Distribution of leaf photosynthesis and transpiration within grapevine canopies under different drought conditions

The effects of seasonal drought on the distribution of leaf area, photosynthesis and transpiration within the canopy were evaluated for two Spanish grapevine cultivars. Both varieties were cultivated according to their typical training system.At early stages of drought, reduction of photosynthesis and transpiration was only observed in sun-exposed leaves. As drought intensified, even less sun-exposed leaves were affected. Severe drought reduced photosynthesis and transpiration in all locations of the canopy except for most shaded leaves in the inner part. However, those leaves were almost unproductive, and seemed to be insensitive to variation of both light intensity and drought. Leaf area was also reduced by drought, but the distribution of these reductions within the canopy differed between cultivars, possibly reflecting differences in the training system.Leaves from all locations of the canopy except those in the central part showed a similar radiation use efficiency, suggesting that the observed variation in photosynthesis within the canopy was mostly related to different light interception, while other factors such as different leaf age should play only a minor role. Photosynthetic radiation use efficiency strongly depended on both, pre-dawn leaf water potential and light-saturated stomatal conductance. The interest of these results for modeling purposes is discussed.

Error de inclinación paleomagnética en materiales aluviales del Oligoceno superior del sector Suroriental de la Cuenca del Ebro (Región Surpirenaica, NE de España)

Alluvial red-beds of two Oligocene succesions in the Southeastem Ebro Basin (Southem Pyrenean foreland, NE Spain) show inclination shallowing, taking into account the reference Oligocene palaeolatitude expected for this region. This fact is interpreted to reflect an inclination error due to either these factors: hydrodynamic control of magnetic particles in the depositional environment, differential compaction of sediment during burial and tectonic deformation. The studied lithofacies are split into five groups: gray sandstones, red sandstones, red siltstones, red mudstones and limestones. A strong positive correlation between the relative amount of phyllosilicates and the magnitude of the inclination error has been established. Lithofacies with low percentage of phyllosilicates (limestones and gray sandstones) display a statistically not significant error of 5" with respect to the magnetic palaeofield inclination, whereas the sediments with a higher phyllosilicate content (siltstones and mudstones) show significant errors of up to 25". This observation has not a major consequence for the interpretation of the magnetic polarity but is crucial for palaeogeographic and palinspastic reconstmctions based on palaeolatitudinal data. The obtained results in this study highlight that the interpretation of paleolatitude based on paleomagnetic data is sometimes not straightfonvard and it requires a detailed evaluation of the rock magnetic parameters (AMS in particular) to reveal the presence of such inclination deflection

Reduced Water Permeability of Biodegradable PCL Nanocomposite Coated Paperboard Packaging

In this work, we studied the properties of printed paperboard samples coated with biodegradable PCL polymer, which was considered to overcome the disadvantages (barrier properties) of a paper-based material. Additionally, the samples were coated with PCL modified with SiO2 and Al2O3 nanoparticles. The characterization of the coated paperboard (with print) samples was made by determination of water vapor transmission rate (WVTR), contact angle of water and its evolution over time, and mechanical and visual properties. The samples were also examined by SEM microscopy. The results show that PCL and PCL coatings modified with SiO2 and Al2O3 nanoparticles slow down the water vapor transmission rate when compared to the paperboard without coatings. The water contact angle measurements show an increase in hydrophobicity in paperboard coated with PCL-SiO2, while PCL-Al2O3 shows a decrease when compared to neat paperboard and paperboard coated with neat PCL. The studied coated samples also improve mechanical properties of paperboard while preserving the visual properties of print. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

CO2/O2 specificity factor of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase in grapevines (Vitis vinifera L.): First in vitro determination and comparison to in vivo estimations

The specificity factor (S) of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate. carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) defines the relative rates of carboxylation and oxygenation of Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP) catalysed by the enzyme. The determination of S for Rubisco purified from the Vitis vinifera L. cvs Tempranillo and Manto Negro is described here for the first time. Rubisco extraction was made in Bicine buffer with the inclusion of polyethylene glycol (PEG), beta-mereaptoethanol, diethyldithio-carbamic acid (DIECA) and several protease inhibitors. Furthermore, in the same cultivars, the apparent in vivo specificity factor for Rubisco (S*), was obtained from gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence measurements. For both cultivars the values of S were close to 100 at 25 degreesC. However, in mature leaves, S* was about 67 for Manto Negro and 55 or 77 for Tempranillo, depending on leaf age. Leaves of plants under drought showed even lower values. These discrepancies between S and S* are ascribed to equating CO2 in the sub-stomatal cavity with CO2 at the Rubisco catalytic site in the chloroplast. However, S* values from young developing leaves were very close to S for both cultivars. It is concluded that estimations of S* based on gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence data are reliable only in thin, young and non-stressed leaves.

The efficacy of mupirocin ointment and chlorhexidine body scrubs in the eradication of nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus among patients undergoing long-term hemodialysis

Patients undergoing long-term hemodialysis have a high prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage, which may lead to serious infections. Mupirocin ointment has been used intranasally to eradicate S. aureus carriage in health human volunteers and health care workers. Chlorhexidine, an antiseptic with excellent antistaphylococcal activity, is widely used for handwashing and skin cleansing. METHODS: Anterior nares cultures were obtained from patients older than 18 years who were undergoing long-term hemodialysis. Patients with S. aureus nasal carriage were enrolled in the study. Axillae and groins were cultured. Patients were given mupirocin ointment intranasally twice per day for 7 days and chlorhexidine body scrubs daily for the first 3 days. Follow-up cultures were obtained from anterior nares, axillae, and groins at 1 day, and 1, 4, 8 and 12 weeks after treatment. RESULTS: One day after completion of treatment nasal carriage was eradicated in 83% of patients (15/18). After 12 weeks, 69% of patients (11/16) were free of nasal carriage. CONCLUSIONS: Success rates of eradication were excellent compared with those in other published reports. This simple and effective regimen had no major side effect

Paper de Lactobacillus sake i Lactobacillus curvatus en la maduració del fuet

Peer Reviewe

The use of arbuscular mycorrhizal inoculum in viticulture is not always positive: a systematic review

For more than 70 years, the scientific literature has demonstrated that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) have positive effects on plant growth and stress tolerance. However, AMF have only been widely implemented in agricultural systems in the last decade. Recent reviews indicate AMF are key to the sustainability of viticulture. To explore the universality of the positive effects of AMF inoculation on grapevines, we created a database of the results from 30 publications that performed 169 experiments comparing the development of grapevine plants inoculated with AMF against control vines. We calculated inoculation dependence, as ID = ((mean of inoculated treatment – mean of control)/mean of inoculated treatment) * 100), to compare the effects of AM inoculation on the growth of grapevine plants between different experiments. In most studies, the experimental conditions differed significantly from commercial conditions, since 75% of the studies were conducted under greenhouse conditions and 71.8% of studies compared the growth of inoculated plants with plants growing in a sterilized substrate. High variability was observed in the ID of different response variables, be-tween the various rootstocks tested, and between different species compositions of AMF inoculum, demonstrating that the effects of mycorrhizal inoculation in vineyard growth are highly context dependent. This study demonstrates further research is required to characterize the effects of AMF under field conditions. Moreover, this work indicates that specific trials are needed to determine the effect of particular mycorrhizal strains on individual rootstocks under specific growing conditions before the use of AMF can be recommended to vine-growers

Chemical determinants of occupational hypersensitivity pneumonitis

Background: Workplace inhalational exposures to low molecular weight (LMW) chemicals cause hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP) as well as the more common manifestation of respiratory hypersensitivity, occupational asthma (OA). Aims: To explore whether chemical causation of HP is associated with different structural and physico-chemical determinants from OA. Methods: Chemical causes of human cases of HP and OA were identified from searches of peer-reviewed literature up to the end of 2011. Each chemical was categorised according to whether or not it had been the attributed cause of at least one case of HP. The predicted asthma hazard was determined for each chemical using a previously developed quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) model. The chemicals in both sets were independently and ‘blindly’ analysed by an expert in mechanistic chemistry for a qualitative prediction of protein cross-linking potential and determination of lipophilicity (log Kow). Results: Ten HP causing chemicals were identified and had a higher median QSAR predicted asthma hazard than the control group of 101 OA causing chemicals (p < 0.005). Nine of ten HP causing chemicals were predicted to be protein cross-linkers compared to 24/92 controls (p<0.0001). The distributions of log Kow indicated higher values for the HP list (median 3.47) compared to controls (median 0.81) (p < 0.05). Conclusion: These findings suggest that chemicals capable of causing HP tend to have higher predicted asthma hazard, are more lipophilic and are more likely to be protein cross-linkers than those causing OA. Key words: hypersensitivity pneumonitis, occupational chemicals, occupational respiratory disease, toxic inhalatio