High-throughput and reliable determination of 13 haloacetic acids and dalapon in water and evaluation of control strategies

A simple, fast, highly-sensitive and selective method for the determination of 13 HAAs and dalapon in water has been optimized and validated. The method is based on large volume injection (200 μL) and analyte determination with liquid chromatography coupled to negative electrospray ionization-high resolution mass spectrometry (LVI-LC-ESI(−)-HRMS). High throughput is possible due to minimum sample manipulation and short analysis time (16 min in total). This is the first analytical LC-MS-based method that covers the whole suite of HAAs for which analytical standards are available and dalapon, and thus, represents a less costly option than ion-chromatography-based technologies developed for the same purpose. The method provided satisfactory trueness (91–120%) and precision (<17%) values for all analytes, except for CAA. Matrix effects, always in the form of ionization suppression effects, were not relevant (<25%), except in the case of CAA, and they were all well compensated with the use of internal standard calibration. This methodology allows quantifying HAAs in tap waters at concentrations below 1 μg L−1, except in the case of DBCAA and TCAA (3 μg L−1) and CAA and DCBAA (6 μg L−1). Thus, the presented analytical approach is satisfactory for the routine monitoring of HAA5 in drinking waters and obtaining additional knowledge on the formation and occurrence of other HAAs and dalapon that may be of relevance to ensure the provision of safe drinking water in the future. The concentrations of some of the brominated HAAs in chlorine-quenched disinfected water stored in the dark at −20 °C for seven days decreased between 26 and 46%, and thus, water samples should be analysed within 24 hours of their collection. As part of the validation method, the optimized approach was applied to evaluate two strategies to control HAA concentrations in water, i.e., lowering the water pH during the coagulation-flocculation step to improve process efficiency and using a household water pitcher filtration unit to remove HAAs in tap water.CP acknowledges support from Fundación General del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (FGCSIC) through the 2nd edition of the ComFuturo Programme. This work was supported by the Government of Catalonia (Consolidated Research Groups 2017 SGR 01404) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Project CEX2018-000794-S). Phenomenex is acknowledged for the gift of the HPLC column and AB Sciex for LC-MS instrumentation loan. Nicola Montemurro and Roser Chaler, from IDAEA-CSIC, are acknowledged for assisstance in the use of the analytical instrumentation. We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI).Peer reviewe

Efecto del TDAH en el ámbito académico y las relaciones sociales. Estudio de caso.

El trabajo que se presenta a continuación, trata sobre cómo afecta el TDAH en el ámbito social y académico. El TDAH es uno de los trastornos que más auge está teniendo hoy en día, se ha convertido en uno de los más habituales en las aulas, por lo que es necesario saber cuál es su definición, etiología, en qué afecta, sus manifestaciones y los posibles tratamientos. En primer lugar en el marco teórico se define la evolución terminológica del concepto del TDAH. Actualmente la definición aceptada es la recogida por la American Psychiatric Association la cual denomina este trastorno como “Trastorno por Déficit de Atención con Hiperactividad” puntualizando en los criterios de hiperactividad, impulsividad y falta de atención. Después en la metodología, se ha utilizado un paradigma de investigación interpretativo desde una metodología cualitativa, orientado a la descripción e interpretación de los fenómenos educativos. Para ello se ha llevado a cabo un estudio de caso apoyado en unas entrevistas realizadas a los agentes que se considera que intervienen en el entorno del sujeto los que nos da la base para presentar la discusión. Y por último, se concluye que el TDAH es un trastorno el cual repercute en todos los ámbitos que conforman al niño; destacando la importancia a nivel académico y social. Lo que me gustaría conseguir con este trabajo, es saber más sobre el TDAH y lo que es más importante, conocer y así poder intervenir en este problema tanto en el ámbito educativo, como familiar y social. Para ello se realiza un estudio de caso de una persona que padece este trastorno. Además con el objetivo de mostrar el efecto de este trastorno en los diferentes ámbitos, se han llevado a cabo varias entrevistas personales a figuras que intervienen en este proceso. Gracias a la realización de estas entrevistas se ha podido observar que los tres agentes principales que intervienen tanto en el trastorno como en la vida del sujeto son: la familia, la escuela, y las relaciones sociales. Estos tres agentes van unidos y es necesario su apoyo para una mejora en el desarrollo tanto del trastorno, para que funcione y se lleve del mejor modo posible, como en la vida del sujeto para evitar que haya una elevada repercusión. Por ello, se debe conseguir solucionar dichas situaciones de forma adecuada, ya que de lo que se trata es que tanto los niños/as como su familia, lleven una vida ordenada y normalizada.Grado en Educación Infanti

How do university students comprehend and use graphs?

Muy pocos trabajos se han centrado en el análisis de cómo los estudiantes universitarios utilizan los gráficos de forma epistémica. El objetivo del presente estudio ha sido analizar la capacidad de estudiantes universitarios de psicología tanto de interpretar gráficos similares a los que utilizan habitualmente, como de seleccionar los gráficos que mejor se adecúan a determinados resultados de una investigación. Además se han analizado las diferencias según la demanda de la tarea (selección /interpretación de gráficos), el tipo de contenido presentado (psicológico/no psicológico) y la complejidad de los gráficos. Los resultados muestran que, en general, los estudiantes cuentan con habilidades suficientes para seleccionar los gráficos para la presentación de datos experimentales o para elaborar conclusiones a partir de la interpretación de los mismos, aunque apenas utilizan de forma epistémica estas habilidades. Estas habilidades parecen estar influidas por la complejidad de las tareas y se aplican de forma similar a los dos contenidos utilizados, tanto en las tareas de selección como en las de interpretaciónFew studies on graphs comprehension have focused on how students use graphs in an epistemic way. The aim of this study was to analyze the capacity of university students of Psychology to interpret data presented in graphs similar to the ones they normally use, as well as to select the most appropriate graph for a given result. Differences in execution were analyzed according to the task demand (selection/interpretation), the type of content (psychological-non psychological) and the complexity of the graphs. Results show that, in general, students have enough abilities to select the adequate graph for the presentation of empirical data, as well as for the elaboration of conclusions based on the information provided by a graph. However, the epistemic use of these abilities was poor and limited, and seemed to be related to the complexity of the task. These abilities were applied in a similar way to both, psychological-non psychological contents, and either in selection or in interpretation tasksLa realización de este artículo ha sido posible gracias a un proyecto financiado por el Ministerio Español de Ciencia e Innovación EDU2010-21995-C02-0

Fate and removal of pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs in conventional and membrane bioreactor wastewater treatment plants and by riverbank filtration

26 pages, 3 tables, 3 figures.Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) and drugs of abuse (DAs) are two important groups of emerging environmental contaminants that have raised an increasing interest in the scientific community. A number of studies revealed their presence in the environment. This is mainly due to the fact that some compounds are not efficiently removed during wastewater treatment processes, being able to reach surface and groundwater and subsequently, drinking waters. This paper reviews the data regarding the levels of pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs detected in wastewaters and gives an overview of their removal by conventional treatment technologies (applying activated sludge) as well as advanced treatments such as membrane bioreactor. The paper also gives an overview of bank filtration practices at managed aquifer recharge sites and discusses the potential of this approach to mitigate the contamination by PhACs and DAs.This work has been supported by the EU project INNOVA-MED (INCO-CT-2006-517728) and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation Projects CTM2007-30524-E and CEMAGUA (CGL2007-64551).Peer reviewe

Understanding of graphs in social science undergraduate students: selection and interpretation of graphs

How do university students understand the graphs that they read in their textbooks? How does their knowledge regarding the content and their statistical training influence this understanding? Does the kind of task demand also influence this understanding? To answer these questions, we asked a group of psychology students and a group of economics students to choose the most suitable graph for presenting the results of different psychological research studies (reports) (selection task) or to explain in words the results of the same reports shown by means of their graphic representations only (interpretation task). The results showed there were very few differences between groups. Most of the students were able to relate textual information to the adequate graph, but also revealed significant shortcomings and mistakes in their understanding of important syntactic aspects of graphs. They also interpreted the graphs correctly but their interpretation had different levels of complexity, which were not always optimal. We also identified significant differences regarding the difficulty of the reports and the kinds of misinterpretations of graphs. The two tasks thus revealed different pictures of students’ skills in reading and interpreting graphs and, consequently, how the characteristics of task demands influence their performance.2017-1

Perceived Motivational Climate Determines Self-Confidence and Precompetitive Anxiety in Young Soccer Players: Analysis by Gender

The main objective of this study was to analyze whether the perception of the motivational climate in young soccer players determines the level of competitive anxiety and self-confidence. In addition, the results were explored according to gender, in order to observe if there were differences between the female and male categories. A total of 113 cadet and youth soccer players from six soccer teams in the provinces of Malaga and Granada, aged between 14 and 19 years, who competed in regional leagues, participated in the study. Of these, 50 were female and 63 were male. The Competitive Sport Anxiety (CSAI-2), Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire-2 (PMCSQ-2), and Self-Confidence in Sport Competition Questionnaire (CACD) were used to collect the information. Correlation, linear regression and cluster analyses were performed. The data analyses carried out affirmed the relationship between the study variables, observing that the perception of ego climate was positively related to cognitive anxiety (p < 0.05) and insecurity (p < 0.01), and inversely to self-confidence (p < 0.05). By gender, boys showed a higher perception of an ego-oriented (p < 0.001) and lower perception of a task-oriented climate (p < 0.05) than girls. However, girls showed a greater intensity in the relationships related to ego climate and lower scores in self-confidence (p < 0.01), as well as higher scores in insecurity (p < 0.001). The results have shown positive relationships between self-confidence and a task-oriented climate, as well as negative ones with an ego-oriented climate. It is also observed that ego orientation generates more insecurity and anxiety, which is more evident in girls.Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Mála

Endotoxin increase after fat overload is related to postprandial hypertriglyceridemia in morbidly obese patients.

The low-grade inflammation observed in obesity has been associated with a high-fat diet, though this relation is not fully understood. Bacterial endotoxin, produced by gut microbiota, may be the linking factor. However, this has not been confirmed in obese patients. To study the relationship between a high-fat diet and bacterial endotoxin, we analyzed postprandial endotoxemia in morbidly obese patients after a fat overload. The endotoxin levels were determined in serum and the chylomicron fraction at baseline and 3 h after a fat overload in 40 morbidly obese patients and their levels related with the degree of insulin resistance and postprandial hypertriglyceridemia. The morbidly obese patients with the highest postprandial hypertriglyceridemia showed a significant increase in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) levels in serum and the chylomicron fraction after the fat overload. Postprandial chylomicron LPS levels correlated positively with the difference between postprandial triglycerides and baseline triglycerides. There were no significant correlations between C-reactive protein (CRP) and LPS levels. The main variables contributing to serum LPS levels after fat overload were baseline and postprandial triglyceride levels but not glucose or insulin resistance. Additionally, superoxide dismutase activity decreased significantly after the fat overload. Postprandial LPS increase after a fat overload is related to postprandial hypertriglyceridemia but not to degree of insulin resistance in morbidly obese patients

Transcriptome sequencing for SNP discovery across Cucumis melo

Background: Melon (Cucumis melo L.) is a highly diverse species that is cultivated worldwide. Recent advances in massively parallel sequencing have begun to allow the study of nucleotide diversity in this species. The Sanger method combined with medium-throughput 454 technology were used in a previous study to analyze the genetic diversity of germplasm representing 3 botanical varieties, yielding a collection of about 40,000 SNPs distributed in 14,000 unigenes. However, the usefulness of this resource is limited as the sequenced genotypes do not represent the whole diversity of the species, which is divided into two subspecies with many botanical varieties variable in plant, flowering, and fruit traits, as well as in stress response. As a first step to extensively document levels and patterns of nucleotide variability across the species, we used the high-throughput SOLiD¿ system to resequence the transcriptomes of a set of 67 genotypes that had previously been selected from a core collection representing the extant variation of the entire species.Results: The deep transcriptome resequencing of all of the genotypes, grouped into 8 pools (wild African agrestis, Asian agrestis and acidulus, exotic Far Eastern conomon, Indian momordica and Asian dudaim and flexuosus, commercial cantalupensis, subsp. melo Asian and European landraces, Spanish inodorus landraces, and Piel de Sapo breeding lines) yielded about 300 M reads. Short reads were mapped to the recently generated draft genome assembly of the DHL line Piel de Sapo (inodorus) x Songwhan Charmi (conomon) and to a new version of melon transcriptome. Regions with at least 6X coverage were used in SNV calling, generating a melon collection with 303,883 variants. These SNVs were dispersed across the entire C. melo genome, and distributed in 15,064 annotated genes. The number and variability of in silico SNVs differed considerably between pools. Our finding of higher genomic diversity in wild and exotic agrestis melons from India and Africa as compared to commercial cultivars, cultigens and landraces from Eastern Europe, Western Asia and the Mediterranean basin is consistent with the evolutionary history proposed for the species. Group-specific SNVs that will be useful in introgression programs were also detected. In a sample of 143 selected putative SNPs, we verified 93% of the polymorphisms in a panel of 78 genotypes.Conclusions: This study provides the first comprehensive resequencing data for wild, exotic, and cultivated (landraces and commercial) melon transcriptomes, yielding the largest melon SNP collection available to date and representing a notable sample of the species diversity. This data provides a valuable resource for creating a catalog of allelic variants of melon genes and it will aid in future in-depth studies of population genetics, marker-assisted breeding, and gene identification aimed at developing improved varieties. © 2012 Blanca et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.This project was carried out in the frame of the MELONOMICS project (2009-2012) of the Fundacion Genoma Espana.Blanca Postigo, JM.; Esteras Gómez, C.; Ziarsolo Areitioaurtena, P.; Perez, D.; Fernández-Pedrosa, V.; Collado, C.; Rodríguez De Pablos, R.... (2012). Transcriptome sequencing for SNP discovery across Cucumis melo. BMC Genomics. 13(280):1-18. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-13-280S1181328

Verificación y postproceso de predicciones de radiación solar directa para su uso en centrales termosolares [Presentación]

Presentación realizada en el VI Simposio Nacional de Predicción "Memorial Antonio Mestre", celebrado en la sede central de AEMET en Madrid del 17 al 19 de septiembre de 2018