Showing papers by "University of Alcalá published in 2011"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reported the detection of massive molecular outflows, traced by the hydroxyl molecule (OH), in far-infrared spectra of ULIRGs obtained with Herschel-PACS as part of the SHINING key project.
Abstract: Mass outflows driven by stars and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are a key element in many current models of galaxy evolution. They may produce the observed black-hole-galaxy mass relation and regulate and quench both star formation in the host galaxy and black hole accretion. However, observational evidence of such feedback processes through outflows of the bulk of the star-forming molecular gas is still scarce. Here we report the detection of massive molecular outflows, traced by the hydroxyl molecule (OH), in far-infrared spectra of ULIRGs obtained with Herschel-PACS as part of the SHINING key project. In some of these objects the (terminal) outflow velocities exceed 1000?km?s?1, and their outflow rates (up to ~1200 M ? yr?1) are several times larger than their star formation rates. We compare the outflow signatures in different types of ULIRGs and in starburst galaxies to address the issue of the energy source (AGN or starburst) of these outflows. We report preliminary evidence that ULIRGs with a higher AGN luminosity (and higher AGN contribution to L IR) have higher terminal velocities and shorter gas depletion timescales. The outflows in the observed ULIRGs are able to expel the cold gas reservoirs from the centers of these objects within ~106-108 years.
606 citations
TL;DR: Women with PCOS exhibit an elevation in circulating CRP that is independent of obesity, which corroborates existing molecular evidence of the chronic low-grade inflammation that may underpin the pathogenesis of this disorder.
392 citations
TL;DR: The present Clinical Guideline describes the results of EUS-guided sampling in the different clinical settings, considers the role of this technique in patient management, and makes recommendations on circumstances that warrant its use.
Abstract: This article is part of a combined publication that expresses the current view of the European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ESGE) about endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided sampling in gastroenterology, including EUS-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) and EUS-guided trucut biopsy (EUS-TCB), of submucosal tumors, diffuse esophageal/gastric wall thickening, pancreatic solid masses and cystic-appearing lesions, mediastinal lesions unrelated to lung or esophageal cancer, cancer of the esophagus, stomach, and rectum, lymph nodes of unknown origin, adrenal gland masses, and focal liver lesions. False-positive cytopathological results and needle tract seeding are also discussed. The present Clinical Guideline describes the results of EUS-guided sampling in the different clinical settings, considers the role of this technique in patient management, and makes recommendations on circumstances that warrant its use. A two-page executive summary of evidence statements and recommendations is provided. A separate Technical Guideline describes the general technique of EUS-guided sampling, particular techniques to maximize the diagnostic yield depending on the nature of the target lesion, and sample processing. The target readership for the Clinical Guideline mostly includes gastroenterologists, oncologists, internists, and surgeons while the Technical Guideline should be most useful to endoscopists who perform EUS-guided sampling.
300 citations
TL;DR: Results show that the introduction of such module reduces the impact of false positives due to non-crack features up to a factor of 2.5, and the observed performance of the crack detection system is significantly boosted by adapting the parameters to the type of pavement.
Abstract: This paper presents a road distress detection system involving the phases needed to properly deal with fully automatic road distress assessment. A vehicle equipped with line scan cameras, laser illumination and acquisition HW-SW is used to storage the digital images that will be further processed to identify road cracks. Pre-processing is firstly carried out to both smooth the texture and enhance the linear features. Non-crack features detection is then applied to mask areas of the images with joints, sealed cracks and white painting, that usually generate false positive cracking. A seed-based approach is proposed to deal with road crack detection, combining Multiple Directional Non-Minimum Suppression (MDNMS) with a symmetry check. Seeds are linked by computing the paths with the lowest cost that meet the symmetry restrictions. The whole detection process involves the use of several parameters. A correct setting becomes essential to get optimal results without manual intervention. A fully automatic approach by means of a linear SVM-based classifier ensemble able to distinguish between up to 10 different types of pavement that appear in the Spanish roads is proposed. The optimal feature vector includes different texture-based features. The parameters are then tuned depending on the output provided by the classifier. Regarding non-crack features detection, results show that the introduction of such module reduces the impact of false positives due to non-crack features up to a factor of 2. In addition, the observed performance of the crack detection system is significantly boosted by adapting the parameters to the type of pavement.
