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In vivo assessment of multifocal contact lens fitting using anterior segment optical coherence tomography
No full text8 pages, 7 figuresMultifocal contact lenses (MCLs) are designed to provide near vision functionality in presbyopia. They rely on the correct deployment of the multifocal power profile on the cornea and on the optical interactions between the MCL and the eye. The contact lens profile on the eye and the potential conformity to the cornea was evaluated using custom-developed spectral anterior segment Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). OCT images were obtained from one eye of 13 subjects (age: 35.7 ± 13.8 years) with naked eyes and with MCLs on the eye. All eyes were measured with the same MCLs: 1-Day Acuvue® Moist Multifocal with low, medium, and high additions. Images were processed using custom routines for segmentation, fan distortion correction, 3D model construction and quantification. The radius of curvature of the anterior and posterior surfaces of the MCLs (RAL and RPL, respectively) and the anterior surface of the naked cornea (RAC) were obtained within a 3-mm diameter central area (addition area) and within a 3-6 mm peripheral ring. The power profile was also obtained by a ray-tracing analysis. RAC ranged from 7.5 to 8.2 mm across subjects (mean 8.02 ± 0.22 mm). RAC was correlated with RPL and RAL in the periphery (r > 0.80, p 0.79, p < 0.05) areas for the three MCL additions. The average power profile exhibited a slightly lower addition than that reported by the manufacturer (1.32, 1.36, and 1.83 D for low, medium, and high additions), but similar to other off-eye reports in the literature. OCT equipped with quantification tools allows to study the fitting of MCLs to the eye in vivo. It was found that, overall, soft MCLs conform to the underlying cornea, in both the central and the peripheral areas, and the central near add is provided as expected.This work was supported by La Caixa Foundation [LCF/TR/CI22/ 52660002, LCF/TR/CI24/56010018]; Spanish Research Agency grant [CPP2021-008388D, PID2023-152641OA-I00]; Madrid Regional Government [IND2020/BMD-17442, TEC-2024/COM-322]; National Institutes of Health, National Eye Institute [NEI R01-EY035009, P30EY 001319]; European Research Council 2018-AdG-Silkeye-833106; Unrestricted Funds Research to Prevent Blindness; 2023 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation; Spanish government grant [RYC2022-038195-I, MCIN/AEI and FSE+].Peer reviewe
Metal-organic frameworks built from a carborane linker isolating ideal one-dimensional large-spin chains of Co (S = 3/2) or Ni (S = 1)
No full textOne-dimensional (1D) antiferromagnetic chains are fascinating because of their exotic quantum phenomena. However, isolating large-spin S chains remains challenging as even minimal interchain interaction J′ tends to drive unwanted long-range ordering. Here, we report on the synthesis, crystal structure, magnetism, optical, and electronic properties of two isostructural metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), [M2(mCB-L)2(μ2-H2O)2(DMF)4]n·solv (M = Co(II) (mCB-Co) or Ni(II) (mCB-Ni)), which feature water-bridged Co (S = 3/2) or Ni (S = 1) spin chains that are effectively separated by bulky carborane linkers (1,7-di(4-carboxyphenyl)-1,7-dicarba-closo-dodecaborane, mCBLH2). The temperature-dependent susceptibility reveals strong antiferromagnetic interactions with significant intrachain coupling, JCo/kB = −4.65 K (mCB-Co) and JNi/kB = −23.36 K (mCB-Ni), yet confirm the absence of long-range order down to 0.3 K due to negligible interchain interactions, as corroborated by specific heat data. This indicates extremely small J′, with J′/J < 4.7 × 10−4 (3.7 × 10−5) for Co (Ni) MOFs, making these new materials nearly ideal 1D antiferromagnets. Additionally, optical band gaps were estimated via the Kubelka–Munk method, yielding an increase from 3.83 eV for mCB-Co to 4.20 eV for mCB-Ni, showcasing tunable electronic properties across the two MOFs.This work was financially supported by the Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades” (PID2022-136892NB-I00) and (PID2022-138492NB-I00), the Gobierno de Aragón (RASMIA E12-23R), the State Investigation Agency, through the Severo Ochoa Program for Centres of Excellence in R&D (CEX2023-001263-S and CEX2023-001286-S), and by the Generalitat de Catalunya (2021/SGR/00442). Xiao-Bao Li is enrolled in the UAB PhD program and acknowledges the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for his PhD grant (202106650003). Authors would like to acknowledge the use of Servicio General de Apoyo a la Investigación-SAI, Universidad de Zaragoza.With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (CEX2023-001263-S).With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (CEX2023-001286-S).Peer reviewe
DESI 2024 III: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Galaxies and Quasars [Dataset]
No full textSupplementary material to DESI's publication "DESI 2024 III: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Galaxies and Quasars" to comply with the data management plan. -- Includes Ipython notebooks and metadata to reproduce figures from the manuscript. -- arXiv:2404.03000Peer reviewe
Potential effects of climate change on the threatened Malagasy poison frogs: A multispecies approach
No full text18 pages, 3 figures, 3 tablesClimate change is exposing ecosystems to novel conditions, and understanding its potential effects on species distributions is crucial. Those effects can significantly affect species with narrow environmental requirements inhabiting closed systems where dispersal is limited. Madagascar is a highly biodiverse island, boasting high levels of amphibian species richness and endemism. The impacts of climate change on Malagasy amphibians are scarcely addressed, with studies focusing on single species or localities. We assessed the potential impacts of climate change on the distributions of the endemic Malagasy poison frogs of the genus Mantella, one of the most threatened and best-studied frog genera in Madagascar, which contains species of global interest for the pet trade. We quantified each species' marginality, specialization, and tolerance and modeled their realized niches using the Maximum Entropy algorithm. We projected the models into current and future climates, using five Global Circulation Models, three socioeconomic scenarios, three future periods, and three dispersal scenarios. Our results suggest that 30% of Mantella species may gain habitat suitability extent, while 60% are predicted to lose it, with two threatened species forecasted to lose all suitable habitats island wide by 2100. Furthermore, 80% of species are forecasted to lose habitat suitability in currently occupied pixels, with losses exceeding 90%. Range shifts tracking their optimal niche conditions are expected for nearly all species, but the receptor areas are not always suitable. The current distribution extent is a good predictor of both tolerance and marginality, and tolerance can predict the conservation status in the genus Mantella. We found a linear relationship with higher marginality and tolerance linked to greater potential losses. We discuss the reliability and severity of the forecasts, the caveats of niche projections, and challenges in planning conservation based on themThis work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Agencia Estatal de Investigación CGL20178989R (AEI/FEDER, EU) to David R. Vieites. Albert Carné was funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Agencia Estatal de Investigación /10.13039/501100011033, contract for industrial doctorates aid DIN2021-011964Peer reviewe
Rejections and retractions for ethical concerns in "Gaceta Sanitaria", 2024
No full textAs we begin 2025, it is important for the new Editorial Board of Gaceta Sanitaria to reflect on the scientific integrity challenges we faced over 2024. Over the past year, we have rejected and retracted some publications due to ethical issues. This editorial note provides an opportunity to analyze these problems and to reflect on how we can maintain the scientific integrity of the evidence we publish in a Journal that, above all, reflects the public health and health administration community of Spain and Latin America.Peer reviewe
Discovery of Small-scale Flows in the Void of a Coronal Mass Ejection with High-cadence Images Acquired by the Metis Coronagraph on Board Solar Orbiter
No full textBemporad, Alessandro et al.-- Full list of authors: Bemporad, Alessandro; Abbo, Lucia; Albert, Kinga; Amato, Emanuele; Andretta, Vincenzo; Biondo, Ruggero; Burtovoi, Aleksandr; Calchetti, Daniele; Da Deppo, Vania; De Leo, Yara; Fineschi, Silvano; Frassati, Federica; Grimani, Catia; Jerse, Giovanna; Landini, Federico; Mancuso, Salvatore; Naletto, Giampiero; Nicolini, Gianalfredo; Pancrazzi, Maurizio; Blanco Rodríguez, Julian; Romoli, Marco; Russano, Giuliana; Sasso, Clementina; Spadaro, Daniele; Stangalini, Marco; Strecker, Hanna; Orozco Suárez, David; Susino, Roberto; Teriaca, Luca; Uslenghi, Michela; Valori, GherardoOn 2022 March 26, the ESA Solar Orbiter mission observed the early evolution of a coronal mass ejection (CME). On that day, the spacecraft was at a heliocentric distance of 0.32 au and a longitude separation from Earth of 74 .° 5. The CME source region, observed with the Solar Orbiter Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager magnetometer, shows no preexisting filament or flux rope. The event was first observed in the inner corona by the Solar Orbiter Extreme Ultraviolet Imager instrument with the Full Sun Imager telescope, showing the initial propagation of a flux rope seen face-on in the EUV, and formed during the eruption. Higher up, the event was observed by Metis with the Visible Light channel with an unprecedented time cadence of 20 s and a spatial resolution of 20" corresponding to about 4600 km bin‑1. The sequence of total brightness images shows the existence of small-scale circular flows inside the expanding flux rope, surrounded by multiple nested arch-shaped features. These motions, never reported so far, occur inside the void of the CME, with projected speed ∼40% higher than the CME propagation speed. The formation of the flux rope during the eruption suggests that these motions can be interpreted as a signature of conversion of magnetic writhe into twist, starting from the shearing of a preexisting arcade. © 2025. The Author(s).Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, operated by ESA. We are grateful to the ESA SOC and MOC teams for their support. Metis was built and operated with funding from the Italian Space Agency (ASI), under contracts to the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) and industrial partners. Metis was built with hardware contributions from Germany (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie through DLR), from the Czech Republic (PRODEX), and from ESA. The Metis team thanks the former PI, Ester Antonucci, for leading the development of Metis until the final delivery to ESA. The EUI instrument was built by CSL, IAS, MPS, MSSL/UCL, PMOD/WRC, ROB, LCF/IO with funding from the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO/PRODEX PEA 4000112292 and 4000134088); the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES); the UK Space Agency (UKSA); the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi) through the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR); and the Swiss Space Office (SSO). The German contribution to SO/PHI is funded by the BMWi through DLR and by MPG central funds. The Spanish contribution to SO/PHI is funded by AEI/MCIN/10.13039/501100011033/ and European Union "NextGenerationEU/PRTR" (RTI2018-096886-C5, PID2021-125325OB-C5, PCI2022-135009-2, PCI2022-135029-2) and ERDF "A way of making Europe"; "Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa" awards to IAA-CSIC (SEV-2017-0709, CEX2021-001131-S); and a Ramón y Cajal fellowship awarded to DOS. The French to SO/PHIcontribution is funded by CNES. F. Frassati acknowledges support from INAF grant CUP C63C23000810005 "IDEA-SW—Integrating Data and Expertise to Advance Space Weather forecasting of Catastrophic Events" and from the Project "Supporto per la realizzazione degli strumenti Metis, SWA DPU e STIX" CUP F86C18000570005. A. Bemporad, R. Biondo, S. Mancuso, and R. Susino acknowledge support by the Italian PRIN 2022, project 2022294WNB entitled "Heliospheric shocks and space weather: from multispacecraft observations to numerical modeling". Finanziato da Next Generation EU, fondo del Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR) Missione 4 "Istruzione e Ricerca" - Componente C2 Investimento 1.1, 'Fondo per il Programma Nazionale di Ricerca e Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN).With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (CEX2021-001131-S).With funding from the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence" accreditation (SEV-2017-0709).Peer reviewe
Natural modulators of abscisic acid Signaling: Insights into polyphenol-based antagonists and their role in ABA receptor regulation
No full textThe phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays a pivotal role in regulating essential plant processes, including seed dormancy, germination, and stress responses. ABA signaling is mediated by PYR/PYL/RCAR receptors, which interact with clade A PP2C phosphatases to control downstream signaling pathways. Advances in structural biology have enabled the development of synthetic ABA modulators, such as agonists and antagonists, which can enhance or inhibit ABA signaling for agricultural applications. However, the high production costs and potential toxicity of synthetic modulators have motivated the search for natural alternatives. Here, we explore the potential of polyphenols, a class of plant secondary metabolites, as eco-friendly non-canonical ligands for ABA receptors. Through virtual screening and structural analysis, we identified coumaric acid and other hydroxycinnamic acids as natural ABA antagonists. These compounds compete with ABA for receptor binding, disrupting the ABA-dependent inhibition of PP2C phosphatases by PYR/PYL proteins. As a result, they counteract ABA-imposed stress responses in Arabidopsis thaliana, promoting seed germination and seedling establishment. Further chemical optimization yielded improved ABA antagonists based on hydroxycinnamic acid and natural amino acid conjugates. Their use in plants provides a sustainable alternative to synthetic modulators and opens new biotechnological strategies for crop management. In addition, our findings highlight a mechanism for fine-tuning ABA receptor activity in vivo through the interaction of ABA receptors with endogenous hydroxycinnamic acids.gencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish Ministry of Science
and Innovation with grant number PID2020-119805RB-I00 and
PID2023-153108OB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/
501100011033 and the ERDF (“A way of making Europe”) (A. A.)
Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish Ministry of Science
and Innovation with grant number PID2020-113100RB-I00 and
PID2023-147322OB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/
501100011033 and the ERDF (“A way of making Europe”) (P. L. R.)
Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish Ministry of Science
and Innovation with grant number TED2021-129867B-C21 (P.L.R.) and
TED2021-132202B-I00 (A.A.) funded by MCIU/AEI/10.13039/
501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR.
Fundaciónn General CSIC ComFuturo fellowship - European Union’s
Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, under the Marie Skło-
dowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101034263. (D.N.-V).
Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish Ministry of Science
and Innovation with Ramón y Cajal fellowship RYC2022-035730-I
funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FSE+ (D.N.-V).Peer reviewe
Mapping marine debris hotspots on Boa Vista Island, Cabo Verde
No full textCoastal ecosystems are under increasing threat, with the accumulation of marine debris-particularly plastics-posing significant ecological risks. Oceanic islands are especially vulnerable due to ocean currents depositing marine debris on their exposed shores. This study presents the first assessment of marine debris accumulation on sandy beaches of Boa Vista Island, Cabo Verde. Using a combination of drone-based aerial imagery and sand sampling, we quantified micro-, meso-, and macro-debris densities across 29 beaches. North- and east-facing beaches of the island showed the highest accumulation of marine debris (>85 % plastics), driven by ocean currents. Mean drone-based densities varied between 5 and 2371 macro-debris items per 100 m of beach length, totalling 23,085 items. As for sand samples, mean densities ranged from 0 to 1639 items/m2, totalling 4272 large microplastics, 1221 mesoplastics and 350 macroplastics. The easternmost beach, Ponta de Roque, alone accounted for 31 % of the total debris recorded across all locations, with sand samples averaging 1639 items/m2 (1453 microplastics larger than 1 mm), and drone-based surveys averaging 68 macro-debris items/100 m2. Fishing-related items comprised ∼24 % of drone-surveyed debris, suggesting input from the Northwest African coast. Plastic fragments predominated, with significant correlations between drone-surveyed macro-plastics and sand-sampled large microplastic densities. Drone surveys effectively identified marine debris hotspots, aligning with ground-based data. This study provides important baseline data for long-term monitoring in the archipelago and offers a transferable methodology for assessing plastic pollution in other island systems.A grant from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (FCT) supported the work of DSG (doi.org/10.54499/2020.04775.BD), co-supported by the European Social Fund through NORTE 2020; fieldwork was partially supported by Centro de Investigação em Ciências Geo-Espaciais (UIDB/00190/2020), funded by COMPETE 2020 and FCT. NS was supported by a CEEC2017 contract (CEECIND/02213/2017) from FCT. AM was supported by the Spanish Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), MAVA Foundation and the Marine Turtle Conservation Fund of NOAA. FB was supported through the contract (doi.org/10.54499/DL57/2016/CP1370/CT0106) from the University of Coimbra and by FCT through the strategic project UIDB/04004/2020 (doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/04004/2020Peer reviewe
Suppressing the sample variance of DESI-like galaxy clustering with fast simulations
No full textZ. Ding et al. -- Dark energy spectroscopic instrument (DESI) survey year 1 results. -- ArXiv ePrint: 2404.03117Ongoing and upcoming galaxy redshift surveys, such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey, will observe vast regions of sky and a wide range of redshifts. In order to model the observations and address various systematic uncertainties, N-body simulations are routinely adopted, however, the number of large simulations with sufficiently high mass resolution is usually limited by available computing time. Therefore, achieving a simulation volume with the effective statistical errors significantly smaller than those of the observations becomes prohibitively expensive. In this study, we apply the Convergence Acceleration by Regression and Pooling (CARPool) method to mitigate the sample variance of the DESI-like galaxy clustering in the AbacusSummit simulations, with the assistance of the quasi-N-body simulations FastPM. Based on the halo occupation distribution (HOD) models, we construct different FastPM galaxy catalogs, including the luminous red galaxies (LRGs), emission line galaxies (ELGs), and quasars, with their number densities and two-point clustering statistics well matched to those of AbacusSummit. We also employ the same initial conditions between AbacusSummit and FastPM to achieve high cross-correlation, as it is useful in effectively suppressing the variance. Our method of reducing noise in clustering is equivalent to performing a simulation with volume larger by a factor of 5 and 4 for LRGs and ELGs, respectively. We also mitigate the standard deviation of the LRG bispectrum with the triangular configurations k 2 = 2k 1 = 0.2 h Mpc-1 by a factor of 1.6. With smaller sample variance on galaxy clustering, we are able to constrain the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) scale parameters to higher precision. The CARPool method will be beneficial to better constrain the theoretical systematics of BAO, redshift space distortions (RSD) and primordial non-Gaussianity (NG).We thank Johannes U. Lange, Joseph DeRose and the anonymous referee for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the draft. We thank Eric Armengaud for the coordination of DESI internal review on the draft. ZD thanks Haojie Xu for helpful discussions on HOD. ZD and YY were supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFA1607800, 2023YFA1607802), the National Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 12273020, 11621303, 11890691) and the science research grant from the China Manned Space Project with NO. CMS-CSST-2021-A03. YY acknowledges the sponsorship from Yangyang Development Fund. AV acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) “Cosmology with 3D Maps of the Universe” research grant, 200020_175751 and 200020_207379. SA acknowledges support of the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of india, under project no. 12-R&D-TFR-5.02-0200. SA is partially supported by the European Research Council through the COSFORM Research Grant (#670193) and STFC consolidated grant no. RA5496. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of High-Energy Physics, under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility under the same contract. Additional support for DESI was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Astronomical Sciences under Contract No. AST-0950945 to the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the National Council of Humanities, Science and Technology of Mexico (CONAHCYT); the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (MICINN), and by the DESI Member Institutions: https://www.desi.lbl.gov/collaborating-institutions. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, or any of the listed funding agencies. The authors are honored to be permitted to conduct scientific research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation.Peer reviewe
Synthetic spectra for Lyman-α forest analysis in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
No full textHiram K. Herrera-Alcantar et al. -- Dark energy spectroscopic instrument (DESI) survey year 1 results.Synthetic data sets are used in cosmology to test analysis procedures, to verify that systematic errors are well understood and to demonstrate that measurements are unbiased. In this work we describe the methods used to generate synthetic datasets of Lyman-α quasar spectra aimed for studies with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). In particular, we focus on demonstrating that our simulations reproduces important features of real samples, making them suitable to test the analysis methods to be used in DESI and to place limits on systematic effects on measurements of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO). We present a set of mocks that reproduce the statistical properties of the DESI early data set with good agreement. Additionally, we use a synthetic dataset to forecast the BAO scale constraining power of the completed DESI survey through the Lyman-α forest.The authors thank Ian McGreer for his contributions and efforts to integrate simqso into the desisim package and consequently into quickquasars. Special thanks to James Rich and Julian Bautista for their invaluable comments and discussions on this manuscript. The authors would also like to thank James Farr, Hélion du Mas des Bourboux, Thomas Etourneau, and all the persons involved on the production of the LyaCoLoRe and Saclay mocks. HKHA and AXGM acknowledge support from Dirección de Apoyo a la Investigación y al Posgrado, Universidad de Guanajuato, research Grant No. 179/2023 and CONACyT México under Grants No. 286897 and A1-S-17899. AFR acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the Ramon y Cajal program (RYC-2018-025210) and the PGC2021-123012NB-C41 project, and from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (COSMO-LYA, grant agreement 101044612). IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. AMG acknowledges partial support from UNAM-DGAPA-PAPIIT IN105021 and IN101124 projects. This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of High-Energy Physics, under Contract No. DE–AC02–05CH11231, and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility under the same contract. Additional support for DESI was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Astronomical Sciences under Contract No. AST-0950945 to the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory; the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the National Council of Humanities, Science and Technology of Mexico (CONAHCYT); the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (MICINN), and by the DESI Member Institutions: https://www.desi.lbl.gov/collaborating-institutions. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, or any of the listed funding agencies. The authors are honored to be permitted to conduct scientific research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham NationPeer reviewe