Carlos Fernández Casado y José Acuña: los primeros puentes de altura estricta. Jaén, 1933-1935

The bridge design catalogue “Puentes de altura Estricta” (Strict Height Bridges) was one of the greatest creations of the brilliant spanish civil engineer Carlos Fernandez Casado. It was designed at the early 1930’s. It had a great relevance in the Spanish Civil Engineering of the 20th century. Nevertheless, its origins are little known. The first materializations of the “Collection” were six bridges that were constructed in the Jaén province, between 1933 and 1935. They were possible thanks to the determined support of other civil engineer, Jose Acuña y Gómez de la Torre. Later also he carried out the work himself. With this research its process of design and construction is reconstructed. Also bridges are described as they have come to the present day. With all this it is expected its great value as heritage elements be recognized.La “Colección de Puentes de Altura Estricta” fue una de las mayores creaciones del genial ingeniero de caminos español Carlos Fernández Casado. Fue diseñada a principios de los años 1930 y tuvo una gran trascendencia en la Ingeniería civil española del siglo XX. No obstante, sus orígenes son poco conocidos. Las primeras materializaciones de la “Colección” fueron seis puentes que se construyeron en la provincia de Jaén, entre 1933 y 1935. Fueron posibles gracias al decidido apoyo que prestó otro ingeniero de caminos, José Acuña y Gómez de la Torre. Posteriormente también se hizo cargo de su ejecución material. Con esta investigación se pretende reconstruir su proceso de diseño y construcción. También se describen los puentes tal como han llegado hasta nuestros días. Con todo ello se espera contribuir a que sea reconocido su gran valor como elementos patrimoniales

Efecto protector del aceite de oliva en hipercolesterolemias adquiridas. Estudio estructural de testículo e hígado de conejos protegidos e hipercolesterolémicos

La hipercolesterolemia constituye por sí misma o en coacción con otros factores etiológicos la causa de patologías comprendidas dentro de la llamada epidemia silenciosa. Entre las que se cuentan la hipertensión arterial, hipercolesterolemia, diabetes no diagnosticada, entre otras que llevan a trastornos crónicos de alta morbi-mortalidad. Entre otros factores de estas patologías, la ingesta elevada de grasas de origen animal lleva a una hipercolesterolemia adquirida y abre la puerta a un sobre peso que coadyuva a las patologías antes descriptas

The Social and Political Dimensions of the Ebola Response: Global Inequality, Climate Change, and Infectious Disease

The 2014 Ebola crisis has highlighted public-health vulnerabilities in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea – countries ravaged by extreme poverty, deforestation and mining-related disruption of livelihoods and ecosystems, and bloody civil wars in the cases of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Ebola’s emergence and impact are grounded in the legacy of colonialism and its creation of enduring inequalities within African nations and globally, via neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. Recent experiences with new and emerging diseases such as SARS and various strains of HN influenzas have demonstrated the effectiveness of a coordinated local and global public health and education-oriented response to contain epidemics. To what extent is international assistance to fight Ebola strengthening local public health and medical capacity in a sustainable way, so that other emerging disease threats, which are accelerating with climate change, may be met successfully? This chapter considers the wide-ranging socio-political, medical, legal and environmental factors that have contributed to the rapid spread of Ebola, with particular emphasis on the politics of the global and public health response and the role of gender, social inequality, colonialism and racism as they relate to the mobilization and establishment of the public health infrastructure required to combat Ebola and other emerging diseases in times of climate change

Real-time digital pathogen surveillance - the time is now

It is time to shake up public health surveillance. New technologies for sequencing, aided by friction-free approaches to data sharing, could have an impact on public health efforts

Human adaptation of Ebola virus during the West African outbreak

The 2013–2016 outbreak of Ebola virus (EBOV) in West Africa was the largest recorded. It began following the cross-species transmission of EBOV from an animal reservoir, most likely bats, into humans, with phylogenetic analysis revealing the cocirculation of several viral lineages. We hypothesized that this prolonged human circulation led to genomic changes that increased viral transmissibility in humans. We generated a synthetic glycoprotein (GP) construct based on the earliest reported isolate and introduced amino acid substitutions that defined viral lineages. Mutant GPs were used to generate a panel of pseudoviruses, which were used to infect different human and bat cell lines. These data revealed that specific amino acid substitutions in the EBOV GP have increased tropism for human cells, while reducing tropism for bat cells. Such increased infectivity may have enhanced the ability of EBOV to transmit among humans and contributed to the wide geographic distribution of some viral lineages

Teaching by example and induced beliefs in a model of cultural transmission

We augment standard models of cultural transmission with an explicit account of social learning, grounded in the information transmission literature. Youngsters observe the behavioral trait of a role model and form beliefs about the desirability of that trait. Adults have better information about each trait and have a paternalistic attitude toward their children. This makes them reluctant to adopt myopic behavior to avoid setting a negative example to their children. This signaling distortion increases in the influence parents have over their offspring. We extend the model to allow parental influence to depend on the population frequency of each trait and show that cultural complementarity does not imply convergence to a homogeneous population. We find empirical support for a positive relationship between parental influence and propensity to exert self-restraint by looking at alcohol and tobacco consumption

Recurrence of iga nephropathy after kidney transplantation in adults

Background and objectives: In patients with kidney failure due to IgA nephropathy, IgA deposits can recur in a subsequent kidney transplant. The incidence, effect, and risk factors of IgA nephropathy recurrence is unclear, because most studies have been single center and sample sizes are relatively small. Design, setting, participants, & measurements: We performed a multicenter, international, retrospective study to determine the incidence, risk factors, and treatment response of recurrent IgA nephropathy after kidney transplantation. Data were collected from all consecutive patients with biopsy-proven IgA nephropathy transplanted between 2005 and 2015, across 16 “The Post-Transplant Glomerular Disease” study centers in Europe, North America, and South America. Results: Out of 504 transplant recipients with IgA nephropathy, recurrent IgA deposits were identified by kidney biopsy in 82 patients; cumulative incidence of recurrence was 23% at 15 years (95% confidence interval, 14 to 34). Multivariable Cox regression revealed a higher risk for recurrence of IgA deposits in patients with a pre-emptive kidney transplant (hazard ratio, 3.45; 95% confidence interval, 1.31 to 9.17) and in patients with preformed donorspecific antibodies (hazardratio, 2.59; 95%confidence interval, 1.09 to 6.19).Afterkidneytransplantation,development of de novo donor-specific antibodies was associated with subsequent higher risk of recurrence of IgA nephropathy (hazard ratio, 6.65; 95% confidence interval, 3.33 to 13.27). Immunosuppressive regimen was not associated with recurrent IgA nephropathy in multivariable analysis, including steroid use. Graft loss was higher in patients with recurrence of IgA nephropathy compared with patients without (hazard ratio, 3.69; 95% confidence interval, 2.04 to 6.66), resulting in 32% (95% confidence interval, 50 to 82) graft loss at 8 years after diagnosis of recurrence. Conclusions: In our international cohort, cumulative risk of IgA nephropathy recurrence increased after transplant and was associated with a 3.7-fold greater risk of graft loss

De novo transcriptome reconstruction and annotation of the Egyptian rousette bat

Background The Egyptian Rousette bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus), a common fruit bat species found throughout Africa and the Middle East, was recently identified as a natural reservoir host of Marburg virus. With Ebola virus, Marburg virus is a member of the family Filoviridae that causes severe hemorrhagic fever disease in humans and nonhuman primates, but results in little to no pathological consequences in bats. Understanding host-pathogen interactions within reservoir host species and how it differs from hosts that experience severe disease is an important aspect of evaluating viral pathogenesis and developing novel therapeutics and methods of prevention. Results Progress in studying bat reservoir host responses to virus infection is hampered by the lack of host-specific reagents required for immunological studies. In order to establish a basis for the design of reagents, we sequenced, assembled, and annotated the R. aegyptiacus transcriptome. We performed de novo transcriptome assembly using deep RNA sequencing data from 11 distinct tissues from one male and one female bat. We observed high similarity between this transcriptome and those available from other bat species. Gene expression analysis demonstrated clustering of expression profiles by tissue, where we also identified enrichment of tissue-specific gene ontology terms. In addition, we identified and experimentally validated the expression of novel coding transcripts that may be specific to this species. Conclusion We comprehensively characterized the R. aegyptiacus transcriptome de novo. This transcriptome will be an important resource for understanding bat immunology, physiology, disease pathogenesis, and virus transmission