3D hydrodynamic model as a tool for more efficient port management and operations.

Ports have been attempting to increase their competitiveness by enhancing their productivity and operate in a more environmentally friendly way. The Port of Seville is located in the Guadalquivir River in the south of Spain and it is the unique Spanish inland port. The estuary has generated and is still generating conflicts of interests. The access channel to the port is being periodically dredged, the natural course has been anthropologically modified several times, original salt marshes have been transformed to grow rice and approximately one-fourth of the total surface of the estuary is now part of two protected areas, one of them is a UNESCO_MAB Biosphere Reserve. Despite its socio-economic and environmental significance there is a surprising lack of scientific and technical information about the environmental interactions between the port activities and the Guadalquivir estuary stakeholders. A 3D hydrodynamic model has been developed to study the tidal regime, water circulation, temperature and salinity distributions, flooding areas and the sediment dynamics in the estuary. The model output has been validated with in situ current speed, direction, water elevation and also with temperature and salinity measurements. Good agreement between modeled and real measurements have been obtained. Our preliminary results show that the vessel traffic management could be improved by using the tidal elevations and currents calculated by the model in the whole estuary. The interactions among the port activities (mainly due of changes in the sediments dynamics), the watershed management and the saline intrusion evolution will be studied in detail. 3D Hydrodynamic Modelling provide spatially explicit information on the key variables governing the dynamics of estuarine areas. The numerical model is a powerful tool to effectively guide the management and operations of ports located in a complex socio-ecological systems.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Decision-making (in)flexibility in gambling disorder

Background: Behavioral flexibility –the ability to dynamically readjust our behavior in response to reward contingency changes– is often investigated using probabilistic reversal learning tasks (PRLT). Poor PRLT performance has been proposed as a proxy for compulsivity, and theorized to be related to perseverative gambling. Previous attempts to measure inflexibility with the PRLT in patients with gambling disorder have, however, used a variety of indices that may conflate inflexibility with more general aspects of performance in the task. Methods: Trial-by-trial PRLT acquisition and reacquisition curves in 84 treatment-seeking patients with gambling disorder and 64 controls (non-gamblers and non-problem recreational gamblers) were analyzed to distinguish between (a) variability in acquisition learning, and (b) reacquisition learning in reversed contingency phases. Complementarily, stay/switch responses throughout the task were analyzed to identify (c) premature switching, and (d) sensitivity to accumulated negative feedback. Results and interpretation: Even after controlling for differences in acquisition learning, patients were slower to readjust their behavior in reversed contingency phases, and were more prone to maintain their decisions despite accumulated negative feedback. Inflexibility in patients with gambling disorder is thus a robust phenomenon that could predate gambling escalation, or result from massive exposure to gambling activities.This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Government (PSI2017-85488-P: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación, Convocatoria 2017 de Proyectos I+ D de Excelencia, Spain, co-funded by the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional, FEDER, European Commission; and PSI2013-45055: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Secretaría de Estado de Invetigación, Desarrollo e Innovación, Convocatoria 2013 de Proyectos I+ D de Excelencia). Additionally, JFN was supported by a grant from the Spanish Government (PSI2017-85159-P. Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades). Funding agencies had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication

Unbiased taxonomic annotation of metagenomic samples

The classification of reads from a metagenomic sample using a reference taxonomy is usually based on first mapping the reads to the reference sequences and then classifying each read at a node under the lowest common ancestor of the candidate sequences in the reference taxonomy with the least classification error. However, this taxonomic annotation can be biased by an imbalanced taxonomy and also by the presence of multiple nodes in the taxonomy with the least classification error for a given read. In this article, we show that the Rand index is a better indicator of classification error than the often used area under thereceiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve andF-measure for both balanced and imbalanced reference taxonomies, and we also address the second source of bias by reducing the taxonomic annotation problem for a whole metagenomic sample to a set cover problem, for which a logarithmic approximation can be obtained in linear time and an exact solution can be obtained by integer linear programming. Experimental results with a proof-of-concept implementation of the set cover approach to taxonomic annotation in a next release of the TANGO software show that the set cover approach further reduces ambiguity in the taxonomic annotation obtained with TANGO without distorting the relative abundance profile of the metagenomic sample.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Commercially available endoscopy facemasks to prevent aerosolizing spread of droplets during COVID-19 outbreak

We read with great interest the ESGE and ESGENA Position Statement [1] on gastrointestinal endoscopy and the COVID-19 pandemic. We share the concerns listed in the suggested research agenda, particularly about enhancing procedural protection in the endoscopy unit to reduce risk of COVID-19 dissemination. We would like to bring attention to commercially available endoscopy masks that can be used to avoid aerosolizing spread of droplets during upper endoscopic procedures. These products seem to improve intra-procedure risk management and can serve as an alternative to a modified ventilation mask reported for this purpose by Marchese et al [2]

Reconsidering the roots, structure, and implications of gambling motives: An integrative approach.

Accurately identifying motives to gamble is crucial in the functional analysis of gambling behavior. In this study, a data-driven approach was followed to clarify the factor structure underlying a pool of motives for gambling, selected from the Gambling Motives Questionnaire-Financial (GMQ-F), and the Reasons for Gambling Questionnaire (RGQ), in a sample of regular problem and non-problem gamblers. Additionally, the role of gambling motives in the relationship between root behavioral activation/inhibition systems (BIS/BAS) and gambling severity, frequency, and preferences was explored using structural equation modelling (SEM). The present study identified Social, Financial, and Fun/thrill-related gambling motives factors, but also a fourth factor in which some positive and negative reinforcement-based motives were grouped into a single and broader Affect regulation factor. This Affect regulation factor shared variance both with BIS and BAS-related measures, and was the only direct predictor of disordered gambling symptoms. The Fun/thrill factor was directly related to frequency of participation in high-arousal, skill-based games, and all factors were related to participation in lower-arousal, chance games (with Social motives negatively predicting both participation in the latter and total severity). In the SEM model, measures of BIS/BAS sensitivity were connected to gambling behavior only through gambling motives. Based on measures of items' specificity, a shortened Spanish scale (the brief Gambling Motives Inventory, bGMI) is proposed to assess gambling motives in accordance with the observed 4-factor structure

Demencia por sobrecrecimiento bacteriano en paciente portador de gastrectomía Billroth II

We report the case of a patient in the Psychiatric Department who complained of progressive impairment of cerebral functions consistent with dementia, diarrhea and fecal incontinence in the last few months. His medical history included a Billroth II gastrectomy for gastric ulcer. Biochemical tests detected cobalamine deficiency, without megaloblastic anemia, and an abnormal Shilling test that was not due to intrinsic factor deficiency. Once other causes of cobalamine deficiency were ruled out, we considered it as a deficiency disease due to blind loop syndrome. Treatment with parenteral vitamin B complex and long term oral antibiotic therapy allowed the complete and permanent resolution of neurologic and digestive symptoms. We consider this case to be interesting because it shows the existence of curable dementias and the usefulness of taking into account bacterial overgrowth, usually underestimated, as an entity that can produce a variety of disorder

Gastroduodenal injury after radioembolization of hepatic tumors

Radioembolization is a new tool for the treatment of hepatic tumors that consists in the injection of biocompatible microspheres carrying radioisotopes into the hepatic artery or its branches. METHODS: We have performed radioembolization in 78 patients with hepatic tumors using resin-based microspheres loaded with yttrium-90. All patients were previously evaluated to minimize the risk of hazardous irradiation to nontarget organs and to obtain the data needed for dose calculation. RESULTS: We report a complication found in three cases (3.8%) that consists of abdominal pain resulting from gastroduodenal lesions and that had a chronic, insidious course. Microscopically, microspheres were detected in the specimens obtained from all affected gastric areas. Since these gastroduodenal lesions do not appear when nonradiating microspheres are injected in animals, lesions are likely to be due to radiation and not to an ischemic effect of vascular occlusion by spheres. CONCLUSIONS: We believe that a pretreatment evaluation that includes a more thorough scrutiny of the hepatic vascularization in search of small collaterals connecting to the gastroduodenal tract can help prevent this awkward complicatio

Afectación de colon en el síndrome de Klippel Trenaunay Weber

We report the case of a 12-year-old boy, diagnosed of Klippel Trenaunay Weber syndrome, with hemangiomas and venous varicosities in the right leg, who complaint about incidental hernatochezia. In the colonoscopy some violet and plain angiodisplastic lesions like in the skin, were observed in rectum and distal sigmoid colon. We think this case is interesting, because of the unusual afectation of the gut in this disease and the importance of considering the endoscopic procedures in the evaluation of these patients

Use of colonoscopy as a primary screening test for colorectal cancer in average risk people

The use of colonoscopy as a primary screening test for colorectal cancer (CRC) in average risk adults is a subject of controversy. Our primary objective was to build a predictive model based on a few simple variables that could be used as a guide for identifying average risk adults more suitable for examination with colonoscopy as a primary screening test. METHODS: The prevalence of advanced adenomas was assessed by primary screening colonoscopy in 2210 consecutive adults at least 40 yr old, without known risk factors for CRC. Age, gender, and clinical and biochemical data were compared among people without adenomas, those with non-advanced adenomas, and those with any advanced neoplasm. A combined score to assess the risk of advanced adenomas was built with the variables selected by multiple logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Neoplastic lesions were found in 617 subjects (27.9%), including 259 with at least one neoplasm that was 10 mm or larger, villous, or with moderate-to-severe dysplasia, and 11 with invasive cancers. Advanced lesions were more frequent among men, older people, and those with a higher body mass index (BMI). These three variables were independent predictors of advanced adenomas in multivariate analysis. A score combining age, sex, and BMI was developed as a guide for identifying individuals more suitable for screening colonoscopy. CONCLUSIONS: Age, gender, and BMI can be used to build a simple score to select those average risk adults who might be candidates for primary screening colonoscop