A portable geometry-independent tomographic system for gamma-ray, a next generation of nuclear waste characterization

One of the main activities of the nuclear industry is the characterisation of radioactive waste based on the detection of gamma radiation. Large volumes of radioactive waste are classified according to their average activity, but often the radioactivity exceeds the maximum allowed by regulators in specific parts of the bulk. In addition, the detection of the radiation is currently based on static detection systems where the geometry of the bulk is fixed and well known. Furthermore, these systems are not portable and depend on the transport of waste to the places where the detection systems are located. However, there are situations where the geometry varies and where moving waste is complex. This is especially true in compromised situations.We present a new model for nuclear waste management based on a portable and geometry-independent tomographic system for three-dimensional image reconstruction for gamma radiation detection. The system relies on a combination of a gamma radiation camera and a visible camera that allows to visualise radioactivity using augmented reality and artificial computer vision techniques. This novel tomographic system has the potential to be a disruptive innovation in the nuclear industry for nuclear waste management

The informative treatment of the newspaper ABC regarding the participation of the Spanish Armed Forces in the United Nations Protection Force for the former Yugoslavia

El presente documento contiene el estudio de la producción periodística del diario ABC, respecto a una de las misiones más relevantes llevadas a cabo por las Fuerzas Armadas de España en su historia reciente: el despliegue como miembro de UNPROFOR. Este trabajo se centra en el análisis del tratamiento informativo llevado a cabo por ABC, como herramienta para comprender la base de la imagen pública de las Fuerzas Armadas en el contexto actual. En este marco, la obra de ABC experimentó una progresión directamente relacionada con la evolución de las operaciones militares en suelo bosnio y croata. El citado periódico desarrolló una reseñable cobertura de los acontecimientos cuyo examen permite evaluar el reflejo mediático de un compendio de acontecimientos clave para entender el rol de las Fuerzas Armadas en la defensa nacional y la proyección internacional de dicha institución en el mundo actualThis paper analyzes the journalistic production of the Spanish newspaper ABC, regarding one of the most important missions carried out by the Spanish Armed Forces in its recent history: its deployment as a member of UNPROFOR. The investigation focuses on the review of the informative treatment carried out by ABC, as a tool to understand the basis of the public image of the Spanish Armed Forces in the current international context. ABC's work experienced a progression directly related to the evolution of the military operations on Bosnian and Croatian soil. The aforementioned newspaper developed a remarkable coverage of the events whose examination allows to evaluate the media reflection of a compendium of events which are key to understand the role of the Spanish Armed Forces in its National Defence and the international projection of said institution in today's worl

El tratamiento informativo del diario ABC respecto a la participación de las Fuerzas Armadas españolas en la Fuerza de Protección de las Naciones Unidas para la antigua Yugoslavia.

El presente documento contiene el estudio de la producción periodística del diario ABC, respecto a una de las misiones más relevantes llevadas a cabo por las Fuerzas Armadas de España en su historia reciente: el despliegue como miembro de UNPROFOR. Este trabajo se centra en el análisis del tratamiento informativo llevado a cabo por ABC, como herramienta para comprender la base de la imagen pública de las Fuerzas Armadas en el contexto actual. En este marco, la obra de ABC experimentó una progresión directamente relacionada con la evolución de las operaciones militares en suelo bosnio y croata. El citado periódico desarrolló una reseñable cobertura de los acontecimientos cuyo examen permite evaluar el reflejo mediático de un compendio de acontecimientos clave para entender el rol de las Fuerzas Armadas en la defensa nacional y la proyección internacional de dicha institución en el mundo actual.post-print422 K

Comparación de la disponibilidad de hongos comestibles en tierras altas y bajas de Chiapas y sus implicaciones en las estrategias tradicionales de aprovechamiento

