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

Anticancer applications of nanostructured silica-based materials functionalized with titanocene derivatives: Induction of cell death mechanism through TNFR1 modulation

This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanomaterials for Biomedical ApplicationsA series of cytotoxic titanocene derivatives have been immobilized onto nanostructured silica-based materials using two different synthetic routes, namely, (i) a simple grafting protocol via protonolysis of the Ti-Cl bond; and (ii) a tethering method by elimination of ethanol using triethoxysilyl moieties of thiolato ligands attached to titanium. The resulting nanostructured systems have been characterized by different techniques such as XRD, XRF, DR-UV, BET, SEM, and TEM, observing the incorporation of the titanocene derivatives onto the nanostructured silica and slight changes in the textural features of the materials after functionalization with the metallodrugs. A complete biological study has been carried out using the synthesized materials exhibiting moderate cytotoxicity in vitro against three human hepatic carcinoma (HepG2, SK-Hep-1, Hep3B) and three human colon carcinomas (DLD-1, HT-29, COLO320) and very low cytotoxicity against normal cell lines. In addition, the cells' metabolic activity was modified by a 24-h exposure in a dose-dependent manner. Despite not having a significant effect on TNFalfa or the proinflammatory interleukin 1alfa secretion, the materials strongly modulated tumor necrosis factor (TNF) signaling, even at sub-cytotoxic concentrations. This is achieved mainly by upregulation of the TNFR1 receptor production, something which has not previously been observed for these systems.We gratefully acknowledge financial support from FEDER and the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (grant no. CTQ2015-66164-R) and the Romanian UEFISCDI Exploratory Research Project PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2016-0870, IMPRESS. We would also like to thank Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and Banco de Santander for supporting our Research Group of Excellence QUINANOAP. Finally, we thank D. Pérez for valuable discussion and S. Carralero and C. Forcé for their assistance with solid-state NMR experiments

Compactness in L1 of a vector measure

We study compactness and related topological properties in the space L1(m) of a Banach space valued measure m when the natural topologies associated to convergence of vector valued integrals are considered. The resulting topological spaces are shown to be angelic and the relationship of compactness and equi-integrability is explored. A natural norming subset of the dual unit ball of L1(m) appears in our discussion and we study when it is a boundary. The (almost) complete continuity of the integration operator is analyzed in relation with the positive Schur property of L1(m). The strong weaklycompact generation of L1(m) is discussed as well.This research was partially supported by MINECO and FEDER under projects MTM2011-23164 (J. M. Calabuig), MTM2011-25377 (S. Lajara and J. Rodriguez) and MTM2012-36740-c02-02 (E. A. Sanchez-Perez).Calabuig Rodriguez, JM.; Lajara, S.; Rodríguez Ruiz, J.; Sánchez Pérez, EA. (2014). Compactness in L1 of a vector measure. Studia Mathematica. 225(3):259-282. https://doi.org/10.4064/sm225-3-6S259282225

Clustering Main Concepts from e-Mails

E–mail is one of the most common ways to communicate, assuming, in some cases, up to 75% of a company’s communication, in which every employee spends about 90 minutes a day in e–mail tasks such as filing and deleting. This paper deals with the generation of clusters of relevant words from E–mail texts. Our approach consists of the application of text mining techniques and, later, data mining techniques, to obtain related concepts extracted from sent and received messages. We have developed a new clustering algorithm based on neighborhood, which takes into account similarity values among words obtained in the text mining phase. The potential of these applications is enormous and only a few companies, mainly large organizations, have invested in this project so far, taking advantage of employees’s knowledge in future decisions

Analyzing the negative effects of motivating e-learning tools in archeology teaching

[EN] In this article we study the negative effects of applying motivating e-Learning tools as a method to increase students’ engagement through their learning process. In particular, we demonstrate that increasing students’ motivation can have a negative effect on students’ efficiency if they engage with the applications in a wrong way. In our carried out experience, we have used a virtual reconstruction of the TT 209 archeological site in Luxor. This application allows students to move inside and outside the site and get some information on the different activities that were done along the field work. We have found that students tend to use the application just as a game. This fact decreases students’ efficiency since they do not pay enough attention to the learning activities inside the system. To avoid this effect, we propose to use gamification strategies such as rewards to redirect students’ attention to the learning process

Determination of Arsenic, Mercury and Barium in herbarium mount paper using dynamic ultrasound-assisted extraction prior to atomic fluorescence and absorption spectrometry

