The European Crisis of Politics: Ethnoreligious Pluralism and the Rise of Radical Populism and Far-Right in Europe

It is not highly contentious to claim that the 2008 global economic crisis may be also understood as a failure of the welfare state in European countries. The rise of economic inequalities in Europe, as a major sequel of the 2008 economic crisis and the increase of migrant flows, has fostered and become a breeding ground for racial, religious, or ideological hatred in the western world. However, compared to previous periods in recent history when tensions arose, citizens can now channel their feelings, thoughts, and political ideals through the institutions of the state’s basic structure. Thus, citizens are having a say by channelling their claims through democratic means and different forms of political participation. One relevant articulation has been new expressions of radical populism, nativism, and far-right ideologies which have burst into the public sphere, at the local, regional, and European levels. This combination has turned the economic and refugee crisis into what is mainly a crisis of European politics. Published online: 31 October 201

La crisis europea de la política: pluralismo etno-religioso y el auge del populismo y la extrema derecha en Europa

No genera mucha polémica sostener que la crisis económica del 2008 puede entenderse como un fracaso de los estados de bienestar europeos. Tanto el incremento de las desigualdades económicas parcialmente motivadas por esta crisis global, como el aumento de los flujos migratorios, han contribuido a crear un caldo de cultivo para el auge de los discursos de odio racial, religioso e ideológico en occidente. Sin embargo, haciendo la comparación con periodos históricos previos en los que surgieron tensiones equiparables, la ciudadanía de hoy en día puede canalizar sus intereses, necesidades, emociones, pensamientos e ideales políticos a través de las instituciones que conforman la estructura básica del estado. Así, la ciudadanía puede empoderarse canalizando sus reivindicaciones a través de mecanismos democráticos y distintas formas de participación política. Como ejemplo, una articulación relevante han sido las nuevas expresiones de populismo radical, nativismo e ideologías de extrema derecha que han surgido en varios niveles de la esfera pública y en distintas sociedades europeas. Esta combinación ha hecho que lo que era en un principio una crisis económica y de refugiados se haya convertido en una crisis que es sobre todo política. Publicación en línea: 31 octubre 201

Retos científicos, jurídicos y sociales relacionados con el envejecimiento en Cataluña y en España

La Edición Especial sobre Envejecimiento de la TransJus Working Papers Publications se abre con un trabajo de la Dra. Nina Gramunt, en el que se pone de relieve el gran incremento de las demencias en nuestras sociedades y, por tanto, el gran número de años vividos por los ancianos con dependencia, lo que es todo un reto, al que responde la Fundación Pasqual Maragall con una serie de interesantes iniciativas descritas en el estudio. A continuación, otro miembro de esa Fundación, la Sra. Cristina Maragall, desde la perspectiva de la arquitectura y el urbanismo, aborda la cuestión de la existencia de una demanda creciente de modelos de vivienda que permitan a las personas mayores vivir atendiendo a sus necesidades, reduciendo costes y simplificando los servicios, y a la vez manteniendo un cierto grado de autonomía personal, todo ello, si es posible, envejeciendo de la mejor manera posible en el hogar (aging in place) en comunidades que lo hagan posible (aging friendly). El estudio analiza algunas interesantes iniciativas españolas al respecto. El tercer análisis es realizado por la Dra. Elena Lauroba, quien expone el interesante proyecto europeo Ccentre: Towards citizen-centred active ageing and wellbeing, financiado por el EIT Health, el cual nació en 2016 con el fin de contribuir a poner a la ciudadanía en el centro de los sistemas de salud, con la participación de las Universidades de Barcelona (Gisme), Newcastle, Leiden, Copenhague y Róterdam, así como la aseguradora Achmea y la asociación E-Seniors. Finalmente, pero no menos importante, los investigadores Astier, Tejada y Errasti exponen como la conexión de ese proyecto europeo con la Fundació Carles Pi i Sunyer ha dado lugar al informe “Polítiques Municipals de gent gran. Reptes per a un model de gestió de l’envelliment actiu”. Este informe ha permitido identificar las necesidades de gestión del envejecimiento y, a partir de las mismas, se nos explica una nueva perspectiva para hacerles frente, basada en la aplicación de la metodología de formación en narrativas al ámbito sociosanitario

Molecular profiling of biliary tract cancers reveals distinct genomic landscapes between circulating and tissue tumor DNA

Biliary tract cancers (BTCs) are heterogeneous malignancies with dismal prognosis due to tumor aggressiveness and poor response to limited current therapeutic options. Tumor exome profiling has allowed to successfully establish targeted therapeutic strategies in the clinical management of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). Still, whether liquid biopsy profiling could inform on BTC biology and patient management is unknown. In order to test this and generate novel insight into BTC biology, we analyzed the molecular landscape of 128 CCA patients, using a 394-gene NGS panel (Foundation Medicine). Among them, 32 patients had matched circulating tumor (ct) DNA and tumor DNA samples, where both samples were profiled. In both tumor and liquid biopsies, we identified an increased frequency of alterations in genes involved in genome integrity or chromatin remodeling, including ARID1A (15%), PBRM1 (9%), and BAP1 (14%), which were validated using an in-house-developed immunohistochemistry panel. ctDNA and tumor DNA showed variable concordance, with a significant correlation in the total number of detected variants, but some heterogeneity in the detection of actionable mutations. FGFR2 mutations were more frequently identified in liquid biopsies, whereas KRAS alterations were mostly found in tumors. All IDH1 mutations detected in tumor DNA were also identified in liquid biopsies. These findings provide novel insights in the concordance between the tumor and liquid biopsies genomic landscape in a large cohort of patients with BTC and highlight the complementarity of both analyses when guiding therapeutic prescription

Interventions in health organisations to reduce the impact of adverse events in second and third victims

Background Adverse events (AE) are also the cause of suffering in health professionals involved. This study was designed to identify and analyse organization-level strategies adopted in both primary care and hospitals in Spain to address the impact of serious AE on second and third victims. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in healthcare organizations assessing: safety culture; health organization crisis management plans for serious AE; actions planned to ensure transparency in communication with patients (and relatives) who experience an AE; support for second victims; and protective measures to safeguard the institution’s reputation (the third victim). Results A total of 406 managers and patient safety coordinators replied to the survey. Deficient provision of support for second victims was acknowledged by 71 and 61 % of the participants from hospitals and primary care respectively; these respondents reported there was no support protocol for second victims in place in their organizations. Regarding third victim initiatives, 35 % of hospital and 43 % of primary care professionals indicated no crisis management plan for serious AE existed in their organization, and in the case of primary care, there was no crisis committee in 34 % of cases. The degree of implementation of second and third victim support interventions was perceived to be greater in hospitals (mean 14.1, SD 3.5) than in primary care (mean 11.8, SD 3.1) (p?<?0.001). Conclusions Many Spanish health organizations do not have a second and third victim support or a crisis management plan in place to respond to serious AEs

The aftermath of adverse events in spanish primary care and hospital health professionals

Background Adverse events (AEs) cause harm in patients and disturbance for the professionals involved in the event (second victims). This study assessed the impact of AEs in primary care (PC) and hospitals in Spain on second victims. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted. We carried out a survey based on a random sample of doctors and nurses from PC and hospital settings in Spain. A total of 1087 health professionals responded, 610 from PC and 477 from hospitals. Results A total of 430 health professionals (39.6%) had informed a patient of an error. Reporting to patients was carried out by those with the strongest safety culture (Odds Ratio –OR- 1.1, 95% Confidence Interval –CI- 1.0-1.2), nurses (OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.5-2.3), those under 50 years of age (OR 0.7, 95% CI 0.6-0.9) and primary care staff (OR 0.6, 95% CI 0.5-0.9). A total of 381 (62.5%, 95% CI 59-66%) and 346 (72.5%, IC95% 69-77%) primary care and hospital health professionals, respectively, reported having gone through the second-victim experience, either directly or through a colleague, in the previous 5 years. The emotional responses were: feelings of guilt (521, 58.8%), anxiety (426, 49.6%), re-living the event (360, 42.2%), tiredness (341, 39.4%), insomnia (317, 38.0%) and persistent feelings of insecurity (284, 32.8%). In doctors, the most common responses were: feelings of guilt (OR 0.7 IC95% 0.6-0.8), re-living the event (OR 0.7, IC95% o.6-0.8), and anxiety (OR 0.8, IC95% 0.6-0.9), while nurses showed greater solidarity in terms of supporting the second victim, in both PC (p?=?0.019) and hospital (p?=?0.019) settings. Conclusions Adverse events cause guilt, anxiety, and loss of confidence in health professionals. Most are involved in such events as second victims at least once in their careers. They rarely receive any training or education on coping strategies for this phenomenon

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

Globalization in a world of equals: a normative analysis of trade-related inequalities

International trade generates inequalities pervasively impacting citizens and the ability of domestic and international institutions to provide the conditions to promote equal treatment among their subjects. This thesis argues that a relational perspective enables us to capture concerns with trade-related inequalities that go beyond the distributional accounts of the gains from trade. The thesis addresses this topic through three different parts. Part One, formed by chapters One and Two, describes the main economic models, empirical examples, and the values and theories governing the trade regime. Part Two, covering from Chapter Three to Five, examines the main normative responses to the socioeconomic challenges posed by international trade. It focuses on distributive and relational accounts and argues that unequal distributive outcomes condition relational equality. Part three, involving chapter Six and Seven, concludes that unfair equality of opportunity erodes the institutional capacity to maintain the conditions of democratic liberty and equality.El comercio internacional genera desigualdades que afectan a los ciudadanos y la capacidad de las instituciones nacionales e internacionales para proporcionar las condiciones necesarias para promover la igualdad de trato entre sus agentes. Esta tesis defiende que una perspectiva relacional permite captar las objeciones morales a las desigualdades comerciales más allá de las distribuciones de las ganancias comerciales. La tesis aborda este tema en tres partes. La primera, formada por los capítulos Uno y Dos, describe los principales modelos económicos, ejemplos empíricos, y los valores y teorías que rigen el régimen comercial. La segunda, que abarca del Tres a Cinco, examina las principales respuestas normativas a los desafíos socioeconómicos del comercio internacional. Desarrolla las perspectivas distributivas y relacionales y argumenta que los resultados distributivos desiguales condicionan la igualdad relacional. La tercera, que incluye el Seis y Siete, concluye que una igualdad de oportunidades injusta erosiona la capacidad institucional para mantener las condiciones de libertad democrática e igualdad

Identification of Temporal and Region-Specific Myocardial Gene Expression Patterns in Response to Infarction in Swine

<div><p>Molecular mechanisms associated with pathophysiological changes in ventricular remodelling due to myocardial infarction (MI) remain poorly understood. We analyzed changes in gene expression by microarray technology in porcine myocardial tissue at 1, 4, and 6 weeks post-MI.</p> <p>MI was induced by coronary artery ligation in 9 female pigs (30–40 kg). Animals were randomly sacrificed at 1, 4, or 6 weeks post-MI (n = 3 per group) and 3 healthy animals were also included as control group. Total RNA from myocardial samples was hybridized to GeneChip® Porcine Genome Arrays. Functional analysis was obtained with the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) online tool. Validation of microarray data was performed by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR).</p> <p>More than 8,000 different probe sets showed altered expression in the remodelling myocardium at 1, 4, or 6 weeks post-MI. Ninety-seven percent of altered transcripts were detected in the infarct core and 255 probe sets were differentially expressed in the remote myocardium. Functional analysis revealed 28 genes de-regulated in the remote myocardial region in at least one of the three temporal analyzed stages, including genes associated with heart failure (HF), systemic sclerosis and coronary artery disease. In the infarct core tissue, eight major time-dependent gene expression patterns were recognized among 4,221 probe sets commonly altered over time. Altered gene expression of ACVR2B, BID, BMP2, BMPR1A, LMNA, NFKBIA, SMAD1, TGFB3, TNFRSF1A, and TP53 were further validated.</p> <p>The clustering of similar expression patterns for gene products with related function revealed molecular footprints, some of them described for the first time, which elucidate changes in biological processes at different stages after MI.</p> </div

Differentially clustered gene expression patterns in MI.

<p><b>a</b> Probe sets for genes significantly regulated (adjusted <i>P</i> value<0.05 by significance analysis of microarrays) at 1, 4, or 6 weeks post-MI were selected, clustered, and reported in a heat map. Each row represents a different probe set, and columns pertain to data collected at three temporal stages after surgery. Control myocardium from healthy animals was also included. Normalized data values, displayed in red and green shades, are represented according to the colour scale shown (bottom). <b>b</b> Venn diagrams summarizing similarities and differences between tissue regions at each temporal stage, using significant probe sets in <b>a</b>. IC = infarct core; RM = remote myocardium; w = weeks; n = 3 per group.</p