Transport and sedimentation of microplastics by turbidity currents: Dependence on suspended sediment concentration and grain size.

Using lock-exchange experiments, this study investigates the transport and sedimentation of microplastics (MPs) via turbidity currents. Two hypotheses were tested: MP sedimentation is influenced by suspended sediment concentration and grain size. Utilizing flows with different sediment concentrations and grain sizes in combination with three different MPs (PET fibers, melamine, and PVC fragments), the experiments revealed distinct sedimentation patterns: higher sediment concentrations enhance MP transport, and turbidity currents with finer sediments transported MPs over greater distances, highlighting the importance of sediment characteristics to predict MP distribution by such flows.

Bluues_cplx: Electrostatics at Protein-Protein and Protein-Ligand Interfaces.

(1) Background: Electrostatics plays a capital role in protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions. Implicit solvent models are widely used to describe electrostatics and complementarity at interfaces. Electrostatic complementarity at the interface is not trivial, involving surface potentials rather than the charges of surfacial contacting atoms.

Efficiency of fixed-dose combinations of statin and ezetimibe in the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.

Objective: To estimate the clinical and economic benefits derived from increasing the use of fixed-dose combinations of high-intensity statins and ezetimibe in patients at high/very high cardiovascular risk, from the perspective of the Spanish National Health System (SNS).

Methods: A baseline scenario (current market shares) was compared with scenarios that increased the use of fixed-dose combinations (alternative: 30% increase; optimized: 69% increase). The potential annual increase in the number of controlled patients, cardiovascular events avoided and the associated savings in direct medical costs were estimated, including the cost of pharmacological treatment, follow-up, and managing cardiovascular events over a three-year time horizon.

Playing with the rope: a house sparrow behaviour related to its breeding activity.

The house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a gregarious generalist species, which makes it a good model for studying play. However, play has not been described for this species so far. We describe play behaviour in house sparrows for the first time, quantifying all play and play-related behaviours, searching for differences between the different sexes and ages, the possible association with reproductive success and the diffusion of this behaviour in the population.