Spatio-temporal error growth in the multi-scale Lorenz’96 model

The influence of multiple spatio-temporal scales on the error growth and predictability of atmospheric flows is analyzed throughout the paper. To this aim, we consider the two-scale Lorenz’96 model and study the interplay of the slow and fast variables on the error growth dynamics. It is shown that when the coupling between slow and fast variables is weak the slow variables dominate the evolution of fluctuations whereas in the case of strong coupling the fast variables impose a non-trivial complex error growth pattern on the slow variables with two different regimes, before and after saturation of fast variables. This complex behavior is analyzed using the recently introduced Mean-Variance Logarithmic (MVL) diagram

Evaluar la técnica de espectrometría en el infrarrojo cercano como herramienta para la detección de estrés hídrico en olivos (cv.Arbequina).

51 p.Se realizó un estudio en un huerto de olivos (Olea europea L. cv. Arbequina) sometidos a distintos niveles de estrés hídrico, con el objetivo de evaluar la técnica de espectrometría en el infrarrojo cercano por medio del cálculo de índices espectrales (NDSI 11, NDSI 13, WI y WI 2) y el método de regresión por mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS) para la estimación del potencial hídrico de xilema (Ψx). Para ello se estableció un ensayo con 4 tratamientos (T0, T1, T2 y T3) con distintos niveles de estrés, sobre árboles de Olivos, ubicados en la localidad de Quepo (Pencahue, VII región de Chile). Se realizaron mediciones de reflectancia superficial con el equipo MicroNIR1700 durante la temporada agrícola 2014-2015 y estas fueron contrastadas con mediciones de potencial hídrico de xilema realizadas con la cámara de presión tipo Scholander. Los resultados indican que el método PLS tuvo un mejor ajuste con los valores de potencial hídrico en olivos que los índices espectrales, presentado valores de coeficiente de determinación r2 entre 0,65 y 0,85 en la fase de calibración. Palabras clave: Olivo, estrés hídrico, espectrometría, regresión por mínimos cuadrados parciales. /ABSTRACT: A study was conducted in an olive tree orchard (olea europea. cv arbequina) under different water stress levels in order to evaluate the near infrared spectrometry technique by calculation of spectral indices (NDSI 11, NDSI 13, WI, WI2) and the method of partial least squares regression to estimate the xylem water potential (PLS) 4 treatment tests, with different levels of stress on olive trees, located in the town of Quepo, were established. Surface reflectance measurements we performed with the MicronNIR1700 team during the 2014-2015 agricultural season and these were contrasted with measurements of xylem water potential taken with type of pressure camera Scholander. The results indicate that the PLS method had a better fit with water potential values in olive trees than in the spectral indices, presenting values of coefficient of determination r2 between 0,65 and 0,85 in the calibration phase. Keywords: Olive, water stress, spectrometry, Partial least square

Health literacy of patients on oral anticoagulation treatment- individual and social determinants and effect on health and treatment outcomes

Background Assessment health literacy in people with cardiovascular health problems would facilitate the development of appropriate health strategies for the care and reduction of complications associated with oral anticoagulation therapy. Aim: To evaluate the relationship between health literacy and health and treatment outcomes (concordance with oral anticoagulants, Normalized Ratio control and occurrence of complications) in patients with cardiovascular pathology. Methods Observational, analytic and cross-sectional study carried out on 252 patients with cardiovascular pathology (atrial fibrillation, flutter or valve prosthesis), aged 50-85 years, accessing primary care services in Valencia (Spain) in 2018-2019. Variables referring to anticoagulant treatment with vitamin K antagonists (years of treatment, adequate control, polypharmacy and occurrence of complications, among others) and health literacy (Health Literacy Questionnaire) were analysed. Results All dimensions of health literacy were significantly related to the level of education (p < 0.02), social class (p < 0.02), an adequate control of acenocoumarol (p < 0.001), frequentation of health services (p < 0.001), information by patients to health professionals about anticoagulant treatment (p < 0.03), emergency care visits (p < 0.001) and unscheduled hospital admissions (p < 0.001). Conclusion Health literacy has a relevant influence on the adequate self-management of anticoagulation treatment and the frequency of complications. The different dimensions that comprise health literacy play an important role, but the 'social health support' dimension seems to be essential for such optimal self-management. Trial registration ACC-ACE-2016-01. Registration date: December 2015

Effect of textile dyes on activity and differential regulation of laccase genes from Pleurotus ostreatus grown in submerged fermentation

Additional file 1: Figure S1. Growth of P. ostreatus and pH profile in submerged fermentations in BMF (●black circle), BBF (■ black square) and AYF (♦black diamond) media. The error bars represent the standard deviation of three different fermentation runs. Figure S2. Genorm analysis of the expression stability of 4 reference genes. Figure S3. Variability of Cp values of 4 reference genes tested under the 3 different fermentation conditions using NormFinder. Table S1. Identifiers and product lengths of reference genes primers used in this study

Development and Management of Networks of Care at the End of Life (the REDCUIDA Intervention): Protocol for a Nonrandomized Controlled Trial

Background: End-of-life needs can be only partly met by formalized health and palliative care resources. This creates the opportunity for the social support network of family and community to play a crucial role in this stage of life. Compassionate communities can be the missing piece to a complete care model at the end of life. Objective: The main objective of this study is to evaluate the REDCUIDA (Redes de Cuidados or Network of Care) intervention for the development and management of networks of care around people with advanced disease or at the end of life. Methods: The study is a 2-year nonrandomized controlled trial using 2 parallel groups. For the intervention group, we will combine palliative care treatment with a community promoter intervention, compared with a control group without intervention. Participants will be patients under a community palliative care team’s supervision with and without intervention. The community promotor will deliver the intervention in 7 sessions at 2 levels: the patient and family level will identify unmet needs, and the community level will activate resources to develop social networks to satisfy patient and family needs. A sample size of 320 patients per group per 100,000 inhabitants will offer adequate information and will give the study 80% power to detect a 20% increase in unmet needs, decrease families’ burden, improve families’ satisfaction, and decrease the use of health system resources, the primary end point. Results will be based on patients’ baseline and final analysis (after 7 weeks of the intervention). We will carry out descriptive analyses of variables related to patients’ needs and of people involved in the social network. We will analyze pre- and postintervention data for each group, including measures of central tendency, confidence intervals for the 95% average, contingency tables, and a linear regression. For continuous variables, we will use Student t test to compare independent samples with normal distribution and Mann-Whitney U test for nonnormal distributions. For discrete variables, we will use Mann-Whitney U test. For dichotomous variables we will use Pearson chi-square test. All tests will be carried out with a significance level alpha=.05. Results: Ethical approval for this study was given by the Clinical Research Committee of Andalusian Health Service, Spain (CI 1020-N-17), in June 2018. The community promoter has been identified, received an expert community-based palliative care course, and will start making contacts in the community and the palliative care teams involved in the research project. Conclusions: The results of this study will provide evidence of the benefit of the REDCUIDA protocol on the development and assessment of networks of compassionate communities at the end of life. It will provide information about clinical and emotional improvements, satisfaction, proxy burden, and health care resource consumption regarding patients in palliative care

Development of a short questionnaire based on the Practice Environment Scale-Nursing Work Index in primary health care

Background: Professional nursing environments determine the quality of care and patient outcomes. Assessing the quality of environments is essential to improve and obtain better health outcomes. Simplifying and shortening the way to evaluate environments reliably is also important to help nurses better understand the strengths and weaknesses of their environments. In that sense, identifying essential elements of nursing environments would allow the construction of short assessment tools to improve such environments. Objective: To construct a short tool to assess primary health care (PHC) nursing environments based on the Practice Environment Scale-Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) questionnaire. Methods: Observational, cross-sectional, analytical study (data collection February–April 2015). Tool: PES-NWI (31 items). Population: PHC nurses (three health districts in Valencia, Spain) with more than 3 months in the organization. The nurses were asked to select the 10 elements of the questionnaire (items) that they considered key to facilitate and improve professional care, establishing as a final selection criterion that they obtain a global election >40%. Variables: sociodemographic and 31 questionnaire items. Analysis: descriptive statistics, reliability, multidimensional scaling (ALSCAL), factor analysis, multiple linear regression. Finally, we have analyzed the concordance between both measurements (TOP10 score on the full scale score) using the Bland–Altman method. Results: Study sample = 269 (Response rate = 80.29%). A total of 10 elements were identified based on selection frequency of the questionnaire PES-NWI. A factorial analysis explained 62.1% of variance, internal structure of three dimensions: (1) Participation in leadership and management, (2) Nursing foundations for quality of care, (3) Adequacy of resources, with Accumulate Variance explained: Component (1): 24%; Component (2): 43.1%; Component (3): 62.1%. Reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha) was 0.816 for short questionnaire, and >0.8 for all measurements. Stress = 0.184 and RSQ = 0.793. Bland–Altman method: the scaling tends to be 1.92 points higher (equivalent to a maximum deviation of 1.54%) than the full-scale PES-NWI score (max score on PES-NWI = 124 points). Conclusions: It is possible to identify essential elements of environments to construct a short tool that simplifies the study of PHC environments. Conducting rapid studies of environments will provide managers with information about specific elements that require prioritization to enhance quality of care and safety

Perception of the professional nursing environment in Primary Care in the Valencian Community, in departments with public and private management

Fundamento. Los entornos para la práctica profesional enfermera (EPE) mejoran la calidad del cuidado, la satisfacción y los resultados en salud, no existiendo ninguna medición en Atención Primaria (AP) según su modelo de gestión. Pretendemos estimar y comparar la percepción de la calidad de dichos ERE en AP en tres departamentos de salud (DS) de la Comunidad Valenciana con modelos de gestión pública y privada (concesión administrativa). Material y métodos. Estudio transversal en profesionales de Enfermería de AP de tres DS, uno de gestión pública y dos de gestión privada. Se utilizó el cuestionario Practice Environment Scale-Nursing Work Index validado en España y se recogieron variables sociodemográficas y profesionales. Se determinaron las variables relacionadas con la puntuación mediante regresión lineal múltiple. Resultados. Se obtuvieron 269 respuestas (80,3%). Todos los DS percibieron la calidad de los EPE de forma positiva, tanto global como para las distintas dimensiones (excepto D4). La puntuación global fue más alta en los DS de gestión privada; la misma tendencia que se observó para D1 y D2, opuesta a la observada en D4. La puntuación global se relacionó con la edad, la experiencia profesional, ejercer un cargo de coordinación y el modelo de gestión, pero tan solo la edad y ejercer un cargo de coordinación mantuvo la relación en el modelo multivariante. Conclusiones. Los EPE de AP en la Comunidad Valenciana son positivos, y su calidad no se ve afectada por el modelo de gestión. Ejercer un cargo de coordinación y, especialmente, la edad son los factores que se relacionan de forma independiente con la puntuación obtenida.Background. Nursing practice environments (NPE) improve the quality of care, satisfaction and heath results; there are no studies that compare the Primary Health Care (PHC) environments according to their management model. Our aim is to estimate and compare the perception of the quality of the NPE in the PHC in Health Departments (HD) of the Valencian Community (Spain) with management model public or indirect-private (Administrative concession). Method. Transversal study on PHC nurses from three HD, one with direct public management and two with indirect-private management. The Practice Environment Scale-Nursing Work Index questionnaire, validated in Spain, was administered. Sociodemographic and professional variables were recorded. Variables related to test score were analyzed by multiple linear regression. Results. Two hundred and sixty-nine answers (80.3%). All HD perceived NPE quality in a positive way, both globally and for the different dimensions (except D4). Indirect private management model HD obtained higher global scores, the same tendency was observed for D1 and D2, and the opposite for D4. Global score was related to age, professional experience, being a coordinator and management model; only the age of the nurses and being a coordinator showed a significant relationship with the score in the multivariate regression model. Conclusions. The NPE of the PHC of the Valencian Community are of good quality, without significant differences according to different management models of the HD. Being a coordinator and, particularly, the age of the nurses are variables that are independently related to the global score obtained

Qualitative Analysis by Experts of the Essential Elements of the Nursing Practice Environments Proposed by the TOP10 Questionnaire of Assessment of Environments in Primary Health Care

Background: A short TOP10 scale based on the Practice Environment Scale-Nursing Work Index questionnaire measures the characteristics of nursing work environments. Positive environments result in better quality care and health outcomes. Objective: To identify a small number of core elements that would facilitate more effective interventions by nurse managers, and compare them with the essential elements proposed by the TOP10. Method: Qualitative research by a nominal group of eight experts. The content analysis was combined with descriptive data. Results: Ten most important items were selected and analyzed by the expert group. A high level of consensus in four items (2, 15, 20, 31) and an acceptable consensus in five items was reached (6, 11, 14, 18, 26). The tenth item in the top ten was selected from content analysis (19). The expert group agreed 90% with the elements selected as essential to the TOP10. Conclusion: The expert group achieved a high level of consensus that supports 90% of the essential elements of primary care settings proposed by the TOP10 questionnaire. Organizational changes implemented by managers to improve working environments must be prioritized following our results, so care delivery and health outcomes can be further improved

Applications of non-intrusive methods to study the sand cat: a field study in the Sahara Desert

Surveys based on indirect signs and camera trapping are two non-invasive methods extensively used for monitoring elusive mammals. Both approaches can be useful to obtain key information on wildlife in remote areas, since they may allow for the logistically viable design of optimal field frameworks. The sand cat (Felis margarita) is a feline that inhabits the Sahara Desert, the Arabian Peninsula, and western Asian deserts. Its basic ecology is poorly known and the status and impacts of threats are difficult to assess. Some local population declines have been detected, and more research is needed. Based on field surveys carried out in the Atlantic Sahara, we have evaluated the applications of both methods to study this species. Our results show that (a) camera trapping provided reliable data on several key aspects of its ecology, (b) walking surveys to collect feces for molecular data failed completely, and (c) for footprints, identification problems and the marked effects of the absence of optimal substrates and the prevalence of wind are relevant handicaps. Beyond this evaluation, we provide for the first time some key aspects of the ecology of sand cats in the Sahara Desert, including habitat selection, density, diel activity, and predator–prey relationships.Funding for open access publishing: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. This study was partially supported by Fundación Barcelona Zoo (PRIC Project 2017 grant)