STRADITIZE: An open-source program for digitizing pollen diagrams and other types of stratigraphic data

In an age of digital data analysis, gaining access to data from the pre-digital era – or any data that is only available as a figure on a page – remains a problem and an under-utilized scientific resource. Whilst there are numerous programs available that allow the digitization of scientific data in a simple x-y graph format, we know of no semi-automated program that can deal with data plotted with multiple horizontal axes that share the same vertical axis, such as pollen diagrams and other stratigraphic figures that are common in the Earth sciences. STRADITIZE (Stratigraphic Diagram Digitizer) is a new open-source program that allows stratigraphic figures to be digitized in a single semi-automated operation. It is designed to detect multiple plots of variables analyzed along the same vertical axis, whether this is a sediment core or any similar depth/time series. The program is written in python and supports mixtures of many different diagram types, such as bar plots, line plots, as well as shaded, stacked, and filled area plots. The package provides an extensively documented graphical user interface for a point-and-click handling of the semi-automatic process, but can also be scripted or used from the command line. Other features of STRADITIZE include text recognition to interpret the names of the different plotted variables, the automatic and semi-automatic recognition of picture artifacts, as well an automatic measurement finder to exactly reproduce the data that has been used to create the diagram. Evaluation of the program has been undertaken comparing the digitization of published figures with the original digital data. This generally shows very good results, although this is inevitably reliant on the quality and resolution of the original figure

Regional pollen-based Holocene temperature and precipitation patterns depart from the Northern Hemisphere mean trends

A mismatch between model- and proxy-based Holocene climate change, known as the “Holocene conundrum”, may partially originate from the poor spatial coverage of climate reconstructions in, for example, Asia, limiting the number of grid cells for model–data comparisons. Here we investigate hemispheric, latitudinal, and regional mean time series and time-slice anomaly maps of pollen-based reconstructions of mean annual temperature, mean July temperature, and annual precipitation from 1908 records in the Northern Hemisphere extratropics. Temperature trends show strong latitudinal patterns and differ between (sub-)continents. While the circum-Atlantic regions in Europe and eastern North America show a pronounced Middle Holocene temperature maximum, western North America shows only weak changes, and Asia mostly shows a continuous Holocene temperature increase. Likewise, precipitation trends show certain regional peculiarities such as the pronounced Middle Holocene precipitation maximum between 40 and 50∘ N in Asia and Holocene increasing trends in Europe and western North America, which can all be linked with Holocene changes in the regional circulation pattern responding to temperature change. Given a background of strong regional heterogeneity, we conclude that the calculation of global or hemispheric means, which initiated the Holocene conundrum debate, should focus more on understanding the spatiotemporal patterns and their regional drivers

LegacyClimate 1.0: a dataset of pollen-based climate reconstructions from 2594 Northern Hemisphere sites covering the last 30 kyr and beyond

Here we describe LegacyClimate 1.0, a dataset of the reconstruction of the mean July temperature (TJuly), mean annual temperature (Tann), and annual precipitation (Pann) from 2594 fossil pollen records from the Northern Hemisphere, spanning the entire Holocene, with some records reaching back to the Last Glacial Period. Two reconstruction methods, the modern analog technique (MAT) and weighted averaging partial least squares regression (WA-PLS), reveal similar results regarding spatial and temporal patterns. To reduce the impact of precipitation on temperature reconstruction, and vice versa, we also provide reconstructions using tailored modern pollen data, limiting the range of the corresponding other climate variables. We assess the reliability of the reconstructions, using information from the spatial distributions of the root mean squared error in the prediction and reconstruction significance tests. The dataset is beneficial for synthesis studies of proxy-based reconstructions and to evaluate the output of climate models and thus help to improve the models themselves. We provide our compilation of reconstructed TJuly, Tann, and Pann as open-access datasets at PANGAEA (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.930512; Herzschuh et al., 2023a). The R code for the reconstructions is provided at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7887565; Herzschuh et al., 2023b), including the harmonized open-access modern and fossil datasets used for the reconstructions, so that customized reconstructions can be easily established

«…En tiempo menos discreto que el de agora, aunque de hombres más sabios, se llamaban a las novelas cuentos». La novela corta y el cuento en el Siglo de Oro

En este artículo nos proponemos realizar un repaso a la concepción que se tenía de la novela corta y del cuento en el Siglo de Oro español, el origen etimológico de dichas narraciones, cómo fueron utilizadas por los escritores de esa época, cómo surgió el desorden a la hora de nombrarlas y emplearlas, para terminar planteando los rasgos textuales que diferencian a estos dos géneros tan próximos como distintos en la literatura áurea hispánic

Improved crack resistance and thermal conductivity of cubic zirconia containing graphene nanoplatelets

Composites of 8 mol.% yttria-stabilized zirconia (8YSZ) with graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) have been pointed as alternative interconnectors in SOFC due to their mixed ionic-electronic conduction. Here we show that GNP addition provides rising crack-resistance behavior, with long crack toughness up to 78% higher than that of 8YSZ, also improving its thermal conductivity (up to 6 times for the in-plane direction). Toughness versus crack length is measured for 7 and 11 vol.% of GNP using single edge V-notched beam technique and ultrashort pulsed laser notching; and thermal behavior is analyzed by the laser flash method. Materials also have highly anisotropic coefficient of thermal expansion. These properties contribute to enhance their performance under the harsh operating conditions of SOFC, as thermal residual stresses could be reduced while significantly improving the system mechanical stability. Moreover, the heat transfer may be enhanced especially along the interface direction which would increase the system efficiency.This work was supported by Spanish project RTI2018-095052-B-I00, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades, Spain (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). AG and PM acknowledge support from Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Spanish government (Project FIS2017- 87970-R) and Junta de Castilla y León, Spain (Project SA287P18). C. R. thanks the financial support by MCIU under contract IJCI-2017-34724 of “Juan de la Cierva” Program

A Multimodal Scaffold for SDF1 Delivery Improves Cardiac Function in a Rat Subacute Myocardial Infarct Model

Ischemic heart disease is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The efficient delivery of therapeutic growth factors could counteract the adverse prognosis of post-myocardial infarction (post-MI). In this study, a collagen hydrogel that is able to load and appropriately deliver pro-angiogenic stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF1) was physically coupled with a compact collagen membrane in order to provide the suture strength required for surgical implantation. This bilayer collagen-on-collagen scaffold (bCS) showed the suitable physicochemical properties that are needed for efficient implantation, and the scaffold was able to deliver therapeutic growth factors after MI. In vitro collagen matrix biodegradation led to a sustained SDF1 release and a lack of cytotoxicity in the relevant cell cultures. In vivo intervention in a rat subacute MI model resulted in the full integration of the scaffold into the heart after implantation and biocompatibility with the tissue, with a prevalence of anti-inflammatory and pro-angiogenic macrophages, as well as evidence of revascularization and improved cardiac function after 60 days. Moreover, the beneficial effect of the released SDF1 on heart remodeling was confirmed by a significant reduction in cardiac tissue stiffness. Our findings demonstrate that this multimodal scaffold is a desirable matrix that can be used as a drug delivery system and a scaffolding material to promote functional recovery after MI

LegacyClimate 1.0: A dataset of pollen-based climate reconstructions from 2594 Northern Hemisphere sites covering the late Quaternary

Here we describe the LegacyClimate 1.0, a dataset of the reconstruction of mean July temperature (TJuly), mean annual temperature (Tann), and annual precipitation (Pann) from 2594 fossil pollen records from the Northern Hemisphere spanning the entire Holocene with some records reaching back to the Last Glacial. Two reconstruction methods, the Modern Analogue Technique (MAT) and Weighted-Averaging Partial-Least Squares regression (WA-PLS) reveal similar results regarding spatial and temporal patterns. To reduce the impact of precipitation on temperature reconstruction and vice versa, we also provide reconstructions using tailored modern pollen data limiting the range of the corresponding other climate variables. We assess the reliability of the reconstructions using information from the spatial distributions of the root-mean squared error of prediction and reconstruction significance tests. The dataset is beneficial for climate proxy synthesis studies and to evaluate the output of climate models and thus help to improve the models themselves. We provide our compilation of reconstructed TJuly, Tann, and Pann as open-access datasets at PANGAEA (https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.930512; Herzschuh et al., 2021). R code for the reconstructions is provided at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5910989; Herzschuh et al., 2022), including harmonized open-access modern and fossil datasets used for the reconstructions, so that customized reconstructions can be easily established

Ampliación y actualización de las prácticas del laboratorio de Instrumentación Biomédica buscando un aprendizaje y evaluación centrados en el estudiante

El objetivo del proyecto es el diseño de las prácticas de laboratorio para la asignatura Instrumentación Biomédica del Master de Física Biomédica. Se pretende mejorar el aprendizaje potenciando la participación activa y autonomía de los estudiantes. La falta de financiación económica se ha traducido en obtener como resultado del proyecto la redacción de guiones de prácticas que posibiliten el trabajo individual del alumno fuera del laboratorio dado el alto número de alumnos por puesto para llevar a cabo las prácticas. Estos guiones se han complementado con scripts en MatLab para analizar y procesar los datos obtenidos en el laboratorio así como datos obtenidos en diversas bases. Esta propuesta dió información sobre el progreso de los estudiantes en el aprendizaje cuando se utilizó el sistema de rúbricas tambien resultado de este proyecto