Characterization and processing of novel neck photoplethysmography signals for cardiorespiratory monitoring

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder causing serious brain seizures that severely affect the patients' quality of life. Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP), for which no evident decease reason is found after post-mortem examination, is a common cause of mortality. The mechanisms leading to SUDEP are uncertain, but, centrally mediated apneic respiratory dysfunction, inducing dangerous hypoxemia, plays a key role. Continuous physiological monitoring appears as the only reliable solution for SUDEP prevention. However, current seizure-detection systems do not show enough sensitivity and present a high number of intolerable false alarms. A wearable system capable of measuring several physiological signals from the same body location, could efficiently overcome these limitations. In this framework, a neck wearable apnea detection device (WADD), sensing airflow through tracheal sounds, was designed. Despite the promising performance, it is still necessary to integrate an oximeter sensor into the system, to measure oxygen saturation in blood (SpO2) from neck photoplethysmography (PPG) signals, and hence, support the apnea detection decision. The neck is a novel PPG measurement site that has not yet been thoroughly explored, due to numerous challenges. This research work aims to characterize neck PPG signals, in order to fully exploit this alternative pulse oximetry location, for precise cardiorespiratory biomarkers monitoring. In this thesis, neck PPG signals were recorded, for the first time in literature, in a series of experiments under different artifacts and respiratory conditions. Morphological and spectral characteristics were analyzed in order to identify potential singularities of the signals. The most common neck PPG artifacts critically corrupting the signal quality, and other breathing states of interest, were thoroughly characterized in terms of the most discriminative features. An algorithm was further developed to differentiate artifacts from clean PPG signals. Both, the proposed characterization and classification model can be useful tools for researchers to denoise neck PPG signals and exploit them in a variety of clinical contexts. In addition to that, it was demonstrated that the neck also offered the possibility, unlike other body parts, to extract the Jugular Venous Pulse (JVP) non-invasively. Overall, the thesis showed how the neck could be an optimum location for multi-modal monitoring in the context of diseases affecting respiration, since it not only allows the sensing of airflow related signals, but also, the breathing frequency component of the PPG appeared more prominent than in the standard finger location. In this context, this property enabled the extraction of relevant features to develop a promising algorithm for apnea detection in near-real time. These findings could be of great importance for SUDEP prevention, facilitating the investigation of the mechanisms and risk factors associated to it, and ultimately reduce epilepsy mortality.Open Acces

Dominant transport pathways in an atmospheric blocking event

A Lagrangian flow network is constructed for the atmospheric blocking of eastern Europe and western Russia in summer 2010. We compute the most probable paths followed by fluid particles which reveal the {\it Omega}-block skeleton of the event. A hierarchy of sets of highly probable paths is introduced to describe transport pathways when the most probable path alone is not representative enough. These sets of paths have the shape of narrow coherent tubes flowing close to the most probable one. Thus, even when the most probable path is not very significant in terms of its probability, it still identifies the geometry of the transport pathways.Comment: Appendix added with path calculations for a simple kinematic model flo

Acceso al léxico del inglés como lengua extranjera. Una comparativa entre bilingües catalán-español y monolingües des español

Treballs Finals de Grau de Lingüística. Facultat de Filologia. Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2019-2020, Tutor: Joan Carles Mora Bonilla[spa] En este estudio se ha hecho una comparativa entre hablantes bilingües del catalán-español y monolingües del español para ver posibles diferencias en su capacidad de acceso al vocabulario del inglés como su lengua no dominante, partiendo de la hipótesis de que existe un control inhibitorio de las lenguas que favorecería a los bilingües. Para ello, estos dos grupos de participantes adultos se sometieron a una tarea de nombramiento de imágenes con cambios de lengua, alternando español e inglés, y a partir de sus producciones se cronometraron sus tiempos de reacción. Se ha encontrado que los bilingües presentan un tiempo de reacción más bajo en el nombramiento en ambas lenguas y que sus costes de cambio de lengua también son inferiores a los de los monolingües y más simétricos. Estos resultados que muestran diferencias relevantes entre monolingües y bilingües llevan a pensar que el bilingüismo sea un factor importante en el acceso al léxico de una lengua menos dominante.[eng] In this study, a comparison has been made between bilingual speakers of Catalan-Spanish and monolingual speakers of Spanish, in order to see possible differences in their ability to access English vocabulary as their non-dominant language, based on the hypothesis that there is an inhibitory control of languages that would favour bilinguals. To do this, these two groups of adult participants underwent a picture-naming task which included language changes, alternating Spanish and English, and based on their productions, their reaction times were timed. It has been found that bilinguals show a lower reaction time on naming in both languages and that their language switching costs are also lower and more symmetrical than those of monolinguals. These results, which show relevant differences between monolinguals and bilinguals, lead us to believe that bilingualism is an important factor in accessing the lexicon of a less dominant language

Femtosecond time-resolved phase-change microscopy and ablation threshold calculations to understand ultrafast laser ablation

El trabajo recoge experimentos realizados en una configuración sonda-prueba haciendo uso de un láser de femtosegundos, con el objetivo de comprender los fenómenos de ablación de materiales sólidos ras irradiación con láseres de pulso ultracorto.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

¿Cómo evaluamos las nanopartículas?

IX Congreso Nacional de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental. Zaragoza 28-30 Marzo 2017El uso de nano materiales en los últimos años, supone el desarrollo de nuevas oportunidades y retos en nuestras vida diaria. Los nanomateriales permiten el desarrollo de nuevas tecnologías que servirán para proteger el medio ambiente y al mismo tiempo ya se están liberando al medio ambiente nanopartículas de diferente composición y origen que pueden producir potenciales impactos ambientales. En el momento actual, no existe un marco regulatorio consensuado por la comunidad científica que permita valorar los efectos toxicológicos ni ambientales de estas nanopartículas ni en los organismos ni sistemas. En esta comunicación se presenta una breve revisión del estado del arte de los principales retos a los cuales hay que enfrentarse para acometer con éxito un procedimiento de  evaluación ambiental basándonos en el análisis de casos de éxito.Peer reviewe

Programming and testing of a small-size ECG monitor for small animal gated imaging

Pre-clinical cardiac imaging has become one of the most important non-invasive techniques widely used nowadays for studying the electrophysiology and hemodynamic behaviour of the heart using small animals’ models. Despite the great potential it offers for clinical applications in humans, the introduction of movement artefacts and blurring in the images due to the inherent blood flow and respiration among others, reduces significantly the quality of imaging leading to mistakes in results interpretation. A solution to this problem is the synchronization of the electrocardiogram with the imaging machine in a process called gated imaging to trigger image acquisition at specific moments of the cardiac cycle. In this manner, the principal objective of the presented Bachelor Thesis was to design, develop, program and test a small size ECG monitor for small animal gated imaging. The main functions of this device are monitoring the cardiac activity at the same time a TTL pulse is activated in real-time for gating synchronization with the imaging machine. A microcontroller, an analog-to-digital converter and a touch screen were connected together to form a small ECG device that is able to record bioelectrical signals of the heart, to process them and display the electrocardiogram on the screen and generate a TTL pulse for gated imaging. Communication in between the different modules was enabled by SPI protocol implementation. The evaluation of the ECG prototype was performed first in the laboratory with an ECG simulator showing good performance to be later tried in small animals. On the whole the results were satisfactory except from some issues in TTL pulse activation that might need further improvements to enhance gated imaging implementation. This project and the future improved versions of this ECG device, will have a big scientific and social impact. This small size ECG monitor will not only offer an easy to use portable monitoring device for pre-clinical research but also a powerful tool for gated imaging that will be essential for the development of revolutionary drugs to treat heart diseases.Ingeniería Biomédic

Experience with the use of Rituximab for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in a tertiary Hospital in Spain: RITAR study

There is evidence supporting that there are no relevant clinical differences between dosing rituximab 1000 mg or 2000 mg per cycle in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients in clinical trials, and low-dose cycles seem to have a better safety profile. Our objective was to describe the pattern of use of rituximab in real-life practice conditions. Methods: Rituximab for RA in clinical practice (RITAR) study is a retrospective cohort study from 2005 to 2015. Eligibility criteria were RA adults treated with rituximab for active articular disease. Response duration was the main outcome defined as months elapsed from the date of rituximab first infusion to the date of flare. A multivariable analysis was performed to determine the variables associated with response duration. Results: A total of 114 patients and 409 cycles were described, 93.0% seropositive and 80.7% women. Rituximab was mainly used as second-line biological therapy. On demand retreatment was used in 94.6% of cases versus fixed 6 months retreatment in 5.4%. Median response duration to on demand rituximab cycles was 10 months (interquartile range, 7–13). Multivariable analysis showed that age older than 65 years, number of rituximab cycles, seropositivity, and first- or second-line therapy were associated with longer response duration. The dose administered at each cycle was not significantly associated with response duration. Conclusions: Our experience suggests that 1000 mg rituximab single infusion on demand is a reasonable schedule for long-term treatment of those patients with good response after the first cycles, especially in seropositive patients and when it is applied as a first- or second-line biological therap

Identifying past social-ecological thresholds to understand long-term temporal dynamics in Spain

A thorough understanding of long-term temporal social-ecological dynamics at the national scale helps to explain the current condition of a country’s ecosystems and to support environmental policies to tackle future sustainability challenges. We aimed to develop a methodological approach to understand past long-term (1960-2010) social-ecological dynamics in Spain. First, we developed a methodical framework that allowed us to explore complex social-ecological dynamics among biodiversity, ecosystem services, human well-being, drivers of change, and institutional responses. Second, we compiled 21 long-term, national-scale indicators and analyzed their temporal relationships through a redundancy analysis. Third, we used a Bayesian change point analysis to detect evidence of past social-ecological thresholds and historical time periods. Our results revealed that Spain has passed through four socialecological thresholds that define five different time periods of nature and society relationships. Finally, we discussed how the proposed methodological approach helps to reinterpret national-level ecosystem indicators through a new conceptual lens to develop a more systems-based way of understanding long-term social-ecological patterns and dynamicsThis work was supported by the Biodiversity Foundation (http://www.fundacion-biodiversidad.es/) of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment. Partial financial support was also provided by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain (project CGL2014-53782-P: ECOGRADIENTES). The Spanish National Institute for Agriculture and Food Research and Technology (INIA) funded Marina García-Llorente as part of the European Social Fund. Blanca González García-Mon participated in this article as a “la Caixa” Banking Foundation scholar. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, preparation of the report, or the decision to submit the study for publicatio