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Purpose To describe and evaluate the main direct health costs, in routine clinical practice, of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) patients, from hospital perspective, in Spain. Methods Retrospective, multicenter, and observational study conducted on five third-level Spanish hospitals, between December 2018 and December 2019. The study included patients who were diagnosed of AMD before December 2018. Direct healthcare costs were obtained from a Spanish database. Study variables included demographic and clinical variables, and resources, such as treatment, diagnostic tests, medical examination, and surgery. Among the 1414 screened AMD patients, 1164 patients were included. In the overall study patients, the total cost was €5,386,511.0, with a mean cost per patient of €4627.6 ± 2383.9. The largest cost items were diagnostic examinations (€2.832.902,0) and vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors (anti-VEGF) treatment (€2.038.257,2). Bevacizumab was administered to 325 (27.9%) patients, ranibizumab to 328 (28.2%), and aflibercept to 626 (53.8%); 115 (10.7%) patients received two anti-VEGF treatments, while 90 (7.7%) did not receive any. Over the course of the study, a total of 6,057 anti-VEGF injections were administered, with a mean (95% confidence interval) of 4.8 (4.4–5.2) injections per patient. Regarding safety, 29 patients experience injection-related adverse events, among them 12 patients had cataract and 11 ones elevated intraocular pressure (IOP). The incidence of endophthalmitis was 0.5% (6/1164). Conclusions AMD was associated with considerable healthcare costs for regional healthcare systems. Diagnostic examinations, particularly OCT examinations, and anti-VEGF treatment represented the largest cost items.

The establishment of a reference method for the determination of the allergen protein content in a processed food material has been explored. An analytical approach was developed to enable the comparability of food allergen measurement results expressed in a decision-relevant manner. A proof of concept is here presented, resulting in quantity values for the common measurand, namely ‘mass of total allergen protein per mass of food’. The quantities are determined with SI traceability to enable the comparability of reported results. A method for the quantification of total milk protein content in an incurred baked food at a concentration level clinically relevant is presented. The strategy on how to obtain the final analytical result is outlined. Challenges associated with this method are discussed, in particular the optimal extraction of the marker proteins, the complete digestion and release of the peptides in an equimolar fashion, the use of conversion factors to translate the amount of measured proteins into total milk protein and the estimation of the uncertainty contributions as well as of the combined uncertainty of the final result. The implementation of such a reference method for the determination of the total allergen content in a processed food is an important step, which will provide comparable measurement data of relevance to risk assessors. Graphical abstract Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00216-020-02959-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Endoglin (CD105) is an auxiliary receptor for members of the TFG-β superfamily. Whereas it has been demonstrated that the deficiency of endoglin leads to minor and defective angiogenesis, little is known about the effect of its increased expression, characteristic of several types of cancer. Angiogenesis is essential for tumor growth, so high levels of proangiogenic molecules, such as endoglin, are supposed to be related to greater tumor growth leading to a poor cancer prognosis. However, we demonstrate here that endoglin overexpression do not stimulate sprouting or vascularization in several in vitro and in vivo models. Instead, steady endoglin overexpression keep endothelial cells in an active phenotype that results in an impairment of the correct stabilization of the endothelium and the recruitment of mural cells. In a context of continuous enhanced angiogenesis, such as in tumors, endoglin overexpression gives rise to altered vessels with an incomplete mural coverage that permit the extravasation of blood. Moreover, these alterations allow the intravasation of tumor cells, the subsequent development of metastases and, thus, a worse cancer prognosis., This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain (SAF2010-15881 AND SAF2013-45784-R), the Junta de Castilla y León (GR100), the Fundación Renal Iñigo Álvarez de Toledo, the Kidney Research Network REDINREN (RD06/0016/0013, RD12/0021/0032 and RD016/0009/0025) and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI16/00460 and co-funded by FEDER). Furthermore, CO-I and EN-G are supported by a contract from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain, and CE-T is supported by a fellowship from the Fundación Miguel Casado San José.

Edible insects have been advocated as a means to combat food insecurity, which is prevalent in West Africa. In this study we look at the contribution of the shea caterpillar Cirina butyrospermi, colloquially known as ‘chitoumou’, to the food security of smallholder households in rural southwestern Burkina Faso. We used a mixed methods approach to understand the relationship between caterpillar collection, consumption, and sale by smallholder households, and their seasonal food security status. We found that caterpillars are an important source of food and income for households, significantly increasing the household consumption of animal protein and, with shea nuts, representing the main income source for the majority of women. We also found that food security is higher during caterpillar season, and that household-level food security during this season can be predicted by the amount of caterpillars collected, consumed and sold. However, this relationship holds only during the caterpillar season, suggesting that the positive impact of caterpillars on food security is temporally limited. We conclude that the shea caterpillar is an example of an edible insect that is crucial for seasonal food security in a widespread agricultural system.

We examine the framing mechanisms used to maintain a cross-sector partnership (XSP) that was created to address a complex long-term social issue. We study the first eight years of existence of an XSP that aims to create a market for recycled phosphorus, a nutrient that is critical to crop growth but whose natural reserves have dwindled significantly. Drawing on 27 interviews and over 3,000 internal documents, we study the evolution of different frames used by diverse actors in an XSP. We demonstrate the role of framing in helping actors to avoid some of the common pitfalls for an XSP, such as debilitating conflict, and in creating sufficient common ground to sustain collaboration. As opposed to a commonly held assumption in the XSP literature, we find that collaboration in a partnership does not have to result in a unanimous agreement around a single or convergent frame regarding a contentious issue. Rather, successful collaboration between diverse partners can also be achieved by maintaining a productive tension between different frames through ‘optimal’ frame plurality – not excessive frame variety that may prevent agreements from emerging, but the retention of a select few frames and the deletion of others towards achieving a narrowing frame bandwidth. One managerial implication is that resources need not be focussed on reaching a unanimous agreement among all partners on a single mega-frame vis-à-vis a contentious issue, but can instead be used to kindle a sense of unity in diversity that allows sufficient common ground to emerge, despite the variety of actors and their positions.

Humans show impaired recognition of faces that are presented upside down, a phenomenon termed face inversion effect, which is thought to reflect the special relevance of faces for humans. Here, we investigated whether a phylogenetically distantly related avian species, the carrion crow, with similar socio-cognitive abilities to human and non-human primates, exhibits a face inversion effect. In a delayed matching-to-sample task, two crows had to differentiate profiles of crow faces as well as matched controls, presented both upright and inverted. Because crows can discriminate humans based on their faces, we also assessed the face inversion effect using human faces. Both crows performed better with crow faces than with human faces, and performed worse when responding to inverted pictures in general compared to upright pictures. However, neither of the crows showed a face inversion effect. For comparative reasons, the tests were repeated with human subjects. As expected, humans showed a face-specific inversion effect. Therefore, we did not find any evidence that crows – like humans – process faces as a special visual stimulus. Instead, individual recognition in crows may be based on cues other than a conspecific’s facial profile, such as their body, or on processing of local features rather than holistic processing.

This paper presents a method to localize a robot in a global coordinate frame based on a sparse 2D map containing outlines of building and road network information and no location prior information. Its input is a single 3D laser scan of the surroundings of the robot. The approach extends the generic chamfer matching template matching technique from image processing by including visibility analysis in the cost function. Thus, the observed building planes are matched to the expected view of the corresponding map section instead of to the entire map, which makes a more accurate matching possible. Since this formulation operates on generic edge maps from visual sensors, the matching formulation can be expected to generalize to other input data, e.g., from monocular or stereo cameras. The method is evaluated on two large datasets collected in different real-world urban settings and compared to a baseline method from literature and to the standard chamfer matching approach, where it shows considerable performance benefits, as well as the feasibility of global localization based on sparse building outline data.

We compared five classification systems for clavicle fractures. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of each system. Over a two-year period we reviewed all new radiographs of the shoulder region and identified 487 clavicle fractures. Each radiograph was classified using five classification systems. We reviewed all subsequent X-rays and clinical records until the patient was discharged. We assessed each classification system’s prognostic value in predicting delayed/non-union. Our data show that 79.3% of clavicle fractures occur in the middle third, 19.3% in the lateral third and 1.4% in the medial third. The overall prevalence of delayed/non-union was 7.3%, with 3.2% requiring operative management and 4.1% developing asymptomatic non-union. The incidence of non-union in the lateral third was 9.6%, but only 0.4% required operative management. Craig’s classification had the greatest prognostic value for lateral third fractures, and Robinson’s classification had the greatest prognostic value for middle third fractures. Fractures of the clavicle are common injuries but non-union is an uncommon occurrence. Non-union is more common in the lateral third, but we found these to be mostly asymptomatic. Middle third fractures are more likely to require operative fixation. Middle third fractures should be classified according to Robinson’s classification system and lateral third fractures according to Craig’s classification. We did not assess sufficient medial third fractures for the data to be significant.

Historically, cities and their citizens have led the largest changes that have been taking place continuously, especially since the transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial one. This phenomenon is especially significant from the mid-eighteenth century and it will become more intense if the predictions that establish that, around the year 2050, approximately 70% of the world population will concentrate in some type of city finally come true. With these boundary conditions, it is evident that the achievement of more efficient and sustainable cities is an unavoidable objective for which politicians, managers and technicians must work in order to guarantee the quality of life of their citizens. Although this paradigm of sustainability and efficiency has always been present in the managers of cities, it has not been until very recently that technology has made available to the responsible parties a plethora of possibilities that, when properly employed, translate into significant savings. At the same time, the day-to-day improvement of the citizens is consolidating a new urban concept in which the different processes and systems that occur in it are continuously monitored in both time and space. This paper reviews the evolution of one of the pioneering examples of such cities, Santander, where an Internet of the Things infrastructure was deployed a decade ago. In this time, multiple technologies and services have been developed and deployed in smart city pilots. The paper discusses the key lessons learnt from the digitalization of the city and the new challenges that have arisen as we were paving the way for a smarter and more liveable city. This work has been funded by the Spanish Government (MINECO) under Grant Agreement No. RTI2018-093475-A-I00 FIERCE (Future Internet Enabled Resilient smart CitiEs) project.

To facilitate the energy transition, regulators can choose between several policy options to stimulate energy-efficient design by firms. One possibility is to target firms directly through standards or subsidies. Alternatively, it is possible to influence firms indirectly by targeting firms’ stakeholders and raising consumer awareness through information campaigns and education. In this paper, we focus specifically on the pivotal role of consumers and we investigate the effectiveness of subsidies, product standards, and education in improving firms’ environmental performance through energy-efficient product design. In particular, we investigate the importance of the interaction effect between the regulation and consumers’ environmental awareness under different market structures. We find that a policy based on a product standard can counteract the negative effects of crowding-out consumers’ intrinsic motivation in a monopoly setting, although this counteracting effect is less powerful under a duopoly. However, a subsidy does not provide such a backup system and the full effect of crowding-out will be visible., The authors wish to thank two anonymous referees for very useful comments on an earlier version of the paper, as well as financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under research project ECO2017-82449-P

In 2006, Narum published a paper in Conservation Genetics emphasizing that Bonferroni correction for multiple testing can be highly conservative with poor statistical power (high Type II error). He pointed out that other approaches for multiple testing correction can control the false discovery rate (FDR) with a better balance of Type I and Type II errors and suggested that the approach of Benjamini and Yekutieli (BY) 2001 provides the most biologically relevant correction for evaluating the significance of population differentiation in conservation genetics. However, there are crucial differences between the original Benjamini and Yekutieli procedure and that described by Narum. After carefully reviewing both papers, we found an error due to the incorrect implementation of the BY procedure in Narum (Conserv Genet 7:783–787, 2006) such that the approach does not adequately control FDR. Since the incorrect BY approach has been increasingly used, not only in conservation genetics, but also in medicine and biology, it is important that the error is made known to the scientific community. In addition, we provide an overview of FDR approaches for multiple testing correction and encourage authors first and foremost to provide effect sizes for their results; and second, to be transparent in their descriptions of multiple testing correction. Finally, the impact of this error on conservation genetics and other fields will be study-dependent, as it is related to the number of true to false positives for each study.

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper.

Although reuse is generally considered a good practice within software engineering, several problems dissuade its industrial application and a new viewpoint is needed. This paper presents a new perspective of reuse based on improved retrieval techniques for semantic content (knowledge). This approach, called Universal Knowledge Reuse Methodology (UKRM), drops the investment costs needed in systematic reuse, including the cost of traceability in the process, and reduces the chaos of ad-hoc reuse. UKRM makes reuse independent of the type of content, the context where it will be reused, and even the user that demands it. The paper includes an incremental experiment in order to validate the feasibility of this proposal.

Background Respite services provide a break in the caregiving relationship for people with dementia and their carers, however they are often under-used and service acceptability can be low. This study aims to understand key stakeholders’ experiences of respite services for people with dementia, with a view to informing respite service development. Methods A systematic search was conducted of the Pubmed/MedLine, Embase, Cinahl, PsychInfo, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases (1980–2016, English) with fixed search terms relating to ‘respite’ and ‘dementia’, following PRISMA guidelines. Noblit and Hare’s approach to meta-ethnography was employed. Key concepts were identified across the papers and reciprocal and refutational translation techniques were applied to primary studies; findings were synthesized into third order interpretations and finally, a ‘line-of-argument’ was developed. Results In total 23 papers were reviewed, which described 20 independent samples across 12 countries. The views of 889 participants were synthesized (13 people with dementia, 690 carers, 44 ‘service providers’, 52 frontline staff, 70 managers, 12 volunteers, six academic/policy-makers, and two independent consultants). Five key concepts were identified and outlined i.e. 1) the transition to service use 2) expanding organizational capacity 3) dementia care quality 4) building a collaborative care partnership and 5) dyad restoration. There was broad agreement around the key areas for service development across the range of stakeholders (flexible and responsive person-centred care, meaningful activity for people with dementia, enhanced client-service communication and informational support). However, there was clear divergence in stakeholder perspectives around the barriers to implementation of such developments. Organizational tension was evident between frontline staff and management in respite services, hindering the cultural change necessary to facilitate service development in line with dyad’s needs and preferences. Conclusion Respite services must surmount internal organizational barriers to change, and cultivate a collaborative solution-focused care culture, which acknowledges the centrality of the dyad and their care preferences. Future research should explore the development of alternative/modified community respite service models, which have greater capacity to be responsive to the needs of each individual dyad. The perspectives of people with dementia must be included in research in this area going forward. Trial registration PROSPERO Registration Number: CRD42016050191. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12877-017-0676-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Data acquisition during storage tank inspection is one of the most important aspects for petrochemical storage tank owners. Mobile inspection robots designed to enter inside a storage tanks without taking the tank out of service are required to enter through manholes on the roof of the tank with openings as small as 300-millimetre diameter. These robots are controlled via an umbilical cable which supplies power to the robot, sends and receives signals to control robot motion, and transfers inspection data acquired by non-destructive testing (NDT) sensors back to NDT inspectors. It is important to localize a robot inside the tank so that NDT data indicating a defect such as corrosion pitting in tank floors or weld cracks can be mapped for subsequent monitoring and repair. Wireless communication with the robot for NDT data acquisition and localization would enable the minimization of umbilical size and its effective management which is important when a small mobile robot is supplied with a very long umbilical. This paper presents results of a study to develop a wireless communication system that uses radio frequency (RF) signals with low power (< 1W) sent by a transceiver on a robot operating inside an oil storage tank which travel through an oil medium, are transmitted through steel tank walls and are captured by receivers placed in air outside the tank. Simulations using Feko software have been performed to assess the feasibility of using RF for communication in oil storage tanks with laboratory experiments conducted using vegetable oil to validate the simulations. RF signals transmitted by a robot operating inside an oil tank and received by a number of receivers placed in air around the tank has potential application as a robot localization system.

Computational methods for protein structure prediction allow us to determine a three-dimensional structure of a protein based on its pure amino acid sequence. These methods are a very important alternative to costly and slow experimental methods, like X-ray crystallography or Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. However, conventional calculations of protein structure are time-consuming and require ample computational resources, especially when carried out with the use of ab initio methods that rely on physical forces and interactions between atoms in a protein. Fortunately, at the present stage of the development of computer science, such huge computational resources are available from public cloud providers on a pay-as-you-go basis. We have designed and developed a scalable and extensible system, called Cloud4PSP, which enables predictions of 3D protein structures in the Microsoft Azure commercial cloud. The system makes use of the Warecki-Znamirowski method as a sample procedure for protein structure prediction, and this prediction method was used to test the scalability of the system. The results of the efficiency tests performed proved good acceleration of predictions when scaling the system vertically and horizontally. In the paper, we show the system architecture that allowed us to achieve such good results, the Cloud4PSP processing model, and the results of the scalability tests. At the end of the paper, we try to answer which of the scaling techniques, scaling out or scaling up, is better for solving such computational problems with the use of Cloud computing.

Background Successful models of nursing and midwifery in the community delivering healthcare throughout the lifespan and across a health and illness continuum are limited, yet necessary to guide global health services. Primary and community health services are the typical points of access for most people and the location where most care is delivered. The scope of primary healthcare is complex and multifaceted and therefore requires a practice framework with sound conceptual and theoretical underpinnings. The aim of this paper is to present a conceptual model informed by a scoping evidence review of the literature. Methods A scoping evidence review of the literature was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement. Databases included CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and SocINDEX using the EBSCO platform and the Cochrane Library using the keywords: model, nursing, midwifery, community, primary care. Grey literature for selected countries was searched using the Google ‘advanced’ search interface. Data extraction and quality appraisal for both empirical and grey literature were conducted independently by two reviewers. From 127 empirical and 24 non-empirical papers, data extraction parameters, in addition to the usual methodological features, included: the nature of nursing and midwifery; the population group; interventions and main outcomes; components of effective nursing and midwifery outcomes. Results The evidence was categorised into six broad areas and subsequently synthesised into four themes. These were not mutually exclusive: (1) Integrated and Collaborative Care; (2) Organisation and Delivery of Nursing and Midwifery Care in the Community; (3) Adjuncts to Nursing Care and (4) Overarching Conceptual Model. It is the latter theme that is the focus of this paper. In essence, the model depicts a person/client on a lifespan and preventative-curative trajectory. The health related needs of the client, commensurate with their point position, relative to both trajectories, determines the nurse or midwife intervention. Consequently, it is this need, that determines the discipline or speciality of the nurse or midwife with the most appropriate competencies. Conclusion Use of a conceptual model of nursing and midwifery to inform decision-making in primary/community based care ensures clinical outcomes are meaningful and more sustainable. Operationalising this model for nursing and midwifery in the community demands strong leadership and effective clinical governance. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12912-017-0225-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The paper deals with the detection of abnormal situations via captured sound processing. Different settings of feature extraction algorithms were realized and evaluated. Chosen feature sets were used for building the effective parametric representation for gun shots and breaking glass. This way two types of high dimensional feature supervectors were created in regard to the best individual settings of each feature extraction algorithm. For improving the recognition rate Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance (MRMR) and Joint Mutual Information (JMI) feature selection algorithms were also applied. They were used for the selection of superior features and for the creation of n-dimensional feature supervectors. The investigation of the appropriate dimension of feature supervectors was performed too. The framework for recognition of potentially dangerous acoustic events such as breaking glass and gun shots, based on the MRMR and JMI selected feature supervector through Hidden Markov Models based classification is proposed in the paper.

[Background]: The presence of women in decision-making positions, such as on editorial committees of biomedical journals, is not the same as that of men. This paper analyzes the gender composition of editorial committees (EBMs) and editors-in-chief (ECs) positions of pediatric journals., [Methods]: The gender of EBMs and ECs of 125 journals classified in the pediatrics area of the Journal Citation Report (JCR) was analyzed. The following indicators were calculated: gender distribution of ECs and EBMs by journal, publisher, subject speciality, country, quartile of the journal in JCR and country of affiliation of the members., [Results]: The total number of EBMs was 4242. The distribution by sex of the ECs was 19.44% women and 80.56% men, while that of the EBMs were 33.05% women and 66.95% men. Twenty journals exhibited a greater representation of women than of men, and in four there was parity. Journals with greater participation of women specialized in nursing and physical therapy and were related to nutrition (lactation and breastfeeding)., [Conclusions]: Only one-fifth of ECs and one-third of EBMs are females. Women’s participation is higher in journals related to nursing, physical and occupational therapy, and nutrition. The United States has the highest number of EBMs, followed by the European Union.

To reduce the impact of droughts and increase the resilience of regional water systems, various competing demands, such as hydropower, supply, irrigation and river ecosystems, need to be reconciled. In this perspective, for a sustainable and efficient management of the water resources, planners and practitioners would benefit from using the most recent data and easily accessible analysis tools, that can make hydrological model applications easier to apply. In this paper, a web-based open-source geoinformation tool for estimating Flow Duration Curves (FDCs) in ungauged basins is presented. The FDC estimation derives from a regional statistical model, that relates basin topographic parameters, climatic characteristic and other environmental factors to FDC features via multivariate regression. The software tool has the primary function of simplifying the GIS-intensive application of the multivariate methodology, allowing computation of the necessary basin features through web services. These are developed in compliance with the OGC specifications for geospatial Web Processing Service (WPS), while scripting and model implementation are developed server-side, which ensures the user access to always updated data, and to procedures free from software client compatibility issues. An operational application is available for the North-Western Italy.

