A case for merging the ILP and DLP paradigms

The goal of this paper is to show that instruction level parallelism (ILP) and data-level parallelism (DLP) can be merged in a single architecture to execute vectorizable code at a performance level that can not be achieved using either paradigm on its own. We will show that the combination of the two techniques yields very high performance at a low cost and a low complexity. We will show that this architecture can reach a performance equivalent to a superscalar processor that sustained 10 instructions per cycle. We will see that the machine exploiting both types of parallelism improves upon the ILP-only machine by factors of 1.5-1.8. We also present a study on the scalability of both paradigms and show that, when we increase resources to reach a 16-issue machine, the advantage of the ILP+DLP machine over the ILP-only machine increases up to 2.0-3.45. While the peak achieved IPC for the ILP machine is 4, the ILP+DLP machine exceeds 10 instructions per cycle.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Ruthenium deposited onto graphitic carbon modified with boron for the intensified photocatalytic production of benzaldehyde

The selective oxidation of added-value aromatic alcohols into aldehydes of high interest via photocatalysis has been postulated as a green and competitive oxidative reaction at mild conditions. This work is focused on the design of a tertiary graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) based photocatalysts competitive for the photocatalytic production of benzaldehyde in an aqueous solution. The polymeric g-C3N4 has been modified in an easy one-pot green synthesis scheme, with the incorporation of boron in the polymeric structure and the deposition of ruthenium nanoparticles. The Ru ratio within 0.5–4% was assessed. The photocatalysts were fully characterized (XRD, FTIR, XPS, N2 isotherms, DRS-UV–visible, and PL) and the photocatalytic activity was assessed in the oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde in an aqueous solution. The incorporation of boron enhanced the selectivity towards benzaldehyde due to enhanced separation charges suggested by the photoluminescence technique; whereas ruthenium improved the reaction rate of the alcohol, affecting negatively the selectivity though. The sample containing 1% of Ru was selected as the optimum in terms of selectivity. The relative contribution of the involved reactive oxidant species was assessed by chemical scavenger tests, highlighting the contribution of the photo-generated holes followed by O2•‾. The analysis of the band’s alignment of the g-C3N4 before the modification with boron and ruthenium supports the enhancement by rising the redox potential of the holes released in the valence band

Towards the photocatalytic production of cinnamaldehyde with phosphorous-tailored graphitic-like carbon nitride

Photocatalysis has emerged as an environmentally friendly technology to develop selective reactions such as the oxidation of alcohol to aldehydes. Graphitic carbon nitride (CN) is a metal-free polymeric structure easily photoactivated under radiation. This work focuses on the enhancement of the photocatalytic activity of bare CN by doping it with phosphorous (P-CN). Different doping levels of P (2–12 wt.) have been explored and the samples were fully characterized by XRD, FTIR, N2 physisorption, elemental analysis, XPS, DRS-UV–visible, and photoluminescence. A better activity and enhanced selectivity were observed in the P-CN samples if compared to the undoped CN in the oxidation of cinnamyl alcohol to cinnamaldehyde in aqueous solution. The presence of P was demonstrated to contribute to a better delocalization of photo-generated charges. Moreover, the reactivity and selectivity of the CN and P-CN samples were analyzed in water-acetonitrile mixtures, appreciating a better selectivity in the presence of acetonitrile to the detriment of the conversion of the cinnamyl alcohol. The photocatalytic oxidation mechanism over P-CN in aqueous media has been tentatively proposed based on the influence of the reactive oxidative species generated in the process by chemical scavenger tests. They suggested the contribution of superoxide radicals with more selectivity than the photo-generated holes, the second reactive species of importance in the overall oxidation scheme. The contribution of hydroxyl radicals was discharged since its presence was negligible in a probe test based on the formation of 2-hydroxy-terephthalic acid.University of Granada - “Precompetitive Research Projects” PPJIA2019-09 and PPJIA2021-34 grant

Boosted Activity of g-C3N4/UiO-66-NH2 Heterostructures for the Photocatalytic Degradation of Contaminants in Water

The combination of graphitic carbon nitride and the metal-organic framework UiO-66-NH2 has been developed with the aim to enhance the photocatalytic activity of pure semiconductors. Different proportions of g-C3N4 and UiO-66-NH2 were combined. Complete characterization analysis of the resulting photocatalytic materials was conducted, including N-2 adsorption isotherms, XRD, FTIR, STEM-EDX microscopy, DRS-UV-visible, and photoluminescence. The photocatalytic activity was tested in an aqueous solution for the removal of acetaminophen as the target pollutant. From the obtained results, less than 50% of UiO-66-NH2 incorporated in the g-C3N4 structure enhanced the photocatalytic degradation rate of both bare semiconductors. Concretely, 75% of g-C3N4 in the final g-C3N4 /UiO-66-NH2 heterostructure led to the best results, i.e., complete acetaminophen elimination initially at 5 mg.L-1 in 2 h with a pseudo-first order rate constant of ca. 2 h(-1). The presence of UiO-66-NH2 in the g-C3N4 enhanced the optoelectronic properties, concretely, the separation of the photo-generated charges was improved according to photoluminescence characterization. The better photo-absorption uptake was also confirmed by the determination of the quantum efficiency values of the heterostructure if compared to either pure g-C3N4 or UiO-66-NH2. This photocatalyst with the best activity was further tested at different pH values, with the best degradation rate at a pH close to the pH(pzc) similar to 4.15 of the solid. Sequential recycling tests demonstrated that the heterostructure was stable after five cycles of use, i.e., 15 h. A high contribution of photo-generated holes in the process of the degradation of acetaminophen, followed marginally by superoxide radicals, was suggested by scavenger tests.University of Granada PPJIA2019-09 PPJIA2021-3

Effectiveness of an intervention for improving drug prescription in primary care patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy:Study protocol of a cluster randomized clinical trial (Multi-PAP project)

This study was funded by the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias ISCIII (Grant Numbers PI15/00276, PI15/00572, PI15/00996), REDISSEC (Project Numbers RD12/0001/0012, RD16/0001/0005), and the European Regional Development Fund ("A way to build Europe").Background: Multimorbidity is associated with negative effects both on people's health and on healthcare systems. A key problem linked to multimorbidity is polypharmacy, which in turn is associated with increased risk of partly preventable adverse effects, including mortality. The Ariadne principles describe a model of care based on a thorough assessment of diseases, treatments (and potential interactions), clinical status, context and preferences of patients with multimorbidity, with the aim of prioritizing and sharing realistic treatment goals that guide an individualized management. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a complex intervention that implements the Ariadne principles in a population of young-old patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. The intervention seeks to improve the appropriateness of prescribing in primary care (PC), as measured by the medication appropriateness index (MAI) score at 6 and 12months, as compared with usual care. Methods/Design: Design:pragmatic cluster randomized clinical trial. Unit of randomization: family physician (FP). Unit of analysis: patient. Scope: PC health centres in three autonomous communities: Aragon, Madrid, and Andalusia (Spain). Population: patients aged 65-74years with multimorbidity (≥3 chronic diseases) and polypharmacy (≥5 drugs prescribed in ≥3months). Sample size: n=400 (200 per study arm). Intervention: complex intervention based on the implementation of the Ariadne principles with two components: (1) FP training and (2) FP-patient interview. Outcomes: MAI score, health services use, quality of life (Euroqol 5D-5L), pharmacotherapy and adherence to treatment (Morisky-Green, Haynes-Sackett), and clinical and socio-demographic variables. Statistical analysis: primary outcome is the difference in MAI score between T0 and T1 and corresponding 95% confidence interval. Adjustment for confounding factors will be performed by multilevel analysis. All analyses will be carried out in accordance with the intention-to-treat principle. Discussion: It is essential to provide evidence concerning interventions on PC patients with polypharmacy and multimorbidity, conducted in the context of routine clinical practice, and involving young-old patients with significant potential for preventing negative health outcomes. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT02866799Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Extinction risk of Mesoamerican crop wild relatives

Ensuring food security is one of the world's most critical issues as agricultural systems are already being impacted by global change. Crop wild relatives (CWR)—wild plants related to crops—possess genetic variability that can help adapt agriculture to a changing environment and sustainably increase crop yields to meet the food security challenge. Here we report the results of an extinction risk assessment of 224 wild relatives of some of the world's most important crops (i.e. chilli pepper, maize, common bean, avocado, cotton, potato, squash, vanilla and husk tomato) in Mesoamerica—an area of global significance as a centre of crop origin, domestication and of high CWR diversity. We show that 35% of the selected CWR taxa are threatened with extinction according to The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List demonstrates that these valuable genetic resources are under high anthropogenic threat. The dominant threat processes are land use change for agriculture and farming, invasive and other problematic species (e.g. pests, genetically modified organisms) and use of biological resources, including overcollection and logging. The most significant drivers of extinction relate to smallholder agriculture—given its high incidence and ongoing shifts from traditional agriculture to modern practices (e.g. use of herbicides)—smallholder ranching and housing and urban development and introduced genetic material. There is an urgent need to increase knowledge and research around different aspects of CWR. Policies that support in situ and ex situ conservation of CWR and promote sustainable agriculture are pivotal to secure these resources for the benefit of current and future generations

A case for merging the ILP and DLP paradigms

The goal of this paper is to show that instruction level parallelism (ILP) and data-level parallelism (DLP) can be merged in a single architecture to execute vectorizable code at a performance level that can not be achieved using either paradigm on its own. We will show that the combination of the two techniques yields very high performance at a low cost and a low complexity. We will show that this architecture can reach a performance equivalent to a superscalar processor that sustained 10 instructions per cycle. We will see that the machine exploiting both types of parallelism improves upon the ILP-only machine by factors of 1.5-1.8. We also present a study on the scalability of both paradigms and show that, when we increase resources to reach a 16-issue machine, the advantage of the ILP+DLP machine over the ILP-only machine increases up to 2.0-3.45. While the peak achieved IPC for the ILP machine is 4, the ILP+DLP machine exceeds 10 instructions per cycle.Peer Reviewe

Sulfonic grafted graphitic-like carbon nitride for the improved photocatalytic production of benzaldehyde in water

This work reports the modification of graphitic carbon nitride (CN) through sulfonation (SCN) as an enhanced strategy for photocatalytic activity during the oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde. CN was prepared from melamine and functionalized with -SO3H groups using different doses of chlorosulfonic acid. The textural, structural, morphological, chemical, and optical properties of the prepared samples were characterized by diverse techniques. The increase in the doping dose produced, a decrease in surface area, a blue-shifted absorption edge under irradiation, and a decrease in the recombination charges. The -SO3H improved the kinetics of benzyl alcohol oxidation (BA) in aqueous solution and raised the selectivity to benzaldehyde (BD). An optimum dosage of precursor led to an SCN sample with the highest removal rate and selectivity. This optimized sample was selected for the study of the reactive oxidant species involved during the photocatalytic process, suggesting that the species with the highest contribution during BA oxidation was the superoxide radical, especially in terms of selectivity for the aldehyde formation. This work examples the modification of carbon nitride to enhance the production of an aldehyde with interest in the industry under a sustainable scheme that involves the transformation of light into chemical energy in aqueous solution

Análisis de expresión e identificación de la familia de genes de piruvato descarboxilasa (FaPDC) en Fragaria x ananassa

El aroma en frutilla comercial (Fragaria x ananassa) es una característica compleja que contribuye significativamente a la calidad de la fruta, en este sentido, los principales responsables de la calidad aromática en un fruto son los compuestos orgánicos volátiles (VOCs), los que corresponden principalmente a compuestos tipo: alcoholes, aldehídos y ésteres. Durante el desarrollo del fruto, especialmente en la maduración, hay muchos cambios en la acumulación de estos metabolitos incrementando su síntesis, transporte o degradación a medida que el fruto se desarrolla. Se ha descrito que la enzima piruvato descarboxilasa (PDC) tiene participación en la generación del aroma del fruto maduro a través de su participación en la fermentación etanolica en frutilla. Por tal razón, la metodología de análisis de este trabajo, consistió en buscar todos los miembros codificantes para la enzima PDC en el genoma de F. ananassa, se analizaron los cambios de expresión relativa de genes codificantes para esta enzima en distintos estadios de maduración de frutos de frutilla, se determinaron las diferencias transcripcionales de estos transcritos y se obtuvo el modelamiento 3D de las distintas isoformas de PDC obtenidas. Finalmente, se evaluaron los VOCs mediante análisis SPME-GC-MS. Los resultados mostraron que existen al menos 9 genes codificantes para enzimas PDC en el genoma de frutilla, su estructura 3D resultó ser acorde a los dóminos descritos para esta familia, encontrando diferencias mínimas entre ellas (<2 Å de RMSD),  se determinó que el perfil transcripcional de FaPDC4, FaPDC8 y FaPDC9 tendrían un incremento en la expresión a medida que el fruto maduro, mientras que los genes FaPDC1, FaPDC2, FaPDC3 y FaPDC7 mostraron una expresión constante a medida que el fruto madura. Por su parte, FaPDC6 sólo mostró expresión en estadio 50%maduro y FaPDC5 no mostró expresión en frutos. Adicionalmente, se analizó los elementos en cis de la región promotora de los genes, encontrando que FaPDC4, FaPDC8 y FaPDC9 tendrían elementos de respuesta a acido abscísico (ABA), al realizar un análisis de expresión relativa sobre frutos tratados con ABA exógeno, mostraron incremento de expresión, indicando una posible regulación de parte de esta fitohormona sobre dichos genes. Finalmente, el análisis de los VOCs, mostró que los compuestos tipo esteres son los más importantes.Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Determinación de las diferencias de los componentes de la pared celular en plantas de frutillas bajo estrés por sequía a través de la simbiosis con hongos endófitos antárticos

La frutilla es una de las frutas más consumidas, pero este cultivo es altamente susceptible a la sequía, condición fuertemente asociada al cambio climático, causando pérdidas económicas por la menor calidad del producto. En este contexto, los hongos asociados a las raíces de las plantas emergen como una estrategia nueva y novedosa para mejorar el rendimiento de los cultivos bajo estrés por deficiencia de agua. Para soportar estas condiciones, la planta lleva a cabo modificaciones en su morfología y metabolismo, como modificaciones en la pared celular. Por lo tanto, realizamos un estudio comparativo de los cambios en las propiedades fisiológicas de los contenidos de polisacáridos asociados a la pared celular de los tejidos aéreos y radiculares de plantas de frutilla mediante análisis termogravimétrico (TGA) combinado con un enfoque transcripcional. El resultado mostró que la estabilidad térmica fue menor en los tejidos aéreos con respecto a las muestras de raíces. Los polímeros de carbohidratos presentes en la pared celular se han despolimerizado mostrando principalmente fragmentos de celulosa y hemicelulosa. Finalmente, el perfil transcripcional de genes codificantes para proteínas Expansinas 2 y 5 (FaEXPA2 y FaEXPA5), mostró un incremento en plantas de frutilla inoculadas, respecto a las plantas control, lo cual es acorde a lo descrito con los análisis de TGA.Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale