Yemen: el rostro olvidado de la corrupción y miseria. Análisis del juego de intereses en el escenario político internacional y prospectiva de la crisis humanitaria

En la actualidad, escasas veces se menciona en los medios de comunicación sobre la crisis humanitaria que ha castigado al pueblo yemení durante años. No obstante, aunque este tema no sea tendencia periodística, no significa que la magnitud de la problemática sea irrelevante. Inclusive, este caso ha sido catalogado por las Naciones Unidas como la peor crisis humanitaria en el mundo. Desde su fundación en 1990, la República de Yemen ha atravesado constantemente un proceso de transformación de su sistema político, el cual ha sido motivado por las disputas entre diversos actores internos y externos que han establecido y modificado su sistema de alianzas con la finalidad de concretar la consecución de intereses. Las decisiones políticas tomadas en virtud de la primacía de intereses corruptos, la política exterior injerencista de determinados países, la marginación hacia algunos sectores de la sociedad y la falta de atención a las causas estructurales que generaron estancamiento en el desarrollo, potenciaron el proceso de agudización de la crisis humanitaria que se vive en Yemen hasta el día de hoy. Con una sociedad azotada por el hambre, las emergencias sanitarias y los desplazamientos forzados a causa de la guerra, existe incertidumbre sobre el futuro de esta realidad tan atroz. En consecuencia, analizando los puntos de inflexión de las últimas décadas, se construirán escenarios que podrían explicar la dirección que tomará esta crisis humanitaria

The paradigm of normative quality in the design of massive open online courses

Los cursos Massive Open On Line Courses (en adelante MOOC) se han considerado en la literatura divulgativa y científica como una revolución con un gran potencial en el mundo educativo y formativo. En este sentido, existe un consenso en la comunidad científica sobre la importancia y popularidad del movimiento, principalmente, por su alcance internacional y la oportunidad de ofrecer una formación de calidad a través de prestigiosas instituciones a cualquier estudiante, lo que hace muy poco parecía estar destinado a las élites.Sin embargo, al mismo tiempo, aparecen discrepancias y cuestionamientos sobre el valor pedagógico y el alcance que tendrá el movimiento en la Educación Superior. Las dudas se centran principalmente en el valor que la comunidad científica otorga al movimiento desde su incidencia en el panorama socio-formativo y que polarizan posturas desde posicionamientos que lo consideran un movimiento destructivo hacia otras que lo tildan de profundamente renovador y creativo. Así pues, el universo de los MOOC es objeto de reflexión didáctica y formativa entre diferentes autores y por instituciones de Educación Superior en el mundo globalizado, pero todavía es necesaria unas dimensiones e implicaciones de la visión evaluadora de los mismos que deben ser valoradas y analizadas desde diferentes puntos de vista. En este artículo se presenta un panorama descriptivo del diseño pedagógico de los cursos MOOC y la posible evaluación de su calidad a través del ajuste de los estándares de la Norma UNE (acrónimo de Una Norma Española) 66181:2012 sobre la Gestión de la Calidad de la Formación Virtual. En esta adaptación de la norma, no se ha tomado la información de los niveles de calidad de acuerdo a un sistema de representación de estrellas acumulativas. Es decir, se introducen indicadores de distintas rúbricas de niveles de calidad sin ser acumulativos, de tal forma que cada estándar de calidad se podría valorar de forma independiente y no tendría que contener la suma de los indicadores de los niveles anteriores. Por tanto, manteniendo los términos de la Norma UNE, se diseña un modelo de valoración de la calidad normativa, tanto cualitativa como cuantitativa, en el diseño de cursos MOOCmanteniendo las dimensiones que abarcan los factores de satisfacción de la formación virtual: empleabilidad, metodología de aprendizaje y accesibilidad.In the scientific and informative literature Massive Open On Line Courseshave been considered as a revolution with great potential in the education and training world. In this sense, this movement has been of interest worldwide due to its great potential to offer a free training, quality and accessible to all users regardless of their country of origin, prior training and without the need to pay for registration. Since early 2010, the arrival of these courses began to be viewed from a more academic perspective when different prestigious universities began their mass activities, among others, Stanford, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and the Toronto University. It there is agreement in the scientific community about the importance and popularity of this movement, mainly by its international scope and the opportunity to provide a quality education through prestigious institutions, which recently was destined to elite organizations. However, there are discrepancies and questions about the pedagogical value and scope will move in Higher Education. Doubts are mainly focused on the value that the scientific community gives the movement from its impact on the socio-educational field and facing positions from authors who consider a destructive movement toward others define it as refreshing and creative action. In this sense, the universe of Massive Open On Line Courses is the subject of educational and training reflection among different authors and institutions of higher education in the globalized world, but the dimensions and implications of the evaluative view of these courses is necessary since different views. This article provides a descriptive overview of the instructional design of the Massive Open On Line Courses and the possible assessment of their quality is presented through setting standards on UNE 66181:2012 Quality Management of Virtual Training

El paradigma de la calidad normativa en el diseño de cursos en línea masivos y abiertos

Los cursos Massive Open On Line Courses (en adelante MOOC) se han considerado en la literatura divulgativa y científica como una revolución con un gran potencial en el mundo educativo y formativo. En este sentido, existe un consenso en la comunidad científica sobre la importancia y popularidad del movimiento, principalmente, por su alcance internacional y la oportunidad de ofrecer una formación de calidad a través de prestigiosas instituciones a cualquier estudiante, lo que hace muy poco parecía estar destinado a las élites.Sin embargo, al mismo tiempo, aparecen discrepancias y cuestionamientos sobre el valor pedagógico y el alcance que tendrá el movimiento en la Educación Superior. Las dudas se centran principalmente en el valor que la comunidad científica otorga al movimiento desde su incidencia en el panorama socio-formativo y que polarizan posturas desde posicionamientos que lo consideran un movimiento destructivo hacia otras que lo tildan de profundamente renovador y creativo. Así pues, el universo de los MOOC es objeto de reflexión didáctica y formativa entre diferentes autores y por instituciones de Educación Superior en el mundo globalizado, pero todavía es necesaria unas dimensiones e implicaciones de la visión evaluadora de los mismos que deben ser valoradas y analizadas desde diferentes puntos de vista. En este artículo se presenta un panorama descriptivo del diseño pedagógico de los cursos MOOC y la posible evaluación de su calidad a través del ajuste de los estándares de la Norma UNE (acrónimo de Una Norma Española) 66181:2012 sobre la Gestión de la Calidad de la Formación Virtual. En esta adaptación de la norma, no se ha tomado la información de los niveles de calidad de acuerdo a un sistema de representación de estrellas acumulativas. Es decir, se introducen indicadores de distintas rúbricas de niveles de calidad sin ser acumulativos, de tal forma que cada estándar de calidad se podría valorar de forma independiente y no tendría que contener la suma de los indicadores de los niveles anteriores. Por tanto, manteniendo los términos de la Norma UNE, se diseña un modelo de valoración de la calidad normativa, tanto cualitativa como cuantitativa, en el diseño de cursos MOOCmanteniendo las dimensiones que abarcan los factores de satisfacción de la formación virtual: empleabilidad, metodología de aprendizaje y accesibilidad.In the scientific and informative literature Massive Open On Line Courseshave been considered as a revolution with great potential in the education and training world. In this sense, this movement has been of interest worldwide due to its great potential to offer a free training, quality and accessible to all users regardless of their country of origin, prior training and without the need to pay for registration. Since early 2010, the arrival of these courses began to be viewed from a more academic perspective when different prestigious universities began their mass activities, among others, Stanford, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and the Toronto University. It there is agreement in the scientific community about the importance and popularity of this movement, mainly by its international scope and the opportunity to provide a quality education through prestigious institutions, which recently was destined to elite organizations. However, there are discrepancies and questions about the pedagogical value and scope will move in Higher Education. Doubts are mainly focused on the value that the scientific community gives the movement from its impact on the socio-educational field and facing positions from authors who consider a destructive movement toward others define it as refreshing and creative action. In this sense, the universe of Massive Open On Line Courses is the subject of educational and training reflection among different authors and institutions of higher education in the globalized world, but the dimensions and implications of the evaluative view of these courses is necessary since different views. This article provides a descriptive overview of the instructional design of the Massive Open On Line Courses and the possible assessment of their quality is presented through setting standards on UNE 66181:2012 Quality Management of Virtual Training

Passive UHF RFID Tag with Multiple Sensing Capabilities

This work presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of a printed radio frequency identification tag in the ultra-high frequency band with multiple sensing capabilities. This passive tag is directly screen printed on a cardboard box with the aim of monitoring the packaging conditions during the different stages of the supply chain. This tag includes a commercial force sensor and a printed opening detector. Hence, the force applied to the package can be measured as well as the opening of the box can be detected. The architecture presented is a passive single-chip RFID tag. An electronic switch has been implemented to be able to measure both sensor magnitudes in the same access without including a microcontroller or battery. Moreover, the chip used here integrates a temperature sensor and, therefore, this tag provides three different parameters in every reading.This work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia under Projects CTQ2009-14428-C02-01 and CTQ2009-14428-C02-02 and the Junta de Andalucía (Proyecto de Excelencia P10-TIC-5997), Spain. This project was partially supported by European Regional Development Funds (ERDF)

Compact readout system for chipless passive LC tags and its application for humidity monitoring

The development of a contactless readout system for High Frequency (HF) tags and its application to relative humidity monitoring is presented. The system consists of a Colpitts oscillator circuit whose frequency response is determined by a built-in logic counter of a microcontroller unit. The novel readout strategy is based on the frequency response change due to the inductive coupling between the coil of the Colpitts oscillator and the load impedance of a parallel LC resonator tag, as a result of the variation of the humidity sensing capacitor. The frequency is monitored with a low cost microcontroller, resulting in a simple readout circuit. This passive LC tag has been directly screen-printed on a humidity-sensitive flexible substrate. The readout circuit experimental uncertainty as frequency meter was 4 kHz in the HF band. A linear temperature drift of (-1.52 ± 0.17) kHz/⁰C was obtained, which can be used to apply thermal compensation if required. The readout system has been validated as a proof of concept for humidity measurement, obtaining a significant change of about 260 kHz in the resonance frequency of the Colpitts oscillator when relative humidity varies from 10% to 90%, with a maximum uncertainty of ±3% (±2 SD). Therefore, the proposed readout system stands as a compact, low-cost, contactless solution for chipless HF tags that avoids the use of bulky and costly equipment for the analog reading of wireless passive LC sensors.This work was supported by project CTQ2016-78754-C2-1-R from the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitivity. P. Escobedo wants to thank the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (MECD) for a pre-doctoral grant (FPU13/05032)

Acute Stress in Lesser-Spotted Catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula Linnaeus, 1758) Promotes Amino Acid Catabolism and Osmoregulatory Imbalances

Simple Summary In catsharks (Scyliorhinus canicula), air exposure induces amino acid catabolism altogether with osmoregulatory imbalances. This study describes a novel NHE isoform being expressed in gills that may be involved in ammonium excretion. Acute-stress situations in vertebrates induce a series of physiological responses to cope with the event. While common secondary stress responses include increased catabolism and osmoregulatory imbalances, specific processes depend on the taxa. In this sense, these processes are still largely unknown in ancient vertebrates such as marine elasmobranchs. Thus, we challenged the lesser spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) to 18 min of air exposure, and monitored their recovery after 0, 5, and 24 h. This study describes amino acid turnover in the liver, white muscle, gills, and rectal gland, and plasma parameters related to energy metabolism and osmoregulatory imbalances. Catsharks rely on white muscle amino acid catabolism to face the energy demand imposed by the stressor, producing NH4+. While some plasma ions (K+, Cl- and Ca2+) increased in concentration after 18 min of air exposure, returning to basal values after 5 h of recovery, Na+ increased after just 5 h of recovery, coinciding with a decrease in plasma NH4+. These changes were accompanied by increased activity of a branchial amiloride-sensitive ATPase. Therefore, we hypothesize that this enzyme may be a Na+/H+ exchanger (NHE) related to NH4+ excretion. The action of an omeprazole-sensitive ATPase, putatively associated to a H+/K+-ATPase (HKA), is also affected by these allostatic processes. Some complementary experiments were carried out to delve a little deeper into the possible branchial enzymes sensitive to amiloride, including in vivo and ex vivo approaches, and partial sequencing of a nhe1 in the gills. This study describes the possible presence of an HKA enzyme in the rectal gland, as well as a NHE in the gills, highlighting the importance of understanding the relationship between acute stress and osmoregulation in elasmobranchs.This studywas partially supported by grant PID2020-117557RB-C22 (funded byMCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union) and Project DISCARDLIFE (Programa Pleamar, Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca, Alimentacion y Medio Ambiente, Spain) to JMM. I. Ruiz-Jarabo and J.M. Mancera belong to the Fish Welfare and Stress Network (AGL2016-81808-REDT), supported by the Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (MINECO, Spanish Government)

