Heliciculture activity in Argentina from the soft systems approach

La globalización imprimió características particulares en el sector agroalimentario incrementando el interés por las producciones agropecuarias alternativas; entre ellas, la helicicultura. Durante el período 2001-2006, en Argentina, la helicicultura fue fuertemente promocionada desde los agronegocios, lo que puede resultar insuficiente para explicar la trayectoria de actividades en las que las relaciones de oposición o marcadas diferencias de poder entre actores ejercen una influencia determinante. La aplicación de herramientas propias de los sistemas blandos podría complementar ese marco teórico poniendo de manifiesto otros elementos e interrelaciones que surgen de la percepción de los actores intervinientes. El objetivo de este estudio fue modelizar el sistema helicícola en Argentina durante el período 2001-2012 con el fin de analizar la evolución de la actividad. Se utilizaron tres herramientas metodológicas: 1) Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) en sus fases 1 y 2, 2) dinámica de sistemas, y 3) configuración de redes sociales. El análisis de la estructura de las redes sociales se realizó a partir de dos indicadores: densidad y centralidad. El sistema productivo helicícola en Argentina durante el período 2001-2012 se desarrolló principalmente a partir de la interacción informal entre representantes de plantas procesadoras y recolectores que, en respuesta a una demanda internacional, comenzaron a utilizar un recurso silvestre local. La interacción entre representantes de plantas procesadoras y recolectores se mantuvo hasta el año 2006. A partir de dicho año, cambios en las variables económicas indujeron a una disminución en la demanda por parte de las plantas procesadoras, desalentando la recolección y explicando así la variación en los índices que caracterizan la estructura de las redes sociales configuradas para los períodos 2001-2006 y 2007-2012. El modelo desarrollado constituye una herramienta complementaria al enfoque de agronegocios ya que permite identificar el efecto de cambios sobre los elementos que lo componen y proponer estrategias de intervención tendientes a mantener la sustentabilidad del sistema helicícola.Fil: Gelabert, Cecilia Corina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomia. Departamento de Produccion Animal. Catedra de Producciones Animales Alternativas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomia. Departamento de Economia, Desarr.y Planeamiento Agricola. Catedra de Sistemas Agroalimentarios; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: de Bargas, S.. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomia. Departamento de Produccion Animal. Catedra de Producciones Animales Alternativas; ArgentinaFil: Rositano, Florencia. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Producción Vegetal. Cátedra de Cerealicultura; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; ArgentinaFil: Gonzalez, Olga Mabel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas A la Agricultura; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomia. Departamento de Produccion Animal. Catedra de Producciones Animales Alternativas; Argentin

Conductance oscillations of a spin-orbit stripe with polarized contacts

We investigate the linear conductance of a stripe of spin-orbit interaction in a 2D electron gas; that is, a 2D region of length $\ell$ along the transport direction and infinite in the transverse one in which a spin-orbit interaction of Rashba type is present. Polarization in the contacts is described by means of Zeeman fields. Our model predicts two types of conductance oscillations: Ramsauer oscillations in the minority spin transmission, when both spins can propagate, and Fano oscillations when only one spin propagates. The latter are due to the spin-orbit coupling with quasibound states of the non propagating spin. In the case of polarized contacts in antiparallel configuration Fano-like oscillations of the conductance are still made possible by the spin orbit coupling, even though no spin component is bound by the contacts. To describe these behaviors we propose a simplified model based on an ansatz wave function. In general, we find that the contribution for vanishing transverse momentum dominates and defines the conductance oscillations. Regarding the oscillations with Rashba coupling intensity, our model confirms the spin transistor behavior, but only for high degrees of polarization. Including a position dependent effective mass yields additional oscillations due to the mass jumps at the interfaces.Comment: 8.5 pages, 9 figure

Neonatal-onset multisystem inflammatory disease responsive to interleukin-1 beta inhibition

BACKGROUND:Neonatal-onset multisystem inflammatory disease is characterized by fever, urticarial rash, aseptic meningitis, deforming arthropathy, hearing loss, and mental retardation. Many patients have mutations in the cold-induced autoinflammatory syndrome 1 (CIAS1) gene, encoding cryopyrin, a protein that regulates inflammation.METHODS:We selected 18 patients with neonatal-onset multisystem inflammatory disease (12 with identifiable CIAS1 mutations) to receive anakinra, an interleukin-1-receptor antagonist (1 to 2 mg per kilogram of body weight per day subcutaneously). In 11 patients, anakinra was withdrawn at three months until a flare occurred. The primary end points included changes in scores in a daily diary of symptoms, serum levels of amyloid A and C-reactive protein, and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate from baseline to month 3 and from month 3 until a disease flare.RESULTS:All 18 patients had a rapid response to anakinra, with disappearance of rash. Diary scores improved (P<0.001) and serum amyloid A (from a median of 174 mg to 8 mg per liter), C-reactive protein (from a median of 5.29 mg to 0.34 mg per deciliter), and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate decreased at month 3 (all P<0.001), and remained low at month 6. Magnetic resonance imaging showed improvement in cochlear and leptomeningeal lesions as compared with baseline. Withdrawal of anakinra uniformly resulted in relapse within days; retreatment led to rapid improvement. There were no drug-related serious adverse events.CONCLUSIONS:Daily injections of anakinra markedly improved clinical and laboratory manifestations in patients with neonatal-onset multisystem inflammatory disease, with or without CIAS1 mutations

Ancient crops provide first archaeological signature of the westward Austronesian expansion

The Austronesian settlement of the remote island of Madagascar remains one of the great puzzles of Indo-Pacific prehistory. Although linguistic, ethnographic, and genetic evidence points clearly to a colonization of Madagascar by Austronesian language-speaking people from Island Southeast Asia, decades of archaeological research have failed to locate evidence for a Southeast Asian signature in the island's early material record. Here, we present new archaeobotanical data that show that Southeast Asian settlers brought Asian crops with them when they settled in Africa. These crops provide the first, to our knowledge, reliable archaeological window into the Southeast Asian colonization of Madagascar. They additionally suggest that initial Southeast Asian settlement in Africa was not limited to Madagascar, but also extended to the Comoros. Archaeobotanical data may support a model of indirect Austronesian colonization of Madagascar from the Comoros and/or elsewhere in eastern Africa

Educational Programs to build resilience in children, adolescent or youth with disease or disability: A systematic review

[eng] Resilience is understood as interactive processes that strengthen the individual and the family in the face of the demands of adversity or vulnerable situation. Resilience is fostered from a psychopedagogical approach when practices are developed that assist in facing challenges positively, having life projects and developing academic potentialities. Thus, the objective of this systematic review of the literature is cartography programs that promote resilience in children, adolescents, or youths who are facing a challenging condition, such as a disease or disability. The PRISMA declaration was used to guide this systematic search. The databases consulted were Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCOhost, ERIC and Dialnet Plus. Open access articles were selected between 2016 and 2021. The selection resulted in 15 educational programs. The results indicate that there are several models for building resilience, such as ecosystem, family, community, and academic models. In conclusion, interdisciplinarity is a cross-cutting axis for enhancing resilience in vulnerable setting

Dynamic topography and satellite gravity data joint inversion using Reduced Order Models (DYGIRO)

Geophysical observables, such as surface elevation, gravity field anomalies, seismic data, surface heat flow, etc, are essential pieces of information used to make inferences about the structure and dynamics of the Earth’s interior. Simultaneously fitting different observable datasets is crucial in order to obtain consistent models. Among geophysical data, gravity data from ESA’s GOCE satellite mission provides key information in properly constraining the Earth’s density distribution. WINTERC-G is a new global thermochemical model of the lithosphere and upper mantle (currently being extended into the transition zone and lower mantle) based on terrestrial and satellite gravity data (Fullea et al., 2021). The inversion procedure behind WINTERC-G has two main steps. In step 1, a 1D column-wise inversion of surface wave tomographic, surface elevation (isostasy) and heat flow data is performed. Then, in step 2, the output model from step 1 is used as prior information for the inversion of the gravity field data (filtered geoid anomalies and gravity gradients from GOCE at satellite height) to refine the 3D crustal density and upper mantle composition. The model predicts a residual, non-isostatic topography that can be considered as a proxy for dynamic topography. However, within a rigorous framework, dynamic topography cannot be simply taken as a non- isostatic residual, but it should be explicitly computed (i.e. solving the Stokes equation for a given rheological and density distribution) and consistently integrated into the joint inversion of the gravity field and the terrestrial observation with feedback from both the static and dynamic parts. The goal of DYGIRO project is to add a third step into the global WINTERC-G inversion scheme that consistently integrates dynamic topography as an additional model constrain. We present here the first steps of such integration at global scale. To do that, the dynamic topography is computed by solving the Stokes flow problem associated with the current WINTERC-G model down to the transition zone. The dynamic topography thus obtained is coupled with the static thermochemical model constrained by gravity and seismic data within an iterative scheme where the observed surface elevation coincides with the model’s isostatic plus dynamic elevation contributions. The high computational cost associated with the large- scale 3D flow computations will be alleviated by means of Reduced Order Models. Such models are based on the idea of creating surrogate models that approximate the solution at a much lower computational cost.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Tsunami hazards in the Catalan Coast, a low-intensity seismic activity area

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2918-zThe potential impacts of tsunamis along the Catalan Coast (NW Mediterranean) are analysed using numerical modelling. The region is characterized by moderate to low seismic activity and by moderate- to low-magnitude earthquakes. However, the occurrence of historical strong earthquakes and the location of several active offshore faults in front of the coast suggest that the possibility of an earthquake-triggered tsunami is not negligible although of low probability. Up to five faults have been identified to generate tsunamis, being the highest associated possible seismic magnitudes of up to 7.6. Coastal flooding and port agitation are characterized using the Worst-case Credible Tsunami Scenario Analysis approach. The results show a multiple fault source contribution to tsunami hazard. The shelf dimensions and the existence of submerged canyons control the tsunami propagation. In wide shelves, waves travelling offshore may become trapped by refraction causing the wave energy to reach the coastline at some distance from the origin. The free surface water elevation increases at the head of the canyons due to the sharp depth gradients. The effects of potential tsunamis would be very harmful in low-lying coastal stretches, such as deltas, with a high population concentration, assets and infrastructures. The Ebro delta appears to be the most exposed coast, and about the 20% of the delta surface is prone to flooding due to its extremely low-lying nature. The activity at Barcelona port will be severely affected by inflow backflow current at the entrance of up to 2 m/s.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Cystic adventitial disease of the popliteal artery: features on 3T cardiovascular magnetic resonance

Cystic adventitial disease (CAD) of the popliteal artery is a rare vascular disease of unknown etiology in which a mucin-containing cyst develops in the adventitial layer of the artery. We report the case of a 26-year-old male with CAD of the right popliteal artery diagnosed non-invasively with 3 Tesla cardiovascular magnetic resonance and confirmed on post-operative histopathology

Centrosome clustering and Cyclin D1 gene amplification in double minutes are common events in chromosomal unstable bladder tumors

Background: Aneuploidy, centrosome abnormalities and gene amplification are hallmarks of chromosome instability (CIN) in cancer. Yet there are no studies of the in vivo behavior of these phenomena within the same bladder tumor. Methods: Twenty-one paraffin-embedded bladder tumors were analyzed by conventional comparative genome hybridization and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with a cyclin D1 gene (CCND1)/centromere 11 dual-color probe. Immunofluorescent staining of α, β and γ tubulin was also performed. Results: Based on the CIN index, defined as the percentage of cells not displaying the modal number for chromosome 11, tumors were classified as CIN-negative and CIN-positive. Fourteen out of 21 tumors were considered CIN-positive. All T1G3 tumors were included in the CIN-positive group whereas the majority of Ta samples were classified as CIN-negative tumors. Centrosome clustering was observed in six out of 12 CIN-positive tumors analyzed. CCND1 amplification in homogeneously staining regions was present in six out of 14 CIN-positive tumors; three of them also showed amplification of this gene in double minutes. Conclusions: Complex in vivo behavior of CCND1 amplicon in bladder tumor cells has been demonstrated by accurate FISH analysis on paraffin-embedded tumors. Positive correlation between high heterogeneity, centrosome abnormalities and CCND1 amplification was found in T1G3 bladder carcinomas. This is the first study to provide insights into the coexistence of CCND1 amplification in homogeneously staining regions and double minutes in primary bladder tumors. It is noteworthy that those patients whose tumors showed double minutes had a significantly shorter overall survival rate (p < 0.001)

Estudi sobre l'impacte de les xarxes socials en les relacions interpersonals d'adolescents i joves

[spa] El Ajuntament de Calvià ha completado un estudio sobre las redes sociales y el impacto social que tienen en las relaciones interpersonales de adolescentes y jóvenes del municipio (12-18 años), con el objetivo de entender cómo influyen en las percepciones, actitudes y conductas de socialización de la juventud. El estudio se desarrolla en dos fases. En la primera (2021), se analiza qué redes usan los y las adolescentes de Calvià, cómo y para qué, y se examinan en profundidad las características de las más utilizadas y el impacto que tienen en la juventud de Calvià. En la segunda fase (2022), se analizan los niveles de consumo problemático y se estudiarán las opiniones y los discursos mediante grupos de discusión y jornadas con personas expertas y profesionales