Combined treatment of exudative age related macular degeneration with photodynamic therapy and intravitreal triamcinolone

Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) secondary to age related macular degeneration is among the leading causes of legal blindness in developed countries. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) with verteporfin induces CNV closure causing little damage to healthy tissue, but the need to re-treat may lead to low final visual acuity at an unacceptable cost. The association of intravitreous triamcinolone or antiangiogenic drugs with PDT has been used in order to reduce these limitations of the therapy. The combination of PDT and intravitreous triamcinolone, its complications and outcome at one and two-year follow-up are discussed

Evaluation of a Bayesian Algorithm to Detect Burned Areas in the Canary Islands’ Dry Woodlands and Forests Ecoregion Using MODIS Data

Burned Area (BA) is deemed as a primary variable to understand the Earth’s climate system. Satellite remote sensing data have allowed for the development of various burned area detection algorithms that have been globally applied to and assessed in diverse ecosystems, ranging from tropical to boreal. In this paper, we present a Bayesian algorithm (BY-MODIS) that detects burned areas in a time series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images from 2002 to 2012 of the Canary Islands’ dry woodlands and forests ecoregion (Spain). Based on daily image products MODIS, MOD09GQ (250 m), and MOD11A1 (1 km), the surface spectral reflectance and the land surface temperature, respectively, 10 day composites were built using the maximum temperature criterion. Variables used in BY-MODIS were the Global Environment Monitoring Index (GEMI) and Burn Boreal Forest Index (BBFI), alongside the NIR spectral band, all of which refer to the previous year and the year the fire took place in. Reference polygons for the 14 fires exceeding 100 hectares and identified within the period under analysis were developed using both post-fire LANDSAT images and official information from the forest fires national database by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environment of Spain (MAPAMA). The results obtained by BY-MODIS can be compared to those by official burned area products, MCD45A1 and MCD64A1. Despite that the best overall results correspond to MCD64A1, BY-MODIS proved to be an alternative for burned area mapping in the Canary Islands, a region with a great topographic complexity and diverse types of ecosystems. The total burned area detected by the BY-MODIS classifier was 64.9% of the MAPAMA reference data, and 78.6% according to data obtained from the LANDSAT images, with the lowest average commission error (11%) out of the three products and a correlation (R2) of 0.82. The Bayesian algorithm—originally developed to detect burned areas in North American boreal forests using AVHRR archival data Long-Term Data Record—can be successfully applied to a lower latitude forest ecosystem totally different from the boreal ecosystem and using daily time series of satellite images from MODIS with a 250 m spatial resolution, as long as a set of training areas adequately characterising the dynamics of the forest canopy affected by the fire is defined

Papilla preservation periodontal surgery in periodontal reconstruction for deep combined intra-suprabony defects. Retrospective analysis of a registry-based cohort

Suprabony defects are the most prevalent defects and there is very little evidence on their treatment. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of papilla preservation periodontal surgery in the periodontal reconstruction of combined deep intra-suprab

Myopic maculopathy: Current status and proposal for a new classification and grading system (ATN)

Myopia is a highly frequent ocular disorder worldwide and pathologic myopia is the 4th most common cause of irreversible blindness in developed countries. Pathologic myopia is especially common in East Asian countries. Ocular alterations associated with pathologic myopia, especially those involving the macular area—defined as myopic maculopathy—are the leading causes of vision loss in patients with pathologic myopia. High myopia is defined as the presence of a highly negative refractive error (>−6 to −8 diopters) in the context of eye elongation (26–26.5 mm). Although the terms high myopia and pathologic myopia are often used interchangeably, they do not refer to the same eye disease. The two key factors driving the development of pathologic myopia are: 1) elongation of the axial length and 2) posterior staphyloma. The presence of posterior staphyloma, which is the most common finding in patients with pathologic myopia, is the key differentiating factor between high and pathologic myopia. The occurrence of staphyloma will, in most cases, eventually lead to other conditions such as atrophic, traction, or neovascular maculopathy. Posterior staphyloma is for instance, responsible for the differences between a myopic macular hole (MH)—with and without retinal detachment—and idiopathic MH. Posterior staphyloma typically induces retinal layer splitting, leading to foveoschisis in myopic MH, an important differentiating factor between myopic and emmetropic MH. Myopic maculopathy is a highly complex disease and current classification systems do not fully account for the numerous changes that occur in the macula of these patients. Therefore, a more comprehensive classification system is needed, for several important reasons. First, to more precisely define the disease stage to improve follow-up by enabling clinicians to more accurately monitor changes over time, which is essential given the progressive nature of this condition. Second, unification of the currently-available classification systems would establish standardized classification criteria that could be used to compare the findings from international multicentric studies. Finally, a more comprehensive classification system could help to improve our understanding of the genetic origins of this disease, which is clearly relevant given the interchangeable—but erroneous—use of the terms high and pathologic myopia in genetic researc

Oestrid myiasis in European Mouflon from Spain

From February 1992 to March 1997, 245 European mouflon (Ovis orientalis musimon) from Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park (southern Spain) were surveyed for oestrid larvae in order to estimate prevalence and mean intensity of parasitism by Oestrus ovis. Over 46 percent of the animals surveyed were infected, with a mean intensity of 9.6 larvae/host parasitized. No significant differences in prevalence rates between host sexes were observed, but older mouflons were infected with more larvae than younger ones.Peer Reviewe

2-DE analysis of sera protein expression profiles in early stages of human neonatal development. A preliminary study.

