The legal system applied to cruise crew not engaged with maritime navigation: the new concept of sailor in the Maritime Labour Convention 2006

La industria de cruceros es una muestra más de la globalización inherente al sector marítimo y de un proceso de agigantamiento deseado por las principales navieras del mundo. En esta ocasión, se abordará el marco regulador de los trabajadores embarcados en los cruceros, prestando especial atención al personal que desempeña funciones no afectas a la navegación, es decir, desarrollando funciones no náuticas a bordo, como pueden ser camareros, artistas, personal de limpieza o de seguridad a bordo. En este sentido, se conocerá la labor realizada por la OIT a la hora de ofrecer un nuevo concepto de gente de mar o marino.The cruise industry is another example of the globalization inherent in the maritime sector and of an enlarging process promoted by the main shipowner in the world. On this occasion, the regulatory framework of the workers boarding on the cruise ships will be focused, paying special attention to the crewmembers that perform functions that do not affect maritime navigation, that is, developing non-nautical duties on board, such as waiters, artists, personnel of cleaning or security on board. In this regard, the work done by the ILO in offering a new concept of seafarer will be known

El pilar europeo de los derechos sociales y el plan de acción: por fin, ¿el modelo social europeo?

The European Union has been reinforced by the Economic Pillar from its origin to the present-day. Periods of economic crisis and social cuts have led to higher rates of poverty and social exclusion, with high unemployment and lack of protection. Employment and social protection must be the key to economic recovery. In this context, we analyse the vision of the European Union in the construction of the social model and specifically the European Pillar of Social Rights and its Action Plan.La Unión Europea se ha sustentado en el Pilar económico desde sus inicios a la actualidad. Los periodos de crisis económicas y los recortes sociales han supuesto mayores índices de pobreza y de exclusión social, con altas cifras de desempleo y desprotección. El empleo y la protección social debe ser la clave de la recuperación económica. En este contexto, analizamos la visión de la Unión Europea en la construcción del modelo social y de forma concreta el Pilar Europeo de los Derechos Sociales y su Plan de Acción

Cooperation in the Campo de Gibraltar after Brexit. New framework for frontier workers

Brexit has directly impacted Spain’s relationship with the UK due to the Gibraltar issue. The British withdrawal from the EU has forced the redefinition of the European statute of Gibraltar, and its relations with Spain and the European Union, in institutional, legal and economic terms. In this context, novel mechanisms have also been devised to regulate the treatment of cross-border cooperation with Gibraltar, which has had intermittent phases in its evolution over time. Within the framework of the British exit process, a new model has been agreed in successive EU-UK agreements that combine Hard Law (Primary EU Law) with Soft Law (Memoranda of Understanding–MOU). This regulation has required a specific prior BritishSpanish negotiation. We will especially highlight the UK-EU Withdrawal Treaty of 2019, which has formed an authentic system of crossborder cooperation involving the UK, the EU, Gibraltar and Spain, through a series of Spanish-British bilateral Memoranda interconnected with the Protocol on Gibraltar of the Treaty, which in turn refers to the Tax Treaty. It is a new system of concrete cooperation on the rights of citizens and border workers, among other matter

La cooperación en el Campo de Gibraltar tras el Brexit. Nuevo marco para trabajadores fronterizos

El Brexit ha impactado directamente en la relación de España con el Reino Unido (RU) por la cuestión de Gibraltar. La salida británica ha obligado a redefinir el estatuto europeo de Gibraltar, y sus relaciones con España y la Unión Europea (UE), en términos institucionales, jurídicos y económicos. En este contexto, también se han ideado unos mecanismos novedosos para regular y encauzar el tratamiento de la cooperación transfronteriza con Gibraltar, que ha tenido variadas e intermitentes fases en su planteamiento y evolución en el tiempo. En el marco del proceso de salida del RU de la UE se ha acordado un nuevo modelo en los sucesivos Tratados y acuerdos UE-RU que combinan Hard Law de Derecho originario con Soft Law de Memorandos de Entendimiento (Memorandum of Understanding- MoU). Esta regulación ha requerido de una negociación específica previa británico-española. Destacaremos especialmente el primer Tratado de Retirada RU-UE de 2019, que ha conformado un auténtico sistema de cooperación transfronteriza que involucra al RU, la UE, Gibraltar y España, mediante una serie de Memorandos bilaterales hispano-británicos interconectados con el Protocolo sobre Gibraltar del Tratado, que a su vez reenvía al Tratado fiscal. Se trata de un nuevo sistema de cooperación concreta sobre derechos de los ciudadanos y trabajadores fronterizos, entre otras materias

Additional file 7 of Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home

Additional file 7: Supplementary Fig. 4. Factors associated with the magnitude of the initial response to the BNT162B2 vaccine at T1 by age-groups.Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades Instituto de Salud Carlos III Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de AndalucíaPeer reviewe

Additional file 4 of Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home

Additional file 4: Supplementary Table 3.Thymic activity, Biochemical, Inflammatory and Immunological profiles of the study populations one month after the second dose (T1).Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades Instituto de Salud Carlos III Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de AndalucíaPeer reviewe

Additional file 1 of Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home

Additional file 1: Supplementary Fig. 1. Study design and Flow-chart.Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades Instituto de Salud Carlos III Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de AndalucíaPeer reviewe

Additional file 6 of Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home

Additional file 6: Supplementary Fig. 3. Correlations among Log of anti-S antibody titers at all different study points.Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades Instituto de Salud Carlos III Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de AndalucíaPeer reviewe

Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home

© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.[Background] Older people achieve lower levels of antibody titers than younger populations after Covid-19 vaccination and show a marked waning humoral immunity over time, likely due to the senescence of the immune system. Nevertheless, age-related predictive factors of the waning humoral immune response to the vaccine have been scarcely explored. In a cohort of residents and healthcare workers from a nursing home that had received two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine, we measured specific anti-S antibodies one (T1), four (T4), and eight (T8) months after receiving the second dose. Thymic-related functional markers, including thymic output, relative telomere length, and plasma thymosin-α1 levels, as well as immune cellular subsets, and biochemical and inflammatory biomarkers, were determined at T1, and tested for their associations with the magnitude of the vaccine response (T1) and the durability of such response both, at the short- (T1-T4) and the long-term (T1-T8). We aimed to identify age-related factors potentially associated with the magnitude and persistence of specific anti-S immunoglobulin G (IgG)-antibodies after COVID-19 vaccination in older people.[Results] Participants (100% men, n = 98), were subdivided into three groups: young (< 50 years-old), middle-age (50–65 years-old), and older (≥65 years-old). Older participants achieved lower antibody titers at T1 and experienced higher decreases in both the short- and long-term. In the entire cohort, while the magnitude of the initial response was mainly associated with the levels of homocysteine [β (95% CI); − 0.155 (− 0.241 to − 0.068); p = 0.001], the durability of such response at both, the short-term and the long-term were predicted by the levels of thymosin-α1 [− 0.168 (− 0.305 to − 0.031); p = 0.017, and − 0.123 (− 0.212 to − 0.034); p = 0.008, respectively].[Conclusions] Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 were associated with a lower waning of anti-S IgG antibodies along the time. Our results suggest that plasma levels of thymosin-α1 could be used as a biomarker for predicting the durability of the responses after COVID-19 vaccination, possibly allowing to personalize the administration of vaccine boosters.This work was supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III through the project “PI21/00357” (Co-funded by European Regional Development Fund/European Social Fund “A way to make Europe”/“Investing in your future”). MMPB was supported by a postdoctoral contract from Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades, Junta de Andalucía (DOC_01646). ABR, IOM and VGR were supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Sara Borrell program CD19/00143, Río Hortega program CM19/00051, and PFIS program FI19/00298, respectively). YMP was supported by the Consejería de Salud y Familias of Junta de Andalucía through the “Nicolás Monardes” program (RC-0006-2021).Peer reviewe

Additional file 8 of Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home

Additional file 8. Detailed methodology.Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades Instituto de Salud Carlos III Consejería de Salud y Familias, Junta de AndalucíaPeer reviewe