Constraint on the time variation of the fine-structure constant with the SDSS-III/BOSS DR12 quasar sample

From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 12, which covers the full Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) footprint, we investigate the possible variation of the fine-structure constant over cosmological time-scales. We analyse the largest quasar sample considered so far in the literature, which contains 13175 spectra (10363 from SDSS-III/BOSS DR12 + 2812 from SDSS-II DR7) with redshift $z<\,$1. We apply the emission-line method on the [O III] doublet (4960, 5008 A) and obtain $\Delta\alpha/\alpha= \left(0.9 \pm 1.8\right)\times10^{-5}$ for the relative variation of the fine-structure constant. We also investigate the possible sources of systematics: misidentification of the lines, sky OH lines, H$\,\beta$ and broad line contamination, Gaussian and Voigt fitting profiles, optimal wavelength range for the Gaussian fits, chosen polynomial order for the continuum spectrum, signal-to-noise ratio and good quality of the fits. The uncertainty of the measurement is dominated by the sky subtraction. The results presented in this work, being systematics limited, have sufficient statistics to constrain robustly the variation of the fine-structure constant in redshift bins ($\Delta z\approx$ 0.06) over the last 7.9 Gyr. In addition, we study the [Ne III] doublet (3870, 3969 A) present in 462 quasar spectra and discuss the systematic effects on using these emission lines to constrain the fine-structure constant variation. Better constraints on $\Delta\alpha/\alpha\$ ($<$10$^{-6}$) using the emission-line method would be possible with high-resolution spectroscopy and large galaxy/qso surveys.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures. Version published in MNRAS. Analysis enlarged, public catalogue now availabl

Detección cuantitativa de microorganismos resistentes a la tetraciclina en carne convencional y ecológica de ternera, cerdo y pollo

The use of antimicrobials has increased the number of resistant bacteria to these drugs; however, the organic production has restricted the use of these compounds. The objectives of this work were to assess counts of tetracycline-resistant bacteria using conventional microbiology, to compare these results with those obtained for tet(A) and tet(B) genes by qPCR and to investigate both genes in conventional and organic meat. Counts of mesophilic aerobic bacteria were higher in organic beef, while chicken meat obtained higher counts for Enterobacteriaceae. Only tet(B) was higher in conventional pork and chicken meat than in their organic counterparts. The tet(A) gene was found in almost 100% of samples and tet(B) gene changed according to the type of meat. The presence of tet genes suggests that they are widely distributed, especially tet(A), in food of animal origin, even in organic meat samples obtained from animals in which the use of antimicrobials is restrictedEl uso de los antimicrobianos ha incrementado sustancialmente el número de bacterias resistentes a estos fármacos sin embargo, la producción ecológica, ha limitado el uso de estos medicamentos. Los objetivos del trabajo fueron evaluar los recuentos obtenidos de bacterias resistentes a tetraciclina mediante microbiología convencional, obtener recuentos de bacterias con los genes tet(A) y tet(B)mediante qPCR e investigar la distribución de ambos genes en carne convencional y ecológica. Los recuentos de bacterias aerobias mesófilas fueron significativamente mayores en carne ecológica de ternera, mientras que los recuentos de Enterobacteriaceae fueron superiores en carne convencional de pollo. Sólo el gen tet(B) fue significativamente mayor en carne convencional de cerdo y de pollo que en sus homólogas ecológicas. El gen tet(A) se encontró en casi todas las muestras mientras que el tet(B) varió según la especie. La presencia de los genes tet sugiere que están ampliamente distribuidos, especialmente tet(A), en alimentos de origen animal, incluso en aquellos derivados de animales en los que el uso de antimicrobianos está seriamente restringidoThe authors are grateful to the Institute Pasteur for providing the E. coli BM13 (C600 RifR)/RP4 strain (tet(A)) and to the Health Protection Agency for providing the E. coli NCTC 50365 strain (tet(B)). Xunta de Galicia (project 09MRU010261PR) supported this work. We also thank Carmen Carreira and Rodrigo García for their technical supportS

Adaptation and Evaluation of the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in Stores to Assess Mediterranean Food Environments (NEMS-S-MED)

The Nutrition Environment Measures Surveys are valid and reliable measures of community and consumer food environments. This article describes the adaptation and evaluation of the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in Stores (NEMS-S) for Mediterranean urban contexts (NEMS-S-MED). Trained raters used the adapted NEMS-S-MED tool to observe and rate food outlets in 21 census tracts and 43 food stores across the city of Madrid, Spain. We evaluated inter-rater and intra-rater reliabilities, construct validity, and the tool’s ability to discriminate between store types and between stores by area-level Socio-Economic Status (SES). Overall, the mean NEMS-S-MED score was 20.7 (SD = 9.8), which ranged from 7 to 43. Most food items displayed substantial or almost perfect inter-rater and intra-rater agreements; the percentage agreement across availability items was almost perfect and kappa statistics were also very high (median κ = 1.00 for inter-rater; κ = 0.92 for intra-rater). Furthermore, the NEMS-S-MED tool was able to discriminate between store types and census tracts of different SES. The adapted NEMS-S-MED instrument is a reliable and valid audit tool to assess the consumer food environment in Mediterranean urban contexts. Well-constructed measurement tools, such as the NEMS-S-MED, may facilitate the development of effective policy interventions to increase healthy food access and affordability.A.M.-G. was funded by a predoctoral fellowship offered to trainee researchers from the University of Alicante (UAFPU2017-047). J.D. was supported by the Alicia Llácer grant for Young Epidemiologists (14th edition) awarded by the Spanish Society of Epidemiology. U.B. was supported by a grant from the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health under award number DP5OD26429. This study was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007–2013/ERC Starting Grant Heart Healthy Hoods Agreement no. 623 336893)

Adaptation and evaluation of the nutrition environment measures survey in stores to assess mediterranean food environments (Nems-s-med)

The Nutrition Environment Measures Surveys are valid and reliable measures of community and consumer food environments. This article describes the adaptation and evaluation of the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey in Stores (NEMS-S) for Mediterranean urban contexts (NEMS-S-MED). Trained raters used the adapted NEMS-S-MED tool to observe and rate food outlets in 21 census tracts and 43 food stores across the city of Madrid, Spain. We evaluated inter-rater and intra-rater reliabilities, construct validity, and the tool's ability to discriminate between store types and between stores by area-level Socio-Economic Status (SES). Overall, the mean NEMS-S-MED score was 20.7 (SD = 9.8), which ranged from 7 to 43. Most food items displayed substantial or almost perfect inter-rater and intra-rater agreements; the percentage agreement across availability items was almost perfect and kappa statistics were also very high (median κ = 1.00 for inter-rater; κ = 0.92 for intra-rater). Furthermore, the NEMS-S-MED tool was able to discriminate between store types and census tracts of different SES. The adapted NEMS-S-MED instrument is a reliable and valid audit tool to assess the consumer food environment in Mediterranean urban contexts. Well-constructed measurement tools, such as the NEMS-S-MED, may facilitate the development of effective policy interventions to increase healthy food access and affordability

El proyecto "ciencia y comarca" (cico) : una experiencia con 25 años de historia

La intención de promover una educación en ciencias sustentada en el propio medio natural no ha pasado de ser un propósito más de las reformas educativas. Las propuestas curriculares no han sido suficientemente precisas en cuanto a la vinculación del aprendizaje al propio entorno, han confundido con frecuencia educación en el medio con educación ambiental, y en ningún caso se han contemplado los requisitos necasarios para implementarla. Los grupos de trabajo, surgidos, como el nuestro, con la aparición de los servicios de perfeccionamiento del profesorado, tratarón de interpretar el espíritu de los objetivos curriculares y llevarlos a la práctica. La descripción de nuestra propuesta y su desarrollo durante los últimos veinticinco años es el objeto de esta comunicación

A real-time scheduling framework on distributed mobile environments

Throughout the years, a centralized model has been widely used in all sorts of regarding computer science, educational and new technology applications, this distributed mobile system application structure partitions task or workloads between the provider and requester service. This work describes the implementation of a user graphical interface, named JPeer, for an embedded software; this shows the use of a P2P network that allows a supercomputer the allocation of its resources optimally among the different nodes connected to it. The peers in this project are represented as mobile devices and with the use of JNI (Java Native interface), with this it is possible to communicate peers created in Java with peers created in C++, accordingly, message passing would therefore be possible among different programming languages and operating systems. We applied several P2P nets with multiple peers in a node of LNS (supercomputing laboratory) in Southeast Mexico. The understanding of distributed and real time system algorithms can represent a difficulty due to the abstraction and difficult learning. In the meantime, the framework implementation represents a mobile distributed system environment, where the user can manage the nodes in a simple, easy and transparent way, as well as visualize how each node executes its processes, becomes a very useful and didactic tool. On the other hand, we highlight the need to adapt languages with native characteristics and take advantage of both parts on educational and technological environment

Tuning melatonin receptor subtype selectivity in oxadiazolone-based analogues: Discovery of QR2 ligands and NRF2 activators with neurogenic properties

New multi-target indole and naphthalene derivatives containing the oxadiazolone scaffold as a bioisostere of the melatonin acetamido group have been developed. The novel compounds were characterized at melatonin receptors MT1R and MT2R, quinone reductase 2 (QR2), lipoxygenase-5 (LOX-5), and monoamine oxidases (MAO-A and MAO-B), and also as radical scavengers. We found that selectivity within the oxadiazolone series can be modulated by modifying the side chain functionality and coplanarity with the indole or naphthalene ring. In phenotypic assays, several oxadiazolone-based derivatives induced signalling mediated by the transcription factor NRF2 and promoted the maturation of neural stem-cells into a neuronal phenotype. Activation of NRF2 could be due to the binding of indole derivatives to KEAP1, as deduced from surface plasmon resonance (SPR) experiments. Molecular modelling studies using the crystal structures of QR2 and the KEAP1 Kelch-domain, as well as the recently described X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) structures of chimeric MT1R and MT2R, provided a rationale for the experimental data and afforded valuable insights for future drug design endeavoursThe authors gratefully acknowledge the following financial supports: Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities; Spanish Research Agency; and European Regional Development Funds (grants RTI2018-093955-B-C21 and SAF2015-64948-C2-1-R to M.I.R.-F.; RTI2018-095793-B-I00 to M.G.L., SAF2015-64629-C2- 2-R to F.G.), General Council for Research and Innovation of the Community of Madrid and European Structural Funds (grant B2017/BMD-3827 e NRF24ADCM), Health Institute Carlos III (Miguel Servet II ProgramCP16/00014 and grant PI17/01700 to R.L.). CH-A and P.M. thank their PhD fellowships from Spanish Ministry of Education (MEC, PhD grant FPU16/01704 and mobility grant FPUEST17/00233 to CH-A and FPU13/03737 to P.M.)

Resistance and inactivation kinetics of bacterial strains isolated from the Non-chlorinated and chlorinated effluents of a WWTP

The microbiological quality of water from a wastewater treatment plant that uses sodium hypochlorite as a disinfectant was assessed. Mesophilic aerobic bacteria were not removed efficiently. This fact allowed for the isolation of several bacterial strains from the effluents. Molecular identification indicated that the strains were related to Aeromonas hydrophila, Escherichia coli (three strains), Enterobacter cloacae, Kluyvera cryocrescens (three strains), Kluyvera intermedia, Citrobacter freundii (two strains), Bacillus sp. and Enterobacter sp. The first five strains, which were isolated from the non-chlorinated effluent, were used to test resistance to chlorine disinfection using three sets of variables: disinfectant concentration (8, 20 and 30 mg·L−1), contact time (0, 15 and 30 min) and water temperature (20, 25 and 30 °C). The results demonstrated that the strains have independent responses to experimental conditions and that the most efficient treatment was an 8 mg·L−1 dose of disinfectant at a temperature of 20 °C for 30 min. The other eight strains, which were isolated from the chlorinated effluent, were used to analyze inactivation kinetics using the disinfectant at a dose of 15 mg·L−1 with various retention times (0, 10, 20, 30, 60 and 90 min). The results indicated that during the inactivation process, there was no relationship between removal percentage and retention time and that the strains have no common response to the treatmentsThe work of SM-H was supported by a graduate scholarship (number 217745) that was kindly provided by CONACyT, Mexico. Some chemical reagents were generously provided by the Administration of the B.A. in Biology at UAEH, Mexico. We thank the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Hidalgo campus, for allowing us to sample from its WWTP. The authors recognize Jose A. Rodriguez-Ávila for his comments on the procedure for analyzing inactivation kineticsS

Incremento del número de estudiantes del género femenino egresados de la carrera de medicina veterinaria en GuatemalaIncrease in the number of female students graduated from the career of veterinary medicine in Guatemala

La Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (Usac) desde el año 2006 implementó una política de equidad de género. Un rasgo cuantitativo de equidad es la cantidad de estudiantes del género masculino y femenino participando en educación superior. El Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE, 2013) y algunos autores afirman que existen proporciones similares de ambos géneros egresando de universidades guatemaltecas. El presente estudio exploró si la cantidad de estudiantes según género se mantiene en similares proporciones a nivel de profesiones específicas, para el caso particular de medicina veterinaria y zootecnia. Se verificaron los registros de tesis de los años 2000-2017 de la Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, describiendo la proporción de egresados según género. Se analizaron 771 tesis, observando que el 74.5% pertenecen a egresados de veterinaria y 25.4% a egresados de zootecnia.Anualmente en promedio egresaron 32 veterinarios y 11 zootecnistas. Los datos sugieren que en la carrera de medicina veterinaria existe un aumento en el número de estudiantes del género femenino, aproximándose a la proporción de alumnos del género masculino. En el caso de la carrera de zootecnia, se estima que únicamente la tercera parte de estudiantes corresponde al género femenino.Un análisis categórico sugiere que el género femenino está asociado de medicina veterinaria y el género masculino a zootecnia. Se discuten brevemente las implicaciones de estos hallazgos para ambas profesiones y se evidencia la necesidad de ampliar los datos generados en materia de equidad y paridad de género en la educación superior en estas carreras profesionales