Year in review 2005: Critical Care – Respirology: mechanical ventilation, infection, monitoring, and education

We summarize all original research in the field of respiratory intensive care medicine published in 2005 in Critical Care. Twenty-seven articles were grouped into the following categories and subcategories to facilitate rapid overview: mechanical ventilation (physiology, spontaneous breathing during mechanical ventilation, high frequency oscillatory ventilation, side effects of mechanical ventilation, sedation, and prone positioning); infection (pneumonia and sepsis); monitoring (ventilatory monitoring, pulmonary artery catheter and pulse oxymeter); and education (training and health outcome)

Revision of the Charipinae species present in India with some taxonomic changes (Hymenoptera: Cynipoidea, Figitidae, Charipinae)

Charipinae species present in India are revised and taxonomic changes are proposed for some species recently described from this country. In total seven species are nowadays valid from India: Alloxysta brevis (Thomson, 1862), A. consobrina (Zetterstedt, 1838), A. nottoni Ferrer-Suay & Pujade-Villar, 2015, A. pleuralis (Cameron, 1879), Phaenoglyphis indica Ferrer-Suay & Pujade-Villar, 2013, P. longicornis (Hartig, 1840) and P. villosa (Hartig, 1841). Alloxysta ochracea Bijoy & Rajmohana, 2013, is a new synonymy of A. brevis (Thomson, 1862). Alloxysta bhagyae Bijoy & Rajmohana, 2013, A. indica Bijoy & Rajmohana, 2013, and A. sholicola Bijoy & Rajmohana, 2013 are new synonymies of A. consobrina (Zetterstedt, 1838). Comments and figures are included here to support these taxonomic changes. Diagnosis for these species and a key to identify the Charipinae from India is also incorporated

Revision of the Eurasian species of Aegilips Haliday, 1835 (Hymenoptera: Figitidae: Anacharitinae).

The knowledge of Aegilips in Eurasia is updated. One new species is described: Aegilips insularis Mata-Casanova and Pujade-Villar sp. nov., from Portugal (Madeira). The genus is also cited for the first time in the Indomalayan region with specimens of A. atricornis found in Northern India and Pakistan. Aegilips curvipes Giraud, 1860, Aegilips gemellus Belizin, 1961, Aegilips laevis (Hedicke, 1914), Aegilips montanus Belizin, 1951 and Aegilips punctatus Belizin, 1951 are synonymized with A. nitidulus (Dalman, 1823). Aegilips vena Fergusson, 1985 is synonymized with Aegilips zaitzevi Kovalev, 1974. Aegilips notatus Belizin, 1951, and Aegilips punctulatus Hedicke, 1928 are designated as incertae sedis. The known distributions of A. atricornis, A. kozlovi, A. nitidulus and A. romseyensis are expanded. Morphological differences are discussed and a key for Eurasian Aegilips species is also given

Intraspecific variation in the morphology of Alloxysta fracticornis (Thomson, 1862) (Hymenoptera: Figitidae: Charipinae).

A new brachypterous form of Alloxysta fracticornis (Thomson, 1862) has been found in the Museum of Natural History of Wroclaw University (Poland). This is the first time that this morphological variation has been recorded for A. fracticornis. The morphological features of this new form match with this species, except for the wing length, which is characteristic of the brachypterous form, and the colour. COI sequences and phylogenetic analysis for the specimens studied (macropterous and brachypterous) confirm that the two morphologies belong to the same species, as we suspected a priori. Thus, in this study we show evidence of morphological variation in A. fracticornis, and demonstrate the value of studying entomological collections as well as new material to improve the taxonomic knowledge of this subfamily

A proteomic approach to obesity and type 2 diabetes

The incidence of obesity and type diabetes 2 has increased dramatically resulting in an increased interest in its biomedical relevance. However, the mechanisms that trigger the development of diabetes type 2 in obese patients remain largely unknown. Scientific, clinical and pharmaceutical communities are dedicating vast resources to unravel this issue by applying different omics tools. During the last decade, the advances in proteomic approaches and the Human Proteome Organization have opened and are opening a new door that may be helpful in the identification of patients at risk and to improve current therapies. Here, we briefly review some of the advances in our understanding of type 2 diabetes that have occurred through the application of proteomics. We also review, in detail, the current improvements in proteomic methodologies and new strategies that could be employed to further advance our understanding of this pathology. By applying these new proteomic advances, novel therapeutic and/or diagnostic protein targets will be discovered in the obesity/Type 2 diabetes areaThis work is funded by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (BFU2011–27492), Fondos de Investigación Sanitaria (PI1302195), Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Fisiopatología de Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBERobn), Instituto de Salud Carlos III and Fundación de Endocrinología y Nutrición. Dr. Elena López Villar is supported by ISCIII Spanish Health System (SNS BOE 2012) and she is Delegate of HUPO (Human Proteome Organization) supporting clinical proteomic studies at Hospital Niño Jesús of Madrid, Spain, to improve diagnosis and therapies via researc

Experimental Evaluation of a Team of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Cooperative Construction

Nº Artículo 9314142This article presents a team of multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to perform cooperative missions for autonomous construction. In particular, the UAVs have to build a wall made of bricks that need to be picked and transported from different locations. First, we propose a novel architecture for multi-robot systems operating in outdoor and unstructured environments, where robustness and reliability play a key role. Then, we describe the design of our aerial platforms and grasping mechanisms to pick, transport and place bricks. The system was particularly developed for the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), where Challenge 2 consisted of building a wall cooperatively with multiple UAVs. However, our approach is more general and extensible to other multi-UAV applications involving physical interaction, like package delivery. We present not only our results in the final stage of MBZIRC, but also our simulations and field experiments throughout the previous months to the competition, where we tuned our system and assessed its performance

Rate-distortion function upper bounds for Gaussian vectors and their applications in coding AR sources

source coding; rate-distortion function (RDF); Gaussian vector; autoregressive (AR) source; discrete Fourier transform (DFT

A new species of Telenomus Haliday (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) associated with egg batches of the pine processionary moth, Thaumetopoea pityocampa (Dennis et Schiffermüller, 1775) (Lepidoptera: Notodontidae), from peninsular Spain

Telenomus thaumetopoeae Buhl sp. n. is described from northeastern València (Peninsular Spain) taking as starting point females parasitizing the egg-batches of the Pine Processionary Moth, Thaumetopoea pityocampa (Dennis et Schiffermüller, 1775). Its morphological affinities with the most closely related species and parasitism data are offered

Route Towards a Label-free Optical Waveguide Sensing Platform Based on Lossy Mode Resonances

According to recent market studies of the North American company Allied Market Research, the field of photonic sensors is an emerging strategic field for the following years and it is expected to garner $18 billion by 2021. The integration of micro and nanofabrication technologies in the field of sensors has allowed the development of new technological concepts such as lab-on-a-chip, which have achieved extraordinary advances in terms of detection and applicability, for example in the field of biosensors. This continuous development has allowed that equipment consisting of many complex devices that occupied a whole room a few years ago, at present it is possible to handle them in the palm of the hand; that formerly long duration processes are carried out in a matter of milliseconds and that a technology previously dedicated solely to military or scientific uses is available to the vast majority of consumers. The adequate combination of micro and nanostructured coatings with optical fiber sensors has permitted us to develop novel sensing technologies, such as the first experimental demonstration of lossy mode resonances (LMRs) for sensing applications, with more than one hundred citations and related publications in high rank journals and top conferences. In fact, fiber optic LMR-based devices have been proven as devices with one of the highest sensitivity for refractometric applications. Refractive index sensitivity is an indirect and simple indicator of how sensitive the device is to chemical and biological species, topic where this proposal is focused. Consequently, the utilization of these devices for chemical and biosensing applications is a clear opportunity that could open novel and interesting research lines and applications as well as simplify current analytical methodologies. As a result, on the basis of our previous experience with LMR based sensors to attain very high sensitivities, the objective of this paper is presenting the route for the development of label-free optical waveguide sensing platform based on LMRs that enable to explore the limits of this technology for bio-chemosensing applications