A dynamic ultrasound-assisted extraction method using Atomic Absorption and Atomic Flourescence spectrometers as detectors was developed to analyse mercury, arsenic and barium from herbarium mount paper originating from the herbarium collection of the National Museum of Wales. The variables influencing extraction were optimised by a multivariate approach. The optimal conditions were found to be 1% HNO3 extractant solution used at a flow rate of 1 mL min-1. The duty cycle and amplitude of the ultrasonic probe was found to be 50% in both cases with an ultrasound power of 400 W. The optimal distance between the probe and the top face of the extraction chamber was found to be 0 cm. Under these conditions the time required for complete extraction of the three analytes was 25 min. Cold vapour and hydride generation coupled to atomic fluorescence spectrometry was utilized to determine mercury and arsenic, respectively. The chemical and instrumental conditions were optimized to provide detection limits of 0.01ng g-1 and 1.25 ng g-1 for mercury and arsenic, respectively. Barium was determined by graphite-furnace atomic absorption spectrometry, with a detection limit of 25 ng g-1. By using 0.5 g of sample, the concentrations of the target analytes varied for the different types of paper and ranged between 0.4–2.55 µg g-1 for Ba, 0.035–10.47 µg g-1 for As and 0.0046–2.37 µg g-1 for Hg

Origin of lipid biomarkers in mud volcanoes from the Alboran Sea, western Mediterranean

Mud volcanoes (MVs) are the most prominent indicators of active methane/hydrocarbon venting at the seafloor on both passive and active continental margins. Their occurrence in the western Mediterranean is patent at the West Alboran Basin, where numerous MVs develop overlaying a major sedimentary depocentre containing overpressured shales. Although some of these MVs have been studied, the detailed biogeochemistry of expelled mud so far has not been examined in detail. This work provides the first results on the composition and origin of organic matter, anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) processes and general characteristics on MV dynamics using lipid biomarkers as the main tool. Lipid biomarker analysis was performed on MV expelled material (mud breccias) and interbedded hemipelagic sediments from Perejil, Kalinin and Schneider's Heart MVs located in the northwest margin of the Alboran Sea. The n alkane distributions and n alkane-derived indices (CPI and ACL), in combination with the epimerization degree of hopanes (22S/(22S+22R)) indicate that all studied mud breccia have a similar biomarker composition consisting of mainly thermally immature organic matter with an admixture of petroleum-derived compounds. This concordant composition indicates that common source strata must feed all three studied MVs. The past or present AOM activity was established using lipid biomarkers specific for anaerobic methanotrophic archaea (irregular isoprenoids and dialkyl glycerol diethers) and the depleted carbon isotope composition (δ13C) of crocetane/phytane. The presence of these lipid biomarkers, together with the low amounts of detected glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers, is consistent with the dominance of anaerobic methanotrophs of the ANME-2 over ANME-1, at least in mud breccia from Perejil MVs. In contrast, the scarce presence or lack of these AOM-related lipid biomarkers in sediments from Kalinin and Schneider's Heart MVs, suggests that no recent active methane seepage has occurred at these sites. Moreover, the observed methane concentrations support the current activity of Perejil MV, and the very low methane seepage activity in Kalinin and Schneider's Heart MVs.This study was supported by Project CTM2009-07715, CGL2011-1441 and CGL2012-32659 (MINECO, Spain), by the VENI grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Royal Netherland Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ via ZKOprogramme) (Texel, The Netherlands). C. F. López-Rodríguez was funded by a JAE-PhD fellowship from the CSIC (Spain)

Secondary use of data extracted from a clinical information system to assess the adherence of tidal volume and its impact on outcomes.

Objectives To extract data from clinical information systems to automatically calculate high-resolution quality indicators to assess adherence to recommendations for low tidal volume. Design We devised two indicators: the percentage of time under mechanical ventilation with excessive tidal volume (>8 mL/kg predicted body weight) and the percentage of patients who received appropriate tidal volume (≤8 mL/kg PBW) at least 80% of the time under mechanical ventilation. We developed an algorithm to automatically calculate these indicators from clinical information system data and analyzed associations between them and patients’ characteristics and outcomes. Settings This study has been carried out in our 30-bed polyvalent intensive care unit between January 1, 2014 and November 30, 2019. Patients All patients admitted to intensive care unit ventilated >72 h were included. Intervention Use data collected automatically from the clinical information systems to assess adherence to tidal volume recommendations and its outcomes. Main variables of interest Mechanical ventilation days, ICU length of stay and mortality. Results Of all admitted patients, 340 met the inclusion criteria. Median percentage of time under mechanical ventilation with excessive tidal volume was 70% (23%–93%); only 22.3% of patients received appropriate tidal volume at least 80% of the time. Receiving appropriate tidal volume was associated with shorter duration of mechanical ventilation and intensive care unit stay. Patients receiving appropriate tidal volume were mostly male, younger, taller, and less severely ill. Adjusted intensive care unit mortality did not differ according to percentage of time with excessive tidal volume or to receiving appropriate tidal volume at least 80% of the time. Conclusions Automatic calculation of process-of-care indicators from clinical information systems high-resolution data can provide an accurate and continuous measure of adherence to recommendations. Adherence to tidal volume recommendations was associated with shorter duration of mechanical ventilation and intensive care unit stay.pre-print1126 K