Estudio de la carga trombótica angiográfica en angioplastina primaria

Introducción y objetivos: La carga trombótica es un parámetro útil en angioplastia primaria, ya que se evalúa precozmente y sirve de guía durante el intervencionismo. El objetivo del estudio fue analizar la relación de la carga trombótica con los eventos clínicos tras la angioplastia primaria. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio observacional prospectivo de 504 pacientes consecutivos. Se definió alta carga trombótica al trombo de longitud ? 2 veces el diámetro de referencia, o a la aspiración de abundante material trombótico. El parámetro de valoración principal fue el combinado de muerte por cualquier causa, reinfarto o necesidad de nueva revascularización del vaso tratado. Resultados: En 205 (47%) pacientes se observó alta carga trombótica. El implante directo, uso de abciximab y la tromboaspiración fueron más frecuentes en este grupo. La alta carga trombótica asoció peores parámetros de reperfusión (blush miocárdico 0/1, 20% frente 12%, p=0.049) y mayor tamaño del infarto (troponina I máxima, 74 frente 50 ng/mL, p=0.015). Durante un seguimiento de 19±5 meses, 37 (16.2%) pacientes con baja carga trombótica y 25 (12.8%) pacientes con alta carga trombótica sufrieron el evento combinado (hazard ratio ajustado 0.88, intervalo de confianza 95%: 0.46-1.67, p=0.691). Se observaron cinco trombosis definitivas del stent, cuatro en el grupo de alta carga trombótica y una en el de baja carga trombótica (2.2% vs. 0.5%, p=0.19). Conclusiones: En una cohorte con baja incidencia de trombosis del stent, la carga trombótica no se asocia a mayor número de eventos clínicos a medio plazo. La cuantificación del trombo puede resultar de ayuda en el empleo eficiente de terapias adyuvantes

Estudio de la carga trombótica angiográfica en angioplastina primaria

Introducción y objetivos: La carga trombótica es un parámetro útil en angioplastia primaria, ya que se evalúa precozmente y sirve de guía durante el intervencionismo. El objetivo del estudio fue analizar la relación de la carga trombótica con los eventos clínicos tras la angioplastia primaria. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio observacional prospectivo de 504 pacientes consecutivos. Se definió alta carga trombótica al trombo de longitud ? 2 veces el diámetro de referencia, o a la aspiración de abundante material trombótico. El parámetro de valoración principal fue el combinado de muerte por cualquier causa, reinfarto o necesidad de nueva revascularización del vaso tratado. Resultados: En 205 (47%) pacientes se observó alta carga trombótica. El implante directo, uso de abciximab y la tromboaspiración fueron más frecuentes en este grupo. La alta carga trombótica asoció peores parámetros de reperfusión (blush miocárdico 0/1, 20% frente 12%, p=0.049) y mayor tamaño del infarto (troponina I máxima, 74 frente 50 ng/mL, p=0.015). Durante un seguimiento de 19±5 meses, 37 (16.2%) pacientes con baja carga trombótica y 25 (12.8%) pacientes con alta carga trombótica sufrieron el evento combinado (hazard ratio ajustado 0.88, intervalo de confianza 95%: 0.46-1.67, p=0.691). Se observaron cinco trombosis definitivas del stent, cuatro en el grupo de alta carga trombótica y una en el de baja carga trombótica (2.2% vs. 0.5%, p=0.19). Conclusiones: En una cohorte con baja incidencia de trombosis del stent, la carga trombótica no se asocia a mayor número de eventos clínicos a medio plazo. La cuantificación del trombo puede resultar de ayuda en el empleo eficiente de terapias adyuvantes

Motion in microfluidic ratchets

The ubiquitous random motion of mesoscopic active particles, such as cells, can be "rectified" or directed by embedding the particles in systems containing local and periodic asymmetric cues. Incorporated on lab-on-a-chip devices, these microratchet-like structures can be used to self-propel fluids, transport particles, and direct cell motion in the absence of external power sources. In this Focus article we discuss recent advances in the use of ratchet-like geometries in microfluidics which could open new avenues in biomedicine for applications in diagnosis, cancer biology, and bioengineering

Fusion of Sensor Data and Intelligence in FITS

Proceedings of: 16th International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION 2013): Istambul, Turkey 9-12 July 2013.The design and implementation of fusion systems working in real conditions requires functional and performance specification, analysis of information input and contextual domain, and development of testing and validation tools. This paper presents a fusion system recently developed to operate with EW and ISR sensors on-board of patrol aircraft, which must be fused with information from other collaborative entities and intelligence in databases. The paper describes the overall organization of the system developed, modules and the data flow. The characterization of data sources and core algorithms for data alignment, uncertainty representation and fusion management are detailed and validated in realistic situations.This work was supported in part by Projects FITS-DFS (EADS/CASA), MEyC TEC2012-37832-C02-01, MEyC TEC2011-28626-C02-02 and CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485).Publicad

Activar la creatividad y la co-creación entre estudiantes universitarios

La Educación Superior se muestra preocupada en preparar al estudiantado para la vida real, más allá de la transmisión de conocimientos. En este sentido, la competencia emprendedora es una competencia clave para su futuro como ciudadanos y profesionales activos. Responde a una política clave de la Unión Europea que subraya la importancia de la creatividad, la iniciativa y la mentalidad emprendedora, especialmente entre los y las jóvenes. El fomento del emprendimiento mediante estrategias de Aprendizaje Basado en Retos se distingue por ser experiencial, fomentando el desarrollo personal y social, y por ser creadora de valor, colaborativa y multidisciplinaria. En este marco, la capacidad de crear y de crear junto a otros constituye un factor fundamental. El proyecto de innovación Co-CREAt desarrollado se ha propuesto fomentar la actitud emprendedora del estudiantado de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Para lograrlo, Co-CREAt se sostiene en la integración de estrategias de ABR. Sus objetivos específicos enlazan con: identificar y seleccionar estrategias para estimular la creatividad y co-creación, incluir estrategias de impulso de la creatividad y cocreación en las asignaturas, y evaluar la incorporación y efectividad de estas. Co-CREAt discurre por las fases principales de análisis, diseño, intervención y evaluación. Se espera que sirva para aumentar la conciencia sobre la competencia emprendedora y genere conocimientos sobre cómo introducir estrategias de creatividad y co-creación en la Educación Superior que también contribuyan al desarrollo del ABR.Higher education is concerned with preparing students for real life, beyond the transmission of knowledge. In this sense, entrepreneurial competence is a key competence for their future as active citizens and professionals. It responds to a key policy of the European Union that underlines the importance of creativity, initiative and entrepreneurial mindset, especially among young people. The promotion of entrepreneurship through Challenge-Based Learning strategies is distinguished by being experiential, fostering personal and social development, and by being value-creating, collaborative and multidisciplinary. In this framework, the ability to create and to create together with others is a fundamental factor. The innovation project Co-CREAt developed has been proposed to promote the entrepreneurial attitude of the students of the Faculty of Education Sciences of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. To achieve this, Co-CREAt is based on the integration of CBL strategies. Its specific objectives are linked to: identify and select strategies to stimulate creativity and co-creation, include strategies to promote creativity and cocreation in the subjects, and evaluate the incorporation and effectiveness of these strategies. CoCREAt runs through the main phases of analysis, design, intervention, and evaluation. It is expected to raise awareness of entrepreneurial competence and generate knowledge on how to introduce creativity and co-creation strategies in Higher Education that also contribute to the development of CBL

Triangle Dropping: An occluded-geometry predictor for energy-efficient mobile GPUs

This article proposes a novel micro-architecture approach for mobile GPUs aimed at early removing the occluded geometry in a scene by leveraging frame-to-frame coherence, thus reducing the overall energy consumption. Mobile GPUs commonly implement a Tile-Based Rendering (TBR) architecture that differentiates two main phases: the Geometry Pipeline, where all the geometry of a scene is processed; and the Raster Pipeline, where primitives are rendered in a framebuffer. After the Geometry Pipeline, only non-culled primitives inside the camera’s frustum are stored into the Parameter Buffer, a data structure stored in DRAM. However, among the non-culled primitives there is a significant amount that are rendered but non-visible at all, resulting in useless computations. On average, 60% of those primitives are completely occluded in our benchmarks. Despite TBR architectures use on-chip caches for the Parameter Buffer, about 46% of the DRAM traffic still comes from accesses to such buffer. The proposed Triangle Dropping technique leverages the visibility information computed along the Raster Pipeline to predict the primitives’ visibility in the next frame to early discard those that will be totally occluded, drastically reducing Parameter Buffer accesses. On average, our approach achieves overall 14.5% energy savings, 28.2% energy-delay product savings, and a speedup of 20.2%.This work has been supported by the CoCoUnit ERC Advanced Grant of the EU’s Horizon 2020 program (grant no. 833057), the Spanish State Research Agency (MCIN/AEI) under grant PID2020-113172RB-I00 (AEI/FEDER, EU), and the ICREA Academia program. D. Corbalán-Navarro has been also supported by a PhD research fellowship from the University of Murcia’s “Plan Propio de Investigación.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Estudio preliminar de las inversiones térmicas en el sureste de la Península Ibérica: el caso de los campos de Hernán Perea

The southeast interior of the Iberian Peninsula, and specifically the plateaus of the Sierra de Segura (Jaén), are characterized by extremely low minimum temperatures during the winter, with more than 140 frosts a year. The intense temperature inversions that characterize the sink fields of Hernán Perea (Monterilla sinkholes field, Santiago-Pontones) generate minimum temperatures around -20ºC. The differences between minimum surface temperatures (datalogger) and the existing one in the geopotential of each of the dataloggers, reach absolute values of -22.0ºC, forming intense temperature inversions. Through the analysis of data from a datalogger’s own network, the use of the high resolution meteorological model (HARMONIE-AROME) and images of the MODIS satellite, through the product MYD11A1, establishes a cartographic approximation to the minimum winter temperatures of the area of study, where, in addition, the main cold poles in different altitudinal ranges are identified. Finally, we conclude with the analysis of two types of cold air pools (cold air pools, CAPs), characteristics in the study area with significant temperature drops in a low altitudinal gradient.Las altiplanicies de la Sierra de Segura (Jaén), en el interior sureste de la Península Ibérica, se caracterizan por presentar temperaturas mínimas extraordinariamente bajas durante el invierno, con más de 140 heladas al año. Las intensas inversiones térmicas presentes en los campos de dolinas de Hernán Perea (Monterilla y Santiago- Pontones) pueden generar temperaturas inferiores a los -20ºC. Las diferencias entre temperaturas mínimas superficiales y la existente en altitud, en el geopotencial correspondiente, llegan a valores absolutos de -22,0ºC. A través del análisis de datos de una red propia de datalogger instalados en la zona, la utilización del modelo meteorológico de alta resolución HARMONIE-AROME e imágenes del satélite MODIS (producto MYD11A1), se establece una aproximación cartográfica a las temperaturas mínimas invernales del área de estudio. Por otra parte, se identifican los principales polos de frío en diferentes rangos altitudinales. Finalmente, se concluye con el análisis de dos tipos de piscinas de aire frío (cold air pools, CAPs), características en el área de estudio, que destacan por presentar importantes caídas de temperatura en un escaso gradiente altitudinal

Improving the energy efficiency of the graphics pipeline by reducing overshading

The most common task of GPUs is to render images in real time. When rendering a 3D scene, a key step is determining which parts of every object are visible in the final image. There are different approaches to solve the visibility problem, the Z-Test being the most common in modern GPUs. A main factor that significantly penalizes the energy efficiency of a GPU, especially in the mobile arena, is the so-called overshading, which happens when a portion of an object is shaded and rendered but finally occluded by another object. This useless work results in a waste of energy, however, the conventional Z-Test only eliminates a fraction of it. In this paper we present a novel microarchitectural technique, the ¿-Test, to drastically reduce overshading on a Tile-Based Rendering (TBR) architecture. The proposed approach leverages frame-to-frame coherence by taking advantage of the costly and valuable calculations made in previous frames. In particular, we propose to reuse information from the Z-Buffer of the previous frame, which is currently discarded. We make the observation that due to the existing frame-to-frame coherence, the Z-Buffer of a frame will have a high similarity in many areas with that of the previous frame. As a result, the proposed technique avoids many costly computations and off-chip memory accesses. Our experimental evaluation shows that ¿-Test reduces the average energy consumption of the overall GPU/Memory system by 15.7 % and the runtime of the evaluated benchmarks by 10.6 % on average.This work has been supported by the the CoCoUnit ERC Advanced Grant of the EU’s Horizon 2020 program (grant No 833057), the Spanish State Research Agency under grant TIN2016-75344-R (AEI/-FEDER, EU) and the ICREA Academia program. D. Corbal´an-Navarro has been supported by a PhD research fellowship from the University of Murcia.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Más allá del ecocardiograma en el diagnóstico de la insuficiencia cardiaca

La amiloidosis es una enfermedad sistémica causada por la acumulación extracelular en diferentes tejidos de una proteína mal plegada. Entre los tipos más frecuentes encontramos la transtiretina (TTR) que se subdivide en dos entidades, la TTR mutada que es hereditaria y la TTR wild-type. Cursa con una clínica heterogénea entre la que destacala insuficiencia cardiaca restrictivaque supone la principal causa de mortalidad. La amiloidosis cardiaca por transtiretina es una entidad infradiagnosticada en la actualidad y requiere una alta sospecha clínica. Presentamos un caso de un paciente de 84 años que ingresa en Medicina Interna por un cuadro de insuficiencia cardiaca descompensada. El ecocardiograma y la RMcardiacamuestran signos de miocardiopatía restrictiva secundaria a amiloidosis que se confirma en el estudio histológico de grasa subcutánea y se establece finalmente el tipo de amiloide mediante la gammagrafía con tecnecio-difosfato. Estaentidad precisa un manejo específico y presenta un pronóstico que difiere de otros tiposde insuficiencia cardiaca.Amyloidosis is a systemic disease caused by the extracellularaccumulation of a misfolded protein in different tissues. Among the most frequent typesof amyloid,we find the transthyretin (ATTR) which is subdivided into two subtypes, the mutated ATTR that is hereditary and the wild-type ATTR. It is characterized by heterogeneous manifestations althoughthe cardiac involvementstands out as the main cause of mortality. Transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis isunderdiagnosed and requires a high clinical suspicion. We present a case of an 84-year-old patient admitted to Internal Medicine becauseof acuteheart failure. The echocardiogram and cardiac MRI show signs of restrictive cardiomyopathy secondary to amyloidosis that is confirmed with the histological study of subcutaneous fat and the type of amyloid is finally established by technetium-diphosphate scintigraphy. This entity requires specific management and has a prognosis that differs from other types of heart failure

Salivary myeloperoxidase and malondialdehyde are increased in patients exhibiting an asymptomatic mandibular impacted third molar

To determine whether saliva is a good means of evaluating concentrations of oxidative stress biomarkers, analyzing the correlation between concentrations in saliva and in follicular tissue, and to compare biomarker concentrations in patients with one asymptomatic mandibular impacted third molar (MITM) (before extraction) with a healthy control, and to determine how biomarkers are modified by extraction. 80 patients with one asymptomatic MITM and 80 healthy controls were included. Saliva samples were collected from all subjects (before extraction in the study group) to evaluate Myeloperoxidase (MPO) and Malondialdehyde (MDA) concentrations. Follicular tissues were obtained during surgery to measure biomarkers. One month after extraction, saliva samples were collected to assess changes of oxidative stress. Salivary MPO and MDA showed positive correlation with concentrations in follicular tissue (MPO: correlation coefficient=0.72, p=0.025; MDA: =0.92, p=0.001). Patients with asymptomatic MITMs showed higher salivary concentrations of oxidative stress biomarkers than healthy control subjects, with statistical significance for both MPO (p<0.001) and MDA (p<0.001). One month after extraction, salivary biomarkers decreased significantly in the study group (p<0.001). Salivary MPO and MDA are higher among patients with one asymptomatic MITM, but these levels decrease significantly one month after surgical extraction. The large decrease in oxidative stress biomarkers could justify third molar extraction despite the absence of symptoms