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AbstractAlthough regions are becoming increasingly important in the liberalization of international trade, the academic literature has only explored the issue extensively in the case of the European Union (EU). With respect to other regions, little is known of the internal factors that enhance their external performance. This paper uses EU interregional trade negotiations to examine the factors within the EU's counterpart region that contribute to regional cohesiveness and facilitate the conclusion of an agreement. By applying the crisp‐set qualitative comparative analysis method to the 13 available cases, this paper finds that the external performance of other regions is not achieved through a combination of homogeneity of state preferences and strong institutions, as the EU literature suggests. While one or other of these factors may be necessary, they only work in conjunction with a favourable power distribution, that is, regional systems formed by a large hegemon and/or small open economies.

Este artículo revisa la construcción cultural de la transexualidad en España, desde la transición a la democracia hasta la actualidad. Para ello define tres periodos históricos (pregay, gay y posgay) y presenta el modo en que la transexualidad y el transgénero han sido construidos en cada uno de ellos. El objetivo es analizar las transformaciones sociales e identitarias que acontecen en España respecto al transgénero, centrando el foco de análisis en la transexualidad. Las categorías de travestí y de travestí operado fueron hegemónicas en el periodo pre-gay, mientras que la categoría transexual lo ha sido durante todo el periodo gay. Por su parte, en el periodo post-gay actual, la categoría transgenerista es una novedad conceptual y discursiva que incluye y, al mismo tiempo, va más allá de las categorías precedentes. El texto se centra en las mujeres transexuales. ; This article reviews the cultural construction of transsexuality in Spain from the democratic transition to the present. The paper defines three historic periods (pre-gay, gay, and post-gay) and shows how transsexuality and transgender have been construed throughout each of them. The paper aims to analyse the social and identity transformations that unfold in Spain in relation to transgender by focusing on transsexuality. The categories of transvestites and operated transvestites were hegemonic in the pre-gay period, whereas the category of transsexual was hegemonic over the whole gay period. By contrast, in the current post-gay period, the category of transgender is a conceptual and discursive novelty that includes and, at the same time, goes beyond the previous categories. The article focuses on transsexual women. ; - Grupo de investigación Antropología y Filosofía (SEJ-126). Universidad de Granada. - Área de Antropología Social. Universidad de Jaén. - Laborarorio de Antropología Social y Cultural (HUM-472). Universidad de Almería. - Departamento de Filosofía II. Universidad de Granada.

[Background] Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) operating with complex microbial communities have been extensively reported in the past, and are commonly used in applications such as wastewater treatment, bioremediation or in-situ powering of environmental sensors. However, our knowledge on how the composition of the microbial community and the different types of electron transfer to the anode affect the performance of these bioelectrochemical systems is far from complete. To fill this gap of knowledge, we designed a set of three MFCs with different constrains limiting direct and mediated electron transfer to the anode. ; [Results] The results obtained indicate that MFCs with a naked anode on which a biofilm was allowed unrestricted development (MFC-A) had the most diverse archaeal and bacterial community, and offered the best performance. In this MFC both, direct and mediated electron transfer, occurred simultaneously, but direct electron transfer was the predominant mechanism. Microbial fuel cells in which the anode was enclosed in a dialysis membrane and biofilm was not allowed to develop (MFC-D), had a much lower power output (about 60% lower), and a prevalence of dissolved redox species that acted as putative electron shuttles. In the anolyte of this MFC, Arcobacter and Methanosaeta were the prevalent bacteria and archaea respectively. In the third MFC, in which the anode had been covered by a cation selective nafion membrane (MFC-N), power output decreased a further 5% (95% less than MFC-A). In this MFC, conventional organic electron shuttles could not operate and the low power output obtained was presumably attributed to fermentation end-products produced by some of the organisms present in the anolyte, probably Pseudomonas or Methanosaeta. ; [Conclusion] Electron transfer mechanisms have an impact on the development of different microbial communities and in turn on MFC performance. Although a stable current was achieved in all cases, direct electron transfer MFC showed the best performance concluding that biofilms are the major contributors to current production in MFCs. Characterization of the complex microbial assemblages in these systems may help us to unveil new electrogenic microorganisms and improve our understanding on their role to the functioning of MFCs. ; This work was partially funded by projects RTC-2016-5766-2, CTQ2014–54553-C3–2-R and CTQ2014–61809-EXP to JM from the Spanish Government, with participation of the European Regional Development Fund. ; Peer reviewed

8 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables ; The present study assesses the contribution of dark carbon fixation to the primary production in the oxic/anoxic interface of a shallow estuarine environment that develops a salt-water wedge with the presence of sulfide. Primary production was partitioned into oxygenic photosynthesis, anoxygenic photosynthesis and dark fixation. The results show the importance of dark fixation in the oxic/anoxic interface with values higher than 5 mg carbon fixed per cubic meter and per hour in some cases. The average rate of primary production in the dark during the anoxic season for the Ebro River salt wedge resulted in 42 mg C m-2 d-1 in the interface. This represents at least twice the contribution of oxygenic photosynthesis to the primary production in such interface. Because this process is probably important in other salt-wedge or highly stratified estuaries with oxic/anoxic interfaces containing sulfide, the estimates of carbon fixation made so far for these systems may have been underestimated, and should therefore be revised taking into account the contribution of dark processes ; This work was financed by DGICyT grant PB87-0183 from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia. J.G.-C. was supported by a FPI scholarship from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia. During the writing of this work, E.O.C. was supported by MIDAS (MIcrobial Diversity in Aquatic Systems, MAS3-CT97-0154) from the European Union ; Peer reviewed

[Background]: Melon shows a broad diversity in fruit morphology and quality, which is still underexploited in breeding programs. The knowledge of the genetic basis of fruit quality traits is important for identifying new alleles that may be introduced in elite material by highly efficient molecular breeding tools. ; [Results]: In order to identify QTLs controlling fruit quality, a recombinant inbred line population was developed using two commercial cultivars as parental lines: "Védrantais", from the cantalupensis group, and "Piel de Sapo", from the inodorus group. Both have desirable quality traits for the market, but their fruits differ in traits such as rind and flesh color, sugar content, ripening behavior, size and shape. We used a genotyping-by-sequencing strategy to construct a dense genetic map, which included around five thousand variants distributed in 824 bins. The RIL population was phenotyped for quality and morphology traits, and we mapped 33 stable QTLs involved in sugar and carotenoid content, fruit and seed morphology and major loci controlling external color of immature fruit and mottled rind. The median confidence interval of the QTLs was 942 kb, suggesting that the high density of the genetic map helped in increasing the mapping resolution. Some of these intervals contained less than a hundred annotated genes, and an integrative strategy combining gene expression and resequencing data enabled identification of candidate genes for some of these traits. ; [Conclusion]: Several QTLs controlling fruit quality traits in melon were identified and delimited to narrow genomic intervals, using a RIL population and a GBS-based genetic map. ; This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness grant AGL2015–64625-C2–1-R, Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D 2016–2010 (SEV-2015-0533) and the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya to JGM. LP was supported by a FPI grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. VR was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 6655919. ; Peer reviewed

Introgression lines are valuable germplasm for scientists and breeders, since they ease genetic studies such as QTL interactions and positional cloning as well as the introduction of favorable alleles into elite varieties. We developed a novel introgression line collection in melon using two commercial European varieties with different ripening behavior, the climacteric cantalupensis 'Védrantais' as recurrent parent and the non-climacteric inodorus 'Piel de Sapo' as donor parent. The collection contains 34 introgression lines, covering 99% of the donor genome. The mean introgression size is 18.16 Mb and ~ 3 lines were obtained per chromosome, on average. The high segregation of these lines for multiple fruit quality traits allowed us to identify 27 QTLs that modified sugar content, altered fruit morphology or were involved in climacteric ripening. In addition, we confirmed the genomic location of five major genes previously described, which control mainly fruit appearance, such as mottled rind and external color. Most of the QTLs had been reported before in other populations sharing parental lines, while three QTLs (EAROQP11.3, ECDQP11.2 and FIRQP4.1) were newly detected in our work. These introgression lines would be useful to perform additional genetic studies, as fine mapping and gene pyramiding, especially for important complex traits such as fruit weight and climacteric ripening. ; This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Grants AGL2015-64625-C2-1-R and RTI2018-097665-B-C2, Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D 2016–2010 (SEV-2015-0533) and the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya to J.G.-M. L.P., L.V. and M.S.D. were supported by a FPI grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and CM was supported by 2019 FI_B 00124 project from the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya and the co-funding of the European Social Fund (ESF—"ESF is investing in your future") from the European Union. ; Peer reviewed

The detection of living organisms at very low concentrations is necessary for the early diagnosis of bacterial infections, but it is still challenging as there is a need for signal amplification. Cell culture, nucleic acid amplification, or nanostructure-based signal enhancement are the most common amplification methods, relying on long, tedious, complex, or expensive procedures. Here, we present a cyanotype-based photochemical amplification reaction enabling the detection of low bacterial concentrations up to a single-cell level. Photocatalysis is induced with visible light and requires bacterial metabolism of iron-based compounds to produce Prussian Blue. Bacterial activity is thus detected through the formation of an observable blue precipitate within 3 h of the reaction, which corresponds to the concentration of living organisms. The short time-to-result and simplicity of the reaction are expected to strongly impact the clinical diagnosis of infectious diseases. ; This project has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodow-ska-Curie grant agreement no. 675412 as a part of the consortium New Diagnostics for Infectious Diseases (ND4ID). G.G. thanks the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain for financial support through the project PID2019-106171RB-I00. Patent (P42106384SE00) based on part of this work was granted. M.-P.M. and L.V. would like to thank the Ministry of Science and Innovation (SAF2015-67476-R and RTI2018-096278-B-C21) and Fundación Marató de TV3 (TV32018-201825-30-31). ; Peer reviewed

Melon is as an alternative model to understand fruit ripening due to the coexistence of climacteric and non-climacteric varieties within the same species, allowing the study of the processes that regulate this complex trait with genetic approaches. We phenotyped a population of recombinant inbred lines (RILs), obtained by crossing a climacteric (Védrantais, cantalupensis type) and a non-climcteric variety (Piel de Sapo T111, inodorus type), for traits related to climacteric maturation and ethylene production. Individuals in the RIL population exhibited various combinations of phenotypes that differed in the amount of ethylene produced, the early onset of ethylene production, and other phenotypes associated with ripening. We characterized a major QTL on chromosome 8, ETHQV8.1, which is sufficient to activate climacteric ripening, and other minor QTLs that may modulate the climacteric response. The ETHQV8.1 allele was validated by using two reciprocal introgression line populations generated by crossing Védrantais and Piel de Sapo and analyzing the ETHQV8.1 region in each of the genetic backgrounds. A Genome-wide association study (GWAS) using 211 accessions of the ssp. melo further identified two regions on chromosome 8 associated with the production of aromas, one of these regions overlapping with the 154.1 kb interval containing ETHQV8.1. The ETHQV8.1 region contains several candidate genes that may be related to fruit ripening. This work sheds light into the regulation mechanisms of a complex trait such as fruit ripening. ; This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness grants AGL2015–64625-C2–1-R and RTI2018-097665-B-C2, Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D 2016–2010 (SEV-2015-0533) and the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya to J.G.-M., L.P. and M.S.-D. were supported by a FPI grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. V.R. was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 6655919. Y.X. was supported by the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-25). ; Peer reviewed

We report an improved assembly (v3.6.1) of the melon (Cucumis melo L.) genome and a new genome annotation (v4.0). The optical mapping approach allowed correcting the order and the orientation of 21 previous scaffolds and permitted to correctly define the gap-size extension along the 12 pseudomolecules. A new comprehensive annotation was also built in order to update the previous annotation v3.5.1, released more than six years ago. Using an integrative annotation pipeline, based on exhaustive RNA-Seq collections and ad-hoc transposable element annotation, we identified 29,980 protein-coding loci. Compared to the previous version, the v4.0 annotation improved gene models in terms of completeness of gene structure, UTR regions definition, intron-exon junctions and reduction of fragmented genes. More than 8,000 new genes were identified, one third of them being well supported by RNA-Seq data. To make all the new resources easily exploitable and completely available for the scientific community, a redesigned Melonomics genomic platform was released at http://melonomics.net. The resources produced in this work considerably increase the reliability of the melon genome assembly and resolution of the gene models paving the way for further studies in melon and related species. ; This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness grant AGL2015–64625-C2-1-R, Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D 2016–2010 (SEV-2015–0533) and the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya to JGM. VR was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 665919. ; Peer reviewed