Desarrollo temprano de competencias relacionadas con el “aprendizaje de por vida”

[EN] The activity is intended to enhance the learning process of the students. The objective is to provide a new perspective on the changing nature of knowledge and the need for "lifelong learning". Additionally, it develops very interesting skills and learning for the students, such as designing and conducting experiments, interpreting the results and writing scientific papers. Students will generate "new scientific knowledge" themselves in two laboratory sessions, testing the neuroprotective effect of a family of drugs on a strain of the nematode C. elegans. Each group will experiment with a drug, elaborating a simple mini scientific article with their results, sharing it with the rest of the class in a workshop implemented in the Moodle platform for peer review. From all the articles generated, each student must write a "textbook" style paragraph that will synthesize all the information and upload it as homework.[ES] La actividad pretende una mejora del proceso de aprendizaje de los alumnos. El objetivo es proporcionar una nueva perspectiva acerca de la naturaleza cambiante del conocimiento y la necesidad del “aprendizaje de por vida”. Adicionalmente, desarrolla competencias y aprendizajes muy interesantes para los estudiantes, como el diseño y realización de experimentos, la interpretación de los resultados y la redacción de artículos científicos. Los alumnos generarán ellos mismos “conocimiento científico nuevo” en dos sesiones de laboratorio, testando el efecto neuroprotector de una familia de fármacos en una cepa del nematodo C. elegans. Cada grupo experimentará con un fármaco, elaborando un sencillo mini artículo científico con sus resultados, compartiéndolo con el resto de la clase en un taller implementado en la plataforma Moodle para su evaluación por pares. A partir de todos los artículos generados, cada alumno debe escribir un párrafo con estilo “libro de texto” que sintetizará toda la información y que subirá como tarea.Sanmartin Santos, IS.; Almela Camañas, C.; Revert Ros, F.; Ventura González, I.; Prieto Ruíz, JÁ. (2022). Desarrollo temprano de competencias relacionadas con el “aprendizaje de por vida”. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1144-1151. https://doi.org/10.4995/INRED2022.2022.159121144115

Treatment with tocilizumab or corticosteroids for COVID-19 patients with hyperinflammatory state: a multicentre cohort study (SAM-COVID-19)

Objectives: The objective of this study was to estimate the association between tocilizumab or corticosteroids and the risk of intubation or death in patients with coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) with a hyperinflammatory state according to clinical and laboratory parameters. Methods: A cohort study was performed in 60 Spanish hospitals including 778 patients with COVID-19 and clinical and laboratory data indicative of a hyperinflammatory state. Treatment was mainly with tocilizumab, an intermediate-high dose of corticosteroids (IHDC), a pulse dose of corticosteroids (PDC), combination therapy, or no treatment. Primary outcome was intubation or death; follow-up was 21 days. Propensity score-adjusted estimations using Cox regression (logistic regression if needed) were calculated. Propensity scores were used as confounders, matching variables and for the inverse probability of treatment weights (IPTWs). Results: In all, 88, 117, 78 and 151 patients treated with tocilizumab, IHDC, PDC, and combination therapy, respectively, were compared with 344 untreated patients. The primary endpoint occurred in 10 (11.4%), 27 (23.1%), 12 (15.4%), 40 (25.6%) and 69 (21.1%), respectively. The IPTW-based hazard ratios (odds ratio for combination therapy) for the primary endpoint were 0.32 (95%CI 0.22-0.47; p < 0.001) for tocilizumab, 0.82 (0.71-1.30; p 0.82) for IHDC, 0.61 (0.43-0.86; p 0.006) for PDC, and 1.17 (0.86-1.58; p 0.30) for combination therapy. Other applications of the propensity score provided similar results, but were not significant for PDC. Tocilizumab was also associated with lower hazard of death alone in IPTW analysis (0.07; 0.02-0.17; p < 0.001). Conclusions: Tocilizumab might be useful in COVID-19 patients with a hyperinflammatory state and should be prioritized for randomized trials in this situatio

Alternativas de fertilización para producir Prosopis laevigata (Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd.) M. C. Johnst en vivero

Actualmente se conoce poco sobre las diferentes opciones que involucran el uso de fertilizantes hidrosolubles y de liberación controlada, así como las dosis de aplicación en la producción de Prosopis laevigata en vivero. El objetivo del presente estudio consistió en evaluar la eficiencia de los fertilizantes hidrosolubles Triple 16 (T16), Triple 19 (T19) y Poly-feed® (Pf), en dosis de 100 mg L-1, combinados con 3 y 6 g L-1 de fertilizante de liberación controlada (Multicote® = M) en sustrato, así como los costos implicados en su aplicación. Los tratamientos evaluados fueron: 1 (0 g M + agua), 2 (3 g M + agua), 3 (3 g M + T19), 4 (3 g M + Pf), 5 (3 g M + T16), 6 (6 g M + agua), 7 (6 g M + T19), 8 (6 g M + Pf) y 9 (6 g M + T16) dispuestos en un diseño experimental completamente al azar con arreglo factorial y cuatro repeticiones. Las variables de interés fueron la altura, el diámetro, la biomasa seca total y el índice de robustez. Los fertilizantes hidrosolubles, de liberación controlada y la combinación de ambos tuvieron un efecto significativo en las variables evaluadas (p < 0.001). Se obtuvieron alturas de 27.49 a 30.37 cm y los diámetros más destacados variaron de 3.37 a 3.59 mm. El índice de robustez en los tratamientos 1, 2, 5, 6 y 8 fueron menores a 8. Se concluye que la mayoría de las variables respondieron mejor al tratamiento 7, pero fue más costoso que el 5, que produjo resultados similares

Influence of Stone Bunds on Vegetation and Soil in an Area Reforested with Pinus engelmannii Carr. in the Forests of Durango, Mexico

The forest ecosystems of Mexico experience soil degradation mainly due to water erosion, which causes low vegetation regeneration. One of the strategies to diminish soil loss is through the construction of stone bunds (SB)&mdash;hand-made structures to trap sediment and store water for longer periods. However, little is known about their effects on pine establishment. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effect of SB on the survival and growth of individual P. engelmannii Carr. specimens with respect to the distance of their planted. The study additionally sought to analyse how SB would affect changes in the production of aerial phytomass, herbaceous vegetation cover and soil characteristics in a reforested area of Durango State in north-central Mexico. Three treatments were evaluated by planting pine trees at three distances with respect to the SB: 80 cm upslope bund (UB), 80 cm downslope bund (DB) and between upper and lower bunds (BB). The variables analysed were the following: The survival and growth of reforestation, aerial coverage and the production of herbaceous plants, and the physicochemical characteristics of the soil. Survival showed significant differences (p &lt; 0.05) among treatments, UB (80%), DB (27%) and BB (30%). The production of aerial phytomass did not show significant differences between treatments UB (1651 kg ha&minus;1) and DB (1058 kg ha&minus;1), although these two were different (p &lt; 0.05) to BB (600 kg ha&minus;1). On the other hand, the vegetation cover and soil characteristics did not show statistical differences. These results highlight the importance of the effect of SB on the survival of P. engelmannii Carr. and the growth of herbaceous vegetation

A retrospective comparison of simultaneous and staged surgery for degenerative cervico-lumbar tandem spinal stenosis

Background: Cervical and lumbar tandem spinal stenosis (CLTSS) is a major cause of morbidity secondary to compressive degeneration of the spine. Currently, there is a paucity of studies objectively addressing the best management for this condition in terms of efficacy and cost-effectiveness. Hence, we aimed to conduct a side-by-side retrospective analysis of surgical outcomes, clinical improvement, and cost of care in non-Caucasian Hispanic patients with moderate-to-severe CLTSS subjected to simultaneous or staged cervical and lumbar spine surgery. Methods: Retrospective review of clinical records and postoperative outcomes of adult patients subjected to cervical and lumbar spine surgery either simultaneously or in stages. The surgical pattern was selected based on clinical studies, physical examination, and radiological findings, with monthly follow-up through objective clinical scores for at least six months after the last surgery. Results: Twelve patients received simultaneous cervical and lumbar spine surgery and six staged operations, both groups with comparable baseline comorbidities, manifestations, radiological findings, and receiving similar surgical procedures and postoperative management. Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion and transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion were the standard procedures performed in the cohort. Three patients in the staged-operation group received cervical decompression first. There were no differences between the groups' surgical outcomes, functional recovery, and complication rates. Nonetheless, the total cost of care was significantly lower in patients receiving simultaneous operation, while the clinical improvement was equivalent in both groups. Conclusions: Simultaneous and staged decompression offer similar outcomes for patients with CLTSS, but the one-staged combined surgery has a better cost- effectiveness profile

Discovering HIV related information by means of association rules and machine learning

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is still one of the main health problems worldwide. It is therefore essential to keep making progress in improving the prognosis and quality of life of affected patients. One way to advance along this pathway is to uncover connections between other disorders associated with HIV/AIDS-so that they can be anticipated and possibly mitigated. We propose to achieve this by using Association Rules (ARs). They allow us to represent the dependencies between a number of diseases and other specific diseases. However, classical techniques systematically generate every AR meeting some minimal conditions on data frequency, hence generating a vast amount of uninteresting ARs, which need to be filtered out. The lack of manually annotated ARs has favored unsupervised filtering, even though they produce limited results. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised system, able to identify relevant ARs among HIV-related diseases with a minimal amount of annotated training data. Our system has been able to extract a good number of relationships between HIV-related diseases that have been previously detected in the literature but are scattered and are often little known. Furthermore, a number of plausible new relationships have shown up which deserve further investigation by qualified medical experts