Fine root dynamics for forests on contrasting soils in the Colombian Amazon

It has been hypothesized that as soil fertility increases, the amount of carbon allocated to below-ground production (fine roots) should decrease. To evaluate this hypothesis, we measured the standing crop fine root mass and the production of fine roots (<2 mm) by two methods: (1) ingrowth cores and, (2) sequential soil coring, during 2.2 years in two lowland forests growing on different soils types in the Colombian Amazon. Differences of soil resources were defined by the type and physical and chemical properties of soil: a forest on clay loam soil (Endostagnic Plinthosol) at the Amacayacu National Natural Park and, the other on white sand (Ortseinc Podzol) at the Zafire Biological Station, located in the Forest Reservation of the Calderón River. We found that the standing crop fine root mass and the production was significantly different between soil depths (0–10 and 10–20 cm) and also between forests. The loamy sand forest allocated more carbon to fine roots than the clay loam forest with the production in loamy sand forest twice (mean±standard error=2.98±0.36 and 3.33±0.69 Mg C ha−1 yr−1, method 1 and 2, respectively) as much as for the more fertile loamy soil forest (1.51±0.14, method 1, and from 1.03±0.31 to 1.36±0.23 Mg C ha−1 yr−1, method 2). Similarly, the average of standing crop fine root mass was higher in the white-sands forest (10.94±0.33 Mg C ha−1) as compared to the forest on the more fertile soil (from 3.04±0.15 to 3.64±0.18 Mg C ha−1). The standing crop fine root mass also showed a temporal pattern related to rainfall, with the production of fine roots decreasing substantially in the dry period of the year 2005. These results suggest that soil resources may play an important role in patterns of carbon allocation to the production of fine roots in these forests as the proportion of carbon allocated to above- and below-ground organs is different between forest types. Thus, a trade-off between above- and below-ground growth seems to exist with our results also suggesting that there are no differences in total net primary productivity between these two forests, but with higher below-ground production and lower above-ground production for the forest on the nutrient poor soi

EmC-ICDSST 2019: 5th International Conference on Decision Support System Technology - ICDSST 2019 & EURO Mini Conference 2019 on "Decision Support Systems: Main Developments & Future Trends"

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mechanical behavior of alkali-cement as function of the temperature.

This investigation reports on a comparative study of the mechanical behavior at different temperatures of three different alkali-activated fly ash pastes chemically activated using sodium silicate. A control Portland cement (OPC) was used as a reference. In an attempt to simulate the conditions prevailing in the event of accidental fire, post-thermal mechanical tests were performed to determine the residual strength. It has therefore been established that FA based cements can be fabricated for construction purposes and these materials have great potential for fire resistance applications

Validation of a methodology for grouping intakes of pressurized irrigation networks into sectors to minimize energy consumption

A methodology to optimise the amount of energy consumed in pressurized irrigation systems was presented by Jimenez-Bello et al. (2010a). These authors proposed grouping pressurized irrigation network intakes, each of the water turnouts resulting from a shared hydrant, into sectors via a genetic algorithm. In the present research, the methodology was applied and validated in a water users association. Several energy efficiency indicators were calculated and compared during five consecutive seasons (2006-2010). The first two seasons, when the methodology was not employed, were used as reference for the results obtained from 2008 onwards, when the methodology was applied to the management of irrigation network. Results obtained in seasons 2008-2010 showed that the average energy savings were 16% in comparisons to the 2006 season. However, it should be noted that the potential, theoretical savings, could have been as high as 22.3% if the modelled grouping networks would have been accurately followed. There was in fact some discrepancy between the theoretical model outputs and the final groupings due to some intake restrictions. In addition, during the irrigation campaigns, the number of irrigation intakes that operated within each sector was not always equal to the modelled sectoring, a fact that reduced the overall water users association energy efficiency. This occurred particularly during rainy periods, when some users deliberately decided to close their manual irrigation intakes valves. Overall, results showed the potential of the validated methodology for optimising energy use. However, the final overall system efficiency might depend on specific constraints that need to be taken into account when attempting to use model output predictions.This research was supported by funds from Interreg IV SUDOEB project "Telerieg" and from MICIIN project Rideco CSD2006-0067. The authors would like to thank the Company Tecnicas Valencianas del Agua (TECVASA) and the IMPIVA institute for their support in this research study.Jiménez Bello, MÁ.; Martínez Alzamora, F.; Castel, JR.; Intrigliolo Molina, DS. (2011). Validation of a methodology for grouping intakes of pressurized irrigation networks into sectors to minimize energy consumption. Agricultural Water Management. 102(1):46-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2011.10.005S4653102

The Holocene Cedrus pollen record from Sierra Nevada (S Spain), a proxy for climate change in N Africa

Comprehending the effects of climate variability and disturbance on forested ecosystems is paramount to successfully managing forest environments under future climate scenarios (e.g., global warming, aridi-fication increase). Changes in fossil pollen abundance in sedimentary archives record past vegetation dynamics at regional scales, mainly related to climate changes and, in the last few millennia, to human impact. Pollen records can thus provide long databases with information on how the environment reacted to climate change before the historical record. In this study, we synthesized fossil pollen data from seven sites from the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain to investigate the response of forests in the western Mediterranean area to millennial-scale climate changes and to human impact during the Holocene. In particular, here we focused on Cedrus pollen abundances, which most-likely originated from Northern Africa and were carried to Sierra Nevada by wind. Cedrus pollen has received little attention in the Iberian Peninsula palynological records, for it occurs in low concentrations and has an African source, and thus this article explores the potential to reconstruct its past history and climate. Although Cedrus abundances are generally lower than 1% in the studied pollen samples, a comparison with North African (Moroccan) Cedrus pollen records shows similar trends at long- and short-term time-scales. Therefore, this record could be used as a proxy for changes in this forest species in North Africa. As observed in the Sierra Nevada synthetic record, the increasing trend of Cedrus pollen during the Middle and Late Holocene closely correlates with decreasing summer insolation. This would have produced overall cooler annual temperatures in Northern Africa (Middle Atlas and Rif Mountains) as well as lower summer evaporation, benefiting the growth of this cool-adapted montane tree species while increasing available moisture during the summer, which is critical for this water-demanding species. Millennial-scale variability also characterizes the Sierra Nevada Cedrus synthetic pollen record. Cedrus abundance oscillations co-vary with well-known millennial-scale climatic variability that controlled cedar abundance and altitudinal distribution in montane areas of N Africa. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

In vitro and in vivo anti-Trypanosoma cruzi activity of new arylamine Mannich base-type derivatives

Chagas disease is a neglected tropical disease with 6-7 million people infected worldwide and there is no effective treatment. Therefore, there is an urgent need to continue researching in order to discover novel therapeutic alternatives. We present a series of arylaminoketone derivatives as means of identifying new drugs to treat Chagas disease in the acute phase with greater activity, less toxicity and with a larger spectrum of action than that corresponding to the reference drug benznidazole. Indexes of high selectivity found in vitro formed the basis for later in vivo assays in BALB/c mice. Murine model results show that compounds 3, 4, 7 and 10 induced a remarkable decrease in parasitemia levels in acute phase and the parasitemia reactivation following immunosuppression, and curative rates were higher than with benznidazole. These high anti-parasitic activities encourage us to propose these compounds as promising molecules for developing an easy to synthesize anti-Chagas agent

NOA36 Protein Contains a Highly Conserved Nucleolar Localization Signal Capable of Directing Functional Proteins to the Nucleolus, in Mammalian Cells

NOA36/ZNF330 is an evolutionarily well-preserved protein present in the nucleolus and mitochondria of mammalian cells. We have previously reported that the pro-apoptotic activity of this protein is mediated by a characteristic cysteine-rich domain. We now demonstrate that the nucleolar localization of NOA36 is due to a highly-conserved nucleolar localization signal (NoLS) present in residues 1–33. This NoLS is a sequence containing three clusters of two or three basic amino acids. We fused the amino terminal of NOA36 to eGFP in order to characterize this putative NoLS. We show that a cluster of three lysine residues at positions 3 to 5 within this sequence is critical for the nucleolar localization. We also demonstrate that the sequence as found in human is capable of directing eGFP to the nucleolus in several mammal, fish and insect cells. Moreover, this NoLS is capable of specifically directing the cytosolic yeast enzyme polyphosphatase to the target of the nucleolus of HeLa cells, wherein its enzymatic activity was detected. This NoLS could therefore serve as a very useful tool as a nucleolar marker and for directing particular proteins to the nucleolus in distant animal species

Amyloid-β reduces the expression of neuronal FAIM-L, thereby shifting the inflammatory response mediated by TNFα from neuronal protection to death

The brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) present elevated levels of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα), a cytokine that has a dual function in neuronal cells. On one hand, TNFα can activate neuronal apoptosis, and on the other hand, it can protect these cells against amyloid-β (Aβ) toxicity. Given the dual behavior of this molecule, there is some controversy regarding its contribution to the pathogenesis of AD. Here we examined the relevance of the long form of Fas apoptotic inhibitory molecule (FAIM) protein, FAIM-L, in regulating the dual function of TNFα. We detected that FAIM-L was reduced in the hippocampi of patients with AD. We also observed that the entorhinal and hippocampal cortex of a mouse model of AD (PS1M146LxAPP751sl) showed a reduction in this protein before the onset of neurodegeneration. Notably, cultured neurons treated with the cortical soluble fractions of these animals showed a decrease in endogenous FAIM-L, an effect that is mimicked by the treatment with Aβ-derived diffusible ligands (ADDLs). The reduction in the expression of FAIM-L is associated with the progression of the neurodegeneration by changing the inflammatory response mediated by TNFα in neurons. In this sense, we also demonstrate that the protection afforded by TNFα against Aβ toxicity ceases when endogenous FAIM-L is reduced by short hairpin RNA (shRNA) or by treatment with ADDLs. All together, these results support the notion that levels of FAIM-L contribute to determine the protective or deleterious effect of TNFα in neuronal cells

Intratumor genetic heterogeneity and clonal evolution to decode endometrial cancer progression

Endometrial cancer; Clonal evolution; MutationCáncer endometrial; Evolución clonal; MutaciónCàncer d'endometri; Evolució clonal; MutacióAnalyzing different tumor regions by next generation sequencing allows the assessment of intratumor genetic heterogeneity (ITGH), a phenomenon that has been studied widely in some tumor types but has been less well explored in endometrial carcinoma (EC). In this study, we sought to characterize the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of 9 different ECs using whole-exome sequencing, and by performing targeted sequencing validation of the 42 primary tumor regions and 30 metastatic samples analyzed. In addition, copy number alterations of serous carcinomas were assessed by comparative genomic hybridization arrays. From the somatic mutations, identified by whole-exome sequencing, 532 were validated by targeted sequencing. Based on these data, the phylogenetic tree reconstructed for each case allowed us to establish the tumors’ evolution and correlate this to tumor progression, prognosis, and the presence of recurrent disease. Moreover, we studied the genetic landscape of an ambiguous EC and the molecular profile obtained was used to guide the selection of a potential personalized therapy for this patient, which was subsequently validated by preclinical testing in patient-derived xenograft models. Overall, our study reveals the impact of analyzing different tumor regions to decipher the ITGH in ECs, which could help make the best treatment decision.We thank all those at the Translational Research Laboratory of the MD Anderson Cancer Center Madrid for their invaluable help with this study. Tissue samples were obtained with the support of the MD Anderson Foundation Biobank (record number B.0000745, ISCIII National Biobank Record), the “Xarxa Catalana de Bancs de Tumors” and “Plataforma de Biobancos” ISCIII (PT13/0010/0014, B.000609). This study has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation (PID2019-104644RB-I00 (GMB), the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII, CIBERONC, CB16/12/00295 - GMB-, CB16/12/00328 -EC, AGM- and CB16/12/00231 -XMG- [all partly supported by FEDER funds]) and by the AECC Scientific Foundation (FC_AECC PROYE19036MOR -GMB- and Coordinated groups 2018 -XMG, AGM, GMB-). SO is funded by an AECC-postdoctoral grant (2020). JSR-F and BW are funded in part by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and in part by the NIH/NCI P50 CA247749 01 grant. Research reported in this publication was supported in part by a Cancer Center Support Grant of the NIH/NCI (Grant No. P30CA008748; MSK). We thank the Eurofins Megalab laboratory for helping us to perform the analysis of DNA HPV detection

Post-glacial evolution of alpine environments in the western Mediterranean region : The Laguna Seca record

In an effort to understand how alpine environments from the western Mediterranean region responded to climate variations since the last glacial-interglacial transition, a detailed chronological control and sedimentological analysis, supported by magnetic susceptibility, total organic carbon and C/N data, were carried out on the sedimentary record of Laguna Seca (LS). This is a latitudinal and altitudinally (2259 masl) key alpine wetland site located in the easternmost area of the Sierra Nevada, southern Iberian Peninsula, where sediments accumulated during Heinrich Stadial 1, Bolling-Allerod (B-A) and the Younger Dryas (YD) previously unrecorded in alpine Sierra Nevada. Climate controlled sedimentation in LS and three coarse-grained and one fine-grained facies association are differentiated, which help us decipher the paleoenvironmental evolution of LS: (1) subaerial cohesionless debris flows during a paraglacial stage; (2) till or nival diamicton during a small glacier/nivation hollow stage; (3) massive mudstone by suspension settling of clays into standing water during a lacustrine stage; and (4) frost-shattering breccia deposited inside the lacustrine stage, probably during the YD, and linked to a periglacial substage. The development of a previously existing small glacial cirque during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in the LS basin at an elevation between 2500 and 2300 m could be supported by the important availability of slope sediments glacially-conditioned such as debris flows, reworked by paraglacial slope processes during the first deglaciation stages, confirming previous studies of landforms in the catchment area and the LGM-Equilibrium Line Altitude estimation above 2400 masl in Sierra Nevada. Mean sediment accumulation rates in the LS sedimentary units (4.21 and 0.28 mm/yr during the paraglacial small glacier/nivation stage and the lacustrine stage, respectively) confirm that geomorphic activity accelerated just after glaciers retreated due to a slope adjustment and high availability of glacially conditioned sediments. An abrupt change in paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic conditions occurred in LS at ~ 15.7 cal kyr BP. This change was probably due to an increase in temperature and precipitation in the western Mediterranean region during the B-A. At LS, this resulted in significant ice-melt, forming a deep-water lake in LS with important organic matter contribution until the end of the Early Holocene (except in the YD when the lake level probably dropped), but elsewhere a general glacier recession in the Sierra Nevada and an expansion of the Mediterranean forest in the southern Iberian Peninsula. Finally, the general long-term aridification that occurred during the Middle Holocene until the present in the western Mediterranean region triggered an important environmental change transforming LS into an ephemeral wetland with an increase in aquatic productivity.Peer reviewe