Forming first-ranked early-type galaxies through hierarchical dissipationless merging

We have developed a computationally competitive N-body model of a previrialized aggregation of galaxies in a flat LambdaCDM universe to assess the role of the multiple mergers that take place during the formation stage of such systems in the configuration of the remnants assembled at their centres. An analysis of a suite of 48 simulations of low-mass forming groups (of about 1E13 solar masses) demonstrates that the gravitational dynamics involved in their hierarchical collapse is capable of creating realistic first-ranked galaxies without the aid of dissipative processes. Our simulations indicate that the brightest group galaxies (BGGs) constitute a distinct population from other group members, sketching a scenario in which the assembly path of these objects is dictated largely by the formation of their host system. We detect significant differences in the distribution of Sersic indices and total magnitudes, as well as a luminosity gap between BGGs and the next brightest galaxy that is positively correlated with the total luminosity of the parent group. Such gaps arise from both the grow of BGGs at the expense of lesser companions and the decrease in the relevance of second-ranked objects in equal measure. This results in a dearth of intermediate-mass galaxies which explains the characteristic central dip detected in their luminosity functions in dynamically young galaxy aggregations. The fact that the basic global properties of our BGGs define a thin mass fundamental plane strikingly similar to that followed giant early-type galaxies in the local universe reinforces confidence in the results obtained.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables. Accepted to MNRA

Optimizing CIGB-300 intralesional delivery in locally advanced cervical cancer

Background:We conducted a phase 1 trial in patients with locally advanced cervical cancer by injecting 0.5 ml of the CK2-antagonist CIGB-300 in two different sites on tumours to assess tumour uptake, safety, pharmacodynamic activity and identify the recommended dose.Methods:Fourteen patients were treated with intralesional injections containing 35 or 70 mg of CIGB-300 in three alternate cycles of three consecutive days each before standard chemoradiotherapy. Tumour uptake was determined using 99 Tc-radiolabelled peptide. In situ B23/nucleophosmin was determined by immunohistochemistry.Results:Maximum tumour uptake for CIGB-300 70-mg dose was significantly higher than the one observed for 35 mg: 16.1±8.9 vs 31.3±12.9 mg (P=0.01). Both, AUC 24h and biological half-life were also significantly higher using 70 mg of CIGB-300 (P<0.001). Unincorporated CIGB-300 diffused rapidly to blood and was mainly distributed towards kidneys, and marginally in liver, lungs, heart and spleen. There was no DLT and moderate allergic-like reactions were the most common systemic side effect with strong correlation between unincorporated CIGB-300 and histamine levels in blood. CIGB-300, 70 mg, downregulated B23/nucleophosmin (P=0.03) in tumour specimens.Conclusion:Intralesional injections of 70 mg CIGB-300 in two sites (0.5 ml per injection) and this treatment plan are recommended to be evaluated in phase 2 studies.Fil: Sarduy, M. R.. Medical-surgical Research Center; CubaFil: García, I.. Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología; CubaFil: Coca, M. A.. Clinical Investigation Center; CubaFil: Perera, A.. Clinical Investigation Center; CubaFil: Torres, L. A.. Clinical Investigation Center; CubaFil: Valenzuela, C. M.. Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología; CubaFil: Baladrón, I.. Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología; CubaFil: Solares, M.. Hospital Materno Ramón González Coro; CubaFil: Reyes, V.. Center For Genetic Engineering And Biotechnology Havana; CubaFil: Hernández, I.. Isotope Center; CubaFil: Perera, Y.. Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología; CubaFil: Martínez, Y. M.. Medical-surgical Research Center; CubaFil: Molina, L.. Medical-surgical Research Center; CubaFil: González, Y. M.. Medical-surgical Research Center; CubaFil: Ancízar, J. A.. Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología; CubaFil: Prats, A.. Clinical Investigation Center; CubaFil: González, L.. Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología; CubaFil: Casacó, C. A.. Clinical Investigation Center; CubaFil: Acevedo, B. E.. Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología; CubaFil: López Saura, P. A.. Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología; CubaFil: Alonso, Daniel Fernando. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; ArgentinaFil: Gómez, R.. Elea Laboratories; ArgentinaFil: Perea Rodríguez, S. E.. Center For Genetic Engineering And Biotechnology Havana; Cuba. Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología; Cub

La colección «Plantes De La Province De Grenada» de Pedro del Campo, en el herbario del Real Colegio Alfonso XII de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid (España)

CARRASCO, M. A., PEREA, D., ARAGÓN, C. F. & GARCÍA-CAMACHO, R. 2002. La Colección «Plantes de da Province de Grenada» de Pedro del Campo, en el herbario del Real Colegio Alfonso XII de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid (España). Bot. Complutensis 26: 93-103. En este trabajo presentamos una colección de plantas con interés histórico hallada en el herbario del Real Colegio Alfonso XII de San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid). Fueron recolectadas en Granada por Pedro del Campo, distribuidas por E. Bourgeau en sus exsiccata de 1852 y utilizadas por Willkomm y Lange para establecer la distribución de las especies en la obra Prodromus florae hispanicae, según consta expresamente en ella. Además, muchos de estos materiales proceden de las localidades clásicas citadas por Boissier.CARRASCO, M. A., PEREA, D., ARAGÓN, C. F. & GARCÍA-CAMACHO, R. 2002. The sets «Plantes de la Province de Grenada» from Pedro del Campo, in the herbarium of Real Colegio Alfonso XII of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid, Spain). Bot. Complutensis 26: 93-103. This paper focuses on a set of plants, found in the Real Colegio Alfonso XII historical herbarium of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid). These plants which belonged to Pedro del Campo, were distributed in exsiccata by Bourgeau in 1852. The historical importance of these sheets is enhanced as they were used for Willkomm and Lange in order to establish the species corology in the classic Prodromus florae hispanicae, as clearly stated in that work. Furthermore, many of these sheets were collected in the localities cited by Boissier

Molecular Deuterion crystallitation under cuasi-1D confienment

ECNS 2015, Zaragoza (Spain), August 30th-September 4th 2015A particularly interesting aspect of Carbon Nanotubes is their use as nearly one-dimensional nano-containers. Apart of their possibilities for controlled chemistry in nano- fluidics devices new phenomena induced by confinement are also expected, such as liquid like ordered structures or exotic crystalline phases. Here, we present a series of neutron diffraction measurements (instrument D20, ILL, Grenoble) of molecular deuterium confined within Multiple Wall Carbon Nanotubes (MWCTNs). Bulk liquid D2 at its vapour pressure crystallises in an hcp structure at ~18.7 K. At low uptakes we have found a clear depression of the solidification temperature down to ~13.25 K. Interestingly, at the lowest uptake the diffraction pattern is consistent with the minimal fcc lattice compatible with a cylindrical symmetry.Peer Reviewe

GRASP algorithms for the robust railway network design problem

This paper analyzes the solvability of a railway network design problem and its robust version. These problems are modeled as integer linear programming problems with binary variables, and their solutions provide topological railway networks maximizing the trip coverage in the presence of a competing mode, both assuming that the network works fine and that links can fail, respectively. Since these problems are computationally intractable for realistic sizes, GRASP heuristics are proposed for finding good feasible solutions. The results obtained in a computational experience indicate that our GRASP algorithms are suitable for railway network design problems. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.We would like to thank the Spanish Ministerio de Fomento under grant PT-2007-003, Ministerio de Ciencia y Educacion under grant MTM2009-14243, the Junta de Andalucia under grant P09-TEP-5022 for supporting this research, the FEDER funds of the European Union and TUSSAM (Seville, Spain). Special thanks are due to two anonymous referees for their valuable comments.García-Archilla, B.; Lozano, AJ.; Mesa, JA.; Perea Rojas Marcos, F. (2011). GRASP algorithms for the robust railway network design problem. Journal of Heuristics. 19(2):399-422. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10732-011-9185-zS399422192Baaj, M., Mahmassani, H.: An AI-based approach for transit route system planning and design. J. Adv. Transp. 25(2), 187–210 (1991)Cancela, H., Robledo, F., Rubino, G.: A grasp algorithm with tree based local search for designing a survivable wide area network backbone. J. Comput. Sci. Technol. 4(1), 52–58 (2004)Díaz, J.A., Luna, D., Luna, R.: A grasp heuristic for the manufacturing cell formation problem. TOP (2011). doi: 10.1007/s11750-010-0159-3Feo, T., Resende, M.: A probabilistic heuristic for a computationally difficult set covering problem. Oper. Res. Lett. 8, 67–71 (1989)Goossens, J., van Hoesel, C., Kroon, L.: A branch-and-cut approach for solving railway line-planning problems. Transp. Sci. 38, 379–393 (2004)Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers: IEEE Standard Computer Dictionary: A Compilation of IEEE Standard Computer Glossaries (1990)Laporte, G., Mesa, J., Perea, F.: A game theoretic framework for the robust railway transit network design problem. Transp. Res., Part B, Methodol. 44, 447–459 (2010)Laporte, G., Marín, A., Mesa, J., Perea, F.: Designing robust rapid transit networks with alternative routes. J. Adv. Transp. 45, 54–65 (2011)Marín, A., García-Ródenas, R.: Location of infrastructure in urban railway networks. Comput. Oper. Res. 36, 1461–1477 (2009)Marín, A., Jaramillo, P.: Urban rapid transit network design: accelerated Benders decomposition. Ann. Oper. Res. 169(1), 35–53 (2009)Marín, A., Mesa, J.A., Perea, F.: Integrating robust railway network design and line planning under failures. Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 5868, 273–292 (2009)Mauttone, A., Urquhart, M.E.: A route set construction algorithm for the transit network design problem. Comput. Oper. Res. 36, 2440–2449 (2009)Murphey, R., Pardalos, P., Pitsoulis, L.: A GRASP for the multitarget multisensor tracking problem. In: Networks. Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science Series, vol. 40, pp. 277–302. American Mathematical Society, Providence (1998)Nesmachnow, S., Cancela, H., Alba, E.: Evolutionary algorithms applied to reliable communication network design. Eng. Optim. 39(7), 831–855 (2007)Schöbel, A., Scholl, S.: Line planning with minimal transfers. In: 5th Workshop on Algorithmic Methods and Models for Optimization of Railways, Number 06901 in Dagstuhl Seminar Proceedings (2006

Spitzer/IRS spectroscopy of high mass precursors to planetary nebulae

We present Spitzer/IRS observations of a small sample of heavily obscured IRAS sources displaying both the infrared and OH maser emission characteristic of OH/IR stars on the asymptotic giant branch (AGB), but also radio continuum emission typical of ionized planetary nebulae (PNe), the so-called OHPNe. Our observations show that their mid-infrared spectra are dominated by the simultaneous presence of strong and broad amorphous silicate absorption features together with crystalline silicate features, originated in their O-rich circumstellar shells. Out of the five sources observed, three of them are clearly non-variable at infrared wavelengths, confirming their post-AGB status, while the remaining two still show strong photometric fluctuations, and may still have not yet departed from the AGB. One of the non-variable sources in the sample, IRAS 17393-2727, displays a strong [Ne II] nebular emission at 12.8 microns, indicating that the ionization of its central region has already started. This suggests a rapid evolution from the AGB to the PN stage. We propose that these heavily obscured OHPNe represent the population of high mass precursors to PNe in our Galaxy.Comment: To appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (scheduled in the 2007 September 1 issue