Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Syndrome, Endothelial Function and Markers of Endothelialization. Changes after CPAP

STUDY OBJECTIVES: This study tries to assess the endothelial function in vivo using flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) and several biomarkers of endothelium formation/restoration and damage in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) syndrome at baseline and after three months with CPAP therapy. DESIGN: Observational study, before and after CPAP therapy. SETTING AND PATIENTS: We studied 30 patients with apnoea/hypopnoea index (AHI) >15/h that were compared with themselves after three months of CPAP therapy. FMD was assessed non-invasively in vivo using the Laser-Doppler flowmetry. Circulating cell-free DNA (cf-DNA) and microparticles (MPs) were measured as markers of endothelial damage and the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was determined as a marker of endothelial restoration process. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: After three month with CPAP, FMD significantly increased (1072.26 ± 483.21 vs. 1604.38 ± 915.69 PU, p< 0.005) cf-DNA and MPs significantly decreased (187.93 ± 115.81 vs. 121.28 ± 78.98 pg/ml, p<0.01, and 69.60 ± 62.60 vs. 39.82 ± 22.14 U/μL, p<0.05, respectively) and VEGF levels increased (585.02 ± 246.06 vs. 641.11 ± 212.69 pg/ml, p<0.05). These changes were higher in patients with more severe disease. There was a relationship between markers of damage (r = -0.53, p<0.005) but not between markers of damage and restoration, thus suggesting that both types of markers should be measured together. CONCLUSIONS: CPAP therapy improves FMD. This improvement may be related to an increase of endothelial restoration process and a decrease of endothelial damage

Efficient OpenCL-based concurrent tasks offloading on accelerators

Current heterogeneous platforms with CPUs and accelerators have the ability to launch several independent tasks simultaneously, in order to exploit concurrency among them. These tasks typically consist of data transfer commands and kernel computation commands. In this paper we develop a runtime approach to optimize the concurrency between data transfers and kernel computation commands in a multithreaded scenario where each CPU thread offloads tasks to the accelerator. It deploys a heuristic based on a temporal execution model for concurrent tasks. It is able to establish a near-optimal task execution order that significantly reduces the total execution time, including data transfers. Our approach has been evaluated employing five different benchmarks composed of dominant kernel and dominant transfer real tasks. In these experiments our heuristic achieves speedups up to 1.5x in AMD R9 and NVIDIA K20c accelerators and 1.3x in an Intel Xeon Phi (KNC) device.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Moduli spaces for finite-order jets of Riemannian metrics

We construct the moduli space of r-jets at a point of Riemannian metrics on a smooth manifold. The construction is closely related to the problem of classification of jet metrics via differential invariants. The moduli space is proved to be a differentiable space which admits a finite canonical stratification into smooth manifolds. A complete study on the stratification of moduli spaces is carried out for metrics in dimension n=2.Comment: 25 pages, corrected typos, partially changed content with an appendix adde

A chronological proposal for El Castillo Cave (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria) based on its iconographic stratigraphy

Some years ago, we began a review of the work done by E. Ripoll in 1953. During this time, we have examined not only each and every one of the figures discovered by him, but have also expanded the list, reaching nearly all the 450 new figures in the entire cave. This significant increase is thanks to the use of new technologies, such as a 3D scanner, digital filters, multispectral algorithms, giga images, or the newest innovation, the use, for the first time in our studies on cave art, of hyperspectral methodology. The latter gives us access to a much wider light spectrum than the one created by multispectral analysis.Hace unos años empezamos la revisión de los trabajos llevados a cabo por E. Ripoll en el año 1953, durante este tiempo no sólo hemos revisado todas y cada una de las representaciones descubiertas por E. Ripoll sino que hemos ampliado ese elenco hasta llegar casi a las 450 figuras nuevas. Este significativo aumento se debe a la aplicación de las Nuevas Tecnologías como son el Escáner 3D, los filtros digitales, algoritmos multiespectrales, gigaimágenes o la última innovación que es la aplicación por primera vez en nuestros estudios de arte rupestre de la metodología hiperespectral que nos permite acceder a un espectro lumínico mucho más amplio que el que produce el análisis multiespectral

Versatile protein-templated TiO2 nanocomposite for energy storage and catalytic applications

A protein-templated titania nanocomposite (PT-TiO2) was successfully synthesized by a water-free mechanochemical approach. A biomass valorization strategy was developed by employing egg white from expired eggs to control the morphology and textural features of the prepared titania. A remarkable enhancement of the surface area was achieved, in comparison with the synthesis of the material in absence of the biomass-derived template. Several techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy-mapping and CNHS analysis, supported the presence of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur residues in the obtained composite. Catalytic performance of PT-TiO2 was explored in the oxidation of diphenyl sulfide, displaying promising results in terms of conversion, selectivity and stability. The effect of the oxidant agent was additionally investigated by using hydrogen peroxide, urea hydrogen peroxide, oxygen and t-butyl-hydroperoxide. On the other hand, PT-TiO2 nanocomposite was successfully proved as anodic material for lithium-ion batteries delivering a reversible capacity of 107 mAh g–1 at 0.1C with an excellent Coulombic efficiency of 100% from the second cycle. In addition, the as-synthesized material showed significant capacity retention values of 76% among the 2nd cycle and 100th cycle. PT-TiO2 resulted to be a versatile material with potential catalytic and energy storage applications

Types of Aggression, Responsiveness to Provocation, and Callous-unemotional Traits in Detained Adolescents

Abstract The present study investigated differences in the behavioral and psychophysiological responses to provocation and in the level of callous-unemotional traits in boys exhibiting different patterns of aggression. Eighty-five boys (ages 13-18) in a juvenile detention center played a competitive computer task against a hypothetical peer who provided low and high levels of provocation. Youth high on both self-reported reactive and proactive aggression showed different behavioral responses to provocation than youth high on only reactive aggression. Specifically, the combined group showed high levels of aggressive responses without any provocation, whereas the group high on reactive aggression showed an increase in aggressive responding to low provocation. Further, results revealed a trend for the combined group to show lower levels of skin conductance reactivity to low provocation if they were also high on callous-unemotional traits

Herramienta de modelado disfuncional tridimensional basado en estudios de neuroimagen

El modelado disfuncional basado en estudios de neuroimagen mejora la comprensión de los cambios estructurales provocados ante la presencia de lesiones cerebrales. Actualmente, existen numerosas herramientas para el análisis y procesado de estudios de neuroimagen. Algunas de ellas, como el 3D Slicer, BrainVoyager y el FreeSurfer permiten la creación y navegación sobre modelos tridimensionales cerebrales sin alteraciones estructurales. Sin embargo, no se han detectado herramientas que permitan modelar tridimensionalmente lesiones a partir de estudios de neuroimagen, concretamente de estudios de resonancia magnética. El objetivo de este trabajo es el diseño de una metodología que permite la creación de este tipo de modelos y su visualización y navegación

Brain injury MRI simulator based on theoretical models of neuroanatomic damage

In order to improve the body of knowledge about brain injury impairment is essential to develop image database with different types of injuries. This paper proposes a new methodology to model three types of brain injury: stroke, tumor and traumatic brain injury; and implements a system to navigate among simulated MRI studies. These studies can be used on research studies, to validate new processing methods and as an educational tool, to show different types of brain injury and how they affect to neuroanatomic structures

Nonlinear control of a nano-hexacopter carrying a manipulator arm

International audienceThis paper proposes a simple solution for stabilization of a nano-hexacopter carrying a manipulator arm in order to increase the type of missions achievable by these types of systems. The manipulator arm is attached to the lower part of the hexacopter. The motion of the arm induces a change of the center of mass of the whole body, which induces torques which can produce the loss of stability. The present work deals with the stabilization of the whole system-that is hexacopter and arm-by means of a set of nonlinear control laws. First, an attitude control, stabilizes the hexacopter to a desired attitude taking into account the movement of the arm. Then, a suitable virtual control and the translational dynamics allow the formulation of a nonlinear controller, which drives the aerial vehicle to a desired position. Both controls consist in saturation functions. Experimental results validate the proposed control strategy and compares the results when the motion of the arm is taken into account or not