Extending a dashboard meta-model to account for users’ characteristics and goals for enhancing personalization

[EN]Information dashboards are useful tools for exploiting datasets and support decision-making processes. However, these tools are not trivial to design and build. Information dashboards not only involve a set of visualizations and handlers to manage the presented data, but also a set of users that will potentially benefit from the knowledge generated by interacting with the data. It is important to know and understand the requirements of the final users of a dashboard because they will influence the design processes. But several user profiles can be involved, making these processes even more complicated. This paper identifies and discusses why it is essential to include the final users when modeling a dashboard. Through meta-modeling, different characteristics of potential users are structured, thus obtaining a meta-model that dissects not only technical and functional features of a dashboard (from an abstract point of view) but also the different aspects of the final users that will make use of it. By identifying these user characteristics and by arranging them into a meta-model, software engineering paradigms such as model-driven development or software product lines can employ it as an input for generating concrete dashboard products. This approach could be useful for generating Learning Analytics dashboards that take into account the users' motivations, beliefs, and knowledge

Representing Data Visualization Goals and Tasks through Meta-Modeling to Tailor Information Dashboards

[EN]Information dashboards are everywhere. They support knowledge discovery in a huge variety of contexts and domains. Although powerful, these tools can be complex, not only for the end-users but also for developers and designers. Information dashboards encode complex datasets into different visual marks to ease knowledge discovery. Choosing a wrong design could compromise the entire dashboard’s effectiveness, selecting the appropriate encoding or configuration for each potential context, user, or data domain is a crucial task. For these reasons, there is a necessity to automatize the recommendation of visualizations and dashboard configurations to deliver tools adapted to their context. Recommendations can be based on different aspects, such as user characteristics, the data domain, or the goals and tasks that will be achieved or carried out through the visualizations. This work presents a dashboard meta-model that abstracts all these factors and the integration of a visualization task taxonomy to account for the different actions that can be performed with information dashboards. This meta-model has been used to design a domain specific language to specify dashboards requirements in a structured way. The ultimate goal is to obtain a dashboard generation pipeline to deliver dashboards adapted to any context, such as the educational context, in which a lot of data are generated, and there are several actors involved (students, teachers, managers, etc.) that would want to reach different insights regarding their learning performance or learning methodologies

Representing Data Visualization Goals and Tasks through Meta-Modeling to Tailor Information Dashboards

[EN] Information dashboards are everywhere. They support knowledge discovery in a huge variety of contexts and domains. Although powerful, these tools can be complex, not only for the end-users but also for developers and designers. Information dashboards encode complex datasets into different visual marks to ease knowledge discovery. Choosing a wrong design could compromise the entire dashboard’s effectiveness, selecting the appropriate encoding or configuration for each potential context, user, or data domain is a crucial task. For these reasons, there is a necessity to automatize the recommendation of visualizations and dashboard configurations to deliver tools adapted to their context. Recommendations can be based on different aspects, such as user characteristics, the data domain, or the goals and tasks that will be achieved or carried out through the visualizations. This work presents a dashboard meta-model that abstracts all these factors and the integration of a visualization task taxonomy to account for the different actions that can be performed with information dashboards. This meta-model has been used to design a domain specific language to specify dashboards requirements in a structured way. The ultimate goal is to obtain a dashboard generation pipeline to deliver dashboards adapted to any context, such as the educational context, in which a lot of data are generated, and there are several actors involved (students, teachers, managers, etc.) that would want to reach different insights regarding their learning performance or learning methodologies.SIMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad (TIN2016-80172-R)Ministrio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (FPU17/03276

A Step Closer to Elastogenesis on Demand; Inducing Mature Elastic Fibre Deposition in a Natural Biomaterial Scaffold

Elastic fibres play a key role in bodily functions where fatigue resistance and elastic recovery are necessary while regulating phenotype, proliferation and migration in cells. While in vivo elastic fibres are created at a late foetal stage, a major obstacle in the development of engineered tissue is that human vascular smooth muscle cells (hVSMCs), one of the principal elastogenic cells, are unable to spontaneously promote elastogenesis in vitro. Therefore, the overall aim of this study was to activate elastogenesis in vitro by hVSMCs seeded in fibrin, collagen, glycosaminoglycan (FCG) scaffolds, following the addition of recombinant human tropoelastin. This combination of scaffold, tropoelastin and cells induced the deposition of elastin and formation of lamellar maturing elastic fibres, similar to those found in skin, blood vessels and heart valves. Furthermore, higher numbers of maturing branched elastic fibres were synthesised when a higher cell density was used and by drop-loading tropoelastin onto cell-seeded FCG scaffolds prior to adding growth medium. The addition of tropoelastin showed no effect on cell proliferation or mechanical properties of the scaffold which remained dimensionally stable throughout. With these results, we have established a natural biomaterial scaffold that can undergo controlled elastogenesis on demand, suitable for tissue engineering applications

Automated low-cost device to produce sub-micrometric polymer fibers based on blow spun method

Attending the latest advances in polymeric fibers, the design of low-cost, and high-quality scientific equipment for obtaining fibers seemed essential. To overcome this challenge, a 3D printable prototype was designed, assembled, and validated to obtain fibers using the SBS method. The particular configuration of the prototype consisted of controlling the process conditions such as working distance and injection flow, as well as other parameters such as RPM and the axial movement of the cylindrical collector. Thus, these parameters were automated using a microcontroller (Arduino) that receives information from an Android device with bluetooth connectivity to control each of the elements of the equipment. Subsequently, the repeatability and reproducibility of the fibers was verified using polymers such as polystyrene (PS), polysulfone (PSF) and polyethylene oxide (PEO); furthermore, PSF fibers were manufactured to analyze the influence of working distance and the axial movement of the collector on their production.Fondos de Investigación de Fco. Javier González Benito, política de reinversión de costes generales, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid [2012/00130/004] and Acción Estratégica en Materiales Compuestos Poliméricos e Interfases, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid [2011/00287/002]. Besides, authors greatly appreciate the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT- México) for financial support associated to the scholarship number 625396

Perspectiva de género y fomento de la diversidad en la docencia de Ingeniería del Software

La brecha de género en las ingenierías es un problema que afecta tanto al ámbito educativo como al profesional. Existen un gran número de proyectos e iniciativas que trabajan las vocaciones en entornos preuniversitarios, así como iniciativas que fomentan la presentación de la mujer y la mejora de su situación en los contextos profesionales de ingeniería. En el contexto universitario, los estudiantes deben recibir formación sobre igualdad. Sin embargo, faltan guías metodológicas prácticas sobre cómo introducir estos principios en las prácticas docentes y ejemplos de cómo llevar a cabo actividades educativas con perspectiva de género en las diferentes disciplinas universitarias. Aunque este tema debe ser abordado en todas las áreas del conocimiento, es especialmente necesario para los estudios de ingeniería debido a la brecha de género. El presente trabajo describe la incorporación de la perspectiva de género en el contexto de la Ingeniería Informática a través de una experiencia piloto a lo largo de tres cursos académicos en la asignatura de Ingeniería del Software. Los resultados de la experiencia proporcionan un conjunto de prácticas que pueden transferirse a otras asignaturas de Ingeniería Informática, tanto a nivel nacional como internacional.The gender gap in engineering is a problem that affects both the educational and the professional fields. There are a great number of projects and initiatives that work on vocations in pre-university environments, as well as initiatives that encourage the presentation of women and the improvement of their situation in professional engineering contexts. In the university context, university students should receive training on equality. However, there is a lack of practical methodological guides on how to introduce these principles into teaching practices and examples of how to carry out educational activities with a gender perspective in the different university disciplines. Although this topic must be addressed in all areas of knowledge, it is especially necessary for engineering studies because of the gender gap. This paper describes the incorporation of the gender perspective in the context of computer engineering through a pilot experience during three academic years in the subject of software engineering. The results of the experience provide a set of practices that can be transferred to other Computer Engineering subjects, both nationally and internationally.Este trabajo es parte de los proyectos de innovación y mejora docente ID2016/084 e ID2018/076 financiados por la Universidad de Salamanca. Con el apoyo del Programa Erasmus+ de la Unión Europea en su Acción Clave 2 “Desarrollo de capacidades en educación superior”. Proyecto W-STEM (Ref. 598923-EPP-1-2018-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHEJP)

Sucesión bacteriana del género Bacillus en el proceso de compostaje y lombricompostaje con diferentes fuentes de estiércol

Las especies del género Bacillus ejercen un efecto positivo en las plantas debido a que inducen la producción de sideróforos, fitoestimulantes y biosurfactantes, así como compuestos con actividad inhibidora para fitopatógenos. El objetivo del trabajo fue determinar la abundancia y diversidad de la comunidad de Bacillus en el proceso de compostaje en tres diferentes estiércoles y clarificar el rol de Eisenia foetida en la colonización de esta bacteria en los lixiviados de lombricomposta. Se estableció un experimento con nueve tratamientos considerando tres fuentes de estiércol (vacuno, ovino y porcino), los lixiviados del compostaje natural y los lixiviados de lombricompostaje con Eisenia foetida. Para la identificación del género Bacillus se emplearon cultivos bacterianos de 48 h en agar y caldo nutritivo y se identificaron por las características morfológicas, físico- químicas y microbiológicas. Se estimó la cantidad máxima de unidades formadoras de colonias en estiércol crudo de ganado ovino en el orden de 62.33 x 105 UFC/g de estiércol, abundancia que se redujo a 7.00 x 104 UFC/ml en el lixiviado de composta. En estiércol crudo se aislaron 33 cepas distribuidas en 11 especies, en lixiviados de lombricomposta 24 cepas en 8 especies y en lixiviados de composta solo 18 cepas en 5 especies. Las especies más abundantes fueron B. Sporosarcina pasteurii y B. Paenibacillus alvei. Se demostró que el lixiviado de lombricomposta posee mejor uniformidad y diversidad bacteriana, por lo que debería dársele mayor uso agrícola. Abstract Species of the genus Bacillus have a positive effect on plants due they induce the production of siderophores, phytostimulants and biosurfactants as well as compounds with inhibitory activity to phytopathology. The objective of this study was to determine the abundance and diversity of Bacillus community in the composting process in three different manures and clarify the role of Eisenia foetida in the colonization of this bacterium in vermicompost leachates. An experiment was established with nine treatments considering three sources of manure (cattle, sheep and pigs), natural compost leachate and vermicomposting leachates with Eisenia foetida. To identify the genus Bacillus bacterial cultures were used for 48 h made of agar and nutrient broth and identified by morphological, physico-chemical and microbiological characteristics. The maximum number of colony forming units in raw manure of sheep was calculated in the order of 62.33 x105 CFU/g of manure, abundance was reduced to 7.00 x 104 CFU/ml in the leachate of compost. Over 33 strains belonging to 11 species were isolated from the raw manure, 24 strains from 8 species were found in the vermicompost leachate and only 18 strains from 5 species in the leachate compost. The most abundant species were B. Sporosarcina pasteurii and B. Paenibacillus alvei. It was shown that vermicompost leachate has better uniformity and bacterial diversity which should be given greater agricultural use. Keywords: Count, species, identification

Enabling adaptability in web forms based on user characteristics detection through A/B testing and machine learning

[EN] This paper presents an original study with the aim of improving users' performance in completing large questionnaires through adaptability in web forms. Such adaptability is based on the application of machine-learning procedures and an A/B testing approach. To detect the user preferences, behavior, and the optimal version of the forms for all kinds of users, researchers built predictive models using machine-learning algorithms (trained with data from more than 3000 users who participated previously in the questionnaires), extracting the most relevant factors that describe the models, and clustering the users based on their similar characteristics and these factors. Based on these groups and their performance in the system, the researchers generated heuristic rules between the different versions of the web forms to guide users to the most adequate version (modifying the user interface and user experience) for them. To validate the approach and con rm the improvements, the authors tested these redirection rules on a group of more than 1000 users. The results with this cohort of users were better than those achieved without redirection rules at the initial stage. Besides these promising results, the paper proposes

The addition of albumin improves Schwann cells viability in nerve cryopreservation

[Abstract] The purpose of the current study was to establish a valid protocol for nerve cryopreservation, and to evaluate if the addition of albumin supposed any advantage in the procedure. We compared a traditional cryopreservation method that uses dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as cryoprotectant, to an alternative method that uses DMSO and albumin. Six Wistar Lewis rats were used to obtain twelve 20 mm fragments of sciatic nerve. In the first group, six fragments were cryopreserved in 199 media with 10% DMSO, with a temperature decreasing rate of 1 °C per minute. In the second group, six fragments were cryopreserved adding 4% human albumin. The unfreezing process consisted of sequential washings with saline in the first group, and saline and 20% albumin in the second group at 37 °C until the crioprotectant was removed. Structural evaluation was performed through histological analysis and electronic microscopy. The viability was assessed with the calcein-AM (CAM) and 4′,6-diamino-2-fenilindol (DAPI) staining. Histological results showed a correct preservation of peripheral nerve architecture and no significant differences were found between the two groups. However, Schwann cells viability showed in the CAM-DAPI staining was significantly superior in the albumin group. The viability of Schwann cells was significantly increased when albumin was added to the nerve cryopreservation protocol. However, no significant structural differences were found between groups. Further studies need to be performed to assess the cryopreserved nerve functionality using this new method

Development of a SPOC of Computer Ethics for students of Computer Science degree

Technology brings different benefits to society and involves challenges and ethical dilemmas that must be considered during any technology development. In this sense, graduates must recognise the social, legal, ethical and cultural issues inherent to the discipline of computer science. However, there is a lack of integration of computer ethics in the computer science curriculum in Spanish universities. This work introduces a pilot experience to develop a Small Private Open Course (SPOC) to introduce computer ethics as an extracurricular activity in the Bachelor’s Degree of Computer Engineering at the University of Salamanca