Open data on Covid-19 in the Spanish autonomous communities: reutilization in spatial epidemiology studies

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for governments and health administrations at all levels to have an open data registry that facilitates decision-making in the planning and management of health resources and provides information to citizens on the evolution of the epidemic. The concept of “open data” includes the possibility of reutilization by third parties. Space and time are basic dimensions used to structure and interpret the data of the variables that refer to the health status of the people themselves. Hence, the main objective of this study is to evaluate whether the autonomous communities’ data files regarding Covid-19 are reusable to analyze the evolution of the disease in basic spatial and temporal analysis units at the regional and national levels. To this end, open data files containing the number of diagnosed cases of Covid-19 distributed in basic health or administrative spatial units and temporal units were selected from the portals of the Spanish autonomous communities. The presence of infection-related, demographic, and temporal variables, as well as the download format and metadata, were mainly evaluated. Whether the structure of the files was homogeneous and adequate for the application of spatial analysis techniques was also analyzed. The results reveal a lack of standardization in the collection of data in both spatial and temporal units and an absence of, or ambiguity in, the meaning of the variables owing to a lack of metadata. An inadequate structure was also found in the files of seven autonomous communities, which would require subsequent processing of the data to enable their reuse and the application of analysis and spatial modeling techniques, both when carrying out global analyses and when comparing patterns of evolution between different regions

Estrategias utilizadas por estudiantes de distintos niveles educativos ante problemas de proporcionalidad compuesta

En este trabajo se analizan las actuaciones de alumnos desde 6.º de Educación Primaria hasta 2.º de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (11-14 años) con distintos grados de instrucción en proporcionalidad al resolver ciertos problemas de proporcionalidad compuesta. En particular, observamos la tasa de éxito y las distintas estrategias empleadas, tanto correctas como incorrectas. Los resultados muestran un aumento progresivo de la tasa de éxito y una evolución en las estrategias utilizadas desde aquellas que hacen referencia a aspectos de razonamiento proporcional, hacia aquellas en las que prima el componente algorítmico

Urbanismo neoliberal y fragmentación urbana: El caso de Zaragoza (España) en los primeros quince años del siglo XXI

El crecimiento del espacio urbano de Zaragoza durante los primeros quince años del siglo xxi se caracteriza por su fragmentación socioespacial a varias escalas, un rasgo significativo del urbanismo neoliberal. En esta ciudad se ha seguido un modelo que se compone por grandes fragmentos monofuncionales, no separados unos de otros, sino soldados al espacio urbano preexistente por las principales arterias de circulación; estas vías y otros obstáculos físicos o percibidos interrumpen la continuidad con el espacio consolidado, sobre todo para el movimiento de personas. No obstante este patrón permite la conexión de los nuevos espacios con el entorno urbano local, al mismo tiempo fomenta la segregación social e impulsa un modelo policéntrico basado en desplazamientos en automóvil privado. The growth of urban space of Zaragoza during the first fifteen years of the 21st century is characterized by its socio-spatial fragmentation at several scales, a significant feature of the neoliberal urbanism. The growth model of the city is composed of large monofunctional urban fragments attached to the existing urban space by the main traffic routes. These ways and other physical or perceived obstacles interrupt the continuity with the consolidated urban space, especially for the movement of people. Nevertheless, this pattern allows the connection of the new spaces with the local urban environment but, at the same time, promotes the social segregation and fosters a polycentric functional model based on travel by private car

3D reconstruction of medical images from slices automatically landmarked with growing neural models

In this study, we utilise a novel approach to segment out the ventricular system in a series of high resolution T1-weighted MR images. We present a brain ventricles fast reconstruction method. The method is based on the processing of brain sections and establishing a fixed number of landmarks onto those sections to reconstruct the ventricles 3D surface. Automated landmark extraction is accomplished through the use of the self-organising network, the growing neural gas (GNG), which is able to topographically map the low dimensionality of the network to the high dimensionality of the contour manifold without requiring a priori knowledge of the input space structure. Moreover, our GNG landmark method is tolerant to noise and eliminates outliers. Our method accelerates the classical surface reconstruction and filtering processes. The proposed method offers higher accuracy compared to methods with similar efficiency as Voxel Grid

Real time motion estimation using a neural architecture implemented on GPUs

This work describes a neural network based architecture that represents and estimates object motion in videos. This architecture addresses multiple computer vision tasks such as image segmentation, object representation or characterization, motion analysis and tracking. The use of a neural network architecture allows for the simultaneous estimation of global and local motion and the representation of deformable objects. This architecture also avoids the problem of finding corresponding features while tracking moving objects. Due to the parallel nature of neural networks, the architecture has been implemented on GPUs that allows the system to meet a set of requirements such as: time constraints management, robustness, high processing speed and re-configurability. Experiments are presented that demonstrate the validity of our architecture to solve problems of mobile agents tracking and motion analysis

The location of creative clusters in non-metropolitan areas: A methodological proposition

This article studies creative clusters outside metropolitan areas in Spain. Both the notion of cluster and that of creative activity tend to be associated by mainstream research with urban settings; thus, situating them in an non metropolitan or rural localities has required us to adapt the usual methodology to the scale and idiosyncrasies of a rural setting. Based on this new focus, we have been able to identify 761 municipalities that could host creative clusters within an initial area of study of 7367 non-metropolitan municipalities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants. This methodology also has allowed us to measure intensity, internal composition, and localization, so that those of a more mature or advanced character, having a greater level of specialization and diversity, predominate in places close to metropolitan areas and the Mediterranean axis, whereas in the inner Spain, they are found in a lower proportion and in a more scattered and discontinuous manner. Activities belonging to the Functional Creations sector prevail over those from Communication and Patrimony in the configuration of the clusters, although there are differences in relative specialization according to their mature or advanced level. In addition, some of the most significant indicators of rural dynamism e population growth, human capital, unemployment, and economic activity e show much better behaviour in municipalities with creative clusters

Evaluation of different chrominance models in the detection and reconstruction of faces and hands using the growing neural gas network

Physical traits such as the shape of the hand and face can be used for human recognition and identification in video surveillance systems and in biometric authentication smart card systems, as well as in personal health care. However, the accuracy of such systems suffers from illumination changes, unpredictability, and variability in appearance (e.g. occluded faces or hands, cluttered backgrounds, etc.). This work evaluates different statistical and chrominance models in different environments with increasingly cluttered backgrounds where changes in lighting are common and with no occlusions applied, in order to get a reliable neural network reconstruction of faces and hands, without taking into account the structural and temporal kinematics of the hands. First a statistical model is used for skin colour segmentation to roughly locate hands and faces. Then a neural network is used to reconstruct in 3D the hands and faces. For the filtering and the reconstruction we have used the growing neural gas algorithm which can preserve the topology of an object without restarting the learning process. Experiments conducted on our own database but also on four benchmark databases (Stirling’s, Alicante, Essex, and Stegmann’s) and on deaf individuals from normal 2D videos are freely available on the BSL signbank dataset. Results demonstrate the validity of our system to solve problems of face and hand segmentation and reconstruction under different environmental conditions

Moregrasp: Restoration of Upper Limb Function in Individuals with High Spinal Cord Injury by Multimodal Neuroprostheses for Interaction in Daily Activities

The aim of the MoreGrasp project is to develop a noninvasive, multimodal user interface including a brain-computer interface (BCI) for intuitive control of a grasp neuroprosthesis to support individuals with high spinal cord injury (SCI) in everyday activities. We describe the current state of the project, including the EEG system, preliminary results of natural movements decoding in people with SCI, the new electrode concept for the grasp neuroprosthesis, the shared control architecture behind the system and the implementation of a user-centered design

Compliant Substrates Enhance Macrophage Cytokine Release and NLRP3 Inflammasome Formation During Their Pro-Inflammatory Response

Immune cells process a myriad of biochemical signals but their function and behavior are also determined by mechanical cues. Macrophages are no exception to this. Being present in all types of tissues, macrophages are exposed to environments of varying stiffness, which can be further altered under pathological conditions. While it is becoming increasingly clear that macrophages are mechanosensitive, it remains poorly understood how mechanical cues modulate their inflammatory response. Here we report that substrate stiffness influences the expression of pro-inflammatory genes and the formation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, leading to changes in the secreted protein levels of the cytokines IL-1β and IL-6. Using polyacrylamide hydrogels of tunable elastic moduli between 0.2 and 33.1 kPa, we found that bone marrow-derived macrophages adopted a less spread and rounder morphology on compliant compared to stiff substrates. Upon LPS priming, the expression levels of the gene encoding for TNF-α were higher on more compliant hydrogels. When additionally stimulating macrophages with the ionophore nigericin, we observed an enhanced formation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, increased levels of cell death, and higher secreted protein levels of IL-1β and IL-6 on compliant substrates. The upregulation of inflammasome formation on compliant substrates was not primarily attributed to the decreased cell spreading, since spatially confining cells on micropatterns led to a reduction of inflammasome-positive cells compared to well-spread cells. Finally, interfering with actomyosin contractility diminished the differences in inflammasome formation between compliant and stiff substrates. In summary, we show that substrate stiffness modulates the pro-inflammatory response of macrophages, that the NLRP3 inflammasome is one of the components affected by macrophage mechanosensing, and a role for actomyosin contractility in this mechanosensory response. Thus, our results contribute to a better understanding of how microenvironment stiffness affects macrophage behavior, which might be relevant in diseases where tissue stiffness is altered and might potentially provide a basis for new strategies to modulate inflammatory responses

Assessing thoraco‐pelvic covariation in Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes: A 3D geometric morphometric approach

Objectives Understanding thoraco‐pelvic integration in Homo sapiens and their closest living relatives (genus Pan) is of great importance within the context of human body shape evolution. However, studies assessing thoraco‐pelvic covariation across Hominoidea species are scarce, although recent research would suggest shared covariation patterns in humans and chimpanzees but also species‐specific features, with sexual dimorphism and allometry influencing thoraco‐pelvic covariation in these taxa differently. Material and Methods N = 30 adult H. sapiens and N = 10 adult Pan troglodytes torso 3D models were analyzed using 3D geometric morphometrics and linear measurements. Effects of sexual dimorphism and allometry on thoraco‐pelvic covariation were assessed via regression analyses, and patterns of thoraco‐pelvic covariation in humans and chimpanzees were computed via Two‐Block Partial Least Squares analyses. Results Results confirm the existence of common aspects of thoraco‐pelvic covariation in humans and chimpanzees, and also species‐specific covariation in H. sapiens that is strongly influenced by sexual dimorphism and allometry. Species‐specific covariation patterns in chimpanzees could not be confirmed because of the small sample size, but metrics point to a correspondence between the most caudal ribs and iliac crest morphology that would be irrespective of sex. Conclusions This study suggests that humans and chimpanzees share common aspects of thoraco‐pelvic covariation but might differ in others. In humans, torso integration is strongly influenced by sexual dimorphism and allometry, whilst in chimpanzees it may not be. This study also highlights the importance not only of torso widths but also of torso depths when describing patterns of thoraco‐pelvic covariation in primates. Larger samples are necessary to support these interpretations