Lupus eritematoso sistémico en un gato

Describimos el caso clínico de un gato macho de dos años de edad con un historial de gingivoestomatitis ulcerativa. Los análisis realizados revelan fallo renal con proteinuria, trombocitopenia e hipoalbuminemia. Tras el diagnóstico diferencial de glomerulonefropatía se procede a realizar un análisis de anticuerpos antinucleares, obteniéndose un resultado positivo. Se realiza el diagnóstico de lupus eritematoso sistémico basándonos en la presencia de cuatro de los criterios establecidos por la Asociación Americana de Reumatismo para el diagnóstico de lupus en humanos

Development of organic fertilizers from food market waste and urban gardening by composting in Ecuador

Currently, the management of urban waste streams in developing countries is not optimized yet, and in many cases these wastes are disposed untreated in open dumps. This fact causes serious environmental and health problems due to the presence of contaminants and pathogens. Frequently, the use of specific low-cost strategies reduces the total amount of wastes. These strategies are mainly associated to the identification, separate collection and composting of specific organic waste streams, such as vegetable and fruit refuses from food markets and urban gardening activities. Concretely, in the Chimborazo Region (Ecuador), more than 80% of municipal solid waste is dumped into environment due to the lack of an efficient waste management strategy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a demonstration project at field scale in this region to evaluate the feasibility of implanting the composting technology not only for the management of the organic waste fluxes from food market and gardening activities to be scaled-up in other developing regions, but also to obtain an end-product with a commercial value as organic fertilizer. Three co-composting mixtures were prepared using market wastes mixed with pruning of trees and ornamental palms as bulking agents. Two piles were created using different proportions of market waste and prunings of trees and ornamental palms: pile 1 (50:33:17) with a C/N ratio 25; pile 2: (60:30:10) with C/N ratio 24 and pile 3 (75:0:25) with C/N ratio 33), prepared with market waste and prunings of ornamental palm. Throughout the process, the temperature of the mixtures was monitored and organic matter evolution was determined using thermogravimetric and chemical techniques. Additionally, physico-chemical, chemical and agronomic parameters were determined to evaluate compost quality. The results obtained indicated that all the piles showed a suitable development of the composting process, with a significant organic matter decomposition, reached in a shorter period of time in pile 3. At the end of the process, all the composts showed absence of phytotoxicity and suitable agronomic properties for their use as organic fertilizers. This reflects the viability of the proposed alternative to be scaled-up in developing areas, not only to manage and recycle urban waste fluxes, but also to obtain organic fertilizers, including added value in economic terms related to nutrient contents.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Somatic embryo germination and plant regeneration of three grapevine cvs: Effect of IAA, GA3 and embryo morphology

Plant regeneration was achieved using somatic embryos obtained from the Vitis vinifera cvs Sugraone, Crimson Seedless and Don Mariano. White somatic embryos, 1.5-3 mm in length, were cultured on embryo germination medium with or without IAA (10 μM) + GA3 (1 μM). Germinated embryos showed 5 different morphologies, (1) one cotyledon, (2) two cotyledons, (3) three cotyledons, (4) trumpet-like and (5) fused cotyledons before transfer to half strength MS medium to obtain plants. The conversion rate was higher when somatic embryos were germinated in culture medium with IAA and GA3. Embryo morphology also had an effect on plant regeneration, somatic embryos with developed cotyledons (one, two or three) showing a higher conversion rate (57.8-70.2 %) than those with abnormal or no cotyledons (36.2-36.3 %).

Optical amplification enhancement in photonic crystals

Improving and controlling the efficiency of a gain medium is one of the most challenging problems of laser research. By measuring the gain length in an opal based photonic crystal doped with laser dye, we demonstrate that optical amplification is more than twenty-fold enhanced along the Gamma-K symmetry directions of the face centered cubic photonic crystal. These results are theoretically explained by directional variations of the density of states, providing a quantitative connection between density of the states and light amplification

Host Range of Meloidogyne Arenaria (NEAL, 1889) Chitwood, 1949 (Nematoda: Meloidogynidae) in Spain

11 páginas, ilustraciones y tablas estadísticas.The distribution of Meloidogyne arenaria in Spain was revised and new samples collected from representative areas. Species and races of the populations were determined by morphometrics, differential host tests and SCAR-PCR. Meloidogyne arenaria was found most often in warm areas, but it can occur in Northern Spain in greenhouses. A total of 125 citations were found, corresponding to 45 different host plants, of which 41 new reports (32.8%) are from this study. The populations studied belong to race 2, which reproduces on tomato plants carrying the Mi gene, or race 3, which reproduces on both resistant pepper and tomato. The most frequent hosts were vegetables, fruit trees, tobacco, grapevine, and weeds.INIA OT- 03-006C7-4 and RTA2007-00099-C00-00; Castilla La Mancha PAI09-0010-4701, INCRECYT CICyT CTM2006-07309.Peer reviewe

Generation of Probabilistic Synthetic Data for Serious Games: A Case Study on Cyberbullying

Synthetic data generation has been a growing area of research in recent years. However, its potential applications in serious games have not been thoroughly explored. Advances in this field could anticipate data modelling and analysis, as well as speed up the development process. The COVID-19 pandemic has enlarged such a phenomenon, To try to fill this gap in the literature, we propose a simulator architecture for generating probabilistic synthetic data for serious games based on interactive narratives. This architecture is designed to be generic and modular so that it can be used by other researchers on similar problems. To simulate the interaction of synthetic players with questions, we use a cognitive testing model based on the Item Response Theory framework. We also show how probabilistic graphical models (in particular Bayesian networks) can be used to introduce expert knowledge and external data into the simulation. Finally, we apply the proposed architecture and methods in a use case of a serious game focused on cyberbullying. We perform Bayesian inference experiments using a hierarchical model to demonstrate the identifiability and robustness of the generated data

Threading Through Macrocycles Enhances the Performance of Carbon Nanotubes as Polymer Fillers

In this work we study the reinforcement of polymers by mechanically interlocked derivatives of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). We compare the mechanical properties of fibers made of polymers and of composites with pristine single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), mechanically interlocked derivatives of SWNTs (MINTs) and the corresponding supramolecular models. Improvements of both Young's modulus and tensile strength of up to 200 % were observed for the polystyrene-MINTs samples with an optimized loading of just 0.01 wt.%, while the supramolecular models with identical chemical composition and loading showed negligible or even detrimental influence. This behavior is found for three different types of SWNTs and two types of macrocycles. Molecular dynamics simulations show that the polymer adopts an elongated conformation parallel to the SWNT when interacting with MINT fillers, irrespective of the macrocycle chemical nature, whereas a more globular structure is taken upon facing with either pristine SWNTs or supramolecular models. The MINT composite architecture thus leads to a more efficient exploitation of the axial properties of the SWNTs and of the polymer chain at the interface, in agreement with experimental results. Our findings demonstrate that the mechanical bond imparts distinctive advantageous properties to SWNT derivatives as polymer fillers.Comment: 39 pages, 19 figure

On the performance of multi-tier Heterogeneous networks under LoS and NLoS transmissions

Heterogeneous networks (HetNets) with a multi-tier structure have been considered as a promising method to provide high quality of service to mobile users. The dense deployment of small-cell base stations (BSs) implies short distances between BSs and users. It is therefore likely that users will see line-of-sight (LoS) links from its serving BS and even nearby interfering BSs, which has not been considered in performance analysis for multi-tier HetNets yet. In this paper, we study a dense multi-tier HetNet with LoS and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) transmissions based on a multislope path loss model. The spatial locations of BSs of any given network tier and those of mobile users are modeled as independent spatial Poisson point processes (SPPPs). We derive the expression of downlink coverage probability for the multi-tier HetNet, based on which we calculate the area spectral efficiency (ASE) and energy efficiency (EE) of the HetNet. Our analytical results demonstrate that in an extremely dense HetNet, both the ASE and EE of the HetNet will drop quickly with further increase of the small-cell density due to the dominance of LoS interfering small-cell links