Parasitism in viviparous vertebrates: an overview

"Viviparity is a reproductive mode that has evolved independently in different taxa where offspring develop inside females to ensure gestation. Offspring are provided with a food supply in the egg or through specialized tissues that ensure their development thanks to the specific exchange of nutrients and other components. However, environmental challenges such as parasitism and disease can be a force that limit the host's resources causing physiological, morphological, and behavioural changes that represent an additional cost for both the pregnant female and her offspring. This includes the future reproductive investment on females, sex rate in their offspring, lactation investment in mammals, alterations of birth intervals, the current reproduvtive investment, variation between environments, the activity of the immune system facing immunological challenges, as well as additional factors that can affect the interaction between viviparous females and parasites. Parasites could be a significant mediator of this reproductive mode: parasitized females change their investment in survival and reproduction based on their life history, the environmental factors they are exposed to, and the diversity of parasites they encounter"

A comprehensive study of the velocity, momentum and position matrix elements for Bloch states: Application to a local orbital basis

We present a comprehensive study of the velocity operator, v = ħhi [Ĥ, r], when used in crystalline solids calculations. The velocity operator is key to the evaluation of a number of physical properties and its computation, both from a practical and fundamental perspective, has been a long-standing debate for decades. Our work summarizes the different approaches found in the literature, but never connected before in a comprehensive manner. In particular we show how one can compute the velocity matrix elements following two different routes. One where the commutator is explicitly used and another one where the commutator is avoided by relying on the Berry connection. We work out an expression in the latter scheme to compute velocity matrix elements, generalizing previous results. In addition, we show how this procedure avoids ambiguous mathematical steps and how to properly deal with the two popular gauge choices that coexist in the literature. As an illustration of all this, we present several examples using tight-binding models and local density functional theory calculations, in particular using Gaussian-type localized orbitals as basis sets. We show how the the velocity operator cannot be approximated, in general, by the k-gradient of the Bloch Hamiltonian matrix when a non-orthonormal basis set is used. Finally, we also compare with its real-space evaluation through the identification with the canonical momentum operator when possible. This comparison offers us, in addition, a glimpse of the importance of non-local corrections, which may invalidate the naive momentum-velocity correspondencePID2019-109539GB-C43, CEX2018-000805-M, S2018/NMT-432

Metaheuristic strategies for scheduling problems with uncertainty

Scheduling problems have formed an important body of research during the last decades. A scheduling problem consists in scheduling a set of jobs {J1, . . . , Jn} on a set of physical resources or machines {M1, . . . , Mm}. Each job Ji is composed of m tasks or operations {θi1, . . . , θim} with processing time pij . At the same time, we usually have constraints that establish that two task belonging to the same job cannot overlap their execution in time and that each task requires the uninterrupted and exclusive use of one of the machines for its whole processing time. Depending on the additional constraints we define, we may obtain different families of problems. The most popular in the literature are the job shop (JSP), the open shop (OSP) and the flow shop (FSP) but there exists also variants of them as the flexible job shop (FJSP) among others. Commonly, the objective function to optimise is the earliest time in which all jobs can be finished or makespan. However many other objectives may be optimised, being the most popular the tardiness, the idleness and the total flow time. In classical scheduling problems all input data are assumed to be well defined and all constraints are assumed to be hard, which is not so common in real-life applications. To reduce the gap between theory and practice, this thesis focuses on solving scheduling problems considering that uncertainty and vagueness. For instance, we shall consider uncertain task durations as well as flexible due-date constraint

Lack of Clinical Control in COPD Patients Depending on the Target and the Therapeutic Option

Introduction: According to the Global Initiative for chronic obstructive lung disease (GOLD), when a treatment is not achieving an appropriate response it should be switched taking into account the predominant treatable trait to target (dyspnea or exacerbations). The objective of the present study was to investigate the lack of clinical control according to the target and medication groups. Materials and Methods: This was a post-hoc analysis of the CLAVE study, an observational, cross-sectional, multicenter study which evaluated the clinical control, and related-factors, in a cohort of 4801 patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The primary endpoint was the percentage of uncontrolled patients defined as COPD Assessment Test (CAT) >16 or presence of exacerbations in the last 3 months despite receiving long-acting beta2-agonist (LABA) and/or long-acting antimuscarinic antagonist (LAMA) with or without inhaled corticosteroids (ICS). Secondary objectives included the description of sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of patients by therapeutic group and the identification of characteristics potentially associated with the lack of control of COPD including low adherence measured by the test to adherence to inhalers (TAI). Results: In the dyspnea pathway, lack of clinical control was of 25.0% of patients receiving LABA or LAMA in monotherapy, 29.5% by those with LABA + LAMA, 38.3% with LABA + ICS and 37.0% with triple therapy (LABA + LAMA + ICS). In the exacerbation pathway, percentages were 87.1%, 76.7%, 83.3%, and 84.1%, respectively. Low physical activity and high Charlson comorbidity index were independent factor of non-control in all therapeutic groups. Additional factors were lower post-bronchodilator FEV1 and poor adherence to inhalers. Conclusion: There are still room for improvement in COPD control. From the pharmacological perspective, every step in treatment have a pool of uncontrolled patients in which a step-up could be considered according to a trait to target strategy

Acidification of musts in warm regions with tartaric acid and calcium sulfate at industrial scale

Acidification of musts is necessary in warm areas where high temperatures during ripening accelerate breathing combustion of tartaric acid and, in particular, malic acid in the berries. L(+) tartaric acid, L(-) or D,L malic acid and lactic acids are the only chemical acidifiers authorized by the OIV and European Community regulations. The use of calcium sulfate (gypsum: CaSO4·2H2O) is also authorized in the European Community as a complementary acidifier in generous and generous liquor wines from Spain (a practice known as plastering), provided that the residual sulfate content in the wine does not exceed 2.5 g/L expressed as potassium sulfate. However, this practice is not yet approved by OIV. To predict the effect on pH of different acidifiers, several chemical modeling approaches have been described in the literature, in particular a simplified model where the acidity of wine is considered to be due to a monoprotic acid. The aim of this work is to verify this model at pilot and industrial scale in the acidification of musts with tartaric and calcium sulfate, added either individually and in combination, using doses up to 3 g/L and to study the modifications that these practices produce on the compositions of the resulting wines. This work supplies useful information to study this practice in OIV in order to consider its approval

Recursos culturales y objetos contra-patrimoniales: Apuntes exploratorios sobre las posibilidades de una antropología crítica del patrimonio a partir de la reflexión sobre una práctica religiosa transnacional

Este trabajo se apoya en un “objeto”, en la posibilidad de una serie de “objetos” de carácter “ficcional”. Así, una celebración católica de origen ecuatoriano que se realiza anualmente en una localidad murciana, nos sirve para plantear algunas cuestiones que nos parecen poco usuales, pero de interés de cara a reflexionar sobre los procesos de patrimonialización, interesándonos sobre todo las implicaciones relativas a los interrogantes que dicho tipo de objeto prefigura respecto a los usos sociales del patrimonio y su dimensión política, así como, también, en lo que tiene que ver con el papel que en dicho juego puede desarrollar la antropología desde la crítica y el cuestionamiento de los presupuestos del discurso patrimonialArte y Humanidade

Magnetoresistance and Magnetic Ordering Fingerprints in Hydrogenated Graphene

Spin-dependent features in the conductivity of graphene, chemically modified by a random distribution of hydrogen adatoms, are explored theoretically. The spin effects are taken into account using a mean-field self-consistent Hubbard model derived from first-principles calculations. A Kubo-Greenwood transport methodology is used to compute the spin-dependent transport fingerprints of weakly hydrogenated graphene-based systems with realistic sizes. Conductivity responses are obtained for paramagnetic, antiferromagnetic, or ferromagnetic macroscopic states, constructed from the mean-field solutions obtained for small graphene supercells. Magnetoresistance signals up to $\sim 7$ are calculated for hydrogen densities around 0.25%. These theoretical results could serve as guidance for experimental observation of induced magnetism in graphene.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Deep learning for disordered topological insulators through their entanglement spectrum

Calculation of topological invariants for crystalline systems is well understood in reciprocal space, allowing for the topological classification of a wide spectrum of materials. In this work, we present a technique based on the entanglement spectrum, which can be used to identify the hidden topology of systems without translational invariance. By training a neural network to distinguish between trivial and topological phases using the entanglement spectrum obtained from crystalline or weakly disordered phases, we can predict the topological phase diagram for generic disordered systems. This approach becomes particularly useful for gapless systems, while providing a computational speed-up compared to the commonly used Wilson loop technique for gapful situations. Our methodology is illustrated in two-dimensional models based on the Wilson-Dirac lattice Hamiltonia

Diseño de metodologías y herramientas para la estimación de los efectos de sitio y su aplicación en la evaluación de escenarios de daños debidos a terremotos

El objetivo de este proyecto era adquirir la experiencia, conocimientos y contactos con otros equipos de investigación necesarios para el desarrollo de metodologías y diseño de aplicaciones que ayuden a desarrollar las líneas de investigación en efectos de sitio y riesgo sísmico que el grupo está desarrollando. Esto permitirá obtener resultados específicos para diferentes entornos y favorecerá la petición conjunta con investigadores de Noruega, Alemania y posiblemente algún otro país europeo, de proyectos nacionales o europeos.Proyecto financiado por el Vicerrectorado de Investigación de la Universidad de Alicante (GRJ0512

Ballistic spin-valves with Ni nanocontacts

Poster presented in TNT 2005 "Trends in Nanotechnology", Oviedo, Spain, 29 August-02 September, 2005