Distribution of skates and sharks in the North Sea: 112 years of change

How have North Sea skate and shark assemblages changed since the early 20th century when bottom trawling became widespread, whilst their environment became increasingly impacted by fishing, climate change, habitat degradation and other anthropogenic pressures? This article examines long-term changes in the distribution and occurrence of the elasmobranch assemblage of the southern North Sea, based on extensive historical time series (1902–2013) of fishery-independent survey data. In general, larger species (thornback ray, tope, spurdog) exhibited long-term declines, and the largest (common skate complex) became locally extirpated (as did angelshark). Smaller species increased (spotted and starry ray, lesser-spotted dogfish) as did smooth-hound, likely benefiting from greater resilience to fishing and/or climate change. This indicates a fundamental shift from historical dominance of larger, commercially valuable species to current prevalence of smaller, more productive species often of low commercial value. In recent years, however, some trends have reversed, with the (cold-water associated) starry ray now declining and thornback ray increasing. This shift may be attributed to (i) fishing, including mechanised beam trawling introduced in the 1960s–1970s, and historical target fisheries for elasmobranchs; (ii) climate change, currently favouring warm-water above cold-water species; and (iii) habitat loss, including potential degradation of coastal and outer estuarine nursery habitats. The same anthropogenic pressures, here documented to have impacted North Sea elasmobranchs over the past century, are likewise impacting shelf seas worldwide and may increase in the future; therefore, parallel changes in elasmobranch communities in other regions are to be expected

New uses of treated urban waste digestates on stimulation of hydroponically grown tomato (Solanum lycopersicon L.)

One strategy to re-use solid urban wastes is the production of energy by anaerobic digestion. This process also generates high volume of digestates, which are frequently disposal in landfills. The aim of this work is to assess anaerobic digestates as agricultural inputs. Three different biomethanation wastes from different plants were collected. Firstly, a complete physico-chemical characterization of the wastes was done according to the Spanish regulation, showing that the materials had the 90% of the particles below 25 mm, high values of pH, electric conductivity, organic matter, humic acids and soluble nutrients such as NO3−, SO42−, Ca2+, Mg2+, PO43− and K+. Total concentrations of heavy metals and microbiological parameters were below the threshold levels allowed for agricultural use. The wastes were then treated with a strong acid and a strong base having two different solutions (ATr and BTr, respectively) which were evaluated as biostimulants for tomato plants in hydroponic culture. Those liquid extracts, ATr and BTr, demonstrated their biostimulant ability towards root system of tomato enhancing the hair root density and plant biometric parameters including plants weight and chlorophyll content. This work demonstrates the re-use feasibility of treated digestates in agriculture as fertilizers and more over as feedstock for biostimulants productio

Filaments in the edge confinement region of TJ-II

Autor colectivo: TJ-II TeamFloating potential measurements from two remote reciprocating probes in the plasma edge region of the TJ-II stellarator are analyzed using the transfer entropy, revealing the spatial dimensions and propagation properties of filamentary structures. The results are corroborated by performing simulations with a resistive MHD model and analyzing data from synthetic diagnostics. The transfer entropy captures the rotation of the filaments and allows the calculating of their rotation velocity. This deduced velocity was compared to the (known) poloidal velocity of the plasma and showed a relatively good agreement

On the nature of transport in near-critical dissipative-trapped-electron-mode turbulence: Effect of a subdominant diffusive channel

9 pages, 4 figures.-- PACS nrs.: 52.35.Ra, 52.55.-s.The change in nature of radial transport in numerical simulations of near-critical dissipative-trapped-electron-mode turbulence is characterized as the relative strength of an additional diffusive transport channel (subdominant to turbulence) is increased from zero. In its absence, radial transport exhibits the lack of spatial and temporal scales characteristic of self-organized-critical systems. This dynamical regime survives up to diffusivity values which, for the system investigated here, greatly exceeds the expected neoclassical value. These results, obtained using a novel Lagrangian method, complete and extend previous works based instead on the use of techniques imported from the study of cellular automata [ J. A. Mier et al., Phys. Plasmas 13, 102308 (2006) ]. They also shed further light on why some features of self-organized criticality seem to be observed in magnetically confined plasmas in spite of the presence of mechanisms which apparently violate the conditions needed for its establishment.This research was sponsored by DGICYT (Dirección General de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas) of Spain under Project No. ENE2006-15244-C03-01/FTN. Research sponsored in part by the Laboratory Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. Research supported in part by DOE Office of Science Grant No. DEFG02-04ER5741 at the University of Alaska.Publicad

Superficial radiotherapy as haemostatic treatment in breast cancer

Poster Session [EP-1661] Purpose or Objective Breast cancer is a common pathology in which o = 25% in tumor size and absence of bleeding was observed. Conclusion Surface radiotherapy is a treatment modality that should be taken into account in patients with breast cancer who present bleeding as a consequence of local tumor growth, given that this is a treatment comfortable for the patient, non invasive and increases the quality of patient’s life

Impacto de un programa piloto de seguimiento farmacoterapéutico sobre el control de la presión arterial de pacientes ambulatorios hipertensos y con síndrome metabólico en México

Introducción En México el 25.5% de los adultos cursan con hipertensión arterial sistémica y aproximadamente el 50% tienen valores de tensión arterial elevados. El farmacéutico puede colaborar con el equipo médico en el control de la presión arterial de pacientes hipertensos. Objetivo Evaluar la mejoría en la presión arterial en pacientes ambulatorios hipertensos con síndrome metabólico mediante un programa piloto de seguimiento farmacoterapéutico Métodos Se realizó un estudio controlado, aleatorizado y de intervención en pacientes hipertensos y con síndrome metabólico mediante un programa piloto de seguimiento farmacoterapéutico. Se evaluó el control de la presión arterial y el riesgo cardiovascular (RCV) de acuerdo al NCEP-ATP III. Se otorgó seguimiento farmacoterapéutico durante 6 meses, incluyendo educación sanitaria, monitoreo de adherencia farmacológica, y valoración de los problemas relacionados con los medicamentos (PRM) y los resultados negativos de la medicación (RNM). Se efectuaron mediciones clínicas y de laboratorio para compararse al final de la intervención y con el grupo control. Resultados El promedio de presión arterial sistólica disminuyó en el grupo intervención (8.54 mmHg; p=0.02), alcanzándose la meta control de la guía mexicana para hipertensión y del NCEP-ATP III. El RCV en el grupo de intervención y control fue de “bajo riesgo” usando la calculadora PAHO/WHO, y de un rango de 1% a 9.9% usando escala Framingham. La adherencia farmacológica mejoró en el grupo intervención (p=0.021). El promedio de PRM/paciente cambió de 2.5. (DE=1.3) a 0.4 (DE=0.6) al final del estudio (p<0.01). Conclusiones El seguimiento farmacoterapéutico favoreció el control de la presión arterial en la población estudiada mediante las intervenciones del farmacéutico en la atención primaria

Impacto de un programa piloto de seguimiento farmacoterapéutico sobre el control de la presión arterial de pacientes ambulatorios hipertensos y con síndrome metabólico en México

Introducción En México el 25.5% de los adultos cursan con hipertensión arterial sistémica y aproximadamente el 50% tienen valores de tensión arterial elevados. El farmacéutico puede colaborar con el equipo médico en el control de la presión arterial de pacientes hipertensos. Objetivo Evaluar la mejoría en la presión arterial en pacientes ambulatorios hipertensos con síndrome metabólico mediante un programa piloto de seguimiento farmacoterapéutico Métodos Se realizó un estudio controlado, aleatorizado y de intervención en pacientes hipertensos y con síndrome metabólico mediante un programa piloto de seguimiento farmacoterapéutico. Se evaluó el control de la presión arterial y el riesgo cardiovascular (RCV) de acuerdo al NCEP-ATP III. Se otorgó seguimiento farmacoterapéutico durante 6 meses, incluyendo educación sanitaria, monitoreo de adherencia farmacológica, y valoración de los problemas relacionados con los medicamentos (PRM) y los resultados negativos de la medicación (RNM). Se efectuaron mediciones clínicas y de laboratorio para compararse al final de la intervención y con el grupo control. Resultados El promedio de presión arterial sistólica disminuyó en el grupo intervención (8.54 mmHg; p=0.02), alcanzándose la meta control de la guía mexicana para hipertensión y del NCEP-ATP III. El RCV en el grupo de intervención y control fue de “bajo riesgo” usando la calculadora PAHO/WHO, y de un rango de 1% a 9.9% usando escala Framingham. La adherencia farmacológica mejoró en el grupo intervención (p=0.021). El promedio de PRM/paciente cambió de 2.5. (DE=1.3) a 0.4 (DE=0.6) al final del estudio (p<0.01). Conclusiones El seguimiento farmacoterapéutico favoreció el control de la presión arterial en la población estudiada mediante las intervenciones del farmacéutico en la atención primaria

Long term intrinsic cycling in human life course antibody responses to influenza A(H3N2): an observational and modeling study

Background: Over a life course, human adaptive immunity to antigenically mutable pathogens exhibits competitive and facilitative interactions. We hypothesize that such interactions may lead to cyclic dynamics in immune responses over a lifetime. Methods: To investigate the cyclic behavior, we analyzed hemagglutination inhibition titers against 21 historical influenza A(H3N2) strains spanning 47 years from a cohort in Guangzhou, China, and applied Fourier spectrum analysis. To investigate possible biological mechanisms, we simulated individual antibody profiles encompassing known feedbacks and interactions due to generally recognized immunological mechanisms. Results: We demonstrated a long-term periodicity (about 24 years) in individual antibody responses. The reported cycles were robust to analytic and sampling approaches. Simulations suggested that individual-level cross-reaction between antigenically similar strains likely explains the reported cycle. We showed that the reported cycles are predictable at both individual and birth cohort level and that cohorts show a diversity of phases of these cycles. Phase of cycle was associated with the risk of seroconversion to circulating strains, after accounting for age and pre-existing titers of the circulating strains. Conclusions: Our findings reveal the existence of long-term periodicities in individual antibody responses to A(H3N2). We hypothesize that these cycles are driven by preexisting antibody responses blunting responses to antigenically similar pathogens (by preventing infection and/or robust antibody responses upon infection), leading to reductions in antigen-specific responses over time until individual's increasing risk leads to an infection with an antigenically distant enough virus to generate a robust immune response. These findings could help disentangle cohort effects from individual-level exposure histories, improve our understanding of observed heterogeneous antibody responses to immunizations, and inform targeted vaccine strategy

Accounting for assay performance when estimating the temporal dynamics in SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in the U.S.

Reconstructing the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection is central to understanding the state of the pandemic. Seroprevalence studies are often used to assess cumulative infections as they can identify asymptomatic infection. Since July 2020, commercial laboratories have conducted nationwide serosurveys for the U.S. CDC. They employed three assays, with different sensitivities and specificities, potentially introducing biases in seroprevalence estimates. Using models, we show that accounting for assays explains some of the observed state-to-state variation in seroprevalence, and when integrating case and death surveillance data, we show that when using the Abbott assay, estimates of proportions infected can differ substantially from seroprevalence estimates. We also found that states with higher proportions infected (before or after vaccination) had lower vaccination coverages, a pattern corroborated using a separate dataset. Finally, to understand vaccination rates relative to the increase in cases, we estimated the proportions of the population that received a vaccine prior to infection

Seguiment i recuperació d’espècies afectades per la pesca en ecosistemes marins d’aigües profundes: un esforç conjunt entre biologia i tecnologia

3 pages, 2 figures[EN] The oceans provide important ecosystem services, and protein provisioning is one of the main benefits for humanity. The millenarian Mediterranean fishing activity today accounts for almost half of all the fisheries in the EU, and the use of high-impact fishing methods has made this human activity one of the main drivers of ecosystem degradation, especially in demersal and benthic environments (Puig et al. 2012). Bottom otter gear (hereafter trawling) causes the removal of sediments and endangers demersal living resources and their ecosystems, with fragile epi-faunal species being replaced by mobile scavengers or predators and long-lived species being replaced by short-lived species. In the Mediterranean Sea, many commercial demersal populations are being overexploited, reducing the economic benefits of fisheries and the ecosystem services associated with cultural aspects of iconic species. […][ES] Los océanos proporcionan importantes servicios ecosistémicos, siendo el suministro de proteínas uno de los principales beneficios para la humanidad. La actividad pesquera del Mediterráneo constituye hoy en día casi la mitad de todas las pesquerías de la UE y el uso de métodos de pesca de alto impacto ha convertido a esta actividad en una de las principales impulsoras de la degradación de los ecosistemas de aguas profundas (Puig et al. 2012). El arte de pesca de arrastre provoca la eliminación de sedimentos y pone en peligro los recursos vivos demersales y sus ecosistemas, y las especies de epi-fauna frágiles son reemplazadas por especies carroñeras o depredadoras y las especies longevas son reemplazadas por especies de vida corta. En el mar Mediterráneo, muchas poblaciones de especies comerciales que habitan hábitats demersales están siendo sobreexplotadas, lo que reduce los beneficios económicos de la pesca y los servicios ecosistémicos asociados a los aspectos culturales de algunas especies consideradas icónicas. […][CAT] Els oceans proporcionen importants serveis ecosistèmics, i és el subministrament de proteïnes un dels principals beneficis per a la humanitat. L’activitat pesquera mil·lenària del Mediterrani constitueix avui en dia gairebé la meitat de totes les pesqueres de la UE i la utilització de mètodes de pesca d’alt impacte ha convertit aquesta activitat humana en un dels principals impulsors de la degradació dels ecosistemes, especialment en entorns bentònics (Puig et al. 2012). L’art de pesca d’arrossegament provoca l’eliminació de sediments i posa en perill els recursos vius demersals i els seus ecosistemes, i les espècies d’epi-fauna fràgils són substituïdes per carronyaires o depredadors mòbils i les espècies de llarga vida són substituïdes per espècies de vida curta. A la mar Mediterrània, moltes poblacions demersals comercials estan essent sobreexplotades, el que redueix per a les espècies icòniques, els beneficis econòmics de la pesca i els serveis ecosistèmics associats amb els aspectes culturals. […]Peer reviewe