Human mitochondrial DNA variability: multidisciplinary applications in the fields of forensic, medical and population genetics

The results of the present project indicate that the analysis of the mtDNA variation can be useful in medical, forensic, and population genetic studies. The particular features of the mtDNA, including high copy number, lack of recombination, and high average mutation rate; also determine its usefulness and limitations in genetic studies. For instance, the reconstruction of the phylogeny is straightforward because the lineages are passed through the matriline with the only changes generated by mutation. However, this is a single marker and only tells the history of female population, which not necessarily match the demography of the whole population. We have applied these principles to the analysis of several human populations, to the forensic field, and to some medical study. All of them have many aspects in common, indicating also the important interplay that should be always needed in all mtDNA studies. For instance, one cannot carry out a forensic or medical genetic study ignoring population variation patterns or the important heterogeneity that exists regarding site specific mutation rates. We have contributed to improve our knowledge of the variation in several African, European, and American populations. In this project we have also focussed our attention in several aspects of forensic interest, concerning the analysis of degraded and low DNA amount samples. And finally, we have tried to establish a necessary bridge between the different fields of research, indicating that proper quality standards can help to avoid false positives of instabilities in cancer studies, erroneous conclusions in forensic casework, or errors in datasets that could have consequences in population studies or indirectly in forensic or medical genetic ones

El Itinerario de Antonino y la provincia "Baetica"

Hemos establecido una relación entre la estructura viaria del itinerario y la organización provincial de la Bética, teniendo en cuenta varias cosas: el orden en que aparecen las vías y su relación con la estructura provincial; ciudades que son cabecera y destino, su papel en la red viaria, su condición jurídica y su vinculación con momentos de cambios administrativos; representatividad de las capitales provincial y conventuales en la enumeración de las vías, en la organización de las mismas y en la formación de redes radiales de comunicación; cobertura provincial y conventual de la red viaria.We have established one relationship between the road structure of the itinerary and provincial organisation of the Bética, taking into account several things: the order in which roads appear and its relationship with provincial structure; cities that are heading and destiny, its role in the road network, its juridic condition and its vinculations with moments of administrative changes; representativeness of the provincial and conventual capitals in the enumeration of the ways, in the organization of the same ones and in the formation of radial networks of communication; provincial and conventual coverage of the road network

The Mothering of Conduct Problem and Normal Children in Spain and the USA: Authoritarian and Permissive Asynchrony

Ninety-two clinic-referred and nonclinical mother-child dyads in Spain and the USA were observed in their home settings under naturalistic conditions for a total of 477 hours. Children in the clinic-referred dyads were considered troubled because of conduct problems. The observations were aimed at assessing two forms of mother-child asynchrony, either of which was expected to differentiate clinic referred from nonclinical dyads. Authoritarian asynchrony was defined as a mother’s indiscriminate use of aversive reactions to her child, whereas the permissive form entailed indiscriminate positive reactions. Results showed the American mothers to generate more permissive asynchrony, whereas the Spanish mothers were inclined in the authoritarian direction. Only authoritarian asynchrony differentiated the clinical versus nonclinical dyads in each country. Discussion was centered on the greater salience of aversive as opposed to positive maternal attention, and cultural differences between countries that might have accounted for the different parenting [email protected]

Telemedicina en la lucha para la mejora de los diabéticos

Cartel presentado en la Segunda Conferencia Internacional de Comunicación en Salud, celebrada el 23 de octubre de 2015 en la Universidad Carlos III de MadridIntroducción: las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (TIC) se están incorporando rápidamente en los sistemas de salud, ya que se considera un elemento para conseguir retos. La telemedicina es la utilización de las TIC para la transferencia de información medica con finalidades diagnosticas y terapéuticas. Andalucía coordina y lidera el proyecto PALANTE, cofinanciado por el Programa de Competitividad e Innovación de la Comisión Europea, que se enmarca en el Plan Integral de Diabetes Mellitus (PIDMA). Objetivo: con este proyecto se pretende ampliar el papel de los pacientes en la toma de decisiones sobre su enfermedad en el campo de salud electrónica, se utilizan nuevos sistemas de información y plataformas digitales en el tratamiento y seguimiento de pacientes. Metodología: búsqueda de bibliografía sobre el Proyecto Palante y de los sistemas de Tecnologías de la información y comunicación (TIC). Resultados: se realiza una evaluación común e independiente centrada en los pacientes y las nuevas tecnologías para verificar cuáles han sido los usos más frecuentes y los beneficios de estas nuevas tecnologías. Los profesionales de atención primaria y de asistencia hospitalaria pueden consultar la información introducida por sus pacientes desde su escritorio de trabajo y comunicarse con ellos a través de un muro de comunicación. Conclusiones: PALANTE no cambia los procedimientos habituales en la atención, sino que añade la posibilidad de hacer un seguimiento de sus pacientes consultando la información que han introducido (mediciones de glucemia, tensión arterial, peso, etc), configurar el sistema para cada paciente de manera que se adapte a sus necesidades y intercambiar mensajes con los pacientes a través de un muro de comunicación

Evaluación del Programa Remediar : acceso a medicamentos esenciales en el Primer Nivel de Atención (PNA)

Fil: Cerezo, Leticia. Área de Monitoreo y Evaluación del Programa RemediarFil: Fernández Prieto, Anabel. Centro REDES (Centro de Estudios sobre Ciencia, Desarrollo y Educación Superior)Fil: Rezzonico, María Guadalupe. Centro REDES (Centro de Estudios sobre Ciencia, Desarrollo y Educación Superior

Economic and Environmental Assessment on Implementing Solar Renewable Energy Systems in Spanish Residential Homes

In Europe, buildings are responsible for more than one third of the total final energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions. In the last twenty years, the European Union has published a succession of energy performance of building directives to define and ensure the fulfilment of a series of objectives regarding greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, energy efficiency and energy generation from renewable sources in buildings. For its part, Spain is adapting its legal framework, transposing these directives with the aim of achieving greater energy efficiency and sustainability for buildings. Under this context, an energy, economic and environmental assessment is performed to analyze the impact of these regulatory changes on a single-family home including a photovoltaic installation for self-consumption with surpluses and/or a solar thermal installation for domestic hot water supply, located in each one of the eight thousand one hundred thirty-one municipalities that make up Spain. The energy behavior of the original house is compared with that obtained after it is updated with these new facilities. The transient system simulation tool is used for the energy study. The results show that the European objectives are far exceeded. The energy savings achieved range from 67% to 126%, carbon dioxide emissions decrease by 42% to 100% and energy bills are reduced in cost by 32% to 81%. The findings of this work can be used by policymakers as guidelines for the development of national strategic plans and financial incentives for the promotion of small-scale residential photovoltaic and solar thermal applications, as well as by designers, supervisors, managers and developers to include them in their projects

Control System in Open-Source FPGA for a Self-Balancing Robot

Computing in technological applications is typically performed with software running on general-purpose microprocessors, such as the Computer Processing Unit (CPU), or specific ones, like the Graphical Processing Unit (GPU). Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) are an interesting option when speed and reliability are required, but development costs are usually high. Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) combine the flexibility of software with the high-speed operation of hardware, and can keep costs low. The dominant FPGA infrastructure is proprietary, but open tools have greatly improved and are a growing trend, from which robotics can benefit. This paper presents a robotics application that was fully developed using open FPGA tools. An inverted pendulum robot was designed, built, and programmed using open FPGA tools, such as IceStudio and the IceZum Alhambra board, which integrates the iCE40HX4K-TQ144 from Lattice. The perception from an inertial sensor is used in a PD control algorithm that commands two DC motors. All the modules were synthesized in an FPGA as a proof of concept. Its experimental validation shows good behavior and performance.This work was partially funded by the Community of Madrid through the RoboCity2030-III project (S2013/MIT-2748) and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the RETOGAR project (TIN2016-76515-R)

Effects of Phragmites australis growth on nitrogen retention in a temporal stream

En los últimos años, en el SE ibérico con el incremento de la superficie de regadío, se ha producido un crecimiento masivo de las poblaciones de Phragmites australis que terminan invadiendo por completo las ramblas y en general los cauces de aguas superficiales. Esta situación lleva consigo la transformación física de los cauces, modificando muchas características implicadas en los procesos bióticos y abióticos de retención de N. En este estudio testamos la hipótesis de que la ocupación de los cauces por Phragmites australis afecta negativamente a la retención de N. Así comparamos las tasas de retención (%R)de N − NO−3 y N − NH+4 en diferentes subtramos de una misma rambla: un subtramo no vegetado (238 m2) y dos subtramos vegetados que diferían en superfície (480 m2 y 910 m2). Los resultados demostraron que las eficacias de retención (%R) para ambos solutos fueron superiores en el tramo no vegetado. Aunque no existen resultados concluyentes parece intuirse que estas diferencias fueron más acusadas fuera del periodo vegetativo del heófito, mientras que en los meses de primavera y verano pudiera ocurrir un incremento de las tasas de retención en los tramos vegetados. Así mismo, la capacidad de los subtramos para la retención de N-nitrato, mostró una clara dependencia de los aportes de nitrógeno, disminuyendo conforme la carga de nitrógeno aumenta. Sin embargo, el tramo no vegetado mostró una mayor capacidad de carga que el tramo vegetado de mayor superfície y este que el tramo vegetado de menor superfície. Este estudio pone de manifiesto que la ocupación de los cauces por Phragmites australis, fenómeno generalizado en muchas partes del mundo, no sólo puede suponer cambios en la estructura de la vegetación y la fauna de las ramblas sino que también afectar a su funcionamiento y muy especialmente a un proceso clave implicado en la calidad de las aguas como es la eliminación del nitrógenoIn recent years in Southeast Spain with the increase in irrigated land surface, there has been a massive growth number of Phragmites australis populations which ended up invading completely the intermittent streams (ramblas) and the shallow water channels in general. This situation brings forth the physical transformation of the channels, thus modifying many characteristics implicated in the biotic and abiotic processes involved in nitrogen retention. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the channel invasion by Phragmites australis negatively affects nitrogen retention. Therefore, we compared the retention rates ( %R) of NO−3− N and NH+4− N in different subreaches of the same temporal stream: a unvegetated subreach (238 m2), and two vegetated subreaches that differed in surface areas (480 m2 and 910 m2). The results showed that the retention efficiency ( %R) for both solutes were higher in the unvegetated subreach. Although there are no conclusive results, it seems that the differences were more important outside the vegetated period of the helophytes, while during the spring-summer period an increase of the retention rates in the vegetated subreaches could occur. In the same way, the capacity of the subreaches for N-nitrate retention, showed a clear dependency of the nitrogen inputs, decreasing as the nitrogen load increases. However, the unvegetated subreach showed a greater load capacity than the vegetated subreach with larger surface, and this one, greater than the vegetated subreach with the smaller surface. This study reveals that channel invasion by Phragmites australis, a generalized phenomenon in many parts of the world, not only can bring about changes in the structure of the vegetation and the fauna in the streams, but can also affect its function, and especially a key process involved in water quality, such as nitrogen eliminatio