A mesoscale index to describe the regional ocean circulation around the Balearic Islands

Historical oceanographic surveys carried out around the Balearic Islands (western Mediterranean) suggest two different scenarios for the regional ocean circulation. In one scenario, occurring during cold winters, cool water is formed at intermediate layers (100–300 m) in the Gulf of Lions. This Western Mediterranean Intermediate Water (WIW) usually moves southward reaching the Balearic Channels, deflecting the warmer Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW) coming from the Eastern Mediterranean, and even blocking the Ibiza Channel. On the other hand, during mild winters, less WIW is formed and then LIW flows through the channels, appearing at their characteristic depths. The oceanographic surveys around the Balearic Islands (1985–2004) have provided a qualitative index, indicating the presence or not of WIW in the Ibiza Channel, based on the analyses of θS diagrams. A quantitative index based on mean water temperature between 100 and 300 m depth in the channels may also be defined. Both indexes, the qualitative and the quantitative, give consistent information on WIW presence for the period 1985–2004, however, both are short in time and have gaps in the series. In order to obtain a longer and continuous index for WIW presence and then for regional circulation, air–sea heat fluxes at the Gulf of Lions during winter months were obtained from the meteorological NCEP/NCAR reanalysis dataset and compared with other meteorological data such as surface air temperature. The standardized air temperature anomalies at 1000 hPa in the Gulf of Lions during winter (December–March) has been shown to be the simplest and best indicator of absence/presence of WIW in the Balearic Islands channels in late spring. Values above 1.0 of the standardized temperature anomaly would indicate absence of WIW in the Ibiza Channel. The high correlation obtained with available in-situ oceanographic data allows the use of this index as an indicator of presence of WIW and then of different regional circulation scenarios backwards in time and in those years for which the oceanographic data are missing or scarc

Engineered nanomaterials: from their properties and applications, to their toxicity towards marine bivalves in a changing environment

As a consequence of their unique characteristics, the use of Engineered Nanomaterials (ENMs) is rapidly increasing in industrial, agricultural products, as well as in environmental technology. However, this fast expansion and use make likely their release into the environment with particular concerns for the aquatic ecosystems, which tend to be the ultimate sink for this type of contaminants. Considering the settling behaviour of particulates, benthic organisms are more likely to be exposed to these compounds. In this way, the present review aims to summarise the most recent data available from the literature on ENMs behaviour and fate in aquatic ecosystems, focusing on their ecotoxicological impacts towards marine and estuarine bivalves. The selection of ENMs presented here was based on the OECD's Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials (WPMN), which involves the safety testing and risk assessment of ENMs. Physical-chemical characteristics and properties, applications, environmental relevant concentrations and behaviour in aquatic environment, as well as their toxic impacts towards marine bivalves are discussed. Moreover, it is also identified the impacts derived from the simultaneous exposure of marine organisms to ENMs and climate changes as an ecologically relevant scenario.publishe

NaRALap: augmented reality system for navigation in laparoscopic surgery

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11548-011-0579-z.The AR system has a good resolution and currently is used for the placement of the trocars. Possible improvements will be performed to make the system independent of the camera position or to use natural marks. The biomechanical model and the AR algorithms will be combined with a tracker, for tracking the surgical instruments, in order to implement a valid system for liver biopsies. It will take into account the deformation due to the pneumoperitoneum and due to the breath of the patient. To develop the navigator that will guide the laparoscopic interventions, both AR system and biomechanical model will be combined with the laparoscopic camera in order to make an easier environment with only one vision in a 2D monitor.This work has been supported by the project MITYC (ref. TSI020100-2009-189). We would like to express our deep gratitude to the Hospital Clínica Benidorm for its participation in this project.López-Mir, F.; Martínez Martínez, F.; Fuertes Cebrián, JJ.; Lago, MA.; Rupérez Moreno, MJ.; Naranjo Ornedo, V.; Monserrat Aranda, C. (2011). NaRALap: augmented reality system for navigation in laparoscopic surgery. International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery. 6:98-99. https://doi.org/10.0.3.239/s11548-011-0579-zS9899

A mesoscale index to describe the regional ocean circulation around the Balearic Islands

The formation of Western Mediterranean Intermediate Water (WIW) in the Gulf of Lions and its later presence in the Balearic Channels play a significant role in the regional circulation. The presence of WIW, given by the intermediate water temperatures in the Ibiza Channel, has been related to air temperture in the Gulf of Lions, providing a continuous and long index of regional circulatio

Time-frequency Grassmannian signalling for MIMO multi-channel-frequency-flat systems

In this paper, we consider the application of non-coherent Grassmannian signalling in practical multi-channel-frequency-flat multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems. In these systems, Grassmannian signalling, originally developed for single-channel block-fading systems, is not readily applicable. In particular, in such systems, the channel coefficients are constant across time and frequency, which implies that spectrally-efficient signalling ought to be jointly structured over these domains. To approach this goal, we develop a concatenation technique that yields a spectrally-efficient time-frequency Grassmannian signalling scheme, which enables the channel coherence bandwidth to be regarded as an additional coherence time. This scheme is shown to achieve the high signal-to-noise ratio non-coherent capacity of MIMO channels when the fading coefficients are constant over a time-frequency block. This scheme is also applicable in fast fading systems with coherence bandwidth exceeding that of one subchannel. The proposed scheme is independent of the symbol duration, i.e., the channel use duration, and is thus compatible with the transmit filter designs in current systems.The work of the first and second authors is supported, in part, by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). This work is also supported, in part, by Huawei Canada Co., Ltd., in part, by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation's ORF-RE (Ontario Research Fund-Research Excellence) program, and, in part, by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (project number TEC2011-27723-C02-02). The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving it for publication was Z. Wang.Fouad, YMM.; Gohary, RH.; Cabrejas Peñuelas, J.; Yanikomeroglu, H.; Calabuig Soler, D.; Roger Varea, S.; Monserrat Del Río, JF. (2015). Time-frequency Grassmannian signalling for MIMO multi-channel-frequency-flat systems. IEEE Communications Letters. 19(3):475-478. https://doi.org/10.1109/LCOMM.2014.2386873S47547819

Carbon Nanotubes’ Effect on Mitochondrial Oxygen Flux Dynamics: Polarography Experimental Study and Machine Learning Models using Star Graph Trace Invariants of Raman Spectra

[Abstract] This study presents the impact of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on mitochondrial oxygen mass flux (Jm) under three experimental conditions. New experimental results and a new methodology are reported for the first time and they are based on CNT Raman spectra star graph transform (spectral moments) and perturbation theory. The experimental measures of Jm showed that no tested CNT family can inhibit the oxygen consumption profiles of mitochondria. The best model for the prediction of Jm for other CNTs was provided by random forest using eight features, obtaining test R-squared (R2) of 0.863 and test root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.0461. The results demonstrate the capability of encoding CNT information into spectral moments of the Raman star graphs (SG) transform with a potential applicability as predictive tools in nanotechnology and material risk assessmentsInstituto de Salud Carlos III; PI13/02020Instituto de Salud Carlos III; PI13/00280Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; R2014/025Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; GRC2014/049Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; R2014/039Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; UNLC08-1E-002Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad ; UNLC13-13-3503Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; CTQ2016-74881-PPaís Vasco.Gobierno; IT1045-16Brasil. Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; 308539/2016-8Brasil. Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; 454332/2014-

Decrypting strong and weak single-walled carbon nanotubes interactions with mitochondrial voltage-dependent anion channels using molecular docking and perturbation theory

