Incorporating phylogeographic information in alien bird distribution models increases geographic extent but not accuracy of predictions

Species distribution models (SDM) have been proposed as valuable first screening tools for predicting species responses to new environmental conditions. SDMs are usually conducted at the species level, assuming that species-environment relationships are a species-specific feature that do not evolve and show no variability across a species’ range. However, broad environmental tolerances at the species level can encompass narrower and different environmental tolerances for specific lineages or populations. In this study, we evaluate whether SDMs that account for within-taxon niche variation in climate and human-habitat associations provide better fits between projected distributions and real occurrence data for alien bird species than species-level SDMs. Our study focuses on eight alien bird species with established alien populations for which detailed phylogeographic information was available. Similarity in climates and human disturbance conditions occupied by different phylogenetic groups within species was low and not greater than random expectations. Accounting for intraspecific niche variation in SDMs modified the distribution and extent of suitable habitat predicted as susceptible to invasion, but did not result in more accurate model predictions in alien ranges. Until more accurate information on intraspecific variability is available, species-level models can be reasonable candidates. When phylogeographic information is available, the use of the most conservative criterion (i.e. to model both species and lineages on the basis of the actual range) is recommended

Advanced and versatile interferometric technique for the characterization of photonic integrated devices

[EN] Adaptable and complex optical characterization of photonic integrated devices, permitting to unearth possible design and fabrication errors in the different workflow steps are highly desired in the community. Here, we propose a technique capable of resolving full optical amplitude and phase response, in both frequency and time domains, of a photonic integrated device. It relies on optical frequency domain interferometry and makes use of a novel integrated architecture; a 3-way interferometer enabling single input and single output detection. We derive the test structure design rules and provide extensive experimental validation in silicon nitride and silicon on insulator technologies, by testing relevant devices such as arrayed waveguide grating, Mach-Zehnder interferometers, and ring resonators. Horizontal and vertical chip coupling, different external setup arrangements, and the optical dispersion de-embedding inherent to the technique are demonstrated. Finally, we discuss why this characterization approach might lay the groundwork of a standard testing tool for photonic integrated devices.Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (PTA2015-11309-I, TEC2015-69787-REDT PIC4TB, TEC201680385-P SINXPECT); Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades (PID2019-110877GB-I00 BHYSINPICS); Generalitat Valenciana (GVA PROMETEO 2017/103).Bru-Orgiles, LA.; Pastor Abellán, D.; Muñoz, P. (2021). Advanced and versatile interferometric technique for the characterization of photonic integrated devices. Optics Express. 29(22):36503-36515. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.435683S3650336515292

Terapia de Comportamiento y Dieta Mediterránea en el Tratamiento de la Obesidad. El Método Garaulet.

La terapia conductual (TC) se basa en los principios clásicos de “condicionamiento”, que indican que el consumo se asocia frecuentemente con sucesos externos que están estrechamente vinculados a la ingestión. El uso de técnicas de comportamiento es la intención de ayudar al paciente a identificar las señales que desencadenan un comportamiento inapropiado, tanto en relación con la alimentación y ejercicio físico. Diferentes dietas de estilo mediterráneo, se ha demostrado como una estrategia segura para el tratamiento de la obesidad, el síndrome metabólico, y para ayudar a reducir el riesgo cardiovascular asociada. De hecho, una mayor adherencia a la dieta mediterránea se ha asociado con un menor prevalencia de obesidad abdominal, y recientemente se ha propuesto que la dieta mediterránea es particularmente eficaz para el control glucémico. La aplicación de “dieta mediterránea” las recomendaciones, un método de terapia del comportamiento y la educación nutricional (llamado el “Método Garaulet”) fue desarrollado en 1994, su eficacia se evaluó en primer lugar en 1999 en una muestra de 100 individuos, y de nuevo en 2009 en una proporción mucho mayor muestra de 1.400 sujetos. Los resultados muy similares de estos dos estudios, realizados con una diferencia de diez años, demuestran que la terapia de comportamiento asociados con una educación nutricional, la reducción de la ingesta calórica y una distribución equilibrada de nutrientes sobre la base de la “dieta mediterránea” es útil para la reducción de peso y de la mejora de una serie de alteraciones asociadas a la obesidad. Sin embargo, se necesitan más investigaciones para corroborar estas afirmaciones. En este sentido, durante los últimos dos años hemos iniciado un nuevo proyecto de investigación con el fin de aumentar la eficacia del tratamiento y en marcha y decidir si la incorporación de nuevos nutrigenética y / o herramientas de cronobiología puede ser útil para el cuidado de la salud y la nutrición personalizada basado en una combinación de genotipos y la caracterización psicológica-conductual. En un futuro próximo, nuestro principal objetivo es aplicar todo este nuevo conocimiento obtenido de la investigación en la práctica clínica. Sin embargo, debemos tener precaución al introducir todas estas herramientas de diagnóstico para no distorsionar el concepto del Método Garaulet. En este sentido, primero debemos diseñar un protocolo completo y útil capaz de ser aplicable en los centros de nutrición. Para ello, y antes de introducir todas estas ideas, necesitamos a) continuar en el estudio de factores nutrigenéticos para poder seleccionar de un gran rango de polimorfismos estudiados aquellos que pudieran ser útiles para predecir el éxito del tratamiento; b) diseñar nuevas herramientas en la caracterización psico-conductual de los pacientes; c) seleccionar las mejores herramientas para la caracterización cronobiológica de los sujetos en la práctica clínica. Todo ello con un propósito final de conseguir un tratamiento personalizado basado en la combinación del genotipo, cronotipo y la caracterización psico-conductual sin olvidar los principios de la Dieta Mediterránea. Una vez diseñado un protocolo final nuestra intención es expandir este programa actualizado a otras regiones de España y si es posible a otros países europeos

MoViBio research group server infrastructure

The Information System in a research group is a key component to suport the main tasks. This document contains the technical experience of our own research group Modeling and Visualization of Biomedical data (MoViBio) using a centralized server computer to provide some of the Information System services.Postprint (published version

Interception of a corner kick in football: A task analysis

Debido a la inexistencia de estudios previos, la presente investigación tiene como objetivo realizar un análisis de la tarea, que es atrapar un balón procedente de un lanzamiento de córner. Para ello se analizó el rendimiento, el comportamiento motor y los movimientos oculares de jóvenes porteros cuando realizaban esta tarea. Además se compararon las variables en función de los aciertos o fallos durante el blocaje. Los resultados muestran que los fallos en el blocaje se deben a que los porteros iniciaron su carrera demasiado pronto y además utilizaron un patrón inadecuado del movimiento de sus manos y salto. El análisis de los movimientos oculares muestra que el balón es la zona informativa más importante, pero no se obtienen diferencias entre los aciertos y los fallos en el blocajeDue to the inexistence of previous studies, the present research is aimed at performing an analysis of the task of intercepting a ball coming from a corner kick. With that objective in mind, the motor behaviour and eye movements of young goalkeepers were analysed when performing the aforementioned task. Also, variables dependent on the number of right and wrong movements during the interception were compared. Results show that errors in blocking are due to the fact that goalkeepers began their run too early and also used an inadequate pattern of hand movement and jump. The analysis of eye movements shows that the ball is the most important informational zone, but no differences were found between hits and misses in the interception.La presente investigación se llevo a cabo mientras el primer autor disfrutaba de una beca FPU (Formación del Profesorado Universitario) otorgada por el Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte del Gobierno de Españ

The interception of a corner kick from the contraints-led perspective

El comportamiento motor surge de la continua interacción entre tres limitadores (organismo, entorno y tarea), que nunca actúan de forma aislada. Este artículo estudia su efecto en el rendimiento, comportamiento motor y comportamiento visual de porteros de fútbol durante el lanzamiento de córner. 31 participantes, divididos en tres grupos en función del nivel de juego, intentaron atrapar el balón procedente del lanzamiento de córner en dos situaciones (estática y dinámica), mientras que se registraron sus movimientos oculares. Entre los resultados se observa que los expertos tienen un rendimiento más estable, mientras que los otros grupos rinden peor en la situación más difícil; que los expertos realizan un inicio más tardío de la carrera hacia el balón y un patrón motor más rápido para atraparlo; y que la información contenida en los jugadores implicados no es relevante, ya que los porteros dedican valores cercanos al 0% del tiempo total a su fijaciónMotor behavior arises from the continuous interaction between three constraints (organism, environment and task), which never act in isolation. This paper studies the effect of the constraints on the performance, motor behavior and visual search behavior of soccer goalkeepers during the corner kick. 31 participants, divided into three groups depending on the level of play, tried to catch the ball out of a corner kick in two situations (static and dynamic), while their eye movements were recorded. Among the results it is observed that the experts have a more stable performance, while the other groups perform worse in the most difficult situation; that the experts make a later start of their run up towards the ball and a faster motor pattern to catch it; and that the that the information of the players involved is not relevant, goalkeepers dedicate values close to 0% of their visual total time to themLa presente investigación se llevó a cabo mientras el primer autor y la segunda autora disfrutaban de una beca FPU (Formación del Profesorado Universitario) otorgada por el Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte del Gobierno de España

Fostering in-process inspection during process planning using tolerance charting

ntegrated development of machining and inspection plans is essential in dynamic manufacturing environments, especially when right first time manufacturing is required. In this work, a methodology, based on a new and extended use of tolerance charting, that allows incorporation of in-process inspection operations to improve process plans is presented. The methodology proposes the transfer of the manufacturing specification toleranc e between surfaces to specific ation tolerances established between these surfaces and a common reference system. In this way, all variability sources originated by part locating and fixturing can be separately considered from the ones originated by the process-machine system. This circumstance allows a more accurate calculation of operation capability indexes and eases the analysis and improvement of critical operations. To prove methodology potential, an application case is showed.Bruscas Bellido, G.; Romero Subiron, F.; Rosado Castellano, P.; Serrano, J. (2013). Fostering in-process inspection during process planning using tolerance charting. Procedia Engineering. 63:200-207. doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2013.08.175S2002076

Civil society participation in international governance : the UN and the WTO compared

Civil society participation has become a buzzword in the debate about the legitimacy and accountability of international governance. Many organizations, prominently among them the World Trade Organization (WTO), have come under considerable pressure to open up their policy-making process towards non-state actors. Although the WTO has become more transparent in recent years, direct stakeholder access to its policy making is still denied. This situation is often contrasted with that at the United Nations (UN), where there is (allegedly) much more formally regulated and more substantial participation of civil society. In this paper, we compare the patterns of participation in these two organizations and seek to identify some common dynamics. We present a general framework for analysis based on a model of the policy cycle that allows us to distinguish ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that determine cooperation in different phases of policy making. In our empirical study, we find that in the WTO, there are few incentives for the organization itself to pull civil society actors into its policy-making process. Agendasetting is the task of governments; research and analysis is delivered by the Secretariat; compliance control is undertaken jointly by the organization and its members. To push the door to trade policy making open, civil society can only rely on public shaming, that is, threatening to undermine the organization’s legitimacy as it violates widely accepted standards of good governance. In the UN system, there is in fact more cooperation, but it remains largely limited to the policy phases of agenda-setting, research and analysis and compliance control. Quite like the WTO, the UN protects an intergovernmental core of policy making in which cooperation with civil society remains at the discretion of state parties. Evidence for this are informal and ad hoc ways of collaboration and a lack of participatory rights for non-state actors in the Security Council and the General Assembly. We conclude that studying civil society participation in international public organizations through the lens of the policy cycle can give us a fine-grained picture of cooperative arrangements and enables us to identify potentials for cooperation as well as exclusion. Yet, we also observed two other factors at work that were not really grasped by the model of the policy cycle. First, the institutional culture of organizations can be more or less amenable to civil society. Second, organizations are susceptible to campaigns for ‘good governance’ that invoke standards of due process and may open the door to nonstate actors

Structural focus+context rendering of multiclassified volume data

We present a F+C volume rendering system aimed at outlining structural relationships between different classification criteria of a multiclassified voxel model. We clusterize the voxel model into subsets of voxels sharing the same classification criteria and we construct an auxiliary voxel model storing for each voxel an identifier of its associated cluster. We represent the logical structure of the model as a directed graph having as nodes the classification criteria and as edges the inclusion relationships. We define a mapping function between nodes of the graph and clusters. The rendering process consists of two steps. First, given a user query defined in terms of a boolean expression of classification criteria, a parser computes a set of transfer functions on the cluster domain according to structural F+C rules. Then, we render simultaneously the original voxel model and the labelled one applying multimodal 3D texture mapping such that the fragment shader uses the computed transfer functions to apply structural F+C shading. The user interface of our system, based on Tulip, provides a visual feedback on the structure and the selection. We demonstrate the utility of our approach on several datasets.Postprint (published version

Effect of reactive ion beam etching on the photoluminescence of CdTe epitaxial layers

We demonstrated the effect of reactive ion beam etching (RIBE) process on the PL properties of CdTe/sapphire metal organic vapor phase epitaxy layers. At optimum conditions, the RIBE attack does not make significant morphological changes but it results in an increase of the concentration of acceptor impurities. This was revealed by an increase of the overall photoluminescence (PL) intensity and, simultaneously, a decrease of the PL decay time, more important on the low energy side of PL spectrum due to the recombination of carriers in acceptor [email protected]