Palladium–mediated organofluorine chemistry

Producción CientíficaThe substitution of fluorine for hydrogen in a molecule may result in profound changes in its properties and behaviour. Fluorine does not introduce special steric constraints since the F atom has a small size. However, the changes in bond polarity and the possibility of forming hydrogen bonds with other hydrogen donor fragments in the same or other molecules, may change the solubility and physical properties of the fluorinated compound when compared to the non-fluorinated one. Fluorine forms strong bonds to other elements and this ensures a good chemical stability. Altogether, fluorinated compounds are very attractive in materials chemistry and in medicinal chemistry, where many biologically active molecules and pharmaceuticals do contain fluorine in their structure and this has been shown to be essential for their activityJunta de Castilla y León (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación – Ref. VA302U13)Junta de Castilla y León (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación – Ref. VA256U13

Virtual Reality and Anxiety Disorders Treatment: Evolution and Future Perspectives

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that allows the simulation of different real-life situations on a tridimensional computer-generated environment where the user can interact with the environment as if he/she were the real world. VR has potential as an exposure technique for treating anxiety disorders because VR and real objects have similar characteristics, which creates the illusion that the user is immersed and engaged with objects in the real world. Regarding the efficacy of using virtual reality exposure-based therapy (VR-EBT), for more than two decades, there has been sufficient empirical evidence regarding VR-EBT for treating anxiety disorders. Finally, this chapter ends with some directions and perspectives for future VR-EBT developments and treatments protocols

Effect of food-related behavioral activation therapy on food intake and the environmental impact of the diet: results from the MooDFOOD prevention trial

This is the final version. Available on open access from Springer via the DOI in this recordPurpose: Food-based dietary guidelines are proposed to not only improve diet quality, but to also reduce the environmental impact of diets. The aim of our study was to investigate whether food-related behavioral activation therapy (F-BA) applying Mediterranean-style dietary guidelines altered food intake and the environmental impact of the diet in overweight adults with subsyndromal symptoms of depression. Methods: In total 744 adults who either received the F-BA intervention (F-BA group) or no intervention (control group) for 12 months were included in this analysis. Food intake data were collected through a food frequency questionnaire at baseline and after 6 and 12 months. Greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE), land use (LU), and fossil energy use (FEU) estimates from life-cycle assessments and a weighted score of the three (pReCiPe score) were used to estimate the environmental impact of each individual diet at each timepoint. Results: The F-BA group reported increased intakes of vegetables (19.7 g/day; 95% CI 7.8–31.6), fruit (23.0 g/day; 9.4–36.6), fish (7.6 g/day; 4.6–10.6), pulses/legumes (4.0 g/day; 1.6–6.5) and whole grains (12.7 g/day; 8.0–17.5), and decreased intake of sweets/extras (− 6.8 g/day; − 10.9 to − 2.8) relative to control group. This effect on food intake resulted in no change in GHGE, LU, and pReCiPe score, but a relative increase in FEU by 1.6 MJ/day (0.8, 2.4). Conclusions: A shift towards a healthier Mediterranean-style diet does not necessarily result in a diet with reduced environmental impact in a real-life setting. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov. Number of identification: NCT02529423. August 2015.European Union FP7National Institute for Health Research (NIHR

Deep roots delay flowering and relax the impact of floral traits and associated pollinators in steppe plants.

Strong seasonality in abiotic harshness and pollinator availability shape the reproductive success of plants. Plant species can avoid or can tolerate harsh abiotic conditions and can attract different pollinators, but it remains unknown (i) which of these capacities is most important for flowering phenology, (ii) whether tolerance/avoidance of abiotic harshness reinforces or relaxes the phenological differentiation of species attracting different pollinators. We assembled possibly the first functional trait database for a North African steppe covering 104 species. We inferred avoidance of harshness (drought) from dormancy, i.e. annual life-span and seed size. We inferred tolerance or resistance to harshness from small specific leaf area, small stature, deep roots and high dry matter content. We inferred the type of pollinators attracted from floral colour, shape and depth. We found that avoidance traits did not affect flowering phenology, and among tolerance traits only deep roots had an effect by delaying flowering. Flower colour (red or purple), and occasionally flower depth, delayed flowering. Dish, gullet and flag shape accelerated flowering. Interactive effects however were at least as important, inversing the mentioned relationship between floral characters and flowering phenology. Specifically, among drought-tolerant deep-rooted species, flowering phenologies converged among floral types attracting different pollinators, without becoming less variable overall. Direct and interactive effects of root depth and floral traits explained at least 45% of the variance in flowering phenology. Also, conclusions on interactive effects were highly consistent with and without including information on family identity or outliers. Overall, roots and floral syndromes strongly control flowering phenology, while many other traits do not. Surprisingly, floral syndromes and the related pollinators appear to constrain phenology mainly in shallow-rooted, abiotically little tolerant species. Lack of abiotic tolerance might hence constrain accessible resources and thereby impose a stronger synchronization with biotic partners such as pollinators

Salinity and water deficit

Drought and salinity are among the environmental factors that constrain citrus productivity most dramatically. The citrus crop is predominantly cultivated in arid and semiarid regions under irrigation conditions, giving rise to problems frequently associated with salt stress rather than water deficit. Salt ions contribute significantly to osmotic adjustment under salt stress in citrus, so that leaf ion toxicity becomes the main problem to be solved. Citrus has some capacity to exclude sodium, but chloride, a plant nutrient with specific symplastic transport mechanisms, is less efficiently excluded. Therefore, resistance to salt stress is mainly associated with the rootstock ability to exclude chloride. Physiological and molecular approaches, recently supported on omics technologies, have identified stress resistance mechanisms in different citrus genotypes, including induction of earlier and stronger stress responses; stress avoidance mechanisms consisting of efficient ion exclusion from shoot organs and tight control of transpiration; rapid inhibition of photosynthesis and primary metabolism; acquisition of cell tolerance including efficient osmotic adjustment, adequate control of oxidative damage, enhancement of secondary metabolism, and biosynthesis of protective molecules. In representative stress-resistant rootstocks commonly used today, these responses lead to rapid growth inhibition. The identification of new rootstock genotypes that effectively combine stress avoidance and tolerance mechanisms to optimize both plant production under adverse environmental conditions and efficient recovery after stress represents an important achievement of current and future breeding programs