The portrait in the bourgeois and aristocratic collections in Madrid during the 19th century: presence, meaning and narratives

El estudio de diferentes fuentes literarias, documentales (sobre todo inventarios) y gráficas (en especial fotografías) permite conocer los numerosos usos que el género del retrato tuvo en las colecciones de la burguesía y la nobleza durante el siglo XIX en Madrid. Se analizan tanto la variedad de narrativas en la disposición de los retratos históricos y de las efigies familiares en sus respectivos domicilios particulares como los diversos significados que ambos tipos de imágenes tuvieron. Además, estas prácticas se ponen en relación con las sucesivas iniciativas llevadas a cabo durante toda esta centuria desde instituciones como el Museo del Prado.The study of different literary, documentary (mainly inventories) and graphic sources (especially photographs) allows us to know the numerous uses that the portrait as a genre had in the collections of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy during the 19th century in Madrid. The variety of narratives in the disposition of historical portraits and the families’ effigies in their residences are analyzed, as well as the countless meanings that both types of images had and their relationships with the different initiatives carried out during that period by institutions such as the Museo del Prado

Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering Education: Looking Through the Gender Question

The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) field in general, and Engineering, suffer from a lack of diversity. Yet there is growing evidence that more diverse organizations are more successful and effective. There is also a global shortage of STEM and engineering skills that can be tackled by addressing the lack of diversity in the field. One obvious way to view this problem is by looking at gender. Women make up 50% of the population, but in Engineering the number of female students and professionals is clearly less than this, often around 10 – 25% in many parts of the world. This underrepresentation of women leads us to think about other groups that are underrepresented in Engineering; these include Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and those from socially deprived backgrounds. This paper examines a number of approaches to support diversity and inclusion to encourage a greater uptake of engineering by underrepresented groups and to retain people in the sector

Canagliflozin and renal outcomes in type 2 diabetes and nephropathy

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the leading cause of kidney failure worldwide, but few effective long-term treatments are available. In cardiovascular trials of inhibitors of sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2), exploratory results have suggested that such drugs may improve renal outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS In this double-blind, randomized trial, we assigned patients with type 2 diabetes and albuminuric chronic kidney disease to receive canagliflozin, an oral SGLT2 inhibitor, at a dose of 100 mg daily or placebo. All the patients had an estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 30 to <90 ml per minute per 1.73 m2 of body-surface area and albuminuria (ratio of albumin [mg] to creatinine [g], >300 to 5000) and were treated with renin–angiotensin system blockade. The primary outcome was a composite of end-stage kidney disease (dialysis, transplantation, or a sustained estimated GFR of <15 ml per minute per 1.73 m2), a doubling of the serum creatinine level, or death from renal or cardiovascular causes. Prespecified secondary outcomes were tested hierarchically. RESULTS The trial was stopped early after a planned interim analysis on the recommendation of the data and safety monitoring committee. At that time, 4401 patients had undergone randomization, with a median follow-up of 2.62 years. The relative risk of the primary outcome was 30% lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group, with event rates of 43.2 and 61.2 per 1000 patient-years, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.59 to 0.82; P=0.00001). The relative risk of the renal-specific composite of end-stage kidney disease, a doubling of the creatinine level, or death from renal causes was lower by 34% (hazard ratio, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.81; P<0.001), and the relative risk of end-stage kidney disease was lower by 32% (hazard ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.54 to 0.86; P=0.002). The canagliflozin group also had a lower risk of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke (hazard ratio, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.67 to 0.95; P=0.01) and hospitalization for heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.47 to 0.80; P<0.001). There were no significant differences in rates of amputation or fracture. CONCLUSIONS In patients with type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, the risk of kidney failure and cardiovascular events was lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group at a median follow-up of 2.62 years

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Burnout y factores de riesgo psicosocial en el personal de un hospital de larga estancia

Nuestro objetivo fue evaluar la relación entre los riesgos psicosociales y el burnout en un hospital español de media-larga estancia. Se realizó un estudio transversal en 2017, aplicando la versión española del MBI-HSS y el cuestionario F-Psico 3.1 del Instituto Nacional de Seguridad e Higiene en el Trabajo. Variables predictoras: características sociodemográficas, moduladoras y factores de riesgo psicosocial. Variables resultado: prevalencia de burnout y afectación de sus subescalas. La asociación entre variables se cuantificó con odds ratio. El cansancio emocional se asoció positivamente a los riesgos psicosociales vinculados a carga de trabajo, demandas psicológicas, participación/supervisión, desempeño de rol, relaciones/apoyo social y al consumo de ansiolíticos; fueron factores protectores los hijos, sentirse valorado por pacientes y compañeros, satisfacción laboral, optimismo y apoyo social. Las asociaciones halladas para la despersonalización fueron similares, pero más débiles. La baja realización personal se asoció positivamente a los riesgos psicosociales vinculados al tiempo trabajado, autonomía, variedad/contenido del trabajo, desempeño de rol y apoyo social; fue la subescala que mostró mayor número de variables sociodemográficas/moduladoras protectoras: estado civil, tener hijos, trabajar de noche, sentirse valorado por pacientes y familiares, ilusión por el trabajo, apoyo social, autoeficacia y optimismo. Según nuestros resultados, existe asociación entre los riesgos psicosociales y el burnout. Los individuos con mayor satisfacción laboral, autoeficacia y optimismo, afrontan mejor el estrés y son menos vulnerables a los riesgos psicosociales y al burnoutThe aim of this study was to assess the relationship between psychosocial risks and burnout syndrome in a long-stay hospital in Spain. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017, applying the Spanish version of the MBI-HSS and the F-Psico 3.1 questionnaire of Spain’s National Institute of Work Safety and Health. The predictive variables were sociodemographic characteristics, modulators, and psychosocial risk factors. The outcome variables were prevalence of burnout and the effects on his subscales. Associations between variables were measured by odds ratio. Burnout was directly associated with psychosocial risks related to workload, psychological demands, participation/supervision, role performance and social support, and consumption of anxiolytics. Meanwhile, protective factors were having children, feeling valued by patients and coworkers, satisfaction at work, optimism, and social support. The associations found on depersonalization were similar but weaker. Low personal fulfillment was directly associated with the psychosocial risks related to length of workweek, limited autonomy and variety/content of work, and role performance and social support. Low personal fulfillment was the subscale with the most modulating and protective sociodemographic variables included marital status, children, night shift, feeling valued by patients and family members, social support, self-efficacy, and optimism. According to our results, there is an association between psychosocial risks and burnout syndrome. Individuals with greater work satisfaction, self-efficacy, and optimism cope better with stress and are less vulnerable to psychosocial risks and burnout

Comparison of Satellite and Drone-Based Images at Two Spatial Scales to Evaluate Vegetation Regeneration after Post-Fire Treatments in a Mediterranean Forest

The evaluation of vegetation cover after post-fire treatments of burned lands is important for forest managers to restore soil quality and plant biodiversity in burned ecosystems. Unfortunately, this evaluation may be time consuming and expensive, requiring much fieldwork for surveys. The use of remote sensing, which makes these evaluation activities quicker and easier, have rarely been carried out in the Mediterranean forests, subjected to wildfire and post-fire stabilization techniques. To fill this gap, this study evaluates the feasibility of satellite (using LANDSAT8 images) and drone surveys to evaluate changes in vegetation cover and composition after wildfire and two hillslope stabilization treatments (log erosion barriers, LEBs, and contour-felled log debris, CFDs) in a forest of Central Eastern Spain. Surveys by drone were able to detect the variability of vegetation cover among burned and unburned areas through the Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI), but gave unrealistic results when the effectiveness of a post-fire treatment must be evaluated. LANDSAT8 images may be instead misleading to evaluate the changes in land cover after wildfire and post-fire treatments, due to the lack of correlation between VARI and vegetation cover. The spatial analysis has shown that: (i) the post-fire restoration strategy of landscape managers that have prioritized steeper slopes for treatments was successful; (ii) vegetation growth, at least in the experimental conditions, played a limited influence on soil surface conditions, since no significant increases in terrain roughness were detected in treated areas