Are there climatic signals in fishery data for sardine (Sardina pilchardus) along the Iberian Atlantic coast?

The Iberian sardine (Sardina pilchardus) is distributed along the whole shelf of the Iberian Peninsula with the highest catches being taken from southern Galician waters and northern Portugal. The fishery is dependent on the strength of the recruitment in this area and recruitment processes seem to be driven by a combination of oceanographic (local) and climatic (global) events. In an exploratory analysis we examined whether the variability observed in landings from ICES areas VIIIc (northern) and IXa (western Iberia) from 1940 to 2005, and in estimated annual recruitment and spawning stock size for the whole stock could be related to environmental conditions at large and local scales, taking into account temporal autocorrelation in the response variables. Landings for areas VIIIc and IXa show differing trends and were most strongly related, respectively, to the multi-decadal Atlantic oscillation (AMO) and to SST (with an optimum around 15o C). Recruitment was negatively related to air temperature (AT). We stress the need for taking into account time lagged effects, non linear relationships, autocorrelation in response variables and collinearity between explanatory variables. We discuss possible mechanisms underlying these observed patterns and whether the apparent climatic relationships have any predictive value

Effectiveness and safety of sofosbuvir‐based regimens plus an NS5A inhibitor for patients with HCV genotype 3 infection and cirrhosis: results of a multicenter real‐life cohort

[Abstract] Patients with HCV genotype 3 (GT3) infection and cirrhosis are currently the most difficult to cure. We report our experience with sofosbuvir+daclatasvir (SOF+DCV) or sofosbuvir/ledipasvir (SOF/LDV), with or without ribavirin (RBV) in clinical practice in this population. This was a multicenter observational study including cirrhotic patients infected by HCV GT3, treated with sofosbuvir plus an NS5A inhibitor (May 2014‐October 2015). In total, 208 patients were included: 98 (47%) treatment‐experienced, 42 (20%) decompensated and 55 (27%) MELD score >10. In 131 (63%), treatment was SOF+DCV and in 77 (37%), SOF/LDV. Overall, 86% received RBV. RBV addition and extension to 24 weeks was higher in the SOF/LDV group (95% vs 80%, P=.002 and 83% vs 72%, P=.044, respectively). A higher percentage of decompensated patients were treated with DCV than LDV (25% vs 12%, P=.013). Overall, SVR12 was 93.8% (195/208): 94% with SOF+DCV and 93.5% with SOF/LDV. SVR12 was achieved in 90.5% of decompensated patients. Eleven treatment failures: 10 relapses and one breakthrough. RBV addition did not improve SVR (RR: 1.08; P=.919). The single factor associated with failure to achieve SVR was platelet count <75×10E9/mL (RR: 3.50, P=.019). In patients with MELD <10, type of NS5A inhibitor did not impact on SVR12 (94% vs 97%; adjusted RR: 0.49). Thirteen patients (6.3%) had serious adverse events, including three deaths (1.4%) and one therapy discontinuation (0.5%), higher in decompensated patients (16.7% vs 3.6%, P<.006). In patients with GT3 infection and cirrhosis, SVR12 rates were high with both SOF+DCV and SOF/LDV, with few serious adverse events

Sofosbuvir/ledipasvir plus ribavirin achieves high SVR12 in genotype‐3 patients with compensated cirrhosis and similar to sofosbuvir plus daclatasvir: a multicentre real life cohort

Poster abstrac

Deep-sequencing reveals broad subtype-specific HCV resistance mutations associated with treatment failure

A percentage of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patients fail direct acting antiviral (DAA)-based treatment regimens, often because of drug resistance-associated substitutions (RAS). The aim of this study was to characterize the resistance profile of a large cohort of patients failing DAA-based treatments, and investigate the relationship between HCV subtype and failure, as an aid to optimizing management of these patients. A new, standardized HCV-RAS testing protocol based on deep sequencing was designed and applied to 220 previously subtyped samples from patients failing DAA treatment, collected in 39 Spanish hospitals. The majority had received DAA-based interferon (IFN) a-free regimens; 79% had failed sofosbuvir-containing therapy. Genomic regions encoding the nonstructural protein (NS) 3, NS5A, and NS5B (DAA target regions) were analyzed using subtype-specific primers. Viral subtype distribution was as follows: genotype (G) 1, 62.7%; G3a, 21.4%; G4d, 12.3%; G2, 1.8%; and mixed infections 1.8%. Overall, 88.6% of patients carried at least 1 RAS, and 19% carried RAS at frequencies below 20% in the mutant spectrum. There were no differences in RAS selection between treatments with and without ribavirin. Regardless of the treatment received, each HCV subtype showed specific types of RAS. Of note, no RAS were detected in the target proteins of 18.6% of patients failing treatment, and 30.4% of patients had RAS in proteins that were not targets of the inhibitors they received. HCV patients failing DAA therapy showed a high diversity of RAS. Ribavirin use did not influence the type or number of RAS at failure. The subtype-specific pattern of RAS emergence underscores the importance of accurate HCV subtyping. The frequency of “extra-target” RAS suggests the need for RAS screening in all three DAA target regions

Effect of climate on recruitment success of Atlantic Iberian sardine (Sardina pilchardus).

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Climate change and abundance of the Atlantic Iberian sardine (Sardina pilchardus)

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Un modelo explicativo de las orientaciones de meta sobre la autorregulación del aprendizaje

The objective of this work was to suggest a model of causal relationships between goal orientations (task, ego self-enhancing, ego self-defeating and effort avoidance goals) and cognitive (rehearsal, organization, and elaboration) and self-regulatory (help seeking, time and effort management, and metacognitive self-regulation and study environment) learning strategies. The sample included 632 university students. Results found in this study provide support to suggest that the types of goals that students pursue have important implications for self-regulatory and cognitive strategies. Furthermore, it was obtained a chain of causal influences between self-regulatory variables. Finally, this model let us understand the operation of multiple goals pursuit so cognitive and self-regulatory learning strategies use depend in part on the joint and interactive effects of the academic goals.El objetivo de este trabajo fue sugerir un modelo de relaciones causales entre las orientaciones de meta (metas de tarea, autoensalzamiento del ego, autofrustración del ego y evitación del esfuerzo) y las estrategias cognitivas (repetición, organización y elaboración) y autorreguladoras (búsqueda de ayuda, gestión del tiempo y esfuerzo y autorregulación metacognitiva y contexto de estudio) del aprendizaje. La muestra utilizada está compuesta por 632 estudiantes universitarios. Los resultados obtenidos en este estudio nos proporcionan un soporte para sugerir que los tipos de meta que los estudiantes persiguen tienen importantes implicaciones para la utilización de las estrategias autorreguladoras y cognitivas. Además, también observamos una cadena de influencias causales entre las variables autorreguladoras. Finalmente, este modelo nos permite comprender el funcionamiento de la persecución de múltiples metas, de forma que la utilización de las estrategias cognitivas y autorreguladoras del aprendizaje depende, en parte, de los efectos conjuntos e interactivos de las metas académicas

Importance of parental effects on larval survival in Sardina pilchardus

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