Analysis of the problems generated by the adaptation of teaching caused by Covid-19: Proposal for a new learning framework

[EN] After the pandemic crisis caused by Covid-19, we can affirm that the future will increasingly rely on remote methodologies and will most likely continue with hybrid or blended teaching, combining online and face-to-face classes. Article 9 of Spanish Royal Decree 463/2020 ordered the suspension of presential educational activity at all levels in Spanish territory, as it was recommended that distance and online teaching be used whenever possible. Due to these quarantines, education authorities have been forced to modify teaching methods and methodologies in a short period, using existing technological and human resources. Students and teachers have found themselves in a new educational scenario very quickly and traumatically, without being prepared on most occasions. This paper presents a systematic literature review of the main national and international journals in the Web of Sciences, with the aim of finding out the main problems that the academic community has faced with the rapid adaptation of presential teaching to online or blended teaching. We can conclude that this expeditious change has caused problems that can be derived from (1) technical or infraestructure, (2) psychological and/or (3) formative and normative aspects. We are talking about a new learning framework that involves changes in the knowledge to be applied -pedagogical and technological-, in the didactics used -more collaborative and active- and in the context in which it is carried out -virtualisation of the environment and use of social networks-.Alonso-Muñoz, S.; González-Sánchez, R.; Torrejón-Ramos, M. (2022). Analysis of the problems generated by the adaptation of teaching caused by Covid-19: Proposal for a new learning framework. En Proceedings INNODOCT/21. International Conference on Innovation, Documentation and Education. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 101-110. https://doi.org/10.4995/INN2021.2021.1339110111

La metodología del aprendizaje-servicio como herramienta facilitadora de la educación para el desarrollo sostenible (EDS)

INTRODUCCIÓ. Un entorn educatiu que faciliti la participació i el pensament crític dels estudiants és essencial per a l’èxit de l’educació per al desenvolupament sostenible (EDS) d’acord amb els disset objectius de desenvolupament sostenible (ODS). Per a això calen eines que afavoreixin l’aprenentatge des d’un nou enfocament, que requereixi un component social i consideri les habilitats suaus dels estudiants.METODOLOGIA. La proposta educativa de l’aprenentatge-servei (ApS) estableix relacions fructíferes amb la societat, en les quals les dues parts se’n beneficien. En aquest treball es proposa l’aplicació de la metodologia ApS per aconseguir una implementació reeixida de l’EDS.RESULTATS. D’acord amb l’objectiu 11 (ciutats i comunitats sostenibles), aquesta proposta pretén que els alumnes contribueixin a fer que les ciutats siguin més inclusives, segures, resilients i sostenibles. Per això, s’ha dut a terme una activitat d’ApS a la Universitat Rey Juan Carlos on van participar 140 alumnes de l’assignatura Transports Turístics.DISCUSSIÓ. Aquest treball demostra la utilitat de la metodologia ApS en la transmissió dels valors associats a la sostenibilitat mediambiental, social i econòmica. A través de la conferència, l’alumnat presta un servei de trasllat de valors a la societat alhora que perfecciona les habilitats de comunicació i treball en equip.INTRODUCTION. An educational environment that facilitates student engagement and critical thinking is essential for the success of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) according to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This requires that the tools favour learning from a new approach, which involves a social component and takes into account the students’ soft skills.METHODOLOGY. The Service-Learning (S-L) for educational proposal establishes fruitful relationships with society, in which both parties benefit. This paper proposes the application of the S-L methodology to achieve a successful implementation of ESD.RESULTS. In line with Goal 11 (SDGs) ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’, this proposal aims for students to contribute to making cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. To this end, a S-L activity was carried out at the Rey Juan Carlos University with the participation of 140 students of the subject “Tourist Transport”.DISCUSSION. This work demonstrates the usefulness of the Service-Learning methodology in the transmission of values associated with environmental, social and economic sustainability. In the activity, the students provide a service of transferring values to society while improving their communication and teamwork skills.INTRODUCCIÓN. De acuerdo con los 17 Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), un entorno educativo que posibilite el pensamiento crítico y la participación de los estudiantes resulta fundamental para el éxito de la Educación para el Desarrollo Sostenible (EDS).METODOLOGÍA. El trabajo propone la aplicación de la metodología ApS para lograr una implementación exitosa de la EDS. Así, tanto los alumnos, trabajando en equipo, aplicando sus capacidades y conocimientos adquiridos, como la sociedad, a la cual se le presta un servicio a través de esta metodología, resultan beneficiados.RESULTADOS. Este estudio muestra un proyecto en el que se relaciona el Objetivo 11 de los ODS ‘Ciudades y Comunidades Sostenibles’ con un enfoque ApS en la asignatura ‘Transportes Turísticos’ de los Grados en Turismo de la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid. Por medio de este proyecto se implementa la EDS y los estudiantes tienen la oportunidad de contribuir a que las ciudades sean más seguras, inclusivas, sostenibles y resilientes.DISCUSIÓN. El trabajo proporciona evidencia práctica sobre la aplicación de los ODS en el ámbito universitario y la utilidad de la metodología ApS para transmitir valores vinculados con la sostenibilidad medioambiental, social y económica

Persistent-homology-based gait recognition

Gait recognition is an important biometric technique for video surveillance tasks, due to the advantage of using it at distance. In this paper, we present a persistent homology-based method to extract topological features (the so-called topological gait signature) from the the body silhouettes of a gait sequence. It has been used before in sev- eral conference papers of the same authors for human identi cation, gender classi cation, carried object detection and monitoring human activities at distance. The novelty of this paper is the study of the sta- bility of the topological gait signature under small perturbations and the number of gait cycles contained in a gait sequence. In other words, we show that the topological gait signature is robust to the presence of noise in the body silhouettes and to the number of gait cycles con- tained in a given gait sequence. We also show that computing our topological gait signature of only the lowest fourth part of the body silhouette, we avoid the upper body movements that are unrelated to the natural dynamic of the gait, caused for example by carrying a bag or wearing a coat.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MTM2015-67072-

Chemical composition of the edible flowers, pansy (Viola wittrockiana) and snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus) as new sources of bioactive compounds

©2018. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This document is the, Published, version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Food Chemistry. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2018.01.10

Persistent homology-based gait recognition robust to upper body variations

Gait recognition is nowadays an important biometric technique for video surveillance tasks, due to the advantage of using it at distance. However, when the upper body movements are unrelated to the natural dynamic of the gait, caused for example by carrying a bag or wearing a coat, the reported results show low accuracy. With the goal of solving this problem, we apply persistent homology to extract topological features from the lowest fourth part of the body silhouettes. To obtain the features, we modify our previous algorithm for gait recognition, to improve its efficacy and robustness to variations in the amount of simplices of the gait complex. We evaluate our approach using the CASIA-B dataset, obtaining a considerable accuracy improvement of 93:8%, achieving at the same time invariance to upper body movements unrelated with the dynamic of the gait.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MTM2015-67072-

An application for gait recognition using persistent homology

This Demo presents an application for gait recognition using persistent homology. Using a background subtraction approach, a silhouette sequence is obtained from a camera in a controlled environment. A border simplicial complex is built stacking silhouettes aligned by their gravity center. A multifiltration is applied on the border simplicial complex which captures relations among the parts of the human body when walking. Finally, the topological gait signature is extracted from the persistence barcode according to each filtration. The measure cosine is used to give a similarity value between topological signatures. The input of this Demo are videos with resolution 320x240 to 25f ps. The videos in CASIA-B database are used to prove the efficacy and efficiency. A computer with 2Gb of RAM memory and a DualCore processor was used to test the implementation of the proposed algorithm. In this Demo all related tasks have been programmed by the authors in the C++ programming language. OpenCV library has been used for the image processing part

Decision system based on neural networks to optimize the energy efficiency of a petrochemical plant

The energy efficiency of industrial plants is an important issue in any type of business but particularly in the chemical industry. Not only is it important in order to reduce costs, but also it is necessary even more as a means of reducing the amount of fuel that gets wasted, thereby improving productivity, ensuring better product quality, and generally increasing profits. This article describes a decision system developed for optimizing the energy efficiency of a petrochemical plant. The system has been developed after a data mining process of the parameters registered in the past. The designed system carries out an optimization process of the energy efficiency of the plant based on a combined algorithm that uses the following for obtaining a solution: On the one hand, the energy efficiency of the operation points occurred in the past and, on the other hand, a module of two neural networks to obtain new interpolated operation points. Besides, the work includes a previous discriminant analysis of the variables of the plant in order to select the parameters most important in the plant and to study the behavior of the energy efficiency index. This study also helped ensure an optimal training of the neural networks. The robustness of the system as well as its satisfactory results in the testing process (an average rise in the energy efficiency of around 7%, reaching, in some cases, up to 45%) have encouraged a consulting company (ALIATIS) to implement and to integrate the decision system as a pilot software in an SCADA

Cardiovascular disease versus periodontal disease: chronic systemic infection as a link

