El impacto de los caudales medioambientales en la satisfacción de la demanda de agua bajo escenarios de cambio climático

RESUMENEl uso creciente del recurso hídrico para satisfacer las diferentes demandas de un sistema, muchas veces por encima de su disponibilidad hídrica, ha generado una reducción en el nivel de satisfacción de dichas demandas, así como una reducción en los caudales medioambientales necesarios para alcanzar el buen estado ecológico. A largo plazo, estos problemas pueden verse intensificados como consecuencia del cambio climático. La satisfacción de las demandas de un sistema sin afectar al medio ambiente es uno de los principales objetivos de una eficaz gestión del recurso hídrico. La consideración de unos requerimientos ambientales puede influir en la sensibilidad de un sistema en el momento de satisfacer adecuadamente las diferentes demandas. Este artículo se enfoca en evaluar dicha sensibilidad a largo plazo, mediante el uso de dos indicadores de eficiencia que permiten identificar los problemas de escasez de agua bajo diferentes escenarios de reducciones en las aportaciones. Los requerimientos ambientales se determinaron tomando en cuenta las distribuciones mensuales y anuales de las aportaciones para los diferentes escenarios futuros. Como resultado de aplicar la metodología a la cuenca del Guadalquivir, en España, se observa que los problemas de escasez de agua que actualmente padece la cuenca puedan verse intensificados bajo cambio climático, comprometiendo una adecuada satisfacción de las demandas de agua del sistema. Estos problemas podrían reducirse, e incluso eliminarse, si se consigue limitar el consumo de agua por debajo de la disponibilidad hídrica que presente la cuenca, especialmente en los recursos destinados a la agricultura.ABSTRACTThe increasing use of water resources in order to meet the different demands of a system, often above their water availability has led to inadequate attention to such demands, as well as, has generated a reduction in environmental flows needed to achieve good water status. In the long term, these problems may be intensified under climate change scenarios. An adequate attention of the system demands without affecting the environment is one of the main objectives of the water resources management. The consideration of the environmental flows can influence the sensitivity of a system when addressing the different demands. This paper focuses on assessing this sensitivity to long term by using two efficiency indicators, which ones allow to identify water scarcity problems under different scenarios of flows reduction. Environmental requirements are determined by taking into account the monthly and annual distributions of the flows for different future scenarios. The proposed methodology is applied to the Guadalquivir basin in Spain. The results show that the current water scarcity problems of the basin can be intensified when the environmental requirements are considered in the system. These problems could be reduced or even eliminated, if water consumption is limited below the water availability of the basin, especially in the resources for agriculture

Allele specific expression analysis identifies regulatory variation associated with stress-related genes in the Mexican highland maize landrace Palomero Toluqueño.

BackgroundGene regulatory variation has been proposed to play an important role in the adaptation of plants to environmental stress. In the central highlands of Mexico, farmer selection has generated a unique group of maize landraces adapted to the challenges of the highland niche. In this study, gene expression in Mexican highland maize and a reference maize breeding line were compared to identify evidence of regulatory variation in stress-related genes. It was hypothesised that local adaptation in Mexican highland maize would be associated with a transcriptional signature observable even under benign conditions.MethodsAllele specific expression analysis was performed using the seedling-leaf transcriptome of an F1 individual generated from the cross between the highland adapted Mexican landrace Palomero Toluqueño and the reference line B73, grown under benign conditions. Results were compared with a published dataset describing the transcriptional response of B73 seedlings to cold, heat, salt and UV treatments.ResultsA total of 2,386 genes were identified to show allele specific expression. Of these, 277 showed an expression difference between Palomero Toluqueño and B73 alleles under benign conditions that anticipated the response of B73 cold, heat, salt and/or UV treatments, and, as such, were considered to display a prior stress response. Prior stress response candidates included genes associated with plant hormone signaling and a number of transcription factors. Construction of a gene co-expression network revealed further signaling and stress-related genes to be among the potential targets of the transcription factors candidates.DiscussionPrior activation of responses may represent the best strategy when stresses are severe but predictable. Expression differences observed here between Palomero Toluqueño and B73 alleles indicate the presence of cis-acting regulatory variation linked to stress-related genes in Palomero Toluqueño. Considered alongside gene annotation and population data, allele specific expression analysis of plants grown under benign conditions provides an attractive strategy to identify functional variation potentially linked to local adaptation

Mereotopological Patterns for Ontology Evolution and Debugging

In this paper the foundational principles and the application of a mereotopological theory, the Region Connection Calculus, for controlling the revision of formal ontologies by means of visual arrangements is presented. The visual representation of logical relationships between concepts of an ontology is defined, and it is computed by means of an automated theorem prover. The user can recognize mereotopological patterns in the visual representation, particularly those representing anomalies in the ontology. An intelligent tool called Paella is designed and implemented for this task. Also, the extension to this formalism for managing uncertainty in concept reasoning is described

Learning Services Based on Formal Concept Reasoning

A formal foundation of automated service discovering for Semantic Web is proposed. The approach is based on the formalization of the problem using an agent oriented programming language (ConGolog), as well as on the use of the Formal Concept Analysis as a tool for knowledge extraction.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN 2004- 0388

Fish and Fisheries of the Eastern Coast of Mexico, with Emphasis on Coral Reef Species

The state on knowledge of fish communities associated with coral reefs of the southern Gulf of Mexico (Veracruz, Campeche bank), and eastern Yucatan on the Caribbean is reviewed, in addition to a description of the main fisheries of the area. The review includes coral reef fish of Veracruz, the Campeche Bank, and reefs running along the Caribbean coast up to the border with Belize. Data recorded suggest that the heterogeneity of different levels (region, reef and reef zone) may be responsible for a larger number of niches available, promoting higher specific diversity that is more evident in the Caribbean reefs. The environmental conditions create patterns of differential abundance among the three zones. The main regional fisheries include more than 60 species and the current yield suggests a 30% reduction compared to catch volumes recorded a few years ago. The changes in coral coverage and the fishing pressure over coral reefs have exerted effects on species of fishing importance

Semantic Geodemography and Urban Interoperability

Nowadays there exists an increasing interest on the use of the information collected by cities coming from different resources as data with dynamic nature like the one provided by sensor networks, as static data associated to the socio-technical system that the city performs. As well as the Semantic Sensor Web allows the standardization of data, it is essential to give an appropriate dealing to geo-demographic data. In this paper, an approach to the semantization of the geo-demographic information is presented, with the aim of achieving interoperability within other systems of the geospatial cyberinfrastructure. Furthermore, fundamental aspects of the creation of ontologies by starting from socio-demographical systems are discussed and the process is illustrated with a case study.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2009-09492Junta de Andalucía TIC-606

Nuevo método para acelerar la curación de la enfermedad de Perthes

Se presenta el caso de un paciente de 13 años de edad, con el diagnóstico de enfermedad de Perthes avanzada, atendido en el servicio de Ortopedia y Traumatología del Hospital Universitario Celia Sánchez Manduley, en el que se empleó por primera vez el tratamiento quirúrgico convencional asociado al empleo de la oxigenación hiperbárica. La evolución del paciente fue satisfactoria, la nueva combinación de tratamientos, logró reducir el período de evolución de la enfermedad en seis meses.A case of 13 years old patient with advanced Perthes disease is presented. The child was admitted to the orthopedics and traumathology service of the University Hospital Celia Sánchez Manduley. Surgical treatment was associated to hiperbaric oxynation therapy. The patient's outcome was satisfactory. The new treatment combination was able to reduce the evolution's period of disease in six months