Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena

Beyond carrying capacity: A system dynamics reinterpretation of Calhoun’s Universe 25 experiment and its relevance to managed animal populations

Calhoun’s Universe 25 experiment remains a significant and contested case study of population growth, crowding, social disruption and reproductive decline in a protected mouse population. Although commonly interpreted as evidence of physical overpopulation, its central implicatio...

Shared household environment structures the gut microbiota in a large family cohort with central areolar choroidal dystrophy

Central areolar choroidal dystrophy (CACD) is a rare monogenic hereditary retinal dystrophy characterised by progressive retinal pigment epithelium and choriocapillaris atrophy, photoreceptor loss, oxidative stress, and chronic inflammation. Emerging evidence suggests that the gu...

Stochastic Convex Optimization for Day-Ahead Shared Battery Storage Scheduling in Solar Energy Communities

Energy communities represent a transformative paradigm for decentralized renewable energy integration, enabling collective investment in photovoltaic (PV) systems and battery energy storage systems (BESS) to achieve economic and environmental benefits. However, the optimal operat...

Are cooperatives associated with more resilient financial architectures? Evidence from Spanish agricultural firms

This study examines whether cooperative organization is associated with a distinct financial resilience profile among agricultural firms. Financial resilience is conceptualized as the combination of ex-ante buffering capacity (liquidity and working-capital slack, together with th...

Synergistic friction and wear reduction in CuSn10-modified basalt fiber-reinforced epoxy composites via protic ionic liquid and graphene nanolubrication

Basalt fiber-reinforced epoxy (BFRP) composites combine a favorable strength-to-weight ratio with relatively low cost, which makes them attractive for structural applications. However, the epoxy matrix has limited abrasion resistance, and this restricts how well these composites...

Economic performance of FAO-56 crop coefficient and Allen & Pereira approaches for irrigation scheduling in super-high-density olive orchards

Increasing pressure on water resources in Mediterranean agriculture requires irrigation scheduling strategies that optimize both water-use efficiency and farm profitability. While the FAO-56 crop coefficient approach is the most widely used method for estimating crop water requir...

Complements, Not Substitutes? Health Systems, Institutional Quality, and the PM2.5–NCD Mortality Nexus—A Global Panel Analysis

This study investigates whether Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and institutional quality—proxied by the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)—moderate the association between ambient PM2.5 exposure and adult non-communicable disease (NCD) mortality. Using a country-year panel of 15...

3D-Printed Poly(Lactic-co-Glycolic Acid) Binder-Based Self-Hardening Calcium Phosphate Bone Scaffolds

Three-dimensionally (3D)-printed alpha-tricalcium phosphate (α-TCP) scaffolds, fabricated through a low-temperature hydrothermal dissolution-precipitation process, replicate the structural and compositional features of native bone. Reinforcing hydrothermally processed α-TCP with...

Fast arbitrary qutrit gates for NV centers in the low-field regime

Abstract The ground state of the negatively charged NV center forms a spin–1 manifold providing a versatile platform for sensing and information processing. Here we present a scheme for implementing fast arbitrary qutrit gates in the low–field regime using monochromatic microwave...

Protocol for a scoping review Artificial intelligence applied to bacterial biofilms: a scoping review of the evidence base and barriers to transfer to food processing environments

Registered protocol for a scoping review on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applied to bacterial biofilms. The protocol specifies eligibility criteria, search strings for PubMed and Web of Science, a dual-reviewer screening procedure, and an extraction data...

Automatic Segmentation of Ischaemic Stroke Lesions Using Transformers and Convolutional Neural Networks Applied to Multimodal Neuroimaging

Ischaemic stroke constitutes a leading cause of global disability. Rapid extraction of the infarct core from multimodal computed tomography perfusion (CTP) imaging guides reperfusion therapy and clinical decision-making. Deep learning algorithms automate this delineation, yet hos...

Glycemic Patterns Assessed by Continuous Glucose Monitoring in People with Type 2 Diabetes Treated with Insulin Glargine 100 U/mL in Primary Care: The GPDetect Study

Hypoglycemia is a common complication in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) treated with basal insulin, yet its true prevalence in real-world primary care remains underexplored. This study used blinded continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) to assess glycemic patterns in pa...