Estimating country-specific incidence rates of rare cancers: comparative perfomance analysis of modeling approaches using European cancer registry data

Estimating incidence of rare cancers is challenging for exceptionally rare entities and in small populations. In a previous study, investigators in the Information Network on Rare Cancers (RARECARENet) provided Bayesian estimates of expected numbers of rare cancers and 95% credible intervals for 27 European countries, using data collected by population-based cancer registries. In that study, slightly different results were found by implementing a Poisson model in integrated nested Laplace approximation/WinBUGS platforms. In this study, we assessed the performance of a Poisson modeling approach for estimating rare cancer incidence rates, oscillating around an overall European average and using small-count data in different scenarios/computational platforms. First, we compared the performance of frequentist, empirical Bayes, and Bayesian approaches for providing 95% confidence/credible intervals for the expected rates in each country. Second, we carried out an empirical study using 190 rare cancers to assess different lower/upper bounds of a uniform prior distribution for the standard deviation of the random effects. For obtaining a reliable measure of variability for country-specific incidence rates, our results suggest the suitability of using 1 as the lower bound for that prior distribution and selecting the random-effects model through an averaged indicator derived from 2 Bayesian model selection criteria: the deviance information criterion and the Watanabe-Akaike information criterion

Passive UHF RFID Tag for Multispectral Assessmen

This work presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of a passive printed radiofrequency identification tag in the ultra-high-frequency band with multiple optical sensing capabilities. This tag includes five photodiodes to cover a wide spectral range from near-infrared to visible and ultraviolet spectral regions. The tag antenna and circuit connections have been screen-printed on a flexible polymeric substrate. An ultra-low-power microcontroller-based switch has been included to measure the five magnitudes issuing from the optical sensors, providing a spectral fingerprint of the incident electromagnetic radiation from ultraviolet to infrared, without requiring energy from a battery. The normalization procedure has been designed applying illuminants, and the entire system was tested by measuring cards from a colour chart and sensing fruit ripening

Tenofovir vs lamivudine plus adefovir in chronic hepatitis B: TENOSIMP-B study

AIM To demonstrate the non-inferiority (15% non-inferiority limit) of monotherapy with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) vs the combination of lamivudine (LAM) plus adefovir dipivoxil (ADV) in the maintenance of virologic response in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and prior failure with LAM. METHODS This study was a Phase IV prospective, randomized, open, controlled study with 2 parallel groups (TDF and LAM+ADV) of adult patients with hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-negative CHB, prior failure with LAM, on treatment with LAM+ADV for at least 6 mo, without prior resistance to ADV and with an undetectable viral load at the start of the study, in 14 Spanish hospitals. The follow-up time for each patient was 48 wk after randomization, with quarterly visits in which the viral load, biochemical and serological parameters, adverse effects, adherence to treatment and consumption of hospital resources were analysed. RESULTS Forty-six patients were evaluated [median age: 55.4 years (30.2-75.2); 84.8% male], including 22 patients with TDF and 24 with LAM+ADV. During study development, hepatitis B virus DNA (HBV-DNA) remained undetectable, all patients remained HBeAg negative, and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive. Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) values at the end of the study were similar in the 2 groups (25.1 ± 7.65, TDF vs 24.22 ± 8.38, LAM+ADV, P = 0.646). No significant changes were observed in creatinine or serum phosphorus values in either group. No significant differences between the 2 groups were noted in the identification of adverse effects (AEs) (53.8%, TDF vs 37.5%, LAM+ADV, P = 0.170), and none of the AEs which occurred were serious. Treatment adherence was 95.5% and 83.3% in the TDF and the LAM+ADV groups, respectively (P = 0.488). The costs associated with hospital resource consumption were significantly lower with the TDF treatment than the LAM+ADV treatment (€4943 ± 1059 vs €5811 ± 1538, respectively, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION TDF monotherapy proved to be safe and not inferior to the LAM+ADV combination therapy in maintaining virologic response in patients with CHB and previous LAM failure. In addition, the use of TDF generated a significant savings in hospital costs

Creación de un nuevo recurso educativo virtual para estudiantes de grado en Farmacia

Depto. de Farmacia Galénica y Tecnología AlimentariaFac. de FarmaciaFALSEsubmitte