Data-driven System to Predict Academic Grades and Dropout

Nowadays, the role of a tutor is more important than ever to prevent students dropout and improve their academic performance. This work proposes a data-driven system to extract relevant information hidden in the student academic data and, thus, help tutors to offer their pupils a more proactive personal guidance. In particular, our system, based on machine learning techniques, makes predictions of dropout intention and courses grades of students, as well as personalized course recommendations. Moreover, we present different visualizations which help in the interpretation of the results. In the experimental validation, we show that the system obtains promising results with data from the degree studies in Law, Computer Science and Mathematics of the Universitat de Barcelona

Learning Analytics para el personal académico

Hoy en día, el Learning Analytics (LA), siendo una disciplina relacionada con la ciencia de datos, se ha convertido en una herramienta muy útil para la gestión universitaria. En nuestro caso, proponemos un sistema de LA para ayudar al personal académico en la gestión de grados universitarios. El objetivo principal de nuestro sistema de LA es recopilar información de diferentes fuentes, que comúnmente están disponibles para el personal universitario, y facilitar su comprensión gracias a las visualizaciones y predicciones. En particular, proponemos técnicas de aprendizaje automático para extraer tres indicadores clave para la gestión y la evaluación de la calidad de los títulos universitarios, y que son difíciles de analizar con herramientas estándar. Este sistema de LA se presenta como un conjunto de paneles fáciles de usar dirigidos a ayudar en el proceso de toma de decisiones para gerentes universitarios, decanos, directores o coordinadores de cursos.The field of Learning Analytics (LA), as a data science related discipline, has become a very useful tool for auditing and managing. In this work we propose a LA system for academic personnel to help them in university degrees management. The main goal of our LA system is to gather information from different sources –which are commonly available for university personnel– and make it easier to understand by means of prediction and visualization. In particular, we propose machine learning techniques to extract three key indicators for the management and quality assurance of the university degrees, which are difficult to analyze with off-the-shelf tools. This LA system is presented as a set of user-friendly dashboards addressed to help in the decision making process for university managers, such faculty deans, headmasters or course coordinators.Esta investigación ha recibido soporte parcial de la Universitat de Barcelona: Convocatòria d’Ajuts a la Recerca en Docència Universitària de l’Institut de Ciències de l’Educació de la Universitat de Barcelona REDICE-18 y Proyecto 2014PID-UB/068

Low endogenous NO levels in roots and antioxidant systems are determinants for the resistance of Arabidopsis seedlings grown in Cd

Cadmium (Cd), which is a toxic non-essential heavy metal capable of entering plants and thus the food chain, constitutes a major environmental and health concern worldwide. An understanding of the tools used by plants to overcome Cd stress could lead to the production of food crops with lower Cd uptake capacity and of plants with greater Cd uptake potential for phytoremediation purposes in order to restore soil efficiency in self-sustaining ecosystems. The signalling molecule nitric oxide (NO), whose function remains unclear, has recently been involved in responses to Cd stress. Using different mutants, such as nia1nia2, nox1, argh1-1 and Atnoa1, which were altered in NO metabolism, we analysed various parameters related to reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) metabolism and seedling fitness following germination and growth under Cd treatment conditions for seven days. Seedling roots were the most affected, with an increase in ROS and RNS observed in wild type (WT) seedling roots, leading to increased oxidative damage and fitness loss. Mutants that showed lower NO levels in seedling roots under Cd stress were more resistant than WT seedlings due to the maintenance of antioxidant systems which protect against oxidative damage.This study was co-funded by the ERDF and the Science, Innovation and University Ministry (BIO2015-67657-P and PGC2018-098372). L.C. T-C was supported by an FPU fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports

Editorial: Women in plant science:redox biology of plant abiotic stress 2022

MR-P thanks Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for Financial support (PID2021-122280NB-I00). CF thanks BBSRC/GCRF (UK) for Financial support (BB/T008865/1). LG thanks Agritech National Research Center (European Union Next-Generation, EU), Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR) —Missione 4 Componente 2, Investimento 1.4—D.D. 1032 17/06/ 2022, CN00000022)

Natural radiactivity from building materials in Spain

The industrial construction sector is very important in Spain. Building materials used in this industry are sources of radiation from natural radionuclides they contain. The European Commission published some recommendations to facilitate the trade of these materials in the E.U. The studies about this subject have increased notably during last years. This, probably, can be associated with the increase interest from natural radiation radiological risk on indoor exposure.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear. CSN-201

Mitochondrial movement in Aralar/Slc25a12/AGC1 deficient cortical neurons

The elevated energy demands in the brain are fulfilled mainly by glucose catabolism. In highly polarized neurons, about 10–50% of mitochondria are transported along microtubules using mitochondrial-born ATP to locations with high energy requirements. In this report, we have investigated the impact of Aralar deficiency on mitochondrial transport in cultured cortical neurons. Aralar/slc25a12/AGC1 is the neuronal isoform of the aspartate-glutamate mitochondrial carrier, a component of the malate-aspartate shuttle (MAS) which plays an important role in redox balance, which is essential to maintain glycolytic pyruvate supply to neuronal mitochondria. Using live imaging microscopy we observed that the lack of Aralar does not affect the number of moving mitochondria nor the Ca2+-induced stop, the only difference being a 10% increase in mitochondrial velocity in Aralar deficient neurons. Therefore, we evaluated the possible fuels used in each case by studying the relative contribution of oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis to mitochondrial movement using specific inhibitors. We found that the ATP synthase inhibitor oligomycin caused a smaller inhibition of mitochondrial movement in Aralar-KO than control neurons, whereas the glycolysis inhibitor iodoacetate had similar effects in neurons from both genotypes. In line with these findings, the decrease in cytosolic ATP/ADP ratio caused by oligomycin was more pronounced in control than in Aralar-KO neurons, but no differences were observed with iodoacetate. Oligomycin effect was reverted by aralar re-expression in knock out cultures. As mitochondrial movement is not reduced in Aralar-KO neurons, these results suggest that these neurons may use an additional pathway for mitochondria movement and ATP/ADP ratio maintenanceThis work was supported by grants S2010/BMD-2402, and a grant from Fundación Ramón Areces to JS; SAF2014-56929-R to JS and BP; SAF2017-82560-R to BP and AdA and an institutional grant from Fundación Ramón Areces to the Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa. LC has been the recipient of a Junta de Ampliación de Estudios Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and CIBERER postdoctoral contracts. The authors declare no competing financial interest

Procesos de extracción de sustancias aromatizantes y aromas a partir de matrices naturales. Técnica de rectificación a vacío

El presente trabajo de Fin de Máster “Procesos de extracción de sustancias aromatizantes y aromas a partir de matrices naturales. Técnica de rectificación a vacío” se enmarca dentro de las actividades realizadas por la Cátedra Solutex de Química Sostenible, llevándose a cabo en las instalaciones de la empresa Solutex GC, S.L. con sede en Mallén (Zaragoza). Se ha realizado la destilación de un aceite esencial de lúpulo mediante la técnica de rectificación a vacío, con el objetivo de concentrar linalol, un compuesto de gran interés comercial. Así mismo, se investiga cómo afecta la técnica y las condiciones llevadas a cabo durante el proceso, en el ratio de enantiómeros de dicho compuesto

Ca2+ activation kinetics of the two aspartate-glutamate mitochondrial carriers, aralar and citrin: Role in the heart malate-aspartate NADH shuttle

Ca2+ regulation of the Ca2+ binding mitochondrial carriers for aspartate/glutamate (AGCs) is provided by their N-terminal extensions, which face the intermembrane space. The two mammalian AGCs, aralar and citrin, are members of the malate-aspartate NADH shuttle. We report that their N-terminal extensions contain up to four pairs of EF-hand motifs plus a single vestigial EF-hand, and have no known homolog. Aralar and citrin contain one fully canonical EF-hand pair and aralar two additional half-pairs, in which a single EF-hand is predicted to bind Ca2+. Shuttle activity in brain or skeletal muscle mitochondria, which contain aralar as the major AGC, is activated by Ca2+ with S0.5 values of 280-350 nM; higher than those obtained in liver mitochondria (100-150 nM) that contain citrin as the major AGC. We have used aralar- and citrin-deficient mice to study the role of the two isoforms in heart, which expresses both AGCs. The S0.5 for Ca 2+ activation of the shuttle in heart mitochondria is about 300 nM, and it remains essentially unchanged in citrin-deficient mice, although it undergoes a drastic reduction to about 100 nM in aralar-deficient mice. Therefore, aralar and citrin, when expressed as single isoforms in heart, confer differences in Ca2+ activation of shuttle activity, probably associated with their structural differences. In addition, the results reveal that the two AGCs fully account for shuttle activity in mouse heart mitochondria and that no other glutamate transporter can replace the AGCs in this pathwayThis work was supported in part by grants from the Ministerio de Educacio´ n y Ciencia (BFU2005-C02-01, GEN2003-20235-C05-03/NAC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III del Ministerio de Sanidad (PI042457), European Union (LSHM-CT-2006-518153) (to J. S.), by Grant SAF2004-06843-C03 from the Ministerio de Educacio´ n y Ciencia (to P. G.-P.), by an institutional grant from the Fundacio´ n Ramo´ n Areces to the CBMSO, and by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (16390100) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (to K. K.). The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fac

Human Lysyl Oxidase Over-Expression Enhances Baseline Cardiac Oxidative Stress but Does Not Aggravate ROS Generation or Infarct Size Following Myocardial Ischemia-Reperfusion

Cardiac remodeling; Lysyl oxidase; Reperfusion injuryRemodelación cardiaca; Lisil oxidasa; Lesión por reperfusiónRemodelació cardíaca; Lisil oxidasa; Lesió de reperfusióLysyl oxidase (LOX) is an enzyme critically involved in collagen maturation, whose activity releases H2O2 as a by-product. Previous studies demonstrated that LOX over-expression enhances reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and exacerbates cardiac remodeling induced by pressure overload. However, whether LOX influences acute myocardial infarction and post-infarct left ventricular remodeling and the contribution of LOX to myocardial oxidative stress following ischemia-reperfusion have not been analyzed. Isolated hearts from transgenic mice over-expressing human LOX in the heart (TgLOX) and wild-type (WT) littermates were subjected to global ischemia and reperfusion. Although under basal conditions LOX transgenesis is associated with higher cardiac superoxide levels than WT mice, no differences in ROS production were detected in ischemic hearts and a comparable acute ischemia-reperfusion injury was observed (infarct size: 56.24 ± 9.44 vs. 48.63 ± 2.99% of cardiac weight in WT and TgLOX, respectively). Further, similar changes in cardiac dimensions and function were observed in TgLOX and WT mice 28 days after myocardial infarction induced by transient left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery occlusion, and no differences in scar area were detected (20.29 ± 3.10 vs. 21.83 ± 2.83% of left ventricle). Our data evidence that, although LOX transgenesis induces baseline myocardial oxidative stress, neither ROS production, infarct size, nor post-infarction cardiac remodeling were exacerbated following myocardial ischemia-reperfusion.This work was supported by the Spanish Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) (PI18/0919 and PI17/01397) co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF-FEDER, a way to build Europe), the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (RTI2018-094727-B-100), the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) (2017-SGR-00333 and 2017-SGR-1807) and Fundació La Marató TV3 (grant 2015.3610). A.R.-S. has a consolidated Miguel Servet contract and L.P. is supported by a PFIS contract (ISCIII)

Quantum computing for market research

The digital ecosystem continues to expand around the world and is revolutionising the way markets are researched. Indeed, consumer experiences are advertised and disseminated through so many channels and media that it has become a major challenge for researchers and marketing practitioners to collect, process and generate valuable information to support strategic and operational decisions. In this article, the authors explore how advances in quantum computing, which can be used to process huge amounts of data quickly and accurately, could offer an unprecedented opportunity for researchers to address the challenges of the digital ecosystem. Three studies are presented to define the state of the art and future expectations of quantum computing in market research and business. By means of a bibliometric analysis of 209 publications and a content analysis of the 30 highest-impact articles, we describe the present landscape, and also forecast the future with the help of in-depth interviews with eight experts. The findings reveal that the US and China are at the forefront of scientific development, but the contributions from four other countries (India, the UK, Canada and Spain) are also in double figures. However, graphical analysis identifies four poles of development: the US orbit, which includes Canada and Spain; the Chinese orbit, which includes India; the UK orbit; and the Australian orbit. In terms of expectations, the experts agree on the opportunities offered by quantum computing, but there is less consensus as to how long it will take to develop