The biota of the upper cretaceous site of Lo Hueco (Cuenca, Spain)

Artículo escrito por un elevado número de autores, solo se referencian el que aparece en primer lugar, el nombre del grupo de colaboración, si le hubiere, y los autores pertenecientes a la UAMThe Late Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) fossil site of Lo Hueco was recently discovered close to the village of Fuentes (Cuenca, Spain) during the cutting of a little hill for installation of the railway of the Madrid-Levante high-speed train. To date, it has yielded a rich collection of well-preserved Cretaceous macrofossils, including plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates. The recovered fossil assemblage is mainly composed of plants, molluscs (bivalves and gastropods), actinopterygians and teleosteans fishes, amphibians, panpleurodiran (bothremydids) and pancryptodiran turtles, squamate lizards, eusuchian crocodyliforms, rhabdodontid ornithopods, theropods (mainly dromaeosaurids), and titanosaur sauropods. This assemblage was deposited in a near-coast continental muddy floodplain crossed by distributary sandy channels, exposed intermittently to brackish or marine and freshwater flooding as well as to partial or total desiccation events. The Konzentrat-Lagerstatt of Lo Hueco constitutes a singular accumulation of fossils representing individuals of some particular lineages of continental tetrapods, especially titanosaurs, eusuchians and bothremydid turtles. In the case of the titanosaurs, the site has yielded multiple partial skeletons in anatomical connection or with a low dispersion of their skeletal elements. A combination of new taxa, new records of taxa previously known in the Iberian Peninsula, and relatively common taxa in the European record compose the Lo Hueco biota. The particular conditions of the fossil site of Lo Hueco and the preliminary results indicate that the analysis of the geological context, the floral and faunal content, and the taphonomical features of the site provide elements that will be especially useful for reassess the evolutionary history of some lineages of European Late Cretaceous reptilesThe fieldwork at Lo Hueco (2007-2009) was funded by ADIF (the state-owned company that administrate the Spanish railway infrastructures) through the company awarded the civil works (Ferrovial). The authors acknowledge the involvement and commitment to this task to the more-than-one-hundred technicians and assistants. The paleontological excavation was authorized by the Dirección General de Patrimonio y Museos de la Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-la Mancha whose acronym is 04.0392-P11. The excavation also received support from different estates of the Government of the Autonomous Community of Castilla-La Mancha (Presidencia de la JCCM, Consejería de Cultura, Consejería de Medio Ambiente, Delegación de la JCCM en Cuenca) and the City Council of Fuentes. Research at Lo Hueco was financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación: CGL2009-12008, CGL2011-25894, CGL2009-10766, CGL2009-12143, and currently the proyect CGL2012-35199: “Estudio paleoambiental, faunístico y florístico del yacimiento del Cretácico Superior de Lo Hueco (Fuentes, Cuenca)”. Part of this research has been also financed within the projects PEII11-0237-7926 of the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha. L.D. acknowledges a PICATA contract of the UCM-UPM Moncloa Campus of International Excellence (Spain). Preparation of the material has been partially developed by the Employment Workshop of Paleontological Restoration of Lo Hueco funded by the Fondo Social Europeo, Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, Spanish Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad Social, and the Diputación Provincial de Cuenc

Structure–property insights into nanostructured electrodes for Li-ion batteries from local structural and diffusional probes

Microwave heating presents a faster, lower energy synthetic methodology for the realization of functional materials. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that employing this method also leads to a decrease in the occurrence of defects in olivine structured LiFe1−xMnxPO4. For example, the presence of antisite defects in this structure precludes Li+ diffusion along the b-axis leading to a significant decrease in reversible capacities. Total scattering measurements, in combination with Li+ diffusion studies using muon spin relaxation (μ+SR) spectroscopy, reveal that this synthetic method generates fewer defects in the nanostructures compared to traditional solvothermal routes. Our interest in developing these routes to mixed-metal phosphate LiFe1−xMnxPO4 olivines is due to the higher Mn2+/3+ redox potential in comparison to the Fe2+/3+ pair. Here, single-phase LiFe1−xMnxPO4 (x = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1) olivines have been prepared following a microwave-assisted approach which allows for up to 4 times faster reaction times compared to traditional solvothermal methods. Interestingly, the resulting particle morphology is dependent on the Mn content. We also examine their electrochemical performance as active electrodes in Li-ion batteries. These results present microwave routes as highly attractive for reproducible, gram-scale syntheses of high quality nanostructured electrodes which display close to theoretical capacity for the full iron phase

Naturaleza de la potestad de los padres conciliares en concilio ecuménico, según Melchor Cano

En el verano de 1980 defendí la tesis doctoral en Teología en la que había trabajado bajo la dirección del Prof. Dr. Juan Belda Plans a la que puse por título Algunas cuestiones en torno a la infalibilidad pontificia y conciliar en Melchor Cano. Se trataba del estudio de cinco cuestiones eclesiológicas elaboradas por el maestro salmantino en su célebre tratado sobre el método teológico: De locis theologicis, a la manera de un excursus dentro del Libro V, (capítulo 5°) de esa obra, correspondiente al estudio de la autoridad de los Concilios generales como lugar teológico (después de la Sagrada Escritura, las Tradiciones Apostólicas y la Iglesia Universal). Las cinco cuestiones tenían en común la pertenencia al tema de los Concilios Universales: 1) si el Concilio realizado con la asistencia de los legados del Sumo Pontífice tiene autoridad firme y cierta, o más bien hay que esperar la confirmación del Obispo de Roma; 2) si los Padres del Concilio son verdaderos jueces, o sólo consejeros; 3) si las definiciones de un Concilio aprobado por el Papa pertenecen a la Sagrada Escritura; 4) con qué método y criterio averiguar cuáles decretos de los Concilios son ciertos en materia de Fe (infalibilidad in fide); 5) si los Concilios pueden errar en materia de costumbres (infalibilidad in moribus). Habiendo ya sido estudiada la cuestión tercera en otra tesis elaborada en el seno de este proyecto, mi trabajo se centró en las cuatro restantes. Por lo que se refiere a la cuestión teológica que ahora se publica, «sobre si los padres conciliares son verdaderos jueces de la fe», en ella se pone de manifiesto que Melchor Cano es un precedente destacado de la posterior evolución eclesiológica, en temas como la naturaleza del episcopado y su carácter sacramental, la colegialidad episcopal, la existencia de dos titulares inadecuadamente distintos de la suprema potestad en la Iglesia: el Papa y el Concilio ecuménico, que incluye al Papa como su Cabeza. Al desarrollar la cuestión, nuestro teólogo muestra cómo ejercita él mismo su propio método teológico teorizado en su obra magna, dando luces para la prosecución del estudio de este tema, que sigue siendo de actualidad

Unitary Gate Synthesis for Continuous Variable Systems

We investigate the synthesis of continuous-variable two-mode unitary gates in the setting where two modes A and B are coupled by a fixed quadratic Hamiltonian H. The gate synthesis consists of a sequence of evolutions governed by Hamiltonian H interspaced by local phase shifts applied to A and B. We concentrate on protocols that require the minimum necessary number of steps and we show how to implement the beam splitter and the two-mode squeezer in just three steps. Particular attention is paid to the Hamiltonian x_A p_B that describes the effective off-resonant interaction of light with the collective atomic spin.Comment: 7 pages, minor text modifications, references adde

