Performance data of the coral Pocillopora verrucosa and environmental conditions along the Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast as assessed during 3 expeditions in the years 2011 and 2012

Large scale patterns of ecologically relevant traits may help identify drivers of their variability and conditions beneficial or adverse to the expression of these traits. Antimicrofouling defenses in scleractinian corals regulate the establishment of the associated biofilm as well as the risks of infection. The Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast features a pronounced thermal and nutritional gradient including regions and seasons with potentially stressful conditions to corals. Assessing the patterns of antimicrofouling defenses across the Red Sea may hint at the susceptibility of corals to global change. We investigated microfouling pressure as well as the relative strength of 2 alternative antimicrofouling defenses (chemical antisettlement activity, mucus release) along the pronounced environmental gradient along the Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast in 2 successive years. Microfouling pressure was exceptionally low along most of the coast but sharply increased at the southernmost sites. Mucus release correlated with temperature. Chemical defense tended to anti-correlate with mucus release. As a result, the combined action of mucus release and chemical antimicrofouling defense seemed to warrant sufficient defense against microbes along the entire coast. In the future, however, we expect enhanced energetic strain on corals when warming and/or eutrophication lead to higher bacterial fouling pressure and a shift towards putatively more costly defense by mucus release.

Operational costs of A 13,000 solar home systems rural electrification programme

This paper presents an assessment and evaluation of the costs of operation and maintenance (O&M) in a real PV rural electrification (PVRE) programme, with the aim of characterizing its costs structure. Based on the extracted data of the 5-years operational costs of a private operator, the programme has been analyzed to take out the most relevant costs involved in the O&M phase as well as the comparative appraisal between the 3 main activities: installation, O&M and management. Through this study we try to answer to the new challenge of decentralized rural electrification based on larger programmes (with tens of thousands of SHSs) and longer maintenance and operation periods (at least 10 years).

Male fetal progenitor cells persist in maternal blood for as long as 27 years postpartum.

Rare nucleated fetal cells circulate within maternal blood. Noninvasive prenatal diagnosis by isolation and genetic analysis of these cells is currently being undertaken. We sought to determine if genetic evidence existed for persistent circulation of fetal cells from prior pregnancies. Venous blood samples were obtained from 32 pregnant women and 8 nonpregnant women who had given birth to males 6 months to 27 years earlier. Mononuclear cells were sorted by flow cytometry using antibodies to CD antigens 3, 4, 5, 19, 23, 34, and 38. DNA within sorted cells, amplified by PCR for Y chromosome sequences, was considered predictive of a male fetus or evidence of persistent male fetal cells. In the 32 pregnancies, male DNA was detected in 13 of 19 women carrying a male fetus. In 4 of 13 pregnancies with female fetuses, male DNA was also detected. All of the 4 women had prior pregnancies; 2 of the 4 had prior males and the other 2 had terminations of pregnancy. In 6 of the 8 nonpregnant women, male DNA was detected in CD34+CD38+ cells, even in a woman who had her last son 27 years prior to blood sampling. Our data demonstrate the continued maternal circulation of fetal CD34+ or CD34+CD38+ cells from a prior pregnancy. The prolonged persistence of fetal progenitor cells may represent a human analogue of the microchimerism described in the mouse and may have significance in development of tolerance of the fetus. Pregnancy may thus establish a long-term, low-grade chimeric state in the human female.

Corpus Use and Learning to Translate, almost 20 years on

It is almost 20 years since a series of conferences known as CULT (Corpus Use and Learning to Translate) started. The first and second took place in Bertinoro, Italy, back in 1997 and 2000, respectively. The third was held in 2004 in Barcelona, and the fourth in 2015 in Alicante. Each was organized by a few enthusiastic lecturers and scholars who also happened to be corpus lovers. Guy Aston, Silvia Bernardini, Dominic Stewart and Federico Zanettin, from the Universitá di Bologna; Allison Beeby, Patricia Rodríguez-Inés and Pilar Sánchez-Gijón, from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; and Daniel Gallego-Hernández, from the Universidad de Alicante, organized CULT conferences in the belief that spreading the word about the usefulness of corpora for teaching and professional translation purposes would have positive results.