The path: sustainable development in conjunction with meeting the demands of a changing environment.

In the context of severe economic recession, the Library is compelled to adapt to this changing environment, in order to meet the requirements and demands of users with very specific needs. Taking the pillars of sustainable development as a reference point, and extrapolating them to our domain, we establish the next main goal

Supporting German occupiers: the pro-Vichy stance of the Basque newspaper ‘Eskualduna’

Eskualduna, a weekly newspaper edited in Bayonne and the oldest and most influential Basque language media publication of the time, was shut down in 1944 by the new post-liberation French authorities because of its pro-Vichy and pro-German stance, while its editor, the priest Sauveur Aroçarena, was arrested and convicted. This article examines the basis of the accusation under which Eskualduna was seized, i.e. to what extent its editorial approach favored the Vichy regime led by Marshall Pétain and the German occupation. For this purpose, a sample of 32 editorial articles signed by Aroçarena after four landmarks of the war (declaration of war in 1939, first German occupation in 1940, occupation of Vichy France in 1942 and Normandy landings in 1944) has been analyzed following source analysis methodology. The analysis of Eskualduna’s editorials has been contextualized within the reality of the Basque society’s attitude towards German occupation in order to understand that Eskualduna’s position was in harmony with its community’s way of experiencing the war, the regime and the occupation. This research confirms that Eskualduna had overall a pro-Vichy stance, and points out that this approach was framed within a discourse of French patriotism, defense of Catholicism, personality cult and affirmation of Basque identity

Multi-objective heuristics applied to robot task planning for inspection plants

Robotics are generally subject to stringent operational conditions that impose a high degree of criticality on the allocation of resources and the schedule of operations in mission planning. In this regard the so-called cost of a mission must be considered as an additional criterion when designing optimal task schedules within the mission at hand. Such a cost can be conceived as the impact of the mission on the robotic resources themselves, which range from the consumption of battery to other negative effects such as mechanic erosion. This manuscript focuses on this issue by presenting experimental results obtained over realistic scenarios of two heuristic solvers (MOHS and NSGA-II) aimed at efficiently scheduling tasks in robotic swarms that collaborate together to accomplish a mission. The heuristic techniques resort to a Random-Keys encoding strategy to represent the allocation of robots to tasks whereas the relative execution order of such tasks within the schedule of certain robots is computed based on the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). Experimental results in three different deployment scenarios reveal the goodness of the proposed technique based on the Multi-objective Harmony Search algorithm (MOHS) in terms of Hypervolume (HV) and Coverage Rate (CR) performance indicators

Isotopic labelling reveals the efficient adaptation of wheat root TCA cycle flux modes to match carbon demand under ammonium nutrition

Proper carbon (C) supply is essential for nitrogen (N) assimilation especially when plants are grown under ammonium (NH4+) nutrition. However, how C and N metabolic fluxes adapt to achieve so remains uncertain. In this work, roots of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) plants grown under exclusive NH4+ or nitrate (NO3−) supply were incubated with isotope-labelled substrates (15NH4+, 15NO3−, or [13C]Pyruvate) to follow the incorporation of 15N or 13C into amino acids and organic acids. Roots of plants adapted to ammonium nutrition presented higher capacity to incorporate both 15NH4+ and 15NO3− into amino acids, thanks to the previous induction of the NH4+ assimilative machinery. The 15N label was firstly incorporated into [15N]Gln vía glutamine synthetase; ultimately leading to [15N]Asn accumulation as an optimal NH4+ storage. The provision of [13C]Pyruvate led to [13C]Citrate and [13C]Malate accumulation and to rapid [13C]2-OG consumption for amino acid synthesis and highlighted the importance of the anaplerotic routes associated to tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. Taken together, our results indicate that root adaptation to ammonium nutrition allowed efficient assimilation of N thanks to the promotion of TCA cycle open flux modes in order to sustain C skeleton availability for effective NH4+ detoxification into amino acids

On the construction of high-order force gradient algorithms for integration of motion in classical and quantum systems

A consequent approach is proposed to construct symplectic force-gradient algorithms of arbitrarily high orders in the time step for precise integration of motion in classical and quantum mechanics simulations. Within this approach the basic algorithms are first derived up to the eighth order by direct decompositions of exponential propagators and further collected using an advanced composition scheme to obtain the algorithms of higher orders. Contrary to the scheme by Chin and Kidwell [Phys. Rev. E 62, 8746 (2000)], where high-order algorithms are introduced by standard iterations of a force-gradient integrator of order four, the present method allows to reduce the total number of expensive force and its gradient evaluations to a minimum. At the same time, the precision of the integration increases significantly, especially with increasing the order of the generated schemes. The algorithms are tested in molecular dynamics and celestial mechanics simulations. It is shown, in particular, that the efficiency of the new fourth-order-based algorithms is better approximately in factors 5 to 1000 for orders 4 to 12, respectively. The results corresponding to sixth- and eighth-order-based composition schemes are also presented up to the sixteenth order. For orders 14 and 16, such highly precise schemes, at considerably smaller computational costs, allow to reduce unphysical deviations in the total energy up in 100 000 times with respect to those of the standard fourth-order-based iteration approach.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.

Effects of High-Mobility Group A Protein Application on Canine Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells In Vitro

Multipotency and self-renewal are considered as most important features of stem cells to persist throughout life in tissues. In this context, the role of HMGA proteins to influence proliferation of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cell (ASCs) while maintaining their multipotent and self-renewal capacities has not yet been investigated. Therefore, extracellular HMGA1 and HMGA2 application alone (10–200 ng/mL) and in combination with each other (100, 200 ng/mL each) was investigated with regard to proliferative effects on canine ASCs (cASCs) after 48 hours of cultivation. Furthermore, mRNA expression of multipotency marker genes in unstimulated and HMGA2-stimulated cASCs (50, 100 ng/mL) was analyzed by RT-qPCR. HMGA1 significantly reduced cASCs proliferation in concentrations of 10–200 ng/mL culture medium. A combination of HMGA1 and HMGA2 protein (100 and 200 ng/mL each) caused the same effects, whereas no significant effect on cASCs proliferation was shown after HMGA2 protein application alone. RT-qPCR results showed that expression levels of marker genes including KLF4, SOX2, OCT4, HMGA2, and cMYC mRNAs were on the same level in both HMGA2-protein-stimulated and -unstimulated cASCs. Extracellular HMGA protein application might be valuable to control proliferation of cASCs in context with their employment in regenerative approaches without affecting their self-renewal and multipotency abilities

Biodegradable DFADs: Current status and prospects

Until recently, dFAD structure, materials and designs have remained quite rudimentary and virtually the same since their discovery, characterized by the increase of the dimensions and prevailing heavy use of plastic components. Biodegradable materials are called to be an important part of the solution, as they can faster degrade in the environment, free of toxins and heavy metals, reducing their lifespan, and preventing them from accumulating in sensitive areas once they are abandoned, lost or discarded. During last decades, regulatory measures at tRFMOs have advanced in the gradual implementation of biodegradable materials in dFAD constructions together with other measures limiting the number of active dFADs and the use of netting materials. However, more clarity is needed starting with a standardised definition of biodegradable dFADs among tRFMOs, to provide operational guidance. Research with those natural and synthetic materials is required, along with updated data collection for monitoring standards, as well as alternative and complementary actions need to be explored to contribute to minimising dFAD adverse effects on environment. Acknowledging the current difficulties for the implementation of fully biodegradable dFADs a stepwise process towards the implementation of fully biodegradable dFADs should be considered.Postprin

A NOVEL INDEX OF ABUNDANCE OF JUVENILE YELLOWFIN TUNA IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN DERIVED FROM ECHOSOUNDER BUOYS

The collaboration with the Spanish vessel-owners associations and the buoy-providers companies, has made it possible the recovery of the information recorded by the satellite linked GPS tracking echosounder buoys used by the Spanish tropical tuna purse seiners and associated fleet in the Atlantic since 2010. These instrumental buoys inform fishers remotely in real-time about the accurate geolocation of the FAD and the presence and abundance of fish aggregations underneath them. Apart from its unquestionable impact in the conception of a reliable CPUE index from the tropical purse seine tuna fisheries fishing on FADs, echosounder buoys have also the potential of being a privileged observation platform to evaluate abundances of tunas and accompanying species using catch-independent data. Current echosounder buoys provide a single acoustic value without discriminating species or size composition of the fish underneath the FAD. Therefore, it has been necessary to combine the echosounder buoys data with fishery data, species composition and average size, to obtain a specific indicator. This paper presents a novel index of abundance of juvenile yellowfin tuna in the Atlantic Ocean derived from echosounder buoys for the period 2010-2018