Caracterización de yeso reciclado de calidad y placa de yeso laminado con contenido reciclado maximizado

The quality of secondary materials is imperative to promote a circular economy. In order to improve the way in which the quality of recycled gypsum is assessed, European guidelines on recycled gypsum (RG) quality criteria have been outlined in the framework of the Life+ Gypsum to Gypsum (GtoG) project. Such GtoG guidelines, along with the European Standard on gypsum plasterboard EN 520, provided the basis for this study. During the GtoG project, gypsum recycling and plasterboard manufacturing processes were monitored by testing the gypsum feedstock and the plasterboard produced. The aim of this paper is to discuss the results obtained on relevant parameters that characterize gypsum as a secondary raw material, as well as the resulting product. The minimum requirements were fulfilled by 56% of the RG samples and 86% of the plasterboard with increased RG.La calidad de las materias primas secundarias es fundamental para promover una economía circular. En el marco del proyecto Life+ Gypsum to Gypsum (GtoG), y con el objeto de mejorar el análisis de la calidad del yeso reciclado, se han desarrollado orientaciones en cuanto a los criterios de calidad del material. Estas directrices voluntarias, junto a la norma europea EN 520, son la base del presente trabajo. Los procesos de reciclaje y fabricación se monitorizaron durante el proyecto GtoG, mediante el ensayo de materias primas y placas de yeso laminado. El objetivo del presente artículo es discutir las propiedades del yeso como materia prima secundaria, así como del producto obtenido. Un 56% de las muestras de RG y un 86% de las placas con aumento de contenido de RG cumplieron los requisitos mínimos establecidos

Integrating Deep-Web Information Sources

Deep-web information sources are difficult to integrate into automated business processes if they only provide a search form. A wrapping agent is a piece of software that allows a developer to query such information sources without worrying about the details of interacting with such forms. Our goal is to help soft ware engineers construct wrapping agents that interpret queries written in high-level structured languages. We think that this shall definitely help reduce integration costs because this shall relieve developers from the burden of transforming their queries into low-level interactions in an ad-hoc manner. In this paper, we report on our reference framework, delve into the related work, and highlight current research challenges. This is intended to help guide future research efforts in this area.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2007-64119Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-2602Junta de Andalucía P08-TIC-4100Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2008-04718-

Serum levels of caspase-cleaved cytokeratin-18 and mortality are associated in severe septic patients: Pilot study

Objective: Apoptosis is increased in sepsis. Cytokeratin 18 (CK-18), a protein of the intermediate filament group present in most epithelial and parenchymal cells, is cleaved by the action of caspases and released into the blood as caspase-cleaved CK (CCCK)-18 during apoptosis. Circulating levels of CCCK-18 have scarcely been explored in septic patients. In one study with 101 severe septic patients, the authors reported higher serum CCCK-18 levels in non-survivors than in survivors; however, the sample size was too small to demonstrate an association between serum CCCK-18 levels and early mortality and whether they could be used as a biomarker to predict outcomes in septic patients. Thus, these were the objectives of this study with a large series of patients. Methods: We performed a prospective, multicenter, observational study in six Spanish Intensive Care Units with 224 severe septic patients. Blood samples were collected at the time that severe sepsis was diagnosed to determine serum levels of CCCK-18, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-10. The end point was 30-day mortality. Results: Non-surviving patients (n = 80) showed higher serum CCCK-18 levels (P391 u/L were associated with 30-day survival (Odds ratio = 2.687; 95% confidence interval = 1.449-4.983; P = 0.002), controlling for SOFA score, serum lactic acid levels and age. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that the risk of death in septic patients with serum CCCK-18 levels >391 u/L was higher than in patients with lower values (Hazard Ratio = 3.1; 95% CI = 1.96-4.84; P<0.001). Serum CCCK-18 levels were positively associated with serum levels of IL-6 and lactic acid, and with SOFA and APACHE scores. Conclusions: The major novel finding of our study, the largest cohort of septic patients providing data on circulating CCCK-18 levels, was that serum CCCK-18 levels are associated with mortality in severe septic patients

