Some Research Questions and Results of UC3M in the E-Madrid Excellence Network

32 slides.-- Contributed to: 2010 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), Madrid, Spain, 14-16 April, 2010.-- Presented by C. Delgado Kloos.Proceedings of: 2010 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), Madrid, Spain, 14-16 April, 2010Universidad Carlos III de Madrid is one of the six main participating institutions in the eMadrid excellence network, as well as its coordinating partner. In this paper, the network is presented together with some of the main research lines carried out by UC3M. The remaining papers in this session present the work carried out by the other five universities in the consortium.The Excellence Network eMadrid, “Investigación y Desarrollo de Tecnologías para el e-Learning en la Comunidad de Madrid” is being funded by the Madrid Regional Government under grant No. S2009/TIC-1650. In addition, we acknowledge funding from the following research projects: iCoper: “Interoperable Content for Performance in a Competency-driven Society” (eContentPlus Best Practice Network No. ECP-2007-EDU-417007), Learn3: Hacia el Aprendizaje en la 3ª Fase (“Plan Nacional de I+D+I” TIN2008-05163/ TSI), Flexo: “Desarrollo de aprendizaje adaptativo y accesible en sistemas de código abierto” (AVANZA I+D, TSI-020301- 2008-19), España Virtual (CDTI, Ingenio 2010, CENIT, Deimos Space), SOLITE (CYTED 508AC0341), and “Integración vertical de servicios telemáticos de apoyo al aprendizaje en entornos residenciales” (Programa de creación y consolidación de grupos de investigación de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid).Publicad

How patients with COVID-19 managed the disease at home during the first wave in Spain: a cross-sectional study.

Most patients with mild COVID-19 had to stay at home trying to implement an optimal quarantine. The aim of this study was to describe the COVID-19 cases during the first wave of the pandemic in Spain, how they managed the disease at home, focusing on differences by age, as well as differences in knowledge, attitudes and preventive practices, compared with the uninfected population. An online survey was used to conduct a cross-sectional study of individuals who were 14 years or older living in Spain during the COVID-19 lockdown. The main variable was a COVID-19 case. Logistic regression models for COVID-19 cases were obtained using a backward stepwise procedure to assess the association between social variables, disease knowledge, attitudes, prevention practices and emotional impact. 3398 people completed the survey. Participants' mean age was 49.6 (SD=14.3). COVID-19 was significantly more prevalent among married people (5.3%) and those currently doing an on-site work (8.7%). Most of the COVID-19 cases stayed at home (84.0%) during the episode. There were significant age-based differences with regard to self-isolation conditions at home during the disease. COVID-19 cases showed better attitudes, practices and knowledge about disease symptoms and transmission than the uninfected population. COVID-19 cases also felt more depressed (adjusted OR: 3.46, 95% CI 1.45 to 8.26) and had better preventive behaviour than the uninfected population, such as always wearing a mask outside the home (adjusted OR 1.58, 95% CI 1.06 to 2.30). COVID-19 cases found it difficult to comply with recommended home self-isolation conditions, with differences by age group. COVID-19 had an important impact on care dependency in non-hospitalised patients, who were mostly dependent on their families for care. It is necessary to reinforce social and health services and to be ready to meet the care needs of populations during the different waves or in future epidemics.This work was supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III through the National Tropical Diseases Research Network (RD16CIII/003/001RICET). The funders had no role in study design or in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, or the decision to submit the article for publication.S

Gradient, UC3M

En este artículo se presenta un resumen de las líneas de investigación que se realizan en el Laboratorio Gradient perteneciente al Grupo GAST (Grupo de Aplicaciones y Servicios Telemáticos) del Departamento de Ingeniería Telemática de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. La temática principal de investigación es la aplicación de tecnologías para la mejora de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje. El resumen se centra en tres líneas: Personalización del aprendizaje, uso de dispositivos móviles con fines educativos y aplicaciones de Realidad Virtual y Realidad Aumentada en educación.En este artículo se presenta un resumen de las líneas de investigación que se realizan en el Laboratorio Gradient perteneciente al Grupo GAST (Grupo de Aplicaciones y Servicios Telemáticos) del Departamento de Ingeniería Telemática de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. La temática principal de investigación es la aplicación de tecnologías para la mejora de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje. El resumen se centra en tres líneas: Personalización del aprendizaje, uso de dispositivos móviles con fines educativos y aplicaciones de Realidad Virtual y Realidad Aumentada en educación.Publicad

