Anàlisi de la nova normativa en benestar animal. Les condicions d'habitatge de les truges gestants

Treball presentat a l'assignatura de Deontologia i Veterinària Legal (21223

Adaptació dels contenidors d'escombraries i millora de la seva accessibilitat a la ciutat de Barcelona per les persones amb disminució

Aquest treball té com a objectiu el redisseny i l’adaptació dels contenidors de càrrega lateral de 3.2 i 2.4 m3, fabricats per l’empresa Ros Roca S.A., per tal que siguin accessibles per a tothom i no perdin la funcionalitat que tenen actualment. Dins del projecte, s’engloba el redisseny dels contenidors de selectiva (paper i envasos), el de RSU senzill i el bicompartimentat (RSU + orgànica). També s’inclou un contenidor (actualment en estat de prototipus) desenvolupat amb l’empresa durant el conveni UPC-empresa, que està destinat a substituir el que hi ha actualment a la ciutat. El projecte inclou també un estudi sobre l’accessibilitat a aquests contenidors per a les persones amb disminució (especialment les usuàries de cadira de rodes). Inicialment es va realitzar un estudi sobre l’estat de la tècnica, consistent en una cerca de patents i l’elaboració d’una base de dades amb les més rellevants. Complementat per un estudi de la competència i un reportatge fotogràfic de contenidors amb la seva ubicació per l’àrea metropolitana de Barcelona. Es van fer visites a l’Ajuntament (departament BCN neta), a Ros Roca i a un dels contractistes de recollida de deixalles, per tal de recopilar tota la informació tècnica necessària. Després d’aquestes visites i després de la primera reunió del conveni, amb el responsable de l’Ajuntament i el cap de R+D de l’empresa, es va realitzar un “Brainstorming” inicial, d’on van aparèixer les primeres idees de solució. Aquestes idees van anar evolucionant a mida que es produïen reunions i es treballava en elles. Es va completar amb la visita a un col·lectiu de discapacitats. Es va aprofitar aquesta visita per resoldre els dubtes que es tenien sobre les seves necessitats i per fer una enquesta per la posterior elaboració d’un QFD. ( casa de qualitat) Com a resultat s’han aconseguit dos contenidors: un per la recollida selectiva amb un sistema de bústia accessible bifuncional (serveix per la fracció de paper i per la d’envasos) amb limitador, situada al frontal del contenidor, al que se li practica una obertura; i un segon de RSU bicompartimentat (solució vàlida pel RSU senzill) on els usuaris que no hi puguin accedir, disposaran d’una “clau” que els permetrà desbloquejar la tapa d’orgànica i mitjançant una palanca podran obrir-la i dipositar la brossa. Com a conclusions destacar que s’ha aconseguit dos contenidors accessibles que mantenen l’estructura exterior i els mecanismes originals, que segueixen complint la normativa europea EN 12574 i que resulten senzills d’utilitzar i econòmics de fabricar

Adaptació dels contenidors d'escombraries i millora de la seva accessibilitat a la ciutat de Barcelona per les persones amb disminució

Aquest treball té com a objectiu el redisseny i l’adaptació dels contenidors de càrrega lateral de 3.2 i 2.4 m3, fabricats per l’empresa Ros Roca S.A., per tal que siguin accessibles per a tothom i no perdin la funcionalitat que tenen actualment. Dins del projecte, s’engloba el redisseny dels contenidors de selectiva (paper i envasos), el de RSU senzill i el bicompartimentat (RSU + orgànica). També s’inclou un contenidor (actualment en estat de prototipus) desenvolupat amb l’empresa durant el conveni UPC-empresa, que està destinat a substituir el que hi ha actualment a la ciutat. El projecte inclou també un estudi sobre l’accessibilitat a aquests contenidors per a les persones amb disminució (especialment les usuàries de cadira de rodes). Inicialment es va realitzar un estudi sobre l’estat de la tècnica, consistent en una cerca de patents i l’elaboració d’una base de dades amb les més rellevants. Complementat per un estudi de la competència i un reportatge fotogràfic de contenidors amb la seva ubicació per l’àrea metropolitana de Barcelona. Es van fer visites a l’Ajuntament (departament BCN neta), a Ros Roca i a un dels contractistes de recollida de deixalles, per tal de recopilar tota la informació tècnica necessària. Després d’aquestes visites i després de la primera reunió del conveni, amb el responsable de l’Ajuntament i el cap de R+D de l’empresa, es va realitzar un “Brainstorming” inicial, d’on van aparèixer les primeres idees de solució. Aquestes idees van anar evolucionant a mida que es produïen reunions i es treballava en elles. Es va completar amb la visita a un col·lectiu de discapacitats. Es va aprofitar aquesta visita per resoldre els dubtes que es tenien sobre les seves necessitats i per fer una enquesta per la posterior elaboració d’un QFD. ( casa de qualitat) Com a resultat s’han aconseguit dos contenidors: un per la recollida selectiva amb un sistema de bústia accessible bifuncional (serveix per la fracció de paper i per la d’envasos) amb limitador, situada al frontal del contenidor, al que se li practica una obertura; i un segon de RSU bicompartimentat (solució vàlida pel RSU senzill) on els usuaris que no hi puguin accedir, disposaran d’una “clau” que els permetrà desbloquejar la tapa d’orgànica i mitjançant una palanca podran obrir-la i dipositar la brossa. Com a conclusions destacar que s’ha aconseguit dos contenidors accessibles que mantenen l’estructura exterior i els mecanismes originals, que segueixen complint la normativa europea EN 12574 i que resulten senzills d’utilitzar i econòmics de fabricar

Coverage Path Planning with Real‐time Replanning and Surface Reconstruction for Inspection of Three‐dimensional Underwater Structures using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113717/1/rob21554.pd

Neurobiology of environmental enrichment in pigs: hanges in monoaminergic neurotransmitters in several brain areas and in the hippocampal proteome

Environmental enrichment in porcine farms improves animal welfare and leads to better public acceptance. To better understand the neurological mechanisms of the response to environmental enrichment, monoaminergic neurotransmitters were quantified in several brain areas from pigs after eight weeks of housing in barren or enriched conditions. Furthermore, iTRAQ labelling combined with LC-MS/MS was used to identify differentially abundant proteins in the hippocampus. Blood biochemical parameters related with stress and welfare were measured. Pigs under enriched conditions showed a decrease in plasma cortisol and lactate. The decrease in noradrenaline in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala, a general decrease in the dopaminergic system and an increase of serotonin in the striatum indicate a lower response to stress in enriched conditions. In the proteomic analysis, 2304 proteins were identified, of which 56 were differential between housing groups (46 upregulated and 10 downregulated). Bioinformatics analysis revealed that they were mainly related to ribosome, translation, microtubules and metabolic mitochondrial processes, indicating that pigs under enriched environments have higher abundance of proteins related to protein synthesis and neuronal activity. Together with previous behavioural studies, our results suggest that environmental enrichment provides a less stressful environment and that pigs cope better with stress conditions like the slaughterhouse. Significance Animal welfare has become an important aspect for the sustainability of animal production. The modification of the environment by enriching it with rooting materials and wider space allowance is known to have a positive effect on pigs' welfare. Searching for the underlying neurobiological mechanisms, we found that housing in an enriched environment increased the abundance of proteins related to protein synthesis, microtubule assembly, vesicle-mediated transport and energy metabolism in the hippocampus of pigs. Likewise, changes in the neurotransmitter profile in several brain areas were compatible with a better response to stress. This study expands the knowledge about the biological basis of animal welfare-promoting actionsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Automatic ham classification method based on support vector machine model increases accuracy and benefits compared to manual classification

The thickness of the subcutaneous fat (SFT) is a very important parameter in the ham, since determines the process the ham will be submitted. This study compares two methods to predict the SFT in slaughter line: an automatic system using an SVM model (Support Vector Machine) and a manual measurement of the fat carried out by an experienced operator, in terms of accuracy and economic benefit. These two methods were compared to the golden standard obtained by measuring SFT with a ruler in a sample of 400 hams equally distributed within each SFT class. The results show that the SFT prediction made by the SVM model achieves an accuracy of 75.3%, which represents an improvement of 5.5% compared to the manual measurement. Regarding economic benefits, SVM model can increase them between 12 and 17%. It can be concluded that the classification using SVM is more accurate than the one performed manually with an increase of the economic benefit for sorting.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Robustness of the European power grids under intentional attack

The power grid defines one of the most important technological networks of our times and sustains our complex society. It has evolved for more than a century into an extremely huge and seemingly robust and well understood system. But it becomes extremely fragile as well, when unexpected, usually minimal, failures turn into unknown dynamical behaviours leading, for example, to sudden and massive blackouts. Here we explore the fragility of the European power grid under the effect of selective node removal. A mean field analysis of fragility against attacks is presented together with the observed patterns. Deviations from the theoretical conditions for network percolation (and fragmentation) under attacks are analysed and correlated with non topological reliability measures.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Housing and road transport modify the brain neurotransmitter systems of pigs: Do pigs raised in different conditions cope differently with unknown environments?

How housing and transport conditions may affect welfare in porcine production is a leading topic in livestock research. This study investigated whether pigs present a different neurological response to management conditions and to ascertain whether pigs living partially outdoors cope differently with road transport-associated stress. Twenty-four female pigs were divided in two groups: one living indoors (ID, n = 12) and the other housed combining indoor conditions with 4 hours per day of outdoor pasture (OD, n = 12). After one month, one set of animals from each housing condition were driven in a truck to the slaughterhouse in low-stress conditions (5 min drive, no mixing groups, soft management, LS group, n = 12) or high-stress conditions (2 hours drive, mixing groups, harsh management, HS group, n = 12). At the slaughterhouse, blood was collected, and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the hippocampus (HC) dissected. OD pigs had lower serum haptoglobin and increased dopaminergic pathway (DA-system) in the PFC, suggesting that living outdoors increases their wellbeing. HS conditions increased serum creatine kinase (CK) and affected several brain pathways: activation of the noradrenergic (NA-system) and DA -system in the PFC and the activation of the DA-system and an increase in c-Fos as well as a decrease in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the HC. The serotonergic system (5-HT-system) was mildly altered in both areas. There was an interaction between housing and transport in serum NA and the DA-system in the HC, indicating that living conditions affected the response to stress. Multivariate analysis was able to discriminate the four animal groups. In conclusion, this work indicates that housing conditions and road transport markedly modifies the neurophysiology of pigs, and suggests that animals raised partially outdoors respond differently to transport-associated stress than animals raised indoors, indicating that they cope differently with unknown environments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

On-line Ham Grading using pattern recognition models based on available data in commercial pig slaughterhouses

The thickness of the subcutaneous fat in hams is one of the most important factors for the dry-curing process and largely determines its final quality. This parameter is usually measured in slaughterhouses by a manual metrical measure to classify hams. The aim of the present study was to propose an automatic classification method based on data obtained from a carcass automatic classification equipment (AutoFom) and intrinsic data of the pigs (sex, breed, and weight) to simulate the manual classification system. The evaluated classification algorithms were decision tree, support vector machines (SVM), k-nearest neighbour and discriminant analysis. A total of 4000 hams selected by breed and sex were classified as thin (0–10 mm), standard (11–15 mm), semi-fat (16–20 mm) and fat (>20 mm). The most reliable model, with a percentage of success of 73%, was SVM with Gaussian kernel, including all data available. These results suggest that the proposed classification method can be a useful online tool in slaughterhouses to classify hams.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Up-regulation of HDACs, a harbinger of uraemic endothelial dysfunction, is prevented by defibrotide

Altres ajuts: This work was supported by Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc (IST-16-10355 to MDR. and EC); German José Carreras Leukaemia Foundation (Grant 11R/2016 and 03R/2019 to MDR. and EC); [...]. We would like to thank the Proteomics unit staff (CCIT, University of Barcelona) for their support in the proteomic assay performance and analysis, and to the Primary Hemostasis laboratory group for their technical support. We also acknowledge the collaboration of Dr Josep Maria Cruzado of Institut d'Hemodiàlisi Barcelona who collaborated in obtaining the blood samples, the staff of the Maternitat Hospital, in Barcelona, for providing the umbilical cords that made possible some of the current results and to Shook Studio for the visual abstract design.Endothelial dysfunction is an earlier contributor to the development of atherosclerosis in chronic kidney disease (CKD), in which the role of epigenetic triggers cannot be ruled out. Endothelial protective strategies, such as defibrotide (DF), may be useful in this scenario. We evaluated changes induced by CKD on endothelial cell proteome and explored the effect of DF and the mechanisms involved. Human umbilical cord vein endothelial cells were exposed to sera from healthy donors (n = 20) and patients with end-stage renal disease on haemodialysis (n = 20). Differential protein expression was investigated by using a proteomic approach, Western blot and immunofluorescence. HDAC1 and HDAC2 overexpression was detected. Increased HDAC1 expression occurred at both cytoplasm and nucleus. These effects were dose-dependently inhibited by DF. Both the HDACs inhibitor trichostatin A and DF prevented the up-regulation of the endothelial dysfunction markers induced by the uraemic milieu: intercellular adhesion molecule-1, surface Toll-like receptor-4, von Willebrand Factor and reactive oxygen species. Moreover, DF down-regulated HDACs expression through the PI3/AKT signalling pathway. HDACs appear as key modulators of the CKD-induced endothelial dysfunction as specific blockade by trichostatin A or by DF prevents endothelial dysfunction responses to the CKD insult. Moreover, DF exerts its endothelial protective effect by inhibiting HDAC up-regulation likely through PI3K/AKT