Flora algal de la cuenca del río Guadalquivir: Su valor en la determinación de la ecorregionalización de la cuenca

In compliance with the Water Framework Directive of the European Union, we needed to diagnose the ecologic quality of the different sections of the rivers of the Guadalquivir basin. In order to establish a regional classification of the water bodies by a grouping into areas of similar characteristics, we took into consideration the benthic phycologic flora of the Guadalquivir-River basin. Benthic algae, being one of the groups of organisms that best define the water quality of rivers, are useful for characterizing the basin´s ecoregionalization. We collected multihabitat samples in 109 georeferenced reaches and identified 777 algal taxa: 397 Bacillariophyceae (diatoms), 181 Chlorophyta, 148 Cyanoprokariota, 41 Euglenophyta, 4 Chrysophyceae, 3 Dinophyta, 2 Rodophyta, and 1 Cryptophyta. Except for Achnanthidium minutissimum?it being present in nearly all the sites?the species composition enabled the identification of 4 groups: (1) the Sierra-Morena rivers with a predominantly siliceous substrate and concomitantly low mineralized water (< 250 mg/L); (2) the Doñana and lower-Guadiamar rivers of the lower-Guadalquivir with a high relative proportion of sodium; (3) rivers with any kind of disturbance, principally organic contamination, grouped regardless of their geographical location; (4) rivers of high calcium content that, though constituting a heterogeneous group, the majority of which belong to the Betic-Mountain region. According to our results, the subbasin was the one that determined the composition of the periphyton. The categorization of the rivers according to biota obtained in the present work differs from the hydrogeomorphological classification established by the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation.En cumplimiento con la Directiva Marco para las Políticas del Agua (DMA) de la Unión Europea fue necesario diagnosticar la calidad ecológica de los distintos tramos de los ríos de la cuenca del Guadalquivir. Para establecer una regionalización de las masas de agua agrupándolas en zonas de similares características se tomó en consideración la flora ficológica bentónica de la cuenca del río Guadalquivir y su valor en la ecorregionalización de la cuenca debido a que las algas bentónicas están entre los grupos de organismos que mejor definen la calidad del agua de los ríos. Se extrajeron muestras multihábitat en 109 tramos georeferenciados. Se identificaron 777 taxa algales: 397 Bacillariophyceae (diatomeas), 181 Chlorophyta, 148 Cyanoprokariota, 41 Euglenophyta, 4 Chrysophyceae, 3 Dinophyta, 2 Rodophyta y 1 Cryptophyta. Con excepción de Achnanthidium minutissimun, que estuvo presente en casi todos los sitios, según la composición algal pueden identificarse 4 grandes grupos: 1) Sierra Morena, con sustrato predominantemente silíceo y concomitantemente aguas poco mineralizadas (< 250 mg/L); 2) ríos de la depresión del Bajo Guadalquivir, Doñana y bajo Guadiamar con una proporción relativamente elevada de sodio; 3) ríos con algún tipo de perturbación, principalmente contaminación orgánica, agrupados independientemente de su situación geográfica, 4) ríos con alto contenido de calcio en sus aguas que, si bien forman un grupo heterogéneo, la mayoría pertenecen a la región de las Montañas Béticas. De acuerdo con nuestros resultados, la subcuenca fue la que determinó la composición del perifiton. La categorización de los ríos según la biota obtenida en el presente trabajo difiere de la clasificación hidrogeomorfológica establecida por la Confederación Hidrográfica del Guadalquivir.Fil: Casco, Maria Adela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Ficología; ArgentinaFil: Reyes, Isabel. Universidad de Sevilla; EspañaFil: Martín, Gonzalo. Universidad de Sevilla; EspañaFil: Fernández, María R.. Universidad de Sevilla; EspañaFil: Sala, Silvia Estela. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Ficología; ArgentinaFil: Toja, Julia. Universidad de Sevilla; Españ

Construction21- compartiendo buenas prácticas para una construcción más eficiente.

Reducir el impacto ambiental que genera el sector de la edificación necesita de la participación y colaboración de los distintos agentes del sector: arquitectos, urbanistas, promotores, ingenieros, constructores, administraciones, investigadores, etc. En este sentido, las redes sociales son extremadamente útiles para compartir, informar, debatir y,en definitiva, intercambiar experiencias y conocimientos sobre aquello que realmente funciona. Bajo esta idea y con el apoyo del programa Intelligent Energy Europe de la UE, se ha lanzado la plataforma web Construction21 en España, Francia, Alemania, Italia, Rumania y Lituania y con el objetivo de que pronto se extienda al resto de países de la UE-27. La plataforma contiene información detallada sobre edificios reales construidos bajo criterios ambientales, demostrando que otra manera de construir es posible. También facilita ejemplos de productos y soluciones constructivas innovadoras y ya testadas en casos reales. Las comunidades temáticas relativas a distintos temas clave de la construcción sostenible (como la eficiencia energética, la certificación ambiental, el análisis de ciclo de vida, la rehabilitación energética, etc.) constituyen otro de los contenidos principales de esta plataforma. En Construction21 son los propios usuarios los encargados de publicar los contenidos, fomentando así procesos de inteligencia compartida, tanto a nivel de las plataformas nacionales como a nivel europeo. Esta comunicación pretende explicar los alcances conseguidos hasta la fecha, así como los resultados esperados

Post-error response inhibition in high math-anxious individuals: Evidence from a multi-digit addition task

The aim of the study was to investigate how high math-anxious (HMA) individuals react to errors in an arithmetic task. Twenty HMA and 19 low math-anxious (LMA) individuals were presented with a multi-digit addition verification task and were given response feedback. Post-error adjustment measures (response time and accuracy) were analyzed in order to study differences between groups when faced with errors in an arithmetical task. Results showed that both HMA and LMA individuals were slower to respond following an error than following a correct answer. However, post-error accuracy effects emerged only for the HMA group, showing that they were also less accurate after having committed an error than after giving the right answer. Importantly, these differences were observed only when individuals needed to repeat the same response given in the previous trial. These results suggest that, for HMA individuals, errors caused reactive inhibition of the erroneous response, facilitating performance if the next problem required the alternative response but hampering it if the response was the same. This stronger reaction to errors could be a factor contributing to the difficulties that HMA individuals experience in learning math and doing math tasks

A Sentinel-1 Flood map generation QGIS plugin

Climate change derived in changing weather patterns making risks very difficult to predict and one very representative example is flood events. Flooding due to overflow from water bodies can be analyzed through change detection techniques with satellite imagery from the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors such as the one on board the ESA Sentinel-1. This analysis will help us have a better understanding of the floodable areas and therefore provide better support and response to these events. The presented open-source Quantum GIS (QGIS) plugin for flood mapping provides this analysis to a growing earth observation user community as described in the following abstract

Locations of objects are better remembered than their identities in naturalistic scenes:An eye-tracking experiment in mild cognitive impairment

Objective: Retaining the identity or location of decontextualized objects in visual short-term working memory (VWM) is impaired by healthy and pathological ageing, but research remains inconclusive on whether these two features are equally impacted by it. Moreover, it is unclear whether similar impairments would manifest in naturalistic visual contexts. Method: 30 people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 32 age-matched control participants (CPs) were eye-tracked within a change detection paradigm. They viewed 120 naturalistic scenes, and after a retention interval (1 s) asked whether a critical object in the scene had (or not) changed on either: identity (became a different object), location (same object but changed location), or both (changed in location and identity). Results: MCIs performed worse than CP but there was no interaction with the type of change. Changes in both were easiest while changes in identity alone were hardest. The latency to first fixation and first-pass duration to the critical object during successful recognition was not different between MCIs and CPs. Objects that changed in both features took longer to be fixated for the first time but required a shorter first pass compared to changes in identity alone which displayed the opposite pattern. Conclusions: Locations of objects are better remembered than their identities; memory for changes is best when involving both features. These mechanisms are spared by pathological ageing as indicated by the similarity between groups besides trivial differences in overall performance. These findings demonstrate that VWM mechanisms in the context of naturalistic scene information are preserved in people with MCI.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Insulin degradation by adipose tissue is increased in human obesity

White adipose tissue samples from obese and lean patients were used for the estimation ofinsulin protease and insulin:glutathione transhydrogenase using 1251-labeled insulin. There was no activity detected in the absence of reduced glutathione, which indicates that insulin is cleaved in human adipose "tissue through reduction of the disulfide bridge between the chains. O bese patients showed higher transhydrogenase activity (per U tissue protein wt, per U tissue wt, and in the total adipose tissue mass) than the lean group. There is a significant correlation between the activity per U tissue wt, and protein and total activity in the whole adipose tissue with respect to body mass index, with a higher activity in obese patients. The potential ofinsulin cleavage by adipose tissue in obese patients was a mean 5.6-fold higher than that in controla. The coexistence of high insulinemia and high cleavage capability implies that insulin secretion and turnover are increased in the o bese. Thus, white adipose tissue may be crucial in the control of energy availability through modulation ofinsulin cleavage

Crustacean assemblages of coastal wetlands from fragmented and scarcely isolated islands compared with the mainland

The present study compared crustacean assemblages from coastal wetlands between a fragment archipelago and a landmass. The study included four typical crustacean taxonomic groups (i.e. Cladocera, Copepoda, Ostracoda and Malacostraca) from the Balearic Archipelago region as an example of a fragment island (Archipelago') and the Catalonia region as the landmass (Mainland'; Spanish Mediterranean coast). We tested null hypotheses based on the expected similarity between Archipelago and Mainland in terms of crustacean assemblages and biodiversity. Similar relationships of those community attributes with environmental variables were also expected in both regions. The results partially met the null hypotheses. We found that crustacean taxonomic composition varied between Archipelago and Mainland, likely due to peculiar biological and biogeographical processes acting in the Archipelago. The relationship between crustacean assemblages and the environmental variables was mostly similar between Archipelago and Mainland, as expected. Both regions also showed similar patterns of species distribution (i.e. Archipelago and Mainland coastal wetlands were characterised by a few dominant species). This result could be masked by the filter' effect exercised by the harsh conditions of coastal wetlands. Moreover, the total diversity values (gamma biodiversity) in the Archipelago were similar to the values for the Mainland, supporting the hypothesis that fragment islands can be of substantial value for the conservation of global biodiversity.Peer reviewe

Estudio de la variación del contenido de humedad en el Pinus pinaster Ait. por medio de la técnica no destructiva del georradar / Assessment of the variation of the moisture content in the Pinus pinaster Ait using the non destructive gpr technique

La variación en el contenido de humedad (CH) tiene una influencia significativa tanto en las propiedades físico- químicas de la madera, como en sus propiedades electromagnéticas y por tanto afecta a las características de la propagación de las ondas. En concreto, en este trabajo se estudia la capacidad del georradar (GR) empleando una antena de 1.6GHz de frecuencia central para registrar las variaciones que se producen en la velocidad y en la amplitud de las ondas electromagnéticas cuando se propagan en unas viguetas de madera de Pinus pinaster Ait de uso estructural cuyo CH va disminuyendo. Se ha comprobado como cuando el CH descendía la velocidad de propagación y las amplitudes, tanto de la onda directa como de la reflejada aumentaba. Los altos factores de correlación encontrados demuestran que el GR es una técnica capaz de evaluar, de forma no destructiva, el CH de la madera de uso estructural. The moisture content variations in wood have a significant influence in wood?s physicochemical properties, as well as in its electromagnetic properties and to specific effects upon waves? characteristics. In particular, this paper focuses on the analysis of the Ground-penetrating Radar?s (GPR) using an antenna of 1.6 GHz central frequency capacity to register the velocity and the amplitude of the electromagnetic waves? variation during the drying process of Pinus pinaster Ait timber joists. The results showed that when timber MC descended, the propagation velocity and amplitude of both the direct and the reflected wave increased. The high correlation found between the variables studied demonstrates GPR efficiency and the innovative application of this technique as a non-destructive evaluation tool for timber structures, particularly when studying its moisture content

Waterfront Depth Analysis in Hardened Concrete by Means of the Nondestructive Ground-Penetrating Radar Technique

© 2015 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Durability of concrete structures depends mainly on the ease whereby water and any aggressive chemical agents dissolved therein can penetrate. Therefore, measuring water penetrability in concrete structures is crucial mostly when structures are in service. In this context, nondestructive techniques play an important role. In particular, the electromagnetic waves emitted by ground-penetrating radar (GPR) are very sensitive to the water content of the medium through which they propagate. This fact provides an interesting opportunity to analyze if the GPR technique allows the assessment of water penetrability in concrete with enough accuracy. In line with this, this paper describes the laboratory experiments and relevant analysis carried out to study the capability of GPR to assess water penetrability in hardened concrete. For this purpose, concrete specimens were fabricated and dried in an oven after 90 days of curing. They were then dipped into water and GPR measurements were taken at different intervals, based on coupling a 2.0 GHz antenna. The results showed that the agreement between velocity increments and the waterfront advance was excellent. In addition, a specific processing of the data acquired was developed. This process included the isolation of the reflection due to the waterfront, produced just before the reflection of the bottom of the samples. As a result of this processing, the in-depth waterfront location at different times was determined with high reliability.This work was supported by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain) under the PAID-06-12 research plan through a project entitled: "Analisis de la durabilidad del hormigon por medio de la tecnica no destructiva del georradar."Rodríguez-Abad, I.; Klysz, G.; Martínez-Sala, RM.; Balayssac, JP.; Mene-Aparicio, J. (2016). Waterfront Depth Analysis in Hardened Concrete by Means of the Nondestructive Ground-Penetrating Radar Technique. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing. 9(1):91-97. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2015.2449737S91979

Seroprevalence of Bartonella spp. infection in HIV patients in Catalonia, Spain

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although the first clinical descriptions of <it>Bartonella </it>infection were associated with immunocompromised patient with bacillary angiomatosis, we currently know that this organism is directly involved in diseases affecting a large number of patients, regardless of their immune status. Cat scratch disease, hepatic peliosis, and some cases of bacteraemia and endocarditis, are directly caused by some species of the genus <it>Bartonella</it>. The purpose of this study was to determinate the prevalence of IgG antibodies against <it>Bartonella henselae </it>and <it>B. quintana </it>in HIV patients and to identify the epidemiological factors involved.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Serum samples were collected from HIV patients treated at Hospital de Sabadell. Antibodies to <it>B. henselae </it>and <it>B. quintana </it>from 340 patients were examined by indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA). Significance levels for univariate statistical test were determined by the Mann-Whitney U test and χ²test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 340 patients, 82 were women and 258 men, with a median age of 42.21 ± 10.35 years (range 16–86 years). Seventy-six (22.3%) patients reacted with one or more <it>Bartonella </it>antigens. Of all the factors concerning the seroprevalence rate being studied (age, sex, intravenous drugs use, alcohol consumption, CD4 levels, AIDS, HCV, HBV, residential area), only age was statistically significant.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A high percentage of HIV patients presents antibodies to <it>Bartonella </it>and is increasing with age.</p