Assessment of psychopathology through the tests?

Introducción: parece existir una tendencia en la psicología de la salud sobrevalorando la utilización de instrumentos psicométricos e infravalorando la psicopatología. Objetivo: estudiar las discrepancias y diferencias que aparecen al evaluar la psicopatología a través de criterios diagnósticos o a través de test específi cos de ansiedad y depresión. Materiales y método: la muestra consta de 100 primeras entrevistas ambulatorias consecutivas de pacientes remitidos por distintos Servicios del Hospital a nuestra Unidad para su evaluación y tratamiento. A cada paciente se le realizó una entrevista clínica y se le pasaron las Escalas HADS, MADRS Y BSA para comparar la evaluación psicométrica. Resultados: comparamos los resultados de aplicar los criterios clínicos CIE-10 y las escalas. Aunque no encontramos diferencias estadísticamente signifi cativas, constatamos claras discrepancias. En nuestro estudio, la escala BSA presenta mayor sensibilidad y especificidad que el HADS-A para Trastorno de Ansiedad Generalizada. Y la MADRS es menos sensible pero más específica que el HADS-D. Discusión: la utilización no complementaria de criterios o instrumentos pueden generar una enorme confusión refl ejada en la literatura. Diferenciar entre estadística y diagnóstico, definirlos conceptos que utilizamos, sopesar el lenguaje y la argumentación que plasmamos en los artículos, puede ayudarnos a mejorar las clasifi caciones al uso, a clarificar las observaciones discrepantes o contradictorias con ellas, y a conseguir un uso racional de las escalas.Introduction: it seems to be a trend in health psychology, overestimating the use of psychometric instruments and underestimating psychopathology. Objective: To study the discrepancies and differences that appears to assess the psychopathology through diagnostic criteria or through specifi c tests of anxiety and depression. Materials and Method: The sample contains 100 fi rst consecutive outpatient interviews referred by various hospital services to our Unit for their evaluation and treatment. Each patient underwent a clinical interview and we passed to them the Scales HADS, MADRS and BSA to compare the psychometric assessment. Results: We compare the results of application the ICD-10 clinical criteria with the scales. Although we found no statistically significant differences, we found a clear discrepancy. In our study, the BSA scale has more sensitivity and specifi city than HADS-A for Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The MADRS is less sensitive but more specific than the HADS-D. Discussion: the use not complementary of criteria or instruments can createa huge confusion refl ected in the literature. Differentiate between statistical and diagnostic, defi ne the concepts that we use, weigh up the language and the arguments that we use in articles, all of this can help us to improve the classifi cations, to clarify the different or confl ictive observations with them, as a rational use of the scales

A study about FPGA-based digital filters

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. J. Valls, M. M. Peiró, T. Sansaloni, and E. Boemo, "A study about FPGA-based digital filters", in IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems, 1998, p. 192-201A set of operators suitable for digit-serial FIR filtering is presented. The canonical and inverted forms are studied. In each of these structures both the symmetrical and anti-symmetrical particular cases are also covered. All circuits have been implemented using an EPF10K50 Altera FPGA. The main results show that the canonical form presents less occupation and higher throughput. The 8-tap filter versions implemented can be applied in real-time processing with sample rate ranging up to 7 MHz using the bit-serial versions and up to 25 MHz with the bit-parallel one

A comparison between lattice, cascade and direct form FIR filter structures by using a FPGA bit-serial distributed arithmetic implementation

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. M. M. Peiró, J. Valls, T. Sansaloni, A. P. Pascual, and E. I. Boemo, "A comparison between lattice, cascade and direct form FIR filter structures by using a FPGA bit-serial distributed arithmetic implementation", in 6th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems, 1999. Proceedings of ICECS '99, 2009, p. 241 - 244In this paper, several bit-serial, high-order implementations of cascade, lattice and direct-form FIR filters using Distributed Arithmetic (DA) are studied. Although lattice and cascade structures present many interesting properties related to quantification error and stability, the DA versions have not been thoroughly compared. Three types of filters with their particular bit-serial DA model error have been built using an ALTERA 10K50 FPGA and their area-time figure is analysed. The results show that a 60th order bit-serial cascade and direct-form implementation at nearly 4 MHz and a 40th order lattice structure at 7.5 MHz can be implemented. Moreover, the lattice filter presents the lower quantification erro

Role of the 5' untranslated region of the Alfalfa mosaic virus RNA 3 in cell-to-cell and long distance transport.

Após o início da infecção de uma única célula, vírus de planta necessita para invadir as células adjacentes, uma processo de transporte de célula-a-célula denominados, como um passo anterior para invadir as partes distais do hospedeiro através do sistema vascular ou do transporte sistémico. A capacidade para atingir as partes não inoculadas de um planta implica que o vírus deve infectar específico células localizadas no tecido vascular. Na maioria dos casos, partículas do vírus são necessários para este trans- vascular port. No presente estudo, tratamos o caracterização de determinantes virais críticos para o transporte de longa distância usando o Alfalfa vírus do mosaico (AMV) sistema de modelo, o que exige partícula do vírus para o transporte sistêmicaEdição dos Resumos do 12º Congreso Nacional de Virología, Burgos, Espanha, jun. 2013

¿Evaluación de la psicopatología a través de escalas?

Introducción: parece existir una tendencia en la psicología de la salud sobrevalorando la utilización de instrumentos psicométricos e infravalorando la psicopatología. Objetivo: estudiar las discrepancias y diferencias que aparecen al evaluar la psicopatología a través de criterios diagnósticos o a través de test específi cos de ansiedad y depresión. Materiales y método: la muestra consta de 100 primeras entrevistas ambulatorias consecutivas de pacientes remitidos por distintos Servicios del Hospital a nuestra Unidad para su evaluación y tratamiento. A cada paciente se le realizó una entrevista clínica y se le pasaron las Escalas HADS, MADRS Y BSA para comparar la evaluación psicométrica. Resultados: comparamos los resultados de aplicar los criterios clínicos CIE-10 y las escalas. Aunque no encontramos diferencias estadísticamente signifi cativas, constatamos claras discrepancias. En nuestro estudio, la escala BSA presenta mayor sensibilidad y especificidad que el HADS-A para Trastorno de Ansiedad Generalizada. Y la MADRS es menos sensible pero más específica que el HADS-D. Discusión: la utilización no complementaria de criterios o instrumentos pueden generar una enorme confusión refl ejada en la literatura. Diferenciar entre estadística y diagnóstico, definirlos conceptos que utilizamos, sopesar el lenguaje y la argumentación que plasmamos en los artículos, puede ayudarnos a mejorar las clasifi caciones al uso, a clarificar las observaciones discrepantes o contradictorias con ellas, y a conseguir un uso racional de las escalas

Predictive and diagnostic biomarkers for gestational diabetes and its associated metabolic and cardiovascular diseases

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as the presence of high blood glucose levels with the onset, or detected for the first time during pregnancy, as a result of increased insulin resistance. GDM may be induced by dysregulation of pancreatic β-cell function and/or by alteration of secreted gestational hormones and peptides related with glucose homeostasis. It may affect one out of five pregnancies, leading to perinatal morbidity and adverse neonatal outcomes, and high risk of chronic metabolic and cardiovascular injuries in both mother and offspring. Currently, GDM diagnosis is based on evaluation of glucose homeostasis at late stages of pregnancy, but increased age and body-weight, and familiar or previous occurrence of GDM, may conditionate this criteria. In addition, an earlier and more specific detection of GDM with associated metabolic and cardiovascular risk could improve GDM development and outcomes. In this sense, 1st–2nd trimester-released biomarkers found in maternal plasma including adipose tissue-derived factors such as adiponectin, visfatin, omentin-1, fatty acid-binding protein-4 and retinol binding-protein-4 have shown correlations with GDM development. Moreover, placenta-related factors such as sex hormone-binding globulin, afamin, fetuin-A, fibroblast growth factors-21/23, ficolin-3 and follistatin, or specific micro- RNAs may participate in GDM progression and be useful for its recognition. Finally, urine-excreted metabolites such as those related with serotonin system, non-polar amino-acids and ketone bodies, may complete a predictive or earlydiagnostic panel of biomarkers for GDMThis work was supported by the grant PI17/01495, from the Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (ISC-III) and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) (for EJ), and grant SAF2017-84776-R, from Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (for PC)

Estudio descriptivo sobre el proceso de comunicar el diagnóstico y el pronóstico en oncología

Comunicar malas noticias es una tarea compleja. Más aún cuando la enfermedad a comunicar incluye la palabra cáncer. Este tér¬mino que tiene connotaciones culturales nega¬tivas, tiene además una enorme variabilidad de enfoques en los diferentes países. El objetivo de este trabajo fue profundizar en el proceso de comunicación diagnóstica entre el médico oncólogo, los pacientes y la familia. Por ello, en primer lugar queríamos conocer la informa¬ción que tiene el paciente sobre su enfermedad antes de la primera entrevista con el oncólogo y, en segundo lugar conocer que expresiones se utilizan para informar sobre el diagnóstico y el pronóstico a los pacientes. La muestra es¬tuvo compuesta por 105 pacientes nuevos con diagnóstico de cáncer. Para ello se diseñó una hoja de recogida de datos de la primera entre¬vista. Los resultados obtenidos nos indican que los pacientes acuden a la primera entrevista con información variable, algunos han reci¬bido información específica, otros, ninguna información o esta es inespecífica. Respecto al diagnóstico, ocurre que muchos de los pa¬cientes salen de la primera consulta sin haber escuchado que padecen un tipo de cáncer. Y además, la mayoría obtienen la información del posible pronóstico de su enfermedad. Por tanto, el oncólogo en su primera visita con el paciente recoge la información previa que éste tiene, la reconstruye y modela en términos de “verdad soportable”, por tanto, la información se va adaptando a la necesidad del paciente.Giving bad news is hard work. Even more when the illness you must tell your patient in¬cludes the world cancer. The aim of this work was to study in depth how the news of a ter¬minal illness was broken among oncologist doctor, patients and family. Therefore, first we wanted to know what the patient knew about his illness before the first appointment with the oncologist. Second we wanted to know what kinds of expressions are used to inform the patients about the diagnosis and the prog¬nosis. The sample was made up of 105 new patients with a cancer diagnosis. Therefore a first data page was made for the first interview. The results show us that the patients went to the appointment with a variety of knowled¬ge, some of them having specific information; others knew nothing or just a little. Regarding to the diagnosis, a lot of patients left the first appointment without hearing that they suffered from some kind of cancer. They mostly obtain the information of the possible prognosis of their illness, in this moment. The¬refore, in the first appointment the oncologist gets to know what information the patient has previously. Then he remakes and shapes the information to build a “bearable truth”, so the information gets adjusted to what the patient needs

Waveguiding properties of a photonic crystal fiber with a solid core surrounded by four large air holes

The polarization-dependent guiding properties of a hexagonallattice photonic crystal fiber with a solid-core surrounded by four large air holes are investigated. The appearance of a polarization dependent cutoff frequency, together with several parameters as the birefringence, the modal effective area, the group velocity dispersion and the polarization dependent loss are analyzed. A collection of fibers with different structural parameters were fabricated and characterized. An effective anti-guide structure from at least 450 nm to 1750 nm, a polarizing fiber with a polarization dependent loss of 16 dB/m at 1550 nm, and an endlessly singlemode polarization maintaining fiber with group birefringence of 2.1x10-3 at 1550 nm are reported. Experimental results are compared with accurate numerical modeling of the fibers

Utilización inadecuada de un servicio de urgencias hospitalario. Una evaluación con criterios explícitos

ResumenFundamentoExiste un crecimiento del número de visitas en los servicios de urgencias hospitalarios (SUH) con una elevada proporción de utilización inapropiada. Los métodos empleados para identificar el uso inadecuado basados en criterios implícitos limitan las comparaciones entre hospitales. El objetivo de este estudio es conocer la proporción de visitas inadecuadas en un SUH y sus factores asociados, utilizando un método objetivo.Material y métodoSe utilizó un instrumento basado en criterios explícitos e independientes del diagnóstico para identificar las visitas inapropiadas en una muestra aleatoria de 1.845 pacientes mayores de 14 años que acudieron a los servicios médicos de un SUH, y se analizaron los factores asociados a la demanda inadecuada.ResultadosLa proporción de urgencias inadecuadas fue del 26,8% (495/1.845). En el análisis bivariante la menor edad, la ausencia de patología asociada, las visitas espontáneas y determinados grupos diagnósticos (enfermedades de la piel, músculo-esqueléticas, mentales y sintamos mal definidos) se asociaron a una mayor proporción de uso inadecuado del SUH. Al ajustar las variables mediante regresión logística, la edad, la patología asociada, las consultas espontáneas y los grupos diagnósticos, mantuvieron la asociación con el uso inadecuado, pero otras variables como el ser mujer y la llegada al SUH fuera del turno de noche también se asociaron a una mayor utilización inadecuada.ConclusionesAl menos la cuarta parte de las visitas realizadas en los servicios médicos de los SUH no requieren atención urgente. La inadecuación de las visitas se asocia a características del paciente y el proceso asistido.SummaryBackgroundSeveral studies have shown a growth in the number of visits to accident and emergency (A&E) hospital departments with a high proportion of inappropriate utilization. Methods to identify improper use based on implicit criteria limit the comparisons between hospitals. The aim of this study is to know the proportion of inappropriate attendance's in an A&E department and their associated factors, using a method with objective criteria.MethodsAn instrument based on diagnosis-independent explicit criteria was used to identify inappropriate visits in a random sample of 1845 14-year-old greater patients attended to A&E medical services, and the factors associated with improper demand were analysed.ResultsThe proportion of inappropriate attendance's was of the 26,8% (495/1.845). The unadjusted analysis show that the smaller age, absence of comorbidity, spontaneous visit and some diagnostic groups (diseases of the skin, muscle-skeletal, mental, and bad defined symptoms) were associated to a greater proportion of improper use. Upon adjusting the variables through logistics regression, the age, associated pathology, the spontaneous attendance's and diagnostic groups, maintained the association with improper use, but other variables as woman gender, and night hours were also associated to inappropriate utilization.ConclusionsAt least the fourth part of the attendance's in the A&E medical services do not require urgent attention. Inappropriate utilization is associated to characteristic of the patient and the attended process