Improving Motivation And Continuous Assessment In Engineering Classrooms Through Student Response Systems

The use of Student Response Systems (SRS) is highly recommended to encourage the active and meaningful learning of students in each lecture. SRS promotes the motivation of students and improves the system of continuous assessment. One of the most popular applications designed for SRS is Socrative (Socrative n.d.). The use of Socrative gives real meaning to continuous assessment, since the teacher has an easily manageable record of the evolution of their students‘learning and will help the teacher to schedule both formative and summative assessment. The application allows the detection of topics that each student may not have understood and determines the percentage of the entire class with the same difficulty. Beyond the use of Socrative as an evaluation instrument, sufficiently referenced, in this article we present different methodologies supported by SRS implemented in engineering studies at the University the Salamanca. The methodologies aim to promote autonomous work outside the classroom, and in face-to-face classes, to maintain the attention and lead the reasoning of the students to facilitate learning. The influence of the methodologies proposed by the authors on a series of indicators related to the motivation and commitment of the students to the subjects will be presented. To the best of our knowledge, most of the work on SRS have been applied to non-university educational levels and for assessment purposes and very few of them have applied SRS to undergraduate engineering studies. The novelty of this work lies in introducing new methodologies supported by SRS in university engineering studies

Aplicación de un sistema de tutorización personalizada para estudiantes de grado y master

Memoria ID-320. Ayudas de la Universidad de Salamanca para la innovación docente, curso 2013-2014

Effectiveness of conservative treatment according to severity and systemic disease in carpal tunnel syndrome: A systematic review

(1) Background: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common peripheral neuropathy in the upper extremity. Conservative treatment has been effective for mild and moderate idiopathic CTS. However, severe CTS and systemic conditions were an exclusion criterion from the studies. The aim of this study is to review the effectiveness of conservative treatment in patients with CTS regardless of the level of severity and the presence or not of systemic diseases in the last ten years. (2) Methods: Randomized controlled clinical trials that compared the effect of conservative treatment on the Boston questionnaire and pain were selected. PubMed, PEDro, Scopus, Cochrane, and Web of Science databases were used. PRISMA statement checklist was performed. (3) Results: 876 studies were recorded, 29 were selected. Pharmacology, Electrotherapy and Manual Therapy had benefits for CTS. Electrotherapy and manual therapy could be effective for severe CTS patients with a systemic condition in the short term, but there was a low percentage of these patients included in the studies. (4) Conclusion: Some pharmacological treatments, manual therapy and electrotherapy have shown benefits for handling CTS, although the most effective combination of techniques is unknown. It would be necessary to include patients with systemic conditions in the selection criteria for future studies

Exercise and manual therapy for diabetic peripheral neuropathy: a systematic review

Background: Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is one of the most common complications of diabetes mellitus (DM). Control of hyperglycaemia as well as surgical decompression are effective treatments for these patients. However, surgery is not indicated for all candidates. Manual therapy and physical exercise have been shown to be effective for peripheral neuropathies, and exercise for DM. The aim is to review the effectiveness of manual therapy and/or exercise in patients with DPN. (2) Methods: Randomised controlled clinical trials comparing the effects of manual therapy and/or exercise on pain, function and/or balance were selected. The search strategy was performed in PubMed, PEDro, Scopus, Cochrane and Web of Science databases. The PRISMA statement was followed. (3) Results: A total of 656 articles were registered, and 29 were selected. There was little consensus on DPN criteria selection. Aerobic, strength and balance exercises are beneficial for DPN. Sessions of 30–60 min, three times per week for 8 weeks seems to be the most used dose. Manual therapy is effective in the short term. A combination of both modalities was more beneficial than alone in one study. (4) Conclusions: Exercise and manual therapy are beneficial for patients with DPN. More studies should be carried out for analysing the potential effect of combining manual therapy and exercise

Transcriptome analysis reveals molecular profiles associated with evolving steps of monoclonal gammopathies

This is an open-access paper.-- et al.A multistep model has been proposed of disease progression starting in monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance continuing through multiple myeloma, sometimes with an intermediate entity called smoldering myeloma, and ending in extramedullary disease. To gain further insights into the role of the transcriptome deregulation in the transition from a normal plasma cell to a clonal plasma cell, and from an indolent clonal plasma cell to a malignant plasma cell, we performed gene expression profiling in 20 patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, 33 with high-risk smoldering myeloma and 41 with multiple myeloma. The analysis showed that 126 genes were differentially expressed in monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, smoldering myeloma and multiple myeloma as compared to normal plasma cell. Interestingly, 17 and 9 out of the 126 significant differentially expressed genes were small nucleolar RNA molecules and zinc finger proteins. Several proapoptotic genes (AKT1 and AKT2) were down-regulated and antiapoptotic genes (APAF1 and BCL2L1) were up-regulated in multiple myeloma, both symptomatic and asymptomatic, compared to monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance. When we looked for those genes progressively modulated through the evolving stages of monoclonal gammopathies, eight snoRNA showed a progressive increase while APAF1, VCAN and MEGF9 exhibited a progressive downregulation. In conclusion, our data show that although monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, smoldering myeloma and multiple myeloma are not clearly distinguishable groups according to their gene expression profiling, several signaling pathways and genes were significantly deregulated at different steps of the transformation process.This study was partially supported by Spanish FIS (PI080568, PS09/01450 and PS0901897), “Gerencia Regional de Salud, Junta de Castilla y León” (GRS 702/A/11) grant, and the Spanish Myeloma Network Program (RD06/0020/0006, RD12/0036/0058 and RD12/0036/0046).Peer Reviewe

Fibers spreading worldwide: Microplastics and other anthropogenic litter in an Arctic freshwater lake

We investigated the presence of microplastics and other anthropogenic litter in the sediments adhered to rocks of an Arctic freshwater lake at Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard Archipelago, 78°N; 11°E). Most of the sampled microparticles were fibers (>90%). The identification of polymer types and additives was performed by combining three spectroscopic techniques, namely Raman Microscopy, Fourier-Transform Infrared microspectroscopy (μFTIR) and Synchrotron Radiation μFTIR (SR-FTIR). SR-FTIR confirmed the presence of poly(ethylene terephthalate) fibers, while RAMAN spectroscopy provided evidence of fibers containing industrial additives. Our results estimated an average concentration of 400 microparticles/m2 of rocks identified as anthropogenic litter, which included an estimation of 90 microplastics/m2 identified as polyester fibers; the rest are mostly natural fibers with evidence of anthropogenic origin. Taken together, the results proved the occurrence of anthropogenic pollutants in remote polar areas. Their probable origin is the long range atmospheric transpor

Síntesis y estudio de material luminiscente PbTiO₃Sm³⁺

En este trabajo, se estudiaron las transformaciones orden-desorden estructural promovidas por los distintos tratamientos térmicos controlados. Las técnicas utilizadas de Difracción de Rayos-X (DRX) y Fotoluminiscencia (PL) fueron las técnicas analíticas para supervisar el grado de orden-desorden estructural. Con este fin, se han añadido iones de Sm³⁺ a la red de PbTiO₃ vía síntesis de química suave del llamado método de precursor polimérico. Estos iones de tierras raras actúan como marcadores del grado de orden en el sistema PbTiO₃. Los resultados de DRX nos permitieron identificar el orden cristalino de largo alcance o estructura ordenada y los resultados PL nos permitieron identificar la estructura desordenada de corto alcance, el rango intermedio, y el orden de largo alcance.In this paper, the order-disorder structural promoted by various transformations controlled heat treatments were studied. The techniques used for X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence (PL) were analytical techniques to monitor the degree of order-disorder structural. To this end, they have been added Sm³⁺ ions PbTiO₃ network via soft chemistry synthesis method called polymeric precursor. These rare-earth ions act as markers of the degree of order in the system PbTiO₃. XRD results allowed us to identify the long-range crystalline order or ordered structure and PL results allowed us to identify the disordered structure of short-range, intermediate range and long-range order

Integrative analysis of DNA copy number, DNA methylation and gene expression in multiple myeloma reveals alterations related to relapse

Multiple myeloma (MM) remains incurable despite the introduction of novel agents, and a relapsing course is observed in most patients. Although the development of genomic technologies has greatly improved our understanding of MM pathogenesis, the mechanisms underlying relapse have been less thoroughly investigated. In this study, an integrative analysis of DNA copy number, DNA methylation and gene expression was conducted in matched diagnosis and relapse samples from MM patients. Overall, the acquisition of abnormalities at relapse was much more frequent than the loss of lesions present at diagnosis, and DNA losses were significantly more frequent in relapse than in diagnosis samples. Interestingly, copy number abnormalities involving more than 100 Mb of DNA at relapse significantly affect the gene expression of these samples, provoking a particular deregulation of the IL-8 pathway. On the other hand, no significant modifications of gene expression were observed in those samples with less than 100 Mb affected by chromosomal changes. Although several statistical approaches were used to identify genes whose abnormal expression at relapse was regulated by methylation, only two genes that were significantly deregulated in relapse samples (SORL1 and GLT1D1) showed a negative correlation between methylation and expression. Further analysis revealed that DNA methylation was involved in regulating SORL1 expression in MM. Finally, relevant changes in gene expression observed in relapse samples, such us downregulation of CD27 and P2RY8, were most likely not preceded by alterations in the corresponding DNA. Taken together, these results suggest that the genomic heterogeneity described at diagnosis remains at relapse.This work was partially supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III-Cofinanciación con fondos FEDER (PI080568, PS0901897 and PI13/00111), the Gerencia Regional de Salud, Junta de Castilla y León (GRS202/A08 and GRS 702/A/11), the Spanish Myeloma Network Program (RD06/0020/0006) and the Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer (AECC, GCB120981SAN).Peer Reviewe

Thermodynamic self-improvement in the stability of a low dissipative refrigerator engine

[EN]The optimization of energy converters using different objective functions has become a relevant issue due to the energetic needs of the everyday most specialized heat devices. The stability of the operation regime of such devices is always addressed as a separate subject. Thus, the link between the robustness of the steady state and the optimization process, as well as the thermodynamic consequences of limited control on the operation regime is still an ongoing topic with phenomena yet to understand [1]. In order to provide a somewhat general view for a class of heat devices, not attached to specific heat transfer mechanism, we make use of the so-called low-dissipation refrigerator engine [2-7]. In this work we analyse random perturbations on a low-dissipation refrigerator engine’s operation regime. For the operation regime we use the Omega function, which represent a compromise between cooling power and efficiency. We found that the trajectories to the steady state follow paths in which the most relevant thermodynamic functions are improved. And under continuous perturbations the resulting stochastic trajectories follow a statistical behaviour in which the role of the thermodynamic functions play a most relevant role. The results obtained from this study are reinforced by a multi-objective optimization study of this refrigerator engine, in which it is required a simultaneous optimization of all the relevant thermodynamical quantities, that is, efficiency (coefficient of performance), cooling power, power input, entropy production and the Omega function. We also make use of the Kullback-Leibler divergence to account for statistical convergence in the obtained numerical results. REFERENCES [1] M. Bauer, K. Brandner, and U. Seifert, Optimal performance of periodically driven, stochastic heat engines under limited control, Phys. Rev. E 93, 042112 (2016). [2] M. Esposito, R. Kawai, K. Lindenberg and C. Van den Broeck, Efficiency at maximum power of low-dissipation Carnot engines. Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 150603 (2010) [3] Calvo Hernández A, Medina A and Roco J M M 2015 Time, entropy generation, and optimization in low-dissipation heat devices New J. Phys. 17 075011 [4] Viktor Holubec and Artem Ryabov, Efficiency at and near maximum power of low-dissipation heat engines, Phys. Rev. E 92, 052125 (2015) [5] Viktor Holubec and Artem Ryabov, Maximum efficiency of low-dissipation heat engines at arbitrary power, J. Stat. Mech. , 073204 (2016). [6] J. Gonzalez-Ayala, A. Calvo Hernández, J. M. M. Roco, Irreversible and endoreversible behaviors of the LD-model for heat devices: the role of the time constraints and symmetries on the performance at maximum χ figure of merit, J. Stat. Mech. 2016, 073202 (2016). [7] J. Gonzalez-Ayala, M. Santillán, I. Reyes-Ramírez and A. Calvo Hernández, Link between optimizatio

Interexaminer reliability and validity of quantity of cervical mobility during online dynamic inspection

Physical therapists routinely measure range of motion (ROM) of cervical spine. The reliability of the cervical range of motion (CROM) device has been demonstrated in several studies, but current evidence on the validity and reliability of the visual inspection is contradictory. The aim is to assess the validity and interexaminer reliability of the online visual inspection of active cervical ROM in physiotherapy students. Methods: Flexion, extension, both lateral flexions and rotations of a single participant were measured using CROM. Online visual inspection of 18 physiotherapy students against CROM was registered. Results: The validity, against CROM, of the online visual inspection of the active ROM ranged from good to excellent (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) 0.83–0.97). Interexaminer reliability of the online visual inspection had favorable outcomes in all cervical movements in the three physiotherapy courses (ICC 0.70–0.96), with the visual inspection of the rotations being the most reliable (ICC 0.93–0.97). Interexaminer reliability of the classification of mobility was poor to good (Kappa 0.03–0.90). Conclusions: The interexaminer reliability and validity of the quantification of active cervical movement during online visual inspection was shown to be good to excellent for flexion-extension and lateral flexions and excellent for rotations