Environmental Factors Involved in the High Incidence of Bladder Cancer in an Industrialized Area in North-Eastern Spain

Neoplasias de la vejiga; Contaminantes atmosféricos; Exposición ambientalUrinary bladder neoplasms; Air pollutants; Environmental exposureCàncer de bufeta; Contaminants atmosfèrics; Exposició ambientalBackground: Bladder cancer (BC) is the most common of those affecting the urinary tract, and a significant proportion of the cases are attributable to tobacco use as well as occupational and environmental factors. Objective: The aim of this study is to estimate the current incidence of BC in an industrialized area in northeastern Spain and to analyze its time trends over three decades from an ecological perspective. Methods: Patients diagnosed with histologically confirmed primary BC, during 2018-2019, in an area in northeastern Spain (430,883 inhabitants) were included. Crude and age-standardized incidence rates were estimated per 100,000 person-years based on the number of individuals getting their first diagnosis. An exploratory time trend analysis was carried out to describe the evolution in tobacco use and occupational or environmental risk factors and the incidence of BC in the same area from the 1990s. Results: 295 patients were included (age 72.5 ± 10.3 years; 89.8% men). The crude rate was 62.6 (95% CI: 51.9-73.2) for men and 6.8 (95% CI: 3.4-10.3) for women. The annual rate adjusted to the European Standard Population was 85.3 (95% CI:75.0-95.5) for men and 7.0 (95% CI:4.5-9.5) for women. From 1994 to 2018, the prevalence of smokers decreased in men (42.3% to 30.9%) as well as in the active population working in the industry (44.36% to 22.59%). Nevertheless, the car fleet, especially diesel, has increased considerably. The annual mean concentrations of air (PM10, PM2.5, O3, and NO2) and water (nitrates, arsenic, trihalomethanes) pollutants were within the regulatory limit values, but not the maximum levels. Conclusions: The incidence of BC is one of the highest in men but not in women, despite the decrease in tobacco use and industrial activity (perhaps related to high latency after carcinogen exposure cessation) and despite the control of environmental pollution (the maximum regulatory limit probably needs to be lowered). Finally, a similar exposure to the carcinogen would result in a gender-specific differential incidence

Nivelación hidrostática entre dos mareógrafos situados en el Puerto de Barcelona

Este estudio pretende relacionar los registros (marzo de 2013 a febrero de 2014) de dos mareógrafos situados en el Puerto de Barcelona y que se han denominado BCN2 y BCN3. El mareógrafo BCN2 pertenece a la RED de MAReógrafos de Puertos del Estado (REDMAR) y refiere los datos al NMMA1995 mientras que BCN3, propiedad de la Autoridad Portuaria de Barcelona, los refiere a la Red Topográfica del Puerto de Barcelona observada mediante técnicas GNSS. Ambos mareógrafos están separados unos 3Km. en línea recta y unos 8Km. por tierra. El objetivo ha sido determinar la diferencia existente entre los ceros de referencia de los dos mareógrafos. El nivel de mar observado por los mareógrafos, sin tener en cuenta la acción del oleaje, está afectado por la marea astronómica y la marea meteorológica. La marea meteorológica es de tipo aleatorio, por el contrario la marea astronómica es de carácter determinista y se puede resolver realizando el análisis de armónicos. Para ello, una vez realizado el control de calidad de los datos brutos, se utilizó la aplicación T_TIDE en MATLAB obteniendo como resultado para cada mareógrafo tres gráficas y dos ficheros. Las gráficas representan respectivamente el nivel del mar observado, la marea astronómica y la meteorológica o residuo y de los dos ficheros, uno corresponde al cálculo de los componentes armónicos, del que nos interesa la componente Z0 (nivel medio del mar) y el segundo contiene la componente meteorológica. Se puede concluir en que el cero de referencia de BCN3 está situado 0,096 metros por encima del NMMA 1995.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The Baleares 2013 Calibration Campaign of Jason-2 and Saral Altimeters

The 2013 Balearic campaign GNSS position analysis of the 2013 will be performed with different softwares by different groups (similarly as it is being done in the International GNSS Service for their different products), in order improve the high demanded accuracy for JASON2 and SARAL altimeters precise calibration. In particular JPL GIPSY-OASIS software will be used, with the undifferenced PPP ambiguity fixing strategy. In order to improve the results accuracy, two similar networks are being processed. The first network includes the deployed GNSS receivers and the reference stations. The second one is a control network, defined by using the permanent receivers in the California dense network with a similar distribution as the main altimeter campaign network. In this case, the position of the receivers plying the role of buoys are being processed in the same kinematic way than the actual buoys, in order to compare them with the very accurate positions obtained with GIPSY-OASIS static processing.Postprint (published version

Scene classifier for real time road detection

L'objectiu principal del projecte és el de classificar escenes de carretera en funció del contingut de les imatges per així poder fer un desglossament sobre quin tipus de situació tenim en el moment. És important que fixem els paràmetres necessaris en funció de l'escenari en què ens trobem per tal de treure el màxim rendiment possible a cada un dels algoritmes. La seva funcionalitat doncs, ha de ser la d'avís i suport davant els diferents escenaris de conducció. És a dir, el resultat final ha de contenir un algoritme o aplicació capaç de classificar les imatges d'entrada en diferents tipus amb la màxima eficiència espacial i temporal possible. L'algoritme haurà de classificar les imatges en diferents escenaris. Els algoritmes hauran de ser parametritzables i fàcilment manejables per l'usuari. L'eina utilitzada per aconseguir aquests objectius serà el MATLAB amb les toolboxs de visió i xarxes neuronals instal·lades

Circulating carotenoids are associated with favorable lipid and fatty acid profiles in an older population at high cardiovascular risk

Carotenoid intake has been reported to be associated with improved cardiovascular health, but there is little information on actual plasma concentrations of these compounds as biomarkers of cardiometabolic risk. The objective was to investigate the association between circulating plasma carotenoids and different cardiometabolic risk factors and the plasma fatty acid profile. This is a cross-sectional evaluation of baseline data conducted in a subcohort (106 women and 124 men) of an ongoing multi-factorial lifestyle trial for primary cardiovascular prevention. Plasma concentrations of carotenoids were quantified by liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. The associations between carotenoid concentrations and cardiometabolic risk factors were assessed using regression models adapted for interval-censored variables. Carotenoid concentrations were cross-sectionally inversely associated with serum triglyceride concentrations [-2.79 mg/dl (95% CI: -4.25, -1.34) and -5.15 mg/dl (95% CI: -7.38, -2.93), p-values = 0.0002 and <0.00001 in women and men, respectively], lower levels of plasma saturated fatty acids [-0.09% (95% CI: -0.14, -0.03) and -0.15 % (95% CI: -0.23, -0.08), p-values = 0.001 and 0.0001 in women and men, respectively], and higher levels of plasma polyunsaturated fatty acids [(0.12 % (95% CI: -0.01, 0.25) and 0.39 % (95% CI: 0.19, 0.59), p-values = 0.065 and 0.0001 in women and men, respectively] in the whole population. Plasma carotenoid concentrations were also associated with higher plasma HDL-cholesterol in women [0.47 mg/dl (95% CI: 0.23, 0.72), p-value: 0.0002], and lower fasting plasma glucose in men [-1.35 mg/dl (95% CI: -2.12, -0.59), p-value: 0.001]. Keywords: Mediterranean diet; PREDIMED-plus study; cardiovascular health; liquid chromatography; mass spectrometry; plasma carotenoids

The scope of language contact as a constraint factor in language change: The periphrasis haber de plus infinitive in a corpus of language immediacy in modern Spanish

In this work an empirical study grounded in the principles and methods of the comparative variationist framework is conducted to measure the scope of language contact as a factor constraining some potentially diverging uses of a Spanish verbal periphrasis that has undergone a sharp decline over the last century (haber de plus infinitive). The analysis is based on three independent samples of text that correspond to three dialectal areas of peninsular Spanish (monolingual zones, Catalan-speaking linguistic territories and the north-western linguistic area). These samples, extracted from a corpus made up of texts of communicative immediacy from the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, confirm the existence of a certain linguistic convergence in the expressive habits of the speakers in the bilingual communities. In each region, however, the outcomes are different, due to parallel differences in the structural position of the periphrasis in each language. However, a thorough analysis of the variable context that surrounds the periphrasis shows that the observed differences do not affect the essence of the underlying grammar of this variant, whose decline (which favours tener que plus infinitive and becomes faster as the 20th century advances) is constrained by identical linguistic and extralinguistic conditioning factors in all the dialectal areas

The Biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea: Estimates, Patterns, and Threats

The Mediterranean Sea is a marine biodiversity hot spot. Here we combined an extensive literature analysis with expert opinions to update publicly available estimates of major taxa in this marine ecosystem and to revise and update several species lists. We also assessed overall spatial and temporal patterns of species diversity and identified major changes and threats. Our results listed approximately 17,000 marine species occurring in the Mediterranean Sea. However, our estimates of marine diversity are still incomplete as yet—undescribed species will be added in the future. Diversity for microbes is substantially underestimated, and the deep-sea areas and portions of the southern and eastern region are still poorly known. In addition, the invasion of alien species is a crucial factor that will continue to change the biodiversity of the Mediterranean, mainly in its eastern basin that can spread rapidly northwards and westwards due to the warming of the Mediterranean Sea. Spatial patterns showed a general decrease in biodiversity from northwestern to southeastern regions following a gradient of production, with some exceptions and caution due to gaps in our knowledge of the biota along the southern and eastern rims. Biodiversity was also generally higher in coastal areas and continental shelves, and decreases with depth. Temporal trends indicated that overexploitation and habitat loss have been the main human drivers of historical changes in biodiversity. At present, habitat loss and degradation, followed by fishing impacts, pollution, climate change, eutrophication, and the establishment of alien species are the most important threats and affect the greatest number of taxonomic groups. All these impacts are expected to grow in importance in the future, especially climate change and habitat degradation. The spatial identification of hot spots highlighted the ecological importance of most of the western Mediterranean shelves (and in particular, the Strait of Gibraltar and the adjacent Alboran Sea), western African coast, the Adriatic, and the Aegean Sea, which show high concentrations of endangered, threatened, or vulnerable species. The Levantine Basin, severely impacted by the invasion of species, is endangered as well

Vientos en altura en Barcelona

Precede al tít : Ministerio del Aire. Servicio Metereológico Naciona