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José Ignacio Fernández-Vigo,1 Inés Contreras,2 María José Crespo,3 Carlos Beckford,4 Ignacio Flores-Moreno,5 Rosario Cobo-Soriano,6 Jesús Pareja,7 María Dolores Martín,8 Luis Moreno,9 Luis Arrevola-Velasco10 1Deparment of Ophthalmology, Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria San Carlos (IdISSC), Madrid, Spain; 2Deparment of Ophthalmology, Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, Instituto Ramón y Cajal de Investigaciones Sanitarias (IRYCIS) and Clínica Rementería, Madrid, Spain; 3Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital Universitario Infanta Leonor, Madrid, Spain; 4Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital Universitario Príncipe de Asturias, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain; 5Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital Universitario Puerta de Hierro, Madrid, Spain; 6Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital Universitario Henares, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid, Spain; 7Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain; 8Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital Infanta Cristina, Madrid, Spain; 9Department of Ophthalmology, Hospital 12 de Octubre, Madrid, Spain; 10Department of Ophthalmology, Clinica Baviera Instituto Oftalmológico Europeo, Madrid, SpainCorrespondence: Luis Arrevola-Velasco, Department of Ophthalmology, Clínica Baviera Instituto Oftalmológico Europeo, P.° de la Castellana, 20, Madrid, 28046, Spain, Tel +34 917 82 03 60, Email larrevola@telefonica.netPurpose: The treatment of diabetic macular edema (DME) has evolved rapidly in the past decade, highlighting the need to address the challenges of routine clinical practice decision-making through expert consensus agreements.Methods: After a literature review and discussion of real-world experience on DME management, a group of ten retina specialists agreed on a consensus of recommendations for the most appropriate management of DME patients using vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors (anti-VEGF) in Spain.Results: The panel recommended early treatment initiation in DME patients with worse baseline visual acuity (VA) to maintain or improve outcome. For patients with good VA, an observation strategy was recommended, considering the presence of diabetic retinopathy, optical coherence tomography biomarkers, and impact on patient’s quality of life. Based on the available evidence and clinical experience, the panel recommended the use of anti-VEGF intensive loading doses with the objective of achieving anatomic and visual responses as soon as possible, followed by a Treat & Extend (T&E) strategy to maintain VA improvement. Aflibercept was recommended for patients with a baseline decimal VA < 0.5, followed by a T&E strategy, including the possibility to extend frequency of injections up to 16 weeks.Conclusion: An expert panel proposes a consensus for the management of DME in Spain. Early treatment initiation with anti-VEGF in DME patients is recommended to maintain or improve VA; aflibercept is recommended for patients with a poor baseline VA.Keywords: diabetic macular edema, clinical practice patterns, intravitreal injections, consensus

In the evaluation of any political strategy, it is essential to carry out the collection and analysis of the available data. The presentation of a complex phenomenon by means of synthetic measures can improve both the political actors' understanding of the situation and the design of new measures. In this paper, we deal with the problem of the construction of a multidimensional composite indicator for the evaluation of educational systems in OECD countries. In our proposal, not only are those indicators included that measure the academic outcomes, but also a group of indicators that measures the social dimension of the educational system. A variation of a methodology based on Data Envelopment Analysis is developed to construct a composite multiplicative indicator that enables inter-temporal comparison and the detection of the sources of the variation.

Functional Food (FF) refers to a food that besides of impact on the animals and human nutrition, also help on the reduction risk of some illness and even on their control. Nutraceutical Food (NF) refers to products derived usually from FF and are presented commonly as drugs to prevent or reduce some illness. These kinds of foods are not widely used animals and specifically in rabbits. The aim of this review was to describe and analyse benefits of FF in rabbits and to propose practices that increase the use of these kinds of foods on the rabbit meat production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci) represent an insect pest in horticulture. It serves as a vector for transmitting phytopathogens that inhibit the correct development of plants, affecting crop performance. In this research, whitefly population model was proposed to provide a tool that predicts the pest spread within a crop under greenhouse conditions. The analysis, calibration, and validation of the models, based on logistic functions, were implemented for the three stages (egg, nymph, and adult) of the life cycle of this organism. Temperature (°C), relative humidity (%), initial population (number/cm2), and Growing Degree-Day (GDD) were considered as input variables to describe each development stage. The statistical analysis for the model validation included the coefficient of determination (R 2), the percentage standard error of prediction (%SEP), the average relative variance (AVR), and the efficiency coefficient (E). The first period for calibration consisted of 43 d (204.3 GDD), and the second period for validation consisted of 36 d (171.1 GDD). The model efficiently predicts the population growth for the egg, nymph, and adult stages since the values of R 2 were 0.9856, 0.9918, and 0.9436, and the values of %SEP were 12.4, 11.9, and 75.1% for the egg, nymph, and adult stages, respectively. Moreover, the validation model obtained an R 2 of 0.9287 for the egg stage, 0.9645 for the nymph stage, and 0.9884 for the adult stage. Meanwhile, the values of %SEP were 10.38, 16.89, and 32.59% for the egg, nymph, and adult stages, respectively. In both cases, the values suggest an adequate fit for the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a cross-dock, goods are unloaded from incoming trucks, consolidated according to their destinations, and then, loaded into outgoing trucks with little or no storage in between. In this paper, we study the cross-dock door assignment problem in which the assignment of incoming trucks to strip doors, and outgoing trucks to stack doors is determined, with the objective of minimising the total material handling cost. We present a new mixed integer programming formulation which is embedded into a Lagrangean relaxation that exploits the special structure of the problem to obtain bounds on the optimal solution value. A primal heuristic is used at every iteration of the Lagrangean relaxation to obtain high quality feasible solutions. Computational results obtained on benchmark instances (with up to 20 origins and destinations, and 10 strip and stack doors) and on a new and more difficult set of instances (with up to 50 origins and destinations, and 30 strip and stack doors) confirm the efficiency of the algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a cornerstone in the hypothalamic regulation of food intake and energy homeostasis. Polymorphisms in the BDNF gene may thus contribute to obesity traits. The aim of this investigation was to analyze the association of rs6265 and rs7934165 BDNF polymorphisms in women from Northeast Mexico classified as obese or overweight using their BMI and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 296 women were enrolled and further divided into normal weight and obese overweight groups according to their BMI status and WHtR classifications, which were low and high at < 0.50 and ≥ 0.50, respectively. Genotyping of BDNF rs6265 and rs7934165 polymorphisms was performed using a TaqMan assay. Distinct anthropometric, biochemical, clinical, and dietary parameters were obtained and used as covariates in the statistical analyses. RESULTS: The rs6265-G allele and its homozygote state (GG) were the most prominent without statistically significant differences between groups (p = 0.412). The study of rs7934165 with BMI showed marginal associations. Moreover, the rs7934165-AA genotype was more frequent among individuals with a high WHtR than those with a low WHtR (43.4 vs. 25.2%, p = 0.01). This association was maintained after adjustments for age and caloric intake through logistic regression analysis (OR = 2.20, 95% CI = 1.15-4.18, p = 0.016). CONCLUSIONS: The present study indicates that the BDNF-rs7934165-AA genotype is associated with a higher WHtR which is related to central obesity and its comorbidities. This suggests that this SNP could act as a potential biomarker for central obesity and cardiometabolic risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]