Comunicaciones a congreso

Heterogeneous networks do not promote cooperation when humans play a Prisoner's dilemma

It is not fully understood why we cooperate with strangers on a daily basis. In an increasingly global world, where interaction networks and relationships between individuals are becoming more complex, different hypotheses have been put forward to explain the foundations of human cooperation on a large scale and to account for the true motivations that are behind this phenomenon. In this context, population structure has been suggested to foster cooperation in social dilemmas, but theoretical studies of this mechanism have yielded contradictory results so far; additionally, the issue lacks a proper experimental test in large systems. We have performed the largest experiments to date with humans playing a spatial Prisoner's Dilemma on a lattice and a scale-free network (1,229 subjects). We observed that the level of cooperation reached in both networks is the same, comparable with the level of cooperation of smaller networks or unstructured populations. We have also found that subjects respond to the cooperation that they observe in a reciprocal manner, being more likely to cooperate if, in the previous round, many of their neighbors and themselves did so, which implies that humans do not consider neighbors' payoffs when making their decisions in this dilemma but only their actions. Our results, which are in agreement with recent theoretical predictions based on this behavioral rule, suggest that population structure has little relevance as a cooperation promoter or inhibitor among humans.Work supported by Fundación Ibercivis and projects MOSAICO, PRODIEVO, FIS2008-01240, FIS2009-13364-C02-01, FIS2009-12648-C03-02, and Complexity-NET RESINEE, from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain); by project MODELICO-CM from Comunidad de Madrid (Spain); and by a project to FENOL from Comunidad de Aragón (Spain)

MODIS Sensor Capability to Burned Area Mapping—Assessment of Performance and Improvements Provided by the Latest Standard Products in Boreal Regions

This paper presents an accuracy assessment of the main global scale Burned Area (BA) products, derived from daily images of the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Fire_CCI 5.1 and MCD64A1 C6, as well as the previous versions of both products (Fire_CCI 4.1 and MCD45A1 C5). The exercise was conducted on the boreal region of Alaska during the period 2000–2017. All the BA polygons registered by the Alaska Fire Service were used as reference data. Both new versions doubled the annual BA estimate compared to the previous versions (66% for Fire_CCI 5.1 versus 35% for v4.1, and 63% for MCD64A1 C6 versus 28% for C5), reducing the omission error (OE) by almost one half (39% versus 67% for Fire_CCI and 48% versus 74% for MCD) and slightly increasing the commission error (CE) (7.5% versus 7% for Fire_CCI and 18% versus 7% for MCD). The Fire_CCI 5.1 product (CE = 7.5%, OE = 39%) presented the best results in terms of positional accuracy with respect to MCD64A1 C6 (CE = 18%, OE = 48%). These results suggest that Fire_CCI 5.1 could be suitable for those users who employ BA standard products in geoinformatics analysis techniques for wildfire management, especially in Boreal regions. The Pareto boundary analysis, performed on an annual basis, showed that there is still a potential theoretical capacity to improve the MODIS sensor-based BA algorithms

Description of the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) station at the Izaña Observatory (2009–2017): measurements and quality control/assurance procedures [Discussion]

The Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) was implemented by the World Climate Research Programme (WRCP) starting observations with 9 stations in 1992, under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Currently, 59 BSRN stations submit their data to the WRCP. One of these stations is the Izaña station (Station: IZA, #61) that enrolled in this network in 2009. This is a high-mountain station located in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain; at 28.3°N, 16.5°W, 2373ma.s.l.) and is a representative site of the subtropical North Atlantic free troposphere. It contributes with basic-BSRN radiation measurements, such as, global shortwave radiation (SWD), direct radiation (DIR), diffuse radiation (DIF) and longwave downward radiation (LWD) and extended-BSRN measurements, including ultraviolet ranges (UV-A and UV-B), shortwave upward radiation (SWU) and longwave upward radiation (LWU) and other ancillary measurements, such as vertical profiles of temperature, humidity and wind obtained from radiosonde (WMO, station #60018) and total column ozone from Brewer spectrophotometer. The IZA measurements present high quality standards since more than 98% of the data are within the limits recommended by the BSRN. There is an excellent agreement in the comparison between SWD, DIR and DIF (instantaneous and daily) measurements with simulations obtained with the LibRadtran radiative transfer model. The root mean square error (RMSE) for SWD is 2.28% for instantaneous values and 1.58% for daily values, while the RMSE for DIR is 2.00% for instantaneous values and 2.07% for daily values. IZA is a unique station that provides very accurate solar radiation data in very contrasting scenarios: most of the time under pristine sky conditions, and periodically under the effects of the Saharan Air Layer characterized by a high content of mineral dust. A detailed description of the BSRN program at IZA, including quality control and quality assurance activities, is given in this work.The IZA BSRN program has benefited from results obtained within POLARMOON project funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competividad from Spain, CTM2015-66742-R