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We assemble a dataset which enhances existing Central America and Mexico data for the NGASubduction (NGA-Sub) project, including now additional earthquake ground motions and site parameters from Mexico. This data has been used to provide regional customization of NGA-Sub global Ground Motion Models (GMMs) for application in Mexico, paying particular attention to the site response of Mexico City (CDMX). The expanded database for Mexico incorporates smaller magnitude earthquakes (M < 6) and three significant events (M 7.2-8.3) that occurred in 2017 and 2018. These latter events are particularly important, because they are well recorded over a broad distance range and apply for hazard-critical conditions. Our focus here is on presenting the observed site response in CDMX, which we model based on the time-averaged shear wavevelocity in the upper 30 meters (VS30) and the Peak Ground Acceleration at a reference rock site (PGAr). Theempirical model we propose is different from previous work in several ways. First, it is properly centered withrespect to GMMs. Second, it is referenced to VS30 = 760 m/s, which is significantly firmer than the reference sitepreviously used in practice, taken from a location on the UNAM campus with VS30 ~ 300 m/s. Third, we identifysite amplification as nonlinear, whereas linear response has been assumed in prior models. The extent of thisnonlinearity is characterized using an established seismic zonation for CDMX, being more pronounced in softersites (Zone III) compared to stiffer ones (Zone I). This nonlinear effect is prominent at short periods and disappears at long periods. The advantages of the provided model include a unified framework for both withinand outside CDMX (contrasting current practices) and the integration of applicable features from global modelswith necessary local customization.

Amphibian survival is imperiled by increasing anthropogenic disturbance and insufficient conservation efforts. Spatial prioritization is an essential tool that allows for optimization of scarce conservation resources and the identification of protected area networks that will maintain their effectiveness in the future. This study focuses on amphibians in the Sierra Madre del Sur, a Mexican biogeographic province with high amphibian species richness and endemism. We aim to (i) assess the performance of the current protected area network and (ii) identify potential expansion areas of the current network, considering their persistence in time. Using occurrence data of 107 species, we estimated distributions with species distribution models and buffers. Species were weighted according to their national and international conservation status, and future land‐use change scenarios were incorporated to identify priority areas using Zonation software. Results revealed poor performance of the current protected areas network for amphibian conservation, failing to cover any of the top 2% of amphibian priority areas. Many protected areas fall outside the top 30% priority, indicating inadequate location of protected areas for amphibian conservation. However, minimal network expansions could significantly enhance protection for high‐risk species, particularly for the Plethodontidae family. Our study highlights the potential of systematic conservation planning in improving efficient amphibian conservation, even with minimal expansions of key areas. Finally, our findings provide important insights into amphibian conservation in a region with high levels of endemism that has often been neglected in terms of biodiversity conservation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Martinez-Garcia MA,1,2 Athanazio RA,3 Girón R,4 Máiz-Carro L,5 de la Rosa D,6 Olveira C,7 de Gracia J,2,8 Vendrell M,9 Prados-Sánchez C,10 Gramblicka G,11 Corso Pereira M,12 Lundgren FL,13 Fernandes De Figueiredo M,14 Arancibia F,15 Rached SZ3 1Pulmonary Service, Polytechnic and University La Fe Hospital, Valencia, Spain; 2CIBERes, CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias. Madrid. Spain; 3Pulmonary Division, Heart Institute (Incor), Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo; 4Pneumology Service, Hospital La Princesa, 5Pneumology Service, Hospital Ramón y Cajal, Madrid, 6Pneumology Unit, Hospital Plató, Barcelona, 7Pneumology, Málaga Regional University Hospital, Instituto de Biomedicina de Málaga (IBIMA), Málaga University, Spain; 8Pneumology Service, Hospital Vall d’Hebron, Barcelona, 9Bronchiectasis Group IDIBGI, Dr. Trueta University Hospital. UdG. Ciberes CB06/06/0030, 10Unidad de Fibrosis Quística y Bronquiectasias. Hospital Universitario La Paz. Madrid. Spain; 11Pneumology Service, Hospital del Tórax Dr A Cetrángolo, Buenos Aires, Argentina; 12Pneumology Service, Universidade Estadual de Campinas UNICAMP, Sao Paulo, 13Pneumology Service, Hospital Octávio de Freitas, Recife, 14Pneumology Service, Hospital de Messejana, Fortaleza, Brazil; 15Pneumology Service, Instituto Nacional del Tórax, Santiago de Chile, Chile Background: Although the FACED score has demonstrated a great prognostic capacity in bronchiectasis, it does not include the number or severity of exacerbations as a separate variable, which is important in the natural history of these patients.Objective: Construction and external validation of a new index, the E-FACED, to evaluate the predictive capacity of exacerbations and mortality.Methods: The new score was constructed on the basis of the complete cohort for the construction of the original FACED score, while the external validation was undertaken with six cohorts from three countries (Brazil, Argentina, and Chile). The main outcome was the number of annual exacerbations/hospitalizations, with all-cause and respiratory-related deaths as the secondary outcomes. A statistical evaluation comprised the relative weight and ideal cut-off point for the number or severity of the exacerbations and was incorporated into the FACED score (E-FACED). The results obtained after the application of FACED and E-FACED were compared in both the cohorts.Results: A total of 1,470 patients with bronchiectasis (819 from the construction cohorts and 651 from the external validation cohorts) were followed up for 5 years after diagnosis. The best cut-off point was at least two exacerbations in the previous year (two additional points), meaning that the E-FACED has nine points of growing severity. E-FACED presented an excellent prognostic capacity for exacerbations (areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve: 0.82 for at least two exacerbations in 1 year and 0.87 for at least one hospitalization in 1 year) that was statistically better than that of the FACED score (0.72 and 0.78, P

Salud Santos,1,2 Alicia Marin,2,3 Joan Serra-Batlles,4 David de la Rosa,5 Ingrid Solanes,6 Xavier Pomares,7 Marta López-Sánchez,1 Mariana Muñoz-Esquerre,1 Marc Miravitlles2,81Pneumology Department, Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge, Universidad de Barcelona, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, 2Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERES), Madrid, 3Pneumology Department, Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, Badalona, 4Pneumology Department, Hospital Universitari de Vic, 5Pneumology Unit, Hospital Plató, 6Pneumology Department, Biomedical Research Institute Sant Pau, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Universidad Autónoma, Barcelona, 7Pneumology Department, Hospital Universitari Parc Taulí, Sabadell, 8Pneumology Department, Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron, Barcelona, SpainAbstract: Exacerbations of COPD represent an important medical and health care problem. Certain susceptible patients suffer recurrent exacerbations and as a consequence have a poorer prognosis. The effects of bronchial infection, either acute or chronic, and of the inflammation characteristic of the disease itself raise the question of the possible role of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory agents in modulating the course of the disease. However, clinical guidelines base their recommendations on clinical trials that usually exclude more severe patients and patients with more comorbidities, and thus often fail to reflect the reality of clinicians attending more severe patients. In order to discuss aspects of clinical practice of relevance to pulmonologists in the treatment and prevention of recurrent exacerbations in patients with severe COPD, a panel discussion was organized involving expert pulmonologists who devote most of their professional activity to day hospital care. This article summarizes the scientific evidence currently available and the debate generated in relation to the following aspects: bacterial and viral infections, chronic bronchial infection and its treatment with cyclic oral or inhaled antibiotics, inflammatory mechanisms and their treatment, and the role of computerized tomography as a diagnostic tool in patients with severe COPD and frequent exacerbations.Keywords: COPD exacerbation, treatment, bronchial infection, anti-inflammatory treatment, antibiotics

In southern Italy many cities are characterized by a lack of public urban greenspaces. Non-urbanized areas in these cities are suffering from surrounding urbanization pressures. These areas still provide important ecosystem services even if they are limited in size, highly fragmented and often neglected by local planning. New planning strategies are needed in order to protect and enhance the provision of ecosystem services delivered by existing Non-Urbanized areas, but municipalities usually have limited funds for acquiring public green areas via land expropriations. At the same time, requests for new urban development are still considerable. Consequently, it is not realistic to propose strategies for green areas that do not include new developments. The paper illustrates a strategy for a Green Oriented Urban Development (GOUD) that has been applied for the Master Plan of Catania, a medium sized city in Sicily (southern Italy). The strategy includes a limited amount of developments as well as new greenspaces in selected areas (Resource Zones), through the transfer of property and development rights between the municipality and developers. The strategy will allow to enhance the provision of ecosystem services, especially cultural services (thanks to a dramatic increase of accessibility to new greenspaces), regulating services (through climate regulation by new green land covers) and provisioning services such as urban agricultural products. Results show that it is possible to improve urban ecosystem services creating a more liveable and healthy urban environment at reduced cost for the municipal administrations.

The special issue “Spatial Information and participation of socio-ecological systems: experiences, tools and lessons learned for land-use planning”, focuses on a framework for information used in planning and participation processes for socio-ecological systems at different scales and contexts. The papers presented in the SI focus on three major questions: (1) How should we make use of spatial information for planning at different scales and contexts? (2) How should we share information among stakeholders and decision makers in land-use planning? (3) How can we communicate scientific knowledge to achieve effective decisions? The papers of this SI contribute original perspectives on how spatial information can be structured, used and communicated by/among different actors of land planning processes, creating more actionable scientific knowledge and effective related decision making.

Monitoring programmes are needed to assess the conservation status of species and to quantify the effectiveness of conservation effort. Rare species are usually poorly studied due to difficulties in monitoring. We evaluated the use of autonomous recording units (ARUs) coupled with automated song recognition for monitoring the presence of Dupont's Lark Chersophilus duponti, a rare and patchily distributed species. We surveyed 49 potential habitat patches for the species in central Spain never censused before, from May to June 2017. In each habitat patch we deployed an ARU that recorded one continuous hour during two consecutive nights. In addition, we also performed line transect censuses in 22 out of the 49 potential habitat patches, to evaluate the efficacy of ARUs. Audio analyses revealed the existence of eight previously unrecorded Dupont's Lark populations. Line transect censuses always confirmed the presence or absence of the species in agreement with audio analysis results. ARUs required 44 fewer working days than human-based surveys for monitoring the presence of Dupont's Larks in potential habitat patches. Our results suggest that the use of ARUs coupled with automated song recognition can provide an effective alternative to human-based surveys for monitoring the presence of bird species in large-scale surveys. We conclude that a combined methodology using ARUs and field censuses, in order to estimate densities or spatial patterns, may be considered the most effective method for monitoring large numbers of potential occupancy sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a lack of studies of alternative techniques differing from the straight leg raise test (SLR) and the passive knee extension test (PKE) to diagnose short hamstring syndrome (SHS). We built a predictive model with simple parameters to diagnose SHS and implemented it in a mobile app. This cross-sectional study analyzed 85 Spanish boys aged 10-16 years who played soccer in 2012. Outcomes: SHS (SLR<70° and/or PKE>15°), and grade II SHS (SLR<60° and/or PKE>35°). Secondary variables: toe-touch test (TT), body mass index (BMI), age, laterality and number of years registered as part of a federation. A risk table implemented in a mobile app was built to estimate the probability of SHS and grade II SHS according to secondary variables. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was calculated and we constructed risk groups. Scoring factors for SHS: low TT, younger age and lower BMI. AUC: 0.89 (95% CI: 0.82-0.96, p< 0.001). Scoring factors for grade II SHS: younger age, higher BMI, left footed and lower TT. AUC: 0.78 (95 %CI: 0.68-0.88, p< 0.001). We provide a tool with minimum material but with a high discriminatory power to quickly calculate whether a boy who plays soccer has SHS. The models need validation studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last few decades, land use changes have largely affected the global warming process through emissions of CO2. However, C sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems could contribute to the decrease of atmospheric CO2 rates. Although Mediterranean areas show a high potential for C sequestration, only a few studies have been carried out in these systems. In this study, we propose a methodology to assess the impact of land use and land cover change dynamics on soil organic C stocks at different depths. Soil C sequestration rates are provided for different land cover changes and soil types in Andalusia (southern Spain). Our research is based on the analysis of detailed soil databases containing data from 1357 soil profiles, the Soil Map of Andalusia and the Land Use and Land Cover Map of Andalusia. Land use and land cover changes between 1956 and 2007 implied soil organic C losses in all soil groups, resulting in a total loss of 16·8 Tg (approximately 0·33 Tg y−1). Afforestation increased soil organic C mostly in the topsoil, and forest contributed to sequestration of 8·62 Mg ha−1 of soil organic C (25·4 per cent). Deforestation processes implied important C losses, particularly in Cambisols, Luvisols and Vertisols. The information generated in this study will be a useful basis for designing management strategies for stabilizing the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations by preservation of C stocks and C sequestration. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change, as a consequence of the increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration, may significantly affect both soil organic C storage and soil capacity for C sequestration. CarboSOIL is an empirical model based on regression techniques and developed as a geographical information system tool to predict soil organic carbon (SOC) contents at different depths. This model is a new component of the agro-ecological decision support system for land evaluation MicroLEIS, which assists decision-makers in facing specific agro-ecological problems, particularly in Mediterranean regions. In this study, the CarboSOIL model was used to study the effects of climate change on SOC dynamics in a Mediterranean region (Andalusia, S Spain). Different downscaled climate models were applied based on BCCR-BCM2, CNRMCM3, and ECHAM5 and driven by SRES scenarios (A1B, A2 and B2). Output data were linked to spatial data sets (soil and land use) to quantify SOC stocks. The CarboSOIL model has proved its ability to predict the short-, medium- and long-term trends (2040s, 2070s and 2100s) of SOC dynamics and sequestration under projected future scenarios of climate change. Results have shown an overall trend towards decreasing of SOC stocks in the upper soil sections (0-25 cm and 25-50 cm) for most soil types and land uses, but predicted SOC stocks tend to increase in the deeper soil section (0-75 cm). Soil types as Arenosols, Planosols and Solonchaks and land uses as "permanent crops" and "open spaces with little or no vegetation" would be severely affected by climate change with large decreases of SOC stocks, in particular under the medium-high emission scenario A2 by 2100. The information developed in this study might support decision-making in land management and climate adaptation strategies in Mediterranean regions, and the methodology could be applied to other Mediterranean areas with available soil, land use and climate data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which explores and quantifies the role of soil and land use to determine the capability of soils to store C along Mediterranean systems. The study uses several soil information from different databases including land use digital maps, climate databases and digital elevation models. Results show the need for evaluation of soil organic C stocks.

Abstract: The effect of barium doping on a fuel cell anode consisting of a Ni0.53Cu0.47 alloy and gadolinia doped ceria cermet (50:50wt.) was investigated in an intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC) fed with dry methane. IT-SOFCs containing the same cathode-electrolyte configuration but equipped with different anodes were compared in terms of performance, steady state operation, and formation of carbon deposits on the anode surface. After proper cell conditioning, similar maximum power densities of 284mWcm−2 and 310mWcm−2 were obtained in dry methane fuel at 750°C for the anodic compositions with and without barium, respectively. The anode containing barium did not show significant carbon deposits after a 200h time-study in dry methane whereas the anode without barium showed the presence of carbon deposits as evidenced by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Both anode formulations showed carbon deposits when exposed to dry CH4 in ex-situ experiments. The electrochemical profile recorded during the time-study was different in the two systems. In the absence of barium, a slow and progressive increase in performance as a function of time was achieved. On the contrary, the Ba-doped anode achieved optimum performance in a short time. It is determined that the presence of barium reduces carbon deposition under fuel cell conditions and influences the electrochemical behaviour. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper provides an estimate of the weekly intake of total mercury (THg) and methyl mercury (MeHg) from consumption of fish from the Sagua la Grande River, Villa Clara, Cuba, by determining the THg levels in different fish species. The levels varied between 0.143 and 0.484 μg g-1 on a fresh weight basis. None of the analysed fish was found to have levels above the national and international regulatory levels, although THg levels over 0.2 μg g-1, the threshold concentration established by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the consumption by vulnerable population groups, were found in 75% of samples. The MeHg level was found to be 84% of the THg content. A Food Frequency Survey was given to 127 townspeople to estimate river fish consumption. The weekly intake of MeHg was found to be greater than the value established by the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) in 50% of children, in 80% of pregnant women, and in 75% of women in childbearing age. These weekly intakes can represent an important risk to the population's health, especially for vulnerable groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]