SELECTIVIDAD DE LAS ISOFORMAS DE 140-180 KDA DE NCAM EN LA PAPILA ÓPTICA DEL EMBRIÓN DE POLLO

During embryonic development of chicken retina and retinotectal proyection, neural cells showed spatiotemporal patterns in the glycosidic residues located in the plasmatic membranes. Those glycidic components are related with adhesion and recognition cellular behaviours during the generation of nervous system cytoarchitecture. Thus those sugars are included both in usual glycoproteins as in a group of molecules called as cell adhesion molecules (CAM). The first isolated molecule in this group was the neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM). This glycoprotein has a proteic core with diverse isoforms and it has a variable sialic acids chain. It was able to determine that 120 kDa NCAM isoform shows scarcely sialized chains in intermediate stages by using conventional techniques, lectins and immunohistochemistry. Meanwhile 140-180 kDa NCAM isoforms possess high content in sialic acid and they are present both in early and final stages. Other authors reported that human 120 kDa NCAM isoform was similar to that observed in the Gallus domesticus retina. Our results showed that 140- 180kDa isoforms were only presented in the nerve optic fibers when they were left the optic disc.Durante la embriogénesis de la retina del Gallus domesticus, los neuroblastos muestran variaciones temporales y espaciales de los residuos glucosilados a nivel de sus membranas plasmáticas. Se considera que estos componentes glucídicos están implicados en la organización de estructuras neurales inmaduras, mediante su participación en mecanismos de reconocimiento y adhesión celulares. Los componentes glucosilados van a formar parte de glucoproteínas convencionales, así como de un grupo de moléculas a las que genéricamente se han denominado moléculas de adhesión celular. La primera de estas moléculas aislada fue la neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM), glucoproteína compuesta por un armazón proteico con diversas isoformas y una cadena más o menos variable de polímeros de ácidos siálicos. La combinación de técnicas convencionales his- toquímicas, de lectinas e inmunocitoquímicas han permitido determinar que las moléculas de NCAM de 120 kDa presentan cadenas pobremente sializadas en estadíos intermedios del desarrollo, mientras en estadíos tempranos y finales los ácidos siálicos están más abundantemente representados en las isoformas de 140-180 kDa. Algunos autores han determinado que la isoforma de NCAM presente durante el desarrollo de la retina del Gallus domesticus es similar a la humana de 120 kDa. Nuestros resultados indican que las isoformas de 140-180 kDa sólo se presentan en las fibras del nervio óptico una vez que estas abandonan la papila óptica

RARE-Bestpractices: a platform for sharing best practices for the management of rare diseases

From 7th European Conference on Rare Diseases and Orphan Products (ECRD 2014).Rare diseases; clinical practice guidelines; recommendations. RARE-Bestpractices (http://www.rarebestpractices.eu) is a 4-year project (2013-2016) funded by the EC FP7. The project aims at improving clinical management of patients with rare diseases (RD) and at narrowing the existing gap in quality of healthcare among countries. Methods: RARE-Bestpractices (http://www.rarebestpractices.eu) involves 9 EU countries, including 15 partners from academic institutions, governmental bodies, patient organizations and networks, which will exploit the added value of integrating different contributions and viewpoints. The platform is developed involving both experts in RD research as well as experts in clinical practice guidelines (CPG) and systematic reviews. Results: Project expected outputs include: 1) identification of challenges to be considered in deriving high quality standards for CPG on RD; 2) transparent procedures and criteria for the evaluation of CPG and their collection in a publicly searchable database; 3) identification of notation criteria to improve user understandability and implementation of CPG; 4) production of mechanisms to assess RD clinical research needs; 5) development of training activities targeted to key stakeholders to disseminate process and tools for developing and evaluating CPG; 6) the publication of a new scientific journal (http://rarejournal.org). Discussion: RARE-Bestpractices addresses the demands from both patients and health care providers for updated and high quality CPG on RD. The project will meet the requirements laid down by to the Directive 2011/24/EU, which endorses EU MS to develop European Reference Networks (ERNs) for RD; in fact, one main criterion for ERNs should be the competence to produce CPG and actively disseminate them among Centers of Expertise.N

