Upgrading the prediction of jet grouting column diameter using deep learning with an emphasis on high energies

This article proposed a new method to estimate the diameter of jet grouting columns. The method uses the largest data collection of column diameters measured to date and includes a large amount of new data that fills the existing gap of data for high injection energies. The dataset was analysed using a deep neural network that took into account the problem’s key parameters (i.e. type of soil, soil resistance, type of jet and specific energy in the nozzle). As a result, three different neural networks were selected, one for each type of jet, according to the errors and consistency associated with each. Finally, using the trained networks, a number of design charts were developed to determine the diameter of a jet grouting column as a function of the soil properties and the jet system. These charts allow generating an optimal jet grouting design, improving the prediction of the diameter of jet columns especially in the high energy triple fluid.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, the State Agency of Research and the European Funds for Regional Development under project TEC2017-85244-C2-1-P

Evaluación del efecto inhibitorio de extractos metanólicos de líquenes sobre el proceso de agregación de la proteína tau

Tesis (Tecnólogo Médico)La enfermedad de Alzheimer (EA) corresponde a una enfermedad neurodegenerativa y progresiva, responsable de demencia en la población adulta mayor. En etapas tempranas se presenta con alteraciones de la memoria, afasia, apraxias y finalmente en deterioro de masa muscular, llevando al individuo a la incapacidad y dependencia completa. La EA en el 90% de los casos se desarrolla sobre los 60, alcanzando del 10% al 20% entre los 70 - 80 años, siendo más frecuente en mujeres. Si bien no existe un consenso respecto a la etiología de esta enfermedad, se pueden reconocer dos marcadores patológicos fundamentales para el desarrollo de esta, primero, la formación de placas seniles alrededor de neuronas, y en segundo lugar, los agregados de proteína tau, siendo estas últimas de interés para la búsqueda de moléculas con capacidad antiagregante en la presente unidad de investigación. La terapia farmacológica de la EA actualmente es de carácter paliativo y solo es efectiva en el 50% de los pacientes. En consecuencia, diferentes investigaciones se han enfocado en la generación de farmacóforos que traten el avance neurodegenerativo de la enfermedad. Bajo esta premisa, el objetivo de la unidad de investigación fue estudiar el efecto inhibitorio de una batería de 12 moléculas de extractos de líquenes antárticos sobre el proceso de agregación de la proteína tau in vitro, la cual se obtuvo mediante recombinación y expresión en cepas de Escherichia coli y posterior purificación mediante cromatografía líquida de alta precisión (HPLC). Por otro lado, se realizaron ensayos de agregación in vitro donde se expusieron los extractos a proteína tau, siendo estos monitorizados por tioflavina T, una técnica de fluorescencia. Finalmente, se observó que, de esta batería, solo una molécula tuvo un efecto inhibitorio significativo

Use of artificial neural networks to predict 3-D elastic settlement of foundations on soils with inclined bedrock

The application of the theory of elasticity for the calculation of foundation settlements has yielded equations that are well-established and consolidated in geotechnical standards and/or that are recommended for use. These equations are corrected by an influence factor in order to increase their precision and to encompass the existing complex geotechnical casuistry. The study presented herein utilizes neural networks to improve the determination of the influence factor (Iα), which considers the effect of a finite elastic half-space limited by the inclined bedrock under a foundation. The results obtained through the utilization of artificial neural networks (ANNs) demonstrate a notable improvement in the predicted values for the influence factor in comparison with those of existing analytical equations.The work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MINECO), the State Agency of Research (AEI) and European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER), under projects TEC2017-85244-C2-1-P and TIN2014-55413-C2-2-P, and by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, under project PRX17/00439

Development of a dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction coupled with magnetic dispersive microsolid phase extraction for determination of triazines in wastewater samples

Producción CientíficaThe combination of two microextraction techniques (dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction [DLLME] and magnetic dispersivemicrosolid phase extraction [MDMSPE]) was developed and reported for atrazine and simazine preconcentration from wastewatersamples. The proposal methodology involved the use of magnetite supports functionalized with different alkyl or phenyl groups. Themagnetic adsorbents were synthesized by the solvothermal methodassisted by microwave, characterized, and used in the samplepreconcentration of atrazine and simazine. The method validation included parameters such as the wastewater matrix effect, repeat-ability, and recovery. The analyte separation and quantification were performed by high-performance liquid chromatography withultraviolet detection (HPLC-DAD). Parameters, such as the polarity and mass of magnetic solids and pH, were evaluated to providebetter extraction performance. The highest recoveries (> 95%) were obtained with 50 mg of the phenyl group support (CS2) at pH 5,using 5 mL of the sample and carbon tetrachloride and methanol, as extraction and dispersive solvents, respectively. The lowest limitsof detection (LOD) achieved were 13.16 and 13.86 ng L−1, and the limits of quantification (LOQ) were 43.89 and 46.19 ng L−1forsimazine and atrazine, respectively, with repeatability (expressed as %RSD) below 5% in all cases. The developed method is simple,easy, and low cost for the analysis of two herbicides potentially dangerous for environmental and human health

Advances on the investigation of landslides by space-borne synthetic aperture radar interferometry

Landslides are destructive geohazards to people and infrastructure, resulting in hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars of damage every year. Therefore, mapping the rate of deformation of such geohazards and understanding their mechanics is of paramount importance to mitigate the resulting impacts and properly manage the associated risks. In this paper, the main outcomes relevant to the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Dragon-5 initiative cooperation project ID 59,339 “Earth observation for seismic hazard assessment and landslide early warning system” are reported. The primary goals of the project are to further develop advanced SAR/InSAR and optical techniques to investigate seismic hazards and risks, detect potential landslides in wide regions, and demonstrate EO-based landslide early warning system over selected landslides. This work only focuses on the landslide hazard content of the project, and thus, in order to achieve these objectives, the following tasks were developed up to now: a) a procedure for phase unwrapping errors and tropospheric delay correction; b) an improvement of a cross-platform SAR offset tracking method for the retrieval of long-term ground displacements; c) the application of polarimetric SAR interferometry (PolInSAR) to increase the number and quality of monitoring points in landslide-prone areas; d) the semiautomatic mapping and preliminary classification of active displacement areas on wide regions; e) the modeling and identification of landslides in order to identify triggering factors or predict future displacements; and f) the application of an InSAR-based landslide early warning system on a selected site. The achieved results, which mainly focus on specific sensitive regions, provide essential assets for planning present and future scientific activities devoted to identifying, mapping, characterizing, monitoring and predicting landslides, as well as for the implementation of early warning systems.This work was supported by the ESA-MOST China DRAGON-5 project with ref. 59339, by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, the State Agency of Research (AEI), and the European Funds for Regional Development under grant [grant number PID2020-117303GB-C22], by the Conselleria de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia y Sociedad Digital in the framework of the project CIAICO/2021/335, by the Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 41874005 and 41929001], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University [grant numbers 300102269712 and 300102269303], and China Geological Survey Project [grant numbers DD20190637 and DD20190647]. Xiaojie Liu and Liuru Hu have been funded by Chinese Scholarship Council Grants Ref. [grant number 202006560031] and [grant number 202004180062], respectively

Chyloperitoneum in peritoneal dialysis : a case report and review of literature

El quiloperitoneo es una condicion infrecuente que se asocia a dialisis peritoneal; en la mayoria de los casos se puede confundir con peritonitis bacteriana, aunque puede ser la consecuencia de esta infeccion. Se reporta el desarrollo espontaneo de quiloperitoneo en un paciente de 54 anos con enfermedad renal cronica secundaria a nefropatia diabetica, en dialisis peritoneal manual desde hacia 5 anos. El tratamiento consistio en suspension temporal de la dialisis peritoneal, reposo intestinal, suministro de una dieta con alto contenido de acidos grasos de cadena media e infusion de octreotide, con lo cual a los 10 dias el paciente mostro mejoria, y se reinicio la dialisis peritoneal. Una busqueda sistematica de la literatura encontro 16 casos publicados (11 mujeres), con edades desde neonato hasta 88 anos.Revisión de la literatura115-11

Association of HLA-B*41:02 with Henoch-Schönlein Purpura (IgA Vasculitis) in Spanish individuals irrespective of the HLA-DRB1 status

INTRODUCTION: To determine whether the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) B alleles are implicated in the susceptibility to Henoch-Schönlein purpura (HSP) in the largest series of Caucasian HSP patients ever assessed for genetic studies. METHODS: The study population was composed of 349 Spanish patients diagnosed with HSP fulfilling the American College of Rheumatology and the Michel et al. classification criteria, and 335 sex and ethnically matched controls. HLA-B phenotypes were determined by sequencing-based typing (SBT) and analyzed by chi-square or Fisher exact test. RESULTS: A statistically significant increase of HLA-B*41:02 allele in HSP patients when compared with controls was found (8.3% versus 1.5% respectively; p = 0.0001; OR (odds ratio) =5.76 [2.15-19.3]). These results remained statistically significant after adjusting for Bonferroni correction (p = 0.0028). An internal validation also confirmed the susceptibility effect on HSP associated with HLA-B*41:02 (OR = 5.70 [1.98-16.44]). Since a former study described an association between HLA-DRB1*01:03 and HSP susceptibility, we also evaluated the implication of HLA-B*41:02 independently of HLA-DRB1*01:03. Interestingly, the association remained statistically significant (p = 0.0004, OR = 4.97 [1.8-16.9]). No HLA-B association with specific HSP clinical features was found. CONCLUSIONS: Our study indicates that HLA-B*41:02 is associated with the susceptibility to HSP in Spanish patients irrespective of HLA-DRB1 status

A study of the interplay between ionized gas and star clusters in the central region of NGC 5253 with 2D spectroscopy

ABRIDGED: A detailed 2D study of the central region of NGC5253 has been performed to characterize the stellar and ionized gas structure as well as the extinction distribution, physical properties and kinematics of the ionized gas in the central ~210pc x 130pc. We utilized optical integral field spectroscopy (IFS) data obtained with FLAMES. A detailed extinction map for the ionized gas in NGC5253 shows that the largest extinction is associated with the prominent Giant HII region. There is an offset of ~0.5" between the peak of the optical continuum and the extinction peak in agreement with findings in the infrared. We found that stars suffer less extinction than gas by a factor of 0.33. The [SII]l6717/[SII]l6731 map shows an electron density (N_e) gradient declining from the peak of emission in Ha (790cm^-3) outwards, while the argon line ratio traces areas with $N_e~4200 - 6200cm^(-3). The area polluted with extra nitrogen, as deduced from the excess [NII]/Ha, extends up to distances of 3.3" (~60pc) from the maximum pollution, which is offset by ~1.5" from the peak of continuum emission. Wolf-Rayet features are distributed in an irregular pattern over a larger area (~100pc x 100pc) and associated with young stellar clusters. We measured He^+ abundances over most of the field of view and values of He^++/H^+<~0.0005 in localized areas which do not coincide, in general, with the areas presenting W-R emission or extra nitrogen. The line profiles are complex. Up to three emission components were needed to reproduce them. One of them, associated with the giant HII region, presents supersonic widths and [NII] and [SII] emission lines shifted up to 40km/s with respect to Ha. Similarly, one of the narrow components presents offsets in the [NII] line of <~20km/s. This is the first time that maps with such velocity offsets for a starburst galaxy have been presented.Comment: accepted in Astronomy & Astrophysics. 21 pages, 22 figure

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

Tocilizumab in refractory Caucasian Takayasu's arteritis: a multicenter study of 54 patients and literature review

Objective: To assess the efficacy and safety of tocilizumab (TCZ) in Caucasian patients with refractory Takayasu's arteritis (TAK) in clinical practice. Methods: A multicenter study of Caucasian patients with refractory TAK who received TCZ. The outcome variables were remission, glucocorticoid-sparing effect, improvement in imaging techniques, and adverse events. A comparative study between patients who received TCZ as monotherapy (TCZMONO) and combined with conventional disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (cDMARDs) (TCZCOMBO) was performed. Results: The study comprised 54 patients (46 women/8 men) with a median [interquartile range (IQR)] age of 42.0 (32.5-50.5) years. TCZ was started after a median (IQR) of 12.0 (3.0-31.5) months since TAK diagnosis. Remission was achieved in 12/54 (22.2%), 19/49 (38.8%), 23/44 (52.3%), and 27/36 (75%) patients at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months, respectively. The prednisone dose was reduced from 30.0 mg/day (12.5-50.0) to 5.0 (0.0-5.6) mg/day at 12 months. An improvement in imaging findings was reported in 28 (73.7%) patients after a median (IQR) of 9.0 (6.0-14.0) months. Twenty-three (42.6%) patients were on TCZMONO and 31 (57.4%) on TCZCOMBO: MTX (n = 28), cyclosporine A (n = 2), azathioprine (n = 1). Patients on TCZCOMBO were younger [38.0 (27.0-46.0) versus 45.0 (38.0-57.0)] years; difference (diff) [95% confidence interval (CI) = -7.0 (-17.9, -0.56] with a trend to longer TAK duration [21.0 (6.0-38.0) versus 6.0 (1.0-23.0)] months; diff 95% CI = 15 (-8.9, 35.5), and higher c-reactive protein [2.4 (0.7-5.6) versus 1.3 (0.3-3.3)] mg/dl; diff 95% CI = 1.1 (-0.26, 2.99). Despite these differences, similar outcomes were observed in both groups (log rank p = 0.862). Relevant adverse events were reported in six (11.1%) patients, but only three developed severe events that required TCZ withdrawal. Conclusion: TCZ in monotherapy, or combined with cDMARDs, is effective and safe in patients with refractory TAK of Caucasian origin.Funding: This work was partially supported by RETICS Programs, RD08/0075 (RIER), RD12/0009/0013 and RD16/0012 from “Instituto de Salud Carlos III” (ISCIII) (Spain)