REMOCIÓN DE CONTAMINANTES EN AGUAS RESIDUALES MEDIANTE HUMEDALES BIOINGENIERILES DOMICILIARIOS CON DIFERENTE TIPO DE SUSTRATO Y SEMBRADOS CON Strelitzia Reginae

El tratamiento de aguas residuales es una necesidad global y de gran interés, ya que la demanda de agua es cada vez mayor, además hay un volumen creciente de residuos biológicos y químicos que son arrojados directamente a los cuerpos de agua, lo que lleva a optar por una alternativa sustentable que remueva contaminantes del agua sin un control de operación complejo. El presente estudio tuvo como objetivo proponer y validar el uso de humedales construidos (HC) domiciliarios sembrados con ave de paraíso (Strelitzia reginae) para tratar aguas residuales. La etapa experimental se realizó en la localidad de Pastorías, Actopan (Veracruz) y consistió en 8 mesocosmos: 2 HC sembrados con Strelitzia reginae en piedra poroso de río como sustrato, 2 HC con la misma especie, pero sembrados en tezontle (piedra volcánica) y 2 HC solo con piedras, más 2 HC solo con tezontle, como controles. Las unidades operaron de manera continua durante 6 meses (marzo-agosto).                           La vegetación ornamental se adaptó a las condiciones de HC, en ambos sustratos el crecimiento fue similar. Los sustratos utilizados funcionaron similarmente en las remociones de los contaminantes, mejores resultados de remoción fueron observadas en presencia de la planta ornamental, en los mesocosmos con presencia de vegetación, tanto para sólidos totales (SST), amonio (N-NH4), fosfatos (P-PO4) y sulfatos (SO4) las remociones fueron hasta de 37%, 45%, 63% y 80%, respectivamente. Los HC con plantas ornamentales pueden realizar un tratamiento eficiente en las aguas residuales domésticas, Cabe mencionar que los sustratos son de bajo costo y fácil obtención. Palabras clave: Aguas residuals; Contaminantes; Humedales Construidos; Ornamentales; Remociones; Sustratos Locale

Quality of care of patients with type-2 diabetes in Galicia (NW Spain) [OBTEDIGA project]

[Abstract] Aims:  The aim of this study was to describe the degree of compliance of agreed practices with reference to primary care patients with Type 2 diabetes of 40 years old and older in Galicia (NW Spain). Methods:  A total of 108 primary care physicians were selected at random from the totality of doctors. Each physician selected 30 patients at random from their patients suffering from diabetes of 40 years old or older. External observers gathered information from each patient’s medical record regarding their characteristics, condition and degree of compliance of selected indicators of good practice. Results:  Group of physicians participated in this study had a mean age of 50 years (standard deviation = 3.9); 48% of them were females; and 17.5% involved in medical residents training. A total of 3078 diabetic patients were included in the study: mean age = 69 years (SD = 10.9), 47.6% women, presence of high blood pressure (72%), hypercholesterolaemia (56%), and regular smokers (10.3%). Compliance with selected indicators such as foot examination (14%), ophthalmological examination (30.6%), abdominal circumference measurement (6.1%), measurement of total or LDL-cholesterol (78.1), blood pressure measurement (84.8), glycosylated haemoglobin measurement < 7% (54.3%) was observed. Adequate monitoring in cases of high blood pressure and hypercholesterolaemia were 34.2% and 27.4%, respectively. Variability between physicians differs according to the different indicators, with interquartile range for compliance of between 16.4 and 66%. Conclusions:  There is a wide margin for improvement in the adaptation of clinical practice to recommendations for diabetic patients. The large variation existing in certain indicators would suggest that certain control objectives are less demanding than advisable in those that comply least, while low compliance and low variability in other indicators point to structural problems or unsatisfactory training of doctors

Detecting Microscopic Black Holes with Neutrino Telescopes

If spacetime has more than four dimensions, ultra-high energy cosmic rays may create microscopic black holes. Black holes created by cosmic neutrinos in the Earth will evaporate, and the resulting hadronic showers, muons, and taus may be detected in neutrino telescopes below the Earth's surface. We simulate such events in detail and consider black hole cross sections with and without an exponential suppression factor. We find observable rates in both cases: for conservative cosmogenic neutrino fluxes, several black hole events per year are observable at the IceCube detector; for fluxes at the Waxman-Bahcall bound, tens of events per year are possible. We also present zenith angle and energy distributions for all three channels. The ability of neutrino telescopes to differentiate hadrons, muons, and possibly taus, and to measure these distributions provides a unique opportunity to identify black holes, to experimentally constrain the form of black hole production cross sections, and to study Hawking evaporation.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

Physico-Chemical and structural interpretation of discrete derivative indices on N-tuples atoms

This report examines the interpretation of the Graph Derivative Indices (GDIs) from three different perspectives (i.e., in structural, steric and electronic terms). It is found that the individual vertex frequencies may be expressed in terms of the geometrical and electronic reactivity of the atoms and bonds, respectively. On the other hand, it is demonstrated that the GDIs are sensitive to progressive structural modifications in terms of: size, ramifications, electronic richness, conjugation effects and molecular symmetry. Moreover, it is observed that the GDIs quantify the interaction capacity among molecules and codify information on the activation entropy. A structure property relationship study reveals that there exists a direct correspondence between the individual frequencies of atoms and Hückel’s Free Valence, as well as between the atomic GDIs and the chemical shift in NMR, which collectively validates the theory that these indices codify steric and electronic information of the atoms in a molecule. Taking in consideration the regularity and coherence found in experiments performed with the GDIs, it is possible to say that GDIs possess plausible interpretation in structural and physicochemical terms. © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Pharmaceutical Preparation