Problematic social situations for peer-rejected students in the first year of elementary school

This study examined the social situations that are problematic for peer-rejected students in the first year of elementary school. For this purpose, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on the Taxonomy of Problematic Social Situations for Children (TOPS, Dodge et al., 1985) in 169 rejected pupils, identified from a sample of 1457 first-grade students (ages 5–7) enrolled in 62 classrooms of elementary school. For each rejected student, another student of average sociometric status of the same gender was selected at random from the same classroom (naverage = 169). The model for the rejected students showed a good fit, and was also invariant in the group of average students. Four types of situations were identified in which rejected students have significantly more difficulties than average students. They are, in descending order: (a) respect for authority and rules, (b) being disadvantaged, (c) prosocial and empathic behavior, and (d) response to own success. Rejected boys have more problems in situations of prosociability and empathy than girls. The implications concerning the design of specific programs to prevent and reduce early childhood rejection in the classroom are discussed.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad EDU2012-35930Universitat Jaume I P1-1A2012-0

Proyecto Coaster: un programa para generar prácticas interactivas basado en simulaciones matemáticas y aplicaciones multimedia

COASTER es un proyecto de la Unión Europea desarrollado por 6 universidades y 4 centros asociados de diferentes paises cuyo objetivo es realizar, demostrar y evaluar pedagógicamente la eficacia de un programa informático para generar simulaciones interactivas de prácticas de elevada calidad científica, pedagógica y técnica, basadas en experimentos reales de diferentes áreas de conocimiento como una alternativa al alto coste y a las limitaciones de los laboratorios experimentales para atender a una docencia práctica de calidad. COASTER es capaz de simular procesos biológicos y físicos e introduce aplicaciones multimedia para mejorar la comprensión de los contenidos por los estudiantes. Además, COASTER permite que un docente o un estudiante con conocimientos informáticos estándares pueda realizar experimentos basados en modelos matemáticos creados por los modelizadores, diseñados para recrear cualquier proceso biológico o físico siempre que se disponga de una descripción matemática del mismo

Tuning properties of biomimetic magnetic nanoparticles by combining magnetosome associated proteins

The role of magnetosome associated proteins on the in vitro synthesis of magnetite nanoparticles has gained interest, both to obtain a better understanding of the magnetosome biomineralization process and to be able to produce novel magnetosome-like biomimetic nanoparticles. Up to now, only one recombinant protein has been used at the time to in vitro form biomimetic magnetite precipitates, being that a scenario far enough from what probably occurs in the magnetosome. In the present study, both Mms6 and MamC from Magnetococcus marinus MC-1 have been used to in vitro form biomimetic magnetites. Our results show that MamC and Mms6 have different, but complementary, effects on in vitro magnetite nucleation and growth. MamC seems to control the kinetics of magnetite nucleation while Mms6 seems to preferably control the kinetics for crystal growth. Our results from the present study also indicate that it is possible to combine both proteins to tune the properties of the resulting biomimetic magnetites. In particular, by changing the relative ratio of these proteins, better faceted and/or larger magnetite crystals with, consequently, different magnetic moment per particle could be obtained. This study provides with tools to obtain new biomimetic nanoparticles with a potential utility for biotechnological applicationsWe acknowledge projects CGL2013-46612 and CGL2016-76723 from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad from SPAIN and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) for financial support and Unidad Científica de Excelencia UCE-PP2016-05 of the University of Granada. Thanks go to CIC personnel of the University of Granada for technical assistance in the CD, TEM, SQUID and Unidad de Radioquímica e Inmunoanalisis (LAR), to the Proteomics Unit personnel of the Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine “López- Neyra” (IPBLN) for technical assistance in the PMF and PFF by MALDI-TOF/TOF, and to the University of Málaga for technical assintance in HRTEM measurements

Effects of cannabis on visual function and self-perceived visual quality

Cannabis is one of the most used drugs of abuse in the world. The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of smoking cannabis on vision and to relate these to those perceived by the user. Thirty-one cannabis users participated in this study. Visual function assessment was carried out in a baseline session as well as after smoking cannabis. We evaluated static visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, stereoacuity, accommodative response, straylight, night-vision disturbances (halos) and pupil size. The participants were also divided into two groups depending on whether they perceived their vision to have worsened after smoking cannabis. A logistic regression analysis was employed to identify which visual test could best predict self-perceived visual effects. The study found that smoking cannabis has significant adverse effects on all the visual parameters analyzed (p < 0.05). Self-perceived visual quality results revealed that about two thirds of the sample think that smoking cannabis impairs their vision. Contrast sensitivity, specifically for the spatial frequency 18 cpd, was identified as the only visual parameter significantly associated with self-perceived visual quality (Odds Ratio: 1.135; p = 0.040). Smoking cannabis is associated with negative effects on visual function. Self-perceived visual quality after smoking cannabis could be related to impaired contrast sensitivity

Peer rejection and social behaviour in the classroom perceived by their teachers

Comunicación presentada en el Simposio “El rechazo entre iguales: Contextos y situaciones sociales”, coordinado por F. J. García Bacete, duranrre el VI Congreso Internacional de Psicología y Educación (CIPE VI), celebrado en Valladolid (España) del 29 de marzo al 1 de abril 2011.Las relaciones sociales tienen un alto impacto en el desarrollo personal, en especial en los momentos iniciales, y en donde el entorno escolar es uno de los más importantes para los niños y niñas. El tipo y calidad de esas relaciones tiene implicaciones que sobrepasan el ámbito escolar, tanto presente como futuro. Lo habitual es que se establezcan relaciones aceptables, en diferente intensidad, con la mayoría a la vez que se producen relaciones más intensas y recíprocas con otros. Son los que Coie, Dodge y Coppotelli denominan como tipo sociométrico “medio”, y que se estima que son el 60/65% de los integrantes del grupo. Sin embargo, hay otros que no son aceptados por gran parte de sus compañeros, sino directamente “rechazados” (10/12% aproximadamente). El perfil del alumnado en situación de rechazo es mayoritariamente varón (relación de 3/1 respecto a las mujeres), caracterizado por la inmadurez, ansiedad e incluso agresividad o aislamiento, dificultades de gestión emocional y en interpretación de las señales sociales, con escasas conductas de ayuda hacia los demás. Es un alumnado que suele tener dificultades para desenvolverse socialmente. Sin embargo no lo hace de la misma manera ya que en el ámbito escolar se producen multitud de situaciones diferentes. Es por ello que nuestro objetivo se centra en conocer aquellas situaciones sociales en las que el alumnado en situación de rechazo presenta más dificultades con la finalidad posterior de diseñar y proporcionar intervenciones más específicas. La muestra está formada por 217 niños y niñas (116 medios y 101 rechazados) de 35 aulas de primero de Educación Primaria de 15 centros educativos de cuatro comunidades autónomas. Como instrumento de recogida de datos se ha utilizado el Taxonomy of Problem Situations (TOPS, de Dodge et al, 1985). Es un cuestionario formado por 44 ítems tipo Likert que mide, mediante la cumplimentación por parte del profesorado, el grado de dificultad que presenta cada alumno en seis situaciones sociales: (a) entrada en el grupo de iguales; (b) respuesta a la provocación; (c) respuesta al fracaso; (d) respuesta al éxito; (e) expectativas sociales de los iguales; y (f) expectativas del profesor. Como resultados más significativos nos encontramos con diferencias estadísticamente significativas en todas las dimensiones antes mencionadas, con mayores dificultades por parte del alumnado rechazado que de los medios. Sin embargo, no se encuentran evidencias de que el género sea una variable moduladora.Social relations have a high impact on personal development, especially in the initial moments, where the school environment is one of the most important for children. The type and quality of these relationships has implications that go beyond the school environment, both present and future. Usually, the relationships established will be, in different intensity, acceptable to most while more intense and reciprocal relationships with other are produced. Are those that Coie, Dodge and Coppotelli called as sociometric “medium” type and it’s estimated to be 60/65% of the group members. However, there are others who aren’t accepted by most of their peers, but directly “rejected”. The profile of students in a position of rejection is mostly male (ratio of 3 / 1 for women), characterized by immature, anxiety and even aggressiveness or isolation, emotional management difficulties, interpretation of social cues and poor behavior of helping others. They are students that often have difficulties to function socially. However they don’t handle it in the same way because many different situations are produced in the school. That’s why our aim is focused on knowing those social situations in which students in position of rejection have more difficulties in order to design and provide more specific interventions. The sample consisted 217 children (116 medium and 101 rejected) attending first-grade of primary school from 35 different classes of 15 centers in four autonomous regions. Taxonomy of Problem Situations (TOPS, de Dodge et al, 1985) was used as data collection instrument. It’s a questionnaire, filled out by teachers, consisting of 44 Likert-type items measuring the degree of difficulty of each student in six social situations: (a) peer gropu entry; (b) response to peer provocation; (c) response to failure; (d) response to success; (e) social expectations; (f) teacher expectations. As the most significant results we have found statistically significant differences in all dimensions above, with rejected students showing greater difficulties than medium. However, It hasn't been found evidences that gender may be a moderator variable

Rabbit seminal plasma proteome: The importance of the genetic origin

[EN] The present study was conducted to characterise rabbit seminal plasma proteins (SP proteins) focusing on the influence of the genetic origin and seasonality. In addition, ß-NGF protein quantity in SP was determined. Semen samples were recovered from January to December 2014 using 6 males belonging to genotype A and six from genotype R. For each genotype, one pooled sample at the beginning, middle and end of each season was selected to develop the experiment. A total of 24 pools (3 for each season and genetic line) were analysed. SP proteins of the two experimental groups were recovered and subjected to in-solution digestion nano LC¿MS/MS and bioinformatics analysis. The resulting library included 402 identified proteins validated with ¿95% Confidence (unused Score¿1.3). These data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD006308. Only 6 proteins were specifically implicated in reproductive processes according to Gene Ontology annotation. Twenty-three proteins were differentially expressed between genotypes, 11 over-expressed in genotype A and 12 in genotype R. Regarding the effect of season on rabbit SP proteome, results showed that there is no clear pattern of protein variation throughout the year. Similar ß-NGF relative quantity was observed between seasons and genotypes. In conclusion, this study generates the largest library of SP proteins reported to date in rabbits and provides evidence that genotype is related to a specific abundance of SP proteins.This research was supported in part by the RTA2013-00058-00-00 from INIA, the European Social Fund and the European FEDER Funds. L. Casares-Crespo is supported by a scholarship from Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA) and the European Social Fund. P. Fernandez-Serrano is supported by Spanish funds from IVIA and Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad Social (Youth Guarantee Program). The authors are grateful to M. Luz Valero for her excellent technical assistance.Casares-Crespo, L.; Fernández-Serrano, P.; Vicente Antón, JS.; Marco-Jiménez, F.; Viudes De Castro, MP. (2018). Rabbit seminal plasma proteome: The importance of the genetic origin. Animal Reproduction Science. 189:30-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anireprosci.2017.12.004S304218

Peer reputation of rejected boys and rejected girls

Comunicación presentada en el Simposio “El rechazo entre iguales: Contextos y situaciones sociales”, coordinado por F. J. García Bacete, duranrre el VI Congreso Internacional de Psicología y Educación (CIPE VI), celebrado en Valladolid (España) del 29 de marzo al 1 de abril 2011.VI Congreso Internacional de Psicología y EducaciónEl presente estudio trata de describir la reputación conductual asociada al rechazo entre iguales, y analizar las diferencias reputacionales entre niños rechazados y niñas rechazadas. Para ello se estudió a una muestra de 809 niños y niñas escolarizados en 35 aulas de 1º de Primaria, ubicadas en 15 colegios públicos de las provincias de Castellón, Sevilla, Valladolid y Palma de Mallorca. Se identificó al 13,7% de la muestra como rechazados-as (71 niños y 40 niñas). Los instrumentos utilizados fueron un Cuestionario de Nominaciones Sociométricas desarrollado por el propio grupo de investigación (GREI, 2010), y una versión adaptada del Extended Class Play de Wojslawowicz, Rubin, Burguess, Booth-LaForce & Rose-Krasnor (2006), que identifica seis factores reputacionales: Sociabilidad, Agresividad Directa, Agresividad Relacional, Hiperactividad/Disrupción, Timidez/Retraimiento y Exclusión/Victimización. Los resultados mostraron diferencias reputacionales entre niños y niñas rechazados en los factores de Agresión Directa, Agresión Relacional, Hiperactividad y Exclusión, diferencias que reproducen las que se encuentran en el grupo de niños y niñas promedios. El análisis de estos cuatro grupos de comparación mostró complejas relaciones entre el sexo, el estatus y las dimensiones reputacionales.This study aims to describe the peer reputation associated with peer rejection, and analyze the reputational differences between rejected boys and rejected girls. The sample consists on 809 school children in 35 classrooms of 1 Elementary, located in 15 public schools in the provinces of Castellon, Sevilla, Valladolid and Palma de Mallorca. It was identified 13,7% of the sample as rejected (71 boys and 40 girls). The instruments used were a questionnaire of Sociometric Nominations developed by the research group, and an adapted version of the Extended Class Play by Wojslawowicz et al. (2006), which identifies six reputational factors: Competition Social Aggression Direct, Relational Agression, Hyperactivity / disruption, Shyness / Withdrawal and Exclusiom / Victimization. The results showed differences between boys and girls reputational rejected factors direct aggression, relational aggression, hyperactivity and Exclusion, which reproduce the differences found in the group of average children. The analysis of these four comparison groups showed complex relationships between gender, status and reputational dimension

Predicting short-term survival after gross total or near total resection in glioblastomas by machine learning-based radiomic analysis of preoperative MRI

Producción CientíficaRadiomics, in combination with artificial intelligence, has emerged as a powerful tool for the development of predictive models in neuro-oncology. Our study aims to find an answer to a clinically relevant question: is there a radiomic profile that can identify glioblastoma (GBM) patients with short-term survival after complete tumor resection? A retrospective study of GBM patients who underwent surgery was conducted in two institutions between January 2019 and January 2020, along with cases from public databases. Cases with gross total or near total tumor resection were included. Preoperative structural multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) sequences were pre-processed, and a total of 15,720 radiomic features were extracted. After feature reduction, machine learning-based classifiers were used to predict early mortality (<6 months). Additionally, a survival analysis was performed using the random survival forest (RSF) algorithm. A total of 203 patients were enrolled in this study. In the classification task, the naive Bayes classifier obtained the best results in the test data set, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.769 and classification accuracy of 80%. The RSF model allowed the stratification of patients into low- and high-risk groups. In the test data set, this model obtained values of C-Index = 0.61, IBS = 0.123 and integrated AUC at six months of 0.761. In this study, we developed a reliable predictive model of short-term survival in GBM by applying open-source and user-friendly computational means. These new tools will assist clinicians in adapting our therapeutic approach considering individual patient characteristics

Impact of Age-Related Vision Changes on Driving

Aging leads to impaired visual function, which can affect driving—a very visually demanding task—and has a direct impact on an individual’s quality of life if their license is withdrawn. This study examined the associations between age-related vision changes and simulated driving performance. To this end, we attempted to determine the most significant visual parameters in terms of evaluating elderly drivers’ eyesight. Twenty-one younger drivers (aged 25–40) were compared to 21 older drivers (aged 56–71). Study participants were assessed for visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, halos, and intraocular straylight, which causes veiling luminance on the retina and degrades vision. Driving performance was evaluated using a driving simulator. The relationships between simulated driving performance and the visual parameters tested were examined with correlation analyses and linear regression models. Older drivers presented impairment in most visual parameters (p < 0.05), with straylight being the most significantly affected (we also measured the associated effect size). Older drivers performed significantly worse (p < 0.05) in the simulator test, with a markedly lower performance in lane stability. The results of the multiple linear regression model evidenced that intraocular straylight is the best visual parameter for predicting simulated driving performance (R2 = 0.513). Older drivers have shown significantly poorer results in several aspects of visual function, as well as difficulties in driving simulator performance. Our results suggest that the non-standardized straylight evaluation could be significant in driver assessments, especially at the onset of age-related vision changes.ministry of economy and competitiveness (spain)European Union (EU) FIS2017-85058-Rministry of science, innovation and universities (spain) FPU15/0557

Correlation of hepatitis E and rat hepatitis E viruses urban wastewater monitoring and clinical cases

Background Wastewater pathogen monitoring is useful for surveillance of enteric pathogens. Information about the presence of Paslahepevirus balayani (HEV) and emergent Rocahepevirus ratti (RHEV) in untreated water and their correlation with clinical cases is scarce. Aim To longitudinally monitor HEV and RHEV in wastewater and to evaluate their possible correlation with human cases. Methods This study was carried out in the city of Cordoba (southern Spain) from March 2021 to March 2023. HEV and RHEV occurrence were evaluated by PCR in three sample types: i) sera from patients with acute hepatitis attended at the reference hospital, ii) liver and faeces from urban rodents, and iii) grab sewage samples collected weekly from the municipal wastewater treatment plant. Results We analysed 106 untreated wastewater samples, 304 individuals with acute hepatitis, and 20 rodents. HEV and RHEV were detected in only one (0.9 %) and almost all samples (94.3 %) of wastewater samples, respectively. A total of 22 cases of acute HEV infection (7.2 %) and two cases of RHEV (0.7 %) were detected from all acute hepatitis cases observed. Only RHEV was found in rodents, with a positive frequency of 55 %. The presence of HEV in wastewater coincided with the detection of one case in which the same HEV genotype was isolated. A concentration of HEV clinical cases between June and July of 2022 was observed but not detected in water. Both RHEV clinical cases were detected in summer 2022, but no correlation was found with wastewater detection. Conclusions Our study shows that there is no correlation between clinical cases and wastewater detection of HEV or RHEV