A922 Sequential measurement of 1 hour creatinine clearance (1-CRCL) in critically ill patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI)

Meeting abstrac

The management of acute venous thromboembolism in clinical practice. Results from the European PREFER in VTE Registry

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe. Data from real-world registries are necessary, as clinical trials do not represent the full spectrum of VTE patients seen in clinical practice. We aimed to document the epidemiology, management and outcomes of VTE using data from a large, observational database. PREFER in VTE was an international, non-interventional disease registry conducted between January 2013 and July 2015 in primary and secondary care across seven European countries. Consecutive patients with acute VTE were documented and followed up over 12 months. PREFER in VTE included 3,455 patients with a mean age of 60.8 ± 17.0 years. Overall, 53.0 % were male. The majority of patients were assessed in the hospital setting as inpatients or outpatients (78.5 %). The diagnosis was deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) in 59.5 % and pulmonary embolism (PE) in 40.5 %. The most common comorbidities were the various types of cardiovascular disease (excluding hypertension; 45.5 %), hypertension (42.3 %) and dyslipidaemia (21.1 %). Following the index VTE, a large proportion of patients received initial therapy with heparin (73.2 %), almost half received a vitamin K antagonist (48.7 %) and nearly a quarter received a DOAC (24.5 %). Almost a quarter of all presentations were for recurrent VTE, with >80 % of previous episodes having occurred more than 12 months prior to baseline. In conclusion, PREFER in VTE has provided contemporary insights into VTE patients and their real-world management, including their baseline characteristics, risk factors, disease history, symptoms and signs, initial therapy and outcomes

Molecular mechanisms of cell death: recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death 2018.

Over the past decade, the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death (NCCD) has formulated guidelines for the definition and interpretation of cell death from morphological, biochemical, and functional perspectives. Since the field continues to expand and novel mechanisms that orchestrate multiple cell death pathways are unveiled, we propose an updated classification of cell death subroutines focusing on mechanistic and essential (as opposed to correlative and dispensable) aspects of the process. As we provide molecularly oriented definitions of terms including intrinsic apoptosis, extrinsic apoptosis, mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT)-driven necrosis, necroptosis, ferroptosis, pyroptosis, parthanatos, entotic cell death, NETotic cell death, lysosome-dependent cell death, autophagy-dependent cell death, immunogenic cell death, cellular senescence, and mitotic catastrophe, we discuss the utility of neologisms that refer to highly specialized instances of these processes. The mission of the NCCD is to provide a widely accepted nomenclature on cell death in support of the continued development of the field

Real-time procedure to detect losses in photovoltaic generators using the instantaneous and the translated Performance Ratio

In the past the diagnosis of PV panels was mainly devoted to evaluate the performance degradation due to the manufacturing process and to guarantee the 25 years lifetime; these analysis was essentially based on off-line costly laboratory measurement. Recent studies shown that the degradation of photovoltaic (PV) panels is accelerated by various unpredictable and unavoidable phenomena, e.g, the extreme environmental and operating conditions, or by the type of electrical connections thus, in order to prevent the stop of the PV plants, the development of on-line diagnostic techniques is assuming great of interest for the customers and manufacturers of PV systems. The real-time monitoring of the electrical and environmental operating conditions, devoted to the energy productivity analysis, is a feature already offered to the PV customers. However these analyses are mainly used to quantify the return of the investment of the PV plants. The estimation of the global energy productivity is a too coarse information for understanding the problems affecting the modules and for performing the right repairing. Thus, new and even more advanced on-line diagnostic algorithms must be developed in order to monitor the status of the cells and to predict failures before they lead to a significant reduction on the energy produced by the module. Such failures might be not only due to cells malfunctioning, but also to faults of the bypass diode the module is equipped with. This might happen due to repeated shadowing or to lightning. The aim of this lecture is to give an overview of the PV diagnostic methodologies proposed in literature. The main features of some PV commercial products are also shown. Finally a new approach for the on-line diagnostic will be discussed.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

From geography to genes: evolutionary perspectives on salinity tolerance in the brackish water barnacle Balanus improvisus

How species respond to changes in their environment is a fundamental question in biology. This has become an increasingly important issue as anthropogenic effects of climate change and biological invasions have major impacts on marine ecosystems worldwide. In this thesis I investigated the role of salinity tolerance from an evolutionary perspective, using a wide range of techniques, spanning from population genetics and common-garden experiments to characterizing potential genes involved in osmoregulation in barnacles. I used the acorn barnacle species Balanus (Amphibalanus) improvisus, which displays a remarkably broad salinity tolerance, to investigate how this trait has influenced the species' potential to establish in new environments, and respond to projected near-future salinity reductions in coastal seas. I also examined physiological and molecular mechanisms that may be involved in osmoregulation in B. improvisus. I further analysed population genetic structure using microsatellites and mitochondrial DNA, and related the results to anthropogenic and natural dispersal dynamics on both global and regional (Baltic Sea) scales. I found high genetic diversity in most populations, with many shared haplotypes between distant populations. This supports the hypothesis that maritime shipping is an important vector for the dispersal of the cosmopolitan species B. improvisus. Nonetheless, natural larval dispersal is also important on smaller geographical scales, such as within the Baltic Sea. Marked genetic differentiation between northern and southern Baltic Sea populations raises the question whether there is restricted gene flow within the Baltic Sea, creating potential for local adaptations to evolve. To investigate the extent to which the broad distribution of B. improvisus along the Baltic Sea salinity gradient is explained by local adaptation versus physiological plasticity, I performed a common-garden experiment in which multiple populations were exposed to different salinities and multiple fitness-related phenotypic traits were recorded. The experiment confirmed that phenotypic plasticity, rather than local adaptation, explained the broad distribution of the species along the salinity gradient. Interestingly, all populations of B. improvisus performed best at low and intermediate salinities in many fitness-related traits (survival, growth and reproduction), although other traits (e.g. shell strength an juvenile growth) indicated higher costs associated with low salinity. A candidate gene approach was used to investigate the molecular basis of broad salinity tolerance in B. improvisus by characterizing the Na+/K+ ATPase (NAK) of B. improvisus – an ion transporter commonly involved in active osmoregulation in many species. We identified two main gene variants in B. improvisus (NAK1 and NAK2), and found that NAK1 mRNA existed in two isoforms that were differentially expressed in different life stages and adult tissues, suggesting an active role in osmoregulation. Lastly, I summarise current knowledge about salinity tolerance in barnacles and outline new research directions to further our understanding of the physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in salinity tolerance in barnacles