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Atherosclerosis remains the leading cause of ischemic syndromes such as myocardial infarction or brain stroke, mainly promoted by plaque rupture and subsequent arterial blockade. Identification of vulnerable or high-risk plaques constitutes a major challenge, being necessary to identify patients at risk of occlusive events in order to provide them with appropriate therapies. Clinical imaging tools have allowed the identification of certain structural indicators of prone-rupture plaques, including a necrotic lipidic core, intimal and adventitial inflammation, extracellular matrix dysregulation, and smooth muscle cell depletion and micro-calcification. Additionally, alternative approaches focused on identifying molecular biomarkers of atherosclerosis have also been applied. Among them, proteomics has provided numerous protein markers currently investigated in clinical practice. In this regard, it is quite uncertain that a single molecule can describe plaque rupture, due to the complexity of the process itself. Therefore, it should be more accurate to consider a set of markers to define plaques at risk. Herein, we propose a selection of 76 proteins, from classical inflammatory to recently related markers, all of them identified in at least two proteomic studies analyzing unstable atherosclerotic plaques. Such panel could be used as a prognostic signature of plaque instability.

A capstone project is an extensive learning experience traditionally developed during a student's final academic year. Assessing such a complex assignment involves several challenges and is usually based upon the evaluations of at least two different people: the capstone project advisor, and one or more other assessors. Quantitative studies comparing only different assessors' grades and qualitative studies investigating the origin of possible discrepancies have been conducted. In both cases, contradictory conclusions were reached. The objective of this study is to analyze the factors that are given consideration by assessors of engineering capstone projects and the influence of these factors on the discrepancies between different assessors’ opinions of the same project. This study quantitatively examined 162 computer science engineering capstone projects developed by one student and supervised by one advisor. Each project was assessed by the project advisor and a committee. For each project, the advisor and the committee were asked to complete an additional questionnaire on product characteristics, student competences, and project supervision. Competences demonstrated by the student were found to be the most relevant element when a capstone project was evaluated by the advisor and the committee; product characteristics were found to be second in influence. Furthermore, advisors grant minor significance to the advisor-involvement component. Discrepancies between grades seem to be associated with those aspects to which one assessor has access, while the other does not, such as student skills demonstrated during project development or their performance in the oral defense. Both the advisor's and the committee's perspectives are important in the assessment of this complex task and they complement one another.

This study evaluates the impact of part-time internships (PTI) on concurrent subjects and students' satisfaction, in a Computer Science (CS) Engineering degree program. PTI offer some advantages: the technologies learned have a very positive influence on the quality of subsequent capstone projects (CP), students maintain in contact with the university, and synergies can be generated. Nevertheless, there are some challenges as well: maintaining a reasonable workload for students and achieving optimal coordination among different subjects.

An experimental study was performed on a graphite disk absorber coupled to an absorption heat transformer. The working solution used was H 2 O/LiBr. Due to corrosion caused to materials such as carbon steel and stainless steel with the solution H 2 O/LiBr, it was necessary to consider the use of another material such as tar impregnated graphite. This material has interesting properties of corrosion resistance, withstands high temperatures and presents a high thermal conductivity than the graphite without impregnation. However, there does not exist a well established methodology for designing heat exchangers with new geometries for its implementation in heat transformers. For this reason, the heat exchanger was designed with a stainless steel shell and graphite disks arranged internally in a column to carry out the absorption process. In the experimental tests carried out for a thermal load in the range from 625 to 1460 W, heat transfer coefficients in the absorber were obtained in the range from 723 to 1535 W/m 2 K. As the number of Reynolds increases from 110 to 144, the heat transfer coefficient increases up to a maximum value of 954 W/m 2 K, at Reynolds number at about 144, but when Reynolds number was increased above 147, the heat transfer coefficient decreased.

In carrying out their capstone projects, students use knowledge and skills acquired throughout their degree program to create a product or provide a technical service. An assigned advisor guides the students and supervises the work, and a committee assesses the projects. This study compares student and staff perceptions of key aspects of completing this type of project, such as project characteristics, student competencies, advisor involvement, and student perceived learning. The primary finding of this study is that the students' expectations differ greatly from those of staff. In particular, students tend to have a better opinion of their project, their competencies, and the supervision received than does the staff. However, advisors and evaluation committees have a similar opinion about projects characteristics. The students' perception of their learning, furthermore, is not always consistent with the grade obtained or student satisfaction. This disagreement suggests the need to more clearly and effectively communicate actual expectations to students and staff.

This work is focused on the study of possible mechanisms affecting the electrical transport properties of ZnO thin films. The films were deposited using the reactive evaporation technique, obtaining transmittances greater than 80% and resistivities of the order of 8 x 10 -4 Ω cm without using extrinsic doping. This films are suitable for transparent front contact of solar cells. Measurements of resistivity and Hall coefficient, as a function of temperature, were performed on the films. The interpretation of these results was done with the help of a theoretical calculation of the carrier mobility as a function of the temperature. Several scattering mechanisms affecting the electrical transport in the temperature range studied (90 K-680 K) were found. The most important are processes occurring in the grain boundaries and interactions of free carriers with ionized impurities.

This study describes the capstone projects evolution over the last ten years at our university. During this period, two different degrees have existed: "Technical Engineering in Computer Science" with graduated students from 2005 through 2012, and a "Degree in Computer Science Engineering" from 2013 through 2014. Herein, the evolution of some important features of the Capstone Projects is examined: duration, grade and time devoted by the advisor. This evolution defines some phases in the first degree: beginning, stabilization, maturity, and completion. The change in the degree structure is associated with changes in the performance on projects.

A joint inversion of regionalized phase and group velocities of fundamental mode Rayleigh waves is performed by means of a simulated annealing scheme which makes use of some thermodynamic analogies based on the Gibbs’ distribution. The correlations and the uncertainties on shear-wave velocities defining the elastic model are estimated by using a procedure based on the same thermodynamic analogies. As a relevant feature, the simulated annealing algorithm permits reducing the usual dependence of the solution on the sometimes arbitrary starting model. A shortcoming linked to the use of this procedure for solving an inversion problem is the necessity of a previous empirical determination of some parameters controlling the annealing process. With this aim, a simulation of a joint inversion of synthetic surface wave dispersion data has been performed. After that, path-averaged velocity dispersion curves corresponding to a Hercynian area of the Iberian Peninsula have been inverted to derive two possible crust and upper mantle elastic structures. Whereas, the first structure has been deduced by considering as unknown variables the shear velocities of the stratified Earth model, the second has been obtained also including the respective layer thicknesses. Both structures are compared with shear velocity and Qβ models derived by the stochastic inversion procedure in previous studies and from the same Rayleigh waves dataset. Finally, advantages and shortcomings of the inversion of phase and group velocity data by means of simulated annealing are discussed.

Oral administration of rapanone to a group of female mice at doses of 60 and 120 mg/kg, reduced the percentage of pregnancies compared to control group, suggesting an anovulatory effect. Postcoital administration induced uterine alteration in both the first and second gestation periods. These results seem to indicate inhibition of trophoblast implantation in the first period, and an abortive effect and/or reabsorption in the second. Daily administration of rapanone to a group of male mice resulted in fertility alteration, which is attributed to an antispermatogenic effect. Rapanone did not show acute toxic effects at the doses tested in this research.

This study presents a tool for students and professors (advisors) to assist in the management and development of Capstone Projects (CP) in Computer Science Engineering. The tool emphasizes planning and monitoring tasks in particular, by providing information on other CPs of a given profile, as well as support for document management (deliverables, meeting minutes, etc.). It also offers a learning community with a social network built in to alleviate the sense of isolation experienced by some students during the project. And furthermore, this tool informs students of their peers' progress and facilitates contact between students and faculty developing projects of a similar profile. © 2014 IEEE.

