Metal Accumulation by Jatropha curcas L. Adult Plants Grown on Heavy Metal-Contaminated Soil

Jatropha curcas has the ability to phytoextract high amounts of heavy metals during its first months just after seeding. Notwithstanding, there is scarce information about metal uptake by adult J. curcas plants. To shed light on this issue, 4-year-old J. curcas L. plants were planted in a soil mixture of peat moss and mining soil (high metals content), and the biomass growth and metal absorption during 90 days were compared with those of plants growing in peat moss. The main metal found in the mining soil was Fe (31985 mg kg-1) along with high amounts of As (23717 mg kg-1). After the 90-day phytoremediation, the plant removed 29% of Fe and 44% of As from the soil mixture. Results revealed that J. curcas L. translocated high amounts of metals to its aerial parts, so that translocation factors were much higher than 1. Because of the high translocation and bioaccumulation factors obtained, J. curcas L. can be regarded as a hyperaccumulator plant. Despite the great capacity of J. curcas L. to phytoremediate heavy-metal-contaminated soils, the main drawback is the subsequent handling of the metal-contaminated biomass, although some potential applications have been recently highlighted for this biomass.University of Seville (VIPPIT-2019-I.5

Cultural Preservation of Ethnomedicine in Peru

In conjunction with the Minority Health & Health Disparities International Research Training program at San Diego State University, three Linfield students contributed to the ongoing Peru Ethnomedical Project in Trujillo, Peru by: Conducting surveys in two neighborhoods on the edge of the city; Creating a medicinal plant garden in the Chan Chan archaeological site museum. Surveys conducted in Moche, Trujillo were part of a larger study supervised by anthropologists Douglas Sharon and Thomas Love. The research aims to evaluate the usage of medicinal plants in rural and urban Peruvian communities. Linfield’s contribution focused on the creation of the medicinal garden to serve as a community model and educational program. The overall purpose of the 2015 summer faculty collaborative project was to: Preserve the knowledge of these practices; Analyze the plant properties; Publish the information; Provide the community with a garden that reflects the commonly used plants; Educate new generations; Bring back and apply this knowledge in the Linfield community

On the Deformation Quantization Description of Matrix Compactifications

Matrix theory compactifications on tori have associated Yang-Mills theories on the dual tori with sixteen supercharges. A noncommutative description of these Yang-Mills theories based in deformation quantization theory is provided. We show that this framework allows a natural generalization of the `Moyal B-deformation' of the Yang-Mills theories to non-constant background B-fields on curved spaces. This generalization is described through Fedosov's geometry of deformation quantization.Comment: 25 pages, harvmac file, no figures, corrected typos, added references, one comment added in sec.

Weak lensing study of 16 DAFT/FADA clusters: substructures and filaments

While our current cosmological model places galaxy clusters at the nodes of a filament network (the cosmic web), we still struggle to detect these filaments at high redshifts. We perform a weak lensing study for a sample of 16 massive, medium-high redshift (0.4<z<0.9) galaxy clusters from the DAFT/FADA survey, that are imaged in at least three optical bands with Subaru/Suprime-Cam or CFHT/MegaCam. We estimate the cluster masses using an NFW fit to the shear profile measured in a KSB-like method, adding our contribution to the calibration of the observable-mass relation required for cluster abundance cosmological studies. We compute convergence maps and select structures within, securing their detection with noise re-sampling techniques. Taking advantage of the large field of view of our data, we study cluster environment, adding information from galaxy density maps at the cluster redshift and from X-ray images when available. We find that clusters show a large variety of weak lensing maps at large scales and that they may all be embedded in filamentary structures at megaparsec scale. We classify them in three categories according to the smoothness of their weak lensing contours and to the amount of substructures: relaxed (~7%), past mergers (~21.5%), recent or present mergers (~71.5%). The fraction of clusters undergoing merging events observationally supports the hierarchical scenario of cluster growth, and implies that massive clusters are strongly evolving at the studied redshifts. Finally, we report the detection of unusually elongated structures in CLJ0152, MACSJ0454, MACSJ0717, A851, BMW1226, MACSJ1621, and MS1621.Comment: 25 pages, accepted for publication in A&

Community Psychology and Public Policy: Research, Advocacy and Training in International Contexts

We introduce a special issue on public policy research, advocacy, and training by community psychologists that grew out of the Fifth International Community Psychology Conference held in Fortaleza, Brazil. Two papers from Portugal propose changes in sex education policies in schools and communities to promote adolescents’ rights and drug abuse policies based on decriminalization of use and possession, risk and harm reduction, and health promotion. An article from Spain addresses transformative policies to reduce public health disparities for the Roma population in that country. Three contributions from Brazil examine a Landless Workers Movement popular education and agroforestry project to support children and adolescents’ rights and participation; another social movement to control public policy on youth and adult literacy and education; and racist environmental and natural resource policies that ignore the territorial rights of indigenous Amazonian populations. A paper from Chile describes the creation of a regular public forum to reduce stigma and promote human rights in community mental health care. Another paper examines the development and presents examples of social-community psychologists’ involvement in policy work in Puerto Rico, the process of training students for this endeavor and how to improve training. Finally, three articles cover recent trends in policy advocacy by community psychologists in the United States including its promotion and capacity building by the Society for Community Research and Action; using social media as a tool to enhance effectiveness of advocacy efforts; and an assessment of advocates’ and legislators’ capacity, knowledge, and perceptions of child injury prevention to inform policy change efforts

Community Psychology and Public Policy: Research, Advocacy and Training in International Contexts

We introduce a special issue on public policy research, advocacy, and training by community psychologists that grew out of the Fifth International Community Psychology Conference held in Fortaleza, Brazil. Two papers from Portugal propose changes in sex education policies in schools and communities to promote adolescents’ rights and drug abuse policies based on decriminalization of use and possession, risk and harm reduction, and health promotion. An article from Spain addresses transformative policies to reduce public health disparities for the Roma population in that country. Three contributions from Brazil examine a Landless Workers Movement popular education and agroforestry project to support children and adolescents’ rights and participation; another social movement to control public policy on youth and adult literacy and education; and racist environmental and natural resource policies that ignore the territorial rights of indigenous Amazonian populations. A paper from Chile describes the creation of a regular public forum to reduce stigma and promote human rights in community mental health care. Another paper examines the development and presents examples of social-community psychologists’ involvement in policy work in Puerto Rico, the process of training students for this endeavor and how to improve training. Finally, three articles cover recent trends in policy advocacy by community psychologists in the United States including its promotion and capacity building by the Society for Community Research and Action; using social media as a tool to enhance effectiveness of advocacy efforts; and an assessment of advocates’ and legislators’ capacity, knowledge, and perceptions of child injury prevention to inform policy change efforts

Dicyanamide-Perovskites at the Edge of Dense Hybrid Organic–Inorganic Materials

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG[Abstract] Hybrid organic–inorganic ABX3 perovskites with dicyanamide-ligands (dca: [N(CN)2]−) on the X-site are emerging as a distinct group of materials courtesy of their multifunctional properties. Here we present an in-depth analysis of the members of this dicyanamide perovskite family, where the presence of the 5 atom-long dca ligand gives rise to relatively open crystal structures - especially when compared with other dense hybrids such as perovskite formates, and which has a profound influence on their chemistry and properties. We compile the synthetic procedures used to obtain these compounds, along with their chemical and structural properties. In terms of their functional properties, dicyanamide-perovskites have already shown an enormous potential for future applications, such as dielectric or magnetic switches, eco-friendly barocaloric refrigerants at low-pressure and room-temperature, or precursors for oil-recovery nanomaterials and thermoelectric glasses, as reviewed here. Additionally, we highlight several emerging phenomena in this family, and anticipate areas with room for development in the field.This work was financially supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) and EU-FEDER under the project MAT2017-86453-R, and funding for open access charge was covered by Universidade da Coruña/CISUG J. G.-B. and J. M. B.-G. acknowledges Xunta de Galicia for a Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships, respectivetly. T.D.B. thanks the Royal Society for a University Research Fellowship (UF150021) and the University of Canterbury Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, New Zealand, for a University of Cambridge Visiting Canterbury Fellowship. He would also like to acknowledge, alongside L.N.M, the Leverhulme Trust for a Philip Leverhulme PrizeReino Unido. Royal Society; UF15002