The European Solar Telescope

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a project aimed at studying the magnetic connectivity of the solar atmosphere, from the deep photosphere to the upper chromosphere. Its design combines the knowledge and expertise gathered by the European solar physics community during the construction and operation of state-of-the-art solar telescopes operating in visible and near-infrared wavelengths: the Swedish 1m Solar Telescope, the German Vacuum Tower Telescope and GREGOR, the French Télescope Héliographique pour l’Étude du Magnétisme et des Instabilités Solaires, and the Dutch Open Telescope. With its 4.2 m primary mirror and an open configuration, EST will become the most powerful European ground-based facility to study the Sun in the coming decades in the visible and near-infrared bands. EST uses the most innovative technological advances: the first adaptive secondary mirror ever used in a solar telescope, a complex multi-conjugate adaptive optics with deformable mirrors that form part of the optical design in a natural way, a polarimetrically compensated telescope design that eliminates the complex temporal variation and wavelength dependence of the telescope Mueller matrix, and an instrument suite containing several (etalon-based) tunable imaging spectropolarimeters and several integral field unit spectropolarimeters. This publication summarises some fundamental science questions that can be addressed with the telescope, together with a complete description of its major subsystems

Evaluation of appendicitis risk prediction models in adults with suspected appendicitis

Background Appendicitis is the most common general surgical emergency worldwide, but its diagnosis remains challenging. The aim of this study was to determine whether existing risk prediction models can reliably identify patients presenting to hospital in the UK with acute right iliac fossa (RIF) pain who are at low risk of appendicitis. Methods A systematic search was completed to identify all existing appendicitis risk prediction models. Models were validated using UK data from an international prospective cohort study that captured consecutive patients aged 16–45 years presenting to hospital with acute RIF in March to June 2017. The main outcome was best achievable model specificity (proportion of patients who did not have appendicitis correctly classified as low risk) whilst maintaining a failure rate below 5 per cent (proportion of patients identified as low risk who actually had appendicitis). Results Some 5345 patients across 154 UK hospitals were identified, of which two‐thirds (3613 of 5345, 67·6 per cent) were women. Women were more than twice as likely to undergo surgery with removal of a histologically normal appendix (272 of 964, 28·2 per cent) than men (120 of 993, 12·1 per cent) (relative risk 2·33, 95 per cent c.i. 1·92 to 2·84; P < 0·001). Of 15 validated risk prediction models, the Adult Appendicitis Score performed best (cut‐off score 8 or less, specificity 63·1 per cent, failure rate 3·7 per cent). The Appendicitis Inflammatory Response Score performed best for men (cut‐off score 2 or less, specificity 24·7 per cent, failure rate 2·4 per cent). Conclusion Women in the UK had a disproportionate risk of admission without surgical intervention and had high rates of normal appendicectomy. Risk prediction models to support shared decision‐making by identifying adults in the UK at low risk of appendicitis were identified

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention to improve medication adherence in people with depressive disorders - MAPDep: a study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial

Tasmania del Pino-Sede&ntilde;o,1,2 Wenceslao Pe&ntilde;ate,1 Carlos de las Cuevas,3 Cristina Valcarcel-Nazco,2,4 Ascensi&oacute;n Fumero,1 Pedro Guillermo Serrano-P&eacute;rez,5,6 Francisco Javier Acosta Artiles,7 Vanesa Ramos Garc&iacute;a,4 Beatriz Le&oacute;n Salas,4 Daniel Bejarano-Quisoboni,8 Mar&iacute;a M Trujillo-Mart&iacute;n2,4 1Department of Clinical Psychology, Psychobiology and Methodology, University of La Laguna, Canary Islands, Spain; 2Health Services Research on Chronic Patients Network (REDISSEC), Madrid, Spain; 3Department of Internal Medicine, Dermatology and Psychiatry, University of La Laguna, Canary Islands, Spain; 4Canary Islands Foundation of Health Research (FUNCANIS), Canary Islands, Spain; 5Department of Psychiatry, Hospital Universitari Vall d&rsquo; Hebron, Catalonia, Spain; 6Department of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine, Universitat Aut&ograve;noma de Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; 7Service of Mental Health, General Health Care Programs Direction, Canary Health Service, Canary Islands, Spain; 8Center for Public Health Research (CSISP-FISABIO), Valencia, Spain Purpose: Depression is a widespread mental disorder which can be treated effectively. However, low adherence to antidepressants is very common. The study of medication adherence in depression (MAPDep study) assesses the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a multicomponent strategy to enhance adherence toward medications in patients with depression.Intervention: The intervention is a multicomponent one consisting of an educational program for psychiatrists and/or a collaborative care program for patients and relatives, plus a reminder system that works through the use of an already available high-quality medication reminder application.Study design: MAPDep study is an open, multicenter, four-arm cluster randomized controlled trial. The clusters are mental health units where psychiatrists are invited to participate. The clusters are randomly allocated to one of the three interventions or to usual care (control arm). Patients (18&ndash;65 years of age) diagnosed with depressive disorder, those taking antidepressant medication for an existing diagnosis of depression, and mobile phone users are selected. In group 1, only patients and relatives receive intervention; in group 2, only psychiatrists receive intervention; and in group 3, patients/relatives and psychiatrists receive intervention. The primary outcome is adherence to the antidepressant drug. The calculated sample size is 400 patients. To examine changes across time, generalized linear mixed model with repeated measures will be used. A cost-effectiveness analysis will be conducted. The effectiveness measure is quality-adjusted life years. Deterministic sensitivity analyses are planned.Conclusion: MAPDep study aims to assess a multicomponent strategy to improve adherence toward medications in patients with depression, based not only on clinical effectiveness but also on cost-effectiveness. This methodology will enhance the transferability of the expected results beyond mental health services (patients and psychiatrists) to health care policy decision making.Clinical trial identifier: NCT03668457. Keywords: depression, medication adherence, education, behavior modification, mobile phone technology, cost-effectivenes

RARE-Bestpractices: a platform for sharing best practices for the management of rare diseases

From 7th European Conference on Rare Diseases and Orphan Products (ECRD 2014).Rare diseases; clinical practice guidelines; recommendations. RARE-Bestpractices (http://www.rarebestpractices.eu) is a 4-year project (2013-2016) funded by the EC FP7. The project aims at improving clinical management of patients with rare diseases (RD) and at narrowing the existing gap in quality of healthcare among countries. Methods: RARE-Bestpractices (http://www.rarebestpractices.eu) involves 9 EU countries, including 15 partners from academic institutions, governmental bodies, patient organizations and networks, which will exploit the added value of integrating different contributions and viewpoints. The platform is developed involving both experts in RD research as well as experts in clinical practice guidelines (CPG) and systematic reviews. Results: Project expected outputs include: 1) identification of challenges to be considered in deriving high quality standards for CPG on RD; 2) transparent procedures and criteria for the evaluation of CPG and their collection in a publicly searchable database; 3) identification of notation criteria to improve user understandability and implementation of CPG; 4) production of mechanisms to assess RD clinical research needs; 5) development of training activities targeted to key stakeholders to disseminate process and tools for developing and evaluating CPG; 6) the publication of a new scientific journal (http://rarejournal.org). Discussion: RARE-Bestpractices addresses the demands from both patients and health care providers for updated and high quality CPG on RD. The project will meet the requirements laid down by to the Directive 2011/24/EU, which endorses EU MS to develop European Reference Networks (ERNs) for RD; in fact, one main criterion for ERNs should be the competence to produce CPG and actively disseminate them among Centers of Expertise.N

Plecotus austriacus Species Complex (P. austriacus, P. kolombatovici, P. gaisleri, P. teneriffae)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via the DOI in this record This comprehensive species specific chapter covers all aspects of the mammalian biology, including palaeontology, physiology, genetics, reproduction and development, ecology, habitat, diet, mortality and behaviour. The economic significance and management of mammals and future challenges for research and conservation are addressed as well. The chapter includes a distribution map, a photograph of the animal, and a list of key literature.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC