Sharp-based, mixed carbonate–siliciclastic shallow-marine deposits (upper Miocene, Betic Cordillera, Spain): The record of ancient transgressive shelf ridges?

Isolated sharp-based sedimentary bodies in shelf settings can develop via the reworking of regressive deposits during transgressions. An example of these are shelf ridges, formed under a wide range of processes, and widely studied due to their high reservoir potential. However, there is still a lack of examples in mixed (carbonate–siliciclastic) successions. This study presents an outcrop example from the Upper Miocene of the Betic Cordillera (Spain), with the aim to propose a model for the development of transgressive sharp-based mixed carbonate–siliciclastic deposits, and to provide criteria to differentiate these from their regressive counterparts. The studied succession is ca. 300 m-thick, and shows a cyclic alternation of coarse and fine-grained mixed deposits. Depositional cycles start with siliciclastic-dominated offshore to offshore transition deposits, progressively replaced by lower shoreface deposits. These are abruptly truncated by sharp erosive contacts bioturbated by passively-infilled large burrows; their ichnological features allow assignation to the Glossifungites ichnofacies. These contacts are interpreted as ravinement surfaces. They are overlain by mixed carbonate–siliciclastic barforms, rich in skeletal fragments and extraclasts, and displaying large-scale cross bedding. These form several m-thick and hundreds of m-long depositional elements interpreted as mixed shelf ridges. These ridges formed in a fine-grained, shallow-water shelf, which occasionally received coarse siliciclastic sediment supply via gravity flows, but had a coeval offshore carbonate factory, which provided the skeletal fragments. The sharp-based, coarser-grained nature and lithological break at the base of these mixed carbonate–clastic deposits could lead to their misinterpretation as forced-regressive wedges. However, the nature of their lower contact, combined with the reworked offshore skeletal fragments, and their stacking pattern are consistent with these mixed units forming during transgression. Other studies in relatively time-equivalent deposits have demonstrated the existence of coeval regressive, coarser siliciclastic-dominated shoreline systems in relatively close localities. These evidence a complex basin configuration in the area during the upper Miocene, with the development of local depocentres and relatively narrow corridors or seaways in the Mediterranean–Atlantic connection, which could have favoured shelf reworking processes, but also promoted the development of diverse stacking patterns, reflecting the differential interaction between active tectonics and sedimentation across the region.FEDER AndalucíaSecretaría de Estado de I+D+IAker BPUniversitetet i OsloUniversidad de Granada PID2019-104625RB-100, PID2020-114381GB-100European Regional Development Fund CGL2017-89618-RJunta de Andalucía B-RNM-072-UGR18, P18-RT-4074Agencia Estatal de Investigació

Effectiveness of acute geriatric units on functional decline, living at home, and case fatality among older patients admitted to hospital for acute medical disorders: meta-analysis

Objective To assess the effectiveness of acute geriatric units compared with conventional care units in adults aged 65 or more admitted to hospital for acute medical disorders

Autologous and Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation for Treatment of Crohn’s Fistulae

Up to 20% of patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) may have perianal fistula disease. Classically, surgery has played an important role; in recent years, medical treatment has taken a leading role. Immunosuppressants and biological trea tments have proven beneficial in many patients, but still, the percentage of patients who do not respond remains significant. In this scenario, cell therapy is envisaged as an effective alternative to surgery. The promising preclinical and clinical data that we review below suggest that cell therapy could represent a major advance in the clinical management of this difficult problem

Tratamiento de las fracturas diafisarias de húmero mediante osteosíntesis con placa

Hemos tratado 22 facturas agudas diafisarias de húmero mediante reducción abierta y fijación con placa AO entre 1991 y 1999. Todas las fracturas excepto una consolidaron en un plazo medio de 94 días. De acuerdo con el criterio de Brumback los resultados fueron excelentes o buenos en el 90% de los casos. La complicación postoperativa más importante fue la parálisis del nervio radial en 3 casos; todos se recuperaron espontáneamente en un plazo medio de 108 días. La fijación interna mediante placa proporciona unos buenos resultados, siendo un método adecuado para la estabilización y consolidación de las fracturas humerales.Twenty-three humeral diaphyseal fractures were treated by open reduction and internal fixation using AO plating technique between 1991 and 1999. All but one fracture healed at an average of 94 days. The results were evaluated according to the criteria of Brumback. The 90 per cent of the cases had excellent or good results. The most important postoperative complication was transient radial-nerve palsy in three cases. All radial nerve palsies recovered between 45 days and 108 days. Internal fixation using plating technique give good results and provide predictable methods for achieving fracture stabilization and ultimate healing

A group II intron-encoded protein interacts with the cellular replicative machinery through the ß-sliding clamp

Group II introns are self-splicing mobile genetic retroelements. The spliced intron RNA and the intron-encoded protein (IEP) form ribonucleoprotein particles (RNPs) that recognize and invade specific DNA target sites. The IEP is a reverse transcriptase/maturase that may bear a C-terminal endonuclease domain enabling the RNP to cleave the target DNA strand to prime reverse transcription. However, some mobile introns, such as RmInt1, lack the En domain but nevertheless retrohome efficiently to transient single-stranded DNA target sites at a DNA replication fork. Their mobility is associated with host DNA replication, and they use the nascent lagging strand as a primer for reverse transcription. We searched for proteins that interact with RmInt1 RNPs and direct these RNPs to the DNA replication fork. Co-immunoprecipitation assays suggested that DnaN (the ß-sliding clamp), a component of DNA polymerase III, interacts with the protein component of the RmInt1 RNP. Pulldown assays, far-western blots and biolayer interferometry supported this interaction. Peptide binding assays also identified a putative DnaN-interacting motif in the RmInt1 IEP structurally conserved in group II intron IEPs. Our results suggest that intron RNP interacts with the ß-sliding clamp of the DNA replication machinery, favouring reverse splicing into the transient ssDNA at DNA replication forks

Suicidal ideation and the risk of suicide in patients with fibromyalgia: a comparison with non-pain controls and patients suffering from low-back pain

Fibromyalgia is associated with an increased rate of mortality from suicide. In fact, this disease is associated with several characteristics that are linked to an increased risk of suicidal behaviors, such as being female and experiencing chronic pain, psychological distress, and sleep disturbances. However, the literature concerning suicidal behaviors and their risk factors in fibromyalgia is sparse. The objectives of the present study were to evaluate the prevalence of suicidal ideation and the risk of suicide in a sample of patients with fibromyalgia compared with a sample of healthy subjects and a sample of patients with chronic low-back pain. We also aimed to evaluate the relevance of pain intensity, depression, and sleep quality as variables related to suicidal ideation and risks. Logistic regression was applied to estimate the likelihood of suicidal ideation and the risk of suicide adjusted by age and sex. We also used two logistic regression models using age, sex, pain severity score, depression severity, sleep quality, and disease state as independent variables and using the control group as a reference. Forty-four patients with fibromyalgia, 32 patients with low-back pain, and 50 controls were included. Suicidal ideation, measured with item 9 of the Beck Depression Inventory, was almost absent among the controls and was low among patients with low-back pain; however, suicidal ideation was prominent among patients with fibromyalgia (P,0.0001). The risk of suicide, measured with the Plutchik Suicide Risk Scale, was also higher among patients with fibromyalgia than in patients with low-back pain or in controls (P,0.0001). The likelihood for suicidal ideation and the risk of suicide were higher among patients with fibromyalgia (odds ratios of 26.9 and 48.0, respectively) than in patients with low-back pain (odds ratios 4.6 and 4.7, respectively). Depression was the only factor associated with suicidal ideation or the risk of suicide

Ensemble and Greedy Approach for the Reconstruction of Large Gene Co-Expression Networks

In the recent years, the vast amount of genetic information generated by high-throughput approaches, have led to the need of new methods for data handling. The integrative analysis of diverse-nature gene information could provide a much-sought overview to study complex biological systems and processes. In this sense, Co-expression Gene Networks (CGN) have become a powerful tool in the comprehensive analysis of gene expression. Such networks represent relationships between genes (or gene products) by means of a graph composed of nodes and edges, where nodes represent genes and edges the relationships among them. Amongst the main features of CGN, sparseness and scale-free topology may notably affect the latter network analysis. Within this framework, structure optimization techniques are also important in the reduction of the size of the networks, not only improving their topology but also keeping a positive prediction ratio. On the other hand, ensemble strategies have significantly improved the precision of results by combining different measures or methods. In this work, we present Ensemble and Greedy networks (EnGNet), a novel two-step method for CGN inference. First, EnGNet uses an ensemble strategy for co-expression networks generation. Final score is estimated by major voting among three different methdos, i.e. Spearman and Kendall coefficients and Normalized Mutual Information. Second, a greedy algorithm optimizes both the size and the topological features of the network. Not only do achieved results show that this method is able to obtain reliable networks, but also that it significantly improves the topology of the networks. Moreover, the usefulness of the method is proven by an application to a human dataset on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), revealing an innate immunity-mediated response to this pathology in accordance with previous studies. These results are indicative of the potential of CGN, and EnGNet in particular, in the unveiling of the genetic causes for complex diseases. Finally, the implications of CGN in biomarkers discovery, could lead research towards earlier detection and effective treatment of these diseases

Cross-sectional and prospective associations of sleep, sedentary and active behaviors with mental health in older people: a compositional data analysis from the Seniors-ENRICA-2 study

Abstract Background Most studies on the effects of sleep, sedentary behavior (SB), and physical activity (PA) on mental health did not account for the intrinsically compositional nature of the time spent in several behaviors. Thus, we examined the cross-sectional and prospective associations of device-measured compositional time in sleep, SB, light PA (LPA) and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) with depression symptoms, loneliness, happiness, and global mental health in older people (≥ 65 years). Methods Data were taken from the Seniors-ENRICA-2 study, with assessments in 2015–2017 (wave 0) and 2018–2019 (wave 1). Time spent in sleep, SB, LPA and MVPA was assessed by wrist-worn accelerometers. Depression symptoms, loneliness, happiness, and global mental health were self-reported using validated questionnaires. Analyses were performed using a compositional data analysis (CoDA) paradigm and adjusted for potential confounders. Results In cross-sectional analyses at wave 0 (n = 2489), time-use composition as a whole was associated with depression and happiness (all p < 0.01). The time spent in MVPA relative to other behaviors was beneficially associated with depression (γ = -0.397, p < 0.001), loneliness (γ = -0.124, p = 0.017) and happiness (γ = 0.243, p < 0.001). Hypothetically, replacing 30-min of Sleep, SB or LPA with MVPA was beneficially cross-sectionally related with depression (effect size [ES] ranged -0.326 to -0.246), loneliness (ES ranged -0.118 to -0.073), and happiness (ES ranged 0.152 to 0.172). In prospective analyses (n = 1679), MVPA relative to other behaviors at baseline, was associated with favorable changes in global mental health (γ = 0.892, p = 0.049). We observed a beneficial prospective effect on global mental health when 30-min of sleep (ES = 0.521), SB (ES = 0.479) or LPA (ES = 0.755) were theoretically replaced for MVPA. Conclusions MVPA was cross-sectionally related with reduced depression symptoms and loneliness and elevated level of happiness, and prospectively related with enhanced global mental health. Compositional isotemporal analyses showed that hypothetically replacing sleep, SB or LPA with MVPA could result in modest but significantly improvements on mental health indicators. Our findings add evidence to the emerging body of research on 24-h time-use and health using CoDA and suggest an integrated role of daily behaviors on mental health in older people

Effectiveness and Safety of a Single-Dose Ivermectin Treatment for Uncomplicated Strongyloidiasis in Immunosuppressed Patients (ImmunoStrong Study): The Study Protocol

Strongyloides stercoralis; Immunosupressió; IvermectinaStrongyloides stercoralis; Inmunosupresión; IvermectinaStrongyloides stercoralis; Immunosuppression; IvermectinStrongyloidiasis affects an estimated 600 million people worldwide, especially in tropical and subtropical areas. Single-dose ivermectin treatment has shown to be effective among immunocompetent patients with uncomplicated strongyloidiasis. Here, we present the protocol of the ImmunoStrong study, a prospective observational study aiming to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of a single-dose ivermectin for treatment of uncomplicated strongyloidiasis in immunosuppressed patients. The secondary objectives are to assess accuracy of molecular techniques for the follow-up of these patients and to determine the population pharmacokinetics of ivermectin. The information retrieved by this study will cover relevant information gaps in the strongyloidiasis management among immunosuppressed patients.The present work was supported by the 2020 Research Grant from the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC)