The landscape as a palliative resource for the conditions derived from home confinement by COVID-19.

During the weeks of confinement in Spain due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the population that was locked up stopped feeling, living and shaping their daily landscape. This abnormal situation generated lack of well-being and discomfort in frequent cases and even states of stress, mental fatigue, etc. The hypothesis put forward is that the two-level connection with the landscape that was left outside the walls of the houses helped to alleviate the deficits in physical and mental well-being; either through contact with the basic biophysical elements: direct light, air, vegetation, etc., (through different kinds of openings and windows on the façade), or through the observation of the extrinsic landscape through those same openings.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A community approach to the Neotropical ticks-hosts interactions

The relationships between ticks and hosts are relevant to capture the ecological background driving the evolution of these parasites. We used a set of 4,764 records of ticks of the genera Amblyomma, Ixodes, and Haemaphysalis and their hosts in the Neotropics to approach the tick-host relationships using a network-based construct. The network identified 9 clusters of interacting hosts and ticks partially connected by 22 tick species that switch their host range according to their life cycle stage. These links among clusters do not confer an extra resilience to the network following removal of hosts and subsequent cascade extinctions of ticks: the robustness of the network slightly changed when these inter-clusters links are considered. Phylogenetic clustering of ticks to hosts at cluster level was not significant (p > 0.15) but if examined individually 63 tick species/stages (59%) displayed such clustering, suggesting that their hosts have a related phylogenetic background. We interpreted these results under an ecological perspective in which ticks could track its environmental niche associating to vertebrates that would maximize tick survival under the range of abiotic traits. We encourage these integrated analyses to capture the patterns of circulation of tick-transmitted pathogens, a topic still unaddressed in the Neotropical region.EEA RafaelaFil: Estrada-Peña, Agustin. Universidad de Zaragoza. Facultad de Veterinaria. Departamento de Patología Animal; EspañaFil: Nava, Santiago. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Rafaela; ArgentinaFil: Tarragona, Evelina Luisa. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Rafaela; ArgentinaFil: de la Fuente, José. SaBio, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC-CSIC-UCLM-JCCM); España. Oklahoma State University. Center for Veterinary Health Sciences. Department of Veterinary Pathobiology; Estados UnidosFil: Guglielmone, Alberto. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Regional Agropecuaria Rafaela; Argentin

Cryogenic performance of a 3-14 GHz bipolar SiGe low-noise amplifier

The performance of silicon-germanium (SiGe) transistors under cryogenic operation is analysed. The design and characterization of a 3–14 GHz low-noise amplifier (LNA) using SiGe transistors at 300 K and at 13 K are presented. A three stage amplifier is implemented with bipolar transistors model BFU910F from NXP commercially available with a plastic package. The amplifier exhibits 36.8 dB average gain with average noise temperature of 103 K and 42 mW DC power consumption at 300 K ambient temperature. Whereas cooled down to 13 K ambient temperature, it provides 32.4 dB average gain, 11.4 K average noise temperature with a minimum of 7.2 K at 3.5 GHz and a DC power dissipation of 5.8 mW. The presented LNA demonstrates an outstanding performance at cryogenic temperature for a commercial plastic packaged transistor.The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness for the financial support provided under the grant ESP2015-70646-C2-2-R

¿Cómo afectó la crisis económica de 2008 a los temas de investigación de los bancos centrales? El caso de los asociados y colaboradores del CEMLA

Central banks play a fundamental role in a country"s monetary policy. This study has a twofold objective: a) to analyse the contribution to academic research made by the associates and collaborating members of the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) and b) to analyse the evolution of research topics in the economic literature over the without economic crisis and with crisis. Eighteen banks were subjected to bibliometric analysis covering the period 2000-2019. The results show that, although the number of publications is higher for the collaborating members, the growth rate over time is higher in the associates. Associates collaborate less with other institutions in the crisis period than collaborating members. The evolution of topics reveals important differences between the two groups.Los bancos centrales juegan un papel fundamental en la política monetaria de un país. Este estudio tiene un doble objetivo: a) analizar la contribución a la investigación académica realizada por los miembros asociados y colaboradores del Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos (CEMLA) y b) analizar la evolución de los temas de investigación en la literatura económica a lo largo del Períodos de precrisis y crisis. Dieciocho bancos fueron sometidos a análisis bibliométrico cubriendo el período 2000-2019. Los resultados muestran que, aunque el número de publicaciones es mayor para los miembros colaboradores, la tasa de crecimiento en el tiempo es mayor en los asociados. Los asociados colaboran menos con otras instituciones en periodo de crisis que los miembros colaboradores. La evolución de los temas revela diferencias importantes entre los dos grupos

Calibration of a polarimetric microwave radiometer using a double directional coupler

This paper presents a built-in calibration procedure of a 10-to-20 GHz polarimeter aimed at measuring the I, Q, U Stokes parameters of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. A full-band square waveguide double directional coupler, mounted in the antenna-feed system, is used to inject differently polarized reference waves. A brief description of the polarimetric microwave radiometer and the system calibration injector is also reported. A fully polarimetric calibration is also possible using the designed double directional coupler, although the presented calibration method in this paper is proposed to obtain three of the four Stokes parameters with the introduced microwave receiver, since V parameter is expected to be zero for the CMB radiation. Experimental results are presented for linearly polarized input waves in order to validate the built-in calibration system.The authors would like to thank The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for financial support provided through the grants ESP2015-70646-C2-2-R, ESP2017-83921-C2-2-R and PID2019-110610RB-C2

Double square waveguide directional coupler for polarimeter calibration

A novel full-band square waveguide coupler design based on directional couplers which couple the TE10 and TE01 orthogonal modes in a square waveguide is presented. This waveguide coupler is aimed at the calibration of polarization receivers. This is composed of a pair of rectangular waveguide directional couplers, which are rotated 90° between them and both are coupled to the main square waveguide through each one of the square section walls. The coupler covers the full frequency band from 10 to 18.9 GHz. It has inherent low cross-polarization, which allows obtaining any known elliptically polarized wave at a square waveguide when a signal is applied to the couplers. The fabricated prototype of this coupler exhibits 31 dB of coupling, with flatness of ±3.8 dB and excellent cross polarization better than 50 dB over the whole band.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Grant ESP2015-70646-C2-2-R

A community approach to the Neotropical ticks-hosts interactions

The relationships between ticks and hosts are relevant to capture the ecological background driving the evolution of these parasites. We used a set of 4,764 records of ticks of the genera Amblyomma, Ixodes, and Haemaphysalis and their hosts in the Neotropics to approach the tick-host relationships using a network-based construct. The network identified 9 clusters of interacting hosts and ticks partially connected by 22 tick species that switch their host range according to their life cycle stage. These links among clusters do not confer an extra resilience to the network following removal of hosts and subsequent cascade extinctions of ticks: the robustness of the network slightly changed when these inter-clusters links are considered. Phylogenetic clustering of ticks to hosts at cluster level was not significant (p > 0.15) but if examined individually 63 tick species/stages (59%) displayed such clustering, suggesting that their hosts have a related phylogenetic background. We interpreted these results under an ecological perspective in which ticks could track its environmental niche associating to vertebrates that would maximize tick survival under the range of abiotic traits. We encourage these integrated analyses to capture the patterns of circulation of tick-transmitted pathogens, a topic still unaddressed in the Neotropical region.Fil: Estrada Peña, Agustín. Universidad de Zaragoza; EspañaFil: Nava, Santiago. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Santa Fe. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Rafaela; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; ArgentinaFil: Tarragona, Evelina Luisa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Santa Fe. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Rafaela; ArgentinaFil: de la Fuente, José. Oklahoma State University; Estados UnidosFil: Guglielmone, Alberto Alejandro. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Santa Fe. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Rafaela; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; Argentin

Citizen science as a resource to define threats to bathing on beaches. The case of jellyfish in Malaga.

Study that characterizes the threat due to visits by swarms of jellyfish on the coast of the province of Malaga, Spain, one of the most touristic in Spain. To achieve this objective, it uses the data collected by the Infomedusa and Medusapp applications, in addition to the historical data collected in the jellyfish layer provided by the Andalusian regional government. A Geographic Information System is used for the geolocation and compilation of the data provided by the three sources. The result is maps where you can see the areas of the province most exposed to the arrival of jellyfish based on recorded historical data. The information generated is very useful and could be combined with beach carrying capacity maps for better risk management due to the arrival of jellyfish in the provinceUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech