Leialtasun akzioak

[EU]Leialtasun akzioak Sozietateen Zuzenbidean txertatutako instrumentu berria da. Instrumentu honek boto eskubidearen banaketan arau orokorra den proportzionaltasun printzipioa urratzen ciu, izan ere, kotizatutako sozietatean bi urtez, modu etengabean, akzioak mantentzen dituzten bazkideei boto bikoitza aitortzen dielako. Modu honetan, kotizatutako sozietateen inguruan ohikoak diren epe laburreko estrategiak ezabatu nahi dira, aldi berean, bazkideen epe luzeko inplikazioa sustatuz. Inplikazio hori sustatzeko leialtasun akzioak aurreikusten dira, sozietatean inbertitzea eta inbertsioa bertan mantentzea erakargarriagoa bihurtuz, izan ere, sozietatearekiko leialtasuna adierazi duten akzionistak boto bikoitzaren eskubidearekin saritzen direlako.[ES]Loyalty Shares es un nuevo instrumento incorporado en la Ley de Sociedades. Este instrumento vulnera el principio de proporcionalidad, que es la regla general en la distribución del derecho de voto, al reconocer el doble voto a los socios que poseen acciones de forma continua durante dos años en una sociedad cotizada. De esta forma, se pretende eliminar las estrategias a corto plazo habituales en las sociedades cotizadas, al mismo tiempo que se fomenta la implicación a largo plazo de los socios. Las acciones de lealtad están previstas para promover esta implicación, haciendo más atractiva la inversión y el mantenimiento de la inversión en la compañía, ya que, los accionistas que han manifestado su fidelidad a la compañía son recompensados con el derecho a doble voto.[EN]Loyalty Shares is a new instrument embedded in Company Law. This instrument violates the principle of proportionality, which is the general rule in the distribution of the right to vote, as it recognizes a double vote of the members who hold shares continuously for two years in a listed company. In this way, the aim is to eliminate the short-term strategies that are common in listed companies, while at the same time encouraging the long-term involvement of partners. Loyalty shares are planned to promote this involvement, making it more attractive to invest in and maintain the investment in the company, as shareholders who have expressed their loyalty to the company are rewarded with the right to double voting

Dopamine and Serotonin Metabolism in Parkinsonian Models

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder caused by loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Different pathogenic mechanisms have been implicated, including loss of mitochondrial complex I function and dysfunction of lysosomal glucocerebrosidase (GBA1) (Neumann et al., 2009; Schapira et al., 1990). Also, it has been hypothesised that serotonin metabolism could be affected in these patients due to the number of enzymes shared by both pathways (Albizu et al., 2011). This thesis considers the potential involvement of complex I and GBA1 in PD using HPLC analysis of changes in the extracellular levels of the metabolites of dopamine and serotonin, and the expression and activity of the enzymes of the dopamine pathway. Using SH-SY5Y cells, complex I deficiency was modelled using rotenone, and GBA1 deficiency was modelled using conduritol B epoxide (CBE). Inhibition of mitochondrial complex I or GBA1 significantly increased extracellular concentrations of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), direct products of the degradation by monoamine oxidase (MAO) of dopamine and serotonin respectively. These results suggest increased MAO activity, providing evidence for the involvement of impaired complex I or GBA1 activity in the dopamine deficiency seen in PD. As MAO produces hydrogen peroxide as a side-product, its increased activity could enhance the oxidative stress present in PD (Dias et al., 2013). Therefore, intracellular GSH levels were quantified to determine whether the antioxidant mechanisms were affected, but no changes were observed. In addition to the main project, I collaborated with a number of groups to study monoamine metabolism in parkinsonian models. Also, the glycoprofile of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with and without impaired dopamine metabolism was studied to explore the possibility of using glycans as pathologic biomarkers

Impact of the III-V/Ge nucleation routine on the performance of high efficiency multijunction solar cells

This paper addresses the influence of III-V nucleation routines on Ge substrates for the growth of high efficiency multijunction solar cells. Three exemplary nucleation routines with differences in thickness and temperature were evaluated. The resulting open circuit voltage of triple-junction solar cells with these designs is significantly affected (up to 50 mV for the best optimization routine), whereas minimal differences in short circuit current are observed. Electroluminescence measurements show that both the Ge bottom cell and the Ga(In)As middle cell present a VOC gain of 25 mV each. This result indicates that the first stages of the growth not only affect the Ge subcell itself but also to subsequent subcells. This study highlights the impact of the nucleation routine design in the performance of high efficiency multijunction solar cell based on Ge substrates.Comment: 7 pages,7 figure

Personality traits, theory of mind and their relationship with multiple suicide attempts in a sample of first episode psychosis patients: One-year follow-up study

BACKGROUND: High rates of suicidal behaviour (SB) have been found in first episode psychosis (FEP) patients. It has been suggested that the presence of multiple suicide attempts (mSA) increases the risk of later SA and the risk of eventual death by suicide. OBJECTIVE: Our main objective was to study the baseline factors associated with the presence of mSA during the first year after FEP. In addition, a second aim was to find out whether there were any differences between single and multiple suicide attempters in the timing of the first SA after FEP. METHOD: A total of 65 FEP patients were evaluated. The presence of SAs were recorded at two different times after FEP. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to explore the relationship between SA with sociodemographic and clinical variables. RESULTS: Multiple linear regression showed that mSA was associated with the presence of increased symptom severity (B?=?0.35; t?=?3.67; p < 0.01) and errors in first-order false-belief task (B?=?0.48; t?=?2.11; p?=?0.04). There were significant differences in the timing of first SA after FEP between multiple and single suicide attempters. CONCLUSIONS: Theory of mind impairments along with more severe symptoms during the first contact with mental health services for psychotic symptoms appeared to be important predictors of mSA. On the other hand, multiple suicide attempters tend to make a first SA after FEP earlier than single suicide attempters. These results could contribute to the implementation of preventive suicidal programs, however they must be confirmed by additional research.Funding: This study was funded by Ministry of Science and Innovation grant ISC PI11/0233

Reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy assessment of the MOVPE nucleation of GaInP on Germanium (100)

This work summarizes the observations made on the variation and time evolution of the reflectanceanisotropy signal during the MOVPE growth of GaInPnucleation layers on Germanium substrates. This in situ monitoring tool is used to assess the impact of different nucleation routines and reactor conditions on the quality of the layers grown. This comparison is carried out by establishing a correlation between reflectanceanisotropy signature at 2.1 eV and the morphology of the epilayers evaluated by atomic force microscopy (AFM). This paper outlines the potential of reflectanceanisotropy to predict, explore, and therefore optimize, the best growth conditions that lead to a high quality III–V epilayer on a Ge substrat

Performance and energy-efficient implementation of a smart city application on FPGAs

The continuous growth of modern cities and the request for better quality of life, coupled with the increased availability of computing resources, lead to an increased attention to smart city services. Smart cities promise to deliver a better life to their inhabitants while simultaneously reducing resource requirements and pollution. They are thus perceived as a key enabler to sustainable growth. Out of many other issues, one of the major concerns for most cities in the world is traffic, which leads to a huge waste of time and energy, and to increased pollution. To optimize traffic in cities, one of the first steps is to get accurate information in real time about the traffic flows in the city. This can be achieved through the application of automated video analytics to the video streams provided by a set of cameras distributed throughout the city. Image sequence processing can be performed both peripherally and centrally. In this paper, we argue that, since centralized processing has several advantages in terms of availability, maintainability and cost, it is a very promising strategy to enable effective traffic management even in large cities. However, the computational costs are enormous, and thus require an energy-efficient High-Performance Computing approach. Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provide comparable computational resources to CPUs and GPUs, yet require much lower amounts of energy per operation (around 6$$\times$$ and 10$$\times$$ for the application considered in this case study). They are thus preferred resources to reduce both energy supply and cooling costs in the huge datacenters that will be needed by Smart Cities. In this paper, we describe efficient implementations of high-performance algorithms that can process traffic camera image sequences to provide traffic flow information in real-time at a low energy and power cost

Inhibition of Neuronal Mitochondrial Complex I or Lysosomal Glucocerebrosidase is associated with Increased Dopamine and Serotonin Turnover

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder caused by loss of dopaminergic and serotoninergic signalling. A number of pathogenic mechanisms have been implicated including loss of mitochondrial function at the level of complex I, and lysosomal metabolism at the level of lysosomal glucocerebrosidase (GBA1). In order to investigate further the potential involvement of complex I and GBA1 in PD, we assessed the impact of loss of respective enzyme activities upon dopamine and serotonin turnover. Using SH-SY5Y cells, complex I deficiency was modelled by using rotenone whilst GBA1 deficiency was modelled by the use of conduritol B epoxide (CBE). Dopamine, its principal metabolites, and the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) in the extracellular medium were quantified by HPLC. Inhibition of complex I significantly increased extracellular concentrations of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and 5-HIAA. Comparable results were observed with CBE. These results suggest increased monoamine oxidase activity and provide evidence for involvement of impaired complex I or GBA1 activity in the dopamine/serotonin deficiency seen in PD. Use of extracellular media may also permit relatively rapid assessment of dopamine/serotonin metabolism and permit screening of novel therapeutic agents

Performance and energy-efficient implementation of a smart city application on FPGAs

The continuous growth of modern cities and the request for better quality of life, coupled with the increased availability of computing resources, lead to an increased attention to smart city services. Smart cities promise to deliver a better life to their inhabitants while simultaneously reducing resource requirements and pollution. They are thus perceived as a key enabler to sustainable growth. Out of many other issues, one of the major concerns for most cities in the world is traffic, which leads to a huge waste of time and energy, and to increased pollution. To optimize traffic in cities, one of the first steps is to get accurate information in real time about the traffic flows in the city. This can be achieved through the application of automated video analytics to the video streams provided by a set of cameras distributed throughout the city. Image sequence processing can be performed both peripherally and centrally. In this paper, we argue that, since centralized processing has several advantages in terms of availability, maintainability and cost, it is a very promising strategy to enable effective traffic management even in large cities. However, the computational costs are enormous, and thus require an energy-efficient High-Performance Computing approach. Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provide comparable computational resources to CPUs and GPUs, yet require much lower amounts of energy per operation (around 6 × and 10 × for the application considered in this case study). They are thus preferred resources to reduce both energy supply and cooling costs in the huge datacenters that will be needed by Smart Cities. In this paper, we describe efficient implementations of high-performance algorithms that can process traffic camera image sequences to provide traffic flow information in real-time at a low energy and power cost

Pan-phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibition with buparlisib in patients with relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/mechanistic target of rapamycin pathway plays a role in the pathogenesis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. This multicenter, open-label phase 2 study evaluated buparlisib (BKM120), a pan-class I phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitor, in patients with relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Three separate cohorts of patients (with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, or follicular lymphoma) received buparlisib 100 mg once daily until progression, intolerance, or withdrawal of consent. The primary endpoint was overall response rate based on a 6-month best overall response by cohort; secondary endpoints included progression-free survival, duration of response, overall survival, safety, and tolerability. Overall, 72 patients (26 with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, 22 with mantle cell lymphoma, and 24 with follicular lymphoma) were treated. The overall response rates were 11.5%, 22.7%, and 25.0% in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, and follicular lymphoma, respectively; two patients (one each with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma) achieved a complete response. The most frequently reported (>20%) adverse events of any grade in the population in which safety was studied were hyperglycemia, fatigue, and nausea (36.1% each), depression (29.2%), diarrhea (27.8%), and anxiety (25.0%). The most common grade 3/4 adverse events included hyperglycemia (11.1%) and neutropenia (5.6%). Buparlisib showed activity in relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma, with disease stabilization and sustained tumor burden reduction in some patients, and acceptable toxicity. Development of mechanism-based combination regimens with buparlisib is warranted

Aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase deficiency: a patient-derived neuronal model for precision therapies

Aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency is a complex inherited neurological disorder of monoamine synthesis which results in dopamine and serotonin deficiency. The majority of affected individuals have variable, though often severe cognitive and motor delay, with a complex movement disorder and high risk of premature mortality. For most, standard pharmacological treatment provides only limited clinical benefit. Promising gene therapy approaches are emerging, though may not be either suitable or easily accessible for all patients. In order to better characterize the underlying disease pathophysiology and guide precision therapies, we generated a patient-derived midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neuronal model of AADC deficiency from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The neuronal model recapitulates key disease features, including absent AADC enzyme activity and dysregulated dopamine metabolism. We observed developmental defects affecting synaptic maturation and neuronal electrical properties, which were improved by lentiviral gene therapy. Bioinformatic and biochemical analyses on recombinant AADC predicted that the activity of one variant could be improved by L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA) administration; this hypothesis was corroborated in the patient-derived neuronal model, where L-DOPA treatment leads to amelioration of dopamine metabolites. Our study has shown that patient-derived disease modelling provides further insight into the neurodevelopmental sequelae of AADC deficiency, as well as a robust platform to investigate and develop personalised therapeutic approaches