Abstract: Culicoides sonorensis biting midges are well-known agricultural pests and transmission vectors of arboviruses such as vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). The epidemiology of VSV is complex and encompasses a broad range of vertebrate hosts, multiple routes of transmission, and diverse vector species. In temperate regions, viruses can overwinter in the absence of infected animals through unknown mechanisms, to reoccur the next year. Non-conventional routes for VSV vector transmission may help explain viral maintenance in midge populations during inter-epidemic periods and times of adverse conditions for bite transmission. In this study, we examined whether VSV could be transmitted venereally between male and female midges. Our results showed that VSV-infected females could venereally transmit virus to uninfected naïve males at a rate as high as 76.3% (RT-qPCR), 31.6% (virus isolation) during the third gonotrophic cycle. Additionally, VSV-infected males could venereally transmit virus to uninfected naïve females at a rate as high as 76.6% (RTqPCR), 49.2% (virus isolation). Immunofluorescent staining of micro-dissected reproductive organs, immunochemical staining of midge histological sections, examination of internal reproductive organ morphology, and observations of mating behaviors were used to determine relevant anatomical sites for virus location and to hypothesize the potential mechanism for VSV transmission in C. sonorensis midges through copulation. Resumen: Los Culicoides son plagas agrícolas bien conocidas y vectores de transmisión de arbovirus como el virus de la estomatitis vesicular (VSV). La epidemiología de VSV es compleja y abarca una amplia gama de hospedadores vertebrados, múltiples rutas de transmisión y diversas especies de vectores. En las regiones templadas, los virus pueden invernar en ausencia de animales infectados a través de mecanismos desconocidos, para volver a ocurrir el próximo año. Las rutas no convencionales para la transmisión del VSV pueden ayudar a explicar el mantenimiento viral en las poblaciones de vectores durante los períodos interepidémicos y los momentos de condiciones adversas para la transmisión por picadura. En este estudio, examinamos si VSV podría transmitirse de forma venérea entre Culicoides machos y hembras. Nuestros resultados mostraron que las hembras infectadas con VSV podían transmitir el virus de forma venérea a machos no infectados a una tasas tan altas como 76,3% (RT-qPCR) o 31,6% (aislamiento del virus) durante el tercer ciclo gonotrófico. Además, los machos infectados con VSV podrían transmitir el virus a hembras no infectadas a tasas entre 76,6% (RT-qPCR) y 49,2% (aislamiento del virus). Adicionalmente se utilizaron tinción inmunofluorescente de órganos reproductores micro-disecados, tinción inmunoquímica de secciones histológicas de Culicoides para examinar la morfología de órganos reproductores y se hicieron observaciones de los comportamientos de apareamiento para determinar los sitios anatómicos relevantes para la ubicación del virus y para formular hipótesis sobre el mecanismo potencial de transmisión del VSV en C. sonorensis a través de la cópula.

Abstract: The article analyses the Resurrection of Christ, a fresco commissioned from Pinturicchio by Pope Alexander VI in 1492 as part of his project to renovate the Borgia Apartments in the Vatican. The analysis focuses on a detail of the painting: the figures of what seems to be a group of indigenous warriors located at the centre of the fresco. The main purpose of the paper is to identify the iconographic meaning and sources of this particular image. The central claim is that Pinturicchio used specific scenes from Christopher Columbus’s Diario to create, biased by a misconception of the New World, the first painted image of America in Europe.

Abstract: As the demand for English language skills among non-native speakers globally has grown steadily so too has the number of ‘global textbooks’ for ELT aimed at a world market. Concurrently, critical perspectives of the expansion of English have begun to challenge the view that native speaker contexts ‘own’ English. Based on the aforementioned, and on reflective approaches to culture, our objective is to analyze critically the representations of speakers of English as a second or foreign language offered by two global ELT textbooks, to discuss the issues of essentialization and reproduction of stereotypes about the “nonnative” speakers of English and their sociocultural characteristics in the constructed image. To achieve this purpose, we apply a methodology based on a sociocognitive approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Van Dijk, 2013), the concept of sociocultural knowledge as stated by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and critical perspectives of culture according to Holliday, Kullman, and Hyde (2004). Our findings indicate that, though the books include ‘non-native’ speakers in an attempt to address multiculturalism, their representation is generic, portraying a reified image of their sociocultural traits and presenting diversity mostly through national labels.

Abstract: The conservation of migratory species poses significant challenges that may be countered by detailed knowledge about the sites used by migrants throughout the annual cycle. We present the rst GPS-tracking data on the migration of declining Caspian terns Hydroprogne caspia breeding in the Baltic Sea. For 39 Caspian terns from colonies along a latitudinal gradient from 57 to 65°N, we identified key migratory routes, stopovers and wintering areas. In autumn these seabirds migrated using coastal and freshwater stopovers along six routes to reach their wintering areas across the Sahel, the Nile River Basin and the southern Iberian Peninsula. In spring, adults returned to the breeding grounds in the Baltic using a time optimizing strategy by reducing time at stopover by 78%, whereas most subadults remained sedentary and some performed only partial return migrations. Of the stopover sites used in both seasons, 58% are protected and have a reported management plan. Conservation strategies in wintering areas, stopover sites that are not protected or had not been previously recognized, and the inclusion of the species in important migratory yways across Europe and Africa will be important to prevent further population declines of a species that depends on aquatic habitats.

Abstract: Biluminescent organic emitters show simultaneous fluorescence and phosphorescence at room temperature. So far, the optimization of the room-temperature phosphorescence in these materials has drawn the attention of research. However, the continuous-wave operation of these emitters will consequently turn them into systems with vastly imbalanced singlet and triplet populations, which is due to the respective excited-state lifetimes. This study reports on the exciton dynamics of the biluminophore NPB (N,N′-di(1-naphthyl)-N,N′-diphenyl-(1,1-biphenyl)-4,4-diamine). In the extreme case, the singlet and triplet exciton lifetimes stretch from 3 ns to 300 ms, respectively. Through sample engineering and oxygen quenching experiments, the triplet exciton density can be controlled over several orders of magnitude, allowing us to study exciton interactions between singlet and triplet manifolds. The results show that singlet−triplet annihilation reduces the overall biluminescence efficiency already at moderate excitation levels. Additionally, the presented system represents an illustrative role model to study excitonic effects in organic materials.

Diluting organic molecules in a polymer matrix material suppresses non-radiative behavior, leading to biluminescence, wherein light is emitted efficiently from both singlet and triplet states. In summary, biluminescence has developed into a thoroughly optimized and unique emissive system. Among the characteristics obtained through this system, the most significant is the ability of biluminophores to offer direct access to the radiative states of both spin manifolds (singlets and triplets) in organic molecules without the requirement for special or complex material combinations. As a result, an exciton is given the chance to re-emit its energy, regardless of its initial state. In future work, we intend to increase the toolset of organic biluminophores by screening materials to determine the structure-property relationships behind persistent phosphorescence, and to identify molecular building blocks that are suitable for the development of future materials. In addition, we will intensify our exploration of biluminescence for future applications (e.g., sensing).

Abstract: For the first time a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) is reported of a large-area perovskite/Si tandem photovoltaic (PV) module of about 2 m², with an assumed power conversion efficiency of 30%, 30 years lifetime and an annual degradation of 0.5%, manufactured in a 1 GW production plant. By means of the LCA method, we calculate the contribution to the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) impact categories associated with a perovskite/Si tandem PV system compared with a passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) used as reference. We consider a functional unit of 1 kWh of generated direct current electrical energy from the tandem module over its lifetime. It was found that the most significant environmental hotspots are the silicon wafer production and the balance of system (BOS), especially the mounting system, inverter and electric installation. Overall, the impact contributions to the environment caused by the perovskite sub-module are below 1% throughout all the ILCD categories in focus: climate change, freshwater ecotoxicity, water resource depletion and human toxicity. Even the contribution of lead to human toxicity is just about 0.01%. For all the impacts assessed, the perovskite/Si tandem shows a decrease of between 17-20% of the contributions to each impact category compared to the PERC-module based reference PV system, if the Si bottom sub-module has an initial cell efficiency of at least 22% with 1% cell-to-module (CTM) loss, and the perovskite top sub-module has a minimum initial cell efficiency of 18% with at most 5% CTM loss and a transmittance near IR region larger than 80%. The key result found in this work is the relevance of the performance and reliability of the PV system to achieve lower environmental impacts. A comparison between optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic scenarios was performed to investigate this matter: in the worst-case scenario, the environmental impact of the PV tandem system would have a general 50% increase throughout all ILCD impact categories against the realistic case, whereas in the optimistic one, the results suggest a reduction of 46% to the global impact contributions, compared to the realistic scenario.

Resumen: Las aplicaciones de la electrónica exigen mayor eficiencia de los dispositivos electrónicos que se utilizan hoy en día. Entre los aspectos mas importantes esta el área ocupada por un circuito: Se busca que los dispositivos electrónicos ocupen el menor espacio posible. La tecnología que se utiliza hoy en día para fabricar dispositivos semiconductores está llegando a un punto limite, donde cada vez es mas difícil obtener reducción en el tamaño sin afectar otras características del dispositivo. La nanoelectrónica está evolucionando a un punto donde se hace posible la construcción de dispositivos semiconductores que presenten mejores características que los fabricados en la actualidad. Este documento muestra una revisión bibliográfica sobre nanotecnología, con el fin de presentar una propuesta de investigación para implementar transistores basados en nanotubos de carbono. Este trabajo está en su fase inicial, se espera que a finales del 2009 se tenga una metodología de implementación de transistores utilizando nanotecnología.

Abstract: La fabricación de las celdas fotovoltaicas inorgánicas son aquellas cuyo semiconductor es a base de material inorgánico (Si, AsGa, CuInS2, CIS, CdTe), son poco económicas, por ende, es necesario hallar una manera de producir celdas solares sin que la inversión económica sea costosa. Debido a esta dificultad tecnológica, se ha optado por usar semiconductores orgánicos en la fabricación de las celdas. Los paneles solares orgánicos no se contemplan como un sustituto a los de silicio como material semiconductor, sino un complemento para crear mejores fuentes de energía. En este caso, se plantea el uso de los nanotubos de carbono (CNT) como material semiconductor en la fabricación de celdas fotovoltaicas orgánicas.

Abstract: One of the strategies to improve governments’ allocation of resources, particularly when these are insufficient to meet all the public needs, is the use of targeting indices. Generally, a targeting index is a linear combination of wellbeing indicators (for example years of education, dwelling conditions, and so forth) that orders the members of the population according to their living conditions to classify and identify the beneficiaries of social programmes. The weighting method that we propose maximises a function that depends on the number of poor beneficiaries, by income and/or expenditure, given some normative restrictions. Therefore, the indices designed with this method target poor people taking into consideration not only the income dimension, but also other dimensions, such as health, nutrition, and dwelling, although they are not correlated with income and/or correlated with one another. The method for taking these dimensions into account is to specify weighting restrictions by an indicator of wellbeing. In other words, we establish maximum and minimum values for the weights according to the number of indicators and the needs of social programmes. These values maintain the balance between income-based weights and normative weights. Because of these characteristics, we call our method Maximising Poor Beneficiaries with Normative Restrictions (MPBR). The algorithm behind MPBR can maximises or minimises any function. For instance, in the first exercise of this study, it exclusively counts the number of expenditure -poor beneficiaries, and in the second it contemplates both income-poor and expenditure-poor beneficiaries, given double weight to those that meet both conditions - thus the poorest of the poor households become the first beneficiaries of social programmes-. We find that when the function to maximise counts exclusively the number of income-poor (or expenditure-poor) households before a cutoff, it is equivalent to minimising the IE (Inclusion error) and EE (Exclusion error). In fact, we theoretically and empirically demonstrate that the models that minimise the IE and EE (considering income-poor or expenditure-poor households) are probabilistic models. Therefore, we conclude that probabilistic models are a useful tool to determine approximately the minimum IE and EE that can be obtained with a set of indicators. Applying MPBR, we find that when the increase in an indicator of wellbeing statistically increases the probability of not being expenditure-poor, the weight of the indicator converges to a specific positive value to maximise the number of expenditure-poor beneficiaries; in contrast, if the increase in an indicator statistically decreases this probability, the weight of the indicator converges to the minimum allowed weight. In the case in which the indicator is not statistically significant in the probabilistic model, its weight does not converge to a specific value. However, when the weighting restrictions become stronger (for example a greater minimum weight), most of the weights converge to a value. In a comparison of MPBR with other weighting methods (for example PCA and normative method), we conclude that the index estimated with MPBR has a smaller IE and EE and distributes the weights between indicators more equitably than the indices calculated with other methods.