Different HCV Exposure Drives Specific miRNA Profile in PBMCs of HIV Patients

Micro RNAs (miRNAs) are essential players in HIV and HCV infections, as both viruses modulate cellular miRNAs and interact with the miRNA-mediated host response. We aim to analyze the miRNA profile of HIV patients with different exposure to HCV to explore specific signatures in the miRNA profile of PBMCs for each type of infection. We massively sequenced small RNAs of PBMCs from 117 HIV+ infected patients: 45 HIV+ patients chronically infected with HCV (HIV/HCV+), 36 HIV+ that spontaneously clarified HCV after acute infection (HIV/HCV-) and 36 HIV+ patients without previous HCV infection (HIV). Thirty-two healthy patients were used as healthy controls (HC). Differential expression analysis showed significantly differentially expressed (SDE) miRNAs in HIV/HCV+ (n = 153), HIV/HCV- (n = 169) and HIV (n = 153) patients. We found putative dysregulated pathways, such as infectious-related and PI3K signaling pathways, common in all contrasts. Specifically, putatively targeted genes involved in antifolate resistance (HIV/HV+), cancer-related pathways (HIV/HCV-) and HIF-signaling (HIV) were identified, among others. Our findings revealed that HCV strongly influences the expression profile of PBMCs from HIV patients through the disruption of its miRNome. Thus, different HCV exposure can be identified by specific miRNA signatures in PBMCs.This work has been supported by grants from Institute of Health Carlos III, [PI15CIII/00031 and PI18CIII/00020/ to AFR and VB] and the Foundation Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio-Santander [grant number 1.010.932 to AFR] and the Spanish AIDS Research Network (RD16CIII/0002/0002), and Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red (CIBER) en Enfermedades Infecciosas (CB21/13/00044). AFR is supported by the Miguel Servet programme from Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (ISCIII) [CP14/CIII/00010 and CPII20CIII/0001].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

HGF, IL-1α, and IL-27 are robust biomarkers in early severity stratification of COVID-19 patients

© 2021 by the authors.Pneumonia is the leading cause of hospital admission and mortality in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We aimed to identify the cytokines responsible for lung damage and mortality. We prospectively recruited 108 COVID-19 patients between March and April 2020 and divided them into four groups according to the severity of respiratory symptoms. Twenty-eight healthy volunteers were used for normalization of the results. Multiple cytokines showed statistically significant differences between mild and critical patients. High HGF levels were associated with the critical group (OR = 3.51; p < 0.001; 95%CI = 1.95–6.33). Moreover, high IL-1α (OR = 1.36; p = 0.01; 95%CI = 1.07–1.73) and low IL-27 (OR = 0.58; p < 0.005; 95%CI = 0.39–0.85) greatly increased the risk of ending up in the severe group. This model was especially sensitive in order to predict critical status (AUC = 0.794; specificity = 69.74%; sensitivity = 81.25%). Furthermore, high levels of HGF and IL-1α showed significant results in the survival analysis (p = 0.033 and p = 0.011, respectively). HGF, IL-1α, and IL 27 at hospital admission were strongly associated with severe/critical COVID-19 patients and therefore are excellent predictors of bad prognosis. HGF and IL-1α were also mortality biomarkers.This work was supported by the Carlos III Health Institute (Grant COV20/00491)

HGF, IL-1α, and IL-27 Are Robust Biomarkers in Early Severity Stratification of COVID-19 Patients

Producción CientíficaPneumonia is the leading cause of hospital admission and mortality in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We aimed to identify the cytokines responsible for lung damage and mortality. We prospectively recruited 108 COVID-19 patients between March and April 2020 and divided them into four groups according to the severity of respiratory symptoms. Twenty-eight healthy volunteers were used for normalization of the results. Multiple cytokines showed statistically significant differences between mild and critical patients. High HGF levels were associated with the critical group (OR = 3.51; p < 0.001; 95%CI = 1.95–6.33). Moreover, high IL-1α (OR = 1.36; p = 0.01; 95%CI = 1.07–1.73) and low IL-27 (OR = 0.58; p < 0.005; 95%CI = 0.39–0.85) greatly increased the risk of ending up in the severe group. This model was especially sensitive in order to predict critical status (AUC = 0.794; specificity = 69.74%; sensitivity = 81.25%). Furthermore, high levels of HGF and IL-1α showed significant results in the survival analysis (p = 0.033 and p = 0.011, respectively). HGF, IL-1α, and IL 27 at hospital admission were strongly associated with severe/critical COVID-19 patients and therefore are excellent predictors of bad prognosis. HGF and IL-1α were also mortality biomarkers.Instituto de Salud Carlos III (grant COV20/00491

HCV-coinfection is related to an increased HIV-1 reservoir size in cART-treated HIV patients: a cross-sectional study

In HIV-1/HCV-coinfected patients, chronic HCV infection leads to an increased T-lymphocyte immune activation compared to HIV-monoinfected patients, thereby likely contributing to increase HIV-1 reservoir that is the major barrier for its eradication. Our objective was to evaluate the influence of HCV coinfection in HIV-1 viral reservoir size in resting (r) CD4+ T-cells (CD25-CD69-HLADR-). Multicenter cross-sectional study of 97 cART-treated HIV-1 patients, including 36 patients with HIV and HCV-chronic co-infection without anti-HCV treatment, 32 HIV patients with HCV spontaneous clearance and 29 HIV-monoinfected patients. rCD4+ T-cells were isolated and total DNA was extracted. HIV viral reservoir was measured by Alu-LTR qPCR. Differences between groups were calculated with a generalized linear model. Overall, 63.9% were men, median age of 41 years and Caucasian. Median CD4+ and CD8+ T-lymphocytes were 725 and 858 cells/mm 3 , respectively. CD4+ T nadir cells was 305 cells/mm 3 . Proviral HIV-1 DNA size was significantly increased in chronic HIV/HCV-coinfected compared to HIV-monoinfected patients (206.21 ± 47.38 vs. 87.34 ± 22.46, respectively; P = 0.009), as well as in spontaneously clarified HCV co-infected patients when compared to HIV-monoinfected individuals (136.20 ± 33.20; P = 0.009). HIV-1/HCV co-infected patients showed a larger HIV-1 reservoir size in comparison to HIV-monoinfected individuals. This increase could lead to a greater complexity in the elimination of HIV-1 reservoir in HIV-1/HCV-coinfected individuals, which should be considered in the current strategies for the elimination of HIV-1 reservoir.Financial support was provided by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III to VB (PI15CIII/00031), by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness to MC (SAF2016–78480-R) and The SPANISH AIDS Research Network RD16CIII/0002/0001, RD16CIII/0002/0002 and RD16/0025/0013 - ISCIII – FEDER. MRLP is supported by ISCIII - Subdirección General de Evaluacion and European Funding for Regional Development (FEDER) (PIE 13/00040 and RD12/0017/0017 RETIC de SIDA). C.P. is supported by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) (grant number SFRH/ BPD/77448/2011 is part of the EDCTP2 programme supported by the European Union). V.B., A.F.R. and N.R. are supported by the Miguel Servet programme from Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (ISCIII) (grant number CP13/00098, CP14/CIII/00010 and CP14/00198, respectively)

SARS-CoV-2 mutant spectra reveal differences between COVID-19 severity categories

Trabajo presentado en el XVI Congreso Nacional de Virología, celebrado en Málaga (España) del 06 al 09 de septiembre de 2022.RNA virus populations are composed of complex mixtures of genomes that are termed mutant spectra. SARS-CoV-2 replicates as a viral quasispecies, and mutations that are detected at low frequencies in a host can be dominant in subsequent variants. We have studied mutant spectrum complexities of SARS-CoV-2 populations derived from thirty nasopharyngeal swabs of patients infected during the first wave (April 2020) in the Hospital Universitario Fundación Jiménez Díaz. The patients were classified according to the COVID-19 severity in mild (non-hospitalized), moderate (hospitalized) and exitus (hospitalized with ICU admission and who passed away due to COVID-19). Using ultra-deep sequencing technologies (MiSeq, Illumina), we have examined four amplicons of the nsp12 (polymerase)-coding region and two amplicons of the spike-coding region. Ultra-deep sequencing data were analyzed with different cut-off frequency for mutation detection. Average number of different point mutations, mutations per haplotype and several diversity indices were significantly higher in SARS-CoV-2 isolated from patients who developed mild disease. A feature that we noted in the SARS-CoV-2 mutant spectra from diagnostic samples is the remarkable absence of mutations at intermediate frequencies, and an overwhelming abundance of mutations at frequencies lower than 10%. Thus, the decrease of the cut-off frequency for mutation detection from 0.5% to 0.1% revealed an increasement (50- to 100 fold) in the number of different mutations. The significantly higher frequency of mutations in virus from patients displaying mild than moderate or severe disease was maintained with the 0.1% cut- off frequency. To evaluate whether the frequency repertoire of amino acid substitutions differed between SARS-CoV-2 and the well characterized hepatitis C virus (HCV), we performed a comparative study of mutant spectra from infected patients using the same bioinformatics pipelines. HCV did not show the deficit of intermediate frequency substitutions that was observed with SARS-CoV-2. This difference was maintained when two functionally equivalent proteins, the corresponding viral polymerases, were compared. In conclusion, SARS-CoV-2 mutant spectra are rich reservoirs of mutants, whose complexity is not uniform among clinical isolates. Virus from patients who developed mild disease may be a source of new variants that may acquire epidemiological relevance.This work was supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spanish Ministry of Science and In-novation (COVID-19 Research Call COV20/00181), and co-financed by European Development Regional Fund ‘A way to achieve Europe’. The work was also supported by grants CSIC-COV19-014 from Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), project 525/C/2021 from Fundació La Marató de TV3, PID2020-113888RB-I00 from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, BFU2017-91384-EXP from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MCIU), PI18/00210 and PI21/00139 from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, and S2018/BAA-4370 (PLATESA2 from Comunidad de Madrid/FEDER). C.P., M.C., and P.M. are supported by the Miguel Servet programme of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (CPII19/00001, CPII17/00006, and CP16/00116, respectively) co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). CIBERehd (Centro de Investi-gación en Red de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas) is funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III. Institutional grants from the Fundación Ramón Areces and Banco Santander to the CBMSO are also acknowledged. The team at CBMSO belongs to the Global Virus Network (GVN). B.M.-G. is supported by predoctoral contract PFIS FI19/00119 from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo) cofinanced by Fondo Social Europeo (FSE). R.L.-V. is supported by predoctoral contract PEJD-2019-PRE/BMD-16414 from Comunidad de Madrid. C.G.-C. is sup-ported by predoctoral contract PRE2018-083422 from MCIU. BS was supported by a predoctoral research fellowship (Doctorados Industriales, DI-17-09134) from Spanish MINECO

Crítica, periodismo y divulgación musical en espacios digitales

Mediante el presente proyecto se ha ofrecido formación en recursos y prácticas de crítica y periodismo musical, profundizando en la importancia de la divulgación en espacios digitales. Se trata de la continuación del anterior proyecto de innovación no 21 "Herramientas de comunicación y divulgación musical orientadas a la transferencia: entornos digitales 2.0". El nuevo proyecto se ha centrado en los ámbitos de la crítica y el periodismo, concretamente en la actualidad de la prensa escrita y la radio, así como ha tenido en cuenta el uso extendido de redes sociales y plataformas online en tareas de divulgación de contenidos. Dicha formación ha querido dar respuesta a la necesidad de que el profesorado y el alumnado en Musicología actualice y refuerce su conocimiento sobre los códigos, recursos, y entornos en los que se desarrollan estos campos, ya que se trata actualmente de uno de los ámbitos principales de proyección profesional de los egresados de Musicología, a través de la demanda de publicaciones digitales que requieren especialización en música, , radios - en las cuales la interacción con el usuario de internet es crucial-, e instituciones culturales y musicales que necesitan reseñas, crónicas, y breves escritos enfocados a sus espacios de difusión y promoción en internet. Se trata de un proyecto interfacultativo e interdepartamental ya que ha implicado a profesionales, docentes, investigadores y alumnado del Departamento de Musicología, el ICCMU (ambos de la Facultad de Geografía e Historia), y el Departamento de Periodismo y Nuevos medios (Facultad de Ciencias de la Información)