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National levels of personal health-care access and quality can be approximated by measuring mortality rates from causes that should not be fatal in the presence of effective medical care (ie, amenable mortality). Previous analyses of mortality amenable to health care only focused on high-income countries and faced several methodological challenges. In the present analysis, we use the highly standardised cause of death and risk factor estimates generated through the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) to improve and expand the quantification of personal health-care access and quality for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2015. We mapped the most widely used list of causes amenable to personal health care developed by Nolte and McKee to 32 GBD causes. We accounted for variations in cause of death certification and misclassifications through the extensive data standardisation processes and redistribution algorithms developed for GBD. To isolate the effects of personal health-care access and quality, we risk-standardised cause-specific mortality rates for each geography-year by removing the joint effects of local environmental and behavioural risks, and adding back the global levels of risk exposure as estimated for GBD 2015. We employed principal component analysis to create a single, interpretable summary measure–the Healthcare Quality and Access (HAQ) Index–on a scale of 0 to 100. The HAQ Index showed strong convergence validity as compared with other health-system indicators, including health expenditure per capita (r=0·88), an index of 11 universal health coverage interventions (r=0·83), and human resources for health per 1000 (r=0·77). We used free disposal hull analysis with bootstrapping to produce a frontier based on the relationship between the HAQ Index and the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a measure of overall development consisting of income per capita, average years of education, and total fertility rates. This frontier allowed us to better quantify the maximum levels of personal health-care access and quality achieved across the development spectrum, and pinpoint geographies where gaps between observed and potential levels have narrowed or widened over time. Between 1990 and 2015, nearly all countries and territories saw their HAQ Index values improve; nonetheless, the difference between the highest and lowest observed HAQ Index was larger in 2015 than in 1990, ranging from 28·6 to 94·6. Of 195 geographies, 167 had statistically significant increases in HAQ Index levels since 1990, with South Korea, Turkey, Peru, China, and the Maldives recording among the largest gains by 2015. Performance on the HAQ Index and individual causes showed distinct patterns by region and level of development, yet substantial heterogeneities emerged for several causes, including cancers in highest-SDI countries; chronic kidney disease, diabetes, diarrhoeal diseases, and lower respiratory infections among middle-SDI countries; and measles and tetanus among lowest-SDI countries. While the global HAQ Index average rose from 40·7 (95% uncertainty interval, 39·0–42·8) in 1990 to 53·7 (52·2–55·4) in 2015, far less progress occurred in narrowing the gap between observed HAQ Index values and maximum levels achieved; at the global level, the difference between the observed and frontier HAQ Index only decreased from 21·2 in 1990 to 20·1 in 2015. If every country and territory had achieved the highest observed HAQ Index by their corresponding level of SDI, the global average would have been 73·8 in 2015. Several countries, particularly in eastern and western sub-Saharan Africa, reached HAQ Index values similar to or beyond their development levels, whereas others, namely in southern sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and south Asia, lagged behind what geographies of similar development attained between 1990 and 2015. This novel extension of the GBD Study shows the untapped potential for personal health-care access and quality improvement across the development spectrum. Amid substantive advances in personal health care at the national level, heterogeneous patterns for individual causes in given countries or territories suggest that few places have consistently achieved optimal health-care access and quality across health-system functions and therapeutic areas. This is especially evident in middle-SDI countries, many of which have recently undergone or are currently experiencing epidemiological transitions. The HAQ Index, if paired with other measures of health-system characteristics such as intervention coverage, could provide a robust avenue for tracking progress on universal health coverage and identifying local priorities for strengthening personal health-care quality and access throughout the world. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Eutrophication is a main threat to continental aquatic ecosystems. Prevention and amelioration actions have been taken under the assumption of a stable climate, which needs reconsideration. Here, we show that reduced precipitation can bring a lake ecosystem to a more productive regime even with a decline in nutrient external load. By analyzing time series of several decades in the largest lake of the Iberian Peninsula, we found autocorrelated changes in the variance of state variables (i.e., chlorophyll and oxygen) indicative of a transient situation towards a new ecosystem regime. Indeed, exceptional planktonic diatom blooms have occurred during the last few years, and the sediment record shows a shift in phytoplankton composition and an increase in nutrient retention. Reduced precipitation almost doubled the water residence time in the lake, enhancing the relevance of internal processes. This study demonstrates that ecological quality targets for aquatic ecosystems must be tailored to the changing climatic conditions for appropriate stewardship.

There is just one book about the Kurujuki battle between the Chiriguano Indians and the Republican Army in 1892, in the Bolivian Chaco. Hernando Sanabria Fernández, the author, recreated Biblical history by tracing the Chiriguano tumpa on the Christ figure. This imagery is still repeated by historians and several social actors, and lies at the base of current representations of the battle. The book by Sanabria Fernández thus became the Bible that his author aspired to rewrite.

The 600-km-long Ollo de Sapo Formation was generated during the Cambro-Ordovician rifting that affected the pre-Variscan basement of Europe and represents the largest accumulation of pre-Variscan igneous rocks in Iberia. It consists of, variably metamorphosed felsic volcanic rocks and granites characterized by an abnormally elevated zircon inheritance, (70%-80% or more of the zircon grains contain premagmatic cores), the age of which has long been a matter of debate. This article presents the results of dating the northwestern area of the Ollo de Sapo Formation via U-Pb spot ion-microprobe and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) and Pb-Pb single-grain zircon analysis complementing our previous results from the southeastern area of the formation, and the results of a survey of the major and trace element and Sr-Nd isotope composition of these rocks, which unequivocally indicate that they are crustal melts. The age span recorded in the northwestern Ollo de Sapo Formation is 492-486 Ma, with the only exception being the San Sebastian metagranite (470±3 Ma), a small body with notably less zircon inheritance and a Sr Nd isotope composition more primitive than the rest of the Ollo de Sapo rocks. When these results are considered jointly with other reliable zircon ages of similar rocks from all over Iberia, it may be deduced that in the Central Iberian Zone the Cambro-Ordovician rifting started at ∼495 Ma, reached a maximum between 492 and 483 Ma, and ceased at ∼470 Ma. The age pattern of inherited zircons of the Ollo de Sapo Formation reveals that the source of the Cambro-Ordovician magmas was mostly igneous rocks of Ediacaran age, with minor Orosirian and Archean components. A detailed study of these components might be key for revealing which part of the north was connected to Iberia before the early Paleozoic breakup of Gondwana.

The molecular biomarker composition of two sediment cores from Sanabria Lake (NW Iberian Peninsula) and a survey of modern plants in the watershed provide a reconstruction of past vegetation and landscape dynamics since deglaciation. During a proglacial stage in Lake Sanabria (prior to 14.7 cal ka BP), very low biomarker concentration and carbon preference index (CPI) values ~1 suggest that the n -alkanes could have derived from eroded ancient sediment sources or older organic matter with high degree of maturity. During the Late glacial (14.7–11.7 cal ka BP) and the Holocene (last 11.7 cal ka BP) intervals with higher biomarker and triterpenoid concentrations (high % n C 29 , n C 31 alkanes), higher CPI and average carbon length (ACL), and lower P aq (proportion of aquatic plants) are indicative of major contribution of vascular land plants from a more forested watershed (e.g. Mid Holocene period 7.0–4.0 cal ka BP). Lower biomarker concentrations (high % n C 27 alkanes), CPI and ACL values responded to short phases with decreased allochthonous contribution into the lake that correspond to centennial-scale periods of regional forest decline (e.g. 4–3 ka BP, Roman deforestation after 2.0 ka, and some phases of the LIA, seventeenth–nineteenth centuries). Human activities in the watershed were significant during early medieval times (1.3–1.0 cal ka BP) and since 1960 CE, in both cases associated with relatively higher productivity stages in the lake (lower biomarker and triterpenoid concentrations, high % n C 23 and % n C 31 respectively, lower ACL and CPI values and higher P aq ). The lipid composition of Sanabria Lake sediments indicates a major allochthonous (watershed-derived) contribution to the organic matter budget since deglaciation, and a dominant oligotrophic status during the lake history. The study constrains the climate and anthropogenic forcings and watershed versus lake sources in organic matter accumulation processes and helps to design conservation and management policies in mountain, oligotrophic lakes.

This note deals with a Latin epigraph from Paramio, in Zamora province, Spain. Due to its geographical location, the area belonged to the conventus Asturum. The inscription deserves commenting for its onomastic and formulae and because it has a non easy–to–discern purpose. Edición y comentario de un epígrafe latino procedente de Paramio, provincia de Zamora, y que por su situación geográfica, perteneció al conventus Asturum. La inscripción es interesante por su onomática y formulario y porque no es evidente su funcionalidad.

Various pollen sequences from lacustrine deposits close to Lago de Sanabria (NW Iberia) have for several decades been a key source of information for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions of SW Europe, though their interpretation has been the subject of some controversy. Here we present two new pollen sequences obtained from this area, and a new palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the region. The available pollen data reach back to before 18,000 B.P., a period of very harsh climate with seasonal (non continuous) sedimentation and a landscape characterised by herbaceous formations dominated by Gramineae and Artemisia, and scrub formations dominated by Ericaceae and Cistaceae. Subsequently sedimentation became continuous, and various regional forest expansions are apparent. At a local level, the first forest expansion began about 12,000 B.P., when Betula pollen reached 70% followed by peaks in Pinus sylvestris-type (>80%) and Quercus robur-type (40%). The Younger Dryas saw a retreat of woodland formations in the area around the lake, with broadleaved deciduous woodland (largely oak) retreating at mid and low altitudes, but with pine woodland persisting in more sheltered sites. The climatic improvement in the Early Holocene favoured re-expansion of woodland, dominated by Pinus sylvestris-type at higher and Quercus robur and Q. pyrenaica at lower altitudes, until anthropogenic deforestation commenced around 4,000 B.P. The disappearance of natural pine woodlands in this region is probably largely attributable to human interference.

Desde principios del siglo XXI ha surgido en Argentina una amplia variedad de textos narrativos, películas, obras teatrales, blogs, poesía y otras representaciones artísticas a cargo de los hijos de padres desaparecidos por la última dictadura militar.1 En su mayoría, la generación postdictatorial se aleja de las representaciones históricas y de la violencia de Estado de la década de los ochenta y noventa. En cambio, la literatura intergeneracional explora el pasado desde el presente, preocupándose más por las búsquedas interiores y las elecciones personales. Como parte del corpus de literatura transgeneracional, han surgido voces de hijos de desaparecidos que actualmente residen en el extranjero y que cuando niños vivieron junto con sus padres el terror de la violencia de Estado, la persecución, el desarraigo y el exilio. En este ensayo indagamos en la poesía de una hija de militantes (des) aparecidos, Ruth Irupé Sanabria, quien actualmente reside en Perth Amboy, Nueva Jersey. Su reciente colección poética, Beasts Behave in Foreign Land (Red Hen Press 2017), entreteje las memorias personales de la poeta en la Argentina de los setenta con el presente en Estados Unidos. Su poesía dialoga con la de su propia madre, Alicia Partnoy, una militante política secuestrada en Bahía Blanca, Argentina, en 1977, por las fuerzas militares en presencia de la poeta, cuando esta tenía dieciocho meses.

This paper analyzes the impact of fieldwork on the development of students’ mental models concerning glaciers and their effects on the landscape. Data were collected by means of an open-ended questionnaire that was administered to 279 pre-service teachers before and after an educational field trip, which analyzed its impact on short-term and long-term outcomes. In general, students’ mental models about how glaciers function and how they create landforms are relatively simplistic and incomplete. Students are unaware of the major erosional properties associated with glaciers and many of them do not specify that glaciers are bodies of ice that have a tendency to move down slope. The analysis of the data yielded four mental model categories. Fieldwork influenced the short-term effects on mental model development even though its positive impact decreases over time. Mental models including scientific views were only found in the post-instruction group. On the other hand, the pre-instruction group was strongly influenced by a catastrophic event that occurred in the region in 1959 (the Ribadelago flooding), which interferes with students’ mental reasoning on the formation of landscape features. This way of thinking is reinforced and/or mixed with a religious myth (Villaverde de Lucerna legend), which also invokes a catastrophic origin of the lake. In this case, this includes mystic flooding.

Monthly limnological monitoring in Lake Sanabria (Spain) since 1986 provided a unique opportunity to test relationships among climate, hydrology and lake dynamics and how they are recorded in the lake sediments. Four datasets were employed: (1) meteorological (monthly maximum and minimum air temperature and total precipitation), (2) limnological (Secchi disk, water temperature, conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, silicon, total and reactive phosphorus, and total chlorophylls and chlorophyll a ), (3) hydrological (Tera River water input and output), and (4) XRF core scanner measurements carried out in short cores. Linear models between the different dataset variables allowed us to characterize the climate signal transmission from one to the other and cross-correlation analyses permitted us to identify the different response times (if any) between them. Principal Component Analyses (PCA) of the limnological and geochemical datasets allowed us to identify the main processes that link lake dynamics, primarily nutrient supply and organic productivity, with some sedimentological processes, e.g. organic matter and phosphorus accumulation. Sediment chronology was established by gamma spectrometry ( 210 Pb). Water input to Lake Sanabria is controlled mostly by the Tera River input and is linked directly to precipitation. Response of the Lake Sanabria water budget to climate oscillations is immediate, as the strongest correlation between these two datasets occurs with no lag time. PCA of the limnological dataset indicated that most of the variance is related to nutrient input, and comparison with the Tera River water discharge shows that nutrient input was controlled mainly by oscillations in the hydrological balance. The lag time between the hydrological and limnological datasets is 1 month. The PCA of the XRF core scanner dataset showed that the principal process that controls the chemical composition of the Lake Sanabria sediments is related to sediment and nutrient delivery from the Tera River and organic productivity. Comparison of the nutrient input reconstructed using the limnological dataset and the XRF core scanner data indicated that the sediments act as a low-pass filter, smoothing the climate signal. It was, however, possible to establish the link between these datasets, and obtain a quantitative reconstruction of precipitation for the 1959–2005 AD period that captures the regional variability. This quantitative precipitation reconstruction suggests it is possible to obtain accurate climate reconstructions using non-laminated sediments.