El Camino de la Plata: iter o negotium

Sin resume

Efectos de un sistema integrado de recolección para pequeños productores en la calidad de la aceituna recogida

Small producers confront specific challenges when they opt to produce high-quality olive fruit. Limited resources for investing in harvest machinery and manpower are the main reasons for continuing a traditional harvest method that puts the final product and its economic value at risk. This paper discusses the efficiency of an integrated harvest system as a possible solution to these specific challenges. The system is formed by a newly designed manual harvesting device and the use of a cooling room near the olive grove. Both systems were evaluated to assess their feasibility for optimum conditions before processing. The combined effect of the harvesting method and cold storage on the fruit characteristics (incidence of decay, skin color, weight loss, firmness, respiration, and ethylene production) was evaluated on three different varieties (‘Arbequina’, ‘Picual’ and ‘Verdial’) and four different storage times (0, 4, 8, and 14 days). The results indicate that the proposed harvesting method in combination with an appropriate cooling system offers an affordable alternative for obtaining fruit with the best physiological characteristics.Los pequeños productores se enfrentan a retos específicos, cuando optan por producir aceitunas de alta calidad. La imposibilidad económica de invertir, tanto en maquinaria de cosecha, como en mano de obra es la razón principal que obliga a continuar una recolección tradicional que pone en riesgo el producto final y su valor económico. Este estudio analiza la eficiencia de un sistema de recolección integrado como una posible solución a estos desafíos específicos. El sistema está formado por un dispositivo de recogida manual de nuevo diseño y el uso de una cámara de frío en la finca. El efecto combinado del método de recolección presentado y el almacenamiento en frío sobre las características de la fruta (incidencia de podredumbre, color de piel, pérdida de peso, firmeza, respiración y producción de etileno) se evaluó en tres variedades diferentes (‘Arbequina’, ‘Picual’ y ‘Verdial’) y diferentes tiempos de almacenamiento (0, 4, 8, 14 días). Los resultados indican que la combinación de un método de recolección mecánica y un sistema de enfriamiento adecuado ofrece una alternativa económicamente asequible para obtener frutos con las mejores características fisiológicas

Biobased catalyst in biorefinery processes: Sulphonated hydrothermal carbon for glycerol esterification

Sulphonated hydrothermal carbon (SHTC), obtained from D-glucose by mild hydrothermal carbonisation and subsequent sulphonation with sulphuric acid, is able to catalyse the esterification of glycerol with dif- ferent carboxylic acids, namely, acetic, butyric and caprylic acids. Product selectivity can be tuned by sim- ply controlling the reaction conditions. On the one hand, SHTC provides one of the best selectivity towards 20 monoacetins described up to now without the need for an excess of glycerol. On the other hand, excellent selectivity towards triacylglycerides (TAG) can be obtained, beyond those described with other solid cata- lysts, including well-known sulphonic resins. Recovery of the catalyst showed partial deactivation of the solid. The formation of sulphonate esters on the surface, confirmed by solid state NMR, was the cause of this behaviour. Acid treatment of the used catalyst, with subsequent hydrolysis of the surface sulphonate 25 esters, allows SHTC to recover its activity. The higher selectivity towards mono- and triesters and its renewable origin makes SHTC an attractive catalyst in biorefinery processe

Triphenylamine- and triazine- containing hydrogen bonded complexes: liquid crystalline supramolecular semiconductors

Despite the fact that triphenylamine derivatives have been widely explored as hole-transporting materials, studies on charge transport properties in the liquid crystal phase have been overlooked. Here, it is reported that triphenylamine liquid crystals can attain very high hole mobility values in a hexagonal columnar mesophase, up toµ˜ 5 cm2V-1s-1. The columnar liquid crystalline phase was obtained by a proper design of a supramolecular mesogen, and this is unprecedented for triphenylamine liquid crystals. In fact, the supramolecules were formed by hydrogen-bonded 1¿:¿3 complexes of a star-shaped triazine core and three triphenylamine peripheral units. The resulting hexagonal columnar mesophase acts as a successful scaffold that confines TPA units at the periphery of columns. Challenging DFT theoretical investigations into a model based on such supramolecular systems involving a large number of atoms were undertaken to explore the stability and geometry of the complexes and their electronic properties

Comparing AWiFS and MERIS images for land use – land cover mapping in Spain

As global land use – land cover mapping has become of great importance, an evaluation of the benefits and disadvantages of using satellite data with either increased spatial or spectral resolution would be adequate for the improvement of methodologies. This paper describes the comparison of AWiFS (Advanced Wide Field Sensor) and MERIS-FR (MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer – Full Resolution) -based classifications of the Spanish province of Madrid. Maximum Likelihood Supervised Classification was performed using training areas based on data coming from the Spanish National Forest Inventory and from the CORINE Land Cover 2000 data bases. The classification process with AWiFS was more laborious than with MERIS-FR but the overall accuracy could be increased by 10%. For some surfaces such as deciduous forests, the high spectral resolution of MERIS-FR might be an advantage. Researchers will have to decide if the better results obtained with AWiFS compensate for the higher cost of the images and the more effortful processing. Dada la creciente importancia de los mapas de usos y coberturas, se considera de gran utilidad el realizar una evaluación de los beneficios y desventajas del uso de imágenes de satélite de mejor resolución espacial o espectral, de cara a la mejora de ciertas metodologías. En este trabajo se presenta la comparación de clasificaciones de la provincia de Madrid (España) realizadas a partir de imágenes AWiFS (Advanced Wide Field Sensor) y MERIS-FR (MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer – Full Resolution). El algoritmo de clasificación empleado fue el de máxima probabilidad para lo que se usaron áreas de entrenamiento basadas en datos procedentes del Inventario Forestal Nacional y del CORINE Land Cover 2000. La clasificación a partir de la imagen AWiFS fue más laboriosa obteniéndose una precisión global un 10% mayor que en el caso de MERIS-FR. Sin embargo, para ciertas clases como la de bosque caducifolio, la mejor resolución espectral de MERIS-FR supuso una ventaja. Queda en mano de los investigadores decidir si los mejore resultados obtenidos con AWiFS compensan el mayor coste de las imágenes y el mayor esfuerzo de procesado

Mixed monolayers of eicosylamine and a bacterial-ferritin prepared by adsorption technique at the air-water interface

II Encuentro sobre nanociencia y nanotecnología de investigadores y tecnólogos de la Universidad de Córdoba. NANOUC

Preparación de monocapas en la interfase aire-agua: estudio de las propiedades de adsorción de una nueva bacterioferritina

II Encuentro sobre nanociencia y nanotecnología de investigadores y tecnólogos de la Universidad de Córdoba. NANOUC

Automatic quantification of cardiomyocyte dimensions and connexin 43 lateralization in fluorescence images

Cardiomyocytes’ geometry and connexin 43 (CX43) amount and distribution are structural features that play a pivotal role in electrical conduction. Their quantitative assessment is of high interest in the study of arrhythmias, but it is usually hampered by the lack of automatic tools. In this work, we propose a software algorithm (Myocyte Automatic Retrieval and Tissue Analyzer, MARTA) to automatically detect myocytes from fluorescent microscopy images of cardiac tissue, measure their morphological features and evaluate the expression of CX43 and its degree of lateralization. The proposed software is based on the generation of cell masks, contouring of individual cells, enclosing of cells in minimum area rectangles and splitting of these rectangles into end-to-end and middle compartments to estimate CX43 lateral-to-total ratio. Application to human ventricular tissue images shows that mean differences between automatic and manual methods in terms of cardiomyocyte length and width are below 4 µm. The percentage of lateral CX43 also agrees between automatic and manual evaluation, with the interquartile range approximately covering from 3% to 30% in both cases. MARTA is not limited by fiber orientation and has an optimized speed by using contour filtering, which makes it run hundreds of times faster than a trained expert. Developed for CX43 studies in the left ventricle, MARTA is a flexible tool applicable to morphometric and lateralization studies of other markers in any heart chamber or even skeletal muscle. This open-access software is available online

The Bàlitx landslide (Mallorca, Spain) and its possible seismic origin: active spreading since the Late Pleistocene

El deslizamiento de Bàlitx, situado en el escarpado litoral de la Serra de Tramuntana de Mallorca es un gran deslizamiento rocoso traslacional, cuya superficie de rotura aprovecha un plano de falla normal preexistente. La datación de estrías de calcita sobre el plano de falla con U/Th pone de manifiesto que el último movimiento de la falla está fuera del rango de datación de este método (> 400 ka). El volumen de material movilizado por el deslizamiento se estima en unos 700 millones de metros cúbicos, con un desplazamiento de unos 300 m hacia el NO. Se han identificado procesos activos de apertura de grietas de tracción, con desplazamientos y desplomes de grandes bloques de roca procedentes del escarpe principal del deslizamiento, proceso cuyo inicio coincide con un máximo transgresivo hace 83 ka (Pleistoceno superior), correspondiente al estadio isotópico 5a (OIS 5a), constatado como más cálido y húmedo que el actual. En los materiales deslizados se han identificado grietas con longitudes decamétricas y aperturas de hasta 50 m, cuya generación y apertura continua en la actualidad, y que parecen poner de manifiesto la ruptura del bloque deslizado en varias unidades que se desplazan a distintas velocidades. Se ha realizado un análisis retrospectivo de la estabilidad, considerando varios escenarios posibles relacionados con posiciones críticas del nivel del mar. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto condiciones de estabilidad en todos los casos, con factores de seguridad >1.3, lo que avala la hipótesis de un posible origen sísmico del deslizamiento. El estudio en condiciones dinámicas pone de manifiesto que el deslizamiento de Bàlitx pudo ser provocado por un posible terremoto de magnitud moderada a alta (Mw≥6.0), localizado en las inmediaciones del deslizamiento (10-30 km), probablemente en relación con alguna de las fallas activas de Mallorca, como la de Palma.The Bàlitx landslide, located on the steep coastal side of the Tramuntana range on the island of Mallorca, is a large translational rock landslide in which the failure surface coincides with the reactivation of an earlier normal fault. The dating of calcite striae on the fault plane with U/Th techniques reveals that the last movement was over 400 kyr ago, which falls outside of the range of this method. The volume of the landslide is estimated to be over 700 million cubic metres, with a north-westward displacement of 300 m. Active extensional cracks as well as block spreads have been identified along the main scarp, together with displacement and toppling of blocks, the beginning of which coincides with oxygen isotope stage OIS 5a (Late Pleistocene = 83 kyr), a wetter and warmer period than the present. Currently active decametre-long cracks up to 50 mDepto. de Geodinámica, Estratigrafía y PaleontologíaFac. de Ciencias GeológicasTRUEEspaña. Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica y Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológicapu