Contribución al conocimiento del abejaruco común Merops apiaster en la provincia de Sevilla

Se describen en este estudio dos colonias de nidificación del abejaruco común Merops apiaster, situadas en diferentes zonas de la provincia de Sevilla. Para el estudio se hace una descripción de las zonas donde se localizan las dos colonias estudiadas y tarnbién se han definido una serie de variables respecto a la disposición y estructura de la galeria de nidificación: disposición del nido sobre el terreno, ejes horizontal y vertical de la galeria de nidificación, distancia horizontal y vertical entre galerias adyacentes, y longitud de la galeria de nidificación. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que la colonia 1 presenta una gran variabilidad en la distribución de las galerías de nidificación con una alta densidad de individuos. En el caso de la colonia 2, presenta homogeneidad en la distribución de las galeria de nidificación, con una baja densidad de población.In the present work, two colonies of bee eaters Merops apiaster, located in different zones of the province of Seviile, both on cliffs, have been described. A primary description of two areas of study is made and two sets of variables have been defined, one in regard to nest relative position -vertical and horizontal distance between adjacent galleries, and in relation to ground levels- and the other related to the structure of the nesting gailery -horizontal and vertical axes, and length. Results showed the colony by river Guadiamar presents high values both variability in the distribution of nesting holes and population density. The colony by river Guadalquivir presents homogeneity in the distribution of nesting holes and low population density

Study by optical spectroscopy and molecular dynamics of the interaction of acridine-spermine conjugate with DNA

International audienc

És apropiada l'activitat física que fan els nostres escolars? Existeix correlació entre l'índex de massa corporal i les característiques de l'activitat física desenvolupada?

Fonament. Un dels objectius de la salut pública és la promoció d'un estil de vida actiu. La població infantil és clau, ja que l'activitat física (AF) és necessària per a un creixement saludable; és molt difícil canviar hàbits a partir de l'adolescència i el sedentarisme és factor causal de patologia i d'obesitat infantil. Objectiu. Conèixer les característiques de l'AF realitzada pels nostres escolars, estimar el temps destinat a conductes sedentàries (screen-time) i analitzar la relació entre índex de massa corporal (IMC), AF i screen-time. Mètode. Participants: 329 escolars (medi rural) prèvia obtenció del consentiment informat. Variables estudiades: IMC; AF i screen-time (enquesta de 7 dies i test K13 Plus d'AF). Resultats. Descriptius (mitjana ± DE): edat 7,2 ± 2,6 anys. IMC 17,3 ± 3,2 kg/m2 , Z-score IMC 0,12 ± 1,1. Screentime 59,4 ± 43,4 minuts/dia. Tipus AF (minuts/dia): intensitat lleu 34,7 ± 29,9, moderada 59,07 ± 52, elevada 26,2 ± 27,5. Puntuació test K13 Plus d'AF 5,5 ± 1,9 (puntuació equivalent a regular). Anàlisi correlació: significativa inversa entre IMC i AF de moderada intensitat (coeficient de Pearson -0,130; p = 0,018). Conclusions. En general, els valors mitjans dels infants avaluats corresponen amb els considerats aconsellables actualment, tot i que possiblement cal optimitzar les recomanacions vigents. En la prevenció del sobrepès/obesitat infantil cal considerar la correlació IMC/AF de moderada intensitat. S'han de promoure intervencions adreçades a augmentar el temps d'AF d'intensitat lleu i moderada, i a evitar un augment de l'screen-time. La piràmide d'AF pot ser una bona eina per al consell i ensenyament a les famílies

AMMO-Prot: amine system project 3D-model finder

BACKGROUND: Amines are biogenic amino acid derivatives, which play pleiotropic and very important yet complex roles in animal physiology. For many other relevant biomolecules, biochemical and molecular data are being accumulated, which need to be integrated in order to be effective in the advance of biological knowledge in the field. For this purpose, a multidisciplinary group has started an ontology-based system named the Amine System Project (ASP) for which amine-related information is the validation bench. RESULTS: In this paper, we describe the Ontology-Based Mediator developed in the Amine System Project (http://asp.uma.es) using the infrastructure of Semantic Directories, and how this system has been used to solve a case related to amine metabolism-related protein structures. CONCLUSIONS: This infrastructure is used to publish and manage not only ontologies and their relationships, but also metadata relating to the resources committed with the ontologies. The system developed is available at http://asp.uma.es/WebMediator

Impulse control disorders in eating disorders: clinical and therapeutic implications

Objective: Few studies have explored impulse control disorders (ICDs) in women with bulimia nervosa (BN). We explored the prevalence of lifetime ICDs in women with BN, compared the severity of eating disorder symptoms in women with BN with and without ICD, and compared their personality profiles to females with one form of ICD, namely, pathologic gambling. Method: A total sample of 269 female patients consecutively admitted to our unit participated in the current study (173 BN without comorbid ICD [BN - ICD]; 54 BN with comorbid ICD [BN + ICD]; and 42 pathologic gamblers [PG]). All participants were diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, criteria. Evaluation: Assessment measures included the Symptom Checklist-90 revised and the Temperament and Character Inventory-revised, as well as a number of other clinical and psychopathologic indices. Results: In BN, the observed lifetime prevalence of ICD was 23.8%. Lifetime compulsive buying (17.6%) and intermittent explosive disorder (13.2%) were the most frequently reported ICD. Bulimia nervosa subtype was not significantly associated with lifetime ICD (P = .051) or with ICD subtype (P = .253). After using multinomial regression models, we observed that BN + ICD and PG showed the highest scores on novelty seeking (P < .0001). But BN + ICD women had the lowest scores on self-directedness (P < .03) and higher scores on general psychopathology (P < .01) and drug abuse (P < .01). Conclusions: Individuals with BN + lifetime ICD presented more extreme personality profiles, especially on novelty seeking and impulsivity, and general psychopathology than individuals with BN without ICD. On some personality traits, those BN + ICD more closely resembled individuals with PG than those with BN without ICD

Comparison of personality risk factors in bulimia nervosa and pathological gambling

Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the predictive value of personality profiles to classify individuals with bulimia nervosa (BN), pathological gambling (PG), and a nonpsychiatric comparison group while controlling for sex. Methods: The sample comprised 270 BN (241 women, 29 men), 429 PG (42 women, 387 men), and 96 comparison (nonpsychiatric) subjects (35 women, 61 men). All patients were consecutively admitted to our Psychiatry Department and were diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision criteria. We administered the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised as well as other clinical indices. Multinomial and binary logistic regression models adjusted for age and stratified by sex were used to assess the predictive value of personality in relation to group status. Results: In comparison to controls, high Novelty Seeking (P < .001) was specifically associated with a diagnosis of PG. Independently of sex, low Self-Directedness was associated with both BN (P < .001) and PG (P < .001). Some sex-specific differences were also observed; namely, women with BN and PG displayed higher Harm Avoidance and Cooperativeness than control women, whereas men with PG reported higher Reward Dependence and Persistence than control men. Conclusions: Our results suggested that, whereas there are some shared personality traits between BN and PG when compared with healthy controls, there are also some sex- and diagnostic-specific personality traits that weigh against the consideration of BN as an impulse control disorder

The evolution of the zooplankton community in the gulf of Cadiz, SW Iberian Peninsula

The Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) has been conducting a multidisciplinary study of the marine ecosystem in the Gulf of Cadiz (GoC; SW Iberian Peninsula) since 2009 within the frame of the program Time Series of Oceanographic data in the Gulf of Cadiz (STOCA, in Spanish). The program maintains repeated observations along five across-shelf transects: three times a year from 2009 to 2012 and quarterly on hereafter. In this paper we present the temporal evolution of the zooplankton community in the GoC. In particular, we focused on samples from three stations located off the Guadalquivir river mouth: GD1 (20 m depth), GD3 (80 m) and GD6 (450 m). Samples were taken with bongo-40 cm paired zooplankton nets (mesh size 200 mm). Double oblique hauls were conducted from top to bottom or to a maximum depth of 200 m) while the ship was steaming at 2.5 kn. A total of 43 samples per station were included in the analysis. Samples were imaged with ZooScan. Full images were processed with ZooProcess which generated set of associated features measured on each identified object (Gorsky et al, 2010). These objects were sorted following a common taxonomic guide using the web application EcoTaxa (http://ecotaxa.obs-vlfr.fr). As a sanity check, a variable number of aliquots were directly identified by light microscopy. These results permitted the description of the mean and variable components of the plankton community, their seasonal in the context of the thermohaline and transport variability in the 2010s

Suicide attempts in bulimia nervosa: Personality and psychopathological correlates

Background: Little evidence exists about suicidal acts in eating disorders and its relation with personality. We explored the prevalence of lifetime suicide attempts (SA) in women with bulimia nervosa (BN), and compared eating disorder symptoms, general psychopathology, impulsivity and personality between individuals who had and had not attempted suicide. We also determined the variables that better correlate with of SA. Method: Five hundred sixty-six BN outpatients (417 BN purging, 47 BN non-purging and 102 subthreshold BN) participated in the study. Results: Lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts was 26.9%. BN subtype was not associated with lifetime SA (p = 0.36). Suicide attempters exhibited higher rates on eating symptomatology, general psychopathology, impulsive behaviors, more frequent history of childhood obesity and parental alcohol abuse (p < 0.004). Suicide attempters exhibited higher scores on harm avoidance and lower on self-directedness, reward dependence and cooperativeness (p < 0.002). The most strongly correlated variables with SA were: lower education, minimum BMI, previous eating disorder treatment, low self-directedness, and familial history of alcohol abuse (p < 0.006). Conclusion: Our results support the notion that internalizing personality traits combined with impulsivity may increase the probability of suicidal behaviors in these patients. Future research may increase our understanding of the role of suicidality to work towards rational prevention of suicidal attempts

Decision making impairment: A shared vulnerability in obesity, gambling disorder and substance use disorders?

Introduction: Addictions are associated with decision making impairments. The present study explores decision making in Substance use disorder (SUD), Gambling disorder (GD) and Obesity (OB) when assessed by Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and compares them with healthy controls (HC). Methods: For the aims of this study, 591 participants (194 HC, 178 GD, 113 OB, 106 SUD) were assessed according to DSM criteria, completed a sociodemographic interview and conducted the IGT. Results: SUD, GD and OB present impaired decision making when compared to the HC in the overall task and task learning, however no differences are found for the overall performance in the IGT among the clinical groups. Results also reveal some specific learning across the task patterns within the clinical groups: OB maintains negative scores until the third set where learning starts but with a less extend to HC, SUD presents an early learning followed by a progressive although slow improvement and GD presents more random choices with no learning. Conclusions: Decision making impairments are present in the studied clinical samples and they display individual differences in the task learning. Results can help understanding the underlying mechanisms of OB and addiction behaviors as well as improve current clinical treatments

The quest for the solar g modes

Solar gravity modes (or g modes) -- oscillations of the solar interior for which buoyancy acts as the restoring force -- have the potential to provide unprecedented inference on the structure and dynamics of the solar core, inference that is not possible with the well observed acoustic modes (or p modes). The high amplitude of the g-mode eigenfunctions in the core and the evanesence of the modes in the convection zone make the modes particularly sensitive to the physical and dynamical conditions in the core. Owing to the existence of the convection zone, the g modes have very low amplitudes at photospheric levels, which makes the modes extremely hard to detect. In this paper, we review the current state of play regarding attempts to detect g modes. We review the theory of g modes, including theoretical estimation of the g-mode frequencies, amplitudes and damping rates. Then we go on to discuss the techniques that have been used to try to detect g modes. We review results in the literature, and finish by looking to the future, and the potential advances that can be made -- from both data and data-analysis perspectives -- to give unambiguous detections of individual g modes. The review ends by concluding that, at the time of writing, there is indeed a consensus amongst the authors that there is currently no undisputed detection of solar g modes.Comment: 71 pages, 18 figures, accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics Revie