La historia del Museo de Ronda

En esta pequeña colaboración se expone de manera abreviada lo que ha sido la historia de nuestro museo y lo que supone para una ciudad como Ronda y la comarca una institución como la nuestra. Desde aquí queremos dar las gracias a todos los que han contribuido a que hoy seamos el punto de referencia del Patrimonio Histórico en nuestra ciudad

The H2020 OCRE Project Opens the Gates of the Commercial Cloud and EO Services Usage to the Research Community

Cloud and Earth Observation (EO) based services offer the European Research community a wealth of powerful tools. However, for many researchers these tools are currently out of reach. It is difficult to find and select suitable services. Establishing agreements with cloud and EO service providers and ensuring legal and technical compliance requires specialist skills and takes an inordinate amount of time. Equally, service providers find it difficult to reach and meet the needs of the research community in technical, financial and legal areas. The Open Clouds for Research Environments consortium (OCRE) will change this, by putting in place an easy adoption route. In the autumn of 2019, OCRE will run a pan-European tender and establish framework agreements with service providers who meet the requirements of the research community. 10.000 European research and education institutes will be able to directly consume these offerings via the European Open Science Cloud service catalogue, through ready-to-use agreements. They will not have to run a tender of their own. In addition, to stimulate usage, OCRE will make available 9.5 million euro in service credits (vouchers), through adoption funds from the European Commission. OCRE is a pioneer project without precedence, with potentially high impact in the future EO market activities and evolution of service offering, with the objective to burst the usage of EO commercial services by the research environment

Beneficial effects of paricalcitol on cardiac dysfunction and remodelling in a model of established heart failure

The synthetic vitamin D3 analogue paricalcitol acts as a selective activator of the vitamin D receptor (VDR). While there is evidence for cardioprotective effects of paricalcitol associated with the VDR pathway, less information is available about the structural and functional cardiac effects of paricalcitol on established heart failure (HF) and particularly its effects on associated electrophysiological or Ca2+ handling remodelling. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH: We used a murine model of transverse aortic constriction (TAC) to study the effect of paricalcitol on established HF. Treatment was initiated 4 weeks after surgery over five consecutive weeks, and mice were sacrificed 9 weeks after surgery. Cardiac MRI (CMRI) was performed 4 and 9 weeks after surgery. Hearts were used for biochemical and histological studies and to isolate ventricular myocytes for electrophysiological and calcium imaging studies. KEY RESULTS: CMRI analysis revealed that, compared with vehicle, paricalcitol treatment prevented the progression of ventricular dilation and hypertrophy after TAC and halted the corresponding decline in ejection fraction. These beneficial effects were related to the attenuation of intracellular Ca2+ mishandling remodelling, antifibrotic and antihypertrophic effects and potentially antiarrhythmic effects by preventing the reduction of K+ current density and the long QT, JT and TpTe intervals observed in HF animals. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: The results suggest that paricalcitol treatment in established HF hampers disease progression and improves adverse electrophysiological and Ca2+ handling remodelling, attenuating the vulnerability to HF-associated ventricular arrhythmias. Paricalcitol may emerge as a potential therapeutic option in the treatment of HFThis work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (SAF2014- 57190R, SAF2017-84777-R), ISCIII (PI17/01093 and PI17/01344), European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), Sociedad Española de Cardiología (SEC), and CIBER-CV, a network funded by ISCIII. MF-V is a Miguel Servet II researcher of ISCIII (MSII16/00047 Carlos III Health Institute). GR-H is a Miguel Servet I researcher of ISCIII (CP15/00129 Carlos III Health Institute). MT is a predoctoral fellow of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (FPU-17/06135

La arqueología y la antropología en Ecuador: Escenarios, retos perspectivas

La arqueología y la antropología son disciplinas sujetas a permanente debates provenientes tanto desde fuera como desde dentro de sus propios actores e instituciones.   Los buenos momentos de la antropología y la arqueología ecuatoriana han dependido tanto de los logros y producciones académicas (investigaciones, publicaciones) como de su capacidad para articularse con los movimientos sociales. Ello demuestra que, más que constituirnos en productores de conocimientos y expertos en saberes, estamos llamados a facilitar, construir, implementar, alimentar y dar vida a todo espacio posible de diálogo e interlocución entre actores y voces de quienes animan, desde sus respectivas diferencias, una sociedad no mejor, sino radicalmente diferente.   Trabajar académicamente estos desafíos (la articulación con los movimientos sociales, trabajar un saber no simulado y en tensión con aquello que emerge de estos movimientos, unir las dimensiones de la vida que el sistema separa) puede favorecer el que sintamos las aulas de otra manera y dar otro sentido a nuestro pensar, hacer y sentir

Innate immune receptors, key actors in cardiovascular diseases

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death in the industrialized world. Most CVDs are associated with increased inflammation that arises mainly from innate immune system activation related to cardiac damage. Sustained activation of the innate immune system frequently results in maladaptive inflammatory responses that promote cardiovascular dysfunction and remodeling. Much research has focused on determining whether some mediators of the innate immune system are potential targets for CVD therapy. The innate immune system has specific receptors—termed pattern recognition receptors (PRRs)—that not only recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns, but also sense danger-associated molecular signals. Activation of PRRs triggers the inflammatory response in different physiological systems, including the cardiovascular system. The classic PRRs, toll-like receptors (TLRs), and the more recently discovered nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptors (NLRs), have been recently proposed as key partners in the progression of several CVDs (e.g., atherosclerosis and heart failure). The present review discusses the key findings related to the involvement of TLRs and NLRs in the progression of several vascular and cardiac diseases, with a focus on whether some NLR subtypes (nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain, leucine rich repeat and pyrin domain-containing receptor 3 and nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-containing protein 1) can be candidates for the development of new therapeutic strategies for several CVDs

Benefit of tolvaptan in the management of hyponatraemia in patients with diuretic‐refractory congestive heart failure: the SEMI‐SEC project

Aims: Hyponatraemia is an electrolyte disorder that occurs in advanced congestive heart failure (HF) and worsens prognosis. We explored the usefulness of tolvaptan, which has shown promising results in the treatment of this condition. Methods and results: This study is based on a retrospective national registry (2011-15) of patients hospitalized with refractory HF and hyponatraemia who agreed to receive tolvaptan when standard treatment was ineffective. The benefit of tolvaptan was analysed according to the following criteria: normalization ([Na+] >= 135mmol/L) or increased sodium levels [Na+] >= 4mEq/L on completion of treatment, and increase in urine output by 300 or 500mL at 48h. Factors associated with tolvaptan benefit were explored. A total of 241 patients were included, 53.9% of whom had ejection fraction = 4mEq/L and/or +300mL in urine output (54.4% both). Conclusions: An increase in sodium levels and/or improvement in urine output was observed in patients admitted for HF and refractory hyponatraemia under tolvaptan treatment. Tolvaptan may be useful in this setting, in which no effective proven alternatives are available

Heart transplantation using allografts from older donors: multicenter study results

33rd Annual Meeting and Scientific Session of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation, April 24–27, 2013, Montreal, Canada.[Abstract] Background. The lengthy waiting time for heart transplantation is associated with high mortality. To increase the number of donors, new strategies have emerged, including the use of hearts from donors ≥50 years old. However, this practice remains controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate outcomes of patients receiving heart transplants from older donors. Methods. We retrospectively analyzed 2,102 consecutive heart transplants in 8 Spanish hospitals from 1998 to 2010. Acute and overall mortality were compared in patients with grafts from donors ≥50 years old versus grafts from younger donors. Results. There were 1,758 (84%) transplanted grafts from donors < 50 years old (Group I) and 344 (16%) from donors ≥50 years old (Group II). Group I had more male donors than Group II (71% vs 57%, p = 0.0001). The incidence of cardiovascular risk factors was higher in older donors. There were no differences in acute mortality or acute rejection episodes between the 2 groups. Global mortality was higher in Group II (rate ratio, 1.40; 95% confidence interval, 1.18–1.67; p = 0.001) than in Group I. After adjusting for donor cause of death, donor smoking history, recipient age, induction therapy, and cyclosporine therapy, the differences lost significance. Group II had a higher incidence of coronary allograft vasculopathy at 5 years (rate ratio, 1.67; 95% confidence interval, 1.22–2.27; p = 0.001). Conclusions. There were no differences in acute and overall mortality after adjusting for confounding factors. However, there was a midterm increased risk of coronary allograft vasculopathy with the use of older donors. Careful selection of recipients and close monitoring of coronary allograft vasculopathy are warranted in these patients.Instituto de Salud Carlos III; RD12/0042/00

