Perceptions of final beneficiaries about the performance of cross-sector partnerships: A case study applied to the 2008 Zaragoza International Exhibition on water and sustainable development

Using the 2008 Zaragoza International Exhibition "Water and sustainable development" as a case study, this paper aims to respond to the increasing demand for measurements of the effects and the implications of the performance of cross-sector partnerships from the perspective of their intended final beneficiaries. A contingency framework for measuring the short-, medium- and long-term effects of the 2008 Zaragoza International Exhibition is developed based on a "results chain" or "logic model". Our results highlight that there are positive long-term synergies between the two main purposes of the 2008 Zaragoza International Exhibition; first, to increase public awareness of and commitment to the problems of water and sustainable development and, second, to make the city of Zaragoza better known internationally and to modernize its infrastructures. Although respondents to our survey consider that the long-term effects on the city are greater, the main shortand medium-term effects are related to awareness of water problems, sustainable development and non-governmental organizations. These results are in tune with what has happened around the city in the last 10 years providing indirect validity both to our study and to the proposed methodology

Major Reforms in Electricity Pricing: Evidence from a Quasiexperiment

The global energy mix is being redefined, and with it the power industry’s cost structure. In many countries, electricity-pricing systems are being revamped so as to guarantee fixed-cost recovery, often by raising the fixed charge of two-part tariff (TPT) schemes. However, consumer misperception of TPTs threatens to undermine the policy’s outcome and puts the sector’s much-needed transformation in jeopardy. We conduct a quasi-experiment with data from a major electricity price reform recently implemented in Spain and find robust evidence that consumers are failing to distinguish between fixed and marginal costs. As a result, the policy goal of cost recovery is not being achieve

Phenotypic, genotypic, and phylogenetic discrepancies to differentiate Aeromonas salmonicida from Aeromonas bestiarum

The taxonomy of the “Aeromonas hydrophila” complex (comprising the species A. hydrophila, A. bestiarum, A. salmonicida, and A. popoffii) has been controversial, particularly the relationship between the two relevant fish pathogens A. salmonicidaand A. bestiarum. In fact, none of the biochemical tests evaluated in the present study were able to separate these two species. One hundred and sixteen strains belonging to the four species of this complex were identified by 16S rDNA restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). Sequencing of the 16S rDNA and cluster analysis of the 16S–23S intergenic spacer region (ISR)-RFLP in selected strains of A. salmonicida and A. bestiarum indicated that the two species may share extremely conserved ribosomal operons and demonstrated that, due to an extremely high degree of sequence conservation, 16S rDNA cannot be used to differentiate these two closely related species. Moreover, DNA–DNA hybridization similarity between the type strains of A. salmonicida subsp. salmonicida and A. bestiarum was 75.6 %, suggesting that they may represent a single taxon. However, a clear phylogenetic divergence between A. salmonicida and A. bestiarum was ascertained from an analysis based on gyrB and rpoD gene sequences, which provided evidence of a lack of congruence of the results obtained from 16S rDNA, 16S–23S ISR-RFLP, DNA–DNA pairing, and biochemical profiles.[Int Microbiol 2005; 8(4):259-269

A culture independent method for the detection of Aeromonas sp. from water samples

The genus Aeromonas is present in a wide variety of water environments and is recognised as potentially pathogenic to humans and animals. Members of this genus are often confused with Vibrio when using automated, commercial identification systems that are culture-dependent. This study describes a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detection method for Aeromonas that is culture- independent and that targets the glycerophospholopid-cholesterol acyltransferase (gcat) gene, which is specific for this genus. The GCAT-PCR was 100% specific in artificially inoculated water samples, with a detection limit that ranged from 2.5 to 25 cfu/mL. The success at detecting this pathogen in 86 water samples using the GCAT-PCR method was identical to the conventional culturing method when a pre-enrichment step was carried out, yielding 83.7% positive samples. On the other hand, without a pre-enrichment step, only 77.9% of the samples were positive by culturing and only 15.1% with the GCATPCR. However, 83.7% positive samples were obtained for the GCAT-PCR when the water volume for the DNA extraction was increased from 400 μL to 4 mL. The proposed molecular method is much faster (5 or 29 h) than the culturing method (24 or 48 h) whether performed directly or after a pre-enrichment step and it will enable the fast detection of Aeromonas in water samples helping to prevent a possible transmission to humans

Rethinking the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of Goodness of fit in a compositional way

The Kolmogorov Smirnov test (KS) is a well known test used to asses how a set of observations is significantly different from the probability model specified under the null hypothesis. The KS test statistic quantifies the distance between the empirical distribution function and the hypothetical one. The modification introduced in Monti et al. (2017) consists of computing the mentioned distances as Aitchison distances. In this contribution, we suggest a further modification of the latter test and investigate, by simulation, the asymptotic distribution of the proposed test statistic, checking the appropriateness of a Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) Distribution. The properties of the asymptotic distribution are studied via Monte Carlo simulations.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Salt resistance genes revealed by functional metagenomics from brines and moderate-salinity rhizosphere within a hypersaline environment

Hypersaline environments are considered one of the most extreme habitats on earth and microorganisms have developed diverse molecular mechanisms of adaptation to withstand these conditions. The present study was aimed at identifying novel genes from the microbial communities of a moderate-salinity rhizosphere and brine from the Es Trenc saltern (Mallorca, Spain), which could confer increased salt resistance to Escherichia coli. The microbial diversity assessed by pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene libraries revealed the presence of communities that are typical in such environments and the remarkable presence of three bacterial groups never revealed as major components of salt brines. Metagenomic libraries from brine and rhizosphere samples, were transferred to the osmosensitive strain E. coli MKH13, and screened for salt resistance. Eleven genes that conferred salt resistance were identified, some encoding for well-known proteins previously related to osmoadaptation such as a glycerol transporter and a proton pump, whereas others encoded proteins not previously related to this function in microorganisms such as DNA/RNA helicases, an endonuclease III (Nth) and hypothetical proteins of unknown function. Furthermore, four of the retrieved genes were cloned and expressed in Bacillus subtilis and they also conferred salt resistance to this bacterium, broadening the spectrum of bacterial species in which these genes can function. This is the first report of salt resistance genes recovered from metagenomes of a hypersaline environment. © 2015 Mirete, Mora-Ruiz, Lamprecht-Grandío, de Figueras, Rosselló-Móra and González-Pastor.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CGL2012-39627-C03/02 and 03); the latter also supported with European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). MM-R Ph.D. is supported by fellowship CVU 265934 of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT), MexicoPeer Reviewe

PI3K (Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase) activation and endothelial cell proliferation in patients with hemorrhagic hereditary telangiectasia type 1

Hemorrhagic hereditary telangiectasia (HHT) type 2 patients have increased activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway in telangiectasia. The main objective is to evaluate the activation of the PI3K pathway in cutaneous telangiectasia of HHT1 patients. A cutaneous biopsy of a digital hand telangiectasia was performed in seven HHT1 and eight HHT2 patients and compared with six controls. The study was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of our center. A histopathological pattern with more dilated and superficial vessels that pushed up the epidermis was identified in HHT patients regardless of the type of mutation and was associated with older age, as opposed to the common telangiectasia pattern. The mean proliferation index (Ki-67) was statistically higher in endothelial cells (EC) from HHT1 than in controls. The percentage of positive EC for pNDRG1, pAKT, and pS6 in HHT1 patients versus controls resulted in higher values, statistically significant for pNDRG1 and pS6. In conclusion, we detected an increase in EC proliferation linked to overactivation of the PI3K pathway in cutaneous telangiectasia biopsies from HHT1 patients. Our results suggest that PI3K inhibitors could be used as novel therapeutic agents for HHT

Dibenzylxanthines as PPEPCK-M inhibitors for cancer therapy

Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) is the key enzyme in gluconeogenesis/glyceroneogenesis, which catalyzes the decarboxylation of oxaloacetate to phosphoenolpyruvate. In eukaryotes, there are two isozymes present either in the cytosol (PEPCKC, PCK1) or the mitochondria (PEPCK-M, PCK2). While PCK1 is found in gluconeogenic tissues and has a very clear metabolic function, PCK2 is expressed in non-gluconeogenic cell types, where its role remains largely unknown. For example, PCK2 is highly expressed in most cancer cells, where it provides a growth advantage to cancer cells in nutrient-poor environments

The Use of a DNA-Intercalating Dye for Quantitative Detection of Viable Arcobacter spp. Cells (v-qPCR) in Shellfish

The genus Arcobacter (Vandamme et al., 1991), comprised of Campylobacter-related species, are considered zoonotic emergent pathogens. The presence of Arcobacter in food products like shellfish, has an elevated incidence worldwide. In this study, we developed a specific viable quantitative PCR (v-qPCR), using the dye propidium monoazide (PMA), for quantification of the viable Arcobacter spp. cells in raw oysters and mussels. The high selectivity of primers was demonstrated by using purified DNA from 38 different species, 20 of them from the genus Arcobacter. The optimization of PMA concentration showed that 20 μM was considered as an optimal concentration that inhibits the signal from dead cells at different concentrations (OD550 from 0.2 to 0.8) and at different ratios of live: dead cells (50:50 and 90:10). The v-qPCR results from shellfish samples were compared with those obtained in parallel using several culture isolation approaches (i.e., direct plating on marine and blood agar and by post-enrichment culturing in both media). The enrichment was performed in parallel in Arcobacter-CAT broth with and without adding NaCl. Additionally, the v-qPCR results were compared to those obtained with traditional quantitative (qPCR). The v-qPCR and the qPCR resulted in c.a. 94% of positive detection of Arcobacter vs. 41% obtained by culture approaches. When examining the reduction effect resulting from the use of v-qPCR, samples pre-enriched in Arcobacter-CAT broth supplemented with 2.5% NaCl showed a higher reduction (3.27 log copies) than that of samples obtained directly and those pre-enriched in Arcobacter-CAT broth isolation (1.05 and 1.04). When the v-qPCR was applied to detect arcobacter from real shellfish samples, 15/17 samples tested positive for viable Arcobacter with 3.41 to 8.70 log copies 1g-1. This study offers a new tool for Arcobacter surveillance in seafood.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio