Application of the Rietveld Method to Quantify Mineral Phases in a Kaolin Mineral

The applications of the mineral kaolin are varied, such as the ceramic industry, and the pharmaceutical industry, among others; although it is generally found in mining deposits accompanied by other mineral species considered contaminants. The above makes it necessary to apply qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques that determine the purity of the mineral, from its extraction, during its mechanical processing and kaolin recovery. In this work, a procedure for quantification of the majority species in the Kaolin mineral is proposed, according to the procedure proposed by Rietveld, from the diffractogram obtained by the x-ray diffraction technique, as well as the knowledge of the crystallographic characteristics of the mineral constituents. Three models are proposed based on the structural parameters of the phases present in the system: tridymite, cristobalite, and kaolinite. The experimental results show the total adjustment of the diffraction pattern in which it is observed that the weight percentage corresponds to 40.0% for tridymite, 39.5% for cristobalite, and 20.5% for kaolinite. These results were corroborated by specific semi-quantitative chemical analyses using scanning electron microscopy.&nbsp

Deshojado precoz en Viura y Malvasía riojana

En este trabajo se ha estudiado la aplicación de deshojado precoz en las variedades blancas Viura y Malvasía riojana como herramienta para el control del rendimiento y la mejora de la sanidad de la uva, con el objetivo de incrementar la calidad de sus vinos. Estas variedades presentan una producción elevada y racimos de gran tamaño, muy compactos, por lo que son bastante sensibles a Botrytis cinerea. Los resultados obtenidos indican que esta práctica puede plantearse como un método eficaz para el control del rendimiento y la mejora del estado sanitario de la uva; asimismo, favorece una correcta evolución del proceso de maduración, mejorando la composición de la uva debido al incremento del contenido de sólidos solubles y de compuestos fenólicos. La disminución de la acidez total y el aumento de pH que se producen en la uva, debido a la modificación del microclima de los racimos y al control del rendimiento, podría considerarse un inconveniente a tener en cuenta, sobre todo en el caso de variedades blancas que se caracterizan por un déficit de acidez total.Peer Reviewe

Effect of Previous Crops and Soil Physicochemical Properties on the Population of Verticillium dahliae in the Iberian Peninsula

The soil infestation of Verticillium dahliae has significant Verticillium wilt of olive (VWO) with epidemiological consequences which could limit the expansion of the crop. In this context, there is a misunderstood history of the crops and soil property interactions associated with inoculum density (ID) increases in the soil. In this study, the effect of the combination of both factors was assessed on the ID of V. dahliae in the olive-growing areas of the Iberian Peninsula. Afterwards, the relationship of the ID to the mentioned factors was explored. The detection percentage and ID were higher in Spain than Portugal, even though the fields with a very favourable VWO history had a higher ID than that of the fields with a barely favourable history, regardless of the origin. The soil physicochemical parameters were able to detect the degree to which the ID was increased by the previous cropping history. By using a decision tree classifier, the percentage of clay was the best indicator for the V. dahliae ID regardless of the history of the crops. However, active limestone and the cation exchange capacity were only suitable ID indicators when <2 or 4 host crops of the pathogen were established in the field for five years, respectively. The V. dahliae ID was accurately predicted in this study for the orchard choices in the establishment of the olive

Access to wine experts' long-term memory to decipher an ill-defined sensory concept: The case of green red wine

The present study aims to understand an ill-defined sensory concept by a long-term memory-based strategy with Spanish winemakers from four wine regions using "green wine" as a case study. A total of 77 Spanish winemakers from four Spanish wine regions carried out a non-tasting free description task. The description task yielded terms belonging to two main categories including origin-related terms as well as sensory terms. Sensory terms belonged to aroma, taste, trigeminal, colour, multimodal and hedonic subcategories, which elucidates the multidimensionality of the studied concept. The most cited specific terms were "vegetal aroma", "bitter"and "unpleasant". Despite these commonalities, a certain idiosyncrasy linked to taste ("excessive sourness") and trigeminal ("astringency") subcategories as well as to wine components ("tannins") was evidenced as they were cited distinctly by experts belonging to separate wine regions. The capacity of approaches based on long-term memory to decipher multidimensional and ill-defined concepts is highlighted. The regional effect is also explained in terms of cognitive processes (i.e., knowledge and experience), which is linked to the use of sensory concepts by wine experts

Polymerase chain reaction detection of avipox and avian papillomavirus in naturally infected wild birds: comparisons of blood, swab and tissue samples

Avian poxvirus (avipox) is widely reported from avian species, causing cutaneous or mucosal lesions. Mortality rates of up to 100% are recorded in some hosts. Three major avipox clades are recognized. Several diagnostic techniques have been reported, with molecular techniques used only recently. Avipox has been reported from 278 different avian species, but only 111 of these involved sequence and/or strain identification. Collecting samples from wild birds is challenging as only few wild bird individuals or species may be symptomatic. Also, sampling regimes are tightly regulated and the most efficient sampling method, whole bird collection, is ethically challenging. In this study, three alternative sampling techniques (blood, cutaneous swabs and tissue biopsies) from symptomatic wild birds were examined. Polymerase chain reaction was used to detect avipoxvirus and avian papillomavirus (which also induces cutaneous lesions in birds). Four out of 14 tissue samples were positive but all 29 blood samples and 22 swab samples were negative for papillomavirus. All 29 blood samples were negative but 6/22 swabs and 9/14 tissue samples were avipox-positive. The difference between the numbers of positives generated from tissue samples and from swabs was not significant. The difference in the avipox-positive specimens in paired swab (4/6) and tissue samples (6/6) was also not significant. These results therefore do not show the superiority of swab or tissue samples over each other. However, both swab (6/22) and tissue (8/9) samples yielded significantly more avipox-positive cases than blood samples, which are therefore not recommended for sampling these viruses.The authors thank bird ringers from Alula and Monticola, especially Alfredo Ortega and Chechu Aguirre, for help with the capture and ringing of birds, which made this project possible. Thanks to Alvaro Ramírez for samples. This research was funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain (grant number: CGL2010-15734/BOS). R.A.J.W. was supported by the Programa Internacional de Captación de Talento (PICATA) de Moncloa Campus de Excelencia Internacional while writing the manuscript

African dust influence on ambient PM levels in South-Western Europe (Spain and Portugal): a quantitative approach to support implementation of Air Quality Directives

This manuscript proposes and validates a methodology for the quantification of the daily African PM load during dust outbreaks in southern Europe. The daily net dust load in PM10 attributable to an African episode can be obtained by subtracting the daily regional background (RB) level from the PM10 concentration value at a RB station. The daily RB level can be obtained by applying a monthly moving 30th percentile to the PM10 time series at a RB station after a prior extraction of the data coincident with African dust transport. For days with influence of African dust, the dust load is given by the difference between the daily PM10 values minus the daily PM10 RB levels. This method allows us to quantify the net African dust load without chemical speciation. The comparison between the estimated net load during African dust outbreaks (ADO) and the crustal load determined by chemical speciation of PM10 filters at three RB stations in Spain had resulted in a very good correlation (R2=0.60-0.83), being the equivalence (correlation lines’ slopes ~ 1) highly significant in the three cases.This study was supported by the S.G.D. Environmental Quality and Industrial Environment from the Spanish Ministry of the Environment, but also by research projects from the Ministry of Science and Innovation (CGL2005-03428- C04-03/CLI, CGL2007-62505/CLI, GRACCIE- CSD2007-00067), the European Union (6th framework CIRCE IP, 036961, EUSAAR RII3-CT-2006-026140) and the Ministry of the Environment (CALIOPE, 441/2006/3-12.1)

Infrared Fluorescent Imaging as a Potent Tool for In Vitro, Ex Vivo and In Vivo Models of Visceral Leishmaniasis

