Effects of Communication Media Choice on the Quality and Efficacy of Emergency Calls Assisted by a Mobile Nursing Protocol Tool:

The transition from paper to electronic-based records in the healthcare industry has posed several challenges to conventional medical practices. The introduction of technology in day-to-day medical and nursing practices deserves careful consideration. In this work, we report the results of a controlled experiment to compare nurses' consultation in emergency calls in six different conditions. We studied the effect that the type of communication media (face-to-face, telephone, videoconference) and type of nursing protocol media (paper-based, electronic-based) can have upon consultation time, mistakes made, pauses during consultation, eye contact, and efficacy of the consultation. We found that the type of communication media has an effect on consultation time; on average, fewer mistakes were made during telephone-based consultations; for eye contact, there were significantly fewer eye contacts during face-to-face than during videoconference consultations; finally, the type of communication media or protocol media did not have any effect in the efficacy of the consultation

Hydrochemical characterization of a mine water geothermal energy resource in NW Spain

Abandoned and flooded mine networks provide underground reservoirs of mine water that can be used as a renewable geothermal energy source. A complete hydrochemical characterization of mine water is required to optimally design the geothermal installation, understand the hydraulic behavior of the water in the reservoir and prevent undesired effects such as pipe clogging via mineral precipitation. Water pumped from the Barredo-Figaredo mining reservoir (Asturias, NW Spain), which is currently exploited for geothermal use, has been studied and compared to water from a separate, nearby mountain mine and a river that receives mine water discharge and partially infiltrates into the mine workings. Although the hydrochemistry was altered during the flooding process, the deep mine waters are currently near neutral, net alkaline, high metal waters of Na-HCO3 type. Isotopic values suggest that mine waters are closely related to modern meteoric water, and likely correspond to rapid infiltration. Suspended and dissolved solids, and particularly iron content, of mine water results in some scaling and partial clogging of heat exchangers, but water temperature is stable (22 °C) and increases with depth, so, considering the available flow (> 100 L s− 1), the Barredo-Figaredo mining reservoir represents a sustainable, long-term resource for geothermal use

Coastal engineering infrastructure impacts Blue Carbon habitats distribution and ecosystem functions

ABSTRACT: Intertidal estuarine habitats (e.g., saltmarshes and tidal flats) provide important ecosystem services to society, including coastal protection, food provision and Corg sequestration. Yet, estuaries and estuarine habitats have been subjected to intense human pressure, such as land-use change and artificialization of the shoreline to support economic activities and uses. Construction of engineering infrastructures (e.g., piers, bridges) in these areas alters estuary-wide hydromorphological conditions and thus sedimentation patterns at the estuarine scale, which are key drivers of habitats distribution and ecosystem structure, processes and functions. Most of the research on the impact of civil engineering structures on coastal habitats has focused on the biological communities that colonize them or the bottoms where they are placed, whereas their indirect impacts on adjacent habitats has been largely unexplored. Understanding the influence of man-made infrastructures on the distribution of estuarine habitats and functions is critical, particularly considering that shoreline armoring is expected to increase as a way to protect coastal areas from hazards derived from climate change. Shifts in habitat distribution and functions occur in several years or decades and relating them with the occurrence of past historical events is challenging when no monitoring data is available. By examining historical aerial photographs and different biogeochemical properties along a saltmarsh soil record, this study demonstrates that the construction of an infrastructure (i.e. bridge) caused a rapid transformation (~30 years) of a bare sandflat into a high marsh community and to significant changes in sediment biogeochemical properties, including the decrease in sediment accretion rate and Corg burial rates since then. This study contributes to increase the knowledge on the impact that the construction in coastal areas of civil engineering infrastructures can cause in intertidal habitats distribution and the ecological functions they provide for climate change adaption and mitigation.This research was carried out with the contribution of the LIFE Programme of the European Union to the Project ADAPTA BLUES (ref. LIFE18 CCA/ES/001160). This document reflects only the author’s view and the Agency/ Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. Authors acknowledges the financial support from the Government of Cantabria through the Fénix Programme. The authors want to thank the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya to MERS (2017 SGR-1588) and the Spanish Government for the “Maria de Maeztu” program for Units of Excellence to ICTA (Grant No. CEX2019-000940-M). We would like to thank Joan Manel Bruach Menchen from the Grup de Recerca en Radioactivitat Ambiental de Barcelona—GRAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) for his work on the analysis of 210Pb dating. In memorial of Jordi Garcia-Orellana, who left us during the preparation of this manuscript, but whose ideas, motivation and help always made this job easy and fun

Solar models and solar neutrino oscillations

We provide a summary of the current knowledge, theoretical and experimental, of solar neutrino fluxes and of the masses and mixing angles that characterize solar neutrino oscillations. We also summarize the principal reasons for doing new solar neutrino experiments and what we think may be learned from the future measurements.Comment: Submitted to the Neutrino Focus Issue of New Journal of Physics at http://www.njp.or

Impact of Liver Inflammation on Bile Acid Side Chain Shortening and Amidation

Bile acid; Inflammation; Oncostatin MÀcid biliar; Inflamació; Oncostatina MÁcido biliar; Inflamación; Oncostatina MBile acid (BA) synthesis from cholesterol by hepatocytes is inhibited by inflammatory cytokines. Whether liver inflammation also affects BA side chain shortening and conjugation was investigated. In human liver cell lines (IHH, HepG2, and HepaRG), agonists of nuclear receptors including the farnesoid X receptor (FXR), liver X receptor (LXR), and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) did not affect the expression of BA-related peroxisomal enzymes. In contrast, hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α (HNF4α) inhibition down-regulated acyl-CoA oxidase 2 (ACOX2). ACOX2 was repressed by fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19), which was prevented by extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway inhibition. These changes were paralleled by altered BA synthesis (HPLC-MS/MS). Cytokines able to down-regulate cholesterol-7α-hydroxylase (CYP7A1) had little effect on peroxisomal enzymes involved in BA synthesis except for ACOX2 and bile acid-CoA:amino acid N-acyltransferase (BAAT), which were down-regulated, mainly by oncostatin M (OSM). This effect was prevented by Janus kinase (JAK) inhibition, which restored BA side chain shortening and conjugation. The binding of OSM to the extracellular matrix accounted for a persistent effect after culture medium replacement. In silico analysis of four databases (n = 201) and a validation cohort (n = 90) revealed an inverse relationship between liver inflammation and ACOX2/BAAT expression which was associated with changes in HNF4α levels. In conclusion, BA side chain shortening and conjugation are inhibited by inflammatory effectors. However, other mechanisms involved in BA homeostasis counterbalance any significant impact on the serum BA profile.This study was supported by the CIBERehd (EHD15PI05/2016) and Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain (PI19/00819, PI20/00189, and PI20/01663 co-funded by European Regional Development Fund/European Social Fund, “Investing in your future”); Junta de Castilla y Leon (SA074P20); Fundació Marato TV3 (Ref. 201916/31), Spain; AECC Scientific Foundation (2017/2020), Spain; Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research (IZKF) at the University Hospital of Wuerzburg, Germany (Project A-E-384 to H.M.H.); grants PID2019-111669-RB-I00, PID2020-115055RB-I00 from Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Spain; the AGAUR of the Generalidad de Cataluña SGR-2017-1112, Spain; and European Cooperation in Science & Technology (COST) Action CA17112. R.E.E was recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from “Junta de Castilla y León” and “Fondo Social Europeo” (EDU/574/2018). J.A. was recipient of a grant from Fundación Echebano (2020–2022)

Spin diffusion versus proximity effect at ferromagnet/superconductor La_(0.7)Ca_(0.3)MnO_(3)/YBa_(2)Cu_(3)O_(7-δ) interfaces

We report on the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity in La_(0.7)Ca_(0.3)MnO_(3)/YBa_(2)Cu_(3)O_(7) structures. We have grown heterostructures (bilayers and trilayers) with a constant thickness of the ferromagnetic layer of 40 unit cells (15 nm) and changing the thickness of the superconductor between 1 (1.2 nm) and 40 unit cells (48 nm). The critical temperature of the bilayers decreases when the thickness of the superconductor is reduced below 10 unit cells, thus providing an estimate of the length scale of superconductivity suppression by spin-polarized quasiparticles in YBa_(2)Cu_(3)O_(7-δ) (YBCO) of 10 nm, much larger than the coherence length. For thickness of the YBCO layer smaller than 4 unit cells; a second mechanism of superconductivity depression comes into play, probably related to the ferromagnetic/superconducting proximity effect. The relative importance in depressing the critical temperature of intrinsic mechanisms (quasiparticle diffusion and proximity effect) and extrinsic ones (intralayer disorder, interface roughness, or reduced dimensionality of ultrathin layers) is discussed

8-PropargylaminoBODIPY: unprecedented blue-emitting pyrromethene dye. Synthesis, photophysics and laser properties

Highly emitting 8-propargylaminoBODIPY (8-PAB) 2 was prepared in 94% yield. Unlike any other BODIPY structure hitherto described in the literature, 2 displays efficient emission in the blue region of the visible spectrum with a fluorescence quantum yield up to 0.94 and high laser efficiency (35%) at 483 nm.Grants GTO-2007-C02-69094 (CONCyTEG) (Mexico), MAT2007-65778-C02-01 and -02 of the Spanish MICINN are gratefully acknowledged. V. Martin thanks CSIC for her JAE-postdoctoral contract.Peer reviewe

Correcting flaws in the assignment of nitrogen chemical environments in N-doped graphene

X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) applied to N-doped graphene leads to a rather broad N(1s) core level signal that, based on different sources available in the literature, is most often interpreted by fitting the experimental spectra to three peaks. The resulting N(1s) features are assigned to graphitic, pyrrolic, and pyridinic nitrogen, even if these are far from being uniquely defined in the literature. This broadly accepted interpretation has been questioned by recent accurate Hartree-Fock calculations concluding that graphitic and pyrrolic N(1s) core level binding energies are too close to be distinguished. Consideration of models with N in other so far unexplored environments such as N dimers or N at defects show some variations in the calculated core level binding energies. However, these are not large enough to justify a third peak and suggest that the usual three peaks interpretation of the N(1s) XPS in N-doped graphene may be an artefact caused by the fitting procedure. New measurements have been carried out for samples of N-doped graphene and the obtained N(1s) spectra fitted to two or three peaks. It turns out that the spectra can be equally fitted using two or three peaks but only the former is consistent with the results of the unbiased ab initio calculations which calls for a revision of the usual assignment