University of Valencia

About: University of Valencia is a education organization based out in Valencia, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Neutrino. The organization has 27096 authors who have published 65669 publications receiving 1765689 citations. The organization is also known as: Universitat de València & UV.

Cryptand-like anion receptors

Abstract: The design of supramolecular hosts for anions began with simple diaza bicycles, named katapinands, and has evolved over the last 40 years to a number of elegantly designed receptors capable of binding many different anions. About the same time the term cryptand appeared in reference to another bicyclic compound that was selective for alkaline-earth ions. Since the first report these simple bicycles, a vast arena of hosts has appeared, including acyclic, monocyclic, and other multicyclic supramolecular receptors. Studies of these systems have revealed considerable information about anion coordination chemistry, including the fact that many of these complexes mimic their transition-metal corollaries in terms of coordination numbers. However, for anions interactions occur via H-bonding most often, rather than the coordinate covalent or dative bonds observed in transition-metal coordination. This critical review examines the design of enclosed, primarily bicyclic cryptands as hosts for anions, with a small scattering of higher polyhedra when deemed appropriate to the discussion. In order to show the development (evolution) of the field, key examples of early work will be noted and compared with more recent developments (136 references).

Canakinumab for the Treatment of Autoinflammatory Recurrent Fever Syndromes

Abstract: Background Familial Mediterranean fever, mevalonate kinase deficiency (also known as the hyperimmunoglobulinemia D syndrome), and the tumor necrosis factor receptor–associated periodic syn...

Atrial activity extraction for atrial fibrillation analysis using blind source separation

Abstract: This contribution addresses the extraction of atrial activity (AA) from real electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings of atrial fibrillation (AF). We show the appropriateness of independent component analysis (ICA) to tackle this biomedical challenge when regarded as a blind source separation (BSS) problem. ICA is a statistical tool able to reconstruct the unobservable independent sources of bioelectric activity which generate, through instantaneous linear mixing, a measurable set of signals. The three key hypothesis that make ICA applicable in the present scenario are discussed and validated: 1) AA and ventricular activity (VA) are generated by sources of independent bioelectric activity; 2) AA and VA present non-Gaussian distributions; and 3) the generation of the surface ECG potentials from the cardioelectric sources can be regarded as a narrow-band linear propagation process. To empirically endorse these claims, an ICA algorithm is applied to recordings from seven patients with persistent AF. We demonstrate that the AA source can be identified using a kurtosis-based reordering of the separated signals followed by spectral analysis of the sub-Gaussian sources. In contrast to traditional methods, the proposed BSS-based approach is able to obtain a unified AA signal by exploiting the atrial information present in every ECG lead, which results in an increased robustness with respect to electrode selection and placement.

Common Missense Variant in the Glucokinase Regulatory Protein Gene Is Associated With Increased Plasma Triglyceride and C-Reactive Protein but Lower Fasting Glucose Concentrations

Abstract: OBJECTIVE Using the genome-wide-association approach, we recently identified the glucokinase regulatory protein gene ( GCKR , rs780094) region as a novel quantitative trait locus for plasma triglyceride concentration in Europeans. Here, we sought to study the association of GCKR variants with metabolic phenotypes including measures of glucose homeostasis, to evaluate the GCKR locus in samples of non-European ancestry, and to fine-map across the associated genomic interval. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We performed association studies in 12 independent cohorts comprising a total of >45,000 individuals representing several ancestral groups (whites from Northern and Southern Europe, whites from the United States, African Americans from the United States, Hispanics of Caribbean origin, and Chinese, Malays and Asian Indians from Singapore). We conducted genetic fine-mapping across the ∼417 kilobase region of linkage disequilibrium spanning GCKR and 16 other genes on chromosome 2p23 by imputing untyped HapMap SNPs and genotyping 104 SNPs across the associated genomic interval.. RESULTS We provide comprehensive evidence that GCKR rs780094 is associated with opposite effects on fasting plasma triglyceride (p meta =3x10 -56 ) and glucose (p meta =1x10 -13 ) concentrations. In addition, we confirmed recent reports that the same SNP is associated with C-reative protein level (p=5x10 -5 ). Both fine mapping approaches revealed a common missense GCKR variant (rs1260326, Pro446Leu, 34% frequency, r 2 =0.93 with rs780094) as the strongest association signal in the region. CONCLUSIONS- These findings point to a molecular mechanism in humans by which higher triglycerides and C-reactive protein can be coupled with lower plasma glucose concentrations and position GCKR in central pathways regulating both hepatic triglyceride and glucose metabolism.