VIE Project: Cultural values and socioeconomic factors as determinants of entrepreneurial intentions

This paper describes a research project currently being developed by the authors. It aims to analyse the role played by psychosocial, cultural and socioeconomic factors in shaping the entrepreneurial intention. Survey methods will be used on a population of potential entrepreneurs (having not yet performed actual entrepreneurial behaviours). In this sense, undergraduate students and individuals contacting business support centres will be considered as part of the sample. We expect to get a clearer understanding of the psychosocial elements, socioeconomic factors and cultural values affecting the venture-creation decision. The results would be important to policy makers (showing them what to encourage), to practitioners (what to do better), and to researchers (what to clarify)

Google es noticia. Transformación de los marcos informativos sobre Google en la prensa española

Fundada en 1998, en menos de veinte años, Google se ha convertido en una de las mayores multinacionales del mundo. Esta investigación estudia las informaciones periodísticas sobre Google, desde la perspectiva de la teoría del encuadre (framing). La pregunta propuesta es: ¿Ha cambiado la imagen que la prensa española proyecta sobre Google desde los inicios de la compañía a los últimos años? Para responder, se ha hecho un análisis de contenido de todos los textos periodísticos sobre Google publicados en 2004 y 2014 por “El País”, “El Mundo”, “ABC” y “La Vanguardia”. Mediante un protocolo de análisis, se han detectado los marcos informativos –news frames– presentes en cada texto periodístico. Los resultados de la investigación ponen de manifiesto que se ha producido una transformación de los marcos informativos sobre Google: de ser mayoritariamente positivos para la compañía estadounidense, a ser negativos. También se ha detectado que, en 2004, las informaciones sobre la empresa ponían el foco en cuestiones de tipo económico; mientras que, en 2014, los periódicos analizados prefirieron atribuir a Google la responsabilidad de una serie de problemas. El texto concluye que Google ya no es enmarcada por los principales diarios sólo como una empresa tecnológica que logra excelentes resultados económicos, sino como una compañía cuyas actividades afectan –con frecuencia, negativamente– a determinadas personas, grupos humanos y a otras compañías

La Sobre-evaluación

Este trabajo resume una experiencia negativa vivida durante la impartición de una asignatura encuadrada dentro del Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES) debido a una mala planificación de la evaluación que desemboca en lo que denominaremos sobre-evaluación. Por sobre-evaluación se entiende el excesivo número de pruebas a las que se somete al alumno y que le obligan a pasar más tiempo preparándolas que adquiriendo o asentando conocimientos. Y como consecuencia de esa experiencia negativa se presentan los medios que se han puesto para evitar repetir dicha experiencia en el curso siguiente en la misma asignatura así como las algunas de las conclusiones alcanzadas por los profesores de dicha asignatura.SUMMARY: This work summarizes a negative experience happened during the classes of a subject within the European Space for Higher Education, due to a wrong planning which provoked the so-called phenomenon: over-assessment. Over-assessment means the excessive number of tasks that a student must do. As a result of this fact, each student spends more time preparing his tasks than learning new knowledge. From this negative experiment, the following course the same teachers applied several modifications with respect to that subject in order to avoid past errors. These modifications allowed improving the results obtained by the students, especially, due to the better planning of the tasks proposed to assess students.Peer Reviewe

Context-based multi-level information fusion for harbor surveillance

Harbor surveillance is a critical and challenging part of maritime security procedures. Building a surveillance picture to support decision makers in detection of potential threats requires the integration of data and information coming from heterogeneous sources. Context plays a key role in achieving this task by providing expectations, constraints and additional information for inference about the items of interest. This paper proposes a fusion system for context-based situation and threat assessment with application to harbor surveillance. The architecture of the system is organized in two levels. The lowest level uses an ontological model to formally represent input data and to classify harbor objects and basic situations by deductive reasoning according to the harbor regulations. The higher level applies Belief-based Argumentation to evaluate the threat posed by suspicious vessels. The functioning of the system is illustrated with several examples that reproduce common harbor scenarios. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work was supported in part by Projects MINECO TEC2012-37832-C02-01, CICYT TEC2011-28626-C02-02, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485) and Mobility Grants Program of Fundación Caja Madrid.Publicad

Assessment of Tremor Severity in Patients with Essential Tremor Using Smartwatches

[Abstract] This paper presents a classification model for the automatic quantification of tremor severity in patients with essential tremor (ET). The system is based on the signals measured by two commercial smartwatches that the patients wear on their wrist and ankle. The smartwatches register acceleration and angular velocity in these body segments. A set of nine tremor features were used to train the classification algorithm. The proposed algorithm is based on a C4.5 decision tree classifier. It is able to assess rest and kinetic (postural or action) tremor. The method was evaluated using data collected from thirty-four patients with ET. The algorithm classifies the severity of tremor in five levels 0-4 corresponding to those in the Fahn-Tolosa-Marin tremor rating scale with a 94% accuracy. The method can be implemented in a networked platform for the remote monitoring and assessment of movement disorders such as ET or Parkinson’s disease.Ministerio de Economía, Industria u Competitividad; RTC-2015-3967-1Ministerio de Economía, Industria u Competitividad; DPI2015-68664-C4-1-RMinisterio de Economía, Industria u Competitividad; RTC-2015-4327-

Interaction with touchscreen smartphones in patientswith essential tremor and healthy individuals.

tremorAbstractIntroduction: Smartphone use in biomedical research is becoming more prevalent in differ-ent clinical settings. We performed a pilot study to obtain information on smartphone use bypatients with essential tremor (ET) and healthy controls, with a view to determining whetherperformance of touchscreen tasks is different between these groups and describing touchscreeninteraction factors.Method: A total of 31 patients with ET and 40 sex- and age-matched healthy controls com-pleted a descriptive questionnaire about the use of smartphones. Participants subsequentlyinteracted with an under-development Android application, and performed 4 tests evaluatingtypical touchscreen interaction gestures; each test was performed 5 times.Result: The type of smartphone use and touchscreen interaction were not significantly differ-ent between patients and controls. Age and frequency of smartphone use are key factors intouchscreen interaction.Conclusion: Our results support the use of smartphone touchscreens for research into ET,although further studies are required.pre-print1030 K

La Sobre-evaluación

Este trabajo resume una experiencia negativa vivida durante la impartición de una asignatura encuadrada dentro del Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES) debido a una mala planificación de la evaluación que desemboca en lo que denominaremos sobre-evaluación. Por sobre-evaluación se entiende el excesivo número de pruebas a las que se somete al alumno y que le obligan a pasar más tiempo preparándolas que adquiriendo o asentando conocimientos. Y como consecuencia de esa experiencia negativa se presentan los medios que se han puesto para evitar repetir dicha experiencia en el curso siguiente en la misma asignatura así como las algunas de las conclusiones alcanzadas por los profesores de dicha asignatura

Circulating Tumor Cells Enumeration from the Portal Vein for Risk Stratification in Early Pancreatic Cancer Patients

[Simple Summary] Effective biomarkers are needed to enable personalized medicine for pancreatic cancer patients. This study analyzes the prognostic value, in early pancreatic cancer, of circulating tumor cells and clusters from the central venous catheter and portal blood. Circulating tumor cells were isolated using an immunomagnetic selection and were detected by microscopy using immunocytochemistry staining. In conclusion, the circulating tumor cell number in portal blood identifies a death risk in patients with early pancreatic cancer.[Abstract] Background. Effective biomarkers are needed to enable personalized medicine for pancreatic cancer patients. This study analyzes the prognostic value, in early pancreatic cancer, of single circulating tumor cell (CTC) and CTC clusters from the central venous catheter (CVC) and portal blood (PV). Methods. In total, 7 mL of PV and CVC blood from 35 patients with early pancreatic cancer were analyzed. CTC were isolated using a positive immunomagnetic selection. The detection and identification of CTC were performed by immunocytochemistry (ICC) and were analyzed by Epi-fluorescence and confocal microscopy. Results. CTC and the clusters were detected both in PV and CVC. In both samples, the CTC number per cluster was higher in patients with grade three or poorly differentiated tumors (G3) than in patients with well (G1) or moderately (G2) differentiated. Patients with fewer than 185 CTC in PV exhibited a longer OS than patients with more than 185 CTC (24.5 vs. 10.0 months; p = 0.018). Similarly, patients with fewer than 15 clusters in PV showed a longer OS than patients with more than 15 clusters (19 vs. 10 months; p = 0.004). These significant correlations were not observed in CVC analyses. Conclusions. CTC presence in PV could be an important prognostic factor to predict poor prognosis in early pancreatic cancer. In addition, the number of clustered-CTC correlate to a tumor negative differentiation degree and, therefore, could be used as a diagnostic biomarker for pancreatic cancer.This research was funded by Carlos III Health Institute (Health Research Fund) grant number PI16/01465 and PI19/01821 (Co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund “A way to make Europe”)

CoQ deficiency causes disruption of mitochondrial sulfide oxidation, a new pathomechanism associated with this syndrome

Coenzyme Q (CoQ) is a key component of the mitochondrial respiratory chain, but it also has several other functions in the cellular metabolism. One of them is to function as an electron carrier in the reaction catalyzed by sulfide:quinone oxidoreductase (SQR), which catalyzes the first reaction in the hydrogen sulfide oxidation pathway. Therefore, SQR may be affected by CoQ deficiency. Using human skin fibroblasts and two mouse models with primary CoQ deficiency, we demonstrate that severe CoQ deficiency causes a reduction in SQR levels and activity, which leads to an alteration of mitochondrial sulfide metabolism. In cerebrum of Coq9R239X mice, the deficit in SQR induces an increase in thiosulfate sulfurtransferase and sulfite oxidase, as well as modifications in the levels of thiols. As a result, biosynthetic pathways of glutamate, serotonin, and catecholamines were altered in the cerebrum, and the blood pressure was reduced. Therefore, this study reveals the reduction in SQR activity as one of the pathomechanisms associated with CoQ deficiency syndrome.This work was supported by grants from Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain, and the ERDF (SAF2013-47761-R, SAF2014-55523-R, RD12/0042/0011 and SAF201565786-R), from the Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía (P10-CTS-6133), from the NIH (P01HD080642) and from the foundation “todos somos raros, todos somos únicos”. MLS is a predoctoral fellow from the Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía. LCL is supported by the “Ramón y Cajal” National Programme, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (RYC-2011-07643)