Food Intake Biomarkers for Increasing the Efficiency of Dietary Pattern Assessment through the Use of Metabolomics: Unforeseen Research Requirements for Addressing Current Gaps

Current research on nutritional sciences depends upon the precise measurement of food intake. Despite being the most widely used dietary measurement tools, self-reported surveys are not exempt from already recognized limitations.(1, 2) Low dietary assessment accuracy contributes to the inconsistency of results already observed in many instances when trying to understand the connections between diet and healthiness or disease risk, thereby weakening their potential translation to clinical and public health applications.(1) The drawbacks of conventional instruments have encouraged research on food intake biomarkers (FIBs) as a complementary or alternative measure of dietary intake, being one of the cornerstones of nutritional epidemiology.(1) FIBs are those food compounds or food-derived metabolites that allow for recent or average intakes of specific food groups, foods, or food components to be objectively and accurately measured in a biological specimen.(3) They are assumed to be a more accurate measurement of dietary exposure than self-reported consumption because they cover the bioavailability of dietary compounds and allow for the drawbacks of composition tables, portion estimation, and subjectivity, among other things, to be handled. However, there are still some gaps that have to be addressed for such biomarkers to reach their full potential for the community. These are related to their specificity, interindividual variation, validation, and quantification. These aspects will be outlined in the following paragraphs

L’étiquette générique autofiction: us et coutumes

La autoficción se ha convertido en el catalizador teórico a partir del que se examinan cuestiones de largo alcance como la redistribución permanente de las fronteras de la ficción o el proceso de autoficcionalización generalizada propio de la sociedad postmoderna. El objetivo de este artículo es ofrecer una diagnosis del debate teórico actual en torno a la autoficción con tal de determinar los usos de la misma como etiqueta genérica así como los límites de esta ambigua categoría. Más allá de los criterios estrictamente estilísticos y textuales o incluso de la naturaleza paradójica del plano pragmático, el estudio muestra la necesidad de superar la doxa panficcionalista que envuelve a las prácticas postmodernas de la autoficción. Solo así podrán evaluarse las implicaciones temáticas, ontológicas y antropológicas de una forma de estar en el mundo como impostor, así como la evolución histórica de este modo de impostura literaria.Autofiction has become a theoretical tool which allows us to review larger questions such as the permanent redistribution of the boundaries of fiction or the general autofictionalization peculiar to postmodern society. The purpose of this paper is to offer a diagnosis of the theoretical debate around autofiction in order to determine the ways in which autofiction is employed as a generic label as well as the limits of this ambiguous category. Beyond purely stylistic and textual parameters or even the paradoxical nature of the pragmatic plane, the analysis reveals the need to give up the panfictionalist doxa involving autofictional postmodern practices. Thus the thematic, ontological and anthropological implications of a kind of être-au-monde as impostor can be evaluated, as well as the historical evolution of that mode of literary imposture

A Semantic Model for Enhancing Data-Driven Open Banking Services

In current Open Banking services, the European Payment Services Directive (PSD2) allows the secure collection of bank customer information, on their behalf and with their consent, to analyze their financial status and needs. The PSD2 directive has lead to a massive number of daily transactions between Fintech entities which require the automatic management of the data involved, generally coming from multiple and heterogeneous sources and formats. In this context, one of the main challenges lies in defining and implementing common data integration schemes to easily merge them into knowledge-base repositories, hence allowing data reconciliation and sophisticated analysis. In this sense, Semantic Web technologies constitute a suitable framework for the semantic integration of data that makes linking with external sources possible and enhances systematic querying. With this motivation, an ontology approach is proposed in this work to operate as a semantic data mediator in real-world open banking operations. According to semantic reconciliation mechanisms, the underpinning knowledge graph is populated with data involved in PSD2 open banking transactions, which are aligned with information from invoices. A series of semantic rules is defined in this work to show how the financial solvency classification of client entities and transaction concept suggestions can be inferred from the proposed semantic model.This research has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation via the Aether Project with grant number PID2020-112540RB-C41 (AEI/FEDER, UE), the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism via the Helix initiative with grant number AEI-010500-2020-34, and the Andalusian PAIDI program with grant number P18-RT-2799. Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

Floating millenial chronologies of Pinus in the Sierra de Gredos (Spain)

This research has been carried out by some members of the “History and Dynamics of the Vegetal Landscape” Research Group of the Technical University of Madrid (Spain). The team has been working on the flora, vegetation and dendrochronology of the Sierra de Gredos (Ávila, Spain) for the last 20 years. Recently, we have implemented a new research field focused on the study of megafossils. All this data set has allowed us to develop an interpretation of the dynamics of mountain pine forests in this region

Thickness dependent magnetic anisotropy of ultrathin LCMO epitaxial thin films

The magnetic properties of La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 (LCMO) manganite thin films were studied with magnetometry and ferromagnetic resonance as a function of film thickness. They maintain the colossal magnetoresistance behavior with a pronounced metal-insulator transition around 150-200 K, except for the very thinnest films studied (3 nm). Nevertheless, LCMO films as thin as 3 nm remain ferromagnetic, without a decrease in saturation magnetization, indicating an absence of dead-layers, although below approx. 6 nm the films remain insulating at low temperature. Magnetization hysteresis loops reveal that the magnetic easy axes lie in the plane of the film for thicknesses in the range of 4-15 nm. Ferromagnetic resonance studies confirm that the easy axes are in-plane, and find a biaxial symmetry in-plane with two, perpendicular easy axes. The directions of the easy axes with respect to the crystallographic directions of the cubic SrTiO3 substrate differ by 45 degrees in 4 nm and 15 nm thick LCMO films.Comment: Presented at Intermag conference (Madrid, 2008). Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Magnetic

