Hallazgos paleodontológicos de la necrópolis medieval del Convento de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, Valls (España)

Se presentan los resultados del estudio paleodontológico de una muestra de seis individuos hallados en la Necrópolis Medieval del Convento de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, Valls. Una vez reconstruidos sus restos, se observaron detalles interesantes y alteraciones en la anatomía estructural de alguna de las partes estudiadas que fueron posteriormente analizados de manera más minuciosa. Entre otras particularidades se presentan posibles prácticas con finalidad higiénica en relación directa con el periodonto (marcada acumulación asimétrica de cálculo), así como diversas alteraciones anatómicas de interés (apófisis mastoides bífida)

Use of spectral information for red scale pest control

Decreasing the use of pesticides is one of the main goals of current agriculture, which requires fast, precise and continuous assessments of crop pests. Citrus pests cause a lot of damage worldwide and the techniques to evaluate them are mainly based on manual, time-consuming readings of insects stuck on traps spread over the crops. This is the case of red scale insects, whose control is notably challenging due to their small size and high reproduction rate. Hence, in this work, we carry out a spectral characterization of this insect in the visible range through spectrometric devices, microscopy and hyperspectral imaging technology to analyze the feasibility of using this information as a means of automatically identifying specimens belonging to this species in this era of precision agriculture. The results obtained show that spectral reflectance differences between red scales and other insects can be recorded at long (red) wavelengths and that red scales are morphologically different, i.e., smaller and more rounded. A reflectance ratio computed from spectral images taken at 774 nm and 410 nm is proposed as a new approach for automated discrimination of red scales from other insects.This project has been co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and has the support of the Secretariat of Universities and Research of the Department of Business and Knowledge of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Exp. 2019PROD00013)Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Neurodegenerative disorder risk in idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder: study in 174 Patients.

Objective To estimate the risk for developing a defined neurodegenerative syndrome in a large cohort of idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder (IRBD) patients with long follow-up. Methods Using the Kaplan-Meier method, we estimated the disease-free survival rate from defined neurodegenerative syndromes in all the consecutive IRBD patients diagnosed and followed-up in our tertiary referal sleep center between November 1991 and July 2013. Results The cohort comprises 174 patients with a median age at diagnosis of IRBD of 69 years and a median follow-up of four years. The risk of a defined neurodegenerative syndrome from the time of IRBD diagnosis was 33.1% at five years, 75.7% at ten years, and 90.9% at 14 years. The median conversion time was 7.5 years. Emerging diagnoses (37.4%) were dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) in 29 subjects, Parkinson disease (PD) in 22, multiple system atrophy (MSA) in two, and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in 12. In six cases, in whom postmortem was performed, neuropathological examination disclosed neuronal loss and widespread Lewy-type pathology in the brain in each case. Conclusions In a large IRBD cohort diagnosed in a tertiary referal sleep center, prolonged follow-up indicated that the majority of patients are eventually diagnosed with the synucleinopathies PD, DLB and less frequently MSA. IRBD represented the prodromal period of these conditions. Our findings in IRBD have important implications in clinical practice, in the investigation of the early pathological events occurring in the synucleinopathies, and for the design of interventions with potential disease-modifying agents

First Community-Wide, Comparative Cross-Linking Mass Spectrometry Study

The number of publications in the field of chemical cross-linking combined with mass spectrometry (XL-MS) to derive constraints for protein three-dimensional structure modeling and to probe protein-protein interactions has increased during the last years. As the technique is now becoming routine for in vitro and in vivo applications in proteomics and structural biology there is a pressing need to define protocols as well as data analysis and reporting formats. Such consensus formats should become accepted in the field and be shown to lead to reproducible results. This first, community-based harmonization study on XL-MS is based on the results of 32 groups participating worldwide. The aim of this paper is to summarize the status quo of XL-MS and to compare and evaluate existing cross-linking strategies. Our study therefore builds the framework for establishing best practice guidelines to conduct cross-linking experiments, perform data analysis, and define reporting formats with the ultimate goal of assisting scientists to generate accurate and reproducible XL-MS results

Implementació de programari de pràctiques d'introducció a la química quàntica i d'introducció a la programació en live CDs utilitzables pels alumnes fora de les aules

L'objectiu d'aquest projecte és desenvolupar live CDs per tal de facilitar als alumnes de les assignatures obligatòries del Departament de Química Física que inclouen pràctiques amb ordinadors el treball fora de les aules, com a complement del realitzar durant les sessions de pràctiques

Temporal stability in the perception of dry eye ocular disconfort symptoms

Purpose. A prospective longitudinal study was designed to investigate the ability of patients with tear deficiency to correctly recall their past symptoms. The ultimate goal of the study was to contribute to the ongoing research concerning the lack of association between dry eye symptomatology and clinical tests of tear film evaluation. Methods. A total of 26 subjects with ages ranging from 29 to 61 years participated in the study. All subjects reported symptoms associated with tear deficiency, although none had been diagnosed with dry eye disease. Subjects were instructed to grade their symptoms on two different occasions, at the precise moment they were experiencing them, by means of a home questionnaire, and through a recall questionnaire, which was administered within a maximum interval of 10 days from the first questionnaire. Tear evaluation tests were performed at this second time. Non-parametric statistical analyses were used to investigate the relationship between present and recalled symptoms and between symptoms and signs, as well as between the different dry eye tests. The contributions of age, gender, and recall period were also evaluated. Results. With the exception of irritation (p 0.029) and scratchiness (p 0.025), no statistically significant difference was encountered between home and recall questionnaires, although females were found to recall their symptoms slightly better than males (p 0.048). An increase in the severity of the symptoms was associated with a better recollection (p 0.007). Symptoms (home or recalled) and clinical signs were not correlated, although the recalled symptom of scratchiness presented moderately strong correlations with several dry eye tests. Conclusions. Although the lack of correlation between dry eye tests and symptoms mirrored previous research, symptoms recall was found to follow certain interesting patterns, similar to those published in pain research literature.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

A novel digital IQ demodulation for interferometric radiometers

In the frame of an SMOS follow-on operational mission, a new instrument design is being developed based on the lessons learned from MIRAS, the SMOS payload. To reduce hardware complexity and mass, digital In-phase Quadrature (IQ) demodulation is considered. In this schema, Q components are obtained by delaying one clock of the digitized IF signals instead of using phase quadrature analog mixers. The purpose of this article is to formulate this concept for application to interferometric radiometry, establish the required data processing methods, and provide experimental results.This research was funded by the European Space Agency through Subcontract ALR-RP0017-TA with SENER TAFS S.A.U. (Barcelona-Spain) and by Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España, Project TEC2017-88850-R.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Modeling the Stiffness of Coupled and Uncoupled Recycled Cotton Fibers Reinforced Polypropylene Composites

The stiffness of a composite material is mainly affected by the nature of its phases and its contents, the dispersion of the reinforcement, as well as the morphology and mean orientation of such reinforcement. In this paper, recovered dyed cotton fibers from textile industry were used as reinforcement for a polypropylene matrix. The specific dye seems to decrease the hydrophilicity of the fibers and to increase its chemical compatibility with the matrix. The results showed a linear evolution of the Young’s moduli of the composites against the reinforcement contents, although the slope of the regression line was found to be lower than that for other natural strand reinforced polypropylene composites. This was blamed on a growing difficulty to disperse the reinforcements when its content increased. The micromechanics analysis returned a value for the intrinsic Young’s modulus of the cotton fibers that doubled previously published values. The use of two different micromechanics models allowed evaluating the impact of the morphology of the fibers on the Young’s modulus of a composite