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Direct cold plasma treatment has been investigated as an alternative non-thermal technology as a means of maintaining and improving quality of fresh cloudy apple juice. Process variables studied included type of plasma discharge, input voltage and treatment time on polyphenol oxidase (PPO) inactivation. Spark discharge plasma at 10.5 kV for 5 min was the best treatment, with near total inactivation of PPO achieved, although good PPO inactivation was also recorded using shorter treatment times. Residual activity (RA) of PPO was 16 and 27.6% after 5 and 4 min of treatment respectively. This PPO inactivation was maintained throughout the storage trials, but decreased with samples treated for a shorter time. Plasma treatment improved key quality parameters of Golden delicious cloudy apple juice, with retention of critical quality parameters during extended storage trials. Color was the most noticeable change, which was enhanced with retention of a greener color. An increase of 69 and 64% was obtained in the total phenolic content after 4 and 5 min of treatment, respectively. Therefore, cold plasma was demonstrated to be a good alternative to traditional heat treatments for enhanced quality retention of fresh cloudy apple juice and over its storage. ; European Commission - European Regional Development Fund ; Science Foundation Ireland ; Spanish Government

Tis project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 714793), MICINN/FEDER (grants MAT2015-65601-R and SAF-2016-75286-R and RyC fellowship of CC), ISC III/FEDER [(Miguel Servet Program CPII16/00049 of R.R. and Consorcio CIBERONC (CB16/12/00390)] and the Generalitat de Catalunya for the SGR2014 01333.

5 pags., 2 figs. ; Quantum illumination consists in shining quantum light on a target region immersed in a bright thermal bath with the aim of detecting the presence of a possible low-reflective object. If the signal is entangled with the receiver, then a suitable choice of the measurement offers a gain with respect to the optimal classical protocol employing coherent states. Here, we tackle this detection problem by using quantum estimation techniques to measure the reflectivity parameter of the object, showing an enhancement in the signal-to-noise ratio up to 3 dB with respect to the classical case when implementing only local measurements. Our approach employs the quantum Fisher information to provide an upper bound for the error probability, supplies the concrete estimator saturating the bound, and extends the quantum illumination protocol to non-Gaussian states. As an example, we show how Schrödinger's cat states may be used for quantum illumination. ; The authors acknowledge support from Spanish MINECO/FEDER Grants No. FIS2015-69983-P and No. FIS2015-70856-P, Basque Government Grant No. IT986-16, and UPV/EHU UFI 11/55 and a PhD grant, CAM Research Network QUITEMAD+, Consejería de Educación, Juventud y Deporte, Comunidad de Madrid (S2013/ICE-2801), and the European Project AQuS (Project No. 640800). The authors thank Giuseppe Vitagliano and Iagoba Apellaniz for useful discussions. ; Peer Reviewed

Event: Symposium on Integrated Optics, 2001, San Jose, CA, United States. ; In this work we report the upconversion processes that produce blue, green, orange, and red emission in K5Nd(MoO4)4 stiochiometric crystal together with the dynamics and spectral properties of the laser emission. It was found that upconversion energy transfer processes reduce the energy storage capacity through the reduction of the fluorescence lifetimes of the metastable 4F3/2 level. The experiments were conducted in such a way that the dynamics of the IR and visible fluorescence was performed under lasing and nonlasing conditions. The dynamics of the unconverted emission shows that both upconversion energy transfer and excited state absorption of the laser emission occur. ; This work was supported by the Spanish Government CICYT Ref. MAT97-1009, Basque Government (P197/99), and Basque Country University (G21/98). ; Peer reviewed

This article reports on a compositional investigation of stone patinas: thin colored layers applied for protective and/or aesthetic purposes on architectural or sculptural substrates of cultural heritage. The analysis and classification of patinas provide important information of historic and artistic interest, as their composition reflects local practices, the availabilities of different materials, and the development of technological knowledge during specific historical periods. Model patinas fabricated according to traditional procedures and applied onto limestone, and a historic patina sample from the main façade of the San Blas Monastery in Lerma (a village in the province of Burgos, Spain), were analyzed by laser-induced fluorescence and Fourier transform Raman spectroscopy. The results obtained demonstrate the ability of these two analytical techniques to identify the key components of each formulation and those of the reaction products which result from the chemical and mineralogical transformations that occur during aging, as well as to provide information that can aid the classification of different types of patinas. ; This work has been funded by the Madrid Regional Government project Geomateriales (S2009/Mat-1629) and by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under projects CTQ2010-15680 and CONSOLIDER CSD2007-00058. ; Peer Reviewed