283 citations
TL;DR: The results indicate that the incorporation of intra-population genetic diversity and phenotypic plasticity in SDMs significantly altered their outcome and reaffirm the importance of considering adaptive traits when predicting species distributions and avoiding the use of occurrence data as a predictive variable.
Abstract: Aim To assess the effect of local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity on the potential distribution of species under future climate changes. Trees may be adapted to specific climatic conditions; however, species range predictions have classically been assessed by species distribution models (SDMs) that do not account for intra-specific genetic variability and phenotypic plasticity, because SDMs rely on the assumption that species respond homogeneously to climate change across their range, i.e. a species is equally adapted throughout its range, and all species are equally plastic. These assumptions could cause SDMs to exaggerate or underestimate species at risk under future climate change.
Location The Iberian Peninsula.
Methods Species distributions are predicted by integrating experimental data and modelling techniques. We incorporate plasticity and local adaptation into a SDM by calibrating models of tree survivorship with adaptive traits in provenance trials. Phenotypic plasticity was incorporated by calibrating our model with a climatic index that provides a measure of the differences between sites and provenances.
Results We present a new modelling approach that is easy to implement and makes use of existing tree provenance trials to predict species distribution models under global warming. Our results indicate that the incorporation of intra-population genetic diversity and phenotypic plasticity in SDMs significantly altered their outcome. In comparing species range predictions, the decrease in area occupancy under global warming conditions is smaller when considering our survival–adaptation model than that predicted by a ‘classical SDM’ calibrated with presence–absence data. These differences in survivorship are due to both local adaptation and plasticity. Differences due to the use of experimental data in the model calibration are also expressed in our results: we incorporate a null model that uses survival data from all provenances together. This model always predicts less reduction in area occupancy for both species than the SDM calibrated with presence–absence.
Main conclusions We reaffirm the importance of considering adaptive traits when predicting species distributions and avoiding the use of occurrence data as a predictive variable. In light of these recommendations, we advise that existing predictions of future species distributions and their component populations must be reconsidered.
272 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the relative importance of climate, tree size and competition as determinants of tree growth patterns in Iberian forests, and explore interspecific differences in the two components of competitive ability (competitive response and effect) along climatic and size gradients.
Abstract: Most large-scale multispecies studies of tree growth have been conducted in tropical and cool temperate forests, whereas Mediterranean water-limited ecosystems have received much less attention. This limits our understanding of how growth of coexisting tree species varies along environmental gradients in these forests, and the implications for species interactions and community assembly under current and future climatic conditions. Here, we quantify the absolute effect and relative importance of climate, tree size and competition as determinants of tree growth patterns in Iberian forests, and explore interspecific differences in the two components of competitive ability (competitive response and effect) along climatic and size gradients. Spatially explicit neighborhood models were developed to predict tree growth for the 15 most abundant Iberian tree species using permanent-plot data from the Spanish Second and Third National Forest Inventory (IFN). Our neighborhood analyses showed a climatic and size effect on tree growth, but also revealed that competition from neighbors has a comparatively much larger impact on growth in Iberian forests. Moreover, the sensitivity to competition (i.e. competitive response) of target trees varied markedly along climatic gradients causing significant rank reversals in species performance, particularly under xeric conditions. We also found compelling evidence for strong species-specific competitive effects in these forests. Altogether, these results constitute critical new information which not only furthers our understanding of important theoretical questions about the assembly of Mediterranean forests, but will also be of help in developing new guidelines for adapting forests in this climatic boundary to global change. If we consider the climatic gradients of this study as a surrogate for future climatic conditions, then we should expect absolute growth rates to decrease and sensitivity to competition to increase in most forests of the Iberian Peninsula (in all but the northern Atlantic forests), making these management considerations even more important in the future.
257 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that galaxies with high L{sub FIR/M{sub H{sub 2} ratios tend to have weaker fine structure lines relative to their far-infrared continuum.
