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Vanadium(V) and vanadium(IV) are the predominant redox forms present in the environment, and epidemiological studies have reported that prenatal vanadium exposure is associated with restricted fetal growth and adverse birth outcomes. However, data about the toxic effects of vanadium(IV) oxide (V

In vitro assays have demonstrated that vanadium compounds interact with biological molecules similar to protein kinases and phosphatases and have also shown that vanadium oxides decrease the proliferation of cells, including human lymphocytes; however, the mechanism, the phase in which the cell cycle is delayed and the proteins involved in this process are unknown. Therefore, we evaluated the effects of vanadium oxides (V2 O3 , V2 O4 and V2 O5 ) in human lymphocyte cultures (concentrations of 2, 4, 8, or 16 μg/ml) on cellular proliferation and the levels of the p53, p21 and Cdc25C proteins. After 24 h of treatment with the different concentrations of vanadium oxides, the cell cycle phases were determined by evaluating the DNA content using flow cytometry, and the levels of the p21, p53 and Cdc25C proteins were assessed by Western blot analysis. The results revealed that the DNA content remained unchanged in every phase of the cell cycle; however, only at high concentrations did protein levels increase. Although, according to previous reports, vanadium oxides induce a delay in proliferation, DNA analysis did not show this occurring in a specific cell cycle phase. Nevertheless, the increases in p53 protein levels may cause this delay.

We report an interesting case of a T lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LBL) with uncommon CD20 expression. Immunophenotype analysis showed TdT expression with positivity of CD3 and CD7 among other T-lineage markers. Other non-T markers such as CD79a or myeloid-associated antigens were negative. Molecular studies were performed evidencing clonal rearrangements for gamma and beta chain T cell receptor were clonal in the lymph node biopsy. Cytogenetic analysis showed deletions in CDKN2A and NOTCH2 genes. CD20 when present in T-LBL can lead to a false diagnosis of B-LBL. In this scenario, analysis of rearrangements of both immunoglobulin heavy chain B cell receptor and rearrangement of the T cell receptor can be very helpful.

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is a member of the perfluoroalkyl acid family of compounds. Due to the presence of strong carbon-fluorine bonds, it is practically nonbiodegradable and highly persistent in the environment. PFOA has been detected in the follicular fluid of women, and positively associated with reduced fecundability and infertility. However, there are no reports concerning the experimental evaluation of PFOA on oocyte toxicity in mammals. The aim of the present study was to determine if PFOA is able to induce oxidative stress in fetal ovaries and cause apoptosis in oocytes in vitro. In addition, since inhibition of the gap junction intercellular communication (GJIC) by PFOA has been demonstrated in liver cells in vivo and in vitro, the effect of PFOA on the GJIC between the oocyte and its supportive cumulus cells was studied. Results show that PFOA induced oocyte apoptosis and necrosis in vitro (medium lethal concentration, LC50 = 112.8 μM), as evaluated with Annexin-V-Alexa 508 in combination with BOBO-1 staining. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, as assessed by DCFH-DA, increased significantly in fetal ovaries exposed to ¼ LC50 (28.2 μM, a noncytotoxic and relevant occupational exposure concentration) and LC50 PFOA ex vivo. This perfluorinated compound also caused the blockage of GJIC in cumulus cells-oocyte complexes (COCs) obtained from female mice exposed in vivo, as evaluated by calcein transfer from cumulus cells to the oocyte. The ability of PFOA of disrupting the GJIC in COCs, generating ROS in the fetal ovary and causing apoptosis and necrosis in mammal's oocytes, might account for the reported association between increasing maternal plasma concentrations of PFOA with reduced fertility in women.

The effectiveness of electrolyzed water (EW) to remove biofilms formed on stainless steel by Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from fishery products was assessed. The bactericidal activity of EW against biofilms was hardly any affected by any variations in the pH of production. Neutral EW (NEW) was therefore used in subsequent studies as it has a higher potential for long-term application than acidic EW (due to a lower corrosiveness and toxicity) and due to the higher yield rate of the production unit at neutral pH. The application of NEW caused a high reduction in the number of viable biofilm cells initially. However, a high available chlorine concentration (800 mg/L) was needed to achieve logarithmic reductions (LR) demanded by the European quantitative surface test of bactericidal activity (≥ 4 log CFU/cm2 after 5 min). A double sequential application of NEW at much lower concentrations for 5 min each allowed LR ≥ 4 log CFU/cm2 to be reached in most of the experimental range. Sequential applications of NEW and either benzalkonium chloride or peracetic acid (PAA) showed a similar effect, with PAA-NEW being most effective. The combination of NEW with other antimicrobial treatments can thus be an environmentally friendly alternative to disinfection protocols traditionally used in the food industry. Practical Applications Spain is the largest producer and the second largest consumer of seafood in the European Union, thus ensuring the safety of these products is of outmost importance. However, a high incidence of Staphylococcus aureus was recently found in fishery products marketed in Spain, which questioned the efficacy of disinfectants traditionally applied in the food industry. This study focused on electrolyzed water (EW) because it is an environmentally friendly, safe-to-use and relatively inexpensive option. The data obtained in this study demonstrated that the combination of neutral EW and other disinfectants resulted in an effective alternative to control the contamination of food-processing facilities by foodborne pathogens such as S. aureus.

New types of wine-derived beverages are now in the market. However, little is known about the impact of ingredient formulation on aroma release during consumption, which is directly linked to consumer preferences and liking. In this study, the optimization and validation of a retronasal aroma-trapping device (RATD) for the in vivo monitoring of aroma release was carried out. This device was applied to assess the impact of two main ingredients (sugar and ethanol) in these types of beverages on in vivo aroma release. Two aroma-trapping materials (Lichrolut and Tenax) were firstly assayed. Tenax provided higher recovery and lower intra- and inter-trap variability. In in vivo conditions, RATD provided an adequate linear range (R2 > 0.91) between 0 and 50 mg L−1 of aroma compounds. Differences in the total aroma release were observed in equally trained panelists. It was proven that the addition of sugar (up to 150 mg kg−1) did not have effect on aroma release, while ethanol (up to 40 mg L−1) enhanced the aroma release during drinking. The RATD is a useful tool to collect real in vivo data to extract reliable conclusions about the effect of beverage components on aroma release during consumption. The concentration of ethanol should be taken into consideration for the formulation of wine-derived beverages., This work was funded by the MINECO (AGL2012-04172-CO2-01 and CONSOLIDER INGENIO 2010 (FUN-C-FOOD, CSD2007-063)

Although thallium is detrimental to all living organisms, information regarding the mutagenic and genotoxic effects of this element and its compounds remains scarce. Therefore, we tested the genotoxic and cytotoxic effects of thallium(I) acetate on human peripheral blood cells in vitro using structural chromosomal aberrations (SCAs), sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs), and single-cell gel electrophoresis (at pH >13 or 12.1) analysis. Whole blood samples were incubated with 0.5, 1, 5, 10, 50, or 100 µg/mL thallium salt. Exposure to this metal compound resulted in a clear dose-dependent reduction in the mitotic and replicative indices. An increase in SCAs was evident in the treated group compared with the control group, and significant differences were observed in the percentage of cells with SCAs when metaphase cells were treated with 0.5–10 µg/mL of thallium(I). The SCE test did not reveal any significant differences. We observed that a 1-h treatment with thallium(I) at pH > 13 significantly increased the comet length for all the concentrations tested; however, at pH 12.1, only the two highest concentrations affected the comet length. These results suggested that thallium(I) acetate induces cytotoxic, cytostatic, and clastogenic effects, as well as DNA damage. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 30: 572–580, 2015.

This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation (AGL2006-04514, AGL2009-13361-C02-00, PRIPIBAR-2011-1358, and CSD2007-00063 Consolider Ingenio 2010 FUN-C-FOOD Projects) and the Comunidad de Madrid (ALIBIRD P2009/AGR-1469 Project). A.G.R. and J.J.R.B. are the recipients of fellowships from the DANONE Institute and the JAE-Doc Program (CSIC), respectively.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the whole non-volatile wine matrix composition on the volatility of typical wine aroma compounds by comparing the slopes of regression lines of five deodorised and reconstituted wines with the slopes calculated for the same compounds in a control wine with no matrix effect. RESULTS: The main effect observed was a reduction in the slopes, or a retention effect, that was largest for the reconstituted sparkling wine, which showed between 11 and 69% lower slopes than the control wine. In addition, an increase in the slopes, or a ‘salting-out’ effect, in the most compositionally complex reconstituted aged-red and sweet wines was also noticed for some volatiles with a very low boiling point or a low hydrophobic constant value. CONCLUSION: This study has shown that the non-volatile composition of wines strongly affects the volatility of wine aroma compounds. In addition, the aroma chemical class, in particular its physicochemical properties (volatility and hydrophobicity), strongly influences this behaviour. On the basis of these results, many odour threshold values calculated in simple hydroalcoholic solutions and usually employed to evaluate the odour importance of specific volatile compounds may have been over- or underestimated. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry

abad-corpa e., carrillo-alcaraz a., royo-morales t., perez-garcia m.c., rodriguez-mondejar j.j., saez-soto a. & iniesta-sanchez j. (2010) Effectiveness of planning hospital discharge and follow-up in primary care for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: research protocol. Journal of Advanced Nursing 66(6), 1365–1370. Abstract Title. Effectiveness of planning hospital discharge and follow-up in primary care for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: research protocol. Aim. To evaluate the effectiveness of a protocolized intervention for hospital discharge and follow-up planning for primary care patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Background. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality internationally. These patients suffer from high rates of exacerbation and hospital readmission due to active problems at the time of hospital discharge. Methods. A quasi-experimental design will be adopted, with a control group and pseudo-randomized by services (protocol approved in 2006). Patients with pulmonary disease admitted to two tertiary-level public hospitals in Spain and their local healthcare centres will be recruited. The outcome variables will be readmission rate and patient satisfaction with nursing care provided. 48 hours after admission, both groups will be evaluated by specialist coordinating nurses, using validated scales. At the hospital, a coordinating nurse will visit each patient in the experimental group every 24 hours to identify the main caregiver, provide information about the disease, and explain treatment. In addition, the visits will be used to identify care problems and needs, and to facilitate communication between professionals. 24 hours after discharge, the coordinating nurses will inform the primary care nurses about patient discharge and nursing care planning. The two nurses will make the first home visit together. There will be follow-up phone calls at 2, 6, 12 and 24 weeks after discharge. Discussion. The characteristics of patients with this pulmonary disease make it necessary to include them in hospital discharge planning programmes using coordinating nurses.

8 páginas, 3 tablas, 5 figuras, Gram-negative bacteria aremainly responsible for spoilage of refrigerated fish. Nevertheless, to preserve refrigerated fresh fish no additives are permitted and only packaging as in a modified atmosphere can be used. Despite the fact that the present-day application of nisin has been extended to dairy and meat products, its ineffectiveness against Gram-negative bacteria complicates application to fresh fish unless combined with other additives such as chelators. With this aim, agents that increase the permeability of the membrane and facilitate the diffusion of many hydrophobic antimicrobial agents were screened for their combined activity with nisin against different genera of Gram-negative bacteria. Quantification of the synergistic effects has shown sodium hexamethaphosphate (SMP) and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) were themost effective. Further studies were done on the combined effects of nisin, SMP and CO2 in the preservation of fresh fish. A factorial experimental design was used to determine synergism between these variables. Logarithmic values of total viable counts and total volatile bases after 12 days of storage were described by empirical equations. Analysis of the results showed a marked effect of CO2 in decreasing both variables. Whereas CO2 interacted positively with nisin and SMP, a non-significant interaction was observed between nisin and SMP. It is concluded that CO2 interacts readily with SMP, and may offer an additional advantage for CO2-rich atmospheres in food preservation.

6 páginas, 1 tabla, 5 figuras, The aim of the present study was to design methods for the digestion of fish proteins from processing wastes, leading to new possibilities for little-used species or those generating a significant volume of residues. Residues of rayfish (Raja clavata) were used for the solubilisation of protein by hydrolysis treatment. The kinetics of hydrolysis was studied using rayfish enzymes, either by autolysis of the protein in a triturate of the raw material or by application of a multi-enzyme preparation previously extracted from the viscera of the species. Their effectiveness was compared with that of two commercial enzymes, papain and pepsin. Optimum conditions of hydrolysis and enzymatic activity for digestion with rayfish enzymes were ascertained. The yield of material and the efficiency of digestion in each of the hydrolysis processes are reported, This work was supported by Xunta of Galicia, project PGIDT PIN004.

Summary In this work, a signal-extraction algorithm pertaining to the Cherenkov Telescope Array's real-time-analysis pipeline has been parallelised using SSE, POSIX Threads and CUDA. Because of the observatory's constraints, the online analysis has to be conducted on site, on hardware located at the telescopes, and compels a search for efficient computing solutions to handle the huge amount of measured data. This work is framed in a series of studies which benchmark several algorithms of the real-time-analysis pipeline on different architectures to gain an insight into the suitability and performance of each platform.

