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The behavior of a rainwater harvesting system depends on some variables that cannot be controlled, such as rainfall, building roof size and water consumption. The selection regarding rainwater tank-size will affect the performance of the system and the cost–benefit ratio. The criterion employed for this selection is based on the need for volume-storage and typically, yield large-sized rainwater tanks, especially when the amount of rainwater is higher during rainy seasons. This article presents a methodology for modelling rainwater harvesting, storage, and water consumption, for different configurations of a set of buildings, called clusters, where all buildings collect, store and consume water. This methodology allows for analyzing with different indicators, what is the best recommended configuration and tank-sizing, based on configuration and storage ratio exhibited, thus avoiding the situation of being underutilized. The proposed methodology is applied to a case of study at a university, in Mexico City. In this study case, the dynamics per day is modeled over a year, considering monthly rainfall averages, over 2 groups made up out of 4 buildings with different collecting capabilities and consumption each, allowing for the analysis of 9 cluster configurations and 4 rainwater tank-sizing dimensions. The results are analyzed by means of annual indicators such as: the decrease in the volume used from the public water network, the days of autonomy of the system, and a coefficient R (which relates the volume spilled to the empty volume). This coefficient is then used selection regarding rainwater tank-sizing and the most recommended cluster configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organ baths have been successfully used for over a century to study the contractile or relaxation effects of drugs. Indeed, most of our understanding of vascular pharmacology is based on such in vitro studies. However, multiple parallel organ baths that require mechanical transduction consume relatively large amounts of drugs, gases, and buffers, and they take up a considerable bench space. In addition, such experiments have a high demand in terms of cost and animals, and the tissue preparation is labor intensive and slow. For these reasons, organ baths are no longer in the front line of industrial pharmacological research and they have almost disappeared from most academic laboratories. We have developed a very simple system, which can be implemented virtually in any laboratory, for the automatic analyses of rat aorta ring contraction based on optical methods and using multi-well plates. Rat aorta rings (≈0.5 mm wide) were situated in 96-multi-well plates, and the luminal vessel areas were continuously monitored using a USB camera driven by newly developed algorithms. Liquids were handled using multichannel pipettes, although these procedures can be automated for drug screening. The concentration-response curves obtained were similar to those reported in the literature using traditional force transduction techniques on isolated tissues. This system can also be used with other tissue preparations and for simultaneous fluorescence measurements. The new system described here offers a simple, cheap, and reliable alternative to the classic organ bath system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Denver Developmental Screening Test II in a population of Spanish children. Two hundred children ranging from 9 month to 6 years were grouped into two samples (healthy/with psychomotor delay) and screened in order to check whether they suffered from psychomotor delay. Children from three Early Intervention Centres and three schools participated in this study. Criterion validity was calculated by the method of extreme groups, comparing healthy children to those with development delay. Interobserver and intraobserver reliability were calculated using Cohen Kappa coefficient, and internal consistency was calculated via the Kuder-Richardson coefficient. The scale demonstrated 89 % sensitivity, 92 % specificity, a positive predicted value of 91 % and a negative predicted value of 89 %, whereas the positive and negative likelihood ratio was 11.12 and 0.12, respectively. Intraobserver reliability ranged from 0.662 to 1, and interobserver reliability ranged from 0.886 to 1. The Kuder-Richardson coefficient values ranged from 87.5 to 97.6 %. Conclusion: The Spanish version of the Denver Developmental Screening Test II was found to have a good criterion validity, reliability and internal consistency and is a suitable screening test for use in a population of Spanish children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chromaffin granules are similar organelles to the large dense core vesicles (LDCV) present in many secretory cell types including neurons. LDCV accumulate solutes at high concentrations (catecholamines, 0.5-1 M; ATP, 120-300 mM; or Ca, 40 mM (Bulenda and Gratzl Biochemistry 24:7760-7765, ). Solutes seem to aggregate to a condensed matrix to elude osmotic lysis. The affinity of solutes for LDCV matrix is responsible for the delayed release of catecholamines during exocytosis. The aggregation of solutes occurs due to a specific H pump denominated V-ATPase that maintains an inner acidic media (pH ≈5.5). This pH gradient against cytosol is also responsible for the vesicular accumulation of amines and Ca. When this gradient is reduced by modulation of the V-ATPase activity, catecholamines and Ca are moved toward the cytosol. In addition, some drugs largely accumulate inside LDCV and not only impair the accumulation of natural solutes, but also act as false neurotransmitters when they are co-released with catecholamines. There is much experimental evidence to conclude that the physiological modulation of vesicle pH and the manipulation of intravesicular media with drugs affect the LDCV cargo and change the kinetics of exocytosis. Here, we will present some experimental data demonstrating the participation of drugs in the kinetics of exocytosis through changes in the composition of vesicular media. We also offer a model to explain the regulation of exocytosis by the intravesicular media that conciliate the experimentally obtained data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]