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Canine mammary tumours (CMTs) represent nearly half of all tumours in female dogs and some 50% have malignant behaviour. Simple epithelial carcinomas have shorter disease free periods after surgery and a higher reduction of the proliferation index reduction after antiprogestin aglepristone treatment in vivo related to the expression of progesterone receptors (PR). These findings make simple carcinomas good candidates for endocrine therapy. To further explore this possibility, the effects of the antiprogestins mifepristone (RU486) and onapristone (ZK299) on cell viability and PR expression of the canine mammary carcinoma cell line isolated from a simple epithelial carcinoma CMT-U27 were studied. Twenty five percent of CMT-U27 control cells expressed PR. RU486 (p

A pesar de la importancia e implicaciones de los riesgos asociados a la dinámica litoral en las zonas costeras, son escasos los trabajos centrados en su estudio y cartografía a escala regional, de manera sistemática e integrada. En este trabajo se presenta una metodología basada en el análisis detallado de los peligros naturales que pueden afectar al litoral: inundaciones, erosión costera, subida del nivel del mar, tsunamis, movimientos de ladera, etc., y en el estudio y cartografía de los factores implicados en su ocurrencia (geomorfología litoral, procesos litorales, sucesos históricos, actuaciones humanas…). Estos factores y peligros se evalúan e integran para la elaboración de un mapa final de susceptibilidad en el que se presenta la valoración tanto de cada peligro de forma individual, como del conjunto de los mismos. El sistema de representación cartográfica empleado, en franjas paralelas a la costa, facilita el reconocimiento e interpretación de las características del litoral estudiado y los peligros asociados. La metodología que se presenta ha sido aplicada a la zona litoral de la Región de Murcia, mostrándose de forma práctica su utilidad para el caso analizado y su posible aplicabilidad a otras regiones.

This paper presents an analysis of the performance of TerraSAR-X for subsidence monitoring in urban areas. The city of Murcia has been selected as a test-site due to its high deformation rate and the set of extensometers deployed along the city that provide validation data. The obtained results have been compared with those obtained from ERS/ENVISAT data belonging to the same period and validated with the in-situ measurements. This work has been supported by the Spanish MICINN and European Union FEDER funds under project TEC2008-06764-C02. The TerraSAR-X images were provided by DLR in the framework of the scientific project GEO0389. ERS and ENVISAT data were provided by ESA in the framework of the CAT11 project 2494.

Summary. To investigate the role played by the different rat gonadotroph oestrogen receptor (ER) pools in the effects of oestradiol-17ß (E2) on gonadectomy cells, two-week ovariectomised (OVX) rats were used. The basic experimental group of rats was injected with 3 mg of the selective ER modulator tamoxifen (TX) on days 15-20 after OVX. Groups of TX-treated OVX rats were additionally injected on days 18-20 after OVX with 10 µg oestradiol benzoate (EB), 1 mg of the selective ERα agonist propylpyrazole triol (PPT), or 1 mg of the selective ERß diarylpropionitrile (DPN). Negative and positive control groups were OVX rats injected over six days after OVX with 0.2 ml oil and EB, respectively. On day 21 after OVX, anterior pituitary glands were dissected out and divided into halves. One hemipituitary was processed for light microscopy and immunocytochemistry for ßLH subunit and progesterone receptor (PR), and the other hemipituitary for ultrastructural evaluation. Results showed that: gonadotrophs were the only pituitary cell type expressing PR; treatment with TX alone shrunk gonadectomy cells and induced both reorganization of membrane-enclosed intracellular organelles and PR expression, and treatment with DPN or EB, but not PPT, reduced the agonistic morphological effects of TX. Considering that TX activates nuclear ERα, the results indicate that activation of nuclear ERα is determinant for the reversal effects of E2 on gonadotrope morphology and PR expression, and the simultaneous activation of ERß modulates the action of ERα in an inhibitory fashion.

The Geostationary Synthetic Thinned Array Radiometer represents a promising new approach to microwave atmospheric sounding from geostationary orbit based on passive interferometry. Distortion due to mechanical or thermal constraints produces a displacement of the ideal antenna positions in the array that causes sampling errors. In this paper, the impact of array distortion on radiometric error is analyzed in detail so as to identify the dominant sources of error. A preliminary analysis showing that array distortion can be well corrected by means of an external phase reference is also presented.