Environmental sustainability of alternative marine propulsion technologies powered by hydrogen - a life cycle assessment approach

Shipping is a very important source of pollution worldwide. In recent years, numerous actions and measures have been developed trying to reduce the levels of greenhouse gases (GHG) from the marine exhaust emissions in the fight against climate change, boosting the Sustainable Development Goal 13. Following this target, the action of hydrogen as energy vector makes it a suitable alternative to be used as fuel, constituting a very promising energy carrier for energy transition and decarbonization in maritime transport. The objective of this study is to develop an ex-ante environmental evaluation of two promising technologies for vessels propulsion, a H2 Polymeric Electrolytic Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC), and a H2 Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), in order to determine their viability and eligibility compared to the traditional one, a diesel ICE. The applied methodology follows the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) guidelines, considering a functional unit of 1 kWh of energy produced. LCA results reveal that both alternatives have great potential to promote the energy transition, particularly the H2 ICE. However, as technologies readiness level is quite low, it was concluded that the assessment has been conducted at a very early stage, so their sustainability and environmental performance may change as they become more widely developed and deployed, which can be only achieved with political and stakeholder's involvement and collaboration.This work was supported by the European Union through the Project HYLANTIC EAPA_204/201; “The Atlantic Network for Renewable Generation and Supply of Hydrogen to promote High Energy Efficiency”

EChemTest: sistema de evaluación de la Calidad en Química

Este proyecto plantea la herramienta EChemTest como mecanismo de evaluación de la Calidad de un Grado relacionado con la Química. También presenta la oportunidad de evaluar cómo ha influido la docencia online en la adquisición de conocimientos, comparando con cursos anteriores

Spanish cardiac catheterization in congenital heart diseases registry. First official report from the ACI-SEC and the GTH-SECPCC (2020)

Introduction and objectives: The Interventional Cardiology Association of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (ACI-SEC) and the Spanish Society of Pediatric Cardiology Working Group on Interventional Cardiology (GTH-SECPCC) introduce their annual activity report for 2020, the starting year of the pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Methods: All Spanish centers with cath labs and interventional activity in congenital heart diseases were invited to participate. Data were collected online, and analyzed by an external company together with members from the ACI-SEC and the GTH-SECPCC. Results: A total of 16 centers participated (all of them public) including 30 cath labs experienced in the management of congenital heart diseases, 7 of them (23.3%) dedicated exclusively to pediatric patients. A total of 1046 diagnostic studies, and 1468 interventional cardiac catheterizations were registered. The interventional procedures were considered successful in 93.4% of the cases with rates of major procedural complications and mortality of 2%, and 0.1%, respectively. The most frequent procedures were atrial septal defect closure (377 cases), pulmonary angioplasty (244 cases), and the percutaneous closure of the patent ductus arteriosus (199 cases). Conclusions: This report is the first publication from the Spanish Cardiac Catheterization in Congenital Heart Diseases Registry. The data recorded are conditioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. Diagnostic cardiac catheterization still plays a key role in this field. Most interventional techniques have reported excellent security and efficacy rates

A deletion at Adamts9-magi1 Locus is associated with psoriatic arthritis risk

Objective: Copy number variants (CNVs) have been associated with the risk to develop multiple autoimmune diseases. Our objective was to identify CNVs associated with the risk to develop psoriatic arthritis (PsA) using a genome-wide analysis approach. Methods: A total of 835 patients with PsA and 1498 healthy controls were genotyped for CNVs using the Illumina HumanHap610 BeadChip genotyping platform. Genomic CNVs were characterised using CNstream analysis software and analysed for association using the χ2 test. The most significant genomic CNV associations with PsA risk were independently tested in a validation sample of 1133 patients with PsA and 1831 healthy controls. In order to test for the specificity of the variants with PsA aetiology, we also analysed the association to a cohort of 822 patients with purely cutaneous psoriasis (PsC). Results: A total of 165 common CNVs were identified in the genome-wide analysis. We found a highly significant association of an intergenic deletion between ADAMTS9 and MAGI1 genes on chromosome 3p14.1 (p=0.00014). Using the independent patient and control cohort, we validated the association between ADAMTS9-MAGI1 deletion and PsA risk (p=0.032). Using next-generation sequencing, we characterised the 26 kb associated deletion. Finally, analysing the PsC cohort we found a lower frequency of the deletion compared with the PsA cohort (p=0.0088) and a similar frequency to that of healthy controls (p>0.3). Conclusions: The present genome-wide scan for CNVs associated with PsA risk has identified a new deletion associated with disease risk and which is also differential from PsC risk

Guía de saúde infantil : actividades preventivas e de promoción da saúde en pediatría de atención primaria

Se trata de una guía de salud infantil dirigida a los profesionales que trabajan en el ámbito de la asistencia sanitaria a los niños y adolescentes en atención primaria del Sistema Público de Salud de Galicia.Trátase dunha guía de saúde infantil dirixida aos profesionais que traballan no ámbito da asistencia sanitaria aos nenos e adolescentes na atención primaria do Sistema Público de Saúde de Galicia

Multicentre, randomised, single-blind, parallel group trial to compare the effectiveness of a Holter for Parkinson's symptoms against other clinical monitoring methods: study protocol

Introduction In recent years, multiple studies have aimed to develop and validate portable technological devices capable of monitoring the motor complications of Parkinson's disease patients (Parkinson's Holter). The effectiveness of these monitoring devices for improving clinical control is not known. Methods and analysis This is a single-blind, cluster-randomised controlled clinical trial. Neurologists from Spanish health centres will be randomly assigned to one of three study arms (1:1:1): (a) therapeutic adjustment using information from a Parkinson?s Holter that will be worn by their patients for 7 days, (b) therapeutic adjustment using information from a diary of motor fluctuations that will be completed by their patients for 7 days and (c) therapeutic adjustment using clinical information collected during consultation. It is expected that 162 consecutive patients will be included over a period of 6 months. The primary outcome is the efficiency of the Parkinson?s Holter compared with traditional clinical practice in terms of Off time reduction with respect to the baseline (recorded through a diary of motor fluctuations, which will be completed by all patients). As secondary outcomes, changes in variables related to other motor complications (dyskinesia and freezing of gait), quality of life, autonomy in activities of daily living, adherence to the monitoring system and number of doctor?patient contacts will be analysed. The noninferiority of the Parkinson's Holter against the diary of motor fluctuations in terms of Off time reduction will be studied as the exploratory objective. Ethics and dissemination approval for this study has been obtained from the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge Ethics Committee. The results of this study will inform the practical utility of the objective information provided by a Parkinson's Holter and, therefore, the convenience of adopting this technology in clinical practice and in future clinical trials. We expect public dissemination of the results in 2022.Funding This work is supported by AbbVie S.L.U, the Instituto de Salud Carlos III [DTS17/00195] and the European Fund for Regional Development, 'A way to make Europe'