Cataract Surgery in Elderly Subjects with Heterozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia in Prolonged Treatment with Statins

Background: Cataracts are the main cause of blindness and represent one fifth of visual problems worldwide. It is still unknown whether prolonged statin treatment favors the development of cataracts. We aimed to ascertain the prevalence of cataract surgery in elderly subjects with genetically diagnosed heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH) receiving statin treatment for ≥5 years, and compare this with controls. Methods: This is an observational, multicenter, case–control study from five lipid clinics in Spain. We collected data with the following inclusion criteria: age ≥65 years, LDL cholesterol levels ≥220 mg/dL without lipid-lowering drugs, a pathogenic mutation in a candidate gene for HeFH (LDLR, APOB, or PCSK9) and statin treatment for ≥5 years. Controls were selected from relatives of HeFH patients without hypercholesterolemia. Linear and logistic regressions based on generalized linear models and generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used. Cataract surgery was used as a proxy for cataract development. Results: We analyzed 205 subjects, 112 HeFH, and 93 controls, with a mean age of 71.8 (6.5) and 70.0 (7.3) years, respectively. HeFH subjects presented no difference in clinical characteristics, including smoking, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes mellitus, compared with controls. The mean duration of lipid-lowering treatment in HeFH was 22.5 (8.7) years. Cataract surgery prevalence was not significantly different between cases and controls. The presence of cataracts was associated neither with LDLc nor with the length of the statin therapy. Conclusion: In the present study, HeFH was not a risk factor for cataract surgery and prolonged statin treatment did not favor it either. These findings suggest that statin treatment is not related with cataracts

Do ResearchGate Scores create ghost academic reputations?

[EN] The academic social network site ResearchGate (RG) has its own indicator, RG Score, for its members. The high profile nature of the site means that the RG Score may be used for recruitment, promotion and other tasks for which researchers are evaluated. In response, this study investigates whether it is reasonable to employ the RG Score as evidence of scholarly reputation. For this, three different author samples were investigated. An outlier sample includes 104 authors with high values. A Nobel sample comprises 73 Nobel winners from Medicine and Physiology, Chemistry, Physics and Economics (from 1975 to 2015). A longitudinal sample includes weekly data on 4 authors with different RG Scores. The results suggest that high RG Scores are built primarily from activity related to asking and answering questions in the site. In particular, it seems impossible to get a high RG Score solely through publications. Within RG it is possible to distinguish between (passive) academics that interact little in the site and active platform users, who can get high RG Scores through engaging with others inside the site (questions, answers, social networks with influential researchers). Thus, RG Scores should not be mistaken for academic reputation indicators.Alberto Martin-Martin enjoys a four-year doctoral fellowship (FPU2013/05863) granted by the Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura, y Deporte (Spain). Enrique Orduna-Malea holds a postdoctoral fellowship (PAID-10-14), from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain).Orduña Malea, E.; Martín-Martín, A.; Thelwall, M.; Delgado-López-Cózar, E. (2017). Do ResearchGate Scores create ghost academic reputations?. Scientometrics. 112(1):443-460. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2396-9S4434601121Bosman, J. & Kramer, B. (2016). Innovations in scholarly communication—data of the global 2015–2016 survey. Available at: http://zenodo.org/record/49583 #. Accessed December 11, 2016.González-Díaz, C., Iglesias-García, M., & Codina, L. (2015). Presencia de las universidades españolas en las redes sociales digitales científicas: Caso de los estudios de comunicación. El profesional de la información, 24(5), 1699–2407.Goodwin, S., Jeng, W., & He, D. (2014). Changing communication on ResearchGate through interface updates. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 51(1), 1–4.Hicks, D., Wouters, P., Waltman, L., de Rijcke, S., & Rafols, I. (2015). The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics. Nature, 520(7548), 429–431.Hoffmann, C. P., Lutz, C., & Meckel, M. (2015). A relational altmetric? Network centrality on ResearchGate as an indicator of scientific impact. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 67(4), 765–775.Jiménez-Contreras, E., de Moya Anegón, F., & Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2003). The evolution of research activity in Spain: The impact of the National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (CNEAI). Research Policy, 32(1), 123–142.Jordan, K. (2014a). Academics’ awareness, perceptions and uses of social networking sites: Analysis of a social networking sites survey dataset (December 3, 2014). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2507318 . Accessed December 11, 2016.Jordan, K. (2014b). Academics and their online networks: Exploring the role of academic social networking sites. First Monday, 19(11). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v19i11.4937 . Accessed December 11, 2016.Jordan, K. (2015). Exploring the ResearchGate score as an academic metric: reflections and implications for practice. Quantifying and Analysing Scholarly Communication on the Web (ASCW’15), 30 June 2015, Oxford. Available at: http://ascw.know-center.tugraz.at/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ASCW15_jordan_response_kraker-lex.pdf . Accessed December 11, 2016.Kadriu, A. (2013). Discovering value in academic social networks: A case study in ResearchGate. Proceedings of the ITI 2013—35th Int. Conf. on Information Technology Interfaces Information Technology Interfaces, pp. 57–62.Kraker, P. & Lex, E. (2015). A critical look at the ResearchGate score as a measure of scientific reputation. Proceedings of the Quantifying and Analysing Scholarly Communication on the Web workshop (ASCW’15), Web Science conference 2015. Available at: http://ascw.know-center.tugraz.at/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/ASCW15_kraker-lex-a-critical-look-at-the-researchgate-score_v1-1.pdf . Accessed December 11, 2016.Li, L., He, D., Jeng, W., Goodwin, S. & Zhang, C. (2015). Answer quality characteristics and prediction on an academic Q&A Site: A case study on ResearchGate. Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web Companion, pp. 1453–1458.Martín-Martín, A., Orduna-Malea, E., Ayllón, J. M. & Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2016). The counting house: measuring those who count. Presence of Bibliometrics, Scientometrics, Informetrics, Webometrics and Altmetrics in the Google Scholar Citations, ResearcherID, ResearchGate, Mendeley & Twitter. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.02412 . Accessed December 11, 2016.Martín-Martín, A., Orduna-Malea, E. & Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2016). The role of ego in academic profile services: Comparing Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Mendeley, and ResearcherID. Researchgate, Mendeley, and Researcherid. The LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog. Available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/03/04/academic-profile-services-many-mirrors-and-faces-for-a-single-ego . Accessed December 11, 2016.Matthews, D. (2016). Do academic social networks share academics’ interests?. Times Higher Education. Available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/do-academic-social-networks-share-academics-interests . Accessed December 11, 2016.Memon, A. R. (2016). ResearchGate is no longer reliable: leniency towards ghost journals may decrease its impact on the scientific community. Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 66(12), 1643–1647.Mikki, S., Zygmuntowska, M., Gjesdal, Ø. L. & Al Ruwehy, H. A. (2015). Digital presence of norwegian scholars on academic network sites-where and who are they?. Plos One 10(11). Available at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142709 . Accessed December 11, 2016.Nicholas, D., Clark, D., & Herman, E. (2016). ResearchGate: Reputation uncovered. Learned Publishing, 29(3), 173–182.Orduna-Malea, E., Martín-Martín, A., & Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2016). The next bibliometrics: ALMetrics (Author Level Metrics) and the multiple faces of author impact. El profesional de la información, 25(3), 485–496.Ortega, Jose L. (2015). Relationship between altmetric and bibliometric indicators across academic social sites: The case of CSIC’s members. Journal of informetrics, 9(1), 39–49.Ortega, Jose L. (2016). Social network sites for scientists. Cambridge: Chandos.Ovadia, S. (2014). ResearchGate and Academia. edu: Academic social networks. Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian, 33(3), 165–169.Thelwall, M., & Kousha, K. (2015). ResearchGate: Disseminating, communicating, and measuring Scholarship? Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(5), 876–889.Thelwall, M. & Kousha, K. (2017). ResearchGate articles: Age, discipline, audience size and impact. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68(2), 468–479.Van Noorden, R. (2014). Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network. Nature, 512(7513), 126–129.Wilsdon, J., Allen, L., Belfiore, E., Campbell, P., Curry, S., Hill, S. et al. (2015). The Metric Tide: Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. HEFCE. Available at: http://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.4929.1363 . Accessed December 11, 2016

INSTALACIÓN Y CONFIGURACIÓN DHCP SERVER, DNS SERVER Y CONTROLADOR DE DOMINIO, PROXY NO TRANSPARENTE, CORTAFUEGOS, SERVICIOS FILE SERVER, PRINT SERVER Y VPN

El presente documento se detalla, muestra y evidencia el proceso realizado en la instalación de los diferentes procesos de administración y control de red que permite el servidor Zentyal. En el cual se realizará la Instalación y configuración DHCP Server, DNS Server y Controlador de Dominio, También un Proxy no transparente, Cortafuegos, servicios File Server, Print Server y VPN. Todo lo anterior mencionado con la intensión de que, como grupo de trabajo, terminemos de dar solución a la problemática* de puesta en marcha una infraestructura de red de acuerdo a los servicios y requerimientos específicos solicitados por el clienteThis document details, shows and evidences the process carried out in the installation of the different network administration and control processes that the Zentyal server allows. In which the Installation and configuration of the DHCP Server, DNS Server and Domain Controller will be carried out, as well as a non-transparent Proxy, Firewall, File Server, Print Server and VPN services. All of the above mentioned with the intention that, as a working group, we finish solving the problem of setting up a network infrastructure according to the specific services and requirements requested by the client

Analysis of Key Features of Non-Linear Behavior Using Recurrence Plots. Case Study: Urban Pollution at Mexico City

ABSTRACT The use of Recurrence plots have been extensively used in various fields. In this work, Recurrence Plots (RPs) investigates the changes in the non-linear behaviour of urban air pollution using large datasets of raw data (hourly). This analysis has not been used before to extract information from large datasets for this type non-linear problem. Two different approaches have been used to tackle this problem. The first approach is to show results according to monitoring network. The second approach is to show the results by particle type. This analysis shows the feasibility of using Recurrence Analysis for pollution monitoring and control

Dietary and Lifestyle Patterns in the Spanish Pediatric Population (One to <10 Years Old): Design, Protocol, and Methodology of the EsNuPI Study

The interest in a healthy diet and lifestyle during the early stages of life increased, pointing out its role in the development of noncommunicable chronic diseases throughout adult life. Dietary habits and dietary patterns begin to be established in early childhood and persist during adulthood. Therefore, the EsNuPI (“Nutritional Study in Spanish Pediatric Population”) study aims to depict the dietary patterns, physical activity, and sedentary behaviors in Spanish children aged from one to <10 years old. This prospective, cross-sectional, observational study recruited a total of 1514 children from Spanish cities with >50,000 inhabitants, stratified by Nielsen areas. Participants were involved in one face-to-face survey, followed by a telephone survey after at least one week. Information about dietary intake and habits was obtained using a quantitative food frequency questionnaire and two 24-h dietary recalls. Physical activity and sedentary behaviors were registered using a specific questionnaire based on a seven-day record. Data were processed and stratified by categorical variables to be statistically analyzed in order to meet the study objectives. This study is the first of its kind in a Spanish reference population of this age range and the first to evaluate whether the consumption of adapted milk formulas and dairy products is associated with healthier dietary patterns and better diet quality and lifestyles in this group.This research was funded by Instituto Puleva de Nutrición (IPN)

Surgical treatment for colorectal cancer: Analysis of the influence of an enhanced recovery programme on long-term oncological outcomes-a study protocol for a prospective, multicentre, observational cohort study

Introduction The evidence currently available from enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) programmes concerns their benefits in the immediate postoperative period, but there is still very little evidence as to whether their correct implementation benefits patients in the long term. The working hypothesis here is that, due to the lower response to surgical aggression and lower rates of postoperative complications, ERAS protocols can reduce colorectal cancer-related mortality. The main objective of this study is to analyse the impact of an ERAS programme for colorectal cancer on 5-year survival. As secondary objectives, we propose to analyse the weight of each of the predefined items in the oncological results as well as the quality of life. Methods and analysis A multicentre prospective cohort study was conducted in patients older than 18 years of age who are scheduled to undergo surgery for colorectal cancer. The study involved 12 hospitals with an implemented enhanced recovery protocol according to the guidelines published by the Spanish National Health Service. The intervention group includes patients with a minimum implementation level of 70%, and the control group includes those who fail to reach this level. Compliance will be studied using 18 key performance indicators, and the results will be analysed using cancer survival indicators, including overall survival, cancer-specific survival and relapse-free survival. The time to recurrence, perioperative morbidity and mortality, hospital stay and quality of life will also be studied, the latter using the validated EuroQol Five questionnaire. The propensity index method will be used to create comparable treatment and control groups, and a multivariate regression will be used to study each variable. The Kaplan-Meier estimator will be used to estimate survival and the log-rank test to make comparisons. A p value of less than 0.05 (two-tailed) will be considered to be significant. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Aragon Ethical Committee (C.P.-C.I. PI20/086) on 4 March 2020. The findings of this study will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals (BMJ Open, JAMA Surgery, Annals of Surgery, British Journal of Surgery). Abstracts will be submitted to relevant national and international meetings.The present research study was awarded a Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación health research project grant (PI19/00291) from the Carlos III Institute of the Spanish National Health Service as part of the 2019 call for Strategic Action in Health

Antitubercular drugs for an old target: GSK693 as a promising InhA direct inhibitor

AbstractDespite being one of the first antitubercular agents identified, isoniazid (INH) is still the most prescribed drug for prophylaxis and tuberculosis (TB) treatment and, together with rifampicin, the pillars of current chemotherapy. A high percentage of isoniazid resistance is linked to mutations in the pro-drug activating enzyme KatG, so the discovery of direct inhibitors (DI) of the enoyl-ACP reductase (InhA) has been pursued by many groups leading to the identification of different enzyme inhibitors, active against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), but with poor physicochemical properties to be considered as preclinical candidates. Here, we present a series of InhA DI active against multidrug (MDR) and extensively (XDR) drug-resistant clinical isolates as well as in TB murine models when orally dosed that can be a promising foundation for a future treatment

Polymorphism of the transcription factor 7-like 2 gene (TCF7L2) interacts with obesity on type-2 diabetes in the PREDIMED study emphasizing the heterogeneity of genetic variants in type-2 diabetes risk prediction: time for obesity-specific genetic risk scores

Nutrigenetic studies analyzing gene–diet interactions of the TCF7L2-rs7903146 C > T polymorphism on type-2 diabetes (T2D) have shown controversial results. A reason contributing to this may be the additional modulation by obesity. Moreover, TCF7L2-rs7903146 is one of the most influential variants in T2D-genetic risk scores (GRS). Therefore, to increase the predictive value (PV) of GRS it is necessary to first see whether the included polymorphisms have heterogeneous effects. We comprehensively investigated gene-obesity interactions between the TCF7L2-rs7903146 C > T polymorphism on T2D (prevalence and incidence) and analyzed other T2D-polymorphisms in a sub-sample. We studied 7018 PREDIMED participants at baseline and longitudinally (8.7 years maximum follow-up). Obesity significantly interacted with the TCF7L2-rs7903146 on T2D prevalence, associations being greater in non-obese subjects. Accordingly, we prospectively observed in non-T2D subjects (n = 3607) that its association with T2D incidence was stronger in non-obese (HR: 1.81; 95% CI: 1.13–2.92, p = 0.013 for TT versus CC) than in obese subjects (HR: 1.01; 95% CI: 0.61–1.66; p = 0.979; p-interaction = 0.048). Accordingly, TCF7L2-PV was higher in non-obese subjects. Additionally, we created obesity-specific GRS with ten T2D-polymorphisms and demonstrated for the first time their higher strata-specific PV. In conclusion, we provide strong evidence supporting the need for considering obesity when analyzing the TCF7L2 effects and propose the use of obesity-specific GRS for T2D