Environmental influences on antibody-enhanced dengue disease outcomes

Because an enriched environment (EE) enhances T-cell activity and T-lymphocytes contribute to immunopathogenesis during heterologous dengue virus (DENV) infections, we hypothesised that an EE increases dengue severity. To compare single serotype (SS) and antibody-enhanced disease (AED) infections regimens, serial intraperitoneal were performed with DENV3 (genotype III) infected brain homogenate or anti-DENV2 hyperimmune serum followed 24 h later by DENV3 (genotype III) infected brain homogenate. Compared AED for which significant differences were detected between the EE and impoverished environmental (IE) groups (Kaplan-Meyer log-rank test, p = 0.0025), no significant differences were detected between the SS experimental groups (Kaplan-Meyer log-rank test, p = 0.089). Survival curves from EE and IE animals infected with the AED regimen were extended after corticoid injection and this effect was greater in the EE than in the IE group (Kaplan-Meyer log-rank test, p = 0.0162). Under the AED regimen the EE group showed more intense clinical signs than the IE group. Dyspnoea, tremor, hunched posture, ruffled fur, immobility, pre-terminal paralysis, shock and death were associated with dominant T-lymphocytic hyperplasia and presence of viral antigens in the liver and lungs. We propose that the increased expansion of these memory T-cells and serotype cross-reactive antibodies facilitates the infection of these cells by DENV and that these events correlate with disease severity in an EE.

Context switching accounting mechanism

How many times a given process p preempts, either voluntarily or involuntarily, is an important threat to computer's processes throughput. Whenever running cpu-bound processes on a multi-core system without an actual system grid engine as commonly found on Grid Clusters, their performance and stability are directly related to their accurate implementation and the system reliability which is, to an extend, an important caveat most of the times so difficult to detect. Context Switching is time-consuming. Thus, if we could develop a tool capable of detecting it and gather data from every single performed Context Switch, we would beable to study this data and present some results that should pin-point at whatever their main cause could be.

Individual, family and environmental factors associated with pediatric excess weight in Spain: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND There is a growing worldwide trend of obesity in children. Identifying the causes and modifiable factors associated with child obesity is important in order to design effective public health strategies.Our objective was to provide empirical evidence of the association that some individual and environmental factors may have with child excess weight. METHOD A cross-sectional study was performed using multi-stage probability sampling of 978 Spanish children aged between 8 and 17 years, with objectively measured height and weight, along with other individual, family and neighborhood variables. Crude and adjusted odds ratios were calculated. RESULTS In 2012, 4 in 10 children were either overweight or obese with a higher prevalence amongst males and in the 8-12 year age group. Child obesity was associated negatively with the socio-economic status of the adult responsible for the child's diet, OR 0.78 (CI95% 0.59-1.00), girls OR 0.75 (CI95% 0.57-0.99), older age of the child (0.41; CI95% 0.31-0.55), daily breakfast (OR 0.59; p = 0.028) and half an hour or more of physical activity every day. No association was found for neighborhood variables relating to perceived neighborhood quality and safety. CONCLUSION This study identifies potential modifiable factors such as physical activity, daily breakfast and caregiver education as areas for public health policies. To be successful, an intervention should take into account both individual and family factors when designing prevention strategies to combat the worldwide epidemic of child excess weight.

Using a top predator as a sentinel for environmental contamination with pathogenic bacteria: the Iberian wolf and leptospires

The Iberian wolf (Canis lupus) is the top predator in the Iberian environments in which it lives, feeding on a wide range of species, thus encountering a wide range of disease agents. Therefore, the wolf can serve as sentinel of environmental contamination with pathogens. We investigated the exposure of free-living wolves to 14 serovars of Leptospira interrogans sensu lato. Kidney samples from 49 wolves collected from 2010-2013 in northwestern Spain were analysed by culture, direct immunofluorescence and polymerase chain reaction. Tissue fluids were analysed for antibodies by a microscopic agglutination test. Ten wolves (observed prevalence: 20%, 95% confidence interval = 11-33%) showed evidence of contact with leptospires, eight through direct detection and nine through serology (7 wolves were positive according to both techniques). Titres below the cut-off level were also detected in seven cases. Serovars confirmed were Canicola (n = 4), Icterohaemorrhagiae (n = 3) and Sejroë, Ballum and Grippotyphosa (n = 1 each), indicating that wolves were infected with serovars for which dogs, rodents and ungulates, are the natural hosts and supporting the utility of the wolf and other large predators as environmental sentinels for pathogens.

Stochastic optimal bid to electricity markets with environmental risk constraints

There are many factors that influence the day-ahead market bidding strategies of a generation company (GenCo) in the current energy market framework. Environmental policy issues have become more and more important for fossil-fuelled power plants and they have to be considered in their management, giving rise to emission limitations. This work allows to investigate the influence of both the allowances and emission reduction plan, and the incorporation of the derivatives medium-term commitments in the optimal generation bidding strategy to the day-ahead electricity market. Two different technologies have been considered: the coal thermal units, high-emission technology, and the combined cycle gas turbine units, low-emission technology. The Iberian Electricity Market and the Spanish National Emissions and Allocation Plans are the framework to deal with the environmental issues in the day-ahead market bidding strategies. To address emission limitations, some of the standard risk management methodologies developed for financial markets, such as Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR), have been extended. This study offers to electricity generation utilities a mathematical model to determinate the individual optimal generation bid to the wholesale electricity market, for each one of their generation units that maximizes the long-run profits of the utility abiding by the Iberian Electricity Market rules, the environmental restrictions set by the EU Emission Trading Scheme, as well as the restrictions set by the Spanish National Emissions Reduction Plan. The economic implications for a GenCo of including the environmental restrictions of these National Plans are analyzed and the most remarkable results will be presented.

Agriculture, technological change and environmental sustainability: Looking for a win-win water policy strategy

This paper analyses the effects that technological changes in agriculture would have on environmental, social and economic indicators. Specifically, our study is focused on two alternative technological improvements: the modernization of water transportation systems versus the increase in the total factor productivity of agriculture. Using a computable general equilibrium model for the Catalan economy, our results suggest that a water policy that leads to greater economic efficiency is not necessarily optimal if we consider social or environmental criteria. Moreover, improving environmental sustainability depends less on the type of technological change than on the institutional framework in which technological change occurs. Keywords: agricultural technological changes, computable general equilibrium model, economic impact, water policy

Economic and environmental effects of the CO2 taxation: an input-output analysis for Spain

CO2 emissions induced by human activities are the major cause of climate change; hence, strong environmental policy that limits the growing dependence on fossil fuel is indispensable. Tradable permits and environmental taxes are the usual tools used in CO2 reduction strategies. Such economic tools provide incentives to polluting industries to reduce their emissions through market signals. The aim of this work is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of an environmental tax on Spanish products and services. We apply an environmentally extended input-output (EIO) model to identify CO2 emission intensities of products and services and, accordingly, we estimate the tax proportional to these intensities. The short-term price effects are analyzed using an input-output price model. The effect of tax introduction on consumption prices and its influence on consumers’ welfare are determined. We also quantify the environmental impacts of such taxation in terms of the reduction in CO2 emissions. The results, based on the Spanish economy for the year 2007, show that sectors with relatively poor environmental profile are subjected to high environmental tax rates. And consequently, applying a CO2 tax on these sectors, increases production prices and induces a slight increase in consumer price index and a decrease in private welfare. The revenue from the tax could be used to counter balance the negative effects on social welfare and also to stimulate the increase of renewable energy shares in the most impacting sectors. Finally, our analysis highlights that the environmental and economic goals cannot be met at the same time with the environmental taxation and this shows the necessity of finding other (complementary or alternative) measures to ensure both the economic and ecological efficiencies. Keywords: CO2 emissions; environmental tax; input-output model, effects of environmental taxation.

Exploring the environmental diversity of kinetoplastid flagellates in the high-throughput DNA sequencing era

The class Kinetoplastea encompasses both free-living and parasitic species from a wide range of hosts. Several representatives of this group are responsible for severe human diseases and for economic losses in agriculture and livestock. While this group encompasses over 30 genera, most of the available information has been derived from the vertebrate pathogenic genera Leishmaniaand Trypanosoma. Recent studies of the previously neglected groups of Kinetoplastea indicated that the actual diversity is much higher than previously thought. This article discusses the known segment of kinetoplastid diversity and how gene-directed Sanger sequencing and next-generation sequencing methods can help to deepen our knowledge of these interesting protists.

Genetic and environmental effects on early life-history traits in salmonids

Les changements environnementaux, tels la température ou les maladies infectieuses, peuvent influencer l'évolution en induisant de la sélection, mais ceci à la seule condition qu'il y ait assez de diversité génétique pour les traits en question ou pour l'expression plastique de ces traits. Au cours cette thèse, nous avons étudié l'effet de potentielles pressions environnementales sur différents phénotypes de trois représentants des sous familles des salmonidés: l'ombre commun (Thymallus thymallus; Thymallinae), la truite de rivière {Salmo trutta; Salmoninae) et le corégone Coregonus palaea (Coregoninae). Les salmonidés se prêtent particulièrement bien à ce type d'expériences car étant hautement sensibles aux conditions environnementales, ils montrent une large variabilité dans leurs traits morphologiques, comportementaux ainsi que d'histoire de vie, tout en bénéficiant d'un large intérêt général. Nous avons testé si le sexe de l'ombre commun pouvait être modifié par la température, ce qui pourrait ainsi expliquer un changement abrupte de sex ratio observé dans l'une des plus grandes populations de Suisse. Nous n'avons trouvé aucun indice permettant de conclure que la température puisse induire ce changement chez l'ombre commun ou chez la truite de rivière. De plus nous avons étudié la plasticité de développement ainsi que d'éclosion, et avons observé des différences entre familles ainsi qu'entre populations. Alors que ces différences comportementales entre populations suggéraient une adaptation aux conditions environnementales locales, cette prédiction n'a pas été confirmée par une expérience de transplantation réciproque d'embryons entre cinq rivières de la même région. Cette étude a montré que les embryons ne survivaient pas mieux dans leur rivière d'origine, indiquant donc une absence d'adaptation locale. Nous avons aussi montré que la mortalité embryonnaire était influencée autant par des "bons gènes" que par des "gènes compatibles", que la qualité des mâles pouvait être signalée par leur coloration, et que le fait d'élever des poissons dans une pisciculture pouvait aboutir a des relations contre-intuitives entre la coloration des mâles et la qualité de leur jeunes. Nos résultats contribuent ainsi à une meilleure compréhension de l'effet de diverses pressions environnementales sur la morphologie, le comportement ou les traits d'histoire de vie chez les salmonidés. - Environmental changes, such as changes in temperatures or infection levels, can induce selection and drive evolution if there is sufficient genetic variation for the traits or the plasticity in trait expression. In this thesis, we investigated the influence of potential environmental stressors on various phenotypes in representatives of the three salmonid subfamilies: the European grayling (Thymallus thymallus; Thymallinae), the brown trout (,Salmo trutta; Salmoninae), and the whitefish Coregonus palaea (Coregoninae). Salmonids are ideal study species, as they seem sensitive to changing environmental conditions, show considerable variability in morphological, behavioral, and life history traits, and are of broad public interest. We investigated whether temperature-induced sex reversal could explain the sex-ratio distortion found in one of Switzerland's largest grayling populations. We found no evidence of temperature-induced sex reversal in either graylings or brown trout. We also examined plasticity in embryo development and the timing of hatching. We found variation at the level of family and population. Although behavioral differences between populations suggested adaptation to local environmental conditions, no indications of local adaptation could be found in reciprocal transplant experiments carried out over five rivers in the same region. We also demonstrate that embryo development and viability is influenced by 'good genes' and 'compatible genes', that the genetic quality of sires can be signaled by their grey coloration, and that raising larvae in a hatchery environment can produce counter-intuitive relationships between male phenotypes and offspring viability. Our results contribute to the understanding of how changing environmental conditions affect the phenotypes and the heritability of early life-history traits in salmonids.

Is ENP good news for the transfer of environmental norms? Incentives and socialization for Eastern neighbours

The launching of the European Neighbourhood Policy has created some expectations. Cooperation between the EU and its partners is expected to get deeper, to the point that neighbouring countries have been promised to share “everything but institutions” with the EU. Moreover, cooperation is also expected to be broader, as it has been presented as including more and more issue areas. In other words, the ENP has the vocation of being a universal instrument to promote the transfer of EU norms. This paper focuses on one single issue area, the environment, and one group of ENP partners, the Western Newly Independent States and the South Caucasus, to revise to what extent neighbourhood policy can provide the mechanisms to encourage rule transfer. Are incentives and disincentives powerful enough? Can the ENP promote the socialization of neighbours into EU environmental norms?

Monitoring procedures in environmental geochemistry and compositional data analysis theory

First discussion on compositional data analysis is attributable to Karl Pearson, in 1897. However, notwithstanding the recent developments on algebraic structure of the simplex, more than twenty years after Aitchison’s idea of log-transformations of closed data, scientific literature is again full of statistical treatments of this type of data by using traditional methodologies. This is particularly true in environmental geochemistry where besides the problem of the closure, the spatial structure (dependence) of the data have to be considered. In this work we propose the use of log-contrast values, obtained by asimplicial principal component analysis, as LQGLFDWRUV of given environmental conditions. The investigation of the log-constrast frequency distributions allows pointing out the statistical laws able togenerate the values and to govern their variability. The changes, if compared, for example, with the mean values of the random variables assumed as models, or other reference parameters, allow definingmonitors to be used to assess the extent of possible environmental contamination. Case study on running and ground waters from Chiavenna Valley (Northern Italy) by using Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, HCO3-, SO4 2- and Cl- concentrations will be illustrated

Species distributions and interactions in a changing world : from understanding to forecasting

Les écosystèmes fournissent de nombreuses ressources et services écologiques qui sont utiles à la population humaine. La biodiversité est une composante essentielle des écosystèmes et maintient de nombreux services. Afin d'assurer la permanence des services écosystémiques, des mesures doivent être prises pour conserver la biodiversité. Dans ce but, l'acquisition d'informations détaillées sur la distribution de la biodiversité dans l'espace est essentielle. Les modèles de distribution d'espèces (SDMs) sont des modèles empiriques qui mettent en lien des observations de terrain (présences ou absences d'une espèce) avec des descripteurs de l'environnement, selon des courbes de réponses statistiques qui décrive la niche réalisée des espèces. Ces modèles fournissent des projections spatiales indiquant les lieux les plus favorables pour les espèces considérées. Le principal objectif de cette thèse est de fournir des projections plus réalistes de la distribution des espèces et des communautés en montagne pour le climat présent et futur en considérant non-seulement des variables abiotiques mais aussi biotiques. Les régions de montagne et l'écosystème alpin sont très sensibles aux changements globaux et en même temps assurent de nombreux services écosystémiques. Cette thèse est séparée en trois parties : (i) fournir une meilleure compréhension du rôle des interactions biotiques dans la distribution des espèces et l'assemblage des communautés en montagne (ouest des Alpes Suisses), (ii) permettre le développement d'une nouvelle approche pour modéliser la distribution spatiale de la biodiversité, (iii) fournir des projections plus réalistes de la distribution future des espèces ainsi que de la composition des communautés. En me focalisant sur les papillons, bourdons et plantes vasculaires, j'ai détecté des interactions biotiques importantes qui lient les espèces entre elles. J'ai également identifié la signature du filtre de l'environnement sur les communautés en haute altitude confirmant l'utilité des SDMs pour reproduire ce type de processus. A partir de ces études, j'ai contribué à l'amélioration méthodologique des SDMs dans le but de prédire les communautés en incluant les interactions biotiques et également les processus non-déterministes par une approche probabiliste. Cette approche permet de prédire non-seulement la distribution d'espèces individuelles, mais également celle de communautés dans leur entier en empilant les projections (S-SDMs). Finalement, j'ai utilisé cet outil pour prédire la distribution d'espèces et de communautés dans le passé et le futur. En particulier, j'ai modélisé la migration post-glaciaire de Trollius europaeus qui est à l'origine de la structure génétique intra-spécifique chez cette espèce et évalué les risques de perte face au changement climatique. Finalement, j'ai simulé la distribution des communautés de bourdons pour le 21e siècle afin d'évaluer les changements probables dans ce groupe important de pollinisateurs. La diversité fonctionnelle des bourdons va être altérée par la perte d'espèces spécialistes de haute altitude et ceci va influencer la pollinisation des plantes en haute altitude. - Ecosystems provide a multitude of resources and ecological services, which are useful to human. Biodiversity is an essential component of those ecosystems and guarantee many services. To assure the permanence of ecosystem services for future generation, measure should be applied to conserve biodiversity. For this purpose, the acquisition of detailed information on how biodiversity implicated in ecosystem function is distributed in space is essential. Species distribution models (SDMs) are empirical models relating field observations to environmental predictors based on statistically-derived response surfaces that fit the realized niche. These models result in spatial predictions indicating locations of the most suitable environment for the species and may potentially be applied to predict composition of communities and their functional properties. The main objective of this thesis was to provide more accurate projections of species and communities distribution under current and future climate in mountains by considering not solely abiotic but also biotic drivers of species distribution. Mountain areas and alpine ecosystems are considered as particularly sensitive to global changes and are also sources of essential ecosystem services. This thesis had three main goals: (i) a better ecological understanding of biotic interactions and how they shape the distribution of species and communities, (ii) the development of a novel approach to the spatial modeling of biodiversity, that can account for biotic interactions, and (iii) ecologically more realistic projections of future species distributions, of future composition and structure of communities. Focusing on butterfly and bumblebees in interaction with the vegetation, I detected important biotic interactions for species distribution and community composition of both plant and insects along environmental gradients. I identified the signature of environmental filtering processes at high elevation confirming the suitability of SDMs for reproducing patterns of filtering. Using those case-studies, I improved SDMs by incorporating biotic interaction and accounting for non-deterministic processes and uncertainty using a probabilistic based approach. I used improved modeling to forecast the distribution of species through the past and future climate changes. SDMs hindcasting allowed a better understanding of the spatial range dynamic of Trollius europaeus in Europe at the origin of the species intra-specific genetic diversity and identified the risk of loss of this genetic diversity caused by climate change. By simulating the future distribution of all bumblebee species in the western Swiss Alps under nine climate change scenarios for the 21st century, I found that the functional diversity of this pollinator guild will be largely affected by climate change through the loss of high elevation specialists. In turn, this will have important consequences on alpine plant pollination.