Human impacts on the Northern Iberian Coast: Brominated pollutants.

Plastic and textile products as well as electronical devices are easily flammable products and to reduce fire-related injury and property damage, such materials are commonly covered by the so-called flame retardants (FR). The brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are the largest market group because of their low cost and high-performance efficiency. Nevertheless, as these compounds are additive rather than chemically bound to the products, they can be released into the environment and because they are toxic and persistent organic chemicals and can bioaccumulate, they have become contaminants of concern detectable in the environment, in animals, and in humans. PBDEs (Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers) are a group of 209 different congeners used as FR and since 2004 banned in the EU. In spite of banned and restriction such chemicals are still detected in the environment and their monitoring necessary. In 2016 a sampling campaign was carried out covering the North Spanish Atlantic coast from the border with Portugal to the limit with France. The collected sediments were studied to determine sediment characteristics and PBDEs concentrations. Sedimentological characteristics including grain size distribution and total organic content were measured. Gas chromatography coupled to MS detector was used to perform the analytical analysis under QA/QC to guarantee the quality of the results. BDE28, BDE47, BDE66, BDE85, BDE99, BD100, BD153, BDE154 andBD183 have been determined and evaluated against Background assessment criteria (BACs) and Federal Environmental Quality Guidelines (FEQGs). Levels found demonstrate that there is still detectable presence of PBDEs in marine sediments albeit they are well below the FEQG and even frequently below BACs

First report of Trichinella spiralis from the white-eared (Didelphis albiventris) and the thick-tailed opossum (Lutreolina crassicaudata) in central Argentina

Trichinellosis is a zoonotic disease caused by nematodes of the genus Trichinella. Humans, who are the final hosts, acquire the infection by eating raw or undercooked meat of different animal origin. Trichinella spiralis is an encapsulated species that infects mammals and is widely distributed in different continents. In Argentina, this parasite has been reported in the domestic cycle that includes pigs and synanthropic hosts (mainly rats and some carnivores). This is the first report of T. spiralis in the opossums Didelphis albiventris and Lutreolina crassicaudata in Argentina, and the first report in opossums in South America. In this survey, Trichinella larvae were detected by enzymatic digestion in three D. albiventris and one L. crassicaudata captured on pig and dairy farms located in the northeast of Buenos Aires province. The microscopic examination of the 32 larvae isolated presented the diagnostic characteristic of the genus Trichinella. Two larvae isolated from two D. albiventris and one from L. crassicaudata were identified as T. spiralis by nested multiplex PCR and confirmed by sequencing. Further research to determine the burdens of T. spiralis in opossums may contribute to a better understanding of the risk of T. spiralis transmission to the synanthropic populations.Fil: Castaño Zubieta, R.. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Ruiz, M.. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Morici, G.. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Lovera, Rosario. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Fernández, María Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Caracostantogolo, Jorge Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Cavia, Regino. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Towards discard quantification of Data Limited Stocks based in on-board observers data: the case of Spanish fresh trawlers targeting black hake in NW Africa

Quantification of discard per unit effort rates (DPUE) has been proposed by the European Commission as a measure to manage the discarding of commercially fished organisms. In the Spanish fresh trawling fleet operating in North West Africa, both target species of black hakes, Merluccius polli and Merluccius senegalensis are data limited stocks (DLS). Hence, discards of these fleets are even more unknown but not unimportant part of the total catch (retained and discarded). Onboard observer data from commercial surveys from 2016 to 2018 provide a detailed source of scientific information about catches, discards, effort and technical factors in this fleet. This is the first quantitative analysis to model DPUE through generalised linear mixed models (GLMM), based on the explicit distinction between abundance and technical factors coming from information of observer surveys. We describe the relationship between discards and environment, catches of target and other species, effort of the fleet, spatial and temporal variation in discard accessibility, vessel characteristics, strategy of the skippers and market decisions. Unlike hake catches, discards were higher and more dispersed in shallower than in deeper waters. We identified two separate métiers for the Spanish fresh trawling fleet determined by depth and treated total discards as a stock unit susceptible of being monitored, managed and assessed. The strategy of the skipper appears to have a more important effect on discards than vessel characteristics. This study shows the importance of observer data for this fishery and identifies recommendations for the improvement in the scientific usefulness of logbook information.En prens

Time-expanded FOTDR based on Orthogonal Polarization Frequency Comb generation

Phase-sensitive Optical Time-Domain Reflectometry (ΦOTDR) has emerged as an effective and high-performance solution within the realm of Distributed Optical Fiber Sensing (DOFS) technologies, which has promoted its use in an ever-growing number of fields. The challenges arisen by new operation fields demand surpassing the historical trade-offs in this technology, specially aiming for higher resolution without jeopardizing the system simplicity and cost-effectiveness. In this context, time-expanded (TE-)ΦOTDR has been recently proposed as a DOFS solution delivering cm-range resolution with sub-MHz detection and acquisition bandwidths. It is based on the use of an interferometric scheme that employs a dual frequency comb (DFC), consisting of two mutually coherent optical frequency combs with dissimilar repetition rates. In this paper, we present a novel DFC generation scheme for TE-ΦOTDR that exploits the polarization orthogonality. In particular, our approach considerably increases the common path followed by the two frequency combs, thus reducing instability and noise as compared to the conventional generation scheme. Additionally, we employ an IQ modulation scheme with two PRBS generators that increases the scalability of the interrogator while severely reducing its cost and complexity. Results show a reduction in the noise amplitude spectral density especially at low frequency values, which corroborates the stability enhancement of this proposed architecture as compared to the conventional scheme

Distributed acoustic sensing for seismic activity monitoring

Continuous, real-time monitoring of surface seismic activity around the globe is of great interest for acquiring new insight into global tomography analyses and for recognition of seismic patterns leading to potentially hazardous situations. The already-existing telecommunication fiber optic network arises as an ideal solution for this application, owing to its ubiquity and the capacity of optical fibers to perform distributed, highly sensitive monitoring of vibrations at relatively low cost (ultra-high density of point sensors available with minimal deployment of new equipment). This perspective article discusses early approaches on the application of fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensors (DASs) for seismic activity monitoring. The benefits and potential impact of DAS technology in these kinds of applications are here illustrated with new experimental results on teleseism monitoring based on a specific approach: the so-called chirped-pulse DAS. This technology offers promising prospects for the field of seismic tomography due to its appealing properties in terms of simplicity, consistent sensitivity across sensing channels, and robustness. Furthermore, we also report on several signal processing techniques readily applicable to chirped-pulse DAS recordings for extracting relevant seismic information from ambient acoustic noise. The outcome presented here may serve as a foundation for a novel conception for ubiquitous seismic monitoring with minimal investment

Teleseisms monitoring using chirped-pulse φOTDR

Monitoring of seismic activity around the word is a topic of high interest for the analysis and understanding of deep Earth dynamics. However, the deployment of a homogeneous network of seismic stations both onshore and offshore poses a strong economic challenge that makes this solution practically inviable. Using the pre-existing fiber optical network for seismic monitoring arises as an excellent solution with important advantages in terms of ubiquity and cost. In this communication, we present the detection of an M8.2 earthquake occurred in Fiji Island using distributed acoustic sensing based on chirped-pulse φOTDR. Two sensors were placed simultaneously at two different locations at >9,000 km from the earthquake epicenter: a metropolitan area and a submarine environment. The recorded data is postprocessed using a 2D linear filter to cancel out environmental noise. The resulting signals are compared with the signals acquired by nearby seismometers. The attained good matching between the recorded data and the seismometer data shows the strong potential of the use of the already-deployed communication fiber network for teleseism monitoring

Distributed acoustic sensing for seismic activity monitoring

Continuous, real-time monitoring of surface seismic activity around the globe is of great interest for acquiring new insight into global tomography analyses and for recognition of seismic patterns leading to potentially hazardous situations. The already-existing telecommunication fiber optic network arises as an ideal solution for this application, owing to its ubiquity and the capacity of optical fibers to perform distributed, highly sensitive monitoring of vibrations at relatively low cost (ultra-high density of point sensors available with minimal deployment of new equipment). This perspective article discusses early approaches on the application of fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensors (DASs) for seismic activity monitoring. The benefits and potential impact of DAS technology in these kinds of applications are here illustrated with new experimental results on teleseism monitoring based on a specific approach: the so-called chirped-pulse DAS. This technology offers promising prospects for the field of seismic tomography due to its appealing properties in terms of simplicity, consistent sensitivity across sensing channels, and robustness. Furthermore, we also report on several signal processing techniques readily applicable to chirped-pulse DAS recordings for extracting relevant seismic information from ambient acoustic noise. The outcome presented here may serve as a foundation for a novel conception for ubiquitous seismic monitoring with minimal investment

Endoplasmic reticulum stress sensor IRE1α enhances IL-23 expression by human dendritic cells

Producción CientíficaHuman monocyte-derived dendritic cells (DCs) exposed to pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) undergo bioenergetic changes that influence the immune response. We found that stimulation with PAMPs enhanced glycolysis in DCs, whereas oxidative phosphorylation remained unaltered. Glucose starvation and the hexokinase inhibitor 2-deoxy-d-glucose (2-DG) modulated cytokine expression in stimulated DCs. Strikingly, IL23A was markedly induced upon 2-DG treatment, but not during glucose deprivation. Since 2-DG can also rapidly inhibit protein N-glycosylation, we postulated that this compound could induce IL-23 in DCs via activation of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response. Indeed, stimulation of DCs with PAMPs in the presence of 2-DG robustly activated inositol-requiring protein 1α (IRE1α) signaling and to a lesser extent the PERK arm of the unfolded protein response. Additional ER stressors such as tunicamycin and thapsigargin also promoted IL-23 expression by PAMP-stimulated DCs. Pharmacological, biochemical, and genetic analyses using conditional knockout mice revealed that IL-23 induction in ER stressed DCs stimulated with PAMPs was IRE1α/X-box binding protein 1-dependent upon zymosan stimulation. Interestingly, we further evidenced PERK-mediated and CAAT/enhancer-binding protein β-dependent trans-activation of IL23A upon lipopolysaccharide treatment. Our findings uncover that the ER stress response can potently modulate cytokine expression in PAMP-stimulated human DCs.Plan Nacional de Salud y Farmacia (Proyecto SAF2013-44521-R

Tricarboxylic acid cycle activity and remodeling of glycerophosphocholine lipids support cytokine induction in response to fungal patterns

Producción CientíficaIncreased glycolysis parallels immune cell activation, but the role of pyruvate remains largely unexplored. We found that stimulation of dendritic cells with the fungal surrogate zymosan causes decreases of pyruvate, citrate, itaconate, and a-ketoglutarate, while increasing oxaloacetate, succinate, lactate, oxygen consumption, and pyruvate dehydrogenase activity. Expression of IL10 and IL23A (the gene encoding the p19 chain of IL-23) depended on pyruvate dehydrogenase activity. Mechanistically, pyruvate reinforced histone H3 acetylation, and acetate rescued the effect of mitochondrial pyruvate carrier inhibition, most likely because it is a substrate of the acetyl-CoA producing enzyme ACSS2. Mice lacking the receptor of the lipid mediator platelet-activating factor (PAF; 1-O-hexadecyl-2-acetyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine) showed reduced production of IL-10 and IL-23 that is explained by the requirement of acetyl-CoA for PAF biosynthesis and its ensuing autocrine function. Acetyl-CoA therefore intertwines fatty acid remodeling of glycerophospholipids and energetic metabolism during cytokine induction.Plan Nacional de Salud y Farmacia (Proyectos SAF2013-44521-R, SAF2017-83079-R, BFU2014-53469-P, and BFU201)4- 53469-PJunta de Castilla y León - Fondo Social Europeo (Proyecto CSI035P17

Monitoring of a highly flexible aircraft model wing using time-expanded phase-sensitive OTDR

In recent years, the use of highly flexible wings in aerial vehicles (e.g., aircraft or drones) has been attracting increasing interest, as they are lightweight, which can improve fuel-efficiency and distinct flight performances. Continuous wing monitoring can provide valuable information to prevent fatal failures and optimize aircraft control. In this paper, we demonstrate the capabilities of a distributed optical fiber sensor based on time-expanded phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (TE-ΦOTDR) technology for structural health monitoring of highly flexible wings, including static (i.e., bend and torsion), and dynamic (e.g., vibration) structural deformation. This distributed sensing technology provides a remarkable spatial resolution of 2 cm, with detection and processing bandwidths well under the MHz, arising as a novel, highly efficient monitoring methodology for this kind of structure. Conventional optical fibers were embedded in two highly flexible specimens that represented an aircraft wing, and different bending and twisting movements were detected and quantified with high sensitivity and minimal intrusiveness