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  • Articles  (48)
  • MDPI  (48)
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  • Articles  (48)
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  • 11
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    Sensors, Vol. 19, Pages 1621: A Screening Method Based on Headspace-Ion Mobility Spectrometry to Identify Adulterated Honey (2019)
    MDPI
    In: Sensors
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: Nowadays, adulteration of honey is a frequent fraud that is sometimes motivated by the high price of this product in comparison with other sweeteners. Food adulteration is considered a deception to consumers that may have an important impact on people’s health. For this reason, it is important to develop fast, cheap, reliable and easy to use analytical methods for food control. In the present research, a novel method based on headspace-ion mobility spectrometry (HS-IMS) for the detection of adulterated honey by adding high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been developed. A Box–Behnken design combined with a response surface method have been used to optimize a procedure to detect adulterated honey. Intermediate precision and repeatability studies have been carried out and coefficients of variance of 4.90% and 4.27%, respectively, have been obtained. The developed method was then tested to detect adulterated honey. For that purpose, pure honey samples were adulterated with HFCS at different percentages (10–50%). Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA) showed a tendency of the honey samples to be classified according to the level of adulteration. Nevertheless, a perfect classification was not achieved. On the contrary, a full classification (100%) of all the honey samples was performed by linear discriminant analysis (LDA). This is the first time the technique of HS-IMS has been applied for the determination of adulterated honey with HFCS in an automatic way.
    Electronic ISSN: 1424-8220
    Topics: Chemistry and Pharmacology , Electrical Engineering, Measurement and Control Technology
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  • 12
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    Universe, Vol. 5, Pages 158: Reflections on the Covariance of Modified Teleparallel Theories of Gravity (2019)
    MDPI
    In: Universe
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: We review the current status of the Lorentz covariance in teleparallel and modified teleparallel theories of gravity, and discuss the controversial features of the different approaches. We also revisit the issue of the remnant Lorentz gauge symmetries in f ( T ) gravity.
    Electronic ISSN: 2218-1997
    Topics: Physics
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  • 13
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    Sensors, Vol. 19, Pages 3156: Polymer Optical Fiber Sensors in Healthcare Applications: A Comprehensive Review (2019)
    MDPI
    In: Sensors
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: Advances in medicine and improvements in life quality has led to an increase in the life expectancy of the general population. An ageing world population have placed demands on the use of assistive technology and, in particular, towards novel healthcare devices and sensors. Besides the electromagnetic field immunity, polymer optical fiber (POF) sensors have additional advantages due to their material features such as high flexibility, lower Young’s modulus (enabling high sensitivity for mechanical parameters), higher elastic limits, and impact resistance. Such advantages are well-aligned with the instrumentation requirements of many healthcare devices and in movement analysis. Aiming at these advantages, this review paper presents the state-of-the-art developments of POF sensors for healthcare applications. A plethora of healthcare applications are discussed, which include movement analysis, physiological parameters monitoring, instrumented insoles, as well as instrumentation of healthcare robotic devices such as exoskeletons, smart walkers, actuators, prostheses, and orthosis. This review paper shows the feasibility of using POF sensors in healthcare applications and, due to the aforementioned advantages, it is possible to envisage a further widespread use of such sensors in this research field in the next few years.
    Electronic ISSN: 1424-8220
    Topics: Chemistry and Pharmacology , Electrical Engineering, Measurement and Control Technology
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  • 14
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    Agriculture, Vol. 9, Pages 149: Morphological and Agronomic Characterization of Spanish Landraces of Phaseolus vulgaris L. (2019)
    MDPI
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) originated on the American continent, specifically in the Mesoamerican zone, and their domestication took place independently in the Mesoamerican area and the Andean zone, giving rise to two well-differentiated genetic pools. It was also noted that the Andean wild populations originated from only a few thousand individuals from the Mesoamerican wild populations, which produced a great bottleneck in the formation of the Andean population. During centuries of cultivation in the Iberian Peninsula after its introduction in the 16th century, beans adapted to new environments, evolving numerous local landraces. Twenty-four local landraces of P. vulgaris from Spain were analyzed in the greenhouse during two consecutive seasons. From each genotype, five plants were grown and characterized for 17 quantitative and 15 qualitative traits using the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) descriptors. Data were analyzed statistically by analysis of variance (ANOVA), principal component analysis (PCA), and cluster analysis. The results obtained indicate a high variability for most traits, especially those related to the yield and its components. The PCA and cluster analysis separated the landraces according to the color of the seed, the yield, and the pod and seed traits related to yield. Numerous traits exhibited interactions between the genotype and the environment. Most accessions reached higher yields in spring, in which solar radiation favors photosynthesis and, consequently, photoassimilation. The different response to the changing environment of the set of accessions studied in the present work is of great interest, and it can be exploited in breeding cultivars adapted to a broader range of environmental conditions.
    Electronic ISSN: 2077-0472
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
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  • 15
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    Genes, Vol. 10, Pages 475: Identification of Stress Associated microRNAs in Solanum lycopersicum by High-Throughput Sequencing (2019)
    MDPI
    In: Genes
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the most important crops around the world and also a model plant to study response to stress. High-throughput sequencing was used to analyse the microRNA (miRNA) profile of tomato plants undergoing five biotic and abiotic stress conditions (drought, heat, P. syringae infection, B. cinerea infection, and herbivore insect attack with Leptinotarsa decemlineata larvae) and one chemical treatment with a plant defence inducer, hexanoic acid. We identified 104 conserved miRNAs belonging to 37 families and we predicted 61 novel tomato miRNAs. Among those 165 miRNAs, 41 were stress-responsive. Reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) was used to validate high-throughput expression analysis data, confirming the expression profiles of 10 out of 11 randomly selected miRNAs. Most of the differentially expressed miRNAs were stress-specific, except for sly-miR167c-3p upregulated in B. cinerea and P. syringae infection, sly-newmiR26-3p upregulated in drought and Hx treatment samples, and sly-newmiR33-3p, sly-newmiR6-3p and sly-newmiR8-3p differentially expressed both in biotic and abiotic stresses. From mature miRNAs sequences of the 41 stress-responsive miRNAs 279 targets were predicted. An inverse correlation between the expression profiles of 4 selected miRNAs (sly-miR171a, sly-miR172c, sly-newmiR22-3p and sly-miR167c-3p) and their target genes (Kinesin, PPR, GRAS40, ABC transporter, GDP and RLP1) was confirmed by RT-qPCR. Altogether, our analysis of miRNAs in different biotic and abiotic stress conditions highlight the interest to understand the functional role of miRNAs in tomato stress response as well as their putative targets which could help to elucidate plants molecular and physiological adaptation to stress.
    Electronic ISSN: 2073-4425
    Topics: Biology
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  • 16
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    Energies, Vol. 12, Pages 2400: Determination of the Insulation Solution that Leads to Lower CO2 Emissions during the Construction Phase of a Building (2019)
    MDPI
    In: Energies
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: The characteristics of the envelope of a building determine, together with other factors, its consumption of energy. Additionally, the climate zone and insulation material may vary the minimum insulation thickness of walls and roofs, making it different, according to cooling down or warming up the home. Spanish legislation establishes different maximum values for energy demand according to different climate area both for heating and for cooling. This paper presents the results of a study that determines the influence of many variables as the climate zone or the orientation, among others, in the optimization of thickness insulation in residential homes in Spain to reduce the CO2 emissions embodied. To do that, 12 representative cities in Spain corresponding to different climate zones, four orientations, two constructive solutions, and four different configurations of the same house have been combined, for three different hypotheses and four insulation materials, resulting in 4608 cases of study. The results show that, under equal conditions on energy demand, the optimal insulation requirements are determined by heating necessities more than by cooling ones. In addition, a higher insulation thickness need does not necessarily mean more CO2 emissions, since it can be compensated with a lower Global Warming Potential characterization factor that is associated to the insulation material. The findings of this study can serve to designers and architects to establish the better combination of the variables that are involved in order to minimize the CO2 emissions embodied during the construction phase of a building, making it more energy efficient.
    Electronic ISSN: 1996-1073
    Topics: Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
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  • 17
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    Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 3133: Contributing to Fisheries Sustainability: Inequality Analysis in the High Seas Catches of Countries (2019)
    MDPI
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: The uneven exploitation of scarce natural resources threatens their sustainability by altering the commitment of agents. In fisheries, a great portion of catches is known to be concentrated in a few countries. Aiming to provide a more complete view on the distributional issues associated to the exploitation of common marine resources, this article focuses on the analysis of catches from high seas, which can be understood as the common marine resources under the current legislation. The analysis focuses on the evolution of several inequality indexes (the Gini index as well as others from the Atkinson and General Entropy families) from 1960 to 2014. Additionally, the Theil index is decomposed to observe whether this inequality is given by biological (between inequality) or technological (within inequality) reasons. All inequality indexes confirm that the exploitation of fishing resources in high seas is very unequal across countries. However, this inequality has decreased between 29% and 65% from 1960 to 2014. When considering the origin of catches, between 46% and 82% of the inequality observed is due to technological and fishermen capacity differences across the countries operating within fishing areas, while between 18% and 54% of the inequality can be attributed to biological differences between the fishing areas. Over time, the within component has decreased more than 35%, reflecting the greater reliance of more countries on high seas fisheries and their catching up on fishing technology. Being aware on the existence and the nature of catches inequality observed is necessary to develop successful policies for maintaining the sustainability of the fishery resources.
    Electronic ISSN: 2071-1050
    Topics: Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
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  • 18
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    Forests, Vol. 10, Pages 445: Building a Social Discount Rate to be Applied in US Afforestation Project Appraisal (2019)
    MDPI
    In: Forests
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: This paper is focused on searching for the suitable discount rate to be applied to the valuation of a project related to forests in the USA, e.g., a recreational area inside a national park. To do this, we propose a new model based on hazard rate concepts, i.e., based on the risk that waiting time implies. More specifically, we derive the discount function whose instantaneous discount rate is the hazard rate of the system supporting the investment. We determine the rate of failure corresponding to different partition criteria of the whole system; in our case, we can use the information on forest fires caused in different ways, in different states or in different types of forest surfaces. After showing independence between the forest fires by states and causes, we derive a specific discount function for each cause which can be applied to every state or set of states which agree to fight against a concrete cause of forest fire. Additionally, we obtain a unique discount function by weighting the partial discount functions by type of forest surfaces. Our results are in line with the recommendations from several authors about using decreasing discount rates for projects with very long-term impacts.
    Electronic ISSN: 1999-4907
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
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  • 19
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    Mathematics, Vol. 7, Pages 459: On a Variational Method for Stiff Differential Equations Arising from Chemistry Kinetics (2019)
    MDPI
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: For the approximation of stiff systems of ODEs arising from chemistry kinetics, implicit integrators emerge as good candidates. This paper proposes a variational approach for this type of systems. In addition to introducing the technique, we present its most basic properties and test its numerical performance through some experiments. The main advantage with respect to other implicit methods is that our approach has a global convergence. The other approaches need to ensure convergence of the iterative scheme used to approximate the associated nonlinear equations that appear for the implicitness. Notice that these iterative methods, for these nonlinear equations, have bounded basins of attraction.
    Electronic ISSN: 2227-7390
    Topics: Mathematics
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  • 20
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    IJERPH, Vol. 16, Pages 4284: Newly Qualified Nurses’ Perception of Their Competency Achievement on Leaving University: A Qualitative Study (2019)
    MDPI
    Details
    Publication Date: 2019
    Description: Background: After implementing the Tuning Educational Structures in Europe Project, numerous efforts have been made to define, establish, and evaluate nursing competences. The European Federation of Nurses Association played a key role in enacting the nursing competences included in Directive 2013/55/EU. Nevertheless, assessing competences remains elusive, and there is little research into nurses’ perceptions of the competency training provided by their universities. The purpose of the study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of newly qualified nurses about the competences they acquired during their university education. Methods: A qualitative research study was developed in a Spanish university. Twelve semi-structured interviews with newly qualified nurses were conducted, and two focus groups made up of twelve students were carried out in order to triangulate the results. Participants were recruited through email contact. Interviews focused on clinical training, theoretical content, and the reality of healthcare. Data was analyzed thematically. Results: Two main themes emerged: (1) improving theoretical content and (2) rethinking practical lessons and clinical training. A lack of knowledge about mental health, pharmacology, or critical care has been found; in addition, it was highlighted, among others, the need to improve communication skills in difficult and conflictive situations. Conclusions: Considering the participants’ perception of deficiency in some aspects of most of the competences established by the European Federation of Nurses Association, further research has been suggested to include other stakeholders’ views.
    Print ISSN: 1661-7827
    Electronic ISSN: 1660-4601
    Topics: Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering , Medicine
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