Efficiency analysis of Policies against desertification by applying DEA: a case study in the river Guadalentin catchment (Almeria, Spain)

This paper deals about an attempt to evaluate the different policies against desertification carried out during a twenty five year period (1978-2003) in the eight municipalities which compound the river Guadalentín catchment (Murcia, Spain). The approach is based on DEA and the European Environmental Agency indicator studies, the former to measure the efficiency and the second to select the best environmental indicators. The analysis has been reiterated with three different sets of outputs related to the different levels and aspects of the desertification process- from the merely soil losses to the overall desertification process in which population losses are considered. As a result a set of efficiency indexes has been obtained for each municipality, which show clearly the contribution of each action against desertification. These results are very valuable to establish future long term desertification policies in similar territories

Ecotourism as a contributor of sustainable development of regional areas

This study gathered information about the implementation of ecotourism as a sustainable development tool, in two distinct case studies: Corangamite Catchment Region in Australia, and Janos Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. The results provided factors and criteria, essential for the development of ecotourism, that form the base for an ecotourism development framework

A synthetic biology approach for consistent production of plant-made recombinant polyclonal antibodies against snake venom toxins

Antivenoms developed from the plasma of hyperimmunized animals are the only effective treatment available against snakebite envenomation but shortage of supply contributes to the high morbidity and mortality toll of this tropical disease. We describe a synthetic biology approach to affordable and cost-effective antivenom production based on plant-made recombinant polyclonal antibodies (termed pluribodies). The strategy takes advantage of virus superinfection exclusion to induce the formation of somatic expression mosaics in agroinfiltrated plants, which enables the expression of complex antibody repertoires in a highly reproducible manner. Pluribodies developed using toxin-binding genetic information captured from peripheral blood lymphocytes of hyperimmunized camels recapitulated the overall binding activity of the immune response. Furthermore, an improved plant-made antivenom (plantivenom) was formulated using an in vitro selected pluribody against Bothrops asper snake venom toxins and has been shown to neutralize a wide range of toxin activities and provide protection against lethal venom doses in mice.Fil: Julve Parreño, Jose Manuel. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; EspañaFil: Huet, Estefanía. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; EspañaFil: Fernández del Carmen, Asun. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; EspañaFil: Segura, Alvaro. Universidad de Costa Rica; Costa RicaFil: Venturi, Micol. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; EspañaFil: Gandía, Antoni. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; EspañaFil: Pan, Wei-Song. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; EspañaFil: Albaladejo, Irene. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; EspañaFil: Forment, Javier. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; EspañaFil: Pla, Davinia. Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia; EspañaFil: Wigdorovitz, Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; ArgentinaFil: Calvete, Juan J.. Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia; EspañaFil: Gutiérrez, Carlos. Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; EspañaFil: Gutiérrez, José María. Universidad de Costa Rica; Costa RicaFil: Granell, Antonio. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; EspañaFil: Orzáez, Diego. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia; Españ

Costos de producción de malanga en las fincas: Gutiérrez, Montevideo y Santa Mónica del Municipio del Tuma La Dalia, Departamento de Matagalpa, durante el año 2008

Los costos de Producción de Malanga proporcionan al productor una fuente de datos que ayudan a tomar decisiones referentes a los métodos d e producción más redituables, uso de los recursos con mayor eficiencia, fijación de los precios de venta, facilitan la elaboración de presupuestos para periodos consecutivos, efectuar comparaciones de la marcha actual de la Finca con períodos anteriores y conocer los resultados económicos obtenidos durante un ciclo productivo

Análisis de la eficiencia de las políticas contra la desertificación llevada a cabo en la cuenca del río Guadalentin mediante Análisis Envolvente de Datos (DEA)

Mediante análisis envolvente de datos (DEA) CCR-input-orientado y DEA con ponderación cruzada se ha analizado la eficiencia de las diversas actuaciones aplicadas en ocho municipios de la cuenca del río Guadalentín, en búsqueda de la mejor política aplicada entre los años 1978 y 2003. Con el análisis CCR-input-orientado se han detectado los municipios claramente ineficientes y las causas de ineficiencia. Mediante el segundo análisis se ha obtenido una valoración de la eficiencia global de cada municipio y se ha podido estudiar la contribución unitaria de cada recurso en cada término municipal

The Flavonol-Anthocyanin Pathway in Blackberry and Arabidopsis: State of the Art

Flavonols and anthocyanins are plant secondary metabolites with an increasing interest due to their beneficial effects on human health. They are present in all plants, participating in plant protection against biotic and abiotic stresses. However, only some plant species accumulate them in relevant amounts, as is the case for berries. Among the health benefits reported is prevention of metabolic syndrome, s, including prevention of insulin resistance associated to type 2 diabetes. Therefore, there is a big interest to improve contents on plant foods to benefit health through the diet, as well as to obtain them for functional ingredients for food supplements. In fulfillment of this objective, a deep study about their biosynthetic pathway has been carried out in model plants, where the genome is available. However, not all species that accumulate them in high amounts have their genome sequenced, as is the case for blackberry. Transcriptomic approaches have been undertaken to gain knowledge of its specific biosynthetic pathway and regulatory elements, aiming to improve bioactive contents in the edible parts. Furthermore, determining the regulatory pathways will help to improve yields and in vitro production. For this purpose, a review on elicitors used to trigger this pathway is presented

