Hepatitis G virus infection in primary Sjögren's syndrome: analysis in a series of 100 patients.

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence and clinical significance of hepatitis G virus (HGV) infection in a large cohort of patients with primary Sjögren¿s syndrome (SS). PATIENTS AND METHODS The study included 100 consecutive patients (92 female and eight male), with a mean age of 62 years (range 31¿80) that were prospectively visited in our unit. All patients fulfilled the European Community criteria for SS and underwent a complete history, physical examination, as well as biochemical and immunological evaluation for liver disease. Two hundred volunteer blood donors were also studied. The presence of HGV-RNA was investigated in the serum of all patients and donors. Aditionally, HBsAg and antibodies to hepatitis C virus were determined. RESULTS Four patients (4%) and six volunteer blood donors (3%) presented HGV-RNA sequences in serum. HGV infection was associated with biochemical signs of liver involvement in two (50%) patients. When compared with primary SS patients without HGV infection, no significant differences were found in terms of clinical or immunological features. HCV coinfection occurs in one (25%) of the four patients with HGV infection. CONCLUSION The prevalence of HGV infection in patients with primary SS is low in the geographical area of the study and HCV coinfection is very uncommon. HGV infection alone does not seen to be an important cause of chronic liver injury in the patients with primary SS in this area.

Cau Oliveros, Miguel Angel: Cerámica tardorromana de cocina de las Islas Baleares, estudio arqueométrico, BAR International Series 1182, 2003.

La sensació que un té quan acaba de llegir el llibre Cerámica tardorromana de cocina de las Islas Baleares. Estudio arqueométrico, de Miguel Angel Cau Ontiveros, és la d'haver llegit diversos libres en un de sol. No sé si hi ha intencionalitat en aquest fet o simplement és fruit d'una preocupa ció més amplia que l'estrictament proposada pel títol de l'obra. Per una part, el propi estudi arqueometric, on les referencies arqueologiques es prenen d'estudis previs fets per altres autors, a excepció deljaciment de Sa Mesquida (Calvia, Mallorca), amb una finalitat clarament historica, la caracterització d'una serie de ceramiques, totes atribuIble s a l'ambit de la cuina en una epoca concreta, per tal de poder determinar basicament el grau d'autosuficiencia d'uns espais insulars.

A contribution to the study of post-depositional alterations of pottery using TL dating analysis

In luminescence dating, the potassium concentration significantly contributes to the dose rate value in the age estimation. Within this study, fine-grain thermoluminescence dating has been applied on sherds of calcareous pottery of known age, excavated at a Roman site in Mallorca, Spain. For those of the samples that showed signs of severe potassium leaching, according to chemical and mineralogical examination, the thermoluminescence analysis provided overestimated dates. By using the known archaeological age of the samples, a corrected dose rate value can be estimated which provides the potassium concentration averaged for the burial period. Finally, a step-like model can then be used to estimate the fraction of the burial period after which most of the alteration effects took place.

Lag-one autocorrelation in short series: Estimation and hypothesis testing

In the first part of the study, nine estimators of the first-order autoregressive parameter are reviewed and a new estimator is proposed. The relationships and discrepancies between the estimators are discussed in order to achieve a clear differentiation. In the second part of the study, the precision in the estimation of autocorrelation is studied. The performance of the ten lag-one autocorrelation estimators is compared in terms of Mean Square Error (combining bias and variance) using data series generated by Monte Carlo simulation. The results show that there is not a single optimal estimator for all conditions, suggesting that the estimator ought to be chosen according to sample size and to the information available of the possible direction of the serial dependence. Additionally, the probability of labelling an actually existing autocorrelation as statistically significant is explored using Monte Carlo sampling. The power estimates obtained are quite similar among the tests associated with the different estimators. These estimates evidence the small probability of detecting autocorrelation in series with less than 20 measurement times.

Uso de los modelos de 'series temporales' como técnicas de análisi s de los diseños conductuales

El propósito de este escrito es plantear la posible alternativa, a nivel metodológico, al diseño experimental clásico. A continuación se analizan las principales propiedades que presentan 1os análisis basados en las series temporales y se hace una descripción del modelo ARIMA (0,0,1) como ejemplo de posible análisis de los diseños de base temporal.

Archaeological and archaeomagnetic dating at a site from the ager Tarraconensis (Tarragona, Spain): El Vila-sec Roman pottery

A very accurate archaeological dating of a Roman site in NE Spain (El Vila-sec) was made based on the typology of pottery artifacts. Three different phases were identifi ed with activity ranging from the mid- 1st century BC to the early-3rd century AD. Analyses of bricks from kilns at El Vila-sec produced data on their stored archaeomagnetic vector. These data were compared with the secular variation curve for the Iberian Peninsula and the SCHA.DIF.3K regional archaeomagnetic model. Both, the reference curve and the model, produced probability distributions for the final period of use for two kilns from the second archaeological phase that were not used during the third phase. At a 95% con fidence level, both time distributions cover a wide chronological range including the presumed archaeological age. Both the Iberian secular variation curve and the SCHA.DIF.3K regional model proved to be suitable models for dating the site, although on their own they do not produce a single unambiguous solution. This archaeomagnetic approach could also be applied to neighbouring archaeological sites that have an imprecise archaeological age.

La subtitulación amateur: la subtitulación amateur de series online: el caso de Lost

Debido a su gran repercusión y rápido ritmo de expansión, resulta obvio que la subtitulación amateur se configura como uno de los fenómenos más interesantes y novedosos de los estudios teóricos y prácticos de la investigación traductológica. Por este motivo, el objetivo principal del presente trabajo es el de conocer y estudiar más en profundidad dicho fenómeno, así como analizar la calidad de estos subtítulos con relación a los profesionales a través de un análisis comparativo de materiales reales de la serie norteamericana Lost. Por otro lado, y a la vista de las conclusiones, también se reflexiona acerca del estado actual de la subtitulación interlingüística, así como de la viabilidad de llevar a cabo una modernización de la disciplina mediante el establecimiento, renovación y diversificación de nuevas y existentes modalidades, junto con las repercusiones académicas, sociológicas y profesionales que ello acarrearía.

Hepatitis G virus infection in primary Sjögren's syndrome: analysis in a series of 100 patients.

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence and clinical significance of hepatitis G virus (HGV) infection in a large cohort of patients with primary Sjögren¿s syndrome (SS). PATIENTS AND METHODS The study included 100 consecutive patients (92 female and eight male), with a mean age of 62 years (range 31¿80) that were prospectively visited in our unit. All patients fulfilled the European Community criteria for SS and underwent a complete history, physical examination, as well as biochemical and immunological evaluation for liver disease. Two hundred volunteer blood donors were also studied. The presence of HGV-RNA was investigated in the serum of all patients and donors. Aditionally, HBsAg and antibodies to hepatitis C virus were determined. RESULTS Four patients (4%) and six volunteer blood donors (3%) presented HGV-RNA sequences in serum. HGV infection was associated with biochemical signs of liver involvement in two (50%) patients. When compared with primary SS patients without HGV infection, no significant differences were found in terms of clinical or immunological features. HCV coinfection occurs in one (25%) of the four patients with HGV infection. CONCLUSION The prevalence of HGV infection in patients with primary SS is low in the geographical area of the study and HCV coinfection is very uncommon. HGV infection alone does not seen to be an important cause of chronic liver injury in the patients with primary SS in this area.

Molecular dating of caprines using ancient DNA sequences of Myotragus balearicus, an extinct endemic Balearic mammal

Background: Myotragus balearicus was an endemic bovid from the Balearic Islands (Western Mediterranean) that became extinct around 6,000-4,000 years ago. The Myotragus evolutionary lineage became isolated in the islands most probably at the end of the Messinian crisis, when the desiccation of the Mediterranean ended, in a geological date established at 5.35 Mya. Thus, the sequences of Myotragus could be very valuable for calibrating the mammalian mitochondrial DNA clock and, in particular, the tree of the Caprinae subfamily, to which Myotragus belongs. Results: We have retrieved the complete mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (1,143 base pairs), plus fragments of the mitochondrial 12S gene and the nuclear 28S rDNA multi-copy gene from a well preserved Myotragus subfossil bone. The best resolved phylogenetic trees, obtained with the cytochrome b gene, placed Myotragus in a position basal to the Ovis group. Using the calibration provided by the isolation of Balearic Islands, we calculated that the initial radiation of caprines can be dated at 6.2 ± 0.4 Mya. In addition, alpine and southern chamois, considered until recently the same species, split around 1.6 ± 0.3 Mya, indicating that the two chamois species have been separated much longer than previously thought. Conclusion: Since there are almost no extant endemic mammals in Mediterranean islands, the sequence of the extinct Balearic endemic Myotragus has been crucial for allowing us to use the Messinian crisis calibration point for dating the caprines phylogenetic tree.

Forecasting tourism demand to Catalonia: neural networks vs. time series models

The increasing interest aroused by more advanced forecasting techniques, together with the requirement for more accurate forecasts of tourismdemand at the destination level due to the constant growth of world tourism, has lead us to evaluate the forecasting performance of neural modelling relative to that of time seriesmethods at a regional level. Seasonality and volatility are important features of tourism data, which makes it a particularly favourable context in which to compare the forecasting performance of linear models to that of nonlinear alternative approaches. Pre-processed official statistical data of overnight stays and tourist arrivals fromall the different countries of origin to Catalonia from 2001 to 2009 is used in the study. When comparing the forecasting accuracy of the different techniques for different time horizons, autoregressive integrated moving average models outperform self-exciting threshold autoregressions and artificial neural network models, especially for shorter horizons. These results suggest that the there is a trade-off between the degree of pre-processing and the accuracy of the forecasts obtained with neural networks, which are more suitable in the presence of nonlinearity in the data. In spite of the significant differences between countries, which can be explained by different patterns of consumer behaviour,we also find that forecasts of tourist arrivals aremore accurate than forecasts of overnight stays.

Variabilidad espacial del arroz como cultivo indicador de salinidad en regadíos del valle del Ebro a partir de series temporales en imágenes Landsat TM

El presente trabajo pretende la caracterización de la distribución espacial típica del cultivo de arroz en regadíos del valle del Ebro, donde la presencia del cultivo está ligada a la existencia de suelos salino-sódicos. Esta caracterización ha de permitir identificar las áreas donde es típica la presencia del cultivo año tras año y las áreas donde es frecuente su fluctuación debido tanto a condiciones variables de salinidad del suelo como a variabilidad en las condiciones de mercado. Para ello se ha recurrido al análisis de una serie temporal de mapas de cultivos (7 años) derivados de la clasificación supervisada de imágenes Landsat TM. La determinación de las áreas típicas y de fluctuación del cultivo de arroz se hace entonces a partir del análisis estadístico de clases, y mediante superposición espacial de coberturas en un entorno SIG-Raster.

Nuevas series anuales de población de América Latina desde el siglo XIX hasta el 2000

El estudio de la población en América Latina es un tema central en la historiografía de la región, sin embargo, las distintas estimaciones existentes muestran importantes discrepancias para los siglos XIX y XX. A partir del contraste de distintas bases de datos, la principal contribución del artículo consiste en ofrecer nuevas series de población homogéneas para el conjunto de países de América Latina, junto a una detallada explicación de la obtención de los datos, así como un análisis de las discrepancias que las distintas fuentes muestran. Los países que aborda este trabajo son Argentina, Brasil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Ecuador, Haití, Honduras, México, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, República Dominicana, Uruguay y Venezuela; a lo que se agrega la suma de todos ellos para obtener la población latinoamericana. Estas nuevas series pueden resultar de gran utilidad para reinterpretar la historia económica de América Latina en el largo plazo. The analysis of population levels in Latin America plays an important role in the regional historiography. The estimated series appeared until now offers huge discrepancies, therefore, we believe essential to provide homogeneous series for the 19th and the 20th centuries. In our work we shed new light on this issue, from an exhaustive study of the existing Latin American historical sources for the region. Along with a detailed explanation of the data collection, we also provide an analysis of the discrepancies and the accuracy of sources. The study offers data from 21 countries in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. This new evidence can be a crucial information to revisit Latin American Economic History in the long run.

Translations and Translators of English-language Literature in Catalan Literary Publications and Series between 1868 and 1910

Translations into Catalan of English and American authors during the final quarter of the nineteenth century are few and far between. Numerically, English-language literature most likely ranks fifth or sixth among all the translations of this period. We take inventory here of translations found in Catalan magazines from this time (the oldest dates from 1868) and in published series that came out at this time (if these continued until later, we trace them up to their final year). At the same time, the translators are examined, including reference, where available, as to whether the translations are direct or indirect. Finally, we consider some possible causes for the low English-language volume in Catalan translation during the period.

Implications of burial alterations on luminescence dating of archaeological ceramics

Recent mineralogical studies on archaeological pottery samples report significant variations in alkali metal concentrations due to environmental alterations during burial. Here we examine the effects of potassium (K) leaching on luminescence dating. The effect on the estimation of the dose rate is studied by considering four models of leaching (exponential, linear, early and late) and their impact on fine- and coarse-grain dating are calculated. The modeling approaches are applied to two cases of pottery in which evidence for alteration was found. Additionally, TL dating performed on pottery of one of the studied cases, indicates the importance of leaching effects on absolute dating measurements.