LOS PROCESOS DE EVALUACIÓN DE LA CALIDAD EN LOS ESTUDIOS DE ENFERMERÍA EN EL CONTEXTO DEL ESPACIO EUROPEO DE EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR.

The objective of this article is to make an approach between the institutional evaluation development in our country, the new programmes and the challenges that are being proposed in the qualifications. The European convergence has one of the most important bases in the quality process of the formation programmes and centres. During the last few years, all around Europe, Spain included, it has been developed a severe quality process which facilitate the introduction of improvements and the corresponding explanations to society.El objetivo de este artículo es realizar una aproximación sobre el desarrollo de la evaluación institucional en nuestro país, nuevos programas y retos que se están planteando en las titulaciones. La convergencia europea tiene en los procesos de calidad de los programas de formación y de los centros uno de los pilares más importantes. En Europa, incluida España, se han desarrollado en los últimos años intensos procesos de evaluación de la calidad propiciando la introducción de mejoras y la rendición de cuentas a la sociedad

Beyond opinion classification: Extracting facts, opinions and experiences from health forums.

Introduction: Surveys indicate that patients, particularly those suffering from chronic conditions, strongly benefit from the information found in social networks and online forums. One challenge in accessing online health information is to differentiate between factual and more subjective information. In this work, we evaluate the feasibility of exploiting lexical, syntactic, semantic, network-based and emotional properties of texts to automatically classify patient-generated contents into three types: "experiences", "facts" and "opinions", using machine learning algorithms. In this context, our goal is to develop automatic methods that will make online health information more easily accessible and useful for patients, professionals and researchers. Material and Methods: We work with a set of 3000 posts to online health forums in breast cancer, morbus crohn and different allergies. Each sentence in a post is manually labeled as "experience", "fact" or "opinion". Using this data, we train a support vector machine algorithm to perform classification. The results are evaluated in a 10-fold cross validation procedure. Results: Overall, we find that it is possible to predict the type of information contained in a forum post with a very high accuracy (over 80 percent) using simple text representations such as word embeddings and bags of words. We also analyze more complex features such as those based on the network properties, the polarity of words and the verbal tense of the sentences and show that, when combined with the previous ones, they can boost the results

Associations of physical activity with blood pressure, body composition and maturation level in adolescents: the GEOS Study

Introduction The association between physical activity (PA) and resting blood pressure (BP) is poorly understood in adolescents (Kelley, Kelley, & Tran, 2003), since several variables such as body composition, maturation level or sex, which interfere with, must be analyzed (Muntner, He, Cutler, Wildman, & Whelton, 2004). Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the association of PA, body composition, blood pressure, and maturation in adolescent boys and girls. Methods: Two hundred and nine (n=114 boys, n=95 girls) healthy adolescents (15.6±1.6 years, 21.9±4.3 BMI) were volunteers. A PA score was estimated by Physical Activity Questionnaire (PAQ-A). BMI, waist circumference (WC) and fat mass percent (%FM) were assessed by anthropometric measurements as adiposity markers. Tanner’s maturation stages were evaluated and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP) were measured by OMRON sphygmomanometer. SBP and DBP indexes (SBPI and DBPI) were calculated as mmHg/height (cm). Spearman rank order correlations were used to explore associations between variables after control to maturation. Results: All the relationships between parameters showed a positive correlation. There were significant associations between BP variables and BMI (SBP r=0.202, P<0.01; DBP r=0.305, P<0.001), and WC (SBP r=0.197, P<0.01; DBP r=0.295, P<0.001). PA score was only related with body composition variables either girls or boys. Also, there were significant correlations between %FM and BP variables (SBP r=0.332, P <0.01; DBP r=0.330, P<0.01; DBPI r=0.308, P <0.01) in girls but not in boys. Discussion: Our data confirm the relationship between BP and body composition variables as WC and BMI (Rosa, Fonseca, Oigman, & Mesquita, 2006). Nevertheless, we could not find any association between PA and BP. The recently developed SBPI and DBPI were not better associated with any variable than simple BP. These results should be considered carefully since measuring physical activity by objective methods could have changed the conclusions. So, other studies have reported a negative association between PA measured by accelerometry and BP (Hearst, Sirard, Lytle, Dengel, & Berrigan, 2012; Kelley, Kelley, & Tran, 2003). Further prospective studies using accelerometry or larger samples must be need in order to explore deeply the impact of PA on BP in adolescents. References Hearst, M. O., Sirard, J. R., Lytle, L., Dengel, D. R., & Berrigan, D. (2012). J Phys Act Health, 9(1), 78-85. Kelley, G. A., Kelley, K. S., & Tran, Z. V. (2003). Prev Cardiol, 6(1), 8-16. Muntner, P., He, J., Cutler, J. A., Wildman, R. P., & Whelton, P. K. (2004). JAMA, 291(17), 2107-2113. Rosa, M. L., Fonseca, V. M., Oigman, G., & Mesquita, E. T. (2006). Arq Bras Cardiol, 87(1), 46-53.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (AP2010-0583), Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (DEP2011-30565) and Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Estimation of internal abdominal fat from anthropometry measurements in children

Introduction: Internal abdominal fat (IAF) measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) has been proposed as subrogate of visceral adipose tissue, which is a cornerstone measurement for screening of metabolic syndrome1,2. However, measuring IAF is time-consuming, expensive and impractical for field studies with children. Since 1990, anthropometric models have been developed to estimate IAF in adults, but no models exist for children. Because of the high prevalence of childhood obesity, the assessment of IAF is a major factor in the evaluation metabolic risk. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop an anthropometry-based model to estimate IAF in children. Methods: Forty-one (n=24 boys, n=17 girls) healthy Caucasian children (age 11.4±0.6 years, BMI 20.1±3.9 Kg/m2) were volunteers. Anthropometric measurements (waist and hip circumferences, abdominal sagittal diameter and skinfolds) were taken in accordance with ISAK guidelines. Total body and IAF (dependent variable) body composition were measured by DXA. Stepwise regression analysis was carried out to obtain the fittest variables and beta coefficients in order to develop the equation that predicts IAF with a high squared R and a low standard error of estimation. Results: The best-correlated variables with IAF were BMI, waist circumference, calf and subscapular skinfolds (r=0.900; r=0.946; r=0.901; r=0.900; respectively, all P<0.001). The best model for estimating the IAF included waist circumference and subscapular skinfold (R2=0.93 SEE=115.43; P<0.001). The estimated model was IAF (g) = -1332.89 + (18.515*WC) + (773.39*SubSKF). Conclusion: We developed a model, which accurately predict IAF in children, affording a practical tool to quantify this variable without expensive techniques such as DXA. However, external cross-validation must be performed in order to confirm the model validity. Additionally, construct validity should be carried out to determine the applicability of this measurement in children. References: 1. Hill AM, La_Forgia J, Coates AM, Buckley JD, Howe PR. Estimating abdominal adipose tissue with DXA and anthropometry. Obesity. 2007 Feb;15(2):504-10. 2. Kaul S, Rothney MP, Peters DM, Wacker WK, Davis CE, Shapiro MD, et al. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry for quantification of visceral fat. Obesity. 2012 Jun; 20(6):1313-8.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (AP2010-0583), Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (DEP2011-30565) and University of Málaga. Campus of International Excellence Andalucía Tec

Efficient coal concentration using a short-chain amine-type compound as collector reagent: Flotation and optimization studies

This work presents the flotation of a sub-bituminous coal using 1-butylamine as a short-chain amine collector. The flotation results have been obtained with 1-butylamine (coal yield: 100%) and compared with those achieved with a quaternary amine (coal yield: 95.4%), kerosene (coal yield: 100%) and diesel (coal yield: 95.7%). The best results have been obtained with 1-butylamine. Less depressant effect has been observed with 1-butylamine. The FTIR signals have been attenuated when the coal is conditioned with 1-butylamine. Zeta potential measurements have also been changed after conditioning. The contact angle of water and graphite has decreased from 82.3° to 32.2°. An optimization has been performed using a Box-Behnken experimental design. Flotation has significantly affected by time and collector dosage. The pH is not a significant factor. The optimal conditions for the best efficiency using 1-butylamine as a collector are 2.0 min of flotation and 10-3 mol/L of collector

Diagnostico del Impacto del Palangre de Fondo en los Hábitats Bentónicos en los LICs de la RN20000

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New measurement of neutron capture resonances of 209Bi

The neutron capture cross section of Bi209 has been measured at the CERN n TOF facility by employing the pulse-height-weighting technique. Improvements over previous measurements are mainly because of an optimized detection system, which led to a practically negligible neutron sensitivity. Additional experimental sources of systematic error, such as the electronic threshold in the detectors, summing of gamma-rays, internal electron conversion, and the isomeric state in bismuth, have been taken into account. Gamma-ray absorption effects inside the sample have been corrected by employing a nonpolynomial weighting function. Because Bi209 is the last stable isotope in the reaction path of the stellar s-process, the Maxwellian averaged capture cross section is important for the recycling of the reaction flow by alpha-decays. In the relevant stellar range of thermal energies between kT=5 and 8 keV our new capture rate is about 16% higher than the presently accepted value used for nucleosynthesis calculations. At this low temperature an important part of the heavy Pb-Bi isotopes are supposed to be synthesized by the s-process in the He shells of low mass, thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch stars. With the improved set of cross sections we obtain an s-process fraction of 19(3)% of the solar bismuth abundance, resulting in an r-process residual of 81(3)%. The present (n,gamma) cross-section measurement is also of relevance for the design of accelerator driven systems based on a liquid metal Pb/Bi spallation target.Comment: 10 pages, 5figures, recently published in Phys. Rev.