Giant magnetic anisotropy at nanoscale: overcoming the superparamagnetic limit

It has been recently observed for palladium and gold nanoparticles, that the magnetic moment at constant applied field does not change with temperature over the range comprised between 5 and 300 K. These samples with size smaller than 2.5 nm exhibit remanence up to room temperature. The permanent magnetism for so small samples up to so high temperatures has been explained as due to blocking of local magnetic moment by giant magnetic anisotropies. In this report we show, by analysing the anisotropy of thiol capped gold films, that the orbital momentum induced at the surface conduction electrons is crucial to understand the observed giant anisotropy. The orbital motion is driven by localised charge and/or spin through spin orbit interaction, that reaches extremely high values at the surfaces. The induced orbital moment gives rise to an effective field of the order of 103 T that is responsible of the giant anisotropy.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR

Improving Emergency Plans through Public Engagement

Emergency plans are fundamental for the speedy and effective response in disaster situations. Plans are often constructed by teams of experts, who apply their knowledge to define response procedures, but lack part of location-specific knowledge that can be very relevant to make decisions during responses. Such knowledge is, however, in the minds of people who use those spaces every day, but are not involved in the planning processes. In this paper, we advocate for citizens' involvement in emergency plan elaboration via Public Participation, a mechanism long time used in other areas of e-government. We define a process for the elicitation of citizen's knowledge via public participation, and present the results of a study on its potential impact, where individuals used different collaborative tools to volunteer knowledge to be used in emergency plan improvement.Penadés Gramage, MC.; Vivacqua, AS.; Borges, M.; Canos Cerda, JH. (2011). Improving Emergency Plans through Public Engagement. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/1133

Turning Emergency Plans into Executable Artifacts

ISBN: 978-0-692-21194-6 Available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) LicenseInternational audienceOn the way to the improvement of Emergency Plans, we show how a structured specification of the response procedures allows transforming static plans into dynamic, executable entities that can drive the way different actors participate in crisis responses. Additionally, the execution of plans requires the definition of information access mechanisms allowing execution engines to provide an actor with all the information resources he or she needs to accomplish a response task. We describe work in progress to improve the SAGA's Plan definition Module and Plan Execution Engine to support information-rich plan execution

Towards Digital Transformation of a City Resilience Framework

Improving city resilience is among the most challenging strategic goals for city administrators worldwide. To support their work, frameworks providing technical support and methodological guidance have been developed. Such frameworks define resilience improvement processes based on multidimensional resilience models to assess one city’s resilience level, plus a collection of policies to increase such level in different dimensions. Although some frameworks include software tools to support the process, their scope is limited to a particular step of the process, and global management is still done manually, hindering agility in the process. In this paper, we present our work towards the digital transformation of a city resilience framework. The use of process technology to specify and enact the process is combined with the application of model-based development techniques to provide interoperability of the different framework tools. We describe the architecture of the solution proposed, and the major features of our approach

Lectin-gated and glycan functionalized mesoporous silica nanocontainers for targeting cancer cells overexpressing Lewis X antigen

[EN] Gated mesoporous silica nanoparticles can deliver payload upon the application of a predefined stimulus, and therefore are promising drug delivery systems. Despite their important role, relatively low emphasis has been placed on the design of gating systems that actively target carbohydrate tumor cell membrane receptors. We describe herein a new Lewis X (Le(x)) antigen-targeted delivery system comprising mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) loaded with ATTO 430LS dye, functionalized with a Le(x) derivative (1) and capped with a fucose-specific carbohydrate-binding protein (Aleuria aurantia lectin (AAL)). This design takes advantage of the affinity of AAL for Le(x) overexpressed receptors in certain cancer cells. In the proximity of the cells, AAL is detached from MSNs to bind Le(x), and selectins in the cells bind Le(x) in the gated MSNs, thereby inducing cargo delivery. Gated MSNs are nontoxic to colon cancer DLD-1 cells, and ATTO 430LS dye delivered correlated with the amount of Le(x) antigen overexpressed at the DLD-1 cell surface. This is one of the few examples of MSNs using biologically relevant glycans for both capping (via interaction with AAL) and targeting (via interaction with overexpressed Le(x) at the cell membrane).The authors thank the Spanish Government (Projects MAT2015-64139-C4-1-R and MAT2013-46101-R (MINECO/ FEDER)), Fondo de Investigacion Sanitaria (PI15/00480) and Generalitat Valenciana (Project PROMETEOII/2014/047 and project GVA/2014/13) for support. R. B. is thankful to Svagata. Eu (Erasmus Mundus Action-II program) for his fellowship. The authors also thank the Electron Microscopy Service at the UPV for support.Bhat, R.; García, I.; Aznar, E.; Arnáiz, B.; Martínez-Bisbal, M.; Liz-Marzán, L.; Penadés, S.... (2018). 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Epigenetic Silencing of the Sulfate Transporter Gene DTDST Induces Sialyl Lewisx Expression and Accelerates Proliferation of Colon Cancer Cells. Cancer Research, 70(10), 4064-4073. doi:10.1158/0008-5472.can-09-2383Golijanin, D., Sherman, Y., Shapiro, A., & Pode, D. (1995). Detection of bladder tumors by immunostaininc of the lewis x antigen in cells from voided urine. Urology, 46(2), 173-177. doi:10.1016/s0090-4295(99)80189-7Hittelet, A., Camby, I., Nagy, N., Legendre, H., Bronckart, Y., Decaestecker, C., … Yeaton, P. (2003). Binding Sites for Lewis Antigens Are Expressed by Human Colon Cancer Cells and Negatively Affect Their Migration. Laboratory Investigation, 83(6), 777-787. doi:10.1097/01.lab.0000073129.62433.39De la Torre, C., Casanova, I., Acosta, G., Coll, C., Moreno, M. J., Albericio, F., … Martínez-Máñez, R. (2014). 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Cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia: An expert group paper on the current state of the art.

Cognitive impairment in schizophrenia represents one of the main obstacles to clinical and functional recovery. This expert group paper brings together experts in schizophrenia treatment to discuss scientific progress in the domain of cognitive impairment to address cognitive impairments and their consequences in the most effective way. We report on the onset and course of cognitive deficits, linking them to the alterations in brain function and structure in schizophrenia and discussing their role in predicting the transition to psychosis in people at risk. We then address the assessment tools with reference to functioning and social cognition, examining the role of subjective measures and addressing new methods for measuring functional outcomes including technology based approaches. Finally, we briefly review treatment options for cognitive deficits, focusing on cognitive remediation programs, highlighting their effects on brain activity and conclude with the potential benefit of individualized integrated interventions combing cognitive remediation with other approaches

Erratum: Permanent magnetism, magnetic anisotropy, and hysteresis of thiol-capped gold nanoparticles (vol 93, art no 087204, 2004)

© American Physical SocietyDepto. de Física de MaterialesFac. de Ciencias FísicasTRUEpu

Permanent magnetism, magnetic anisotropy, and hysteresis of thiol-capped gold nanoparticles

We report on the experimental observation of magnetic hysteresis up to room temperature in thiol-capped Au nanoparticles with 1.4 nm size. The coercive field ranges from 860 Oe at 5 K to 250 Oe at 300 K. It is estimated that the Au atoms exhibit a magnetic moment of mu=0.036mu(B). However, Au nanoparticles with similar size but stabilized by means of a surfactant, i.e., weak interaction between protective molecules and Au surface atoms, are diamagnetic, as bulk Au samples are. The apparent ferromagnetism is consequently associated with 5d localized holes generated through Au-S bonds. These holes give rise to localized magnetic moments that are frozen in due to the combination of the high spin-orbit coupling (1.5 eV) of gold and the symmetry reduction associated with two types of bonding: Au-Au and Au-S