Landscape context on generalist and specialist aphid natural enemies

Report for the scientific sojourn at the University of Lund, Sweden, between May and September 2007. A landscape-scale research approach has been highlighted by a growing body of literature as essential for understanding important ecosystem services as biological control. Aphids are victims of a diversity of enemies making the aphid-enemy interaction a nice example for the role of enemy diversity for the functioning of biological control. Here it is examined the effects of landscape complexity on cereal aphids and associated natural enemies that varied in the degree of specialization. Parasitoids wasps abundance did not differ between landscape types but was strongly negatively related to the percentage of arable land. In contrast, abundances of generalist predators like Coccinellidae were significantly higher in simple landscapes since can benefit from the high availability of a variety of alternative resources within cropping systems. Consequently coccinellidae-to-aphid ratio was significantly higher in fields in homogenous landscapes as compared to fields included in an heterogeneous landscape, suggesting that enemy pressure on cereal aphids increases with landscape simplification. The landscape effect will depend mainly on the degree of specialization of functionally dominant natural enemies, so that the results imply that conservation actions aiming to optimise abundance for one taxonomic group in the agricultural landscape will not automatically increase abundance of other groups. Given that the strength of natural enemy impact on biocontrol depends on landscape features and the role of functionally dominant natural enemies. So, therefore it is essential to focus the future empirical work in examining the schedule of agricultural landscapes that maintain a diversity of generalist and specialist natural enemies.

A geometric mechanism of diffusion: Rigorous verification in a priori unstable Hamiltonian systems

In this paper we consider a representative a priori unstable Hamiltonian system with 2+1/2 degrees of freedom, to which we apply the geometric mechanism for diffusion introduced in the paper Delshams et al., Mem.Amer.Math. Soc. 2006, and generalized in Delshams and Huguet, Nonlinearity 2009, and provide explicit, concrete and easily verifiable conditions for the existence of diffusing orbits. The simplification of the hypotheses allows us to perform explicitly the computations along the proof, which contribute to present in an easily understandable way the geometric mechanism of diffusion. In particular, we fully describe the construction of the scattering map and the combination of two types of dynamics on a normally hyperbolic invariant manifold.

Estudi dels arbres i conjunts remarcables del municipi de Sitges

Aquest estudi s’ha realitzat amb l’objectiu d’aprofundir en el coneixement dels arbres i conjunts remarcables del municipi de Sitges, a la comarca del Garraf. S’ha fet un inventari dels arbres i conjunts estudiats, tot diferenciant els situats en la zona urbana (urbans) i els que es troben fora d’aquest àmbit (no urbans), i s’ha analitzat el seu estat de conservació i importància socioambiental. També se n’ha elaborat una base cartogràfica amb la seva localització. S’ha donat continuïtat a la metodologia aplicada en treballs anteriors sobre arbres monumentals, notables i singulars, amb algunes variants. S’han inventariat trenta-nou arbres i conjunts remarcables (pertanyents a vint-i-cinc espècies), dels quals trenta són urbans i nou són no urbans. Tots ells, excepte un exemplar considerat notable, s’han qualificat com a singulars. A banda, s’han inventariat tres conjunts remarcables sense contenir cap exemplar remarcable, els quals s’han treballat a part. Durant el treball de camp, realitzat a la tardor i al hivern de 2011 a Sitges, s’han pres dades de trenta-cinc variables sobre els arbres inventariats, les quals s’han sintetitzat en sis paràmetres qualitatius indicatius de l’estat de conservació i importància socioambiental dels arbres i conjunts inventariats. Aquesta simplificació ha permès fer un estudi comparatiu dels arbres, extreure conclusions i elaborar propostes de millora per a vetllar per a la seva conservació. El present estudi posa de manifest la necessitat de declarar els arbres inventariats d’interès local o comarcal d’acord amb les figures legislatives de protecció de l’administració competent, posant èmfasi en la incorporació a l’existent Catàleg d’Arbres Singulars de Sitges dels arbres no urbans inventariats i d’altres urbans que no hi són presents.

Wellposedness of a nonlinear, logarithmic Schrödinger equation of Doebner-Goldin type modeling quantum dissipation

This paper is concerned with the modeling and analysis of quantum dissipation phenomena in the Schrödinger picture. More precisely, we do investigate in detail a dissipative, nonlinear Schrödinger equation somehow accounting for quantum Fokker–Planck effects, and how it is drastically reduced to a simpler logarithmic equation via a nonlinear gauge transformation in such a way that the physics underlying both problems keeps unaltered. From a mathematical viewpoint, this allows for a more achievable analysis regarding the local wellposedness of the initial–boundary value problem. This simplification requires the performance of the polar (modulus–argument) decomposition of the wavefunction, which is rigorously attained (for the first time to the best of our knowledge) under quite reasonable assumptions.

Implantació de l'administració electrònica als ajuntaments

Aquesta memòria descriu com la llei 11/2007 de 22 de juny, d’accés electrònic dels ciutadans als serveis públics, és el punt de partida de la transformació de les administracions públiques, entre elles els ajuntaments, cap a l’administració electrònica. La implantació del projecte descrit s’ha portat a terme amb la perspectiva que la simplificació, normalització i homogeneïtzació dels processos administratius ha de ser el primer pas a realitzar. Posteriorment hem d’ajudar a l’ajuntament a avançar cap al seu propi model d’administració electrònica i, assolir així, els objectius de millorar la gestió interna i prestar un servei òptim i de qualitat a la ciutadania. Finalment hem d’establir un sistema que permeti realitzar el seguiment i avaluació de les actuacions vinculades a l’Administració Electrònica implantada que ens permetrà, a l’equip de treball, adequar i reajustar l’estratègia de l’ajuntament als objectius establerts, trobant eixos de millora i legitimant la presa de decisió.

Knowledge management for systems biology a general and visually driven framework applied to translational medicine

Background: To enhance our understanding of complex biological systems like diseases we need to put all of the available data into context and use this to detect relations, pattern and rules which allow predictive hypotheses to be defined. Life science has become a data rich science with information about the behaviour of millions of entities like genes, chemical compounds, diseases, cell types and organs, which are organised in many different databases and/or spread throughout the literature. Existing knowledge such as genotype - phenotype relations or signal transduction pathways must be semantically integrated and dynamically organised into structured networks that are connected with clinical and experimental data. Different approaches to this challenge exist but so far none has proven entirely satisfactory. Results: To address this challenge we previously developed a generic knowledge management framework, BioXM™, which allows the dynamic, graphic generation of domain specific knowledge representation models based on specific objects and their relations supporting annotations and ontologies. Here we demonstrate the utility of BioXM for knowledge management in systems biology as part of the EU FP6 BioBridge project on translational approaches to chronic diseases. From clinical and experimental data, text-mining results and public databases we generate a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) knowledge base and demonstrate its use by mining specific molecular networks together with integrated clinical and experimental data. Conclusions: We generate the first semantically integrated COPD specific public knowledge base and find that for the integration of clinical and experimental data with pre-existing knowledge the configuration based set-up enabled by BioXM reduced implementation time and effort for the knowledge base compared to similar systems implemented as classical software development projects. The knowledgebase enables the retrieval of sub-networks including protein-protein interaction, pathway, gene - disease and gene - compound data which are used for subsequent data analysis, modelling and simulation. Pre-structured queries and reports enhance usability; establishing their use in everyday clinical settings requires further simplification with a browser based interface which is currently under development.

Biomechanical wall properties of human intracranial aneurysms resected following surgical clipping (IRRAs Project)

Background and purpose: Individual rupture risk assessment of intracranial aneurysms is a major issue in the clinical management of asymptomatic aneurysms. Aneurysm rupture occurs when wall tension exceeds the strength limit of the wall tissue. At present, aneurysmal wall mechanics are poorly understood and thus, risk assessment involving mechanical properties is inexistent. Aneurysm computational hemodynamics studies make the assumption of rigid walls, an arguable simplification. We therefore aim to assess mechanical properties of ruptured and unruptured intracranial aneurysms in order to provide the foundation for future patient-specific aneurysmal risk assessment. This work also challenges some of the currently held hypotheses in computational flow hemodynamics research. Methods: A specific conservation protocol was applied to aneurysmal tissues following clipping and resection in order to preserve their mechanical properties. Sixteen intracranial aneurysms (11 female, 5 male) underwent mechanical uniaxial stress tests under physiological conditions, temperature, and saline isotonic solution. These represented 11 unruptured and 5 ruptured aneurysms. Stress/strain curves were then obtained for each sample, and a fitting algorithm was applied following a 3-parameter (C(10), C(01), C(11)) Mooney-Rivlin hyperelastic model. Each aneurysm was classified according to its biomechanical properties and (un)rupture status.Results: Tissue testing demonstrated three main tissue classes: Soft, Rigid, and Intermediate. All unruptured aneurysms presented a more Rigid tissue than ruptured or pre-ruptured aneurysms within each gender subgroup. Wall thickness was not correlated to aneurysmal status (ruptured/unruptured). An Intermediate subgroup of unruptured aneurysms with softer tissue characteristic was identified and correlated with multiple documented risk factors of rupture. Conclusion: There is a significant modification in biomechanical properties between ruptured aneurysm, presenting a soft tissue and unruptured aneurysms, presenting a rigid material. This finding strongly supports the idea that a biomechanical risk factor based assessment should be utilized in the to improve the therapeutic decision making.

Spotting Translationese in two Corpora of Original and Translated Catalan Texts: an Empirical Approach

This research investigates the phenomenon of translationese in two monolingual comparable corpora of original and translated Catalan texts. Translationese has been defined as the dialect, sub-language or code of translated language. This study aims at giving empirical evidence of translation universals regardless the source language.Traditionally, research conducted on translation strategies has been mainly intuition-based. Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing techniques provide reliable information of lexical frequencies, morphological and syntactical distribution in corpora. Therefore, they have been applied to observe which translation strategies occur in these corpora.Results seem to prove the simplification, interference and explicitation hypotheses, whereas no sign of normalization has been detected with the methodology used.The data collected and the resources created for identifying lexical, morphological and syntactic patterns of translations can be useful for Translation Studies teachers, scholars and students: teachers will have more tools to help students avoid the reproduction of translationese patterns. Resources developed will help in detecting non-genuine or inadequate structures in the target language. This fact may imply an improvement in stylistic quality in translations. Translation professionals can also take advantage of these resources to improve their translation quality.

Mandatory accounting disclosure by small private companies

This article analyzes how mandatory accounting disclosure is grounded on differentrationales for private and public companies. It also explores technological changes, such ascomputerised databases and the Internet, which have recently made disclosure of companyaccounts by small companies potentially less costly and more valuable, thanks to electronicfiling and universal online access to credit information systems. These recent developmentsfavour policies that would expand the scope of mandatory publication for small companies incountries where it is voluntary. They also encourage policies to reduce the costs and enhancethe value of disclosure through administrative reforms of filing, archive and retrieval systems.Survey and registry evidence on how the information in the accounts is valued and used bycompanies is consistent with these claims about the evolution of the tradeoff of costs andbenefits that should guide policy in this area.

A new maximum likelihood method for luminosity calibrations

A new statistical parallax method using the Maximum Likelihood principle is presented, allowing the simultaneous determination of a luminosity calibration, kinematic characteristics and spatial distribution of a given sample. This method has been developed for the exploitation of the Hipparcos data and presents several improvements with respect to the previous ones: the effects of the selection of the sample, the observational errors, the galactic rotation and the interstellar absorption are taken into account as an intrinsic part of the formulation (as opposed to external corrections). Furthermore, the method is able to identify and characterize physically distinct groups in inhomogeneous samples, thus avoiding biases due to unidentified components. Moreover, the implementation used by the authors is based on the extensive use of numerical methods, so avoiding the need for simplification of the equations and thus the bias they could introduce. Several examples of application using simulated samples are presented, to be followed by applications to real samples in forthcoming articles.

CP2 stars as viewed by the uvby Hbeta system

A new statistical parallax method using the Maximum Likelihood principle is presented, allowing the simultaneous determination of a luminosity calibration, kinematic characteristics and spatial distribution of a given sample. This method has been developed for the exploitation of the Hipparcos data and presents several improvements with respect to the previous ones: the effects of the selection of the sample, the observational errors, the galactic rotation and the interstellar absorption are taken into account as an intrinsic part of the formulation (as opposed to external corrections). Furthermore, the method is able to identify and characterize physically distinct groups in inhomogeneous samples, thus avoiding biases due to unidentified components. Moreover, the implementation used by the authors is based on the extensive use of numerical methods, so avoiding the need for simplification of the equations and thus the bias they could introduce. Several examples of application using simulated samples are presented, to be followed by applications to real samples in forthcoming articles.

Solid phase crystallization under continuous heating: kinetic and microstructure scaling laws

The kinetics and microstructure of solid-phase crystallization under continuous heating conditions and random distribution of nuclei are analyzed. An Arrhenius temperature dependence is assumed for both nucleation and growth rates. Under these circumstances, the system has a scaling law such that the behavior of the scaled system is independent of the heating rate. Hence, the kinetics and microstructure obtained at different heating rates differ only in time and length scaling factors. Concerning the kinetics, it is shown that the extended volume evolves with time according to αex = [exp(κCt′)]m+1, where t′ is the dimensionless time. This scaled solution not only represents a significant simplification of the system description, it also provides new tools for its analysis. For instance, it has been possible to find an analytical dependence of the final average grain size on kinetic parameters. Concerning the microstructure, the existence of a length scaling factor has allowed the grain-size distribution to be numerically calculated as a function of the kinetic parameters

The Total Deviation Index estimated by Tolerance Intervals to evaluate the concordance of measurement devices

Background In an agreement assay, it is of interest to evaluate the degree of agreement between the different methods (devices, instruments or observers) used to measure the same characteristic. We propose in this study a technical simplification for inference about the total deviation index (TDI) estimate to assess agreement between two devices of normally-distributed measurements and describe its utility to evaluate inter- and intra-rater agreement if more than one reading per subject is available for each device. Methods We propose to estimate the TDI by constructing a probability interval of the difference in paired measurements between devices, and thereafter, we derive a tolerance interval (TI) procedure as a natural way to make inferences about probability limit estimates. We also describe how the proposed method can be used to compute bounds of the coverage probability. Results The approach is illustrated in a real case example where the agreement between two instruments, a handle mercury sphygmomanometer device and an OMRON 711 automatic device, is assessed in a sample of 384 subjects where measures of systolic blood pressure were taken twice by each device. A simulation study procedure is implemented to evaluate and compare the accuracy of the approach to two already established methods, showing that the TI approximation produces accurate empirical confidence levels which are reasonably close to the nominal confidence level. Conclusions The method proposed is straightforward since the TDI estimate is derived directly from a probability interval of a normally-distributed variable in its original scale, without further transformations. Thereafter, a natural way of making inferences about this estimate is to derive the appropriate TI. Constructions of TI based on normal populations are implemented in most standard statistical packages, thus making it simpler for any practitioner to implement our proposal to assess agreement.

Anàlisi de les imminents reformes processals i la seva aplicació a Catalunya. Problemàtica pròpia i riscos detectats. Propostes de millora. Cap a un nou model de justícia

Per diferents motius, l'acció de la justícia es troba permanentment d'actualitat. Una de les causes és la contínua novetat que prové de les propostes de modernització en els diversos àmbits, que tracten de pal·liar els dèficits amb els quals s'enfronta cada dia l'acció judicial. El debat és ja antic i permanent, sent que, simultàniament un ventall de projectes ha aparegut amb la intenció de dur a terme un canvi profund i determinant en la visió de l'estructura del Poder Judicial i dels serveis associats. En particular, la proposta de reforma de Llei Orgànica del Poder Judicial i de Demarcació i Planta, suposa la concentració de tots els jutjats a les capitals de província, amb el risc d'allunyament enfront dels ciutadans i problemes associats. L'esborrany de Codi Processal Penal aposta per un nou sistema de recerca a càrrec del Ministeri Fiscal, amb curts terminis taxats per a la finalització del procediment, promoció de la mediació i augment de les possibilitats de no continuació de la causa, a més una concentració i simplificació de totes les fases del procediment penal. D'altra banda, el Registre Civil ha estat retirat dels jutjats però, malgrat el transcurs del temps, no s'és capaç d'identificar a quin col·lectiu li correspondrà aquesta funció, amb la conseqüent generació d'una important inquietud social. Aquestes i altres novetats seran analitzades en profunditat, amb especial perspectiva des de l'àmbit de Catalunya, tractant d'aportar solucions i propostes de millora.