The impact of nutritional status on health‑related quality of life in hemodialysis patients

Malnutrition is frequent in hemodialysis (HD) patients. Nutritional deficiencies may negatively impact quality of life (QOL). This study examines the utility of the Malnutrition-Inflammation Score (MIS) in detecting nutritional risk (NR) and assesses the correlation between nutritional status and QOL in dialysis patients upon starting a nutritional intervention program (NIP). One hundred and twenty patients were included in this cross-sectional study. The MIS was used to detect NR and the Kidney Disease Quality of Life (KDQOL-SF) instrument version 1.2 was used to assess QOL. 62% of patients were found to be at NR (MIS > 5). Nutritional status was significantly correlated with all generic QOL sub-scales. On a multiple linear regression analysis, malnutrition showed the highest level of explanation in the Kidney Disease Summary Component which explained 28.9% of the variance; the Physical Component Summary which explained 33% of the variance; and the Mental Component Summary which explained 21.5% of the variance. Malnutrition was found to be the most significant predictor of impaired scores on the KDQOL-SF. The use of MIS to identify patients at NR and a nutritional assessment to detect malnutrition in its early stages are important given the effects a NIP can have on improving QOL in HD patients

Sensitivity of C-band backscatter to surface roughness parameters measured at different scales

SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) sensors measure the backscatter (sigma(0)) of land covers and SAR images have a number of applications in agricultural soils (soil moisture, crop monitoring, etc.) but the surface roughness of these soils complicates their interpretation and determination of quantitative estimates of useful parameters. The aim of this study is to quantify the spatial variability of different roughness parameters and the sensitivity of. 0 to them measured at different scales. Ten Envisat/ASAR images acquired between September 2004 and January 2005 on an agricultural area with 10 control plots are analyzed. 132 roughness profiles of 5 m length were measured, and 21 different parameters were calculated. The results show considerable differences in the spatial variability of the parameters and differed depending on the type of parameter in the correlation analysis. This study can be useful to identify roughness parameters and scales that maximize their sensitivity to C-band backscatter

Artichoke By-Products as Natural Source of Phenolic Food Ingredient

Nowadays, the transformation activity of the food industry results in the generation of a huge amount of daily discarded vegetables wastes. One of those undervalued by-products are produced during the post-harvesting and processing process of artichokes. In the present research, the potential of artichokes’ bracts and stalks have been evaluated as a natural source of phenolic compounds which could be used as bioactive food ingredients, among others. In this study, the bioactive composition of those wastes has been evaluated using recent advances in extraction and analytical technologies, concretely, pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) followed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to electrospray time-of flight mass spectrometry (ESI-TOF/MS) analysis. To achieve this goal, first, the extraction process was evaluated by a comparative study using GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) solvents (mixtures of ethanol and water) at different temperatures (40–200 ◦C). The second step was to deeply characterize the composition of individual polyphenols by HPLC-ESI-TOF/MS in order to establish a comparison among the different PLE conditions applied to extract the phenolic fraction. The analysis revealed a wide variety of phenolic-composition, mainly phenolic acids and flavonoids. The results also highlighted that high percentages of ethanol and medium-high temperatures pointed out to be useful PLE conditions for recovering this kind of phytochemicals, which could be used in different applications, such as functional food ingredients, cosmetics, or nutraceuticals

New Developments in Simulation-Based Harbour Crane Training

This paper presents the efforts that have been made during the development of a set of harbour training simulators to improve their quality. The paper focuses on two main research lines: the improvement of complex physical systems involved in the simulation and the analysis of hardware architecture solutions. Cable-based hoist systems and bulk materials are systems present in different harbour equipment and are usually simulated with poor quality due to their complexity. In this paper physics-based models for the interactive simulation of these systems are proposed and applied to real cases. Also, different hardware simulator architectures are analysed and different approaches are proposed to the problem of choosing the devices for a simulator

Jóvenes y sexo en la red: Reacción ante la exposición involuntaria a material sexual

En los últimos años, hemos sido testigos de tan gran expansión de la pornografía en la red que resulta imposible aislar toda esa pornografía a portales y páginas Web concretas. Esto lleva a que en ocasiones, las personas sean expuestas involuntariamente a contenidos sexuales explícitos en páginas que no deberían contener este tipo de materiales. Este hecho, que en adultos no parece especialmente problemático, podría resultar una experiencia realmente aversiva para adolescentes que todavía están en pleno desarrollo psicosexual. Por ello, se planteó esta investigación con el objetivo de conocer la frecuencia y la experiencia que supone para los adolescentes de nuestra comunidad la exposición involuntaria a material sexual en Internet. En este trabajo, se aplicó a una muestra de 141 estudiantes (48,2 % chicos; 51,8 % chicas) de entre 15 y 16 años un cuestionario diseñado ad hoc para la evaluación de todas las dimensiones implicadas en la exposición involuntaria. Los resultados evidencian una frecuencia de exposición involuntaria muy alta (86,5 % de la muestra expuesta involuntariamente), exposición a la que los jóvenes suelen reaccionar cerrando la ventana y eliminando el contenido. La vivencia de esta experiencia se define normalmente en términos negativos (asco, sorpresa, vergüenza, etc.) y lo que es más preocupante, la mayoría de los jóvenes expuestos experimentó posteriormente síntomas de embotamiento y evitación (77,3 %), síntomas sexuales (75,5 %) o de hiperactivación fisiológica (71,7 %).In recent years, we have been witness to a great expansion of pornography on the Net. As a result, it is not possible to isolate all this pornography to specific sites or web pages. For this reason, sometimes people are unwanted exposed to sexually detailed materials in pages that should not contain such materials. In adults, involuntary exposure seems to be harmless, whereas in children and adolescent, the exposure could be extremely upset. In this study, we focus on the frequency and the short-term / long-term effects of the involuntarily exposure in adolescents. For this purpose, 141 Spanish young people (48,2 % males and 51,8 % females), age ranged from 15 to 16 years, completed an Ad-Hoc questionnaire designed for the evaluation of the unwanted exposition experience. The results show a very high frequency of involuntary exposure (86.5 % of the sample unwanted exposed). Young people usually react to the involuntarily exposition closing the window and erasing the sexually materials. The majority of youth regard their personal unwanted exposures as distressful (disgusting, shameful, surprising, etc.). Finally, the majority of youth who had been exposed experienced apparent stress symptoms that they connected to the episode (77,3 % of the sample experienced avoidance; 75,5 sexual symptoms; 71,7 physiological arousal)

Síntomas de ansiedad y depresión tras la hospitalización en una unidad de cuidados intensivos

Quinzenes Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la FCHS (Any 2009-2010

Libro de Actas del Primer Congreso Internacional de Análisis de Rendimiento Deportivo y Coaching

Este libro es una compliación de las Comunicaciones y Ponencias presentadas en el I Congreso Internacional de Análisis de Rendimiento Deportivo y Coaching, celebrado en la Facultad de Ciencias de la Actividad Física y el Deporte de la Universidad de Valencia entre el 25 y 27 de Marzo de 2015. Organizado por la Universidad de Valencia y la Asociación Valenciana de Análisis de Rendimiento Deportivo y Coaching.This book is a compilation of Communications and lectures presented at the Firsth International Conference on Performance Analysis and Coaching in Sport, performed in the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences of the University of Valencia, 25-27th of March. Organized by the University of Valencia and The Valencian Association of Perfomance Analysis and Coaching in Sport

Olive OilWaste as a Source of Functional Food Ingredients: Assessing Polyphenolic Content and Antioxidant Activity in Olive Leaves

Around two million tons of olive oil are produced in Europe annually, with Portugal being among the top five European olive oil-producing countries. Olive oil production results in a substantial amount of waste in the form of olive leaves. These discarded olive leaves contain valuable phenolic compounds with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, hypoglycaemic, neuroprotective, and antiproliferative properties. Due to their richness in polyphenols with health-promoting properties, olive leaves can be considered a potential functional food ingredient. Thus, sustainable practices for reusing olive leaf waste are in demand. In this study, the polyphenolic content in olive leaves from different Portuguese locations was determined using HPLC-UV-Vis after defining the best fit-forpurpose liquid extraction strategy. The differences in the in vitro antioxidant activity in these samples were determined by several methodologies based on radical scavenging (against 2,2′-azino-bis-3- ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS), 2,2-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), and peroxyl radical (ORAC)) and on reducing properties (cupric-reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC), and Folin–Ciocalteu assay (FC)), to unveil the relationship between the profile and quantity of polyphenols with antioxidant mechanisms and their capacity. At last, the stability of extracted compounds upon lyophilization and exposition to surrogate biological fluids was assessed, envisioning the future incorporation of olive leaves extracted compounds in food products.Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR) through the Programma Operativo Nazionale Ricerca e Innovazione 2014–2020 (CCI 2014IT16M2OP005)European Social Fund for her PhD grant (DOT18FFNZ8)FCT for the institutional funding granted to LAQV-REQUIMTE (ref. UIDB/50006/2020 and UIDP/50006/2020) under the scope of FCT Strategic Funding 2020– 2023Project AgriFood XXI (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER- 000041), financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through P2020|Norte2020— P2020|Norte2020-Projetos Integrados ICDT, CCRN—Comissão de Coordenação da Região Nort

Bioaccessible peptides released by in vitro gastrointestinal digestion of fermented goat milks

In this study, ultrafiltered goat milks fermented with the classical starter bacteria Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus salivarus subsp. thermophilus or with the classical starter plus the Lactobacillus plantarum C4 probiotic strain were analyzed using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS) and/or liquid chromatography-ion trap (LC-IT-MS/MS). Partial overlapping of the identified sequences with regard to fermentation culture was observed. Evaluation of the cleavage specificity suggested a lower proteolytic activity of the probiotic strain. Some of the potentially identified peptides had been previously reported as angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE)-inhibitory, antioxidant and antibacterial and might account for the in vitro activity previously reported for these fermented milks. Simulated digestion of the products was conducted in presence of a dialysis membrane to retrieve the bioaccessible peptide fraction. Some sequences with reported physiological activity resisted digestion but were found in the non-dialyzable fraction. However, non-previously detected sequences such as the antioxidant αs1-casein 144YFYPQL149, the antihypertensive αs2-casein 90YQKFPQY96 and the antibacterial αs2-casein 165LKKISQ170 were found in the dialyzable fraction of both fermented milks. Moreover, in the fermented milk including the probiotic strain, the k-casein dipeptidyl peptidase IV inhibitor (DPP-IV) 51INNQFLPYPY60 as well as additional ACE-inhibitory or antioxidant sequences could be identified. With the aim to anticipate further biological outcomes, quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) analysis was applied to the bioaccessible fragments and led to propose potential ACE inhibitory sequences

New Decoupled Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide Realization

[EN] This work presents a novel Decoupled Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide (DESIW), which enables AC/DC decoupling in any device that is integrated in it. The decoupling strategy is performed throughout a micro-milling square pattern of easy implementation that increases the insertion losses compared to the standard ESIW. However, the DESIW related losses are still tolerable, allowing the employment of the new periodic structure in many practical applications. In particular, it can be used for the design and manufacturing of reconfigurable devices which need a bias voltage on the whole device, or just on some of its particular areas. A broadband transition from DESIW to microstrip planar lines has been also successfully designed. The new line has been manufactured and measured.This work was partially founded by the Generalitat Valenciana research project PROMETEOII/2015/005, by the Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte (Spain) under the Fellowship Program for Training University Professors FPU14/00150 and by Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (Spain) under R&D project TEC2016-75934-C4-R.Sánchez-Marín, JR.; Bachiller Martin, MC.; Esteban González, H.; Belenguer Martínez, Á.; Nova-Giménez, V.; Boria Esbert, VE. (2017). New Decoupled Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide Realization. Electronics Letters. 53(17):1203-1205. https://doi.org/10.1049/el.2017.1240S12031205531