Location of franchises and large retail chains following the Great Recession. The case of the city of Zaragoza (Spain)

The current retail activity model is rapidly evolving, in order to adapt to consumer changes. For a long time, shopping centres have stood out as the most attractive model. However, the implementation of franchises and large commercial chains in cities is transforming the uses of urban space and configuring new spatial relationships. The city of Saragossa serves as a case study

Management and restoration of pastures and rangelands in the mediterranean basin from the northern and the southern perspective

Pastoralism is a traditional land use in the Mediterranean region lasting for several thousands of years, where vegetation and animal communities are adapted to deal with summer drought periods and grazing pressure. There is a difference between the two shores of the Mediterranean in terms of pastoralism, it is more a mode of subsistence in the South, whereas in the North is a complementary activity each time less profitable. In addition, there is a clear North-South climatic gradient that determines rangelands productivity, carrying capacity, sustainable management and resilience. The environmental and socio-economical differences among the Northern and the Southern shores of the basin determine separated trends in both shores, leading to different management and future perspectives of rangelands. In addition to climate, differences in demographic pressure and socio-economical context influence rangeland status across the Mediterranean basin. Abandonment of grazing activities in North Mediterranean region vs. grazing intensification or even sedentarization in South Mediterranean region are the main socio-economical drivers, with important consequences on rangeland conservation. Despite regional differences, global warming affects the Mediterranean rangelands as a whole, increasing the shortage of water availability and the summer stress. These common perspective should promote that northern and southern rangeland managers and researchers learn from each other to deal with rangeland conservation, management and restoration. The latest research address pastoral production systems as a whole, and considers pastoral improvement techniques as a component in a holistic approach

Ubicación de franquicias y grandes cadenas comerciales después de la gran recesión. El caso de la ciudad de Zaragoza

El modelo comercial actual evoluciona de manera acelerada, adaptándose a los cambios del consumidor. Si hasta hace bien poco las grandes superficies comerciales eran las locomotoras de esta actividad, la implantación de franquicias y grandes cadenas comerciales en las ciudades está transformando los usos del espacio urbano y configurando nuevas relaciones espaciales. Como ejemplo se ha seleccionado la ciudad de Zaragoza

A study of the properties, reactivity and anticancer activity of novel N- methylated-3-thiazolyl or 3-thienyl carbazoles and their Pd(II) and Pt(II) complexes

The synthesis and characterization of two hybrid N-methylated carbazole derivatives containing a thiazolyl or a thienyl ring is reported. The thiazolyl derivative has been also characterised by X-ray diffraction analysis. The study of its reactivity in front of [MCl2(dmso)(2)] (M = Pd or Pt) or Na-2[PdCl4] in methanol has allowed us to isolate and characterize its complexes. However, for the thienyl analogue, the formation of any Pd(II) or Pt(II) complex was not detected, indicating that it is less prone to bind to the M(II) ions than its thiazolyl analogue. Density Functional Theory (DFT) and Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (TD-DFT) calculations have also been carried out in order to rationalize the influence of the nature of the thiazolyl or thienyl group on the electronic delocalization. Molecular mechanics calculations show that the free rotation of the thiazolyl in relation to the carbazole requires a greater energy income than for its thienyl analogue. Studies of the cytotoxic activity of the new compounds on colon (HCT116) and breast (MDA-MB231 and MCF7) cancer cell lines show that the thiazolyl carbazole ligand and its Pt(II) complex are the most active agents of the series and in the MCF7 line their potency is higher than that of cisplatin. In the non-tumoral human skin fibroblast BJ cell line, all the compounds were less toxic than cisplatin. Their potential ability to modify the electrophoretic mobility of pBluescript SK+ plasmid DNA and to act as inhibitors of Topoisomerases I and II alpha or cathepsin B has also been investigated

Chaste: an open source C++ library for computational physiology and biology

Chaste - Cancer, Heart And Soft Tissue Environment - is an open source C++ library for the computational simulation of mathematical models developed for physiology and biology. Code development has been driven by two initial applications: cardiac electrophysiology and cancer development. A large number of cardiac electrophysiology studies have been enabled and performed, including high performance computational investigations of defibrillation on realistic human cardiac geometries. New models for the initiation and growth of tumours have been developed. In particular, cell-based simulations have provided novel insight into the role of stem cells in the colorectal crypt. Chaste is constantly evolving and is now being applied to a far wider range of problems. The code provides modules for handling common scientific computing components, such as meshes and solvers for ordinary and partial differential equations (ODEs/PDEs). Re-use of these components avoids the need for researchers to "re-invent the wheel" with each new project, accelerating the rate of progress in new applications. Chaste is developed using industrially-derived techniques, in particular test-driven development, to ensure code quality, re-use and reliability. In this article we provide examples that illustrate the types of problems Chaste can be used to solve, which can be run on a desktop computer. We highlight some scientific studies that have used or are using Chaste, and the insights they have provided. The source code, both for specific releases and the development version, is available to download under an open source Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) licence at http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/chaste, together with details of a mailing list and links to documentation and tutorials

First direct detection of an exoplanet by optical interferometry; Astrometry and K-band spectroscopy of HR8799 e

To date, infrared interferometry at best achieved contrast ratios of a few times $10^{-4}$ on bright targets. GRAVITY, with its dual-field mode, is now capable of high contrast observations, enabling the direct observation of exoplanets. We demonstrate the technique on HR8799, a young planetary system composed of four known giant exoplanets. We used the GRAVITY fringe tracker to lock the fringes on the central star, and integrated off-axis on the HR8799e planet situated at 390 mas from the star. Data reduction included post-processing to remove the flux leaking from the central star and to extract the coherent flux of the planet. The inferred K band spectrum of the planet has a spectral resolution of 500. We also derive the astrometric position of the planet relative to the star with a precision on the order of 100$\,\mu$as. The GRAVITY astrometric measurement disfavors perfectly coplanar stable orbital solutions. A small adjustment of a few degrees to the orbital inclination of HR 8799 e can resolve the tension, implying that the orbits are close to, but not strictly coplanar. The spectrum, with a signal-to-noise ratio of $\approx 5$ per spectral channel, is compatible with a late-type L brown dwarf. Using Exo-REM synthetic spectra, we derive a temperature of $1150\pm50$\,K and a surface gravity of $10^{4.3\pm0.3}\,$cm/s$^{2}$. This corresponds to a radius of $1.17^{+0.13}_{-0.11}\,R_{\rm Jup}$ and a mass of $10^{+7}_{-4}\,M_{\rm Jup}$, which is an independent confirmation of mass estimates from evolutionary models. Our results demonstrate the power of interferometry for the direct detection and spectroscopic study of exoplanets at close angular separations from their stars.Comment: published in A&

Effectiveness of a cognitive behavioral intervention in patients with medically unexplained symptoms: cluster randomized trial

BACKGROUND: Medically unexplained symptoms are an important mental health problem in primary care and generate a high cost in health services.Cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy have proven effective in these patients. However, there are few studies on the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions by primary health care. The project aims to determine whether a cognitive-behavioral group intervention in patients with medically unexplained symptoms, is more effective than routine clinical practice to improve the quality of life measured by the SF-12 questionary at 12 month. METHODS/DESIGN: This study involves a community based cluster randomized trial in primary healthcare centres in Madrid (Spain). The number of patients required is 242 (121 in each arm), all between 18 and 65 of age with medically unexplained symptoms that had seeked medical attention in primary care at least 10 times during the previous year. The main outcome variable is the quality of life measured by the SF-12 questionnaire on Mental Healthcare. Secondary outcome variables include number of consultations, number of drug (prescriptions) and number of days of sick leave together with other prognosis and descriptive variables. Main effectiveness will be analyzed by comparing the percentage of patients that improve at least 4 points on the SF-12 questionnaire between intervention and control groups at 12 months. All statistical tests will be performed with intention to treat. Logistic regression with random effects will be used to adjust for prognostic factors. Confounding factors or factors that might alter the effect recorded will be taken into account in this analysis. DISCUSSION: This study aims to provide more insight to address medically unexplained symptoms, highly prevalent in primary care, from a quantitative methodology. It involves intervention group conducted by previously trained nursing staff to diminish the progression to the chronicity of the symptoms, improve quality of life, and reduce frequency of medical consultations. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01484223 [http://ClinicalTrials.gov].S

Debris disk results from the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey's polarimetric imaging campaign

Funding: Supported by NSF grants AST-1411868 (E.L.N., K.B.F., B.M., and J.P.), AST-141378 (G.D.), and AST-1518332 (T.M.E., R.J.D.R., J.R.G., P.K., G.D.). Supported by NASA grants NNX14AJ80G (E.L.N., B.M., F.M., and M.P.), NNX15AC89G and NNX15AD95G/NExSS (T.M.E., B.M., R.J.D.R., G.D., J.J.W, J.R.G., P.K.), NN15AB52l (D.S.), and NNX16AD44G (K.M.M.). M.R. is supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant number DGE-1752134. J.R. and R.D. acknowledge support from the Fonds de Recherche du Quèbec. J. Mazoyer’s work was performed in part under contract with the California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory funded by NASA through the Sagan Fellowship Program executed by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute. M.M.B. and J.M. were supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grants #51378.01-A and HST-HF2-51414.001, respectively, and I.C. through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51405.001-A, awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. K.W.D. is supported by an NRAO Student Observing Support Award SOSPA3-007. J.J.W. is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation 51 Pegasi b postdoctoral fellowship.We report the results of a ∼4 yr direct imaging survey of 104 stars to resolve and characterize circumstellar debris disks in scattered light as part of the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) Exoplanet Survey. We targeted nearby (≲150 pc), young (≲500 Myr) stars with high infrared (IR) excesses (LIR/L⋆ > 10-5), including 38 with previously resolved disks. Observations were made using the GPI high-contrast integral field spectrograph in H-band (1.6 μm) coronagraphic polarimetry mode to measure both polarized and total intensities. We resolved 26 debris disks and 3 protoplanetary/transitional disks. Seven debris disks were resolved in scattered light for the first time, including newly presented HD 117214 and HD 156623, and we quantified basic morphologies of five of them using radiative transfer models. All of our detected debris disks except HD 156623 have dust-poor inner holes, and their scattered-light radii are generally larger than corresponding radii measured from resolved thermal emission and those inferred from spectral energy distributions. To assess sensitivity, we report contrasts and consider causes of nondetections. Detections were strongly correlated with high IR excess and high inclination, although polarimetry outperformed total intensity angular differential imaging for detecting low-inclination disks (≲70°). Based on postsurvey statistics, we improved upon our presurvey target prioritization metric predicting polarimetric disk detectability. We also examined scattered-light disks in the contexts of gas, far-IR, and millimeter detections. Comparing H-band and ALMA fluxes for two disks revealed tentative evidence for differing grain properties. Finally, we found no preference for debris disks to be detected in scattered light if wide-separation substellar companions were present.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe