Global market: shellfish imports as a source of reemerging food-borne hepatitis A virus infections in Spain

A total of 16 mollusk imports from South America to Spain, including clam and scallop species, were analyzed for hepatitis A virus (HAV), due to the great concern about this type of food after an important hepatitis A outbreak in eastern Spain in September 1999. In addition, clams from the stock that had caused the outbreak were also tested. Of the 17 stocks, four were positive for the presence of HAV RNA as demonstrated by RT-PCR and Southern hybridization. Contradictory analyses confirmed the results of the primary tests in all cases. The findings obtained in this work strongly support the role of mollusk imports from endemic areas of HAV as an important vehicle of hepatitis A, and demonstrate the imperative need for sanitary control measures to prevent future outbreaks of this disease

New isometry of Krall-Laguerre orthogonal polynomials in martingale spaces

In this paper we study how an inner product derived from an Uvarov transformation of the Laguerre weight function is used in the orthogonalization procedure of a sequence of martingales related to a Levy process. The orthogonalization is done by isometry. The resulting set of pairwise strongly orthogonal martingales involved are used as integrators in the so-called chaotic representation propertyEdmundo J. Huertas is supported by a grant from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MTM 2009-12740-C03-01), and by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), ref. SFRH/BPD/91841/2012, Portugal. Nuria Torrado is supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), ref. SFRH/BPD/91832/2012, Portugal. The research of Fabrizio Leisen has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through grant ECO2011-2570

Adoption and diffusion of double entry book-keeping in Mexico and Spain: A related but under-investigated development

There is a consensus within Mexican accounting historiography regarding widespread use of double entry bookkeeping by the end of the 19th Century in the realm of both private and public enterprise. However, there is conflicting and even contradictory claims as to when exactly this technique arrived to the viceroyalty of New Spain (present day Mexico) as well as its diffusion during the colonial era. In this article we address this conflict while putting forward the idea that the history of ‘modern’ accounting practice in Latin America should be framed by developments in its former colonial power. We offer the analysis of primary and secondary source material to support the view that there was continuity in the use of double entry in Spain and therefore, the so called ‘period of silence and apparent oblivion’ seems limited to the production of indigenous accounting thought (as expressed in the production of bibliographic material such as manuals and textbooks). We conclude that the history of Latin America accounting should be wary of extrapolating everyday practice by interpreting bibliographic material and proceed by examining surviving company documents as well as informal educational practices amongst organisations based in the metropolis and its then colonies.double entry, diffusion of accounting systems, knowledge transfer, Mexico (New Spain), Spain

History of a very special romance: emergence and difussion of double entry book-keeping in Mexico

English abstract There is consensus in Mexican accounting historiography on the use of double entry bookkeeping by the end of the 19th century on both private and public enterprise. However, there is conflicting and even contradictory accounts as to when exactly did this technique arrived to the then New Spain (Nueva Espana) as well as its difussion during colonial and post-colonial eras. In this article we address this conflict first by using primary and secondary source material from both Spain and its former colony. Resumen Existe consenso en la historiografía contable mexicana sobre el uso de la partida doble en la hacienda pública y en el ámbito privado desde finales del siglo XIX. Sin embargo, las fuentes y la información disponible son contradictorias respecto a su origen y difusión durante la colonización española y tras la independencia. Este artículo se propone acotar dicho debate y obtener nuevas conclusiones. Para alcanzar estos objetivos, por un lado revisamos la historia de la contabilidad novohispana y metropolitana; y, por otro, contrastamos estos resultados utilizando fuentes primarias y nuevas evidencias de archivo.Mexico, Spain, double entry bookkeeping,

Magneto-optical effects in interacting localized and propagating surface plasmon modes

We report that the effect of an external magnetic field on the propagation of surface plasmons can be effectively modified through the coupling between localized (LSP) and propagating (SPP) surface plasmons. When these plasmon modes do not interact, the main effect of the magnetic field is a modification of the wavevector of the SPP mode, leaving the LSP virtually unaffected. Once both modes start to interact, there is a strong variation of the magnetic field induced modification of the SPP dispersion curve and, simultaneously, the LSP mode becomes sensitive to the magnetic field.This work was supported by the EU (NMP3-SL- 2008-214107-Nanomagma), the Spanish MICINN (“MAGPLAS” MAT2008-06765-C02-01/NAN and “FUNCOAT” CONSOLIDER INGENIO 2010 CSD2008-00023), the Comunidad de Madrid (“NANOBIOMAGNET” S2009/MAT-1726 and “MICROSERES-CM” S2009/TIC-1476), and CSIC (“CRIMAFOT” PIF08-016-4). We thank A. Cebollada and J. M. García-Martín for growing and characterizing the Au/Co/Au trilayers and reading this manuscript, and R. Quidant and G.Badenes for fruitful discussions.Peer reviewe

Antibacterial bioadhesive layer-by-layer coatings for orthopedic applications

In this study, thin LbL films were produced by combining the adhesive properties of the hyaluronic acidâ dopamine conjugate with the bioactivity and bactericidal properties of silver doped bioactive glass nanoparticles. The build-up of these films was investigated by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring. LbL coatings were then constructed on a glass substrate for further characterization. We found that these antimicrobial bioinspired films display enhanced adhesive strength. In vitro bioactivity tests were performed by immersing them in simulated body fluid solution for 14 days where the constructed films promoted the formation of a bone-like apatite layer. From microbiological assays, it was found that coatings containing silver doped nanoparticles exhibited a remarkable antibacterial effect against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli cultures. Finally, in vitro cellular behavior tests showed enhanced cell adhesion, proliferation and viability for these antibacterial bioadhesive films. Therefore, the constructed thin films showed promising properties and evidenced great potential to be used as coatings for orthopedic implants.The authors acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the European program FEDER/COMPETE for the financial support through project BioSeaGlue: EXPL/CTM-BIO/0646/2013 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER041105). This work was co-funded by ‘‘Programa Operacional Regional do Norte’’ (ON.2-O Novo Norte) under the ‘‘Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional’’ (QREN), through the ‘‘Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional’’ (FEDER). E. T. also thanks the FCT investigator grant (IF/01390/2014)