Exploring the relationship between sleep quality, emotional well-being and aggression levels in a European sample

Sleep deprivation is well known to negatively affect mood, cognition and behaviour. The current study explored the relationship between sleep quantity, subjective sleep quality and aggression, hostility and well-being levels among adults in a non-clinical population. Two hundred and one participants aged 18 and above from Germany, UK and the Netherlands completed an online survey consisting of a sleep quality index (PSQI) along with measures of psychological well-being, implicit and explicit aggression, and intent attributions. Sleep disturbances were expected to increase hostile attributions and emotional problems such as irritability, distress and inner tension. Additionally, poor sleep quality was expected to predict increased (reactive) aggression. Our results confirmed that sleep disturbances were related to decreased levels of psychological well-being. Subjective poor sleep quality predicted increased hostile attributions. The overall sleep experience however was not associated with aggression levels. Nevertheless, both a poor sleep experience and low sleep quality were related to increased reactive aggression, but only in British participants. Current findings highlight the importance of sleep quality rather than sleep quantity in predicting hostile and aggressive behaviours, particularly perceived quality

Seasonal inputs of polyethoxylated compounds to a Mediterranean coastal lagoon through surface watercourses

Synthetic surfactants are among the chemicals that are produced and consumed in the largest volumes in the world (more than 10 million tons per year), due to their variety of applications, mainly as key ingredients in detergents and cleaners but also as additives in paints, pesticides, personal care products, etc. In spite of the high removal efficiences of surfactant residues in sewage treatment plants (STP), significant amounts of these chemicals reach aquatic ecosystems via direct discharges of treated or non-treated wastewaters, or indirect discharges through rivers, where they are present dissolved or associated with particulate material. Therefore, particular attention has been given to the environmental analysis of anionic and non-ionic surfactants (90% of the overall production. Our main objective in this work was to detect the presence and compare the distribution of the most world-wide used non-ionic (alcohol polyethoxylates, AEOs, and nonylphenol polyethoxylates, NPEOs) surfactants, and an important group of nonionic synthetic water-soluble polymers of ethylene oxide, polyethylene glycols (PEGs), which are also used in a wide range of applications (e.g., antifreeze agents, cosmetics) as well as the main precursors / degradation products of AEOs, in waters and sediments from Mar Menor Lagoon (SE Spain). Under our knowledge, some of the data shown here are among the first even reported on the environmental distribution of PEGs in aquatic systems

Regulation of primary production in the Gulf of California through interaction of large-scale and local ocean processes [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): The suppression of primary productivity observed in eastern boundary ecosystems of the Pacific during El Nino episodes does not occur throughout the Gulf of California. On the contrary, analysis of the modern siliceous phytoplankton record from annually layered sediments and compilation of available primary productivity measurements indicate that production is significantly increased in the central Gulf during El Nino years compared to anti-El Nino years. Integrated observations of biological and physical variability during the spring of 1983, under the influence of the strong El Nino, show that very high primary productivity occurred along the eastern margin of the central Gulf. This resulted from the upwelling of a nutrient rich source provided by the locally formed Gulf water mass originating in the northern Gulf. Lower productivity and phytoplankton biomass were associated with the anomalous penetration of Tropical Surface Water along the western side of the Gulf

Ultracold Rb-OH Collisions and Prospects for Sympathetic Cooling

We compute ab initio cross sections for cold collisions of Rb atoms with OH radicals. We predict collision rate constants of order 10-11 cm3/s at temperatures in the range 10–100 mK at which molecules have already been produced. However, we also find that in these collisions the molecules have a strong propensity for changing their internal state, which could make sympathetic cooling of OH in a Rb buffer gas problematic in magnetostatic or electrostatic traps

The Geometry of the Space of Vortices on a Two-Sphere in the Bradlow Limit

It is proved that the normalized L2 metric on the moduli space of n-vortices on a two-sphere, endowed with any Riemannian metric, converges uniformly in the Bradlow limit to the Fubini–Study metric. This establishes, in a rigorous setting, a longstanding informal conjecture of Baptista and Manton

Luxación radiocarpiana con fractura asociada de la apófisis estiloides radial

Presentamos un caso de luxación dorso lateral del carpo con fractura asociada de la estiloides radial en una mujer de 28 años tras accidente de tráfico. No existieron complicaciones neurovasculares. El tratamiento consistió en reducción y fijación de la estiloides radial con agujas de Kirschner. Después de seis meses de evolución la paciente estaba libre de secuelas

The Calcium-Looping technology for CO2 capture: On the important roles of energy integration and sorbent behavior

The Calcium Looping (CaL) technology, based on the multicyclic carbonation/calcination of CaO in gas-solid fluidized bed reactors at high temperature, has emerged in the last years as a potentially low cost technology for CO2 capture. In this manuscript a critical review is made on the important roles of energy integration and sorbent behavior in the process efficiency. Firstly, the strategies proposed to reduce the energy demand by internal integration are discussed as well as process modifications aimed at optimizing the overall efficiency by means of external integration. The most important benefit of the high temperature CaL cycles is the possibility of using high temperature streams that could reduce significantly the energy penalty associated to CO2 capture. The application of the CaL technology in precombustion capture systems and energy integration, and the coupling of the CaL technology with other industrial processes are also described. In particular, the CaL technology has a significant potential to be a feasible CO2 capture system for cement plants. A precise knowledge of the multicyclic CO2 capture behavior of the sorbent at the CaL conditions to be expected in practice is of great relevance in order to predict a realistic capture efficiency and energy penalty from process simulations. The second part of this manuscript will be devoted to this issue. Particular emphasis is put on the behavior of natural limestone and dolomite, which would be the only practical choices for the technology to meet its main goal of reducing CO2 capture costs. Under CaL calcination conditions for CO2 capture (necessarily implying high CO2 concentration in the calciner), dolomite seems to be a better alternative to limestone as CaO precursor. The proposed techniques of recarbonation and thermal/mechanical pretreatments to reactivate the sorbent and accelerate calcination will be the final subjects of this review

Non-perturbative scalar gauge-invariant metric fluctuations from the Ponce de Leon metric in the STM theory of gravity

We study our non-perturbative formalism to describe scalar gauge-invariant metric fluctuations by extending the Ponce de Leon metric.Comment: accepted in Eur. Phys. J.