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is hypoendemic in the Mediterranean region, where it is caused by the protozoan Leishmania infantum. An effective vaccine for humans is not yet available and the severe side-effects of the drugs in clinical use, linked to the parenteral administration route of most of them, are significant concerns of the current leishmanicidal medicines. New drugs are desperately needed to treat VL and phenotype-based High Throughput Screenings (HTS) appear to be suitable to achieve this goal in the coming years. We generated two infrared fluorescent L. infantum strains, which stably overexpress the IFP 1.4 and iRFP reporter genes and performed comparative studies of their biophotonic properties at both promastigote and amastigote stages. To improve the fluorescence emission of the selected reporter in intracellular amastigotes, we engineered distinct constructs by introducing regulatory sequences of differentially-expressed genes (A2, AMASTIN and HSP70 II). The final strain that carries the iRFP gene under the control of the L. infantum HSP70 II downstream region (DSR), was employed to perform a phenotypic screening of a collection of small molecules by using ex vivo splenocytes from infrared-infected BALB/c mice. In order to further investigate the usefulness of this infrared strain, we monitored an in vivo infection by imaging BALB/c mice in a time-course study of 20 weeks. The near-infrared fluorescent L. infantum strain represents an important step forward in bioimaging research of VL, providing a robust model of phenotypic screening suitable for HTS of small molecule collections in the mammalian parasite stage. Additionally, HSP70 II+L. infantum strain permitted for the first time to monitor an in vivo infection of VL. This finding accelerates the possibility of testing new drugs in preclinical in vivo studies, thus supporting the urgent and challenging drug discovery program against this parasitic diseaseThis research was supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (www.mineco.gob.es) grants AGL2010-16078/GAN to RBF and CYTED 214RT0482 to RMR; Instituto de Salud Carlos III (www.isciii.es) grants PI12/00104 to RMR and RICET RD12/0018/0004 to MF; Junta de Castilla y León (www.jcyl.es) grants Gr238 and LE182U13; European Commision (cordis.europa.eu/home_es.html), grant HOMIN - 317057-FP7-PEOPLE-2012-ITN and BIOIMID (http://www.fundacionareces.es) Proyecto de Excelencia Instituto Sanitario “La Princesa” and Fundación Ramón Areces to MF. SK is granted from AECC Foundation (https://www.aecc.es). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the anuscrip

Limits of the power of Tissue P systems with cell division

Tissue P systems generalize the membrane structure tree usual in original models of P systems to an arbitrary graph. Basic opera- tions in these systems are communication rules, enriched in some variants with cell division or cell separation. Several variants of tissue P systems were recently studied, together with the concept of uniform families of these systems. Their computational power was shown to range between P and NP ? co-NP , thus characterizing some interesting borderlines between tractability and intractability. In this paper we show that com- putational power of these uniform families in polynomial time is limited by the class PSPACE . This class characterizes the power of many clas- sical parallel computing model

In-situ study of the carbon gasification reaction of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite promoted by cobalt oxides and the novel nanostructures appeared after reaction

Cobalt interaction and its effects on carbon-based systems at the nanoscale have recently attracted much attention in different fields, such as catalysis of carbon nanotubes or graphene and graphite nano-patterning taking advantage of its ferromagnetic behavior. Experiments performed in our laboratories show how the re-oxidation process of two equivalent monolayers of CoO deposited on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite at 400 °C leads to the formation of nanochannels at lower temperature than using other methods. Here we present the in-situ characterization of the carbon gasification reaction that drives this process by means of near ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy performed at the ALBA synchrotron facility. The reason why this reaction takes place at such low temperature compared to other methods is due to the weakening of the carbon σ bonds by the initial CoO wetting layer formed at the early stages of growth on the graphite surface. Besides nanochannels, ex-situ atomic force microscopy measurements also show the appearance of two more kinds of nanostructures: nano-strips and nano-rings. The appearance of these nanostructures reveals the impressive modification of the surface after the re-oxidation process mediated by the cobalt oxideThis investigation has been funded by the MINECO of Spain through the FIS2015-67367-C2-1-P P and MAT2017-85089-C2-1-R projects and by the Comunidad de Madrid through the NANOMAGCOST-CM Ref: P2018/NMT4321 project. The experiments were performed at CIRCE/NAPP beamline at ALBA Synchrotron with the collaboration of ALBA staff. Work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH1123