https://hdl.handle.net/11000/1458 2026-06-10T22:39:15Z 2026-06-10T22:39:15Z Rosendo, Luana M Costa, Suzel Simoes, Susana Franco, Joao M Serrano Gadea, Noelia Escorial, Mónica Toboso Ortega, Francisco Javier Peiró, Ana M. Duque, Isabel Rosado, Tiago Barroso, Mario Gallardo, Eugenia https://hdl.handle.net/11000/40037 2026-06-09T01:03:54Z 2026-06-08T08:30:00Z

Título : Opioid detection and quantification in plasma and oral fluid by LC-MS/MS Autor : Rosendo, Luana M; Costa, Suzel; Simoes, Susana; Franco, Joao M; Serrano Gadea, Noelia; Escorial, Mónica; Toboso Ortega, Francisco Javier; Peiró, Ana M.; Duque, Isabel; Rosado, Tiago; Barroso, Mario; Gallardo, Eugenia Resumen : The opioid crisis remains a significant public health concern, necessitating the development of sensitive and reliable analytical methods for drug detection. This study aimed to develop and validate a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the simultaneous detection and quantification of fentanyl, buprenorphine, oxycodone, morphine, tramadol, and tapentadol in plasma and oral fluid. The method was validated according to FDA guidelines, assessing selectivity, linearity, precision, accuracy, matrix effect, extraction efficiency, stability, carryover, and dilution integrity. The lower limits of quantification (LLOQs) were established at 0.1 ng/mL for fentanyl, 1.2 ng/mL for tramadol, and 0.6 ng/mL for the remaining opioids, demonstrating high sensitivity. The method exhibited excellent precision and accuracy, with coefficients of variation below 15% for intra-day, inter-day, and intermediate precision analyses. Extraction efficiencies exceeded 90% for most analytes, and matrix effects remained within acceptable limits. Real-world application to authentic plasma and oral fluid samples confirmed the method's robustness and reliability. Oral fluid concentrations were detectable across all target opioids, although plasma-oral fluid ratios showed some compound-dependent variability. These findings highlight the potential of oral fluid as a non-invasive complementary matrix to plasma for opioid monitoring, with relevant implications for forensic toxicology and clinical drug monitoring.

2026-06-08T08:30:00Z Carratalá, Claudia Agulló, Laura Carracedo, Patricia Serrano-Gadea, Noelia Escorial, Mónica López-Mañogil, Elena Miró, Pau Bernardes, Sonia F. Peiró, Ana M. https://hdl.handle.net/11000/40036 2026-06-09T01:03:53Z 2026-06-08T08:16:31Z

Título : The silence of opioids-dependent chronic pain patients: A text mining analysis from sex and gender perspective Autor : Carratalá, Claudia; Agulló, Laura; Carracedo, Patricia; Serrano-Gadea, Noelia; Escorial, Mónica; López-Mañogil, Elena; Miró, Pau; Bernardes, Sonia F.; Peiró, Ana M. Resumen : Existing evidence indicates sex-related differences in Prescription Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) in Chronic Non-Cancer Pain (CNCP). However to date, there is scant evidence for other socioeconomic factors in these differences. Our aim was to enquire about the influence of gender and drug copayment of OUD narratives by the text mining analysis. A prospective mixed-methods study was designed and performed at Pain Unit (PU) including 238 real world patients with CNCP divided in controls (n = 206) and OUD cases (n = 32) due to DSM-5 diagnosis Variables related to pain, sleep, mental and health status were collected in together with sex and gender interaction, in pain status, along 30-45 min face-to-face interviews. Sex differences were observed due to women's significantly older ages, with a stronger impact on mental health, and an even stronger one for the OUD women. Globally, OUD cases were more unemployed vs the CNCP controls, and on a significantly higher median opioid daily dose of 90 [100] mg/day. Although OUD participants did more social activities, they tended to use less vocabulary to express themselves regardless of their sex, gender role or economic status. In contrast, the CNCP participants presented more differences driven by their incomes, with "limited" being the most discriminating word for those on low income, followed by "less" and "help". Here, the most significant word of CNCP women was "husband", followed by "tasks". In contrast, gender reproductive roles shared similarities in both sexes, being one of the most discriminatory words "help". The data show that OUD patients seem to have a marked influence of OUD on poorer lexicon and simpler narrative, together with a significant impact of socioeconomic factors on the CNCP narratives. The conclusion suggests to extend the research to better understand the effect of sex, gender and socioeconomic status in CNCP especially on OUD women's health.

2026-06-08T08:16:31Z Kaswan, Ram R. Prior-Peral, Ángel M. Font-Sanchis, Enrique Gutiérrez-Vílchez, Ana M. Fernández-Lázaro, Fernando D’Souza, Francis https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39886 2026-05-12T01:04:01Z 2026-05-11T11:59:14Z

Título : Geometry-Governed Symmetry-Breaking Charge Separation and Photocatalysis of Benzoperylenetriimide Dimers Autor : Kaswan, Ram R.; Prior-Peral, Ángel M.; Font-Sanchis, Enrique; Gutiérrez-Vílchez, Ana M.; Fernández-Lázaro, Fernando; D’Souza, Francis Resumen : An in-depth understanding of the structure−property relationships in multichromophoric systems undergoing excited electron transfer is essential for designing reliable photocatalytic and optoelectronic devices. However, creating architectures to govern electron-transfer events in a controlled manner remains challenging due to synthetic challenges and suboptimal conditions. Here, we report two novel benzoperylenetriimide (PTI) dimers, PTI-PTI and PTI-Ph-PTI, utilizing an easily reducible PTI. The former dimer features a direct connection through the bay positions of the PTI, whereas the latter has a phenyl ring spacer. Their ability to undergo symmetrybreaking charge separation (SB-CS) and subsequent performance in photocatalytic electron pooling is probed. For the PTI-PTI dimer, which is rigid and orthogonal, SB-CS was not observed due to a lack of electronic communication between the PTI moieties, namely, a perfect “nullexciton”system. In contrast, the flexible PTI-Ph-PTI dimer showed clear evidence of SB-CS due to its ability to communicate between the macrocycles. Steady-state and time-resolved emission studies revealed significant quenching, especially in PTI-Ph-PTI compared to the monomer PTI, indicating initial signs of SB-CS. The redox gap obtained from electrochemical studies confirmed that the SB-CS state can be populated from the singlet excited state in both polar and nonpolar solvents without appreciable energy loss, a much-sought-after property. Additionally, DFT calculations supported experimental results, showing an asymmetric distribution of electron density in frontier orbitals. Meanwhile, TD-DFT studies identified the excited states responsible for the observed SB-CS. Subsequent femtosecond pump−probe studies provided conclusive evidence of charge separation in the PTI-Ph-PTI dimer, independent of the solvent polarity. The lifetimes of the charge-separated states were found to be 119 and 228 ps in benzonitrile and toluene, respectively, which were sufficient to engage them in photocatalytic studies. Consequently, the PTI-Ph-PTI dimer was used for photocatalytic electron-pooling experiments from an application perspective. Higher yields of electron-pooling were observed compared to the monomer, indicating the potential application of this class of systems in developing future photocatalytic systems that function at higher efficiency. Importantly, how “perfect orthogonal rigidity” prohibits SB-CS and its photocatalytic activity, helping future design of symmetric dimers to observe SB-CS, is borne out from this study.

2026-05-11T11:59:14Z Marco, David López Morales, Guadalupe Sánchez López, María del Mar Lizana, Ángel Moreno Soriano, Ignacio Campos, Juan https://hdl.handle.net/11000/31240 2025-02-12T09:24:14Z 2024-02-07T16:40:24Z

Título : Customized depolarization spatial patterns with dynamic retardance functions Autor : Marco, David; López Morales, Guadalupe; Sánchez López, María del Mar; Lizana, Ángel; Moreno Soriano, Ignacio; Campos, Juan Resumen : In this work we demonstrate customized depolarization spatial patterns by imaging a dynamical time-dependent pixelated retarder. A proof-of-concept of the proposed method is presented, where a liquid–crystal spatial light modulator is used as a spatial retarder that emulates a controlled spatially variant depolarizing sample by addressing a time-dependent phase pattern. We apply an imaging Mueller polarimetric system based on a polarization camera to verify the effective depolarization effect. Experimental validation is provided by temporal integration on the detection system. The effective depolarizance results are fully described within a simple graphical approach which agrees with standard Mueller matrix decomposition methods. The potential of the method is discussed by means of three practical cases, which include non-reported depolarization spatial patterns, including exotic structures as a spirally shaped depolarization pattern.

2024-02-07T16:40:24Z Sánchez López, María del Mar Davis, Jeffrey A. Moreno Soriano, Ignacio Cofré Henríquez, Aarón Cottrell, Don M. https://hdl.handle.net/11000/31239 2025-02-12T09:24:14Z 2024-02-07T16:39:28Z

Título : Gouy phase effects on propagation of pure and hybrid vector beams Autor : Sánchez López, María del Mar; Davis, Jeffrey A.; Moreno Soriano, Ignacio; Cofré Henríquez, Aarón; Cottrell, Don M. Resumen : The robustness of the polarization spatial distribution of vector beams upon propagation is crucial for a number of applications, including optical communications and materials processing. This study has been commonly centered on Gouy phase effects on focused vector beams. In this work, we present a theoretical and experimental analysis of the Gouy phase’s effects on the propagation of pure and hybrid vector beams. Experimental results at various axial planes, before and past the focus, are obtained by using a simplified liquid-crystal spatial light modulator-based optical system that allows the easy generation of these beams. Furthermore, a new alternative optical set-up that is devoid of moving elements is demonstrated, which simplifies this study. We experimentally verify the differences between pure and hybrid vector beams upon propagation. While the first ones remain stable, hybrid vector beams show Gouy phase effects that demonstrate an optical activity where the local polarization states rotate by an angle that depends on the propagation distance. Experimental results agree with the theory.

2024-02-07T16:39:28Z Marco, David Vargas, Asticio Sánchez López, María del Mar Moreno Soriano, Ignacio https://hdl.handle.net/11000/31238 2025-02-19T08:43:22Z 2024-02-07T16:26:15Z

Título : Measuring the spatial deformation of a liquid-crystal on silicon display with a self-interference effect Autor : Marco, David; Vargas, Asticio; Sánchez López, María del Mar; Moreno Soriano, Ignacio Resumen : We present a simple technique to characterize the spatial non-uniformity of a liquid-crystal on silicon (LCOS) spatial light modulator (SLM). It is based on illuminating the display with a wavelength out of the operation range, so there is a significant reflection at the output surface. As a consequence, a Gires–Tournois interferometer is directly created, without any alignment requirement and insensitive to vibrations. The beam reflected at the output surface is the reference beam, while the beam reflected at the silicon backplane is modulated with the addressed gray level in order to quantitatively derive its deformation.We provide an experimental demonstration using a LCOS-SLM designed to operate in the near-infrared range but illuminated with visible light.

2024-02-07T16:26:15Z García-Martínez, Pascuala Marco, David Martínez Fuentes, José Luis Sánchez López, María del Mar Moreno Soriano, Ignacio https://hdl.handle.net/11000/31237 2025-02-19T08:41:36Z 2024-02-07T16:24:49Z

Título : Efficient on-axis SLM engineering of optical vector modes Autor : García-Martínez, Pascuala; Marco, David; Martínez Fuentes, José Luis; Sánchez López, María del Mar; Moreno Soriano, Ignacio Resumen : This work presents a method for the efficient experimental generation of arbitrary polarized vector beam modes. The optical system employs two liquid-crystal on silicon (LCOS) spatial light modulators (SLM) in a common path architecture, avoiding the use of beam-splitters. Each SLM displays a different phase-only mask, each one encoding a different pattern onto two orthogonal linear polarization components of the input beam. These phase-only masks are designed using a recently proposed random technique to encode complex amplitude values. This encoding technique reconstructs the complex function on-axis, thus avoiding incorporating carrier phases. By addressing such properly designed phase-only holograms we demonstrate arbitrary scalar modes on each polarization component, whose superposition results in a vector beam mode. Different superpositions of Laguerre–Gaussian and Hermite–Gaussian modes are obtained and the generated vector beam modes are analyzed. Moreover, the addition of a phase-bias proves itself useful to perform a phase-shifting technique in order to evaluate the correct phase of the generated vector beam.

2024-02-07T16:24:49Z Sánchez López, María del Mar Abella, Isaiah Puerto García, Daniel Davis, Jeffrey A. Moreno Soriano, Ignacio https://hdl.handle.net/11000/31236 2025-02-12T09:24:14Z 2024-02-07T16:23:43Z

Título : Spectral performance of a zero-order liquid-crystal polymer commercial q-plate for the generation of vector beams at different wavelengths Autor : Sánchez López, María del Mar; Abella, Isaiah; Puerto García, Daniel; Davis, Jeffrey A.; Moreno Soriano, Ignacio Resumen : Liquid-crystal polymer q-plates are commercial devices for generating vector beams at the design wavelength where the device exhibits half-wave (HW) retardance. Since they are not voltage addressable, the operational wavelength remains fixed. In this work we perform a broadband spectral characterization of the q-plate retardance as a function of wavelength, /(k), and identify the wavelengths with retardance values relevant for vector beam generation (p, p/2, and 3p/2). The wavelength is then used as a tuning parameter to change the device performance from a HW q-plate to a positive-QW or a negative-QW q-plate. These performances are analyzed using the Jones matrix formalism. We present a simple procedure to derive the polarization distribution of the vector beams expected at these QW wavelengths, as a superposition of the input polarization state and the output state of a HW q-plate. Experimental results using the red and blue lines of an Ar-Kr laser and an IR laser diode of 980 nm confirm the theoretical predictions. We show that for input linearly polarized light of 980 nm and 488 nm the device generates hybrid vector beams (where the ellipticity varies with the azimuthal angle), while for 647 nm pure radial vector beams with constant ellipticity are obtained. These results could extend the use of commercial q-plates for multicolour vector beam applications.

2024-02-07T16:23:43Z Messaadi, Abdelghafour Sánchez López, María del Mar Vargas, Asticio García-Martínez, Pascuala Moreno Soriano, Ignacio https://hdl.handle.net/11000/31235 2025-02-19T08:44:31Z 2024-02-07T16:21:56Z

Título : Achromatic linear retarder with tunable retardance Autor : Messaadi, Abdelghafour; Sánchez López, María del Mar; Vargas, Asticio; García-Martínez, Pascuala; Moreno Soriano, Ignacio Resumen : We present a universal design and proof-of-concept of a tunable linear retarder of uniform wavelength response in a broad spectral range. It consists of two half-wave retarders (HWR) between two quarter-wave retarders (QWRs), where the uniform retardance can be tuned continuously by simply rotating one of the HWRs. A proof-of-concept of this design is built by using commercially available Fresnel rhomb retarders that provide retardation with almost wavelength uniformity in the visible and near infrared from 450 to 1550 nm. The design is universal, since other achromatic QWRs and HWRs could also be employed. The system is experimentally demonstrated to control the state of polarization of a supercontinuum laser.

2024-02-07T16:21:56Z Obeso, José I. Maestro García-Donas, Beatriz Jesús M., Sanz Olivera, Elías R. Luengo, José M. https://hdl.handle.net/11000/30968 2024-04-30T07:35:16Z 2024-02-02T10:00:45Z

Título : The loss of function of PhaC1 is a survival mechanism that counteracts the stress caused by the overproduction of poly-3-hydroxyalkanoates in Pseudomonas putidaΔfadBA Autor : Obeso, José I.; Maestro García-Donas, Beatriz; Jesús M., Sanz; Olivera, Elías R.; Luengo, José M. Resumen : The poly-3-hydroxylkanoate (PHA)-overproducing mutant Pseudomonas putida U ΔfadBA (PpΔfadBA) lacks the genes encoding the main β-oxidation pathway (FadBA). This strain accumulates enormous amounts of bioplastics when cultured in chemically defined media containing PHA precursors (different n-alkanoic or n-aryl-alkanoic acids) and an additional carbon source. In medium containing glucose or 4-hydroxy-phenylacetate, the mutant does not accumulate PHAs and grows just as the wild type (P. putida U). However, when the carbon source is octanoate, growth is severely impaired, suggesting that in PpΔfadBA, the metabolic imbalance resulting from a lower rate of β-oxidation, together with the accumulation of bioplastics, causes severe physiological stress. Here, we show that PpΔfadBA efficiently counteracts this latter effect via a survival mechanism involving the introduction of spontaneous mutations that block PHA accumulation. Surprisingly, genetic analyses of the whole pha cluster revealed that these mutations occurred only in the gene encoding one of the polymerases (phaC1) and that the loss of PhaC1 function was enough to prevent PHA synthesis. The influence of these mutations on the structure of PhaC1 and the existence of a protein-protein (PhaC1-PhaC2) interaction that explains the functionality of the polymerization system are discussed herein.

2024-02-02T10:00:45Z