Developing an equitable and sustainable mobility strategy for Havana

The particular political, economic and social conditions of the state of Cuba, in the Caribbean, have created unique possibilities for the development of a sustainable transport system in its capital city, Havana. This paper reports on the outcomes of a project to identify the possibilities and priorities for a long-term strategy for equitable and sustainable mobility for Havana. This involved almost 100 participants from Cuba and the UK in the 12 months from June 2013. Overall, the study found a high degree of agreement amongst the transport policy community as to the three key transport issues facing Havana: high level of unmet demand, lack of available financing, poor state of the transport system. Perhaps more surprisingly, it also produced a near consensus amongst the participants that any future policy should seek to increase the quality of the public transport system by: increasing levels of investment, securing efficiency savings, working ‘smarter’. However, it also found that this unified view is challenged by a desire for the car market to be deregulated, which would engender a very different policy approach. A strategic choice is needed now, to determine whether Havana follows a North American-style trajectory of rapid growth in car use or a less car-dependent pathway

Co-located wind and wave energy farms: Uniformly distributed arrays

publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Co-located wind and wave energy farms: Uniformly distributed arrays journaltitle: Energy articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.07.069 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Enfermedad meningocócica. Comportamiento epidemiológico y efecto de la vacunación

Objetivo: Describir el comportamiento epidemiológico de la enfermedad meningocócica en los últimos años y las estrategias de inmunización implementadas para su control en las diferentes regiones geográficas. Desarrollo: La enfermedad meningocócica persiste como un problema de salud mundial por su potencial epidémico. Es causada por Neisseria meningitidis, un diplococo gramnegativo que integra la microbiota de la nasofaringe humana y ante determinadas circunstancias puede diseminarse y causar una enfermedad invasiva. La mayoría de los casos son producidos por seis serogrupos (A, B, C, W-135, X y Y) de los trece clasificados, cuya incidencia es muy variable. Los recién nacidos y niños menores de un año son los de mayor riesgo por el poco desarrollo de su sistema inmune y la declinación progresiva de la inmunidad materna pasiva. Las mayores tasas de prevalencia de portadores se registran en los adolescentes y adultos jóvenes. Con el objetivo de reducir la mortalidad por esta enfermedad se implementan diferentes estrategias entre las que destacan los programas de inmunización con diferentes vacunas que demuestran su efectividad en la reducción del número de casos fatales y el control de brotes y epidemias. Conclusiones: La enfermedad meningocócica persiste como un importante problema de salud en varias regiones del mundo y la vacunación demuestra ser la mejor alternativa en la prevención de los casos graves. La implementación de estrategias vacunales y el desarrollo de nuevos inmunógenos debe constituir una prioridad para la comunidad científic

Análisis meteoceánico en BIMEP para el diseño de convertidores de energía marinos

El trabajo presentado se ha desarrollado en el marco del proyecto TRL +. TRL+ es un proyecto de investigación financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) mediante el programa RETOS (RTC-2015-3836-3

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortiu (INICC) report, data summary of 43 countries for 2007-2012. Device-associated module

We report the results of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2007-December 2012 in 503 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the 6-year study using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) U.S. National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care–associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 605,310 patients hospitalized in the INICC's ICUs for an aggregate of 3,338,396 days. Although device utilization in the INICC's ICUs was similar to that reported from ICUs in the U.S. in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals: the pooled rate of central line–associated bloodstream infection in the INICC's ICUs, 4.9 per 1,000 central line days, is nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.9 per 1,000 central line days reported from comparable U.S. ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher (16.8 vs 1.1 per 1,000 ventilator days) as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (5.5 vs 1.3 per 1,000 catheter days). Frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (42.8% vs 10%) and imipenem (42.4% vs 26.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (71.2% vs 28.8%) and imipenem (19.6% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC's ICUs compared with the ICUs of the CDC's NHSN