La comercialización e impacto de las participaciones preferentes en España = The commercialization and impact of the preferred shares in Spain

Un producto creado en 1988 para la financiación de empresas pasa a ser fundamental en los recursos propios de las entidades financieras y debido a un mal uso termina siendo portada de toda la prensa. Este hecho nos lleva a revisar sus características básicas, y cuál fue el detonante para que en un año concreto se produjese una emisión masiva de preferentes, que no tuvo continuidad en los ejercicios posteriores. Además, se observa una comercialización que ha resultado ser escandalosa y para algunos incluso llegar a calificarse de auténtica estafa. No se pueden olvidar los principios éticos vulnerados en la comercialización: riesgo moral, información asimétrica y la elección del cliente objetivo y cómo se han ido transgrediendo cada uno de ellos. Finalmente, se revisa la situación de las participaciones preferentes en el año en curs

Derrames de petróleo en el océano. Aplicación preliminar al estuario del Guadalquivir

Uno de los problemas que conlleva el derrame del petróleo es el impacto en el medio ambiente. Peor cuando la mancha llega a la costa, causando estragos durante varios años. En los ríos, este problema se incrementa, pues afecta a toda el área circundante, que puede llegar a ser kilométrica. La creación de un modelo numérico que ayude a predecir el curso y la evolución de una mancha puede servir de gran ayuda para evitar o miminizar un posible desastre. Este documento es una revisión al estado del arte de vertidos en mares y ríos. En el Capítulo 1 se analiza el impacto ambiental que supone la contaminación marina, así como las características de los hidrocarburos y otras sustancias que componen el petróleo. En el Capítulo 2, se estudian gran parte de los distintos modelos numéricos que existen hoy en día para predecir la evolución de la mancha, así como sus ventajas y desventajas. El Capítulo 3 es un estudio en detalle del río Guadalquivir: su geometría, las características del agua y las condiciones a la cual está sometida diariamente, etc. El Capítulo 4 profundiza en la emulsión, un fenómeno fundamental a la hora de estudiar vertidos en el mar pues es un factor que interviene de manera importante en la evolución de la mancha. En el Capítulo 5 se aplican parte de los contenidos revisados en el bloque de las propiedades de los vertidos, en la parte dedicada a los modelos, así como en el capítulo dedicado a la hidrodinámica general del estuario del Guadalquivir para realizar unas estimaciones de como se propagaría una hipotética mancha de vertido en nuestro sistema. Finalmente, en el Capítulo 6 se presentan brevemente las conclusiones más importantes y el trabajo futuro.Universidad de Sevilla. Grado en Ingeniería de Tecnologías Industriale

Degradación de Disruptores Endocrinos de Estructura Fenólica en Procesos de Tratamiento de Aguas Residuales

El trabajo recogido tanto en los resultados como en las conclusiones de la presente tesis está encaminado a esclarecer el comportamiento de algunos de los microcontaminantes orgánicos incluidos en la Directiva 2000/60/CE bajo diversas condiciones de trabajo en estaciones depuradoras de aguas residuales. Para ello se ha estudiado un grupo de microcontaminantes cuya presencia en el medio ambiente, bien sea en la fracción soluble de las aguas continentales o bioacumulados en sedimentos y/o biota, es frecuente. La presencia de dichos compuestos es debida, fundamentalmente, a la industrialización y a los actuales hábitos de la sociedad. Los microcontaminantes tipo elegidos son: octilfenol, 4-n-nonilfenol, t-nonilfenol, estrona, 17α-estradiol, 17β-etinilestradiol, pentaclorofenol y bisfenol-A. Estos microcontaminantes están catalogados como compuestos disruptores endocrinos (CDE). Al comienzo de la presente tesis se evaluaron únicamente a los analitos; octilfenol, 4-n-nonilfenol, t-nonilfenol, estrona, 17α-estradiol y 17β-etinilestradiol, pero debido a la inclusión de pentaclorofenol y bisfenol-A en los Anexos II y III de la Directiva 2008/105/CE respectivamente, estos fueron incluidos posteriormente. Los estudios se realizaron sobre agua residual real, siendo las condiciones de trabajo empleadas, las típicas que presenta una EDAR: condiciones aerobias y anaerobias. Estos experimentos se llevaron a cabo tanto en tratamientos secundarios (a escala planta piloto y planta industrial) como postratamientos (a escala laboratorio y planta piloto). Los tratamientos secundarios propuestos para la eliminación de estos compuestos fueron: planta piloto con un biorreactor anaerobio de membrana sumergida (SAnMBR), planta piloto con un biorreactor aerobio de membrana sumergida (aMBR) y planta industrial de fangos activados (TC). Mientras que los postratamientos fueron: planta piloto operando en configuración UCT y reactor de microalgas operando a escala laboratorio. Los estudios realizados en los sistemas secundarios emplearon como afluente agua proveniente del decantador primario o del desarenador de la planta depuradora de la Cuenca del Carraixet situada en la población de Alboraia (España), mientras que los estudios en postratamientos se llevaron a cabo con el efluente del tratamiento secundario SAnMBR. Para poder realizar los correspondientes balances de masa de los compuestos estudiados, se llevó a cabo la toma de muestra de forma que englobase tanto la fracción soluble como la suspendida. El control de las concentraciones de estos compuestos se evaluó mediante, cromatografía de gases acoplada a detección de espectrometría de masas. De esta forma se ha podido conocer tanto los rendimientos de eliminación, degradación y adsorción de los compuestos en los diferentes procesos de degradación estudiados, así como las cinéticas de degradación de los mismos. El resto de análisis efectuados en la presente tesis se han llevado a cabo mediante técnicas gravimétricas (sólidos suspendidos), espectrofotométricas (nutrientes), volumétricas (alcalinidad, ácidos grasos volátiles y DQO) y bioensayos (DBO). El diseño de experimentos se realizó con el objetivo de facilitar la comparación de los rendimientos de eliminación de cada CDE en los procesos secundarios y postratamientos. De esta forma se pudo conocer cuál es el proceso que mejor rendimiento de eliminación aporta, tanto en la etapa secundaria como postratamiento. Además, se estudió el rendimiento global del proceso conjunto (SAnMBR-UCT, escala planta piloto) formado por una etapa anaerobia de membranas y un postratamiento operando en una configuración UCT. Asimismo se estudió, el proceso conjunto formado por una etapa anaerobia de membranas (planta piloto) y un postratamiento basado en cultivo de microalgas (a escala laboratorio, cultivo de microalgas con iluminación artificial y sin aireación forzada). Los primeros estudios se basaron en la comparación de las concentraciones de los disruptores endocrinos a lo largo de la línea de aguas y fangos en los dos reactores de membranas (SAnMBR y aMBR) y en la planta industrial (TC). A la vista de los resultados obtenidos, especialmente para la planta piloto SAnMBR, se observó la necesidad de incluir una etapa de postratamiento que mejorase los resultados obtenidos por el tratamiento anaerobio. Por este motivo el efluente del SAnMBR se sometió a dos tipos de postratamiento. En el primero se acopló a un postratamiento formado por una etapa aerobia; la planta piloto completa presentó el esquema SAnMBR-UCT. En el segundo el afluente se sometió a un postratamiento basado en un cultivo de microalgas, el cual se llevó a cabo en régimen discontinuo. Otros experimentos se llevaron a cabo de forma simultánea, a escala laboratorio, para comprender el efecto de los parámetros involucrados en la degradación de disruptores en un reactor con cultivo de microalgas. Los parámetros estudiados fueron: oxígeno disuelto, luz y microalgas. El estudio de estos tres parámetros tanto de forma individual como combinados proporcionó la información necesaria para la determinación de los rendimientos de eliminación para cada parámetro, así como los parámetros cinéticos en la etapa de degradación.The results and conclusions reflected in this thesis work aims to explain the behaviour of some organic micropollutants include in Directive 2000/60/EC under various working conditions in wastewater treatment plants. For this reason, a group of micropollutants whose the occurrence in the environment, both in the soluble fraction of inland waters and bioaccumulate in sediment and/or biota, is common. The occurrence of these compounds is due mainly to the industrialization and current habits of society. Micropollutants chosen type are: octylphenol, 4-n-nonylphenol, t-nonylphenol, estrone, 17α-estradiol, 17β-ethynylestradiol, pentachlorophenol and bisphenol-A. These micropollutants are classified as endocrine disrupting compounds (EDC). At the beginning of this thesis they were evaluated only the analytes; octylphenol, 4-n-nonylphenol, t-nonylphenol, estrone, 17α-estradiol and 17β-ethinylestradiol, but due to the inclusion of pentachlorophenol and bisphenol-A in Annexes II and III of Directive 2008/105/EC respectively, these were subsequently included as reference analytes in this thesis. The studies were carried out with real wastewater, employing typical operating conditions of a WWTP: aerobic and anaerobic conditions. These experiments were carried out both in secondary treatments (a pilot plant and industrial plant scale) as post-treatment (laboratory scale and pilot plant scale). The proposed secondary processes for remove these compounds were: an anaerobic submerged membrane bioreactor pilot plant (SAnMBR), an aerobic submerged membrane bioreactor pilot plant (aMBR) and conventional activated sludge (CAS). While the post-treatments were: UCT configuration pilot plant and microalgae photobioreactor configuration operating at laboratory scale. Studies on secondary systems were carried out with the effluent of primary settler or degritter of Carraixet wastewater treatment plant located in the town of Alboraia (Spain), while studies in post-treatments were carried out with secondary treatment SAnMBR effluent. To achieve the corresponding mass balance of the studied compounds, sampling was carried out in both the soluble fraction and suspended fraction. The concentrations of these compounds were monitored by a gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometric detection technique. Thus, it could know both removal yields in different degradation studied processes and their degradation kinetics. The remaining analyses in this thesis have been carried out by gravimetric techniques (suspended solids), spectrophotometric (nutrients), volumetric (alkalinity, VFA and COD) and bioassays (BOD). The design of experiments was carried out in order to facilitate comparison of the removal efficiencies of each CDE in secondary and post-treatment processes. In this way, it was possible to know which is the process that provides better removal efficiency, both in the secondary treatments and post-treatments. Besides, the global efficiency of the coupled processes was studied (SAnMBR-UCT, pilot plant scale) consisted of an anaerobic membrane process and UCT post-treatment. It was also studied, the global process consists of an anaerobic membrane process (pilot plant) and microalgae culture (a laboratory scale, cultivation of microalgae with artificial lighting without forced aeration). The first studies carried out were the comparison of the concentrations of CDE along the water line in two pilot plants (SAnMBR and aMBR) and conventional activated sludge. Considering the results obtained, especially for SAnMBR pilot plant, it can be observed a post-treatment step was necessary in order to improve the results obtained from anaerobic treatment. For this reason, the effluent of SAnMBR was underwent two types of post-treatment. The first experiment coupled the SAnMBR effluent to a post-treatment consisting of an aerobic stage working in UCT configuration. The second experiment coupled the SAnMBR effluent to a microalgae culture, which was carried out in batch mode. Others experiments were simultaneously carried out in lab-scale for understand the effect of three basic parameters involved in microalgae grown in the degradation and kinetics of CDE. Studied parameters were: dissolved oxygen, light and microalgae. The study of these three parameters both individually and in combination provide the necessary information to determine the removal efficiencies for each parameter, as well as the kinetic parameters in degradation step

Primordial perturbations in kinetically dominated regimes of general relativity and hybrid quantum cosmology

Scalar fields with an energy density dominated by its kinetic part may have played a relevant role in the very early stages of the Universe. Compared to the standard inflationary paradigm, they may lead to modifications in observable quantities, e.g. the anisotropies found in the cosmic microwave background. Kinetically dominated regimes arise in classical fast-roll scenarios as well as in quantum bouncing cosmologies. For instance, kinetic dominance is typical in interesting preinflationary phases of Loop Quantum Cosmology. In this work, we analyze the leading-order effects that the presence of a scalar field potential causes on the primordial cosmological perturbations in these kinetically dominated epochs. These effects can be grouped in two sets, namely, those that affect the effective mass of the perturbations and those that affect the choice of their vacuum state. The effective mass is modified directly by terms that include the potential, but also indirectly by the change in the background dynamics and the relation between the parameterization of these dynamics and the conformal time, usually employed to describe the evolution of the perturbations. On the other hand, away from de Sitter inflation, the Bunch-Davies state is no longer the most natural vacuum at all scales. Recent proposals suggest to modify it by carrying out certain Hamiltonian diagonalization with a suitable asymptotic behavior at large wavenumber scales. Both this diagonalization condition and the imposed asymptotic behavior depend on the effective mass of the perturbations, and therefore the selected vacuum state varies in the presence of the scalar field potential.Comment: 17 page

AhaP, A Quorum Quenching Acylase from Psychrobacter sp. M9-54-1 That Attenuates Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Vibrio coralliilyticus Virulence

Although Psychrobacter strain M9-54-1 had been previously isolated from the microbiota of holothurians and shown to degrade quorum sensing (QS) signal molecules C6 and C10-homoserine lactone (HSL), little was known about the gene responsible for this activity. In this study, we determined the whole genome sequence of this strain and found that the full 16S rRNA sequence shares 99.78–99.66% identity with Psychrobacter pulmonis CECT 5989T and P. faecalis ISO-46T. M9-54-1, evaluated using the agar well diffusion assay method, showed high quorum quenching (QQ) activity against a wide range of synthetic N-acylhomoserine lactone (AHLs) at 4, 15, and 28 °C. High-performance liquid chromatography-mass-spectrometry (HPLC-MS) confirmed that QQ activity was due to an AHL-acylase. The gene encoding for QQ activity in strain M9-54-1 was identified from its genome sequence whose gene product was named AhaP. Purified AhaP degraded substituted and unsubstituted AHLs from C4- to C14-HSL. Furthermore, heterologous expression of ahaP in the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 reduced the expression of the QS-controlled gene lecA, encoding for a cytotoxic galactophilic lectin and swarming motility protein. Strain M9-54-1 also reduced brine shrimp mortality caused by Vibrio coralliilyticus VibC-Oc-193, showing potential as a biocontrol agent in aquaculture

Fate of endocrine disruptor compounds in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) coupled to an activated sludge reactor

[EN] The occurrence and fate of three groups of micropollutants - alkylphenols, pentachlorophenol and hormones - were studied in a pilot plant consisting of an anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) coupled to an activated sludge reactor (University of Cape Town configuration - UCT). Under anaerobic conditions, the octylphenol and technical-nonylphenol soluble concentrations increased producing negative degradation ratios (i.e., -175 and -118%, respectively). However, high 4-n-nonylphenol and bisphenol-A degradation ratios (92 and 59% for 4-n-nonylphenol and bisphenol-A, respectively) as well as complete pentachlorophenol, estrone, 17 beta-estradiol and 17 alpha-ethinylestradiol removal were observed. Under aerobic conditions (UCT), octylphenol, technical-nonylphenol, 4-n-nonylphenol and bisphenol-A degradation ratios were higher than 84%. The AnMBR thus removes a high proportion of 4-n-nonylphenol, pentachlorophenol, estrone, 17 beta-estradiol and 17 alpha-ethinylestradiol, but requires a later post-treatment process (such as UCT) to improve bisphenol-A, octylphenol and technical-nonylphenol degradation ratios. The overall AnMBR-UCT degradation ratios were 48% and 70% for octylphenol and technical-nonylphenol, respectively, and higher than 97% for 4-n-nonylphenol and bisphenol-A. The AnMBR produced a higher micropollutant accumulation in the sludge than the UCT: removal by adsorption in the AnMBR process was between 0.5 and 10%, and less than 0.5% in the UCT process. The combination of AnMBR and UCT technologies produces an effluent stream with low concentrations of micropollutants.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO, CTM2011-28595-C02-01 and CTM2011-28595-C02-02) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).Abargues Llamas, MR.; Ferrer, J.; Bouzas Blanco, A.; Seco Torrecillas, A. (2018). Fate of endocrine disruptor compounds in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) coupled to an activated sludge reactor. Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology (Online). 4(2):226-233. https://doi.org/10.1039/c7ew00382jS2262334

Some Modern Translation Techniques Reflected in an Arabic Text From the Ninth Century: A Passage From the Kitâb al-hayawân of al-Yâhiz al-Basrî

Tras una breve semblanza del autor y de su obra, se incluye la traducción de un pasaje del Libro de los animales en el que al-Ŷâhiz alude a la versión de una lengua a otra y se comentan algunas cuestiones planteadas por la moderna teoría de la traducción en relación al mismoAfter a biographical sketch of the author and his works, the translation of a passage from the Bookof Animals in which al-Ŷâhiz alludes to the fact of translating from one language to another is includedand some questions raised by the modern theories of translation are discussed in relation to this tex

Micropollutants removal in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor and in an aerobic conventional treatment plant

The paper expresses an attempt to tackle the problem due to the presence of micropollutants in wastewater which may be able to disrupt the endocrine system of some organisms. These kinds of compounds are ubiquitously present in municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents. The aim of this paper is to compare the fate of the alkylphenols-APs (4-(tert-octyl)) phenol, t-nonylphenol and 4-p-nonylphenol and the hormones (estrone, 17ß-estradiol and 17¿-ethinylestradiol) in a submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor (SAMBR) pilot plant and in a conventional activated sludge wastewater treatment plant (CTP). The obtained results are also compared with the results obtained in a previous study carried out in an aerobic MBR pilot plant. The results showed that the APs soluble concentrations in the SAMBR effluent were always significantly higher than the CTP ones. Moreover, the analyses of the suspended fraction revealed that the AP concentrations in the SAMBR reactor were usually higher than in the CTP reactor, indicating that under anaerobic conditions the APs were accumulated in the digested sludge. The aerobic conditions maintained both in the CTP system and in the aerobic MBR favoured the APs and hormones degradation, and gave rise to lower concentrations in the effluent and in the reactor of these systems. Furthermore, the results also indicated that the degradation of APs under aerobic conditions was enhanced working at high solid retention time (SRT) and hydraulic retention time (HRT) values. © IWA Publishing 2012.This research was financially supported by the Government of the Region of Valencia (Generalitat Valenciana), within the research project 'Application of Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC on endocrine disruptors and priority substances in coastal areas in the Comunidad Valenciana' and by the Spanish Research Foundation (MICINN, project CTM2008-060809-C02-01/TECNO), within the research project 'Feasibility of the SAMBR technology to treat urban wastewater, and the technical and economic feasibility to industrial implementation'.Agargues Llamas, MR.; Robles Martínez, Á.; Bouzas Blanco, A.; Seco Torrecillas, A. (2012). Micropollutants removal in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor and in an aerobic conventional treatment plant. Water Science and Technology. 65(12):2242-2250. doi:10.2166/wst.2012.145S22422250651