Serum uric acid (UA) is independently associated with hypertension and blood pressure (BP) variability (BPV) is associated with cardiovascular events and mortality in hypertensive patients. The aim of the present study was to assess the association of serum UA with BPV in 300 untreated essential hypertension patients (mean age 57.3±13.6 years). BPV was quantified as the standard deviation (SD) of the 24‐hour, daytime, and nighttime mean values obtained by using ambulatory BP monitoring. In correlation analysis, log UA values were found to be positively correlated with 24‐hour systolic BPV and nighttime systolic and diastolic BPV (Pearson coefficients of 0.246, 0.280, and 0.353, respectively; P

5 páginas, 3 figuras, Salmon slices (Salmo salar) were packed under CO2 and stored in a chill room at 2±1°C for 3 weeks. A study was carried out on the effect of CO2 atmosphere on bacterial growth as well as on chemical deterioration (pH, total volatile bases, (TVB), trimethylamine (TMA), lipid oxidation) and sensory features (exudation, raw fish odour, cooked fish flavour). Results were compared with a control stored in air. Salmon slices stored under CO2 had a shelf-life of nearly twice as long as those in air, having lower bacterial counts, pH, TMA and TVB, as well as improved sensory features after 18 days at 2±1°C. Exudation was not significantly different between control and CO2-stored samples after 10 days ice storage. Exudate values extended from 1 to 2% for CO2-stored samples after 10 and 20 days storage, respectively. Salmon slices can be stored under CO2 at 2±1°C for about 18 days, with no substantial loss of quality. Shelf-life can vary depending upon the state of fish, handling practices, initial bacterial load and storage temperature., support of Freiremar SA (Vigo-Spain) and of the Comisih Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CICYT) within the Research Project ALI93-0714-C02-01

Summary Soft computing takes advantage of the computational capabilities provided by graphics processing units (GPUs), as it is reflected in the numerous works published every year. However, comparisons among these works are challenging because of their peculiarities. When evaluating evolutionary algorithms on GPUs, the data layout is a commonality for all the cases. In the current work the most promising data layout for a parallel evaluation of evolutionary algorithms on GPU is evaluated. The general scope of this work makes it broadly applicable, being useful for accelerating the fitness calculation of large instances of any population-based evolutionary algorithm. For optimal performance to be achieved in this evaluation, it should be done through a hardware-software co-design approach. The co-design process might imply a risk of overfitting. Because of this, a trade-off in the co-design approach is necessary for long-term sustainability of the performance of such code. As a consequence of this study, a statement about the most promising data layout for evaluating large instances of population-based evolutionary algorithms on GPU is presented. From the different approaches studied, the strategy with allocation of 1 individual per thread on registers with coalesced access to global memory on both Fermi and Kepler architectures outperforms all the other strategies.

Aims and objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of protocolised intervention for hospital discharge and follow-up in the primary care of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality internationally. Design: A quasi-experimental design was adopted, with a control group and it was pseudorandomised by services. Methods: Patients with COPD admitted to two tertiary-level public hospitals in Spain were recruited (2007–2008). The outcome variables included: readmission rate, patient satisfaction (LOPSS12), quality of life (St. George′s Respiratory Questionnaire) and level of knowledge about COPD. 48 hours after admission, both groups were evaluated by specialist coordinating nurses. At the hospital, a coordinating nurse visited each patient in the experimental group every 24 hours to identify the main caregiver, provide information about the disease, explain treatment, identify care problems and needs and facilitate communication between professionals. 24 hours after discharge, the coordinating nurses informed the primary care nurses about patient discharge. The two nurses made the first home visit together. There were follow-up phone calls at 2, 6, 12 and 24 weeks after discharge. A total of 143 patients were recruited (Intervention group=56; Control group=87). Results: The results showed a significant improvement in the evolution of quality of life, at 12 and 24 weeks after discharge; the level of knowledge about COPD revealed significant differences between the groups. There were no differences according to satisfaction or readmission rate. Multivariate analysis (non-conditional logistic regression) showed the intervention to be ineffective in reducing the readmission rate. Conclusions: The planning of discharge for patients with COPD is effective in terms of improving the patients’ quality of life and level of knowledge about the disease. Relevance to clinical practice: The characteristics of patients with COPD make it necessary to include them in hospital discharge planning programmes.

10 pages, 9 tables, 4 figures, This is a study on changes in protein functionality of rayfish muscle as a consequence of frozen storage in order to achieve a deeper knowledge of the effects of different degrees of cellular disruption (whole, 8 and 12 mm minced muscle) and the frozen storage temperature (- 18°C and -40°C). Significant differences (P < 0-05) were found in some functional properties, with significant decreases in saltextractable protein and apparent viscosity, and significant increases in emulsifying capacity and water-binding capacity after 1 year of frozen storage at - 18°C. Practically no changes were observed after 2 years of frozen storage at -40°C. The greatest modifications were found in the 8 mm minced fish sample. Viscosity was the parameter that best showed the changes in whole and minced muscle stored at both temperatures. Apparent viscosity, emulsifying capacity and water-binding capacity had a good correlation with saltextractable protein., This work has been carried out with the financial support of the Interministerial Commission of Science and Technology (CICYT) for the Research Project AL189-0555.