Contingut de matèria orgànica al sòl segons els usos forestals a les Gavarres (Girona)

El següent article és un estudi sobre el contingut de matèria orgànica als sòls del massís de les Gavarres tenint en compte dos aspectes, el primer segons sigui la litologia i segon el tipus d'ús del sòl. Per això s'ha dividit el massís entre els dos grans components litològics: granits i pissarres. A la vegada s'han estudiat els usos del sòl més representatius d'aquesta muntanya: la sureda estassada, la sureda abandonada, les plantacions de pins, les plantacions d'eucaliptus i un bosc mixt de pins i suros. Els resultats mostren que el contingut de matèria orgànica pel que fa a la litologia és molt més alt als sòls sobre pissarres. Quant als usos del sòl, el major contingut correspon a les suredes i el menor a les plantacions d'eucaliptus.El siguiente artículo es un estudio sobre el contenido de materia orgánica de los suelos del macizo de las Gavarres teniendo en cuenta dos aspectos, en primer lugar según sea la litología y segundo el tipo de uso del suelo. Para ello se ha dividido el macizo en los dos grandes componentes litológicos: granitos y pizarras. A la vez se han estudiado los usos del suelo más representativos de esta montaña: alcornocal aclarado, alcornocal con sotobosque, plantaciones de pinos, plantaciones de eucaliptos y un bosque mixto de pinos y alcornoques. Los resultados demuestran que el contenido de materia orgánica es más alto en los suelos sobre pizarras. En cuanto a los usos del suelo el mayor contenido corresponde al alcornocal y el de menor a las plantaciones de eucaliptos.The organic matter content of the soils of the Gavarres massif was studied. Two aspects are taken into account, lithology and land use. The area of the massif has been divided according to the two main lithological components: granites and slates. At the same time, the most representative types of land use have been studied: cork oak woodland under explotation, abandoned cork oak woodland, pine plantations, eucalyptus plantations and mixed cork oak and pine woodland. The results show that the organic matter content is much higher in soils on slates. As far as land use is concerned, the highest content corresponds to the cork oak forest and the lowest to the eucalyotus plantations

Informed choice in breast cancer screening: the role of education

[spa ] Objetivo: Evaluar el efecto de recibir información sobre los beneficios y los efectos adversos del cribado del cáncer de mama en la elección informada, en función del nivel educativo. Método: Análisis secundario de un estudio experimental aleatorizado y controlado, en cuatro programas de cribado en Cataluña˜ y Canarias. Se analizaron 400 mujeres que iban a ser invitadas a participar por primera vez. El grupo de intervención recibió una herramienta informativa que mostraba los beneficios y los efectos adversos del cribado. El grupo control recibió un folleto estándar que recomendaba participar en el cribado. El nivel de estudios se agrupó en dos categorías: bajo y alto. La variable principal fue la elección informada definida como un conocimiento adecuado y la concordancia entre las actitudes y las intenciones. Resultados: La intervención produjo un mayor aumento del conocimiento en las mujeres con nivel educativo alto respecto a las de menor nivel educativo. Entre las mujeres que recibieron la intervención, la elección informada fue casi tres veces superior en las de nivel educativo alto (27% vs. 11%). No se observaron diferencias entre niveles educativos en los grupos de intervención y control en cuanto a conflicto decisional, confianza en la decisión, ansiedad y preocupación por el cáncer de mama. Conclusiones: Una herramienta informativa para el cribado del cáncer de mama tuvo mucho más impacto sobre la elección informada en las mujeres con nivel educativo alto. En aquellas con nivel educativo bajo mejoró la actitud frente al cribado y produjo un aumento en la intención de participar en él. [eng] Conclusions: A decision aid for breast cancer screening had much more impact on informed choice among women with a high educational level. In women with low educational level, the attitude towards screening improved and there was an increase in the intention to be screened. Objective: To evaluate the effect of receiving information about the benefits and harms of breast cancer screening in informed choice, according to educational level. Method: Secondary analysis of a randomized, controlled study, in four screening programs, in Catalonia and the Canary Islands (Spain). We analyzed 400 women who were going to be invited to participate for the first time. The intervention group received a decision aid that showed the benefits and harms of screening. The control group received a standard brochure that recommended participating in the screening program. Educational level was grouped into two categories, low and high. The primary out- come was informed choice defined as adequate knowledge and consistency between attitudes and intentions. Results: The intervention produced a greater increase in knowledge in women with a high educational level compared to those with a lower educational level. Among women who received the intervention, informed choice was almost three times higher in those with a high educational level (27% versus 11%). No differences were observed between educational levels in decisional conflict, confidence in the decision, anxiety and worry about breast cancer, in the intervention and control groups

High growth potential of long-term starved deep ocean opportunistic heterotrophic bacteria

Experiments with bacteria in culture have shown that they often display “feast and famine” strategies that allow them to respond with fast growth upon pulses in resource availability, and enter a growth-arrest state when resources are limiting. Although feast responses have been observed in natural communities upon enrichment, it is unknown whether this blooming ability is maintained after long periods of starvation, particularly in systems that are energy limited like the bathypelagic ocean. Here we combined bulk and single-cell activity measurements with 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to explore the response of a bathypelagic community, that had been starved for 1.6 years, to a sudden organic carbon supply. We observed a dramatic change in activity within 30 h, with leucine incorporation rates increasing over two orders of magnitude and the number of translationally active cells (mostly Gammaproteobacteria) increasing 4-fold. The feast response was driven by a single operational taxonomic unit (OTU) affiliated with the Marinobacter genus, which had remained rare during 7 months of starvation. Our work suggests that bathypelagic communities harbor a seed bank of highly persistent and resourceful “feast and famine” strategists that might disproportionally contribute to carbon fluxes through fast responses to occasional pulses of organic matter

Apomorfina: interés de su capacidad emética en el tratamiento de las intoxicaciones

Apomorfina; Intoxicacions; Capacitat emèticaApomorfina; Intoxicaciones; Capacidad eméticaApomorphine; Intoxications; Emetic capacityAquest document tracta de l'apomorfina: la seva història, característiques i indicacions sobre el seu ús en el tractament d'intoxicacions.Este documento trata de la apomorfina: su historia, características e indicaciones sobre su uso en el tratamiento de intoxicaciones

Prokaryotic capability to use organic substrates across the global tropical and subtropical ocean

Prokaryotes play a fundamental role in decomposing organic matter in the ocean, but little is known about how microbial metabolic capabilities vary at the global ocean scale and what are the drivers causing this variation. We aimed at obtaining the first global exploration of the functional capabilities of prokaryotes in the ocean, with emphasis on the under-sampled meso- and bathypelagic layers. We explored the potential utilization of 95 carbon sources with Biolog GN2 plates® in 441 prokaryotic communities sampled from surface to bathypelagic waters (down to 4,000 m) at 111 stations distributed across the tropical and subtropical Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. The resulting metabolic profiles were compared with biological and physico-chemical properties such as fluorescent dissolved organic matter (DOM) or temperature. The relative use of the individual substrates was remarkably consistent across oceanic regions and layers, and only the Equatorial Pacific Ocean showed a different metabolic structure. When grouping substrates by categories, we observed some vertical variations, such as an increased relative utilization of polymers in bathypelagic layers or a higher relative use of P-compounds or amino acids in the surface ocean. The increased relative use of polymers with depth, together with the increases in humic DOM, suggest that deep ocean communities have the capability to process complex DOM. Overall, the main identified driver of the metabolic structure of ocean prokaryotic communities was temperature. Our results represent the first global depiction of the potential use of a variety of carbon sources by prokaryotic communities across the tropical and the subtropical ocean and show that acetic acid clearly emerges as one of the most widely potentially used carbon sources in the ocean

Diatom Dominance Enhances Resistance of Phytoplanktonic POM to Mesopelagic Microbial Decomposition

Particulate organic matter (POM) lability is one of the key factors determining the residence time of organic carbon (OC) in the marine system. Phytoplankton community composition can influence the rate at which heterotrophic microorganisms decompose phytoplankton detrital particles and thus, it controls the fraction of OC that reaches the ocean depths, where it can be sequestered for climate-relevant spans of time. Here, we compared the degradation dynamics of POM from phytoplankton assemblages of contrasting diatom dominance in the presence of mesopelagic prokaryotic communities during a 19-day degradation experiment. We found that diatom-derived POM exhibited an exponential decay rate approximately three times lower than that derived from a community dominated by flagellated phytoplankton (mainly coccolithophores and nanoflagellates). Additionally, dissolved organic matter (DOM) released during the degradation of diatom particles accumulated over the experiment, whereas only residual increases in DOM were detected during the degradation of non-diatom materials. These results suggest that diatom-dominance enhances the efficiencies of the biological carbon pump and microbial carbon pump through the relatively reduced labilities of diatom particles and of the dissolved materials that arise from their microbial processing

Cost-effectiveness and harm-benefit analyses of risk-based screening strategies for breast cancer

The one-size-fits-all paradigm in organized screening of breast cancer is shifting towards a personalized approach. The present study has two objectives: 1) To perform an economic evaluation and to assess the harm-benefit ratios of screening strategies that vary in their intensity and interval ages based on breast cancer risk; and 2) To estimate the gain in terms of cost and harm reductions using risk-based screening with respect to the usual practice. We used a probabilistic model and input data from Spanish population registries and screening programs, as well as from clinical studies, to estimate the benefit, harm, and costs over time of 2,624 screening strategies, uniform or risk-based. We defined four risk groups, low, moderate-low, moderate-high and high, based on breast density, family history of breast cancer and personal history of breast biopsy. The risk-based strategies were obtained combining the exam periodicity (annual, biennial, triennial and quinquennial), the starting ages (40, 45 and 50 years) and the ending ages (69 and 74 years) in the four risk groups. Incremental cost-effectiveness and harm-benefit ratios were used to select the optimal strategies. Compared to risk-based strategies, the uniform ones result in a much lower benefit for a specific cost. Reductions close to 10% in costs and higher than 20% in false-positive results and overdiagnosed cases were obtained for risk-based strategies. Optimal screening is characterized by quinquennial or triennial periodicities for the low or moderate risk-groups and annual periodicity for the high-risk group. Risk-based strategies can reduce harm and costs. It is necessary to develop accurate measures of individual risk and to work on how to implement risk-based screening strategies.This study was funded by grants PS09/01340 and PS09/01153 from the Health Research Fund (Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria) of the Spanish Ministry of Health. The authors thank the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium and the funding that the BCSC received from the National Cancer Institute (U01CA63740, U01CA86076, U01CA86082, U01CA63736, U01CA70013, U01CA69976, U01CA63731, U01CA70040, and HHSN261201100031C). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

The impact of non-additive genetic associations on age-related complex diseases

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are not fully comprehensive, as current strategies typically test only the additive model, exclude the X chromosome, and use only one reference panel for genotype imputation. We implement an extensive GWAS strategy, GUIDANCE, which improves genotype imputation by using multiple reference panels and includes the analysis of the X chromosome and non-additive models to test for association. We apply this methodology to 62,281 subjects across 22 age-related diseases and identify 94 genome-wide associated loci, including 26 previously unreported. Moreover, we observe that 27.7% of the 94 loci are missed if we use standard imputation strategies with a single reference panel, such as HRC, and only test the additive model. Among the new findings, we identify three novel low-frequency recessive variants with odds ratios larger than 4, which need at least a three-fold larger sample size to be detected under the additive model. This study highlights the benefits of applying innovative strategies to better uncover the genetic architecture of complex diseases. Most genome-wide association studies assume an additive model, exclude the X chromosome, and use one reference panel. Here, the authors implement a strategy including non-additive models and find that the number of loci for age-related traits increases as compared to the additive model alone.Peer reviewe

Crustacean and aquatic insect assemblages in the Mediterranean coastal ecosystems of Empord'a wetlands (NE Iberian peninsula)

Coastal wetlands are characterized by high biodiversity, which is one of the main criteria considered when establishing protection policies or when proposing adequate management actions. In this study, the crustacean and aquatic insect composition of the Empordà wetlands is described. These two faunal groups contribute highly to the total biodiversity in these wetlands but are seldom considered when managing natural areas. A selection (84 sampling points) of all water body types present in the Empord'a wetlands were sampled monthly (surber and dip net with a 250 μm mesh). Sampling was carried out during 3 surveys (1991-92, 1996-97 and 1999-2000). A rich fauna of 125 crustacean and 295 aquatic insect taxa was identified. We characterized each water body type using the most abundant species and the relative species richness of the taxonomic groups. A classification of the water body types, according to similarity between inventories, groups the brackish and hyperhaline systems in one cluster and the various freshwater systems in another one. Among freshwater systems, lotic waters and freshwater wetlands have a high similarity, whereas rice fields and freshwater springs have a low similarity.Los humedales costeros se caracterizan por una alta biodiversidad, que es uno de los principales criterios considerados al establecer políticas de protección o al proponer acciones de gestión adecuada. En este estudio se describe la composición de crustáceos e insectos acuáticos de los aiguamolls del Empordà. Estos dos grupos faunísticos contribuyen de forma importante al total de la biodiversidad en los humedales, pero raramente se tienen en consideración al gestionar las áreas naturales. Se muestreó mensualmente una selección (84 puntos de muestreo) de todas las tipologías de masas de agua presentes en los aiguamolls de l'Empordà mediante redes surber y salabres de poro de malla de 250 μm. El muestreo se llevó a cabo durante atres campañas (1991-92, 1996-97 y 1999-2000). Se identificó una riqueza faunística de 125 taxones de crustáceos y 295 taxones de insectos acuáticos. Cada tipología de masa de agua se caracterizó utilizando las especies más abundantes y la riqueza específica de los grupos faunísticos. La clasificación de las tipologías de masas de agua, según la similaridad entre inventarios faunísticos, agrupó los sistemas salobres y hiperhalinos en un grupo. Entre los sistemas de agua dulce, los sistemas lóticos y los humedales de agua dulce presentaron una alta similaridad, mientras que los arrozales y las surgencias de agua dulce mostraron una baja similaridad

Protocol de prevenció i control de l’escabiosi (sarna)

Escabiosi; Prevenció i control; TractamentEscabiosis; Prevención y control; TratamientoScabiosis; Prevention and control; TreatmentProtocol per als professionals d’epidemiologia i per als professionals assistencials que hagin de gestionar l’existència de casos i/o de brots epidèmics de sarna en qualsevol àmbit (familiar, escolar, centres sanitaris, institucions tancades, etc.)