Objective: To compare inequalities in self-perceived health in the population older than 50 years, in 2004, using Wright's social class dimensions, in nine European countries grouped in three political traditions (Social democracy, Christian democracy and Late democracies). Methods: Cross-sectional design, including data of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (Sweden, Denmark, Austria, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Greece). The population aged from 50 to 74 years was included. Absolute and relative social class dimension inequalities in poor self-reported health and long-term illness were determined for each sex and political tradition. Relative inequalities were assessed by fitting Poisson regression models with robust variance estimators. Results: Absolute and relative health inequalities by social class dimensions are found in the three political traditions, but these differences are more marked in Late democracies and mainly among women. For example the prevalence ratio of poor self-perceived health comparing poorly educated women with highly educated women, was 1.75 (95% CI: 1.39-2.21) in Late democracies and 1.36 (95% CI: 1.21-1.52) in Social democracies. The prevalence differences were 24.2 and 13.7%, respectively. Conclusion: This study is one of the first to show the impact of different political traditions on social class inequalities in health. These results emphasize the need to evaluate the impact of the implementation of public policies.

Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality are a challenge for public health around the world, but appear to be resistant to policy-making. We aimed to identify European countries which have been more successful than others in narrowing inequalities in mortality, and the factors associated with narrowing inequalities. We collected and harmonised mortality data by educational level in 15 European countries over the last 25 years, and quantified changes in inequalities in mortality using a range of measures capturing different perspectives on inequality (e.g., 'relative' and 'absolute' inequalities, inequalities in 'attainment' and 'shortfall'). We determined which causes of death contributed to narrowing of inequalities, and conducted country- and period-fixed effects analyses to assess which country-level factors were associated with narrowing of inequalities in mortality. Mortality among the low educated has declined rapidly in all European countries, and a narrowing of absolute, but not relative inequalities was seen in many countries. Best performers were Austria, Italy (Turin) and Switzerland among men, and Spain (Barcelona), England and Wales, and Austria among women. Ischemic heart disease, smoking-related causes (men) and amenable causes often contributed to narrowing inequalities. Trends in income inequality, level of democracy and smoking were associated with widening inequalities, but rising health care expenditure was associated with narrowing inequalities. Trends in inequalities in mortality have not been as unfavourable as often claimed. Our results suggest that health care expansion has counteracted the inequalities widening effect of other influences. © 2019, The Author(s). ; LIFEPATH project

The Caliope project funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment establishes an air quality forecasting system for Spain to increase the knowledge on transport and dynamics of pollutants in Spain, to assure the accomplishment of legislation and to inform the population about the levels of pollutants, topics in which the European Commission has shown a great concern. The present contribution describes the first quantitative verification study performed so far with two chemistry transport models (CMAQ and CHIMERE) for a reference year (2004) at medium spatial resolution (around 20×20 km for the Iberian Peninsula). Both models perform similarly in the case of ground-level ozone. The mean normalised gross error MNGE remains below 15–20% during summertime, when ozone episodes occur, outlining the good skills of the system concerning the forecasting of air quality in Spain. Furthermore, the ongoing developments of the system towards high resolution modelling (4×4 km for Spain, 12×12 km for Europe, 1 h temporal resolution) and the integration with observations within the Caliope umbrella are described.

The Caliope project funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment establishes an air quality forecasting system for Spain to increase the knowledge on transport and dynamics of pollutants in Spain, to assure the accomplishment of legislation and to inform the population about the levels of pollutants, topics in which the European Commission has shown a great concern. The present contribution describes the first quantitative verification study performed so far with two chemistry transport models (CMAQ and CHIMERE) for a reference year (2004) at medium spatial resolution (around 20×20 km for the Iberian Peninsula). Both models perform similarly in the case of ground-level ozone. The mean normalised gross error MNGE remains below 15–20% during summertime, when ozone episodes occur, outlining the good skills of the system concerning the forecasting of air quality in Spain. Furthermore, the ongoing developments of the system towards high resolution modelling (4×4 km for Spain, 12×12 km for Europe, 1 h temporal resolution) and the integration with observations within the Caliope umbrella are described.

10 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables.-- Contributed to: 7th EMS Annual Meeting and 8th European Conference on Applications of Meteorology 2007 (San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain, Oct 1-5, 2007). ; The Caliope project funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment establishes an air quality forecasting system for Spain to increase the knowledge on transport and dynamics of pollutants in Spain, to assure the accomplishment of legislation and to inform the population about the levels of pollutants, topics in which the European Commission has shown a great concern. The present contribution describes the first quantitative verification study performed so far with two chemistry transport models (CMAQ and CHIMERE) for a reference year (2004) at medium spatial resolution (around 20×20 km for the Iberian Peninsula). Both models perform similarly in the case of ground-level ozone. The mean normalised gross error MNGE remains below 15–20% during summertime, when ozone episodes occur, outlining the good skills of the system concerning the forecasting of air quality in Spain. Furthermore, the ongoing developments of the system towards high resolution modelling (4×4 km for Spain, 12×12 km for Europe, 1 h temporal resolution) and the integration with observations within the Caliope umbrella are described. ; This work is funded by the Caliope project of the Spanish Ministry of the Environment (441/2006/3-12.1 and A357/200/2-12.1). CMAQ and DREAM simulations were performed in the MareNostrum supercomputer hosted by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). ; Peer reviewed

International audience ; The Caliope project funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment establishes an air quality forecasting system for Spain to increase the knowledge on transport and dynamics of pollutants in Spain, to assure the accomplishment of legislation and to inform the population about the levels of pollutants, topics in which the European Commission has shown a great concern. The present contribution describes the first quantitative verification study performed so far with two chemistry transport models (CMAQ and CHIMERE) for a reference year (2004) at medium spatial resolution (around 20×20 km for the Iberian Peninsula). Both models perform similarly in the case of ground-level ozone. The mean normalised gross error MNGE remains below 15?20% during summertime, when ozone episodes occur, outlining the good skills of the system concerning the forecasting of air quality in Spain. Furthermore, the ongoing developments of the system towards high resolution modelling (4×4 km for Spain, 12×12 km for Europe, 1 h temporal resolution) and the integration with observations within the Caliope umbrella are described.

7 pags., 6 figs. ; The evolution of the magnetic anisotropy directions has been studied in a magnetite (FeO) thin film grown by infrared pulsed-laser deposition on SrTiO(100):Nb substrate. The magnetic easy axes at room temperature are found along the in-plane 〈100〉 film directions, which means a rotation of the easy axis by 45° with respect to the directions typically reported for bulk magnetite and films grown on single-crystal substrates. Moreover, when undergoing the Verwey transition temperature, T, the easy axis orientation evolves to the 〈110〉 film directions. This anomalous behavior has been demonstrated by measuring first the angular dependence of coercivity and remanence well above and below T by high-resolution vectorial magneto-optical Kerr effect (v-MOKE). Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements have additionally proven a well-defined fourfold magnetic anisotropy induced during growth with confirmed easy axis directions along 〈100〉 for T > T and 〈110〉 for T < T. These results provide a clear proof of the possibility of tuning magnetic anisotropy in FeO thin films by proper control on the growth parameters and substrate choice. ; This research was supported by the Regional Government of Madrid through NANOMAGCOST project (P2018/NMT-4321) and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through Project CTQ2016-75880-P. M. O. thanks CSIC for contract and E. R. thanks MINECO for the tenure of a Ramón y Cajal contract (No. RYC-2011-08069). The work in Lausanne was supported by the Sinergia grant "Mott physics beyond the Heisenberg model" of the Swiss NSF. The work in BUTE (Hungary) was supported by NKFIH Grant No. K119442 and 2017-1.2.1-NKP-2017-00001, and by the BME-Nanotechnology FIKP grant of EMMI (BME FIKP-NAT). IMDEA Nanoscience is supported by the 'Severo Ochoa' Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D, MINECO [grant number SEV-2016-0686]

Esta comunicación participó en el: 5th International Conference YOuth in COnservation of CUltural Heritage YOCOCU 2016 21st-23rd September 2016 Madrid ; Very recently, in monumental cities, certain conservational practices tend to use ancient/traditional roof tiles in the restoration of Heritage buildings. Numerous studies have been undertaken to remove lichens on stones. However, little has been done to date to study lichens removal from ceramic materials, despite the fact that they are commonly colonized by different lichen communities. The main goal of this contribution is making a diagnosis of alterations that lichens may cause in ceramic materials, as well as to determine the possibilities of removal by treatments based on laser irradiation and use of biocides. ; Geomateriales 2 (Ref. S2013/MIT-2914, Regional Government of Madrid and EU structural funds) and IPERION-CH (Integrated Platform for the European Research Infrastructure on Cultural Heritage (Ref. H2020-INFRAIA-2014-2015 nº 654028). ; Peer Reviewed

Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality are a challenge for public health around the world, but appear to be resistant to policy-making. We aimed to identify European countries which have been more successful than others in narrowing inequalities in mortality, and the factors associated with narrowing inequalities. We collected and harmonised mortality data by educational level in 15 European countries over the last 25 years, and quantified changes in inequalities in mortality using a range of measures capturing different perspectives on inequality (e.g., 'relative' and 'absolute' inequalities, inequalities in 'attainment' and 'shortfall'). We determined which causes of death contributed to narrowing of inequalities, and conducted country- and period-fixed effects analyses to assess which country-level factors were associated with narrowing of inequalities in mortality. Mortality among the low educated has declined rapidly in all European countries, and a narrowing of absolute, but not relative inequalities was seen in many countries. Best performers were Austria, Italy (Turin) and Switzerland among men, and Spain (Barcelona), England and Wales, and Austria among women. Ischemic heart disease, smoking-related causes (men) and amenable causes often contributed to narrowing inequalities. Trends in income inequality, level of democracy and smoking were associated with widening inequalities, but rising health care expenditure was associated with narrowing inequalities. Trends in inequalities in mortality have not been as unfavourable as often claimed. Our results suggest that health care expansion has counteracted the inequalities widening effect of other influences.