Aerial Robotic Solution for Detailed Inspection of Viaducts

The inspection of public infrastructure, such as viaducts and bridges, is crucial for their proper maintenance given the heavy use of many of them. Current inspection techniques are very costly and manual, requiring highly qualified personnel and involving many risks. This article presents a novel solution for the detailed inspection of viaducts using aerial robotic platforms. The system provides a highly automated visual inspection platform that does not rely on GPS and could even fly underneath the infrastructure. Unlike commercially available solutions, our system automatically references the inspection to a global coordinate system usable throughout the lifespan of the infrastructure. In addition, the system includes another aerial platform with a robotic arm to make contact inspections of detected defects, thus providing information that cannot be obtained only with images. Both aerial robotic platforms feature flexibility in the choice of camera or contact measurement sensors as the situation requires. The system was validated by performing inspection flights on real viaducts.Unión Europea H2020-2019-769066Unión Europea H2020-2020- 87154

Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes inhibit tumor progression in a mouse model

Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the biosynthetic interactions between particular nanomaterials with specific cells or proteins opens new alternatives in nanomedicine and nanotoxicology. Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have long been explored as drug delivery systems and nanomedicines against cancer. There are high expectations for their use in therapy and diagnosis. These filaments can translocate inside cultured cells and intermingle with the protein nanofilaments of the cytoskeleton, interfering with the biomechanics of cell division mimicking the effect of traditional microtubule-binding anti-cancer drugs such as paclitaxel. Here, it is shown how MWCNTs can trigger significant anti-tumoral effects in vivo, in solid malignant melanomas produced by allograft transplantation. Interestingly, the MWCNT anti-tumoral effects are maintained even in solid melanomas generated from paclitaxel-resistant cells. These findings provide great expectation in the development of groundbreaking adjuvant synthetic microtubule-stabilizing chemotherapies to overcome drug resistance in cancer.Acknowledgements: We thank Dr. E. Flahaut for providing the MWCNTs. We are grateful to the Nikon A1R Laser Microscopy Unit of the IDIVAL Institute for the electron microscopy and confocal/time-lapse microscopy, and to M. Aramburu and J. Díaz-Gómez for their help. This work has been supported by the Spanish MINECO and European Union FEDER under Projects ref. PI13/01074 (AES 2013) and MAT2012-38664-C02-01. We especially thank the Fundación Eugenio Rodríguez Pascual (ref “Ayudas de investigación” 2014)

Evaluación de la resistencia a la corrosión de un acero fabricado por manufactura aditiva mediante técnicas electroquímicas

Additive metal manufacturing has undergone a revolution in recent years, being able to be incorporated in several industries such as aeronautics, automotive and even in medicine, allowing the manufacture of complex parts with fewer steps in the process, which translates in material savings and cost reduction. In this work, the corrosion of low carbon steel obtained by depositing consecutive layers is carried out, using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and electrochemical noise immersed in a 0.1 M NaCl solution, establishing a comparison between the metal of contribution and deposited material. The layers of the material are characterized microstructurally and mechanically using scanning electron microscopy and Vickers microhardness. Overall, the results show a good response of the material to the action of the electrolyte after the immersion time, on the other hand, the microstructural results allow identifying the formation of 3 zones due to the cooling of the material. The microhardness of the steel does not show great changes between the zones, however, there is a slight increase in the intermediate zone due to the reduction in grain size. These studies allow researchers to know the behavior of these materials in applications that require contact with corrosive solutions of this nature.La manufactura aditiva de metales ha sufrido una revolución en los últimos años, pudiéndose incorporar en diversas industrias como la aeronáutica, automotriz e incluso en la medicina, permitiendo la fabricación de partes complejas con un menor número de pasos en el proceso, lo que se traduce en ahorro de material y reducción de costos. En este artículo se realiza el monitoreo del estado de corrosión de un acero de bajo carbono obtenido mediante la deposición de capas consecutivas, evaluándose a través de la técnica de impedancia electroquímica y ruido electroquímico, inmerso en una solución 0.1 M de NaCl, estableciendo una comparativa entre el metal de aporte y el material depositado. Las capas del material son caracterizadas microestructural y mecánicamente mediante microscopía electrónica de barrido y microdureza Vickers. De forma global, los resultados muestran una buena respuesta del material ante la acción del electrolito transcurrido el tiempo de inmersión, Por otro lado, los resultados microestructurales permiten identificar la formación de 3 zonas debido al enfriamiento en gradiente del material. La microdureza del acero no muestra grandes cambios entre las zonas, sin embargo, hay un ligero aumento en la zona intermedia debido a la reducción en el tamaño del grano. Estos estudios permiten a investigadores conocer el comportamiento de estos materiales en aplicaciones que demanden el contacto con soluciones corrosivas de esta naturaleza

Konsumsi Minyak Goreng dan Vitamin A pada Beberapa Kelompok Umur di Dua Kabupaten

Indonesia plans to implement mandatory vitamin A fortification of cooking oil. A pilot study of voluntary vitamin A fortification in unbranded cooking oil showed that vitamin A status improved significantly a year afterfortification for five age groups except for children 12-23 months of age. The objective of the study was to measure cooking oil consumption and dietary consumption of vitamin A in children, women of reproductive age(WRA), and lactating mothers. The study was a cross-sectional study in Tasikmalaya and Ciamis, Indonesia, covering 1.594 samples randomly selected of poor households. Cooking oil was collected at household byrecall of usual cooking oil purchase and individual sample by 2x24h recall of food consumption. The results showed that households prefer bought unbranded cooking oil sold in plastic pouch at foodstall (warung) nearbyhome (96.2%), purchased oil every 1-3 days (60.6%), each purchace contained < 250 mL oil (73.9%). The average (mean+SE) cooking oil consumption at household was 27.5+1.0 mL/capita/day. Cooking oilconsumption at individual level on the average was 22.3+0.5 mL/capita/day lower compared to household consumption of oil, varied significantly of 2.4+0.4, 13.3+0.8, 23.0+1.0, 30.5+1.3, 33.5+1.2, 33.1+1.3 mL/day in 6-11, 12-23, 24-59 month old, 6-9 year old, WRA, and lactating mothers respectively. Cooking oil consumptionwas lower in children 6-11 and 12-23 months old which contributed to non-significant improvement of serum vitamin A level particularly in children 12-23 months old but not other groups since they consumed higher intake of cooking oil or still brestfed for children 6-11 month old

TGFβ Governs the Pleiotropic Activity of NDRG1 in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Progression

In triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), the pleiotropic NDRG1 (N-Myc downstream regulated gene 1) promotes progression and worse survival, yet contradictory results were documented, and the mechanisms remain unknown. Phosphorylation and localization could drive NDRG1 pleiotropy, nonetheless, their role in TNBC progression and clinical outcome was not investigated. We found enhanced p-NDRG1 (Thr346) by TGFβ1 and explored whether it drives NDRG1 pleiotropy and TNBC progression. In tissue microarrays of 81 TNBC patients, we identified that staining and localization of NDRG1 and p-NDRG1 (Thr346) are biomarkers and risk factors associated with shorter overall survival. We found that TGFβ1 leads NDRG1, downstream of GSK3β, and upstream of NF-κB, to differentially regulate migration, invasion, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, tumor initiation, and maintenance of different populations of cancer stem cells (CSCs), depending on the progression stage of tumor cells, and the combination of TGFβ and GSK3β inhibitors impaired CSCs. The present study revealed the striking importance to assess both total NDRG1 and p-NDRG1 (Thr346) positiveness and subcellular localization to evaluate patient prognosis and their stratification. NDRG1 pleiotropy is driven by TGFβ to differentially promote metastasis and/or maintenance of CSCs at different stages of tumor progression, which could be abrogated by the inhibition of TGFβ and GSK3β.Instituto de Salud Carlos III European Commission PI15/00336 PI19/01533 CP14/00197 CP19/00029 PIE16/00045Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain (MICINN)Instituto de Salud Carlos IIISpanish Government RTI2018.101309B-C22Chair "Doctors Galera-Requena in cancer stem cell research" CMC-CTS963European Regional Development Fund (European Union)Ministerio de Universidades FPU19/04450Junta de Andalucia RH-0139-2020Sistema Nacional de Garantia Juvenil (Fondo Social Europeo) 8064Junta de Andalucia, Consejeria de Transformacion Economica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades DOC_01686Fundacion Cientifica Asociacion Espanola Contra el Cancer, Junta Provincial de Jaen (AECC) PRDJA19001BLA

Environmental persistence, detection, and mitigation of endocrine disrupting contaminants in wastewater treatment plants – a review with a focus on tertiary treatment technologies

Endocrine disrupting chemicals are a group of contaminants that have severe effects on humans and animals when exposed, like cancer and alterations to the nervous and reproductive systems. The increasing concentrations of several endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment are strongly related to anthropogenic activities, and as the population grows this problem becomes more relevant. Thus, wastewater is one of the main sources of endocrine disrupting chemicals, and the technologies employed during primary and secondary treatment in wastewater treatment plants cannot remove these contaminants. Due to this, researchers have tried to develop more efficient technologies for tertiary treatment of wastewater and reduce the concentration of endocrine disrupting chemicals discharged into the environment. Some of the most promising technologies include adsorption, ultrafiltration, advanced oxidation processes and biodegradation. The use of nanomaterials as adsorbents, catalysts, membranes and supports has played a key role in enhancing the efficiency of these technologies. The results showed that these technologies have great potential on the lab-scale, and even some of them have already been employed at some wastewater treatment plants. However, there are still some challenges to achieving a global implementation of these technologies, related to reducing the costs of materials and enhancing their current performance. The use of biomass/waste derived carbon materials and implementing hybrid technologies are accessible approaches for their implementation in tertiary treatment.This work is part of the project entitled “Contaminantes emergentes y prioritarios en las aguas reutilizadas en agricultura: riesgos y efectos en suelos, producción agrícola y entorno ambiental” funded by CSIC-Tecnológico de Monterrey under the i-Link + program (LINKB20030). The author “Jesús Alfredo Rodríguez-Hernández” acknowledges Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) for awarding a scholarship for a PhD in nanotechnology (CVU: 924193). CONACyT is thankfully acknowledged for partially supporting this work under the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI) program awarded to Rafael G. Araújo (CVU: 714118), Juan Eduardo Sosa-Hernández (CVU: 375202), Elda M. Melchor-Martínez (CVU: 230784), Manuel Martinez-Ruiz (CVU: 418151), Hafiz M. N. Iqbal (CVU: 735340) and Roberto Parra-Saldívar (CVU: 35753). The authors are also thankful to “Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo” in the Latin American development network “Lacasas Inmovilizadas para la Degradación de Compuestos Aromáticos en Aguas Residuales” (LIDA, project 318RT0552). All listed authors are also grateful to their representative universities/institutes for providing literature facilities and the Biorender online program for the elaboration of the graphical abstract and Fig. 1–5.Peer reviewe

Caracterización electroquímica de recubrimientos Zn-Al sobre fundición nodular grado 2, obtenidos por proyección térmica por flama con alambre

Thermal spray is a technology that involves heating a material in the form of powder or wire, which is brought to a molten or semi-molten state, then propelled by a stream of gas or compressed air and deposited on a metallic, ceramic or polymeric substrate, with appropriate roughness conditions. The main objective of this research is to perform electrochemical characterization employing electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and electrochemical noise techniques of a Zn-15Al alloy deposited on a ductile iron grade 65-45-12 (2) through flame thermal spray technique with wire to the Zn-Al coating shows good homogeneity, good adhesion and a substantial improvement in corrosion resistance.  La proyección térmica o rociado térmico es una tecnología que implica calentar un material que está en forma de polvo o alambre y llevarlo a un estado fundido o semifundido, para luego propulsarlo mediante una corriente de gas o aire comprimido y depositarlo sobre un sustrato metálico, cerámico o polimérico, que tenga condiciones de rugosidad adecuadas. La investigación realizó la caracterización electroquímica mediante las técnicas de espectroscopia de impedancia electroquímica y ruido electroquímico de una aleación Zn-15Al depositada sobre una fundición nodular grado 65-45-12 (2), por medio de la técnica de proyección térmica por llama con alambre, donde el recubrimiento de Zn-Al presenta buena homogeneidad, buena adherencia y una mejora sustancial en la resistencia a la corrosión

Detection and Tertiary Treatment Technologies of Poly-and Perfluoroalkyl Substances in Wastewater Treatment Plants

PFAS are a very diverse group of anthropogenic chemicals used in various consumer and industrial products. The properties that characterize are their low degradability as well as their resistance to water, oil and heat. This results in their high persistence in the environment and bioaccumulation in different organisms, causing many adverse effects on the environment as well as in human health. Some of their effects remain unknown to this day. As there are thousands of registered PFAS, it is difficult to apply traditional technologies for an efficient removal and detection for all. This has made it difficult for wastewater treatment plants to remove or degrade PFAS before discharging the effluents into the environment. Also, monitoring these contaminants depends mostly on chromatography-based methods, which require expensive equipment and consumables, making it difficult to detect PFAS in the environment. The detection of PFAS in the environment, and the development of technologies to be implemented in tertiary treatment of wastewater treatment plants are topics of high concern. This study focuses on analyzing and discussing the mechanisms of occurrence, migration, transformation, and fate of PFAS in the environment, as well the main adverse effects in the environment and human health. The following work reviews the recent advances in the development of PFAS detection technologies (biosensors, electrochemical sensors, microfluidic devices), and removal/degradation methods (electrochemical degradation, enzymatic transformation, advanced oxidation, photocatalytic degradation). Understanding the risks to public health and identifying the routes of production, transportation, exposure to PFAS is extremely important to implement regulations for the detection and removal of PFAS in wastewater and the environment.This work is part of the project entitled “Contaminantes emergentes y prioritarios en las aguas reutilizadas en agricultura: riesgos y efectos en suelos, producción agrícola y entorno ambiental” funded by CSIC-Tecnológico de Monterrey under i-Link + program (LINKB20030).Peer reviewe

Exploring the Role of Mutations in Fanconi Anemia Genes in Hereditary Cancer Patients

Fanconi anemia (FA) is caused by biallelic mutations in FA genes. Monoallelic mutations in five of these genes (BRCA1, BRCA2, PALB2, BRIP1 and RAD51C) increase the susceptibility to breast/ovarian cancer and are used in clinical diagnostics as bona-fide hereditary cancer genes. Increasing evidence suggests that monoallelic mutations in other FA genes could predispose to tumor development, especially breast cancer. The objective of this study is to assess the mutational spectrum of 14 additional FA genes (FANCA, FANCB, FANCC, FANCD2, FANCE, FANCF, FANCG, FANCI, FANCL, FANCM, FANCP, FANCQ, FANCR and FANCU) in a cohort of hereditary cancer patients, to compare with local cancer-free controls as well as GnomAD. A total of 1021 hereditary cancer patients and 194 controls were analyzed using our next generation custom sequencing panel. We identified 35 pathogenic variants in eight genes. A significant association with the risk of breast cancer/breast and ovarian cancer was found for carriers of FANCA mutations (odds ratio (OR) = 3.14 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.4-6.17, p = 0.003). Two patients with early-onset cancer showed a pathogenic FA variant in addition to another germline mutation, suggesting a modifier role for FA variants. Our results encourage a comprehensive analysis of FA genes in larger studies to better assess their role in cancer risk

Strengthening study habits through information and communication technologies

El propósito de la investigación correspondió a fortalecer el hábito a través del mejoramiento de la lectoescritura a partir de las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación como herramienta estratégica. Desde los procesos investigativo derivados de la integración de la Investigación como Estrategia Pedagógica. Metodológicamente la investigación es de tipo cuantitativo- descriptivo. La unidad de análisis estuvo constituida por 60 estudiantes pertenecientes a los grados tercero y quinto, entre las edades de 7 a 12 años. Los resultados derivados dan cuenta de los procesos de mejoramiento y fortalecimiento de los hábitos de estudio en los estudiantes involucrados en el proceso investigativo a través del uso de las TIC. A través del proceso investigativo se puede concluir que como estrategia de enseñanza aprendizaje es positivo la implementación de las TIC a fin de mejorar los resultados obtenidos por los estudiantes en las pruebas locales y nacionalesThe purpose of the research was to strengthen the habit through the improvement of literacy based on Information and Communication Technologies as a strategic tool. From the research processes derived from the integration of Research as a Pedagogical Strategy. Methodologically, the research is quantitative-descriptive. The analysis unit consisted of 60 students belonging to the third and fifth grades, between the ages of 7 to 12 years. The derived results show the processes of improvement and strengthening of study habits in students involved in the research process through the use of ICT. Through the research process it can be concluded that the implementation of ICTs is positive as a teaching-learning strategy in order to improve the results obtained by students in local and national test