In today’s digital age, transactions are made increasingly in the virtual universe. Some do all financial transactions online, but some do not even want to think about this possibility since the consideration is unreliable. To make online financial transactions more reliable, many technologies have already been tested. Since passwords, tokens, physical code generation accessories, there have been many attempts, being the most elaborate, the blockchain. Governments, especially in developed countries, often find it difficult to gain the trust of their citizens, especially when it comes to evidence of service provision and improvement of existing services. In developing countries, blockchain requests from governments would be useful in eliminating some important problems, such as corruption, while ensuring more effective deployment and distribution of resources. The adoption of such technologies can also help to facilitate better use of resources. In this paper, we will analyze the impact of the application of blockchain technology on e-government. 2020-21

In this paper, we document changes in political trust in the UK throughout 2020 so as to consider wider implications for the ongoing handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analysed data from 18 survey organisations with measures on political trust (general, leadership, and COVID-19-related) spanning the period December 2019–October 2020. We examined the percentage of trust and distrust across time, identifying where significant changes coincide with national events. Levels of political trust were low following the 2019 UK General Election. They rose at the onset of UK lockdown imposed in March 2020 but showed persistent gradual decline throughout the remainder of the year, falling to pre-COVID levels by October 2020. Inability to sustain the elevated political trust achieved at the onset of the pandemic is likely to have made the management of public confidence and behaviour increasingly challenging, pointing to the need for strategies to sustain trust levels when handling future crises.

University–industry interaction has many supporters and some detractors in the scholarly literature. Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policy frameworks emphasise interactions between universities and stakeholders other than industry, and the contribution made by these interactions to a range of goals such as environmental sustainability. Given the significance of discourse to shape public opinion, it is important that academic and policy actors convey positive views of university interaction. We investigate whether this is happening by examining representations of university interactions in popular culture. Since public opinion can shape science, our investigation could also suggest new research questions. Our sample includes science fiction novels that won prestigious awards (Hugo, Nebula and Locus) for the genre, from the 1970s to the 2010s. The use of an objective corpus of the literature increases external validity, a methodological novelty in representations of science studies. We show how science fiction, predominantly, is critical of university interactions, reflecting a lack of convincing institutional narratives on their benefits. The apprehensions expressed about interactions with industry or other stakeholders are equivalent. We offer some recommendations for research on STI policy frameworks to incorporate critical views of university–society interaction, including threats to sustainability, and new research questions related to defence of non-disclosure of information for political reasons and conflicts of equity due to the lack of career progression for ‘disengaged’ academics., The Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities funded this research through Project CSO2016-79045-C2-2-R of the Spanish National R&D&I Plan. CSIC funded Laura’s stay at INGENIO who worked on Aid JAEINT17_EX_0661 as part of the JAE Intro Programme. David A. Kirby revised an earlier version of the paper and provided feedback that improved the manuscript.

In this paper, we present a robotic workcell for task automation in footwear manufacturing such as sole digitization, glue dispensing, and sole manipulation from different places within the factory plant. We aim to make progress towards shoe industry 4.0. To achieve it, we have implemented a novel sole grasping method, compatible with soles of different shapes, sizes, and materials, by exploiting the particular characteristics of these objects. Our proposal is able to work well with low density point clouds from a single RGBD camera and also with dense point clouds obtained from a laser scanner digitizer. The method computes antipodal grasping points from visual data in both cases and it does not require a previous recognition of sole. It relies on sole contour extraction using concave hulls and measuring the curvature on contour areas. Our method was tested both in a simulated environment and in real conditions of manufacturing at INESCOP facilities, processing 20 soles with different sizes and characteristics. Grasps were performed in two different configurations, obtaining an average score of 97.5% of successful real grasps for soles without heel made with materials of low or medium flexibility. In both cases, the grasping method was tested without carrying out tactile control throughout the task. Research work was completely funded by the European Commission and FEDER through the COMMANDIA project (SOE2/P1/F0638), supported by Interreg-V Sudoe. Part of the facilities used were provided by the Footwear Technological Institute (INESCOP).

Coastal wetlands are among the most productive and valuable ecosystems worldwide, although one of the main factors affecting their survival is the coexistence between agriculture and conservation. This paper analyses the complex balance between agriculture and conservation coexistence in El Hondo Natural Park (Alicante, Spain) coastal wetland by examining stakeholders’ narratives, perceptions, and interactions. The aim is to highlight the concurrence between socio-economic progress and socio-environmental justice perspectives by identifying those driving factors motivating stakeholders’ conflicts while expanding stakeholders’ behaviour and interaction when discussing the current and future management of this socio-ecological system. Data were collected between April and June 2019 from semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to river basin authorities, regional governments, municipalities, irrigation communities, union farms, regional and local ecologist groups, and social movements; and scrutinized through qualitative data analysis and descriptive statistics. Stakeholders discussed the main driving factors identified through the local newspapers to motivating current conflicts and confronting perspectives in El Hondo Natural Park: (1) the origin and evolution of the coastal wetland, (2) the provision and value of ecosystem services, (3) the management of water scarcity and water quality standards, (4) the guarantee and management of public and private investment, and (5) consequences of a natural park declaration. Likewise, the triple-loop analysis of stakeholders’ representativeness, relevance and collaboration highlighted examples of stakeholders’ underrepresentation and power imbalance, a negative assessment of the stakeholders’ actions, and how agreements are based on both stakeholders’ predisposition to collaborate and affinity. Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. This study were funded by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (FJCI-2015-24346) and University of Alicante (I-PI-88-18).

The optimal design of single mixed refrigerant (SMR) natural gas liquefaction process is decisive for upgrading the liquefied natural gas (LNG) value chain and can be achieved using process simulators and derivative-free optimization techniques in simulation–optimization frameworks. The process work consumption can be reduced by modifying process flowsheet and manipulating refrigeration cycle thermodynamic conditions and refrigerant composition. The goal of this paper is the design of energy-efficient SMR liquefaction process for LNG production using simulation–optimization approach, in Aspen HYSYS® and MATLAB®, that considers more decision variables to be optimized with a Nelder–Mead simplex algorithm and small flowsheet modifications, such as hydraulic turbines and flash separators in between compression stages. The present approach resulted in liquefaction process with network duty of 750.2 kJ per kg of natural gas, which is considerably smaller than those reported in the literature. The authors acknowledge the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development-CNPq (Brazil), processes 148184/2019-7, 440047/2019-6, 311807/2018-6, 428650/2018-0, 305055/2017-8, and Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel-CAPES (Brazil) for the financial support.

Background and aims: Plant parasitic nematodes (PPNs) are among the most important pests in agriculture. Chemical inputs are widely used for their control; however, the negative impact of these agrochemicals on environmental and human health is a current concern. Biological control and interventions on rhizosphere signaling are promising ecofriendly alternatives for managing these pests in the field. Nevertheless, the molecular mechanisms involved in plant-PPN interaction need to be unraveled in order to develop appropriate management strategies. Strigolactones (SLs) are phytohormones that are exuded from roots, acting as signaling molecules in the rhizosphere. They are important cues in the establishment of arbuscular mycorrhizal and Rhizobium-legume symbioses. Recently, it has been shown that SLs can also affect the interaction between plants and certain PPN species; however, data are scarce and ambiguous. Some studies propose that SLs positively regulate PPN species performance acting as attractants to roots, or by inhibiting plant defense responses. On the contrary, other studies suggest that SLs could negatively regulate PPN performance by reducing abscisic acid, or by promoting plant interactions with beneficial soil microorganisms. In the present Opinion paper, we discuss these controversial results and propose future research challenges to develop new management strategies against these harmful PPN species., European Regional Development Fund, Grant RTI2018-09450-B-C31 and Bec.ar program (call 2016) from Ministerio de Modernización (República Argentina).

NoSQL technologies have become a common component in many information systems and software applications. These technologies are focused on performance, enabling scalable processing of large volumes of structured and unstructured data. Unfortunately, most developments over NoSQL technologies consider security as an afterthought, putting at risk personal data of individuals and potentially causing severe economic loses as well as reputation crisis. In order to avoid these situations, companies require an approach that introduces security mechanisms into their systems without scrapping already in-place solutions to restart all over again the design process. Therefore, in this paper we propose the first modernization approach for introducing security in NoSQL databases, focusing on access control and thereby improving the security of their associated information systems and applications. Our approach analyzes the existing NoSQL solution of the organization, using a domain ontology to detect sensitive information and creating a conceptual model of the database. Together with this model, a series of security issues related to access control are listed, allowing database designers to identify the security mechanisms that must be incorporated into their existing solution. For each security issue, our approach automatically generates a proposed solution, consisting of a combination of privilege modifications, new roles and views to improve access control. In order to test our approach, we apply our process to a medical database implemented using the popular document-oriented NoSQL database, MongoDB. The great advantages of our approach are that: (1) it takes into account the context of the system thanks to the introduction of domain ontologies, (2) it helps to avoid missing critical access control issues since the analysis is performed automatically, (3) it reduces the effort and costs of the modernization process thanks to the automated steps in the process, (4) it can be used with different NoSQL document-based technologies in a successful way by adjusting the metamodel, and (5) it is lined up with known standards, hence allowing the application of guidelines and best practices. This work was supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the Project ECLIPSE under Grants RTI2018-094283-BC31 and RTI2018-094283- B-C32. Furthermore, it has been funded by the AETHER-UA (PID2020-112540RB-C43) Project from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to advance our understanding of core entrepreneurial competencies and their interdependencies. Developing entrepreneurial competencies is increasingly seen as important to foster entrepreneurship. Studies to date have highlighted different entrepreneurial competencies in the context of different sectors, regions and countries. However, there has been a lack of consensus in relation to the perceived relative importance of core entrepreneurial competences and their interdependencies among students, academic and entrepreneurs. Our paper focuses on two key questions: first, what are the core entrepreneurial competencies that need to be developed in educational contexts? Second, what are the interdependencies between these entrepreneurial competencies that need to be developed in educational contexts? Using a collective intelligence methodology a comparative study of Iran and Ireland was undertaken that involved three stakeholder groups of students, academics and entrepreneurs. This methodology was used to identify, rank, and structure entrepreneurial competencies considered important for university students. The results of the study indicated that productive thinking, motivation, interpersonal skills and leadership are core entrepreneurial competences that need to be developed in educational contexts. Findings also highlight critical interdependencies between entrepreneurial competencies and the relative influence of different competencies across groups and regions. We outline the implications of our findings for designing a curriculum for improving students’ entrepreneurial competencies.

In press., Facing the beginning of the third decade of the twenty-first century, humanity faces an environmental threat that can pose some serious concerns regarding the life on the planet as we know it. The industrial sector is probably the most significant contributor to this concerning scenario, with the construction industry (CI) playing a leading role. Massive efforts have thus been directed to the research of more sustainable and environmentally friendly paths in the CI, showing a clear and sustained demand for new, bold and sustainable structural and non-structural materials. The development of alternative solutions to Portland cement (OPC) and relative products (e.g. mortars and concretes) is rapidly becoming the spearhead of said efforts, mostly due to the high contribution, in terms of CO2-eq, associated with cement production. The present paper focus on the recent developments associated with the incorporation of urban, mining and agro-industrial waste in construction materials, namely in alkali-activated cements. Scientific knowledge and its transfer into live-scale applications, based mostly on technical aspects, have been considered. At this stage, the transition from experimental studies to live-scale applications is probably the most relevant factor, as the secular knowledge associated with current solutions, combined with the heavy financial investments already made, is rapidly generating the sole biggest resistance to this necessary change of hearts and minds., This research has been co-financed by the project “Geo-Design—Artifacts for Hotels and Urban Furniture Incorporating Waste”, No. NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-017501, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through NORTE 2020 (North Regional Operational Program 2014/2020). This work was co-financed by the R&D Project “JUSTREST-Development of Alkali Binders for Geotechnical Applications Made Exclusively from Industrial Waste”, with reference PTDC/ECM-GEO/0637/2014, financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology—FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC).

This paper aims to assess the usability and advantages of three-dimensional rotational angiography (3DRA) in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) and its application in the cath lab. Up to now, its use in CHD is not widespread or standardized. We analyzed all patients with CHD who underwent a 3DRA at our facility between January 2010 and May 2019. The 3DRAs were evaluated for radiation exposure, contrast dye consumption, diagnostic utility and image quality. We performed 872 3DRAs. 3DRA was used in 67.1% of the cases for interventional procedures and in 32.9% for diagnostic purposes. Two different acquisition programs were applied. The median dose-area product (DAP) for all 872 rotations was 54.1 µGym2 (21.7–147.5 µGym2) and 1.6 ml/kg (0.9–2.07 ml/kg) of contrast dye was used. Diagnostic utility of the generated 3D-model was rated superior to the native 3D angiography in 94% (819/872). 3DRA is an excellent and save diagnostic and interventional tool. However, 3DRA has not become a standard imaging procedure in pediatric cardiology up to now. Effort and advantage seems to be unbalanced, but new less invasive techniques may upgrade this method in future.

Preset day cyber-physical systems (CPS) are the confluence of very large data sets, tight time constraints, and heterogeneous hardware units, ridden with latency and volume constraints, demanding newer analytic perspectives. Their system logistics can be well-defined by the data-streams’ behavioural trends across various modalities, without numerical restrictions, favouring resource-saving over methods of investigating individual component features and operations. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how behaviour patterns and related anomalies comprehensively define a CPS. Tensor decompositions are hypothesized as the solution in the context of multimodal smart-grid-originated Big Data analysis. Tensorial data representation is demonstrated to capture the complex knowledge encompassed in these data flows. The uniqueness of this approach is highlighted in the modified multiway anomaly patterns models. In addition, higher-order data preparation schemes, design and implementation of tensorial frameworks and experimental-analysis are final outcomes.

Introduction Compartmental modelling is an established method of quantifying 18F-FDG uptake; however, only recently has it been applied to evaluate pulmonary inflammation. Implementation of compartmental models remains challenging in the lung, partly due to the low signal-to-noise ratio compared to other organs and the lack of standardisation. Good reproducibility is a key requirement of an imaging biomarker which has yet to be demonstrated in pulmonary compartmental models of 18F-FDG; in this paper, we address this unmet need. Methods Retrospective subject data were obtained from the EVOLVE observational study: Ten COPD patients (age =66±9; 8M/2F), 10 α1ATD patients (age =63±8; 7M/3F) and 10 healthy volunteers (age =68±8; 9M/1F) never smokers. PET and CT images were co-registered, and whole lung regions were extracted from CT using an automated algorithm; the descending aorta was defined using a manually drawn region. Subsequent stages of the compartmental analysis were performed by two independent operators using (i) a MIAKATTM based pipeline and (ii) an in-house developed pipeline. We evaluated the metabolic rate constant of 18F-FDG (Kim) and the fractional blood volume (Vb); Bland-Altman plots were used to compare the results. Further, we adjusted the in-house pipeline to identify the salient features in the analysis which may help improve the standardisation of this technique in the lung. Results The initial agreement on a subject level was poor: Bland-Altman coefficients of reproducibility for Kim and Vb were 0.0031 and 0.047 respectively. However, the effect size between the groups (i.e. COPD, α1ATD and healthy subjects) was similar using either pipeline. We identified the key drivers of this difference using an incremental approach: ROI methodology, modelling of the IDIF and time delay estimation. Adjustment of these factors led to improved Bland-Altman coefficients of reproducibility of 0.0015 and 0.027 for Kim and Vb respectively. Conclusions Despite similar methodology, differences in implementation can lead to disparate results in the outcome parameters. When reporting the outcomes of lung compartmental modelling, we recommend the inclusion of the details of ROI methodology, input function fitting and time delay estimation to improve reproducibility.

Introduction: Variation in outcomes from surgery is a major challenge and defining surgical findings may help set benchmarks, which currently do not exist in laparoscopic cholecystectomy. This study outlines a new surgical scoring system incorporating key operative findings. Methods: English language studies (from January 1965 to July 2014) pertaining to severity scoring and predictors of difficult laparoscopic cholecystectomy were searched for in PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases using the search terms 'Laparoscopic cholecystectomy or Lap chole' and/or 'Scoring Index or Grading system or Prediction of difficulty or Conversion to open' in various combinations. Cross-referencing from papers retrieved in the original search identified additional articles. Results: Sixteen published papers report a gallbladder (GB) scoring system, but all relate to pre-operative clinical and imaging findings, rather than operative findings. The current scoring system, using operative findings incorporates the appearance of the GB, presence of GB distension, ease of access, potential biliary complications and time taken to identify cystic duct and artery. A score of

Recent advances in generative adversarial networks (GANs) have shown impressive results for the task of facial expression synthesis. The most successful architecture is StarGAN (Choi et al. in CVPR, 2018), that conditions GANs’ generation process with images of a specific domain, namely a set of images of people sharing the same expression. While effective, this approach can only generate a discrete number of expressions, determined by the content and granularity of the dataset. To address this limitation, in this paper, we introduce a novel GAN conditioning scheme based on action units (AU) annotations, which describes in a continuous manifold the anatomical facial movements defining a human expression. Our approach allows controlling the magnitude of activation of each AU and combining several of them. Additionally, we propose a weakly supervised strategy to train the model, that only requires images annotated with their activated AUs, and exploit a novel self-learned attention mechanism that makes our network robust to changing backgrounds, lighting conditions and occlusions. Extensive evaluation shows that our approach goes beyond competing conditional generators both in the capability to synthesize a much wider range of expressions ruled by anatomically feasible muscle movements, as in the capacity of dealing with images in the wild. The code of this work is publicly available at https://github.com/albertpumarola/GANimation., This work is partially supported by an Amazon Research Award, by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Projects HuMoUR TIN2017-90086-R, ColRobTransp DPI2016-78957 and María de Maeztu Seal of Excellence MDM-2016-0656; by the EU Project AEROARMS ICT-2014-1-644271; and by the Grant R01-DC- 014498 of the National Institute of Health. We also thank Nvidia for hardware donation under the GPU Grant Program.

As mobile phones continue to rapidly expand around the world, marketers are seeking to better understand the impact these devices have on consumer outcomes. One common but understudied area is how mobile phones may influence in-store behaviors. Although prior research has investigated the many shopping related activities consumers undertake on their phones, it is still estimated that nearly half of all in-store mobile phone use is unrelated to the shopping task. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of shopping-unrelated mobile phone use, a frequent but understudied phenomenon, on consumers’ ability to accurately manage in-store shopping plans. Using both field and experimental data, we demonstrate that shopping-unrelated mobile phone use negatively affects consumers’ ability to accurately carry out in-store shopping plans and is associated with an increase in unplanned purchasing. Furthermore, we find that consumers who are highly dependent upon mobile phones tend to be the most at risk of deviating from a shopping plan while engaging in shopping-unrelated mobile phone use.

The scarcity of labeled data often limits the application of supervised deep learning techniques for medical image segmentation. This has motivated the development of semi-supervised techniques that learn from a mixture of labeled and unlabeled images. In this paper, we propose a novel semi-supervised method that, in addition to supervised learning on labeled training images, learns to predict segmentations consistent under a given class of transformations on both labeled and unlabeled images. More specifically, in this work we explore learning equivariance to elastic deformations. We implement this through: 1) a Siamese architecture with two identical branches, each of which receives a differently transformed image, and 2) a composite loss function with a supervised segmentation loss term and an unsupervised term that encourages segmentation consistency between the predictions of the two branches. We evaluate the method on a public dataset of chest radiographs with segmentations of anatomical structures using 5-fold cross-validation. The proposed method reaches significantly higher segmentation accuracy compared to supervised learning. This is due to learning transformation consistency on both labeled and unlabeled images, with the latter contributing the most. We achieve the performance comparable to state-of-the-art chest X-ray segmentation methods while using substantially fewer labeled images.

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10922-018-9484-x Network slicing is one of the key enabling technologies for 5G networks. It allows infrastructure owners to assign resources to service providers (tenants), which will afterwards use them to satisfy their end-user demands. This paradigm, which changes the way networks have been traditionally managed, was initially proposed in the wired realm (core networks). More recently, the scientific community has paid attention to the integration of network slicing in wireless cellular technologies (LTE). However, there are not many works addressing the challenges that appear when trying to exploit slicing techniques over WiFi networks, in spite of their growing relevance. In this paper we propose a novel method of proportionally distributing resources in WiFi networks, by means of the airtime. We develop an analytical model, which shed light on how such resources could be split. The validity of the proposed model is assessed by means of simulation-based evaluation over the ns-3 framework This work has been supported in part by the European Commission and the Spanish Government (Fondo Europeo de desarrollo Regional, FEDER) by means of the EU H2020 NECOS (777067) and ADVICE (TEC2015-71329) projects, respectively.

Trabajo presentado en la 20th Annual Conference Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS), celebrada en Londres (Reino Unido), del 3 al 5 de julio de 2019, Probabilistic planning is very useful for handling uncertainty in planning tasks to be carried out by robots. ROSPlan is a framework for task planning in the Robot Operating System (ROS), but until now it has not been possible to use probabilistic planners within the framework. This systems paper presents a standardized integration of probabilistic planners into ROSPlan that allows for reasoning with non-deterministic effects and is agnostic to the probabilistic planner used. We instantiate the framework in a system for the case of a mobile robot performing tasks indoors, where probabilistic plans are generated and executed by the PROST planner. We evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in a real-world robotic scenario., This work has been supported by the ERC project Clothilde (ERC-2016-ADG-741930), the HuMoUR project (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation TIN2017-90086-R) and by the Spanish State Research Agency through the María de Maeztu Seal of Excellence to IRI (MDM-2016-0656). G. Canal is also supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport by the FPU15/00504 doctoral grant and the mobility grant EST17/00371. The research from KCL was partly supported by Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE) (No. 1415158956).

A new method to screen and to identify genetically modified organisms (GMO) is presented in this paper. It is based on the detection of multiple genetic elements common to GMO by their amplification via PCR followed by direct hybridisation of the amplicons on microarray. The pattern of the elements is then compared to a database of the composition of EU-approved GMO and an identification of the GMO is then proposed. The limit of detection of the method was ≤0.1% GMO content (w/w) expressed as the amount of target DNA present in the template for single unprocessed material. The DNA targets were detected both in reference materials and in mixtures with the same detection limit. The specificity for the detection of the different elements was found to be very good with no cross-reaction even in samples with two GMO present at different concentrations. The paper presents examples of GMO identification and discusses the potential and limitation of such approaches and how they can facilitate the work of private and enforcement detection laboratories., This study was supported by the European Commission through the FP5 program “GMOchips” (contract G6RD-CT2000-00419 2000-2003), the Belgian SSCT program and the Integrated Project “Co-Extra”, contract no. 007158 2005-2009, under the 6th Framework Programme, priority 5, food quality and safety.

The home care crew scheduling (HCCS) problem is a planning task whose goal is to allocate a set of professional caregivers in the most efficient way to perform a number of assistencial and health care visits to the customers private homes. This is part of an important trend in advanced health care systems, to promote "independent living" specially in situations of dependency on long-term care. This not only ensures a higher quality of life but also a lower cost for society. Real instances of the HCCS problem are large and highly constrained due to both caregivers' contract limitations and customers' needs. This paper presents an advanced parallel model that solves HCCS problems using a grid-based asynchronous evolutionary algorithm (EA). Our approach has been tested using a grid computing facility of up to 300 nodes. The algorithm is a modified (1 + lambda) EA, parallelized using a master/worker model that minimizes communication requirements and processor bottlenecks by distributing both the execution of the EA operators and the evaluation of solutions. We have used three large real-world instances provided by a private company to perform experimentation with different configurations of the EA and number of workers. Results show that our algorithm achieves solutions that clearly outperform the solution provided by the company and the grid-based algorithm is able to handle real world HCCS problems The work of Francisco Luna and Juan F. Valenzuela is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness under contract TIN2016-75097-P. The work of Alejandro Cervantes and Pedro Isasi is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under contract TIN2011-28336.

The UNFCCC Paris Agreement, entered into force on 4 November 2016, represents a step forward in involving all countries in mitigation actions, even though it is based on a voluntary approach and lacks the active participation of some major polluting countries. The underinvestment in mitigation actions depends on market and policy failures and the absence of price signals internalizing the economic losses due to climatic damage. This contributes to underestimating potential benefits from global action. In this paper we discuss how crucial is the assessment of the vulnerability of a country to climate change in defining the threat and action strategies. A dynamic climate-economy CGE model is developed that includes a monetary evaluation of regional damages associated with climate change. By considering alternative damage profiles, results show that internalizing climatic costs might change the bargaining position of countries in climate negotiations. Consequently, damage costs should be given greater importance when defining the implementation of a global climate agreement. © 2018, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Visual topological localization is a process typically required by varied mobile autonomous robots, but it is a complex task if long operating periods are considered. This is because of the appearance variations suffered in a place: dynamic elements, illumination or weather. Due to these problems, long-term visual place recognition across seasons has become a challenge for the robotics community. For this reason, we propose an innovative method for a robust and efficient life-long localization using cameras. In this paper, we describe our approach (ABLE), which includes three different versions depending on the type of images: monocular, stereo and panoramic. This distinction makes our proposal more adaptable and effective, because it allows to exploit the extra information that can be provided by each type of camera. Besides, we contribute a novel methodology for identifying places, which is based on a fast matching of global binary descriptors extracted from sequences of images. The presented results demonstrate the benefits of using ABLE, which is compared to the most representative state-of-the-art algorithms in long-term conditions., Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Comunidad de Madrid

In new product development, the rapid proposal of innovative solutions represents an important phase. This in turn relies on creative ideas, their evaluation, refinement and embodiment of worthwhile directions. This study aims to describe a CBDT based process model for product conceptual design that concentrates on rapidly generating innovations with the support of decision-making rationale. Case-based decision theory (CBDT), derived from case-based reasoning, is applied in this paper as a core method to aid design engineers to make an informed decision quickly, thus accelerating the design process. In the process of utilizing CBDT to support a decision, as for the similarity function, the proper value assignment methods to the selected attribute set for calculation are discussed. In order to assist with innovative solution, aspects of the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) are integrated into the case-based reasoning process. Accordingly, a CBDT-TRIZ model is developed. Quality-function deployment is used to translate customer wants into relevant engineering design requirements and thus formulating the design specification. Image-Scale is used to offer an orthogonal coordinates system to aid evaluation. Finally, a case study is used to demonstrate the validity of the proposed process model based on the design of a cordless hand-tool for garden and lawn applications.

The Trial Comparing Cardiovascular Safety of Insulin Degludec vs Insulin Glargine in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes at High Risk of Cardiovascular Events (DEVOTE) was a double-blind, randomised, event-driven, treat-to-target prospective trial comparing the cardiovascular safety of insulin degludec with that of insulin glargine U100 (100 units/ml) in patients with type 2 diabetes at high risk of cardiovascular events. This paper reports a secondary analysis investigating associations of day-to-day fasting glycaemic variability (pre-breakfast self-measured blood glucose [SMBG]) with severe hypoglycaemia and cardiovascular outcomes. In DEVOTE, patients with type 2 diabetes were randomised to receive insulin degludec or insulin glargine U100 once daily. The primary outcome was the first occurrence of an adjudicated major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE). Adjudicated severe hypoglycaemia was the pre-specified secondary outcome. In this article, day-to-day fasting glycaemic variability was based on the standard deviation of the pre-breakfast SMBG measurements. The variability measure was calculated as follows. Each month, only the three pre-breakfast SMBG measurements recorded before contact with the site were used to determine a day-to-day fasting glycaemic variability measure for each patient. For each patient, the variance of the three log-transformed pre-breakfast SMBG measurements each month was determined. The standard deviation was determined as the square root of the mean of these monthly variances and was defined as day-to-day fasting glycaemic variability. The associations between day-to-day fasting glycaemic variability and severe hypoglycaemia, MACE and all-cause mortality were analysed for the pooled trial population with Cox proportional hazards models. Several sensitivity analyses were conducted, including adjustments for baseline characteristics and most recent HbA1c. Day-to-day fasting glycaemic variability was significantly associated with severe hypoglycaemia (HR 4.11, 95% CI 3.15, 5.35), MACE (HR 1.36, 95% CI 1.12, 1.65) and all-cause mortality (HR 1.58, 95% CI 1.23, 2.03) before adjustments. The increased risks of severe hypoglycaemia, MACE and all-cause mortality translate into 2.7-, 1.2- and 1.4-fold risk, respectively, when a patient’s day-to-day fasting glycaemic variability measure is doubled. The significant relationships of day-to-day fasting glycaemic variability with severe hypoglycaemia and all-cause mortality were maintained after adjustments. However, the significant association with MACE was not maintained following adjustment for baseline characteristics with either baseline HbA1c (HR 1.19, 95% CI 0.96, 1.47) or the most recent HbA1c measurement throughout the trial (HR 1.21, 95% CI 0.98, 1.49). Higher day-to-day fasting glycaemic variability is associated with increased risks of severe hypoglycaemia and all-cause mortality. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01959529

Aims/hypothesis The double-blind Trial Comparing Cardiovascular Safety of Insulin Degludec vs Insulin Glargine in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes at High Risk of Cardiovascular Events (DEVOTE) assessed the cardiovascular safety of insulin degludec. The incidence and rates of adjudicated severe hypoglycaemia, and all-cause mortality were also determined. This paper reports a secondary analysis investigating associations of severe hypoglycaemia with cardiovascular outcomes and mortality. Methods In DEVOTE, patients with type 2 diabetes were randomised to receive either insulin degludec or insulin glargine U100 (100 units/ml) once daily (between dinner and bedtime) in an event-driven, double-blind, treat-to-target cardiovascular outcomes trial. The primary outcome was the first occurrence of an adjudicated major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE; cardiovascular death, non-fatal myocardial infarction or non-fatal stroke). Adjudicated severe hypoglycaemia was the pre-specified secondary outcome. In the present analysis, the associations of severe hypoglycaemia with both MACE and all-cause mortality was evaluated in the pooled trial population using time-to-event analyses, with severe hypoglycaemia as a time-dependent variable and randomised treatment as a fixed factor. An investigation with interaction terms indicated that the effect of severe hypoglycaemia on the risk of MACE and all-cause mortality were the same for both treatment arms, and so the temporal association for severe hypoglycaemia with subsequent MACE and all-cause mortality is reported for the pooled population. Results There was a non-significant difference in the risk of MACE for individuals who had vs those who had not experienced severe hypoglycaemia during the trial (HR 1.38, 95% CI 0.96, 1.96; p = 0.080) and therefore there was no temporal relationship between severe hypoglycaemia and MACE. There was a significantly higher risk of all-cause mortality for patients who had vs those who had not experienced severe hypoglycaemia during the trial (HR 2.51, 95% CI 1.79, 3.50; p

This paper presents a significant effect of manganese ferrite nanoparticles (MnFe2O4 NPs) on the increase of the surface photoconductivity of semiconductors. Herein, the optical characterization of photo-excited carriers of silicon coated with MnFe2O4 NPs was studied by using THz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDs). We observed that silicon coated with MnFe2O4 NPs provided a significantly enhanced attenuation of THz radiation in comparison with bare silicon substrates under laser irradiation. The experimental results were assessed in the context of a surface band structure model of semiconductors. In addition, photoconductive antennas coated with MnFe2O4 NPs significantly improved the efficiency of THz radiation generation and signal to noise ratio of the THz signal. This work demonstrates that coating with MnFe2O4 NPs could improve the overall performance of THz systems, and MnFe2O4 NPs could be further used for the implementation of novel optical devices Q.Z. acknowledges a fellowship from the Chinese Scholarship Council. Part of the project was funded by the European Commission (grant Future NanoNeeds to WJP). Financial support from MINECO (MAT2015–74381-JIN to B.P., RYC-2014–16962 to P.dP.), the Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria (Centro singular de investigación de Galicia accreditation 2016–2019, ED431G/09), and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is gratefully acknowledged SI

Dark-field imaging is a scattering-based X-ray imaging method that can be performed with laboratory X-ray tubes. The possibility to obtain information about unresolvable structures has already seen a lot of interest for both medical and material science applications. Unlike conventional X-ray attenuation, orientation dependent changes of the dark-field signal can be used to reveal microscopic structural orientation. To date, reconstruction of the three-dimensional dark-field signal requires dedicated, highly complex algorithms and specialized acquisition hardware. This severely hinders the possible application of orientation-dependent dark-field tomography. In this paper, we show that it is possible to perform this kind of dark-field tomography with common Talbot-Lau interferometer setups by reducing the reconstruction to several smaller independent problems. This allows for the reconstruction to be performed with commercially available software and our findings will therefore help pave the way for a straightforward implementation of orientation-dependent dark-field tomography.

Trabajo presentado a la Third Iberian Robotics Conference, celebrada en Sevilla del 22 al 24 de noviembre de 2017., In this paper, we present an on-line adaptive side-by-side human-robot companion to approach a moving person to interact with. Our framework makes the pair robot-human capable of overpass, in a joint way, the dynamic and static obstacles of the environment while they reach a moving goal, which is the person who wants to interact with the pair. We have defined a new moving final goal that depends on the environment, the movement of the group and the movement of the interacting person. Moreover, we modified the Extended Social Force model to include this new moving goal. The method has been validated over several situations in simulation. This work is an extension of the On-line adaptive side-by-side human robot companion in dynamic urban environments, IROS2017.

In this paper, we simultaneously estimate camera pose and non-rigid 3D shape from a monocular video, using a sequential solution that combines local and global representations. We model the object as an ensemble of particles, each ruled by the linear equation of the Newton’s second law of motion. This dynamic model is incorporated into a bundle adjustment framework, in combination with simple regularization components that ensure temporal and spatial consistency. The resulting approach allows to sequentially estimate shape and camera poses, while progressively learning a global low-rank model of the shape that is fed back into the optimization scheme, introducing thus, global constraints. The overall combination of local (physical) and global (statistical) constraints yields a solution that is both efficient and robust to several artifacts such as noisy and missing data or sudden camera motions, without requiring any training data at all. Validation is done in a variety of real application domains, including articulated and non-rigid motion, both for continuous and discontinuous shapes. Our on-line methodology yields significantly more accurate reconstructions than competing sequential approaches, being even comparable to the more computationally demanding batch methods., This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under project RobInstruct TIN2014-58178-R; by a scholarship FPU12/04886 from the Spanish MECD; and by the ERA-net CHISTERA projects VISEN PCIN-2013-047 and I-DRESS PCIN-2015-147.