Variacions en els components bioquímics del romaní (Rosmarinus Officinalis L.) al llarg de la floració

En mostres de romaní recollides durant el període de floració primaveral, es van analitzar els paràmetres següents: materia seca, producció de materia seca orgànica, sucres reductors, nitrogen, àcid clorogènic, extractes eteris i alcohòlic, contingut d'olis essencials i llur composició. Els resultats mostren una variació dels components bioquímics del romaní al llarg del cicle biològic. Cap dels paràmetres estudiats no s'ha mantingut constant al llarg del període estudiat, i només s'observa una relativa constància de producció en matèria seca orgànica. Un estudi comparatiu de tots els resultats obtinguts, permet de distingir entre dos grans grups de màxims. El primer és format pels components bioquímics bàsics, com són els sucres i el nitrogen, que presenten un màxim entre les setmanes 7a i 9a de floració. En canvi entre la setmana 9a i 13 a apareixen tots els màxims dels altres paràmetres: olis essencials, extracte alcohòlic, àcid clorogènic, extracte total i no volàtil en èter. La composició dels olis essencials mostra que entre les setmanes 9a i 11 a, llur contingut en components d'alta volatilitat és màxim.Samples of rosemary were picked up during the spring bloom period and the following parameters were analyzed: dry matter, production of organic dry matter, reducing sugars, nitrogen, chlorogenic acid, ether and alcoholic extracts, content of essential oils and their composition. The results show a variation of the biochemical components of rosemary during its biological cycle. None of the analyzed parameters has kept constant during the studied period, just a relative constant production of organic dry matter has been noticed. A comparative study of all the results allows to distinguish between two big groups of maximums. The first one is made up of the basic biochemical components, such as sugars and nitrogen which show a maximum between the 7th and 9th week. On the other hand between the 9th and 13rd week appear the maximums of all the other parameters: essential oils, alcoholic extract, chlorogenic acid, total and non-volatile ether extract. The composition of the essential oils shows off that between the 9th and 1 1 st week, the content of high volatility components is maximum.En muestras de romero recogidas durante el período de floración primaveral, se analizaron los sigüientes parámetros: materia seca, producción de materia seca orgánica, azúcares reductores, nitrógeno, ácido clorogénico, extractos etéreos y alcohólico, contenido en aceites esenciales y su composición. Los resultados muestran una variación de los componentes bioquímicos del romero a lo largo del ciclo biológico. Ninguno de los parámetros estudiados se ha mantenido constante a lo largo del período estudiado y solamente se observa una relativa constancia de producción de materia seca orgánica. Un estudio comparativo de todos los resultados obtenidos, permite distingir dos grandes grupos de máximos. El primero está formado por los componentes bioquímicos básicos, como son los azucares y el nitrógeno, los cuales presentan un máximo entre las semanas 7a y 9a de floración. En cambio entre la semana 9a y 13a aparecen todos los máximos de los otros parámetros: aceites esenciales, extracto alcohólico, ácido clorogénico, extracto total y no volátil en éter. La composición de los aceites esenciales muestra que entre las semanas 9a y 11a su contenido en componentes de alta volatilidad es máximo

NITROGEN CARRY-OVER IMPACTS IN IRRIGATED COTTON PRODUCTION, SOUTHERN HIGH PLAINS OF TEXAS

A dynamic optimization model which introduces an intertemporal nitrate-nitrogen residual function is used to derive and evaluate nitrogen fertilizer optimal decision rules for irrigated cotton production in the Southern High Plains of Texas. Results indicate that optimal nitrogen applications critically depend on initial nitrate-nitrogen levels and nitrogen-to-cotton price ratios. Also, the results indicate that single-year optimization leads to suboptimal nitrogen applications, which helps explain long-term cotton yield declines in the Southern High Plains of Texas; but single-year optimization does not significantly impact the net present value of returns of irrigated cotton operations.Crop Production/Industries,

Novel microsatellite loci for Sebaea aurea (Gentianaceae) and cross-amplification in related species.

[Premise of the study] Microsatellite loci were developed in Sebaea aurea (Gentianaceae) to investigate the functional role of diplostigmaty (i.e., the presence of additional stigmas along the style).[Methods and Results] One hundred seventy-four and 180 microsatellite loci were isolated through 454 shotgun sequencing of genomic and microsatellite-enriched DNA libraries, respectively. Sixteen polymorphic microsatellite loci were characterized, and 12 of them were selected to genotype individuals from two populations. Microsatellite amplifi cation was conducted in two multiplex groups, each containing six microsatellite loci. Cross-species amplifi cation was tested in seven other species of Sebaea . The 12 novel microsatellite loci amplifi ed only in the two most closely related species to S. aurea (i.e., S. ambigua and S. minutifl ora ) and were also polymorphic in these two species.[Conclusions] These results demonstrate the usefulness of this set of newly developed microsatellite loci to investigate the mating system and population genetic structure in S. aurea and related species.We acknowledge grants to J.K. from the Swiss National Science Foundation (PA00P3_129140) and the Velux Stiftung (project no. 679) and to J.G.S.-M. from a postdoctoral research contract “Ramón y Cajal” from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), Spain.Peer Reviewe

