Three dimensional printing technologies represent a revolution in the manufacturing sector because of their unique capabilities for increasing shape complexity while reducing waste material, capital ...cost and design for manufacturing. However, the application of 3D printing technologies for the fabrication of functional components or devices is still an almost unexplored field due to their elevated complexity from the materials and functional points of view. This paper focuses on reviewing previous studies devoted to developing 3D printing technologies for the fabrication of functional parts and devices for energy and environmental applications. The use of 3D printing technologies in these sectors is of special interest since the related devices usually involve expensive advanced materials such as ceramics or composites, which present strong limitations in shape and functionality when processed with classical manufacturing methods. Recent advances regarding the implementation of 3D printing for energy and environmental applications will bring competitive advantages in terms of performance, product flexibility and cost, which will drive a revolution in this sector.
Recent advances regarding the implementation of 3D printing for solid oxide fuel cells, batteries, solar energy and environmental applications are reviewed.
The extent and nature of symbolic behavior among Neandertals are obscure. Although evidence for Neandertal body ornamentation has been proposed, all cave painting has been attributed to modern ...humans. Here we present dating results for three sites in Spain that show that cave art emerged in Iberia substantially earlier than previously thought. Uranium-thorium (U-Th) dates on carbonate crusts overlying paintings provide minimum ages for a red linear motif in La Pasiega (Cantabria), a hand stencil in Maltravieso (Extremadura), and red-painted speleothems in Ardales (Andalucía). Collectively, these results show that cave art in Iberia is older than 64.8 thousand years (ka). This cave art is the earliest dated so far and predates, by at least 20 ka, the arrival of modern humans in Europe, which implies Neandertal authorship.
Different genetic polymorphisms of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) have been associated with the risk and prognosis of autoimmune and infectious diseases. The objectives of this study were to determine ...whether there is an association between HLA genetic polymorphisms and the susceptibility to and mortality of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.
Observational and prospective study.
Eight Intensive Care Units (ICU) from 6 hospitals of Canary Islands (Spain).
COVID-19 patients admitted in ICU and healthy subjects.
Determination of HLA genetic polymorphisms.
Mortality at 30 days.
A total of 3886 healthy controls and 72 COVID-19 patients (10 non-survivors and 62 survivor patients at 30 days) were included. We found a trend to a higher rate of the alleles HLA-A*32 (p=0.004) in healthy controls than in COVID-19 patients, and of the alleles HLA-B*39 (p=0.02) and HLA-C*16 (p=0.02) in COVID-19 patients than in healthy controls; however, all these p-values were not significant after correction for multiple comparisons. Logistic regression analysis showed that the presence of certain alleles was associated with higher mortality, such as the allele HLA-A*11 after controlling for SOFA (OR=7.693; 95% CI=1.063-55.650; p=0.04) or APACHE-II (OR=11.858; 95% CI=1.524-92.273; p=0.02), the allele HLA-C*01 after controlling for SOFA (OR=11.182; 95% CI=1.053-118.700; p=0.04) or APACHE-II (OR=17.604; 95% CI=1.629-190.211; p=0.02), and the allele HLA-DQB1*04 after controlling for SOFA (OR=9.963; 95% CI=1.235-80.358; p=0.03).
The new finding from our preliminary study of small sample size was that HLA genetic polymorphisms could be associated with COVID-19 mortality; however, studies with a larger sample size before definitive conclusions can be drawn.
•Aflatoxins and ochratoxin A are the more widespread mycotoxins.•The exposure to DON and to the sum of T2+HT2 toxins can be moderate in the European countries.•Some special population groups can be ...over-exposed to several mycotoxins.
Mycotoxins are abiotic hazards produced by certain fungi that can grow on a variety of crops. Consequently, their prevalence in plant raw materials may be relatively high. The concentration of mycotoxins in finished products is usually lower than in raw materials. In this review, occurrence and toxicology of the main mycotoxins are summarised. Furthermore, methodological approaches for exposure assessment are described. Existing exposure assessments, both through contamination and consumption data and biomarkers of exposure, for the main mycotoxins are also discussed.
We present subarcsecond resolution mid-infrared (mid-IR) photometry in the wavelength range from 8 to 20 Delta *mm of 18 Seyfert galaxies, reporting high spatial resolution nuclear fluxes for the ...entire sample. We construct spectral energy distributions (SEDs) that the active galactic nucleus (AGN) dominates, relatively uncontaminated by starlight, adding near-IR measurements from the literature at similar angular resolution. We find that the IR SEDs of intermediate-type Seyferts are flatter and present higher 10 to 18 Delta *mm ratios than those of Seyfert 2 galaxies. We fit the individual SEDs with clumpy dusty torus models using the in-house-developed BayesClumpy tool. We find that the clumpy models reproduce the high spatial resolution measurements. Regardless of the Seyfert type, even with high spatial resolution data, near- to mid-IR SED fitting poorly constrains the radial extent of the torus. For the Seyfert 2 galaxies, we find that edge-on geometries are more probable than face-on views, with a number of clouds along equatorial rays of N 0 = 5-15. The 10 Delta *mm silicate feature is generally modeled in shallow absorption. For the intermediate-type Seyferts, N 0 and the inclination angle of the torus are lower than those of the Seyfert 2 nuclei, with the silicate feature appearing in weak emission or absent. The columns of material responsible for the X-ray absorption are larger than those inferred from the model fits for most of the galaxies, which is consistent with X-ray absorbing gas being located within the dust sublimation radius, whereas the mid-IR flux arises from an area farther from the accretion disk. The fits yield both the bolometric luminosity of the intrinsic AGN and the torus-integrated luminosity, from which we derive the reprocessing efficiency of the torus. In the models, the outer radial extent of the torus scales with the AGN luminosity, and we find the tori to be confined to scales less than 5 pc.
This study provides EQ-5D population norms for 20 countries (N = 163,838), which can be used to compare profiles for patients with specific conditions with data for the average person in the general ...population in a similar age and/or gender group. Descriptive EQ-5D data are provided for the total population, by gender and by seven age groups. Provided index values are based on European VAS for all countries, based on TTO for 11 countries and based on VAS for 10 countries. Important differences exist in EQ-5D reported health status across countries after standardizing for population structure. Self-reported health according to all five dimensions and EQ VAS generally decreased with increasing age and was lower for females. Mean self-rated EQ VAS scores varied from 70.4 to 83.3 in the total population by country. The prior living standards (GDP per capita) in the countries studied are correlated most with the EQ VAS scores (0.58), while unemployment appeared to be significantly correlated in people over the age of 45 only. A country's expenditure on health care correlated moderately with higher ratings on the EQ VAS (0.55). EQ-5D norms can be used as reference data to assess the burden of disease of patients with specific conditions. Such information, in turn, can inform policy-making and assist in setting priorities in health care.
The TOPAS Monte Carlo (MC) system is used in radiation therapy and medical imaging research, having played a significant role in making Monte Carlo simulations widely available for proton therapy ...related research. While TOPAS provides detailed simulations of patient scale properties, the fundamental unit of the biological response to radiation is a cell. Thus, our goal was to develop TOPAS-nBio, an extension of TOPAS dedicated to advance understanding of radiobiological effects at the (sub-)cellular, (i.e., the cellular and sub-cellular) scale. TOPAS-nBio was designed as a set of open source classes that extends TOPAS to model radiobiological experiments. TOPAS-nBio is based on and extends Geant4-DNA, which extends the Geant4 toolkit, the basis of TOPAS, to include very low-energy interactions of particles down to vibrational energies, explicitly simulates every particle interaction (i.e., without using condensed histories) and propagates radiolysis products. To further facilitate the use of TOPAS-nBio, a graphical user interface was developed. TOPAS-nBio offers full track-structure Monte Carlo simulations, integration of chemical reactions within the first millisecond, an extensive catalogue of specialized cell geometries as well as sub-cellular structures such as DNA and mitochondria, and interfaces to mechanistic models of DNA repair kinetics. We compared TOPAS-nBio simulations to measured and published data of energy deposition patterns and chemical reaction rates (G values). Our simulations agreed well within the experimental uncertainties. Additionally, we expanded the chemical reactions and species provided in Geant4-DNA and developed a new method based on independent reaction times (IRT), including a total of 72 reactions classified into 6 types between neutral and charged species. Chemical stage simulations using IRT were a factor of 145 faster than with step-by-step tracking. Finally, we applied the geometric/chemical modeling to obtain initial yields of double-strand breaks (DSBs) in DNA fibers for proton irradiations of 3 and 50 MeV and compared the effect of including chemical reactions on the number and complexity of DSB induction. Over half of the DSBs were found to include chemical reactions with approximately 5% of DSBs caused only by chemical reactions. In conclusion, the TOPAS-nBio extension to the TOPAS MC application offers access to accurate and detailed multiscale simulations, from a macroscopic description of the radiation field to microscopic description of biological outcome for selected cells. TOPAS-nBio offers detailed physics and chemistry simulations of radiobiological experiments on cells simulating the initially induced damage and links to models of DNA repair kinetics.
The relationship between human papillomavirus (HPV) and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma has been established. However, data from Ecuador is limited. The objective of this study was to ...characterize HPV infection in Ecuadorian patients with tongue cancer. Fifty-three patients with tongue cancer treated at the tertiary referral center Sociedad de Lucha Contra el Cancer (SOLCA), Guayaquil, between 2006 and 2011 were identified. Linear Array® HPV genotyping was used to identify the presence and types of HPV on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded biopsy samples from these patients with tongue cancer. HPV was identified in 42% (n=22) and high-risk (HR) HPV in 17% (n=9), with 18 different HPV types identified. The most common types were the HR HPV 33 (14%) and low-risk HPV 67 (14%), followed by the HR HPV 58. More than one HPV type was identified in 27.3% of cases. HPV 33 was frequently associated with other HPV types. No statistically significant differences in gender (P=0.58) and age (P=0.12) were observed between HPV-positive and HPV-negative cases. HPV was identified in almost half of the tongue cancer samples, with subtypes 33 and 67 being the most common. This suggested that HPV played an important role in this disease in the population studied. Given these results, current HPV vaccines may not be as effective in reducing tongue cancer rates in this population.
Heterogeneous single-site catalysts consist of isolated, well-defined, active sites that are spatially separated in a given solid and, ideally, structurally identical. In this review, the potential ...of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) as platforms for the development of heterogeneous single-site catalysts is reviewed thoroughly. In the first part of this article, synthetic strategies and progress in the implementation of such sites in these two classes of materials are discussed. Because these solids are excellent playgrounds to allow a better understanding of catalytic functions, we highlight the most important recent advances in the modelling and spectroscopic characterization of single-site catalysts based on these materials. Finally, we discuss the potential of MOFs as materials in which several single-site catalytic functions can be combined within one framework along with their potential as powerful enzyme-mimicking materials. The review is wrapped up with our personal vision on future research directions.
The potential of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) as platforms for the development of heterogeneous single-site catalysts is reviewed thoroughly.
We present spectroscopic evidence for the creation of entangled macroscopic quantum states in two current-biased Josephson-junction qubits coupled by a capacitor. The individual junction bias ...currents are used to control the interaction between the qubits by tuning the energy level spacings of the junctions in and out of resonance with each other. Microwave spectroscopy in the 4 to 6 gigahertz range at 20 millikelvin reveals energy levels that agree well with theoretical results for entangled states. The single qubits are spatially separate, and the entangled states extend over the 0.7-millimeter distance between the two qubits.
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