Inseminación artificial en caballos

Treball presentat a la Facultat de Veterinària de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Treball presentat a l'assignatura de Deontologia i Veterinària Legal (21223

Un Repositorio RDF para la integración y consulta de datos de pacientes hepáticos

Los casos médicos pasados, y por lo tanto, la experiencia clínica, son recursos de valor incalculable para apoyar la práctica clínica, la investigación y la formación. Los profesionales médicos deben poder intercambiar información sobre casos médicos de pacientes y explorarlos desde distintas perspectivas subjetivas. Esto requiere de una metodología sistemática y flexible para la representación de los casos médicos que soporte el intercambio de información procesable del paciente. En este artículo presentamos un enfoque basado en ontologías para modelar casos médicos de pacientes que utiliza pacientes con enfermedades hepáticas como ejemplo. Para este fin, se propone una nueva ontología, LiCO, que utiliza estándares médicos bien conocidos para representar casos de pacientes con enfermedades hepáticas. La utilidad del enfoque propuesto se demuestra con consultas semánticas y razonamiento utilizando datos recopilados de pacientes reales. Los resultados preliminares son prometedores con respecto al potencial de la representación de casos médicos basada en ontologías para la construcción de sistemas de búsqueda y recuperación de información de casos médicos, allanando el camino hacia una plataforma de intercambio de experiencias clínicas para comparar diagnósticos, para investigación y para formación.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Proves clíniques per l'avaluació dels moviments sacàdics i de seguiment. Repetibilitat dels resultats

Els moviments oculars ens ajuden a tenir la capacitat de poder seguir un objecte en moviment, llegir un text o canviar la fixació des d’un punt a un altre, entre d’altres. És molt important que aquests siguin precisos ja que en cas de que no ho siguin ens poden portar a problemes d’aprenentatge i rendiment visual. L’objectiu general d’aquest estudi és detectar si existeix una bona repetibilitat dels moviments sacàdics i de seguiment utilitzant diferents proves clíniques per tal de poder concloure si aquestes són clínicament fiables. Els resultats obtinguts ens mostres que en el cas del test NSUCO existeix una bona repetibilitat intra-subjecte i intra-observador, el que podríem destacar és que en el cas dels moviments de seguiment no és un test fiable ja que diversos observadors discrepen en els resultats. En el cas del VTT-Groffman observem que és un test força fiable degut a la bona repetibilitat d’aquest. I en el cas del A-DEM podem concloure que, en cas de fixar-nos en la variable del rati, és un test força fiable per tal de poder avaluar teràpies visuals per millorar les habilitats oculomotores, ja que si ens fixéssim en el temps horitzontal o en el temps vertical veuríem que existeix un efecte aprenentatge.Los movimientos oculares nos ayudan a tener la capacidad de poder seguir un objeto en movimiento, leer un texto o cambiar la fijación de un punto a otro, entre otras. Es muy importante que estos sean precisos ya que en caso de no serlo nos pueden llevar a problemas de aprendizaje y rendimiento visual. El objetivo general de este estudio es detectar si existe una buena repetitividad de los movimientos sacádicos y los de seguimiento utilizando diferentes pruebas clínicas para poder llegar a la conclusión de si estas son clínicamente fiables. Los resultados obtenidos nos muestran que en el caso del test NSUCO existe una buena repetibilidad intra-sujeto e intra-observador, lo que podríamos destacar es que en el caso de los movimientos de seguimiento no es un test fiable ya que los algunos de los observadores discrepan en los resultados. En el caso del test VTT-Groffman vemos que es un test bastante fiable debido a la buena repetibilidad que tiene. I en el caso del test A-DEM podemos concluir que, en caso de fijarnos en la variable del ratio, es un test fiable para poder evaluar terapias visuales para mejorar las habilidades oculomotoras, ya que si nos fijásemos en el tiempo horizontal o vertical veríamos que existe un efecto aprendizaje.Eye movements help us to have the ability to follow an object in movement, read a text o change the fixation form one point to another, among others. It’s very important that they are accurate because in case if they not it can lead to learning disabilities and visual performance. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the repeatability of the assess of saccade and tracing movements with different clinical methods in order to conclude if these are clinically reliable. The results shows that in NSUCO test there is a good repeatability intra-subject and intraobserver but in tracing movements the observers are disagree in most results so it’s not a reliable test. The VTT-Groffman test is a reliable test because of his good repeatability. And the A-DEM test, is a reliable test for evaluate a visual therapy to improve the oculomotor skills if you fix with the variable of ratio because if we look the variables of horizontal and vertical time we would see that exist a learning effect

Boardgames as learning activities in STEM degrees

A serious game (also known as applied game or educational game) is a game designed not only for entertainment, but also for educational purposes. The term “Serious Game” has been normally used for video games, but it can also be applied to toys and boardgames. This paper addresses the use of serious boardgames as learning activities in STEM university degrees. All boardgames are somehow educational for the age and level they are designed, as they stimulate, among other things, reading comprehensions, writing, mental arithmetic, strategy or creativity. Educational serious boardgame are those designed with enough exactness on a specific topic that favor learning about that topic while playing. This is the principle of learning-by-playing or gamification, and it has shown advantages at engaging students. It should be noted that an educational game is not necessarily a game based on how much someone knows about something, like the famous trivial pursuit, but a game that allows you learning (almost unconsciously) while you play. Despite there are many games designed for adults, in particular for students in a university level in a STEM degree, the use of boardgames as learning activities is not a typical practice yet. It is normally unfeasible to “play the games” during the classes. But boardgames can be incorporated as learning activities in different ways. Herein, the following strategies will be discussed: (1) Including selected boardgames in the recommended bibliography, (2) encouraging the debate about the validity and exactness of the experimented games, and (3) designing boardgames based on the content of the course.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech.