CO-PrOx over nano-Au/TiO2: Monolithic catalyst performance and empirical kinetic model fitting

In this work, the performance of ceramic monoliths washcoated with Au/TiO2 is studied on CO preferential oxidation (CO-PrOx) reaction in H2-rich environments under a wide range of operating conditions of practical interest. The parameter estimation of a nonlinear kinetic empirical model representing this system is made via genetic algorithms by fitting the model predictions against our laboratory observations. Parameter uncertainty leading to inaccurate predictions is often present when kinetic models with nonlinear rate equations are considered. Here, after the fitting was concluded, a statistical study was conducted to determine the accuracy of the parameter estimation. Activation energies of ca. 30 kJ/mol and 55 kJ/mol were adjusted for CO and H2 oxidations, respectively. The catalyst showed appropriate activity and selectivity values on the CO oxidation on a H2-rich environment. After ca. 45 h on stream the catalyst showed no deactivation. Results show that the model is suitable for reproducing the behavior of the CO-PrOx reactions and it can be used in the design of reactors for hydrogen purification.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Estudio del pensamiento funcional de estudiantes de educación primaria

El objetivo de esta investigación es identificar evidencias de pensamiento funcional en estudiantes de 3º curso de Primaria, en el marco de la propuesta de innovación curricular y línea de investigación conocida como Early-Algebra (Molina, 2009). Previo a la toma de datos se realizó un análisis de los antecedentes en el tema del álgebra en relación con el pensamiento funcional, concluyendo que este tipo de pensamiento incluye la relación entre cantidades que pueden expresarse en palabras, símbolos, tablas o gráficos, y el razonamiento con estas diversas representaciones para analizar el comportamiento de la función. El pensamiento funcional se trabaja, habitualmente, en etapas posteriores a la educación primaria, por lo que actualmente no existen suficientes estudios realizados sobre su introducción en cursos tempranos

A review of current management of vitreomacular traction and macular hole

The paper presents a review of the sequence of events of posterior vitreous detachment (PVD), vitreomacular adhesion (VMA), vitreomacular traction (VMT), and macular hole (MH) from their pathophysiological aspects, clinical features, diagnostic implications, and current management strategies. A treatment algorithm to be used in clinical practice in patients with VMA, VMT, and MH based on the presence of symptoms, visual acuity, associated epiretinal membrane, and width of the vitreous attachment is presented. Observation, pharmacologic vitreolysis with ocriplasmin, and surgical treatment are positioned as treatment options in the different steps of the therapeutic algorithm, with clear indications of the paths to be followed according to the initial presenting manifestations and the patient's clinical course

Sustainable Development Goals and General Skills integrated through gamification in Higher education: a case study

[EN] In Spain, Universities began to participate in International Cooperation for Development (ICD) in the '90s, mainly thanks to personal initiatives of university members. Nowadays ICD is a consolidated policy for higher education institutions. At this moment, Universities are committed with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations, which have constituted the core of the sustainable development agenda since 2015. SDG need to be considered from a multidisciplinary and integrated approach, especially in higher education. The accomplishment of the deal involves a change in the minds of lecturers and students, and innovative education strategies may help. Gamification is an important strategy to drive this change, due to the capabilities demonstrated to achieve deep learning and motivation improvement. The two-year innovation project applies gamification strategies to integrate SDG into the existing program with the aim of developing and evaluating General Skills (GS) in the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). The project is carried out by our innovation team GRIPAU (Interdisciplinary Group for University Learning). On the first year of the project, the pilot case study was carried out over 51 students of Biotechnology and Building MSC. The results showed the gamification as a powerful tool to integrate SDG and general skills in Higher Education. One time the pilot case study was concluded, the methodology was adjusted and the experience was extended to the other subjects within the project. The project second year plan includes applying the methodology to 255 students of 7 different subjects of Bachelor Degrees and MSC of Engineering, Architecture, Building Construction and Biotechnology, both in fall and spring terms. The methodology consists of planning different activities through the term. First, a motivation and awareness activity is carried out to introduce the SDG through a general questionnaire about the origin and limits using a gamification tool such as Kahoot. During the term, specific activities are developed with the aim of getting deeper knowledge about the SDG. The range of the activities is wide, from specific projects to debates. Finally, at the end of the term a final survey is conducted via gamification to get feedback on the level of awareness of the different issues addressed by the SDG and their guidelines. The results obtained with the first data collection activity, showed 69% of correct answers while in the final surveys were 62%. Similar results for the different scheduled data collection within the pilot case study with 76% and 60%, respectively, although the total number of students in the final surveys was only 135 because some subjects are developed on the spring semester. The results on the secondyear project are equivalent, with less correct answers for the final test than for the initial one. About the subjective impressions of the activities, only 20% of the students gave feedback. All of them reported that the activities were very fun, learning effective and they would recommend the tool.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Universitat Politècnica de València, Convocatoria Docencia + Aprendizaje 2018 (A+D) PROYECTO DE INNOVACIÓN Y MEJORA EDUCATIVA (PIME).Guillén Guillamón, IE.; Moreno-Ramón, H.; Cabedo Fabres, M.; Ferrando Bataller, M.; Calvet, S.; Ibañez Asensio, S.; Jiménez Belenguer, AI. (2020). Sustainable Development Goals and General Skills integrated through gamification in Higher education: a case study. IATED Academy. 7853-7859. https://doi.org/10.21125/edulearn.2020.1979S7853785

Management of wet age-related macular degeneration in Spain: challenges for treat and extend implementation in routine clinical practice

Purpose: to ascertain wet AMD (wAMD) management patterns in Spain. Methods: a two-round Delphi study conducted through a questionnaire-based survey designed from literature review and validated by an independent Steering Committee. Results: forty-nine retina specialists experienced in wAMD participated by answering the two-round study questionnaire. Retina specialists are the main responsible for wAMD diagnosis and monitoring, including visits and associated procedures, with a median time per visit of 15 minutes. Standard treatment strategies are based on anti-VEGF administration, including standard loading dose administration followed by maintenance with aflibercept or ranibizumab (81% of patients). Although treat and extend (T&E) dosing strategy is considered as optimal for wAMD management (78% of the panelists), the main routine healthcare limitations (i.e., visits overload, reduced staff, short visit time, coordination issues, lack of facilities) conduct to self-defined "flexible" strategies, based on T&E and pro-re-nata (PRN) protocols. Conclusion: proactive treatment patterns (T&E) are the preferred ones by the retina specialists in Spain. However, their proper implementation is difficult due to healthcare resource limitations, as well as organisation and logistic issues. The use of anti-VEGF agents with longer duration of action could facilitate the use of strict T&E approaches according to routine clinical practices

Up-regulation of HDACs, a harbinger of uraemic endothelial dysfunction, is prevented by defibrotide

Altres ajuts: This work was supported by Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc (IST-16-10355 to MDR. and EC); German José Carreras Leukaemia Foundation (Grant 11R/2016 and 03R/2019 to MDR. and EC); [...]. We would like to thank the Proteomics unit staff (CCIT, University of Barcelona) for their support in the proteomic assay performance and analysis, and to the Primary Hemostasis laboratory group for their technical support. We also acknowledge the collaboration of Dr Josep Maria Cruzado of Institut d'Hemodiàlisi Barcelona who collaborated in obtaining the blood samples, the staff of the Maternitat Hospital, in Barcelona, for providing the umbilical cords that made possible some of the current results and to Shook Studio for the visual abstract design.Endothelial dysfunction is an earlier contributor to the development of atherosclerosis in chronic kidney disease (CKD), in which the role of epigenetic triggers cannot be ruled out. Endothelial protective strategies, such as defibrotide (DF), may be useful in this scenario. We evaluated changes induced by CKD on endothelial cell proteome and explored the effect of DF and the mechanisms involved. Human umbilical cord vein endothelial cells were exposed to sera from healthy donors (n = 20) and patients with end-stage renal disease on haemodialysis (n = 20). Differential protein expression was investigated by using a proteomic approach, Western blot and immunofluorescence. HDAC1 and HDAC2 overexpression was detected. Increased HDAC1 expression occurred at both cytoplasm and nucleus. These effects were dose-dependently inhibited by DF. Both the HDACs inhibitor trichostatin A and DF prevented the up-regulation of the endothelial dysfunction markers induced by the uraemic milieu: intercellular adhesion molecule-1, surface Toll-like receptor-4, von Willebrand Factor and reactive oxygen species. Moreover, DF down-regulated HDACs expression through the PI3/AKT signalling pathway. HDACs appear as key modulators of the CKD-induced endothelial dysfunction as specific blockade by trichostatin A or by DF prevents endothelial dysfunction responses to the CKD insult. Moreover, DF exerts its endothelial protective effect by inhibiting HDAC up-regulation likely through PI3K/AKT

Library of Seleno-Compounds as Novel Agents against Leishmania Species

The in vitro leishmanicidal activities of a series of 48 recently synthesized selenium derivatives against Leishmania infantum and Leishmania braziliensis parasites were tested using promastigotes and intracellular amastigote forms. The cytotoxicity of the tested compounds for J774.2 macrophage cells was also measured in order to establish their selectivity. Six of the tested compounds (compounds 8, 10, 11, 15, 45, and 48) showed selectivity indexes higher than those of the reference drug, meglumine antimonate (Glucantime), for both Leishmania species; in the case of L. braziliensis, compound 20 was also remarkably selective. Moreover, data on infection rates and amastigote numbers per macrophage showed that compounds 8, 10, 11, 15, 45, and 48 were the most active against both Leishmania species studied. The observed changes in the excretion product profile of parasites treated with these six compounds were also consistent with substantial cytoplasmic alterations. On the other hand, the most active compounds were potent inhibitors of Fe superoxide dismutase (Fe-SOD) in the two parasite species considered, whereas their impact on human CuZn-SOD was low. The high activity, low toxicity, stability, low cost of the starting materials, and straightforward synthesis make these compounds appropriate molecules for the development of affordable antileishmanicidal agents

Metagenomic analysis of viruses, bacteria and protozoa in irrigation water

[EN] Viruses (e.g., noroviruses and hepatitis A and E virus), bacteria (e.g., Salmonella spp. and pathogenic Escherichia coli) and protozoa (e.g., Cryptosporidium parvum and Giardia intestinalis) are well-known contributors to food-borne illnesses linked to contaminated fresh produce. As agricultural irrigation increases the total amount of water used annually, reclaimed water is a good alternative to reduce dependency on conventional irrigation water sources. European guidelines have established acceptable concentrations of certain pathogens and/or indicators in irrigation water, depending on the irrigation system used and the irrigated crop. However, the incidences of food-borne infections are known to be underestimated and all the different pathogens contributing to these infections are not known. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) enables the determination of the viral, bacterial and protozoan populations present in a water sample, providing an opportunity to detect emerging pathogens and develop improved tools for monitoring the quality of irrigation water. This is a descriptive study of the virome, bacteriome and parasitome present in different irrigation water sources. We applied the same concentration method for all the studied samples and specific metagenomic approaches to characterize both DNA and RNA viruses, bacteria and protozoa. In general, most of the known viral species corresponded to plant viruses and bacteriophages. Viral diversity in river water varied over the year, with higher bacteriophage prevalences during the autumn and winter. Reservoir water contained Enterobacter cloacae, an opportunistic human pathogen and an indicator of fecal contamination, as well as Naegleria australiensis and Naegleria clarki. Hepatitis E virus and Naegleria fowleri, emerging human pathogens, were detected in groundwater. Reclaimed water produced in a constructed wetland system presented a virome and bacteriome that resembled those of freshwater samples (river and reservoir water). Viral, bacterial and protozoan pathogens were occasionally detected in the different irrigation water sources included in this study, justifying the use of improved NGS techniques to get a comprehensive evaluation of microbial species and potential environmental health hazards associated to irrigation water.This work was supported through a grant funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) in the frame of the collaborative international consortium JPIW2013-095-C03-01, JPIW2013-095-C03-02 and JPIW2013-095-C03-03 of the Water Challenges for a Changing World Joint Programming Initiative (Water JPI) Pilot Call and partially by AGL2017-86797-C2-1-R. Silvia Bofill-Mas is a Serra-Hunter fellow at the University of Barcelona.Rusiñol, M.; Martinez-Puchol, S.; Timoneda, N.; Fernandez-Cassi, X.; Pérez-Cataluña, A.; Fernández-Bravo, A.; Moreno-Mesonero, L.... (2020). Metagenomic analysis of viruses, bacteria and protozoa in irrigation water. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health. 224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheh.2019.113440S22

Endothelial damage, inflammation and immunity in chronic kidney disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients have an accelerated atherosclerosis, increased risk of thrombotic-ischemic complications, and excessive mortality rates when compared with the general population. There is also evidence of an endothelial damage in which the proinflammatory state, the enhanced oxidative stress, or the accumulation of toxins due to their reduced renal clearance in uremia play a role. Further, there is evidence that uremic endothelial cells are both involved in and victims of the activation of the innate immunity. Uremic endothelial cells produce danger associated molecular patterns (DAMPS), which by binding to specific pattern recognition receptors expressed in multiple cells, including endothelial cells, induce the expression of adhesion molecules, the production of proinflammatory cytokines and an enhanced production of reactive oxygen species in endothelial cells, which constitute a link between immunity and inflammation. The connection between endothelial damage, inflammation and defective immunity in uremia will be reviewed here