Contribution to the knowlegde of Galician xenoflora (NW Iberian Peninsula, Spain).

Information on 12 exotic plants of diverse interest for the Galician flora are presented. All of them were collected in Ribeira council (SW of the A Coruña province). The total includes 8 novelties at a regional level (Aeonium haworthii, Aloe mitriformis, Brugmansia × candida, Nephrolepis cordifolia, Osteospermum ecklonis, Pelargonium capitatum, Sedum mexicanum, Sparaxis tricolor), and 2 provincial novelties. In addition, information on two taxa hardly mentioned in the literature on Galician vascular flora is also included. All the cited specimens are deposited at the SANT Herbarium.

A couple of embroiled sheets of Miguel Barnades Manaider and Esteban de Prado in the Herbaria of Real Colegio Alfonso XII of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid)

In this paper we present a couple of sheets of Umbelliferae that are preserved in the RCAXII herbaria. One of them, Selinum carvifolia, where collected in the Gredos Mountains by Miguel Barnades Mainader and was identified by his son Miguel Barnades Clarís. The other, Tragium flabellifolium, was collected in Mieres (Asturias) by Esteban de Prado and identified by Mariano La Gasca.

New records of interesting xenophytes in the Iberian Peninsula. V

As a continuation of previous research on the naturalization of non-native vascular plants in the Iberian Peninsula new chorological data are presented for 16 xenophytes recorded between 2010 and 2014, mostly in the provinces of Huelva and Barcelona (Spain) and in the Algarve and Estremadura (Portugal). For each taxon details about distribution, habitats occupied, previous records, degree of naturalization, etc. are provided. Lachenalia bulbifera and Cyperus albostriatus are probably reported for the first time in the wild in Europe, as are Gamochaeta filaginea, and Dysphania anthelmintica and Oenothera lindheimeri for Portugal and Spain respectively. Cosmos bipinnatus is cited as a novelty for the Algarve (Portugal). Newly reported or confirmed for the province of Huelva are: Amaranthus hypochondriacus, Epilobium brachycarpum, Nephrolepis cordifolia, Ficus microcarpa, Tamarix parviflora and Tamarix ramosissima, while Atriplex semibaccata, Chloris truncata, and Elymus elongatus subsp. ponticus are new for Barcelona. Finally, Passiflora caerulea is a novelty for both Barcelona and Huelva provinces.

Anterior thalmic lesions stop immediate early gene activation in selective laminae of the retrosplenial cortex: evidence of covert pathology in rats

Lesions involving the anterior thalamic nuclei stopped immediate early gene (IEG) activity in specific regions of the rat retrosplenial cortex, even though there were no apparent cytoarchitectonic changes. Discrete anterior thalamic lesions were made either by excitotoxin (Experiment 1) or radiofrequency (Experiment 2) and, following recovery, the rats foraged in a radial-arm maze in a novel room. Measurements made 6-12 weeks postsurgery showed that, in comparison with surgical controls, the thalamic lesions produced the same, selective patterns of Fos changes irrespective of method. Granular (caudal granular cortex and rostral granular cortex), but not dysgranular (dysgranular cortex), retrosplenial cortex showed a striking loss of Fos-positive cells. While a loss of between 79 and 89% of Fos-positive cells was found in the superficial laminae, the deeper layers appeared normal. In Experiments 3 and 4, rats 9-10 months postsurgery were placed in an activity box for 30 min. Anterior thalamic lesions (Experiment 3) led to a pronounced IEG decrease of both Fos and zif268 throughout the retrosplenial cortex that now included the dysgranular area. These IEG losses were found even though the same regions appeared normal using standard histological techniques. Lesions of the postrhinal cortex (Experiment 4) did not bring about a loss of retrosplenial IEG activity even though this region is also reciprocally connected with the retrosplenial cortex. This selective effect of anterior thalamic damage upon retrosplenial activity may both amplify the disruptive effects of anterior thalamic lesions and help to explain the posterior cingulate hypoactivity found in Alzheimer's disease.

Changes in fos expression in the rat brain after unilateral lesions of the anterior thalamic nuclei

Activity of the immediate early gene c-fos was compared across hemispheres in rats with unilateral anterior thalamic lesions. Fos protein was quantified after rats performed a spatial working memory test in the radial-arm maze, a task that is sensitive to bilateral lesions of the anterior thalamic nuclei. Unilateral anterior thalamic lesions produced evidence of a widespread hippocampal hypoactivity, as there were significant reductions in Fos counts in a range of regions within the ipsilateral hippocampal formation (rostral CA1, rostral dentate gyrus, 'dorsal' hippocampus, presubiculum and postsubiculum). A decrease in Fos levels was also found in the rostral and caudal retrosplenial cortex but not in the parahippocampal cortices or anterior cingulate cortices. The Fos changes seem most closely linked to sites that are also required for successful task performance, supporting the notion that the anterior thalamus, retrosplenial cortex and hippocampus form key components of an interdependent neuronal network involved in spatial mnemonic processing.

Fos imaging reveals that lesions of the anterior thalamic nuclei produce widespread limbic hypoactivity in rats

Activity of the immediate early gene c-fos was compared in rats with neurotoxic lesions of the anterior thalamic nuclei and in surgical controls. Fos levels were measured after rats had been placed in a novel room and allowed to run up and down preselected arms of a radial maze. An additional control group showed that in normal rats, this exposure to a novel room leads to a Fos increase in a number of structures, including the anterior thalamic nuclei and hippocampus. In contrast, rats with anterior thalamic lesions were found to have significantly less Fos-positive cells in an array of sites, including the hippocampus (dorsal and ventral), retrosplenial cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and prelimbic cortex. These results show that anterior thalamic lesions disrupt multiple limbic brain regions, producing hypoactivity in sites associated in rats with spatial memory. Because many of the same sites are implicated in memory processes in humans (e.g., the hippocampus and retrosplenial cortex), this hypoactivity might contribute to diencephalic amnesia.

Effect of chronic angiotensin converting enzyme inhibition on spatial memory and anxiety-like behavours in rats

Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEis) are widely used anti-hypertensive agents that are also reported to have positive effects on mood and cognition. The present study examined the influence of the ACEi, perindopril, on cognitive performance and anxiety measures in rats. Two groups of rats were treated orally for one week with the ACEi, perindopril, at doses of 0.1 and 1.0mg/kg/day. Learning was assessed by the reference memory task in the water maze, comparing treated to control rats. Over five training days both perindopril-treated groups learnt the location of the submerged platform in the water maze task significantly faster than control rats. A 60s probe trial on day 6 showed that the 1.0mg/kg/day group spent significantly longer time in the training quadrant than control rats. This improved performance in the swim maze task was not due to the effect of perindopril on motor activity or the anxiety levels of the rats as perindopril-treated and control animals behaved similarly in activity boxes and on the elevated+maze. These results confirm the anecdotal human studies that ACEis have a positive influence on cognition and provide possibilities for ACEis to be developed into therapies for memory loss.

Using idiothetic cues to swim a path with a fixed trajectory and distance: Necessary involvement of the hippocampus but not the retrosplenial cortex.

Rats rapidly learned to find a submerged platform in a water maze at a constant distance and angle from the start point, which changed on every trial. The rats performed accurately in the light and dark, but prior rotation disrupted the latter condition. The rats were then retested after receiving cytotoxic hippocampal or retrosplenial cortex lesions. Retrosplenial lesions had no apparent effect in either the light or dark. Hippocampal lesions impaired performance in both conditions but spared the ability to locate a platform placed in the center of the pool. A hippocampal deficit emerged when this pool-center task was run in the dark. The spatial effects of hippocampal damage extend beyond allocentric tasks to include aspects of idiothetic guidance.

Agricultura urbana, condición para el desarrollo sostenible y la mejora del paisaje

Este artículo resulta de investigaciones en torno al “enverdecimiento” de las ciudades y las oportunidades de la agricultura urbana para la alimentación de una población en constante aumento que no trabaja la tierra. También es fruto de actividades de mejora de ambientes urbanos realizadas con la Escuela de Ingenieros Agrónomos de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. A través de casos de agricultura urbana, entendiendo por ella el conjunto de prácticas para la producción de alimentos y plantas ornamentales dentro de las ciudades y en sus entornos, se analizan alternativas para la recuperación de espacios construidos e incremento de la calidad de vida de la población. Todo ello se traduce, además, en creación de riqueza y mejora del paisaje urbano, siempre desde criterios de sostenibilidad que favorecen el desarrollo local desde la Cumbre de la Tierra de Río de 1992 y la Conferencia sobre Desarrollo Sostenible Río+20 de 2013.

Color preferences in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Color plays an important biological role in the lives of many animals, with some species exhibiting preferences for certain colors over others. This study explored the color preferences of two species of ape, which, like humans, possess trichromatic color vision. Six western lowland gorillas, and six chimpanzees, housed in Belfast Zoological Gardens, were exposed to three stimuli (cloths, boxes, sheets of acetate) in red, blue, and green. Six stimuli of the same nature, in each of the three colors, were provided to both species for 5 days per stimulus. The amount of interest that the animals showed toward each stimulus of each color was recorded for 1 hr. Results showed that the apes, both when analyzed as two separate groups, and when assessed collectively, showed significant color preferences, paying significantly less attention to the red-, than to the blue- or green-colored stimuli. The animals' interest in the blue- and green-colored stimuli did not differ significantly. Overall, the findings suggest that gorillas and chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, may harbor color preferences comparable to those of humans and other species. © 2008 American Psychological Association.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reaxys Database Information|

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pollinators of an endemic and endangered species, Mammillaria gaumeri (Cactaceae), in its natural habitat (coastal dune) and in a botanical garden.

Mammillaria gaumeri (Britton & Ross) Orcutt (Cactaceae), an endemic plant of the Yucatan Peninsula, is included by the Mexican government in the list of species that require special protection. Its natural habitat is now restricted to fragmented areas and protection programs involve botanical gardens in growing individuals rescued from disturbed areas. Little information is available on the reproductive characteristics of this species and nothing is known of its pollinators. We investigated the visitors of M. gaumeri flowers, collecting and observing bee species in its natural habitat (i.e., coastal dune) and in a botanical garden, where coastal dune vegetation had been created. Observations were made on plants whose density was artificially increased by grouping flowering individuals. At each site, we: 1) collected insects visiting the flowers; 2) recorded number of visits; and 3) video-recorded bee movements on the flowers. As expected, the number of bee species and visitation frequency were higher at the botanical garden than at the coastal dune. After landing on a flower, bees either inspected the anthers or dived among them. These behaviors, carried out by all observed species, seemed related to the state of the anthers (full or empty of pollen) and stigma lobes (opened or closed). Specifically, visits lasted longer when anthers were full of pollen and stigma lobes were opened. The same bee species recorded on the dune were also recorded at the botanical garden, suggesting that the artificial dune at the botanical garden offered suitable conditions for the natural pollinators of this endangered cactus.

Del Fichero supremo a la Biblioteca de Babel: Salaverría, precursor de Borges

A juzgar por alguna declaración más bien negativa de Borges sobre la literatura española, se podría creer que esta no influyó demasiado en él. Sin embargo, existen indicios de que pudo haberse inspirado también en determinados escritores españoles coetáneos hoy casi olvidados. Uno de ellos pudo ser José María Salaverría, entre cuyos relatos destaca “El fichero supremo” (1926), del que se ha dicho que “anticipa algunas de las preocupaciones características de un tipo de relato que Jorge Luis Borges elevará años después a la máxima categoría estética”. De hecho, recuerda a “La biblioteca de Babel” (1941) borgiana por su planteamiento hasta el punto de que podría pensarse que el maestro argentino pudo tener presente, a la hora de escribir esa obra maestra, ese cuento de Salaverría, el cual se publicó por primera vez en Caras y Caretas, una revista porteña que Borges reconoció “devorar” en su juventud. Sin embargo, el interés mayor de la comparación entre “El fichero supremo” y “La biblioteca de Babel” no radica tanto en el carácter de posible fuente del primero como en el contraste entre sus formas de presentación narrativa: desde fuera y en tercera persona en Salaverría, en un marco realista; y desde dentro y en primera persona, prácticamente sin marco, en Borges. Este parece desarrollar, en el registro propio de la “imaginación razonada” descrito por él mismo, una virtualidad presente en el relato de Salaverría, cuya comparación con “La biblioteca de Babel” puede suscitar también alguna reflexión sobre el enigma de la identidad y el carácter de la voz enunciadora de la biblioteca universal de Babel. Al menos, esta parece haber hecho realidad en cierto modo, de forma sublime, el patético sueño divino del archivero imaginado por Salaverría.

Habitat for Humanity: Calibrating Best Practice Against the MDGs

Poverty alleviation lies at the heart of contemporary international initiatives on development. The key to development is the creation of an environment in which people can develop their potential, leading productive, creative lives in accordance with their needs, interests and faith. This entails, on the one hand, protecting the vulnerable from things that threaten their survival, such as inadequate nutrition, disease, conflict, natural disasters and the impact of climate change, thereby enhancing the poor’s capabilities to develop resilience in difficult conditions. On the other hand, it also requires a means of empowering the poor to act on their own behalf, as individuals and communities, to secure access to resources and the basic necessities of life such as water, food, shelter, sanitation, health and education. ‘Development’, from this perspective, seeks to address the sources of human insecurity, working towards ‘freedom from want, freedom from fear’ in ways that empower the vulnerable as agents of development (not passive recipients of benefaction).

Recognition of the magnitude of the problems confronted by the poor and failure of past interventions to tackle basic issues of human security led the United Nations (UN) in September 2000 to set out a range of ambitious, but clearly defined, development goals to be achieved by 2015. These are known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The intention of the UN was to mobilise multilateral international organisations, non-governmental organisations and the wider international community to focus attention on fulfilling earlier promises to combat global poverty. This international framework for development prioritises: the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a global partnership for development. These goals have been mapped onto specific targets (18 in total) against which outcomes of associated development initiatives can be measured and the international community held to account. If the world achieves the MDGs, more than 500 million people will be lifted out of poverty. However, the challenges the goals represent are formidable. Interim reports on the initiative indicate a need to scale-up efforts and accelerate progress.
Only MDG 7, Target 11 explicitly identifies shelter as a priority, identifying the need to secure ‘by 2020 a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers’. This raises a question over how Habitat for Humanity’s commitment to tackling poverty housing fits within this broader international framework designed to allievate global poverty. From an analysis of HFH case studies, this report argues that the processes by which Habitat for Humanity tackles poverty housing directly engages with the agenda set by the MDGs. This should not be regarded as a beneficial by-product of the delivery of decent, affordable shelter, but rather understood in terms of the ways in which Habitat for Humanity has translated its mission and values into a participatory model that empowers individuals and communities to address the interdependencies between inadequate shelter and other sources of human insecurity. What housing can deliver is as important as what housing itself is.

Examples of the ways in which Habitat for Humanity projects engage with the MDG framework include the incorporation of sustainable livelihoods strategies, up-grading of basic infrastructure and promotion of models of good governance. This includes housing projects that have also offered training to young people in skills used in the construction industry, microfinanced loans for women to start up their own home-based businesses, and the provision of food gardens. These play an important role in lifting families out of poverty and ensuring the sustainability of HFH projects. Studies of the impact of improved shelter and security of livelihood upon family life and the welfare of children evidence higher rates of participation in education, more time dedicated to study and greater individual achievement. Habitat for Humanity projects also typically incorporate measures to up-grade the provision of basic sanitation facilities and supplies of safe, potable drinking water. These measures not only directly help reduce mortality rates (e.g. diarrheal diseases account for around 2 million deaths annually in children under 5), but also, when delivered through HFH project-related ‘community funds’, empower the poor to mobilise community resources, develop local leadership capacities and even secure de facto security of tenure from government authorities.

In the process of translating its mission and values into practical measures, HFH has developed a range of innovative practices that deliver much more than housing alone. The organisation’s participatory model enables both direct beneficiaries and the wider community to tackle the insecurities they face, unlocking latent skills and enterprise, building sustainable livelihood capabilities. HFH plays an important role as a catalyst for change, delivering through the vehicle of housing the means to address the primary causes of poverty itself. Its contribution to wider development priorities deserves better recognition. In calibrating the success of HFH projects in terms of units completed or renovated alone, the significance of the process by which HFH realises these outcomes is often not sufficiently acknowledged, both within the organisation and externally. As the case studies developed in the report illustrate, the methodologies Habitat for Humanity employs to address the issue of poverty housing within the developing world, place the organisation at the centre of a global strategic agenda to address the root causes of poverty through community empowerment and the transformation of structures of governance.

Given this, the global network of HFH affiliates constitutes a unique organisational framework to faciliate sharing resources, ideas and practical experience across a diverse range of cultural, political and institutional environments. This said, it is apparent that work needs to be done to better to faciliate the pooling of experience and lessons learnt from across its affiliates. Much is to be gained from learning from less successful projects, sharing innovative practices, identifying strategic partnerships with donors, other NGOs and CBOs, and engaging with the international development community on how housing fits within a broader agenda to alleviate poverty and promote good governance.

The Architecture of Home in Cairo: Socio-Spatial Practice of the Hawari's Everyday Life

The hawari of Cairo - narrow non-straight alleyways - are the basic urban units that have formed the medieval city since its foundation back in 969 AD. Until early in the C20th, they made up the primary urban divisions of the city and were residential in nature. Contemporary hawari, by contrast, are increasingly dominated by commercial and industrial activity. This medieval urban maze of extremely short, broken, zigzag streets and dead ends are defensible territories, powerful institutions, and important social systems. While the hawari have been studied as an exemplar for urban structure of medieval Islamic urbanism, and as individual building typologies, this book is the first to examine in detail the socio-spatial practice of the architecture of home in the city. It investigates how people live, communicate and relate to each other within their houses or shared spaces of the alleys, and in doing so, to uncover several new socio-spatial dimensions and meanings in this architectural form.

In an attempt to re-establish the link between architecture past and present, and to understand the changing social needs of communities, this book uncovers the notion of home as central to understand architecture in such a city with long history as Cairo. It firstly describes the historical development of the domestic spaces (indoor and outdoor), and provides an inclusive analysis of spaces of everyday activities in the hawari of old Cairo. It then broadens its analysis to other parts of the city, highlighting different customs and representations of home in the city at large. Cairo, in the context of this book, is represented as the most sophisticated urban centre in the Middle East with different and sometimes contrasting approaches to the architecture of home, as a practice and spatial system.

In order to analyse the complexity and interconnectedness of the components and elements of the hawari as a 'collective home', it layers its narratives of architectural and social developments as a domestic environment over the past two hundred years, and in doing so, explores the in-depth social meaning and performance of spaces, both private and public.

Donepezil attenuates hippocampal neuronal damage and cognitive deficits after global cerebral ischemia in gerbils.

Decreased cerebral blood flow causes cognitive impairments and neuronal injury in vascular dementia. In the present study, we reported that donepezil, a cholinesterase inhibitor, improved transient global cerebral ischemia-induced spatial memory impairment in gerbils. Treatment with 5mg/kg of donepezil for 21 consecutive days following a 10-min period of ischemia significantly inhibited delayed neuronal death in the hippocampal CA1 region. In Morris water maze test, memory impairment was significantly improved by donepezil treatment. Western blot analysis showed that donepezil treatment prevented reductions in p-CaMKII and p-CREB protein levels in the hippocampus. These results suggest that donepezil attenuates the memory deficit induced by transient global cerebral ischemia and this neuroprotection may be associated with the phosphorylation of CaMKII and CERB in the hippocampus.