Adapting an established Ampliseq microhaplotype panel to nanopore sequencing through direct PCR.

We have adapted an established Ampliseq microhaplotype panel for nanopore sequencing with the Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) system, as a cost-effective and highly scalable solution for forensic genetics applications. For this purpose, we designed a protocol combining direct PCR amplification from unextracted DNA with ONT library construction and sequencing using the MinION device and workflow. The analysis of reference samples at input amounts of 5-10 ng of DNA demonstrates stable coverage patterns, allele balance, and strand bias, reaching profile completeness and concordance rates of ∼95%. Similar levels were achieved when using direct-PCR from blood, buccal and semen swabs. Dilution series results indicate sensitivity is maintained down to 250 pg of input DNA, and informative profiles are produced down to 62.5 pg. Finally, we demonstrated the forensic utility of the nanopore workflow by analyzing two third degree pedigrees that showed low likelihood ratio values after the analysis of an extended panel of 38 STRs, achieving likelihood ratios 2-3 orders of magnitude higher when testing with the MinION-based haplotype data.

Removal efficiency for emerging contaminants in a WWTP from Madrid (Spain) after secondary and tertiary treatment and environmental impact on the Manzanares River.

The effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can be an important contamination source for receiving waters. In this work, a comprehensive study on the impact of a WWTP from Madrid on the aquatic environment has been performed, including a wide number of pharmaceuticals and pesticides, among them those included in the European Watch List. 24-h composite samples of influent (IWW) and effluent wastewater after secondary (EWW2) and after secondary + tertiary treatment (EWW3) were monitored along two campaigns. Average weekly concentrations in IWW and EWW2 and EWW3 allowed estimating the removal efficiency of the WWTP for pharmaceutical active substances (PhACs). In addition, the impact of EWW3 on the water quality of the Manzanares River was assessed, in terms of PhAC and pesticide concentrations, through analysis of the river water collected upstream and downstream of the discharge point. After a preliminary risk assessment, a detailed evaluation of the impact on the aquatic environment, including a toxicological study and screening of pharmaceutical metabolites, was made for the seven most relevant PhACs: sulfamethoxazole, azithromycin and clarithromycin (antibiotics), metoprolol (antihypertensive), diclofenac (anti-inflammatory/analgesic), irbesartan (antihypertensive), and the antidepressant venlafaxine. Among selected PhACs, irbesartan, clarithromycin and venlafaxine presented moderate or high risk in the river water downstream of the discharge. Albeit no acute toxicity was detected, more detailed studies should be carried out for these substances, including additional toxicological studies, to set up potential sublethal and chronic effects on aquatic organisms.

Prioritisation of emerging contaminants in the northern Antarctic Peninsula based on their environmental risk.

Although Antarctica is protected and human activity is restricted exclusively to scientific research, with numerous restrictions on tourism, the steadily increasing human presence appears to be having a marked impact on terrestrial and aquatic, especially marine, ecosystems. Evidence of this excessive presence can be seen from the recent detection of contaminants linked to human activity in locations that should be considered to be untouched. The aim of this study is to determine the environmental risk present on the Antarctic Peninsula due to the 54 emerging contaminants linked to human presence previously detected and reported in previous studies published in leading scientific journals. The substances analysed belong to the group of drugs/medicines of abuse, endocrine disruptors, pyrethroids, perfluorinated compounds and sunscreens. The environmental risk was determined for all substances detected by calculating the hazard quotient (HQ) following the guidelines established by the European Union. An HQ value higher than 10 was taken to represent a high environmental risk. In the group of drugs/medicines of abuse, a high risk was detected for two analgesics, namely acetaminophen and diclofenac, and the anti-inflammatory ibuprofen. Although the risk detected was considered to be medium, the presence of the antibiotic clarithromycin, one of the substances included in the EU's current watch list for emerging contaminants, should be noted. In the group of endocrine disruptors, the high risk posed by the metabolite nonylphenol diethoxylate, which is higher than that for its parent compound nonylphenol, should be noted. In the group of pyrethroids/sunscreens/perfluorinated compounds, two pyrethroids, namely bifenthrin and cyhalothrin, were found to pose a high environmental risk. We propose the need to establish a monitoring system for emerging contaminants linked to human presence on the Antarctic Peninsula similar to the watch list found in the EU Water Framework Directive. Subsequently, an environmental monitoring plan based on individual ecotoxicological studies with the substances concerned, and analysing their possible synergic effects, should be implemented.

Entanglement Oscillations near a Quantum Critical Point.

We study the dynamics of entanglement in the scaling limit of the Ising spin chain in the presence of both a longitudinal and a transverse field. We present analytical results for the quench of the longitudinal field in the critical transverse field which go beyond current lattice integrability techniques. We test these results against a numerical simulation on the corresponding lattice model finding extremely good agreement. We show that the presence of bound states in the spectrum of the field theory leads to oscillations in the entanglement entropy and suppresses its linear growth on the time scales accessible to numerical simulations. For small quenches, we exactly determine these oscillatory contributions and demonstrate that their presence follows from symmetry arguments. For the quench of the transverse field at zero longitudinal field, we prove that the Rényi entropies are exactly proportional to the logarithm of the exponential of a time-dependent function, whose leading large-time behavior is linear, hence, entanglement grows linearly. We conclude that, in the scaling limit, linear growth and oscillations in the entanglement entropies can not be simply seen as consequences of integrability and its breaking, respectively.

Entanglement Content of Quasiparticle Excitations.

We investigate the quantum entanglement content of quasiparticle excitations in extended many-body systems. We show that such excitations give an additive contribution to the bipartite von Neumann and Rényi entanglement entropies that takes a simple, universal form. It is largely independent of the momenta and masses of the excitations and of the geometry, dimension, and connectedness of the entanglement region. The result has a natural quantum information theoretic interpretation as the entanglement of a state where each quasiparticle is associated with two qubits representing their presence within and without the entanglement region, taking into account quantum (in)distinguishability. This applies to any excited state composed of finite numbers of quasiparticles with finite de Broglie wavelengths or finite intrinsic correlation length. This includes particle excitations in massive quantum field theory and gapped lattice systems, and certain highly excited states in conformal field theory and gapless models. We derive this result analytically in one-dimensional massive bosonic and fermionic free field theories and for simple setups in higher dimensions. We provide numerical evidence for the harmonic chain and the two-dimensional harmonic lattice in all regimes where the conditions above apply. Finally, we provide supporting calculations for integrable spin chain models and other interacting cases without particle production. Our results point to new possibilities for creating entangled states using many-body quantum systems.

A case study to identify priority cytostatic contaminants in hospital effluents.

This study analyses the presence of 17 cytostatic agents from seven different groups, based on their different mechanisms of action, in the effluent from a medium-sized hospital located in eastern Spain. Analysis of the compounds found in the effluents studied involved solidphase extraction (SPE) coupled on-line to a high performance liquid chromatograph tandem mass spectrometer (HPLC-MS/MS). The environmental risk of the compounds studied was then assessed by calculating the hazard quotient (HQ), combining the measured environmental concentrations (MECs) with dose-response data based on the predicted no effect concentrations (PNECs). In addition, the environmental hazard associated was evaluated in accordance with their intrinsic characteristics by calculating the PBT (Persistence Bioaccumulation Toxicity) index. The results of this study showed the presence of seven of the 17 compounds analysed in a range of between 25 and 4761 ng/L. The highest concentrations corresponded to ifosfamide (58-4761 ng/L), methotrexate (394-4756 ng/L) and cyclophosphamide (46-3000 ng/L). Assessment of the environmental hazard showed that the three hormonal agents (tamoxifen and its metabolites endoxifen and hydroxytamoxifen) exhibited a maximum PBT value of 9 due to their inherent harm to the environment resulting from their characteristics of persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity. A combined evaluation of the risk and environmental hazard showed that three of the 17 compounds studied, namely, ifosfamide, imatinib and irinotecan, all of which exhibited HQ values higher than 10 and PBT indices of 6, indicative of a particularly high potential to harm the environment, deserve special attention.

Entanglement entropy of highly degenerate States and fractal dimensions.

We consider the bipartite entanglement entropy of ground states of extended quantum systems with a large degeneracy. Often, as when there is a spontaneously broken global Lie group symmetry, basis elements of the lowest-energy space form a natural geometrical structure. For instance, the spins of a spin-1/2 representation, pointing in various directions, form a sphere. We show that for subsystems with a large number m of local degrees of freedom, the entanglement entropy diverges as d/2 logm, where d is the fractal dimension of the subset of basis elements with nonzero coefficients. We interpret this result by seeing d as the (not necessarily integer) number of zero-energy Goldstone bosons describing the ground state. We suggest that this result holds quite generally for largely degenerate ground states, with potential applications to spin glasses and quenched disorder.

[Our experience with ambulatory enteral nutrition]. / Nuestra experiencia en nutrición enteral ambulatoria (NEA).

Enteral nutrition in the home of the patient, has gained interest in recent years. In our health care area, we do not have a Unit of at Home Hospitalization, which has not prevented the implementation of this therapeutic modality in certain types of patients. 89 cases who have undergone enteral Nutrition in their home after the last hospital admission, were reviewed. According to the basic pathology, 41.6% (37 patients) correspond to neurological patients; 51.7% correspond to neoplasmic patients, and 6.7% are classified as miscellaneous. The average age is 64 years (18 months-92 years); the mean caloric ingestion is 1,520 Kcal/day (500-2,500), and the duration is a mean of 315 days (7-1,560). The complications observed through ambulatory visits of the patient and/or the family, accounted for a total of 36, of which 30 (83%) were digestive, and were corrected with the usual methods. In 8 cases (22%), it involved mechanical complications, and only 2 cases involved metabolic complications. Only 1 serious complication (massive bronchoaspiration) could have been avoided. The results indicate a good degree of acceptance, with similar results to those described by other authors, and with a low incidence of severe complications.

Purification and properties of three proteases from the larvae of the brine shrimp Artemia salina.

Three proteases, termed A, B and C, have been characterized and partially purified from Artemia salina larvae. Enzyme A is active on benzyloxycarbonyl L-leucin p-nitrophenyl ester (Km = 53 micron, determined at pH 8 and 37 degrees C) but not on alpha-N-benzoyl-DL-arginine p-nitroanilide and is strongly inhibited by micron concentrations of phenylmethylsulfonylfluoride. Enzymes B and C are active on alpha-N-benzoyl-L-arginine p-nitroanilide (Km = 20 and 11 micron, respectively) but not on benzyloxycarbonyl-L-leucine p-nitrophenyl ester and B, but not C, is inhibited by mM concentrations of phenylmethylsulfonyfluoride. Enzymes A, B and C are optimally active at alkaline pH values, do not require either metal ions or -SH groups for their catalytic activity and have molecular weights of 38 000, 33 000 and 34 000, respectively. After heating for 5 min at pH 7.5 and in the presence of 0.7 M KCl half inactivation of proteases A, B and C was attained at 60, 52 and 45 degrees C, respectively.