Adipose tissue aging partially accounts for fat alterations in HIV lipodystrophy

Altres ajuts: European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).Lipodystrophy is a major disturbance in people living with HIV-1 (PLWH). Several systemic alterations in PLWH are reminiscent of those that occur in ageing. It is unknown whether the lipodystrophy in PLWH is the consequence of accelerated ageing in adipose tissue. We compared systemic and adipose tissue disturbances in PLWH with those in healthy elderly individuals (~80 y old). We observed similarly enhanced expression of inflammation-related genes and decreased autophagy in adipose tissues from elderly individuals and PLWH. Indications of repressed adipogenesis and mitochondrial dysfunction were found specifically in PLWH, whereas reduced telomere length and signs of senesce were specific to elderly individuals. We conclude that ageing of adipose tissue accounts only partially for the alterations in adipose tissues of PLWH

Monitorización de infraestructuras críticas expuestas a riesgos naturales y antrópicos mediante interferometría radar de satélite

[EN] Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) is a remote sensing technique very effective for the measure of smalldisplacements of the Earth’s surface over large areas at a very low cost as compared with conventional geodetictechniques. Advanced InSAR time series algorithms for monitoring and investigating surface displacement on Earth arebased on conventional radar interferometry. These techniques allow us to measure deformation with uncertainties of 1mm/year, interpreting time series of interferometric phases at coherent point scatterers (PS) without the need for humanor special equipment presence on the site. By applying InSAR processing techniques to a series of radar images over thesame region, it is possible to detect line-of-sight (LOS) displacements of infrastructures on the ground and therefore identifyabnormal or excessive movement indicating potential problems requiring detailed ground investigation. A major advantageof this technology is that a single radar image can cover a major area of up to 100 km by 100 km or more as, for example,Sentinel-1 C-band satellites data cover a 250 km wide swath. Therefore, all engineering infrastructures in the area, suchas dams, dikes, bridges, ports, etc. subject to terrain deformation by volcanos, landslides, subsidence due to groundwater,gas, or oil withdrawal could be monitored, reducing operating costs effectively. In this sense, the free and open accessCopernicus Sentinel-1 data with currently up to 6-days revisit time open new opportunities for a near real-time landmonitoring. In addition, the new generation of high-resolution radar imagery acquired by SAR sensors such as TerraSARX,COSMO-SkyMed, and PAZ, and the development of multi-interferogram techniques has enhanced our capabilities inrecent years in using InSAR as deformation monitoring tool. In this paper, we address the applicability of using spaceborneSAR sensors for monitoring infrastructures in geomatics engineering and present several cases studies carried out by ourgroup related to anthropogenic and natural hazards, as well as monitoring of critical infrastructures.[ES] La interferometría radar de apertura sintética (InSAR) es una técnica de teledetección muy eficaz para medir pequeños desplazamientos de la superficie terrestre en grandes áreas a un coste muy pequeño en comparación con las técnicas geodésicas convencionales. Los algoritmos avanzados de series temporales InSAR para monitorizar e investigar el desplazamiento de la superficie terrestre se basan en la interferometría radar convencional. Estas técnicas nos permiten medir la deformación con incertidumbres de un milímetro por año, interpretando series temporales de fases interferométricas en retrodispersores puntuales coherentes (PS) sin necesidad de presencia humana o de equipos especiales en el sitio. Al aplicar técnicas de procesamiento InSAR a una serie de imágenes radar de la misma región, es posible detectar desplazamientos de infraestructuras proyectados en la línea de vista del satélite (line-of-sight o LOS) y, por lo tanto, identificar movimientos anormales o excesivos que indiquen problemas potenciales que requieran una investigación detallada del terreno. Una de las principales ventajas de esta tecnología es que una sola imagen radar puede cubrir un área importante de hasta 100 km por 100 km o más, ya que, por ejemplo, los datos de los satélites de banda C Sentinel-1 cubren una franja de 250 km de ancho. Por lo tanto, todas las infraestructuras civiles de la zona, como presas, diques, puentes, puertos, etc., sujetas a deformaciones del terreno por actividad volcánica, deslizamientos de tierra, hundimientos por extracción de agua subterránea, gas o petróleo, podrían ser monitorizados, reduciendo los costes operativos de manera efectiva. En este sentido, los datos Sentinel-1 de Copernicus, de acceso abierto, con hasta 6 días de tiempo de revisión actual abren nuevas oportunidades para una monitorización terrestre casi en tiempo real. Además, la nueva generación de imágenes radar de alta resolución adquiridas por sensores SAR como TerraSAR-X, COSMOSkyMed y PAZ, y el desarrollo de técnicas multi-interferograma ha mejorado nuestras capacidades en los últimos años en el uso del InSAR como herramienta para el control de deformaciones. En este trabajo se aborda la aplicabilidad del uso de sensores SAR espaciales para la monitorización de infraestructuras civiles en ingeniería geomática y presentamos varios casos de estudio realizados por nuestro grupo relacionados con riesgos naturales y antrópicos, así como de monitorización de infraestructura crítica.ERS-1/2 and Envisat datasets were provided by the European Space Agency (ESA). Sentinel-1A/B data were freely provided by ESA through Copernicus Programme. Data have been processed by DORIS (TUDelft), StaMPS (Andy Hooper), SARPROZ (Copyright (c) 2009-2020 Daniele Perissin), and SNAP (ESA). The satellite orbits are from TUDelft and ESA, as well as from the ESA Quality Control Group of Sentinel-1. Research was supported by [ESA Research and Service Support] for providing hardware resources employed in this work; [Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness] under ReMoDams project ESP2017-89344-R (AEI/FEDER, UE); [University of Jaén (Spain)] under PAIUJA-2021/2022 and CEACTEMA; [Junta de Andalucía (Spain)] under RNM-282 research group; [ERDF through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation - COMPETE 2020 Programme] within project «POCI-01-0145-FEDER006961»; [National Funds through the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology)] as part of project UID/EEA/50014/2013; [The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports from the National Programme of Sustainability (NPU II)] under project «IT4Innovations excellence in science - LQ1602» (Czech Republic); and [Slovak Grant Agency VEGA] under projects No. 2/0100/20Ruiz-Armenteros, A.; Delgado-Blasco, J.; Bakon, M.; Lazecky, M.; Marchamalo-Sacristán, M.; Lamas-Fernández, F.; Ruiz-Constán, A.... (2021). Monitoring critical infrastructure exposed to anthropogenic and natural hazards using satellite radar interferometry. En Proceedings 3rd Congress in Geomatics Engineering. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 137-146. https://doi.org/10.4995/CiGeo2021.2021.12736OCS13714

Efficacy and safety of intermittent intravenous outpatient administration of levosimendan in patients with advanced heart failure: the LION-HEART multicentre randomised trial

Aims. The LION‐HEART study was a multicentre, double‐blind, randomised, parallel‐group, placebo‐controlled trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of intravenous administration of intermittent doses of levosimendan in outpatients with advanced chronic heart failure. Methods and results. Sixty‐nine patients from 12 centres were randomly assigned at a 2:1 ratio to levosimendan or placebo groups, receiving treatment by a 6‐hour intravenous infusion (0.2 μg/kg/min without bolus) every 2 weeks for 12 weeks. The primary endpoint was the effect on serum concentrations of N‐terminal pro‐B‐type natriuretic peptide (NT‐proBNP) throughout the treatment period in comparison with placebo. Secondary endpoints included evaluation of safety, clinical events and health‐related quality of life (HRQoL). The area under the curve (AUC, pg.day/mL) of the levels of NT‐proBNP over time for patients who received levosimendan was significantly lower than for the placebo group (344 × 103 [95% Confidence Interval (CI) 283 × 103−404 × 103] vs. 535 × 103 [443 × 103−626 × 103], p = 0.003). In comparison with the placebo group, the patients on levosimendan experienced a reduction in the rate of heart failure hospitalisation (hazard ratio 0.25; 95% CI 0.11-0.56; P = 0.001). Patients on levosimendan were less likely to experience a clinically significant decline in HRQoL over time (P = 0.022). Adverse event rates were similar in the two treatment groups. Conclusions. In this small pilot study, intermittent administration of levosimendan to ambulatory patients with advanced systolic heart failure reduced plasma concentrations of NT‐proBNP, worsening of HRQoL and hospitalisation for heart failure. The efficacy and safety of this intervention should be confirmed in larger trials