Bladder cancer index: cross-cultural adaptation into Spanish and psychometric evaluation

BACKGROUND: The Bladder Cancer Index (BCI) is so far the only instrument applicable across all bladder cancer patients, independent of tumor infiltration or treatment applied. We developed a Spanish version of the BCI, and assessed its acceptability and metric properties. METHODS: For the adaptation into Spanish we used the forward and back-translation method, expert panels, and cognitive debriefing patient interviews. For the assessment of metric properties we used data from 197 bladder cancer patients from a multi-center prospective study. The Spanish BCI and the SF-36 Health Survey were self-administered before and 12 months after treatment. Reliability was estimated by Cronbach's alpha. Construct validity was assessed through the multi-trait multi-method matrix. The magnitude of change was quantified by effect sizes to assess responsiveness. RESULTS: Reliability coefficients ranged 0.75-0.97. The validity analysis confirmed moderate associations between the BCI function and bother subscales for urinary (r = 0.61) and bowel (r = 0.53) domains; conceptual independence among all BCI domains (r ≤ 0.3); and low correlation coefficients with the SF-36 scores, ranging 0.14-0.48. Among patients reporting global improvement at follow-up, pre-post treatment changes were statistically significant for the urinary domain and urinary bother subscale, with effect sizes of 0.38 and 0.53. CONCLUSIONS: The Spanish BCI is well accepted, reliable, valid, responsive, and similar in performance compared to the original instrument. These findings support its use, both in Spanish and international studies, as a valuable and comprehensive tool for assessing quality of life across a wide range of bladder cancer patients

Natural ocurring radionuclide waste in Spain: The Huelva phosphogypsum stacks case

4 pages, 1 figure, 1 table.-- En: 1st Spanish National Conference on Advances in Materials Recycling and Eco – Energy Madrid, 12-13 November 2009.-- Editors: F. A. López, F. Puertas, F. J. Alguacil and A. Guerrero.In this paper, the historical evolution in the management of the wastes generated by one paradigmatic NORM industry devoted to the production of phosphoric acid by the so-called wet-acid method is detailed, demonstrating through experimental results the advances performed along the time in order to minimize their ecological and radiological impact. In addition, and also through experimental studies, it is demonstrated that although the controlled disposal of the mentioned residues is an acceptable management option, is not the optimal one, it is possible to find better alternatives, with an extremely limited radiological impact, as substitute of natural gypsum in cement manufacturing, amended of saline soils, improver of the physical properties of soils, or cover material that speeds the degradation of waste materials and extends the useful life of landfills. The main conclusions obtained from this particular study can be extrapolated to the majority of NORM industries. The recycling of at least a fraction of the NORM residues generated could lead to the production of some co-products with demanding markets, and very limited radiological impact, alternative that should be encouraged.Peer reviewe

Characterization and valorisation of norm wastes; application to the TIO2 production

4 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables.-- En: 1st Spanish National Conference on Advances in Materials Recycling and Eco – Energy Madrid, 12-13 November 2009.The present study was focused to characterize the raw materials, wastes and several co-products from titanium dioxide industry, in particular their elemental composition (major, minor and trace elements), mineralogy, and radioactive contents, with the objective to apply this knowledge to valorize these materials in fields such as construction, civil engineering, fertilizers manufacturing, etc.Peer reviewe

Microencapsulation of phosphogypsum into a sulfur polymer matrix: Physico-chemical and radiological characterization

The aim of this work is to prepare a new type of phosphogypsum-sulfur polymer cements (PG-SPC) to be utilised in the manufacture of building materials. Physico-chemical and radiological characterization was performed in phosphogypsum and phosphogypsum-sulfur polymer concretes and modeling of exhalation rates has been also carried out. An optimized mixture of the materials was obtained, the solidified material with optimal mixture (sulfur/phosphogypsum. =1:0.9, phosphogypsum dosage. =10-40. wt.%) results in highest strength (54-62. MPa) and low total porosity (2.8-6.8%). The activity concentration index (I) in the PG-SPC is lower than the reference value in the most international regulations and; therefore, these cements can be used without radiological restrictions in the manufacture of building materials. Under normal conditions of ventilation, the contribution to the expected radon indoor concentration in a standard room is below the international recommendations, so the building materials studied in this work can be applied to houses built up under normal ventilation conditions.Additionally, and taking into account that the PG is enriched in several natural radionuclides as 226Ra, the leaching experiments have demonstrated that environmental impact of the using of SPCs cements with PG is negligible. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.Peer Reviewe

Fusion of 8

The experimental study of the fusion of light neutron-rich nucleus 8He with 206Pb is reported in this work. A fusion stack of 206Pb targets has been used for this study. The most prominent evaporation residue (210Po), which has half-life of 138 days and decays by alpha emission, is populated in the reaction. Radiochemical analysis technique is used to extract the yield of this evaporation residue