Las aplicaciones móviles que incorporan contenidos relacionados con la salud han sido de los recursos tecnológicos que más se han extendido en los últimos años, sobre todo a raíz de la situación ...provocada por el coronavirus. En España, muchas ya han sido sometidas a procesos de regulación de calidad y fiabilidad a través de iniciativas acreditadoras. Además, se ha comprobado que la gamificación en este tipo de tecnología es efectiva para generar conductas saludables en la población joven. Este estudio se centra en conocer cuáles de ellas cuentan con una certificación de calidad en nuestro país y están orientadas a la promoción de hábitos saludables en niños/as y jóvenes. Se ha llevado a cabo una revisión exhaustiva de los portales de salud de carácter gubernamental y no gubernamental en los cuales quedan recogidos los sellos, los distintivos o las etiquetas de calidad como iniciativas acreditadoras en el campo de la salud. Entre los resultados, resaltar que el número de aplicaciones destinadas a menores y a adolescentes, que además integren elementos ludificados y certificadas, es muy escaso y menor en comparación con aquellas dirigidas a adultos, y ello, a pesar de la relevancia que pueden tener para su salud y bienestar.
En los últimos años ha aumentado significativamente la descarga de aplicaciones móviles (apps) orientadas a desarrollar hábitos saludables en la población en general. No obstante, la mayoría no están ...sujetas a procesos de regulación de calidad, y los instrumentos de evaluación disponibles pueden estar obsoletos. Esta revisión se ha realizado para conocer el estado del arte sobre procesos de diseño, construcción, validación y principales resultados obtenidos en estudios empíricos acerca de los instrumentos de evaluación de la calidad de dichas apps, todo ello a fin de identificar las principales dimensiones e indicadores comunes. Se han llevado a cabo búsquedas en cuatro bases de datos de alto impacto. Se concluye que es un tema de interés reciente y actual en la literatura científica. De 11 documentos incluidos, se han hallado 97 indicadores organizados en 17 dimensiones. Sólo en dos de ellos se incluyeron aspectos relacionados con la privacidad y la seguridad. En definitiva, se ha configurado una lista significativa y actualizada que podrá ser la base para construir un marco de evaluación que permita hacer un estudio integral de estas apps, pues muchos de los instrumentos de evaluación no han sido diseñados pensando en la población en general.
Mora-Jaureguialde, B., Triviño, M. A., Pardo, A. y Ruiz -Rodríguez, J. A. (coords.) (2022). Buenas prácticas de metodologías activas en el aula. Una revisión crítica. Síntesis, 154 pp.
Leaf cuticular waxes are one of the most important environment-plant interaction structural systems that enable desert plants to withstand extreme climatic conditions. We present a long chain n-alkyl ...lipids study in fresh plant leaves and rodent palaeomiddens collected along an elevational gradient in the south-central Atacama Desert of Chile, covering six different vegetation belts: Steppe (4500-4000 m asl), Puna (4000-3300 m asl), pre-Puna (3300-2400 m asl), Absolute Desert (2400-1000 m asl) and Coastal Desert (1000-0 m asl). The 28 rodent palaeomiddens analyzed from Quebrada Incahuasi (25.6 °S, 3600 m asl) span the last 17,000 years. Modern-day distribution of long-chain n-alkanes and n-alkanoic acids varies among the dominant plant associations of the Atacama Desert. These plants show a species-specific chemotaxonomy linked to the climatic conditions. Furthermore, differences in average chain length (ACL) and carbon preference index (CPI) suggest that these plant communities are highly adapted to extreme environmental conditions. The sum of leaf wax n-alkanes was highest under wet conditions, while n-alkanoic acids (between n-C24 and n-C28) increased with hyperaridity. Similarly, analysis of n-alkane time series from palaeomiddens showed that the greatest changes in leaf wax n-alkane distributions (ACL and CPI) corresponded to the greatest increases in moisture during the Central Andean Pluvial Event (CAPE; between 18 and 9 ka cal BP) and the Late Holocene. The shift in the palaeomidden n-alkane distributions is corroborated by the relative abundance of rainfall-dependent extra-local taxa. This is the first study to report leaf wax content obtained from ancient rodent middens, and shows promising results as a robust hydroclimate proxy for the Atacama Desert region.
•n-Alkyl leaf waxes obtained from ancient Atacama rodent middens can be used to infer past climate change.•An elevational survey of leaf cuticular waxes in the Atacama Deserts shows that their composition varies at the ecosystem scale.•Ancient middens reveal significant responses in n-alkane composition and plant macrofossils to millennial-scale hydroclimate shifts over the past 17,000 years.•Our reconstruction traces the Central Andean Pluvial Events and shows that paleomiddens are a valuable source of leaf wax.
Probiotics appear to be beneficial in inflammatory bowel disease, but their mechanism of action is incompletely understood. We investigated whether probiotic-derived sphingomyelinase mediates this ...beneficial effect.
Neutral sphingomyelinase (NSMase) activity was measured in sonicates of the probiotic L. brevis (LB) and S. thermophilus (ST) and the non-probiotic E. coli (EC) and E. faecalis (EF). Lamina propria mononuclear cells (LPMC) were obtained from patients with Crohn's disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC), and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from healthy volunteers, analysing LPMC and PBMC apoptosis susceptibility, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and JNK activation. In some experiments, sonicates were preincubated with GSH or GW4869, a specific NSMase inhibitor. NSMase activity of LB and ST was 10-fold that of EC and EF sonicates. LB and ST sonicates induced significantly more apoptosis of CD and UC than control LPMC, whereas EC and EF sonicates failed to induce apoptosis. Pre-stimulation with anti-CD3/CD28 induced a significant and time-dependent increase in LB-induced apoptosis of LPMC and PBMC. Exposure to LB sonicates resulted in JNK activation and ROS production by LPMC. NSMase activity of LB sonicates was completely abrogated by GW4869, causing a dose-dependent reduction of LB-induced apoptosis. LB and ST selectively induced immune cell apoptosis, an effect dependent on the degree of cell activation and mediated by bacterial NSMase.
These results suggest that induction of immune cell apoptosis is a mechanism of action of some probiotics, and that NSMase-mediated ceramide generation contributes to the therapeutic effects of probiotics.
The estuary of the Guadiana River is located in the southwestern Iberian Peninsula and serves as border between Spain and Portugal for more than 40 km. This estuary consists of a narrow rock bounded ...channel with meandering morphology imposed by the geologic materials. Its mouth is affected by a mesotidal regime, with tidal ranges comprised between 3 and 1 m (spring vs neap tides). This work analyzes the sediment transport patterns across a section located in the low marine sector of the estuary. The transversal profile is composed by a deep channel and a lateral bar. The bed of the deeper area is constituted by well sorted medium-to-coarse sand, displaying large ebb oriented sand waves (mean wavelength of 12 m), in consequence can be deduced that serves as a bypassing channel. The bed of the lateral bar is composed of cohesive bad-sorted sediment with an important population of clayey silts including a variable amount of fine-to-medium sand. The most frequent bottom feature is the plane bed, but sand patches with bedforms of a mean wavelength of 2.5 m can be observed. The fieldwork was developed in July 2010 during two opposite (neap and spring) mean tides. During the surveys, near bottom water velocity was measured using an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP). The speed data were used to calculate values of potential bedload transport (Qb) according with the equations suggested by Bagnold (1963). The values of bed density and rugosity were determined by using of a Laser Difractometer in sediment samples taken with a Van Veen grab sampler. The final values of Qb were compared to the real bedload transport (Sb) obtained from the amount of sand gathered in a Poliakoff sediment trap. A preliminary analysis of the results of Qb shows as the transport in the contrary senses (ebb and flood) is nearly balanced. The values of Qb oscillate between the 69.8 gr/cm during a neap tidal cycle and 329.1 gr/cm during a spring tidal cycle, whereas Sb varies between 14.6 and 72.1 gr/cm during the same tides. We can conclude that the volumes of real transport are always minor than those of potential transport, being in an approximate relation of 1/5.