Quantification of the relation between surface morphodynamics and subsurface sedimentological product in sandy braided rivers

This study uses digital elevation models and ground-penetrating radar to quantify the relation between the surface morphodynamics and subsurface sedimentology in the sandy braided South Saskatchewan River, Canada. A unique aspect of the methodology is that both digital elevation model and ground-penetrating radar data were collected from the same locations in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, thus enabling the surface morphodynamics to be tied explicitly to the associated evolving depositional product. The occurrence of a large flood in 2005 also allowed the influence of discharge to be assessed with respect to the processproduct relationship. The data demonstrate that the morphology of the study reach evolved even during modest discharges, but more extensive erosion was caused by the large flood. In addition, the study reach was dominated by compound bars before the flood, but switched to being dominated by unit bars during and after the flood. The extent to which the subsurface deposits (the product') were modified by the surface morphodynamics (the process') was quantified using the changes in radar-facies recorded in sequential ground-penetrating radar surveys. These surveys reveal that during the large flood there was an increase in the proportion of facies associated with bar margin accretion and larger dunes. In subsequent years, these facies became truncated and replaced with facies associated with smaller dune sets. This analysis shows that unit bars generally become truncated more laterally than vertically and, thus, they lose the high-angle bar margin deposits and smaller scale bar-top deposits. In general, the only fragments that remain of the unit bars are dune sets, thus making identification of the original unit barform problematic. This novel data set has implications for what may ultimately become preserved in the rock record.

Climate and human forcing of Alpine river flow

River flow in Alpine environments is likely to be highly sensitive to climate change because of the effects of warming upon snow and ice, and hence the intra-annual distribution of river runoff. It is also likely to be influenced strongly by human impacts both upon hydrology (e.g. flow abstraction) and river regulation. This paper compares the river flow and sediment flux of two Alpine drainage basins over the last 5 to 7 decades, one that is largely unimpacted by human activities, one strongly impacted by flow abstraction for hydroelectricity. The analysis shows that both river flow and sediment transport capacity are strongly dependent upon the effects of temperature and precipitation availability upon snow accumulation. As the latter tends to increase annual maximum flows, and given the non-linear form of most sediment transport laws, current warming trends may lead to increased sedimentation in Alpine rivers. However, extension to a system impacted upon by flow abstraction reveals the dominant effect that human activity can have upon river sedimentation but also how human response to sediment management has co-evolved with climate forcing to make disentangling the two very difficult.

Inmigrantes menores de edad en Cataluña: un reto para las instituciones educativas

La llegada de menores inmigrantes procedentes principalmente de África, ha comportado que en España, y concretamente en Cataluña, las instituciones públicas y privadas se planteen cómo atenderles. La respuesta dada desde la administración catalana se ha caracterizado por una evolución desde el uso de las estructuras existentes hasta la propuesta más reciente de creación de nuevos centros ante la dificultad de dar una respuesta adecuada con lo existente. El artículo que presentamos analiza, a partir de grupos de discusión con los profesionales de los centros que acogían a estos menores, cómo se ha vivido esta presencia y qué retos estructurales (adaptación a las demandas, idoneidad de crear centros específicos para estos menores y/o contar con la presencia de educadores que pertenezcan o conozcan la cultura de origen de estos menores, etc.) y formativos ha planteado.

Análisis mediante ratios financieros de la propiedad bancaria en los nuevos miembros de la UE

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar como ha evolucionado y los efectos que el tipo de propiedad tiene sobre el desempeño de los bancos en aquellos países de la Europa Central y del Este, que en los últimos años han experimentado con gran intensidad el proceso de integración europea. Con este fin, hemos analizado 242 bancos correspondientes a 12 países (10 nuevos miembros de la UE y 2 en fase de negociación). Para verificar la existencia de un efecto derivado del tipo de propiedad, analizamos las dimensiones de la eficiencia bancaria, rentabilidad, costes, e intermediación, mediante la aplicación de distintas técnicas, tanto paramétricas como no paramétricas. Los resultados muestran la existencia de ciertos efectos derivados del tipo de propiedad. Así, entre los principales resultados, destaca que los bancos privatizados tienden a presentar unos niveles de rentabilidad superiores a los presentados por otros tipos de propiedad, mientras que a su vez, los bancos de origen extranjero son los que de media presentan unos menores niveles de costes, si bien esta diferencia no es estadísticamente significativa. Analizamos también la importancia que supone la presencia de un inversor estratégico en la propiedad de los bancos, obteniendo una mejoría que si bien no es significativa en los ratios de rentabilidad, si lo es en relación a los gastos generales de gestión.

Epithelial sodium transport and its control by aldosterone: the story of our internal environment revisited.

Transcription and translation require a high concentration of potassium across the entire tree of life. The conservation of a high intracellular potassium was an absolute requirement for the evolution of life on Earth. This was achieved by the interplay of P- and V-ATPases that can set up electrochemical gradients across the cell membrane, an energetically costly process requiring the synthesis of ATP by F-ATPases. In animals, the control of an extracellular compartment was achieved by the emergence of multicellular organisms able to produce tight epithelial barriers creating a stable extracellular milieu. Finally, the adaptation to a terrestrian environment was achieved by the evolution of distinct regulatory pathways allowing salt and water conservation. In this review we emphasize the critical and dual role of Na(+)-K(+)-ATPase in the control of the ionic composition of the extracellular fluid and the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) in salt and water conservation in vertebrates. The action of aldosterone on transepithelial sodium transport by activation of the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) at the apical membrane and that of Na(+)-K(+)-ATPase at the basolateral membrane may have evolved in lungfish before the emergence of tetrapods. Finally, we discuss the implication of RAAS in the origin of the present pandemia of hypertension and its associated cardiovascular diseases.

Chronic NSAID use and long-term decline of renal function in a prospective rheumatoid arthritis cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may cause kidney damage. This study assessed the impact of prolonged NSAID exposure on renal function in a large rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patient cohort. METHODS: Renal function was prospectively followed between 1996 and 2007 in 4101 RA patients with multilevel mixed models for longitudinal data over a mean period of 3.2 years. Among the 2739 'NSAID users' were 1290 patients treated with cyclooxygenase type 2 selective NSAIDs, while 1362 subjects were 'NSAID naive'. Primary outcome was the estimated glomerular filtration rate according to the Cockroft-Gault formula (eGFRCG), and secondary the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease and Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration formula equations and serum creatinine concentrations. In sensitivity analyses, NSAID dosing effects were compared for patients with NSAID registration in ≤/>50%, ≤/>80% or ≤/>90% of assessments. FINDINGS: In patients with baseline eGFRCG >30 mL/min, eGFRCG evolved without significant differences over time between 'NSAID users' (mean change in eGFRCG -0.87 mL/min/year, 95% CI -1.15 to -0.59) and 'NSAID naive' (-0.67 mL/min/year, 95% CI -1.26 to -0.09, p=0.63). In a multivariate Cox regression analysis adjusted for significant confounders age, sex, body mass index, arterial hypertension, heart disease and for other insignificant factors, NSAIDs were an independent predictor for accelerated renal function decline only in patients with advanced baseline renal impairment (eGFRCG <30 mL/min). Analyses with secondary outcomes and sensitivity analyses confirmed these results. CONCLUSIONS: NSAIDs had no negative impact on renal function estimates but in patients with advanced renal impairment.

Affinity distribution functions in multicomponent heterogeneous adsorption. Analytical inversion of isotherms to obtain affinity spectra

An analytical approach for the interpretation of multicomponent heterogeneous adsorption or complexation isotherms in terms of multidimensional affinity spectra is presented. Fourier transform, applied to analyze the corresponding integral equation, leads to an inversion formula which allows the computation of the multicomponent affinity spectrum underlying a given competitive isotherm. Although a different mathematical methodology is used, this procedure can be seen as the extension to multicomponent systems of the classical Sips’s work devoted to monocomponent systems. Furthermore, a methodology which yields analytical expressions for the main statistical properties (mean free energies of binding and covariance matrix) of multidimensional affinity spectra is reported. Thus, the level of binding correlation between the different components can be quantified. It has to be highlighted that the reported methodology does not require the knowledge of the affinity spectrum to calculate the means, variances, and covariance of the binding energies of the different components. Nonideal competitive consistent adsorption isotherm, widely used in metal/proton competitive complexation to environmental macromolecules, and Frumkin competitive isotherms are selected to illustrate the application of the reported results. Explicit analytical expressions for the affinity spectrum as well as for the matrix correlation are obtained for the NICCA case. © 2004 American Institute of Physics.

A logic programming framework for possibilistic argumentation: formalization and logical properties

In the last decade defeasible argumentation frameworks have evolved to become a sound setting to formalize commonsense, qualitative reasoning. The logic programming paradigm has shown to be particularly useful for developing different argument-based frameworks on the basis of different variants of logic programming which incorporate defeasible rules. Most of such frameworks, however, are unable to deal with explicit uncertainty, nor with vague knowledge, as defeasibility is directly encoded in the object language. This paper presents Possibilistic Logic Programming (P-DeLP), a new logic programming language which combines features from argumentation theory and logic programming, incorporating as well the treatment of possibilistic uncertainty. Such features are formalized on the basis of PGL, a possibilistic logic based on G¨odel fuzzy logic. One of the applications of P-DeLP is providing an intelligent agent with non-monotonic, argumentative inference capabilities. In this paper we also provide a better understanding of such capabilities by defining two non-monotonic operators which model the expansion of a given program P by adding new weighed facts associated with argument conclusions and warranted literals, respectively. Different logical properties for the proposed operators are studied

Idiosyncratic evolution of maternal effects in response to juvenile malnutrition in Drosophila.

Maternal effects often affect fitness traits, but there is little experimental evidence pertaining to their contribution to response to selection imposed by novel environments. We studied the evolution of maternal effects in Drosophila populations selected for tolerance to chronic larval malnutrition. To this end, we performed pairwise reciprocal F1 crosses between six selected (malnutrition tolerant) populations and six unselected control populations and assessed the effect of cross direction on larval growth and developmental rate, adult weight and egg-to-adult viability expressed under the malnutrition regime. Each pair of reciprocal crosses revealed large maternal effects (possibly including cytoplasmic genetic effects) on at least one trait, but the magnitude, sign and which traits were affected varied among populations. Thus, maternal effects contributed significantly to the response to selection imposed by the malnutrition regime, but these changes were idiosyncratic, suggesting a rugged adaptive landscape. Furthermore, although the selected populations evolved both faster growth and higher viability, the maternal effects on growth rate and viability were negatively correlated across populations. Thus, genes mediating maternal effects can evolve to partially counteract the response to selection mediated by the effects of alleles on their own carriers' phenotype, and maternal effects may contribute to evolutionary trade-offs between components of offspring fitness.

Immigrant Families and the School in Spain: Dynamics and Factors that Influence their Relations

In Spain, academic debate and school administrations have evolved to the extent that relations between the school, the family and the surrounding environment are now considered as crucial to student achievement at school and to the good functioning of the educational system as a whole. Despite this development, change is slow in practice and often complicated due to the emerging resistance of families and schools, given that they have always maintained relations marked by an imbalance of power. Our theoretical and especially our empirical work has focused on the relations between immigrant families and the school system in Spain. In view of the above, the creation of what we call positive relational dynamics and communication in schools is conditioned by the attitudes and behaviour of the school administration, professionals and families. However, the physical space in which these relations take place must also be taken into consideration. Regarding school organisation, we have emphasised the role of the school’s administration. By differentiating the range of management models, we note the ones that facilitate more relations and communication with and among families (especially the one we have called the horizontal participative model) and those that discourage them. However, the multiple and complex range of attitudes among teachers and families must always be taken into account.

La medina andalusina de Lleida en el segle XI: identitat i societat

La ciutat a Alandalús és l’espai hegemònic del poder públic emiral i posteriorment califal. Partint de la ciutat de Lleida, analitzem la evolució des del segle VIII fins al segle XI de la consolidació dels espais urbans com a representants del poder. Talment, aquests, capitalitzen els districtes o cores, mitjançant una xarxa de ciutats i fortificacions que li donen cohesió interna. Paral∙lelament, es vertebra i s’envigoritza una societat urbana partint d’elements comuns d’identitat i d’un discurs ideològic afí a la dinastia Omeia. La “gent de la ciutat” repre‐senten una part de la societat andalu‐sina, d’arrels hispano‐visigodes, i alhora, assumeixen l’hegemonia cultural de l’Islam, tot convivint en la nova realitat político‐social.

Evolution and cellular function of monothiol glutaredoxins: involvement in iron-sulphur cluster assembly

A number of bacterial species, mostly proteobacteria, possess monothiol glutaredoxins homologous to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitochondrial protein Grx5, which is involved in iron–sulphur cluster synthesis. Phylogenetic profiling is used to predict that bacterial monothiol glutaredoxins also participate in the iron–sulphur cluster (ISC) assembly machinery, because their phylogenetic profiles are similar to the profiles of the bacterial homologues of yeast ISC proteins. High evolutionary cooccurrence is observed between the Grx5 homologues and the homologues of the Yah1 ferredoxin, the scaffold proteins Isa1 and Isa2, the frataxin protein Yfh1 and the Nfu1 protein. This suggests that a specific functional interaction exists between these ISC machinery proteins. Physical interaction analyses using low-definition protein docking predict the formation of strong and specific complexes between Grx5 and several components of the yeast ISC machinery. Two-hybrid analysis has confirmed the in vivo interaction between Grx5 and Isa1. Sequence comparison techniques and cladistics indicate that the other two monothiol glutaredoxins of S. cerevisiae, Grx3 and Grx4, have evolved from the fusion of a thioredoxin gene with a monothiol glutaredoxin gene early in the eukaryotic lineage, leading to differential functional specialization. While bacteria do not contain these chimaeric glutaredoxins, in many eukaryotic species Grx5 and Grx3/4-type monothiol glutaredoxins coexist in the cell.

Évolutions des politiques publiques d'accueil d'événements sportifs

Depuis leurs premières conceptualisations, les politiques publiques d'accueil systématique d'événements sportifs (PASES) ont beaucoup évolué du fait de la transformation concomitante du sport et des événements, ainsi que l'émergence du concept de marketing territorial. Au cours des dernières décennies, ces politiques publiques se sont popularisées pour ne plus être simplement l'oeuvre de collectivités locales, mais également régionales, voire nationales. Cet article s'intéresse aux principales évolutions des PASES à la lumière de la ville de Lausanne et du canton de Vaud. Bien que la situation lausannoise soit particulière à bien des égards, dû notamment à la présence en Suisse et sur le territoire vaudois du siège de nombreuses fédérations sportives internationales (une soixantaine basée dans le pays, dont notamment le CIO, la FIFA, l'UEFA, etc.), des exemples sont également mobilisés pour d'autres territoires (Monaco, Doha, Londres, Danemark, Russie) afin de montrer que les évolutions lausannoises ne sont pas uniques. L'article entend ainsi donner un panorama des évolutions managériales actuelles qui transforment les PASES en SASES (stratégies d'accueil systématique d'événements sportifs), le cas lausannois servant de fil rouge pour présenter six grandes transitions observables. Abstract Since their first conceptualizations, systematic sports events hosting policies (SSEHP) evolved due to the simultaneous transformation of sport and sports events, as well as the emergence of territorial marketing. In the last decades, the popularity of SSEHP among territorial managers grew dramatically to move from purely local polices to regional and even national policies. This article focuses on the main evolutions of these SSEHP through the case of one city, Lausanne, and its canton, Vaud. Although, Lausanne's situation is particular in many ways, due to the presence throughout the country of many international sports federations (over sixty among which, the IOC, FIFA, UEFA, etc.), examples from other destinations (Monaco, Doha, London, Denmark, Russia) are also used to show that the evolutions observed in Lausanne are not unique. This article aims to give an overview of the major managerial evolutions which transform SSEHP into SSEHS (systematic sports events hosting strategies). The city of Lausanne is used through the article to underline the six significant evolutions.

Vanishing chromosomal inversion clines in Drosophila subobscura from Chile: Is behavioral thermoregulation to blame?

Chromosomal inversion clines paralleling the long-standing ones in native Palearctic populations of Drosophila subobscura evolved swiftly after this species invaded the Americas in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, the new clines did not consistently continue to converge on the Old World baseline. Our recent survey of Chilean populations of D. subobscura shows that inversion clines have faded or even changed sign with latitude. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that this fading of inversion clines might be due to the Bogert effect, namely, that flies' thermoregulatory behavior has eventually compensated for environmental variation in temperature, thus buffering selection on thermal-related traits. We show that latitudinal divergence in thermal preference (T-p) has evolved in Chile for females, with higher-latitude flies having a lower mean T-p. Plastic responses in T-p also lessen latitudinal thermal variation because flies developed at colder temperatures prefer warmer microclimates. Our results are consistent with the idea that active behavioral thermoregulation might buffer environmental variation and reduce the potential effect of thermal selection on other traits as chromosomal arrangements.

The UlaG protein familly defines novel structural and functional motifs grafted on an ancient RNase fold

Background: Bacterial populations are highly successful at colonizing new habitats and adapting to changing environmental conditions, partly due to their capacity to evolve novel virulence and metabolic pathways in response to stress conditions and to shuffle them by horizontal gene transfer (HGT). A common theme in the evolution of new functions consists of gene duplication followed by functional divergence. UlaG, a unique manganese-dependent metallo-b-lactamase (MBL) enzyme involved in L-ascorbate metabolism by commensal and symbiotic enterobacteria, provides a model for the study of the emergence of new catalytic activities from the modification of an ancient fold. Furthermore, UlaG is the founding member of the so-called UlaG-like (UlaGL) protein family, a recently established and poorly characterized family comprising divalent (and perhaps trivalent)metal-binding MBLs that catalyze transformations on phosphorylated sugars and nucleotides. Results: Here we combined protein structure-guided and sequence-only molecular phylogenetic analyses to dissect the molecular evolution of UlaG and to study its phylogenomic distribution, its relatedness with present-day UlaGL protein sequences and functional conservation. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that UlaGL sequences are present in Bacteria and Archaea, with bona fide orthologs found mainly in mammalian and plant-associated Gramnegative and Gram-positive bacteria. The incongruence between the UlaGL tree and known species trees indicates exchange by HGT and suggests that the UlaGL-encoding genes provided a growth advantage under changing conditions. Our search for more distantly related protein sequences aided by structural homology has uncovered that UlaGL sequences have a common evolutionary origin with present-day RNA processing and metabolizing MBL enzymes widespread in Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya. This observation suggests an ancient origin for the UlaGL family within the broader trunk of the MBL superfamily by duplication, neofunctionalization and fixation. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the forerunner of UlaG was present as an RNA metabolizing enzyme in the last common ancestor, and that the modern descendants of that ancestral gene have a wide phylogenetic distribution and functional roles. We propose that the UlaGL family evolved new metabolic roles among bacterial and possibly archeal phyla in the setting of a close association with metazoans, such as in the mammalian gastrointestinal tract or in animal and plant pathogens, as well as in environmental settings. Accordingly, the major evolutionary forces shaping the UlaGL family include vertical inheritance and lineage-specific duplication and acquisition of novel metabolic functions, followed by HGT and numerous lineage-specific gene loss events.