On the practicality of time-optimal two-qubit Hamiltonian simulation

What is the time-optimal way of using a set of control Hamiltonians to obtain a desired interaction? Vidal, Hammerer and Cirac [Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 (2002) 237902] have obtained a set of powerful results characterizing the time-optimal simulation of a two-qubit quantum gate using a fixed interaction Hamiltonian and fast local control over the individual qubits. How practically useful are these results? We prove that there are two-qubit Hamiltonians such that time-optimal simulation requires infinitely many steps of evolution, each infinitesimally small, and thus is physically impractical. A procedure is given to determine which two-qubit Hamiltonians have this property, and we show that almost all Hamiltonians do. Finally, we determine some bounds on the penalty that must be paid in the simulation time if the number of steps is fixed at a finite number, and show that the cost in simulation time is not too great.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Increased 1,25(OH)2-Vitamin D Concentrations after Energy Restriction Are Associated with Changes in Skeletal Muscle Phenotype

The influence of energy restriction (ER) on muscle is controversial, and the mechanisms are not well understood. To study the effect of ER on skeletal muscle phenotype and the influence of vitamin D, rats (n = 34) were fed a control diet or an ER diet. Muscle mass, muscle somatic index (MSI), fiber-type composition, fiber size, and metabolic activity were studied in tibialis cranialis (TC) and soleus (SOL) muscles. Plasma vitamin D metabolites and renal expression of enzymes involved in vitamin D metabolism were measured. In the ER group, muscle weight was unchanged in TC and decreased by 12% in SOL, but MSI increased in both muscles (p < 0.0001) by 55% and 36%, respectively. Histomorphometric studies showed 14% increase in the percentage of type IIA fibers and 13% reduction in type IIX fibers in TC of ER rats. Decreased size of type I fibers and reduced oxidative activity was identified in SOL of ER rats. An increase in plasma 1,25(OH)2-vitamin D (169.7 ± 6.8 vs. 85.4 ± 11.5 pg/mL, p < 0.0001) with kidney up-regulation of CYP27b1 and down-regulation of CYP24a1 was observed in ER rats. Plasma vitamin D correlated with MSI in both muscles (p < 0.001), with the percentages of type IIA and type IIX fibers in TC and with the oxidative profile in SOL. In conclusion, ER preserves skeletal muscle mass, improves contractile phenotype in phasic muscles (TC), and reduces energy expenditure in antigravity muscles (SOL). These beneficial effects are closely related to the increases in vitamin D secondary to ER

Quality of care of patients with type-2 diabetes in Galicia (NW Spain) [OBTEDIGA project]

[Abstract] Aims:  The aim of this study was to describe the degree of compliance of agreed practices with reference to primary care patients with Type 2 diabetes of 40 years old and older in Galicia (NW Spain). Methods:  A total of 108 primary care physicians were selected at random from the totality of doctors. Each physician selected 30 patients at random from their patients suffering from diabetes of 40 years old or older. External observers gathered information from each patient’s medical record regarding their characteristics, condition and degree of compliance of selected indicators of good practice. Results:  Group of physicians participated in this study had a mean age of 50 years (standard deviation = 3.9); 48% of them were females; and 17.5% involved in medical residents training. A total of 3078 diabetic patients were included in the study: mean age = 69 years (SD = 10.9), 47.6% women, presence of high blood pressure (72%), hypercholesterolaemia (56%), and regular smokers (10.3%). Compliance with selected indicators such as foot examination (14%), ophthalmological examination (30.6%), abdominal circumference measurement (6.1%), measurement of total or LDL-cholesterol (78.1), blood pressure measurement (84.8), glycosylated haemoglobin measurement < 7% (54.3%) was observed. Adequate monitoring in cases of high blood pressure and hypercholesterolaemia were 34.2% and 27.4%, respectively. Variability between physicians differs according to the different indicators, with interquartile range for compliance of between 16.4 and 66%. Conclusions:  There is a wide margin for improvement in the adaptation of clinical practice to recommendations for diabetic patients. The large variation existing in certain indicators would suggest that certain control objectives are less demanding than advisable in those that comply least, while low compliance and low variability in other indicators point to structural problems or unsatisfactory training of doctors