The ENSO signature in sea-surface temperature in the Gulf of California

We analyzed 21 years of sea-surface temperature satellite images to explore the spatial signature of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation signal in the Gulf of California. We used empirical orthogonal function analysis to extract the principal mode of the nonseasonal sea-surface temperature variability and compared it to the spatial signature of the Southern Oscillation Index. The first mode accounted for 80% of nonseasonal variability and its amplitude time series was significantly correlated to the Southern Oscillation Index (r = −0.58,P \u3c 0.01). The amplitude of this mode and its statistical relation to the El Niño is stronger during winter, which suggests that forcing of sea-surface temperature variability occurs through the disruption of the wind-driven upwelling corridor along the eastern coast due to El Niño-related atmospheric teleconnections. We also examined weekly time series of coastal sea-surface temperature coastal anomalies along the coast of North America, including the interior of the Gulf of California, during the strong 1997–98 El Niño. We found a poleward propagating signal that reached the mouth of the Gulf of California at the end of spring and continued its poleward propagation along the west coast of the peninsula slightly delayed; it also resulted in warming inside the Gulf of California. This observation may provide an explanation for the variable extension of the El Niño signature along the Pacific coast of North America

Obtención de tricepiro resistente a pulgón verde (Schizapis graminum Rondani)

Una línea de tricepiro (triticale x trigopiro) obtenida en la Estación Experimental Agropecuaria de Anguil (INTA fue sometida a pruebas de comportamiento frente al pulgón verde de los cereales, utilizándose como testigo a centeno cv·. Insave F.A., trigopiro Don Noe INTA y avena Suregrain. Dicho tricepiro resultó ser uniformemente sensible al pulgón, lo mismo que el trigopiro Don Noe INTA y la avena Suregrain. El centeno Insave F.A., en cambio, mostró ser altamente resistente. Se sugiere re-elaborar tricepiros con antecesores que. como el centeno mencionado, son resistentes a las razas de pulgón que prevalecen en nuestro país.Director Ing. Agr. Guillermo Cova

Plasma and surface diagnostics of silicon nitride thin film coatings generated by SiH4+NH3 RF discharges.

Although plasma processing in low pressure electric discharge reactors has become an extensive and critical step in the fabrication of microelectronic devices, its development has been carried out mostly empirically so far, by changing external reactor parameters in order to develop the best achievable film properties, whereas the intrinsic state of the plasma has been largely unknown [1, 2]. In this work, silicon nitride (SiN) thin films have been grown on silicon samples and on AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMT) by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PE-CVD). The SiN coatings have been produced in a RF discharge reactor, employing SiH4 and NH3 as precursors, at different electric powers and gas flow ratios. During depositions, the plasmas have been characterized by mass and time resolved quadrupole mass spectrometry, and the depletion ratios of parent gases have been observed. Afterwards, the refractive indexes and growth rates of the films have been analysed by ellipsometry, and their composition, by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. The electrical characteristics and frequency responses of these films when deposited on HEMT (where they are just usually employed to passivate these devices against current collapses) have been studied too by means of DC, pulsed currents, and small signal RF measurements. The plasma characteristics for the different deposition conditions have been correlated with the subsequent changes in the properties of the films. A comparison with the results previously reported in the literature is addressed

Supervised exercise with or without laser-guided feedback for people with non-specific chronic low back pain. A randomized controlled clinical trial

Background: Among the most effective therapeutic interventions in non-specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP), clinical practice guidelines highlight exercise therapy and patient education; However, regarding the combined intervention of exercise and Pain Neuroscience Education (PNE), there is no consensus on the most effective form of exercise. Objetive: To find out what changes occurred after the application of two exercise modalities [Supervised Exercise (SE) and Laser-Guided Exercise (LGE)] and PNE on pain, pain pressure thresholds, disability, catastrophizing, kinesiophobia and lumbar proprioception in subjects with NSCLBP. Methods: Single-blind randomized clinical controlled trial. 60 subjects with NSCLBP. Both groups performed a a total of 16 therapeutic exercise sessions and 8 Pain Neuroscience Education sessions. With the Laser-Guided Exercise Therapy group performing laser-guided exercises. Results: A significant decrease was observed for pain intensity for both groups between baseline and post-intervention and the 3 month follow-up (p < 0.001). There was a significant between-group difference between baseline and post-intervention scores in terms of pain intensity and kinesiophobia in favour of the LGE group. Conclusion: Supervised exercise with or without laser feedback, when combined with PNE, reduces pain intensity, disability, pain catastrophizing, kinesiophobia and improves proprioception and PPTs in patients with NSCLBP. At a 3-month follow-up, the combination of LGE plus PNE is most effective for reducing pain intensity

E-learning in “innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship”: Exploring the new opportunities and challenges of technologies

Companies and society demand professionals be able to provide creative solutions with added value as well as to implement them in order to face the arising challenges in the increasingly dynamic environment. Although the transversal competence “Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship” is essential for engineers that should find innovative solutions to problems, teachers find many difficulties when training and evaluating their students in the scope of the regular courses: large groups, very adjusted time to technical contents. In this context, the School of Industrial Engineering (ETSII) at Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) is aware of the opportunities offered by new information and communication technologies to support teachers in this task while enhancing students’ generic outcomes. For this reason, an e-learning platform has been created on this competence, that offers valuable resources to students to implement this competence throughout the assigned course tasks, and supports teachers prompted to train and evaluate this transversal competence. With this platform, the authors aim to contribute to the still neglected educational aspect of entrepreneurship and address for the first time in an e-learning system its relationship with innovation and creativity

CONSEQUENCES OF SINGULAR ENVIRONMENTAL EVENTS ON THE CYCLE OF METALS IN COASTAL LAGOONS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE INCORPORATION OF METALS BY PRIMARY PRODUCERS

Coastal areas are valuable and sensitive environments subjected to great anthropogenic pressure. Among these pressures, metal pollution is of priority concern as these pollutants can reach concentrations that exceed the levels established to protect sensitive organisms in the ecosystem. In coastal lagoons, shallow systems with a reduced exchange with the open sea, metal concentrations are one or two orders of magnitude higher than in open-waters. In addition, these systems are subjected to physicochemical variations that can alter the biogeochemical cycling of the metals. Singular environmental events such as strong winds cause metal resuspension, torrential rain events provoke the entrance of solutes and pollutants, and phytoplankton blooms dramatically increase the concentration of organic matter. These events provoke alterations in the concentration and speciation of metals in the water column. This will have a direct impact in the organisms living in the area, since metal toxicity and bioavailability depends on the chemical speciation. Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is the most important variable influencing metal speciation and bioavailability in seawater. However, the effects of DOM on metal bioavailability have not been yet unravelled and contrasting results have been reported, some showing that DOM protects against metal toxicity and others showing the opposite. The present study was designed to study how the biogeochemical cycling of trace metals in the water column of coastal lagoons is influenced by these singular environmental events and how this affects the incorporation of metals by the primary producers, in this case, microalgae, with particular focus on the effect of dissolved organic matter on metal biouptake. The proposed work combines field sampling and analytical work in the Mar Menor lagoon (SE Spain). This project will substantially contribute to widen our knowledge about the behaviour of metals in coastal areas and to determine how the presence of DOM affects their toxicity

EFFECT OF DISSOLVED ORGANIC MATTER ON COPPER BIOAVAILABILITY TO A COASTAL DINOFLAGELLATE

Metal complexation by dissolved organic matter (DOM) is considered to decrease metal bioavailability by lowering the free metal ion concentration, therefore protecting organisms from the deleterious effects of metals (Campbell et al., 2002). In coastal lagoons like Mar Menor, with high terrestrial influence and low exchange with open sea, the levels of both DOM and metals are one or two orders of magnitude higher than in open-waters. In order to verify the free ion activity model (FIAM), copper internalization by Prorocentrum micans, a cosmopolitan dinoflagellate also present in the Mar Menor, was tested in the absence and presence of two types of DOM, commercially available fulvic acids from riverine origin (SRFA) and coastal DOM obtained by ultrafiltration (UF-DOM). The microalgae were exposed to artificial sea water enriched with increasing amounts of Cu65 isotope, at levels from 5 to 100 nM Cu, solely and in combination with DOM. After one-hour exposure, samples were centrifuged and washed and pellets were digested with nitric acid at 90ºC, following Sánchez-Marín et al (2010) and Croteau and Luoma (2005). In parallel, careful measurements of metal complexation by anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV) were performed and total Cu concentrations were measured by ICP-MS. Preliminary results show that copper internalization by the microalgae increases linearly as a function of labile Cu, both in the absence and presence of DOM, in agreement with FIAM and with labile Cu measurements performed by ASV. Future work might include testing the influence of competing metals, such as Pb or Zn, on Cu internalization, and to study Cu bioavailability in natural samples collected in the Mar Menor, in order to shed light into the factors that control Cu bioavailability in coastal lagoons

Exploiting the Hierarchical Structure of Rule-Based Specifications for Decision Planning

Rule-based specifications have been very successful as a declarative approach in many domains, due to the handy yet solid foundations offered by rule-based machineries like term and graph rewriting. Realistic problems, however, call for suitable techniques to guarantee scalability. For instance, many domains exhibit a hierarchical structure that can be exploited conveniently. This is particularly evident for composition associations of models. We propose an explicit representation of such structured models and a methodology that exploits it for the description and analysis of model- and rule-based systems. The approach is presented in the framework of rewriting logic and its efficient implementation in the rewrite engine Maude and is illustrated with a case study.

The effect of vibration therapy on neck myofascial trigger points: A randomized controlled pilot study

[EN] Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of low-frequency self-administered vibration therapy into myofascial trigger points in the upper trapezius and levator scapulae on patients with chronic non-specific neck pain. Methods: Twenty-eight patients with chronic non-specific neck pain were randomly assigned into a vibration group, receiving 10 self-applied sessions of vibration therapy in the upper trapezius and levator scapulae trigger points; or a control group, receiving no intervention. Self-reported neck pain and disability (Neck Disability Index) and pressure pain threshold were assessed at baseline and after the first, fifth and 10th treatment sessions. Findings: Significant differences were found in the vibration group when compared to the control group after the treatment period: the vibration group reached lower Neck Disability Index scores (F = 4.74, P = .033, eta(2) = 0.07) and greater pressure pain threshold values (F = 7.56, P = .01, eta(2) = 0.10) than the control group. The vibration group reported a significant reduction in Neck Disability Index scores (chi(2) = 19,35, P = .00, Kendall's W = 0.28) and an increase in pressure pain threshold (chi(2) = 87,10, P = .00, Kendall's W = 0.73) between the assessment times over the course of the treatment. The mean increase in pressure pain threshold in the vibration group after the 10 sessions was 8.54 N/cm2, while the mean reduction in Neck Disability Index scores was 4.53 points. Interpretation: Vibration therapy may be an effective intervention for reducing self-reported neck pain and disability and pressure pain sensitivity in patients with chronic non-specific neck pain. This tool could be recommended for people with non-specific neck pain.Dueñas, L.; Zamora, T.; Lluch, E.; Artacho Ramírez, MÁ.; Mayoral, O.; Balasch Parisi, S.; Balasch-Bernat, M. (2020). The effect of vibration therapy on neck myofascial trigger points: A randomized controlled pilot study. Clinical Biomechanics. 78:1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinbiomech.2020.1050711978Andrade Ortega, J. A., Delgado Martínez, A. D., & Ruiz, R. A. (2010). Validation of the Spanish Version of the Neck Disability Index. Spine, 35(4), E114-E118. doi:10.1097/brs.0b013e3181afea5dArmstrong, W. J., Grinnell, D. C., & Warren, G. S. (2010). The Acute Effect of Whole-Body Vibration on the Vertical Jump Height. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24(10), 2835-2839. doi:10.1519/jsc.0b013e3181e271ccBal, M. I., Sattoe, J. N. T., Roelofs, P. D. D. M., Bal, R., van Staa, A., & Miedema, H. S. (2016). 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COPPER AND LEAD COMPLEXATION BY DISSOLVED ORGANIC MATTER IN MAR MENOR COASTAL LAGOON

Mar Menor coastal lagoon is a shallow system with a reduced exchange with the open sea, that is affected by several anthropogenic pressures, mainly agriculture and mining. The mining sierra of Cartagena-La Unión has been historically discharging mining waste rich in heavy metals in the south area of Mar Menor, resulting in high metal concentrations in sediments (García and Muñoz-Vera., 2015). The nutrients reaching the lagoon, together with the high temperatures, also provoke phytoplankton blooms that lead to high concentrations of dissolved organic matter (DOM). It is well known that total metal concentrations are not good predictors of their bioavailability, and metal speciation should be taken into account. The presence of ligands, such as DOM in the water, may form metal-DOM complexes and protect against the deleterious effects of metals. The present study aims at studying the effect of DOM on the speciation of dissolved metals (Cu and Pb) in Mar Menor waters. With that aim, filtered water was sampled at five sites in Mar Menor lagoon at several sampling periods. Metal concentration was analysed by ICP-MS with Argon gas dilution, DOC was analysed in a carbon-specific infrared gas analyser and optical characterization of DOM was obtained from absorbance and fluorescence spectra. Complexiometric titrations of Cu and Pb were performed by anodic stripping voltammetry following Durán and Nieto (2011). Preliminary results show that Cu and Pb concentrations in Mar Menor waters are higher than in other coastal areas, especially in the south area of the lagoon, reaching concentrations of tens of nanomolar. DOC concentrations are also very high in Mar Menor waters, leading to high complexation capacities for Cu, therefore protecting aquatic biota from the deleterious effects of Cu. Pb, on the contrary, is poorly complexed by DOM, and almost all dissolved Pb is present in inorganic forms