Cumulative Drought Stress Leads to a Loss of Growth Resilience and Explains Higher Mortality in Planted than in Naturally Regenerated Pinus pinaster Stands

The assessment of the long-term impacts of drought on tree growth decline using tree-ring analyses may be used to test if plantations are more vulnerable to warming after successive droughts, leading to a “cumulative stress” effect. We selected 76 Pinus pinaster trees (declining and non-declining trees), and basal area increments over the last 20 years (BAI20) were calculated to build the chronologies for the stand types and vigor classes. Resistance, recovery and resilience indices were calculated. Pearson correlations, analyses and Partial Least-Squares regression were used to analyze the relationships among the response and environmental variables. We found a negative and significant relationship between mean temperature for May and June of the current year and growth in the naturally regenerated stands. This negative effect on growth under warm spring conditions was more noticeable in plantations than in naturally regenerated stands. A negative trend along time was found for the resilience index in planted stands. Evapotranspiration, maximum temperature and annual radiation showed significant and negative correlations with the growth of declining trees from planted stands, indicating they are susceptible to drought stress. Declining trees in planted stands showed a loss of growth resilience, specifically a negative trend after successive droughts

Extended States in a One-dimensional Generalized Dimer Model

The transmission coefficient for a one dimensional system is given in terms of Chebyshev polynomials using the tight-binding model. This result is applied to a system composed of two impurities located between $N$ sites of a host lattice. It is found that the system has extended states for several values of the energy. Analytical expressions are given for the impurity site energy in terms of the electron's energy. The number of resonant states grows like the number of host sites between the impurities. This property makes the system interesting since it is a simple task to design a configuration with resonant energy very close to the Fermi level $E_F$.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Working the interdisciplinary integration: Assesing a bridge activity between two subjects of Environmental Sciences Degree

[EN] This paper describes how an interdicisciplinar group of teachers implements a bridge-activity between two subjects in 2nd course of Environmental Sciences degree. The main goal is to develop both generic and specific competencies related to interdisciplinary work. Students evaluate if these innovation proposals are adequate to develop these skills and what impact produces in their own learning. As main conclusion, to note that coordination between teachers to interconnect subjects within degrees is a very appropriate intervention to provide students with a comprehensive education and skills, they value these activities very positively.[ES] El presente trabajo describe cómo un grupo interdicisciplinar de docentes implanta una actividad puente entre dos asignaturas del 2º curso de grado de Ciencias Ambientales, con el objetivo de desarrollar competencias tanto genéricas como específicas relacionadas con la interdiciplinariedad. Los alumnos evalúan si estas propuestas de innovación docente son adecuadas para desarrollar dichas competencias y qué impacto producen en su propio aprendizaje. Como conclusión principal, destacar que la coordinación entre docentes y el trabajo para interconectar asignaturas dentro de los grados es un ámbito de intervención muy oportuno para dotar a los estudiantes de una formación en competencias e integral, ya que ellos valoran este tipo de actividades muy positivamente.Sandín Vázquez, M.; Lazo Vitoria, X.; Giménez Baldazo, M.; Rodríguez Martínez, M. (2016). Trabajando la integración interdisciplinar: Evaluación de una actividad puente entre dos asignaturas del Grado en Ciencias Ambientales. REDU. Revista de Docencia Universitaria. 14(1):245-260. doi:10.4995/redu.2016.5907.SWORD24526014

Factores que determinan la demanda y su utilidad en la toma de decisiones financieras (Factors that determine the demand and its utility in the financial decision making)

Abstract. The present document has like purpose of giving an explanation of which it is a function of demand and the practical utility of the estimation when relating it to qualitative variables of estimation of sales obtained from the experience of the experts. The form in how it sets out to carry out the previous thing is to raise the basic concepts firstly associate to the theory of the demand; these subjects are the factors that determine the demand, the displacements. In addition, the importance of the estimation of sales since they will serve as departure point for the adapted decision making of financial character in the organizations, by such reason considers is due to have special well-taken care of in its elaboration. Resumen. El presente documento tiene como finalidad dar una explicación de lo que es una función de demanda y la utilidad práctica de su estimación al relacionarla con variables cualitativas de estimación de ventas obtenidas a partir de la experiencia de los expertos. La forma en cómo se propone llevar a cabo lo anterior es plantear primeramente los conceptos básicos asociados a la teoría de la demanda; estos temas son los factores que determinan la demanda, los desplazamientos. Además, se plantea la importancia de los pronósticos de ventas ya que servirán de punto de partida para la adecuada toma de decisiones de carácter financiero en las organizaciones, por tal motivo se debe de tener especial cuidado en su elaboración

