Estudio comparativo del bloqueo anestésico del nervio ciático con ropivacaína 0,5% por vía medio-femoral versus poplítea lateral

Introducción: El bloqueo anestésico/analgésico del nervio ciático por vía medio-femoral es una técnica nueva que se ha utilizado para la analgesia postoperatoria de la cirugía de rodilla. Su mayor ventaja es que se puede realizar en decúbito supino, evitando el decúbito prono necesario en otras técnicas de abordaje, y que obliga al paciente a soportar dolor durante su realización. Objetivo: El objetivo de este estudio fue comparar la eficacia, tiempo de latencia y grado de aceptación del paciente entre el bloqueo anestésico/analgésico del nervio ciático realizado por vía medio-femoral y el bloqueo ciático lateral a nivel poplíteo en pacientes sometidos a cirugía de la extremidad inferior. Métodos: En este estudio de tipo aleatorio y prospectivo, se incluyeron 63 pacientes que iban a ser intervenidos quirúrgicamente de la extremidad inferior. En el grupo PB 32 pacientes recibieron un bloqueo ciático lateral a nivel poplíteo, mientras que en el grupo MF 31 pacientes recibieron el mismo bloqueo pero a nivel medio-femoral lateral. En ambos grupos la dosis de anestésico local administrada fue de 30 mi de ropivacaína al 0,5%. Resultados: La calidad del bloqueo fue similar en ambos grupos. Los tiempos de latencia del bloqueo (desde el final del bloqueo al inicio de su efecto) tanto sensitivo como motor fueron significativamente menores en el grupo MF que en el grupo PB (tabla 2). Sin embargo no hubo diferencia estadística en la duración del bloqueo sensitivo y motor entre ambos grupos. NO hubo tampoco diferencia en la dificultad de realización del bloqueo entre ellos. El grado de molestia para el paciente durante la inserción de la aguja de bloqueo fue similar. La tolerancia al manguito de isquemia fue mejor en el grupo MF, pero sin llegar a niveles de significación estadística. Medicina Balear 2004; 18-25 Conclusión: El abordaje medio-femoral del nervio ciático para cirugía de tobillo y pie, proporciona una anestesia eficaz comparable al abordaje poplíteo lateral. Esta nueva técnica es simple y segura, y proporciona una analgesia postoperatoria tan efectiva como la obtenida con el abordaje poplíteo lateral

LA COOPERACIÓN TECNOLÓGICA COMO DETERMINANTE DE LOS RESULTADOS EMPRESARIALES

En este trabajo, examinamos empíricamente el impacto de la cooperación tecnológica sobre los resultados empresariales. Basándonos en la literatura previa sobre el impacto tecnológico de las colaboraciones y en los trabajos que conectan las capacidades tecnológicas con la consecución de ventajas competitivas sostenibles, argumentamos que el establecimiento de acuerdos de cooperación tecnológica con clientes, proveedores, universidades y centros tecnológicos tiene un efecto positivo sobre la consecución de innovaciones en producto y/o proceso, las cuales, a su vez, redundan en unos resultados empresariales superiores. Asimismo, también analizamos el efecto diferencial de dos tipos de colaboraciones, vertical e institucional. Nuestros resultados indican que, mientras los resultados innovadores median la relación entre la cooperación institucional y los resultados empresariales, la cooperación vertical tiene tanto un efecto directo como indirecto, mediado por los resultados innovadores, sobre tales resultados empresariales.

Seguiment de mol·luscs opistobranquis a la platja des Caials (Cadaqués, Alt Empordà). Contribució al catàleg del Parc Natural de Cap de Creus

Es presenten els resultats de les observacions de mol•luscs opistobranquis realitzades a la platja des Caials (Cadaqués, Parc Natural de Cap de Creus). Els mostrejos es realitzaren durant el dia, entre els 0 i 28 metres de fondària, que comprenien comunitats d’algues fotòfiles de llocs encalmats, comunitats infralapidícoles, alguers de posidònia, comunitats d’algues esciàfiles de llocs encalmats o precoral•ligen, coral•ligen i fons detrítics, incloent les restes del vaixell enfonsat Llanishen, que constitueixen un substrat entre els 13 i 17 metres de fondària. El número d’espècies observades ha estat 48: Cephalaspidea (1), Anaspidea (2), Notaspidea (1), Umbraculoidea (2), Ascoglossa (4); Nudibranchia (38) desglossats en: Doridacea (18) Arminacea (1),Dendronotacea (3) iAeolidacea (16). Es cita per primer cop a Catalunya l’eolidaci Piseinotecus gabinierei.This paper presents the results of our observations of opisthobranch molluscs in platja (beach) des Caials (Cadaqués, Cap de Creus Natural Park, Girona, Spain). Samplings were conducted during the day, between 0 and 28 meters of water, including well lit algal communities, species that live beneath stones, Posidonia meadows, poorly lit algal environments, precoralligenous, coralligenous and detritic biocoenosis, and the remains of the Llanishen shipwreck, that conform a biotope between 13 and 17 meters of depth. The total number of species positively identified was 48, distributed as follows: Cephalaspidea (1),Anaspidea (2), Notaspidea (1), Umbraculoidea (2), Ascoglossa (4); Nudibranchia (38) subdivided into Doridacea (18) Arminacea (1), Dendronotacea (3) i Aeolidacea (16). Among these, for the first time in the Catalonian coastal waters, we recorded the aeolidacean Piseinotecus gabinierei

Bench-to-bedside review: Brain-lung interaction in the critically ill – a pending issue revisited

Brain and/or lung injury is the most frequent cause of admission to critical care units and patients in this setting frequently develop multiple organ dysfunction with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Mechanical ventilation is commonly used in the management of these critically ill patients and the consequent inflammatory response, together with other physiological factors, is also thought to be involved in distal organ dysfunction. This peripheral imbalance is based on a multiple-pathway cross-talk between the lungs and other organs, including the brain. Interestingly, acute respiratory distress syndrome survivors frequently present some cognitive deterioration at discharge. Such neurological dysfunction might be a secondary marker of injury and the neuroanatomical substrate for downstream impairment of other organs. Brain-lung interactions have received little attention in the literature, but recent evidence suggests that both the lungs and brain are promoters of inflammation through common mediators. This review addresses the current status of evidence regarding brain-lung interactions, their pathways and current interventions in critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilation

A probabilistic model for the seismic risk of buildings: application to assess the seismic risk of buildings in urban areas

A probabilistic model to estimate the seismic risk of buildings is evaluated. For this purpose a specific methodology is proposed. The developed methodology allows explicitly consider important uncertainties that are present in the main elements, that are used to estimate the seismic risk of buildings. One of these elements is the seismic vulnerability of each building, which is mainly represented in the proposed methodology through probability density functions that describe the variation of a vulnerability index. In the developed methodology, the seismic vulnerability is considered as a property that is changing through the time. Therefore, it is possible to estimate seismic vulnerability curves for different stages on the future life of a building. The methodology was used to estimate the seismic risk of 59,905 buildings of Barcelona. According to the results, in average, 53,152 buildings have a probability lower than 5% of suffer some kind of collapse during the next 50 years. If the government of Barcelona conducts a program to do a seismic rehabilitation of buildings, then the first buildings that could be evaluated for rehabilitation purposes could correspond to the 1,317 buildings, which were identified in this work as the buildings with the highest seismic vulnerability.Postprint (published version

Fostering cooperation through dynamic coalition formation and partner switching

In this article we tackle the problem of maximizing cooperation among self-interested agents in a resource exchange environment. Our main concern is the design of mechanisms for maximizing cooperation among self-interested agents in a way that their profits increase by exchanging or trading with resources. Although dynamic coalition formation and partner switching (rewiring) have been shown to promote the emergence and maintenance of cooperation for self-interested agents, no prior work in the literature has investigated whether merging both mechanisms exhibits positive synergies that lead to increase cooperation even further. Therefore, we introduce and analyze a novel dynamic coalition formation mechanism, that uses partner switching, to help self-interested agents to increase their profits in a resource exchange environment. Our experiments show the effectiveness of our mechanism at increasing the agents' profits, as well as the emergence of trading as the preferred behavior over different types of complex networks. © 2014 ACM.The first author thanks the grant Formación de Profesorado Universitario (FPU), reference AP2010-1742. J.Ll.A. and J.A.R-A are partially funded by projects EVE (TIN2009-14702-C02-01), AT (CSD2007-0022), COR (TIN2012-38876-C02-01), MECER (201250E053), and the Generalitat of Catalunya grant 2009-SGR-1434Peer Reviewe

Premsa i poder polític.

Premsa i poder polític

Towards next generation coordination infrastructures

Coordination infrastructures play a central role in the engineering of multiagent systems. Since the advent of agent technology, research on coordination infrastructures has produced a significant number of infrastructures with varying features. In this paper, we review the the state-of-the-art coordination infrastructures with the purpose of identifying open research challenges that next generation coordination infrastructures should address. Our analysis concludes that next generation coordination infrastructures must address a number of challenges: (i) to become socially aware, by facilitating human interaction within a MAS; (ii) to assist agents in their decision making by providing decision support that helps them reduce the scope of reasoning and facilitates the achievement of their goals; and (iii) to increase openness to support on-line, fully decentralised design and execution. Furthermore, we identify some promising approaches in the literature, together with the research issues worth investigating, to cope with such challenges. © Cambridge University Press, 2015.The work presented in this paper has been partially funded by projects EVE (TIN2009-14702-C02-01), AT (CSD2007-0022), and the Generalitat of Catalunya grant 2009-SGR-1434Peer Reviewe

Using reputation and adaptive coalitions to support collaboration in competitive environments

Internet-based scenarios, like co-working, e-freelancing, or crowdsourcing, usually need supporting collaboration among several actors that compete to service tasks. Moreover, the distribution of service requests, i.e., the arrival rate, varies over time, as well as the service workload required by each customer. In these scenarios, coalitions can be used to help agents to manage tasks they cannot tackle individually. In this paper we present a model to build and adapt coalitions with the goal of improving the quality and the quantity of tasks completed. The key contribution is a decision making mechanism that uses reputation and adaptation to allow agents in a competitive environment to autonomously enact and sustain coalitions, not only its composition, but also its number, i.e., how many coalitions are necessary. We provide empirical evidence showing that when agents employ our mechanism it is possible for them to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction. First, we show that coalitions keep a high percentage of tasks serviced on time despite a high percentage of unreliable workers. Second, coalitions and agents demonstrate that they successfully adapt to a varying distribution of customers' incoming tasks. This occurs because our decision making mechanism facilitates coalitions to disband when they become non-competitive, and individual agents detect opportunities to start new coalitions in scenarios with high task demand. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.The first author thanks the grant Formación de Profesorado Universitario (FPU), reference AP2010-1742. Arcos and Rodriguez-Aguilar thank projects COR (TIN2012-38876-C02-01/02) and Generalitat of Catalunya (2014 SGR-118). Work supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Galician Regional Government under agreement for funding the Atlantic Research Center for Information and Communication Technologies (AtlantTIC)Peer Reviewe

Evaluación del riesgo sísmico en zonas urbanas mediante técnicas GIS. Aplicación a las líneas de metro de la ciudad de Barcelona

En este trabajo se presenta una aplicación GIS específica para analizar el riesgo sísmico de cada una de las líneas vitales en áreas urbanas. Esta aplicación ha sido desarrollada utilizando ArcView GIS y personalizada con Avenue sobre plataforma PC. El caso analizado aquí es el metro y la red ferroviaria de la ciudad de Barcelona, seleccionado por tener información suficiente acerca del sistema de transporte y riesgo sísmico de la ciudad. Se ha usado la metodología HAZUS99 para evaluar el daño físico directo y las pérdidas económicas directas para seis escenarios sísmicos. El daño esperado para un periodo de retorno de 500 años es bajo y se encuentra en las líneas de metro más antiguas. El método de HAZUS99 no puede ser aplicado de forma sencilla a escala local, y debe ser adaptado a las características especiales de las ciudades mediterráneas.In this work we present a specific GIS application to analyse the seismic risk of individual lifelines in urban environments. This application has been developed using ArcView and Avenue tools on a PC platform. The case herein analysed is the underground and main railway transportation system of the city of Barcelona. lt has been selected because the amount of available information, both about the transportation system and the seismic hazard of the city. The Hazus'99 methodology has been used to evaluate direct physical damage states and economic loses for 6 seismic scenarios. The expected damage for a 500-year return period scenario is low and it is found in the older underground lines. The Hazus'99 method at local scale can't be applied in a straightforward manner and must be adapted to the special characteristics of Mediterranean cities with low to mode.rate seismic hazard.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version