Alberto Sols Biomedical Research Institute
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Gravitational waves in the circular restricted three body problem
Get PDFThe prospect of unprecedented high-quality data of gravitational waves in the upcoming decades demands a theoretical effort to optimally study and analyze the signals that next generation detectors will provide. Here we study the gravitational wave emission and related dynamics during the inspiralling phase of the Circular Restricted Three Body Problem, a modification of the conventional binary scenario in which a small third object co-rotates with the parent binary system. Specifically, we obtain analytic expressions for the emitted power, frequency variation and other dynamical variables that describe the evolution of the system. As a key highlight, we find that the presence of the third body actually slows down the coalescence of the binary, which can be partially interpreted as an effective rescaling of the binary’s chirp-mass. Our analysis assumes semi-Keplerian orbits for the particles and a highly mass asymmetric parent binary needed for the stability of orbitsThe authors acknowledge support from the research Project PID2021-123012NB-C43 and the Spanish Research Agency (Agencia Estatal de Investigaci\u00F3n) through the Grant IFT Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa No. CEX2020-001007-S, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. S K is supported by the Spanish Atracci\u00F3n de Talento Contract No. 2019-T1/TIC-13177 granted by Comunidad de Madrid, the I+D Grant PID2020-118159GA-C42 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, the i-LINK 2021 Grant LINKA20416 of CSIC, and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI Grant Nos. 20H01899, 20H05853, and 23H00110. M M acknowledges support from the JAE Intro ICU Grant No. JAEIntroICU-2022-IFT-14
Optical sensor based on WS2 quantum dots for Lamotrigine Determination
Get PDFIn this work, we obtained WS2 quantum dots by both liquid exfoliation and hydrothermal synthesis following a top-down and a bottom-up approach, respectively. The resulting nanomaterials were spectroscopically characterized by UV-vis absorption and fluorescence techniques. Atomic force microscopy measurements were performed for the morphological characterization. We have studied the interaction between the as-synthesized WS2 quantum dots with the antiepileptic drug lamotrigine, a noncolored analyte. This interaction produces a quenching of the native fluorescence of the nanomaterials, which depends linearly on the lamotrigine concentration. Moreover, the Stern-Volmer constants were calculated and the inhibition mechanism of the interaction was also investigated. Next, the WS2 quantum dots were immobilized on quartz supports for the development of an optical sensor for lamotrigine determination. The sensor shows a linear response with the analyte concentration in the 35.4-250 μM range, with a limit of detection of 10.6 μM. The sensor was applied to the determination of lamotrigine in a synthetic serum sample, obtaining a recovery of 94%. Moreover, for a rapid and visual detection of lamotrigine, we have tested the suitability of using paper as a support for immobilizing WS2 quantum dot
Reimagining Pt(II) anticancer agents: The role of ferrocene in monofunctional chemotherapeutic compounds
Get PDFThe side effects and resistance to treatments associated with platinum compounds, such as cisplatin, underscore the present need for novel anticancer agents with improved properties. The development of hybrid drugs, combining two bioactive units, offers a promising approach by synergistically enhancing the biological activity of the two fragments while reducing the resistance of classic drugs. This work presents the synthesis of a novel family of heterobimetallic compounds, featuring a monofunctional Pt(II) complex with amino groups and a p-ferrocenylaniline ligand. Cytotoxic assays reveal that the derivatives with methylated and is propylated substituted amines exhibit remarkably higher activity against several tumor cell lines compared with cisplatin and the unsubstituted diamino complex. Notably, these methylated and is propylated complexes demonstrate high selectivity and present high antitumor activity in cell lines where cisplatin is ineffective. Classical molecular dynamics simulations targeting DNA reveal a consistent relation between the extent of distortion of the duplex upon complex coordination and the cytotoxic activity observed in biological assays. According to our simulations, coordination of the heterometallic complexes can produce a significant disruption of the H-bond pattern of the platinated guanine. Moreover, the distortion mechanism induced by the voluminous substituents of the amino ligands entails either the intercalation of the ferrocene moiety, facilitating new hydrogen bonds between originally non-interacting base pairs and new weak attractive stacking interactions between the Pt(II) complex and neighboring nucleobases, or the displacement of adjacent nucleotides from the pairing region toward the solvent environmentThe authors thankfully acknowledge financial support from the PID2021-125207NB-C31, PRE2019-090448, PID2023-146801NB-C32, and CNS2022-135912 projects of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades of Spain and PI19/00565 from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII).They also acknowledge the generous allocation of computer time and continued technical support by the Centro de Computacion Científica of the UAM (CCC-UAM) and Servicio Interdepartamental de Investigación of the UAM (SIdI−UAM; Microanalysis, Mass Spectrometry, Monocrystal X-ray Diffraction, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratories) for the equipment and support. S.M. thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional for an FPU fellowship, J.O. thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades for an FPI fellowship, and S.G-P. thanks the Comunidad de Madrid for a predoctoral fellowship (PIPF-2022/SAL-GL-25806). The authors would also like to thank Dr. Jesús Lucia-Tamudo for his help in the calculation of the force constants of compound
Elaboration moderates reliance on metacognitive assessments: The case of attitude certainty
Get PDFThe circumstances under which people are more likely touse their attitude certainty were examined. Across three studies, participants shared their attitudes on current topics (e.g. refugees). Then, attitude certainty was either measured or manipulated, depending on the study. Elaboration was assessed via need for cognition or manipulated after forming attitudes and certainty, just before the behavioural decision. Attitudes, certainty, and elaboration served as predictors of different behavioural outcomes (e.g. enrolling in a mentoring program). As predicted, attitudes guided behaviour. Furthermore, the greater the certainty, the greater attitude-behaviour correspondence (A–B consistency), replicating the traditional effect. Most relevant, the effect of already existing attitude certainty in moderating A–B consistency was more likely to occur for high (vs. low) elaboration participants. Following Self-Validation Theory (Briñol &Petty, Psychol. Rev., 129, 2022, 340), this research showed that elaboration can moderate reliance on metacognition determining A–B consistencyThis work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación in Spain under Grants PID2020-116651GB-C31 and PID2023-148146NB-100 to Pablo Briñol; and by the Templeton World Charity Foundation under Grant TWCF-2023-32571 to Richard Pett
The effect of the relative size of the exciton reservoir on polariton photophysics
Get PDFStrong interactions between excitons and photons lead to the formation of exciton-polaritons, which possess different properties compared to their constituents. Polaritons are created by incorporating a dye in an optical cavity where the electromagnetic field is tightly confined. The interest in the subject has exploded in recent years due to the ability to change (photo)chemistry, but still as simple a variable as the yield of emission varies between studies. For the field to progress, linking observables to system parameters is a dire need. Here, the study pairs emission yield to the size of the so-called exciton reservoir, which dictates polariton relaxation dynamics. To do this, a method is devised to experimentally control the relative size of the exciton reservoir and link it to the yield of emission. Thus, the results enable comparison of the photophysics of previous studies within the field and provide the tools to study the effect of the exciton reservoir on polariton photochemistryK.B. gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Swedish Re-search Council (2020-03578) and the European Research Council (ERC-2017-StG-757733). M.L. and J.F. gratefully acknowledge support by theSpanish Ministry of Science and Innovation - Agencia Estatal de Investi-gación/10.13039/501100011033 through grants PID2021-125894NB-I00,CEX2018-000805-M (through the María de Maeztu program for Units ofExcellence in R&D), and PRE2021-098978 (to M.L. with support fromESF+), and from the European Research Council through grant ERC-2016-StG-71487
Analysis of Apoptosis by Thyroid Hormone Induction
No full textApoptosis is a type of programmed cell death which can be induced by thyroid hormone in pituitary and other cell models. This process is characterized by several biochemical changes, including modifications in plasma membrane lipid composition, mitochondrial membrane dysfunction, and DNA fragmentation, among others. These cellular alterations can be measured using western blotting and flow cytometry techniques. Here we describe the method to detect cleavage of poly-ADP ribose polymerase by western blotting, as well as different flow cytometry-based methods to quantify the sub-G1 hypodiploid cell population, the redistribution of phosphatidylserine to the outer leaflet of plasma membrane, and the loss of the mitochondrial inner membrane potentia
FedADMM-InSa: An inexact and self-adaptive ADMM for federated learning
Get PDFFederated learning (FL) is a promising framework for learning from distributed data while maintaining privacy. The development of efficient FL algorithms encounters various challenges, including heterogeneous data and systems, limited communication capacities, and constrained local computational resources. Recently developed FedADMM methods show great resilience to both data and system heterogeneity. However, they still suffer from performance deterioration if the hyperparameters are not carefully tuned. To address this issue, we propose an inexact and self-adaptive FedADMM algorithm, termed FedADMM-InSa. First, we design an inexactness criterion for the clients’ local updates to eliminate the need for empirically setting the local training accuracy. This inexactness criterion can be assessed by each client independently based on its unique condition, thereby reducing the local computational cost and mitigating the undesirable straggle effect. The convergence of the resulting inexact ADMM is proved under the assumption of strongly convex loss functions. Additionally, we present a self-adaptive scheme that dynamically adjusts each client's penalty parameter, enhancing algorithm robustness by mitigating the need for empirical penalty parameter choices for each client. Extensive numerical experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets have been conducted. As validated by some tests, our FedADMM-InSa algorithm improves model accuracy by 7.8% while reducing clients’ local workloads by 55.7% compared to benchmark algorithmsAuthors\u2019 names are listed in alphabetical order by family name to signify equal contributions. The authors are grateful to anonymous referees for their valuable comments which have helped improve the paper substantially. This work has been funded by the Alexander von Humboldt-Professorship program, the Humboldt Research Fellowship for postdoctoral researchers, the European Union's Horizon Europe MSCA project ModConFlex (grant number 101073558), the COST Action MAT-DYN-NET, the Transregio 154 Project of the DFG, grants PID2020-112617GB-C22 and TED2021-131390B-I00 of MINECO (Spain). Madrid Government - UAM Agreement for the Excellence of the University Research Staff in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation)
Combination of expeller and supercritical CO2 for the extraction of a phenolic-rich olive oil – A preliminary chemical characterization
Get PDFThis study aimed to develop and evaluate a sustainable olive oil (OO) extraction process that eliminates wastewater generation while producing high-quality oil and preserving the food-grade potential of byproducts. The method involves olive dehydration followed by a sequential two-step process combining cold pressing and supercritical CO2 extraction (SFE-CO2). This approach achieved a significantly higher extraction yield (92.6 %) compared to the 2-phase conventional process (37.8 %) while eliminating aqueous residues and avoiding the use of organic solvents or refining steps. A chemical analysis confirmed the extracted OO’s superior quality, with parameters like acid value, peroxide value, absorption coefficients (K232 , K270 , ΔK), and fatty acid profile, meeting legal limits for extra virgin classification. Notably, the absence of water during extraction and the use of SFE-CO significantly enhance the concentration of phenolic compounds (PCs) in the oil, press cake, and defatted f lour. Preliminary analysis revealed PCs such as tyrosol (29 mg/kg), hydroxytyrosol (13 mg/kg), syringic acid (9.6 mg/kg), pinoresinol (1.8 mg/kg), and oleuropein (0.4 mg/kg), representing 3.7–16 times higher levels than those typically found in conventional OO. This method provides a sustainable and efficient alternative for OO extraction, enhancing the oil and byproducts’ nutritional valueThis study has been funded by State Investigation Agency (PID2020-119084RB-C21). Celia Bañares thanks Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and the European Social Fund for a predoctoral FPI grant (BES-2017-080853, Spain) and Assamae Chabni thanks Comunidad de Madrid (Spain) for a predoctoral grant (PEJD-2019-PRE/BIO-14522
Two decades of public sector innovation: building an analytical framework from a systematic literature review of types, strategies, conditions, and results
No full textScholarly attention in innovation in the public sector is growing rapidly, provoking analytical complexity. We developed a systematic literature review about Public Sector Innovation (PSI), analysing 169 articles published between 2001 and 2021, using PRISMA. We present a comprehensive approach to PSI testing and empirically develop an analytical framework based on the most common combinations of the studied dimensions. Additionally, we propose three main research avenues for the future of PSI: (1) studying PSI in different contexts, (2) expanding the analysis of configurations in PSI initiatives, and (3) analysing ambidextrous strategies to support the practical implementation of PS
Analysis of maternity rights perception: impact of maternal care in diverse socio-health contexts
Get PDFMaternity rights are perceived and fulfilled differently according to women’s
psychosocial characteristics, leading to varying maternal experiences and outcomes. It is necessary to know the impact of cultural context, emotional well-being, and resource
availability on the maternal woman’s clinical care experience. The aim is to identify if
these factors contribute to disparities in the perception of maternity rights fulfillment
in Spain and Colombia. This retrospective observational study focused on women who
received maternity-related healthcare in Spain or Colombia. A total of 185 women were
included (Spanish = 53; Colombian = 132). Data collected included social and obstetric
history, as well as psychological variables such as resilience, positive and negative affect, derailment, and maternity beliefs. The study also assessed women’s knowledge of health-care rights (MatCODE), perceptions of resource scarcity (MatER), and the fulfillment of maternity rights (FMR). C-section was more prevalent in Colombia, where women also scored higher on maternity beliefs as a sense of life and as a social duty compared to Spanish women. Conversely, FMR was higher in the Spanish context. Colombian women reported lower levels of social support and less involvement in medical decision-making. The FMR was positively correlated with positive affect, MatCODE, and MatER. Predic-tive modeling identified negative factors for FMR, including giving birth in Colombia (β = −0.30 [−0.58; −0.03] ), previous miscarriage (β = −0.32 [−0.54; −0.09]), C-section in the most recent labor (β = −0.46 [−0.54; −0.0]), and higher MatER scores. Positive predic-tors included gestational age, maternal age, and previous C-section (β = 0.39 [0.11; 0.66]). The perception of the fulfillment of maternity rights depends on socio-healthcare contexts, women’s age, obstetric history, and resources. It is suggested to apply culturally sensitive strategies focused on women’s needs in terms of information, emotional and social support, privacy, and autonomy to manage a positive experienc