Design of Fear and Anxiety of COVID-19 Assessment Tool in Spanish Adult Population

The aim of this study was to develop a specific scale to measure anxiety and fear levels in the general Spanish population. For this, a transcultural adaptation to Spanish of the fear of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) scale, in its original version of 10 items, was carried out. Then, the Anxiety and Fear of COVID-19 Assessment Scale (AMICO, for its acronym in Spanish) was designed by translating the tool and Delphi technique into three rounds. Ten experts participated voluntarily, and inter-observer match rates and the reliability study of the designed scale were calculated. A pilot study was carried out with the final version of the scale for the validity and reliability study. The instrument did not raise problems in semantic and cultural terms during the first and second rounds of the translation process, with an overall weighted Kappa value of 0.9. In the third round, eight new items were designed and consensual, obtaining a weighted overall value of 0.89. The pilot study sample was made up of 445 subjects, of which 60.3% were women with a mean age of 46.2 years. The final version consisted of 16 items, 2 factors, and a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.92. The AMICO scale was developed to assess the level of anxiety and fear of COVID-19 and proved to be valid and reliable for its use in the adult Spanish population.Junta de Andalucía PI 036/2

Tratamiento con ozono de lejías residuales del aderezo de aceitunas negras

Black olive wastewaters degradation by ozone has been studied. Organic matter removal was followed by means of global parameters like chemical oxygen demand, aromaticity and polyphenolic compounds. The influence of modified operating variables (temperature and pH) on evolution of this parameters was analized. Ozone consumption, ozone absorption rate and ozonation yield was also determined. Finally, a kinetic study was performed to determine the apparent kinetic constants for the chemical oxygen demand and aromaticity reductions.Se ha estudiado la depuración de las lejías residuales procedentes del aderezo de aceitunas negras mediante ozono. La reducción de la materia orgánica contaminante fue seguida por medio de parámetros globales como son la demanda química de oxígeno, la aromaticidad y los compuestos polifenólicos. En primer lugar, se ha analizado la influencia de las variables de operación modificadas (temperatura y pH) sobre la evolución de aquellos parámetros. A continuación, se ha determinado el consumo de ozono, la velocidad de absorción de ozono y el rendimiento de ozonización. Por último, se ha realizado un estudio cinético con el objeto de determinar la constante cinética para la reducción de la demanda química de oxígeno y de la aromaticidad

Biomass valorization by using a sequence of acid hydrolysis and pyrolysis processes. Application to Leucaena leucocephala

Among main ways to provide an environmentally friendly energy and platform chemicals are the lignocellulosic conversion processes. The proper execution of this way will depend on the correct selection of lignocellulosic materials. A compelling plant is Leucaena leucocephala because its great variety of uses, its high biomass production and its leguminous nature. In this study, acid hydrolysis (130-170°C and 0.5-2% H2SO4, to extract valuable hemicelluloses) as pretreatment and pyrolysis of the solid residue (to get a gaseous fuel) as treatment have been used in its valorization. A laboratory-scale reactor was used for the pyrolysis experiments (550ºC, N2) for both Leucaena leucocephala, as raw material, and the solid residues after hydrolysis process and raw material. The amounts of CO, CO2 and H2 found in the raw material are similar to those found in the solids obtained after the different studied hydrolysis conditions. Moreover, the thermal behavior of studied solids has been studied by thermogravimetric analysis under nitrogen atmosphere at different heating rates (5, 10, 15 and 20 ºC min-1). Activation energy for all samples has been obtained by the Flynn-Wall-Ozawa method. The optimum value, in which a high relationship between recoverable hemicelluloses fraction and H2 concentration is found, under medium hydrolysis temperature (150ºC) has been obtained and was independent of the amount of acid added to the hydrolysis process

Maximizing furfural concentration from wheat straw and Eucalyptus globulus by nonisothermal autohydrolysis

The autohydrolysis process as a method for selective extraction of hemicelluloses and conversion to furfural was proposed for lignocellulosic raw materials. Samples of wheat straw (WS) and Eucalyptus globulus (EG) were subjected to nonisothermal autohydrolysis, defined by temperature 180–240°C. Within a biorefinery scheme for the selected materials, the aim of this study is both (a) to optimize furfural processing technology to enable higher yields and improved productivity from EG and WS by autohydrolysis and (b) to not excessively degrade the remaining polymeric constituents (glucan) in solid to facilitate a potential later use. Differences in the rate of the dehydration reaction of xylose to furfural have been observed, and it is faster in the case of WS with respect to that observed for eucalyptus. In that form, 4.25 g/100 g raw material (26% of the initial xylan in WS) could be found at 220°C, and an increase in the temperature (240°C) yielded 4.54 g/100 g raw material, 28% of the initial xylan. In EG, the increase in the hydrolysis temperature (240°C) yielded liquor with higher contents of furfural (4.45 g/100 g raw material, 25% of the initial xylan) and acetic acid (4.49 g/100 g raw material) and smaller contents of arabinose and xylan. In WS, a faster dehydration is found

Integral valorization of tagasaste (Chamaecytisus proliferus) under thermochemical processes

The generation of compounds derived from lignocellulosic biomass fractionation has a boost in recent years. An interesting plant could be tagasaste (Chamaecytisus proliferus) due to its high biomass production and its leguminous nature. A sequence of acid hydrolysis, as pretreatment, and pyrolysis of the solid residue, as treatment, has been used in its valorization. An experimental design (H2SO4 acid concentration 0.5–2%, temperature 130–170 °C, and time 30– 60 min) has been used to study the hydrolysis process. In the proposed acid hydrolysis process, under 170 °C as operational temperature, 0.5% of H2SO4 and 30 min for the operation time, 91.75% of the initial xylose have been extracted. The thermal behavior of both tagasaste trunks-large branches and some solid residues after hydrolysis (furthest and center points in the experimental design) process and raw material have been studied by thermogravimetric analysis under nitrogen atmosphere at different heating rates (5, 10, 15, and 20 °C min−1). The thermal degradation of the studied materials is influenced by its initial composition. Then, the higher reactivity of hemicelluloses can accelerate the pyrolysis degradation reaction. However, higher cellulose content implies lower activation energy in pyrolysis process

UV Raman spectroscopy of group IV nanocrystals embedded in a SiO2 matrix

Nanostructures of both Ge nanocrystals formed by thermal oxidation of SiGe layers, and SiGe nanocrystals formed by crystallization of amorphous SiGe nanoparticles deposited by LPCVD have been analyzed by Raman spectroscopy. The nanostructures are formed on a silicon substrate. Raman spectra have been acquired with visible (514.5 nm) and UV (325 nm) excitation lines. When the amount of material is very small, as it has happens in these nanostructures, the visible line is not able to excite the characteristic peaks of the Ge or SiGe in the Raman spectrum; instead the Si second order spectrum of the substrate appears and it can be misinterpreted by attributing it to the Ge–Ge band associated with the nanocrystals. In this work, the use of UV excitation has been demonstrated to enhance the sensitivity respect to the conventional visible excitation, allowing the characteristic peaks of the Ge or SiGe nanocrystals to appear in the spectrum. We attributed this effect to the resonance effects

Air pollution relevance analysis in the bay of Algeciras (Spain)

The aim of this work is to accomplish an in-depth analysis of the air pollution in the two main cities of the Bay of Algeciras (Spain). A large database of air pollutant concentrations and weather measurements were collected using a monitoring network installed throughout the region from the period of 2010-2015. The concentration parameters contain nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and particulate matter (PM10). The analysis was developed in two monitoring stations (Algeciras and La Linea). The higher average concentration values were obtained in Algeciras for NO2 (28.850 mu g/m(3)) and SO2 (11.966 mu g/m(3)), and in La Linea for PM10 (30.745 mu g/m(3)). The analysis shows patterns that coincide with human activity. One of the goals of this work is to develop a useful virtual sensor capable of achieving a more robust monitoring network, which can be used, for instance, in the case of missing data. By means of trends analysis, groups of equivalent stations were determined, implying that the values of one station could be substituted for those in the equivalent station in case of failure (e.g., SO2 weekly trends in Algeciras and Los Barrios show equivalence). On the other hand, a calculation of relative risks was developed showing that relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction produce an increase in the risk of higher pollutant concentrations. Besides, obtained results showed that wind speed and wind direction are the most important variables in the distribution of particles. The results obtained may allow administrations or citizens to support decisions

DExMA: An R Package for Performing Gene Expression Meta-Analysis with Missing Genes

Meta-analysis techniques allow researchers to jointly analyse different studies to determine common effects. In the field of transcriptomics, these methods have gained popularity in recent years due to the increasing number of datasets that are available in public repositories. Despite this, there is a limited number of statistical software packages that implement proper meta-analysis functionalities for this type of data. This article describes DExMA, an R package that provides a set of functions for performing gene expression meta-analyses, from data downloading to results visualization. Additionally, we implemented functions to control the number of missing genes, which can be a major issue when comparing studies generated with different analytical platforms. DExMA is freely available in the Bioconductor repository.Teaching Staff Programme by the Ministerio de Universidades FPU19/01999 MCIN/AEI PID2020119032RB-I00FEDER/Junta de Andalucia-Consejeria de Transformacion Economica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades P20_00335 B-CTS-40-UGR20'Consejeria de Transformacion Economica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades' (CTEICU)European Union through the European Social Fund (ESF) named 'Andalucia se mueve con Europa" European Union-NextGenerationEU, Ministerio de Universidades (Spain's Government)Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, through a call from the University of Granad

A complex scenario of glacial survival in Mediterranean and continental refugia of a temperate continental vole species (Microtus arvalis) in Europe

Los autores de la UAM pertenecen al grupo Terrestrial Ecology Group (TEG)"This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research 58.1 (2020): 459-474, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/jzs.12323. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions"The role of glacial refugia in shaping contemporary species distribution is a long-standing question in phylogeography and evolutionary ecology. Recent studies are questioning previous paradigms on glacial refugia and postglacial recolonization pathways in Europe, and more flexible phylogeographic scenarios have been proposed. We used the widespread common vole Microtus arvalis as a model to investigate the origin, locations of glacial refugia, and dispersal pathways, in the group of “Continental” species in Europe. We used a Bayesian spatiotemporal diffusion analysis (relaxed random walk model) of cytochrome b sequences across the species range, including newly collected individuals from 10 Iberian localities and published sequences from 68 localities across 22 European countries. Our data suggest that the species originated in Central Europe, and we revealed the location of multiple refugia (in both southern peninsulas and continental regions) for this continental model species. Our results confirm the monophyly of Iberian voles and the pre-LGM divergence between Iberian and European voles. We found evidence of restricted postglacial dispersal from refugia in Mediterranean peninsulas. We inferred a complex evolutionary and demographic history of M. arvalis in Europe over the last 50,000 years that does not adequately fit previous glacial refugial scenarios. The phylogeography of M. arvalis provides a paradigm of ice-age survival of a temperate continental species in western and eastern Mediterranean peninsulas (sources of endemism) and multiple continental regions (sources of postglacial spread). Our findings also provide support for a major role of large European river systems in shaping geographic boundaries of M. arvalis in Europ