182 research outputs found

    Nematodos edåficos y de agua dulce de la fauna ibérica: una síntesis

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    The first available compilation of Iberian soil and freshwater nematodes is presented in this paper. The inventory is currently made up of 981 species belonging to 236 genera, 77 families and 12 orders. Data of the Iberian nematode fauna are compared with other components of the Iberian biota, as well as the nematode fauna of other geographical regions. Quantitative and qualitative aspects of the nematode inventory are analyzed and discussed, paying special attention to the kind of information available for each species, and concluding that practically one-third of Iberian species are deficiently characterized and need further study. Endemicity of Iberian species is also considered: 143 species, 14.6% of the total, are restricted (in their distribution) to the Iberian geography, most of them being members of the orders Dorylaimida (87) and Tylenchida (29), which are also the most diversified nematode taxa. Practical or applied interest of knowledge of the Iberian nematode fauna is commented and supported with examples and recent contributions. Finally, an alphabetical list of the species, ordered by specific name, is provided.En esta contribuciĂłn se presenta una recopilaciĂłn de las especies ibĂ©ricas de nematodos de suelo y de agua dulce, la primera de este tipo realizada hasta el momento. El inventario actual lo componen 981 especies de 236 gĂ©neros, 77 familias y 12 Ăłrdenes. Los datos correspondiente a la fauna ibĂ©rica de nematodos se compara con la de otros tĂĄxones de la biota ibĂ©rica. Se analizan y se discuten distintos aspectos cuantitativos y cualitativos de la fauna nematolĂłgica, con especial Ă©nfasis en el tipo de informaciĂłn disponible sobre cada especie, y se concluye que casi una tercera parte de las especies ibĂ©ricas permanecen insuficientemente caracterizadas, razĂłn por la cual requieren de estudios adicionales. La endemicidad de las especies es asĂ­ mismo objeto de atenciĂłn: 143 especies, un 14.6% del total estĂĄn restringidas en su distribuciĂłn al ĂĄmbito ibĂ©rico, en su mayor parte pertenecientes a los Ăłrdenes Dorylaimida (87) y Tylenchida (29), por otra parte los mĂĄs diversificados de entre los pertenecientes al filo. El interĂ©s bĂĄsico y aplicado del conocimiento de la fauna de nematodos es comentado e ilustrado con aportaciones recientes y ejemplos. Por Ășltimo, se presenta una lista de todas las especies de la fauna ibĂ©rica, ordenadas alfabĂ©ticamente por su epĂ­teto especĂ­fico

    Cortical Auditory Adaptation in the Awake Rat and the Role of Potassium Currents

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    Responses to sound in the auditory cortex are influenced by the preceding history of firing. We studied the time course of auditory adaptation in primary auditory cortex (A1) from awake, freely moving rats. Two identical stimuli were delivered with different intervals ranging from 50 ms to 8 s. Single neuron recordings in the awake animal revealed that the response to a sound is influenced by sounds delivered even several seconds earlier, the second one usually yielding a weaker response. To understand the role of neuronal intrinsic properties in this phenomenon, we obtained intracellular recordings from rat A1 neurons in vitro and mimicked the same protocols of adaptation carried out in awake animals by means of depolarizing pulses of identical duration and intervals. The intensity of the pulses was adjusted such that the first pulse would evoke a similar number of spikes as its equivalent in vivo. A1 neurons in vitro adapted with a similar time course but less than in awake animals. At least two potassium currents participated in the in vitro adaptation: a Na +-dependent K + current and an apamin-sensitive K + current. Our results suggest that potassium currents underlie at least part of cortical auditory adaptation during the awake state.Fil: Abolafia, Juan M.. INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES BIOMEDICAS AUGUST PI I SUNYER (IDIBAPS);Fil: Vergara, Ramiro Oscar. INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES BIOMEDICAS AUGUST PI I SUNYER (IDIBAPS); . Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Neurociencia de Alicante; España. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Arnold, M. M.. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Neurociencia de Alicante; España. INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES BIOMEDICAS AUGUST PI I SUNYER (IDIBAPS);Fil: Reig, R.. INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES BIOMEDICAS AUGUST PI I SUNYER (IDIBAPS);Fil: Sanchez Vives, M. V.. INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES BIOMEDICAS AUGUST PI I SUNYER (IDIBAPS)

    Slow Modulation of Ongoing Discharge in the Auditory Cortex during an Interval-Discrimination Task

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    In this study, we recorded single unit activity from rat auditory cortex while the animals performed an interval-discrimination task. The animals had to decide whether two auditory stimuli were separated by either 150 or 300 ms, and go to the left or right nose poke accordingly. Spontaneous firing in between auditory responses was compared in the attentive versus non-attentive brain states. We describe the firing rate modulation detected during intervals while there was no auditory stimulation. Nearly 18% of neurons (n = 14) showed a prominent neuronal discharge during the interstimulus interval, in the form of an upward or downward ramp towards the second auditory stimulus. These patterns of spontaneous activity were often modulated in the attentive versus passive trials. Modulation of the spontaneous firing rate during the task was observed not only between auditory stimuli, but also in the interval preceding the stimulus. These slow modulatory components could be locally generated or the result of a top-down influence originated in higher associative association areas. Such a neuronal discharge may be related to the computation of the interval time and contribute to the perception of the auditory stimulus

    Investigating the potentially contradictory microfoundations of financialization

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    The existing academic literature on financialization points to multiple instances in which firms attempt to demonstrate the vitality of their stock-market position in ways which ultimately prove to be self-harming. I demonstrate, in the first instance as a matt er of immanent logic, that these actions are linked to the interplay of contradictory tendencies in the microfoundations of financialization. Under conditions of financialization, firms create additional sources of credit to capitalize their productive activities by driving their stock price into greater increases than the market average, thereby generating capital gains. Yet, the more it becomes public knowledge that the financing tricks used to inflate the stock price provide no productive benefit to the firm, the more it would seem to create incentives for fund managers to hold portfolios that replicate the stock market as a whole. In this way, they will minimize their exposure to financial misrepresentation. Such a stance undermines financialized business models, but it does in any case conform to fund managers' basic theoretical training, which revolves around the logical demonstration that an individual stock cannot systematically out-perform the market average. I review the available empirical studies of fund manager decision-making to show that they find against the existence of a simple performativity loop operating between finance theory and fund manager behaviour. However, on many points the empirical evidence does confirm the theoretically derived conclusion concerning the potentially contradictory microfoundations of financialization. Fund managers often do act in a way which is consistent with finance theory's core claim that an index-tracking strategy represents the only equilibrium portfolio, even if this is only rarely as a result of the direct performativity of the theory

    Distinguishing Financialization from Neoliberalism

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    This article contends that neoliberalism and financialization, although sharing much in common, are not synonymous developments. Not only do strongly financialized nations display structural, economic differences, they are also directed by alternative economic epistemologies, cultures and practices. The argument is made by examining the financialization of the UK economy since the mid-1970s. This shift was not simply part of a broad transition away from Keynesianism and towards free market fundamentalism. It was also one very much guided by the particular economic paradigm, discursive practices and devices of the City of London as financial elites took up influential positions in the Thatcher government. The discussion and case example highlight five epistemological elements specific to finance: the creation of money in financial markets, the transactional focus of finance, the centrality of financial markets to economic management, the orthodoxy of shareholder value, and the intense microeconomic approach to financial calculation. Such elements, in conjuction with neoliberalism’s reliance upon finance-blind neoclassical economics, lies at the cultural and epistemological distinction between fiancialization and neoliberalism. Identifying such distinctions opens up new possibilities for understanding financialization, elites, and the neoliberal condition that brought about the financial crash of 2007-08, as well as the political and economic crises that have followed

    Insurgent capitalism: Island, bricolage and the re-making of finance

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    Drawing on recent discussions of the material cultures of markets and of financial innovation as bricolage, this paper explores the development of Island, a new share-trading venue set up in 1995. We examine Island's roots in a very specific conflict in the US financial markets and in the information libertarianism of 'hacker culture', and examine the material bricolage involved in Island's construction. The paper also outlines the processes that led to a dramatic 'Latourian' change of scale: Island was originally a 'micro' development on the fringes of US markets, but within little more than a decade key features of Island became close to compulsory, as the nature of North American and Western European share trading changed utterly

    The multiplicity of performance management systems:Heterogeneity in multinational corporations and management sense-making

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    This field study examines the workings of multiple performance measurement systems (PMSs) used within and between a division and Headquarters (HQ) of a large European corporation. We explore how multiple PMSs arose within the multinational corporation. We first provide a first‐order analysis which explains how managers make sense of the multiplicity and show how an organization's PMSs may be subject to competing processes for control that result in varied systems, all seemingly functioning, but with different rationales and effects. We then provide a second‐order analysis based on a sense‐making perspective that highlights the importance of retrospective understandings of the organization's history and the importance of various legitimacy expectations to different parts of the multinational. Finally, we emphasize the role of social skill in sense‐making that enables the persistence of multiple systems and the absence of overt tensions and conflict within organizations
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