Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile in its westernmost biogeographical limit (northwestern Alboran Sea): Meadows characterisation, phenology and flowering events

Mateo-Ramírez A, Urra J, Rueda J, Marina, Bañares-España E, García Raso E. (2016) Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile in its westernmost biogeographical limit (northwestern Alboran Sea): Meadows characterisation, phenology and flowering events. Front. Mar, Sci. Conference Abstract: XIX Iberian Symposium on Marine Biology Studies. doi: 10.3389/conf.FMARS.2016.05.00055Posidonia oceanica is a Mediterranean endemic seagrass species that forms meadows covering ca. 2.5–4.5 millions of hectares, representing ca.25 % of the infralittoral and shallow circalittoral (down to 50m) bottoms of the Mediterranean. This seagrass is considered a habitat-engineer species and provides an elevated number of ecosystem services. In addition the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC) includes seagrass like elements to evaluate the “Good Environmental Status” of the European coasts. Information about their phenological characteristic and structure of the meadows is needed for indicator estimations in order to establish their conservation status. The studied meadows are located in the westernmost limit of the P. oceanica distribution (North-western Alboran Sea) in the vecinity of the Strait of Gibraltar, an Atlantic-Mediterranean water transition area. Four sites were selected from East to West: Paraje Natural de Acantilados de Maro-Cerro Gordo (hereafter Maro), Special Area of Conservation “Calahonda” (hereafter Calahonda), Site of Community Importance Estepona (hereafter Estepona) and Punta Chullera (hereafter Chullera) where P. oceanica present their westernmost meadows. Phenological data were recorded from mid November to mid December in P. oceanica patches located at 2 – 3 m depth. At each site three types of patches (patch area 2 m2, large patches) were sampled. At each patch and site, 3 quadrants of 45 x 45 cm were sampled for shoot and inflorescences density measurements. In each quadrant, 10 random shoots were sampled for shoot morphology (shoot height and number of leaves). Shoot and inflorescences densities were standardized to squared meters. All the studied P. oceanica meadows develop on rocks and they present a fragmented structure with a coverage ranging between ca. 45% in Calahonda and Estepona and ca. 31% in Maro. The meadows of Chullera are reduced to a few small - medium patches with areas ranging between 0.5-1.5 m2 (Fig. 1). The meadows of Chullera and Estepona presented similar values of shoot density (ca. 752 – 662 shoots m-2, respectively) and leaf height (ca. 25 cm). Similarly, the Calahonda and Maro meadows also showed similar values of shoot density (ca. 510 – 550 shoots m-2, respectively) but displaying lower values than those of sites located closer to the Strait of Gibraltar. Regarding patch sizes and leaf height, the longest leaves (ca. 25 cm) were found in medium and large patches, but the number of leaves per shoot were higher in the small and the medium size patches (ca. 6.3 leaves per shoot). Flowering was only detected at the Calahonda meadows with maximum values of ca. 330 inflorescences m-2 (115.2 ± 98.2 inflorescences m-2, n= 9; mean ± SD) (Fig.1). Inflorescence density was not significant different among patches of different sizes. In the Alboran Sea and unlike the studied meadows, extensive beds of P. oceanica occur at the National Park of Cabo de Gata (northeastern Alboran Sea), but from east to west (Strait of Gibraltar), meadows are gradually fragmenting and their depth range decrease from 30m to 2m depth between Cabo de Gata and Chullera, respectively. Probably, the Atlantic influence and the characteristic oceanographic conditions of the Alboran Sea (i.e., higher turbidity, higher water turbulence) represent a developmental limiting factor for P. oceanica at higher depths. Similarities between the meadows located closer to Strait of Gibraltar (Chullera and Estepona) were detected as well as between those more distant (Calahonda and Maro). The first ones showed higher values of shoot densities and leaf heights than the formers, which could be relating to the higher hydrodynamic exposure found at Chullera and Estepona meadows. Regarding flowering events, sexual reproduction in P. oceanica is not common in different locations of the Mediterranean Sea. The available information seems to indicate that flowering represent an irregular event and it is related to high seawater temperature. In fact, the flowering episodes that occurred in Calahonda in November 2015, match with the warmest year ever recorded. This is the third flowering event registered in these meadows located close to the westernmost distributional limit of P. oceanica (Málaga, Alboran Sea), which could indicates that these meadows presents a healthy status. Furthermore, the absence of significant differences in relation to inflorescence density between patches of different sizes may be indicating that the fragmentation does not necessarily influence on the flowering of this seagrass species.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Introducing runahead threads

Simultaneous Multithreading processors share their resources among multiple threads in order to improve performance. However, a resource control policy is needed to avoid resource conflicts and prevent some threads from monopolizing them. On the contrary, resource conflicts would cause other threads to suffer from resource starvation degrading the overall performance. This situation is especially sensitive for memory bounded threads, because they hold an important amount of resources while long latency accesses are being served. Several fetch policies and resource control techniques have been proposed to overcome these problems by limiting the per-thread resource utilization. Nevertheless, this limitation is harmful for memory bounded threads because it restricts the memory level parallelism available that hides the long latency memory accesses. In this paper, we propose Runahead threads on SMT scenarios as a valuable solution for both exploiting the memory-level parallelism and reducing the resource contention. This approach switches a memory-bounded eager resource thread to a speculative light thread, avoiding critical resource blocking among multiple threads. Furthermore, it improves the thread-level parallelism by removing long-latency memory operations from the instruction window, releasing busy resources. We compare an SMT architecture using Runahead threads (SMTRA) to both state-of-the-art static fetch and dynamic resource control policies. Our results show that the SMTRA combination performs better, in terms of throughput and fairness, than any of the other policies.Postprint (published version

Selection of new chemicals to be used in conditioned aversion for non-lethal predation control

Globally, native predators and scavengers are threatened through the incidence of illegal poisoning due to increasing human-wildlife conflicts. The use of conditioned taste aversion (CTA) may mitigate such conflicts. CTA is a robust learning paradigm that occurs when animals associate a food with a discomfort induced by a chemical, thereby avoiding that food in subsequent encounters. We reviewed the potential of 167 chemical compounds to be used in CTA, considering effects, margin of safety, accessibility, and detectability. After the review, 15 compounds fulfilled the required characteristics, but only five (thiabendazole, thiram, levamisole, fluconazole and fluralaner) were finally selected to be tested in CTA assays with dogs. Of the tested compounds, thiabendazole, thiram and levamisole caused target food rejection by dogs and reduced the time spent eating during post-conditioning. However, despite being microencapsulated, levamisole appeared to be detectable by dogs, whereas thiram and thiabendazole were not. Fluconazole and fluralaner did not produce any CTA effect. Thiabendazole, thiram and levamisole can therefore induce CTA, and thus are potential candidates as aversive compounds for wildlife management. Thiram is an undetectable, relatively safe and accessible compound that can induce CTA in canids, and opens new possibilities to develop methods of non-lethal predation control.This study is a result of CGL2013–40975-R project, from I+D+I National Plan funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Jorge Tobajas benefitted from a FPI PhD scholarship (BES-2014-068987) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.Peer reviewe

Percepción de riesgo y creencias del consumo de drogas en Profesores de Enfermería

Objective: Examine the prevalence of alcohol, tobacco and medical drug use and determine the relationship of risk perception, beliefs of teachers with drugs consumption. Methods: Quantitative study with a descriptive, correlational and inferential design. The population studied was made up of nursing professors from the State of Tabasco, Mexico. Sampling was non-probabilistic for convenience; the sample was 60 participants. To measure the perception of risk towards tobacco and alcohol consumption, the Risk Perception Questionnaire for the Consumption of Licit Drugs and the Scale of Education in Nursing in Alcohol were used. Results: In the subscales of risk perception on the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and medical drugs, the following data is presented at a moderate level; negative consequences of alcohol consumption (75%), negative consequences of tobacco use (66.7%) and negative consequences of medical drug use (73.3%). With regard to beliefs about the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and medical drugs, it is shown tan 70% have positive beliefs about drug use. A positive and significant relationship was found between risk perception and beliefs (rs = .359, p = .005). Conclusion: The higher the risk perception of nursing teachers, the better will be the positive beliefs about drug use.Objetivo: Analizar la relación que existe entre la percepción de riesgo y las creencias del consumo de Drogas en Profesores de Enfermería. Métodos: Estudio cuantitativo con un diseño descriptivo-correlacional. La población de estudio estuvo conformada por profesores de Enfermería del Estado de Tabasco, México. El muestreo fue no probabilístico por conveniencia; la muestra fue de 60 participantes. Para medir la percepción de riesgo hacia el consumo de tabaco y alcohol se utilizó el Cuestionario de Percepción de Riesgo y Consumo de Drogas y la Escala de Educación en Enfermería sobre el Abuso de Alcohol y Drogas. Resultados: En las subescalas de percepción de riesgo sobre el consumo de alcohol, tabaco y drogas médicas, se presenta en un nivel moderado los siguientes datos; consecuencias negativas del consumo de alcohol (75%), consecuencias negativas del consumo de tabaco (66.7%) y consecuencias negativas del consumo de drogas médicas (73.3%). En lo que respecta a las creencias sobre el consumo de alcohol, tabaco y drogas médicas, se muestra que el 70% tiene creencias positivas sobre el consumo de drogas. Se encontró una relación positiva y significativa entre la percepción de riesgo y las creencias (rs=.359, p=.005). Conclusión: Entre más alta sea la percepción de riesgo que tengan los docentes de enfermería, mejor será las creencias positivas sobre el consumo de drogas

Moluscos de hábitats bentónicos del volcán de fango Gazul (Golfo de Cádiz)

Molluscs from the Gazul mud volcano and its adjacent areas in the northern Gulf of Cádiz were studied using differ­ent sampling methods. This mud volcano has vulnerable deep-sea habitats and a potential high biodiversity. A total of 232 species were identified from the taxocoenosis and thanatocoenosis, of which 86 are new records for the Spanish margin of the Gulf of Cádiz, three of them are new records for Spanish waters and two species are new to science. The high species richness observed could be related to the combination of different sampling methods, the study of the thanatocoenosis, the high habitat heterogeneity and the geographical location of the Gazul mud volcano between different biogeographical regions. The best-represented species were Bathyarca philippiana, Asperarca nodulosa, Leptochiton sp., Astarte sulcata and Limopsis angusta. The thanatocoenosis harboured, with low frequency, species that are typical of northern latitudes, species indicating past seepage, species from the shelf and species restricted to particular hosts. The taxocoenosis found in different areas of Gazul (the mud volcano edifice, erosive de­pression and adjacent bottoms) generally displayed significant differences in multivariate analyses. Furthermore, the environmental parameters related to environmental complexity and food availability displayed the highest linkage with the molluscan fauna.Se estudiaron los moluscos del volcán de fango Gazul y sus zonas adyacentes, en el norte del Golfo de Cádiz, utili­zando diferentes métodos de muestreo. Este volcán de fango destaca por la presencia de hábitats vulnerables de aguas profundas y una alta biodiversidad potencial. Se identificaron un total de 232 especies de la taxocenosis y la tanatocenosis, de las cuales 86 son nuevas citas para el margen español del Golfo de Cádiz, tres de ellas son nuevas citas para aguas españolas y dos especies son nuevas para la ciencia. La alta riqueza de especies detectada podría estar relacionada con la combinación de diferentes mé­todos de muestreo, el estudio de la tanatocenosis, la alta heterogeneidad del hábitat y la ubicación geográfica del volcán de fango Gazul entre diferentes regiones biogeográficas. Las especies mejor representadas fueron Bathyarca philippiana, Asperarca nodulosa, Leptochiton sp., Astarte sulcata y Limopsis angusta. La tanatocenosis contenía, con baja frecuencia, especies típicas de latitudes superiores, especies indicadoras de emisiones pasadas, especies de la plataforma y especies restringidas a huéspedes particulares. La taxocenosis encontrada en las diferentes zonas de Gazul (edificio del volcán de fango, depresión erosiva y fon­dos adyacentes) generalmente mostró diferencias significativas en los análisis multivariantes. Además, los parámetros ambien­tales más vinculados con la malacofauna fueron los relacionados con la complejidad ambiental y la disponibilidad de alimento

Boletín NUESTRA AMÉRICA XXI - Desafíos y alternativas, num.83, Octubre 2023

Unidad Popular era minoritaria en el Congreso, y más extraordinaria aún ya que estas transformaciones se pusieron en práctica a través del tránsito pacífico del capitalismo al socialismo respetando la democracia en Chile. Como se ha dicho, el Gobierno de Allende fue derrotado por lo que hizo bien y no por lo que hizo mal. Allende triunfó el 4 de septiembre de 1970, con una mayoría relativa de solo 36,6%. La Unidad Popular (UP) estaba constituida principalmente por los partidos marxistas, Socialista y Comunista que por décadas tuvieron una fuerte presencia en la clase trabajadora con grandes discrepancias históricas. Las transformaciones antimperialistas, anticapitalistas y antioligárquicas se pusieron en práctica en forma simultánea al inicio del Gobierno de Allende. Estas se concretaron en gran medida en 1971, con amplio apoyo político y popular, a pesar de la fuerte oposición de Estados Unidos, de la derecha chilena y sus medios de comunicación. Días antes de que Allende fuese proclamado Presidente de la República por el Congreso Nacional, asesinaron al Comandante en Jefe del Ejército chileno, el General constitucionalista René Schneider. Hasta fines de 1971 las nuevas correlaciones de fuerza social y política posibilitaron importantes avances para el cumplimiento del Programa en crecimiento económico, empleo y redistribución del ingreso. A mediados de 1972 se fue consolidando una confrontación de fuerzas políticas equivalentes, que culminaron con el Golpe de Estado del 11 de septiembre de 1973, Unidad Popular era minoritaria en el Congreso, y más extraordinaria aún ya que estas transformaciones se pusieron en práctica a través del tránsito pacífico del capitalismo al socialismo respetando la democracia en Chile. Como se ha dicho, el Gobierno de Allende fue derrotado por lo que hizo bien y no por lo que hizo mal. Allende triunfó el 4 de septiembre de 1970, con una mayoría relativa de solo 36,6%. La Unidad Popular (UP) estaba constituida principalmente por los partidos marxistas, Socialista y Comunista que por décadas tuvieron una fuerte presencia en la clase trabajadora con grandes discrepancias históricas. Las transformaciones antimperialistas, anticapitalistas y antioligárquicas se pusieron en práctica en forma simultánea al inicio del Gobierno de Allende. Estas se concretaron en gran medida en 1971, con amplio apoyo político y popular, a pesar de la fuerte oposición de Estados Unidos, de la derecha chilena y sus medios de comunicación. Días antes de que Allende fuese proclamado Presidente de la República por el Congreso Nacional, asesinaron al Comandante en Jefe del Ejército chileno, el General constitucionalista René Schneider. Hasta fines de 1971 las nuevas correlaciones de fuerza social y política posibilitaron importantes avances para el cumplimiento del Programa en crecimiento económico, empleo y redistribución del ingreso. A mediados de 1972 se fue consolidando una confrontación de fuerzas políticas equivalentes, que culminaron con el Golpe de Estado del 11 de septiembre de 1973, instaurándose en Chile una de las Dictaduras más represivas en la historia contemporánea

Runahead threads: reducing resource contention in SMT processors

In this work, we propose Runahead threads as a valuable solution for both exploiting memory-level parallelism and reducing resource contention in simultaneous multithreaded processors.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile in its westernmost biogeographical limit (northwestern Alboran Sea): Meadows characterisation, phenology and flowering events

Posidonia oceanica is a Mediterranean endemic seagrass species that forms meadows covering ca. 2.5–4.5 millions of hectares, representing ca.25 % of the infralittoral and shallow circalittoral (down to 50m) bottoms of the Mediterranean. This seagrass is considered a habitat-engineer species and provides an elevated number of ecosystem services. In addition the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC) includes seagrass like elements to evaluate the “Good Environmental Status” of the European coasts. Information about their phenological characteristic and structure of the meadows is needed for indicator estimations in order to establish their conservation status. The studied meadows are located in the westernmost limit of the P. oceanica distribution (North-western Alboran Sea) in the vecinity of the Strait of Gibraltar, an Atlantic-Mediterranean water transition area. Four sites were selected from East to West: Paraje Natural de Acantilados de Maro-Cerro Gordo (hereafter Maro), Special Area of Conservation “Calahonda” (hereafter Calahonda), Site of Community Importance Estepona (hereafter Estepona) and Punta Chullera (hereafter Chullera) where P. oceanica present their westernmost meadows. Phenological data were recorded from mid November to mid December in P. oceanica patches located at 2 – 3 m depth. At each site three types of patches (patch area 2 m2, large patches) were sampled. At each patch and site, 3 quadrants of 45 x 45 cm were sampled for shoot and inflorescences density measurements. In each quadrant, 10 random shoots were sampled for shoot morphology (shoot height and number of leaves). Shoot and inflorescences densities were standardized to squared meters. All the studied P. oceanica meadows develop on rocks and they present a fragmented structure with a coverage ranging between ca. 45% in Calahonda and Estepona and ca. 31% in Maro. The meadows of Chullera are reduced to a few small - medium patches with areas ranging between 0.5-1.5 m2 (Fig. 1). The meadows of Chullera and Estepona presented similar values of shoot density (ca. 752 – 662 shoots m-2, respectively) and leaf height (ca. 25 cm). Similarly, the Calahonda and Maro meadows also showed similar values of shoot density (ca. 510 – 550 shoots m-2, respectively) but displaying lower values than those of sites located closer to the Strait of Gibraltar. Regarding patch sizes and leaf height, the longest leaves (ca. 25 cm) were found in medium and large patches, but the number of leaves per shoot were higher in the small and the medium size patches (ca. 6.3 leaves per shoot). Flowering was only detected at the Calahonda meadows with maximum values of ca. 330 inflorescences m-2 (115.2 ± 98.2 inflorescences m-2, n= 9; mean ± SD) (Fig.1). Inflorescence density was not significant different among patches of different sizes. In the Alboran Sea and unlike the studied meadows, extensive beds of P. oceanica occur at the National Park of Cabo de Gata (northeastern Alboran Sea), but from east to west (Strait of Gibraltar), meadows are gradually fragmenting and their depth range decrease from 30m to 2m depth between Cabo de Gata and Chullera, respectively. Probably, the Atlantic influence and the characteristic oceanographic conditions of the Alboran Sea (i.e., higher turbidity, higher water turbulence) represent a developmental limiting factor for P. oceanica at higher depths. Similarities between the meadows located closer to Strait of Gibraltar (Chullera and Estepona) were detected as well as between those more distant (Calahonda and Maro). The first ones showed higher values of shoot densities and leaf heights than the formers, which could be relating to the higher hydrodynamic exposure found at Chullera and Estepona meadows. Regarding flowering events, sexual reproduction in P. oceanica is not common in different locations of the Mediterranean Sea. The available information seems to indicate that flowering represent an irregular event and it is related to high seawater temperature. In fact, the flowering episodes that occurred in Calahonda in November 2015, match with the warmest year ever recorded. This is the third flowering event registered in these meadows located close to the westernmost distributional limit of P. oceanica (Málaga, Alboran Sea), which could indicates that these meadows presents a healthy status. Furthermore, the absence of significant differences in relation to inflorescence density between patches of different sizes may be indicating that the fragmentation does not necessarily influence on the flowering of this seagrass species

Validación del método SDS-PAGE para la determinación de la composición de proteínas en un extracto alergénico de soya

La soya es uno de los principales alergenos alimentarios agrupados en el denominado grupo de los “grandes 8”. La validación de métodos analíticos evalúa su desempeño como control de calidad en la industria farmacéutica. El objetivo de este trabajo fue validar el método de SDS-PAGE para un extracto alergénico de soya. Se evaluó la Precisión (Repetibilidad y Precisión Intermedia) en la determinación del contenido relativo de las bandas principales. Como parámetro de Especificidad se determinó la posible interferencia del glicerol, comparando con la referencia liofilizada. Se determinó la Exactitud en la determinación del peso molecular y el Límite de Detección. Los componentes alergénicos fueron identificados comparando los patrones de electroforesis con las bandas identificadas por IgE mediante Western Blotting, además se determinaron las bandas reconocidas por los anticuerpos bloqueadores IgG4. Todos los criterios de aceptación establecidos se cumplieron. El coeficiente de variación fue menor de 5% en todos los casos. No hubo diferencias significativas entre diferentes analistas, (Fischer, p˃0.05). Se demostró la Exactitud en la determinación de pesos moleculares, no se evidenciaron diferencias significativas entre el valor medio hallado para las bandas principales y los valores teóricos de los alergenos (p˃0.05). No existieron diferencias significativas entre los porcentajes de las bandas principales entre el extracto liofilizado y la formulación glicerinada (p˃0.05). El límite de detección de la técnica fue 0.5 µg de proteínas. En conclusión, la técnica SDS-PAGE quedó validada para un extracto alergénico de soya y puede emplearse en el control de la calidad del producto terminad

Boletín NUESTRA AMÉRICA XXI - Desafíos y alternativas, num.61, Noviembre 2021

Una excelente iniciativa del Grupo de Trabajo Crisis y economía mundial, coordinado por María Josefina Morales, Julio Gambina y Gabriela Roffinelli