Arsenic, a metalloid and naturally occurring element, is one of the most abundant elements in the earth's crust. Water is contaminated by arsenic through natural sources (underground water, minerals ...and geothermal processes) and anthropogenic sources such as mining, industrial processes, and the production and use of pesticides. Humans are exposed to arsenic mainly by drinking contaminated water, and secondarily through inhalation and skin contact. Arsenic exposure is associated with the development of vascular disease, including stroke, ischemic heart disease and peripheral vascular disease. Also, arsenic increases the risk of tumors of bladder, lungs, kidneys and liver, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the Food and Drug Administration. Once ingested, an estimated 70–90% of inorganic arsenic is absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract and widely distributed through the blood to different organs, primarily to the liver, kidneys, lungs and bladder and secondarily to muscle and nerve tissue. Arsenic accumulates in the organs, especially in the liver. Its excretion mostly takes place through urination. The toxicokinetics of arsenic depends on the duration of exposure, pathway of ingestion, physicochemical characteristics of the compound, and affected biological species. The present review outlines of arsenic toxic effects focusing on different cancer types whit highest prevalence's by exposure to this metalloid and signaling pathways of carcinogenesis.
•Arsenic is a worldwide health problem mainly through drinking water.•Arsenic toxicity it depends on its reduction state.•Toxic effects of arsenic include different types of cancer.•Different arsenic carcinogenesis mechanism has been proposed.
Tau is an essential protein that physiologically promotes the assembly and stabilization of microtubules, and participates in neuronal development, axonal transport, and neuronal polarity. However, ...in a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), tau undergoes pathological modifications in which soluble tau assembles into insoluble filaments, leading to synaptic failure and neurodegeneration. Mitochondria are responsible for energy supply, detoxification, and communication in brain cells, and important evidence suggests that mitochondrial failure could have a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of AD. In this context, our group and others investigated the negative effects of tau pathology on specific neuronal functions. In particular, we observed that the presence of these tau forms could affect mitochondrial function at three different levels: (i) mitochondrial transport, (ii) morphology, and (iii) bioenergetics. Therefore, mitochondrial dysfunction mediated by anomalous tau modifications represents a novel mechanism by which these forms contribute to the pathogenesis of AD. In this review, we will discuss the main results reported on pathological tau modifications and their effects on mitochondrial function and their importance for the synaptic communication and neurodegeneration.
Several methods to quantify the complexity of a time series have been proposed in the literature, which can be classified into three categories: structure/self-affinity, attractor in the phase space, ...and randomness. In 2009, Lacasa et al. proposed a new method for characterizing a time series called the natural visibility algorithm, which maps the data into a network. To further investigate the capabilities of this technique, in this work, we analyzed the monthly ambient temperature of 4 cities located in different climatic zones on the Peninsula of Yucatan, Mexico, using detrended fluctuation analysis (structure complexity), approximate entropy (randomness complexity) and the network approach. It was found that by measuring the complexity of the dynamics by structure or randomness, the magnitude was very similar between the cities in different climatic zones; however, by analyzing topological indices such as Laplacian energy and Shannon entropy to characterize networks, we found differences between those cities. With these results, we show that analysis using networks has considerable potential as a fourth way to quantify complexity and that it may be applied to more subtle complex systems such as physiological signals and their high impact on early warnings.
Landscape features have been shown to strongly influence dispersal and, consequently, the genetic population structure of organisms. Studies quantifying the effect of landscape features on gene flow ...of large mammals with high dispersal capabilities are rare and have mainly been focused at large geographical scales. In this study, we assessed the influence of several natural and human-made landscape features on red deer gene flow in the Scottish Highlands by analysing 695 individuals for 21 microsatellite markers. Despite the relatively small scale of the study area (115 x 87 km), significant population structure was found using F-statistics (FST = 0.019) and the program structure, with major differentiation found between populations sampled on either side of the main geographical barrier (the Great Glen). To assess the effect of landscape features on red deer population structure, the ArcMap GIS was used to create cost-distance matrices for moving between populations, using a range of cost values for each of the landscape features under consideration. Landscape features were shown to significantly affect red deer gene flow as they explained a greater proportion of the genetic variation than the geographical distance between populations. Sea lochs were found to be the most important red deer gene flow barriers in our study area, followed by mountain slopes, roads and forests. Inland lochs and rivers were identified as landscape features that might facilitate gene flow of red deer. Additionally, we explored the effect of choosing arbitrary cell cost values to construct least cost-distance matrices and described a method for improving the selection of cell cost values for a particular landscape feature.
•We applied deficit irrigation (DI) during the three phases of fruit growth.•DI during phase I altered resource distribution and fruit composition.•During phase II, DI decreased yield and delayed ...fruit maturity.•DI during phase III improved juice quality, but delayed external fruit maturity.•We do not recommend application of DI during phase II of fruit growth.
Grapefruit (Citrus paradisi Macf.) has increased in importance as a crop species in the south-east of Spain in recent years. In spite of the fact that grapefruit is well adapted to semi-arid conditions, the irrigation necessities for fresh fruit production continue to be very high. The scarcity of water resources forces citrus growers to optimise their water use by using deficit irrigation (DI) strategies. The aim of this work was to evaluate the sensitivity to DI applied during different fruit growth stages of 14-year-old ‘Star Ruby’ grapefruit grafted on ‘Cleopatra’ mandarin (Citrus reshni Hort.), regarding water relations, trunk growth, yield and fruit quality. The experiment was carried out over two years in an experimental orchard located in Torre Pacheco (Murcia, south-eastern Spain). There were four irrigation treatments; Control (100% crop evapotranspiration – ETc) and three DI treatments (50% ETc) applied only during different fruit growth stages; DIPh-I (Phase I – cell division), DIPh-II (Phase II – cell elongation) and DIPh-III (Phase III – final fruit-growth period, ripening and harvest). The midday stem water potential (Ψmd) values of DIPh-I and DIPh-III were influenced by the rainfall regime in both years, whereas the Ψmd of DIPh-II was decreased and remained lower throughout the study period. Annual trunk growth was reduced only by the DIPh-I treatment; although the DIPh-II treatment decreased trunk growth during phase II it was relieved after the recovery period (during phase III). The main effects of both the DIPh-I and DIPh-III treatments were related with changes in fruit quality parameters; DIPh-I reduced the percentage of juice and DIPh-III affected negatively the peel colour when the water stress was moderate. However, the effects of DIPh-II were more drastic, decreasing yield due to smaller fruits, altering fruit composition, increasing the titratable acidity much more than the total soluble solids and affecting peel colour, therefore delaying fruit maturation.
Summary
Confocal microscopy with in vivo and ex vivo modalities has been used in the evaluation of skin cancer and other dermatological disorders. Recent developments in ex vivo confocal microscopy ...allow for faster pathology assessment with greater accuracy by the visualization of cellular and architectural details, similarly to standard pathology, in either paraffin‐embedded or frozen samples. They include the possibility of multimodal confocal microscopy using different lasers and fusion images. New staining protocols including immunostaining, with no damage to conventional histopathology preparation, have been recently described in melanocytic tumours and inflammatory skin diseases. Digital staining with haematoxylin and eosin is also incorporated in the new devices. In this review the applications of ex vivo confocal microscopy will be presented with the description of the technique and the technology, clinical evidence in dermatology and other fields, and further applications.
The multi-granular fuzzy linguistic modeling allows the use of several linguistic term sets in fuzzy linguistic modeling. This is quite useful when the problem involves several people with different ...knowledge levels since they could describe each item with different precision and they could need more than one linguistic term set. Multi-granular fuzzy linguistic modeling has been frequently used in group decision making field due to its capability of allowing each expert to express his/her preferences using his/her own linguistic term set. The aim of this research is to provide insights about the evolution of multi-granular fuzzy linguistic modeling approaches during the last years and discuss their drawbacks and advantages. A systematic literature review is proposed to achieve this goal. Additionally, some possible approaches that could improve the current multi-granular linguistic methodologies are presented.
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