Integration of SPOC courses in the subjects of degree. A practical experience

Los cursos SPOC (del inglés Small Private Online Course) son cursos de formación a distancia con una metodología participativa y colaborativa, características que comparten con los MOOC, aunque en este caso, los SPOC están destinados a grupos reducidos de estudiantes de perfil bien definido. La combinación de la enseñanza virtual y la enseñanza presencial es un recurso positivo para la comunidad universitaria que es importante analizar. En este estudio se elabora una comparación de dos grupos de estudiantes universitarios que realizan dos experiencias de aprendizaje, desarrolladas en contextos de aprendizaje muy diferentes, uno online a través de un curso SPOC insertado en una asignatura de Grado y otro presencial, en la que el alumnado hace el mismo curso pero dentro del contexto del aula.The SPOC (Small Private Online Course) courses are distance learning courses with am participatory and collaborative methodology, characteristics that they share with the MOOCs, although in this case, the SPOCs are aimed at small groups of well-defined students. The combination of virtual teaching and face-to-face teaching is a positive resource for the university community that is important to analyze. This study compiles a comparison of two groups of university students who carry out two learning experiences, developed in very different learning contexts, one online through an SPOC course inserted in a subject of Degree and one face-to-face, in which the Students do the same course but within the context of the classroom

Meta-heurística ACO (Ant Colony Optimization) para la resolución de problemas en líneas de producción

La meta -heurística ACO (Ant Colony Optimization) es un procedimiento heurístico para la resolución de problemas de optimización di screta basado en el comportamiento de las hormigas. Sus principales características son: (1) la utilización de "feed -back" positivo, (2) computación distribuida (la estructura de estos algoritmos permite su paralelización de forma muy simple y natural), y (3) el uso de heurísticas Greedy constructivas (ayuda a encontrar soluciones aceptables en las primeras etapas del proceso de exploración). En este artículo se presenta la aplicación de dichas meta -heurísticas a la resolución de problemas de producción co mo equilibrado de líneas de montaje o la secuenciación de unidades en un sistema que no permite esperasPostprint (published version

Robustness of signature verification systems to imitators with increasing skills

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. F. Alonso-Fernández, J. Fiérrez, A. Gilpérez, J. Galbally, J. Ortega-García, "Robustness of Signature Verification Systems to Imitators with Increasing Skills" in International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR), Barcelona (Madrid), 2009, 728 - 732In this paper, we study the impact of an incremental level of skill in the forgeries against signature verification systems. Experiments are carried out using both off-line systems, involving the discrimination of signatures written on a piece of paper, and on-line systems, in which dynamic information of the signing process (such as velocity and acceleration) is also available. We use for our experiments the BiosecurID database, which contains both on-line and off-line versions of signatures, acquired in four sessions across a 4 month time span with incremental level of skill in the forgeries for different sessions. We compare several scenarios with different size and variability of the enrolment set, showing that the problem of skilled forgeries can be alleviated as we consider more signatures for enrolment.This work has been supported by the TEC2006-13141- C03-03 project of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology

Cost-Effectiveness of Upper Extremity Dry Needling in Chronic Stroke

[EN] Introduction: Dry needling is a non-pharmacological approach that has proven to be effective in different neurological conditions. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a single dry needling session in patients with chronic stroke. Methods: A cost-effectiveness analysis was performed based on a randomized controlled clinical trial. The results obtained from the values of the EuroQol-5D questionnaire and the Modified Modified Ashworth Scale were processed in order to obtain the percentage of treatment responders and the quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) for each alternative. The cost analysis was that of the hospital, clinic, or health center, including the equipment and physiotherapist. The cost per respondent and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of each alternative were assessed. Results: Twenty-three patients with stroke were selected. The cost of DN treatment was EUR 14.96, and the data analysis showed a favorable cost-effectiveness ratio of both EUR/QALY and EUR/responder for IG, although the sensitivity analysis using limit values did not confirm the dominance (higher effectiveness with less cost) of the dry needling over the sham dry needling. Conclusions: Dry needling is an affordable alternative with good results in the cost-effectiveness analysis—both immediately, and after two weeks of treatment—compared to sham dry needling in persons with chronic stroke.S

Cost-Effectiveness of Upper Extremity Dry Needling in Chronic Stroke

Introduction: Dry needling is a non-pharmacological approach that has proven to be effective in different neurological conditions. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a single dry needling session in patients with chronic stroke. Methods: A cost-effectiveness analysis was performed based on a randomized controlled clinical trial. The results obtained from the values of the EuroQol-5D questionnaire and the Modified Modified Ashworth Scale were processed in order to obtain the percentage of treatment responders and the quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) for each alternative. The cost analysis was that of the hospital, clinic, or health center, including the equipment and physiotherapist. The cost per respondent and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of each alternative were assessed. Results: Twenty-three patients with stroke were selected. The cost of DN treatment was EUR 14.96, and the data analysis showed a favorable cost-effectiveness ratio of both EUR/QALY and EUR/responder for IG, although the sensitivity analysis using limit values did not confirm the dominance (higher effectiveness with less cost) of the dry needling over the sham dry needling. Conclusions: Dry needling is an affordable alternative with good results in the cost-effectiveness analysis—both immediately, and after two weeks of treatment—compared to sham dry needling in persons with chronic stroke

Modificación de conocimientos sobre tuberculosis pulmonar en trabajadores no docentes de la sede Haydee Santamaría Cuadrado

Resumen Introducción: la tuberculosis pulmonar constituye un grave problema sanitario a escala mundial, es indispensable mejorar la prevención y promoción a través del conocimiento de las personas acerca de esta infección. Objetivo: elevar el nivel de conocimientos sobre tuberculosis pulmonar en trabajadores no docentes de la sede Haydee Santamaría Cuadrado de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de Manzanillo. Método: se realizó un estudio de intervención educativa en el período septiembre a diciembre de 2015, se seleccionaron 25 trabajadores que trabajaron con el equipo de investigación una vez por semana. Se aplicó una encuesta al inicio de la investigación, se implementó la intervención educativa y se comparó el nivel de conocimientos antes y después del estudio. Resultados: antes de la intervención educativa, de acuerdo con el nivel de conocimiento general de los trabajadores, 2 participantes (8 %) poseían conocimientos satisfactorios, después de la intervención educativa esta cifra ascendió a un 84 % (21 participantes). Conclusión: la intervención resultó eficaz al elevar el nivel de conocimientos de las personas. ABSTRACT Introduction: lung tuberculosis constitutes a serious sanitary problem in world scale; it is indispensable to improve the prevention and promotion through the people´s knowledge about this infection. Objective: to increase the level of knowledge about lung tuberculosis in non educational workers from Haydee Santamaria Cuadrado headquarters, Manzanillo Medical Sciences Faculty. Method: an educational intervention was carried out in the period September to December of 2015, 25 workers were selected for working with the investigation team once per week. A survey was applied at the beginning of the investigation, the educational intervention was implemented and the level of knowledge was compared before and after the study. Results: before the educational intervention 2 participants (8 %) had satisfactory knowledge, after the educational intervention the percentage was increased to 84% (21 participants). Conclusion: the intervention was effective at increasing the level of people's knowledge

Modificación de conocimientos sobre tuberculosis pulmonar en trabajadores no docentes de la sede Haydee Santamaría Cuadrado

Introduction: lung tuberculosis constitutes a serious sanitary problem in world scale; it is indispensable to improve the prevention and promotion through the people´s knowledge about this infection. Objective: to increase the level of knowledge about lung tuberculosis in non educational workers from Haydee Santamaria Cuadrado headquarters, Manzanillo Medical Sciences Faculty.  Method: an educational intervention was carried out in the period September to December of 2015, 25 workers were selected for working with the investigation team once per week. A survey was applied at the beginning of the investigation, the educational intervention was implemented and the level of knowledge was compared before and after the study.  Results: before the educational intervention 2 participants (8 %) had satisfactory knowledge, after the educational intervention the percentage was increased to 84% (21 participants).  Conclusion: the intervention was effective at increasing the level of people's knowledge. Introducción: la tuberculosis pulmonar constituye un grave problema sanitario a escala mundial, es indispensable mejorar la prevención y promoción a través del conocimiento de las personas acerca de esta infección.Objetivo: elevar el nivel de conocimientos sobre tuberculosis pulmonar en trabajadores no docentes de la sede Haydee Santamaría Cuadrado de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de Manzanillo.Método: se realizó un estudio de intervención educativa en el período septiembre a diciembre de 2015, se seleccionaron 25 trabajadores que trabajaron con el equipo de investigación una vez por semana. Se aplicó una encuesta al inicio de la investigación, se implementó la intervención educativa y se comparó el nivel de conocimientos antes y después del estudio.Resultados: antes de la intervención educativa, de acuerdo con el nivel de conocimiento general de los trabajadores,  2 participantes (8 %) poseían conocimientos satisfactorios, después de la intervención educativa esta cifra ascendió a un 84 % (21 participantes).Conclusión: la intervención resultó eficaz al elevar el nivel de conocimientos de las personas

Silver nanoparticle chains for ultra-long-range plasmonic waveguides for Nd3+ fluorescence

Plasmonic waveguides have been shown to be a promising approach to confine and transport electromagnetic energy beyond the diffraction limit. However, ohmic losses generally prevent their integration at micrometric or millimetric scales. Here, we present a gain-compensated plasmonic waveguide based on the integration of linear chains of Ag nanoparticles on an optically active Nd3+-doped solid-state gain medium. By means of dual confocal fluorescence microscopy, we demonstrate long-range optical energy propagation due to the near-field coupling between the plasmonic nanostructures and the Nd3+ ions. The subwavelength fluorescence guiding is monitored at distances of around 100 µm from the excitation source for two different emission ranges centered at around 900 nm and 1080 nm. In both cases, the guided fluorescence exhibits a strong polarization dependence, consistent with the polarization behavior of the plasmon resonance supported by the chain. The experimental results are interpreted through numerical simulations in quasi-infinite long chains, which corroborate the propagation features of the Ag nanoparticle chains at both excitation (λexc = 590 nm) and emission wavelengths. The obtained results exceed by an order of magnitude that of previous reports on electromagnetic energy transport using linear plasmonic chains. The work points out the potential of combining Ag nanoparticle chains with a small interparticle distance (~2 nm) with rare-earth-based optical gain media as ultra-long-range waveguides with extreme light confinement. The results offer new perspectives for the design of integrated hybrid plasmonic–photonic circuits based on rare-earth-activated solid-state platformsThis research has been funded by the Spanish State Research Agency under contracts PID2019-108257GB-I00 and RTI2018-098452-B-100, Comunidad de Madrid under contract CAM (SI1/PJI/2019-00105) and the María de Maeztu “Programme for Units of Excellence in R&D” CEX2018-000805-

Información de salud: fuentes periodísticas y desafíos profesionales

Health information: Media sources and professional challenges. Journalists specialized in health information have changed their work routines because of Internet and social networks. Generating health content allows researchers, physicians and patients to be connected and, in this respect, media play a prescriber role in the society. In this paper, the prevailing precariousness in the media is analyzed in order to see if it affects health information and the specialization of its professionals. This work is based on a qualitative research, using in-depth interviews with health information journalists belonging to 16 Spanish media. The research underscores the priority of certain resources, the need to enable verification processes and to face new professional challenges. This research is part of the Aula Nebrija-MSD Spain of Communication and Health Sciences funded project