The District Energy-Efficient Retrofitting of Torrelago (Laguna de Duero – Spain)

The urban growth is estimated to reach up the 66 % by 2050 and consequently the need of resources within the cities will increase significantly. This, combined with the 40 % of energy consumption and 36 % of CO2 emissions of the building sector, makes necessary to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable cities. The CITyFiED project contributes to this transition, aiming to develop an innovative and holistic methodological approach for energy-efficient district renovation and deliver three large scale demonstration cases in the cities of Lund (Sweden), Laguna de Duero (Spain) and Soma (Turkey). CITyFiED methodology consists of several phases that ease the decision-making tasks towards the district renovation, considering the energy efficiency as the main pillar and local authorities as clients. For the case of Torrelago district (Spain) the intervention consists of a set of energy conservative measures including the facąde retrofitting of 143.025 m2 of living space in 31 twelve-storey buildings; the renovation of the district heating network with a new biomass thermal plant; the integration of renewable energy sources, including a micro-cogeneration system, and the installation of individual smart meters. After the renovation action, one-year monitoring campaign is ongoing. The CITyFiED monitoring platform will collect information from the energy systems and deliver environmental, technical, economic and social key performance indicators by March 2019. At the end of the project the achievement of the predefined goals will be verified: Up to 36 % of energy saving and 3,429 tons-CO2/yr emissions saving covering the 59,4 % of the energy consumption with renewable sources.The research and results presented in this paper evolve from activities related to the CITyFiED project, which has received funding from the European Commission under the Grant Agreement no. 609129. This article is the result of cooperative research work of many experts from various countries and we would like to gratefully acknowledge the rest of the CITyFiED partners

Palacio de los Deportes

This building was specially built for the Mexico Olympic Games, and was the site for the basketball competition. But during the design stage it was foreseen that it could be later adapted to various other uses, such as boxing matches, ice skating displays, theatre, circus, shows, etc. It has 19.834 seats for spectators. Its circular planform has a 180 m diameter, and there are three levels of organisation. — on the lower level there is accommodation for the competitors, the press and the organisers of the Olympic Competitions; — the main level houses the entrance halls, the stairs, and access to the lower and middle spectator stands; — the top level has the washrooms for the public, the special stands and access to the middle and top stands. The outstanding feature of this sports palace is its general structure, which from the outset was regarded as the dominant element of the design, and also defined its plastic and spatial quality.Este edificio, construido para los Juegos Olímpicos de México, fue destinado a los juegos de baloncesto, pero al proyectarlo se previó que posteriormente pudiera servir para múltiples usos: celebración de combates de boxeo, espectáculos sobre hielo, teatro, circo, etc. Tiene capacidad para 19.824 espectadores sentados. Su planta es circular, con un diámetro total de 180 m, y está organizada en tres niveles: — en el nivel inferior se alojan: los servicios para deportistas, prensa y organización del Certamen Olímpico; —el nivel principal alberga: los vestíbulos, escaleras y accesos a gradería baja y media; — y en el nivel superior se distribuyen: los servicios para público, palcos y accesos a gradería media y alta. En este Palacio de los Deportes destaca su estructura general que fue considerada, desde la fase del proyecto, como el elemento dominante de la composición, y el determinante de su sentido plástico y espacial

Ethnobotanical knowledge is vastly under-documented in northwestern South America

A main objective of ethnobotany is to document traditional knowledge about plants before it disappears. However, little is known about the coverage of past ethnobotanical studies and thus about how well the existing literature covers the overall traditional knowledge of different human groups. To bridge this gap, we investigated ethnobotanical data-collecting efforts across four countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia), three ecoregions (Amazon, Andes, Chocó), and several human groups (including Amerindians, mestizos, and Afro-Americans). We used palms (Arecaceae) as our model group because of their usefulness and pervasiveness in the ethnobotanical literature. We carried out a large number of field interviews (n = 2201) to determine the coverage and quality of palm ethnobotanical data in the existing ethnobotanical literature (n = 255) published over the past 60 years. In our fieldwork in 68 communities, we collected 87,886 use reports and documented 2262 different palm uses and 140 useful palm species. We demonstrate that traditional knowledge on palm uses is vastly under-documented across ecoregions, countries, and human groups. We suggest that the use of standardized data-collecting protocols in wide-ranging ethnobotanical fieldwork is a promising approach for filling critical information gaps. Our work contributes to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and emphasizes the need for signatory nations to the Convention on Biological Diversity to respond to these information gaps. Given our findings, we hope to stimulate the formulation of clear plans to systematically document ethnobotanical knowledge in northwestern South America and elsewhere before it vanishesThis study was funded by the European Union, 7th Framework Programme (contract no. 212631), the Russel E. Train Education for Nature Program of the WWF (to NPZ), the Anne S. Chatham fellowship of the Garden Club of America (to NPZ), and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid travel grants programme (to RCL

Constituents of Quercus eduardii leaf infusion: Their interaction with gut microbiota communities and therapeutic role in colorectal cancer.