Serum methylarginines and spirometry-measured lung function in older adults

Rationale: Methylarginines are endogenous nitric oxide synthase inhibitors that have been implicated in animal models of lung disease but have not previously been examined for their association with spirometric measures of lung function in humans. Objectives: This study measured serum concentrations of asymmetric and symmetric dimethylarginine in a representative sample of older community-dwelling adults and determined their association with spirometric lung function measures. Methods: Data on clinical, lifestyle, and demographic characteristics, methylated arginines, and L-arginine (measured using LC-MS/MS) were collected from a population-based sample of older Australian adults from the Hunter Community Study. The five key lung function measures included as outcomes were Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second, Forced Vital Capacity, Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second to Forced Vital Capacity ratio, Percent Predicted Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second, and Percent Predicted Forced Vital Capacity. Measurements and Main Results: In adjusted analyses there were statistically significant independent associations between a) higher asymmetric dimethylarginine, lower Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second and lower Forced Vital Capacity; and b) lower L-arginine/asymmetric dimethylarginine ratio, lower Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second, lower Percent Predicted Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second and lower Percent Predicted Forced Vital Capacity. By contrast, no significant associations were observed between symmetric dimethylarginine and lung function. Conclusions: After adjusting for clinical, demographic, biochemical, and pharmacological confounders, higher serum asymmetric dimethylarginine was independently associated with a reduction in key measures of lung function. Further research is needed to determine if methylarginines predict the decline in lung function

La metodología de aprendizaje basado en proyectos (ABP) aplicada a asignaturas de ciencia de los materiales en ingeniería en la red IdM@ti

En este trabajo se va a presentar una experiencia docente llevada a cabo de forma coordinada entre profesorado de la red de innovación docente en ciencia de materiales IdM@ti. Se trata por tanto de una experiencia interuniversitaria que se ha desarrollado entre cuatro universidades públicas españolas de manera simultánea. Concretamente, el presente trabajo muestra la implementación y el desarrollo de la aplicación de la metodología de aprendizaje basado en proyectos en asignaturas de grados de ingeniería en el ámbito de ciencia de los materiales e ingeniería metalúrgica. Se presentan las experiencias llevadas a cabo durante los últimos cuatro años, mostrando los puntos fuertes y débiles de esta metodología, así como la problemática asociada a la implementación de la misma en asignaturas de curso general de grado. Se presentarán también los resultados obtenidos, así como las principales conclusiones a las que ha llegado el equipo de trabajo de la red IdM@ti

ASLP-MULAN: Audio speech and language processing for multimedia analytics

Our intention is generating the right mixture of audio, speech and language technologies with big data ones. Some audio, speech and language automatic technologies are available or gaining enough degree of maturity as to be able to help to this objective: automatic speech transcription, query by spoken example, spoken information retrieval, natural language processing, unstructured multimedia contents transcription and description, multimedia files summarization, spoken emotion detection and sentiment analysis, speech and text understanding, etc. They seem to be worthwhile to be joined and put at work on automatically captured data streams coming from several sources of information like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, online newspapers, web search engines, etc. to automatically generate reports that include both scientific based scores and subjective but relevant summarized statements on the tendency analysis and the perceived satisfaction of a product, a company or another entity by the general population

Laser Calibration System for Time of Flight Scintillator Arrays

A laser calibration system was developed for monitoring and calibrating time of flight (TOF) scintillating detector arrays. The system includes setups for both small- and large-scale scintillator arrays. Following test-bench characterization, the laser system was recently commissioned in experimental Hall B at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility for use on the new Backward Angle Neutron Detector (BAND) scintillator array. The system successfully provided time walk corrections, absolute time calibration, and TOF drift correction for the scintillators in BAND. This showcases the general applicability of the system for use on high-precision TOF detectors.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure

Reduction in ventral striatal activity when anticipating a reward in depression and schizophrenia: a replicated cross-diagnostic finding.

In the research domain framework (RDoC), dysfunctional reward expectation has been proposed to be a cross-diagnostic domain in psychiatry, which may contribute to symptoms common to various neuropsychiatric conditions, such as anhedonia or apathy/avolition. We used a modified version of the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) paradigm to obtain functional MRI images from 22 patients with schizophrenia, 24 with depression and 21 controls. Anhedonia and other symptoms of depression, and overall positive and negative symptomatology were also measured. We hypothesized that the two clinical groups would have a reduced activity in the ventral striatum when anticipating reward (compared to anticipation of a neutral outcome) and that striatal activation would correlate with clinical measures of motivational problems and anhedonia. Results were consistent with the first hypothesis: two clusters in both the left and right ventral striatum were found to differ between the groups in reward anticipation. Post-hoc analysis showed that this was due to higher activation in the controls compared to the schizophrenia and the depression groups in the right ventral striatum, with activation differences between depression and controls also seen in the left ventral striatum. No differences were found between the two patient groups, and there were no areas of abnormal cortical activation in either group that survived correction for multiple comparisons. Reduced ventral striatal activity was related to greater anhedonia and overall depressive symptoms in the schizophrenia group, but not in the participants with depression. Findings are discussed in relation to previous literature but overall are supporting evidence of reward system dysfunction across the neuropsychiatric continuum, even if the specific clinical relevance is still not fully understood. We also discuss how the RDoC approach may help to solve some of the replication problems in psychiatric fMRI research.Supported by the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund [097814/Z/11], a MRC Clinician Scientist [G0701911], a Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Young Investigator, and an Isaac Newton Trust award to Dr Murray; an award to Dr Segarra from the Secretary for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia and the European Union; by the University of Cambridge Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, funded by a joint award from the Medical Research Council [G1000183]and Wellcome Trust [093875/Z/10/Z]; by awards from the Wellcome Trust [095692] and the Bernard Wolfe Health Neuroscience Fund to Dr. Fletcher, and by the Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Frontiers via http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0128