Inter-Rater Variability in the Evaluation of Lung Ultrasound in Videos Acquired from COVID-19 Patients

12 páginas, 7 figuras, 1 tablaLung ultrasound (LUS) allows for the detection of a series of manifestations of COVID-19, such as B-lines and consolidations. The objective of this work was to study the inter-rater reliability (IRR) when detecting signs associated with COVID-19 in the LUS, as well as the performance of the test in a longitudinal or transverse orientation. Thirty-three physicians with advanced experience in LUS independently evaluated ultrasound videos previously acquired using the ULTRACOV system on 20 patients with confirmed COVID-19. For each patient, 24 videos of 3 s were acquired (using 12 positions with the probe in longitudinal and transverse orientations). The physicians had no information about the patients or other previous evaluations. The score assigned to each acquisition followed the convention applied in previous studies. A substantial IRR was found in the cases of normal LUS (κ = 0.74), with only a fair IRR for the presence of individual B-lines (κ = 0.36) and for confluent B-lines occupying 50% (κ = 0.50). No statistically significant differences between the longitudinal and transverse scans were found. The IRR for LUS of COVID-19 patients may benefit from more standardized clinical protocols.This research was partially funded by CDTI (Spanish acronym: Centre for Industrial Tech- nological Development), funding number COI-20201153. Partially supported by the Google Cloud Research Credits program with the funding number GCP19980904, by the project RTI2018-099118- A-I00 founded by MCIU/AEI/FEDER UE and by the European Commission–NextGenerationEU, through CSIC’s Global Health Platform (PTI Salud Global)

CIBERER : Spanish national network for research on rare diseases: A highly productive collaborative initiative

Altres ajuts: Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.CIBER (Center for Biomedical Network Research; Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red) is a public national consortium created in 2006 under the umbrella of the Spanish National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). This innovative research structure comprises 11 different specific areas dedicated to the main public health priorities in the National Health System. CIBERER, the thematic area of CIBER focused on rare diseases (RDs) currently consists of 75 research groups belonging to universities, research centers, and hospitals of the entire country. CIBERER's mission is to be a center prioritizing and favoring collaboration and cooperation between biomedical and clinical research groups, with special emphasis on the aspects of genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular research of RDs. This research is the basis for providing new tools for the diagnosis and therapy of low-prevalence diseases, in line with the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) objectives, thus favoring translational research between the scientific environment of the laboratory and the clinical setting of health centers. In this article, we intend to review CIBERER's 15-year journey and summarize the main results obtained in terms of internationalization, scientific production, contributions toward the discovery of new therapies and novel genes associated to diseases, cooperation with patients' associations and many other topics related to RD research

Volatile compounds other than CO2 emitted by different microorganisms promote distinct posttranscriptionally regulated responses in plants

A “box‐in‐box” cocultivation system was used to investigate plant responses to microbial volatile compounds (VCs) and to evaluate the contributions of organic and inorganic VCs (VOCs and VICs, respectively) to these responses. Arabidopsis plants were exposed to VCs emitted by adjacent Alternaria alternata and Penicillium aurantiogriseum cultures, with and without charcoal filtration. No VOCs were detected in the headspace of growth chambers containing fungal cultures with charcoal filters. However, these growth chambers exhibited elevated CO2 and bioactive CO and NO headspace concentrations. Independently of charcoal filtration, VCs from both fungal phytopathogens promoted growth and distinct developmental changes. Plants cultured at CO2 levels observed in growth boxes containing fungal cultures were identical to those cultured at ambient CO2. Plants exposed to charcoal‐filtered fungal VCs, nonfiltered VCs, or superelevated CO2 levels exhibited transcriptional changes resembling those induced by increased irradiance. Thus, in the “box‐in‐box” system, (a) fungal VICs other than CO2 and/or VOCs not detected by our analytical systems strongly influence the plants' responses to fungal VCs, (b) different microorganisms release VCs with distinct action potentials, (c) transcriptional changes in VC‐exposed plants are mainly due to enhanced photosynthesis signaling, and (d) regulation of some plant responses to fungal VCs is primarily posttranscriptional.This work was partially supported by the Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (Spain; grants BIO2013‐49125‐C2‐1‐P and BIO2016‐78747‐P) and the Government of Navarra (refs. P1044 AGROESTI and P1004 PROMEBIO).Peer reviewe

Promoción turística sostenible de la reserva de la biosfera Tajo-Tejo Internacional

Convocatoria proyectos de innovación de Extremadura 2020/2021Se describe un proyecto llevado acabo por varios centros educativos ubicados en la zona de la Reserva de la Biosfera Tajo-Tejo Internacional (RBTTI) que pretendía contribuir a la transformación sostenible del entorno mediante su conocimiento y promoción, implementando las competencias digital, social y ciudadana y la cultura emprendedora mediante metodologías activas como el aprendizaje servicio. Entre los objetivos principales del proyecto destacan: dar a conocer las implicaciones de la RBTTI; diseñar una campaña de promoción de la RBTTI mediante trípticos y vídeos promocionales; conocer la Reserva a través de las principales vías pecuarias y caminos que comunican los pueblos; descubrir los principales elementos socioculturales, históricos y tradicionales de la Reserva; valorar la importancia del territorio para conservar la biodiversidad: paisajes, ecosistemas, fauna y flora representativa; relacionar la trashumancia y las vías pecuarias como rasgos identificativos de la Reserva, vinculándolo con la historia y rasgos culturales de los pueblos y valorar el emprendimiento y la iniciativa personal, el asosiacionismo y creación de redes de cooperación en y entre pueblos como motor de desarrolloExtremaduraES

Revolution: Museo de las estrellas un paseo por la fama : Hollywood

Convocatoria proyectos de innovación de Extremadura 2020/2021Se describe un proyecto llevado a cabo entre 13 centros educativos extremeños que consistió en desarrollar cinco unidades de trabajo gamificadas, cinco historias detectivescas con misterios por resolver, donde se ponían a prueba las habilidades de lógica, la capacidad de observación, de concentración y de atención de los alumnos. Los objetivos principales de la propuesta fueron: promover la puesta en práctica de proyectos intercentros; impulsar pedagogías activas; desarrollar la competencia digital a través del uso de las pedagogías emergentes lo que ha permitido llevar a cabo una enseñanza presencial, híbrida y virtual y atender a la diversidadExtremaduraES

Contemporary use of cefazolin for MSSA infective endocarditis: analysis of a national prospective cohort

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the real use of cefazolin for methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) infective endocarditis (IE) in the Spanish National Endocarditis Database (GAMES) and to compare it with antistaphylococcal penicillin (ASP). Methods: Prospective cohort study with retrospective analysis of a cohort of MSSA IE treated with cloxacillin and/or cefazolin. Outcomes assessed were relapse; intra-hospital, overall, and endocarditis-related mortality; and adverse events. Risk of renal toxicity with each treatment was evaluated separately. Results: We included 631 IE episodes caused by MSSA treated with cloxacillin and/or cefazolin. Antibiotic treatment was cloxacillin, cefazolin, or both in 537 (85%), 57 (9%), and 37 (6%) episodes, respectively. Patients treated with cefazolin had significantly higher rates of comorbidities (median Charlson Index 7, P <0.01) and previous renal failure (57.9%, P <0.01). Patients treated with cloxacillin presented higher rates of septic shock (25%, P = 0.033) and new-onset or worsening renal failure (47.3%, P = 0.024) with significantly higher rates of in-hospital mortality (38.5%, P = 0.017). One-year IE-related mortality and rate of relapses were similar between treatment groups. None of the treatments were identified as risk or protective factors. Conclusion: Our results suggest that cefazolin is a valuable option for the treatment of MSSA IE, without differences in 1-year mortality or relapses compared with cloxacillin, and might be considered equally effective