El cultivo ecológico de alcachofa en su doble utilidad productiva y seguridad alimentaria

La alcachofa (Cynara scolymus L.) es un cultivo de gran importancia en la Comunidad Valenciana y forma parte habitualmente de las rotaciones en las zonas de huerta. Para el cultivo ecológico puede ser de gran utilidad, además de la producción de capítulos para su consumo humano, por la elevada biomasa que produce su cultivo; y de esta forma, servir como abono verde al enriquecer el suelo con abundante materia orgánica y su elevada función de sumidero de gases efecto invernadero (GEI). Se compara el comportamiento agronómico de distintos cultivares de alcachofa de semilla con los obtenidos en la parcela de cultivo convencional dentro de la misma finca y similares condiciones; valorando la producción de biomasa procedente del cultivo y las incidencias fitosanitarias. El cultivo ecológico de la alcachofa de semilla, puede compararse en su producción al cultivo convencional y sin aplicación de fitosanitarios durante todo el cultivo, representando un alto valor en el enriquecimiento de materia orgánica del suelo, al producir un nivel de biomasa como abono verde de 4,63 Kg/planta, equivalente a 2,039 Kg de materia seca por m2 y a 42,08 t/ha. y año de CO2 secuestrado en el suelo

External interaction management of VRML scenes for e-learning applications

This is an electronic version of the paper presenten at the International conference on International Workshop on Web3D Technologies in Learning, Education and Training (LET-Web3D 2004) held in Udine (Italy) on 2004This paper describes an innovative approach to solve some of the problems that arise when integrating virtual reality capabilities into e-learning environments. The VRML representation of a scene includes, along with its geometric description, a full specification of the student-scene interaction logic. This representation is rendered by a browser, which also orchestrates the interaction according to the logic. Such a mechanism implies reprogramming and/or replicating partly the logic when modifying the interaction scheme of a single scene for different students. It also prevents any external access to student’s actions or scene reactions, which is necessary for on-line evaluation or instruction. We propose to expand the standard interaction mechanism of VRML so that both the specification of the scene logic and the interaction flow are managed by an external and centralized entity following a clientserver approach, hence solving the identified problems, while additionally increasing design efficiency and content protection.This work has been partly supported by the Plan Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología of the Spanish Government under project TIC2001-306

Ensayo de injerto en alficoz ecológico

El alficoz (Cucumis melo var. Flexuosus) es un cultivo tradicional en la zona de Elche y resulta de gran interés el estudio del injerto como método de lucha contra enfermedades de suelo en cultivo ecológico. El ensayo se desarrolló en la EEA de Elche, al aire libre, riego por goteo y 6 años en ecológico. Como portainjerto se usó el RS-841 (Cucurbita híbrida) de Royal Sluis con resistencias a Fusarium (FON), Verticilium y tolerancia a Phythium y nemátodos. El diseño estadístico fue de 2 tratamientos (alficoz injertado y sin injertar) en 6 bloques al azar. Se controlaron las producciones 3 veces por semana, con un seguimiento completo del estado fitosanitario del cultivo. Analizadas estadísticamente las producciones encontramos diferencias significativas (al 95%) entre los tratamientos, a favor del injerto, que llega a duplicar la producción comercial del sin injertar (5,78 kg/m2 frente a 2,26 kg/m2). Las plantas sin injertar se vieron afectadas en su práctica totalidad por el «colapso» del melón al mes de iniciarse las recolecciones, mientras que las injertadas siguieron produciendo durante un mes más. Se confirma el comportamiento del injerto como un eficaz método de prevención frente a los patógenos del suelo en el cultivo del alficoz ecológico. Siendo aconsejable su empleo incluso en aquellos casos en los que se presuma un buen estado fitosanitario del suelo, ya que además produce un ligero incremento en la precocidad y vigor de la planta

Assessing the capability of multi-scale drought datasets to quantify drought severity and to identify drought impacts: An example in the Ebro Basin

Assessing the risk, the severity and the likely evolution of droughts are key tasks for improving preparedness of regions prone to drought conditions, and mitigation of drought consequences. The access to real-time and high-quality climatic information is essential for this purpose. Different climatic databases are being developed and made available on real time by climatic research institutions, but their capability for quantifying droughts characteristics including severity, or spatio-temporal variability, is uncertain given their low spatial resolution. In this study, we assessed the capability of three databases with contrasted spatial resolution for measuring spatial and temporal variability of drought occurrence. The standardized precipitation index, calculated for each database, showed that the low resolution datasets allow an acceptable measurement of the magnitude, intensity and duration of droughts, while failing mostly in detecting the spatial patterns of the specific drought episodes. Moreover, the capability of the datasets for assessing the impacts of droughts on surface hydrology and tree growth was examined. Results confirmed the usefulness of the drought index for assessing drought impacts on water resources and forest ecosystems even when low resolution databases are used. © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society.This work has been supported by the research projects CGL2008-01189/BTE, CGL2011-27574-CO2-02 and CGL2011-27536 financed by the Spanish Commission of Science and Technology and FEDER, EUROGEOSS (FP7-ENV-2008-1-226487) and ACQWA (FP7-ENV-2007-1-212250) financed by the VII Framework Programme of the European Commission, ‘Efecto de los escenarios de cambio climático sobre la hidrología superficial y la gestión de embalses del Pirineo Aragonés’ financed by ‘Obra Social La Caixa’ and the Aragón Government and Influencia del cambio climático en el turismo de nieve, CTTP01/10, Financed by the Comisión de Trabajo de los Pirineos.Peer Reviewe

Drought impacts on vegetation activity, growth and primary production in humid and arid ecosystems

9 Pags., 5 Figs.[EN] We have evaluated the response of the Earth biomes to drought using a new global dataset that captures drought effects on vegetation at various time scales. We show that arid and humid biomes are both affected by drought, and that the time scale on which droughts most intensively affects vegetation plays a key role in determining the sensitivity of biomes to drought. Arid biomes respond to drought at short time scales because plants have mechanisms allowing them to rapidly adapt to changing water availability. Humid biomes also respond to drought at short time scales, probably because there plant species show a poor adaptability to water shortage. Sub-humid biomes respond to drought at long time scales because plants are adapted to withstand water deficit, but they lack the rapid post-drought recovery observed in arid biomes.[ES] En este trabajo se evalúa la respuesta de los diferentes biomas terrestre a la sequía mediante una base de datos nueva que captura el efecto de la sequía sobre la vegetación a diferentes escalas temporales. Se ha comprobado que los biomas característicos de zonas áridas y húmedas se ven afectados por la sequía, y que la escala temporal de la sequía juega un papel clave al determinar la sensibilidad de los biomas a la sequía. Los biomas áridos responden a las sequías medidas a escalas temporales cortas, debido a que las plantas tienen mecanismos que les permitan adaptarse rápidamente a la disponibilidad de agua. Los biomas húmedos también responden a la sequía a escalas temporales cortas, probablemente debido a que las especies ubicadas allí muestran una mala adaptación a la escasez de agua. Los biomas subhúmedos responden a la sequía a escalas de tiempo más largas, porque las plantas están adaptadas para soportar el déficit de agua, pero carecen de la rápida recuperación observada tras la sequía en los biomas áridos.This work was supported by projects financed by the Spanish Commission of Science and Technology (CGL2O1 1-27574-C02-02, CGL2O1 1-27536 and CGL2O1 1-26654) and the Aragón Government. J.J.C. thanks the support of ARAID and A.S-L. was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Generalitat de Catalunya (2009 BP-A 00035).Peer reviewe

Drought impacts on vegetation activity, growth and primary production in humid and arid ecoystems

We have evaluated the response of the Earth biomes to drought using a new global dataset that captures drought effects on vegetation at various time scales. We show that arid and humid biomes are both affected by drought, and that the time scale on which droughts most intensively affects vegetation plays a key role in determining the sensitivity of biomes to drought. Arid biomes respond to drought at short time scales because plants have mechanisms allowing them to rapidly adapt to changing water availability. Humid biomes also respond to drought at short time scales, probably because there plant species show a poor adaptability to water shortage. Sub-humid biomes respond to drought at long time scales because plants are adapted to withstand water deficit, but they lack the rapid post-drought recovery observed in arid biomes.Peer Reviewe

Neuroblastoma RAS viral oncogene homolog (N-RAS) deficiency aggravates liver injury and fibrosis

Homeostasis; PathogenesisHomeostasis; PatogénesisHomeòstasi; PatogènesiProgressive hepatic damage and fibrosis are major features of chronic liver diseases of different etiology, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms remain to be fully defined. N-RAS, a member of the RAS family of small guanine nucleotide-binding proteins also encompassing the highly homologous H-RAS and K-RAS isoforms, was previously reported to modulate cell death and renal fibrosis; however, its role in liver damage and fibrogenesis remains unknown. Here, we approached this question by using N-RAS deficient (N-RAS−/−) mice and two experimental models of liver injury and fibrosis, namely carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) intoxication and bile duct ligation (BDL). In wild-type (N-RAS+/+) mice both hepatotoxic procedures augmented N-RAS expression in the liver. Compared to N-RAS+/+ counterparts, N-RAS−/− mice subjected to either CCl4 or BDL showed exacerbated liver injury and fibrosis, which was associated with enhanced hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation and leukocyte infiltration in the damaged liver. At the molecular level, after CCl4 or BDL, N-RAS−/− livers exhibited augmented expression of necroptotic death markers along with JNK1/2 hyperactivation. In line with this, N-RAS ablation in a human hepatocytic cell line resulted in enhanced activation of JNK and necroptosis mediators in response to cell death stimuli. Of note, loss of hepatic N-RAS expression was characteristic of chronic liver disease patients with fibrosis. Collectively, our study unveils a novel role for N-RAS as a negative controller of the progression of liver injury and fibrogenesis, by critically downregulating signaling pathways leading to hepatocyte necroptosis. Furthermore, it suggests that N-RAS may be of potential clinical value as prognostic biomarker of progressive fibrotic liver damage, or as a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of chronic liver disease.This work was supported by the MICINN Retos RTI2018-095673-B-I00, PID2020-11782RB-I00, PID2020-117941RB-I00, all of which were co-funded with FEDER funds, AMMF 2018/117, COST Action CA17112 and Comunidad de Madrid S2022/BMD-7409. This project has received funding from the European Horizon’s research and innovation program HORIZON-HLTH-2022-STAYHLTH-02 under agreement No. 101095679. The research group belongs to the validated Research Groups Ref. 970935 Liver Pathophysiology, 920631 Lymphocyte Immunobiology and IBL-6 (imas12-associated). KZ was supported by the China Scholarship Council. SM-G was supported by a predoctoral scholarship from Complutense University

La Investigación Psicológica de la Pandemia de la COVID-19 en España: Una Revisión Sistemática del Impacto de la Pandemia sobre la Salud Emocional en la Población General Adulta

Se presenta una primera revisión sistemática de la investigación psicológica sobre la pandemia de la COVID-19 realizada en España. Dado que esta investigación se ha centrado en el impacto emocional de la pandemia, se presenta también una revisión sistemática de los estudios sobre la prevalencia de la depresión, la ansiedad, el estrés postraumático, el estrés y el malestar emocional durante la pandemia en la población general adulta española. Se realizó una búsqueda en PsycInfo que identificó 18 estudios en los que, en conjunto, se había evaluado a 57681 personas. Los resultados permiten estimar que la prevalencia de la sintomatología moderada-grave en la población general adulta española durante la primera ola de la pandemia fue de 18.6% para la depresión, 12.7% para la ansiedad, 33.1% para el estrés postraumático, 21.5% para el estrés y 29.5% para el malestar emocional. Estos resultados se discuten en el contexto de las limitaciones de los estudios realizados durante la pandemia, ya que la inmensa mayoría se realizaron por internet y con muestreos no probabilísticos con el método de bola de nieve y, por tanto, son susceptibles a los sesgos derivados de la autoselección y de la exclusión de las personas sin acceso a internet

Evidence of increasing drought severity caused by temperature rise in southern Europe

We use high quality climate data from ground meteorological stations in the Iberian Peninsula (IP) and robust drought indices to confirm that drought severity has increased in the past five decades, as a consequence of greater atmospheric evaporative demand resulting from temperature rise. Increased drought severity is independent of the model used to quantify the reference evapotranspiration. We have also focused on drought impacts to droughtsensitive systems, such as river discharge, by analyzing streamflow data for 287 rivers in the IP, and found that hydrological drought frequency and severity have also increased in the past five decades in natural, regulated and highly regulated basins. Recent positive trend in the atmospheric water demand has had a direct influence on the temporal evolution of streamflows, clearly identified during the warm season, in which higher evapotranspiration rates are recorded. This pattern of increase in evaporative demand and greater drought severity is probably applicable to other semiarid regions of the world, including other Mediterranean areas, the Sahel, southern Australia and South Africa, and can be expected to increasingly compromise water supplies and cause political, social and economic tensions among regions in the near future.This work has been supported by research projects CGL201127574CO202, CGL201127536 and CGL2011–24185 financed by the Spanish Commission of Science and Technology and FEDER, ‘Demonstration and validation of innovative methodology for regional climate change adaptation in the Mediterranean area (LIFE MEDACC)’ financed by the LIFE programme of the European Commission, CTTP1/12, financed by the Comunidad de Trabajo de los Pirineos, and QSECA (PTDC/AAGGLO/ 4155/2012) funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). ASL was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Catalan Government (2011 BPB 00078) and CAM was supported by a Juan de la Cierva fellowship by the Spanish Government