ECG study in practical labs for biomedical engineering training

Non-invasive biomedical measurements are one of the most important technological contributions whitin the biomedical engineering field. On this paper, a dual laboratory session student oriented is designed to simulate and implement a cardial signal monitor. During the first session, ORCAD PSpice software is used to simulate the whole process. The students can acquire knowledge on the process by configuring and running both the instrumentation amplifier and a passive filter to improve the signal quality. The second session requires from the student basic laboratory skills to use a specific printed circuit board (PCB) to measure its very own cardiac potential. As a result, from this session, the student can visualize the ECG signal acquired directly on the laboratory oscilloscope

Aerosol optical depth in the ultraviolet range: a new product in EUBREWNET

Póster elaborado para el Quadrennial Ozone Symposium celebrado en Edinburgh los días 4–9 de septiembre de 2016The AERONET sun photometers at the Izaña station have been calibrated within the AERONET Europe TNA, supported by the European Community-Research Infrastructure Action under the FP7 ACTRIS grant agreement no. 262254

Brewer - OMI ozone comparisons in EUBREWNET

Póster elaborado para el Quadrennial Ozone Symposium celebrado en Edinburgh los días 4–9 de septiembre de 201

SPGCam: A specifically tailored camera for solar observations

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Designing a new astronomical instrument typically challenges the available cameras on the market. In many cases, no camera can fulfill the requirements of the instrument in terms of photon budget, speed, and even interfaces with the rest of the instrument. In this situation, the only options are to either downgrade the performance of the instrument or design new cameras from scratch, provided it is possible to identify a compliant detector. The latter is the case of the SPGCams, the cameras developed to be used with the Tunable Magnetograph (TuMag) and the Sunrise Chromospheric Infrared spectroPolarimeter (SCIP) for the Sunrise iii mission. SPGCams have been designed, developed, and built entirely in-house by the Solar Physics Group (SPG) at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC). We report here on the scientific rationale and system engineering requirements set by the two instruments that drove the development, as well as on the technical details and trade-offs used to fulfill the specifications. The cameras were fully verified before the flight, and results from the assembly and verification campaign are presented as well. SPGCams share the design, although some parametric features differentiate the visible cameras (for TuMag) and the IR ones (for SCIP). Even though they were specifically developed for the Sunrise iii mission, the robust and careful design makes them suitable for different applications in other astronomical instruments. © 2023 Orozco Suárez, Álvarez García, López Jiménez, Balaguer Jiménez, Hernández Expósito, Labrousse, Bailén, Bustamante Díaz, Bailón Martínez, Aparicio del Moral, Morales Fernández, Sánchez Gómez, Tobaruela Abarca, Moreno Mantas, Ramos Más, Pérez Grande, Piqueras Carreño, Katsukawa, Kubo, Kawabata, Oba, Rodríguez Valido, Magdaleno Castelló and Del Toro Iniesta.This work was funded by the Spanish MCIN/AEI, under projects RTI 2018-096886-B-C5, PID 2021-125325OB-C5, and PCI 2022-135009-2, and co-funded by European FEDER funds, “A way of making Europe,” under grants CEX 2021-001131-S and 10.13039/501100011033.Peer reviewe

Innovación en las enseñanzas universitarias: experiencias presentadas en las III Jornadas de Innovación Educativa de la ULL

En este libro se recoge un conjunto de experiencias de innovación educativa desarrolladas en la ULL en el curso 2011-12. Se abordan distintos ámbitos y ramas del conocimiento, y ocupan temáticas variadas que han sido desarrolladas con rigor, y con un claro potencial para su extrapolación a efectos de la mejora educativa en el ámbito universitario. Esta publicación constituye una primera edición de una serie que irá recogiendo las experiencias de innovación educativa de la ULL. Este es un paso relevante para su impulso en nuestra institución, como lo es el de su vinculación con la investigación educativa, para potenciar su publicación en las revistas científicas en este ámbito cada vez más pujante y relevante para las universidades. Sobre todo representan el deseo y el compromiso del profesorado de la ULL para la mejora del proceso educativo mediante la investigación, la evaluación y la reflexión compartida de nuestras prácticas y planteamientos docentes

Clonal chromosomal mosaicism and loss of chromosome Y in elderly men increase vulnerability for SARS-CoV-2

The pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19) had an estimated overall case fatality ratio of 1.38% (pre-vaccination), being 53% higher in males and increasing exponentially with age. Among 9578 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the SCOURGE study, we found 133 cases (1.42%) with detectable clonal mosaicism for chromosome alterations (mCA) and 226 males (5.08%) with acquired loss of chromosome Y (LOY). Individuals with clonal mosaic events (mCA and/or LOY) showed a 54% increase in the risk of COVID-19 lethality. LOY is associated with transcriptomic biomarkers of immune dysfunction, pro-coagulation activity and cardiovascular risk. Interferon-induced genes involved in the initial immune response to SARS-CoV-2 are also down-regulated in LOY. Thus, mCA and LOY underlie at least part of the sex-biased severity and mortality of COVID-19 in aging patients. Given its potential therapeutic and prognostic relevance, evaluation of clonal mosaicism should be implemented as biomarker of COVID-19 severity in elderly people. Among 9578 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the SCOURGE study, individuals with clonal mosaic events (clonal mosaicism for chromosome alterations and/or loss of chromosome Y) showed an increased risk of COVID-19 lethality

Measuring the Contractile Response of Isolated Tissue Using an Image Sensor

Isometric or isotonic transducers have traditionally been used to study the contractile/relaxation effects of drugs on isolated tissues. However, these mechanical sensors are expensive and delicate, and they are associated with certain disadvantages when performing experiments in the laboratory. In this paper, a method that uses an image sensor to measure the contractile effect of drugs on blood vessel rings and other luminal organs is presented. The new method is based on an image-processing algorithm, and it provides a fast, easy and non-expensive way to analyze the effects of such drugs. In our tests, we have obtained dose-response curves from rat aorta rings that are equivalent to those achieved with classical mechanic sensors

FPGA Implementation of Image Ordering and Packing Algorithm for TuMag Camera

The TuMag instrument is a Tunable Magnetograph that has been designed to measure the magnetic field of the sun. This instrument and others will be connected to a telescope that will be sent into the stratosphere using a balloon for an uninterrupted observation of the sun for four days in the summer of 2022. The TuMag camera is a new development for implementing the image detector of the instrument. It is based on the GPIXEL GSENSE400-BSI scientific CMOS image sensor and an FPGA device in charge of controlling the image sensor, configuring it and grabbing images. FPGA device consists of an array of Configurable Logic Blocks. However, the sensor does not supply the image data in a row-by-column format. This task has to be done in the FPGA that controls the sensor because the frame grabber has a significant workload with the control of all the instruments, the telescope, the refrigeration, the navigation, and so on. This work describes the FPGA implementation of Image Ordering and Packing algorithm for TuMag Camera concerning the real-time ordering of the images before grabbing and sending to the Data Processing Unit. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This research was funded by the RTI2018-096886-B-C53 Project of the Ministry of Science and Innovation.With funding from the Spanish government through the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation SEV-2017-0709.Peer reviewe

Hardware and Software Implementation of the Embedded Controlling System for the TuMag Camera

The main objective of this paper is to present the design and implementation of an embedded controlling system for the Tunable Magnetograph (TuMag) instrument camera sensor and test-bench software application for camera laboratory characterization. The TuMag camera is based on a new scientific sensor GPIXEL SENSE400 device family equipped with an FPGA. The camera sensor has an active area of 2048 × 2048 pixels and reaches a frame rate of up to 48 frames per second. The embedded controlling system was implemented on an Artix 7 FPGA, which oversees controlling the image sensor through a configuration interface. It controls the read-out of the sensor data and the communication of commands with the host device. The camera has a standard CoaXPress communication interface of up to 3125 Gbps. The FPGA embedded control system allows bit, word, and serial channel calibration and the modification of several parameters, such as the region of interest (RoI) size, exposition time, hardware or software trigger, single or continuous acquisition modes, sensor gain, and adjustment of the black level offset and exposition time. In addition, the firmware has a temperature controller, voltage level monitoring, and an enable–disable power sensor. In addition, the test-bench software application is a library developed in Python 3.7. It is a wrapper for the standard GeniCan commercial frame grabber interpreter. This wrapper permits the improvement of the interaction and interface between the user and the hardware in the camera calibration. The test-bench software application permits the reduction of costs and the transport risk of the TuMag camera between different laboratories. All TuMag embedded control systems and test-bench software application functionalities were successfully tested according to scientific requirements