, phosphatase and protease). These indirect effects were similar to, although lower than, those obtained in pig manure with earthworms (direct and indirect earthworm effects). In general, the effects were not dose-dependent, suggesting the existence of a threshold at which they were triggered.Our data reveal that the relationships between earthworms and microorganisms are far from being understood, and suggest the existence of several positive feedbacks during earthworm activity as a result of the interactions between direct and indirect effects, since their combination produces stronger modifications to microbial biomass and enzyme activity

Reseña/Review (Benasayag, M., del Rey. A. "Nunca más solo. El fenómeno del móvil", Madrid: Editorial La Oveja Roja, ISBN: 978-84-935829-2-0, 116 págs., 2009)

Review of the book:M. Benasayag y A. del Rey.: Nunca más solo. El fenómeno del móvil, Editorial La Oveja Roja, Madrid, 2009.Reseña/Review (Benasayag, M., del Rey. A. "Nunca más solo. El fenómeno del móvil", Madrid: Editorial La Oveja Roja, ISBN: 978-84-935829-2-0, 116 págs., 2009

El mundo del azar: un enfoque visual

En este artículo se muestran algunas estrategias educativas y actividades de aprendizaje para favorecer conceptos de probabilidad y estadística. En la actualidad existen pocos recursos didácticos que provean a los alumnos de herramientas que los motive, los oriente, los informe. Aquí, se describe la elaboración de un material asistido por computadora con el fin de contribuir a la enseñanza y aprendizaje en las áreas mencionadas. Éste se ha denominado Calculador Estadístico: CalEst. Su desarrollo tecnológico considera una serie de módulos con un enfoque visual cuyo objetivo es facilitar la percepción de conceptos. En la práctica, se observa que los usuarios adquieren habilidad para reflexionar y tener aptitudes en el proceso de abstracción para escribir símbolos matemáticos

ParDRe: faster parallel duplicated reads removal tool for sequencing studies

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Bioinformatics following peer review. The version of record [insert complete citation information here] is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btw038[Abstract] Summary: Current next generation sequencing technologies often generate duplicated or near-duplicated reads that (depending on the application scenario) do not provide any interesting biological information but can increase memory requirements and computational time of downstream analysis. In this work we present ParDRe , a de novo parallel tool to remove duplicated and near-duplicated reads through the clustering of Single-End or Paired-End sequences from fasta or fastq files. It uses a novel bitwise approach to compare the suffixes of DNA strings and employs hybrid MPI/multithreading to reduce runtime on multicore systems. We show that ParDRe is up to 27.29 times faster than Fulcrum (a representative state-of-the-art tool) on a platform with two 8-core Sandy-Bridge processors. Availability and implementation: Source code in C ++ and MPI running on Linux systems as well as a reference manual are available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/pardre