La participación de las personas mayores en talleres y su efecto sobre la soledad

Treball Final de Grau en Psicologia. Codi: PS1048. Curs: 2018/2019.Es importante valorar que la calidad de vida de una persona no solo está determinada por la salud física, sino también por la emocional. Existen evidencias del efecto que la soledad o el aislamiento social puede tener en la depresión, la ansiedad, la calidad de vida o incluso la mortalidad. La participación de las personas mayores en cualquier tipo de actividad tiene efectos positivos sobre su calidad de vida y bienestar. El objetivo de este estudio es comprobar el efecto que tiene la participación de las personas mayores en talleres sobre su sensación de soledad. Se ha utilizado un diseño cuasi experimental con grupo de control no equivalente y sólo postest. El grupo experimental ha participado en un taller sobre estimulación cognitiva, el grupo control no ha participado. La muestra estaba formada por 10 personas. Se ha evaluado la soledad con la escala UCLA de soledad formada por 10 ítems y validada en población española por Velarde. (VelardeMayol, Fragua-Gil & García-de-Cecilia, 2015) Los análisis permiten observar la existencia de diferencias significativas entre los dos grupos. Las personas que han participado en el taller poseen unos niveles de soledad menores a las personas que no han participado. Finalmente, aunque se han encontrado diferencias significativas entre los dos grupos, pueden existir otras variables que no se han evaluado, que pueden tener efecto en la sensación de soledad. El diseño cuasiexperimental posee una validez interna que podría ser aumentada incluyendo, en un posterior estudio, la evaluación pretest para conocer el nivel de soledad previo al inicio de los talleres

Differential expression profile of CXCR3 splicing variants is associated with thyroid neoplasia. Potential role in papillary thyroid carcinoma oncogenesis?

Indexación: Scopus.Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is the most prevalent endocrine neoplasia. The increased incidence of PTC in patients with thyroiditis and the frequent immune infiltrate found in PTC suggest that inflammation might be a risk factor for PTC development. The CXCR3-ligand system is involved in thyroid inflammation and CXCR3 has been found upregulated in many tumors, suggesting its pro-tumorigenic role under the inflammatory microenvironment. CXCR3 ligands (CXCL4, CXCL9, CXCL10 and CXCL11) trigger antagonistic responses partly due to the presence of two splice variants, CXCR3A and CXCR3B. Whereas CXCR3A promotes cell proliferation, CXCR3B induces apoptosis. However, the relation between CXCR3 variant expression with chronic inflammation and PTC development remains unknown. Here, we characterized the expression pattern of CXCR3 variants and their ligands in benign tumors and PTC. We found that CXCR3A and CXCL10 mRNA levels were increased in non-metastatic PTC when compared to non-neoplastic tissue. This increment was also observed in a PTC epithelial cell line (TPC-1). Although elevated protein levels of both isoforms were detected in benign and malignant tumors, the CXCR3A expression remained greater than CXCR3B and promoted proliferation in Nthy-ori-3-1 cells. In non-metastatic PTC, inflammation was conditioning for the CXCR3 ligands increased availability. Consistently, CXCL10 was strongly induced by interferon gamma in normal and tumor thyrocytes. Our results suggest that persistent inflammation upregulates CXCL10 expression favoring tumor development via enhanced CXCR3A-CXCL10 signaling. These findings may help to further understand the contribution of inflammation as a risk factor in PTC development and set the basis for potential therapeutic studies.http://www.oncotarget.com/index.php?journal=oncotarget&page=article&op=view&path[]=23502&path[]=7402

Diagnosing Market Power in Chile´s Electricity Industry

Chile’s electricity market is modeled as a Cournot duopoly with a competitive fringe. Due to the importance of hydro-storage resources (62% of total generation in 2000) particular care was given to the hydro scheduling issue. The model was estimated over a 1-month planning horizon using real cost and load data for April 2000. I found that the largest producer would be able to get markups that ranged from 66% to 76% (72% in average) when price elasticity was –1/3. In addition hydro resources are inefficiently allocated as production is shifted from high demand periods to low demand periods. Final equilibrium is sensitive to the value of the price elasticity of demand. Four different measures that could be implemented to reduce the potential for market power were analyzed: the divestiture of all or a fraction of Firm 1’s hydro capacity, the divestiture of all of its thermal plants and the role of contracts. Results indicated that since Firm 1 exercises its market power mainly through its hydro resources, the divestiture of the thermal plants would have a negligible effect in the degree of market power that is exercised, although total output and price are closer to the competitive equilibrium. The divestiture of hydro plants, although an effective measure in terms of reducing distortions, would probably be difficult to implement. Requiring producers to sign contracts in advance proved to be successful in reducing incentives to manipulate prices by the firms; in addition, I found that the more contracted is the firm, hydro scheduling is more efficient, meaning that more hydro production is allocated to periods of high demand and less to periods of low demand.

Evolution of YidC/Oxa1/Alb3 insertases: three independent gene duplications followed by functional specialization in bacteria, mitochondria and chloroplasts

Members of the YidC/Oxa1/Alb3 protein family facilitate the insertion, folding and assembly of proteins of the inner membranes of bacteria and mitochondria and the thylakoid membrane of plastids. All homologs share a conserved hydrophobic core region comprising five transmembrane domains. On the basis of phylogenetic analyses, six subgroups of the family can be distinguished which presumably arose from three independent gene duplications followed by functional specialization. During evolution of bacteria, mitochondria and chloroplasts, subgroup-specific regions were added to the core domain to facilitate the association with ribosomes or other components contributing to the substrate spectrum of YidC/Oxa1/Alb3 proteins

Confession, Hybridity, and Language in Gina Apostol’s Gun Dealers’ Daughter

In Gun Dealers’ Daughter, Gina Apostol creates multiple tensions reflecting the relationship between the United States and the Philippines and among different linguistic codes. Languages mix throughout the text, set in the Marcos Era Philippines, as symbols of fluidity and disorientation. Other characters’ frequent complex linguistic mix proves alienating for protagonist and narrator Soledad Soliman. Apostol renders Soledad as a young girl disoriented by her inability to competently use native Filipino languages because she spent most of her childhood in the United States and simultaneously traumatized by her role as the daughter of a member of former President Ferdinand Marcos’s inner circle

Candilejas

Candilejas es, ante todo, la soledad. Pero esta soledad no se presenta aquí como algo aislado y gratuito sino que afronta la presentación de sus causas y consecuencia