Sensitivity of quinoa cv. ‘Titicaca’ to low salinity conditions

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Will.) is an annual herbaceous Andean plant. In recent years there is a growing interest on it due to its high quality as food, its wide adaptation to agroecological conditions and resistance to different abiotic stresses. In this work, we evaluate the growth pattern of quinoa plants cv. ‘Titicaca’, subjected to different levels of salinity, focusing on leaf production and nutrient content. In this sense, the results have shown that a high concentration of salinity negatively affects the growth of quinoa plants. In fact, plants grown with 200 mM NaCl reduced the photosynthetic rate and levels of chlorophylls and carotenoids in comparison with the rest of the treatments. Likewise, it has been proven how the progressive increase in salinity has negative effects on transpiration, stomatal conductance and photosynthetic rate, with significant subsequent reductions in shoot biomass, leaf area and nutrient adquisition, but without a decline in leaf dry weight (DW) production. However, the treatment of 200 mM NaCl demonstrated the best results regarding the water-use efficiency, as well as the number of saline glands. According to our results, the quinoa plant cv. ‘Titicaca’ seems to be tolerant to moderate concentrations of salinity (50–100 mM NaCl). This study could serve as a reference on this little known and cultivated species in the Mediterranean region, since it could become an alternative crop in areas with moderate salinity problems.Luna Morcillo was supported by the Spanish MICINN (PTA2019-018094). CEAM Foundation was funded by the Generalitat Valenciana

Optimal statistical calculation of underground cable bundles positions for time-varying currents

Underground cables are intensively used, especially for transporting energy in urban areas. In general, the currents flowing in the cables change, following the loads profile. Moreover, the optimal installation of these cables must consider geometry, magnetic fields and arrangement costs. This paper proposes and analyses different statistical calculations of these optimal locations. The application of the methods to real data demonstrates the effectiveness of the statistical approaches in terms of costs and magnetic fields.Edgardo Castronuovo acknowledges the Ministry of Science and Technology of Spain (Project RESMART, 2014/00338/001)

Optimal statistical calculation of power cables disposition in tunnels, for reducing magnetic fields and costs

The allocation of electric power transmission lines in tunnels is a common practice in several applications, like underground lines in urban areas, connections of cables to substations, mining and railway systems. Construction of tunnels requires difficult and costly works. Besides, limitations of external and internal magnetic fields generated by the currents in the cables of the tunnel are needed. The present paper proposes and analyzes different statistical methods for calculation of optimal dispositions of cables and tunnel dimensions for reducing magnetic field and costs, for time varying currents in the cables. The implementation of these methods to a four-circuit real case probes their effectiveness.Edgardo Castronuovo acknowledges the Ministry of Science and Technology of Spain (Project RESMART, 2014/00338/001)Publicad

Scanning agroforestry-based solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation in Europe

Agroforestry, the integration of trees and shrubs with livestock and/or crops, can make a substantial contribution to mitigating and enabling adaptation to climate change. However, its full potential will only be achieved if the challenges to agroforestry implementation are identified and the most efficient and sustainable solutions are made widely known. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore these challenges and to determine the most suitable set of solutions for each challenge that combines local effectiveness with European scale relevance. We performed a two-step “solution scanning” exercise. First, the main challenges to sustainable agroforestry in Europe were identified through 42 participatory workshops with 665 local stakeholders. The solutions to each challenge were scanned and classified into either direct solutions (28) to address climate change or indirect solutions (32) that improve the sustainability of agroforestry. In a second step, the direct solutions were prioritized through expert consultation in terms of their potential benefits for mitigation and adaptation. The most commonly reported barriers were a lack of knowledge and reliable financial support to which the most widely suggested indirect solutions were agroforestry training programmes and the development of safe economic routes. The direct solutions considered as holding the greatest mitigation and adaptation potential were the adoption of practices capable to increase soil organic carbon pools and the implementation of multifunctional hedgerows and windbreaks respectively. Our solution scanning approach can inform the implementation of the European climate strategy in general and to the Common Agricultural Policy in particular by pointing to concrete climate beneficial actions

Biodisponibilidad de corticoides fluorados en preparaciones semisólidas

Trabajo presentado al II Congreso Nacional de Biofarmacia y Farmacocinética. Madrid, 16-18 mayo de 1977.En el presente trabajo se ha realizado un estudio de la biodisponibillidad de tres corticoides fluorados contenidos en diversas preparaciones semisólidas. Las sustancias medicamentosas objeto de ensayo, Flupamesona, Flupredniliden y Formocortal, se han incluido en dos excipientes usuales, el Hydrophilic Ointment y el de Polyethileneglycol, ensayándose además tres formulaciones comerciales que los contienen. Las pruebas efectuadas en todas ellas son de dos tipos: - "In vitro", según la técnica de cesión en miristato de isopropilo. - "In vivo", por el procedimiento de vasocontricción o emblanquecimiento de McKENZIE y STOUGHTON. De los resultados obtenidos se comprueba que el Hydrophilic Ointment presenta mejores características de cesión, superiores incluso a las formulaciones del mercado farmacéutico. Asimismo, de los tres corticoides ensayados, el Formocortal presenta mayor actividad vaso constrictora, siguiéndole el Fluprednyliden, y encontrándose en último lugar la Flupamesona.In the present work a study on the bioavailibity of three fluorate corticoids contained in various semisolid preparations have been carried out. The medicinal substance submítted to the assay, Flupamesona, Fluprednyliden y Formocortal, have been included in two usual excipients, the Hydrophilic Ointment and the Polyethyleneglycol. Furthermore, three commercial formulations in whích they are contained, were assayed. The test carried out in all of them are of two kinds: - "In vitro", following the technique of cession in isopropyl myristate. - "In vivo", foUowing the procedure of vasoconstricción and bleaching of McKENZIE and STOUGHTON. From the results obtained we verify that the Hydrophilic Ointment shows better properUes of cession, even better than the formulations which are available in the pharmaceutical market. Likewise, from the three corticoids assayed, the Fomocortal shows a greater vasoconstricting activity, being followed by the Fluprednyliden; the Flupamesona 1s found in the last position

Methodology for developing a Speech into Sign Language Translation System in a New Semantic Domain

This paper proposes a methodology for developing a speech into sign language translation system considering a user-centered strategy. This method-ology consists of four main steps: analysis of technical and user requirements, data collection, technology adaptation to the new domain, and finally, evalua-tion of the system. The two most demanding tasks are the sign generation and the translation rules generation. Many other aspects can be updated automatical-ly from a parallel corpus that includes sentences (in Spanish and LSE: Lengua de Signos Española) related to the application domain. In this paper, we explain how to apply this methodology in order to develop two translation systems in two specific domains: bus transport information and hotel reception

Method to Calculate the Electricity Generated by a Photovoltaic Cell, Based on Its Mathematical Model Simulations in MATLAB

This paper presents a practical method for calculating the electrical energy generated by a PV panel (kWhr) through MATLAB simulations based on the mathematical model of the cell, which obtains the “Mean Maximum Power Point” (MMPP) in the characteristic V-P curve, in response to evaluating historical climate data at specific location. This five-step method calculates through MMPP per day, per month, or per year, the power yield by unit area, then electrical energy generated by PV panel, and its real conversion efficiency. To validate the method, it was applied to Sewage Treatment Plant for a Group of Drinking Water and Sewerage of Yucatan (JAPAY), México, testing 250 Wp photovoltaic panels of five different manufacturers. As a result, the performance, the real conversion efficiency, and the electricity generated by five different PV panels in evaluation were obtained and show the best technical-economic option to develop the PV generation project

Social Determinants of Health, the Family, and Children’s Personal Hygiene: A Comparative Study

Habits of personal hygiene are mostly acquired during childhood, and are, therefore, influenced by one’s family. Poor hygiene habits are a risk factor for preventable disease and social rejection. Social Determinants of Health (SDH) consist of contextual factors, structural mechanisms, and the individual’s socioeconomic position, which, via intermediary determinants, result in inequities of health and well–being. Dysfunctional family situations may, therefore, be generated by an unequal distribution of factors determining SDH. Little attention has been paid to the influence of the family on personal hygiene and the perception of social rejection in children. We designed a study to examine differences in personal hygiene and in the perception of social rejection between children in reception centers and children living in a family setting. A validated questionnaire on children’s personal hygiene habits was completed by 51 children in reception centers and 454 children in normal families. Hygiene habits were more deficient among the children in reception centers than among the other children in all dimensions studied. Deficient hygiene habits were observed in the offspring of families affected by the main features of social inequality, who were more likely to perceive social rejection for this reason and less likely to consider their family as the greatest influence on their personal hygiene practices

Language identification based on a discriminative text categorization technique

In this paper, we describe new results and improvements to a lan-guage identification (LID) system based on PPRLM previously introduced in [1] and [2]. In this case, we use as parallel phone recognizers the ones provided by the Brno University of Technology for Czech, Hungarian, and Russian lan-guages, and instead of using traditional n-gram language models we use a lan-guage model that is created using a ranking with the most frequent and discrim-inative n-grams. In this language model approach, the distance between the ranking for the input sentence and the ranking for each language is computed, based on the difference in relative positions for each n-gram. This approach is able to model reliably longer span information than in traditional language models obtaining more reliable estimations. We also describe the modifications that we have being introducing along the time to the original ranking technique, e.g., different discriminative formulas to establish the ranking, variations of the template size, the suppression of repeated consecutive phones, and a new clus-tering technique for the ranking scores. Results show that this technique pro-vides a 12.9% relative improvement over PPRLM. Finally, we also describe re-sults where the traditional PPRLM and our ranking technique are combined

The Effect of Weekly Training Load across a Competitive Microcycle on Contextual Variables in Professional Soccer

10 p.Analysis of the key performance variables in soccer is one of the most continuous and attractive research topics. Using global positioning devices (GPS), the primary aim of this study was to highlight the physiological response of a professional soccer team across competitive microcycles in-season according to the most influential contextual performance variables. Determining the training load (TL), a work ratio was established between all recorded data within the training sessions and the competitive profile (CP). Each microcycle was classified in accordance with the contextual variables: opponent level (high, medium, low), match location (home and away) and score (win, draw, lose). Results revealed that the team were significantly more successful (games won) in competitive games against high-level opponents and when played at home. Cumulative microcycle/ weekly training load (WTL) was significantly lower when the team won. In addition to the opponent level and the match location, WTL could condition the athlete?s performance in the competition. Competitive performance responses are the main source of information for the planning of training programs. The results of this study could be used as a reference to structure TL and WTL according to contextual variables in the competition. This study, which is the first of its kind, revealed that WTL effects the performance of the players in the competition