Participatory visioning for building disruptive future scenarios for transport and land use planning

Participatory visioning in transport scenario building can be particularly useful to anticipate and examine unexpected outcomes over long-term future timelines, providing broad legitimacy to today's decision-making processes. However, the strategic value of participatory approaches is increasingly being contested due to the difficulty to operationalize non-linear thinking, resulting in long-term visions similar to business-as-usual projections. To address this challenge, we developed and implemented a novel participatory visioning approach based on using semi-structured interviews that incorporate two types of wild cards &- low probability and high impact processes &- as disruptive visioning triggers: imaginable and unimaginable processes. A group of experts evaluated the level of disruptive thinking in the generated future visions. The Henares Corridor in the Metropolitan Area of Madrid, Spain provided the empirical focus. The results present a total of seven 2050 visions: one desired common vision plus six wild card visions. Higher levels of disruptive thinking were mainly present in those future visions generated by unimaginable processes, as such processes initiate highly diverging participant future views. It was also noted that smaller and specific groups of participants can visualize 2050 futures more disruptively. Conclusions and reflections on the strengths and weakness of the presented approach are drawn

Sistema de calentamiento por inducción electromagnética para pruebas experimentales en laboratorios de Físico-Química

En los laboratorios de Físico - Química se utilizan equipos de calentamiento tales como Estufas, Hornos / Muflas, Parrillas de calentamiento, Autoclaves y Baño María, los cuales generan el calor a partir de resistencias eléctricas. Aunque permiten alcanzar los niveles de temperatura deseados, el tiempo en el que lo logran no siempre es satisfactorio cuando se requieren resultados rápidos. En este documento se presenta el diseño de un sistema que utiliza la inducción electromagnética para calentar el recipiente en donde se encuentra el material o solución en estudio, alcanzando temperaturas de hasta 500 °C en 4 minutos para algunas aplicaciones; el sistema cuenta con un control de temperatura y una interfaz gráfica de usuario para monitorear el tiempo en el que alcanzó la temperatura deseada, el tiempo de calentamiento, tiempo de enfriamiento y el historial de pruebas.Palabra(s) Clave(s): efecto cortical, frecuencia de resonancia, inducciónelectromagnética, interfaz gráfica de usuario, tanque resonante

Subcutaneous anti-COVID-19 hyperimmune immunoglobulin for prevention of disease in asymptomatic individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised clinical trialResearch in context

Summary: Background: Anti-COVID-19 hyperimmune immunoglobulin (hIG) can provide standardized and controlled antibody content. Data from controlled clinical trials using hIG for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 outpatients have not been reported. We assessed the safety and efficacy of subcutaneous anti-COVID-19 hyperimmune immunoglobulin 20% (C19-IG20%) compared to placebo in preventing development of symptomatic COVID-19 in asymptomatic individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: We did a multicentre, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, in asymptomatic unvaccinated adults (≥18 years of age) with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection within 5 days between April 28 and December 27, 2021. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to receive a blinded subcutaneous infusion of 10 mL with 1 g or 2 g of C19-IG20%, or an equivalent volume of saline as placebo. The primary endpoint was the proportion of participants who remained asymptomatic through day 14 after infusion. Secondary endpoints included the proportion of individuals who required oxygen supplementation, any medically attended visit, hospitalisation, or ICU, and viral load reduction and viral clearance in nasopharyngeal swabs. Safety was assessed as the proportion of patients with adverse events. The trial was terminated early due to a lack of potential benefit in the target population in a planned interim analysis conducted in December 2021. ClinicalTrials.gov registry: NCT04847141. Findings: 461 individuals (mean age 39.6 years [SD 12.8]) were randomized and received the intervention within a mean of 3.1 (SD 1.27) days from a positive SARS-CoV-2 test. In the prespecified modified intention-to-treat analysis that included only participants who received a subcutaneous infusion, the primary outcome occurred in 59.9% (91/152) of participants receiving 1 g C19-IG20%, 64.7% (99/153) receiving 2 g, and 63.5% (99/156) receiving placebo (difference in proportions 1 g C19-IG20% vs. placebo, −3.6%; 95% CI -14.6% to 7.3%, p = 0.53; 2 g C19-IG20% vs placebo, 1.1%; −9.6% to 11.9%, p = 0.85). None of the secondary clinical efficacy endpoints or virological endpoints were significantly different between study groups. Adverse event rate was similar between groups, and no severe or life-threatening adverse events related to investigational product infusion were reported. Interpretation: Our findings suggested that administration of subcutaneous human hyperimmune immunoglobulin C19-IG20% to asymptomatic individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection was safe but did not prevent development of symptomatic COVID-19. Funding: Grifols