Objective : Analysis of the alleged connection between the periodontal and cardiovascular disease, with reference to periodontal pathogens as a risk factor for heart disease. Researching method : A research was carried out at Medline/Pubmed. Included criteria and researching strategy. The articles selection has been made taking into account key-terms appearing either in the title or in the summary. Experimental studies in animals, clinical prospective studies performed with a minimum sample size (>30) and studies written in English have been included. The rejected criteria were the following: clinical retrospective studies and/or studies carried out with a low sample size (n<30). Results : Within systemic diseases related to periodontal ones, the alleged link between periodontal and heart and circulatory disease has been one of the most investigated in recent times. Different authors consider the existence of a link between the diseases as such, inappropriate and implausible since both the diseases have risk factors in common (age, gender, smoking, diet, oral hygiene and diabetes). However, speculations about the origin of the diseases were raised when it was demonstrated that some bacteria species, bacteria proteins and lipopolysaccharide are present at the plaques of atherosclerosis that obstruct the coronary arteries. The mechanisms of this connection have been analyzed following an actualized review. Conclusion : Most of the experimental and clinical studies ensure that a positive association between periodontal disease and heart disease has been found, once the con-founder factors have been eliminate

Trends in Mentoring at Higher Education: A bibliometric analysis

[EN] Learning is a complex process that requires elements that favour its development.  In higher education this process can be complicated not only by the stage of education, also by the associated organisation and formalities. Universities, concerned to facilitate the inclusive participation of their members, have developed support systems. Mentoring is a reciprocal learning relationship development between the mentor whose expertise in a particular field allows him/her to guide and assist the mentee in his/her academic, professional and personal growth (Etzkorn and Braddock, 2020). In this framework, mentoring programmes have become particularly relevant as a tool to help facilitate the integration of both students and teachers. The importance of mentoring in higher education has attracted a significant amount of research. An analysis of the state of the art would therefore provide an insight into the most researched concepts associated with mentoring. This paper presents a hybrid methodology, using  a bibliometric approach and in-depth literature review of the most influential articles during the last period.  A co-occurrence analysis is carried out by VOSviewer software whose search formula was "mentoring" and (university or "higher education"), retrieving a sample of 232 articles from Web of Science. The thematic organization shows three main topics. Firstly, the benefits of mentoring on students' transitions in university by enhancing their experiences are analysed. Secondly, universities develop programmes related to psychological aspects such as increasing satisfaction or decreasing stress and programmes related to procedures that enable self-efficacy, protection, support and retention. Thirdly, programmes related to job training related to soft skills such as leadership are analysed. The research trends during 2020 and 2021 focus on new mentoring models oriented towards mentoring training and support actions (Etzkorn and Braddock, 2020), female mentoring (Hsieh and Nguyen, 2020) and disability support (Rillotta et al., 2020; Thompson et al., 2020).Alonso-Muñoz, S.; Torrejón-Ramos, M.; Medina-Salgado, M.; González Sánchez, R. (2023). Trends in Mentoring at Higher Education: A bibliometric analysis. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.4995/INN2022.2022.157041

Closure of oroantral communications with Bichat's buccal fat pad. Level of patient satisfaction

Purpose: To report the closure of oroantral communications with the pedicled buccal fat pad in a series of patients, and to determine the level of patient satisfaction after the surgery. Study Design: A prospective study of patients diagnosed of unilateral or bilateral oroantral communication (OAC) closed using the buccal fat pad between May 2012 and January 2013 was performed. Data analysis extended to: age, sex, and cause, location and size of oroantral communication. Complications and success related to buccal fat pad surgery were evaluated. Also, patient satisfaction was assessed after six months of surgery. Results: Nine patients (3 men and 6 women) with a mean age of 50.5 years and 11 OAC treated with buccal fat pads were included. The most common cause of oroantral communication was the extraction of molars. The average widest diameter of the oroantral communication was 7.1 mm. One week after the surgeries no complications were found. One month after surgery, one patient presented persistence of the oroantral communication; in this patient, the buccal fat pad technique was considered a failure, and a second intervention was performed using a buccal mucoperiosteal flap to achieve primary closure of soft tissues. After six months, patient showed closure of the communication and complete healing. All the other communications had been solved with Bichat ´s ball technique, yielding a success rate of 90.9%. Mean patient overall satisfaction was 9.1 out of 10; patients were satisfied with phonetics (9.4), aesthetics (9) and chewing (9). Conclusions: The buccal fat pad technique was successful in closing 10 out of 11 oroantral communications and few complications were found. Patients were highly satisfied in overall with the treatment and with phonetics, aesthetics and chewing