Showing papers by "University of Alcalá published in 2022"

Documentation in specialised contexts

Abstract: Abstract Existing training programmes in the field of public service interpreting and translation (PSIT) do not to focus on how best to develop students’ lexical competence and corpora-based search skills. This paper reports the design, implementation and evaluation of a novel corpus-based module intended to develop Spanish postgraduate PSIT students’ lexical competence and search strategies. Adopting a mixed-methods quasi-experimental design, we administered a pre- and post-test to both an experimental group and a control group to collect quantitative data and determine whether the corpus-based module contributes to improving participants’ lexical competence and search strategies. Semi-structured focus groups were conducted to collect qualitative data, which were thematically analysed. The findings indicate that a corpus-based methodology significantly improves PSIT students’ skills in these areas, leading to the conclusion that such an approach should be adopted more widely in PSIT pedagogy.

Water-soluble transition-metal complexes with hydrophilic N-heterocyclic carbene ligands for aqueous-phase applications

Abstract: This work reviews the literature published up to early 2021 dealing with the synthesis, chemical behavior, and applications of transition metal complexes that are soluble in water thanks to the presence of hydrophilic groups in N-heterocyclic carbene ligands. Section 2 discusses strategies for the attachment of hydrophilic groups (anionic, cationic, or neutral) to NHC ligands. In addition, a selection of hydrophilic NHC ligands and complexes synthesized in recent years is presented. Section 3 describes studies concerning the synthesis of NHC complexes using water as solvent and the reactivity of NHC complexes in this solvent. Section 4 summarizes the main applications of water-soluble N-heterocyclic carbene metal complexes in catalysis and biomedicine. Engineering of metal surfaces with hydrophilic N-heterocyclic carbene ligands is also discussed.

Predictive model of hypertension resolution after adrenalectomy in primary aldosteronism: the SPAIN-ALDO score

Abstract: To develop a predictive model of hypertension resolution after adrenalectomy in patients with primary aldosteronism (PA), based on their presurgical characteristics.A retrospective multicenter study of PA patients in follow-up in 20 Spanish tertiary hospitals between 2018 and 2021 was performed (SPAIN-ALDO Register). Clinical response postadrenalectomy was classified according to the primary aldosteronism surgical outcome (PASO) consensus criteria. The predictive model was developed using a multivariate logistic regression model with the estimation of all possible equations.A total of 146 patients (54.8% females; mean age of 51.5 ± 10.9 years) with PA who underwent unilateral adrenalectomy were included. After a mean follow-up of 29.1 ± 30.43 months after surgery, hypertension cure was obtained in 37.7% ( n = 55) of the patients. The predictive model with the highest diagnostic accuracy to predict hypertension cure combined the variables female sex, use of two or fewer antihypertensive medications, hypertension grade 1, without type 2 diabetes and nonobesity. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of this model was 0.841 [0.769-0.914]. Based on this model, the group of patients with a higher probability of cure (80.4%) were those without type 2 diabetes, BMI <30 kg/m 2 , female sex, hypertension grade 1 and who use two or fewer antihypertensives. Our predictive model offered a slightly higher diagnostic accuracy than Wachtel's (area under the curve [AUC]: 0.809), Utsumi's (AUC: 0.804) and Zarnegar's (AUC: 0.796) models and was similar than the Burello's (AUC: 0.833) model.Female sex, use of two or fewer antihypertensive medications, hypertension grade 1, no type 2 diabetes and nonobesity may predict hypertension cure after adrenalectomy in patients with PA. Our score provides a potential tool to guide preoperative patient counseling.

The uniform AUC: Dealing with the representativeness effect in presence–absence models

Abstract: Species distribution models use occurrence data of the focus species together with environmental variables to estimate a habitat suitability score. Typically, the discrimination capacity of the models, that is, how good the instances of presence and absence are correctly classified, is assessed with statistics such as the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). However, the value of any discrimination statistic depends on the distribution of the suitability scores in the evaluation dataset, the so-called representativeness effect. For example, the same well-calibrated model evaluated with two datasets, one set with mostly intermediate predicted values (around 0.5) and another set in which most cases have extreme predicted values (close to 0 and close to 1), will yield low (towards 0.5) and high (towards 1) AUC values, respectively. Thus, discrimination values are entirely context dependent and cannot be directly compare between datasets because they are not intrinsic measures of a model’s performance. In this contribution, I propose a methodology based on stratified bootstrapping with an inverse probability weighting that makes the distribution of the suitability values uniform and harmonizes the AUC so that the so-called uAUC can now be compared between different datasets. I run simulations considering a range of sample sizes and different initial distributions of the suitability values to validate the method. I apply the method to an empirical exercise, and implement it in the R package vandalico. Although I mainly focused on the AUC, the harmonization procedure can be applied to any other discrimination measure that is prevalence independent in a strict mathematical sense, such as the sensitivity star (Se*). To provide accurate estimations, it is important to have a high-quality evaluation dataset, that is, a dataset that covers the whole spectrum of suitability values and a minimum sample size of at least 150 cases. Further research is needed to develop a method to estimate reliable confidence intervals. I expect the harmonization methodology proposed here to be of interest in other research areas (besides ecology) that deal with discrimination/classification problems.

Ultralong ring laser supercontinuum sources using standard telecommunication fibre

Abstract: The application of a recently demonstrated mode-locked ultralong pulsed fibre ring laser architecture (Gallazzi et al., 2021) to the inexpensive and efficient generation of supercontinuum from a pulsed output at 1.56 μ m in standard single-mode telecommunication fibre is experimentally demonstrated. The impact of broadening fibre, dynamic switching between different harmonic modes and the influence of laser polarization on the properties of the generated supercontinuum are studied for three different kinds of telecommunication fibre. Flexible spectral broadening beyond 200 nm is obtained with good temporal correlation and pulse compression from 240 fs down to 50 fs.