Las termas y el Suburbium marítimo de Baelo Claudia. Avance de un reciente descubrimiento

Entre los años 2010 y 2012, la Universidad de Cádiz y la Junta de Andalucía han desarrollado investigaciones arqueológicas en la zona extramuros de la ciudad hispanorromana, en el marco del Proyecto General de Investigación “La economía marítima y las actividades haliéuticas en Baelo Claudia”. Se presentan en esta sede los primeros resultados, que han permitido identificar la existencia de un suburbium occidental en la ciudad, entre el cauce del arroyo de las Villas, la playa y la necrópolis oeste, cuya existencia se ha podido confirmar por datos geofísicos y arqueológicos. En él han podido ser excavadas parcialmente unas estructuras que se han identificado con unas termas suburbanas, activas entre el s. II y el V d.C., habiéndose excavado una piscina del frigidarium y algunas estancias calefactadas, con hallazgos muy significativos como parte de la decoración marmórea y escultórica del complejo, que en época tardorromana fue amortizado intencionalmente por motivos posiblemente religiosos. Estos hallazgos son de gran interés, pues además de verificar la existencia de un segundo complejo balneario público en la ciudad plantean la importancia del poblamiento periurbano, una línea de investigación totalmente inédita hasta la fechaBetween the year 2010 and 2012, the University of Cadiz and the Regional Government (Junta de Andalucía) have developed archaeological activities in the zone outside the hispano-roman city, in the frame of the General Project of Research titled “The maritime economy and the halieutic activities in Baelo Claudia”. We are presenting in this paper the first results, which have allowed to identify the existence of a western suburbium outside the city, between the riverbed of the so called “arroyo de las Villas”, the beach and the western necropolis, whose remains have been confirmed by geophysical and archaeological techniques. Inside this area a few structures have been excavated, identified as a Roman baths complex, active from the 2nd up to the 5th century a.D. A big pool, part of the frigidarium and some heated rooms have been unearthed, with very significant findings as part of the marmoreal and sculptural decoration of the complex, which in late roman times was intentionally broken into pieces possibly by religious motives. These findings are of great interest, since beside confirming the existence of the second public thermae of the city they raise the importance of the peri-urban buildings, a new line of research up to dat

Associated factors to serious infections in a large cohort of juvenile-onset systemic lupus erythematosus from Lupus Registry (RELESSER).

Objective: To assess the incidence of serious infection (SI) and associated factors in a large juvenile-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (jSLE) retrospective cohort. Methods: All patients in the Spanish Rheumatology Society Lupus Registry (RELESSER) who meet =4 ACR-97 SLE criteria and disease onset <18 years old (jSLE), were retrospectively investigated for SI (defined as either the need for hospitalization with antibacterial therapy for a potentially fatal infection or death caused by the infection). Standardized SI rate was calculated per 100 patient years. Patients with and without SI were compared. Bivariate and multivariate logistic and Cox regression models were built to calculate associated factors to SI and relative risks. Results: A total of 353 jSLE patients were included: 88.7% female, 14.3 years (± 2.9) of age at diagnosis, 16.0 years (± 9.3) of disease duration and 31.5 years (±10.5) at end of follow-up. A total of 104 (29.5%) patients suffered 205 SI (1, 55.8%; 2-5, 38.4%; and =6, 5.8%). Incidence rate was 3.7 (95%CI: 3.2–4.2) SI per 100 patient years. Respiratory location and bacterial infections were the most frequent. Higher number of SLE classification criteria, SLICC/ACR DI score and immunosuppressants use were associated to the presence of SI. Associated factors to shorter time to first infection were higher number of SLE criteria, splenectomy and immunosuppressants use. Conclusions: The risk of SI in jSLE patients is significant and higher than aSLE. It is associated to higher number of SLE criteria, damage accrual, some immunosuppressants and splenectomy

Unveiling the environment and faint features of the isolated galaxy CIG 96 with deep optical and HI observations

Asymmetries in HI in galaxies are often caused by the interaction with close companions, making isolated galaxies an ideal framework to study secular evolution. The AMIGA project has demonstrated that isolated galaxies show the lowest level of asymmetry in their HI integrated profiles, yet some present significant asymmetries. CIG 96 (NGC 864) is a representative case reaching a 16% level. Our aim is to investigate the HI asymmetries of this spiral galaxy and what processes have triggered the star-forming regions observed in the XUV pseudoring. We performed deep optical observations at CAHA 1.23m, 2.2m and VST telescopes. We reach surface brightness (SB) limits of mu_2.2m = 27.5 mag arcsec-2 (Cous R) and mu_VST = 28.7mag arcsec-2 (r) that show the XUV pseudoring of the galaxy in detail. Additionally, a wavelet filtering of the HI data cube from our deep observations with E/VLA telescope allowed us to reach a column density of N_HI = 8.9x10^18 cm -2 (5sigma) (28"x28" beam), lower than in any isolated galaxy. We confirm that the HI extends farther than 4xr_25 in all directions. Furthermore, we detect for the first time two gaseous structures (10^6 Msol) in the outskirts. The g-r colour index image from 1.23m shows extremely blue colours in certain regions of the pseudoring where N_HI>8.5x10^20 cm-2 , whereas the rest show red colours. Galactic cirrus contaminate the field, setting an unavoidable detection limit at 28.5mag arcsec-2 (r). We detect no stellar link within 1degx1deg or gaseous link within 40'x40' between CIG 96 and any companion. The isolation criteria rule out interactions with other similar-sized galaxies for at least 2.7Gyr. Using existing stellar evolution models, the age of the pseudoring is estimated at 1Gyr or older. Undetected previously accreted companions and cold gas accretion remain as the main hypothesis to explain the optical pseudoring and HI features of CIG 96.Comment: 23 pages, 18 figures, 4 table

Diet quality index as a predictor of treatment efficacy in overweight and obese adolescents: The EVASYON study

Background & aim: A diet quality index (DQI) is a tool that provides an overall score of an individual''s dietary intake when assessing compliance with food-based dietary guidelines. A number of DQIs have emerged, albeit their associations with health-related outcomes are debated. The aim of the present study was to assess whether adherence to dietary intervention, and the overall quality of the diet, can predict body composition changes. Methods: To this purpose, overweight/obese adolescents (n = 117, aged: 13–16 years; 51 males, 66 females) were recruited into a multi-component (diet, physical activity and psychological support) family-based group treatment programme. We measured the adolescents’ compliance and body composition at baseline and after 2 months (intensive phase) and 13 months (extensive phase) of follow-up. Also, at baseline, after 6 months, and at the end of follow-up we calculated the DQI. Results: Global compliance with the dietary intervention was 37.4% during the intensive phase, and 14.3% during the extensive phase. Physical activity compliance was 94.1% at 2-months and 34.7% at 13months and psychological support compliance were growing over the intervention period (10.3% intensive phase and 45.3% during extensive phase). Adolescents complying with the meal frequency criteria at the end of the extensive phase had greater reductions in FMI z-scores than those did not complying (Cohen''s d = 0.53). A statistically significant association was observed with the diet quality index. DQI-A variation explained 98.1% of BMI z-score changes and 95.1% of FMI changes. Conclusions: We conclude that assessment of changes in diet quality could be a useful tool in predicting body composition changes in obese adolescents involved in a diet and physical activity intervention programme backed-up by psychological and family support

The management of acute venous thromboembolism in clinical practice. Results from the European PREFER in VTE Registry

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe. Data from real-world registries are necessary, as clinical trials do not represent the full spectrum of VTE patients seen in clinical practice. We aimed to document the epidemiology, management and outcomes of VTE using data from a large, observational database. PREFER in VTE was an international, non-interventional disease registry conducted between January 2013 and July 2015 in primary and secondary care across seven European countries. Consecutive patients with acute VTE were documented and followed up over 12 months. PREFER in VTE included 3,455 patients with a mean age of 60.8 ± 17.0 years. Overall, 53.0 % were male. The majority of patients were assessed in the hospital setting as inpatients or outpatients (78.5 %). The diagnosis was deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) in 59.5 % and pulmonary embolism (PE) in 40.5 %. The most common comorbidities were the various types of cardiovascular disease (excluding hypertension; 45.5 %), hypertension (42.3 %) and dyslipidaemia (21.1 %). Following the index VTE, a large proportion of patients received initial therapy with heparin (73.2 %), almost half received a vitamin K antagonist (48.7 %) and nearly a quarter received a DOAC (24.5 %). Almost a quarter of all presentations were for recurrent VTE, with &gt;80 % of previous episodes having occurred more than 12 months prior to baseline. In conclusion, PREFER in VTE has provided contemporary insights into VTE patients and their real-world management, including their baseline characteristics, risk factors, disease history, symptoms and signs, initial therapy and outcomes

RICORS2040 : The need for collaborative research in chronic kidney disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a silent and poorly known killer. The current concept of CKD is relatively young and uptake by the public, physicians and health authorities is not widespread. Physicians still confuse CKD with chronic kidney insufficiency or failure. For the wider public and health authorities, CKD evokes kidney replacement therapy (KRT). In Spain, the prevalence of KRT is 0.13%. Thus health authorities may consider CKD a non-issue: very few persons eventually need KRT and, for those in whom kidneys fail, the problem is 'solved' by dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, KRT is the tip of the iceberg in the burden of CKD. The main burden of CKD is accelerated ageing and premature death. The cut-off points for kidney function and kidney damage indexes that define CKD also mark an increased risk for all-cause premature death. CKD is the most prevalent risk factor for lethal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the factor that most increases the risk of death in COVID-19, after old age. Men and women undergoing KRT still have an annual mortality that is 10- to 100-fold higher than similar-age peers, and life expectancy is shortened by ~40 years for young persons on dialysis and by 15 years for young persons with a functioning kidney graft. CKD is expected to become the fifth greatest global cause of death by 2040 and the second greatest cause of death in Spain before the end of the century, a time when one in four Spaniards will have CKD. However, by 2022, CKD will become the only top-15 global predicted cause of death that is not supported by a dedicated well-funded Centres for Biomedical Research (CIBER) network structure in Spain. Realizing the underestimation of the CKD burden of disease by health authorities, the Decade of the Kidney initiative for 2020-2030 was launched by the American Association of Kidney Patients and the European Kidney Health Alliance. Leading Spanish kidney researchers grouped in the kidney collaborative research network Red de Investigación Renal have now applied for the Redes de Investigación Cooperativa Orientadas a Resultados en Salud (RICORS) call for collaborative research in Spain with the support of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, Federación Nacional de Asociaciones para la Lucha Contra las Enfermedades del Riñón and ONT: RICORS2040 aims to prevent the dire predictions for the global 2040 burden of CKD from becoming true

Speech/music Discrimination Using A Single Warped

Automatic discrimination of speech and music is an important tool in many multimedia applications. The paper presents a low complexity but effective approach for speech/music discrimination, which exploits only one simple feature, called Warped LPC-based Spectral Centroid (WLPC-SC). A three-component Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) classifier is used because it showed a slightly better performance than other Statistical Pattern Recognition (SPR) classifiers. Comparison between WLPC-SC and the timbral features proposed in Tzanetakis and Cook (2002) is performed, aiming to assess the good discriminatory power of the proposed feature. Experimental results reveal that our speech/music discriminator is robust and fast, making it suitable for real-time multimedia applications