Artichoke By-Products as Natural Source of Phenolic Food Ingredient

Nowadays, the transformation activity of the food industry results in the generation of a huge amount of daily discarded vegetables wastes. One of those undervalued by-products are produced during the post-harvesting and processing process of artichokes. In the present research, the potential of artichokes’ bracts and stalks have been evaluated as a natural source of phenolic compounds which could be used as bioactive food ingredients, among others. In this study, the bioactive composition of those wastes has been evaluated using recent advances in extraction and analytical technologies, concretely, pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) followed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to electrospray time-of flight mass spectrometry (ESI-TOF/MS) analysis. To achieve this goal, first, the extraction process was evaluated by a comparative study using GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) solvents (mixtures of ethanol and water) at different temperatures (40–200 ◦C). The second step was to deeply characterize the composition of individual polyphenols by HPLC-ESI-TOF/MS in order to establish a comparison among the different PLE conditions applied to extract the phenolic fraction. The analysis revealed a wide variety of phenolic-composition, mainly phenolic acids and flavonoids. The results also highlighted that high percentages of ethanol and medium-high temperatures pointed out to be useful PLE conditions for recovering this kind of phytochemicals, which could be used in different applications, such as functional food ingredients, cosmetics, or nutraceuticals

Pronóstico de la cantidad de estudiantes que se matriculan en los espacios académicos con mayor demanda en el programa de ingeniería industrial de la fundación universitaria los libertadores

Las series de tiempo adquieren una atención especial en los diversos programas académicos ya que a través de estas se puede llegar a comprender la dinámica de potenciales inscritos en dichos espacios. En este artículo se propone el uso del método de suavizamiento exponencial Holt-Winters para llegar a estimar la cantidad de estudiantes matriculados en los espacios académicos que ofrece el programa de Ingeniería Industrial de la Fundación Universitaria Los Libertadores de manera que dicha Institución pueda tener una mejor proyección de los recursos humanos, físicos y tecnológicos que pondrá a disposición de sus estudiantes. A partir de los análisis y proyecciones realizadas a las diez materias con mayor número de inscritos en el periodo comprendido entre el 2015-1 y el 2021-2 se obtuvo un error absoluto medio (MAE) de 14,85 y un valor-p de 0.08, esto bajo la prueba Shapiro-Wilks. A pesar del nivel de error que se presenta para los cálculos efectuados, Holt-Winters se convierte en un método de gran utilidad porque permite darle mayor importancia a los datos más recientes en donde pueden estar implícitos cambios significativos y no tanto a los históricos por su poca validez.The time series acquire a special attention in the different academic programmes since through them it is possible to understand the dynamics of potential students enrolled in these spaces. This article proposes the use of the Holt-Winters exponential smoothing method to estimate the number of students enrolled in the academic spaces offered by the Fundación Universitaria Los Libertadores so that the institution can have a better projection of the human, physical and technological resources that it will make available to its students. The results obtained for the ten subjects with the highest number of students enrolled in the period between 2015-1 and 2021-2 present a mean absolute error (MAE) of 14,85% and a p-value of 0.08 under the Shapiro-Wilks test. Despite the level of error in the calculations made, Holt-Winters is a very useful method because it allows greater importance to be given to the most recent data, where significant changes may be implicit, and less to historical data because of its low validity

Functional relevance of the switch of VEGF receptors/co-receptors during peritoneal dialysis-induced mesothelial to mesenchymal transition

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is up-regulated during mesothelial to mesenchymal transition (MMT) and has been associated with peritoneal membrane dysfunction in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. It has been shown that normal and malignant mesothelial cells (MCs) express VEGF receptors (VEGFRs) and co-receptors and that VEGF is an autocrine growth factor for mesothelioma. Hence, we evaluated the expression patterns and the functional relevance of the VEGF/VEGFRs/co-receptors axis during the mesenchymal conversion of MCs induced by peritoneal dialysis. Omentum-derived MCs treated with TGF-β1 plus IL-1β (in vitro MMT) and PD effluent-derived MCs with non-epithelioid phenotype (ex vivo MMT) showed down-regulated expression of the two main receptors Flt-1/VEGFR-1 and KDR/VEGFR-2, whereas the co-receptor neuropilin-1 (Nrp-1) was up-regulated. The expression of the Nrp-1 ligand semaphorin-3A (Sema-3A), a functional VEGF competitor, was repressed throughout the MMT process. These expression pattern changes were accompanied by a reduction of the proliferation capacity and by a parallel induction of the invasive capacity of MCs that had undergone an in vitro or ex vivo MMT. Treatment with neutralizing anti-VEGF or anti-Nrp-1 antibodies showed that these molecules played a relevant role in cellular proliferation only in naïve omentum-derived MCs. Conversely, treatment with these blocking antibodies, as well as with recombinant Sema-3A, indicated that the switched VEGF/VEGFRs/co-receptors axis drove the enhanced invasion capacity of MCs undergoing MMT. In conclusion, the expression patterns of VEGFRs and co-receptors change in MCs during MMT, which in turn would determine their behaviour in terms of proliferation and invasion in response to VEGFThis work was supported by grant SAF2010-21249 from the ‘‘Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad’’ to M.L.C. and by grant S2010/BMD-2321 from ‘‘Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid’’ to M.L.C. and R.S. This work was also partially supported by grants PI 09/0776 from ‘‘Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias’’ to A.A., and RETICS 06/0016 (REDinREN, Fondos FEDER, EU) to R.S

Aprendizaje autónomo del Laboratorio de Química Inorgánica mediante el uso de TICs

Se ha creado un Entorno Virtual de Enseñanza y Aprendizaje (EVEA) circunscrito a la realización de prácticas en el Laboratorio de Química Inorgánica orientado a incrementar el grado de interacción entre el alumno con algún tipo de dificultad auditiva o dificultad idiomática y el profesor o el resto de sus compañeros mediante el uso conjunto del material elaborado y el uso de sistemas basados en redes sociales, mensajerías

Diseño de un sistema de información y gestión documental adaptado a normas ISO y AUDIT

Fac. de FarmaciaFALSEsubmitte

Diseño e implantación de un sistema de seguimiento de calidad mediante la utilización de plataformas online

Fac. de FarmaciaFALSEsubmitte

Dinosaur bonebed amber from an original swamp forest soil

Dinosaur bonebeds with amber content, yet scarce, offer a superior wealth and quality of data on ancient terrestrial ecosystems. However, the preserved palaeodiversity and/or taphonomic characteristics of these exceptional localities had hitherto limited their palaeobiological potential. Here, we describe the amber from the Lower Cretaceous dinosaur bonebed of Ariño (Teruel, Spain) using a multidisciplinary approach. Amber is found in both a root layer with amber strictly in situ and a litter layer mainly composed of aerial pieces unusually rich in bioinclusions, encompassing 11 insect orders, arachnids, and a few plant and vertebrate remains, including a feather. Additional palaeontological data—charophytes, palynomorphs, ostracods— are provided. Ariño arguably represents the most prolific and palaeobiologically diverse locality in which fossiliferous amber and a dinosaur bonebed have been found in association, and the only one known where the vast majority of the palaeontological assemblage suffered no or low-grade pre-burial transport. This has unlocked unprecedentedly complete and reliable palaeoecological data out of two complementary windows of preservation—the bonebed and the amber—from the same site.European Regional Development Fund (FEDER)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)/FEDERMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO)/FEDERGeneralitat de CatalunyaGeneralitat de Catalunya/FEDERMMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)Oxford UniversityAustrian Academy of SciencesUniversité de TunisGeneralitat ValencianaDepto. de Geodinámica, Estratigrafía y PaleontologíaFac. de Ciencias GeológicasTRUEpu

Additional file 4 of Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home

Additional file 4: Supplementary Table 3.Thymic activity, Biochemical, Inflammatory and Immunological profiles of the study populations one month after the second dose (T1).Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades Instituto de Salud Carlos III Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de AndalucíaPeer reviewe

Additional file 7 of Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home

Additional file 7: Supplementary Fig. 4. Factors associated with the magnitude of the initial response to the BNT162B2 vaccine at T1 by age-groups.Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades Instituto de Salud Carlos III Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de AndalucíaPeer reviewe

Additional file 1 of Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home

Additional file 1: Supplementary Fig. 1. Study design and Flow-chart.Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades Instituto de Salud Carlos III Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de AndalucíaPeer reviewe