Bacterial Infection Elicits Heat Shock Protein 72 Release from Pleural Mesothelial Cells

Heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) has been implicated in infection-related processes and has been found in body fluids during infection. This study aimed to determine whether pleural mesothelial cells release HSP70 in response to bacterial infection in vitro and in mouse models of serosal infection. In addition, the in vitro cytokine effects of the HSP70 isoform, Hsp72, on mesothelial cells were examined. Further, Hsp72 was measured in human pleural effusions and levels compared between non-infectious and infectious patients to determine the diagnostic accuracy of pleural fluid Hsp72 compared to traditional pleural fluid parameters. We showed that mesothelial release of Hsp72 was significantly raised when cells were treated with live and heat-killed Streptococcus pneumoniae. In mice, intraperitoneal injection of S. pneumoniae stimulated a 2-fold increase in Hsp72 levels in peritoneal lavage (p<0.01). Extracellular Hsp72 did not induce or inhibit mediator release from cultured mesothelial cells. Hsp72 levels were significantly higher in effusions of infectious origin compared to non-infectious effusions (p<0.05). The data establish that pleural mesothelial cells can release Hsp72 in response to bacterial infection and levels are raised in infectious pleural effusions. The biological role of HSP70 in pleural infection warrants exploration

Assessing social-ecological connectivity of agricultural landscapes in Spain: Resilience implications amid agricultural intensification trends and urbanization

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2022.103525Acknowledgements Funding was provided through the following sources: a Fulbright Flex grant of the US-Spain Fulbright Commission that supported the first author’s main component of field research beginning in 2017 with funding for related research in 2018 and 2019; the 3-year E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Professorship of Environment and Society Geography and Penn State's Department of Geography (2019-2022); the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, National Project I+D+i 2019, “Multifunctional and territorialized agri-food systems in Spain. Conceptualisation and governance. Analysis of cases in Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha,” ID2019-105711RB-C61/AEI/10.13039/501 100011033; the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the FEDER funds from the Spanish Pluriregional Operational Program 2014–2020 (POPE), LifeWatch-ERIC action line, with co-financing by the Provincial Council of Granada, for the project “Thematic Center on Mountain Ecosystem & Remote sensing, Deep learning-AI e-Services University of Granada-Sierra Nevada” (LifeWatch-2019-10-UGR-01); and ERDF/Ministry of Science and Innovation–State Research Agency for the project “Researching how to integrate sustainability and competitiveness in Agrifood Mediterranean Landscapes: Agrobiodiversity, climate change and local development” (AGROFOODSCAPES)" (PID2020-117198RB-I00). Initial versions of this work were presented to the Department of Geography at the Autonomous University of Madrid/ Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2017 and the Institute of Regional Development at the University of Granada/Universidad de Granada in 2018. The support of both these institutions, their collaborative institutional networks, and their faculty, students, and staff are gratefully acknowledged. Additional feedback occurred in the first author’s keynote addresses to the Permanent European Conference on Sustainable Rural Landscapes (PECSRL) in Jaén, Spain, in 2021 and 2022. Insights and support before and during the 2017-2019 period, which are gratefully acknowledged, were offered by Darla Munroe, William Doolittle, Medora D. Ebersole, Tobias Plieninger, María Garcia Martin, Claudia Bieling, Carlos Barahona, Sam Dumble, José Pepe Gonzalez, César López Santiago, Carlos Montes, Irene Iniesta-Arandia, and Samir Sayadi. Numerous research and practitioner colleagues and partners, the members of the GeoSyntheSES Lab at Penn State, and the reviewers and editors of the journal provided helpful inputs that have been incorporated.CONTEXT Accelerated intensification/disintensification and urbanization are changing agricultural systems and propel the need for spatial approaches to understand sustainability-enhancing resilience. Landscapes are key to this understanding though little is known of the broad-scale, cross-landscape connectivity of social-ecological factors amid changing agricultural systems. OBJECTIVE This study's goals are to identify broad-scale types of agricultural landscapes in Spain that are associated with intensification/disintensification and urbanization and then to use case studies to assess the types and extent of cross-landscape connectivity. It examines the social-ecological connectivity of environmental resources, resource users, and governance. The overarching purpose is to improve the understanding of social-ecological connectivity in strengthening the sustainability-enhancing resilience of agricultural landscapes amid global agri-food changes. METHODS To pursue these goals, we conducted a structured literature review of publications to identify major types of agricultural landscapes in Spain that reflect intensification/disintensification and urbanization trends. Case studies of agricultural landscapes and connectivity were undertaken in the Madrid and Granada regions. These case studies used a structured interview with experienced professional experts in fields of social-ecological sustainability and agricultural landscapes in each region. Analyses including Latent Block Modelling were applied to interview results on types and extent of cross-landscape connectivity in both conventional and alternative agriculture. RESULTS and CONCLUSIONS The structured literature review identified the predominance of three types of broad-scale agricultural landscapes in Spain: intensive, “traditional” rural, and peri-urban/urban. Analysis of case-study results revealed variation of the extent and structure of connectivity among clusters of landscape interactions and social-ecological factors. Landscape-level connectivity created both negative agricultural impacts (e.g., extensive water transfers and nutrient pollution in conventional agriculture) and positive impacts (e.g., knowledge system and seed exchanges in alternative agriculture). Interactions of alternative agricultural systems in peri-urban/urban and “traditional” rural landscapes have benefitted from cross-landscape connectivity amid accelerated agricultural change. SIGNIFICANCE Research and policy on the landscape-level connectivity of agricultural systems are needed to strengthen sustainability-enhancing resilience of both conventional and alternative agriculture. This study's approach and results are a strategic complement to existing emphasis on within-landscape cycles of social-ecological factors in alternative agriculture. This study's insights are important in the transition phases of alternative agriculture and associated food systems amid changes due to agricultural intensification/disintensification and urbanization. Understanding selective cross-landscape connectivity is important for spatial approaches to strengthen the sustainability-enhancing resilience of agricultural systems.Fulbright Flex grant of the US-Spain Fulbright CommissionPenn State's Department of Geography 2019-2022Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, National Project I+D+i 2019, “Multifunctional and territorialized agri-food systems in Spain. Conceptualisation and governance. Analysis of cases in Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha,” ID2019-105711RB-C61/AEI/10.13039/501 100011033Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the FEDER funds from the Spanish Pluriregional Operational Program 2014–2020 (POPE)LifeWatch-ERIC action line, with co-financing by the Provincial Council of Granada, for the project “Thematic Center on Mountain Ecosystem & Remote sensing, Deep learning-AI e-Services University of Granada-Sierra Nevada” (LifeWatch-2019-10-UGR-01)ERDF/Ministry of Science and Innovation–State Research Agency for the project “Researching how to integrate sustainability and competitiveness in Agrifood Mediterranean Landscapes: Agrobiodiversity, climate change and local development” (AGROFOODSCAPES)" (PID2020-117198RB-I00)Universidad Autónoma de MadridUniversidad de Granad

Agri-Food Land Transformations and Immigrant Farm Workers in Peri-Urban Areas of Spain and the Mediterranean

Spain is a global hotspot of transformations of agri-food land systems due to changing production intensity, diets, urbanization, market integration, and climate change. Characteristic of the Mediterranean, these expanding intersections with the migration, livelihoods, and food security strategies of immigrant farm workers urge new research into the “who,” “how,” and “why” questions of the transformation of agri-food land systems. Addressing this gap, we communicate preliminary results from field research in the Granada and Madrid areas. We use a novel conceptual framework of linkages among distinct agri-food land systems and the roles and agency of immigrant farm workers. Preliminary results integrating a combined land- and labor-centric approach address: (1) how the recent and ongoing transformations of specific agri-food land systems are indicative of close links to inexpensive, flexible labor of immigrant farm workers; (2) how the connectivity among transformations of multiple distinct agri-food land systems can be related to the geographic mobility of immigrant farm workers and livelihoods (non-farm work, gendered employment, peri-urban residential location, labor recruitment); and (3) how the struggles for food and nutrition security among immigrant farm workers are indicative of links to local sites and networked agrobiodiversity. This study can help advance the nexus of migration-land research with expanding ethical, justice, and policy concerns of land system sciences in relation to the new suite of agri-food interest and initiatives.Fulbright Scholarship BoardBureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in Spain and the U.S

Farmers’ management of functional biodiversity goes beyond pest management in organic European apple orchards

Supporting functional biodiversity (FB), which provides natural pest regulation, is an environmentally sound and promising approach to reduce pesticide use in perennial cultures such as apple, especially in organic farming. However, little is known about farmers’ practices and motivations to implement techniques that favor FB, especially whether or not they really expect anything from FB in terms of pest regulation. In fact, FB-supporting techniques (FB-techniques) are massively questioned by practitioners due to inadequate information about their effectiveness. An interview survey was performed in eight European countries(i) to describe farmers’ practices and identify promising FB-techniques: (ii) to better understand their perceptions of and values associated with FB; and (iii) to identify potential drivers of (non-)adoption. Fifty-five advisors and 125 orchard managers with various degrees of experience and convictions about FB were interviewed and a total of 24 different FB-techniques which can be assigned to three different categories (ecological infrastructures, farming practices and redesign techniques) were described. Some were well-established measures (e.g., hedges and bird houses), while others were more marginal and more recent (e.g., animal introduction and compost). On average, farmers combined more than four techniques that had been implemented over a period of 13 years, especially during their establishment or conversion period. In general, it was difficult for farmers to evaluate the effectiveness of individual FB-techniques on pest regulation. They considered FB-techniques as a whole, targeting multiple species, and valued multiple ecosystem services in addition to pest regulation. The techniques implemented and their associated values differed among farmers who adopted various approaches towards FB. Three different approaches were defined: passive, active and integrated. Their appraisal of FB is even more complex because it may change with time and experience. These findings provide empirical evidence that the practical implementation of promising techniques remains a challenge, considering the diversity of situations and evaluation criteria. Increased cooperation between researchers, farmers and advisors should more effectively target research, advisory support and communication to meet farmers’ needs and perceptions

Constraining the Distribution of L- & T-Dwarfs in the Galaxy

We estimate the thin disk scale height of the Galactic population of L- & T-dwarfs based on star counts from 15 deep parallel fields from the Hubble Space Telescope. From these observations, we have identified 28 candidate L- & T- dwarfs based on their (i'-z') color and morphology. By comparing these star counts to a simple Galactic model, we estimate the scale height to be 350+-50 pc that is consistent with the increase in vertical scale with decreasing stellar mass and is independent of reddening, color-magnitude limits, and other Galactic parameters. With this refined measure, we predict that less than 10^9 M_{sol} of the Milky Way can be in the form L- & T- dwarfs, and confirm that high-latitude, z~6 galaxy surveys which use the i'-band dropout technique are 97-100% free of L- & T- dwarf interlopers.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ApJ

Efectos del entrenamiento interválico de alta intensidad durante el periodo transitorio en jugadores de fútbol sub-19

Actualmente existe un creciente interés por la aplicación del entrenamiento interválico de alta intensidad (HIIT) en fútbol (Buchheit et al. 2013). La eficacia mostrada por esta metodología de entrenamiento para mejorar las variables del rendimiento ha provocado una mayor aplicación en deportes colectivos (Iaia et al. 2009). Sin embargo, es escasa la literatura científica acerca de su impacto en fútbol. Por ello, el objetivo del trabajo es comparar los efectos sobre el rendimiento del HIIT versus entrenamiento tradicional durante el periodo transitorio invernal en jugadores de fútbol sub-19

The Milky Way: An Exceptionally Quiet Galaxy; Implications for the formation of spiral galaxies

[Abridged]We compare both the Milky Way and M31 galaxies to local external disk galaxies within the same mass range, using their relative locations in the planes formed by V_flat versus M_K, j_disk, and the average Fe abundance of stars in the galaxy outskirts. We find, for all relationships, that the MW is systematically offset by ~ 1 sigma, showing a significant deficiency in stellar mass, in angular momentum, in disk radius and [Fe/H] in the stars in its outskirts at a given V_flat. On the basis of their location in the M_K, V_flat, and R_d volume, the fraction of spirals like the MW is 7+/-1%, while M31 appears to be a "typical'' spiral. Our Galaxy appears to have escaped any significant merger over the last ~10 Gyrs which may explain why it is deficient by a factor 2 to 3 in stellar mass, angular momentum and outskirts metallicity and then, unrepresentative of the typical spiral. As with M31, most local spirals show evidence for a history shaped mainly by relatively recent merging. We conclude that the standard scenario of secular evolution is generally unable to reproduce the properties of most (if not all) spiral galaxies. However, the so-called "spiral rebuilding'' scenario proposed by Hammer et al. 2005 is consistent with the properties of both distant galaxies and of their descendants - the local spirals.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Ap

Incorporating reliability measurements into the predictions of a recommender system

In this paper we introduce the idea of using a reliability measure associated to the predic- tions made by recommender systems based on collaborative filtering. This reliability mea- sure is based on the usual notion that the more reliable a prediction, the less liable to be wrong. Here we will define a general reliability measure suitable for any arbitrary recom- mender system. We will also show a method for obtaining specific reliability measures specially fitting the needs of different specific recommender systems