Ten Years of CDIO Experiences Linked to Toy Design

Toys are deeply rooted to the natural learning process of children, as they investigate for themselves learning cause effect relationships and the relevance of boundary conditions, and to the development of their personality and social skills, as they observe and interact with other children and adults when playing. Learning through play, promoted by pioneers as Montessori, Piaget and Steiner, is among the most powerful teaching-learning strategies and currently forms part of high-quality curricula worldwide, mainly from early childhood to high school. Our experience shows that it can be also successfully applied to higher Education and that living through the complete engineering design process of real toys, following the CDIO scheme, is an excellent strategy for making engineering students face real industrial challenges while they design, dream, play and learn. A decade ago we started to set the foundations towards the European Area of Higher Education, which should promote active learning in contexts more linked to professional practice. To this end, several courses in our Industrial Engineering Degree began to incorporate project-based learning activities, although initially with a more limited scope than that of the integral CDIO approach, as fundamental part of the teaching-learning process. In our course on “Design and manufacturing with polymers” we opted for including capstone collaborative projects linked to designing real plastic products and the related massproduction tools. We decide to propose students to design toys and the related injection molds, which constitute great examples of complex engineering systems, using state-of-theart industrial methodologies and resources. The topic of “toy design” has proven to be motivating for students and teachers and has helped us to re-invent the course in every edition. Our course has served as application example of the benefits of student-centered teaching-learning strategies at ETSII-UPM along the implementation of the “Bologna process”, which has culminated with the beginning of the Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering, a programme that devotes more than a 20% of activities to project-based learning following the CDIO standards, in which the detailed course continues as part of the Mechanical Engineering major. Here we present a summary of the course evolution during the last decade and analyze its main teaching-learning results. To our knowledge, this “complete toy design experience” constitutes one of the first integral applications of the CDIO methodology to the field of Industrial Engineering in our country and stands out for ten years of continuous improvements. Around 500 students have taken part in these projects from our “Design and manufacturing with polymers” course at ETSII-UPM and more than 200 real toys, together with the related injection molding mass-production tools, have been designed during the last ten years. The most outstanding designs have been manufactured and tested every year for letting students live the whole CDIO cycl

12R-Lipoxygenase deficient mouse skin models for autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis

12R-lipoxygenase (12R-LOX) and epidermal LOX-3 (eLOX-3) are part of a recently identified eicosanoid pathway critically involved in skin terminal differentiation. Inactivating mutations in the genes of 12R-LOX and eLOX-3 are causally linked to the development of autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis (ARCI). ARCI is an inherited skin disease associated with hyperkeratosis and impaired barrier function. To analyse the impact of 12R-LOX in epidermal barrier function and to investigate its physiological role a Cre-LoxP based mouse model for the targeted inactivation of 12R-LOX was generated in a previous study. Constitutive ablation of 12R-LOX leads to early neonatal death due to a severely impaired permeability barrier function. Disruption of barrier function is associated with ultrastructural anomalies in the upper granular layers, disordered composition of ester-bound ceramide species and impairment of profilaggrin processing but does not result in the development of a typical ichthyosiform phenotype in the neonatal skin. The main focus of this thesis was to characterize the adult phenotype of 12RLOX deficient skin by establishing skin grafts and conditional knockout models. When transplanted onto the back of nude mice 12R-LOX-/- mouse skin developed a severe adult phenotype that closely resembles that seen in ichthyosis patients, with thickening of the epidermis, hyperproliferation, hypergranulosis, focal parakeratosis and marked hyperkeratosis. In contrast to the neonatal knockout phenotype, 12R-LOX deficiency did not affect profilaggrin processing in the adult transplanted skin but rather resulted in the over-expression of fully processed filaggrin monomers and other components of the cornified cell envelope such as involucrin and repetin. In order to study the adult phenotype in more detail we established a temporally-controlled site-specific 12R-LOX knockout model by using a transgenic mouse line expressing a tamoxifen-dependent Cre recombinase under the control of the Keratin 14 promoter. In these Alox12bfl/fl/K14-Cre-ERT2 (mutant) mice, Cre-mediated Alox12b inactivation was detected upon tamoxifen treatment but also spontaneously as early as day 17 after birth in K14-expressing tissues such as epidermis, tongue, cornea and thymus. 12R-LOX ablation resulted in the development of a severe phenotype associated with growth retardation, dramatic loss of body weight and premature death. Morphological changes observed in mutant mice included focal alopecia, scaling of the skin and palmoplantar keratoderma. Histological analyses of skin biopsies confirmed the development of an ichthyosiform phenotype mimicking that observed in ichthyosis patients. Comparative gene expression profiling to identify disease-related downstream targets of the 12R-LOX/eLOX-3 pathway showed that 12R-LOX ablation is associated with deregulation of members of the activating protein-1, small proline rich protein and keratin gene families, known to be important for the epidermal differentiation. This data documents a crucial role of 12R-LOX in the establishment and maintenance of the epidermal barrier function. Moreover, 12R-LOX knockout mice may be a suitable model to investigate molecular mechanisms of the LOX pathway related to diseased phenotype as well as for the development of novel strategies towards a therapy for ARCI forms associated with impaired LOX metabolism

Promotion of professional skills in engineering education: strategies and challenges

Basic engineering skills are not the only key to professional development, particularly as engineering problems are everyday more and more complex and multifaceted, hence requiring the implementation of larger multidisciplinary teams, in many cases working in an international context and in a continuously evolving environment. Therefore other outcomes, sometimes referred to as professional skills, are also necessary for our students, as most universities are already aware. In this study we try to methodically analyze the main strategies for the promotion of professional skills, mainly linked to actuations which directly affect students or teachers (and teaching methodologies) and which take advantage of the environment and available resources. From an initial list of 51 strategies (in essence aimed at promotion of different drivers of change, linked to students, teachers, environment and resources), we focus on the 11 drivers of change considered more important after an initial evaluation. Subsequently, a systematic analysis of the typical problems linked to these main drivers of change, enables us to find and formulate 12 major and usually repeated and unsolved problems. After selecting these typical problems, we put forward 25 different solutions, for short-term actuation, and discuss their effects, while bearing in mind our team’s experience, together with the information from the studies carried out by numerous teaching staff from other universities

El Desarrollo Sostenible en los municipios españoles: elaboración de un Indice Sintético (ISSDS)

En el presente trabajo de fin de grado se presenta un nuevo indicador sintético que tiene como objetivo continuar con las investigaciones de la Red Española para el Desarrollo Sostenible que trata de evaluar los avances de la Agenda 2030 de Desarrollo Sostenible. Se trata de analizar la situación de Desarrollo Sostenible en la que se encuentran las distintas regiones españolas en los últimos años. Para ello, a partir de un conjunto de indicadores que recogen información sobre el avance de los diecisiete objetivos de desarrollo sostenible, se ha generado un indicador sintético de situación para cada uno de los municipios de la muestra. Asimismo, se pretende identificar los municipios que han mostrado una dinámica más positiva en la aplicación de la Agenda 2030, a fin de determinar la existencia de una relación entre las áreas de mayor evolución de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible y la situación económica de la región

Advantages and Disadvantages in Image Processing with Free Software in Radiology

[EN]Currently, there are sophisticated applications that make it possible to visualize medical images and even to manipulate them. These software applications are of great interest, both from a teaching and a radiological perspective. In addition, some of these applications are known as Free Open Source Software because they are free and the source code is freely available, and therefore it can be easily obtained even on personal computers. Two examples of free open source software are Osirix Lite® and 3D Slicer®. However, this last group of free applications have limitations in its use. For the radiological field,manipulating and postprocessing images is increasingly important. Consequently, sophisticated computing tools that combine software and hardware to process medical images are needed. In radiology, graphic workstations allow their users to process, review, analyse, communicate and exchange multidimensional digital images acquired with different image-capturing radiological devices. These radiological devices are basically CT (Computerised Tomography), MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), PET (Positron Emission Tomography), etc. Nevertheless, the programs included in these workstations have a high cost which always depends on the software provider and is always subject to its norms and requirements. With this study, we aim to present the advantages and disadvantages of these radiological image visualization systems in the advanced management of radiological studies. We will compare the features of the VITREA2® and AW VolumeShare 5® radiology workstation with free open source software applications like OsiriX® and 3D Slicer®, with examples from specific studies

Advanced neuroimage processing for the study of the neurovascular system

[EN]Background. Medical images have passed from static and printed images with no possibility of modifying many technical parameters to volumetric data that allow its manipulation and advanced processing for surgical or pedagogical purposes. Aim. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the major role and potential of OsiriXTM, a new open-source computerized tool for the advanced processing of medical images, in the study of neurovascular anatomy. Methodology. DICOM images were acquired with radio diagnostic equipment using 1.5 Tesla Magnetic Resonance (MR) images from a 34-year-old and right handed female. Images were further processed using OsiriXTM version 4.0 32 bits for OS, one of the most versatile technologies within the field of medical imaging. Results. Key features required for processing neurovascular images such as segmentation and three-dimensional reconstruction of vascular elements (cerebral arteries and Willis polygon) are visually illustrated and described. Conclusion. The application of this technology in medical imaging has enhanced the accessibility and availability of neuroimaging, reducing the need for sophisticated and expensive workstations for image processing. Advanced image processing allows overcoming limitations inherent to classical techniques based on two-dimensional sections. Three-dimensional reconstructions of vascular elements are already used in daily clinical practice, including diagnostic protocols. Also, interactivity and virtual visualization makes it simple, cost-effective and easy to understand complex vascular elements. Discussion. Implications for teaching and learning neurovascular concepts and diagnostic value are discussed