The infusion of Q. eduardii leaves has been used ancestrally for medicinal purposes. We investigated the effect of Q. eduardii infusion intake on inflammatory and oncogenic biomarkers in animals induced to have colorectal cancer with DMH. We also investigated its influence on the microbiota, establishing the main microbial metabolites in the intestinal content of the experimental animals. The microbial metabolites associated with greater anti-inflammatory and anticarcinogenic activity were 3́-hydroxyphenylacetic acid (3HPA) and €-3-(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl) prop-2-enoic acid (TMCA). Finally, the intake of the Q. eduardii infusion significantly increased the abundance of the Erysipelotrichaceae and Lachnospiraceae families, that seems to have a great influence on the antitumor responses detected in the study.post-print4648 K

Fusing Information from Tickets and Alerts to Improve the Incident Resolution Process

In the context of network incident monitoring, alerts are useful notifications that provide IT management staff with information about incidents. They are usually triggered in an automatic manner by network equipment and monitoring systems, thus containing only technical information available to the systems that are generating them. On the other hand, ticketing systems play a different role in this context. Tickets represent the business point of view of incidents. They are usually generated by human intervention and contain enriched semantic information about ongoing and past incidents. In this article, our main hypothesis is that incorporating tickets information into the alert correlation process will be beneficial to the incident resolution life-cycle in terms of accuracy, timing, and overall incident’s description. We propose a methodology to validate this hypothesis and suggest a solution to the main challenges that appear. The proposed correlation approach is based on the time alignment of the events (alerts and tickets) that affect common elements in the network. For this we use real alert and ticket datasets obtained from a large telecommunications network. The results have shown that using ticket information enhances the incident resolution process, mainly by reducing and aggregating a higher percentage of alerts compared with standard alert correlation systems that only use alerts as the main source of information. Finally, we also show the applicability and usability of this model by applying it to a case study where we analyze the performance of the management staff

Breast pectoral muscle segmentation in mammograms using a modified holistically-nested edge detection network

This paper presents a method for automatic breast pectoral muscle segmentation in mediolateral oblique mammograms using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) inspired by the Holistically-nested Edge Detection (HED) network. Most of the existing methods in the literature are based on hand-crafted models such as straight-line, curve-based techniques or a combination of both. Unfortunately, such models are insufficient when dealing with complex shape variations of the pectoral muscle boundary and when the boundary is unclear due to overlapping breast tissue. To compensate for these issues, we propose a neural network framework that incorporates multi-scale and multi-level learning, capable of learning complex hierarchical features to resolve spatial ambiguity in estimating the pectoral muscle boundary. For this purpose, we modified the HED network architecture to specifically find ‘contour-like’ objects in mammograms. The proposed framework produced a probability map that can be used to estimate the initial pectoral muscle boundary. Subsequently, we process these maps by extracting morphological properties to find the actual pectoral muscle boundary. Finally, we developed two different post-processing steps to find the actual pectoral muscle boundary. Quantitative evaluation results show that the proposed method is comparable with alternative state-of-the-art methods producing on average values of 94.8 ± 8.5% and 97.5 ± 6.3% for the Jaccard and Dice similarity metrics, respectively, across four different databases

Eating disorders and intimate partner violence: the influence of fear of loneliness and social withdrawal

Eating disorders are vulnerability factors that increase the likelihood of intimate partner violence. However, the mechanisms underlying this relationship are unclear. Although eating disorders have been associated with increased perception and fear of loneliness, they have also been associated with increased social withdrawal resulting from decreased enjoyment of social situations and poorer social functioning. The purpose of the present study was to examine the mediating role of fear of loneliness in the relationship between the behavioural characteristics of eating disorders and intimate partner violence, as well as to explore the moderating role of social withdrawal in the relationship between fear of loneliness and intimate partner violence. The sample comprised 683 participants (78% female and 22% male) with a mean age of 21.14 years (SD = 2.72). The psychometric scales used were Eating Disorders Inventory (EDI 2), Emotional Dependency Questionnaire (EDQ), Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI) and the Violence Received, Exercised and Perceived in Youth and Adolescent Dating Relationships Scale (VREPS). The hypothesised model was tested by path analysis using maximum likelihood. The path analysis of the hypothesised model showed that inefficacy, fear of maturity, and impulsivity were the behavioural characteristics of eating disorders predominantly related to fear of loneliness. Fear of loneliness had no direct significant effect on any of the received violence variables. However, interaction effects indicated that there was a moderately significant effect of fear of loneliness on physical, psychological, and social violence received as a function of levels of social withdrawal. These findings show the need to take into account and work on fear of loneliness and social withdrawal among individuals with an eating disorder to decrease the likelihood of establishing violent intimate partner relationships. Improving interpersonal functioning and social support is key to recovery from eating disorders

Elevational gradients in β-diversity reflect variation in the strength of local community assembly mechanisms across spatial scales

Despite long-standing interest in elevational-diversity gradients, little is known about the processes that cause changes in the compositional variation of communities (β-diversity) across elevations. Recent studies have suggested that β-diversity gradients are driven by variation in species pools, rather than by variation in the strength of local community assembly mechanisms such as dispersal limitation, environmental filtering, or local biotic interactions. However, tests of this hypothesis have been limited to very small spatial scales that limit inferences about how the relative importance of assembly mechanisms may change across spatial scales. Here, we test the hypothesis that scale-dependent community assembly mechanisms shape biogeographic β-diversity gradients using one of the most well-characterized elevational gradients of tropical plant diversity. Using an extensive dataset on woody plant distributions along a 4,000-m elevational gradient in the Bolivian Andes, we compared observed patterns of β-diversity to null-model expectations. β-deviations (standardized differences from null values) were used to measure the relative effects of local community assembly mechanisms after removing sampling effects caused by variation in species pools. To test for scale-dependency, we compared elevational gradients at two contrasting spatial scales that differed in the size of local assemblages and regions by at least an order of magnitude. Elevational gradients in β-diversity persisted after accounting for regional variation in species pools. Moreover, the elevational gradient in β-deviations changed with spatial scale. At small scales, local assembly mechanisms were detectable, but variation in species pools accounted for most of the elevational gradient in β-diversity. At large spatial scales, in contrast, local assembly mechanisms were a dominant force driving changes in β-diversity. In contrast to the hypothesis that variation in species pools alone drives β-diversity gradients, we show that local community assembly mechanisms contribute strongly to systematic changes in β-diversity across elevations.We conclude that scale-dependent variation in community assembly mechanisms underlies these iconic gradients in global biodiversityThe Madidi Project has been funded by the National Science Foundation (DEB-0101775 and DEB-0743457), the Comunidad de Madrid, the National Geographic Society (NGS 7754-04 and NGS 8047-06), the Taylor Fund for Ecological Research, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Centro de Estudios de América Latina, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Christopher Davidson and Sharon Christoph. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscrip

Paciente con síndrome de intestino corto y progresión atípica de adenocarcinoma de endometrio

The most common location of distant metastasis of endometrial adenocarcinoma is the lung, although sometimes it could appear soft tissue involvement. Short bowel syndrome can potentially cause serious electrolite changes that require a global management. Patient admitted for severe electrolyte changes secondary to a short bowel syndrome after an intestinal resection. Octreotide LAR was successfully used to control intestinal losses. During the outpatient follow up was detected two soft tissue masses in gluteal region compatible with tumour progression of an endometrial adenocarcinoma diagnosed 10 years before. The usefulness of octreotide to control chronic diarrhoea in short bowel syndrome and other diseases should be taken into account as an option for the management of these diseases. The presence of soft tissue masses in a patient with a history of endometrial adenocarcinoma should alert on the possibility of tumour progression at that level.La afectación metastásica del adenocarcinoma de endometrio más frecuente es la pulmonar, ocasionalmente puede progresar a nivel de partes blandas. El síndrome de intestino corto puede provocar alteraciones iónicas potencialmente graves. Paciente que ingresa por alteraciones iónicas graves secundarias a un síndrome de intestino corto tras una resección por bridas. Para lograr un óptimo control de las pérdidas intestinales se utilizó con éxito octreótido LAR. Durante su seguimiento ambulatorio se detectaron dos masas de partes blandas en región glútea compatibles con progresión tumoral del adenocarcinoma de endometrio que había sido diagnosticado más de 10 años antes. La utilidad del octreótido para el control de la diarrea crónica en casos de síndrome de intestino corto y otras patologías, debe ser tenida en cuenta como una opción más a valorar de forma individualizada en cada enfermo. La presencia de masas de partes blandas en un paciente con antecedentes de adenocarcinoma de endometrio debe alertar sobre la posibilidad de una progresión tumoral a dicho nivel

History of discovery of the patagonian lizards

Knowledge of the history is necessary to understand why things are today as they are. Argentinean and Chilean Patagonia have a very interesting story about the native fauna and its discovery. The main character of this story is an adventurer spirit wanting to increase knowledge by traveling to the “end of the world”, ignoring barriers only to search and see what is beyond. Many well-known naturalists have visited this land eager and willing to find new species never seen before, while others have made some amazing contributions while never setting one foot on Patagonian soil. In this chapter, we intend to summarize how Patagonian herpetofauna was discovered, described and studied over time. In addition, we want to mention important scientists, whose work led the way for the future researchers to come.Fil: Williams, Jorge Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Zoología de Vertebrados. Sección Herpetología; ArgentinaFil: Kass, Camila Alejandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Zoología de Vertebrados. Sección Herpetología; ArgentinaFil: Avila, Luciano Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Instituto Patagónico para el Estudio de los Ecosistemas Continentales; Argentin