Los niveles epicardiales de les Coves del Fem (Ulldemolins, Tarragona)

Les Coves del Fem (Ulldemolins) es una gran cavidad situada en el macizo del Montsant, a 490 m snm, en el interior de Tarragona. Los trabajos iniciados el año 2013 han permitido documentar una amplia estratigrafía que abarca desde el Mesolítico Reciente hasta el Neolítico Postcardial. Los resultados de las intervenciones arqueológicas ponen de relieve el interés de este yacimiento por lo se refiere a la transición entre los últimos cazadores recolectores y los primeros grupos de agricultores y ganaderos en el norestes peninsular. En el marco de un nuevo proyecto de investigación se ha llevado a cabo una nueva intervención arqueológica en la parte central del abrigo, en un área que ocupa 9 m2. La zona intervenida colinda con los perfiles realizados en las campañas de 2013 y 2015 sobre un corte resultante de intervenciones clandestinas previas. La intención es obtener, en un futuro próximo, una sección transversal completa desde este punto hasta el fondo de la cueva. La excavación en extensión de esta área ha hecho patente la complejidad estratigráfica del yacimiento donde las unidades se presentan de forma muy heterogénea con sucesiones de niveles de arenas de fracción muy fina depositadas por la acción de las crecidas del río Montsant y por sedimentación eólica. Aunque el área intervenida no es muy amplia se han documentado un número relevante de estructuras como fosas, elementos de sostenimiento y estructuras de combustión de diversa tipología y función, algunas de las cuales se organizan en relación a una gran estructura compleja que, pese a que debería confirmarse en futuras intervenciones, podría interpretarse como una base de una cabaña. Los niveles excavados hasta la fecha corresponden a las ocupaciones epicardiales documentadas en las intervenciones anteriores, las cuales han proporcionado un abundante y variado conjunto material. Cabe destacar la industria lítica tallada en sílex, que abarca restos representativos de todas las fases del proceso de producción, la industria ósea, los elementos cerámicos, los restos antracológicos y carpológicos, así como restos de madera no carbonizada o semicarbonizada en buen estado de conservación.Peer reviewe

The Catalan Surveillance Network of SARS-CoV-2 in Sewage: design, implementation, and performance

Wastewater-based epidemiology has shown to be an efficient tool to track the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in communities assisted by wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The challenge comes when this approach is employed to help Health authorities in their decision-making. Here, we describe the roadmap for the design and deployment of SARSAIGUA, the Catalan Surveillance Network of SARS-CoV-2 in Sewage. The network monitors, weekly or biweekly, 56 WWTPs evenly distributed across the territory and serving 6 M inhabitants (80% of the Catalan population). Each week, samples from 45 WWTPs are collected, analyzed, results reported to Health authorities, and finally published within less than 72 h in an online dashboard ( https://sarsaigua.icra.cat ). After 20 months of monitoring (July 20-March 22), the standardized viral load (gene copies/day) in all the WWTPs monitored fairly matched the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases along the successive pandemic waves, showing a good fit with the diagnosed cases in the served municipalities (Spearman Rho = 0.69). Here we describe the roadmap of the design and deployment of SARSAIGUA while providing several open-access tools for the management and visualization of the surveillance data.The authors wish to thank the staff from all the WWTPs monitored for their help and technical support during the sampling campaigns. The authors acknowledge the funding received from the ACA and the ASPCAT from the Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya). ICRA authors acknowledge the funding provided by the Generalitat de Catalunya through the Consolidated Research Group grants ICRA-ENV 2017 SGR 1124 and ICRA-TiA 2017 SGR 1318. ICRA researchers also thank the funding from the CERCA program of the Catalan Government.Peer reviewe

Trends in the epidemiology of catheter-related bloodstream infections; towards a paradigm shift, Spain, 2007 to 2019

Altres ajuts: Departament de Salut. Generalitat de Catalunya ("Pla estratègic de recerca i innovació en salut (PERIS) 2019-2021"); Ministerio de Asuntos Económicos y Transformación Digital; Red Española de Investigación en Patología Infecciosa (REIPI).Background: Catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSI) are frequent healthcare-associated infections and an important cause of death. Aim: To analyse changes in CRBSI epidemiology observed by the Infection Control Catalan Programme (VINCat). Methods: A cohort study including all hospital-acquired CRBSI episodes diagnosed at 55 hospitals (2007-2019) in Catalonia, Spain, was prospectively conducted. CRBSI incidence rates were adjusted per 1,000patientdays. To assess the CRBSI rate trend per year, negative binomial models were used, with the number of events as the dependent variable, and the year as the main independent variable. From each model, the annual rate of CRBSI diagnosed per 1,000patientdays and the incidence rate ratio (IRR) with its 95% confidence intervals (CI) were reported. Results: During the study, 9,290 CRBSI episodes were diagnosed (mean annual incidence rate:0.20episodes/1,000patientdays). Patients' median age was 64.1years; 36.6% (3,403/9,290) were female. In total, 73.7% (n=6,845) of CRBSI occurred in non-intensive care unit (ICU) wards, 62.7% (n=5,822) were related to central venous catheter (CVC), 24.1% (n=2,236) to peripheral venous catheters (PVC) and 13.3% (n=1,232) to peripherally-inserted central venous catheters (PICVC). Incidence rate fell over the study period (IRR:0.94;95%CI:0.93-0.96), especially in the ICU (IRR:0.88;95%CI:0.87-0.89). As a whole, while episodes of CVC CRBSI fell significantly (IRR:0.88;95%CI:0.87-0.91), peripherally-inserted catheter CRBSI (PVC and PICVC) rose, especially in medical wards (IRR PICVC:1.08;95%CI:1.05-1.11; IRR PVC: 1.03; 95% 1.00-1.05). Conclusions: Over the study, CRBSIs associated with CVC and diagnosed in ICUs decreased while episodes in conventional wards involving peripherally-inserted catheters increased. Hospitals should implement preventive measures in conventional wards

Famílies botàniques de plantes medicinals

Facultat de Farmàcia, Universitat de Barcelona. Ensenyament: Grau de Farmàcia, Assignatura: Botànica Farmacèutica, Curs: 2013-2014, Coordinadors: Joan Simon, Cèsar Blanché i Maria Bosch.Els materials que aquí es presenten són els recull de 175 treballs d’una família botànica d’interès medicinal realitzats de manera individual. Els treballs han estat realitzat per la totalitat dels estudiants dels grups M-2 i M-3 de l’assignatura Botànica Farmacèutica durant els mesos d’abril i maig del curs 2013-14. Tots els treballs s’han dut a terme a través de la plataforma de GoogleDocs i han estat tutoritzats pel professor de l’assignatura i revisats i finalment co-avaluats entre els propis estudiants. L’objectiu principal de l’activitat ha estat fomentar l’aprenentatge autònom i col·laboratiu en Botànica farmacèutica

DECKO: Single-oligo, dual-CRISPR deletion of genomic elements including long non-coding RNAs

Erratum note: Unfortunately, the original version of this article [1] contained an error. In the Methods part, in the Design and Cloning of Plasmids section, a sentence was included incorrectly. The correct sentence can be found below/n/n"The Insert-2 sequence was previously assembled from four 5'-phosphorilated oligonucleotides (IDT)"./n/nPlease also note in table S3 The oligo pDECKO_seq_R is lacking one nucleotide. The correct sequence is ATGTCTACTATTCTTTCCCCBackground. CRISPR genome-editing technology makes it possible to quickly and cheaply delete non-protein-coding regulatory elements. We present a vector system adapted for this purpose called DECKO (Double Excision CRISPR Knockout), which applies a simple two-step cloning to generate lentiviral vectors expressing two guide RNAs (gRNAs) simultaneously. The key feature of DECKO is its use of a single 165 bp starting oligonucleotide carrying the variable sequences of both gRNAs, making it fully scalable from single-locus studies to complex library cloning./nResults. We apply DECKO to deleting the promoters of one protein-coding gene and two oncogenic lncRNAs, UCA1 and the highly-expressed MALAT1, focus of many previous studies employing RNA interference approaches. DECKO successfully deleted genomic fragments ranging in size from 100 to 3000 bp in four human cell lines. Using a clone-derivation workflow lasting approximately 20 days, we obtained 9 homozygous and 17 heterozygous promoter knockouts in three human cell lines. Frequent target region inversions were observed. These clones have reductions in steady-state MALAT1 RNA levels of up to 98 % and display reduced proliferation rates./nConclusions. We present a dual CRISPR tool, DECKO, which is cloned using a single starting oligonucleotide, thereby affording simplicity and scalability to CRISPR knockout studies of non-coding genomic elements, including long non-coding RNAs.We acknowledge support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, ‘Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013-2017’, SEV-2012-0208. This work was financially supported by the following grants: CSD2007-00050 from the Spanish Ministry of Science, grant SGR-1430 from the Catalan Government, grant ERC-2011-AdG-294653-RNA-MAPS from the European Community financial support under the FP7 and grant R01MH101814 by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health, to RG. Ramón y Cajal RYC-2011-08851 and Plan Nacional BIO2011-27220 to RJ