Desempeño académico de alumnos de educación para adultos en prisión

Education in prison helps to reduce recidivism, but the relationship between academic performance and recidivism is spurious, as most prisoners belong to more vulnerable and deprived social groups with deficits that not only influence lower academic standards but also have a direct impact on fewer opportunities once released. The objective of this study       is to analyze the relationship of cognitive-motivational variables such as academic self-concept, academic self-efficacy, learning orientation and school climate, with the academic achievement of inmates, as well as with other measures of their academic performance, such as satisfaction with  the subject, perceived learning and expected grade. To this end, a group of students in Section I and II of the Education for Adults who were studying in prison was compared with another group of students of the same level who were attending adult education centers in the community. The total sample consisted of 233 participants between the ages of 18 and 64, of whom 124 were in prison. Participants answered a questionnaire including 11 scales that had previously obtained the necessary evidence of reliability and validity. The analysis of the data indicated that the academic performance and academic achievement of students in prison were better than those of students outside prison, that the cognitive-motivational variables were related in both groups only to academic performance and not to academic achievement and that this relationship varied within each group. The results are discussed focusing on the fact that imprisonment makes the teaching/ learning process harder, but that the difficulties should be solved taking into account, not so much that students are people who have committed a crime for which they are serving a sentence, but that they are adults who have not completed compulsory education and are motivated to do so.La educación en prisión contribuye a reducir la reincidencia, pero la relación entre rendimiento académico y reincidencia es espuria, ya que la mayoría de los/las reclusos/as pertenecen a grupos sociales más vulnerables y con más carencias que, no solo influyen en un menor nivel académico, sino que repercuten en menos oportunidades una vez en libertad. El objetivo de este estudio es analizar la relación de variables cognitivo-motivacionales como el autoconcepto académico, la autoeficacia académica, la orientación al aprendizaje y el clima escolar, con el rendimiento académico de reclusos/ as, así como con otras medidas de su desempeño académico, como son la satisfacción con la asignatura, el aprendizaje percibido y la nota esperada. Para ello se comparó a un grupo de alumnos/as de Tramo I y II de educación para personas adultas que cursaban sus estudios en prisión con otro grupo de estudiantes del mismo nivel que asistían a centros educativos para adultos en la comunidad. La muestra total estuvo compuesta por 233 participantes de entre 18 y 64 años, de los cuales 124 estaban presos. Los/las participantes contestaron a un cuestionario que incluía 11 pruebas que habían obtenido previamente las necesarias evidencias de fiabilidad y validez. El análisis de los datos indicó que el rendimiento y el desempeño académicos del alumnado en prisión fueron mejores que los del alumnado de fuera de prisión, que las variables cognitivo-motivacionales se relacionaron en ambos grupos solo con el desempeño y no con el rendimiento académico y que dicha relación varía dentro de cada grupo. Los resultados se discuten poniendo el foco de atención en que la prisión complejiza el proceso de enseñanza/aprendizaje, pero que habría que solventar las dificultades teniendo en cuenta, no tanto que se trata de personas que han cometido un delito por el que cumplen una sentencia, sino en que son adultos que no han completado la educación obligatoria y están motivados para hacerlo

Conjugated Porphyrin Dimers: Cooperative Effects and Electronic Communication in Supramolecular Ensembles with C60

Two new conjugated porphyrin-based systems (dimers 3 and 4) endowed with suitable crown ethers have been synthesized as receptors for a fullerene-ammonium salt derivative (1). Association constants in solution have been determined by UVvis titration experiments in CH2Cl2 at room temperature. The designed hosts are able to associate up to two fullerene-based guest molecules and present association constants as high as 5 × 108 M‒1 . Calculation of the allosteric cooperative factor for supramolecular complexes [3·12] and [4·12] showed a negative cooperative effect in both cases. The interactions accounting for the formation of the associates are based, firstly, on the complementary ammonium-crown ether interaction and, secondly, on the π−π interactions between the porphyrin rings and the C60 moieties. Theoretical calculations have evidenced a significant decrease of the electron density in the porphyrin dimers 3 and 4 upon complexation of the first C60 molecule, in good agreement with the negative cooperativity found in these systems. This negative effect is partially compensated by the stabilizing C60-C60 interactions that take place in the more stable syn-disposition of [4·12]

Tourism and heritage. The case of Valparaiso (Chile) and the profile of the cultural tourist

Comentamos inicialmente las categorías patrimoniales de la UNESCO analizando seguidamente diversos aspectos sobre turismo y patrimonio, así como emblemáticos casos internacionales publicados en revistas indexadas en SCOPUS. Posteriormente reseñamos la situación de Valparaíso, ciudad chilena inmersa en un considerable impulso de desarrollo turístico: su entorno de riqueza paisajística (puerto, bahía, cerros, costa, playas) y su riqueza patrimonial (arquitectura, gastronomía, historia) la han hecho merecedora de ser nombrada WHS1 por la UNESCO. La encuesta realizada a los visitantes nos permite detallar su perfil sociodemográfico, incidiendo en las principales valoraciones como destino patrimonial. La mayoría son nacionales de Chile, ya conocían la ciudad, se encuentran muy satisfechos con la visita y con la relación calidad ‑ precio de los servicios. Nuevos retos y desafíos relacionados con la acertada gestión en sus políticas turísticas y urbanísticas se presentan como aspectos de relevante consideración.We comment initially the heritage categories of UNESCO, analyzing then various aspects on tourism and heritage, as well as emblematic international cases published in journals indexed in SCOPUS. Subsequently we reviewed the situation of Valparaiso, Chilean city immersed in a considerable impulse of tourist development: its landscape richness environment (port, bay, hills, coast, beaches) and its patrimonial richness (architecture, gastronomy, history) they have made it to be named WHS by UNESCO. The survey of visitors allows us to detail their sociodemographic profile, and to highlight the main opinions as hereditary destination. Most of them are nationals of Chile, they already knew the city, they are very satisfied with the visit and with the quality‑price relation of the services. New challenges related to the successful management in its tourism and urban development policies are presented as aspects of relevant consideration

ICT education policies in Spain after School Program 2.0: Emerging Trends

En este artículo se analiza la situación actual de las políticas educativas destinadas a laincorporación de las TIC a las escuelas en una muestra de ocho comunidades autónomasde España (Andalucía, Canarias, Cataluña, Extremadura, Madrid, País Valenciano, PaísVasco y Principado de Asturias) después del proceso impulsado por el Programa Escuela2.0. Este programa estuvo vigente durante el periodo 2009­2012 y respondió al modelo 1:1,de un ordenador por estudiante. Este análisis se guió por las siguientes cuestiones: ¿Quéefectos permanecen de las experiencias de políticas educativas del modelo 1:1?; ¿Quénuevos proyectos o programas están vigentes en los sistemas educativos de lascomunidades autónomas? ¿Qué nuevas tendencias con relación a las TIC estánemergiendo en la agenda educativa de las políticas autonómicas? Se concluye que lasnuevas políticas TIC, entre otras acciones, apuntan a centrar su atención en laincorporación de las PDI a todas las aulas, a la dotación de tabletas a los estudiantes envez de miniportátiles, a políticas de sustitución de los libros de texto de papel porplataformas de contenidos digitales y a la creación de portales de recursos en la nube. Seconstata también la ausencia de un programa o política educativa TIC coordinada a nivelde todo el estado como fue la experiencia del Programa Escuela 2.0.In this article the current situation of educational policies for the incorporation of ICT inschools in a sample of eight regions of Spain (Andalusia, Canary Islands, Catalonia,Extremadura, Madrid, Valencia, the Basque Country and the Principality of analyzesAsturias) after the process driven by the Escuela 2.0 program. This program was in effectduring the period 2009­2012 and responded to the 1:1 model of a computer per student.This analysis was guided by the following questions: What effects remain from theexperiences of educational policies of the 1:1 model?; What new projects or programs arein place in the educational systems of the regions? What new trends in relation to ICT areemerging in the educational agenda of regional policies? We conclude that the new ICTpolicy, among other things, aim to focus on the integration of IDPs to all classrooms toequipping students tablets instead of netbooks, a substitution policies textbooks paper fordigital content platforms, to create portals of cloud resources. The absence of aneducational program or policy level ICT coordinated statewide as was the experience ofSchool Program 2.0 has been observed

Las políticas educativas TIC en España después del Programa Escuela 2.0: las tendencias que emergen

En este artículo se analiza la situación actual de las políticas educativas destinadas a la incorporación de las TIC a las escuelas en una muestra de ocho comunidades autónomas de España (Andalucía, Canarias, Cataluña, Extremadura, Madrid, País Valenciano, País Vasco y Principado de Asturias) después del proceso impulsado por el Programa Escuela 2.0. Este programa estuvo vigente durante el periodo 20092012 y respondió al modelo 1:1, de un ordenador por estudiante. Este análisis se guió por las siguientes cuestiones: ¿Qué efectos permanecen de las experiencias de políticas educativas del modelo 1:1?; ¿Qué nuevos proyectos o programas están vigentes en los sistemas educativos de las comunidades autónomas? ¿Qué nuevas tendencias con relación a las TIC están emergiendo en la agenda educativa de las políticas autonómicas? Se concluye que las nuevas políticas TIC, entre otras acciones, apuntan a centrar su atención en la incorporación de las PDI a todas las aulas, a la dotación de tabletas a los estudiantes en vez de miniportátiles, a políticas de sustitución de los libros de texto de papel por plataformas de contenidos digitales y a la creación de portales de recursos en la nube. Se constata también la ausencia de un programa o política educativa TIC coordinada a nivel de todo el estado como fue la experiencia del Programa Escuela 2.0. In this article the current situation of educational policies for the incorporation of ICT in schools in a sample of eight regions of Spain (Andalusia, Canary Islands, Catalonia, Extremadura, Madrid, Valencia, the Basque Country and the Principality of analyzes Asturias) after the process driven by the Escuela 2.0 program. This program was in effect during the period 20092012 and responded to the 1:1 model of a computer per student. This analysis was guided by the following questions: What effects remain from the experiences of educational policies of the 1:1 model?; What new projects or programs are in place in the educational systems of the regions? What new trends in relation to ICT are emerging in the educational agenda of regional policies? We conclude that the new ICT policy, among other things, aim to focus on the integration of IDPs to all classrooms to equipping students tablets instead of netbooks, a substitution policies textbooks paper for digital content platforms, to create portals of cloud resources. The absence of an educational program or policy level ICT coordinated statewide as was the experience of School Program 2.0 has been observed

Diagnostic evaluation of people with hypertension in low income country: cohort study of “essential” method of risk stratification

Objectives To explore the predictive power of a risk stratification method for people with hypertension based on “essential” procedures (that is, available in economically less developed areas of the world), comparing it in the same population with the results given by the method suggested by the 1999 World Health Organization-International Society of Hypertension (WHO-ISH) guidelines

iPSC-Based Modeling of Variable Clinical Presentation in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.

BACKGROUND Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common inherited cardiac disease and a frequent cause of heart failure and sudden cardiac death. Our understanding of the genetic bases and pathogenic mechanisms underlying HCM has improved significantly in the recent past, but the combined effect of various pathogenic gene variants and the influence of genetic modifiers in disease manifestation are very poorly understood. Here, we set out to investigate genotype-phenotype relationships in 2 siblings with an extensive family history of HCM, both carrying a pathogenic truncating variant in the MYBPC3 gene (p.Lys600Asnfs*2), but who exhibited highly divergent clinical manifestations. METHODS We used a combination of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based disease modeling and CRISPR (clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats)/Cas9 (CRISPR-associated protein 9)-mediated genome editing to generate patient-specific cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) and isogenic controls lacking the pathogenic MYBPC3 variant. RESULTS Mutant iPSC-CMs developed impaired mitochondrial bioenergetics, which was dependent on the presence of the mutation. Moreover, we could detect altered excitation-contraction coupling in iPSC-CMs from the severely affected individual. The pathogenic MYBPC3 variant was found to be necessary, but not sufficient, to induce iPSC-CM hyperexcitability, suggesting the presence of additional genetic modifiers. Whole-exome sequencing of the mutant carriers identified a variant of unknown significance in the MYH7 gene (p.Ile1927Phe) uniquely present in the individual with severe HCM. We finally assessed the pathogenicity of this variant of unknown significance by functionally evaluating iPSC-CMs after editing the variant. CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate that the p.Ile1927Phe variant of unknown significance in MYH7 can be considered as a modifier of HCM expressivity when found in combination with truncating variants in MYBPC3. Overall, our studies show that iPSC-based modeling of clinically discordant subjects provides a unique platform to functionally assess the effect of genetic modifiers.The funding for this research was provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation-MCIN (grants PID2021-123925OB-I00, PID2019-104776RB-I00, CB06/01/1056, and CB16/11/00399 financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033), AGAUR (2021-SGR-974), Fundació La Marató de TV3 (201534-30), Fundación BBVA (BIO14_298), Fundació Obra Social la Caixa, and CERCA Program/ Generalitat de Catalunya. The CNIC is supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), the MCIN, and the Pro CNIC Foundation. I. Lazis was partially supported by a predoctoral fellowship from MCIN (PRE2019-087901).S

Evaluation of 12 GWAS-drawn SNPs as biomarkers of rheumatoid arthritis response to TNF inhibitors. A potential SNP association with response to etanercept

Research in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is increasingly focused on the discovery of biomarkers that could enable personalized treatments. The genetic biomarkers associated with the response to TNF inhibitors (TNFi) are among the most studied. They include 12 SNPs exhibiting promising results in the three largest genome-wide association studies (GWAS). However, they still require further validation. With this aim, we assessed their association with response to TNFi in a replication study, and a meta-analysis summarizing all non-redundant data. The replication involved 755 patients with RA that were treated for the first time with a biologic drug, which was either infliximab (n = 397), etanercept (n = 155) or adalimumab (n = 203). Their DNA samples were successfully genotyped with a single-base extension multiplex method. Lamentably, none of the 12 SNPs was associated with response to the TNFi in the replication study (p > 0.05). However, a drug-stratified exploratory analysis revealed a significant association of the NUBPL rs2378945 SNP with a poor response to etanercept (B = -0.50, 95% CI = -0.82, -0.17, p = 0.003). In addition, the meta-analysis reinforced the previous association of three SNPs: rs2378945, rs12142623, and rs4651370. In contrast, five of the remaining SNPs were less associated than before, and the other four SNPs were no longer associated with the response to treatment. In summary, our results highlight the complexity of the pharmacogenetics of TNFi in RA showing that it could involve a drug-specific component and clarifying the status of the 12 GWAS-drawn SNP

Validation Study Of Genetic Biomarkers Of Response To Tnf Inhibitors In Rheumatoid Arthritis

Genetic biomarkers are sought to personalize treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), given their variable response to TNF inhibitors (TNFi). However, no genetic biomaker is yet sufficiently validated. Here, we report a validation study of 18 previously reported genetic biomarkers, including 11 from GWAS of response to TNFi. The validation was attempted in 581 patients with RA that had not been treated with biologic antirheumatic drugs previously. Their response to TNFi was evaluated at 3, 6 and 12 months in two ways: change in the DAS28 measure of disease activity, and according to the EULAR criteria for response to antirheumatic drugs. Association of these parameters with the genotypes, obtained by PCR amplification followed by single-base extension, was tested with regression analysis. These analyses were adjusted for baseline DAS28, sex, and the specific TNFi. However, none of the proposed biomarkers was validated, as none showed association with response to TNFi in our study, even at the time of assessment and with the outcome that showed the most significant result in previous studies. These negative results are notable because this was the first independent validation study for 12 of the biomarkers, and because they indicate that prudence is needed in the interpretation of the proposed biomarkers of response to TNFi even when they are supported by very low p values. The results also emphasize the requirement of independent replication for validation, and the need to search protocols that could increase reproducibility of the biomarkers of response to TNFi

Specific Mutations in the PB2 Protein of Influenza A Virus Compensate for the Lack of Efficient Interferon Antagonism of the NS1 Protein of Bat Influenza A-Like Viruses

Recently, two new influenza A-like viruses have been discovered in bats, A/little yellow-shouldered bat/Guatemala/060/2010 (HL17NL10) and A/flat-faced bat/Peru/033/2010 (HL18NL11). The hemagglutinin (HA)-like (HL) and neuraminidase (NA)-like (NL) proteins of these viruses lack hemagglutination and neuraminidase activities, despite their sequence and structural homologies with the HA and NA proteins of conventional influenza A viruses. We have now investigated whether the NS1 proteins of the HL17NL10 and HL18NL11 viruses can functionally replace the NS1 protein of a conventional influenza A virus. For this purpose, we generated recombinant influenza A/Puerto Rico/8/1934 (PR8) H1N1 viruses containing the NS1 protein of the PR8 wild-type, HL17NL10, and HL18NL11 viruses. These viruses (r/NS1PR8, r/NS1HL17, and r/NS1HL18, respectively) were tested for replication in bat and nonbat mammalian cells and in mice. Our results demonstrate that the r/NS1HL17 and r/NS1HL18 viruses are attenuated in vitro and in vivo. However, the bat NS1 recombinant viruses showed a phenotype similar to that of the r/NS1PR8 virus in STAT1/ human A549 cells and mice, both in vitro and in vivo systems being unable to respond to interferon (IFN). Interestingly, multiple mouse passages of the r/NS1HL17 and r/NS1HL18 viruses resulted in selection of mutant viruses containing single amino acid mutations in the viral PB2 protein. In contrast to the parental viruses, virulence and IFN antagonism were restored in the selected PB2 mutants. Our results indicate that the NS1 protein of bat influenza A-like viruses is less efficient than the NS1 protein of its conventional influenza A virus NS1 counterpart in antagonizing the IFN response and that this deficiency can be overcome by the influenza virus PB2 protein.Universidad de Costa Rica/[803-B4-656]/UCR/Costa RicaCenter for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis (CRIP)NIAID-funded Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS)Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SCHW632/15-1)UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias de la Salud::Centro de Investigación en Enfermedades Tropicales (CIET)UCR::Vicerrectoría de Docencia::Salud::Facultad de Microbiologí