Energy Recovery in Capacitive Deionization Technology

Capacitive deionization technique (CDI) represents an interesting alternative to compete with reverse osmosis by reducing energy consumption. It is based on creating an electric field between two electrodes to retain the salt ions on the electrode surface by electrostatic attraction; thus the CDI cell operates as a supercapacitor storing energy during the desalination process. Most of the CDI research is oriented to improving the electrode materials in order to increase the effective surface and ionic retention. However, if the CDI overall efficiency is to be improved, it is necessary to optimize the CDI cell geometry and the charge/discharge current used during the deionization process. A DC/DC converter is required to transfer the stored energy from one cell to another with the maximum possible efficiency during energy recovery, thus allowing the desalination process to continue. A detailed description of energy losses and the DC/DC converter used to recover part of the energy involved in the CDI process will provide the hints to optimize the efficiency of the CDI technique for water desalination. The proposed chapter presents an electric model to characterize the power losses in CDI cells and the power converter required for the energy recovery process

Estudio de la adsorción de iones Cu (II) en un sorbente de base silícica en régimen estático mediante efectos mecánicos y sonorización

El presente trabajo expone las determinaciones que se efectuaron para determinar los procesos de sorción de iones Cu (II) en régimen estático con y sin impulsos ultrasónicos en un producto de base silícica con agua de comportamiento zeolítico en su estructura obtenido mediante un proceso de gelificación. Se escogieron dos fracciones con tamaños de partículas diferentes (0.071 y 0.125 mm de diámetro) a las cuales se les determinaron: densidad aparente, densidad aparente por aprisionamiento, densidad verdadera, compresibilidad, porosidad, factor de forma, superficie específica. El proceso de sorción de iones se lleva a cabo en determinadas condiciones de acidez, temperatura, pulso, concentración de iones Cu2+, diámetro de partícula y tiempo. Desde otro punto de vista se obtuvo el producto con iones cobre (II) con condiciones específicas de acidez, velocidad de agitación, diámetro de partícula, temperatura, concentraciones de iones Cu2+ y tiempo de contacto.The determinations ruling the processes of Cu2+ ions sorption in steady state with and without ultrasonic impulses in a silica base product with water of zeolitic-behaviour structure obtained by gelification, are introduced. Two fractions of different particle size are selected to determine its apparent density, confined apparent density, true density, compressibility, porosity, shape factor, specific surface. The sorption process is carried out in given acidity, temperature, pulse, Cu22+ concentration, particle diameter and time. From an alternative viewpoint, the product is obtained with Cu2+ ions in specific conditions of acidity, shake speed, particle diameter, temperature, Cu2+ concentration and contact time.Asociación Argentina de Energías Renovables y Medio Ambiente (ASADES

Estudio de la adsorción de iones Cu (II) en un sorbente de base silícica en régimen estático mediante efectos mecánicos y sonorización

El presente trabajo expone las determinaciones que se efectuaron para determinar los procesos de sorción de iones Cu (II) en régimen estático con y sin impulsos ultrasónicos en un producto de base silícica con agua de comportamiento zeolítico en su estructura obtenido mediante un proceso de gelificación. Se escogieron dos fracciones con tamaños de partículas diferentes (0.071 y 0.125 mm de diámetro) a las cuales se les determinaron: densidad aparente, densidad aparente por aprisionamiento, densidad verdadera, compresibilidad, porosidad, factor de forma, superficie específica. El proceso de sorción de iones se lleva a cabo en determinadas condiciones de acidez, temperatura, pulso, concentración de iones Cu2+, diámetro de partícula y tiempo. Desde otro punto de vista se obtuvo el producto con iones cobre (II) con condiciones específicas de acidez, velocidad de agitación, diámetro de partícula, temperatura, concentraciones de iones Cu2+ y tiempo de contacto.The determinations ruling the processes of Cu2+ ions sorption in steady state with and without ultrasonic impulses in a silica base product with water of zeolitic-behaviour structure obtained by gelification, are introduced. Two fractions of different particle size are selected to determine its apparent density, confined apparent density, true density, compressibility, porosity, shape factor, specific surface. The sorption process is carried out in given acidity, temperature, pulse, Cu22+ concentration, particle diameter and time. From an alternative viewpoint, the product is obtained with Cu2+ ions in specific conditions of acidity, shake speed, particle diameter, temperature, Cu2+ concentration and contact time.Asociación Argentina de Energías Renovables y Medio Ambiente (ASADES

Estudio de la adsorción de iones Cu (II) en un sorbente de base silícica en régimen estático mediante efectos mecánicos y sonorización

El presente trabajo expone las determinaciones que se efectuaron para determinar los procesos de sorción de iones Cu (II) en régimen estático con y sin impulsos ultrasónicos en un producto de base silícica con agua de comportamiento zeolítico en su estructura obtenido mediante un proceso de gelificación. Se escogieron dos fracciones con tamaños de partículas diferentes (0.071 y 0.125 mm de diámetro) a las cuales se les determinaron: densidad aparente, densidad aparente por aprisionamiento, densidad verdadera, compresibilidad, porosidad, factor de forma, superficie específica. El proceso de sorción de iones se lleva a cabo en determinadas condiciones de acidez, temperatura, pulso, concentración de iones Cu2+, diámetro de partícula y tiempo. Desde otro punto de vista se obtuvo el producto con iones cobre (II) con condiciones específicas de acidez, velocidad de agitación, diámetro de partícula, temperatura, concentraciones de iones Cu2+ y tiempo de contacto.The determinations ruling the processes of Cu2+ ions sorption in steady state with and without ultrasonic impulses in a silica base product with water of zeolitic-behaviour structure obtained by gelification, are introduced. Two fractions of different particle size are selected to determine its apparent density, confined apparent density, true density, compressibility, porosity, shape factor, specific surface. The sorption process is carried out in given acidity, temperature, pulse, Cu22+ concentration, particle diameter and time. From an alternative viewpoint, the product is obtained with Cu2+ ions in specific conditions of acidity, shake speed, particle diameter, temperature, Cu2+ concentration and contact time.Asociación Argentina de Energías Renovables y Medio Ambiente (ASADES

Depression, anxiety, and stress in medical students in Peru: a cross-sectional study

ObjectiveTo determine the prevalence and factors associated with depressive, anxious, and stress symptoms in medical students in Peru, during the second pandemic wave of COVID-19.MethodsWe conducted an analytical cross-sectional study in 405 medical students from a university in northern Peru. The DASS-21 instrument was used to evaluate mental health outcomes (depression, anxiety, and stress), and to investigate their association with socio-educational characteristics.ResultsWe found a prevalence of depressive, anxious, and stress symptoms of 71.6% (95% CI: 66.94–75.95), 71.9% (95% CI: 67.2–76.2), and 62.7% (95% CI: 57.8–67.4); respectively. Students with eating behavior disorders had a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms (PR: 1.35), anxious symptoms (PR: 1.27), and stress symptoms (PR: 1.31). The prevalence of depressive symptoms (PR: 1.57), anxious symptoms (PR: 1.27), and stress symptoms (PR: 1.24) increased in students who did not report regular physical activity. In addition, having almost always academic exhaustion increased the prevalence of depressive symptoms (PR: 1.46), stress symptoms (PR: 1.72). On the contrary, the prevalence of depressive symptoms (PR: 0.79), anxious symptoms (PR: 0.73) and stress symptoms (PR: 0.82) decreased in male students. Students who reported sleeping 8 or more hours daily had a lower prevalence of stress symptoms (PR: 0.82).ConclusionSymptoms of depression and anxiety occurred in 7 out of 10 students, and stress in 6 out of 10. Among the factors associated with the presence of anxiety, depression, and stress were eating behavior disorder and not regularly exercising. Periodic evaluations of mental symptomatology are required and counseling should be promoted in medical schools

Semaglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with obesity and prevalent heart failure: a prespecified analysis of the SELECT trial

Background: Semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist, reduces the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in people with overweight or obesity, but the effects of this drug on outcomes in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and heart failure are unknown. We report a prespecified analysis of the effect of once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide 2·4 mg on ischaemic and heart failure cardiovascular outcomes. We aimed to investigate if semaglutide was beneficial in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease with a history of heart failure compared with placebo; if there was a difference in outcome in patients designated as having heart failure with preserved ejection fraction compared with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction; and if the efficacy and safety of semaglutide in patients with heart failure was related to baseline characteristics or subtype of heart failure. Methods: The SELECT trial was a randomised, double-blind, multicentre, placebo-controlled, event-driven phase 3 trial in 41 countries. Adults aged 45 years and older, with a BMI of 27 kg/m2 or greater and established cardiovascular disease were eligible for the study. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) with a block size of four using an interactive web response system in a double-blind manner to escalating doses of once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide over 16 weeks to a target dose of 2·4 mg, or placebo. In a prespecified analysis, we examined the effect of semaglutide compared with placebo in patients with and without a history of heart failure at enrolment, subclassified as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, or unclassified heart failure. Endpoints comprised MACE (a composite of non-fatal myocardial infarction, non-fatal stroke, and cardiovascular death); a composite heart failure outcome (cardiovascular death or hospitalisation or urgent hospital visit for heart failure); cardiovascular death; and all-cause death. The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03574597. Findings: Between Oct 31, 2018, and March 31, 2021, 17 604 patients with a mean age of 61·6 years (SD 8·9) and a mean BMI of 33·4 kg/m2 (5·0) were randomly assigned to receive semaglutide (8803 [50·0%] patients) or placebo (8801 [50·0%] patients). 4286 (24·3%) of 17 604 patients had a history of investigator-defined heart failure at enrolment: 2273 (53·0%) of 4286 patients had heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, 1347 (31·4%) had heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, and 666 (15·5%) had unclassified heart failure. Baseline characteristics were similar between patients with and without heart failure. Patients with heart failure had a higher incidence of clinical events. Semaglutide improved all outcome measures in patients with heart failure at random assignment compared with those without heart failure (hazard ratio [HR] 0·72, 95% CI 0·60-0·87 for MACE; 0·79, 0·64-0·98 for the heart failure composite endpoint; 0·76, 0·59-0·97 for cardiovascular death; and 0·81, 0·66-1·00 for all-cause death; all pinteraction>0·19). Treatment with semaglutide resulted in improved outcomes in both the heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HR 0·65, 95% CI 0·49-0·87 for MACE; 0·79, 0·58-1·08 for the composite heart failure endpoint) and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction groups (0·69, 0·51-0·91 for MACE; 0·75, 0·52-1·07 for the composite heart failure endpoint), although patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction had higher absolute event rates than those with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. For MACE and the heart failure composite, there were no significant differences in benefits across baseline age, sex, BMI, New York Heart Association status, and diuretic use. Serious adverse events were less frequent with semaglutide versus placebo, regardless of heart failure subtype. Interpretation: In patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular diease and overweight or obesity, treatment with semaglutide 2·4 mg reduced MACE and composite heart failure endpoints compared with placebo in those with and without clinical heart failure, regardless of heart failure subtype. Our findings could facilitate prescribing and result in improved clinical outcomes for this patient group. Funding: Novo Nordisk

BLOOM: A 176B-Parameter Open-Access Multilingual Language Model

Large language models (LLMs) have been shown to be able to perform new tasks based on a few demonstrations or natural language instructions. While these capabilities have led to widespread adoption, most LLMs are developed by resource-rich organizations and are frequently kept from the public. As a step towards democratizing this powerful technology, we present BLOOM, a 176B-parameter open-access language model designed and built thanks to a collaboration of hundreds of researchers. BLOOM is a decoder-only Transformer language model that was trained on the ROOTS corpus, a dataset comprising hundreds of sources in 46 natural and 13 programming languages (59 in total). We find that BLOOM achieves competitive performance on a wide variety of benchmarks, with stronger results after undergoing multitask prompted finetuning. To facilitate future research and applications using LLMs, we publicly release our models and code under the Responsible AI License

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

Canagliflozin and renal outcomes in type 2 diabetes and nephropathy

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the leading cause of kidney failure worldwide, but few effective long-term treatments are available. In cardiovascular trials of inhibitors of sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2), exploratory results have suggested that such drugs may improve renal outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS In this double-blind, randomized trial, we assigned patients with type 2 diabetes and albuminuric chronic kidney disease to receive canagliflozin, an oral SGLT2 inhibitor, at a dose of 100 mg daily or placebo. All the patients had an estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 30 to &lt;90 ml per minute per 1.73 m2 of body-surface area and albuminuria (ratio of albumin [mg] to creatinine [g], &gt;300 to 5000) and were treated with renin–angiotensin system blockade. The primary outcome was a composite of end-stage kidney disease (dialysis, transplantation, or a sustained estimated GFR of &lt;15 ml per minute per 1.73 m2), a doubling of the serum creatinine level, or death from renal or cardiovascular causes. Prespecified secondary outcomes were tested hierarchically. RESULTS The trial was stopped early after a planned interim analysis on the recommendation of the data and safety monitoring committee. At that time, 4401 patients had undergone randomization, with a median follow-up of 2.62 years. The relative risk of the primary outcome was 30% lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group, with event rates of 43.2 and 61.2 per 1000 patient-years, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.59 to 0.82; P=0.00001). The relative risk of the renal-specific composite of end-stage kidney disease, a doubling of the creatinine level, or death from renal causes was lower by 34% (hazard ratio, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.81; P&lt;0.001), and the relative risk of end-stage kidney disease was lower by 32% (hazard ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.54 to 0.86; P=0.002). The canagliflozin group also had a lower risk of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke (hazard ratio, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.67 to 0.95; P=0.01) and hospitalization for heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.47 to 0.80; P&lt;0.001). There were no significant differences in rates of amputation or fracture. CONCLUSIONS In patients with type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, the risk of kidney failure and cardiovascular events was lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group at a median follow-up of 2.62 years