Nematicidal activity of essential oils and organic amendments from Asteraceae against root-knot nematodes

The essential oil of Chrysanthemum coronarium flowerheads showed strong nematicidal activity in vitro and in growthchamber experiments. Essential oil concentrations of 2, 4, 8 and 16 μL mL−1, significantly reduced hatch, J2 survival (determined by final value and area under curves of cumulative percentage hatch or mortality) and reproduction rate of Meloidogyne artiellia in vitro, with the lowest values occurring at 16 μL mL−1. In pot trials with chickpea cv. PV 61, essential oil concentrations of 10–40 μL per 500 cm3 soil, applied on sterile cotton pellets, also significantly reduced the nematode’s reproduction rate. The biological processes of mortality and hatching/reproduction were adequately described by the monomolecular and expanded negative exponential models, respectively. Effectiveness of soil amendment with either flowers, leaves, roots or seeds of C. coronarium, and flowers from several species of Asteraceae (Chrysanthemum segetum, Calendula maritima, Calendula officinalis and Calendula suffruticosa) at 5 g per 500 cm3 soil was tested for suppression of M. artiellia and growth of chickpea cv. PV 61 under growth-chamber conditions. In these tests, flowers of all five Asteraceae species and various parts of C. coronarium significantly reduced reproduction rates of M. artiellia, by 83·0–95·9%, with the minimum rates occurring in infected chickpea plants amended with flowers of C. officinalis and C. suffruticosa. The in vitro and in planta results suggest that the essential oil of C. coronarium and organic amendments from Asteraceae species may serve as nematicides.This research, part of a PhD study by P.P., was supported by grant SC98-022 and a fellowship from the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías Agroalimentarias (INIA).Peer reviewe

Estimation of Subglottal Pressure, Vocal Fold Collision Pressure, and Intrinsic Laryngeal Muscle Activation From Neck-Surface Vibration Using a Neural Network Framework and a Voice Production Model

The ambulatory assessment of vocal function can be significantly enhanced by having access to physiologically based features that describe underlying pathophysiological mechanisms in individuals with voice disorders. This type of enhancement can improve methods for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of behaviorally based voice disorders. Unfortunately, the direct measurement of important vocal features such as subglottal pressure, vocal fold collision pressure, and laryngeal muscle activation is impractical in laboratory and ambulatory settings. In this study, we introduce a method to estimate these features during phonation from a neck-surface vibration signal through a framework that integrates a physiologically relevant model of voice production and machine learning tools. The signal from a neck-surface accelerometer is first processed using subglottal impedance-based inverse filtering to yield an estimate of the unsteady glottal airflow. Seven aerodynamic and acoustic features are extracted from the neck surface accelerometer and an optional microphone signal. A neural network architecture is selected to provide a mapping between the seven input features and subglottal pressure, vocal fold collision pressure, and cricothyroid and thyroarytenoid muscle activation. This non-linear mapping is trained solely with 13,000 Monte Carlo simulations of a voice production model that utilizes a symmetric triangular body-cover model of the vocal folds. The performance of the method was compared against laboratory data from synchronous recordings of oral airflow, intraoral pressure, microphone, and neck-surface vibration in 79 vocally healthy female participants uttering consecutive /pæ/ syllable strings at comfortable, loud, and soft levels. The mean absolute error and root-mean-square error for estimating the mean subglottal pressure were 191 Pa (1.95 cm H2O) and 243 Pa (2.48 cm H2O), respectively, which are comparable with previous studies but with the key advantage of not requiring subject-specific training and yielding more output measures. The validation of vocal fold collision pressure and laryngeal muscle activation was performed with synthetic values as reference. These initial results provide valuable insight for further vocal fold model refinement and constitute a proof of concept that the proposed machine learning method is a feasible option for providing physiologically relevant measures for laboratory and ambulatory assessment of vocal function.Fil: Ibarra, Emiro J.. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria.; ChileFil: Parra, Jesús A.. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria.; ChileFil: Alzamendi, Gabriel Alejandro. Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos. Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo en Bioingeniería y Bioinformática - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigación y Desarrollo en Bioingeniería y Bioinformática; ArgentinaFil: Cortés, Juan P.. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria.; ChileFil: Espinoza, Víctor M.. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Mehta, Daryush D.. Center For Laryngeal Surgery And Voice Rehabilitation; Estados UnidosFil: Hillman, Robert E.. Center For Laryngeal Surgery And Voice Rehabilitation; Estados UnidosFil: Zañartu, Matías. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria.; Chil

Stabilization of apple peel by drying. Influence of temperature and ultrasound application on drying kinetics and product quality

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Drying Technology on 2019, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/07373937.2018.1474476[EN] Increasing the value of the waste generated by food processing is a must from an environmental and economic point of view. This paper addresses the influence of drying temperature and ultrasound application on the drying kinetics and quality of apple peel (Royal Gala var.). Samples were dried at -10, 30, 50 and 70 ºC without and with (50 W) ultrasound application. Color, antioxidant capacity, total phenolic and ascorbic acid content were measured. Ultrasound application and drying temperature significantly shortened the drying time and affected the quality parameters. The drying carried out at 30 ºC with ultrasound application was a fast process that provided samples with good color and antioxidant attributes.The authors acknowledge the financial support of INIA-ERDF throughout the project RTA2015-00060-C04-02.Martins, MP.; Cortés, EJ.; Eim, V.; Mulet Pons, A.; Carcel, JA. (2019). Stabilization of apple peel by drying. Influence of temperature and ultrasound application on drying kinetics and product quality. Drying Technology. 37(5):559-568. https://doi.org/10.1080/07373937.2018.1474476S55956837

Crecimiento y contenido de larvas de atún rojo (Thunnus thynnus) y atún blanco (Thunnus alalunga)

The waters surrounding the Balearic archipelago are considered to be prime spawning habitats of the bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) and other tuna species such as albacore (T. alalunga) in the Mediterranean. During the 2003 bluefin and albacore spawning season, a tuna larval survey (TUNIBAL 0703) was carried out to assess the distribution of bluefin larvae in relation to hydrographic mesoscale features. Tuna larvae were collected by means of surface plankton tows with a bongo gear with a quadrangular mouth measuring 1 m diagonally. The otolith microstructure of 157 and 71 field-captured larvae of Mediterranean bluefin and albacore, respectively, were analyzed to estimate the daily growth pattern. Furthermore, biochemical analysis to estimate DNA, RNA and protein content was done on another batch of 114 bluefin and 132 albacore larvae. The size range included pre-flexion to post-flexion larvae, from 2.8 to 8.6 mm in body length. bluefin and albacore larvae grew linearly in standard length (0.35 and 0.33 mm/day, respectively) and potentially with respect to dry weight. No significant differences between species were observed in the size-weight relationship, or in the allometric relationship of body size and weight to otolith radius. However, the relationship of DNA and RNA to body size and weight showed a significant difference between species. Bluefin tuna larvae showed a greater nucleic acid content than albacore larvae. Protein content showed no significant differences with respect to body length.Las aguas de las Islas Baleares representan una de las zonas más importantes de puesta del atún rojo (Thunnus thynnus) y de otras especies asociadas, como el atún blanco albacore (T. alalunga). En julio del 2003, época de puesta del atún, se realizó la campaña TUNIBAL, con el fin de delimitar las zonas de puesta del atún rojo, así como su relación con el modelo de circulación en el área. Las larvas de atunes se muestrearon mediante arrastres superficiales con una red Bongo de boca cuadrangular (1 m en diagonal). Para el estudio del crecimiento diario, 157 larvas de atún rojo y 71 larvas de atún blanco fueron analizadas. Para el estudio de la condición larvaria (DNA, RNA y proteínas), 119 larvas de atún rojo y 138 larvas de atún blanco fueron analizadas. Se analizaron larvas desde estados de pre-flexión a post-flexión, desde 2.8 a 8.6 mm de longitud estándar. Las larvas de atún rojo y atún blanco crecen linealmente en longitud estándar (0.35 y 0.33 mm/día respectivamente) y potencialmente en peso seco. No se encontraron diferencias significativas en la relación talla-peso, o en la relación del radio del otolito con talla o peso. Sin embargo, la relación entre DNA y RNA con talla o peso mostró diferencias significativas entre especies, siendo el atún rojo el que mostró mayores contenidos en ácidos nucleicos. No obstante, el contenido en proteínas no mostró diferencias significativas con la talla entre especies

Phylogenetic relationships of the Amblyomma cajennense complex (Acari: Ixodidae) at mitogenomic resolution

The genus Amblyomma is the third most diverse in the number of species within the Ixodidae, with practically half of its species distributed in the Americas, though there are also species occurring in Africa, Asia, and Australia. Within the genus, there are several species complexes with veterinary and public health importance. The Amblyomma cajennense complex, in the Americas, is represented by six species with a wide distribution, from Texas to northern Argentina. We combined two sequencing techniques to generate complete mitogenomes of species belonging to the Amblyomma cajennense complex: genome skimming and long-range PCRs sequencing methods. Thus, we generated seven new mitochondrial genomes for all species of the Amblyomma cajennense complex, except for Amblyomma interandinum. Genetic distances between the mitogenomes corroborate the clear differentiation between the five species of the Amblyomma cajennense complex. The phylogenetic relationships of these species had previously been evaluated by combining partial nuclear and mitochondrial genes and here these relationships are corroborated with a more robust framework of data, which demonstrates that the conjunction of mitochondrial and nuclear partial genes can resolve close relationships when entire genes or genomes are unavailable. The gene order, structure, composition, and length are stable across these mitogenomes, and they share the general characteristics of Metastriata. Future studies should increase the number of available mitogenomes for this genus, especially for those species from the Indo-Pacific region and Africa, by means of a better understanding of their relationships and evolutionary process.EEA RafaelaFil: Cotes-Perdomo, Andrea P. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC), Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva; EspañaFil: Cotes-Perdomo, Andrea P. University of South-Eastern. Faculty of Technology. Natural Sciences and Environmental Health Department. Natural Sciences and Maritime Sciences; NoruegaFil: Nava, Santiago. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Rafaela; ArgentinaFil: Nava, Santiago. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Nava, Santiago. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Instituto de Investigación de la Cadena Láctea (IDICAL); ArgentinaFil: Castro, Lyda R. Universidad del Magdalena. Facultad de Ciencias Básicas. Grupo de investigación Evolución, Sistemática y Ecología Molecular (GIESEMOL); ColombiaFil: Rivera-Paéz, Fredy A. Universidad de Caldas. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas. Grupo de Investigación en Genética, Biodiversidad y Manejo de Ecosistemas (GEBIOME); ColombiaFil: Cortés-Vecino, Jesús A. Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y de Zootecnia. Grupo de Investigación Parasitología Veterinaria; ColombiaFil: Uribe, Juan E. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC). Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiv; EspañaFil: Uribe, Juan E. Smithsonian Institution. National Museum of Natural History. Invertebrate Zoology Department; Estados Unido

The 2011 October Draconids outburst. I. Orbital elements, meteoroid fluxes and 21P/Giacobini-Zinner delivered mass to Earth

On October 8th, 2011 the Earth crossed the dust trails left by comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner during its XIX and XX century perihelion approaches with the comet being close to perihelion. The geometric circumstances of that encounter were thus favorable to produce a meteor storm, but the trails were much older than in the 1933 and 1946 historical encounters. As a consequence the 2011 October Draconid display exhibited several activity peaks with Zenithal Hourly Rates of about 400 meteors per hour. In fact, if the display had been not forecasted, it could have passed almost unnoticed as was strongly attenuated for visual observers due to the Moon. This suggests that most meteor storms of a similar nature could have passed historically unnoticed under unfavorable weather and Moon observing conditions. The possibility of obtaining information on the physical properties of cometary meteoroids penetrating the atmosphere under low-geocentric velocity encounter circumstances motivated us to set up a special observing campaign. Added to the Spanish Fireball Network wide-field all-sky and CCD video monitoring, other high-sensitivity 1/2" black and white CCD video cameras were attached to modified medium-field lenses for obtaining high resolution orbital information. The trajectory, radiant, and orbital data of 16 October Draconid meteors observed at multiple stations are presented. The results show that the meteors appeared from a geocentric radiant located at R.A.=263.0+-0.4 deg. and Dec.=+55.3+-0.3 deg. that is in close agreement with the radiant predicted for the 1873-1894 and the 1900 dust trails. The estimated mass of material from 21P/Giacobini-Zinner delivered to Earth during the six-hours outburst was around 950+-150 kg.Comment: Manuscript in press in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, submitted to MNRAS on November 16th, 2012 Accepted for publication in MNRAS on April 28th, 2013 Manuscript Pages: 21 Tables: 8 Figures: 4 Manuscript associated: "The 2011 October Draconids outburst. II. Meteoroid chemical abundances from fireball spectroscopy" by J.M. Madiedo is also in press in the same journa

Model predictive control with constant switching frequency using a discrete space vector modulation with virtual state vectors

Finite states model predictive control (FS-MPC) appears as a promising control technique to be applied to power converters in the industry. However, the FS-MPC presents some drawbacks as non constant switching frequency and high sampling frequency. This work proposes a FS-MPC with constant switching frequency and low sampling frequency applying a discrete space vector modulation (DSVM) technique. The real state vectors of the converter are used together with new virtual state vectors forming switching sequences each sampling period. The advantages and disadvantages of the proposed FS-MPC with the DSVM are analysed using a two-level three-phase inverter connected to the grid as setup to introduce the proposed technique. Simulation results are presented, showing that using the proposed technique the switching frequency is fixed and the sampling frequency can be lowered without reducing the quality of the converter behaviour

Hypertension as a Risk Factor for Hip Fracture

Producción CientíficaArterial hypertension is a chronic disease in which prevalence increases with age, as occurs in osteoporosis. It is clinically silent and is only revealed in the form of complications, an aspect that it also shares with osteoporosis. Various alterations of calcium metabolism have been described in association with hypertension; such alterations can cause decreased bone mass, the principal determining factor of fracture.1,2 Another important factor is the occurrence of falls. Hypertensive patients may experience a greater number of falls resulting from fainting associated with diminished baroreflex sensitivity or hypotension secondary to therapy.3,4 The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of hypertension and its various therapeutic alternatives on the risk of hip fracture.2015-09-0

Distances from Stellar Kinematics for Peculiar Virgo Cluster Spiral Galaxies

We present distance estimates for eleven peculiar Virgo cluster spiral galaxies based on measurements of the stellar kinematics of their central 2 kpc. Stellar circular velocities were obtained using two-integral dynamical models. Distances were obtained by comparing, at each radius, the stellar circular velocities with synthetic H_alpha rotation curves derived from NIR Tully-Fisher relations.The results show that most of our galaxies are located within 4 Mpc of the core of the cluster. Three of these galaxies, previously classified as "low rotator galaxies" or with "Truncated/Compact" H_alpha radial distributions, have stellar kinematics-based distances that are discrepant with HI-based distances by at least 60%, and are likely to be located within the virial radius of the cluster. These discrepancies appear due to very truncated gas distributions plus non-circular gas motions or gas motions not in the plane of the stellar disk, perhaps as the result of gravitational interactions. Our results show that environmental effects can significantly reduce the measured HI linewidths for some disturbed cluster galaxies, thus affecting the accurate determination of distances based on gas kinematics methods.Comment: 33 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables, ApJ Accepte

Monitoring the incidence of Xylella fastidiosa infection in olive orchards using ground-based evaluations, airborne imaging spectroscopy and Sentinel-2 time series through 3-D radiative transfer modelling

Outbreaks of Xylella fastidiosa (Xf) in Europe generate considerable economic and environmental damage, and this plant pest continues to spread. Detecting and monitoring the spatio-temporal dynamics of the disease symptoms caused by Xf at a large scale is key to curtailing its expansion and mitigating its impacts. Here, we combined 3-D radiative transfer modelling (3D-RTM), which accounts for the seasonal background variations, with passive optical satellite data to assess the spatio-temporal dynamics of Xf infections in olive orchards. We developed a 3D-RTM approach to predict Xf infection incidence in olive orchards, integrating airborne hyperspectral imagery and freely available Sentinel-2 satellite data with radiative transfer modelling and field observations. Sentinel-2A time series data collected over a two-year period were used to assess the temporal trends in Xf-infected olive orchards in the Apulia region of southern Italy. Hyperspectral images spanning the same two-year period were used for validation, along with field surveys; their high resolution also enabled the extraction of soil spectrum variations required by the 3D-RTM to account for canopy background effect. Temporal changes were validated with more than 3000 trees from 16 orchards covering a range of disease severity (DS) and disease incidence (DI) levels. Among the wide range of structural and physiological vegetation indices evaluated from Sentinel-2 imagery, the temporal variation of the Atmospherically Resistant Vegetation Index (ARVI) and Optimized Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (OSAVI) showed superior performance for DS and DI estimation (r2VALUES>0.7, p < 0.001). When seasonal understory changes were accounted for using modelling methods, the error of DI prediction was reduced 3-fold. Thus, we conclude that the retrieval of DI through model inversion and Sentinel-2 imagery can form the basis for operational vegetation damage monitoring worldwide. Our study highlight the value of interpreting temporal variations in model retrievals to detect anomalies in vegetation health.Data collection was partially supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme through grant agreements POnTE (635646) and XF-ACTORS (727987). A. Hornero was supported by research fellowship DTC GEO 29 “Detection of global photosynthesis and forest health from space” from the Science Doctoral Training Centre (Swansea University, UK). The authors would also like to thank QuantaLab-IAS-CSIC (Spain) for laboratory assistance and the support provided during the airborne campaigns and image processing. B. Landa, C. Camino, M. Montes-Borrego, M. Morelli, M. Saponari and L. Susca are acknowledged for their support during the field campaigns, as well as IPSP-CNR and Dipartimento di Scienze del Suolo (Università di Bari, Italy) as host institutions