Age-Related Modifications in Circulating IL-15 Levels in Humans

Aging is associated to a progressive establishing of a chronic inflammatory state linked to a continuous long exposure to antigens. Since IL-15 stimulates the proliferation of memory T cells and the immunosenescence is characterized by accumulation of memory T cells and exhaustion of naive T cells, we analyzed IL-15 levels in sera from 30 ultralongeval subjects with respect to those from young and old adults. IL-15 levels were assayed by immunoenzymatic methods. Ultralongeval subjects displayed significantly higher IL-15 levels with respect to both young and old controls. No statistical difference was found between old and young controls. These findings may explain, at least in part, the characteristic increase of memory cells in immunosenescence and the capacity of the immune system of centenarians to defend itself from infections through immune-inflammatory responses

Improving the use of remote laboratories. The case of VISIR at Universidad Nacional de Rosario

The present work originates in the Project "Educational Modules for Electric and Electronic Circuits Theory and Practice following an Inquiry-based Teaching and Learning Methodology supported by VISIR", carried out with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme. Remote labs can provide a framework where physical experiments can be developed for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. Although remote labs have been in use for over a decade now in several countries and levels of education, their use is not yet being generalized in Latin America. Through the VISIR+ International Cooperation Project from the Erasmus+ Programme, five higher education institutions from Latin America have incorporated de VISIR remote lab in order to carry out experiments with electric and electronic circuits. In the present work, the results of the study developed at Universidad Nacional de Rosario within the framework of the aforementioned project are shown.This work was carried out with the economic support of the European Commission through Project 561735-EPP-12015-1-PTEPPKA2-CBHE-JP and by Universidad Nacional de Rosario, through Project PID 1ING505.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Uso compartido de módulos educativos para circuitos eléctricos y electrónicos del laboratorio remoto VISIR

VISIR (Virtual Instruments Systems in Reality) is a remote laboratory that has been development in the Blekinge Institute of Technology of Sweden, widely spread at a global Level. The objective of this work is to share in the field of RUEDA community, motivations, basis, progress and projection, with special implications in Argentina, of an Erasmus+ Project: "Educational Modules for Electric and Electronic Circuits Theory and Practice following an Enquiry-based Teaching and Learning Methodology supported by VISIR". This project is funded by the Commission of the European Union at the 2015 call, with the coordination of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. The project is being developed and it is carried out by a consortium of European and Latin higher education institutions, with the possibility of incorporating adherents. The emphasis is on the strategic and innovation objectives of both technological and educational issues. These objectives are achievable through collaboration, to generate methodological changes in teaching in engineering careers and for enlargement of remote experimentation sharing resources.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Acerca de la eficacia de VISIR como recurso en temas de electrónica circuital en Argentina

“Virtual Instruments System in Reality” (VISIR) es una plataforma laboratorio de acceso remoto desarrollada en el Departamento de Ingeniería Electrónica del Instituto de Tecnología de Blekinge (BTH), Suecia. VISIR ha sido empleada y evaluada en varios países e instituciones en el mundo, reportándose en la bibliografía que la misma facilita el logro de resultados de aprendizaje en temas de electrónica analógica. El primer uso intensivo de VISIR por estudiantes en la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingeniería y Agrimensura (FCEIA), Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR) data de 2016. Dicha experiencia se llevó a cabo en la forma de caso de estudio en una asignatura de Ingeniería Electrónica (IE) que constituye el primer acercamiento a la electrónica de dispositivos y circuitos. El empleo de VISIR en el contexto curricular se propuso en forma complementaria al laboratorio tradicional, para la realización de una actividad de integración cuya solución requería del cálculo matemático y de la experimentación remota. Finalizada la experiencia se recabaron datos cuantitativos y cualitativos con el objetivo de evaluar la misma. En este trabajo se informan resultados que focalizan en la valoración por estudiantes y docentes de la eficacia de VISIR como recurso de aprendizaje en temas introductorios de la electrónica circuital.N/

VISIR en temas introductorios de electrónica circuital: el punto de vista de los estudiantes

A partir de la participación de la Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR) en el proyecto VISIR+, la asignatura Física de los Dispositivos Electrónicos (FDE), de Ingeniería Electrónica (IE), ha incorporado curricularmente actividades experimentales con empleo del laboratorio “Virtual Instruments System in Reality” (VISIR) en sucesivos dictados desde 2016. En esta asignatura, VISIR es empleado como complemento del laboratorio tradicional a posteriori de la última actividad de diseño experimental que involucra el estudio de aplicaciones circuitales sencillas con transistor bipolar. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo describir la experiencia llevada a cabo en FDE, así como presentar los resultados que surgen de la evaluación de la misma luego de finalizadas tres implementaciones didácticas, con participación de 51 estudiantes del tercer año de la carrera. La investigación incluyó la aplicación de un cuestionario validado previamente, compuesto por 20 ítems, escala Likert 1-4. El estudio involucró análisis estadístico descriptivo, con posterior agrupamiento y re-categorización de variables a los efectos de concluir sobre cuatro dimensiones de análisis vinculadas al punto de vista de los estudiantes: 1) aprendizajes percibidos, 2) aceptación de VISIR, 3) orientación percibida, 4) dificultades de tiempo y limitaciones técnicas.N/

Chapter 1

Experimenting is fundamental to the training process of all scientists and engineers. While experiments have been traditionally done inside laboratories, the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies added two alter-natives accessible anytime, anywhere. These two alternatives are known as virtual and remote labs, and are sometimes indistinguishably referred as online labs. Sim-ilarly to other instructional technologies, virtual and remote labs require some ef-fort from teachers in integrating them into curricula, taking into consideration sev-eral factors that affect their adoption (i.e. cost) and their educational effectiveness (i.e. benefit). This chapter analyses these two dimensions and sustains the case where only through international cooperation it is possible to serve the large num-ber of teachers and students involved in engineering education. It presents an ex-ample in the area of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, based on a remote lab named Virtual Instruments System in Reality, and it then describes how a number of European and Latin-American institutions have been cooperating under the scope of an Erasmus+ project2, for spreading its use in Brazil and Argentina.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Histone deacetylase inhibitors VPA and TSA induce apoptosis and autophagy in pancreatic cancer cells

PURPOSE: Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) are anti-neoplastic agents that are known to affect the growth of different cancer types, but their underlying mechanisms are still incompletely understood. Here, we compared the effects of two HDACi, i.e., Trichostatin A (TSA) and Valproic Acid (VPA), on the induction of cell death and autophagy in pancreatic cancer-derived cells that exhibit a high metastatic capacity and carry KRAS/p53 double mutations. METHODS: Cell viability and proliferation tests were carried out using Trypan blue dye exclusion, MTT and BrdU assays. FACS analyses were carried out to assess cell cycle progression, apoptosis, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and mitochondrial depolarization, while Western blot and immunoprecipitation analyses were employed to detect proteins involved in apoptosis and autophagy. RESULTS: We found that both VPA and TSA can induce apoptosis in Panc1 and PaCa44 pancreatic cancer-derived cells by triggering mitochondrial membrane depolarization, Cytochrome c release and Caspase 3 activation, although VPA was more effective than TSA, especially in Panc1 cells. As underlying molecular events, we found that ERK1/2 was de-phosphorylated and that the c-Myc and mutant p53 protein levels were reduced after VPA and, to a lesser extent, after TSA treatment. Up-regulation of p21 and Puma was also observed, concomitantly with mutant p53 degradation. In addition, we found that in both cell lines VPA increased the pro-apoptotic Bim level, reduced the anti-apoptotic Mcl-1 level and increased ROS production and autophagy, while TSA was able to induce these effects only in PaCA44 cells. CONCLUSIONS: From our results we conclude that both VPA and TSA can induce pancreatic cancer cell apoptosis and autophagy. VPA appears have a stronger and broader cytotoxic effect than TSA and, thus, may represent a better choice for anti-pancreatic cancer therapy

Starting the Study of Electronic Circuits with VISIR. College students’ viewpoints in a Pilot Test in Argentina

This paper aims at introducing the first intensive use of a remote lab named as VISIR by lecturers and students from Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingeniería y Agrimensura, Universidad Nacional de Rosario. The research was carried under the VISIR + project. It is a pilot test in which 17 students from the third year of an Electronic Engineering degree took part. The pilot test was developed in order to bring forward possible difficulties, assess successes and failures and eventually suggest other possible ways of curricular incorporation of VISIR in the teaching of the Physics of Electronic Devices subject. VISIR was used as a complement to hands-on lab, after the last experimental design activity of basic circuits with bipolar transistor. The students carried out an individual lab work. Then, they were asked to answer an opinion poll made up of 20 items, 1-4 Likert scale. Descriptive statistical analysis and summary of cases were carried out in order to conclude about four dimensions of analysis linked to the students’ viewpoint. They are: perceived learnings, VISIR acceptance, perceived teachers’ guidance and time and technical restrictions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio