Temporal analysis of natural radionuclides deposition at Málaga(2005-2016)

Atmospheric deposition of radionuclides has been investigated in many studies from the aspects of both radiation protection and geochemistry. The present study, carried out in the city of Málaga, in the southeast of Spain, focuses on the assessment of the bulk depositional fluxes of three natural radionuclides: 7Be (cosmogenic origin), and 210Pb and 40K (crustal origin). These three radionuclides are useful markers of particles arising from their respective sources. To obtain fundamental information of atmospheric transportation, sedimentation and geological process of particulate matter, a long-term monitoring of atmospheric deposition has been carried out in Málaga from January 2005-December 2016. Samples of bulk deposition were collected on a monthly basis on a stainless steel tray from January 2005 to December 2016. Afterwards, a volume of 6 L of the bulk deposition was reduced via evaporation to 1 L approximately and transferred to a Marinelli geometry container for gamma counting. Additionally, aerosols samples were collected weekly in cellulose membrane filters of 0.8μm pore size and 47mm diameter with an air sampler lodged in an all-weather sampling station, situated on the roof near the bulk rain collector. Gamma counting of the aerosols and bulk deposition samples was performed using an intrinsic germanium coaxial detector, Re-Ge-type (CANBERRA). This study describes the results and then discusses characteristics of atmospheric deposition of mentioned radionuclides with respect to seasonal variations and dependency on controlling factors. The depositional fluxes of all radionuclides showed a clear seasonal trend with summer minimum and high values in wintertime

Natural radiactivity from building materials in Spain

The industrial construction sector is very important in Spain. Building materials used in this industry are sources of radiation from natural radionuclides they contain. The European Commission published some recommendations to facilitate the trade of these materials in the E.U. The studies about this subject have increased notably during last years. This, probably, can be associated with the increase interest from natural radiation radiological risk on indoor exposure.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear. CSN-201

Exploring the symbol processing 'time interval' parametric constraint in a Belousov-Zhabotinsky operated chemical Turing machine

Chemical reactions are powerful molecular recognition machines. This power has been recently harnessed to build actual instances of each class of experimentally realizable computing automata, using exclusively small-molecule chemistry (i.e. without requiring biomolecules). The most powerful of them, a programmable Turing machine, uses the Belousov-Zhabotinsky oscillatory chemistry, and accepts/rejects input sequences through a dual oscillatory and thermodynamic output signature. The time interval between the aliquots representing each letter of the input is the parameter that determines the time it takes to run the computation. Here, we investigate this critical performance parameter, and its effect not only on the computation speed, but also on the robustness of the accept/reject oscillatory and thermodynamic criteria. Our work demonstrates that the time interval is a non-trivial design parameter, whose choice should be made with great care. The guidelines we provide can be used in the optimization of the speed, robustness, and energy efficiency of chemical automata computations

Gene Expression Analyses in Non Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer Reveals a Role for Alternative Splicing and Tp53 Status

Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) represents a crucial problem for the national health care systems due to its high rates of recurrence and the consequent need of frequent follow-ups. Here, gene expression analyses in patients diagnosed as NMIBC were performed to determine those molecular pathways involved in tumor initiation, finding that both MYC and E2F are up regulated and helps to tumor initiation and progression. Our results also support an important involvement of alternative splicing events, modifying key pathways to favour bladder tumor evolution. Finally, since MDM2 showed differential exon usage, mutations in TP53 and its protein expression have been also studied in the same patients. Our data support that recurrence is epigenetically mediated and favoured by an increase protein expression of TP53, which appears more frequently mutated in advanced stages and grades, being associated to a worse prognosis. Therefore, TP53 mutational status could be used as a potential biomarker in the first stages of NMIBC to predict recurrence and prognosis.We express our deepest acknowledgement to patients and their families. The authors also acknowledge the computing resources and technical support provided by Abel Paz-Gallardo and Alfonso Pardo from Extremadura Research Centre for Advanced Technologies (CETA−CIEMAT). This work was supported FEDER cofounded MINECO grant SAF2015-66015-R, ISCIII-RETIC RD12/0036/0009, and PIE15/00076 and CB/16/00228 (to J.M. Paramio); MMF was supported by a Jose Castillejo Fellowship (CAS16/00115)

Evaluación de la cohesión de betunes modificados con polvo de neumáticos

This article reports on a study of crumb rubber-mediated improvement in bitumen cohesion, analyzed with the UCL method. UCL, a procedure developed to characterize bituminous binders, evaluates the cohesion obtained by adding a certain amount of bitumen or bituminous mastic to a standard mix aggregate. This method was chosen because it can be used to assess bitumen containing crumb rubber added by either the wet or the dry mix process. In the dry mix process crumb rubber is combined with the mix as if it were a fine aggregate; i.e., crumb rubber and binder are blended during mix manufacture, laying and compaction. In the wet mix process, the binder is blended with the crumb rubber prior to mixing with the aggregate; i.e., when added to the mix, it has already been modified. The effect of digesting this dry mixed material prior to use was also analyzed in the present study. A comparison of the dry (with and without digestion) and wet mix processes showed the latter to be more effective, particularly when the crumb rubber was blended with the binder via microscopic dispersion.El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar la influencia del polvo de neumático en la mejora de la cohesión proporcionada por la adición del polvo de neumático al betún mediante el método UCL. El método UCL es un procedimiento desarrollado para caracterizar ligantes bituminosos, basado en la evaluación de la cohesión dada por una cantidad determinada de un betún o un mástico bituminoso a unos áridos de granulometría establecida (mezcla patrón). Se ha empleado este método porque permite valorar al mismo tiempo los dos procedimientos de incorporación del polvo de neumático al betún: vía seca y vía húmeda.El procedimiento seco se lleva a cabo añadiendo el polvo de neumático a la mezcla como si fuera un filler, de modo que el polvo de neumático y el ligante se mezclan durante la fabricación, extendido y compactación de la mezcla. En el procedimiento húmedo, hay una mezcla previa del ligante con el polvo de neumático, por lo que aquél seaña de a la mezcla cuando ya ha sido modificado. También se ha estudiado la influencia de los tiempos de digestión. Se comparan los dos procedimientos, seco con y sin digestión, y húmedo. El segundo presenta una clara ventaja,especialmente cuando los ligantes son fabricados con dispersión microscópica

Waardenburg syndrome (WS)

Review on Waardenburg syndrome (WS), with data on clinics, and the genes involved

Gene Expression Analyses in Non Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer Reveals a Role for Alternative Splicing and Tp53 Status

Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) represents a crucial problem for the national health care systems due to its high rates of recurrence and the consequent need of frequent follow-ups. Here, gene expression analyses in patients diagnosed as NMIBC were performed to determine those molecular pathways involved in tumor initiation, finding that both MYC and E2F are up regulated and helps to tumor initiation and progression. Our results also support an important involvement of alternative splicing events, modifying key pathways to favour bladder tumor evolution. Finally, since MDM2 showed differential exon usage, mutations in TP53 and its protein expression have been also studied in the same patients. Our data support that recurrence is epigenetically mediated and favoured by an increase protein expression of TP53, which appears more frequently mutated in advanced stages and grades, being associated to a worse prognosis. Therefore, TP53 mutational status could be used as a potential biomarker in the first stages of NMIBC to predict recurrence and prognosis

New Insights on Structures Forming the Lignin-Like Fractions of Ancestral Plants

In the present work, lignin-like fractions were isolated from several ancestral plants –including moss (Hypnum cupressiforme and Polytrichum commune), lycophyte (Selaginella kraussiana), horsetail (Equisetum palustre), fern (Nephrolepis cordifolia and Pteridium aquilinum), cycad (Cycas revoluta), and gnetophyte (Ephedra fragilis) species– and structurally characterized by pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) and two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (2D-NMR) spectroscopy. Py-GC/MS yielded marker compounds characteristic of lignin units, except in the H. cupressiforme, P. commune and E. palustre “lignins, ” where they were practically absent. Additional structural information on the other five samples was obtained from 2D-NMR experiments displaying intense correlations signals of guaiacyl (G) units in the fern and cycad lignins, along with smaller amounts of p-hydroxyphenyl (H) units. Interestingly, the lignins from the lycophyte S. kraussiana and the gnetophyte E. fragilis were not only composed of G- and H-lignin units but they also incorporated significant amounts of the syringyl (S) units characteristic of angiosperms, which appeared much later in plant evolution, most probably due to convergent evolution. The latter finding is also supported by the abundance of syringol derivatives after the Py-GC/MS analyses of these two samples. Regarding lignin structure, β−O−4′ alkyl-aryl ethers were the most abundant substructures, followed by condensed β−5′ phenylcoumarans and β−β′ resinols (and dibenzodioxocins in the fern and cycad lignins). The highest percentages of alkyl-aryl ether structures correlated with the higher S/G ratio in the S. Kraussiana and E. fragilis lignin-like fractions. More interestingly, apart from the typical monolignol-derived lignin units (H, G and S), other structures, assigned to flavonoid compounds never reported before in natural lignins (such as amentoflavone, apigenin, hypnogenol B, kaempferol, and naringenin), could also be identified in the HSQC spectra of all the lignin-like fractions analyzed. With this purpose, in vitro synthesized coniferyl-naringenin and coniferyl-apigenin dehydrogenation polymers were used as standards. These flavonoids were abundant in H. cupressiforme appearing as the only constituents of the moss lignin-like fraction (including 84% of dimeric hypnogenol B) and their abundance decreased in those of S. Kraussiana (with amentoflavone and naringenin representing 14% of the total aromatic units), and the two ancient gymnosperms (0.4–1.2%) and ferns (0–0.7%)