In search of the reader: a look at reading habits in Spain

[Resumen] Históricamente la lectura ha sido concebida como una de las fuentes principales de acceso al ocio y socialmente se le da tanta importancia que su enseñanza y fomento se ha convertido en uno de los puntos clave en el sistema educativo español. En este sentido en los últimos años distintas generaciones de jóvenes han sido objeto y objetivo de diversas políticas cuyo fin era fomentar los hábitos de lectura. Se da por hecho, por tanto, que el gusto por la lectura se puede adquirir, aprender y depende de condicionantes sociales. El objetivo del presente documento es elaborar una tipología de perfiles cuyo fin es analizar el impacto de variables de índole social (tales como el género, el nivel de estudios, la clase social, etc.) en el gusto por determinado tipo de géneros literarios (ensayo, novela histórica, Sci-fi, etc.) y en la relación, más o menos fuerte, que se tiene con el mundo de la literatura.[Resumo] Historicamente a lectura foi concibida como una das fontes principais de acceso ao ocio e socialmente dáselle tanta importancia que a súa ensinanza e fomento convertéronse nun dos puntos clave no sistema educativo español. Neste senso nos últimos anos distintas xeracións de xente nova foron obxecto e obxectivo de diversas políticas cuxo fin era fomentar os hábitos de lectura. Se da por feito, por tanto, que o gusto pola lectura pódese adquirir, aprender e depende de condicionantes sociais. O obxectivo do presente documento é elaborar unha tipoloxía de perfís cuxo fin e analizar o impacto de variables de índole social (tales coma o xénero, o nivel de estudos, a clase social, etc.) no gusto por determinado tipo de xéneros literarios (ensaio, novela histórica, Sci-fi, etc.) e na relación, máis ou menos forte, que se ten co mundo da literatura.[Abstract] Reading has been historically conceived as one of the main sources of access to leisure. It is given so much socially importance that its teaching and promotion have become some of the key points in the Spanish educative system. In this sense, Recent young generations have been the object and objective of various policies whose purpose was to encourage reading habits. Therefore, it is taken for granted that the taste for reading can be acquired that it depends on social conditions. The objective of this document is to develop a typology of profiles in onder to analyze the impact of variables of social nature (such as gender, level of studies, social class, etc.) on the taste for certain types of literary genres (essay, historical novel, Sci-fi, etc.) and on the relationship, more or less strong, that readers have with the world of literature.Traballo fin de grao (UDC.SOC). Socioloxía. Curso 2018/201

Actividades informáticas para la Telerehabilitación cognitiva : proyecto discognitios

El progresivo envejecimiento de la población, parejo al desarrollo de las TICs, ha incrementado el interés por la gerontología y la investigación referida a este campo, naciendo muchas iniciativas que de una manera u otra se tratan de implementar a fin de mejorar la calidad de vida de este colectivo. Desde el Grupo de Investigación en Gerontología (UDC) y el CESGA, se está desarrollando un proyecto, que denominado "discognitios" trata de identificar software de teelerehabilitación cognitiva. Para ello, en primer lugar se ha procedido a una búsqueda selectiva de aplicaciones, que una vez categorizada en una base de datos online, han sido contrastadas con la población diana. En el presente artículo exponemos los resultados obtenidos tras el estudio. A partir del cual obtendremos datos para desarrollar una herramienta de estimulación cognitiva a domicilio, abriendo paso a un innovador recurso asistencial denominado "teleestimulación cognitiva"

By-products of agri-food industry as tannin-rich sources: a review of tannins’ biological activities and their potential for valorization

During recent decades, consumers have been continuously moving towards the substitution of synthetic ingredients of the food industry by natural products, obtained from vegetal, animal or microbial sources. Additionally, a circular economy has been proposed as the most efficient production system since it allows for reducing and reutilizing different wastes. Current agriculture is responsible for producing high quantities of organic agricultural waste (e.g., discarded fruits and vegetables, peels, leaves, seeds or forestall residues), that usually ends up underutilized and accumulated, causing environmental problems. Interestingly, these agri-food by-products are potential sources of valuable bioactive molecules such as tannins. Tannins are phenolic compounds, secondary metabolites of plants widespread in terrestrial and aquatic natural environments. As they can be found in plenty of plants and herbs, they have been traditionally used for medicinal and other purposes, such as the leather industry. This fact is explained by the fact that they exert plenty of different biological activities and, thus, they entail a great potential to be used in the food, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industry. Consequently, this review article is directed towards the description of the biological activities exerted by tannins as they could be further extracted from by-products of the agri-food industry to produce high-added-value products.The research leading to these results was funded by FEDER under the program Interreg V-A Spain-Portugal (POPTEC) 2014–2020 ref. 0377_IBERPHENOL_6_E and ref. 0181_NANOEATERS_ 01_E; to Xunta de Galicia supporting the Axudas Conecta Peme the IN852A 2018/58 NeuroFood Project and the program EXCELENCIA-ED431F 2020/12; to Ibero-American Program on Science and Technology (CYTED—AQUA-CIBUS, P317RT0003) and by the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 888003 UP4HEALTH Project (H2020-BBI-JTI-2019). The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and the Bio Based Industries Consortium.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Seaweed polysaccharides: emerging extraction technologies, chemical modifications and bioactive properties

