Equivalence of chatbot and paper-and-pencil versions of the De Jong Gierveld loneliness scale

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Current Psychology. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01117-0Technological progress provides health professionals with an excellent opportunity to take advantage of these developments and contribute to the development of efficient ways of diagnosing, monitoring, treating and assisting users. The purpose of this work is to present the results of a study conducted to examine the quantitative equivalence of paper-and-pencil and a voice-based conversational assistant, popularly known as a “chatbot”, as means to administer tests. One hundred and eight undergraduate university students completed both versions of the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale. The interval between the first and second administration was set at four days. Validity, internal structure, internal consistency and equivalence of chatbot administration mode were assessed. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to verify the factor structure and provided a two-factor structure. Validity and internal consistency are adequate. These results support the feasibility of using chatbots for loneliness assessment in a sample of undergraduate university students and other populations in future

Romana Pictvra. La formación e investigación en estudios de pintura mural romana en España: nuevos modelos para las generaciones del futuro

[ES] La pintura mural romana constituye un material de gran interés desde el punto de vista arqueológico por la gran cantidad de información que aporta al estudio del mundo romano, tanto desde un punto de vista cronológico como arquitectónico, funcional-espacial, económico, social o político. No obstante, dada la fragilidad del material empleado para su ejecución, así como su común hallazgo fragmentario, su estudio requiere de una importante formación más allá de su análisis técnico-descriptivo o compositivo, que incluye el propio proceso de extracción, almacenaje, análisis, conservación y restauración. En este sentido, las escuelas europeas, especialmente la italiana y la francesa, conscientes de estas necesidades, han desarrollado a lo largo de los años cursos de especialización, integrados dentro de centros de estudio creados ex profeso para este ámbito de la investigación, destinados a dotar de las herramientas y conocimientos necesarios a los nuevos investigadores. En España, a pesar de la existencia de algunas tentativas previas como la Escuela Taller de Restauración de Aragón, cuya actividad comenzó en 2004 y cesó en 2011, la falta de centros y cursos a este respecto limita las posibilidades de formación de nuevos especialistas para el estudio de pintura mural romana en España. Ante esta situación, este trabajo pretende sentar las bases para la creación de un taller de estas características que, partiendo de la base establecida por los investigadores franceses e italianos, permita preparar a los investigadores del futuro.Castillo Alcántara, G.; Fernández Díaz, A.; González Vergara, Ó. (2023). Romana Pictvra. La formación e investigación en estudios de pintura mural romana en España: nuevos modelos para las generaciones del futuro. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 585-593. https://doi.org/10.4995/Icomos2022.2022.1489458559

A pintar como los romanos. Un taller didáctico para la villa romana de Portmán (Cartagena-La Unión)

[ES] En los últimos años los especialistas en patrimonio cultural han centrado sus esfuerzos en acercar a la población general el conocimiento sobre nuestro pasado mediante distintas exposiciones y talleres que permitan conocer prácticas y aspectos comunes del día a día de las civilizaciones que nos han precedido y, de este modo, comprender mejor los restos arqueológicos recuperados y puestos en valor para su disfrute. Dentro de esta labor, el desarrollo de talleres didáctios destinados a enseñar a pequeños y adultos cuestiones concretas sobre el funcionamiento de aspectos como la construcción, el artesanado o la alimentación constituyen un recurso más, ya que permite no solo un aprendizaje dinámico sino también la creación de experiencias en grupo o en familia que refuerzan estas dinámicas. Entre las distintas opciones que se han implementado, el desarrollo de talleres de pintura cuenta con un gran interés al abordar aspectos técnicos y decorativos del mundo romano que permiten tanto el aprendizaje como el trabajo manual. En este trabajo exponemos una propuesta de taller didáctico para el Museo Arqueológico de Portmán y el yacimiento de la villa romana de Portmán (Cartagena-La Unión), con el doble objetivo de difundir entre el público general el funcionamiento del artesanado de la pintura y el proceso de decoración de un espacio y servir a la dinamización de la puesta en valor del yacimiento. De este modo se persigue crear conciencia social sobre el patrimonio arqueológico de Portmán y su entorno.Esta publicación es parte del proyecto de I+D+i ID2019-104983GB-I00: “Pictores et officinae per provincias II. La circulación de modelos pictóricos urbanos y rurales por el sur de la Tarraconense, Lusitania y Betica desde una perspectiva integral,” financiado por MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033González Vergara, Ó.; Castillo Alcántara, G.; Fernández Díaz, A. (2023). A pintar como los romanos. Un taller didáctico para la villa romana de Portmán (Cartagena-La Unión). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 603-611. https://doi.org/10.4995/Icomos2022.2022.1489560361

CIMAR, NIMAR, and LMMA: novel algorithms for thread and memory migrations in user space on NUMA systems using hardware counters

This paper introduces two novel algorithms for thread migrations, named CIMAR (Core-aware Interchange and Migration Algorithm with performance Record –IMAR–) and NIMAR (Node-aware IMAR), and a new algorithm for the migration of memory pages, LMMA (Latency-based Memory pages Migration Algorithm), in the context of Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) systems. This kind of system has complex memory hierarchies that present a challenging problem in extracting the best possible performance, where thread and memory mapping play a critical role. The presented algorithms gather and process the information provided by hardware counters to make decisions about the migrations to be performed, trying to find the optimal mapping. They have been implemented as a user space tool that looks for improving the system performance, particularly in, but not restricted to, scenarios where multiple programs with different characteristics are running. This approach has the advantage of not requiring any modification on the target programs or the Linux kernel while keeping a low overhead. Two different benchmark suites have been used to validate our algorithms: The NAS parallel benchmark, mainly devoted to computational routines, and the LevelDB database benchmark focused on read–write operations. These benchmarks allow us to illustrate the influence of our proposal in these two important types of codes. Note that those codes are state-of-the-art implementations of the routines, so few improvements could be initially expected. Experiments have been designed and conducted to emulate three different scenarios: a single program running in the system with full resources, an interactive server where multiple programs run concurrently varying the availability of resources, and a queue of tasks where granted resources are limited. The proposed algorithms have been able to produce significant benefits, especially in systems with higher latency penalties for remote accesses. When more than one benchmark is executed simultaneously, performance improvements have been obtained, reducing execution times up to 60%. In this kind of situation, the behaviour of the system is more critical, and the NUMA topology plays a more relevant role. Even in the worst case, when isolated benchmarks are executed using the whole system, that is, just one task at a time, the performance is not degradedThis research work has received financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain within the project PID2019-104834GB-I00. It was also funded by the Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria of Xunta de Galicia (accr. 2019–2022, ED431G 2019/04 and reference competitive group 2019–2021, ED431C 2018/19)S

A crystalline and free-standing silver thiocarboxylate thin-film showing high green to yellow luminescence

The simple direct synthesis of Cu(ii) and Ag(i) salts and thiobenzoic acid under ambient conditions allows the preparation of two bidimensional coordination polymers [M(TB)]n (TB = thiobenzoate; M = Cu (1) or Ag (2)). Their electrical and luminescent properties show that these are multifunctional materials. Interestingly 1 and 2 undergo a reversible solubilization process. This unusual feature and their simple preparation allow us to prepare a crystalline and free-standing thin-film of 2, using an interfacial procedure, which shows a remarkable thermochromic luminescence.This work was supported by MICINN (MAT2013-46753-C2-1-P and CTQ2013-48635-C2-1-P) and Generalitat Valenciana (projects PrometeoII/2014/076 and ISIC

Parathormone levels add prognostic ability to N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide in stable coronary patients

Aims: There are controversial data on the ability of the components of mineral metabolism (vitamin D, phosphate, parathormone [PTH], fibroblast growth factor-23 [FGF23], and klotho) to predict cardiovascular events. In addition, it is unknown whether they add any prognostic value to other well-known biomarkers. Methods and results: In 969 stable coronary patients, we determined plasma levels of all the aforementioned components of mineral metabolism with a complete set of clinical and biochemical variables, including N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), high-sensitivity troponin I (hs-TnI), and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. Secondary outcomes were ischaemic events (any acute coronary syndrome, stroke, or transient ischaemic attack) and heart failure or death. The primary outcome was a composite of the secondary outcomes. Median follow-up was 5.39 years. Age was 60 (52–72) years. Median glomerular filtration rate was 80.4 (65.3–93.1) mL/min/1.73 m2. One-hundred and eighty-five patients developed the primary outcome. FGF23, PTH, hs-TnI, and NT-proBNP were directly related with the primary outcome on univariate Cox analysis, while Klotho and calcidiol were inversely related. On multivariate analysis, only PTH (HR 1.058 [CI 1.021–1.097]; P = 0.002) and NT-proBNP (HR 1.020 [CI 1.012–1.028]; P 85.5 RU/mL) (P < 0.001) but not in patients with low FGF23 levels (P = 0.551). There was a significant interaction between FGF23 and PTH (P = 0.002). However, there was no significant interaction between PTH and both klotho and calcidiol levels. Conclusions: Parathormone is an independent predictor of cardiovascular events in coronary patients, adding complimentary prognostic information to NT-proBNP plasma levels. This predictive value is restricted to patients with high FGF23 plasma levels. This should be considered in the design of future studies in this field.This work was supported by grants from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and Fondos FEDER (Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional) European Union (PI05/0451, PI14/1567, PI17/01615, and PI17/01495); Spanish Society of Cardiology; Spanish Society of Arteriosclerosis; RECAVA (Red Temática de Investigación Cooperativa en Enfermedades Cardiovasculares) (RD06/0014/0035); and Instituto de Salud Carlos III FEDER (FJD biobank: RD09/0076/00101). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

A gliclazide complex based on palladium towards Alzheimer's disease: Promising protective activity against Aβ-induced toxicity in: C. elegans

A new palladium coordination compound based on gliclazide with the chemical formula [Pd(glz)2] (where glz = gliclazide) has been synthesized and characterised. The structural characterization reveals that this material consists of mononuclear units formed by a Pd2+ ion coordinated to two molecules of the glz ligand, in which palladium ions exhibit a distorted plane-square coordination sphere. This novel material behaves like a good and selective inhibitor of butyrylcholinesterase, one of the most relevant therapeutic targets against Alzheimer's disease. Analysis of the enzyme kinetics showed a mixed mode of inhibition, the title compound being capable of interacting with both the free enzyme and the enzyme-substrate complex. Finally, the palladium compound shows promising protective activity against Aβ-induced toxicity in the Caenorhabditis elegans model, which has never been reported.he authors gratefully acknowledge funding support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (PGC2018-102052-B-C21 and PID2020-116460RB-I00) and the Junta de Andalućıa (FQM-394 and FQM-134). The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding support of FEDER/Junta de Andalućıa Consejería de Economía y Conocimiento, Grant B-AGR-193-UGR18. O. L. and J. G. F. B. also thank Grant PID2020-116460RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/50110 0011033. S. R. acknowledge the Juan de la Cierva Fellowship (IJC2019-038894-I)

Advancing Key Gaps in the Knowledge of Plasmodium vivax Cryptic Infections Using Humanized Mouse Models and Organs-on-Chips

Plasmodium vivax is the most widely distributed human malaria parasite representing 36.3% of disease burden in the South-East Asia region and the most predominant species in the region of the Americas. Recent estimates indicate that 3.3 billion of people are under risk of infection with circa 7 million clinical cases reported each year. This burden is certainly underestimated as the vast majority of chronic infections are asymptomatic. For centuries, it has been widely accepted that the only source of cryptic parasites is the liver dormant stages known as hypnozoites. However, recent evidence indicates that niches outside the liver, in particular in the spleen and the bone marrow, can represent a major source of cryptic chronic erythrocytic infections. The origin of such chronic infections is highly controversial as many key knowledge gaps remain unanswered. Yet, as parasites in these niches seem to be sheltered from immune response and antimalarial drugs, research on this area should be reinforced if elimination of malaria is to be achieved. Due to ethical and technical considerations, working with the liver, bone marrow and spleen from natural infections is very difficult. Recent advances in the development of humanized mouse models and organs-on-a-chip models, offer novel technological frontiers to study human diseases, vaccine validation and drug discovery. Here, we review current data of these frontier technologies in malaria, highlighting major challenges ahead to study P. vivax cryptic niches, which perpetuate transmission and burden

Engineered Macroscale Cardiac Constructs Elicit Human Myocardial Tissue-like Functionality

In vitro surrogate models of human cardiac tissue hold great promise in disease modeling, cardiotoxicity testing, and future applications in regenerative medicine. However, the generation of engineered human cardiac constructs with tissue-like functionality is currently thwarted by difficulties in achieving efficient maturation at the cellular and/or tissular level. Here, we report on the design and implementation of a platform for the production of engineered cardiac macrotissues from human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which we term "CardioSlice." PSC-derived cardiomyocytes, together with human fibroblasts, are seeded into large 3D porous scaffolds and cultured using a parallelized perfusion bioreactor with custom-made culture chambers. Continuous electrical stimulation for 2 weeks promotes cardiomyocyte alignment and synchronization, and the emergence of cardiac tissue-like properties. These include electrocardiogram-like signals that can be readily measured on the surface of CardioSlice constructs, and a response to proarrhythmic drugs that is predictive of their effect in human patients

Proceso agrario en Bolivia y América Latina

El material esta distribuido en cinco partes. La primera está referida a los resultados y perspectivas de la Reforma Agraria en Bolivia. Está dividida en tres temáticas: la Reforma Agraria en las Tierras Altas, la Reforma Agraria en las Tierras Bajas y la Reforma Agraria en el Chaco. La segunda parte contiene las intervenciones realizadas por los invitados extranjeros sobre los resultados y perspectivas de la Reforma Agraria en América Latina y en México, Perú y Ecuador. La tercera parte corresponde a las intervenciones de los representantes de las organizaciones indígenas y campesinas bolivianas, que fueron invitados para debatir el tema Tierra, Democracia y Poder. Esta parte esta precedida por un recuento general de la situación de los Movimientos Indígenas-Campesinos en América Latina y sus perspectivas. La cuarta da cuenta de las intervenciones hechas por los representantes de las organizaciones de productores agrarios, campesinos y empresarios, quienes fueron invitados para debatir el tema Tierra, Economía e Integración. La última parte es una síntesis de las ideas y aspectos relevantes producto de las exposiciones y de las preguntas de los asistentes al seminario, que dejaron una estela de inquietudes e iniciativas que son el eslabón para futuros debates en otros espacios de reflexión en diferentes lugares del país, con la participación de actores y pensadores, operadores y promotores del desarrollo rural.Presentación 7; Introducción 8; La Reforma Agraria abandonada: valles y altiplano, Miguel Urioste F. de C. 19; Medio siglo de Reforma Agraria boliviana, Danilo Paz Ballivián 53; La tierra es de quien la trabaja, René Salomón Vargas 65; La Reforma Agraria en las tierras bajas de Bolivia, Carlos Romero Bonifaz 83; Lógicas de ocupación territorial en la agricultura y la forestería empresarial en las tierras bajas, Alan Bojanic 127; Antecedentes, situación actual y recomendaciones en la tenencia de la tierra en el oriente boliviano, Cámara Agropecuaria del Oriente 137; 50 años de la Reforma Agraria en el Chaco boliviano, Oscar Bazoberry Chali 145; Resultados de los cambios introducidos por la Reforma Agraria, Erwin Galoppo von Borries 177; La Reforma Agraria en Bolivia y el MST, Ermelinda Fernández Bamba 191; La Reforma Agraria en América Latina, Jacques Chonchol 205; De rústicas revueltas: Añoranza y utopía en el México rural, Armando Bartra 223; Reforma y contrarreforma agraria en el Perú, Laureano del Castillo Pinto 255; Reforma Agraria en el Ecuador, Fausto Jordán B. 285; 50 años después, emergencia étnica, Xavier Albó 321; Tierra, mujer y desarrollo, María Machaca 329; Tierra y territorio comunitario, Bienvenido Zacu 333; Tierra, migración y colonización, José Luis Méndez Chaurara 341; Tierra, coca y desarrollo, Dionisio Núñez 355; Tierra para todos, Ángel Durán 359; Tierra y producción orgánica, Mario R. Cordero Camacho 367; Tierra y producción campesina, María Julia Jiménez 377; Tierra y Territorio y Políticas para la Tierra, Elizabeth Jiménez Zamora 385; Ideas y aspectos relevantes del Seminario, John D.Vargas Vega 429