Creación da Coordinadora de Equipos de Normalización e Dinamización Lingüística do Barbanza

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Soil quality of abandoned agricultural terraces managed with prescribed fires and livestock in the municipality of Capafonts, Catalonia, Spain (2000-2017)

The abandonment of the economic activities of agriculture, livestock, and forestry since the second half of the 20th century, in conjunction with the exodus of inhabitants from rural areas, has resulted in an increase in the forest mass as well as an expansion of forest areas. This, in turn, has led to a greater risk of forest fires and an increase in the intensity and severity of these fires. Moreover, these forest masses represent a fire hazard to adjacent urban areas, which is a problem illustrated here by the village of Capafonts, whose former agricultural terraces have been invaded by shrubs, and which in the event of fire runs the risk of aiding the propagation of the flames from the forest to the village's homes. One of the tools available to reduce the amount of fuel in zones adjoining inhabited areas is prescribed burns. The local authorities have also promoted measures to convert these terraces into pasture; in this way, the grazing of livestock (in this particular instance, goats) aims to keep fuel levels low and thus reduce the risk of fire. The use of prescribed fires is controversial, as they are believed to be highly aggressive for the soil, and little is known about their long-term e ects. The alternation of the two strategies is more acceptable¿that is, the use of prescribed burning followed by the grazing of livestock. Yet, similarly little is known about the e ects of this management sequence on the soil. As such, this study seeks to examine the impact of the management of the abandoned terraces of Capafonts by means of two prescribed fires (2000 and 2002), which were designed specifically to prevent forest fires from reaching the village. Following these two prescribed burns, a herd of goats began to graze these terraces in 2005. Here, we report the results of soil analyses conducted during this period of years up to and including 2017. A plot comprising 30 sampling points was established on one of the terraces and used to monitor its main soil quality properties. The data were subject to statistical tests to determine whether the recorded changes were significant. The results show modifications to the concentration of soil elements, and since the first prescribed burn, these changes have all been statistically significant. We compare our results with those reported in other studies that evaluate optimum soil concentrations for the adequate growth of grazing to feed goats, and conclude that the soil conditions on the terrace after 17 years are optimum for livestock use

Runoff and erosion generation by simulated rainfall in a Mediterranean forest with forest management

Introduction: Forest management is necessary for forest conservation and the security of natural assets and people; however, forest management can have negative effects on some soil properties. Objective: To determine whether forest management in a Mediterranean forest basin, consisting of Quercus suber L. and Pinus halepensis Mill., causes increased runoff and eroded material at slope level. Materials and methods: Seven land-use units were selected: a) dense forest (no management); b) recently managed cork oak forest, c) recently managed pine forest; d) cork oak forest with two years of management, e) pine forest with two years of management, f) bare terrain with herbaceous vegetation and (g) a forest road. In each area, four rainfall simulations were carried out from a height of 2 m, at a pressure of 1.7 kg·cm -2 , equivalent to a rainfall intensity of 60 mm·h -1 . An ANOVA was performed and significant differences were verified (post-hoc Tukey test, P < 0.05). Results and discussion: The forest road and the bare terrain, areas devoid of vegetation, produced more runoff (4 to 12 %) than more vegetated areas (<1 %). The forest road recorded significantly higher erosion values (96 g·m -2 ) than the other land uses (<4 g·m -2 ) Conclusion: There is no difference in the generation of runoff and erosion in the managed areas, both pine and cork oak, compared to dense or unmanaged forest

Modelització geoestadistica del balanç hídric a Catalunya

L'objectiu d'aquest treball és la generació d'una cartografia temàtica basada en la representació de la variable Balanç hídric, en tant que es tracta d'una variable necessària per a l'elaboració d'estudis hidrològics, però que ha estat poc o gens desenvolupada des de l'àmbit cartogràfic, o des de la pròpia modelització espacial. La xarxa agrometeorològica disposa d'unes 130 estacions meteorològiques amb registres de diferents variables meteorològiques distribuïdes arreu del Principat. Per a cada un dels 130 punts de la xarxa, disposem d'un càlcul del balanç hidrològic que, no obstant això, no és extensiu ni tampoc continu en tot l'espai. Aquest càlcul es basa en la diferència entre la Evapotranspiració-Penman-Monteith (mm) i la precipitació (mm). A nivell metodològic, ens hem fixat en les diferents possibilitats que les eines de modelització geoestadística permeten per produir mapes de balanç hídric amb el màxim grau de precisió, tot emprant variables secundàries que tinguin una correlació significativa amb la variable estudiada. Així hem trobat que l'altitud de les estacions, com a variable secundària, mostra una correlació satisfactòria amb la variable primària balanç hídric, amb un R2 d'entre 0,3 i 0,5 de la regressió lineal

El foc com a causant de canvis en les propietats del sòl. Incendis forestals i cremes prescrites

Aquest article pretén ser una aproximació als efectes que el foc té en el sòl. Primer de tot, presentem els motius pels quals els incendis forestals han esdevingut un problema mediambiental a Catalunya. Resumim l'actual política de prevenció de Grans Incendis Forestals per part dels Bombers de la Generalitat. En el cos central de l'article, donem una àmplia visió dels efectes del foc en el sòl i finalment, per a qui pugui estar interessat a trobar més informació, repassem tots els grups que es dediquen internacionalment a fer estudis en aquest mateix àmbit. Es pot comprovar l'heterogènia procedència científica dels grups involucrats en l'estudi del foc i el sòl

Aquecimento Global: Ameaça Real ou Farsa? Um Júri Simulado para Promover a Argumentação Científica acerca de uma Temática Ambiental Emergente

Mudança climática é um assunto global urgente que demanda ações pessoais, coletivas e governamentais. De acordo com o Painel Intergovernamental de Mudanças Climáticas (IPCC), o aquecimento global é resultado de causas antropogênicas, entretanto, alguns cientistas discordam disso e afirmam que se trata de uma hipótese não comprovada. Diante desse contexto, o aquecimento global não é concebido pelas pessoas como um consenso científico, principalmente porque a aceitabilidade de algumas informações de divulgação científico-tecnológicas está sujeita à mediação político-partidária e ideológica. O objetivo deste trabalho foi relatar e analisar uma atividade didática caracterizada como um júri simulado realizada com estudantes de um curso técnico em química integrado ao ensino médio, tendo como réu o aquecimento global. Os estudantes foram organizados em promotoria, defesa e tribunal do júri, com o professor intermediando a discussão no papel de juiz. A análise das discussões mostrou que a promotoria e a defesa apresentaram uma argumentação variada e apoiada em informações científicas. Baseado nestas informações, o júri sentenciou o aquecimento global como uma farsa, mesmo que particularmente a maioria dos estudantes acredite que o aquecimento global é uma ameaça real para o planeta. As interações discursivas promovidas no júri simulado colaboraram para o desenvolvimento da linguagem científica, favorecendo o engajamento dos estudantes para o aprendizado de conceitos e práticas das ciências. A linguagem científica movimentou termos e expressões que evidenciaram entendimentos do fenômeno estudado, numa perspectiva argumentativa, buscando construir e apresentar proposições de conhecimento que justifiquem e legitimem suas ideias como constructos pessoais, baseados em pesquisas realizadas

Fasudil attenuates aggregation of α-synuclein in models of Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative movement disorder, yet disease-modifying treatments do not currently exist. Rho-associated protein kinase (ROCK) was recently described as a novel neuroprotective target in PD. Since alpha-synuclein (alpha-Syn) aggregation is a major hallmark in the pathogenesis of PD, we aimed to evaluate the anti-aggregative potential of pharmacological ROCK inhibition using the isoquinoline derivative Fasudil, a small molecule inhibitor already approved for clinical use in humans. Fasudil treatment significantly reduced alpha-Syn aggregation in vitro in a H4 cell culture model as well as in a cell-free assay. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy analysis revealed a direct binding of Fasudil to tyrosine residues Y133 and Y136 in the C-terminal region of alpha-Syn. Importantly, this binding was shown to be biologically relevant using site-directed mutagenesis of these residues in the cell culture model. Furthermore, we evaluated the impact of long-term Fasudil treatment on alpha-Syn pathology in vivo in a transgenic mouse model overexpressing human alpha-Syn bearing the A53T mutation (alpha-Syn(A53T) mice). Fasudil treatment improved motor and cognitive functions in alpha-Syn(A53T) mice as determined by Catwalk (TM) gait analysis and novel object recognition (NOR), without apparent side effects. Finally, immunohistochemical analysis revealed a significant reduction of alpha-Syn pathology in the midbrain of alpha-Syn(A53T) mice after Fasudil treatment. Our results demonstrate that Fasudil, next to its effects mediated by ROCK-inhibition, directly interacts with alpha-Syn and attenuates alpha-Syn pathology. This underscores the translational potential of Fasudil as a disease-modifying drug for the treatment of PD and other synucleinopathies

Dopamine-Induced Conformational Changes in Alpha-Synuclein

Background: Oligomerization and aggregation of α-synuclein molecules play a major role in neuronal dysfunction and loss in Parkinson's disease [1]. However, α-synuclein oligomerization and aggregation have mostly been detected indirectly in cells using detergent extraction methods [2], [3], [4]. A number of in vitro studies showed that dopamine can modulate the aggregation of α-synuclein by inhibiting the formation of or by disaggregating amyloid fibrils [5], [6], [7]. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here, we show that α-synuclein adopts a variety of conformations in primary neuronal cultures using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM). Importantly, we found that dopamine, but not dopamine agonists, induced conformational changes in α-synuclein which could be prevented by blocking dopamine transport into the cell. Dopamine also induced conformational changes in α-synuclein expressed in neuronal cell lines, and these changes were also associated with alterations in oligomeric/aggregated species. Conclusion/Significance: Our results show, for the first time, a direct effect of dopamine on the conformation of α-synuclein in neurons, which may help explain the increased vulnerability of dopaminergic neurons in Parkinson's disease

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1.

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field