The Rise and Fall of the Ebro Water Transfer

This article analyzes the Ebro inter-basin transfer, which was the main project of the Spanish National Hydrological Plan. The Ebro transfer was prompted by pervasive pressures, scarcity and degradation of Southeastern basins in Spain. The heated policy debate on the Ebro transfer, highlights the difficulties of achieving a sustainable water management, because of the conflicting interests of stakeholders and regions. Alternatives to the Ebro transfer show that, acceptable outcomes combine demand and supply measures. Nevertheless, implementation could be difficult and requires compensation to farmers, otherwise an excessive burden on farmers would be met by social opposition leading to the failure of measures

Selección de presas por el caracolero (Rostrhamus sociabilis) en cuerpos de agua permanentes y temporarios del centro de Argentina.

– En este estudio se analizó el patrón de selección de presas del caracolero (Rostrhamus sociabilis) sobre el caracol de agua dulce Pomacea canaliculata en la provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Para esto se colectaron los restos presa de esta especie bajo las perchas de alimentación del caracolero y se colectaron individuos vivos de P. canaliculata en cinco cuerpos de agua temporarios y en tres lagunas. En cada localidad de muestreo, se comparó la distribución de frecuencias de los tamaños de los caracoles colectados de la población y de los caracoles predados por el caracolero. El caracolero seleccionó el tamaño de sus presas en todas las localidades; sin embargo, al patrón de selección difirió entre los diferentes tipos de ambientes. En las lagunas, el caracolero seleccionó presas de tamaño intermedio, pero en los cuerpos de agua temporarios seleccionó tanto las presas intermedias como las de mayor tamaño. A pesar de esto, el tamaño promedio de los caracoles predados en los cuerpos de agua temporarios fue 8–17 mm menor que en las lagunas. Las estimaciones de abundancia de caracoles (y, presumiblemente, su disponibilidad para los caracoleros) fueron mayores en los cuerpos de agua temporarios que en las lagunas. Las diferencias en la abundancia de presas y en la fisonomía del hábitat entre ambientes podrían ser responsables de las diferencias en el patrón de selección de presas observado.Prey selection by snail kites (Rostrhamus sociabilis) on freshwater apple snails (Pomacea canaliculata) was studied in permanent and temporary wetlands in Buenos Aires province, Central Argentina. Live individuals of P. canaliculata and prey remains of this species left under perches by snail kites were collected in five temporary and three permanent wetlands. Frequency distributions of size of live and preyed-upon snails were compared at each sampling locality. Although snail kites selected prey by size both in temporary and permanent wetlands, the pattern of prey selection differed between wetland types. Snail kites selected prey of intermediate size in permanent wetlands but in temporary wetlands they selected for intermediate and large-sized snails. In spite of this selection pattern, snail preyed by snail kites in temporary wetlands was on average 8–17 mm smaller than in permanent wetlands. Estimates of snail abundance (and presumably prey availability) were higher in temporary wetlands than in permanent wetlands. Differences in habitat physiognomy and in snail abundance between both types of habitat could be responsible for differences in the pattern of prey selection between wetland types.Fil: Mapelli, Fernando Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; ArgentinaFil: Kittlein, Marcelo Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras; Argentin

Real-Time odor classification through sequential bayesian filtering

The classification of volatiles substances with an e-nose is still a challenging problem, particularly when working under real-time, out-of-the-lab environmental conditions where the chaotic and highly dynamic characteristics of the gas transportation induce an almost permanent transient state in the e-nose readings. In this work, a sequential Bayesian filtering approach is proposed to efficiently integrate information from previous e-nose observations while updating the belief about the gas class on a real-time basis. We validate our proposal with two real olfaction datasets composed of dynamic time-series experiments (gas transitions are Considered, but no mixture of gases), showing an improvement in the classification rate when compared to a stand-alone probabilistic classifier.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Non-uniform hyperbolicity and existence of absolutely continuous invariant measures

We prove that for certain partially hyperbolic skew-products, non-uniform hyperbolicity along the leaves implies existence of a finite number of ergodic absolutely continuous invariant probability measures which describe the asymptotics of almost every point. The main technical tool is an extension for sequences of maps of a result of de Melo and van Strien relating hyperbolicity to recurrence properties of orbits. As a consequence of our main result, we also obtain a partial extension of Keller's theorem guaranteeing the existence of absolutely continuous invariant measures for non-uniformly hyperbolic one dimensional maps.Comment: 24 page

Multi-indexed p-orthogonal sums in non-commutative Lebesgue spaces

In this paper we extend a recent Pisier's inequality for p-orthogonal sums in non-commutative Lebesgue spaces. To that purpose, we generalize the notion of p-orthogonality to the class of multi-indexed families of operators. This kind of families appear naturally in certain non-commutative Khintchine type inequalities associated with free groups. Other p-orthogonal families are given by the homogeneous operator-valued polynomials in the Rademacher variables or the multi-indexed martingale difference sequences. As in Pisier's result, our tools are mainly combinatorial.Comment: To appear in Indiana Univ. Math. J. 14 page