This study evaluates several aspects related to capstone projects in a computer science degree: level of advisor involvement, type of student, and type of project. We consider the points of view of students, advisors, and evaluation committees. Students claimed the level of advisor involvement to be significantly greater than that perceived by the advisors themselves. Regarding students skills, we found no significant differences between the opinions of advisors and students. And lastly, students have a significantly better opinion about their projects than advisors do.

While modern industrial facilities are enjoying huge benefits from the evolution of power electronic devices in terms of productivity, quality or cost-reduction, their high sensitivity and little ride-through capability to common power quality disturbances result in significant economic losses. Nowadays it is possible to reach almost 100% availability of power supply with both DC and AC for many applications. However there is still a gap when facing to apply some of these power quality solutions in high power industrial processes, for several reasons (investment, space, long-term energy losses cost, high temperatures or dirtiness, regenerative loads), since most of them were developed for IT industries. When immunizing against disturbances, purchasing cost, return on investment versus saving, maintenance cost, efficiency, size, reliability or availability are the key decision criteria to industrial decision makers. Driven from the real need of industrial customers to solve power quality problems and having in mind these criteria, IBERDROLA in collaboration with CORPORACION ZIGOR has developed two families of power conditioning solutions specifically designed for industrial end-users and created to cover almost any kind of power quality issues. These solutions have been validated in a variety of industrial facilities including ceramic tiles manufacturing, plastics and polymers processing, paper manufacturing or pumping stations.

In an Escherichia coli strain of human origin, ampicillin resistance and heat-stable enterotoxin activity were shown by EcoRI restriction endonuclease and genetic analysis to be in an 80-megadalton plasmid.

Acute- and convalescent-phase sera from 132 students attending a university in rural Mexico were assayed for antibody against the heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) of Escherichia coli by neutralization of LT activity in the Y-1 adrenal cell assay and by passive immune hemolysis of LT-sensitized sheep erythrocytes. The two titration methods produced comparable results with respect to antitoxin responses detected. An inverse relationship was found between acute geometric mean antitoxin titer and the occurrence of diarrhea associated with LT-producing E. coli, especially in newly arrived students from the U.S.A. A significant correlation (P less than 0.00 5) was found between a rise in antitoxin titer detectable by the passive immune hemolysis technique and diarrhea with LT-producing E. coli isolated. Thus, humoral antitoxin titers appear to be a useful indicator of immune status with respect to enterotoxigenic (LT) E. coli diarrhea.

Summary Unilateral renal vein thrombosis following a severe Salmonella choleraesuis enteritis is reported in an 8-month-old infant. Clinical and radiological data brought about the recognition of this disease. The diagnosis was confirmed at operation. S. choleraesuis was cultured from the kidney. The patient recovered after nephrectomy.

Ninety-eight infants under 2 years of age, hospitalized with gastroenteritis due to a shigella infection (92 Shigella flexneri and 6 Shigella boydii) were studied in order to investigate the effectiveness of tetracycline in their treatment. During the first 60 hours of hospitalization, clinical recovery was induced in 28 of the 98 cases using only intravenous fluids and a period of fasting, but no antibiotic. Eleven infants died in the same period. Of the 28 who recovered, 3 had clinical relapses. The remaining 59 infants were divided at random in two groups: one, with 26 cases, received tetracycline; the other, formed by 33 patients, received a placebo. From the 26 who were given tetracycline there were 14 recoveries (53.8%) and 12 failures (4 deaths [15.3%] and 8 cases [30.7%] that required a change from tetracycline to another drug). In the 33 control patients, there were 11 recoveries (33.3%) and 22 failures (7 deaths [21.2%] and 15 cases [45.4%] that became worse and needed an antibiotic). The cases that recovered, and had a sufficient number of stool cultures after treatment, are too few to permit conclusions on the usefulness of tetracycline from the bacteriologic point of view; nevertheless they show, as has been previously reported, that a certain number of patients who recovered, with or without antibiotic, continued to have stool cultures positive for shigella.

A clinic was established at Universidad de las Americas, Cholula, Puebla, Mexico for the study of acute diarrhea rates in newly-arrived students and full-time students. Diarrhea occurred in 22 of 55 newlly-arrived U.S. summer students (40%), compared to 28 of 142 U.S. full-time students (20%), 4 of 29 Venezuelan summer and full-time students (14%) and 7 of 66 Mexican full-time students (11%) (the differences were significant, p less than 0.005). Recurrent episodes of diarrhea during the month of study occurred in 15% of U.S. summer students, 4% of U.S. full-time students, and were non-existent in students from Latin America. As well as the 61 students with diarrhea enrolled in the incidence study, all students who developed diarrhea at the univeristy were encouraged to visit the clinic. This gave a total population of 130 cases of diarrhea. The illness that developed in students form the U.S. varied widely, but it typically consisted of seven to 13 unformed stools during the first 48 hours of illness, with illness persiting three to five days. Illness tended to be more severe in the U.S. students. Fifty per cent of the U.S. students with diarrhea had "severe" illness (greater than or equal to 10 unformed stools in first 48 hours) compared to 23% of the Latin Americans. This study indicates that the agents responsible for diarrhea in Latin America are widespread and that resistance to infection develops after prolonged or repeated exposure.

In recent reports, reovirus-like particles have been identified in stools of children with diarrhea by using several different methods of preparing the stools for electron microscopy. These papers have reported varying incidences of the reovirus-like agent (RLA) in groups of patients with diarrhea. Since no standardized stool processing method has been used, it is difficult to compare the incidence figures which have been published. This study evaluates two commonly used methods to determine which would be more sensitive for use in future clinical studies. Stool samples from 72 Mexican children who had acute-onset diarrhea were processed for reading on the electron microscope by the pseudoreplica technique and by differential centrifugation. Reovirus-like particles were seen in 25 samples (34.7 percent) when the results of both methods were combined. With the pseudoreplica technique 22 samples (30.6 percent) contained the viral particles; with differential centrifugation 21 (29.2 percent) had particles. This study demonstrates that the two methods are equally reliable for demonstrating reovirus-like particles in stool samples. We believe that the pseudoreplica technique, which is quicker and less expensive than differential centrifugation, is the preferred method for clinical studies of diarrhea associated with reovirus-like particles.

343 children with acute diarrhea were studied from january 1976 to september 1977. Rotavirus was the agent most frequently isolated (18 per cent) followed by Shigella (12 per cent) and Salmonella (10 per cent). Enterotoxigenic E. coli was identified in 8 per cent and invasive E. coli only in two cases. 80 per cent of isolated rotavirus fell in the neonate group and 25 per cent in the infant group. Diarrhea caused by rotavirus had a short duration, fever was negligible and abundant liquid stools were present without leukocytes in the fecal mucus and with a high percentage (48 per cent) of transient lactose intolerance. Polymorphonuclear leukocytes were found in fecal mucus in 75 per cent of cases caused by Shigella and only in 40 per cent of cases where the causal agent was Salmonella.

Forty-two adults who had Shigella isolated from stool (26 symptomatic, 16 asymptomatic) received a single oral dose of tetracycline hydrochloride (2.5 g). Minimal inhibitory concentrations of the 42 isolates demonstrated that 41% were sensitive to tetracycline. Sixteen of 18 patients with diarrhea who had tetracycline-resistant Shigella and all eight patients with diarrhea who had tetracycline-sensitive Shigella were clinical well and had Shigella-negative stools 48 hours after therapy. Fifteen of 16 asymptomatic patients demonstrated clearing of Shigella from stool within 48 hours of therapy. Single-dose tetracycline therapy is effective in the treatment of Shigella regardless of clinical expression of illness or in vitro sensitive of the organism.

The author discusses new knowledge concerning E. coli enterotoxins and Duovirus in the production of diarrheal disease.

The role played by different groups of microorganisms, including aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, viruses, etc., on acute and chronic infections of urinary ducts is discussed, together with general aspects of pathogenesis and diagnosis of such infections.