Ballast Treated with Asphalt Emulsion, Megarok and San Jose. AASTHO Standards

In the research work, the results obtained at the laboratory level of the lending material (ballast) treated with asphalt emulsion from the quarries "Megarok and San José" are compared, applying the AASTHO standards. The quarries are located in the Picoazá-La Sequita parish of the Portoviejo canton. Samples from both quarries were evaluated in the laboratory and it was possible to carry out tests of natural humidity, Atterberg, granulometric, compaction, and soil bearing capacity (CBR). Based on the results obtained, they were compared by disclosing which of the quarries meets the appropriate conditions within the construction standards and techniques, in order to stabilize the material with asphalt emulsion; in addition to comparing it with the specifications of the AASTHO standards and the MTOP standard. The result was that the materials extracted from the quarries do not meet the technical specifications; but when mixed with the asphalt emulsion, the Megarok material fulfills as type A base

Acquisition of business intelligence from human experience in route planning

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Enterprise Information Systems on 2015, available online at:http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17517575.2012.759279The logistic sector raises a number of highly challenging problems. Probably one of the most important ones is the shipping planning, i.e., plan the routes that the shippers have to follow to deliver the goods. In this paper we present an AI-based solution that has been designed to help a logistic company to improve its routes planning process. In order to achieve this goal, the solution uses the knowledge acquired by the company drivers to propose optimized routes. Hence, the proposed solution gathers the experience of the drivers, processes it and optimizes the delivery process. The solution uses Data Mining to extract knowledge from the company information systems and prepares it for analysis with a Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) algorithm. The CBR obtains critical business intelligence knowledge from the drivers experience that is needed by the planner. The design of the routes is done by a Genetic Algorithm (GA) that, given the processed information, optimizes the routes following several objectives, such as minimize the distance or time. Experimentation shows that the proposed approach is able to find routes that improve, in average, the routes made by the human experts.This work has been partially supported by the SpanishMinistry of Science and Innovation under the projects ABANT (TIN 2010-19872) and by Jobssy.com company under Project FUAM-076913

Clustering avatars behaviours from Virtual Worlds interactions

This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Web Intelligence & Communities, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2189736.2189743Virtual Worlds (VWs) platforms and applications provide a practical implementation of the Metaverse concept. These applications, as highly inmersive and interactive 3D environments, have become very popular in social networks and games domains. The existence of a set of open platforms like OpenSim or OpenCobalt have played a major role in the popularization of this technology and they open new exciting research areas. One of these areas is behaviour analysis. In virtual world, the user (or avatar) can move and interact within an artificial world with a high degree of freedom. The movements and iterations of the avatar can be monitorized, and hence this information can be analysed to obtain interesting behavioural patterns. Usually, only the information related to the avatars conversations (textual chat logs) are directly available for processing. However, these open platforms allow to capture other kind of information like the exact position of an avatar in the VW, what they are looking at (eye-gazing) or which actions they perform inside these worlds. This paper studies how this information, can be extracted, processed and later used by clustering methods to detect behaviour or group formations in the world. To detect the behavioural patterns of the avatars considered, clustering techniques have been used. These techniques, using the correct data preprocessing and modelling, can be used to automatically detect hidden patterns from data.This work has been partly supported by: Spanish Ministry of Science and Education under the project TIN2010-1987

Differences in Proinflammatory Cytokines and Monocyte Subtypes in Older as Compared With Younger Kidney Transplant Recipients.

Background:The number of elderly patients with end-stage kidney disease requiring kidney transplantation continues to grow. Evaluation of healthy older adults has revealed proinflammatory changes in the immune system, which are posited to contribute to age-associated illnesses via "inflamm-aging." Immunologic dysfunction is also associated with impaired control of infections. Whether these immunologic changes are found in older kidney transplant recipients is not currently known, but may have important implications for risk for adverse clinical outcomes. Methods:Three months after transplant, innate immune phenotype was evaluated by flow cytometry from 60 kidney transplant recipients (22 older [≥60 years] and 38 younger [<60 years old]). Multiplex cytokine testing was used to evaluate plasma cytokine levels. Younger patients were matched to older patients based on transplant type and induction immune suppression. Results:Older kidney transplant recipients demonstrated decreased frequency of intermediate monocytes (CD14++CD16+) compared with younger patients (1.2% vs 3.3%, P = 0.007), and a trend toward increased frequency of proinflammatory classical monocytes (CD14++CD16-) (94.5% vs 92.1%) (P = 0.065). Increased levels of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) were seen in older patients. Conclusions:In this pilot study of kidney transplant recipients, we identified differences in the innate immune system in older as compared with younger patients, including increased levels of IFN-γ. This suggests that age-associated nonspecific inflammation persists despite immune suppression. The ability to apply noninvasive testing to transplant recipients will provide tools for patient risk stratification and individualization of immune suppression regimens to improve outcomes after transplantation

Report of the European Myeloma Network on multiparametric flow cytometry in multiple myeloma and related disorders

This is an open access paper.-- et al.The European Myeloma Network (EMN) organized two flow cytometry workshops. The first aimed to identify specific indications for flow cytometry in patients with monoclonal gammopathies, and consensus technical approaches through a questionnaire-based review of current practice in participating laboratories. The second aimed to resolve outstanding technical issues and develop a consensus approach to analysis of plasma cells. The primary clinical applications identified were: differential diagnosis of neoplastic plasma cell disorders from reactive plasmacytosis; identifying risk of progression in patients with MGUS and detecting minimal residual disease. A range of technical recommendations were identified, including: 1) CD38, CD138 and CD45 should all be included in at least one tube for plasma cell identification and enumeration. The primary gate should be based on CD38 vs. CD138 expression; 2) after treatment, clonality assessment is only likely to be informative when combined with immunophenotype to detect abnormal cells. Flow cytometry is suitable for demonstrating a stringent complete remission; 3) for detection of abnormal plasma cells, a minimal panel should include CD19 and CD56. A preferred panel would also include CD20, CD117, CD28 and CD27; 4) discrepancies between the percentage of plasma cells detected by flow cytometry and morphology are primarily related to sample quality and it is, therefore, important to determine that marrow elements are present in follow-up samples, particularly normal plasma cells in MRD negative cases.The meetings were sponsored by the European Myeloma.Peer Reviewe

Comparison Between the Material Improvement of the Megarok and San José Quarries, Applying the AASTHO Standards

Comparative analyzes were carried out between the materials of the Magarok and San José quarries, taking into account AASTHO standards with the objective of being used as a base / sub-base in the pavement structure. The asphalt emulsion material was stabilized to increase the strength and give the material sub-base and / or base characteristics, with a suitable mixing design, obtaining results with suitable characteristics to be used in the pavement structure composed of a 65 % Asphalt AC 20; 34.30% water and 0.70% ASFIER 121 emulsions, with good resistance to the stability of the materials

Relationship Between Salted Fish Consumption and Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: An Evidence-based Case Report

Aim: to know the relationship between salted fish consumption and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods: we searched for the articles from PubMed® and ScienceDirect® based on our clinical question. After filtered with our in- and exclusion criteria, we had six articles about this topic, all of them were case-control studies. All articles were then critically appraised for their validity, importance, and applicability. Results: there was no consistent relationship between salted fish consumption and NPC. Worth to note that those studies wo showed the firm relationship were conducted in Southern China, where the incidence of NPC was extremely high and related to specific Chineese-style salted fish consumption. Conclusion: there was an inconsistent relationship between salted fish consumption and NPC.Key words: salted fish, risk factor, nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Obesity as an adipose tissue dysfunction disease and a risk factor for infections – Covid-19 as a case study

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV2) disease (COVID-19) is a novel threat that hampers life expectancy especially in obese individuals. Though this association is clinically relevant, the underlying mechanisms are not fully elucidated. SARS CoV2 enters host cells via the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 receptor, that is also expressed in adipose tissue. Moreover, adipose tissue is also a source of many proinflammatory mediators and adipokines that might enhance the characteristic COVID-19 cytokine storm due to a chronic low-grade inflammatory preconditioning. Further obesity-dependent thoracic mechanical constraints may also incise negatively into the prognosis of obese subjects with COVID-19. This review summarizes the current body of knowledge on the obesity-dependent circumstances triggering an increased risk for COVID-19 severity, and their clinical relevanc

Geodetic Study of the 2006–2010 Ground Deformation in La Palma (Canary Islands): Observational Results

La Palma is one of the youngest of the Canary Islands, and historically the most active. The recent activity and unrest in the archipelago, the moderate seismicity observed in 2017 and 2018 and the possibility of catastrophic landslides related to the Cumbre Vieja volcano have made it strongly advisable to ensure a realistic knowledge of the background surface deformation on the island. This will then allow any anomalous deformation related to potential volcanic unrest on the island to be detected by monitoring the surface deformation. We describe here the observation results obtained during the 2006–2010 period using geodetic techniques such as Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Advanced Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (A-DInSAR) and microgravimetry. These results show that, although there are no significant associated variations in gravity, there is a clear surface deformation that is spatially and temporally variable. Our results are discussed from the point of view of the unrest and its implications for the definition of an operational geodetic monitoring system for the islan