[Abstract] The current molecular docking study provided the Free Energy of Binding (FEB) for the interaction (nanotoxicity) between VDAC mitochondrial channels of three species (VDAC1-Mus musculus, VDAC1-Homo sapiens, VDAC2-Danio rerio) with SWCNT-H, SWCNT-OH, SWCNT-COOH carbon nanotubes. The general results showed that the FEB values were statistically more negative (p  (SWCNT-VDAC1-Mus musculus) > (SWCNT-VDAC1-Homo sapiens) > (ATP-VDAC). More negative FEB values for SWCNT-COOH and OH were found in VDAC2-Danio rerio when compared with VDAC1-Mus musculus and VDAC1-Homo sapiens (p  r2 > 0.97) was observed between n-Hamada index and VDAC nanotoxicity (or FEB) for the zigzag topologies of SWCNT-COOH and SWCNT-OH. Predictive Nanoparticles-Quantitative-Structure Binding-Relationship models (nano-QSBR) for strong and weak SWCNT-VDAC docking interactions were performed using Perturbation Theory, regression and classification models. Thus, 405 SWCNT-VDAC interactions were predicted using a nano-PT-QSBR classifications model with high accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity (73–98%) in training and validation series, and a maximum AUROC value of 0.978. In addition, the best regression model was obtained with Random Forest (R2 of 0.833, RMSE of 0.0844), suggesting an excellent potential to predict SWCNT-VDAC channel nanotoxicity.Brasil. Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; 552131/2011-3Brasil. Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; 454332/2014-9Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; R2014/03

A new methodology for the in vivo estimation of the elastic constants that characterize the patient-specific biomechanical behavior of the human cornea

This work presents a methodology for the in vivo characterization of the complete biomechanical behavior of the human cornea of each patient. Specifically, the elastic constants of a hyperelastic, second-order Ogden model were estimated for 24 corneas corresponding to 12 patients. The finite element method was applied to simulate the deformation of human corneas due to non-contact tonometry, and an iterative search controlled by a genetic heuristic was used to estimate the elastic parameters that most closely approximates the simulated deformation to the real one. The results from a synthetic experiment showed that these parameters can be estimated with an error of about 5%. The results of 24 in vivo corneas showed an overlap of about 90% between simulation and real deformed cornea and a modified Hausdorff distance of 25 mu m, which indicates the great accuracy of the proposed methodology. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This project has been partially funded by MECD (reference AP2009-2414) and MINECO (INNPACTO, IPT-2012-0495-300000).Lago, MA.; Rupérez Moreno, MJ.; Martínez Martínez, F.; Monserrat Aranda, C.; Larra, E.; Gueell, JL.; Peris-Martinez, C. (2015). A new methodology for the in vivo estimation of the elastic constants that characterize the patient-specific biomechanical behavior of the human cornea. Journal of Biomechanics. 48(1):38-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2014.11.009S384348

Ruta geomonumental: materiales de construcción utilizados en el Monasterio de Santa María de Pelayos de la Presa y antiguas canteras explotadas para la extracción de la piedra granítica (Madrid).

9 págs, 8 figuras.-- Itinerario incluido entre las actividades de divulgación y comunicación social de la Semana de la Ciencia y la Tecnología en el CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Nov 2010): http://www.madrimasd.org/semanaciencia/2010/.-- Texto correspondiente a la memoria entregada a los participantes que asistieron a la ruta geomonumentalLas Rutas Geomonumentales suponen una metodología diferente para la difusión cultural y científica del patrimonio arquitectónico, atendiendo a los materiales pétreos, naturales y artificiales, que lo configuran. El prefijo “Geo” indica el fuerte condicionante geológico que tradicionalmente ha influido en los asentamientos urbanos y en su desarrollo, así como la relación existente entre la arquitectura y la geología, en tanto que gran parte de los materiales de construcción se extraen de la tierra. Además, el comportamiento y deterioro de los materiales pétreos está en gran parte condicionado por el entorno que rodea a los inmuebles que constituyen. El Monasterio de Pelayos de la Presa resulta un inmueble ideal para realizar una Ruta Geomonumental como la que se propone. Por un lado, para la construcción del monasterio se utilizaron muy diversos materiales pétreos de construcción (naturales y artificiales) y su emplazamiento en gran parte estuvo condicionado por la existencia de canteras de granito en la zona. Por otro, el estado de conservación que presenta el inmueble, posibilita atender a interesantes aspectos constructivos y a formas de deterioro sufridas por los materiales, así como a las causas que las generan.Peer reviewe