A geospatial framework to support integrated biogeochemical modelling in the United Kingdom

Anthropogenic impacts on the aquatic environment, especially in the context of nutrients, provide a major challenge for water resource management. The heterogeneous nature of policy relevant management units (e.g. catchments), in terms of environmental controls on nutrient source and transport, leads to the need for holistic management. However, current strategies are limited by current understanding and knowledge that is transferable between spatial scales and landscape typologies. This study presents a spatially-explicit framework to support the modelling of nutrients from land to water, encompassing environmental and spatial complexities. The framework recognises nine homogeneous landscape units, distinct in terms of sensitivity of nutrient losses to waterbodies. The functionality of the framework is demonstrated by supporting an exemplar nutrient model, applied within the Environmental Virtual Observatory pilot (EVOp) cloud cyber-infrastructure. We demonstrate scope for the use of the framework as a management decision support tool and for further development of integrated biogeochemical modelling

Identificación del índice de vulnerabilidad territorial a partir de modelos jerárquicos y heurísticos aplicando SOA

Auxiliar de InvestigaciónEn el proyecto se realiza el diseño y desarrollo de 4 servicios web implementando los modelos de toma de decisión (AHP, AHP FUZZY, ELECTRE y PROMETHEE), encargados de procesar datos obtenidos en campo en la primera fase del proyecto que se realizó a través de encuestas, formatos de entrevistas, talleres y metodologías de análisis. Los datos se procesaran de acuerdo al modelo de toma de decisión seleccionado, generando como resultado final un indicador de vulnerabilidad territorial.PregradoIngeniero de Sistema

Evaluation of CSF neurotransmitters and folate in 25 patients with Rett disorder and effects of treatment

Background: Rett disorder (RD) is a progressive neurodevelopmental entity caused by mutations in the MECP2 gene. It has been postulated that there are alterations in the levels of certain neurotransmitters and folate in the pathogenesis of this disease. Here we re-evaluated this hypothesis. Patients and methods: We evaluated CSF folate, biogenic amines and pterines in 25 RD patients. Treatment with oral folinic acid was started in those cases with low folate. Patients were clinically evaluated and videotaped up to 6 months after therapy. Results: CSF folate was below the reference values in 32% of the patients. Six months after treatment no clinical improvement was observed. Three of the four patients with the R294X mutation had increased levels of a dopamine metabolite associated to a particular phenotype. Three patients had low levels of a serotonin metabolite. Two of them were treated with fluoxetine and one showed clinical improvement. No association was observed between CSF folate and these metabolites, after adjusting for the patients age and neopterin levels. Conclusion: Our results support that folinic acid supplementation has no significant effects on the course of the disease. We report discrete and novel neurotransmitter abnormalities that may contribute to the pathogenesis of RD highlighting the need for further studies on CSF neurotransmitters in clinically and genetically well characterized patients.Research in Rett syndrome is supported by FSE/FEDER and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal), Grant No. POCTI 41416/2001

Creative methods: problematics for inquiry and pedagogy in health and social care

This article provides an overview of initial discussions emerging from the Creative Methods Network, an informal organisation concerned with the use of the creative arts in research, teaching and practice in health and social care. Key issues are presented and contextualised with regard to the current conditions in which health and social care research and education is practised. Our own discussions have come to question the seeming dominance of governance within professional education programmes in which there is a primary focus on developing technical skill and capacity. Such governance often extends itself to the measurement of the implementation of these technical skills and this is set against concerns about the absence of creativity and the humanities in the educational programmes of caring for human beings. Consequently, the article reflects a view that the use of the creative arts and humanities in the education of the human caring professions is being eroded away in favour of technical-rational reasoning. It is argued that this then presents an important problem manifested in an emphasis on established and quantifiable knowledge transfer which inhibits other forms of knowledge generation. For the purposes of this discussion we have viewed this problem through the lenses offered by Foucault and Bourdieu

Tree mode of death and mortality risk factors across Amazon forests

AbstractThe carbon sink capacity of tropical forests is substantially affected by tree mortality. However, the main drivers of tropical tree death remain largely unknown. Here we present a pan-Amazonian assessment of how and why trees die, analysing over 120,000 trees representing \u3e 3800 species from 189 long-term RAINFOR forest plots. While tree mortality rates vary greatly Amazon-wide, on average trees are as likely to die standing as they are broken or uprooted—modes of death with different ecological consequences. Species-level growth rate is the single most important predictor of tree death in Amazonia, with faster-growing species being at higher risk. Within species, however, the slowest-growing trees are at greatest risk while the effect of tree size varies across the basin. In the driest Amazonian region species-level bioclimatic distributional patterns also predict the risk of death, suggesting that these forests are experiencing climatic conditions beyond their adaptative limits. These results provide not only a holistic pan-Amazonian picture of tree death but large-scale evidence for the overarching importance of the growth–survival trade-off in driving tropical tree mortality