Assessment of the Carbon Stock in Pine Plantations in Southern Spain through ALS Data and K-Nearest Neighbor Algorithm Based Models

Accurate estimation of forest biomass to enable the mapping of forest C stocks over large areas is of considerable interest nowadays. Airborne laser scanning (ALS) systems bring a new perspective to forest inventories and subsequent biomass estimation. The objective of this research was to combine growth models used to update old inventory data to a reference year, low-density ALS data, and k-nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithm Random Forest to conduct biomass inventories aimed at estimating the C sequestration capacity in large Pinus plantations. We obtained a C stock in biomass (Wt-S) of 12.57 Mg·ha−1, ranging significantly from 19.93 Mg·ha−1 for P. halepensis to 49.05 Mg·ha−1 for P. nigra, and a soil organic C stock of the composite soil samples (0–40 cm) ranging from 20.41 Mg·ha−1 in P. sylvestris to 37.32 Mg·ha−1 in P. halepensis. When generalizing these data to the whole area, we obtained an overall C-stock value of 48.01 MgC·ha−1, ranging from 23.96 MgC·ha−1 for P. halepensis to 58.09 MgC·ha−1 for P. nigra. Considering the mean value of the on-site C stock, the study area sustains 1,289,604 Mg per hectare (corresponding to 4,732,869 Mg CO2), with a net increase of 4.79 Mg·ha−1·year−1. Such C cartography can help forest managers to improve forest silviculture with regard to C sequestration and, thus, climate change mitigation

Immune Profiling of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells at Pancreas Acute Rejection Episodes in Kidney-Pancreas Transplant Recipients

Profiling of circulating immune cells provides valuable insight to the pathophysiology of acute rejection in organ transplantation. Herein we characterized the peripheral blood mononuclear cells in simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplant recipients. We conducted a retrospective analysis in a biopsy-matched cohort (n = 67) and compared patients with biopsy proven acute rejection (BPAR; 41%) to those without rejection (No-AR). We observed that CD3+ T cells, both CD8+ and CD4+, as well as CD19+ B cells were increased in patients with BPAR, particularly in biopsies performed in the early post-transplant period (<3 months). During this period immune subsets presented a good discriminative ability (CD4+ AUC 0.79; CD8+ AUC 0.80; B cells AUC 0.86; p < 0.05) and outperformed lipase (AUC 0.62; p = 0.12) for the diagnosis of acute rejection. We further evaluated whether this could be explained by differences in frequencies prior to transplantation. Patients presenting with early post-transplant rejection (<3 months) had a significant increase in T-cell frequencies pre-transplant, both CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells (p < 0.01), which were associated with a significant inferior rejection-free graft survival. T cell frequencies in peripheral blood correlated with pancreas acute rejection episodes, and variations prior to transplantation were associated with pancreas early acute rejection.Copyright © 2022 Rovira, Ramirez-Bajo, Bañón-Maneus, Hierro-Garcia, Lazo-Rodriguez, Piñeiro, Montagud-Marrahi, Cucchiari, Revuelta, Cuatrecasas, Campistol, Ricart, Diekmann, Garcia-Criado and Ventura-Aguiar

Short film production in educational contexts: exploring the methodology of the Olhar pela Lente project in Portugal

Cinema’s pedagogical essence nurtures a variety of educational strategies. Beyond serving as a support to other areas of knowledge or as the subject of artistic analysis, it also provides students with a means to give – freely and significantly – voice to their own concerns and interests. Short film production in schools can offer a process for young people to deal with personal and social challenges, fostering a closer connection between them and their community and environment. Schools are natural habitats for this encounter – a place where film production can generate significant educational and cultural resonance. This paper reflects on the didactic potential of short film production in schools – as a key to fulfil formal and non-formal pedagogical goals – through the presentation and analysis of a recently implemented methodology for education through film: Olhar pela Lente, a project developed in Portugal during 2018.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Are Women's Empowerment and Income Inequality Associated with Excess Weight in Latin American Cities?

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11524-022-00689-5

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE