Small area estimation of average compositions under multivariate nested error regression models

[Abstract]: This paper investigates the small area estimation of population averages of unit-level compositional data. The new methodology transforms the compositions into vectors of Rm and assumes that the vectors follow a multivariate nested error regression model. Empirical best predictors of domain indicators are derived from the fitted model, and their mean squared errors are estimated by parametric bootstrap. The empirical analysis of the behavior of the introduced predictors is investigated by means of simulation experiments. An application to real data from the Spanish household budget survey is given. The target is to estimate the average of proportions of annual household expenditures on food, housing and others, by Spanish provinces.Generalitat Valenciana; Prometeo/2021/063Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2020/14Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/01Axencia Galega de Innovación; COV20/00604Supported by the Instituto Galego de Estatística, by the Grants PGC2018-096840-B-I00 and PID2020-113578RB-I00 of the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, by the Grant Prometeo/2021/063 of the Generalitat Valenciana, and by the Xunta de Galicia (Grupos de Referencia Competitiva ED431C 2020/14), and by GAIN (Galician Innovation Agency) and the Regional Ministry of Economy, Employment and Industry Grant COV20/00604 and Centro de Investigación del Sistema Universitario de Galicia ED431G 2019/01, all of them through the ERDF

Pharmacogenetics of ugt genes in North African populations

Cytochrome P450 (CYP450), sulfotransferase (SULT), and glucuronidase (UGT) enzymes play roles in the phase I and phase II metabolism of most clinically prescribed drugs. As polymorphisms in these genes may alter enzyme activities, most prescribed drugs will differ in their efficacy and side effects. In prior work, we showed that besides polymorphisms in CYP450, those in SULT and UGT also give rise to different serum levels of some drug metabolites than detected in wild-type carriers of the genes [1]. [...

Variabilidad de los genes pdyn y oprk1 en cuatro poblaciones argentinas y su asociación con variables clínicas relacionadas al dolor agudo post-quirúrgico

Several population studies showed an association between variation in pain sensitivity and genetic polymorphisms located in Prodynorphin (PDYN) and Kappa Opioid Receptor (OPRK1) human genes. We analysed polymorphisms of these two genes to characterise their variation in Argentinian populations, as well as to evaluate their association with acute pain sensitivity. We studied 11 genetic markers in individuals from four locations in Argentina (Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, La Plata, Resistencia, and Misión Nueva Pompeya), calculated the population parameters, and evaluated the possible association among pain sensitivity, clinical, and genetic variables through a Generalised Estimating Equation model. High linkage disequilibrium was observed in the four populations for both genes, and significant differences were found among frequencies of Argentinian populations and those from other continents reported in the 1000 Genomes Project. Four PDYN gene polymorphisms from 3´ untranslated region and exon 4 showed association with acute pain sensitivity. One genotype of each of these polymorphisms was associated with a higher pain sensitivity, probably related with the activation of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors. We found a strong association with acute pain for the following clinical variables: 1) time after surgery, 2) intravenous klosidol supplied every 8 h, and 3) type of incision. Our results highlight the importance of a regional study of genetic variants which influence pain sensitivity and analgesic response.La asociación entre la sensibilidad al dolor y los polimorfismos que presentan los genes humanos de prodinorfina (PDYN) y receptor opioide kappa (OPRK1) se ha evidenciado en distintos estudios poblacionales. Con el objetivo de caracterizar la variación de estos genes y evaluar su asociación con dolor agudo en la población argentina, analizamos 11 polimorfismos en individuos provenientes de cuatro localidades argentinas (Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, La Plata, Resistencia, y Misión Nueva Pompeya). Calculamos los parámetros poblacionales y evaluamos la posible asociación entre sensibilidad al dolor, variables clínicas y variables genéticas a través de un modelo de ecuación generalizada de estimación. Se observó alto desequilibrio de ligamiento para ambos genes en las cuatro poblaciones analizadas, y se encontraron diferencias significativas entre las frecuencias de poblaciones argentinas y las reportadas en el Proyecto 1000 Genomes para poblaciones de otros continentes. Cuatro polimorfismos de la región 3´UTR y el exón 4 de PDYN mostraron asociación con la sensibilidad al dolor agudo. En cada uno de estos polimorfismos, un genotipo resultó asociado con alta sensibilidad al dolor, probablemente en relación con la activación de receptores N-metil-D-aspartato (NMDA). Encontramos una fuerte asociación con dolor agudo para las siguientes variables clínicas: 1) tiempo post-cirugía, 2) administración intravenosa de klosidol cada 8 h, y 3) tipo de incisión. Nuestros resultados resaltan la importancia de realizar estudios regionales de variables genéticas que influyen en la sensibilidad al dolor y la respuesta analgésica.Fil: Di Santo Meztler, Gabriela Paula. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular; ArgentinaFil: Schiaffi, Jorge Alfredo. Hospital General de Agudos Bernardino Rivadavia ; Gobierno de la Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires;Fil: Rigalli, Alfredo. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas; ArgentinaFil: Esteban Torné, M. Esther. Universidad de Barcelona. Facultad de Biología. Departamento de Biología Animal; EspañaFil: Martina, Pablo F.. Universidad Nacional de Misiones. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Químicas y Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Catanesi, Cecilia Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Celular; Argentin

Intracellular delivery of biologically-active fungal metabolite gliotoxin using magnetic nanoparticles

Gliotoxin (GT), a secondary metabolite produced by Aspergillus molds, has been proposed as a potential anti-tumor agent. Here we have developed a nanoparticle approach to enhance delivery of GT in tumor cells and establish a basis for its potential use as therapeutical drug. GT bound to magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) retained a high anti-tumor activity, correlating with efficient intracellular delivery, which was increased in the presence of glucose. Our results show that the attachment of GT to MNPs by covalent bonding enhances intracellular GT delivery without affecting its biological activity. This finding represents the first step to use this potent anti-tumor agent in the treatment of cancer

Divulgación científica con participación de estudiantes de Grado en Ingeniería Civil y Máster en Ingeniería de Caminos, Canales y Puertos

[ES] El Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior introduce el aprendizaje por competencias como un pilar fundamental en la formación universitaria. Esas competencias incluyen las específicas de la titulación, definidas en el plan de estudios, y las transversales que permiten mejorar la inserción laboral de los estudiantes. La Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) dispone de un proyecto institucional con 13 Competencias Transversales, las cuales se trabajan y evalúan mediante (1) distintas actividades docentes en asignaturas que son puntos de control, (2) trabajos fin de grado y máster y/o (3) actividades extracurriculares. Sin embargo, algunas de ellas son difíciles de trabajar en el aula. El cono de Dale (1969) o la pirámide de Glasser (1998), indican que aprendemos sólo un 10% de lo que leemos mientras que ese porcentaje se incrementa a más del 90% cuando enseñamos a otros. Durante los dos últimos años, se ha desarrollado un taller de Ingeniería Marítima en el Laboratorio de Puertos y Costas dirigido a alumnos entre 15-17 años dentro de la convocatoria CiènciaLab de la UPV. El taller consta de 3 actividades simultáneas y en su última edición han participado en su preparación y desarrollo alumnos de los últimos cursos del Grado en Ingeniería Civil y del Máster en Ingeniería de Caminos, Canales y Puertos. Esta colaboración está en línea con el incremento de aprendizaje que se produce cuando enseñamos a otros y además permite a los alumnos trabajar de primera mano competencias como la de Comunicación Efectiva y la de Planificación y gestión del tiempo, entre otras.Los autores agradecen el apoyo y financiación del Área de Comunicación de la UPV para desarrollar el Taller de CiènciaLab: “¿Cómo nos protegemos de las olas?”.Molines Llodrá, J.; Mares Nasarre, P.; Gómez-Martín, ME.; Esteban Chapapría, V. (2021). Divulgación científica con participación de estudiantes de Grado en Ingeniería Civil y Máster en Ingeniería de Caminos, Canales y Puertos. En Proceedings INNODOCT/20. International Conference on Innovation, Documentation and Education. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 601-608. https://doi.org/10.4995/INN2020.2020.11880OCS60160

Cross-sectional and prospective associations of sleep, sedentary and active behaviors with mental health in older people: a compositional data analysis from the Seniors-ENRICA-2 study

Abstract Background Most studies on the effects of sleep, sedentary behavior (SB), and physical activity (PA) on mental health did not account for the intrinsically compositional nature of the time spent in several behaviors. Thus, we examined the cross-sectional and prospective associations of device-measured compositional time in sleep, SB, light PA (LPA) and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) with depression symptoms, loneliness, happiness, and global mental health in older people (≥ 65 years). Methods Data were taken from the Seniors-ENRICA-2 study, with assessments in 2015–2017 (wave 0) and 2018–2019 (wave 1). Time spent in sleep, SB, LPA and MVPA was assessed by wrist-worn accelerometers. Depression symptoms, loneliness, happiness, and global mental health were self-reported using validated questionnaires. Analyses were performed using a compositional data analysis (CoDA) paradigm and adjusted for potential confounders. Results In cross-sectional analyses at wave 0 (n = 2489), time-use composition as a whole was associated with depression and happiness (all p < 0.01). The time spent in MVPA relative to other behaviors was beneficially associated with depression (γ = -0.397, p < 0.001), loneliness (γ = -0.124, p = 0.017) and happiness (γ = 0.243, p < 0.001). Hypothetically, replacing 30-min of Sleep, SB or LPA with MVPA was beneficially cross-sectionally related with depression (effect size [ES] ranged -0.326 to -0.246), loneliness (ES ranged -0.118 to -0.073), and happiness (ES ranged 0.152 to 0.172). In prospective analyses (n = 1679), MVPA relative to other behaviors at baseline, was associated with favorable changes in global mental health (γ = 0.892, p = 0.049). We observed a beneficial prospective effect on global mental health when 30-min of sleep (ES = 0.521), SB (ES = 0.479) or LPA (ES = 0.755) were theoretically replaced for MVPA. Conclusions MVPA was cross-sectionally related with reduced depression symptoms and loneliness and elevated level of happiness, and prospectively related with enhanced global mental health. Compositional isotemporal analyses showed that hypothetically replacing sleep, SB or LPA with MVPA could result in modest but significantly improvements on mental health indicators. Our findings add evidence to the emerging body of research on 24-h time-use and health using CoDA and suggest an integrated role of daily behaviors on mental health in older people

The DERMACLEAR study: Verification results of a natural language processing system in dermatology

BackgroundAccurately determining the epidemiology of dermatological diseases such as hidradenitis suppurativa (HS), psoriasis (PsO), chronic urticaria (CU) and/or atopic dermatitis (AD) is challenging due to variations in prevalence and disease severity in the reported literature.ObjectivesThe DERMACLEAR study aims to use natural language processing (NLP) to assess the proportions of patients with HS, PsO, CU and/or AD, and obtain information on patient profiles, patient journeys, and disease and healthcare burden in Spain. Here, the study design and objectives of the DERMACLEAR study are described and the precision of the NLP system used is assessed.MethodsThis study will retrospectively collect patient information from electronic health records (EHRs) at dermatology departments from seven tertiary hospitals in Spain. The NLP system was developed by IOMED Medical Solutions and was verified internally (IOMED scientific team) and externally (principal investigators of each hospital) to determine its precision in identifying patients with HS, PsO, CU and/or AD. Furthermore, internal verification was performed on other medical variables relevant to the study.ResultsTo date, the DERMACLEAR study has retrospectively collected data from 54,458 patients with HS, PsO, CU and/or AD (HS: 5045; PsO: 32,559; CU: 8397; AD: 12,492). The average precision of the NLP system to identify patients diagnosed with HS, PsO, CU, and/or AD across all hospitals exceeded 95% via external and internal verification.ConclusionsResults from the DERMACLEAR study will increase the real-world evidence of clinical practice, obtaining a large amount of information on patients with the studied diseases. The NLP system used is precise in identifying patients diagnosed with HS, PsO, CU and/or AD, and other medical variables from EHRs, highlighting that it is a valid system to use in the DERMACLEAR study

Biogeochemical indicators of elevated nitrogen deposition in semiarid Mediterranean ecosystems

Nitrogen (N) deposition has doubled the natural N inputs received by ecosystems through biological N fixation and is currently a global problem that is affecting the Mediterranean regions. We evaluated the existing relationships between increased atmospheric N deposition and biogeochemical indicators related to soil chemical factors and cryptogam species across semiarid central, southern, and eastern Spain. The cryptogam species studied were the biocrust-forming species Pleurochaete squarrosa (moss) and Cladonia foliacea (lichen). Sampling sites were chosen in Quercus coccifera (kermes oak) shrublands and Pinus halepensis (Aleppo pine) forests to cover a range of inorganic N deposition representative of the levels found in the Iberian Peninsula (between 4.4 and 8.1 kg N ha(-1) year(-1)). We extended the ambient N deposition gradient by including experimental plots to which N had been added for 3 years at rates of 10, 20, and 50 kg N ha(-1) year(-1). Overall, N deposition (extant plus simulated) increased soil inorganic N availability and caused soil acidification. Nitrogen deposition increased phosphomonoesterase (PME) enzyme activity and PME/nitrate reductase (NR) ratio in both species, whereas the NR activity was reduced only in the moss. Responses of PME and NR activities were attributed to an induced N to phosphorus imbalance and to N saturation, respectively. When only considering the ambient N deposition, soil organic C and N contents were positively related to N deposition, a response driven by pine forests. The PME/NR ratios of the moss were better predictors of N deposition rates than PME or NR activities alone in shrublands, whereas no correlation between N deposition and the lichen physiology was observed. We conclude that integrative physiological measurements, such as PME/NR ratios, measured on sensitive species such as P. squarrosa, can provide useful data for national-scale biomonitoring programs, whereas soil acidification and soil C and N storage could be useful as additional corroborating ecosystem indicators of chronic N pollution