A service-learning educational approach developed the transversal competencies of undergraduate students in an outreach workshop aimed to high school students

In the last decade, research institutes and universities have strengthened the development of outreach activities in the biomedical field, involving researchers and professors as well as graduate students, but with little or no implication of undergraduate students. The development of this type of activities, using the Service-Learning educational approach, could be a valuable tool that would manage the acquisition of learning competencies by undergraduate students of Health Science Degrees and would put science at the service of society.In this project, we present the development of the workshop entitled “Exploring the human body”, in which 205 students in their first and second year of a Degree in Nursing or Medicine (University of Málaga, Spain) acted as mentors of 753 high school students (15 to 16 years old) in several school years (since 2016-2017, excluding 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). The workshop consisted of five work stations. Each station featured a set of different experiments and activities that were designed to teach the multiple levels by which the human body, and particularly the nervous system, can be studied: biomolecules, cells, tissues, organs and systems. Both high school and undergraduate students gave an evaluation of the workshop via questionnaires (Likert scale-based and short-answer questions) and a debriefing with the university professors. Data showed an overall score of 4.6 Out of 5 points for the workshop by both high school and undergraduate students. In addition, undergraduate students pointed out that their participation had a positive impact on their academic background (4.8 Out of 5 points), mainly due to the improvement of their oral communication skills (78 students) and self-confidence (58 students). Therefore, these results suggest that this methodology would be valid and applicable to develop the transversal competences of the students in Bachelor's degrees of Health Sciences.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers. Bulge-disc structural coupling resulting from major mergers

Observations reveal a strong structural coupling between bulge and disc in S0 galaxies, which seems difficult to explain if they have formed from supposedly catastrophic events such as major mergers. We face this question by quantifying the bulge-disc coupling in dissipative simulations of major and minor mergers that result in realistic S0s. We have studied the dissipative N-body binary merger simulations from the GalMer database that give rise to realistic, relaxed E/S0 and S0 remnants (67 major and 29 minor mergers). We simulate surface brightness profiles of these S0-like remnants in the K-band, mimicking typical observational conditions, to perform bulge-disc decompositions analogous to those carried out in real S0s. The global bulge-disc structure of these remnants has been compared with real data, and they distribute in the B/T - r_e - h_d parameter space consistently with real bright S0s, where B/T is the bulge-to-total luminosity ratio, r_e is the bulge effective radius, and h_d is the disc scalelength. Major mergers can rebuild a bulge-disc coupling in the remnants after having destroyed the structures of the progenitors, whereas minor mergers directly preserve them. Remnants exhibit B/T and r_e/h_d spanning a wide range of values, and their distribution is consistent with observations. Many remnants have bulge Sersic indices ranging 1<n<2, flat appearance, and contain residual star formation in embedded discs, a result which agrees with the presence of pseudobulges in real S0s. Contrary to the popular view, mergers (and in particular, major events) can result in S0 remnants with realistically coupled bulge-disc structures in less than ~3 Gyr. In conclusion, the bulge-disc coupling and the presence of pseudobulges in real S0s cannot be used as an argument against the possible major-merger origin of these galaxies.Comment: 23 pages, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics (version after minor language corrections

III-V semiconductor quantum dots for efficient quantum light sources

Comunicación presentada en el 3rd international Workshop Engineering of quantum emitter properties, celebrado en Linz (Austria) el 17 y 18 de diciembre de 2015.Photonic crystal microcavities (PCMs) with embedded quantum dots (QDs) have been shown as excellent test bed systems for experiments in the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics (c-QED) that may open doors to efficient quantum photonic devices for the generation of single-photons, entangled photon pairs and ultra-low threshold lasing. Based on fundamental excitonic emission and on biexciton-exciton recombination cascade, a single QD embedded in a PCM become efficient emitters of single photons or entangled photon pairs provided that both spectral and spatial matching of the optical cavity mode and the optical emission of the single nanostructure occur. Within this approach, we have explored several systems and growth methods with the aim of fabricating QD which fulfil the requirements for an efficient coupling between a single QD and a PCM. We have fabricated QD by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using a) droplet epitaxy and b) selective nucleation at nano-holes fabricated by atomic force microscopy local oxidation (AFMLO) lithography. Results will be presented of QD in GaAs/AlGaAs(111)A, InAs/GaAs(001) and InAs/InP (001). With the aim of obtaining coupled QD-PCM, we have followed two procedures: one is based on the fabrication of a PCM around a buried QD whose position and wavelength emission are previously determined; the other approach consists of locating a single QD by using AFMLO, at the maximum of the electric field of a prefabricated PCM. A MBE re-growth procedure has been developed for completing the PCM membrane thickness.Peer Reviewe

Exploring the evolutionary paths of the most massive galaxies since z~2

We use Spitzer MIPS data from the FIDEL Legacy Project in the Extended Groth Strip to analyze the stellar mass assembly of massive (M>10^11 M_sun) galaxies at z<2 as a function of structural parameters. We find 24 micron emission for more than 85% of the massive galaxies morphologically classified as disks, and for more than 57% of the massive systems morphologically classified as spheroids at any redshift, with about 8% of sources harboring a bright X-ray and/or infrared emitting AGN. More noticeably, 60% of all compact massive galaxies at z=1-2 are detected at 24 micron, even when rest-frame optical colors reveal that they are dead and evolving passively. For spheroid-like galaxies at a given stellar mass, the sizes of MIPS non-detections are smaller by a factor of 1.2 in comparison with IR-bright sources. We find that disk-like massive galaxies present specific SFRs ranging from 0.04 to 0.2 Gyr^-1 at z<1 (SFRs ranging from 1 to 10 M_sun/yr), typically a factor of 3-6 higher than massive spheroid-like objects in the same redshift range. At z>1, and more pronouncedly at z>1.3, the median specific SFRs of the disks and spheroids detected by MIPS are very similar, ranging from 0.1 to 1 Gyr^-1 (SFR=10-200 M_sun/yr). We estimate that massive spheroid-like galaxies may have doubled (at the most) their stellar mass from star-forming events at z<2: less than 20% mass increase at 1.7<z<2.0, up to 40% more at 1.1<z<1.7, and less than 20% additional increase at z<1. Disk-like galaxies may have tripled (at the most) their stellar mass at z<2 from star formation alone: up to 40% mass increase at 1.7<z<2.0, and less than 180% additional increase below z=1.7 occurred at a steady rate.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; 10 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Spectrophotometric study in the near-ir of a sample of MIPS selected galaxies at Z~2

Our main objective is to determine what kind of galaxies dominate the cosmic SFR density at z~2. Our sample consists of 24 galaxies in Chandra Deep Field South, a unique field for the study of galaxy evolution (12 observed with GNIRS/GEMINI and 12 with ISAAC/VLT). We use H alpha together with the already merged X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, near and mid-infrared imaging data to obtain estimations of SFRs, metallicities, stellar and dynamical masses, AGN activity, and extinction properties. We have obtained 15 Hα detections, 4 rotation curves, and SFR relationship for 7 galaxies. The metallicities obtained for 8 galaxies of the sample are compatible with the metallicities of local galaxies

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) Combined with Therapeutic Exercise and Cognitive Rehabilitation to Treat a Case of Burning Mouth Syndrome (BMS) Related Pain.

Burning Mouth Syndrome (BMS) is a multifactorial, chronic pain condition with neuropathic and psychogenic mechanisms. Cortical activation as well as sustained attention and executive functions have proven to be affected by chronic pain. The main objectives of this work were to test the efficacy of a multidimensional personalized pain treatment protocol and to investigate if the effects are based on psychophysical pain processing changes or cognitive effects. A 74-year-old female with 2 years of BMS received 10 sessions of a combined protocol of anodal left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex tDCS, cognitive therapy, and therapeutic exercise. The subjective perception of pain decreased by 47% after treatment but returned to the baseline at 45 days. No changes were found in objective pain measurements apart from a transient worsening of conditioned pain modulation. A large effect size was found in all functional scales, processing speed and executive control as well as sustained attention that persisted during follow-up. No changes in anxiety and depression were found. A multimodal therapeutic approach combining TDCS, cognitive rehabilitation and therapeutic exercise produces improved quality of life, disability and pain perception correlated with improvements in processing speed, executive control and sustained attention but independent of changes in psychophysical pain processing.post-print475 K

Spitzer view on the downsizing scenario of galaxy formation and the role of AGN

We present the latest results of the Spitzer Cosmological Surveys concerning the characterization of the evolution of galaxies in the last 12 Gyr (from z=4). We have analyzed the stellar mass function up to z=4 using a sample of more the 28,000 galaxies selected in the rest-frame near-infrared with Spitzer/IRAC. Our results confirm and quantify the “downsizing” scenario of galaxy formation. Based on the study of the specific SFRs of X-ray emitters, we discuss the role of AGN in the evolution of galaxies, arguing against the link between nuclear activity and the quenching of the star formation in massive galaxies at z<1.4

The galaxy major merger fraction to z ~ 1

Aims. The importance of disc-disc major mergers in galaxy evolution remains uncertain. We study the major merger fraction in a SPITZER/IRAC-selected catalogue in the GOODS-S field up to z ~ 1 for luminosity- and mass-limited samples. Methods. We select disc-disc merger remnants on the basis of morphological asymmetries/distortions, and address three main sources of systematic errors: (i) we explicitly apply morphological K-corrections; (ii) we measure asymmetries in galaxies artificially redshifted to z_d = 1.0 to deal with loss of morphological information with redshift; and (iii) we take into account the observational errors in z and A, which tend to overestimate the merger fraction, though use of maximum likelihood techniques. Results. We obtain morphological merger fractions (f_m^mph) below 0.06 up to z ~ 1. Parameterizing the merger fraction evolution with redshift as f_m^mph (z) = f_m^mph (0)(1 + z)^m, we find that m = 1.8 ± 0.5 for M(B)≤ -20 galaxies, while m = 5.4 ± 0.4 for M_* ≥ 10^10 M_⨀ galaxies. When we translate our merger fractions to merger rates (R_m^mph), their evolution, parameterized as R_m^mph (z) = R_m^mph (0)(1+ z)^n, is quite similar in both cases: n = 3.3 ± 0.8 for M(B) ≤ -20 galaxies, and n = 3.5 ± 0.4 for M_* ≥10^10 M_⨀ galaxies. Conclusions. Our results imply that only similar to 8% of today's M(star) ≥ 10^10 M_⨀ galaxies have undergone a disc-disc major merger since z ~ 1. In addition, ~ 21% of M_* ≥ 10(10) M_⨀ galaxies at z ~ 1 have undergone one of these mergers since z similar to 1.5. This suggests that disc-disc major mergers are not the dominant process in the evolution of M_* ≥ 10(10) M_⨀ galaxies since z 1, with only 0.2 disc-disc major mergers per galaxy, but may be an important process at z > 1, with ~ 1 merger per galaxy at 1 < z < 3

Aplicación de rutinas y estrategias de aprendizaje en el ámbito universitario.

La enseñanza universitaria está inmersa en un cambio continuo que viene marcado por la mejora de la calidad de enseñanza, y entre otras, por poner el énfasis en nuevas metodologías que tienen como protagonista al alumno, potenciando su papel activo. Esta nueva situación implica que el docente debe tener un bagaje de herramientas y posibilidades docentes, alejado de clases magistrales eternas, si no que se son un acicate para el cambio de paradigma de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje universitario. Sin embargo, este cambio necesita que el alumnado tenga habilidades o técnicas de aprendizaje autónomo y activas, ya que de lo contrario, este cambio no alcanzará totalmente su potencialidad. Una posible intervención viene derivada por el uso de estrategias, rutinas y destrezas de pensamiento o Visible thinking (Casado, 2016; Gardner, 2016; Gómez et al, 2019; Perkins, 1997), que tratan de hacer visible las habilidades, actitudes y procesos cognitivos que el alumnado tiene sobre su propio aprendizaje. Estas técnicas pretenden activar los mecanismos de reflexión acerca de los pensamientos, proponiendo situaciones que provoquen la indagación, la curiosidad, juego de ideas, pensamiento divergente y temas complejos (Ritchart, 2014). Algunas de las rutinas más relevantes están descritas en el programa Visible Thinking, como, por ejemplo, K-W-L (know,want, learn); Veo, pienso, me pregunto; piensa, conecta y explora; piensa y comparta; o las destrezas de pensamiento, como por ejemplo: compara y contrasta; partes del objeto; thinkers keys, entre otras (Proyecto Zero, Harvard, 2020). El Grupo de Innovación Educativa GiE 009-22 de la Universidad de Málaga “De lo invisible a lo visible: construcción del aprendizaje activo mediante estrategias, rutinas y destrezas de pensamiento” propone algunas rutinas aplicadas al contexto universitario.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech