Manganese Dioxide Supported on Porous Biomorphic Carbons as Hybrid Materials for Energy Storage Devices

A facile and low-cost method has been employed to fabricate MnO2/C hybrid materials for use as binder-free electrodes for supercapacitor applications. Biocarbon monoliths were obtained through pyrolysis of beech wood, replicating the microstructure of the cellulosic precursor, and serve as 3D porous and conductive scaffolds for the direct growth of MnO2 nanosheets by a solution method. Evaluation of the experimental results indicates that a homogeneous and uniform composite material made of a carbon matrix exhibiting ordered hierarchical porosity and MnO2 nanosheets with a layered nanocrystalline structure is obtained. The tuning of the MnO2 content and crystallite size via the concentration of KMnO4 used as impregnation solution allows to obtain composites that exhibit enhanced electrochemical behavior, achieving a capacitance of 592 F g−1 in electrodes containing 3 wt % MnO2 with an excellent cyclic stability. The electrode materials were characterized before and after electrochemical testing.Peer reviewe

La integración de la educación ambiental en la ESO : datos para la reflexión

We present in this paper the analysis and principal results of a research carried out among 438 teachers and 126 headmasters. The issues concern the situation of environmental education in Obligatory Secondary School. The purpose of the study was to identify teacher and headmaster's opinions, perceptions and feelings about the situation of environmental education in their centres

PCA detection and denoising of Zeeman signatures in stellar polarised spectra

Our main objective is to develop a denoising strategy to increase the signal to noise ratio of individual spectral lines of stellar spectropolarimetric observations. We use a multivariate statistics technique called Principal Component Analysis. The cross-product matrix of the observations is diagonalized to obtain the eigenvectors in which the original observations can be developed. This basis is such that the first eigenvectors contain the greatest variance. Assuming that the noise is uncorrelated a denoising is possible by reconstructing the data with a truncated basis. We propose a method to identify the number of eigenvectors for an efficient noise filtering. Numerical simulations are used to demonstrate that an important increase of the signal to noise ratio per spectral line is possible using PCA denoising techniques. It can be also applied for detection of magnetic fields in stellar atmospheres. We analyze the relation between PCA and commonly used well-known techniques like line addition and least-squares deconvolution. Moreover, PCA is very robust and easy to compute.Comment: accepted to be published in A&

su(1,1) Algebraic approach of the Dirac equation with Coulomb-type scalar and vector potentials in D + 1 dimensions

We study the Dirac equation with Coulomb-type vector and scalar potentials in D + 1 dimensions from an su(1, 1) algebraic approach. The generators of this algebra are constructed by using the Schr\"odinger factorization. The theory of unitary representations for the su(1, 1) Lie algebra allows us to obtain the energy spectrum and the supersymmetric ground state. For the cases where there exists either scalar or vector potential our results are reduced to those obtained by analytical techniques

Application of genomic and quantitative genetic tools to identify candidate resistance genes for brown rot resistance in peach.

The availability of a complete peach genome assembly and three different peach genome sequences created by our group provide new opportunities for application of genomic data and can improve the power of the classical Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) approaches to identify candidate genes for peach disease resistance. Brown rot caused by Monilinia spp., is the most important fungal disease of stone fruits worldwide. Improved levels of peach fruit rot resistance have been identified in some cultivars and advanced selections developed in the UC Davis and USDA breeding programs. Whole genome sequencing of the Pop-DF parents lead to discovery of high-quality SNP markers for QTL genome scanning in this experimental population. Pop-DF created by crossing a brown rot moderately resistant cultivar 'Dr. Davis' and a brown rot resistant introgression line, 'F8,1-42', derived from an initial almond × peach interspecific hybrid, was evaluated for brown rot resistance in fruit of harvest maturity over three seasons. Using the SNP linkage map of Pop-DF and phenotypic data collected with inoculated fruit, a genome scan for QTL identified several SNP markers associated with brown rot resistance. Two of these QTLs were placed on linkage group 1, covering a large (physical) region on chromosome 1. The genome scan for QTL and SNP effects predicted several candidate genes associated with disease resistance responses in other host-pathogen systems. Two potential candidate genes, ppa011763m and ppa026453m, may be the genes primarily responsible for M. fructicola recognition in peach, activating both PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI) and effector-triggered immunity (ETI) responses. Our results provide a foundation for further genetic dissection, marker assisted breeding for brown rot resistance, and development of peach cultivars resistant to brown rot

Elastofibroma Dorsi

Se realiza un estudio clínico-patológico de dos casos, mujeres de 57 y 45 años, de "elastofibroma dorsi" intervenidos quirúrgicamente. En una enferma apareció como una tumoracion asintomática y en otra asociada a dolor en el hombro irradiado a miembro superior derecho. Se describen las particularizadas clínicas, las exploraciones complementarias, los hallazgos quirúrgicos y las características histológicas de estos tumores de partes blandas cuyo origen debe referirse a una alteración del tejido fibroelástico. Se confronta nuestra experiencia con los casos anteriormente publicados confirmándose su aparición en mujeres adultas o añosas dedicadas a trabajos manuales rutinarios, que parecen estar implicados en la patogenia del elastofibroma dorsi. En uno de los casos, aunque localizado en el espacio anatómico escápulo-torácico, su situación era supraescapular frente a la típicamente infraescapular del elastofibroma dorsi, y la consideramos la primera observación de la literatura.A clinical-pathological study of two cases of elastofibroma dorsi was carried out. Both patients were female, 57 and 45 years old, and underwent surgical operation. One patients was sympton-free, while the other complained of pain in the shoulder which spread to the upper right arm. The autors describe the clinical details, the diagnostic methods employed, the results of surgery and the histopathological features of these tumours which must have originated in a modification of conective tissue, especially in elastic fibres. We compare our findings with those of previously published cases and can confirm the appearence of these tumours in adults or middle-aged women who carry out rutinary manual work, which seems to be connected with the pathogeny of the elastofibroma dorsi. These are normally found adjacent to the vertebral border of the escapula at its inferior angle, but in one case ot was located in the supra-escapular region and we believe this is the first evidence of this kind in the literature

Blue-green to near-IR switching electroluminescence from Si-rich silicon oxide/nitride bilayer structures

Blue green to near-IR switching electroluminescence (EL) has been achieved in a metal-oxide-semiconductor light emitting device, where the dielectric has been replaced by a Si-rich silicon oxide/nitride bilayer structure. To form Si nanostructures, the layers were implanted with Si ions at high energy, resulting in a Si excess of 19%, and subsequently annealed at 1000 °C. Transmission electron microscopy and EL studies allowed ascribing the blue-green emission to the Si nitride related defects and the near-IR band with the emission of the Si-nanoclusters embedded into the SiO2 layer. Charge transport analysis is reported and allows for identifying the origin of this twowavelength switching effect

Whole sequence of the mitochondrial DNA genome of Kearns Sayre Syndrome patients: Identification of deletions and variants

Mitochondria both produce the energy of the cell as ATP via respiration and regulate cellular metabolism. Accordingly, any deletion or mutation in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) may result in a disease. One of these diseases is Kearns Sayre syndrome (KSS), described for the first time in 1958, where different large-scale deletions of different sizes and at different positions have been reported in the mitochondrial genome of patients with similar clinical symptoms. In this study, sequences of the mitochondrial genome of three patients with clinic features of KSS were analyzed. Our results revealed the position, heteroplasmy percentage, size of deletions, and their haplogroups. Two patients contained deletions reported previously and one patient showed a new deletion not reported previously. These results display for the first time a systematic analysis of mtDNA variants in the whole mtDNA genome of patients with KSS to help to understand their association with the disease