Synthesis and charaterisation of phosphorescent copper (I) complexes for light emitting devices

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Over the last decade, many significant developments have been made to improve the active materials in a new generation of organic light emitting devices (OLEDs). Current OLED technology is focused on organo-transition metal complexes, which emit from the triplet excited state and exhibit bright phosphorescence. Efficient in devices have been reported using these luminescent materials, such as iridium and platinum complexes, however, rare metal abundance concerns, high price and toxicology have inspired the study of alternative phosphorescent materials, such as copper or silver complexes. In this research, novel copper complexes have been synthesized, such as trinuclear and mononuclear copper (I) complexes, using a range of ligands, such as alkynyl, phosphine alkynyl and pyridine ligands. The synthesised complexes have been characterised by with a range of techniques, such as UV/Vis absorption and emission spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Most of the copper complexes have shown very interesting luminescent properties in solution and solid state and some of them were studied for future application in a device.Research Council of U

Algorithms for anomaly detection in video sequences through discriminative models

Monitoring public areas with pedestrians is a task that has to be frequently accomplished by means of security systems. Nevertheless, manual detection of these anomalies is a tough task and it is easy to lose interesting events when many areas have to be attended. This is the main reason why the automated detection of these anomalies and interesting events in general has become an important source of research in the past years, specially in the eld of computer vision. Automated anomaly detection is still an open task even though that many methods have been proposed. One of the reasons is that a successful and accurate anomaly detection algorithm strongly depends on the context and the de nition of the anomalies to detect and the objects that produce them. The state of the art included in this work has been developed to make a complete study of all these aspects in detail, as well as a study of advantages and drawbacks of the main methods of the literature, helping to choose the best techniques and strategies for speci c surveillance scenarios. Since there is a great di culty to model every anomaly, we have decided to fashion the normality by means of Gaussian mixture models, which are relatively simple methods compared to others in the literature such as [1, 2], but that have shown potential at detecting anomalies. This can be observed on the methods proposed in [3] and [4]. We have decided to work at pixel level. Thus, to feed the model, discriminative descriptors are built based on a robust optical ow method, that has become the main source of motion and textural information of the scene. This fact makes this work di erent to other state-of-the-art approaches that work at pixel-level, whose optical ow is not capable to give such a detailed information of the scene. Finally, the evaluation of the nal algorithm is performed exhaustively from a baseline method, whose descriptor grows depending on the best results so far on a publicly available dataset. Detection results are compared with the state-of-the-art methods, concluding that our method is at the same level of the methods proposed in the literature

La fuente de la salud o el Sacramento de la penitencia histórica y místicamente considerado

Port. con orla tip.Front. lit.:"F.Soler"Copia digital : Junta de Castilla y León. Consejería de Cultura y Turismo, 201

Dominant height growth equations including site attributes in the generalized algebraic difference approach

We present a new dynamic dominant height growth model based on Cieszewski’s generalized algebraic difference approach (GADA) advanced dynamic site equation strengthened by the use of explicit climate and soil variables (i.e., H = f(H0,T0, T, site conditions)). The results suggest that the inclusion of climatic variables would improve the applicability of the inter-regional model in regions in which climate and soil type lead to intra-regional variability. The new model reduces the bias present in a previous dynamic model that did not include climatic attributes and improves the model efficiency across the different age classes. Climate has a multiplicative effect on dominant tree growth in the early development stages (<20 years) and an additive effect in older stands

Los valores democráticos en la escuela rural

El siguiente trabajo supone un análisis de la transmisión de los valores democráticos en colegios propios del ámbito rural. Dicho contenido se ha estructurado en apartados diferentes a fin de obtener una visión clara y ordenada del documento. En un primer apartado, se detallan aquellos motivos por los cuales se lleva a cabo dicho estudio, y la relación existente con el desempeño del profesor de Educación Infantil. Seguidamente, se abordan aspectos teóricos, referentes a la escuela rural y a los valores democráticos, temas base del trabajo. Posteriormente, se refleja la parte práctica del estudio. Se hace alusión a la importancia de dicha investigación, así como al área problemática de la cual surge la investigación. Asimismo, se detalla la hipótesis de la que partimos, las variables que las apoyan y la muestra utilizada. A continuación, se exponen los procedimientos y técnicas de recogida de información, así como un resumen en el que consta el diseño de la investigación. Para finalizar el presente trabajo, se expone una pequeña conclusión y valoración personal sobre el contenido y elaboración del trabajo

