Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest cosmic ray observatory. Our current exposure reaches nearly 40,000 km$^2$ str and provides us with an unprecedented quality data set. The performance and stability of the detectors and their enhancements are described. Data analyses have led to a number of major breakthroughs. Among these we discuss the energy spectrum and the searches for large-scale anisotropies. We present analyses of our X$_{max}$ data and show how it can be interpreted in terms of mass composition. We also describe some new analyses that extract mass sensitive parameters from the 100% duty cycle SD data. A coherent interpretation of all these recent results opens new directions. The consequences regarding the cosmic ray composition and the properties of UHECR sources are briefly discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures, talk given at the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Rio de Janeiro 201

BMC Geriatr

BACKGROUND: With the global population aging and life expectancy increasing, dementia has turned a priority in the health care system. In Chile, dementia is one of the most important causes of disability in the elderly and the most rapidly growing cause of death in the last 20 years. Cognitive complaint is considered a predictor for cognitive and functional decline, incident mild cognitive impairment, and incident dementia. The GERO cohort is the Chilean core clinical project of the Geroscience Center for Brain Health and Metabolism (GERO). The objective of the GERO cohort is to analyze the rate of functional decline and progression to clinical dementia and their associated risk factors in a community-dwelling elderly with subjective cognitive complaint, through a population-based study. We also aim to undertake clinical research on brain ageing and dementia disorders, to create data and biobanks with the appropriate infrastructure to conduct other studies and facilitate to the national and international scientific community access to the data and samples for research. METHODS: The GERO cohort aims the recruitment of 300 elderly subjects (> 70 years) from Santiago (Chile), following them up for at least 3 years. Eligible people are adults not diagnosed with dementia with subjective cognitive complaint, which are reported either by the participant, a proxy or both. Participants are identified through a household census. The protocol for evaluation is based on a multidimensional approach including socio-demographic, biomedical, psychosocial, neuropsychological, neuropsychiatric and motor assessments. Neuroimaging, blood and stool samples are also obtained. This multidimensional evaluation is carried out in a baseline and 2 follow-ups assessments, at 18 and 36 months. In addition, in months 6, 12, 24, and 30, a telephone interview is performed in order to keep contact with the participants and to assess general well-being. DISCUSSION: Our work will allow us to determine multidimensional risks factors associated with functional decline and conversion to dementia in elderly with subjective cognitive complain. The aim of our GERO group is to establish the capacity to foster cutting edge and multidisciplinary research on aging in Chile including basic and clinical research. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT04265482 in ClinicalTrials.gov. Registration Date: February 11, 2020. Retrospectively Registered

The Pierre Auger Observatory III: Other Astrophysical Observations

Astrophysical observations of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with the Pierre Auger ObservatoryComment: Contributions to the 32nd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Beijing, China, August 201

The exposure of the hybrid detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is a detector for ultra-high energy cosmic rays. It consists of a surface array to measure secondary particles at ground level and a fluorescence detector to measure the development of air showers in the atmosphere above the array. The "hybrid" detection mode combines the information from the two subsystems. We describe the determination of the hybrid exposure for events observed by the fluorescence telescopes in coincidence with at least one water-Cherenkov detector of the surface array. A detailed knowledge of the time dependence of the detection operations is crucial for an accurate evaluation of the exposure. We discuss the relevance of monitoring data collected during operations, such as the status of the fluorescence detector, background light and atmospheric conditions, that are used in both simulation and reconstruction.Comment: Paper accepted by Astroparticle Physic

El treball social amb famílies. Una mirada des de les facilitats i les dificultats.

El treball social amb les famílies està implicat en el propi desenvolupament de la professió. A partir de les entrevistes realitzades en la fase inicial de l'estudi "El treball social amb famílies", realitzat pel Grup de Recerca i Innovació en Treball social (GRITS) de la Universitat de Barcelona, hem volgut copsar quines dificultats i oportunitats planteja aquest tipus de treball en l'exercici quotidià dels professionals. Els treballadors socials2 estan satisfets dels resultats del treball amb les famílies i el consideren una important eina de canvi que beneficia l'individu i la comunitat. En aquest article es destaquen elements que poden donar suport a aquest treball i d'altres que el poden dificultar com són les institucionals, els propis treballadors socials i la complexitat de les noves situacions familiars

Persistence of single species of symbionts across multiple closelyrelated host species

Some symbiont species are highly host-specific, inhabiting only one or a very few host species, and typically have limited dispersal abilities. When they do occur on multiple host species, populations of such symbionts are expected to become genetically structured across these different host species, and this may eventually lead to new symbiont species over evolutionary timescales. However, a low number of dispersal events of symbionts between host species across time might be enough to prevent population structure and species divergence. Overall, processes of evolutionary divergence and the species status of most putative multi-host symbiont systems are yet to be investigated. Here, we used DNA metabarcoding data of 6,023 feather mites (a total of 2,225 OTU representative sequences) from 147 infracommunities (i.e., the assemblage consisting of all mites of different species collected from the same bird host individual) to investigate patterns of population genetic structure and species status of three different putative multi-host feather mite species Proctophyllodes macedo Vitzthum, 1922, Proctophyllodes motacillae Gaud, 1953, and Trouessartia jedliczkai (Zimmerman, 1894), each of which inhabits a variable number of different closely related wagtail host species (genus Motacilla). We show that mite populations from different host species represent a single species. This pattern was found in all the mite species, suggesting that each of these species is a multi-host species in which dispersal of mites among host species prevents species divergence. Also, we found evidence of limited evolutionary divergence manifested by a low but significant level of population genetic structure among symbiont populations inhabiting different host species. Our study agrees with previous studies showing a higher than expected colonization opportunities in host-specific symbionts. Indeed, our results support that these dispersal events would allow the persistence of multi-host species even in symbionts with limited dispersal capabilities, though additional factors such as the geographical structure of some bird populations may also play a role.This work was supported by the MINECO CGL2011-24466 to RJ and CGL2015-69650-P to RJ and DS