Nowadays, consumers are increasingly aware of the relationship between diet and health, showing a greater preference of products from natural origin. In the last decade, seaweeds have outlined as one of the natural sources with more potential to obtain bioactive carbohydrates. Numerous seaweed polysaccharides have aroused the interest of the scientific community, due to their biological activities and their high potential on biomedical, functional food and technological applications. To obtain polysaccharides from seaweeds, it is necessary to find methodologies that improve both yield and quality and that they are profitable. Nowadays, environmentally friendly extraction technologies are a viable alternative to conventional methods for obtaining these products, providing several advantages like reduced number of solvents, energy and time. On the other hand, chemical modification of their structure is a useful approach to improve their solubility and biological properties, and thus enhance the extent of their potential applications since some uses of polysaccharides are still limited. The present review aimed to compile current information about the most relevant seaweed polysaccharides, available extraction and modification methods, as well as a summary of their biological activities, to evaluate knowledge gaps and future trends for the industrial applications of these compounds. Key teaching points: Structure and biological functions of main seaweed polysaccharides. Emerging extraction methods for sulfate polysaccharides. Chemical modification of seaweeds polysaccharides. Potential industrial applications of seaweed polysaccharides. Biological activities, knowledge gaps and future trends of seaweed polysaccharides.The research leading to these results was supported by MICINN supporting the Ramón y Cajal grant for M.A. Prieto (RYC-2017-22891); by Xunta de Galicia for supporting the program EXCELENCIA-ED431F 2020/12, the post-doctoral grant of M. Fraga-Corral (ED481B-2019/096), the pre-doctoral grant of P. Garcia-Oliveira (ED481A-2019/295) the program Grupos de Referencia Competitiva (GRUPO AA1-GRC 2018) that supports the work of J. Echave; by University of Vigo for supporting the predoctoral grant of M. Carpena (Uvigo-00VI 131H 6410211) and Becas de Fundación ONCE Programme “Oportunidad al Talento” to support the work of A. Soria-Lopez. Authors are grateful to Ibero-American Program on Science and Technology (CYTED— AQUA-CIBUS, P317RT0003), to the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 888003 UP4HEALTH Project (H2020-BBI-JTI-2019) that supports the work of P. Otero. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and the Bio Based Industries Consortium. The project SYSTEMIC Knowledge hub on Nutrition and Food Security, has received funding from national research funding parties in Belgium (FWO), France (INRA), Germany (BLE), Italy (MIPAAF), Latvia (IZM), Norway (RCN), Portugal (FCT), and Spain (AEI) in a joint action of JPI HDHL, JPI-OCEANS and FACCE-JPI launched in 2019 under the ERA-NET ERA-HDHL (n° 696295).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Using clustering techniques for intelligent camera-based user interfaces

The area of Human-Machine Interface is growing fast due to its high importance in all technological systems. The basic idea behind designing human-machine interfaces is to enrich the communication with the technology in a natural and easy way. Gesture interfaces are a good example of transparent interfaces. Such interfaces must identify properly the action the user wants to perform, so the proper gesture recognition is of the highest importance. However, most of the systems based on gesture recognition use complex methods requiring high-resource devices. In this work, we propose to model gestures capturing their temporal properties, which significantly reduce storage requirements, and use clustering techniques, namely self-organizing maps and unsupervised genetic algorithm, for their classification. We further propose to train a certain number of algorithms with different parameters and combine their decision using majority voting in order to decrease the false positive rate. The main advantage of the approach is its simplicity, which enables the implementation using devices with limited resources, and therefore low cost. The testing results demonstrate its high potential

Bio-inspired enhancement of reputation systems for intelligent environments

Providing security to the emerging field of ambient intelligence will be difficult if we rely only on existing techniques, given their dynamic and heterogeneous nature. Moreover, security demands of these systems are expected to grow, as many applications will require accurate context modeling. In this work we propose an enhancement to the reputation systems traditionally deployed for securing these systems. Different anomaly detectors are combined using the immunological paradigm to optimize reputation system performance in response to evolving security requirements. As an example, the experiments show how a combination of detectors based on unsupervised techniques (self-organizing maps and genetic algorithms) can help to significantly reduce the global response time of the reputation system. The proposed solution offers many benefits: scalability, fast response to adversarial activities, ability to detect unknown attacks, high adaptability, and high ability in detecting and confining attacks. For these reasons, we believe that our solution is capable of coping with the dynamism of ambient intelligence systems and the growing requirements of security demands

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells in lymph nodes show frequent NOTCH1 activation

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common adult leukemia in the Western world. Pathogenic mechanisms involve multiple external events (such as microenvironmental and antigenic stimuli) and internal events (genetic and epigenetic alterations) that are associated with the transformation, progression and evolution of CLL. CLL is characterized by an accumulation of mature B cells in peripheral blood, bone marrow and lymphoid tissues. Extracellular stimuli play an important role in the development and maintenance of neoplastic cells. B-CLL cells proliferate and activate pathogenic signaling pathways in anatomical structures known as proliferation centers, which are usually more conspicuous in involved lymph nodes.1 Its clinical course is quite heterogeneous, whereby some patients progress rapidly and have short survival, whereas others have a more stable clinical course that may not need treatment for years.This work was supported by grants from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) (SAF2013-47416-R) Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII)- FEDER – MINECO- AES (CP11/00018, PI10/00621, RD012/0036/0060), and Asociación Española contra el Cancer (AECC). MS-B is supported by a Miguel Servet contract from ISCIII-FEDER (CP11/00018). Salary support to SG is provided by CP11/00018, from ISCIII-FEDER. JG-R is supported by a predoctoral grant from the Fundación Investigación Puerta de Hierro.S

Tenofovir vs lamivudine plus adefovir in chronic hepatitis B: TENOSIMP-B study

AIM To demonstrate the non-inferiority (15% non-inferiority limit) of monotherapy with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) vs the combination of lamivudine (LAM) plus adefovir dipivoxil (ADV) in the maintenance of virologic response in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and prior failure with LAM. METHODS This study was a Phase IV prospective, randomized, open, controlled study with 2 parallel groups (TDF and LAM+ADV) of adult patients with hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-negative CHB, prior failure with LAM, on treatment with LAM+ADV for at least 6 mo, without prior resistance to ADV and with an undetectable viral load at the start of the study, in 14 Spanish hospitals. The follow-up time for each patient was 48 wk after randomization, with quarterly visits in which the viral load, biochemical and serological parameters, adverse effects, adherence to treatment and consumption of hospital resources were analysed. RESULTS Forty-six patients were evaluated [median age: 55.4 years (30.2-75.2); 84.8% male], including 22 patients with TDF and 24 with LAM+ADV. During study development, hepatitis B virus DNA (HBV-DNA) remained undetectable, all patients remained HBeAg negative, and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive. Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) values at the end of the study were similar in the 2 groups (25.1 ± 7.65, TDF vs 24.22 ± 8.38, LAM+ADV, P = 0.646). No significant changes were observed in creatinine or serum phosphorus values in either group. No significant differences between the 2 groups were noted in the identification of adverse effects (AEs) (53.8%, TDF vs 37.5%, LAM+ADV, P = 0.170), and none of the AEs which occurred were serious. Treatment adherence was 95.5% and 83.3% in the TDF and the LAM+ADV groups, respectively (P = 0.488). The costs associated with hospital resource consumption were significantly lower with the TDF treatment than the LAM+ADV treatment (€4943 ± 1059 vs €5811 ± 1538, respectively, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION TDF monotherapy proved to be safe and not inferior to the LAM+ADV combination therapy in maintaining virologic response in patients with CHB and previous LAM failure. In addition, the use of TDF generated a significant savings in hospital costs

Kinetic extraction of fucoxanthin from Undaria pinnatifida using ethanol as a solvent

Fucoxanthin (Fx) has been proven to exert numerous biological properties, which makes it an interesting molecule with diverse industrial applications. In this study, the kinetic behavior of Fx was studied to optimize three variables: time (t—3 min to 7 days), temperature (T—5 to 85 °C), and concentration of ethanol in water (S—50 to 100%, v/v), in order to obtain the best Fx yield from Undaria pinnatifida using conventional heat extraction. The Fx content (Y1) was found through HPLC-DAD and expressed in µg Fx/g of algae sample dry weight (AS dw). Furthermore, extraction yield (Y2) was also found through dry weight analysis and was expressed in mg extract (E)/g AS dw. The purity of the extracts (Y3) was found and expressed in mg Fx/g E dw. The optimal conditions selected for Y1 were T = 45 °C, S = 70%, and t = 66 min, obtaining ~5.24 mg Fx/g AS; for Y2 were T = 65 °C, S = 60%, and t = ~10 min, obtaining ~450 mg E/g AS; and for Y3 were T = 45 °C, S = 70%, and t = 45 min, obtaining ~12.3 mg Fx/g E. In addition, for the selected optimums, a full screening of pigments was performed by HPLC-DAD, while phenolics and flavonoids were quantified by spectrophotometric techniques and several biological properties were evaluated (namely, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and cholinesterase inhibitory activity). These results could be of interest for future applications in the food, cosmetic, or pharmaceutical industries, as they show the Fx kinetic behavior and could help reduce costs associated with energy and solvent consumption while maximizing the extraction yields.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. RYC-2017-22891Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. FPU2020/06140Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED431F 2020/12Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B-2021/152Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481A) -2019/295Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | Ref. UIDB/50006/2020Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | Ref. POCI-01- 0145-FEDER-03024