María Ángeles Peña Fernández

Effect of Chronic Ethanol Feeding on 24-Hour Rhythms of Mitogenic Responses and Lymphocyte Subset Populations in Thymus and Spleen of Peripubertal Male Rats

This work analyzes the effect of chronic ethanol feeding on the 24-hour variation of mitogenic responses and lymphocyte subset populations in thymus and spleen. Animals were maintained under a 12:12-hour light/dark photoperiod and they received a liquid diet for 4 weeks, starting on day 35 of life. The ethanol-fed group received a similar diet to controls except that maltose was isocalorically replaced by ethanol. Ethanol replacement provided 36% of the total caloric content of the diet. Rats were killed at 6 time intervals around the clock, beginning at Zeitgeber time (ZT) 1 (ZT 0 = lights on). Under ethanol intake the splenic and thymic weight decreased. In addition, mean values of the thymic, but not of the splenic T cell number decreased, and mean values of the thymic and splenic CD8+ and CD4+CD8+ number increased. Consequently, the thymic T/B ratio and the thymic and splenic CD4+/CD8+ ratio decreased in ethanol-fed rats. At the same time there was a significant increase in the response of the thymic cells to LPS. The ethanol diet modified the 24-hour rhythmicity of thymic and splenic T, B and CD4+CD8+ cells, thymic CD4+ and splenic CD8+ cells, thymic and splenic T/B and CD4+/CD8+ ratios, as well as of mitogenic responses in both tissues. Chronic ethanol administration presumably affects the endogenous clock that modulates the circadian variation of immune responsiveness in growing rats.

Dynamic Propagation Analysis in Urban Environments

In order to satisfy the demand of the automotive industry about anti-collision systems, related to the protection of pedestrians and drivers, this paper proposes the development of an algorithm that achieves a dynamic analysis of urban scenarios. Typically, some objects of these scenarios can have a translation and/or rotation movement. For each sample of time a new scenario is built according to the information about the movements of the objects. Then, its corresponding simulation is performed using Geometrical Theory of Diffraction to analyse the propagation in outdoor environments and thus, to determine the position of obstacles.

Analysis and design of antenna radomes

A new tool for the analysis and design of radomes using multicore processors is presented. The radomes can be defined by multilayer structures with embedded Frequency Selective Surfaces (FSS). Radome with metallic layers with arbitrarily shaped can be also analyzed. Four different approaches can be used for the analyses of the radomes: Iterative Physical Optics-Moment Method, (IPO-MoM); approach, iterative MoM (antenna)-MoM (radome), (MoM-MoM); full MoM approach using the thin layer approach, (MoM-TL); and full MoM with a full volumetric approach (MoM-VOL). The two full MoM approaches provide accurate and fast simulations of the radome behavior. Optimization features for the radome design are also included by imposing a mask in a bandwidth for the reflection or transmission coefficients. The tool has been cross validated using results obtained with a well checked 3D MoM code.

Latest advances in NewFasant Suite

This paper presents the latest developments in NewFasant Suite: the Reflectarray module to design, analyze and optimize reflectarray antennas, the Ultra-conformed Reflector module to create and simulate conformed reflectors that can fit any complex shape, and the Radome module to design and analyze radomes. The three new modules are presented with application examples.