12 research outputs found
Aceite de oliva virgen y regulación hormonal de la presión arterial: una revisión del papel de los enzimas proteolíticos
Numerosos estudios realizados en los últimos años, han puesto de manifiesto que los niveles elevados de grasa en la dieta están directamente relacionados con el desarrollo de diversas patologías, entre las que destacan enfermedades cardiovasculares, diabetes o incluso diversos tipos de cánceres. Estudios epidemiológicos también han demostrado que no sólo es importante la cantidad, sino también el tipo de grasa de la dieta. Son especialmente conocidos los efectos beneficiosos de la dieta mediterránea, caracterizada entre otros aspectos, por un consumo elevado de ácidos grasos monoinsaturados como el oleico. En cualquier caso, no se conoce con exactitud las relaciones existentes entre el tipo de grasa de la dieta y el desarrollo de las distintas patologías. Las aminopeptidasas son enzimas proteolíticos implicados en una amplia variedad de procesos biológicos, destacando su papel en el control de la presión arterial a través del sistema renina-angiotensina. En esta revisión se estudia la influencia de una dieta enriquecida en aceite de oliva sobre la actividad aminopeptidásica sérica y de tejidos periféricos, analizando su influencia en la regulación del sistema renina-angiotensina para el control de la presión arterial y el balance de líquidos y electrolitos.The intake of high fat dietary levels is related to the development of several pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer. However, epidemiological studies have demonstrated that not only the amount but also the type of dietary fat participates in the origin of the diseases. In fact, several important beneficts have been attributed to the Mediterranean diet, characterized by the high intake of monoinsaturated fatty acids such as oleic acid preferently. In any case, the relationship between the type of dietary fat an the development of diseases are unknown. Aminopeptidases are proteolytic enzymes involved in several biological proccesses, regulating blood pressure through the renin-angiotensin system. In this review, the influence of an olive oil-enriched diet is presented, analyzing their role in the regulation of blood pressure, local blood flow and fluid and electrolytic balance among other functions
Clasificación de cultivos y de sus medidas agroambientales mediante segmentación de imágenes QuickBird
En la últimas décadas han ido creciendo considerablemente
los conocimientos y la sensibilización
sobre la protección al medioambiente en
muy diversas áreas, entre las que se encuentra la
Agricultura. El uso intensivo del laboreo ocasiona
graves daños medioambientales como la
erosión del suelo, la contaminación de las aguas
superficiales (escorrentía y colmatación de embalses),
el descenso del contenido de la materia
orgánica y de la biodiversidad de los suelos labrados,
y el aumento de la emisión de CO2 del
suelo a la atmósfera. Actualmente, la Unión Europea
sólo subvenciona a los agricultores que
cumplen lo que se conoce como “Medidas Agroambientales
o de Condicionalidad” cuyo diseño
ha estado dentro de las competencias de las Políticas
Agrarias Autonómicas, Nacionales y Europeas.
Estas medidas consisten en alterar el
perfil y la estructura del suelo lo menos posible,
dejando éste sin labrar y permanentemente protegido
por cubiertas vegetales (rastrojo) en el
caso de cultivos herbáceos (ej. trigo, maíz, girasol),
o por cubiertas vegetales vivas o inertes
(restos de poda) en el caso de cultivos leñosos
(principalmente cítricos y olivar). El seguimiento
del cumplimiento de estas medidas se realiza a través de visitas presenciales a un 1% de
los campos susceptibles de recibir ayudas. Este
método es ineficiente y provoca muchos errores
con la consiguiente presentación de un ingente
número de reclamaciones. Para subsanar esta
problemática, en este artículo presentamos los resultados
obtenidos en la clasificación de los cultivos
y las medidas agroambientales asociadas a
éstos en una imagen multiespectral QuickBird tomada
a principios de Julio de una zona típica de
cultivos en régimen de secano de Andalucía. Se
aplicaron 5 métodos de clasificación (Paralelepípedos,
P; Mínima Distancia, MD; Distancia de
Mahalanobis, MC; Mapeo del Ángulo Espectral,
SAM; y Máxima Probabilidad, ML) para la discriminación
de rastrojo de trigo quemado y sin
quemar, arbolado, carreteras, olivar, cultivos herbáceos
de siembra primaveral y suelo desnudo.
Además, la imagen es segmentada en objetos
para comparar la fiabilidad obtenida aplicando
los métodos anteriores partiendo tanto de píxeles
como de objetos como Unidades Mínimas de
Información (MIU). El análisis de los resultados
permite concluir que las clasificaciones de todos
los usos de suelo basadas en objetos claramente
mejoraron las basadas en píxeles, obteniéndose
precisiones (overall accuracy) mayores al 85%.
La elección de un método de clasificación u otro
influye en gran medida en la precisión de los
mapas obtenidos.
Debido a que la precisión del mapa temático
que necesitamos obtener ha de ser muy elevada
para tomar decisiones sobre Conceder / No conceder
las ayudas, sería interesante estudiar si el
incremento de la resolución espacial que se obtenga
gracias a la fusión de imágenes multiespectral
y pancromática de QuickBird para
obtener una imagen fusionada con resolución espacial
de la pancromática (0.7 m) y espectral de
la multiespectral (4 bandas) mejora la precisión
de cualquiera de los métodos de clasificación estudiadosSoil management in crops is mainly based on
intensive tillage operations, which have a great
relevancy in terms of increase of atmospheric
CO2, desertification, erosion and land degradation.
Due to these negative environmental impacts,
the European Union only subsidizes
cropping systems which require the implementation
of certain no-tillage systems and agro-environmental
measures, such as keeping the
winter cereal residues and non-burning of stubble
to reduce erosion, and to increase the organic
matter, the fertility of soils and the crop production.
Nowadays, the follow-up of these agrarian
policy actions is achieved by ground visits to
sample targeted farms; however, this procedure is
time-consuming and very expensive. To improve
this control procedure, a study of the accuracy
performance of several classification methods
has been examined to verify if remote sensing
can offer the ability to efficiently identify crops
and their agro-environmental measures in a typical
agricultural Mediterranean area of dry conditions.
Five supervised classification methods
based on different decision rule routines, Parallelepiped
(P), Minimum Distance (MD), Mahalanobis
Classifier Distance (MC), Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), and Maximum Likelihood
(ML), were examined to determine the most suitable
classification algorithm for the identification
of agro-environmental measures such as
winter cereal stubble and burnt stubble areas and
other land uses such as river side trees, vineyard,
olive orchards, spring sown crops, roads and bare
soil. An object segmentation of the satellite information
was also added to compare the accuracy
of the classification results of pixel and
object as Minimum Information Unit (MIU). A
multispectral QuickBird image taken in early
summer was used to test these MIU and classification
methods. The resulting classified images
indicated that object-based analyses clearly outperformed
pixel ones, yielding overall accuracies
higher than 85% in most of the classifications.
The choice of a classification method can markedly
influence the accuracy of classification
maps
La estructura sísmica de la corteza de la Zona de Ossa Morena y su interpretación geológica
El experimento de sísmica de reflexión profunda IBERSEIS ha proporcionado una imagen de la corteza del Orógeno Varisco en el sudoeste de Iberia. Este artículo se centra en la descripción de la corteza de la Zona de Ossa Morena (OMZ), que está claramente dividida en una corteza superior, con reflectividad de buzamiento al NE, y una corteza inferior de pobre reflectividad. Las estructuras geológicas cartografiadas en superficie se correlacionan bien con la reflectividad de la corteza superior, y en la imagen sísmica se ven enraizar en la corteza media. Ésta está constituida por un cuerpo muy reflectivo, interpretado como una gran intrusión de rocas básicas. La imagen de las suturas que limitan la OMZ muestra el carácter fuertemente transpresivo de la colisión orogénica varisca registrada en el sudoeste de Iberia. La Moho actual es plana y, en consecuencia, no se observa la raíz del orógeno
Diet quality index as a predictor of treatment efficacy in overweight and obese adolescents: The EVASYON study
Background & aim: A diet quality index (DQI) is a tool that provides an overall score of an individual''s dietary intake when assessing compliance with food-based dietary guidelines. A number of DQIs have emerged, albeit their associations with health-related outcomes are debated. The aim of the present study was to assess whether adherence to dietary intervention, and the overall quality of the diet, can predict body composition changes. Methods: To this purpose, overweight/obese adolescents (n = 117, aged: 13–16 years; 51 males, 66 females) were recruited into a multi-component (diet, physical activity and psychological support) family-based group treatment programme. We measured the adolescents’ compliance and body composition at baseline and after 2 months (intensive phase) and 13 months (extensive phase) of follow-up. Also, at baseline, after 6 months, and at the end of follow-up we calculated the DQI. Results: Global compliance with the dietary intervention was 37.4% during the intensive phase, and 14.3% during the extensive phase. Physical activity compliance was 94.1% at 2-months and 34.7% at 13months and psychological support compliance were growing over the intervention period (10.3% intensive phase and 45.3% during extensive phase). Adolescents complying with the meal frequency criteria at the end of the extensive phase had greater reductions in FMI z-scores than those did not complying (Cohen''s d = 0.53). A statistically significant association was observed with the diet quality index. DQI-A variation explained 98.1% of BMI z-score changes and 95.1% of FMI changes. Conclusions: We conclude that assessment of changes in diet quality could be a useful tool in predicting body composition changes in obese adolescents involved in a diet and physical activity intervention programme backed-up by psychological and family support
RICORS2040 : The need for collaborative research in chronic kidney disease
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a silent and poorly known killer. The current concept of CKD is relatively young and uptake by the public, physicians and health authorities is not widespread. Physicians still confuse CKD with chronic kidney insufficiency or failure. For the wider public and health authorities, CKD evokes kidney replacement therapy (KRT). In Spain, the prevalence of KRT is 0.13%. Thus health authorities may consider CKD a non-issue: very few persons eventually need KRT and, for those in whom kidneys fail, the problem is 'solved' by dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, KRT is the tip of the iceberg in the burden of CKD. The main burden of CKD is accelerated ageing and premature death. The cut-off points for kidney function and kidney damage indexes that define CKD also mark an increased risk for all-cause premature death. CKD is the most prevalent risk factor for lethal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the factor that most increases the risk of death in COVID-19, after old age. Men and women undergoing KRT still have an annual mortality that is 10- to 100-fold higher than similar-age peers, and life expectancy is shortened by ~40 years for young persons on dialysis and by 15 years for young persons with a functioning kidney graft. CKD is expected to become the fifth greatest global cause of death by 2040 and the second greatest cause of death in Spain before the end of the century, a time when one in four Spaniards will have CKD. However, by 2022, CKD will become the only top-15 global predicted cause of death that is not supported by a dedicated well-funded Centres for Biomedical Research (CIBER) network structure in Spain. Realizing the underestimation of the CKD burden of disease by health authorities, the Decade of the Kidney initiative for 2020-2030 was launched by the American Association of Kidney Patients and the European Kidney Health Alliance. Leading Spanish kidney researchers grouped in the kidney collaborative research network Red de Investigación Renal have now applied for the Redes de Investigación Cooperativa Orientadas a Resultados en Salud (RICORS) call for collaborative research in Spain with the support of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, Federación Nacional de Asociaciones para la Lucha Contra las Enfermedades del Riñón and ONT: RICORS2040 aims to prevent the dire predictions for the global 2040 burden of CKD from becoming true
Spectral discrimination of wild oat and canary grass in wheat fields for less herbicide application
Wheat, Triticum durum L, is a major cereal crop in Spain with over five
million ha grown annually. Wild oat, Avena sterilis L., and canary grass,
Phalaris spp., are distributed only in patches in wheat fields but
herbicides are applied over entire fields, thus leading to over-application and
unnecessary pollution. To reduce herbicide application, site-specific management
techniques based on weed maps are being developed to treat only weed patches. Intensive
weed scouting from the ground is time-consuming and expensive, and it relies on estimates
of weeds at unsampled points. Remote sensing of weed canopies has been shown to be a more
efficient alternative. The principle of weed remote sensing is that there are differences
in the spectral reflectance between weeds and crops. To test this principle, we studied
spectral signatures taken on the ground in the visible and near-infrared windows for
discriminating wheat, wild oat and canary grass at their last phenological stages.
Late-season phenological stages included initial seed maturation through advanced
maturation for weeds, and initial senescence to senescent for wheat. Spectral signatures
were collected on eight sampling dates from April 28 through May 26 using a handheld field
spectroradiometer. A stepwise discriminant analysis was used to detect differences in
reflectance and to determine the accuracy performance for a species classification as
affected by their phenological stage. Four scenarios or classification sets were
considered: wheat-wild oat-canary grass, with each species represented by a different
group of spectra; wheat and grass weeds, combining the two weed species into one spectral
group; wheat and wild oat with each represented as a single group, and finally, wheat and
canary grass. Our analysis achieved 100% classification accuracy at the phenological
stages of initial seed maturation, and green and advanced seed maturation and partly green
for weeds and wheat, respectively, between the dates of April 28 and May 6. Furthermore,
we reduced the number of hyperspectral wavelengths to thirteen out of 50. Multispectral
analysis also showed that broad wavebands corresponding to those of QuickBird satellite
imagery discriminated wild oat, canary grass and wheat at the same phenological stages and
dates. Our findings are very useful for determining the timeframe during which future
multispectral QuickBird satellite images will be obtained and the concrete wavelengths
that should be used in case of using airborne hyperspectral imaging. Accurate and timely
mapping of the spatial distribution of weeds is a key element in achieving site-specific
herbicide applications for reducing spraying volume of herbicides and costs
One million years of cultural evolution in a stable environment at Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain)
Received 16 June 2009 / Received in revised form 16 February 2010 / Accepted 16 February 2010 / Available online 23 March 2010
© 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 947 255006. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Rodríguez).
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found in the online version at doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.02.021.The present paper analyses the evidence provided by three sites (Sima del Elefante, Gran Dolina, and Galería) located in the Trinchera del Ferrocarril of the Sierra de Atapuerca. These three sites are cave infillings that contain sediments deposited from approximately 1.2 Ma to 200 kyr. Pollen, herpetofauna, and small and large mammal remains are used as proxies to obtain a general picture of the environmental changes that occurred at the Sierra de Atapuerca throughout the one million-year period represented at these sites. Similarly, cultural changes are tracked analyzing the evidence of human behavior obtained from the study of several bone and lithic assemblages from these three sites. At least three periods with different cultural features, involving technology, subsistence and behavior, are determined from the available evidence. The first two periods correspond to the Mode 1 technology and Homo antecessor: the first is dated around 1.2 to 1.0 Ma and reflects opportunistic behavior both in technology and subsistence. The second period is around 800 kyr BP. Mode 1 technology is still maintained, but subsistence strategies include systematic hunting and the use of base camps. The third period is dated between 500 ka and 200 ka and corresponds to the Mode 2 technology and the acquisition of directional hunting and other organizational strategies by Homo heidelbergensis. A transition from Mode 2 to Mode 3 seems to appear at the end of this time-range, and may reflect the early phases of a fourth cultural change. With regard to the environment, our main conclusion is that there was an absence of extremely harsh conditions at Atapuerca throughout this time period. The presence of Mediterranean taxa was constant and the dominant landscape was a savannah-like open environment, probably with small forest patches. An alternation of Mediterranean and mesic species as the dominant component of the tree storey was induced by the climatic cycles, and steppes spread across the landscape during the drier periods. In any case, it is not possible to establish clear cut-off points separating entirely different environmental episodes. Our results show no evidence of any relationship between environmental change and cultural change at the Sierra de Atapuerca.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España)Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (España)Junta de Castilla y LeónMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación (España)Depto. de Geodinámica, Estratigrafía y PaleontologíaFac. de Ciencias GeológicasTRUEpu