Forming first-ranked early-type galaxies through hierarchical dissipationless merging

We have developed a computationally competitive N-body model of a previrialized aggregation of galaxies in a flat Λ cold dark matter Universe to assess the role of the multiple mergers that take place during the formation stage of such systems in the configuration of the remnants assembled at their centres. An analysis of a suite of 48 simulations of low-mass forming groups (Mtot,gr ∼ 1013 h−1 M⊙) demonstrates that the gravitational dynamics involved in their hierarchical collapse is capable of creating realistic first-ranked galaxies without the aid of dissipative processes. Our simulations indicate that the brightest group galaxies (BGGs) constitute a distinct population from other group members, sketching a scenario in which the assembly path of these objects is dictated largely by the formation of their host system. We detect significant differences in the distribution of Sérsic indices and total magnitudes, as well as a luminosity gap between BGGs and the next brightest galaxy that is positively correlated with the total luminosity of the parent group. Such gaps arise from both the grow of BGGs at the expense of lesser companions and the decrease in the relevance of second-ranked objects in equal measure. This results in a dearth of intermediate-mass galaxies which explains the characteristic central dip detected in their luminosity functions in dynamically young galaxy aggregations. The fact that the basic global properties of our BGGs define a thin mass Fundamental Plane strikingly similar to that followed by giant early-type galaxies in the local Universe reinforces confidence in the results obtained

p38 Inhibition Decreases Tau Toxicity in Microglia and Improves Their Phagocytic Function

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other tauopathies are histopathologically characterized by tau aggregation, along with a chronic inflammatory response driven by microglia. Over the past few years, the role of microglia in AD has been studied mainly in relation to amyloid-β (Aβ) pathology. Consequently, there is a substantial knowledge gap concerning the molecular mechanisms involved in tau-mediated toxicity and neuroinflammation, thus hindering the development of therapeutic strategies. We previously demonstrated that extracellular soluble tau triggers p38 MAPK activation in microglia. Given the activation of this signaling pathway in AD and its involvement in neuroinflammation processes, here we evaluated the effect of p38 inhibition on primary microglia cultures subjected to tau treatment. Our data showed that the toxic effect driven by tau in microglia was diminished through p38 inhibition. Furthermore, p38 blockade enhanced microglia-mediated tau phagocytosis, as reflected by an increase in the number of lysosomes. In conclusion, these results contribute to our understanding of the functions of p38 in the central nervous system (CNS) beyond tau phosphorylation in neurons and provide further insights into the potential of p38 inhibition as a therapeutic strategy to halt neuroinflammation in tauopathiesOpen Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (BES-2015–074405, PGC2018-096177-B-I00) and the Center for Networked Biomedical Research on Neurodegenerative Diseases. Institutional grants from the Fundación Ramón Areces and Banco de Santander are also acknowledged. R. M. M. and M. T. H. are supported by the Helmholtz Association, under the project title “Immunology&Infammation,” project number ZT-002

CEPA: A LaBr3(Ce)/LaCl3(Ce) phoswich array for simultaneous detection of protons and gamma radiation emitted in reactions at relativistic energies

4 pags.; 3 figs. ; this is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0This work was supported by the Spanish CICYT under the project numbers FPA2009-07387 andFPA2012-32443. J. Sánchez del Río thanks the ERANET NUPNET for the financial support via theproject GANAS.Peer Reviewe

Detection of mild cognitive impairment in people older than 65 years of age and its relationship to cardiovascular risk factors (DECRIVAM)

[ENG]Background: Studies centered on the detection of cognitive impairment and its relationship to cardiovascular risk factors in elderly people have gained special relevance in recent years. Knowledge of the cardiovascular risk factors that may be associated to cognitive impairment could be very useful for introducing treatments in early stagesthereby possibly contributing to improve patient quality of life. The present study explores cognitive performance in people over 65 years of age in Salamanca (Spain), with special emphasis on the identification of early symptoms of cognitive impairment, with the purpose of detecting mild cognitive impairment and of studying the relationships between this clinical situation and cardiovascular risk factors. Methods/Design: A longitudinal study is contemplated. The reference population will consist of 420 people over 65 years of age enrolled through randomized sampling stratified by healthcare area, and who previously participated in another study. Measurement: a) Sociodemographic variables; b) Cardiovascular risk factors; c) Comorbidity; d) Functional level for daily life activities; and e) Study of higher cognitive functions based on a neuropsychological battery especially adapted to the evaluation of elderly people. Discussion: We hope that this study will afford objective information on the representative prevalence of cognitive impairment in the population over 65 years of age in Salamanca. We also hope to obtain data on the relationship between cognitive impairment and cardiovascular risk factors in this specific population group. Based on the results obtained, we also will be able to establish the usefulness of some of the screening tests applied during the study, such as the Mini-Mental State Examination and the 7 Minute Screen test. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT0132719

Medida de espesores faciales por ecografía y tomografía axial computarizada

La reconstrucción facial a partir de un cráneo es una de las líneas de investigación en Antropología Forense a nivel internacional. Hasta el momento se han llevado a cabo una serie de técnicas encaminadas a tratar de reconstruir a partir del cráneo el rostro del individuo en vida. Estos estudios se han realizado en su mayoría sobre cadáveres. En la actualidad se están tratando de establecer diferentes modelos faciales y para ello se han ampliado tanto las medidas clásicamente tomadas y se han incorporado otras nuevas, todas ellas realizadas en sujetos vivos. En nuestro estudio proponemos tomar estas medidas de partes blandas a partir de las imágenes obtenidas mediante ecografía y mediante TAC y comparar los resultados entre estas dos técnicas así como con los que han obtenidos otros autores. El material utilizado en este estudio han sido las imágenes tomadas mediante ecografía sobre 20 individuos y TAC sobre 5 de ellos, de población española actual. Los resultados obtenidos confirman la fiabilidad de ambos métodos en la medida de espesores de tejidos blandos faciales.The facial reconstruction from a skull is a line of research in forensic anthropology at international level. So far we have carried out different techniques to reconstruct the face from the skull of an individual from soft-tissue studies, conducted mostly over corpses. At the moment it is being tried to establish different models for the face and have expanded both the measures conventionally taken as other new, all made __in living subjects. In our study we propose to take these measurements of soft-tissue parts from the images obtained by ultrasound and by CT and compare the results between these two techniques and the results obtained by other authors. The materials used in this study were the images taken by ultrasound on 20 subjects and CT on 5 of them, current Spanish population. The results confirm the reliability of both methods in the measurement of facial soft tissue thickness

Fast-timing study of the l-forbidden 1/2+→3/2+ M1 transition in Sn129

R. Lică et al. ; 7 págs.; 5 figs.; 3 tabs. ; Open Access funded by Creative Commons Atribution Licence 3.0The levels in Sn129 populated from the β- decay of In129 isomers were investigated at the ISOLDE facility of CERN using the newly commissioned ISOLDE Decay Station (IDS). The lowest 12+ state and the 32+ ground state in Sn129 are expected to have configurations dominated by the neutron s12 (l=0) and d32 (l=2) single-particle states, respectively. Consequently, these states should be connected by a somewhat slow l-forbidden M1 transition. Using fast-timing spectroscopy we have measured the half-life of the 12+ 315.3-keV state, T12= 19(10) ps, which corresponds to a moderately fast M1 transition. Shell-model calculations using the CD-Bonn effective interaction, with standard effective charges and g factors, predict a 4-ns half-life for this level. We can reconcile the shell-model calculations to the measured T12 value by the renormalization of the M1 effective operator for neutron holes.This work was partially supported by the Spanish MINECO through Projects No. FPA2012-32443, No. FPA2013-41267-P, and CPAN Consolider (Project No. CSD-2007-00042), and by Romanian IFA Grant CERN/ISOLDE. It was also partly funded by the NuPNET network FATIMA (PRI-PIMNUP-2011-1338), by FWO-Vlaanderen (Belgium), by GOA/2010/010 (BOF KU Leuven), and by the Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme initiated by the Belgian Science PolicyOffice (BriX network P7/12). Support from Grupo de Física Nuclear (GFN-UCM), Programmi di Ricerca Scientifica di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) Grant No. 2001024324 01302, German BMBF under Contracts No. 05P12PKFNE and No. 05P15PKCIA, the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council, and the European Union Seventh Framework through ENSAR (Contract No. 262010) is also acknowledged. Fasttiming electronics were provided by the Fast Timing Collaboration, the ISOLDE Decay Station collaboration, and MASTICON.Peer Reviewe

VISOR: Real time observations visualizer

Presentación realizada en la 3rd European Nowcasting Conference, celebrada en la sede central de AEMET en Madrid del 24 al 26 de abril de 2019

Reaction of the halo nucleus be on heavy targets at energies around the coulomb barrier

Presented at the XXXIII Mazurian Lakes Conference on Physics, Piaski, Poland, September 1–7, 2013.-- et al.New data for the reaction 11Be on 197Au at E lab = 31:9 MeV are presented. The angular distributions of the inelastically scattered 11Be and the 10Be fragments coming from the 11Be dissociation have been extracted and compared with semiclassical and coupled-channels calculations in an angular range θlab = 13deg;-46deg; for the detected Be fragment.This work was supported by the Spanish Government under the projects FPA2009-07387, FPA2009-07653, FPA2009-08848, FPA2012-32443 and Consolider CPAN CSD2007-00042; the Helmholtz Association (HGT) through the Nuclear Astrophysics Virtual Institute (VH-VI-417); ATI Sistemas; a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada grant. TRIUMF receives federal funding via a contribution agreement through the National Research Council of Canada.Peer Reviewe

Proton Radiographs Using Position-Sensitive Silicon Detectors and High-Resolution Scintillators

7 pags., 11 figs., 1 tab.Proton therapy is a cancer treatment technique currently in growth since it offers advantages with respect to conventional X-ray and ¿ -ray radiotherapy. In particular, better control of the dose deposition allowing to reach higher conformity in the treatments causing less secondary effects. However, in order to take full advantage of its potential, improvements in treatment planning and dose verification are required. A new prototype of proton computed tomography scanner is proposed to design more accurate and precise treatment plans for proton therapy. Our prototype is formed by double-sided silicon strip detectors and scintillators of LaBr3(Ce) with high energy resolution and fast response. Here, the results obtained from an experiment performed using a 100-MeV proton beam are presented. Proton radiographs of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) samples of 50-mm thickness with spatial patterns in aluminum were taken. Their properties were studied, including reproduction of the dimensions, spatial resolution, and sensitivity to different materials. Structures of up to 2 mm are well resolved and the sensitivity of the system was enough to distinguish the thicknesses of 10 mm of aluminum or PMMA. The spatial resolution of the images was 0.3 line pairs per mm (MTF-10%). This constitutes the first step to validate the device as a proton radiography scanner.This work has been supported by the PRONTO-CM B2017/BMD-3888 project funded by Comunidad de Madrid (Spain). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 654002 (ENSAR2) and grant agreement No [730983] (INSPIRE). This work has been partly supported by the Spanish Funding Agency for Research (AEI) through the PID2019-104390GBI00 and PID2019-104714GB-C21 projects. A.N. Nerio acknowledges the fundings from the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree on Nuclear Physics co-funded by the Erasmus+Programme of the European Union

Scattering of light halo nuclei on heavy target at energies around the Coulomb barrier

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0.-- et al. and the E1104 S1202 collaborations at TRIUMF.-- Trabajo presentado a la: "25th International Nuclear Physics Conference" (INPC), celebrada en Firenze (Italia) del 2 al 7 de junio de 2013.We report here on experiments performed at TRIUMF to study the scattering of the light halo nuclei 11Li on lead at energies below and around the Coulomb barrier. The the elastic and break-up differential cross section are interpreted in the framework of Continuum-Discretized Coupled-Channel calculations. The departure from Rutherford scattering at energies below the barrier is well beyond the behavior of normal nuclei.This work was supported by the Spanish CICYT under the project numbers FPA2009-07387, FPA2012-32443, FPA2009-08848, FPA2009-07653, and FPA2010-22131-C02-01 and by the Consolider Ingenio 2010 Program CPAN (CSD2007- 00042).Peer Reviewe