The VISCACHA (VIsible Soar photometry of star Clusters in tApii and Coxi HuguA†) Survey is an ongoing project based on deep and spatially resolved photometric observations of Magellanic Cloud star clusters, collected using the SOuthern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope together with the SOAR Adaptive Module Imager. So far we have used >300h of telescope time to observe ∼150 star clusters, mostly with low mass (M < 104M⊙) on the outskirts of the LMC and SMC. With this high-quality data set, we homogeneously determine physical properties using deep colour-magnitude diagrams (ages, metallicities, reddening, distances, mass, luminosity and mass functions) and structural parameters (radial density profiles, sizes) for these clusters which are used as a proxy to investigate the interplay between the Magellanic Clouds and their evolution. We present the VISCACHA survey and its initial results, based on our first two papers. The project’s long term goals and expected legacy to the community are also addressed.

As is well known, the corrosion of embedded steel reinforced depends strongly of the concrete resistivity, which is related directly with the water contained into its porous network. Environment plays an important role on resistivity, due to have a direct correspondence with the relative humidity and temperature. In these terms, ingress or output of water is favored or hampered by the environmental parameters, as well as its fluctuations. This work presents a proposal of instrumented system to generate a map of electrical resistivity at concrete samples by using superficial and embedded electrodes. Mathematical analysis of equivalent circuit revealed the importance of the impedance of electrodes utilized, to simplify measures. Concrete samples were exposed to different relative humidity focused to try to obtain the relation between relative humidity and resistivity. An array of two electrodes distributed in a matrix was manufactured to apply a signal of direct current at first electrode and measure the resultant current at second electrode. The system applies a programmed sequence of switch to turn on and turn off to realize measurements over established zone and, in this form, allows identify zones with potentials gradients. Also, do easy the monitoring of concrete resistivity evolution in function of time and humidity conditions.

Skeletal muscle exhibits a remarkable flexibility in the usage of fuel in response to the nutrient intake and energy demands of the organism. In fact, increased physical activity and fasting trigger a transcriptional programme in skeletal muscle cells leading to a switch from carbohydrate to lipid oxidation. Impaired metabolic flexibility has been reported to be associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes, but it is not known whether the disability to adapt to metabolic demands is a cause or a consequence of these pathological conditions. Inasmuch as a poor nutritional environment during early life is a predisposing factor for the development of metabolic diseases in adulthood, in the present study, we aimed to determine the long-term effects of maternal malnutrition on the metabolic flexibility of offspring skeletal muscle. To this end, the transcriptional responses of the soleus and extensor digitorum longus muscles to fasting were evaluated in adult rats born to dams fed a control (17 % protein) or a low-protein (8 % protein, protein restricted (PR)) diet throughout pregnancy and lactation. With the exception of reduced body weight and reduced plasma concentrations of TAG, PR rats exhibited a metabolic profile that was the same as that of the control rats. In the fed state, PR rats exhibited an enhanced expression of key regulatory genes of fatty acid oxidation including CPT1a, PGC-1α, UCP3 and PPARα and an impaired expression of genes that increase the capacity for fat oxidation in response to fasting. These results suggest that impaired metabolic inflexibility precedes and may contribute to the development of metabolic disorders associated with early malnutrition.

Arid regions are increasingly being anthropogenically altered. In the north-western Sahara, a growing road network facilitates the use of habitats adjacent to roads. In regions where livestock is the traditional and main economic resource, local people are currently building numerous water cisterns for watering livestock, leading to an increase in the extent of pasturing of domestic livestock. Cisterns may attract desert vertebrates and act as death traps for species with already sparse populations in these arid areas. This paper is the first to examine the impact of cisterns as lethal traps for amphibians and reptiles in the Sahara, using a survey of 823 cisterns in south-western Morocco to identify and quantify species affected. Four amphibians and 35 reptiles were trapped in cisterns, some of which were listed as threatened. At least 459 017 individual amphibians and reptiles were trapped annually within the study area. The low productivity and low population densities of terrestrial vertebrates in this arid region suggest cisterns have a substantial impact upon amphibian and reptile species. As cistern construction is increasing, management actions are required to mitigate this impact on the herpetological community.

The purpose of this work was to study the relationship between self-focused attention and mindfulness in participants prone to hallucinations and others who were not. A sample of 318 healthy participants, students at the universities of Sevilla and Almería, was given the Launay-Slade Hallucinations Scale-revised (LSHS-R, Bentall & Slade, 1985). Based on this sample, two groups were formed: participants with high (n = 55) and low proneness (n = 28) to hallucinations. Participants with a score higher than a standard deviation from the mean in the LSHS-R were included in the high proneness group, participants with a score lower than a standard deviation from the mean in the LSHR-R were included in the second one. All participants were also given the Self-Absorption Scale (SAS, McKenzie & Hoyle, 2008) and the Southampton Mindfulness Questionnaire (SMQ, Chadwick et al., 2008). The results showed that participants with high hallucination proneness had significantly higher levels of public (t(80) = 6.81, p < .001) and private (t(77) = 7.39, p < .001) self-focused attention and lower levels of mindfulness (t(81) = -4.56, p < .001) than participants in the group with low hallucination proneness. A correlational analysis showed a negative association between self-focused attention (private and public) and mindfulness (r = -0.23, p < .001; r = -0.38, p < .001 respectively). Finally, mindfulness was found to partly mediate between self-focused attention and hallucination proneness. The importance of self-focused attention and mindfulness in understanding the etiology of hallucinations discussed and suggest some approaches to their treatment.

The inhibition of the attachment of bacteria to the intestine by receptor analogues could be a novel approach to prevent enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) K88-induced diarrhoea in piglets. The objective of the present study was to screen the ability of different feed ingredients (FI) to bind to ETEC K88 (adhesion test, AT) and to block its attachment to the porcine intestinal mucus (blocking test, BT) using in vitro microtitration-based models. In the AT, wheat bran (WB), casein glycomacropeptide (CGMP) and exopolysaccharides exhibited the highest adhesion to ETEC K88 (P< 0·001). In the BT, WB, CGMP and locust bean (LB) reduced the number of ETEC K88 attached to the intestinal mucus (P< 0·001). For WB and LB, fractionation based on their carbohydrate components was subsequently carried out, and each fraction was evaluated individually. None of the WB fractions reduced the adhesion of ETEC K88 to the mucus as did the original extract, suggesting that a protein or glycoprotein could be involved in the recognition process. With regard to the LB fractions, the water-extractable material reduced the adhesion of ETEC K88 (P< 0·001) to the mucus similar to the original extract (P< 0·001), indicating, in this case, that galactomannans or phenolic compounds could be responsible for the recognition process. In conclusion, among the FI screened, the soluble extracts obtained from WB, LB and CGMP exhibited the highest anti-adhesive properties against ETEC K88 in the BT. These results suggest that they may be good candidates to be included in diets of weaned piglets for the prevention of ETEC K88-induced diarrhoea.

The aims of this study are to assess L1 and L2 variables that influence the reading acquisition of students of Moroccan origin in the South of Spain and compare their reading ability with native Spanish-speaking children. Participants were 38 students of Moroccan origin and 37 native Spanish-speaking students from the same classes. We used an oral vocabulary test and a reading comprehension test, which taps lexical, semantic, and syntactic reading processes, and reading fluency. The results indicated that immigrant students differed from native Spanish-speaking students in word reading, reading fluency, and the use of punctuation marks, but there were no significant differences in reading comprehension. In native Spanish-speaking students, reading comprehension correlated significantly with oral vocabulary and the other reading processes, but in the students of Moroccan origin, only receptive oral vocabulary in L2 correlated with the use of punctuation marks. Being in schools with educational resources specifically aimed at helping the Moroccan pupils was associated with a higher level of word reading in immigrant students.

The Cuban Twin Registry is a nation-wide, prospective, population-based twin registry comprising all zygosity types and ages. It was initiated in 2004 to study genetic and environmental contributions to complex diseases with high morbidity and mortality in the Cuban population. The database contains extensive information from 55,400 twin pairs enrolled in the period 2004–2006. Additionally, 2,600 new multiple births have been included from 2007 to date. In the past 4 years, more than 130 studies have been carried out using the registry with a classical genetic epidemiological approach in which concordance rates for monozygotic and dizygotic twins and heritability of various disease traits were estimated. This article summarizes the history, registry's methodology, recent research findings, and future directions of work.

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease remains the commonest health problem in developed countries, and residual risk after implementing all current therapies is still high. The use of marine omega-3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA) has been recommended to reduce cardiovascular risk by multiple mechanisms. Objectives: To update the current evidence on the influence of omega-3 on the rate of cardiovascular events. Review Methods: We used the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases to identify clinical trials and randomized controlled trials of omega-3 fatty acids (with quantified quantities) either in capsules or in dietary intake, compared to placebo or usual diet, equal to or longer than 6 months, and written in English. The primary outcome was a cardiovascular event of any kind and secondary outcomes were all-cause mortality, cardiac death and coronary events. We used RevMan 5·1 (Mantel-Haenszel method). Heterogeneity was assessed by the I2 and Chi2 tests. We included 21 of the 452 pre-selected studies. Results: We found an overall decrease of risk of suffering a cardiovascular event of any kind of 10 % (OR 0·90; [0·85–0·96], p = 0·001), a 9 % decrease of risk of cardiac death (OR 0·91; [0·83–0·99]; p = 0·03), a decrease of coronary events (fatal and non-fatal) of 18 % (OR 0·82; [0·75–0·90]; p < 1 × 10− 4), and a trend to lower total mortality (5 % reduction of risk; OR 0·95; [0·89–1·02]; p = 0·15. Most of the studies analyzed included persons with high cardiovascular risk. Conclusions: marine omega-3 fatty acids are effective in preventing cardiovascular events, cardiac death and coronary events, especially in persons with high cardiovascular risk.

Ageing is an important determinant of atherosclerosis development rate, mainly by the creation of a chronic low-grade inflammation. Diet, and particularly its fat content, modulates the inflammatory response in the fasting and postprandial states. Our aim was to study the effects of dietary fat on the expression of genes related to inflammation (NF-κB, monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1), TNF-α and IL-6) and plaque stability (matrix metalloproteinase 9, MMP-9) during the postprandial state of twenty healthy, elderly people who followed three diets for 3 weeks each: (1) Mediterranean diet (Med Diet) enriched in MUFA with virgin olive oil; (2) SFA-rich diet; and (3) low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet enriched in n-3 PUFA (CHO-PUFA diet) by a randomised crossover design. At the end of each period, after a 12-h fast, the subjects received a breakfast with a composition similar to the one when the dietary period ended. In the fasting state, the Med Diet consumption induced a lower gene expression of the p65 subunit of NF-κB compared with the SFA-rich diet (P = 0·019). The ingestion of the Med Diet induced a lower gene postprandial expression of p65 (P = 0·033), MCP-1 (P = 0·0229) and MMP-9 (P = 0·041) compared with the SFA-rich diet, and a lower gene postprandial expression of p65 (P = 0·027) and TNF-α (P = 0·047) compared with the CHO-PUFA diet. Direct plasma quantification mostly reproduced the findings. Our data suggest that consumption of a Med Diet reduces the postprandial inflammatory response in mononuclear cells compared with the SFA-rich and CHO-PUFA diets in elderly people. These findings may be partly responsible for the lower CVD risk found in populations with a high adherence to the Med Diet.

The present study analysed the effects of the flavanol ( − )-epicatechin in rats after chronic inhibition of NO synthesis with NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NAME), at doses equivalent to those achieved in the studies involving human subjects. Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups: (1) control-vehicle, (2) l-NAME, (3) l-NAME-epicatechin 2 (l-NAME-Epi 2) and (4) l-NAME-epicatechin 10 (l-NAME-Epi 10). Rats were daily given by oral administration for 4 weeks: vehicle, ( − )-epicatechin 2 or 10 mg/kg. Animals in the l-NAME groups daily received l-NAME 75 mg/100 ml in drinking-water. The evolution in systolic blood pressure and heart rate, and morphological and plasma variables, proteinuria, vascular superoxide, reactivity and protein expression at the end of the experiment were analysed. Chronic ( − )-epicatechin treatment did not modify the development of hypertension and only weakly affected the endothelial dysfunction induced by l-NAME but prevented the cardiac hypertrophy, the renal parenchyma and vascular lesions and proteinuria, and blunted the prostanoid-mediated enhanced endothelium-dependent vasoconstrictor responses and the cyclo-oxygenase-2 and endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) up-regulation. Furthermore, ( − )-epicatechin also increased Akt and eNOS phosphorylation and prevented the l-NAME-induced increase in systemic (plasma malonyldialdehyde and urinary 8-iso-PGF2α) and vascular (dihydroethidium staining, NADPH oxidase activity and p22phox up-regulation) oxidative stress, proinflammatory status (intercellular adhesion molecule-1, IL-1β and TNFα up-regulation) and extracellular-signal-regulated kinase 1/2 phosphorylation. The present study shows for the first time that chronic oral administration of ( − )-epicatechin does not improve hypertension but reduced pro-atherogenic pathways such as oxidative stress and proinflammatory status of the vascular wall induced by blockade of NO production.