PI3Kα inhibition reduces obesity in mice

Partial inhibition of PI3K is one of the best-validated and evolutionary conserved manipulations to extend longevity. The best known health beneficial effects of reduced PI3K are related to metabolism and include increased energy expenditure, reduced nutrient storage, and protection from obesity. We have previously shown that a dual chemical inhibitor of the alpha and delta PI3K isoforms (CNIO-PI3Ki) reduces obesity in mice and monkeys, without evident toxic effects after long-term treatment. Here, we dissect the role of the alpha and delta PI3K isoforms by making use of selective inhibitors against PI3Kα (BYL-719 also known as alpelisib) or PI3Kδ (GS-9820 also known as acalisib). Treatment of mice with the above mentioned inhibitors indicated that BYL-719 increases energy expenditure in normal mice and efficiently reduces body weight in obese (ob/ob) mice, whereas these effects were not observed with GS-9820. Of note, the dose of BYL-719 required to reduce obesity was 10x higher than the equivalent dose of CNIO-PI3Ki, which could suggest that simultaneous inhibition of PI3K alpha and delta is more beneficial than single inhibition of the alpha isoform. In summary, we conclude that inhibition of PI3Kα is sufficient to increase energy expenditure and reduce obesity, and suggest that concomitant PI3Kα inhibition could play an auxiliary role

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Detection Methods Based on Heart Rate Variability Analysis: Opportunities for a Future Cinc Challenge

[EN] The effects of sleep-related disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), can be devastating either in children or adults. Misdiagnosis may lead to severe cardiovascular diseases. Besides, OSA consequences are often related to bad job performance, and road accidents. Nowadays, polysomnography (PSG) is still considered the gold standard for OSA diagnosis, but the required facilities are extremely high, thus reducing availability worldwide. For this reason, simpler and cost-effective diagnosing methods have been proposed in the late years. In this regard, the heart rate variability (HRV) has been demonstrated to strongly reflect apnea episodes during sleep. Hence, this work reviews the latest advances in the evaluation of OSA from the HRV perspective to consider its potentialities for a future revisited CinC Challenge.This research has been supported by grants DPI201783952-C3 from MINECO/AEI/FEDER EU, SBPLY/17/180501/000411 from Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-la Mancha and AICO/2019/036 from Generalitat Valenciana. Moreover, Daniele Padovano has held graduate research scholarships from Escuela Polit ' ecnica de Cuenca and Instituto de Tecnolog ' ias Audiovisuales, University of CastillaLa ManchaPadovano, D.; Martinez-Rodrigo, A.; Pastor, JM.; Rieta, JJ.; Alcaraz, R. (2020). Obstructive Sleep Apnea Detection Methods Based on Heart Rate Variability Analysis: Opportunities for a Future Cinc Challenge. IEEE. 1-4. https://doi.org/10.22489/CinC.2020.400S1

Kinematic and kinetic patterns related to free-walking in Parkinson's disease

The aim of this study is to compare the properties of free-walking at a natural pace between mild Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients during the ON-clinical status and two control groups. In-shoe pressure-sensitive insoles were used to quantify the temporal and force characteristics of a 5-min free-walking in 11 PD patients, in 16 young healthy controls, and in 12 age-matched healthy controls. Inferential statistics analyses were performed on the kinematic and kinetic parameters to compare groups’ performances, whereas feature selection analyses and automatic classification were used to identify the signature of parkinsonian gait and to assess the performance of group classification, respectively. Compared to healthy subjects, the PD patients’ gait pattern presented significant differences in kinematic parameters associated with bilateral coordination but not in kinetics. Specifically, patients showed an increased variability in double support time, greater gait asymmetry and phase deviation, and also poorer phase coordination. Feature selection analyses based on the ReliefF algorithm on the differential parameters in PD patients revealed an effect of the clinical status, especially true in double support time variability and gait asymmetry. Automatic classification of PD patients, young and senior subjects confirmed that kinematic predictors produced a slightly better classification performance than kinetic predictors. Overall, classification accuracy of groups with a linear discriminant model which included the whole set of features (i.e., demographics and parameters extracted from the sensors) was 64.1

Wersync: A WEB-BASED PLATFORM FOR DISTRIBUTED MEDIA SYNCHRONIZATION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

This paper presents Wersync, which is an adaptive and accurate web-based platform that enables distributed media synchronization and social interaction across remote users. By using Wersync, users can create or join on-going sessions for concurrently consuming the same media content with other remote users in a synchronized manner. Besides, social interaction is provided by sharing the navigation control commands and by integrating synchronized text chat channels. Additionally, two social presence mechanisms have been added to stimulate the participation of external users in on-going sessions on Wersync. By exclusively relying on standard web-based technologies, this platform can guarantee cross-network, cross-platform and crossdevice support, which is a key point in the current heterogeneous media delivery ecosystem

Effect of reactive ion beam etching on the photoluminescence of CdTe epitaxial layers

We demonstrated the effect of reactive ion beam etching (RIBE) process on the PL properties of CdTe/sapphire metal organic vapor phase epitaxy layers. At optimum conditions, the RIBE attack does not make significant morphological changes but it results in an increase of the concentration of acceptor impurities. This was revealed by an increase of the overall photoluminescence (PL) intensity and, simultaneously, a decrease of the PL decay time, more important on the low energy side of PL spectrum due to the recombination of carriers in acceptor [email protected]

Electric Field Effect in Ultrathin Films near the Superconductor-Insulator Transition

The effect of an electric field on the conductance of ultrathin films of metals deposited on substrates coated with a thin layer of amorphous Ge was investigated. A contribution to the conductance modulation symmetric with respect to the polarity of the applied electric field was found in regimes in which there was no sign of glassy behavior. For films with thicknesses that put them on the insulating side of the superconductor-insulator transition, the conductance increased with electric field, whereas for films that were becoming superconducting it decreased. Application of magnetic fields to the latter, which reduce the transition temperature and ultimately quench superconductivity, changed the sign of the reponse of the conductance to electric field back to that found for insulators. We propose that this symmetric response to capacitive charging is a consequence of changes in the conductance of the a-Ge layer, and is not a fundamental property of the physics of the superconductor-insulator transition as previously suggested.Comment: 4 pages text, 4 figure

Scaling behavior of the dipole coupling energy in two-dimensional disordered magnetic nanostructures

Numerical calculations of the average dipole-coupling energy $\bar E_\mathrm{dip}$ in two-dimensional disordered magnetic nanostructures are performed as function of the particle coverage $C$. We observe that $\bar E_\mathrm{dip}$ scales as $\bar E_\mathrm{dip}\propto C^{\alpha^*}$ with an unusually small exponent $\alpha^*\simeq 0.8$--1.0 for coverages $C\lesssim20$. This behavior is shown to be primarly given by the contributions of particle pairs at short distances, which is intrinsically related to the presence of an appreciable degree of disorder. The value of $\alpha^*$ is found to be sensitive to the magnetic arrangement within the nanostructure and to the degree of disorder. For large coverages $C\gtrsim20$ we obtain $\bar E_\mathrm{dip}\propto C^\alpha$ with $\alpha=3/2$, in agreement with the straighforward scaling of the dipole coupling as in a periodic particle setup. Taking into account the effect of single-particle anisotropies, we show that the scaling exponent can be used as a criterion to distinguish between weakly interacting ($\alpha^* \simeq 1.0$) and strongly interacting ($\alpha^* \simeq 0.8$) particle ensembles as function of coverage.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

High‐temperature behavior of impurities and dimensionality of the charge transport in unintentionally and tin‐doped indium selenide

A systematic study of the electron transport and shallow impurity distribution in indium selenide above room temperature or after an annealing process is reported by means of far‐infrared‐absorption and Hall‐effect measurements. Evidences are found for the existence of a large concentration of deep levels (1012–1013 cm−2), related to impurities adsorbed to stacking faults in this material. Above room temperature impurities can migrate from those defect zones and then become shallow in the bulk. The subsequent large increase of 3D electrons can change the dimensionality of the electron transport, which in most cases was 2D. The temperature dependence of the resistivity parallel to the c axis can be explained by the observed increase of the 3D electron concentration, whose motion across the layers is limited by stacking‐fault‐related potential barriers. The observed macroscopic resistivity is thus determined by tunneling through those [email protected]

Near-field scanning optical microscopy to study nanometric structural details of LiNbO3 Zn-diffused channel waveguides

A near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) is used to perform structural and optical characterization of the surface layer after Zn diffusion in a channel waveguide fabricated on lithium niobate. A theoretical approach has been developed in order to extract refractive index contrast from NSOM optical transmission measurements (illumination configuration). As a result, different solid phases present on the sample surface can be identified, such as ZnO and ZnNb2O6. They appear like submicrometric crystallites aligned along the domain wall direction, whose origin can be ascribed to some strain relaxation mechanism during the annealing process after Zn [email protected]

Data preprocessing workflow for exhaled breath analysis by GC/MS using open sources

© 2020 The Authors. This document is made available under the CC-BY 4.0 license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by /4.0/ This document is the Accepted version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Scientifc Reports. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79014-