La alteración de la piedra en la Catedral de Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz, España)

La Catedral jerezana es una construcción del siglo XVII, en concreto, la obra del actual edificio se desarrolla entre 1695 y 1778. La presente catedral se edificó originalmente como Iglesia Colegial, alzada sobre la primitiva Mezquita Mayor de Jerez y la antigua Iglesia del Salvador, cuyo origen data de 1264. A finales del siglo XVII, la antigua Iglesia Colegial de Jerez amenazaba ruina por lo que el Ayuntamiento y el Cabildo Colegial deciden derribarla para construir una nueva. Esta obra comenzó el 9 de mayo de 1695 bajo la dirección de Diego Moreno Meléndez. Tras algunas interrupciones, el 6 de diciembre de 1778 tiene lugar la inauguración del nuevo templo, si bien, los trabajos continuaron hasta el 19 de junio de 1849. El levantamiento del templo se prolonga a lo largo de más de ochenta años. La larga duración de su construcción implica que la Catedral jerezana presuma de la impresión en ella de tres estilos arquitectónicos: neoclasismo gaditano, barroco sevillano y gótico. El presente trabajo contempla como principal objetivo el estudio del estado de la piedra de la Catedral de Jerez, de las causas principales de su degradación y de las posibles medidas a adoptar para su conservación. Para ello se han realizado las siguientes tareas: - Diagnóstico de alteración de la Catedral de Jerez de la Frontera, que incluye la caracterización de los materiales pétreos del templo así como de los índices de alteración. - Estudio de los agentes de alteración: estudio del entorno ambiental y estudio de anteriores intervenciones que hayan podido influir en dicha alteración. - Determinación de la eficacia de los tratamientos de conservación (consolidantes e hidrofugantes) en los materiales pétreos mediante ensayos y experiencias sobre las probetas. - Propuestas de medidas de conservación teniendo en cuenta los resultados obtenidos en el punto anterior con el fin de contribuir a una mejor conservación del templo

Detailed Learning in Narrow Fields – Towards a Neural Network Model of Autism

Autism is a developmental disorder in which attention shifting is known to be restricted. Using an artificial neural network model of learning we show how detailed learning in narrow fields develops when attention shifting between different sources of stimuli is restricted by familiarity preference. Our model is based on modified Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) supported by the attention shift mechanism. The novelty seeking and the attention shifting restricted by familiarity preference learning modes are investigated for stimuli of low and high dimensionality which requires different techniques to visualise feature maps. To make learning more biologically plausible we project the stimuli onto a unity hyper-sphere. The distance between a stimulus and a weight vector can now be simply measured by the post-synaptic activities. The modified "dot-product" learning law that keeps evolving weights on the surface of the hyper-sphere has been employed.Validerad; 2003; 20060922 (ysko

Conductas de salud en inmigrantes latinoamericanos adultos del Distrito Macarena de Sevilla (España)

Objetivo. Describir el estado de salud de la población latinoamericana inmigrante de 25 a 44 años del Distrito Macarena de la ciudad de Sevilla. Metodología. Estudio descriptivo de corte transversal, se empleó muestreo probabilístico aleatorio, estratificado y proporcional. Se realizó en 34 personas, 16 hombres y 18 mujeres, de 25 a 44 años. Para la recogida de datos se elaboró un cuestionario que unificaba los instrumentos del Sistema de Vigilancia de Factores de Riesgo asociados a Enfermedades No Transmisibles en Adultos y el del Sistema de Vigilancia de Factores de Riesgo de Riesgo de Comportamiento. Los datos se analizaron con el paquete estadístico SPSS 17.0. Resultados. El 38.2% de la muestra considera bueno su estado de salud percibida. Un 26.5% no sabe o no está seguro de cuál es su Centro de Salud. El 58.8% nunca ha acudido a la consulta de la enfermera. El 38.2% consume alcohol un día a la semana y el 58.8% se ha automedicado. El 67.7% de la muestra usa métodos para evitar la concepción pero solo de ellos el 43.5%, se protegen también de una enfermedad de transmisión sexual Conclusión. Se identificaron conductas de salud en función del origen y algunos de los factores asociados, los cuales deberían considerarse en el diseño y desarrollo de actuaciones diferenciales, orientadas a mejorar el nivel de salud en los inmigrantes.Objetivo. Descrever o estado de saúde da população latino-americana imigrante de 25 a 44 anos do Distrito Macarena da cidade de Sevilla. Metodologia. Estudo descritivo, transversal, de prevalência e observacional, empregando-se uma amostragem probabilística, aleatório, estratificado e proporcional. Realizou-se em 34 pessoas, 16 homens e 18 mulheres, de 25 a 44 anos. Para a recolhida de dados se elaborou um questionário que unificava os instrumentos do Sistema de Vigilância de Fatores de Risco associados a Doenças Não Transmissíveis em Adultos e o do Sistema de Vigilância de Fatores de Risco de Risco de Comportamento. Os dados se analisaram com o pacote estatístico SPSS 17.0. Resultados. O 38.2% da mostra considera bom seu estado de saúde percebida. Um 26.5% não sabe ou não está seguro de qual é seu Centro de Saúde. O 58.8% nunca foi à consulta da enfermeira. O 38.2% consome álcool um dia à semana e o 58.8% se tem automedicado. O 67.7% da mostra usa métodos para evitar a concepção, mas só deles o 43.5%, protegem-se também de uma doença de transmissão sexual. Conclusão. Identificaram-se condutas de saúde em função da origem e alguns dos fatores associados, os quais deveriam considerar-se no desenho e desenvolvimento de atuações diferenciais, orientadas a melhorar o nível de saúde nos imigrantes.Objective. To describe the health status of the immigrant Latin American population between 25 and 44 years old from the Macarena district of the city of Sevilla. Methodology. Cross-sectional study, it was employing a stratified ramdom sampling. It was conducted on 34 people, 16 men and 18 women, 25 to 44 years old. To collect the data a questionnaire that unified the instrument Surveillance System of Risk Factors associated to Noncommunicable Diseases in Adults and the Surveillance System of Risk Factors Risk Behavior was used. Data were analyzed with the SPSS 17.0 statistical software. Results. 38.2% of the sample perceived as good their health condition. 26.5% are unsure or don’t know about which is their Primary Care Center. 58.8% have never been attended to a nursing consult. 38.2% consume alcohol once a week and the 58.8% have selfmedicated. 67.7% of the sample use contraception, but only 43.5% also protect themselves from a sexually transmitted disease. Conclusion. Health behaviors were identified according to the origin and some related factors. This should be considered when designing and developing activities aimed at improving the health level in immigrants

Familial influences on sustained attention and inhibition in preschoolers

Background: In this study several aspects of attention were studied in 237 nearly 6-year-old twin pairs. Specifically, the ability to sustain attention and inhibition were investigated using a computerized test battery (Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks). Furthermore, the Teacher's Report Form (TRF) was filled out by the teacher of the child and the attention subscale of this questionnaire was analyzed. Methods: The variance in performance on the different tasks of the test battery and the score on the attention scale of the TRF were decomposed into a contribution of the additive effects of many genes (A), environmental effects that are shared by twins (C) and unique environmental influences not shared by twins (E) by using data from MZ and DZ twins. Results: The genetic model fitting results showed an effect of A and E for the attention scale of the TRF, and for some of the inhibition and sustained attention measures. For most of the attention variables, however, it was not possible to decide between a model with A and E or a model with C and E. Time-on-task effects on reaction time or number of errors and the delay after making an error did not show familial resemblances. A remarkable finding was that the heritability of the attention scale of the TRF was found to be higher than the heritability of indices that can be considered to be more direct measures of attention, such as mean tempo in the sustained attention task and response speed in the Go-NoGo task. Conclusion: In preschoolers, familial resemblances on sustained attention and inhibition were observed. © Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2004

GOLIAH: A Gaming Platform for Home-Based Intervention in Autism – Principles and Design

Meeting the required intensive intervention hour for treating children with autism is challenging in terms of trained manpower needed and costs. Advances in Information Communication Technology and computer gaming may help in this respect by creating a nomadically deployable closed loop intervention system involving the child and active participation of parents and therapists.An automated serious gaming platform enabling intensive intervention in nomadic settings has been developed by mapping two pivotal skills in autism spectrum disorder: Imitation and Joint Attention (JA). Eleven games – seven Imitation and four JA – were derived from the Early Start Denver Model. The games involved application of visual and audio stimuli with multiple difficulty levels and a wide variety of tasks and actions pertaining to the Imitation and JA. The platform runs on mobile devices and allows the therapist to (1) characterize the child’s initial difficulties/strengths, ensuring tailored and adapted intervention by choosing appropriate games and (2) investigate and track the temporal evolution of the child’s progress through a set of automatically extracted quantitative performance metrics. The platform allows the therapist to change the game or its difficulty levels during the intervention depending on the child’s progress. Performance of the platform was assessed in a 3-month open trial with 10 children with autism. The children and the parents participated in 80% of the sessions both at home (77.5%) and at hospital (90%). All children went through all games but, given the diversity of the games and the heterogeneity of children profiles and abilities, for a given game the number of sessions dedicated to the game varied and could be tailored through automatic scoring. Parents (N = 10) highlighted enhancement in the child’s concentration, flexibility and self-esteem in 78%, 89% and 44% of the cases respectively and 56% observed an enhanced parents-child relationship. This pilot study shows the feasibility of using the developed gaming platform for home-based intensive intervention. However, the overall capability of the platform in delivering intervention needs to be assessed in a bigger open trial

Attention Performance in an Epidemiological Sample of Urban Children: The Role of Gender and Verbal Intelligence

We administered a comprehensive attentional battery to an epidemiologically defined sample of 435 first and second-grade children to assess the influence of gender and verbal intelligence on attention. The battery included three versions of the continuous performance test (CPT), two digit cancellation tasks, three subtests from the WISC-R, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The results indicated that both gender and intelligence had an impact on attentional performance. Girls performed better than boys; they made fewer errors on the CPT and obtained higher scores on the digit cancellation task and the Coding subtest of the WISC-R. Children with higher verbal intelligence also performed better on the attentional tests, but this advantage was not observed across measures or levels of performance. For example, children with limited verbal skills performed significantly worse than their peers only in measures with high processing demands(the degraded CPT and the distraction version of the digit cancellation task)

Executive functioning in children with an autism spectrum disorder: Can we differentiate

The aim of this study was to investigate whether children with high-functioning autism (HFA), Asperger's syndrome (AS), and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDDNOS) can be differentiated from each other and from normal controls on their neurocognitive executive functioning (EF) profile. Children with HFA and AS showed the most EF deficits. The EF profile of the PDDNOS group was more disturbed that the normal control group, but was less disturbed than the profile of the HFA and AS groups. Little difference was found between the three PDD subtypes with respect to EF. This study supports the view that executive dysfunctioning plays an important role in autism. The usefulness of a distinction between different PDD subtypes was not demonstrated. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc

A pan-European epidemiological study reveals honey bee colony survival depends on beekeeper education and disease control

Reports of honey bee population decline has spurred many national efforts to understand the extent of the problem and to identify causative or associated factors. However, our collective understanding of the factors has been hampered by a lack of joined up trans-national effort. Moreover, the impacts of beekeeper knowledge and beekeeping management practices have often been overlooked, despite honey bees being a managed pollinator. Here, we established a standardised active monitoring network for 5 798 apiaries over two consecutive years to quantify honey bee colony mortality across 17 European countries. Our data demonstrate that overwinter losses ranged between 2% and 32%, and that high summer losses were likely to follow high winter losses. Multivariate Poisson regression models revealed that hobbyist beekeepers with small apiaries and little experience in beekeeping had double the winter mortality rate when compared to professional beekeepers. Furthermore, honey bees kept by professional beekeepers never showed signs of disease, unlike apiaries from hobbyist beekeepers that had symptoms of bacterial infection and heavy Varroa infestation. Our data highlight beekeeper background and apicultural practices as major drivers of honey bee colony losses. The benefits of conducting trans-national monitoring schemes and improving beekeeper training are discussed

Visual search and autism symptoms: What young children search for and co-occurring ADHD matter.

Superior visual search is one of the most common findings in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) literature. Here, we ascertain how generalizable these findings are across task and participant characteristics, in light of recent replication failures. We tested 106 3-year-old children at familial risk for ASD, a sample that presents high ASD and ADHD symptoms, and 25 control participants, in three multi-target search conditions: easy exemplar search (look for cats amongst artefacts), difficult exemplar search (look for dogs amongst chairs/tables perceptually similar to dogs), and categorical search (look for animals amongst artefacts). Performance was related to dimensional measures of ASD and ADHD, in agreement with current research domain criteria (RDoC). We found that ASD symptom severity did not associate with enhanced performance in search, but did associate with poorer categorical search in particular, consistent with literature describing impairments in categorical knowledge in ASD. Furthermore, ASD and ADHD symptoms were both associated with more disorganized search paths across all conditions. Thus, ASD traits do not always convey an advantage in visual search; on the contrary, ASD traits may be associated with difficulties in search depending upon the nature of the stimuli (e.g., exemplar vs. categorical search) and the presence of co-occurring symptoms