PCE, Santiago Carrillo: enero de 1977 o el giro sacrificial de la Transición

La Transición española a la democracia ha sido objeto de uno de los más sólidos relatos construidos por el periodismo y refrendado por la sociedad civil. En su corazón tiene lugar un momento de violencia que se concentra en la llamada semana negra de enero de 1977, cuyo clímax está representado por la matanza de Atocha. El presente artículo analiza las distintas etapas de cristalización de ese relato: un capítulo de La Transición (Elías Andrés, Victoria Prego, 1995), Siete días de enero (J.A. Bardem, 1978), un reportaje de Interviú (febrero de 1977) y las crónicas periodísticas de El País, Diario16 y Mundo Obrero. Especial atención se presta a la figura de Santiago Carrillo, identificado con la estrategia del PCE, cuya consideración cambió radicalmente durante esa semana.

Aportación científica de los congresos de la AE-IC (2008-2014): reseña histórica y estado actual de la investigación en Comunicación

Esta investigación analiza la producción científica presentada en los congresos de la Asociación Española de Investigación de la Comunicación con el fin de comprender su desarrollo y su estado actual. Para ello, se han analizado 715 comunicaciones con veintidós variables, entre las que se encuentran: el autor, el género, la vinculación institucional, la nacionalidad, el tipo de comunicación, la metodología empleada, la réplica de contenidos, la tipología descriptiva y la finalidad de las comunicaciones. Entre otros hallazgos, los resultados muestran una mayoría femenina en la contribución académica, pero no entre los cargos académicos de mayor rango; la preferencia de los objetos de estudio empresariales, pero no profesionales o laborales; una tendencia hacia la mayor participación de doctorandos; y una elevada concentración de la producción científica en cuanto a la temática y la distribución territorial.

La biblioteca del predicador Pere Dorchal (1419)

A partir del inventario post mortem de los libros de Pere Dorchal, sacerdote beneficiado en la catedral de Valencia, datado en 1419, se estudia la composición de la biblioteca de un predicador. Al mismo tiempo, se recompone su biografía.

"Et occidetur virtute Domini Antichristus a Mikaele arcangelo". Paisaje y escatología en Sant Miquel de Llíria (s. XIV d. C.)

El presente articulo intenta determinar las razones por las que el santuario de Sant Miquel de Llíria, uno de los más importantes de la actual provincia de Valencia, se consagró al arcàngel guerrero. Se estudia para ello la historia de su culto en Occidente, haciendo hincapié en aspectos como su relación con los lugares elevados y la frecuente proximidad de sus santuarios con aquellos dedicados a la Virgen. Atenderemos también a aspectos fundamentales del contexto histórico, como los movimientos de renovación espiritual medievales, la influencia del médico y teólogo Arnau de Vilanova en la Valencia de principios del siglo XIV y las profecías escatológicas vinculadas a la llegada del Anticristo.

Listening to nature : acoustic monitoring of the environment

The requirement to monitor the rapid pace of environmental change due to global warming and to human development is producing large volumes of data but placing much stress on the capacity of ecologists to store, analyse and visualise that data. To date, much of the data has been provided by low level sensors monitoring soil moisture, dissolved nutrients, light intensity, gas composition and the like. However, a significant part of an ecologist’s work is to obtain information about species diversity, distributions and relationships. This task typically requires the physical presence of an ecologist in the field, listening and watching for species of interest. It is an extremely difficult task to automate because of the higher order difficulties in bandwidth, data management and intelligent analysis if one wishes to emulate the highly trained eyes and ears of an ecologist. This paper is concerned with just one part of the bigger challenge of environmental monitoring – the acquisition and analysis of acoustic recordings of the environment. Our intention is to provide helpful tools to ecologists – tools that apply information technologies and computational technologies to all aspects of the acoustic environment. The on-line system which we are building in conjunction with ecologists offers an integrated approach to recording, data management and analysis. The ecologists we work with have different requirements and therefore we have adopted the toolbox approach, that is, we offer a number of different web services that can be concatenated according to need. In particular, one group of ecologists is concerned with identifying the presence or absence of species and their distributions in time and space. Another group, motivated by legislative requirements for measuring habitat condition, are interested in summary indices of environmental health. In both case, the key issues are scalability and automation.

New findings with old drugs for osteoporosis

Background : Postmenopausal osteoporosis is common and is associated with stooped posture, loss of height, back pain and fractures. Objectives/methods : This evaluation is of clinical outcome trials with tibolone (Long-Term Intervention of Fractures with Tibolone) and strontium ranelate (Spinal Osteoporosis Therapeutic Intervention) in postmenopausal osteoporosis. Results : Although the Long-Term Intervention of Fractures with Tibolone trial established that tibolone decreased the incidence of vertebral and non-vertebral fractures in postmenopausal osteoporosis, it also showed that tibolone caused a small increase in the incidence of stoke. The Spinal Osteoporosis Therapeutic Intervention trial established that strontium ranelate decreased the incidence of vertebral fractures, but had little effect on the incidence of non-vertebral fractures. Conclusions : As some of the bisphosphonates (alendronate, risedronate, zoledronic acid) have been shown to prevent hip fractures without increasing the incidence of stroke, they should be preferred to tibolone and strontium in the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Telcagepant is a new oral treatment for migraine

Background : Migraine is a common cause of disability. Many subjects (30 – 40%) do not respond to the 5-HT 1B/1D agonists (the triptans) commonly used in the treatment of migraine attacks. Calcitonin gene-related protein (CGRP) receptor antagonism is a new approach to the treatment of migraine attacks. Objectives/methods : This evaluation is of a Phase III clinical trial comparing telcagepant, an orally active CGRP receptor antagonist, with zolmitriptan in subjects during an attack of migraine. Results : Telcagepant 300 mg has a similar efficacy to zolmitriptan in relieving pain, phonophobia, photophobia, and nausea. Telcagepant was better tolerated than zolmitriptan. Conclusions : The initial Phase III clinical trial results with telcagepant are promising but several further clinical trials are needed to determine the place of telcagepant in the treatment of migraine attacks

Tesofensine : a novel potent weight loss medicine

Background: The incidence of obesity is increasing; this is of major concern, as obesity is associated with cardiovascular disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, respiratory tract disease, and cancer. Objectives/methods: This evaluation is of a Phase II clinical trial with tesofensine in obese subjects. Results: After 26 weeks, tesofensine caused a significant weight loss, and may have a higher maximal ability to reduce weight than the presently available anti-obesity agents. However, tesofensine also increased blood pressure and heart rate, and may increase psychiatric disorders. Conclusions: It is encouraging that tesofensine 0.5 mg may cause almost double the weight loss observed with sibutramine or rimonabant. As tesofensine and sibutramine have similar pharmacological profiles, it would be of interest to compare the weight loss with tesofensine in a head-to-head clinical trial with sibutramine, to properly assess their comparative potency. Also, as teso fensine 0.5 mg increases heart rate, as well as increasing the incidence of adverse effects such as nausea, drug mouth, flatulence, insomnia, and depressed mode, its tolerability needs to be further evaluated in large Phase III clinical trials.

Anti-cancer activity of zoledronic acid in breast cancer

Background: Zoledronic acid is used to prevent the bone loss associated with antioestrogen treatments in subjects with breast cancer. Preclinical studies suggest that zoledronic acid may have anticancer activity in its own right. This anticancer possibility with zoledronic acid has not been investigated extensively in clinical trials. Objectives/methods: This evaluation is of a large clinical trial that investigated the effect of zoledronic acid on cancer outcomes in premenopausal women with breast cancer. Results: The trial showed that after 4 years, 94.0% of subjects who were treated with zoledronic acid were disease-free compared with 90.8% of those not treated with zoledronic acid. Recurrence survival was a secondary end point; this occurred in 94.0% with, and 90.9% without, zoledronic acid treatment. Conclusions: Zoledronic acid does have anticancer activity in premenopausal women with cancer.

Is liraglutide or exenatide better in type 2 diabetes?

Background: Subjects with type 2 diabetes have high circulating levels of glucose. Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is an intestinal hormone that has a major role in glucose homeostasis. Exenatide and liraglutide are both agonists at the GLP-1 receptor, and are effective at reducing circulating glucose levels (measured as HbA1c levels), but they have not been compared. Objectives/methods: This evaluation is of a clinical trial comparing liraglutide once a day with exenatide twice a day in subjects with type 2 diabetes. Results: In the Liraglutide Effect and Action in Diabetes (LEAD)-6 trial, subcutaneous liraglutide 1.8 mg once a day was compared with exenatide 10 μg twice a day. The primary efficacy outcome was change in HbA1c levels, and this was significantly greater with liraglutide (1.12%) than with exenatide (0.79%). Liraglutide and exenatide had similar small abilities to reduce body weight, blood pressure and LDL-cholesterol. Conclusions: Liraglutide was more effective than exenatide for overall glycaemic control in subjects with type 2 diabetes. However, this is only true for the preparations and doses tested, that is liraglutide 1.8 mg once weekly and exenatide 10 μg b.i.d., and may not apply when the comparison is undertaken with the new longer-lasting preparation of exenatide once weekly.

Good clinical endpoints with denosumab in osteoporosis and cancer

Background: Bone loss associated with low oestrogen levels in postmenopausal women, and with androgen deprivation therapy in men with hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, result in an increased incidence of fractures. Denosumab has been shown to increase bone mineral density in these two conditions. Objectives/methods: The objective of this evaluation is to review the clinical trials that have studied clinical endpoints in these conditions. Results: FREEDOM (Fracture Reduction Evaluation of Denosumab in Osteoporosis Every 6 Months) was an International Phase III clinical trial that measured the clinical endpoints with denosumab in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. At 36 months, new vertebral fractures had occurred in 7.2% of subjects in the placebo group and this was lowered to 2.3% of subjects treated with denosumab. HALT (Denosumab Hormone Ablation Bone Loss Trial) studied the clinical endpoints in men with non-metastatic prostate cancer receiving androgen-deprivation therapy. The incidence of vertebral fractures was significantly lower in the denosumab group (1.5%) than in the placebo group (3.9%). The incidence of adverse effects with denosumab in both clinical trials was low. Conclusions: Denosumab reduces the incidence of fractures in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis and in men with non-metastatic prostate cancer receiving androgen-deprivation therapy. Denosumab is well tolerated.

The anatomy of subjective well-being

This paper contributes to the literature on subjective well-being (SWB) by taking into account different aspects of life, called domains, such as health, financial situation, job, leisure, housing, and environment. We postulate a two-layer model where individual total SWB depends on the different subjective domain satisfactions. A distinction is made between long-term and short-term effects. The individual domain satisfactions depend on objectively measurable variables, such as income. The model is estimated using a large German panel data set.

Leonardo Bruni, the Medici, and the Florentine histories

Others, like the prominent humanist and anti-Medicean agitator Francesco Filelfo, would soon join the first wave of exiles.4 Bruni was not only linked to such men by ties of patronage and friendship; he had also for many years acted as the chief ideologue of the preMedicean oligarchy.5 One might logically expect that he too would become a victim of Medici vengeance in 1434, or soon thereafter. Other scholars have stressed that Bruni-despite the occasional flamboyance of his civic rhetoric-was always an advocate of restricted government.8 While the power struggle between the Medici and their adversaries was real enough, the system Cosimo and his associates introduced after 1434 differed from its predecessor only in the consistency with which it was applied.