Impact of Biological Agents on Postsurgical Complications in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Multicentre Study of Geteccu

Enfermedad de Crohn; Cirugía; Complicaciones postoperatoriasMalaltia de Crohn; Cirurgia; Complicacions postoperatòriesCrohn’s disease; Surgery; Postoperative complicationsBackground: The impact of biologics on the risk of postoperative complications (PC) in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is still an ongoing debate. This lack of evidence is more relevant for ustekinumab and vedolizumab. Aims: To evaluate the impact of biologics on the risk of PC. Methods: A retrospective study was performed in 37 centres. Patients treated with biologics within 12 weeks before surgery were considered "exposed". The impact of the exposure on the risk of 30-day PC and the risk of infections was assessed by logistic regression and propensity score-matched analysis. Results: A total of 1535 surgeries were performed on 1370 patients. Of them, 711 surgeries were conducted in the exposed cohort (584 anti-TNF, 58 vedolizumab and 69 ustekinumab). In the multivariate analysis, male gender (OR: 1.5; 95% CI: 1.2-2.0), urgent surgery (OR: 1.6; 95% CI: 1.2-2.2), laparotomy approach (OR: 1.5; 95% CI: 1.1-1.9) and severe anaemia (OR: 1.8; 95% CI: 1.3-2.6) had higher risk of PC, while academic hospitals had significantly lower risk. Exposure to biologics (either anti-TNF, vedolizumab or ustekinumab) did not increase the risk of PC (OR: 1.2; 95% CI: 0.97-1.58), although it could be a risk factor for postoperative infections (OR 1.5; 95% CI: 1.03-2.27). Conclusions: Preoperative administration of biologics does not seem to be a risk factor for overall PC, although it may be so for postoperative infections

Germination of grass seeds with recycling waste water

This study was designed to determine the effects of residual water irrigation on the rate and percentage of germination of grass seeds. Germination tests were carried out to compare the seeds irrigated with recycling waste water with seeds irrigated with distilled water. Test with Festuca arundinacea Sch. and Agrostis tenuis L. seeds was performed under laboratory conditions. Parameters used to evaluate germination were: number of germinated seeds (Gmax), mean germination time (MGT), the time required for 1 to 75%, of the seeds to germinate (T1, T10, T25, T50 and T75). The evaluated parameters for both seeds irrigated with recycled waste water were below the control seeds parameters. These reductions involve that germination rate was increased. Recycling waste water could be used for irrigation of grass seeds because produces a beneficial effect in germination rate and percentage

New Perspectives for Electrodialytic Remediation

Electrodialytic remediation has been widely used for the recovery of different contaminants from numerous matrices, such as, for example, polluted soils, wastewater sludge, fly ash, mine tailing or harbour sediments. The electrodialytic remediation is an enhancement of the electrokinetic remediation technique, and it consists of the use of ion-exchange membranes for the control of the acid and the alkaline fronts generated in the electrochemical processes. While the standard electrodialytic cell is usually built with three-compartment configuration, it has been shown that for the remediation of matrices that require acid environment, a two-compartment cell has given satisfactory removal efficiencies with reduced energy costs. Recycling secondary batteries, with growing demand, has an increasing economic and environmental interest. This work focusses on the proposal of the electrodialytic remediation technique as a possible application for the recycling of lithium-ion cells and other secondary batteries. The recovery of valuable components, such as lithium, manganese, cobalt of phosphorous, based on current recycling processes and the characterization of solid waste is addressed.This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 778045. Paz-Garcia acknowledges the financial support from the University of Malaga, project: PPIT.UMA.B5.2018/17. Villen-Guzman acknowledges the funding from the University of Malaga for the postdoctoral fellowship PPIT.UMA.A.3.2.2018. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Electrodialytic Recovery of Cobalt from Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries

Contribución en congreso científicoRecycling lithium-ion batteries has an increasing interest for economic and environmental reasons. Disposal of lithium-ion batteries imposes high risk to the environment due to the toxicity of some of their essential components. In addition to this, some of these components, such as cobalt, natural graphite and phosphorus, are included in the list of critical raw materials for the European Union due to their strategic importance in the manufacturing industry. Therefore, in the recent years, numerous research studies have been focused on the development of efficient processes for battery recycling and the selective recuperation of these key components. LiCoO2 is the most common material use in current lithium-ion batteries cathodes. In the current work, an electrodialytic method is proposed for the recovery of cobalt from this kind of electrode. In a standard electrodialytic cell, the treated matrix is separated from the anode and the cathode compartments by means of ion-exchange membranes. A cation-exchange membrane (CEM) allows the passage of cations and hinders the passage of anions, while the behaviour of anion-exchange membrane (AEM) does the opposite. A three-compartment electrodialytic cell has been designed and assembled, as depicted in the figure. In the central compartment, a suspension of LiCoO2 is added. Different extracting agents, such as EDTA, HCl and HNO3, are tested to enhanced the dissolution and the selective extraction of the target metal. Dissolved cobalt-containing complexes migrate towards the cathode or the anode compartments depending on the ionic charge of the complexes. While cobalt extraction via extracting agents is an expensive treatment, as it requires the constant addition of chemicals, an efficient electrodialytic cell could allow the recirculation of the extracting agents and the economical optimization of the process.This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 778045. Paz-Garcia acknowledges the financial support from the University of Malaga, project: PPIT.UMA.B5.2018/17. Villen-Guzman acknowledges the funding from the University of Malaga for the postdoctoral fellowship PPIT.UMA.A.3.2.2018. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

A Polyextreme Hydrothermal System Controlled by Iron: The Case of Dallol at the Afar Triangle

One of the latest volcanic features of the Erta Ale range at the Afar Triangle (NE Ethiopia) has created a polyextreme hydrothermal system located at the Danakil depression on top of a protovolcano known as the dome of Dallol. The interaction of the underlying basaltic magma with the evaporitic salts of the Danakil depression has generated a unique, high-temperature (108 °C), hypersaline (NaCl supersaturated), hyperacidic (pH values from 0.1 to −1.7), oxygen-free hydrothermal site containing up to 150 g/L of iron. We find that the colorful brine pools and mineral patterns of Dallol derive from the slow oxygen diffusion and progressive oxidation of the dissolved ferrous iron, the iron-chlorine/-sulfate complexation, and the evaporation. These inorganic processes induce the precipitation of nanoscale jarosite-group minerals and iron(III)- oxyhydroxides over a vast deposition of halite displaying complex architectures. Our results suggest that life, if present under such conditions, does not play a dominant role in the geochemical cycling and mineral precipitation at Dallol as opposed to other hydrothermal sites. Dallol, a hydrothermal system controlled by iron, is a present-day laboratory for studying the precipitation and progressive oxidation of iron minerals, relevant for geochemical processes occurring at early Earth and Martian environmentsThis work received funding from the European Research Council under the Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement 340863 (Prometheus) and from MINECO, ref CGL2016-78971-P, AEI/FEDER, UE”

Circulating concentrations of free triiodothyronine are associated with central adiposity and cardiometabolic risk factors in young euthyroid adults

Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness via the Fondo de Investigacion Sanitaria del Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI13/01393), by the Retos de la Sociedad program (DEP2016-79512-R), European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU13/04365), the Fundacion Iberoamericana de Nutricion (FINUT), the Redes Tematicas de Investigacion Cooperativa RETIC (Red SAMID RD16/0022), the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation, the University of Granada Plan Propio de Investigacion 2016-Excellence actions: Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES)-and Plan Propio de Investigacion 2018-the Programa Contratos-Puente and Contratos Perfeccionamiento de Doctores, the Junta de Andalucia, Consejeria de Conocimiento, Investigacion y Universidades (ERDF; ref. SOMM17/6107/UGR), and the Fundacion Alfonso Martin Escudero (grant awarded to GSD).Thyroid dysfunction is associated with classic cardiometabolic risk factors in humans. However, this relationship remains unclear in young euthyroid adults. The present work examines the associations of circulating thyroid hormones (THs) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) concentrations with body composition and cardiometabolic risk factors in young euthyroid adults. A total of 106 sedentary, euthyroid adults (72 women; 22 ± 2 years old) participated in this cross-sectional study. THs and TSH serum concentrations were determined in fasting conditions (6 h). Body composition (fat mass (FM), lean mass (LM), and visceral adipose tissue (VAT)) was determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, anthropometric parameters (weight, height, and waist circumference) were measured, and neck adipose tissue mass was quantified through computed tomography (CT) scanning. Cardiometabolic risk factors including fasting glucose and lipid metabolism markers, hepatic phosphatase and transaminases, and blood pressure were also assessed. Free triiodothyronine (FT3) concentration was positively associated with body mass index, LM, VAT, and waist circumference (all P ≤ 0.038). FT3 was also associated with glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, fatty liver index, and blood pressure (all P < 0.024). All the associations were attenuated when adjusting for sex. In contrast, we found no associations of TSH or free thyroxine with any body composition parameter or cardiometabolic risk factors. In conclusion, FT3 is associated with central adiposity and cardiometabolic risk factors including insulin resistance, fatty liver index, and mean, systolic and diastolic blood pressure in young euthyroid adults. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02365129.Universidad de Granada/CBUASpanish Government PI13/01393Retos de la Sociedad program DEP2016-79512-REuropean CommissionSpanish Government FPU13/04365Fundacion Iberoamericana de Nutricion (FINUT)Redes Tematicas de Investigacion Cooperativa RETIC Red SAMID RD16/0022AstraZenecaUniversity of Granada Plan Propio de Investigacion 2016-Excellence actions: Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES)Plan Propio de Investigacion 2018-the Programa Contratos-PuenteContratos Perfeccionamiento de DoctoresJunta de AndaluciaConsejeria de Conocimiento, Investigacion y Universidades (ERDF) SOMM17/6107/UGRFundacion Alfonso Martin Escuder

Electrodialytic Treatment of Secondary Batteries Cathodes

The interest for reusing and recycling secondary batteries is increasing, driven by both economic and environmental reasons. Lithium-ion batteries are among the main energy storage devices more popular in portable electronic and there are being used more every year in the field of electric transportation. The growing demand for rechargeable batteries entails an increase in the attention paid to the recycling of spent batteries due to the toxicity of some of their essential components. Furthermore, some of these components, such as cobalt, natural graphite and phosphorus, are included in the list of critical raw materials for the European Union due to their strategic importance in the manufacturing industry. Therefore, the development of new technologies to selectively recover these key components should be addressed. In this work, an electrodialytic method is applied to real battery wastes previously submitted to a pre-treatment process (Figure 1). We focused on the extraction of Co and Li from spent cathodes, in combination with acid-extraction and different oxidation/reduction environments. The optimization of some of the most relevant operating parameters, such as cell design, selection of enhancing agent and current density has been carried out according to the lithium-ion batteries waste characteristic. Results indicate that the electrodialytic method could be a useful technique for the selective extraction of Li and Co from spent batteries. Furthermore, the deposition of Co at the cathode surface may be optimized to separate the cations at the catholyte, for a direct reincorporation in the manufacturing chain.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. The authors acknowledge the financial support from the "Plan Propio de Investigación de la Universidad de Málaga" with project numbers, PPIT.UMA.D1, PPIT.UMA.B1.2017/20 and PPIT.UMA.B5.2018/17. This work has also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 778045

Injecting domain knowledge in multi-objective optimization problems: A semantic approach

In the field of complex problem optimization with me-taheuristics, semantics has been used for modeling different aspects, such as: problem characterization, parameters, decision-maker's preferences, or algorithms. However, there is a lack of approaches where ontologies are ap-plied in a direct way into the optimization process, with the aim of enhancing it by allowing the systematic incorporation of additional domain knowledge. This is due to the high level of abstraction of ontologies, which makes them difficult to be mapped into the code implementing the problems and/or the specific operators of metaheuristics. In this paper, we present a strategy to inject domain knowledge (by reusing existing ontologies or creating a new one) into a problem implementation that will be optimized using a metaheu-ristic. Thus, this approach based on accepted ontologies enables building and exploiting complex computing systems in optimization problems. We describe a methodology to automatically induce user choices (taken from the ontology) into the problem implementations provided by the jMetal op-timization framework. With the aim of illustrating our proposal, we focus on the urban domain. Concretely, We start from defining an ontology repre-senting the domain semantics for a city (e.g., building, bridges, point of inte-rest, routes, etc.) that allows defining a-priori preferences by a decision ma-ker in a standard, reusable, and formal (logic-based) way. We validate our proposal with several instances of two use cases, consisting in bi-objective formulations of the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and the Radio Net-work Design problem (RND), both in the context of an urban scenario. The results of the experiments conducted show how the semantic specification of domain constraints are effectively mapped into feasible solutions of the tackled TSP and RND scenarios. TUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Improving Cr (VI) Extraction through Electrodialysis

A laboratory study has been carried out to determine the feasibility of in situ remediation of chromium (VI) contaminated soil using electrodialysis. In a classic setup, this technique implies the application of a low intensity direct current to the soil, which is separated from the electrode compartments by ion-exchange membranes. If the pollutants are ionic compounds, they can be forced to migrate to the oppositely charged electrode by electro-migration. Membranes selectively impede the flow of ions in the electrode compartments back to the soil. If a metal species is naturally present as an anion, mobilization from the soil at alkaline pH can be realized and, at the same time, the mobilization of other metal cations that occur at low pH can be minimized. Experiments have been carried out with clayey soils (kaolinite clay and soil clay mixtures) that have been characterized and then contaminated by mixing with a potassium dichromate solution for several days. Initial Cr (VI) content ranges from 500 to 4000 mg/kg. Treatment tests were carried out in an acrylic laboratory cells consisting of a central soil compartment and two electrode compartments located at both ends of the column. Dimensionally stable titanium electrodes coated with mixed metal oxides were placed in the electrode compartments. 0.01M Na2SO4 electrolytes were recirculated through them from two 1-liter deposits using a peristaltic pump. Two commercial ion exchange membranes separated the anolyte and catholyte compartments from the soil in the standard configuration. A programmable DC: power supply was connected to the electrodes and a computer for data acquisition.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. The authors acknowledge the financial support from the "Plan Propio de Investigación de la Universidad de Málaga" with project numbers PPIT.UMA.D1; PPIT.UMA.B1.2017/20 and PPIT.UMA.B5.2018/17. This work has also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 778045

Modeling of Electrodialytic Treatment of Lithium-Ion Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries are currently present in most portable electronic devices and their use is rapidly growing in the field of electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Many components in lithium-ion batteries are toxic and/or environmentally hazardous. Furthermore, some of them are expensive and listed as critical materials in terms of supply-chain risk. Therefore, the need to improve the recycling techniques for lithium-ion batteries is becoming a priority. Herein, we describe and present a model for the electrodialytic treatment of disposed lithium-ion batteries. Electrodialysis is a separation process based on the use of electric fields and ion-selective membranes. The electrodialytic cell can be designed in different configurations, to enhance the selective extraction of the target products. In a standard electrodialytic cell, the treated matrix is separated from the anode and the cathode compartments by means of anion- and cation-exchange membranes respectively. However, depending on the ionic charge and the specific chemistry of the matrix, different cell designs can be used. In the present work, different possible configurations are explored for the optimization of the extraction of key valuable components from spent lithium-ion batteries, taking into account the chemical properties of the system depending on the chosen extracting agent and cell configuration. The model presented here is based on a set of differential and algebraic equations consisting of a Nernst-Planck based continuity equations for each of the chemical species involved in the process, coupled with the electroneutrality and the local chemical equilibrium conditions. The numerical solution is performed using COMSOL Multiphysics, and the simulation results are compared with experimental data for model validation.This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 778045. Paz-Garcia acknowledges the financial support from the University of Malaga, project: PPIT.UMA.B5.2018/17. Villen-Guzman acknowledges the funding from the University of Malaga for the postdoctoral fellowship PPIT.UMA.A.3.2.2018. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec