Anémonas anillo, una visión general (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Actiniaria)

The present observations represent a new record of species of Actiniaria that are able to attach to a gorgonian branch by surrounding it with a solid piece of tissue junction and a significant reduction of the coelenteron. Ring sea anemones are provisionally placed in the Actinostolidae. They seem to be more common at depths between 85 and 1500 m., and according to our observations they are specialized to exclusively colonize on some species of gorgonians or pennatulaceans. Parasitism best describes the relationship between ring sea anemones and their hosts. We recognize five different species of ring sea anemones, one described by Hiles (1899) as Peronanthus verrucellae, and the others named by us provisionally as Peronanthus sp1, sp2, sp3 & sp4. The strategy displayed by ring sea anemones has several advantages, such as placement economy (see above), a better attachment against any current action, exploitation of food resources inaccessible to most other Actiniarians, and it allows them avoidance of habitat competition. The impossibility to colonize any other substrate but a certain group of gorgonians and a reduction of the gastric cavity are the main disadvantages detected in the ring sea anemones’ way of life. Apparently, this group of sea anemones is widespread through the Pacific Ocean.Un nuevo grupo de especies de actiniarios que desarrollan un nuevo sistema para afianzarse alrededor de los ejes de gorgonias y pennatuláceos es estudiado por nosotros en el presente trabajo. Se trata de un anillo de tejido que rodea los ejes y queda perfectamente sellado por medio de uniones del tejido produciendo una reducción del celenterón. Anémonas anillo es como las hemos denominado y provisionalmente han sido incluidas dentro de la familia Actinostolidae. Parece que son comunes en profundidades comprendidas entre los 85 y los 1500 metros, colonizando solamente determinadas especies de gorgonias y de pennatuláceos. El parasitismo es la relación que mejor describe lo que acontece entre las anémonas y los octocorales que la portan. Hay, al menos, cinco especies diferentes de anémonas anillo, la primera fue descrita por Hiles (1899) como Peronanthus verrucellae, las otras especies las denominamos provisionalmente como Peronanthus sp1, sp2, sp3 y sp4. El modo de vida de estas especies presenta ciertas ventajas como son: una reducción del espacio para asentarse, una mejor fijación frente a fenómenos de corriente, la capacidad para explotar recursos inaccesibles a la mayoría de los actiniarios y por último la falta de competencia con otras especies por el hábitat. La imposibilidad de colonizar otros sustratos y la reducción de la cavidad gástrica son las principales desventajas que presenta este modo de vida exhibido por las anémonas anillo. Aparentemente este grupo de anémonas está ampliamente distribuido en el Indo-Pacífico

Thermoelectric assessment of laser peening induced effects on a metallic biomedical Ti6Al4V

Laser peening has recently emerged as a useful technique to overcome detrimental effects associated to another well-known surface modification processes such as shot peening or grit blasting used in the biomedical field. It is worth to notice that besides the primary residual stress effect, thermally induced effects might also cause subtle surface and subsurface microstructural changes that might influence corrosion resistance. Moreover, since maximum loads use to occur at the surface, they could also play a critical role in the fatigue strength. In this work, plates of Ti-6Al-4V alloy of 7 mm in thickness were modified by laser peening without using a sacrificial outer layer. Irradiation by a Q-switched Nd-YAG laser (9.4 ns pulse length) working in fundamental harmonic at 2.8 J/pulse and with water as confining medium was used. Laser pulses with a 1.5 mm diameter at an equivalent overlapping density (EOD) of 5000 cm-2 were applied. Attempts to analyze the global induced effects after laser peening were addressed by using the contacting and non-contacting thermoelectric power (TEP) techniques. It was demonstrated that the thermoelectric method is entirely insensitive to surface topography while it is uniquely sensitive to subtle variations in thermoelectric properties, which are associated with the different material effects induced by different surface modification treatments. These results indicate that the stress-dependence of the thermoelectric power in metals produces sufficient contrast to detect and quantitatively characterize regions under compressive residual stress based on their thermoelectric power contrast with respect to the surrounding intact material. However, further research is needed to better separate residual stress effects from secondary material effects, especially in the case of low-conductivity engineering materials like titanium alloys

Laser ablation modelling of aluminium, silver and crystalline silicon for applications in photovoltaic technologies

Laser material processing is being extensively used in photovoltaic applications for both the fabrication of thin film modules and the enhancement of the crystalline silicon solar cells. The two temperature model for thermal diffusion was numerically solved in this paper. Laser pulses of 1064, 532 or 248 nm with duration of 35, 26 or 10 ns were considered as the thermal source leading to the material ablation. Considering high irradiance levels (108–109 W cm−2), a total absorption of the energy during the ablation process was assumed in the model. The materials analysed in the simulation were aluminium (Al) and silver (Ag), which are commonly used as metallic electrodes in photovoltaic devices. Moreover, thermal diffusion was also simulated for crystalline silicon (c-Si). A similar trend of temperature as a function of depth and time was found for both metals and c-Si regardless of the employed wavelength. For each material, the ablation depth dependence on laser pulse parameters was determined by means of an ablation criterion. Thus, after the laser pulse, the maximum depth for which the total energy stored in the material is equal to the vaporisation enthalpy was considered as the ablation depth. For all cases, the ablation depth increased with the laser pulse fluence and did not exhibit a clear correlation with the radiation wavelength. Finally, the experimental validation of the simulation results was carried out and the ability of the model with the initial hypothesis of total energy absorption to closely fit experimental results was confirmed

Performance of Dual-Purpose Cows on a Native Pasture-\u3ci\u3eArachis pintoi\u3c/i\u3e Association in the Humid Tropics of Mexico

Native grasslands (NG) are the main feed supply of dual-purpose (DP) cows of the Mexican humid tropics. NG comprise about 85% of Paspalum, Axonopus and Cynodon species, about 5% of native legumes, mainly of Desmodium, and the remaining 10% are narrow and broad leafed weeds. Arachis pintoi (AP) is a persistent grazing tolerant tropical legume. In association with sown grasses, it has improved dry matter (DM) yield, nutritive quality of forage, and milk yield up to 9 kg/cow/day (González et al., 1996). The objective was to determine if productive performance of DP cows could be improved by the introduction of AP into NG grassland

Spatio-temporal trends of mortality in small areas of Southern Spain

Background: Most mortality atlases show static maps from count data aggregated over time. This procedure has several methodological problems and serious limitations for decision making in Public Health. The evaluation of health outcomes, including mortality, should be approached from a dynamic time perspective that is specific for each gender and age group. At the moment, researches in Spain do not provide a dynamic image of the population’s mortality status from a spatio-temporal point of view. The aim of this paper is to describe the spatial distribution of mortality from all causes in small areas of Andalusia (Southern Spain) and evolution over time from 1981 to 2006. Methods: A small-area ecological study was devised using the municipality as the unit for analysis. Two spatiotemporal hierarchical Bayesian models were estimated for each age group and gender. One of these was used to estimate the specific mortality rate, together with its time trends, and the other to estimate the specific rate ratio for each municipality compared with Spain as a whole. Results: More than 97% of the municipalities showed a diminishing or flat mortality trend in all gender and age groups. In 2006, over 95% of municipalities showed male and female mortality specific rates similar or significantly lower than Spanish rates for all age groups below 65. Systematically, municipalities in Western Andalusia showed significant male and female mortality excess from 1981 to 2006 only in age groups over 65. Conclusions: The study shows a dynamic geographical distribution of mortality, with a different pattern for each year, gender and age group. This information will contribute towards a reflection on the past, present and future of mortality in Andalusia.Ye

Does the LFIR-LHCN correlation hold for low LFIR isolated galaxies?

International conference “Galaxies in Isolation: Exploring Nature vs. Nurture” held in Granada (Spain), May 12–15, 2009.Low LFIR Isolated Galaxies (IGs) from the AMIGA sample have low level of Star Formation (SF) activity. We observed the HCN(1-0) emission in a sample of IGs in order to test whether they follow the tight relation between LHCN and LFIR found for galaxies with more active SF