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Association of microbiota polyphenols with cardiovascular health in the context of a Mediterranean diet
No full textBackground and aims: The Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) is rich in polyphenols, phytochemicals that are bene-ficial for cardiovascular health. Phenolic compounds have poor bioavailability but they are extensively metab-olized by the gut microbiota. Therefore, we aimed to assess the association of microbial phenolic metabolites (MPM) with adherence to the MedDiet, and their relationship with ideal cardiovascular health (ICVH) and cardiovascular risk factors. Methods and results: This cross-sectional substudy within the PREDIMED trial included 200 participants from the Barcelona-Clinic recruitment center. Five MPM were identified and quantified using a novel method based on liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry: protocatechuic acid (PCA), enterodiol glucuronide (EDG), enterolactone glucuronide (ELG), vanillic acid glucuronide (VAG) and urolithin B glucuronide (UBG). Multivariable-adjusted regressions were used to evaluate the associations between MPM and MedDiet adherence, ICVH score, biochemical parameters, and blood pressure. Additionally, an MPM score was calculated as the weighted sum of MedDiet adherence and ICVH and found to be directly associated. Among individual poly-phenols, UBG was inversely associated with LDL-cholesterol. Conclusions: A score of urinary MPM was associated with higher adherence to the MedDiet and ICVH, and in-dividual MPM were related to better cardiovascular health. These findings suggest that the MedDiet may affect gut microbiota, whose metabolites are linked with cardiovascular health
Las ONG y el desarrollo de los pueblos. Análisis de la ayuda al desarrollo en los documentos de la ONU, en el pensamiento de Amartya Sen y en la Doctrina Social de la Iglesia
Get PDFEsta investigación examina y evalúa el proceso evolutivo de la perspectiva del desarrollo de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), cuyo fundamento teórico decisivo es el enfoque de las capacidades de Amartya Sen. Este autor propone una visión del desarrollo centrada en las personas, en sus capacidades, en sus oportunidades y, sobre todo, en la expansión de sus libertades. Asimismo, identificamos elementos comunes, confluyentes y complementarios con la perspectiva del desarrollo de la Doctrina Social de la Iglesia (DSI) que enriquecen la visión del desarrollo de Sen. Y, por último, reflexionamos cómo las Organizaciones No Gubernamentales (ONG) han contribuido a implementar estas perspectivas del desarrollo, para lo cual han recibido grandes apoyos gubernamentales nacionales e internacionales.This research examines and evaluates the evolutionary process of the United Nations’ (UN) development perspective, whose decisive theoretical foundation is Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach. This author proposes a vision of development centered on individuals, their capabilities, opportunities, and above all, the expansion of their freedoms. In like manner, we identify common, converging, and complementary elements with the development perspective of the Social Doctrine of the Church (SDC) that enrich Sen’s vision of development. Finally, we reflect on how Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have contributed to the implementation these development perspectives, for which they have received significant national and international government support
5G Performance measurements in mobility for the bus transportation system in an urban environment.
Get PDF5G is a new technology that can provide more services, due to the improvement in performance, than the current mobile technologies. Because of that, it is selected as a possible technology for automotive transportation systems. Nevertheless, nowadays the 5G technology is in the deployment phase, which could present bugs requiring improvements in the network. Therefore, a tool capable of measuring some of the most relevant features of the 5G, as some of the requirements for the transportation system, is presented. The measurements with the specified tool were carried out in a specific line from the bus company in the San Sebastian city center with the aim of finding out the services that could be improved. Afterward, the results from the different measurements are shown, compared, and discussed. Finally, some conclusions about the obtained results and the services to use the target technology are presented
Venetoclax ramp-up strategies for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia in the United Kingdom: a real world multicentre retrospective study
Get PDFThis retrospective, observational study evaluated patterns of inpatient versus outpatient tumour lysis syndrome (TLS) monitoring during venetoclax ramp-up in 170 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. The primary outcome was clinical/biochemical TLS. Two clinical and four biochemical TLS occurred (4.1%). Five of the six events occurred in high-risk patients, four occurred at 20 mg dose and three at the 6-h time-point. Inpatient versus outpatient TLS rates within the high-risk subgroup were 15% and 8%. Risk category was the only predictor of TLS events in multivariate analysis. Outpatient escalation did not associate with clinically meaningful TLS events, suggesting outpatient escalation has manageable associated TLS risks, including in high-risk cohorts. These observations require confirmation in larger studies
Drivers and barriers for sustainable fashion consumption in Spain: a comparison between sustainable and non-sustainable consumers
Get PDFThis research identifies and portrays the under-researched segment of sustainable fashion
consumers, drawing a comparison with the average consumers in Spain, and defines the drivers
and barriers for sustainable fashion consumption, further contributing to the attitude-behaviour
gap literature. Based on a sample of 1,063 respondents and 23 focus group participants, and
following the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the results indicate that lack of trust in fashion
companies and their sustainable statements is the main reason preventing consumers from
buying sustainable products or doing it more often, followed by higher prices. It appears that
the more sustainably conscious consumers are, the less they buy brand-new, preferring
alternatives such as second-hand (mainly) and renting. Sustainable fashion consumers
demonstrate greater fashion consciousness, environmental concern, perceived consumer
effectiveness, and a higher subjective norm than average consumers. Conversely, price is still a
critical purchasing driver for the average consumer
Cultura emocional y reivindicaciones políticas identitarias
No full textEn los últimos años han proliferado movimientos sociales y reivindicaciones políticas identitarias, como el MeToo, BlacksLivesMatter, o multitud de otras acciones reivindicativas que se han venido a englobar bajo
la etiqueta de “cancelación” o cultura de la cancelación (Cancel Culture).
En el plano más directamente vinculado a la práctica política, esta tendencia se ha manifestado en una creciente presencia de propuestas populistas que van alcanzando mayores espacios electorales e institucionales. Y aunque las reivindicaciones políticas, también las que tienen
fundamentos identitarios, han sido una constante histórica, estas manifestaciones actuales presentan algunos rasgos distintivos y particularidades, íntimamente conectados con las consecuencias de los procesos
de modernización y la cultura emocional que predomina en la sociedad
contemporánea
Additive manufacturing of Fe-Mn-Si-based shape memory alloys: state of the art, challenges and opportunities
Get PDFAdditive manufacturing (AM) constitutes the new paradigm in materials processing and its use on metals and alloys opens new unforeseen possibilities, but is facing several challenges regarding the design of the microstructure, which is particularly awkward in the case of functional materials, like shape memory alloys (SMA), as they require a robust microstructure to withstand the constraints appearing during their shape change. In the present work, the attention is focused on the AM of the important Fe-Mn-Si-based SMA family, which is attracting a great technological interest in many industrial sectors. Initially, an overview on the design concepts of this SMA family is offered, with special emphasis to the problems arising during AM. Then, such concepts are considered in order to experimentally develop the AM production of the Fe-20Mn-6Si-9Cr-5Ni (wt%) SMA through laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). The complete methodology is approached, from the gas atomization of powders to the LPBF production and the final thermal treatments to functionalize the SMA. The microstructure is characterized by scanning and transmission electron microscopy after each step of the processing route. The reversibility of the epsilon martensitic transformation and its evolution on cycling are studied by internal friction and electron microscopy. An outstanding 14% of fully reversible thermal transformation of epsilon martensite is obtained. The present results show that, in spite of the still remaining challenges, AM by LPBF offers a good approach to produce this family of Fe-Mn-Si-based SMA, opening new opportunities for its applications
Mechanistic modelling of immuno-modulators in oncology drug development
No full textOver the past decade, the development of immunotherapy has become one of the most exciting breakthroughs in cancer research. However, from the discovery phase to late-stage clinical testing and regulatory approval, challenges in the development of immuno-oncology (IO) drugs are multi-fold and complex. In the preclinical setting, some of these challenges include: the broad number of potential drug targets, the expanding array of immuno-modulatory molecules, the emergence of exploratory biomarkers, and the unleashed potential of combining different treatments. In the clinical setting, the qualification of predictive surrogate biomarkers of treatment efficacy or outcome, and the corresponding optimization of IO trial design have become major obstacles. All these challenges necessitate the development of quantitative, mechanistic-oriented systems models incorporating key biological and pathophysiological aspects of IO and the pharmacokinetics of immuno-modulators.
This thesis focuses on the development of model-based approaches in the area of IO, including pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD), and disease progression models, using data from different stages of the drug development process. These models aim to characterize the tumor growth behavior and its interaction with the immune system in order to better understand the efficacy of multiple immunotherapies and therefore support IO drug development.
The first section of the thesis, the Introduction, provides a general overview of the mechanisms involved in the interplay between cancer cells and the immune system, and highlights the most promising immunotherapies. Additionally, this section summarizes the main concepts of Pharmacometrics and Systems Pharmacology (PSP), and introduces the different modeling strategies that will be further discussed along the thesis.
Chapter 1 first reviews the recently approved immunotherapies and the multiple targets for these treatment approaches. Subsequently, the different mathematical approaches applied to IO and integrating the cancer immunity cycle are presented, grouped in top-down, middle-out and bottom-up.
Chapter 2 introduces a semi-mechanistic model incorporating key processes of the cancer immunity cycle to account for the pharmacodynamic effects of three different immunotherapeutic agents in monotherapy or combination in cold tumors.
Chapter 3 investigates the non-monotonic tumor growth dynamics in untreated animals and proposes a mechanistic framework able to describe this particular behavior and untangling the possible underlying mechanisms.
Chapter 4 describes the development of a physiologically-based model for oncolytic viral therapy. The model accounts for viral kinetics, distribution to the tumor, viral dynamics at tumor level, and the elicited response after two different routes of administration.
Chapter 5 further expands the model developed in Chapter 4 to include the pharmacokinetics of pembrolizumab and describe the efficacy of both drugs administered in combination.
Finally, the General Discussion integrates and highlights the most relevant aspects of the five chapters, to end with the Conclusions where a summary of the most main findings of the thesis are presented
El derecho a la vida: viejos y nuevos debates
No full textLa vida humana se ha percibido siempre como uno de los valores esenciales que
todo poder público –cualquiera que sea la forma política que adopte– tiene la
obligación de respetar y proteger. Mucho antes de configurarse como un derecho
subjetivo, la vida se ha presentado como un límite tanto frente al poder como
frente a terceros.
. Las religiones la han calificado de sagrada para señalar su origen divino pero también para subrayar la obligación de todos de respetarla, lo
que se ha traducido en mandamientos que prohíben disponer de la vida ajena.
Pero el fundamento de la obligación de respetar la vida no es solo religioso y de
aquí que la obligación de protección –también penal– de la vida sea un fenómeno
universal
Podemos y Vox: selección léxica y marcos de interpretación (populistas) en el programa electoral
No full textThis paper aims to analyze the lexical selection and the interpretative frames used to appoint the receiver in the electoral programs of Podemos and Vox (2016 and 2019), two Spanish political parties at the left¿right extremes, and whose discourse is considered populist. Specifically, we paid attention to four terms, selected according to criteria of higher frequency in a previous study of the same corpus: ciudadanos, ciudadanía, españoles and gente. The context of use has been analyzed in order to detect recurrent discursive patterns in both parties. We have found that, despite the fact that the terms used are different, both parties share some interpretative frames