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8 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, supplementary material https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2019.07.004 ; Fisheries are one of the main economic sectors affected by marine litter, which can damage gear, reduce catch, and require time to repair or clean nets. This study aims to evaluate the type and density of marine litter in two shallow fishing grounds in the NW Mediterranean Sea, both belonging to the Natura 2000 network. Moreover, it quantifies the fraction of marine litter within the total catch to help understand the potential influence of marine litter on fisheries. Two study areas were selected, one in the vicinity of urban populated areas and high navigational traffic and one in a rural site off an agricultural area. The urban area had more benthic marine litter (393 to 198 kg km) including clinker (residue from coal-burning steamships), fabric, plastics, and processed wood and accounting for up to 38% of the total catch. The rural area had far less marine litter (34–56 kg km), accounting for only 5% of the total catch. Marine litter may have potential negative effects on fisheries; thus we propose that government credit trading programs could be promoted to help recover litter from fishing catches, to reduce fishing costs and hazards to marine ecosystems ; This paper is a result of the research project "Evaluación y seguimiento del Plan de Gestión de Dragas para Embarcación", ref. AG-2016-233, funded by the Department d'Agricultura, Ramaderia i Pesca (Generalitat de Catalunya) ; Peer Reviewed

Introduction/Purpose: This study examined the relationship between profitability and the age of microenterprises in Ecuador in the year 2021. Methodology: The relationship between the profitability and age variables was measured through a quantitative descriptive approach with cross-sectional data. An unsupervised learning technique called clustering was applied to a sample of 1,810 Ecuadorian microenterprises that have their financial statements registered with the Superintendency of Companies, Securities and Insurance during the study period. Findings: The results indicated a weak inverse relationship between profitability and age, and three clusters were identified using the K-medoids technique. Two clusters shared an average age of 9 years, but differed significantly in terms of profitability, averaging 1% and 55% respectively. The third cluster, composed of older micro-enterprises with an average age of 32 years, recorded an average profitability of 2%. Conclusions: It is concluded that profitability decreases with increasing age of the microenterprises, which is of interest for decision making in maturing enterprises because their expectations of the desired profitability and the level of strategies used by these companies may change.

Lipids are one of the primary metabolites of microalgae and cyanobacteria, which enrich their utility in the pharmaceutical, feed, cosmetic, and chemistry sectors. This work describes the isolation, structural elucidation, and the antibiotic and antibiofilm activities of diverse lipids produced by different microalgae and cyanobacteria strains from two European collections (ACOI and LEGE-CC). Three microalgae strains and one cyanobacteria strain were selected for their antibacterial and/or antibiofilm activity after the screening of about 600 strains carried out under the NoMorFilm European project. The total organic extracts were firstly fractionated using solid phase extraction methods, and the minimum inhibitory concentration and minimal biofilm inhibitory concentration against an array of human pathogens were determined. The isolation was carried out by bioassay-guided HPLC-DAD purification, and the structure of the isolated molecules responsible for the observed activities was determined by HPLC-HRESIMS and NMR methods. Sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol, monogalactosylmonoacylglycerol, sulfoquinovosyl-monoacylglycerol, α-linolenic acid, hexadeca-4,7,10,13-tetraenoic acid (HDTA), palmitoleic acid, and lysophosphatidylcholine were found among the different active sub-fractions selected. In conclusion, cyanobacteria and microalgae produce a great variety of lipids with antibiotic and antibiofilm activity against the most important pathogens causing severe infections in humans. The use of these lipids in clinical treatments alone or in combination with antibiotics may provide an alternative to the current treatments. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. ; Funding: This research was funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 634588 (NOMORFILM). We thank Programa Severo Ochoa de Ayudas Predoctorales para la investigación y docencia from Principado de Asturias (grant BP16023 to I.G.-D.-R.). ISGlobal is a CERCA center from the Generalitat of Catalunya and a Severo Ochoa Center (Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovations, and Universities).