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Background: The 2016 cumulative incidence of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) in Spain was reported by the European Center for Disease Control to be above the mean of other European countries. The aim of this multicenter prospective observational cohort study was to examine the risk factors that determine 90-day CDI recurrence in Catalonia, Spain. Methods: The study included 558 consecutive adults admitted to hospital who had a symptomatic, first positive CDI diagnosis. Sociodemographic, clinical and epidemiological variables were recorded. The primary outcome was 90-day CDI recurrence. Results: In this Catalan population, having received more than one course of antibiotics in the 30 days prior to CDI diagnosis (odds ratio: 2.459; 95% CI: 1.195–5.060; p = 0.015) and active chemotherapy (odds ratio: 4.859; 95% CI: 1.495–15.792; p = 0.009) are significant predictors of 90-day CDI recurrence. Conclusion: The identification of independent risk factors of 90-day CDI recurrence will enable the optimization of preventive measures in at-risk populations.

The Copernicus Sentinel-6 mission was planned to keep studying the sea-surface height and ocean state measurements and since April 2022 its first satellite, the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich (S6MF), has become the current reference altimetry mission.One of the key design aspects of the S6MF altimeter is the “interleaved” chronogram pattern, which increases the number of received pulses, reducing the ambiguities in the along-track dimension, and increasing the energy obtained from the surface. Thanks to the continuous surface illumination, the echoes from the same target can be coherently integrated making a significant improvement in the along-track resolution leading to more detailed understanding of the ocean, the polar zones and inland and coastal waters dynamics. Measurement parameters such as swell state, lead and iceberg detection or inland water level changes can take advantage of these advances.Nowadays, unfocused azimuth steering methods, such as Delay Doppler, provide along-track resolutions around 300 meters. However Fully-Focused SAR (FF-SAR) algorithms can improve it to the order of sub-meter. In 2017, Alejandro Egido and Walter H.F. Smith published the FF-SAR method description, based on the backprojection approach. Compared to the unfocused steering, it requires more computational time, making it difficult to be implemented operationally, keeping the data generation rate in the same order of magnitude as the unfocused chain products. In 2018, Pietro Guccione et. al. published the FF-SAR 2D Frequency Domain algorithm, based on the Omega-K (WK) algorithm from SAR radar. In this paper, it is shown that the two dimensional frequency domain can be used to decrease the number of operations needed to focus the data, under some circumstances that depend on the type of orbit and the emitted signal. FF-SAR WK algorithm achieves similar results in terms of along-track resolution for the CryoSat-2 mission, but notably improving the computational efficiency. Although Omega-K algorithm intrinsic assumptions can impact negatively in the accuracy estimation of parameters such as the sea surface height, there are applications like sea ice related activities that could benefit of faster execution times. In this presentation, an adapted and redesigned Omega-K algorithm for Sentinel-6 is presented. FF-SAR Omega-K and Backprojection have been used to process Sentinel-6 data over the Crete transponder, evidencing that both FF-SAR methods are capable to achieve the expected theoretical along-track resolution. Moreover, open ocean data from Sentinel-6 has been processed for both algorithms and results have been compared.

BACKGROUND Invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) is the most important bacterial infection in young children, and the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines has changed its presentation. This study compared the incidence, characteristics and serotype distribution of IPD before and after the introduction of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13). METHODS Prospective enrolment of patients with IPD aged less than 60 months and admitted to either of 2 tertiary care hospitals between January 2007 and December 2009 (pre-PCV13 period) and January 2012 and June-2016 (PCV13 period). RESULTS We identified 493 cases, 319 in the pre-PCV13 period and 174 in the PCV13 period. The incidence of IPD decreased from 89.7 to 34.4 casos per 100 000 habitantes ( -62%; P

Background. Antimicrobial resistance killed 1.27 million people in 2019, so urgent actions are desperately needed. Antimicrobial stewardship programmes (ASPs) are essential to optimize antimicrobial use. The objective was to acknowledge the current role of clinical pharmacists engaged in ASP activities in Catalonia. Methods. This was a cross-sectional survey shared through the Catalan Infection Control Programme (VINCat). The survey consisted of four sections and was sent by e-mail. Results. A total of 69.0% of the centres answered. Pharmacists dedicated a median of 5.0 h per week (2.1 h/week/100 acute care beds), representing 0.15 full time equivalents. The ASP lacked information technology (IT) support, as only 16.3% of centres automatically calculated defined daily doses and days of therapy. Those with less than 15% of their time available for ASPs conducted fewer clinical activities, especially prospective audits and feedback. Those without official infectious diseases training also performed fewer clinical activities, but training was less determinant than IT support or time. Pharmacists performed interventions mostly through annotation in the medical records. Conclusions. Clinical pharmacists from Catalonia dedicated to ASPs present an important lack of time and IT support to perform clinical activities. Pharmacists should also improve their clinical skills and try to conduct clinical advice to prescribers, either by phone or face-to-face.

Background Cancer has been associated with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality in CDI patients. However, data on delayed mortality in cancer patients with CDI are scarce. Aim/Objective The aim of the present study was to compare outcomes between oncological patients and the general population with Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) after 90 days of follow-up. Methods A multicenter prospective cohort study was conducted in 28 hospitals participating in the VINCat program. Cases were all consecutive adult patients who met the case definition of CDI. Sociodemographic, clinical, and epidemiological variables and evolution at discharge and after 90 days were recorded for each case. Findings/results The mortality rate was higher in oncological patients (OR = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.08–2.67). In addition, oncological patients receiving chemotherapy (CT) presented higher recurrence rates (18.5% vs 9.8%, p = 0.049). Among oncological patients treated with metronidazole, those with active CT showed a higher rate of recurrence (35.3% vs 8.0% p = 0.04). Discussion Oncological patients presented a higher risk of poor outcomes after CDI. Their early and late mortality rates were higher than in the general population, and in parallel, those undergoing chemotherapy (especially those receiving metronidazole) had higher rates of recurrence

Lead-free PEA2SnI4-based perovskite LEDs are successfully inkjet-printed on rigid and flexible substrates. Red-emitting devices (λmax = 633 nm) exhibit, under ambient conditions, a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQEmax) of 1% with a related brightness of 30 cd/m2 at 10 mA/cm2. This work was made possible by the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program through the DROP-IT project (Grant Agreement No. 862656) and MSCA Innovative Training Network (Grant Agreement No. 764787), the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain under Project STABLE PID2019-107314RB-I00 and the European Research Council (ERC) via Consolidator Grant (724424-No-LIMIT). The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support from MINECO (Spain) for Grant PID2019-105658RB-I00 (PRITES Project).

Metal halide perovskites (MHPs) have shown outstanding optical emissive properties and can be employed in several optoelectronics devices. In contrast with materials of well-established technologies, which are prone to degradation or require expensive processes, MHPs can be obtained by solution processing methods and increase stability. Inkjet printing is proposed as an industrial friendly technique to deposit MHPs. The inks have been developed from colloidal CsPbBr3 nanocrystals and printing procedures that allow the deposition of thin layers with intense green emission. High emissive printed layers are assured by carrying out thermal annealing in vacuum oven, which is demonstrated to promote compact layers with low roughness, corroborated by SEM and AFM. XRD measurements show CsPbBr3 crystalline layers with cubic symmetry and XPS provides insight into the stoichiometric composition and local bonding. Optical properties of inkjet-printed CsPbBr3 films have been analyzed by UV–vis absorbance and photoluminescence (PL), to extract the bandgap energy and photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY). CsPbBr3 printed layers emit at 524 nm with a narrow emission (FWHM ≈ 15 nm), exhibiting a PLQY up to 20%. These results enabled the large-scale fabrication by inkjet printing of CsPbBr3 color conversion layers (CCLs) and pave the way for flexible LEDs. The authors wish to thank the financial support from the European Commission via FET Open Grant (862656 – DROP-IT), MINECO (Spain) for grant PID2019-105658RB-I00 (PRITES project), Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain under Project STABLE (PID2019-107314RB-I00), and Generalitat Valenciana via Prometeo Grant Q-Devices (Prometeo/2018/098). J.L.F. acknowledges the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (FPU16/06257).

In this paper, we report on the photoresponse properties of a SiO2/Si/SiO2 multilayer (ML) system deposited at 500 °C and integrated into a metal-oxide-semiconductor structure (Al/ML/p-Si) without any further thermal annealing. High contents of elemental Si (Si0) revealed by the XPS measurements suggests the formation of amorphous Si-nanoclusters (a-Si ncls) within the ML. Dark and illuminated I–V curves of the device indicate its sensitivity to ultraviolet, visible and near infrared light under applied bias and at 0 V. In addition, we observed variation of the spectral response and the external quantum efficiency as a function of the electrode size. At 0 V, the device illuminated with a wavelength at 550 nm exhibits a maximum external quantum efficiency of 0.95% and a spectral response of 4.1 mA/W. This photoresponse has been ascribed to photon absorption in SiO2 sub-band states created by the a-Si ncls and defects formed by the excess Si inside the SiO2/Si/SiO2 multilayers.