Investigación sobre el equilibrio de fases de nuevos materiales y fluidos renovables para usos energéticos mediante técnicas experimentales

La creación de sistemas de gestión y generación energética más sostenibles sigue siendo una prioridad tanto a nivel europeo como internacional, tal y como muestran proyectos como el Horizonte Europa, los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) o las iniciativas de la Agencia Internacional de Energía (IEA). Si bien las energías renovables obstentan un papel central en esta transición energética, otras técnicas complementarias están siendo también desarrolladas para compensar algunas de sus desventajas, como el suministro intermitente o el desacoplo entre generación y consumo de energía. Así, el almacenamiento de energía adquiere un matiz indispensable, incluyendo el almacenamiento de energía térmica (TES). En concreto, el almacenamiento de energía térmica mediante materiales de cambio de fase (PCM) concentra parte de la atención de la comunidad científica por su gran potencial y versatilidad. En la presente Tesis se cubren las principales metodologías experimentales empleadas en el estudio y la creación de los PCM, incluyendo resultados experimentales para respaldar su validez.The creation of more sustainable energy generation and management systems remains a priority at both European and international levels, as shown by projects such as Horizon Europe, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or the initiatives of the International Energy Agency (IEA). While renewable energies hold a key role in this energy transition, other complementary techniques are also being developed to compensate for some of their disadvantages, such as intermitent supply or the decoupling of energy generation and consumption. Thus, energy storage becomes indispensable, including Thermal Energy Storage (TES). Thermal energy storage by means of Phase Change Materials (PCM) is particularly receiving a great deal of atention from the scientific community due to its great potential and versatility. The present Thesis covers the main experimental methodologies employed in the study and creation of PCMs, including experimental results to support their validity.El desarrollo de esta Tesis se enmarca en las actividades realizadas por la Red Española de Almacenamiento de Energía Térmica (RedTES), que ha sido financiada de nuevo recientemente para los próximos años (ayuda RED2022-134219-T) por la Agencia Estatal de Investigación mediante las ayudas 2022 a “Redes de Investigación” en el marco del Programa Estatal para Impulsar la Investigación Cientifico-Técnica y su Transferencia, del Plan Estatal de Investigación Cientifica, Técnica y de Innovación 2021-2023. Quiero agradecer profundamente a la RedTES toda la ayuda que me han brindado sus miembros, tanto material como humana, sin la cual el desarrollo de esta Tesis no habría sido posible. También quiero agradecer al Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades la financiación obtenida estos años mediante una beca de Formación del Profesorado Universitario (FPU), convocatoria 2018, que me ha permitido llevar a cabo todo el trabajo realizado estos años

Enterovirus 75 and aseptic meningitis, Spain, 2005

To our knowledge, this is the first isolation of EV75 in Spain. Indeed, isolation of EV75 has not been reported in Europe

A mesoscopic simulator to uncover heterogeneity and evolutionary dynamics in tumors

Increasingly complex in silico modeling approaches offer a way to simultaneously access cancerous processes at different spatio-temporal scales. High-level models, such as those based on partial differential equations, are computationally affordable and allow large tumor sizes and long temporal windows to be studied, but miss the discrete nature of many key underlying cellular processes. Individual-based approaches provide a much more detailed description of tumors, but have difficulties when trying to handle full-sized real cancers. Thus, there exists a trade-off between the integration of macroscopic and microscopic information, now widely available, and the ability to attain clinical tumor sizes. In this paper we put forward a stochastic mesoscopic simulation framework that incorporates key cellular processes during tumor progression while keeping computational costs to a minimum. Our framework captures a physical scale that allows both the incorporation of microscopic information, tracking the spatio-temporal emergence of tumor heterogeneity and the underlying evolutionary dynamics, and the reconstruction of clinically sized tumors from high-resolution medical imaging data, with the additional benefit of low computational cost. We illustrate the functionality of our modeling approach for the case of glioblastoma, a paradigm of tumor heterogeneity that remains extremely challenging in the clinical setting.This research has been supported by grants awarded to VMPG by James S. Mc. Donnell Foundation, United States of America, 21st Century Science Initiative in Mathematical and Complex Systems Approaches for Brain Cancer (collaborative award 220020560) and Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain (grant number SBPLY/17/180501/000154). VMPG and GFC thank the funding from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion, Spain (grant number PID2019-110895RB-I00). This research has also been supported by a grant awarded to GFC and JBB by the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain (grant number SBPLY/19/180501/000211). AMR received support from Asociacion Pablo Ugarte (http://www.asociacionpablougarte.es). JJS received support from Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (grant number 2020-PREDUCLM-15634). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Intervención en adicciones: hacia una intervención centrada en la persona desde el Aprendizaje-Servicio

Depto. de Farmacología y ToxicologíaFac. de MedicinaUniversidad Complutense de Madrid. Proyectos ApSsubmitte

Antibiotic resistance genes in phage particles from Antarctic and Mediterranean seawater ecosystems

Anthropogenic activities are a key factor in the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, a growing problem worldwide. Nevertheless, antibiotics and resistances were being generated by bacterial communities long before their discovery by humankind, and might occur in areas without human influence. Bacteriophages are known to play a relevant role in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in aquatic environments. In this study, five ARGs (blaTEM, blaCTX-M-1, blaCTX-M-9, sul1 and tetW) were monitored in phage particles isolated from seawater of two different locations: (i) the Mediterranean coast, subjected to high anthropogenic pressure, and (ii) the Antarctic coast, where the anthropogenic impact is low. Although found in lower quantities, ARG-containing phage particles were more prevalent among the Antarctic than the Mediterranean seawater samples and Antarctic bacterial communities were confirmed as their source. In the Mediterranean area, ARG-containing phages from anthropogenic fecal pollution might allow ARG transmission through the food chain. ARGs were detected in phage particles isolated from fish (Mediterranean, Atlantic, farmed, and frozen), the most abundant being -lactamases. Some of these particles were infectious in cultures of the fecal bacteria Escherichia coli. By serving as ARG reservoirs in marine environments, including those with low human activity, such as the Antarctic, phages could contribute to ARG transmission between bacterial communities

Vitamin E protects against the mitochondrial damage caused by cyclosporin A in LLC-PK1 cells

27 p.Cyclosporin A (CsA) has nephrotoxic effects known to involve reactive oxygen species (ROS), since antioxidants prevent the kidney damage induced by this drug. Given that mitochondria are among the main sources of intracellular ROS, the aims of our study were to examine the mitochondrial effects of CsA in the porcine renal endothelial cell line LLC-PK1 and the influence of the antioxidant Vitamin E (Vit E). Following the treatment of LLC-PK1 cells with CsA, we assessed the mitochondrial synthesis of superoxide anion, permeability transition pore opening, mitochondrial membrane potential, cardiolipin peroxidation, cytochrome c release and cellular apoptosis, using flow cytometry and confocal microscopy procedures. Similar experiments were done after Vit E preincubation of cells. CsA treatment increased superoxide anion in a dose-dependent way. CsA opened the permeability transition pores, caused Bax migration to mitochondria, and decreased mitochondrial membrane potential and cardiolipin content. Also CsA released cytochrome c into cytosol and provoked cellular apoptosis. Vit E pretreatment inhibited the effects that CsA induced on mitochondrial structure and function in LLC-PK1 cells and avoided apoptosis. CsA modifies mitochondrial LLC-PK1 cell physiology with loss of negative electrochemical gradient across the inner mitochondrial membrane and increased lipid peroxidation. These features are related to apoptosis and can explain the cellular damage that CsA induces. As Vit E inhibited these effects, our results suggest that they were mediated by an increase in ROS production by mitochondriaJunta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Manch

Evolutionary dynamics at the tumor edge reveal metabolic imaging biomarkers

Human cancers are biologically and morphologically heterogeneous. A variety of clonal populations emerge within these neoplasms and their interaction leads to complex spatiotemporal dynamics during tumor growth. We studied the reshaping of metabolic activity in human cancers by means of continuous and discrete mathematical models and matched the results to positron emission tomography (PET) imaging data. Our models revealed that the location of increasingly active proliferative cellular spots progressively drifted from the center of the tumor to the periphery, as a result of the competition between gradually more aggressive phenotypes. This computational finding led to the development of a metric, normalized distance from F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (F-18-FDG) hotspot to centroid (NHOC), based on the separation from the location of the activity (proliferation) hotspot to the tumor centroid. The NHOC metric can be computed for patients using F-18-FDG PET-computed tomography (PET/CT) images where the voxel of maximum uptake (standardized uptake value [SUV]max) is taken as the activity hotspot. Two datasets of F-18-FDG PET/CT images were collected, one from 61 breast cancer patients and another from 161 non-small-cell lung cancer patients. In both cohorts, survival analyses were carried out for the NHOC and for other classical PET/CT-based biomarkers, finding that the former had a high prognostic value, outperforming the latter. In summary, our work offers additional insights into the evolutionary mechanisms behind tumor progression, provides a different PET/CT-based biomarker, and reveals that an activity hotspot closer to the tumor periphery is associated to a worst patient outcome

Total Absorption Spectroscopy Study of Rb-92 Decay: A Major Contributor to Reactor Antineutrino Spectrum Shape

The antineutrino spectra measured in recent experiments at reactors are inconsistent with calculations based on the conversion of integral beta spectra recorded at the ILL reactor. Rb-92 makes the dominant contribution to the reactor antineutrino spectrum in the 5-8 MeV range but its decay properties are in question. We have studied Rb-92 decay with total absorption spectroscopy. Previously unobserved beta feeding was seen in the 4.5-5.5 region and the GS to GS feeding was found to be 87.5(25)%. The impact on the reactor antineutrino spectra calculated with the summation method is shown and discussed

Concordancia diagnóstica entre Atención Primaria y Salud Mental.

tención Primaria (AP) y Salud Mental (SM). Metodología. Estudio descriptivo y retrospectivo realizado en el Centro de SM de Villaverde, Madrid, España. La muestra está conformada por 1050 pacientes adultos nuevos consecutivos derivados desde AP a SM desde enero a diciembre del año 2016. Se registraron las siguientes variables: Centro de AP de origen de la derivación, edad, sexo, tipo de actividad solicitante en la derivación (Psiquiatría o Psicología), diagnóstico establecido por AP y diagnóstico establecido por SM. Resultados. La concordancia diagnóstica entre AP y SM presentó un coeficiente de kappa global de 0,383 (IC 95 % 0,333-0,433). Los grupos diagnósticos con menor concordancia fueron el trastorno adaptativo (kappa: 0,200), el trastorno de ansiedad (kappa: 0,242) y el trastorno afectivo depresivo (kappa: 0,340). Los grupos diagnósticos con mayor concordancia fueron el trastorno bipolar (kappa: 0,816) y el trastorno psicótico (kappa: 0,689). El trastorno adaptativo fue el diagnóstico más frecuentemente diagnosticado en SM entre los no coincidentes con AP (38,99 %). Conclusiones. La concordancia diagnóstica entre AP y SM es baja, lo cual podría afectar a la calidad asistencial ofrecida a los pacientes. Se considera necesario el planteamiento de nuevas estrategias que permitan aumentar esta concordancia.post-print143 K

Mindfulness for Preventing Psychosocial Risks in the Workplace: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Organizations today are implementing psychological interventions to promote the job performance and wellbeing of their employees. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can contribute to providing workers with competencies and skills and develop their strengths. MBIs are therefore becoming more and more present in the workplace, sometimes using online intervention programs, which offer a promising direction in prevention and intervention for health. The objective of this study is to analyze the efficacy of MBIs on psychological variables in the workplace. For this purpose, a search for scientific articles published from 2009 to 2019 was made in the Psicodoc, PsycINFO, and Web of Science databases, where a total of 468 articles were found. After filtering with preestablished inclusion criteria, 24 studies were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. The results of the meta-analysis suggest that intervention in mindfulness positively influences psychological variables related to employee health and wellbeing. However, it is recommended to continue performing new studies to confirm this finding