Abstract: We report initial results from the far-infrared fine structure line observations of a sample of 44 local starbursts, Seyfert galaxies, and infrared luminous galaxies obtained with the PACS spectrometer on board Herschel. We show that the ratio between the far-infrared luminosity and the molecular gas mass, L{sub FIR}/M{sub H{sub 2}}, is a much better proxy for the relative brightness of the far-infrared lines than L{sub FIR} alone. Galaxies with high L{sub FIR}/M{sub H{sub 2}} ratios tend to have weaker fine structure lines relative to their far-infrared continuum than galaxies with L{sub FIR}/M{sub H{sub 2}} , or approx. 80 L{sub {circle_dot}}M{sub {circle_dot}}{sup -1}. A deficit of the [C II] 158 {mu}m line relative to L{sub FIR} was previously found with the Infrared Space Observatory, but now we show for the first time that this is a general aspect of all far-infrared fine structure lines, regardless of their origin in the ionized or neutral phase of the interstellar medium. The L{sub FIR}/M{sub H{sub 2}} value where these line deficits start to manifest is similar to the limit that separates between the two modes of star formation recently found in galaxies on the basis of studies of their gas-star formation relations. Our findingmore » that the properties of the interstellar medium are also significantly different in these regimes provides independent support for the different star-forming relations in normal disk galaxies and major merger systems. We use the spectral synthesis code Cloudy to model the emission of the lines. The expected increase of the ionization parameter with L{sub FIR}/M{sub H{sub 2}} can simultaneously explain the line deficits in the [C II], [N II], and [O I] lines.« less
242 citations
TL;DR: The small molecule enoxacin, a fluoroquinolone used as an antibacterial compound, enhances the production of miRNAs with tumor suppressor functions by binding to the miRNA biosynthesis protein TAR RNA-binding protein 2 (TRBP).
Abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small RNA molecules that regulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level and are critical for many cellular pathways. The disruption of miRNAs and their processing machineries also contributes to the development of human tumors. A common scenario for miRNA expression in carcinogenesis is emerging that shows that impaired miRNA production and/or down-regulation of these transcripts occurs in many neoplasms. Several of these lost miRNAs have tumor-suppressor features, so strategies to restore their expression globally in malignancies would be a welcome addition to the current therapeutic arsenal against cancer. Herein, we show that the small molecule enoxacin, a fluoroquinolone used as an antibacterial compound, enhances the production of miRNAs with tumor suppressor functions by binding to the miRNA biosynthesis protein TAR RNA-binding protein 2 (TRBP). The use of enoxacin in human cell cultures and xenografted, orthotopic, and metastatic mouse models reveals a TRBP-dependent and cancer-specific growth-inhibitory effect of the drug. These results highlight the key role of disrupted miRNA expression patterns in tumorigenesis, and suggest a unique strategy for restoring the distorted microRNAome of cancer cells to a more physiological setting.
221 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a map of burned area has been obtained from an automatic algorithm applied to a multitemporal series of Landsat TM/ETM+ images in two Mediterranean sites.
217 citations
TL;DR: This paper discusses the application of two different evolutionary computation techniques to tackle the hyper-parameters estimation problem in SVMrs and tests an Evolutionary Programming algorithm (EP) and a Particle Swarm Optimization approach (PSO).
Abstract: Hyper-parameters estimation in regression Support Vector Machines (SVMr) is one of the main problems in the application of this type of algorithms to learning problems This is a hot topic in which very recent approaches have shown very good results in different applications in fields such as bio-medicine, manufacturing, control, etc Different evolutionary approaches have been tested to be hybridized with SVMr, though the most used are evolutionary approaches for continuous problems, such as evolutionary strategies or particle swarm optimization algorithms In this paper we discuss the application of two different evolutionary computation techniques to tackle the hyper-parameters estimation problem in SVMrs Specifically we test an Evolutionary Programming algorithm (EP) and a Particle Swarm Optimization approach (PSO) We focus the paper on the discussion of the application of the complete evolutionary-SVMr algorithm to a real problem of wind speed prediction in wind turbines of a Spanish wind farm
193 citations
27 Feb 2011
TL;DR: An experimental comparison of the accuracy of several collaborative filtering algorithms applied to these TEL datasets are presented and implicit relevance data, such as downloads and tags, that can be used to improve the performance of recommendation algorithms are elaborate.
Abstract: In the world of recommender systems, it is a common practice to use public available datasets from different application environments (e.g. MovieLens, Book-Crossing, or Each-Movie) in order to evaluate recommendation algorithms. These datasets are used as benchmarks to develop new recommendation algorithms and to compare them to other algorithms in given settings. In this paper, we explore datasets that capture learner interactions with tools and resources. We use the datasets to evaluate and compare the performance of different recommendation algorithms for learning. We present an experimental comparison of the accuracy of several collaborative filtering algorithms applied to these TEL datasets and elaborate on implicit relevance data, such as downloads and tags, that can be used to improve the performance of recommendation algorithms.
TL;DR: It is argued that the combination of studying mean values of a trait with its plasticity can render insightful conclusions on functional comparisons of species such as those exploring the performance of species coexisting in heterogeneous and changing environments.
Abstract: Summary 1. Plastic responses to spatiotemporal environmental variation strongly influence species distribution, with widespread species expected to have high phenotypic plasticity. Theoretically, high phenotypic plasticity has been linked to plant invasiveness because it facilitates colonization and rapid spreading over large and environmentally heterogeneous new areas. 2. To determine the importance of phenotypic plasticity for plant invasiveness, we compare well-known exotic invasive species with widespread native congeners. First, we characterized the phenotype of 20 invasive–native ecologically and phylogenetically related pairs from the Mediterranean region by measuring 20 different traits involved in resource acquisition, plant competition ability and stress tolerance. Second, we estimated their plasticity across nutrient and light gradients. 3. On average, invasive species had greater capacity for carbon gain and enhanced performance over a range of limiting to saturating resource availabilities than natives. However, both groups responded to environmental variations with high albeit similar levels of trait plasticity. Therefore, contrary to the theory, the extent of phenotypic plasticity was not significantly higher for invasive plants. 4. We argue that the combination of studying mean values of a trait with its plasticity can render insightful conclusions on functional comparisons of species such as those exploring the performance of species coexisting in heterogeneous and changing environments.
TL;DR: The toxicity of cerium oxide for the self-luminescent cyanobacterial recombinant strain Anabaena CPB4337 and the green alga Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata and the cyanobacterium is described.
TL;DR: A simple but robust method for topographic correction of Landsat imagery is proposed and it is observed that results improve when land-cover classes where processed independently when applying the more advanced correction algorithms such as the C-correction and the Minnaert correction.
TL;DR: The epidemiological evidence supports a moderately increased risk of bleeding associated with the use of SSRIs, which may be critically dependent on patient susceptibility and the presence of risk factors.
Abstract: Among the antidepressants, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are often preferred to other classes of antidepressants in the treatment of depression in the elderly because of their better safety profile. Most of the known effects of SSRIs, either beneficial or adverse, are linked to their inhibitory action on the serotonin reuptake transporter (5-HTT). This reuptake mechanism is present not only in neurons but also in other cells such as platelets. Serotoninergic mechanisms seem to play an important role in haemostasis, and their importance in this regard has long been underestimated. Abnormal activation may lead to a pro-thrombotic state, as may occur in patients with major depressive disorder, whilst downregulation, as occurs in patients treated with SSRIs, may have two clinical consequences, both of particular interest in the elderly. On the one hand, there may be an increased risk of bleeding; on the other hand, a reduction in thrombotic risk may be possible. Polymorphism in the promoter region of the gene that transcribes the 5-HTT has been shown to have a relevant impact on its function and, in turn, on the beneficial and adverse effects of SSRIs. Bleeding has been a concern since the introduction of SSRIs, with multiple case reports published and communicated to the pharmacovigilance systems. The first epidemiological study was published in 1999 and since then, 34 epidemiological studies from different areas, most of them including elderly patients in their study populations, have been published with a variety of results. Broadly, the epidemiological evidence supports a moderately increased risk of bleeding associated with the use of SSRIs, which may be critically dependent on patient susceptibility and the presence of risk factors. The impairment of primary haemostasis induced by SSRIs may result, as a beneficial counterpart, in a reduction in the thrombotic risk. A small number of clinical trials and an increasing number of epidemiological studies that include elderly patients have been conducted to clarify whether SSRIs reduce the risk of primary and secondary ischaemic disorders. However, the results have been inconclusive with some studies suggesting a preventive effect and others no effect or even an increased risk. Behind such contradictory results may be the role of depression itself as a cardiovascular risk factor and, therefore, a major confounding factor. How to disentangle its effect from that of the antidepressants is the methodological challenge to be overcome in future studies. In this complex scenario, the elderly seem to be at a crossroads, because they are the group in which both the risks and the benefits can be the greatest. Studies performed to date have provided us with some clues that can help orient clinicians in taking the most appropriate course of action. For instance, as the gastrointestinal bleeding risk appears to increase with age, prudent advice in patients with a previous history of upper-gastrointestinal bleeding or peptic ulcer, and in those who take NSAIDs, oral anticoagulants, antiplatelet drugs or corticosteroids, would be to suggest addition of an acid-suppressing agent to the drug regimen in those elderly patients in whom SSRIs are indicated.
TL;DR: The toxicity of partially ozonated samples for Daphnia magna and Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata revealed the formation of toxic by-products during the early stages of reaction and the persistence of considerable toxicity after the total depletion of sulfamethoxazole.
22 May 2011
TL;DR: Simulation results suggest that compressed sensing should be considered as a plausible methodology for ECG compression because it implies a high fraction of common support between consecutive heartbeats.
Abstract: Compressive sensing (CS) is a new approach for the acquisition and recovery of sparse signals that enables sampling rates significantly below the classical Nyquist rate. Based on the fact that electrocardiogram (ECG) signals can be approximated by a linear combination of a few coefficients taken from a Wavelet basis, we propose a compressed sensing-based approach for ECG signal compression. ECG signals generally show redundancy between adjacent heartbeats due to its quasi-periodic structure. We show that this redundancy implies a high fraction of common support between consecutive heartbeats. The contribution of this paper lies in the use of distributed compressed sensing to exploit the common support between samples of jointly sparse adjacent beats. Simulation results suggest that compressed sensing should be considered as a plausible methodology for ECG compression.
TL;DR: The information contained in these data provide an unprecedented insight into the sub-picosecond π-bond reconstitution process which is at the basis of the reactivity of the protein embedded 11-cis and all-trans retinal chromophores.
Abstract: Rhodopsin (Rh) and bathorhodopsin (bathoRh) quantum-mechanics/molecular-mechanics models based on ab initio multiconfigurational wave functions are employed to look at the light induced π-bond breaking and reconstitution occurring during the Rh → bathoRh and bathoRh → Rh isomerizations. More specifically, semiclassical trajectory computations are used to compare the excited (S1) and ground (S0) state dynamics characterizing the opposite steps of the Rh/bathoRh photochromic cycle during the first 200 fs following photoexcitation. We show that the information contained in these data provide an unprecedented insight into the sub-picosecond π-bond reconstitution process which is at the basis of the reactivity of the protein embedded 11-cis and all-trans retinal chromophores. More specifically, the data point to the phase and amplitude of the skeletal bond length alternation stretching mode as the key factor switching the chromophore to a bonding state. It is also confirmed/found that the phase and amplitude o...
TL;DR: In this article, a two-phase classification method is proposed to discriminate the fuel classes of the Prometheus classification system, which is adapted to the ecological characteristics of the European Mediterranean basin.
TL;DR: Examination of the phycobiont composition of several geographically distant populations of R. farinacea from the Iberian Peninsula, Canary Islands and California indicated a superior performance of TR9 under relatively high temperatures and irradiances while TR1 thrived at moderate temperature and irradiance.
Abstract: This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (CGL2006-12917-C02-01/02), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CGL2009-13429-C02-01/02), the AECID (PCI_A/024755/09) and the Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEO 174/2008 GVA). We are grateful to Dr J. Gimeno-Romeu (University of California, Davis, USA) and to Dr P. J. G. de Nova (IREC, Ciudad Real, Spain), who were the first to isolate DNA from Ramalina farinacea thalli in our group. Wendy Ran revised the manuscript in English.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors considered three active rain fed vineyards in central Spain and measured erosion rates between 35 and 179 g m 2 y 1 using erosion plots of 2 m 2. The associated sediment had an organic matter enrichment ratio ranging from 1.4 to 2.
Abstract: A B S T R A C T Vineyards are customarily managed using tillage to eliminate competition from other plants. If the vineyards are on a slope, however, this process leads to considerable soil loss. The impacts of the practice on organic matter and the associated nutrient depletion can pose a threat to soil and water conservation. This paper considers three active rain fed vineyards in central Spain. Over two years, during which the erosivity of the rains was very low, we measured erosion rates between 35 and 179 g m 2 y 1 using erosion plots of 2 m 2 . The associated sediment had an organic matter Enrichment Ratio ranging from 1.4 to 2. Values similar to these were found for nitrogen and phosphorus. These findings indicate that alternative soil management practices, such as the use of vegetation cover, should be considered. A permanent cover consisting of Brachypodium distachyon was tested, as were covers of barley, rye and spontaneous vegetation cut in the spring. These tests resulted in reduced soil loss. The treatments exhibited erosion rates between 2 and 32 g m 2 y 1 . We also noted a decrease in the runoff coefficient. The average runoff coefficients for the study period were 5% for tilled soil, 0.9% for permanent covers and 1.4% for cut covers. We note that the infiltration benefits of tillage were only temporary because on an annual scale, the change in the soil structure led to sealing and increased runoff and erosion. Nevertheless, the moisture in the soil during the vineyard’s vegetative period was higher in traditionally tilled treatments. Although the transpiration through the permanent cover was offset by the ability of the cover to favor infiltration, the cover competed actively for water and resulted, on average, in 40% lower grape yields, with variations among the different vineyards. A similar decrease in yield (44%) was noted for the cover crop consisting of cut spontaneous vegetation. The cut cover crops of rye and barley did not significantly reduce grape yield.
TL;DR: It is shown that the proposed seeded evolutionary approach is able to obtain very good solutions to this problem, which maximize the economical benefit which can be obtained from the wind farm.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors measured the solubility of indomethacin at several temperatures (20-40°C) at the polarity range provided by aqueous (ethanol-water, solubile parameter δM = 26.51-47.97
TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of vegetation types and climates and the potential variation in NDVI of the effective full vegetation cover has not been subject for investigation, and a novel methodology was proposed to estimate NDVI max that uses observed air temperature to calibrate the NDVI index for each vegetation type.
TL;DR: Phylogenetic niche conservatism at the family level offers a likely explanation for the global diversity gradient of trees, but not for non-desert herbs, probably because of the faster evolutionary rates for herbs and less constrained evolutionary responses to climate change.
Abstract: Aim The global richness gradient of angiosperm families is correlated with current climate, and it has been claimed that historical processes are not necessary to understand patterns of plant family richness. This claim has drawn criticism, and there have been doubts about the quality of the data used to quantify the pattern. We revisit this issue using the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) III classification and revised range maps, and we incorporate an evolutionary variable, family age, to explore covariation between evolution and ecology and their links to climate via the tropical conservatism hypothesis (TCH).
Location Global.
Methods The richness pattern for 408 families was derived from range maps, and family ages were derived from a dated angiosperm phylogeny. Patterns were generated for all families, 143 families composed of trees, and 149 families composed of herbs. We also examined family range size patterns to test the extent to which extratropical floras are nested subsets of tropical floras. Ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple and partial regressions were used to generate climate models for richness, mean range size and mean age for each plant dataset and to evaluate the covariation between contemporary climate and clade age as correlates of family richness.
Results We confirmed the strong association between contemporary climate and family richness. Age patterns predicted by TCH were also found for families comprising trees. The richness of herbaceous families, in contrast, was correlated with climate but the age pattern was not as predicted by TCH. Floras in cold and dry areas are strongly nested within richer tropical floras.
Main conclusions Phylogenetic niche conservatism at the family level offers a likely explanation for the global diversity gradient of trees, but not for non-desert herbs, probably because of the faster evolutionary rates for herbs and less constrained evolutionary responses to climate change. Thus, it appears that multiple processes account for the overall angiosperm family gradient. Our analysis also demonstrates that even very strong associations of taxon richness and climate do not preclude evolutionary processes, as has been widely argued, and that climatic and evolutionary hypotheses for richness gradients are not mutually exclusive.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors estimate biomass and carbon accumulation in young secondary forests, from 4 and up to 20 years of age, as well as its distribution among the different pools (tree including roots, herbaceous understory, dead wood, litter and soil), in humid tropical forests of Costa Rica.
TL;DR: The SENIORS dataset of elderly HF patients aged ≥70 years is used in order to develop a risk model for this population of HF patients.
Abstract: Aims
Heart failure (HF) in the elderly carries a poor prognosis. We used the SENIORS dataset of elderly HF patients aged ≥70 years in order to develop a risk model for this population.
Methods and results
The SENIORS trial evaluated the effects of nebivolol and enrolled 2128 patients ≥70 years with HF (ejection fraction ≤35%, or recent HF admission). We randomly selected 1400 patients from the full dataset to produce a derivation cohort and the remaining 728 patients were used as a validation cohort. Baseline variables were entered into a bootstrap model with 200 iterations to determine their association with two outcomes, the composite of all-cause mortality or cardiovascular hospitalization, or all-cause mortality alone. Variables retaining a significant association with these outcomes in a multivariate model were used to develop a risk prediction score tested in the validation cohort. Five factors were associated with increased risk of both outcomes in the multivariate model: higher New York Heart Association class, higher uric acid level, lower body mass index, prior myocardial infarction, and larger left atrial (LA) dimension. For the composite outcome, peripheral arterial disease, years with heart failure, right bundle branch block, diabetes mellitus, and orthopnoea were also retained. For all-cause mortality, creatinine, 6 min walk test distance, coronary artery disease, and age were retained.
Conclusion
In addition to conventional prognostic markers, uric acid and LA dimension appear to be important novel risk prediction markers in elderly patients with heart failure, and could be useful in guiding management.
TL;DR: In this article, a model of biofilm conduction is presented and it is shown that charge can be accumulated in the biofilm conductive network, that network conductivity does not represent a limit for current production and that both the steady state current and the amount of accumulated charge depend on the redox state of cytochromes wiring the cells to the electrode.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed an adaptive capacity index that represents the ability of Mediterranean agriculture to respond to climate change in terms of economic capacity, human and civic resources, and agricultural innovation.
Abstract: This study links climate change impacts to the development of adaptation strategies for agriculture on the Mediterranean region. Climate change is expected to intensify the existing risks, particularly in regions with current water scarcity, and create new opportunities for improving land and water management. These risks and opportunities are characterised and interpreted across Mediterranean areas by analysing water scarcity pressures and potential impacts on crop productivity over the next decades. The need to respond to these risks and opportunities is addressed by evaluating an adaptive capacity index that represents the ability of Mediterranean agriculture to respond to climate change. We propose an adaptive capacity index with three major components that characterise the economic capacity, human and civic resources, and agricultural innovation. These results aim to assist stakeholders as they take up the adaptation challenge and develop measures to reduce the vulnerability of the sector to climate change.
TL;DR: A new analytical method based on stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE), followed by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC-TOF-MS), has been developed for the automatic searching and evaluation of nonpolar or semipolar contaminants in wastewater and river water.
Abstract: A new analytical method based on stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE), followed by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC-TOF-MS), has been developed for the automatic searching and evaluation of nonpolar or semipolar contaminants in wastewater and river water. The target compounds selected were 13 personal care products (PCPs), 15 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and 27 pesticides. Excellent results have been obtained in terms of separation efficiency and also in terms of compound identification. Exceptional method detection limits were achieved applying the optimized method, at or below 1 ng/L for most of the compounds in real samples. The reliable confirmation of analyte identity was possible at this low concentration level, even for typically troublesome compounds such as the PAHs. The other validation parameters were good. In addition to obtaining analytical information such as identification and quantification of target analytes, it is also possible to screen for nontarget com...