Sustained high serum caspase-3 concentrations and mortality in septic patients

Caspase-3 is the main executor of the apoptotic process. Higher serum caspase-3 concentrations in non-survivor compared to survivor septic patients have been found. The objectives of this work (with the increase of sample size to 308 patients, and the determination of serum caspase-3 concentrations also on days 4 and 8 of diagnosis of severe sepsis) were to know whether an association between serum caspase-3 concentrationss during the first week, degree of apoptosis, sepsis severity, and sepsis mortality exists. We collected serum samples of 308 patients with severe sepsis from eight intensive care units on days 1, 4 and 8 to measure concentrations of caspase-3 and caspase-cleaved cytokeratin (CCCK)-18 (to assess degree of apoptosis). End point was 30-day mortality. We found higher serum concentrations of caspase-3 and CCCK-18 in non-survivors compared to survivors on days 1 (p < 0.001), 4 (p < 0.001), and 8 (p < 0.001). We found an association between serum caspase-3 concentrations on days 1, 4 and 8 of severe sepsis diagnosis and serum CCCK-18 concentrations (p < 0.001), SOFA (p < 0.001), serum acid lactic concentrations (p < 0.001), and 30-day sepsis mortality (p < 0.001). The new findings of this work were that an association between serum caspase-3 concentrations during the first week, apoptosis degree, sepsis severity, and sepsis mortality exists

Genetic associations of the vitamin D and antiviral pathways with natural resistance to HIV-1 infection are influenced by interpopulation variability

Vitamin D (VitD) may modulate anti-HIV-1 responses modifying the risk to acquire the HIV-1-infection. We performed a nested case-control exploratory study involving 413 individuals; HIV-1-exposed seropositives (cases) and seronegatives (HESN) (controls) from three cohorts: sexually-exposed from Colombia and Italy and parenterally-exposed from Spain. The association and interactions of 139 variants in 9 VitD pathway genes, and in 14 antiviral genes with resistance/susceptibility (R/S) to HIV-1 infection was evaluated. Associations between variants and mRNA levels were also analyzed in the Colombian samples. Variants and haplotypes in genes of VitD and antiviral pathways were associated with R/S, but specific associations were not reproduced in all cohorts. Allelic heterogeneity could explain such inconsistency since the associations found in all cohorts were consistently in the same genes: VDR and RXRA of the VitD pathway genes and in TLR2 and RNASE4. Remarkably, the multi-locus genotypes (interacting variants) observed in genes of VitD and antiviral pathways were present in most HESNs of all cohorts. Finally, HESNs carrying resistance-associated variants had higher levels of VitD in plasma, of VDR mRNA in blood cells, and of ELAFIN and defensins mRNA in the oral mucosa. In conclusion, despite allelic heterogeneity, most likely due to differences in the genetic history of the populations, the associations were locus dependent suggesting that genes of the VitD pathway might act in concert with antiviral genes modulating the resistance phenotype of the HESNs. Although these associations were significant after permutation test, only haplotype results remained statistically significant after Bonferroni test, requiring further replications in larger cohorts and functional analyzes to validate these conclusions.This work was supported by Departamento administrativo de ciencia, tecnología e innovación de Colombia, COLCIENCIAS (grant no. 111549326091); Universidad de Antioquia UdeA, Colombia (sostenibilidad); Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia (code INV1900); Consejería de Salud de la Junta de Andalucía (PI-0335/2009, PI-0118-2013, PI-0481-2012, and AC-0095-2013), Gilead (GLDL13-00145), the Ministerio de Sanidad (EC11-2086, PI021476, and PI10/01232), the Red de Investigación en SIDA (ISCIII-RETIC RD06/006 and RD12/0017), the Fundación Maratón TV3 (020730 and 020732) and the Universidad de Jaén (UJA2013/10/03 and UJA2013/08/12)

MAESTRI Toolkit for Industrial Symbiosis: overview, lessons learnt and implications

This paper presents a structured approach to support the development of self-organized industrial symbiosis, the Toolkit for Industrial Symbiosis. Developed within MAESTRI project, it provides a set of tools and methods to help companies gain value from wasted resources and contributes to MAESTRI goal of advancing the sustainability of European manufacturing and process industry. A participatory approach was taken for its development. The ultimate objective of this work is to encourage companies to change their attitude and consider waste as a resource and potential source for value creation

Cross-country migration linked to people who inject drugs challenges the long-term impact of national HCV elimination programmes

To the Editor: As of 2018, the majority of Western European countries – including Spain – have lifted restrictions to therapy based on disease severity in the context of HCV infections.1 Long overdue, most national elimination programmes now also include access to care for people who inject drugs (PWID), 2 who are at the core of ongoing HCV transmission.3 Macías et al.4 have recently shown in this Journal that high viral cure rates can be achieved in this group, hereby providing evidence that targeting PWID in treatment programmes is worthwhile. However, the extent to which such national efforts can reduce the HCV burden not only depends on the uptake into care and treatment success rates, it is also determined by the relative importance of within-country transmission and virus importation from elsewhere. As the chronic nature of most HCV infections hampers reliably reconstructing contact networks from patient interviews, virus genetic data can be a valuable alternative source of information for elucidating the geographic history of virus lineages (e.g. [5], [6]). Using such data, we have recently shown that for the most prevalent subtype among PWID in Spain (40%, 7), HCV1a, infections often link to infections abroad – in recent years >50% link to Western European countries, mostly European Union (EU) member states – as opposed to other infections ..

Mesoporous Silicon Microparticles Enhance MHC Class I Cross-Antigen Presentation by Human Dendritic Cells

The mesoporous silicon microparticles (MSMPs) are excellent vehicles for releasing molecules inside the cell. The aim of this work was to use MSMPs to deliver viral specific MHC class I restricted epitopes into human antigen presenting cells (monocyte derived dendritic cells, MDDCs) to facilitate their capture, processing, and presentation to CD8+ (cytotoxic) T lymphocytes. We show for the first time that MSMPs vehiculation of antigenic peptides enhances their MHC class I presentation by human MDDCs to CD8 T lymphocytes

Mycorrhiza induced resistance against pests: from the lab to the field

1 página - Conferencia invitada presentada en Iberian Plant Biology 2023. XVIII Portuguese-Spanish Congress on Plant Biology and the XXV Meeting of the Spanish Society of Plant Biology. 9-12 Julio 2023, Braga, PortugalArbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can prime plant defences increasing their resistance against pathogens and insect herbivores. Using tomato as a model, we have shown that inoculation with different AMF reduces the performance of the chewing herbivore Spodoptera exigua and the leaf miner Tuta absoluta. Transcriptomic and metabolomics analyses revealed that this Mycorrhiza Induced Resistance (MIR) is associated to boosted activation of plant direct and indirect defences in response to the attackers. We found primed accumulation in attacked leaves of antiherbivore metabolites, including alkaloids and polyamine conjugates, and functional analyses demonstrated that some of the identified compounds significantly inhibit herbivore development. In addition, the symbiosis altered the volatile blends released by the plant, and enhanced the attraction of natural enemies of the pests (Nesidiocoris tenuis, commonly used in biocontrol programs). Finally, networks analyses allowed the identification of key regulators of the primed response within the jasmonic acid and ethylene signalling pathways. Despite the many studies showing induced resistance by microorganisms in different plant‐pest systems, the variability in the protection achieved under agronomic settings is hindering the application of this strategy in agriculture. Plant‐microbe‐herbivore interactions are highly context dependent, with multiple biotic and abiotic factors influencing the final output. Identifying such factors is essential to optimize the application of microbial inoculants for crop protection in agriculture. We found that the plant genotype and nutrient availability are important drivers of the context dependency of MIR in tomato. Despite of the variability, comparisons across different experimental scales, from controlled lab set‐ups to commercial production conditions, confirmed that MIR can be achieved under crop production conditions and is compatible with other biocontrol methods. Accordingly, MIR can be a relevant addition to current Integrated Pest Management Programs