Localized Faraday patterns under heterogeneous parametric excitation

Faraday waves are a classic example of a system in which an extended pattern emerges under spatially uniform forcing. Motivated by systems in which uniform excitation is not plausible, we study both experimentally and theoretically the effect of heterogeneous forcing on Faraday waves. Our experiments show that vibrations restricted to finite regions lead to the formation of localized subharmonic wave patterns and change the onset of the instability. The prototype model used for the theoretical calculations is the parametrically driven and damped nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, which is known to describe well Faraday-instability regimes. For an energy injection with a Gaussian spatial profile, we show that the evolution of the envelope of the wave pattern can be reduced to a Weber-equation eigenvalue problem. Our theoretical results provide very good predictions of our experimental observations provided that the decay length scale of the Gaussian profile is much larger than the pattern wavelength.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, Accepte

Presence of pastoral fields in mountain landscapes influences prey consumption by European wildcats

Traditional agro-pastoral practices are more beneficial for biodiversity than intensified agricultural systems. Promotion of the growth of natural herbaceous vegetation in pastoral fields can enhance rodent populations and consequently influence ecological aspects of carnivores with rodent-based diets, like prey consumption in the European wildcat (Felis silvestris). In this article, we investigated the effects of pastoral field extent, season and prey abundance on wildcat consumption of several prey species in the Cantabrian Mountains (NW Spain). Prey consumption in areas with presence of pastoral fields (even in low proportions) was dominated by profitable field-dwelling rodent species such as Arvicola monticola. Consumption of Arvicola was not correlated with its abundance and was higher during summer and autumn. Apodemus dominated the wildcat diet in areas with higher forest proportion and far from pastoral fields, particularly during spring. Our results suggest that varying habitat use and seasonal changes in prey accessibility may determine wildcat prey consumption in pastoral landscapes. Our results can contribute to highlight the potential benefits of traditional and sustainable pastoral activities for the conservation of the European wildcat across its distribution range.We thank the Regional Governments of Castilla y León and the Principality of Asturias for the permits to capture wildcats and collect wildcat scat samples (EP/P/128/2019 for CyL; AUTO/19/34, AUTO/2020/593 and AUTO/2019/3267 for Asturias). We thank the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities as well as TRAGSATEC S.A. for sharing the GPS spatial data of several intensive 24-h tracking periods of European wildcats. We thank M. Torres Diseños Industriales SAU and Land Rover Spain for their partial economic and logistic support.Peer reviewe

Agriculture intensity and landscape configuration influence the spatial use of wildcats across Europe

Land use intensification is increasing worldwide and affects wildlife movements, particularly of specialist carnivores. Resource availability and anthropogenic activities drive the extent and shape of home range size. Wildlife may respond to decreased resource availability under intensification scenarios by increasing their home ranges; however they may be less affected when inhabiting sustainable agricultural landscapes. We investigate whether agricultural practices and landscape configuration influence the spatial behaviour of wildcats, a medium-sized specialist carnivore inhabiting landscapes with different degrees of agricultural presence across Europe. We focus on the effect of the proportions of high impact and low impact agriculture, forest integrity and forest edge density on wildcat home range size. We found that wildcat home range increased along with the proportion of high impact agriculture and the forest integrity, whereas it decreased when forest edge density increased. Forest edge density buffered the detrimental effects caused by high impact agriculture. To enhance the long term conservation of wildcats in Europe it is crucial to protect the sustainable mosaic-structured landscapes and prevent its conversion to homogenous intensified agricultural landscapes.HRV is beneficiary of a PhD scholarship “Severo Ochoa” from the Regional Government of Principality of Asturias. JVLB was supported by a Ramón y Cajal research contract (RYC-2015-18932) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. F. Díaz-Ruiz was supported by a postdoctoral contract from the University of Málaga (I Plan Propio de Investigación y Transferencia, call 2020).Peer reviewe

Cruise Summary Report - MEDWAVES survey. MEDiterranean out flow WAter and Vulnerable EcosystemS (MEDWAVES)

The MEDWAVES (MEDiterranean out flow WAter and Vulnerable EcosystemS) cruise targeted areas under the potential influence of the MOW within the Mediterranean and Atlantic realms. These include seamounts where Cold-water corals (CWCs) have been reported but that are still poorly known, and which may act as essential “stepping stones” connecting fauna of seamounts in the Mediterranean with those of the continental shelf of Portugal, the Azores and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. During MEDWAVES sampling has been conducted in two of the case studies of ATLAS: Case study 7 (Gulf of Cádiz-Strait of Gibraltar-Alboran Sea) and Case study 8 (Azores). The initially targeted areas in the Atlantic were: the Gazul Mud volcano, in the Gulf of Cádiz (GoC) area, included in the case study 7, and the Atlantic seamounts Ormonde (Portuguese shelf) and Formigas (by Azores), both part of the case study 8. In the Mediterranean the targeted areas were The Guadiaro submarine canyon and the Seco de los Olivos (also known as Chella Bank) seamount. Unfortunately it was not possible to sample in Guadiaro due to time constraints originated by adverse meteorological conditions which obligate us to reduce the time at sea focusing only in 4 of the 5 initially planned areas. MEDWAVES was structured in two legs; the first leg took place from the 21st September (departure from Cádiz harbour in Spain) to the 13th October 2016 (arrival in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores, Portugal took place the 8th of October due to the meteorological conditions that obligated to conclude the first leg earlier as planned). during the Leg 1 sampling was carried out in Gazul, Ormonde and Formigas. The second leg started the 14th October (departure from Ponta Delgada) and finished the 26th October (arrival in Málaga harbour, Spain). MEDWAVES had a total of 30 effective sampling days, being 6 days not operative due to the adverse meteorological conditions experienced during the first leg which forced us to stay in Ponta Delgada from the 08th to the 13th October. During MEDWAVES the daily routine followed a similar scheme, depending of course on the weather and sea conditions. The main activity during the day, starting early in the morning (around 08:00 AM, once the night activities were finished), was the ROV deployment. Generally a single ROV dive of around 8 hours was performed, however in several occasions two dives were carried out in the same day (see General station list, Appendix II). After the ROV (and sometimes between two dives) the Box Corer and/or Van Veen Grab and/or Multicore was deployed. After these activities, during the night CTD-Rosette deployments and MB was conducted. Accordingly to this schema the scientific personnel worked in the day or in the night watch. A total of 215 sampling stations have been covered in MEDWAVES, using the following sampling gears: Multibeam echosounder, CTD-Rosette, LADCP, Box Corer, Van Veen Grab, Multicorer and a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). Table 1 sumamrised the number of sampling stations conducted with each gear in each sampling zone. Additionally MB surveys have been conducted during the transits between area

Bactéries nageant dans des fluides complexes

In nature, many bacteria are motile inside fluids of very different rheological properties ranging from Newtonian to complex yield stress fluids. This presents many practical problems and health threat, as for example in medicine, bacteria can penetrate mucus protective barriers and create inflammatory conditions or in the field, microbes can contaminate groundwater reservoirs out of septic tanks. To understand from a fundamental point of view, the problem of bacterial motility in various rhelogical environments, I studied the swimming and exploration properties of a motile E. Coli bacterium inside different model non-Newtonian fluids, such as carbomers or mucine gels. To characterize the exploration properties, I used a 3D Lagrangian tracking system which allowed to obtain the 3D swimming trajectories. I observed and characterized how the swimming behavior is modied as a function of the mechanical interaction between the fluid and the swimmer. I also characterized the influence of local mechanical heterogeneities which create transient trapping and reorientations, and defined the concept of “medium assisted tumbling” which progressively controls the large scale exploration features in gel forming fuids. These results are promising and at the same time, of great help to understand, the mechanism of penetration a bacterium inside the intestinal mucus. Along those lines, I obtained preliminary results in native porcine mucus extracts, in collaboration with a team of the Sorbonne Université medical school.Dans la nature, de nombreuses bactéries sont mobiles dans des fluides aux propriétés rhéologiques très différentes, allant des fluides newtoniens aux fluides à contrainte de rendement complexe. Cela présente de nombreux problèmes pratiques et une menace pour la santé, comme par exemple en médecine, les bactéries peuvent pénétrer les barrières protectrices du mucus et créer des conditions inflammatoires ou dans le domaine, les microbes peuvent contaminer les réservoirs d'eau souterraine à partir des fosses septiques. Pour comprendre d'un point de vue fondamental le problème de la motilité bactérienne dans divers environnements rhéologiques, j'ai étudié les propriétés de nage et d'exploration d'une bactérie E. Coli mobile à l'intérieur de différents modèles de fluides non-newtoniens, tels que des carbomères ou des gels de mucine. Pour caractériser les propriétés d'exploration, j'ai utilisé un système de suivi lagrangien 3D qui a permis d'obtenir les trajectoires de nage en 3D. J'ai observé et caractérisé comment le comportement de nage est modulé en fonction de l'interaction mécanique entre le fluide et le nageur. J'ai également caractérisé l'influence des hétérogénéités mécaniques locales qui créent des piégeages et des réorientations transitoires, et défini le concept de "tumbling assisté par le milieu" qui contrôle progressivement les caractéristiques d'exploration à grande échelle dans les fluides gélifiants. Ces résultats sont prometteurs et en même temps, d'une grande aide pour comprendre, le mécanisme de pénétration d'une bactérie à l'intérieur du mucus intestinal. Dans cette optique, j'ai obtenu des résultats préliminaires sur des extraits de mucus natif de porc, en collaboration avec une équipe de l'école de médecine de Sorbonne Université

Valoración económica de empresas Compañia Agropecuaria Copeval S.A. y sus filiales Sociedad Copeval Agroindustrias S.A. y Copeval Servicios S.A

Tesis (Ingeniero en Administración de Empresas)El presente seminario de título tiene como premisa realizar la valoración económica para determinar el precio objetivo de la empresa COPEV AL S.A., esto se logró mediante la aplicación de los métodos de Fundamentos y de Múltiplos Comparables, de tal manera de evaluar el actual precio que se transa en el mercado de valores

Wildcat diet in the Cantabrian Mountains (Spain)

[Description of methods used for collection/generation of data] European wildcat scats were collected both systematically in fixed transects and opportunistically, between Dec 2018 and Feb 2020 in western Cantabrian Mountains and between Nov 2014 and April 2020 in Montaña Palentina Natural Park. For each sample we recorded the date and GPS location. Very old-looking scats were never collected. Scats were collected by experienced European wildcat researchers and assigned to European wildcats based on their morphology and smell. Although the certainty of assigning scats to carnivore species has been questioned (Monterroso et al., 2013), experimented researchers can accurately identify European wildcat scats. To assess the researchers’ success in scat identification, a subsample of 135 scats was genetically analysed (Ruiz-Villar et al. 2022). From 123 scats that we could genetically identify, 107 (87%) were from the Felis genus, 15 from Vulpes vulpes and one from Canis sp. The proportion of misidentified fox scats was the same in both study areas. Thus we were confident that Felis scats belong to wildcats considering that (1) wildcats and domestic cats segregate in the Cantabrian Mountains (Rodríguez et al., 2020), and we consequently avoided scat collection in areas used by domestic cats; and (2) no hybrids have been detected in the area so far (Tiesmeyer et al., 2020). To determine the prey species consumed by wildcats we used macroscopic identification of bones, teeth, scales, feathers and other identifiable prey remains extracted from washed scats. We determined the minimum number of individuals for each prey item in each scat based on the repetition of identifiable remains. We used the identification guide by Román (2019) to identify Spanish rodents from bone and teeth remains, and compared reptile and bird remains with specimens preserved in Doñana Biological Station. The study was undertaken with the correspondent permissions of the regional government of Castilla y León (EP/P/128/2019; AUTO/19/34, AUTO/2020/593) and Asturias (AUTO/2019/3267 for Asturias).[EN] This dataset provides the raw results of wildcat, Felis silvestris, diet, by analyses of scats collected in the Cantabriam Mountains (mainly in Montaña Palentina Natural Park, Palencia, and in Western Cantabrian Mountains between the provinces of Asturias and León; Spain) between years 2014 and 2020. The dataset provides information of 683 scats and 3120 prey items, most them rodent species.[ES] Este conjunto de datos proporciona los resultados brutos de la dieta de gatos monteses, Felis silvestris, a través del análisis de excrementos recolectados en la Cordillera Cantábrica (principalmente en el Parque Natural Montaña Palentina, Palencia, y en el oeste de la Cordillera Cantábrica en las provincias de Asturias y León; España) entre los años 2014 y 2020. El conjunto de datos proporciona información de 683 excrementos y 3120 presas, la mayoría especies de roedores.This study was partially supported by M.Torres Diseños Industriales SAU and Jaguar Land Rover España.WildcatDiet_Cantabrian_Mountains.xlsxPeer reviewe

Helicobacter pylori-induced loss of the inhibitor-of-apoptosis protein survivin is linked to gastritis and death of human gastric cells

Helicobacter pylori infects the human stomach and modifies signaling pathways that affect gastric epithelial cell proliferation and viability. Chronic exposure to this pathogen contributes to the onset of gastric atrophy, an early event in the genesis of gastric cancer associated with H. pylori infection. Susceptibility to H. pylori-induced cell death ultimately depends on the presence of protective host cell factors. Although expression of the inhibitor-of-apoptosis protein survivin in adults is frequently linked to the development of cancer, evidence indicating that the protein is present in normal gastric mucosa is also available. Thus, we investigated in human gastric tissue samples and cell lines whether H. pylori infection is linked to loss of survivin and increased cell death. Our results show that infection with H. pylori decreased survivin protein levels in the mucosa of patients with gastritis. Furthermore, survivin down-regulation correlated with apoptosis and loss of cell