Background and Aims: Wild edible mushroom traditional management strategies have been described for both highlands and lowlands in Mexico. It seems that, in the lowlands, the usage of this resource is lower than in the highlands. Ecological ethnomycology is concerned with understanding how certain ecological patterns in mushrooms influence traditional management strategies. In this study we present a comparison between the edible mushrooms’ fruit body availability in two distinct ecological units: The Highlands of Chiapas and the Lacandon Rainforest. Our hypothesis was that the fruit body availability is higher in both the highlands and preserved vegetation, which might explain a greater usage in these ecosystems, as well as the opportunistic usage of mushrooms in the lowlands.Methods: During 2009 and 2010, we monitored the fruit body abundance, biomass, spatial and temporal frequencies, as indicators of edible mushroom availability in rectangular transects in three sites per ecological setting (highlands/lowlands) both in preserved vegetation sites and agroecosystems in Chiapas, Mexico.Key results: In the highlands, a greater richness (35 ethnotaxa) and biomass production (12,345.2 g) was recorded, but the lowlands yielded a greater number of fruit bodies (3212) and a higher spatial and temporal frequency (76.6% and 40% respectively).Conclusions: In both ecological settings, edible mushroom availability allow their use; however, it has different ecological traits. This may explain why, in the highlands, people use a more diverse array of species and prefer those of greater biomass. Contrastingly, in the lowlands less species are used, but they are more abundant and have a greater spatial and temporal frequency. Our data demonstrate that the lowlands and agroecosystems are spaces with edible mushroom availability comparable to that of highland forests.Antecedentes y Objetivos: Las estrategias tradicionales de aprovechamiento de hongos silvestres comestibles han sido descritas de tierras altas y bajas en México. No obstante, al parecer en las tierras bajas el aprovechamiento de especies es menor que en las altas. La etnomicología ecológica se interesa en comprender cómo ciertos patrones ecológicos en los hongos pueden orientar las estrategias tradicionales de aprovechamiento. Este estudio presenta una comparación entre la disponibilidad de esporomas de hongos comestibles en dos condiciones ecológicas, Los Altos de Chiapas y la Selva Lacandona. Se plantea la hipótesis de que la disponibilidad de esporomas es mayor tanto en tierras altas como en sitios con vegetación conservada y, por tanto, esto podría explicar un mayor beneficio en dicho piso ecológico y el aprovechamiento oportunista en tierras bajas. Métodos: Durante 2009 y 2010 se monitoreó la abundancia, biomasa, frecuencia espacial y temporal como indicadores de disponibilidad, en transectos rectangulares en tres localidades de cada piso en Chiapas, México, en vegetación conservada y agroecosistemas. Resultados clave: En tierras altas existió una mayor riqueza (35 etnotaxones) y una mayor producción de biomasa (12,345.2 g), mientras que en tierras bajas se registró una mayor abundancia de esporomas (3212), frecuencia espacial (76.6%) y temporal (40%).Conclusiones: En ambos pisos ecológicos existe disponibilidad del recurso que permite su aprovechamiento; sin embargo, este se comporta diferente en términos ecológicos. Esto puede explicar porque en tierras altas las personas utilizan una mayor cantidad de especies y la preferencia por aquellas de mayor biomasa. Por el contrario, en tierras bajas se aprovecha un menor número de especies, pero más abundantes, y con mayor presencia espacial y temporal. Los datos aquí presentados muestran que las tierras bajas y los agroecosistemas son espacios con una disponibilidad de hongos tan importante como la de los bosques de tierras altas

A hotspot mutation targeting the R-RAS2 GTPase acts as a potent oncogenic driver in a wide spectrum of tumors

A missense change in RRAS2 (Gln to Leu), analogous to the Gln-to-Leu mutation of RAS oncoproteins, has been identified as a long-tail hotspot mutation in cancer and Noonan syndrome. However, the relevance of this mutation for in vivo tumorigenesis remains understudied. Here we show, using an inducible knockin mouse model, that R-Ras2 triggers rapid development of a wide spectrum of tumors when somatically expressed in adult tissues. These tumors show limited overlap with those originated by classical Ras oncogenes. R-Ras2-driven tumors can be classified into different subtypes according to therapeutic susceptibility. Importantly, the most relevant R-Ras2-driven tumors are dependent on mTORC1 but independent of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-, MEK-, and Ral guanosine diphosphate (GDP) dissociation stimulator. This pharmacological vulnerability is due to the extensive rewiring by R-Ras2 of pathways that orthogonally stimulate mTORC1 signaling. These findings demonstrate that RRAS2 is a bona fide oncogenic driver and unveil therapeutic strategies for patients with cancer and Noonan syndrome bearing RRAS2 mutations.We thank M. Blázquez and the personnel of the CIC Flow Cytometry, Microscopy, Pathology, and Genomics Units for expert technical work. X.R.B.’s project leading to these results has received funding from the Spanish Association against Cancer (GC16173472GARC), the Castilla-León government (CSI252P18, CSI145P20, and CLC-2017-01), the RTI2018-096481-B-100 grant cofounded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Research Development Fund “A way of making Europe” of the European Union, and “la Caixa” Banking Foundation (HR20-00164). X.R.B.’s institution is supported by the Programa de Apoyo a Planes Estratégicos de Investigación de Estructuras de Investigación de Excelencia of the Castilla-León government (CLC-2017-01). J.R.-V. received funding from the Carlos III Health Institute (PI20/01724). J.R.-V.’s contract is supported by a senior postdoctoral contract of the Spanish Association against Cancer. L.C.’s contract was supported by contracts from the Spanish Association against Cancer and the CLC-2017-01 grant. L.F.L.-M.’s contract was mostly supported by funding from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (FPU13/02923) and, subsequently, by the CLC-2017-01 grant. R.C. was supported by a predoctoral contract from the MSI (BES-2016-0077909) and the CLC-2017-01 grant

Multimorbidity Patterns and Their Association with Social Determinants, Mental and Physical Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The challenge posed by multimorbidity makes it necessary to look at new forms of prevention, a fact that has become heightened in the context of the pandemic. We designed a questionnaire to detect multimorbidity patterns in people over 50 and to associate these patterns with mental and physical health, COVID-19, and possible social inequalities. Methods: This was an observational study conducted through a telephone interview. The sample size was 1592 individuals with multimorbidity. We use Latent Class Analysis to detect patterns and SF-12 scale to measure mental and physical quality-of-life health. We introduced the two dimensions of health and other social determinants in a multinomial regression model. Results: We obtained a model with five patterns (entropy = 0.727): ‘Relative Healthy’, ‘Cardiometabolic’, ‘Musculoskeletal’, ‘Musculoskeletal and Mental’, and ‘Complex Multimorbidity’. We found some differences in mental and physical health among patterns and COVID-19 diagnoses, and some social determinants were significant in the multinomial regression. Conclusions: We identified that prevention requires the location of certain inequalities associated with the multimorbidity patterns and how physical and mental health have been affected not only by the patterns but also by COVID-19. These findings may be critical in future interventions by health services and governments17 página

High-resolution hepatitis C virus subtyping using NS5B deep sequencing and phylogeny, an alternative to current methods

HepatitisCvirus(HCV)is classified into seven major genotypesand67 subtypes. Recent studies haveshownthat inHCVgenotype 1-infected patients, response rates to regimens containingdirect-acting antivirals(DAAs)are subtype dependent. Currently available genotypingmethods have limited subtyping accuracy.Wehave evaluated theperformanceof adeep-sequencing-basedHCVsubtyping assay, developed for the 454/GS-Junior platform, in comparisonwith thoseof two commercial assays (VersantHCVgenotype 2.0andAbbott Real-timeHCVGenotype II)andusingdirectNS5Bsequencing as a gold standard (direct sequencing), in 114 clinical specimenspreviously tested by first-generation hybridization assay (82 genotype 1and32 with uninterpretable results). Phylogenetic analysis of deep-sequencing reads matched subtype 1 callingbypopulation Sanger sequencing(69%1b,31%1a) in 81 specimensandidentified amixed-subtype infection (1b/3a/1a) in one sample. Similarly,amongthe 32previously indeterminate specimens, identical genotypeandsubtype results were obtained by directanddeep sequencing in all but four samples with dual infection. In contrast, both VersantHCVGenotype 2.0andAbbott Real-timeHCVGenotype II failed subtype 1 calling in 13 (16%) samples eachandwere unable to identify theHCVgenotype and/or subtype inmore than half of the nongenotype 1 samples.Weconcluded that deep sequencing ismore efficient forHCVsubtyping than currently available methodsandallows qualitative identificationofmixed infectionsandmay bemorehelpfulwith respect to informing treatment strategies withnewDAA-containing regimens across allHCVsubtypesThis study has been supported by CDTI (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial), Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness (MINECO), IDI-20110115; MINECO projects SAF 2009-10403; and also by the Spanish Ministry of Health, Instituto de Salud Carlos III (FIS) projects PI10/01505, PI12/01893, and PI13/00456. CIBERehd is funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. Work at CBMSO was supported by grant MINECO-BFU2011-23604, FIPSE, and Fundación Ramón Areces. X. Forns received unrestricted grant support from Roche and has acted as advisor for MSD, Gilead, and Abbvie. M. Alvarez-Tejado, J. Gregori, and J. M. Muñoz work in Roche Diagnostic

High-resolution variability of dissolved and suspended organic matter in the Cape Verde Frontal Zone

21 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables.-- This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY)Distributions of dissolved (DOM) and suspended (POM) organic matter, and their chromophoric (CDOM) and fluorescent (FDOM) fractions, are investigated at high resolution (< 10 km) in the Cape Verde Frontal Zone (CVFZ) during fall 2017. In the epipelagic layer (< 200 m), meso- and submesoscale structures (meanders, eddies) captured by the high resolution sampling dictate the tight coupling between physical and biogeochemical parameters at the front. Remarkably, fluorescent humic-like substances show relatively high fluorescence intensities between 50 and 150 m, apparently not related to local mineralization processes. We hypothesize that it is due to the input of Sahara dust, which transports highly re-worked DOM with distinctive optical properties. In the mesopelagic layer (200-1500 m), our results suggest that DOM and POM mineralization occurs mainly during the transit of the water masses from the formation sites to the CVFZ. Therefore, most of the local mineralization seems to be due to fast-sinking POM produced in situ or imported from the Mauritanian upwelling. These local mineralization processes lead to the production of refractory CDOM, an empirical evidence of the microbial carbon pump mechanism. DOM released from these fast-sinking POM is the likely reason behind the observed columns of relatively high DOC surrounded by areas of lower concentration. DOM and POM dynamics in the CVFZ has turned out to be very complex, in parallel to the complexity of meso- and submesoscale structures present in the area. On top of this high resolution variability, the input of Sahara dust or the release of DOM from sinking particles have been hypothesized to explain the observed distributionsThis work was funded by Spanish National Science Plan research grants FERMIO (CTM2014–57334–JIN) and FLUXES (CTM2015-69392-C3), co–financed with FEDER funds, and e-IMPACT (PID2019-109084RB-C21 and –C22). RC, SV and NB were supported by predoctoral fellowships from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (BES-2016-076462, BES- 2016-079216 and BES-2016-077949). BF-C was supported by a Juan de la Cierva Formación fellowship (FJCI-641-2015-25712) and by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 834330 (SO-CUP). JA was partly supported by the project SUMMER (AMD-817806-5) from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programPeer reviewe

The labor market effects of technology shocks

We analyze the effects of neutral and investment-specific technology shocks on hours worked and unemployment. We characterize the response of unemployment in terms of job separation and job finding rates. We find that job separation rates mainly account for the impact response of unemployment while job finding rates for movements along its adjustment path. Neutral shocks increase unemployment and explain a substantial portion of unemployment and output volatilityinvestment-specific shocks expand employment and hours worked and mostly contribute to hours worked volatility. We show that this evidence is consistent with the view that neutral technological progress prompts Schumpeterian creative destruction, while investment specific technological progress has standard neoclassical feature

Prevalence and prognosis of anxiety, insomnia, and type D personality in patients with myocardial infarction: A Spanish cohort

Background: It has been suggested that patients with myocardial infarction and non-obstructive coronary arteries (MINOCA) have more psycho-emotional disorders than patients with obstructive coronary artery disease (MICAD). The aim of this study is to compare the prevalence of anxiety, insomnia, and type D personality between MINOCA and MICAD and their impact on prognosis. Methods: Patients with myocardial infarction undergoing coronary angiography were prospectively enrolled. Psychological questionnaires were completed by each patient during admission. Results: Among a total of 533 patients, 56 had MINOCA and 477 had MICAD. There were no differences in the prevalence of anxiety and insomnia between both groups: trait anxiety median value (M) MINOCA = 18 (11–34) vs. MICAD M = 19 (12–27), p = 0.8; state anxiety MINOCA M = 19 (11–29) vs. MICAD M = 19 (12.2–26), p = 0.6; and insomnia MINOCA M = 7 (3–11) vs. MICAD M = 7 (3–12), p = 0.95. More MINOCA patients had type D personality (45.0% vs. 28.5%, p = 0.03). At 3-year follow-up, there were no differences in mortality between MINOCA and MICAD (hazard ratio [HR] 0.78, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.28–2.17) in major adverse cerebral or cardiovascular events (MACCE) (HR 0.71, 95% CI 0.38–1.31). Scores of trait anxiety and negative affectivity were significantly associated with MACCE (HR 1.65, 95% CI [1.05–2.57]; HR 1.75, 95% CI [1.11–2.77], respectively). High insomnia levels were associated with greater mortality (HR 2.72, 95% CI [1.12–6.61]). Conclusions: Anxiety and insomnia levels were similar between patients with MINOCA and those with MICAD, whilst the prevalence of type D personality was higher in the MINOCA than in the MICAD group. Higher scores in trait anxiety, insomnia, and negative affectivity were related to a worse prognosis at 3-year follow-up