Disposable Electrochemical Biosensor Based on the Inhibition of Alkaline Phosphatase Encapsulated in Acrylamide Hydrogels

The present work describes the development of an easy-to-use portable electrochemical biosensor based on alkaline phosphatase (ALP) as a recognition element, which has been immobilized in acrylamide-based hydrogels prepared through a green protocol over disposable screen-printed electrodes. To carry out the electrochemical transduction, an electroinactive substrate (hydroquinone diphosphate) was used in the presence of the enzyme and then it was hydrolyzed to an electroactive species (hydroquinone). The activity of the protein within the matrix was determined voltammetrically. Due to the adhesive properties of the hydrogel, this was easily deposited on the surface of the electrodes, greatly increasing the sensitivity of the biosensor. The device was optimized to allow the determination of phosphate ion, a competitive inhibitor of ALP, in aqueous media. Our study provides a proof-of-concept demonstrating the potential use of the developed biosensor for in situ, real-time measurement of water pollutants that act as ALP inhibitors.This research was funded by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (projects PID2019-105923RB-I00, PDC2021-120884-I00, European Union NextGenerationEU PRTR-C17.I1) and Generalitat Valenciana (project GVA-THINKINAZUL/2021/015 and PROMETEO/2018/087)

DÉPORVIDA: a character strengths positive intervention among young soccer players

In recent years, various intervention programs have been developed to enhance the quality of life of young athletes. This is particularly important for those who live in residences of professional clubs, far from their families. In this regard, we designed a positive psychology intervention program called “DÉPORVIDA”, aimed at enhancing character strengths. To assess the efcacy of this 8-week intervention, we tested 28 young soccer players from a Spanish professional club. The intervention program used a strength-based approach from the values in action (VIA) model, and was conducted by club employees with formal academic education. Data were analysed using a set of 2×2 (intervention×time) mixed design ANOVAs. Results revealed diferent trends for the intervention and the control groups participants for seasonal performance satisfaction and percentage of time feeling happy/unhappy, highlighting consistent changes in the desired direction. Overall, the results indicate that the DÉPORVIDA program is a useful tool to promote positive development in young athletes

Immunomodulatory effect of gut microbiota-derived bioactive peptides on human immune system from healthy controls and patients with inflammatory bowel disease

Bioactive peptides secreted by probiotic Bifidobacterium longum (peptide B7) and opportunistic pathogen Bacteroides fragilis (peptide B12) modulate the intestinal cytokine milieu in health. Here, we characterized their capacity to modulate both the mucosal cytokine production and the phenotype of circulating antigen presenting cells (APCs) in active inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The IBD mucosa produced higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines referred to healthy controls (HCs). Peptides B7 and B12, however, did not ameliorate the mucosal cytokine milieu in IBD. Human circulating APCs (B-cells, monocytes, plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), and conventional dendritic cells (cDCs)) were characterized by flow cytometry in presence/absence of the peptides. Circulating B-cells, monocytes, and cDCs from IBD patients were more activated than those from HCs. Peptide B7, but not B12, decreased CCR2 expression on all APC subsets from HC, but not IBD patients. Moreover, both peptides tend to further increase their pro-inflammatory profile in IBD. In summary, IBD patients display mucosal and circulating APC pro-inflammatory properties. Peptide B7 immunomodulatory capacity elicited over circulating APCs from HC, but not IBD patients, suggests the presence of disrupted modulatory mechanisms for this peptide in IBD. Future studies should address the effect of bacteria-derived immunomodulatory peptides in non-inflamed (quiescent) IBD patientsThis work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy (SAF2014-56642-JIN), the Spanish Ministry of Health (PIE13/00041), GETECCU (Grupo Español de Trabajo en Enfermedad Crohn y Colitis Ulcerosa), and the Community of Madrid (Consejería de Educación, Juventud y Deporte, Programa de Garantía Juvenil 2015 and 2016)