Liberating pastoral care and counselling to the poor family in Latin America

This thesis adapted the methodology of Liberation Theology described by Leonardo and Clodovis Boff in three stages: "seeing", "judging", and "acting". The first chapter -"seeing"- studies what social sciences say about the actual situation of the poor family in Latin America. There is not 'one model' of Latin American family, but poverty is not much different in one part or another of the continent. Poor families are those who, according to Gustavo Gutierrez, form something collective, those who have an historical awareness of their situation, and those who join with others in order to struggle against the unjust situation which maintains them in poverty. The second chapter -"judging"- studies what theologians and psychotherapists say about poverty. There were chosen two viewpoints, Liberation Theology and the Eco-structural Approach to Family Therapy. Nevertheless, this was not an arbitrary decision. Liberation Theology was chosen because it opts a preference for the poor and denounces that poverty is caused by sin, oppression and injustice that are against the will of God. Eco-structural approach was chosen because it assesses the situation of the poor in their own context, it proposes a pertinent therapy for the poor, and its ecological perspective can be applied to the poor family in Latin America. The third chapter -"acting" presents a proposal of a model of counselling which is committed to the cause of the poor. It is ecological and recommends a counselling that work 'with' rather than 'for' the poor, it means, the poor must no longer be considered as objects but subjects of their own struggle. The counselling cannot be imposed from 'outside' the poor but from 'inside' themselves

Femtosecond pulses and dynamics of molecular photoexcitation: RbCs example

We investigate the dynamics of molecular photoexcitation by unchirped femtosecond laser pulses using RbCs as a model system. This study is motivated by a goal of optimizing a two-color scheme of transferring vibrationally-excited ultracold molecules to their absolute ground state. In this scheme the molecules are initially produced by photoassociation or magnetoassociation in bound vibrational levels close to the first dissociation threshold. We analyze here the first step of the two-color path as a function of pulse intensity from the low-field to the high-field regime. We use two different approaches, a global one, the 'Wavepacket' method, and a restricted one, the 'Level by Level' method where the number of vibrational levels is limited to a small subset. The comparison between the results of the two approaches allows one to gain qualitative insights into the complex dynamics of the high-field regime. In particular, we emphasize the non-trivial and important role of far-from-resonance levels which are adiabatically excited through 'vertical' transitions with a large Franck-Condon factor. We also point out spectacular excitation blockade due to the presence of a quasi-degenerate level in the lower electronic state. We conclude that selective transfer with femtosecond pulses is possible in the low-field regime only. Finally, we extend our single-pulse analysis and examine population transfer induced by coherent trains of low-intensity femtosecond pulses.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figure

Extreme events in gross primary production: a characterization across continents

Climate extremes can affect the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, for instance via a reduction of the photosynthetic capacity or alterations of respiratory processes. Yet the dominant regional and seasonal effects of hydrometeorological extremes are still not well documented and in the focus of this paper. Specifically, we quantify and characterize the role of large spatiotemporal extreme events in gross primary production (GPP) as triggers of continental anomalies. We also investigate seasonal dynamics of extreme impacts on continental GPP anomalies. We find that the 50 largest positive extremes (i.e., statistically unusual increases in carbon uptake rates) and negative extremes (i.e., statistically unusual decreases in carbon uptake rates) on each continent can explain most of the continental variation in GPP, which is in line with previous results obtained at the global scale. We show that negative extremes are larger than positive ones and demonstrate that this asymmetry is particularly strong in South America and Europe. Our analysis indicates that the overall impacts and the spatial extents of GPP extremes are power-law distributed with exponents that vary little across continents. Moreover, we show that on all continents and for all data sets the spatial extents play a more important role for the overall impact of GPP extremes compared to the durations or maximal GPP. An analysis of possible causes across continents indicates that most negative extremes in GPP can be attributed clearly to water scarcity, whereas extreme temperatures play a secondary role. However, for Europe, South America and Oceania we also identify fire as an important driver. Our findings are consistent with remote sensing products. An independent validation against a literature survey on specific extreme events supports our results to a large extent

Riqueza, endemismo y conservación de los mamíferos de Colombia

We update the list of Colombian mammal species based upon a new revision of specimens in the major collections within and outside the country and a compilation of recent taxonomic changes of species present in the country. The result of these changes is a total of 492 native species, which represents a net increment of 62 species with respect to the previous list published in the year 2000, and this exceeds similar updates in other Neotropical countries. Although the level of knowledge differs greatly between groups, we provide some general indicators, as diversity on the level of orders, endemism, patterns of distribution, and conservation state. The greatest species richness occurs in the orders Chiroptera (198 spp.) and Rodentia (122 spp.), but there are 23 endemic species of rodents in contrast to only seven endemic bats. According to the nature and scale of the evaluations, between 39 (MAVDT) and 52 (IUCN) species of Colombian mammals are considered to be endangered. The major threats are still deforestation, hunting and illegal commerce

Potencial agroindustrial del epicarpio de mandarina como alternativa de colorante natural en pan

This study evaluated the agro-industrial potential of flour made of the epicarp of Oneco mandarin (Citrus reticulata) as a possible natural bread coloring. We analyzed the physiochemical properties of said fruit, such as pH, aw, color parameters (luminosity, L*; chromaticity, C*; and pitch angle, h°), acidity percentage, dry matter percentage, quantification of carotenoids by spectrophotometry, phenolic compounds, antioxidant capacity in flour, and color parameters (L*, C*, and h°) in bread. We found that, after convective drying, the fruit retained significantly higher concentrations of bioactive compounds, such as phenols. We also observed an increase in antioxidant capacity and carotenoid content, in addition to significant changes in the color parameters (L* and C*). When the mandarin epicarp flour substituted conventional flour in the bread formula, we noted a significant increase in the concentration of the carotenoid content; the peak of this substitution was 4%. Regarding color, parameters L* and C* exhibited significant differences; L* was higher in the 2% substitution, while C* was higher in the 4% substitution, and h° did not present significant differences in any of the formulas. Finally, we conclude that mandarin epicarp flour can be an important alternative additive for natural coloring in bread making.En este estudio se evaluó el potencial agroindustrial de la harina de epicarpio de mandarina Oneco (Citrus reticulata) como posible colorante natural en el pan. En la metodología se analizaron las propiedades fisicoquímicas como el pH, aw, los parámetros de color: luminosidad (L*), cromaticidad (C*) y ángulo de tono (h°), porcentaje de acidez, porcentaje de materia seca, cuantificación de carotenoides por espectrofotometría, compuestos fenólicos, capacidad antioxidante en harina y parámetros de color (L*, C* y h°) en el pan. Se encontró que, después del tratamiento de secado convectivo, se retuvieron concentraciones significativamente más altas de compuestos bioactivos como los fenólicos, se evidenció también un aumento en la capacidad antioxidante y el contenido de carotenoides, además de cambios significativos en los parámetros de color (L* y C*). En la sustitución de la harina de epicarpio de mandarina en las formulaciones del pan, se notó un aumento significativo en la concentración del contenido de carotenoides, siendo el pico de esta en la sustitución del 4 %; En los parámetros de color, se hallaron diferencias significativas en los parámetros L* y C*, presentando el mayor valor de L* en la sustitución del 2 % y de C* en la sustitución del 4 %, mientras que el parámetro h° no presentó diferencias significativas en ninguna de las formulaciones. Finalmente, se concluye que la harina de epicarpio de mandarina puede ser una alternativa importante, como aditivo de colorante natural en la elaboración del pan

Imputing missing data in plant traits: A guide to improve gap‐filling

Aim: Globally distributed plant trait data are increasingly used to understand relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem processes. However, global trait databases are sparse because they are compiled from many, mostly small databases. This sparsity in both trait space completeness and geographical distribution limits the potential for both multivariate and global analyses. Thus, ‘gap-filling’ approaches are often used to impute missing trait data. Recent methods, like Bayesian hierarchical probabilistic matrix factorization (BHPMF), can impute large and sparse data sets using side information. We investigate whether BHPMF imputation leads to biases in trait space and identify aspects influencing bias to provide guidance for its usage. Innovation: We use a fully observed trait data set from which entries are randomly removed, along with extensive but sparse additional data. We use BHPMF for imputation and evaluate bias by: (1) accuracy (residuals, RMSE, trait means), (2) correlations (bi-and multivariate) and (3) taxonomic and functional clustering (valuewise, uni-and multivariate). BHPMF preserves general patterns of trait distributions but induces taxonomic clustering. Data set–external trait data had little effect on induced taxonomic clustering and stabilized trait–trait correlations. Main Conclusions: Our study extends the criteria for the evaluation of gap-filling beyond RMSE, providing insight into statistical data structure and allowing better informed use of imputed trait data, with improved practice for imputation. We expect our findings to be valuable beyond applications in plant ecology, for any study using hierarchical side information for imputation

Deciphering the components of regional net ecosystem fluxes following a bottom-up approach for the Iberian Peninsula

Quantification of ecosystem carbon pools is a fundamental requirement for estimating carbon fluxes and for addressing the dynamics and responses of the terrestrial carbon cycle to environmental drivers. The initial estimates of carbon pools in terrestrial carbon cycle models often rely on the ecosystem steady state assumption, leading to initial equilibrium conditions. In this study, we investigate how trends and inter-annual variability of net ecosystem fluxes are affected by initial non-steady state conditions. Further, we examine how modeled ecosystem responses induced exclusively by the model drivers can be separated from the initial conditions. For this, the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model is optimized at set of European eddy covariance sites, which support the parameterization of regional simulations of ecosystem fluxes for the Iberian Peninsula, between 1982 and 2006. <br><br> The presented analysis stands on a credible model performance for a set of sites, that represent generally well the plant functional types and selected descriptors of climate and phenology present in the Iberian region – except for a limited Northwestern area. The effects of initial conditions on inter-annual variability and on trends, results mostly from the recovery of pools to equilibrium conditions; which control most of the inter-annual variability (IAV) and both the magnitude and sign of most of the trends. However, by removing the time series of pure model recovery from the time series of the overall fluxes, we are able to retrieve estimates of inter-annual variability and trends in net ecosystem fluxes that are quasi-independent from the initial conditions. This approach reduced the sensitivity of the net fluxes to initial conditions from 47% and 174% to −3% and 7%, for strong initial sink and source conditions, respectively. <br><br> With the aim to identify and improve understanding of the component fluxes that drive the observed trends, the net ecosystem production (NEP) trends are decomposed into net primary production (NPP) and heterotrophic respiration (<i>R</i><sub>H</sub>) trends. The majority (~97%) of the positive trends in NEP is observed in regions where both NPP and <i>R</i><sub>H</sub> fluxes show significant increases, although the magnitude of NPP trends is higher. Analogously, ~83% of the negative trends in NEP are also associated with negative trends in NPP. The spatial patterns of NPP trends are mainly explained by the trends in <i>f</i>APAR (<i>r</i>=0.79) and are only marginally explained by trends in temperature and water stress scalars (<i>r</i>=0.10 and <i>r</i>=0.25, respectively). Further, we observe the significant role of substrate availability (<i>r</i>=0.25) and temperature (<i>r</i>=0.23) in explaining the spatial patterns of trends in <i>R</i><sub>H</sub>. These results highlight the role of primary production in driving ecosystem fluxes. <br><br> Overall, our study illustrates an approach for removing the confounding effects of initial conditions and emphasizes the need to decompose the ecosystem fluxes into its components and drivers for more mechanistic interpretations of modeling results. We expect that our results are not only specific for the CASA model since it incorporates concepts of ecosystem functioning and modeling assumptions common to biogeochemical models. A direct implication of these results is the ability of this approach to detect climate and phenology induced trends regardless of the initial conditions

Analysis of cognitive performance and polymorphisms of SORL1, PVRL2, CR1, TOMM40, APOE, PICALM, GWAS_14q, CLU, and BIN1 in patients with mild cognitive impairment and cognitively healthy controls

Introduction: Alzheimer disease risk polymorphisms have been studied in patients with dementia, but have not yet been explored in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in our population; nor have they been addressed in relation to cognitive variables, which can be predictive biomarkers of disease. Objective: To evaluate cognitive performance and presence of polymorphisms of the genes SORL1(rs11218304), PVRL2(rs6859), CR1(rs6656401), TOMM40(rs2075650), APOE (isoforms ε2, ε3, ε4), PICALM(rs3851179), GWAS_14q(rs11622883), BIN1(rs744373), and CLU(rs227959 and rs11136000) in patients with MCI and healthy individuals. Methodology: We performed a cross-sectional, exploratory, descriptive study of a prospective cohort of participants selected by non-probabilistic sampling, evaluated with neurological, neuropsychological, and genetic testing, and classified as cognitively healthy individuals and patients with MCI. Cognition was evaluated with the Neuronorma battery and analysed in relation to the polymorphic variants by means of measures of central tendency, confidence intervals, and nonparametric statistics. Results: We found differences in performance in language and memory tasks between carriers and non-carriers of BIN1, CLU, and CR1 variants and a trend towards poor cognitive performance for PICALM, GWAS_14q, SORL1, and PVRL2 variants; the APOE and TOMM40 variants were not associated with poor cognitive performance. Discussion: Differences in cognitive performance associated with these polymorphic variants may suggest that the mechanisms regulating these genes could have an effect on cognition in the absence of dementia; however, this study was exploratory and hypotheses based on these results must be explored in larger samples. Resumen: Introducción: Los polimorfismos de riesgo para el desarrollo de enfermedad de Alzheimer se han estudiado en pacientes con demencia, pero aún no se han explorado en trastorno neurocognitivo leve (TNL) en nuestra población, ni se han considerado en relación con variables cognitivas, las cuales pueden ser biomarcadores predictivos de enfermedad. Objetivo: Evaluar los desempeños cognitivos y los polimorfismos en los genes SORL1(rs11218304), PVRL2(rs6859), CR1(rs6656401), TOMM40(rs2075650), APOE(isoformas ε2, ε3, ε4), PICALM(rs3851179), GWAS_14q(rs11622883), BIN(rs744373), CLU (rs227959 y rs11136000) en pacientes con TNL y en sujetos sanos. Metodología: Estudio descriptivo, exploratorio y transversal, en una cohorte prospectiva de participantes seleccionados mediante muestreo no probabilístico, evaluados por neurología, neuropsicología y genética, y clasificados como cognitivamente sanos y pacientes con TNL, según criterios. La cognición se evaluó por medio de la batería Neuronorma y se analizó en relación con las variantes polimórficas por medio de medidas de tendencia, intervalos de confianza y estadísticos no paramétricos. Resultados: Se identificaron diferencias en los desempeños en tareas de lenguaje y memoria en relación con las variantes de BIN1, CLU y CR1, junto con tendencias en las variantes de PICALM, GWArs, SORL y PVRL2, mientras que en APOE y TOMM40 no se encontraron tendencias. Discusión: Las tendencias en los desempeños cognitivos en relación con variantes polimórficas podrían indicar que, en ausencia de demencia, los mecanismos que regulan estos genes podrían tener un efecto sobre la cognición; sin embargo, esta aproximación tiene un carácter exploratorio y sus resultados permiten generar hipótesis que requieren ser exploradas en muestras de mayor tamaño

The influence of soil communities on the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration

Soil respiration represents a major carbon flux between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere, and is expected to accelerate under climate warming. Despite its importance in climate change forecasts, however, our understanding of the effects of temperature on soil respiration (RS) is incomplete. Using a metabolic ecology approach we link soil biota metabolism, community composition and heterotrophic activity, to predict RS rates across five biomes. We find that accounting for the ecological mechanisms underpinning decomposition processes predicts climatological RS variations observed in an independent dataset (n = 312). The importance of community composition is evident because without it RS is substantially underestimated. With increasing temperature, we predict a latitudinal increase in RS temperature sensitivity, with Q10 values ranging between 2.33 ±0.01 in tropical forests to 2.72 ±0.03 in tundra. This global trend has been widely observed, but has not previously been linked to soil communities

Análisis de la variabilidad genética de una muestra de la población de Bogotá: hacia la constitución de un mapa de haplotipos

Introduction: The HapMap and the 1000 Genomes projects have been important for understanding the genetic component of common diseases and normal phenotypes.However, the Colombian genetic variability included in these projects is not fully representative of our country.Objective: To contribute to the knowledge of the Colombian genetic variability through the genomic study of a sample of individuals from Bogotá.Materials and methods: A total of 2,372,784 genetic markers were genotyped in 32 individuals born in Bogotá whose parents are from the same region, using the Illumina™platform. The genetic variability levels were determined and compared with the data available from other populations of the 1000 Genomes Project.Results: The genetic variability detected in the individuals from Bogotá was similar to those with shared ancestry. However, despite the low levels of genetic differentiation between Bogotá and Medellín, populations the principal component analysis suggested a different genetic composition in them.Conclusions: Our genomic analysis of a Bogotá sample allowed us to detect similarities and differences with other American populations. The increase of the Bogotá sample and the inclusion of samples from other regions of the country will improve our understanding of the genetic variability in Colombia, essential for studies of human health and the prevention and treatment of common diseases in our country.Introducción. Los proyectos del mapa de haplotipos (HapMap) y de los 1.000 genomas han sido fundamentales para la compresión del componente genético de las enfermedades comunes y los fenotipos normales. Sin embargo, la variabilidad genética colombiana incluida en estos proyectos no es representativa del país.Objetivo. Contribuir al conocimiento de la variabilidad genética de la población colombiana a partir del estudio genómico de una muestra de individuos de Bogotá.Materiales y métodos. Se genotipificaron 2’372.784 marcadores genéticos de 32 individuos nacidos en Bogotá y de padres originarios de la misma ciudad utilizando la plataforma Illumina™. Los niveles de variabilidad genética se determinaron y se compararon con los datos disponibles de otras poblaciones del proyecto de los 1.000 genomas. Resultados. Los individuos analizados presentaron una variabilidad genética semejante a la de poblaciones con las que comparten ancestros. No obstante, a pesar de la poca diferenciación genética detectada en la población de Bogotá y en la de Medellín, el análisis de los componentes principales sugiere una composición genética diferente en las dos poblaciones.Conclusiones. El análisis genómico de la muestra de Bogotá permitió detectar similitudes y diferencias con otras poblaciones americanas. El aumento de tamaño de la muestra bogotana y la inclusión de muestras de otras regiones del país permitirán una mejor compresión de la variabilidad genética en Colombia, lo cual es fundamental para los estudios de salud humana, y la prevención y el tratamiento de enfermedades comunes en el país