Effect of confinement on the solubility of salt in water: A simulation study on zeolites

Motivation: Salinity is an important concept to understand the environmental conditions and organisms that can be found in water as well and depends on the solubility of salts in water. The effect of temperature and pressure on the solubility of salts (as sodium chloride) in water and other solvents has been widely studied. However, there is scarce studies on the solubility of salts in confined systems, and how the confinement affects to the solvation of salts. Zeolites are a group of crystalline porous solids based on silica and they exhibit high surface area, high thermal stability, and high exchange capacity. Pure silica zeolites are hydrophobic, but the presence of cations can change this nature making them suitable for a variety of applications such as drying of refrigerants, removal of atmospheric pollutants, separation of air components, recovering radioactive ions from waste solutions, catalysis of hydrocarbon reactions, and many others. In this work, we study the influence of the confinement of water in two types of zeolite on the solubility of sodium chloride.Methods: To study the influence that confinement of water in zeolites has on the dissociation of NaCl clusters, we carry out molecular simulation using two techniques, Molecular Dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo methods (MC). All simulations are performed using the RASPA simulation code and the force fields and models used for water and the ions are taken from the literature and previously validated. As initial step, we use MD to analyse the effect of temperature and system size on the dissociation of salt. Then, the effect of confinement is analysed using MC simulations. For this purpose we calculated the adsorption of water in two commercial zeolites (MFI and FAU) and after obtaining the adsorption capacity of water for these structures, we study the dissociation of salt in the adsorbed water. We focus on the effect exerted by the number of cations on the zeolites, the topology and the initial concentration of salt.Results: Our results show that the size of the simulating box has an impact on the dissociation of ions, obtaining that the larger the box, the better the dissociation. In the confined systems, we found that in the pure silica MFI zeolite (longitudinal channels connected to zig-zag channels) dissociation is enhanced and the same occurs in the pure FAU zeolite (cages connected throw windows). Nevertheless, for the FAU zeolite with aluminium atoms, the dissociation of ions is hampered when increasing the number of Al substitutions. On the contrary, the presence of aluminium in the MFI does not alter the dissociation of ions

Novel method for an optimised calculation of modal analysis of girder bridge decks

A correct modal analysis of girder bridge decks requires a correct characterisation of the deformation of their cross-section, governed by the longitudinal bending of the girders and the transverse bending of the slab. This paper presents a novel method that allows the modal analysis of girder bridge decks by applying a matrix formulation that reduces the structural problem to one degree of freedom for each girder: the deflection at the centre of the beam span. A parametric study is presented that analyses the structural response of 64 girder bridge decks. The study compares the dynamic structural response obtained by the proposed method with that obtained by traditional grillage calculation methods. The method is experimentally contrasted by a dynamic load test of a full-scale girder bridge. As a result of the analysis, the proposed method reflects adequate convergence with the experimental dynamic structural response. The use of the proposed novel analysis method contributes to the intelligent modelling process for the analysis of the dynamic behaviour of bridges opening the way to easily feed a Digital Twin accelerating the demands of the Decision Support System in real time.Tis work has received funding from the European’s Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the grant agreement No 769373 (FORESEE project)

Phylogenetic patterns of extinction risk in the endemic flora of a Mediterranean hotspot as a guiding tool for preemptive conservation actions

Climate change is a major driver of biodiversity decline with pervasive effects in biodiversity hotspots, where many endemic and threatened species thrive. However, the biological drivers of extinction susceptibility remain largely elusive, which hampers the implementation of effective conservation policies. Here, we advocate for the use of phylogenies as a complementary tool to inform policy makers. If we assume that the traits that determine extinction susceptibility are somewhat evolutionarily conserved, identifying the clades that accumulate a disproportionate amount of threatened species may help to mitigate potential increases in extinction risk among currently unthreatened species in these clades, even if the underlying biological drivers are unknown. We focused on the complete endemic angiosperm flora of a Mediterranean hotpot (Iberian Peninsula) to examine phylogenetic patterns in extinction risk expressed as IUCN categories (Least Concern “LC”, Near Threatened “NT”, Vulnerable “VU”, Endangered “EN” and Critically Endangered “CR”) using alpha and beta diversity metrics, comparative methods and a “hot node” approach. Phylogenetic diversity was significantly low for EN species and marginally significant for NT and CR, while LC and VU categories showed random pattern. Phylogenetic beta diversity (PBD) between IUCN categories was intermediate (0.40 – 0.61) and predominantly due to the “true” turnover component of PBD. Phylogenetic turnover was significantly low between NT – VU and VU – EN, suggesting that closely related species tend to show different threat status. In contrast, the comparisons involving the CR category sit toward the higher tail of the distribution, indicating a somewhat higher degree of clade specificity for CR species. In line with these patterns, phylogenetic signal in extinction risk was rather low (lambda = 0.23). Several of the “hot” clades that accumulated a significantly high number of species with the same threat status were specific to certain IUCN categories, yet few of them were observed across the categories. Most notably, the Caryophyllales stood out as the main threat-accumulating lineage, particularly within the Plumbaginaceae. All in all, our results indicate that few phylogenetic clades concentrate a great fraction of the extinction-risk gradient in the endemic flora of the western Mediterranean, and monitoring programs should pay particular attention to these extinction-prone lineagesThis paper contributes to the project REMEDINAL TE (P2018/EMT-4338) from the Regional Government of the Community of Madri