EUPVSEC 2018

There are many characterization techniques available to evaluate the health of solar panels, such as I-V characterization, infrared thermography (IR), photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL). EL imaging has become in recent years a powerful diagnostic tool to evaluate PV modules. EL images allow to detect several defects and degradation modes in the solar cells. The failures are observed as dark contrasted areas in the images. Broad dark regions can be detected even in a low resolution image, while a high resolution image is needed to detect some more specific problems such as cracks, multi-cracks or other line-shaped defects.PósterJunta de Castilla y León (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación - Ref. VA081U16)Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Proyect ENE2014-56069-C4-4-R

Nasal carriage of panton valentine leukocidin-positive methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus in healthy preschool children

Objective Determining the prevalence of nasal carriage of S. aureus, both sensitive to methicillin and resistant to it, in preschool children and evaluating the presence of Panton-Valentine leukocidin genes in the isolates.Methods This was a cross-sectional study in which cultures from anterior nares were obtained from healthy preschool children. Isolates were identified as S. aureus based on morphological and biochemical tests. Antibiotic susceptibility profiles were determined by the disk diffusion method. All the isolates were further analyzed by multiplex PCR to determine the presence of mecA and PVL genes; methicillin-resistant isolates were also SCCmec typed by multiplex PCR.Results Overall S. aureus nasal colonization prevalence was 38.5 % and 4.8 % for methicillin-resistant strains. All the methicillin-resistant isolates carried the genes for PVL; two isolates possessed the SCCmec type IV, two were SCCmec type I and one was SCCmec type II.Conclusion This study revealed high PVL-positive, methicillin-resistant S. aureus colonization prevalence in healthy preschool children from Cartagena, which may play a key role in the epidemiology of community-associated infection by methicillin-resistant S. aureus in healthy children from this particular geographical area

Interaction Effect between Physical Activity and the BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism on Depression in Women from the PISMA-ep Study

This study was partially funded by the Consejeria de Salud, Junta de Andalucia (PI3222009), Consejeria de Innovacion, Proyecto de Excelencia (CTS-2010-6682), the Institute of Health Carlos III (Co-funded by European Regional Development Fund/European Social Fund "A way to make Europe"/"Investing in your future") (projects PI18/00238 and PI18/00467), the Marie Curie Research Grants Scheme (FP7 626235), and by a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (22514). Juan Antonio Zarza-Rebollo was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BES-2017-082698). Elena Lopez-Isac received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion Program (grant code IJC2019-040080-I/AEI/10.13039/501100011033). AnaMPerez-Gutierrez was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and Institute of Health Carlos III (FI19/00228), and Margarita Rivera was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Ramon y Cajal Program (RYC-2014-15774).The relationship between depression and the Val66Met polymorphism at the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene (BDNF), has been largely studied. It has also been related to physical activity, although the results remain inconclusive. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between this polymorphism, depression and physical activity in a thoroughly characterised sample of community-based individuals from the PISMA-ep study. A total of 3123 participants from the PISMAep study were genotyped for the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism, of which 209 had depression. Our results are in line with previous studies reporting a protective effect of physical activity on depression, specifically in light intensity. Interestingly, we report a gene-environment interaction effect in which Met allele carriers of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism who reported more hours of physical activity showed a decreased prevalence of depression. This effect was observed in the total sample (OR = 0.95, 95%CI = 0.90–0.99, p = 0.027) and was strengthened in women (OR = 0.93, 95%CI = 0.87–0.98, p = 0.019). These results highlight the potential role of physical activity as a promising therapeutic strategy for preventing and adjuvant treatment of depression and suggest molecular and genetic particularities of depression between sexes.Junta de Andalucia PI3222009Consejeria de Innovacion, Proyecto de Excelencia CTS-2010-6682Institute of Health Carlos III (European Regional Development Fund/European Social Fund "A way to make Europe"/"Investing in your future") PI18/00238 PI18/00467Marie Curie Research Grants Scheme FP7 626235NARSAD 22514Spanish Government BES-2017-082698Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion Program IJC2019-040080-I/AEI/10.13039/501100011033Ministry of Economy and CompetitivenessInstituto de Salud Carlos III FI19/00228Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Ramon y Cajal Program RYC-2014-1577

Body mass index interacts with a genetic-risk score for depression increasing the risk of the disease in high-susceptibility individuals

This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Health, the Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII), and the European Regional Development Fund (grants PS09/02272, PS09/02147, PS09/01095, PS09/00849, PS09/00461, and PI12-02755); the Andalusian Council of Health (grant PI-0569-2010); the Spanish Network of Primary Care Research, redIAPP (grant RD06/ 0018); the Aragon group (grant RD06/0018/0020); the Bizkaya group (grant RD06/0018/0018); the Castilla-Leon group (grant RD06/0018/0027); the Mental Health Barcelona Group (grant RD06/0018/0017); the Mental Health, Services and Primary Care Malaga group (grant RD06/0018/0039); and the projects "PI18/00238" and "PI18/00467" funded by the Institute of Health Carlos III (Co-funded by European Regional Development Fund/European Social Fund "A way tomake Europe"/"Investing in your future"). This study was performed as part of a PhD thesis conducted within the Official Doctoral Programme in Biomedicine of the University of Granada, Spain. Augusto Anguita-Ruiz was supported by a Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and Institute of Health Carlos III fellowship (IFI17/00048). Juan Antonio Zarza-Rebollo received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BES-2017-082698). Ana M. Perez-Gutierrez was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and Institute of Health Carlos III (FI19/00228). Elena Lopez-Isac received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion Program (IJC2019040080-I), and Margarita Rivera was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Ramon y Cajal Program (RYC-2014-15774). The authors thank the Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII), the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), the Andalusian Council of Health and Andalusian Health Service (SAS), the Primary Care Prevention and Health Promotion Research Network (redIAPP), the Biomedical Research Institute of Malaga (IBIMA), and the Biomedical Research Centre (CIBM) from the University of Granada for their economic and logistic support. The authors thank all the patients and General Practitioners who participated in the trial.Depression is strongly associated with obesity among other chronic physical diseases. The latest mega- and meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies have identified multiple risk loci robustly associated with depression. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether a genetic-risk score (GRS) combining multiple depression risk single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) might have utility in the prediction of this disorder in individuals with obesity. A total of 30 depression-associated SNPs were included in a GRS to predict the risk of depression in a large case-control sample from the Spanish PredictD-CCRT study, a national multicentre, randomized controlled trial, which included 104 cases of depression and 1546 controls. An unweighted GRS was calculated as a summation of the number of risk alleles for depression and incorporated into several logistic regression models with depression status as the main outcome. Constructed models were trained and evaluated in the whole recruited sample. Non-genetic-risk factors were combined with the GRS in several ways across the five predictive models in order to improve predictive ability. An enrichment functional analysis was finally conducted with the aim of providing a general understanding of the biological pathways mapped by analyzed SNPs. We found that an unweighted GRS based on 30 risk loci was significantly associated with a higher risk of depression. Although the GRS itself explained a small amount of variance of depression, we found a significant improvement in the prediction of depression after including some non-genetic-risk factors into the models. The highest predictive ability for depression was achieved when the model included an interaction term between the GRS and the body mass index (BMI), apart from the inclusion of classical demographic information as marginal terms (AUC = 0.71, 95% CI = [0.65, 0.76]). Functional analyses on the 30 SNPs composing the GRS revealed an over-representation of the mapped genes in signaling pathways involved in processes such as extracellular remodeling, proinflammatory regulatory mechanisms, and circadian rhythm alterations. Although the GRS on its own explained a small amount of variance of depression, a significant novel feature of this study is that including non-genetic-risk factors such as BMI together with a GRS came close to the conventional threshold for clinical utility used in ROC analysis and improves the prediction of depression. In this study, the highest predictive ability was achieved by the model combining the GRS and the BMI under an interaction term. Particularly, BMI was identified as a trigger-like risk factor for depression acting in a concerted way with the GRS component. This is an interesting finding since it suggests the existence of a risk overlap between both diseases, and the need for individual depression genetics-risk evaluation in subjects with obesity. This research has therefore potential clinical implications and set the basis for future research directions in exploring the link between depression and obesityassociated disorders. While it is likely that future genome-wide studies with large samples will detect novel genetic variants associated with depression, it seems clear that a combination of genetics and non-genetic information (such is the case of obesity status and other depression comorbidities) will still be needed for the optimization prediction of depression in high-susceptibility individuals.Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII) European Commission PS09/02272 PS09/02147 PS09/01095 PS09/00849 PS09/00461 PI12-02755Andalusian Council of Health PI-0569-2010Spanish Network of Primary Care Research, redIAPP RD06/ 0018Gobierno de Aragon RD06/0018/0020Bizkaya group RD06/0018/0018Castilla-Leon group RD06/0018/0027Mental Health Barcelona Group RD06/0018/0017Mental Health, Services and Primary Care Malaga group RD06/0018/0039Instituto de Salud Carlos III PI18/00238 PI18/00467 FI19/00228European Regional Development Fund/European Social Fund "A way tomake Europe"/"Investing in your future"Ministry of Economy and CompetitivenessInstitute of Health Carlos III fellowship IFI17/00048Spanish Government BES-2017-082698Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion Program IJC2019040080-IMinistry of Economy and Competitiveness Ramon y Cajal Program RYC-2014-15774Andalusian Council of HealthAndalusian Health Service (SAS)Primary Care Prevention and Health Promotion Research Network (redIAPP)Biomedical Research Institute of Malaga (IBIMA)Biomedical Research Centre (CIBM) from the University of GranadaEuropean Commissio

Ultrathin Plasma Polymer Passivation of Perovskite Solar Cells for Improved Stability and Reproducibility

Despite the youthfulness of hybrid halide perovskite solar cells, their efficiencies are currently comparable to commercial silicon and have surpassed quantum-dots solar cells. Yet, the scalability of these devices is a challenge due to their low reproducibility and stability under environmental conditions. However, the techniques reported to date to tackle such issues recurrently involve the use of solvent methods that would further complicate their transfer to industry. Herein a reliable alternative relaying in the implementation of an ultrathin plasma polymer as a passivation interface between the electron transport layer and the hybrid perovskite layer is presented. Such a nanoengineered interface provides solar devices with increased long-term stability under ambient conditions. Thus, without involving any additional encapsulation step, the cells retain more than 80% of their efficiency after being exposed to the ambient atmosphere for more than 1000 h. Moreover, this plasma polymer passivation strategy significantly improves the coverage of the mesoporous scaffold by the perovskite layer, providing the solar cells with enhanced performance, with a champion efficiency of 19.2%, a remarkable value for Li-free standard mesoporous n-i-p architectures, as well as significantly improved reproducibility

Influence of ACE Gene I/D Polymorphism on Cardiometabolic Risk, Maximal Fat Oxidation, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Diet and Physical Activity in Young Adults

There is controversy about the relationship between ACE I/D polymorphism and health. Seventy-four healthy adults (n = 28 women; 22.5 +/- 4.2 years) participated in this cross-sectional study aimed at determining the influence of ACE I/D polymorphism, ascertained by polymerase chain reaction, on cardiometabolic risk (i.e., waist circumference, body fat, blood pressure (BP), glucose, triglycerides, and inflammatory markers), maximal fat oxidation (MFO), cardiorespiratory fitness (maximal oxygen uptake), physical activity and diet. Our results showed differences by ACE I/D polymorphism in systolic BP (DD: 116.4 +/- 11.8 mmHg; ID: 116.7 +/- 6.3 mmHg; II: 109.4 +/- 12.3 mmHg, p = 0.035) and body fat (DD: 27.3 +/- 10.8%; ID: 22.6 +/- 9.7%; II: 19.3 +/- 7.1%, p = 0.030). Interestingly, a genotype*sex interaction in relativized MFO by lean mass (p = 0.048) was found. The DD polymorphism had higher MFO values than ID/II polymorphisms in men (8.4 +/- 3.0 vs. 6.5 +/- 2.9 mg/kg/min), while the ID/II polymorphisms showed higher R-MFO values than DD polymorphism in women (6.6 +/- 2.3 vs. 7.6 +/- 2.6 mg/kg/min). In conclusion, ACE I/D polymorphism is apparently associated with adiposity and BP, where a protective effect can be attributed to the II genotype, but not with cardiorespiratory fitness, diet and physical activity. Moreover, our study highlighted that there is a sexual dimorphism in the influence of ACE I/D gene polymorphism on MFO

Highly Anisotropic Organometal Halide Perovskite Nanowalls Grown by Glancing-Angle Deposition

Polarizers are ubiquitous components in current optoelectronic devices as displays or photographic cameras. Yet, control over light polarization is an unsolved challenge, since the main drawback of the existing display technologies is the significant optical losses. In such a context, organometal halide perovskites (OMHP) can play a decisive role given their flexible synthesis with tunable optical properties such as bandgap and photoluminescence, and excellent light emission with a low non-radiative recombination rate. Therefore, along with their outstanding electrical properties have elevated hybrid perovskites as the material of choice in photovoltaics and optoelectronics. Among the different OMHP nanostructures, nanowires and nanorods have lately arisen as key players in the control of light polarization for lighting or detector applications. Herein, the fabrication of highly aligned and anisotropic methylammonium lead iodide perovskite nanowalls by glancing-angle deposition, which is compatible with most substrates, is presented. Their high alignment degree provides the samples with anisotropic optical properties such as light absorption and photoluminescence. Furthermore, their implementation in photovoltaic devices provides them with a polarization-sensitive response. This facile vacuum-based approach embodies a milestone in the development of last-generation polarization-sensitive perovskite-based optoelectronic devices such as lighting appliances or self-powered photodetectors

Thiamine transporter-2 deficiency: outcome and treatment monitoring

Background: The clinical characteristics distinguishing treatable thiamine transporter-2 deficiency (ThTR2) due to SLC19A3 genetic defects from the other devastating causes of Leigh syndrome are sparse. Methods. We report the clinical follow-up after thiamine and biotin supplementation in four children with ThTR2 deficiency presenting with Leigh and biotin-thiamine-responsive basal ganglia disease phenotypes. We established whole-blood thiamine reference values in 106 non-neurological affected children and monitored thiamine levels in SLC19A3 patients after the initiation of treatment. We compared our results with those of 69 patients with ThTR2 deficiency after a review of the literature. Results: At diagnosis, the patients were aged 1 month to 17 years, and all of them showed signs of acute encephalopathy, generalized dystonia, and brain lesions affecting the dorsal striatum and medial thalami. One patient died of septicemia, while the remaining patients evidenced clinical and radiological improvements shortly after the initiation of thiamine. Upon follow-up, the patients received a combination of thiamine (10-40 mg/kg/day) and biotin (1-2 mg/kg/day) and remained stable with residual dystonia and speech difficulties. After establishing reference values for the different age groups, whole-blood thiamine quantification was a useful method for treatment monitoring. Conclusions: ThTR2 deficiency is a reversible cause of acute dystonia and Leigh encephalopathy in the pediatric years. Brain lesions affecting the dorsal striatum and medial thalami may be useful in the differential diagnosis of other causes of Leigh syndrome. Further studies are needed to validate the therapeutic doses of thiamine and how to monitor them in these patientsAntecedentes: Las características clínicas distintivas del déficit tratable del trasportador de tiamina tipo 2 (ThTR2) debido a defectos genéticos del SLC19A3 de las otras causas devastadores del síndrome de Leigh son escasas. Métodos: Presentamos el seguimiento clínico después de la administración de suplementos de tiamina y biotina a cuatro niños con deficiencia ThTR2 que presentaban fenotipos de biotin-thiamine responsive basal ganglia disease y síndrome de Leigh. Hemos establecido valores de referencia de tiamina en sangre total en 106 niños sin patología neurológica y monitorizamos los niveles de tiamina en pacientes con mutación del SLC19A3 después del inicio del tratamiento. Hemos comparado nuestros resultados con los de 69 pacientes con deficiencia ThTR2 después de una revisión de la literatura. Resultados: Al momento del diagnóstico , los pacientes tenían entre 1 mes a 17 años, y todos ellos mostraron signos medial. Un paciente murió de septicemia, mientras que el resto de pacientes evidenciaron mejoras clínicas y radiológicas poco después del inicio de la tiamina. Al seguimiento, los pacientes recibieron una combinación de tiamina (10–40 mg/kg/día) y biotina (1–2 mg/kg/día) y se mantuvieron estables, aunque con distonía y dificultades del habla residual. Después de establecer valores de referencia para los diferentes grupos de edad, la cuantificación de tiamina en sangre total demuestra ser un método útil para el seguimiento del tratamiento. Conclusiones: La deficiencia ThTR2 es una causa reversible de la distonía aguda y síndrome de Leigh en la edad pediátrica. Las lesiones cerebrales que afectan el cuerpo estriado dorsal y tálamo medial pueden ser útiles en el diagnóstico diferencial de otras causas de síndrome de Leigh. Se necesitan más estudios para validar las dosis de tiamina y la monitorización terapéutica de estos pacientesSupported by Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria Grant PI12/02010 and PI12/02078; Centre for Biomedical Research on Rare Diseases, an initiative of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Barcelona, Spain; Agència de Gestio’ d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca-Agaur FI-DGR 2014 (JD Ortigoza-Escobar

Body mass index interacts with a genetic-risk score for depression increasing the risk of the disease in high-susceptibility individuals

Depression is strongly associated with obesity among other chronic physical diseases. The latest mega- and meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies have identified multiple risk loci robustly associated with depression. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether a genetic-risk score (GRS) combining multiple depression risk single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) might have utility in the prediction of this disorder in individuals with obesity. A total of 30 depression-associated SNPs were included in a GRS to predict the risk of depression in a large case-control sample from the Spanish PredictD-CCRT study, a national multicentre, randomized controlled trial, which included 104 cases of depression and 1546 controls. An unweighted GRS was calculated as a summation of the number of risk alleles for depression and incorporated into several logistic regression models with depression status as the main outcome. Constructed models were trained and evaluated in the whole recruited sample. Non-genetic-risk factors were combined with the GRS in several ways across the five predictive models in order to improve predictive ability. An enrichment functional analysis was finally conducted with the aim of providing a general understanding of the biological pathways mapped by analyzed SNPs. We found that an unweighted GRS based on 30 risk loci was significantly associated with a higher risk of depression. Although the GRS itself explained a small amount of variance of depression, we found a significant improvement in the prediction of depression after including some non-genetic-risk factors into the models. The highest predictive ability for depression was achieved when the model included an interaction term between the GRS and the body mass index (BMI), apart from the inclusion of classical demographic information as marginal terms (AUC = 0.71, 95% CI = [0.65, 0.76]). Functional analyses on the 30 SNPs composing the GRS revealed an over-representation of the mapped genes in signaling pathways involved in processes such as extracellular remodeling, proinflammatory regulatory mechanisms, and circadian rhythm alterations. Although the GRS on its own explained a small amount of variance of depression, a significant novel feature of this study is that including non-genetic-risk factors such as BMI together with a GRS came close to the conventional threshold for clinical utility used in ROC analysis and improves the prediction of depression. In this study, the highest predictive ability was achieved by the model combining the GRS and the BMI under an interaction term. Particularly, BMI was identified as a trigger-like risk factor for depression acting in a concerted way with the GRS component. This is an interesting finding since it suggests the existence of a risk overlap between both diseases, and the need for individual depression genetics-risk evaluation in subjects with obesity. This research has therefore potential clinical implications and set the basis for future research directions in exploring the link between depression and obesity-associated disorders. While it is likely that future genome-wide studies with large samples will detect novel genetic variants associated with depression, it seems clear that a combination of genetics and non-genetic information (such is the case of obesity status and other depression comorbidities) will still be needed for the optimization prediction of depression in high-susceptibility individuals

Recomendaciones basadas en la evidencia del grupo andaluz para la reflexión e investigación en nutrición (Garin) para el manejo del paciente con síndrome de intestino corto

In order to develop evidence-based recommendations and expert consensus for the nutritional management of patients with short bowel syndrome (SBS), we conducted a systematic literature search using the PRISMA methodology plus a critical appraisal following the GRADE scale procedures. Pharmacological treatment with antisecretory drugs, antidiarrheal drugs, and somatostatin contributes to reducing intestinal losses. Nutritional support is based on parenteral nutrition; however, oral intake and/or enteral nutrition should be introduced as soon as possible. In the chronic phase, the diet should have as few restrictions as possible, and be adapted to the SBS type. Home parenteral nutrition (HPN) should be individualized. Single-lumen catheters are recommended and taurolidine should be used for locking the catheter. The HPN’s lipid content must be greater than 1 g/kg per week but not exceed 1 g/kg per day, and omega-6 fatty acids (ω6 FAs) should be reduced. Trace element vials with low doses of manganese should be used. Patients with chronic SBS who require long-term HPN/fluid therapy despite optimized treatment should be considered for teduglutide treatment. All patients require a multidisciplinary approach and specialized follow-up. These recommendations and suggestions regarding nutritional management in SBS patients have direct clinical applicability