Ressenyes

Index de les obres ressenyades: Cindy KATZ i Janice MONK, Full Circle

A critical revision of migratory theories from the point of view of gender

El artículo realiza una crítica de las principales teorías migratorias hasta los años 1970 desde la perspectiva de género y analiza las nuevas aportaciones sobre los factores determinantes y el proceso decisorio realizadas desde dicho enfoque. De los determinantes se tratan, en primer lugar, los factores macro, que afectan de manera más general la persona que migra, para después introducir los que le tocan más directamente; los micro. Además, se han estudiado las aportaciones hechas sobre el proceso decisorio, introduciendo las relaciones de poder establecidas dentro de la familia. Finalmente, se analizan los modelos multinivel que ponen en relación dichos elementos.The present article criticises, from a gender perspective, the most important migration theories introduced in the literature before the 1970's and analyses the two factors introduced in migration studies that take the gender perspective: determinants and the decision process. Out of the former, those that affect the person who migrates in the most general way, that is to say the macro, are analysed first. After, those that affect migrants most directly, the micro, are treated. On the other hand, the literature on the decision process is reviewed, stressing the importance of considering the different levels of power that family women have within it. Finally, the article introduces multilevel models, those that combine all these factors

Comparing precarious employment across countries: measurement invariance of the employment precariousness scale for europe (EPRES-E)

Comparing precarious employment (PE) across countries is essential to deepen the understanding of the phenomenon and to learn from country-specific experiences. However, this is hampered by the lack of internationally meaningful measures of PE. We aim to address this point by assessing the measurement invariance (MI) of the Employment Precariousness Scale for Europe (EPRES-E), an adaptation of the EPRES construct in the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). EPRES-E consists of 13 proxy-indicators sorted into six dimensions: temporariness, disempowerment, vulnerability, wages, exercise of rights, unpredictable working times. Drawing on EWCS-2015, MI of the second-order factor model was tested in a sample of 31,340 formal employees by means of (a) multi-group confirmatory factor analyses, and (b) the substantive exploration of EPRES-E mean scores in each country (...

Improving kidney retrieval from cDCD using normothermic extracorporeal membrane oxygenation

Introduction & Objectives: during the past decade, kidneys obtained after controlled circulatory death (cDCD) have significantlyincreased, in order to increase the number of donors. It achieved 24% of total Kidneys transplant during the last year in Spain. However, it implies warm ischemia times, resulting ina greater risk for organs. Focusing on graft quality optimization, abdominal Normothermic Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (NECMO) has been implemented in order to restore blood flow before organ recovery. NECMO perfusion provides promising results for the use of liver grafts for cDCD. The aim of this study is to evaluate cDCD kidneys, obtained from NECMO technique compared with cDCD ultra-rapid retrieval

Precarious Employment and Stress : The Biomedical Embodiment of Social Factors. PRESSED Project Study Protocol

Juan de la Cierva Incorporación fellowship (IJCI-2017-33999) ; ICREA Academia programThe PRESSED project aims to explain the links between a multidimensional measure of precarious employment and stress and health. Studies on social epidemiology have found a clear positive association between precarious employment and health, but the pathways and mechanisms to explain such a relationship are not well-understood. This project aims to fill this gap from an interdisciplinary perspective, integrating the social and biomedical standpoints to comprehensively address the complex web of consequences of precarious employment and its effects on workers' stress, health and well-being, including health inequalities. The project objectives are: (1) to analyze the association between multidimensional precarious employment and chronic stress among salaried workers in Barcelona, measured both subjectively and using biological indicators; (2) to improve our understanding of the pathways and mechanisms linking precarious employment with stress, health and well-being; and (3) to analyze health inequalities by gender, social class and place of origin for the first two objectives. The study follows a sequential mixed design. First, secondary data from the 2017 Survey on Workers and the Unemployed of Barcelona is analyzed (N = 1,264), yielding a social map of precarious employment in Barcelona that allows the contextualization of the scope and characteristics of this phenomenon. Drawing on these results, a second survey on a smaller sample (N = 255) on precarious employment, social precariousness and stress is envisaged. This study population is also asked to provide a hair sample to have their levels of cortisol and its related components, biomarkers of chronic stress, analyzed. Third, a sub-sample of the latter survey (n = 25) is selected to perform qualitative semi-structured interviews. This allows going into greater depth into how and why the experience of uncertainty, the precarization of living conditions, and the degradation of working conditions go hand-in-hand with precarious employment and have an impact on stress, as well as to explore the potential role of social support networks in mitigating these effects

Transcriptome innovations in primates revealed by single-molecule long-read sequencing

Transcriptomic diversity greatly contributes to the fundamentals of disease, lineage-specific biology, and environmental adaptation. However, much of the actual isoform repertoire contributing to shaping primate evolution remains unknown. Here, we combined deep long- and short-read sequencing complemented with mass spectrometry proteomics in a panel of lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) from human, three other great apes, and rhesus macaque, producing the largest full-length isoform catalog in primates to date. Around half of the captured isoforms are not annotated in their reference genomes, significantly expanding the gene models in primates. Furthermore, our comparative analyses unveil hundreds of transcriptomic innovations and isoform usage changes related to immune function and immunological disorders. The confluence of these evolutionary innovations with signals of positive selection and their limited impact in the proteome points to changes in alternative splicing in genes involved in immune response as an important target of recent regulatory divergence in primates. changes in alternative splicing in genes involved in immune response as an important target of recent regulatory divergence in primates.This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB31020000); National Key R&D Program of China (China's Ministry of Science and Technology [MoST]) grant 2018YFC1406901; the International Partnership Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (no. 152453KYSB20170002); the Carlsberg Foundation (CF16-0663); the Villum Foundation (no. 25900) to G.Z.; and the La Caixa Foundation (ID 100010434) Fellowship Code LCF/BQ/DE16/11570011 (L.F.-P.). The Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) / Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) Proteomics Unit is part of the Spanish Infrastructure for Omics Technologies (National Map of Unique Scientific and Technical Infrastructures [ICTS] OmicsTech) and a member of the ProteoRed PRB3 Consortium, which is supported by grant PT17/0019 of the PE I + D + i 2013–2016 from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and “Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya” (2017SGR595). T.M.-B. is supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 864203), BFU2017-86471-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE); “Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu,” funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) (CEX2018-000792-M); Howard Hughes International Early Career; National Institutes of Health 1R01HG010898-01A1; and Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca and Centres de Recerca de Catalunya (CERCA) Programme del Departament d'Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya (GRC 2017 SGR 880)

Transcriptome innovations in primates revealed by single-molecule long-read sequencing

Transcriptomic diversity greatly contributes to the fundamentals of disease, lineage-specific biology, and environmental adaptation. However, much of the actual isoform repertoire contributing to shaping primate evolution remains unknown. Here, we combined deep long- and short-read sequencing complemented with mass spectrometry proteomics in a panel of lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) from human, three other great apes, and rhesus macaque, producing the largest full-length isoform catalog in primates to date. Around half of the captured isoforms are not annotated in their reference genomes, significantly expanding the gene models in primates. Furthermore, our comparative analyses unveil hundreds of transcriptomic innovations and isoform usage changes related to immune function and immunological disorders. The confluence of these evolutionary innovations with signals of positive selection and their limited impact in the proteome points to changes in alternative splicing in genes involved in immune response as an important target of recent regulatory divergence in primates

Antibody Response Induced by BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 Vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 in a Cohort of Healthcare Workers

The aim of this study was to characterize the antibody response induced by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines in a cohort of healthcare workers. A total of 2247 serum samples were analyzed using the Elecsys(®) Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S-test (Roche Diagnostics International Ltd., Rotkreuz, Switzerland). Sex, age, body mass index (BMI), arterial hypertension, smoking and time between infection and/or vaccination and serology were considered the confounding factors. Regarding the medians, subjects previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 who preserved their response to the nucleocapsid (N) protein showed higher humoral immunogenicity (BNT162b2: 6456.0 U/mL median; mRNA-1273: 2505.0 U/mL) compared with non-infected (BNT162b2: 867.0 U/mL; mRNA-1273: 2300.5 U/mL) and infected subjects with a lost response to N protein (BNT162b2: 2992.0 U/mL). After controlling for the confounders, a higher response was still observed for mRNA-1273 compared with BNT162b2 in uninfected individuals (FC = 2.35, p < 0.0001) but not in previously infected subjects (1.11 FC, p = 0.1862). The lowest levels of antibodies were detected in previously infected non-vaccinated individuals (39.4 U/mL). Clinical variables previously linked to poor prognoses regarding SARS-CoV-2 infection, such as age, BMI and arterial hypertension, were positively associated with increasing levels of anti-S protein antibody exclusively in infected subjects. The mRNA-1273 vaccine generated a higher antibody response to the S protein than BNT162b2 in non-infected subjects only

Expanding the perspective of polymeric selective contacts in photovoltaic devices using branched polyethylenimine

This work studies the use of polymeric layers of polyethylenimine (PEI) as an interface modification of electron-selective contacts. A clearly enhanced electrical transport with lower contact resistance and significant surface passivation (about 3 ms) can be achieved with PEI modification. As for other conjugated polyelectrolytes, protonated groups of the polymer with their respective counter anions from the solvent create an intense dipole. In this work, part of the amine groups in PEI are protonated by ethanol that behaves as a weak Brønsted acid during the process. A comprehensive characterization including high-resolution compositional analysis confirms the formation of a dipolar interlayer. The PEI modification is able to eliminate completely Fermi-level pinning at metal/semiconductor junctions and shifts the work function of the metallic electrode by more than 1 eV. Induced charge transport between the metal and the semiconductor allows the formation of an electron accumulation region. Consequently, electron-selective contacts are clearly improved with a significant reduction of the specific contact resistance (less than 100 mO·cm2). Proof-of-concept dopant-free solar cells on silicon were fabricated to demonstrate the beneficial effect of PEI dipolar interlayers. Full dopant-free solar cells with conversion efficiencies of about 14% could be fabricated on flat wafers. The PEI modification also improved the performance of classical high-efficiency heterojunction solar cells.This research has been supported by the Spanish government through Grants PID2019-109215RB-C41, PID2019109215RB-C43, PID2020-115719RB-C21, and PID2020116719RB-C41 and funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033. Besides this the authors would like to thank Prof. Jordi LLorca for his expertise and helpful discussions of XPS results, as well as Dr. Rodrigo Fernández-Pacheco of the Laboratorio de Microscopias Avanzadas (LMA-INA) of Zaragoza for the HRTEM images and EDS and EELS analysis, and Guillaume Sauthier from ICN2 for his contribution through UPS measurements and discussions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Heterogeneous Infectivity and Pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 Variants Beta, Delta and Omicron in Transgenic K18-hACE2 and Wildtype Mice

The emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) may display enhanced transmissibility, more severity and/or immune evasion; however, the pathogenesis of these new VOCs in experimental SARS-CoV-2 models or the potential infection of other animal species is not completely understood. Here we infected K18-hACE2 transgenic mice with B.1, B.1.351/Beta, B.1.617.2/Delta and BA.1.1/Omicron isolates and demonstrated heterogeneous infectivity and pathogenesis. B.1.351/Beta variant was the most pathogenic, while BA.1.1/Omicron led to lower viral RNA in the absence of major visible clinical signs. In parallel, we infected wildtype (WT) mice and confirmed that, contrary to B.1 and B.1.617.2/Delta, B.1.351/Beta and BA.1.1/Omicron can infect them. Infection in WT mice coursed without major clinical signs and viral RNA was transient and undetectable in the lungs by day 7 post-infection. In silico modeling supported these findings by predicting B.1.351/Beta receptor binding domain (RBD) mutations result in an increased affinity for both human and murine ACE2 receptors, while BA.1/Omicron RBD mutations only show increased affinity for murine ACE2.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio