Microencapsulació de llevats

Actualment, la microencapsulació és un camp d’investigació amb molt futur ja que permet conservar en els seus nuclis substàncies sensibles a agents externs. Aquest projecte se centra en desenvolupar un mecanisme per dur a terme l’encapsulació de llevat. També analitzarà com aquesta càpsula i les seves característiques afecta a la fermentació alcohòlica utilitzant com a substrat la D-glucosa.Actualmente, la microencapsulación es un campo de investigación con mucho futuro ya que permite conservar en sus núcleos sustancias sensibles a agentes externos. Este proyecto se centra en desarrollar un mecanismo para llevar a cabo la encapsulación de levadura. También analizará cómo esta cápsula y sus características afecta a la fermentación alcohólica utilizando como sustrato la D-glucosa.Currently, microencapsulation is a field of research with a great future as it allows to preserve in its nuclei substances sensitive to external agents. This project focuses on developing a mechanism for performing yeast encapsulation. It will also analyze how this capsule and its characteristics affect alcoholic fermentation using D-glucose as a substrate

Estudi d'una aplicació de gestió

En l'actualitat, els clubs esportius estan experimentant una evolució significativa a mesura que adopten noves tecnologies per millorar la gestió dels seus equipaments, equips i esportistes. Això implica la integració de serveis complementaris que s'adapten a les necessitats canviants dels usuaris. En el marc d'aquest projecte, es centrarà en el disseny i la validació d'una solució software que permeti una gestió integral d'un club esportiu. Per començar, es realitzarà un exhaustiu anàlisi de les necessitats dels usuaris per assegurar-se que la solució satisfaci les seves expectatives i necessitats específiques. Aquest procés es realitzarà amb una perspectiva centrada en l'usuari, seguint una metodologia basada en el Design Thinking. Mitjançant aquest enfocament, es desenvoluparà un disseny que tingui en compte les preferències i les demandes dels usuaris, amb l'objectiu d'aconseguir un "product market fit" òptim. Un cop es completi el disseny de la solució, es procedirà a la seva validació amb els propis usuaris. Aquesta fase és crucial per recollir retroalimentació i realitzar ajustos necessaris per millorar l'experiència de l'usuari. Els membres del club esportiu tindran l'oportunitat de provar i avaluar la solució proposada, assegurant-se que s'adeqüi a les seves necessitats i expectatives. Per a garantir una introducció eficaç al mercat i la seva comercialització, s'utilitzarà la metodologia del Value Proposition Design. Aquest enfocament permetrà analitzar en profunditat els beneficis i els avantatges competitius de la solució, així com identificar les estratègies òptimes per captar clients i comunicar el valor del producte als possibles compradors. Finalment, s'avaluarà la viabilitat tècnica de la solució i els beneficis operatius que ofereix. Això inclourà una avaluació dels avantatges i inconvenients de l’eina i l'eficiència que aportarà en la gestió diària del club esporti

Speech-based support system to supervise chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patient status

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Prosody; Speech analysisMalaltia pulmonar obstructiva crònica; Prosòdia; Anàlisi de la parlaEnfermedad pulmonar obstructiva crónica; Prosodia; Análisi del hablaPatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) suffer from voice changes with respect to the healthy population. However, two issues remain to be studied: how long-term speech elements such as prosody are affected; and whether physical effort and medication also affect the speech of patients with COPD, and if so, how an automatic speech-based detection system of COPD measurements can be influenced by these changes. The aim of the current study is to address both issues. To this end, long read speech from COPD and control groups was recorded, and the following experiments were performed: (a) a statistical analysis over the study and control groups to analyse the effects of physical effort and medication on speech; and (b) an automatic classification experiment to analyse how different recording conditions can affect the performance of a COPD detection system. The results obtained show that speech—especially prosodic features—is affected by physical effort and inhaled medication in both groups, though in opposite ways; and that the recording condition has a relevant role when designing an automatic COPD detection system. The current work takes a step forward in the understanding of speech in patients with COPD, and in turn, in the research on its automatic detection to help professionals supervising patient status.This research has been funded by GlaxoSmithKline, S.A. The first author has been funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and the Fondo Social Europeo (FSE) under grant RYC-2015-17239 (AEI/FSE, UE)

Assimilation of Sentinel-2 Biophysical Variables into a Digital Twin for the Automated Irrigation Scheduling of a Vineyard

Decision support systems (DSS) are needed to carry out precision irrigation. Key issues in this regard include how to deal with spatial variability and the adoption of deficit irrigation strategies at the field scale. A software application originally designed for water balance-based automated irrigation scheduling locally fine-tuned through the use of sensors has been further developed with the emerging paradigm of both digital twins and the Internet of Things (IoT). The aim of this research is to demonstrate the feasibility of automatically scheduling the irrigation of a commercial vineyard when adopting regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) strategies and assimilating in near real time the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR) obtained from Sentinel-2 imagery. In addition, simulations of crop evapotranspiration obtained by the digital twin were compared with remote sensing estimates using surface energy balance models and Copernicus-based inputs. Results showed that regression between instantaneous fAPAR and in situ measurements of the fraction of intercepted photosynthetically active radiation (fIPAR) had a coefficient of determination (R2) ranging from 0.61 to 0.91, and a root mean square deviation (RMSD) of 0.10. The conversion of fAPAR to a daily time step was dependent on row orientation. A site-specific automated irrigation scheduling was successfully adopted and an adaptive response allowed spontaneous adjustments in order to stress vines to a certain level at specific growing stages. Simulations of the soil water balance components performed well. The regression between digital twin simulations and remote sensing-estimated actual (two-source energy balance Priestley–Taylor modeling approach, TSEB-PTS2+S3) and potential (Penman–Monteith approach) evapotranspiration showed RMSD values of 0.98 mm/day and 1.14 mm/day, respectively.This research was funded by the projects IRRINTEGRAL (No. RTI2018-099949-R-C21) and DIGISPAC (No. TED2021-131237B-C21), both from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of the Spanish government.The authors would like to thank all the Efficient Use of Water in Agriculture program team at the IRTA for their technical support, as well as Family Torres winery. This study was undertaken as part of the Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation (H2020) of the European Commission, in the context of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) action and ACCWA project: grant agreement No.: 823965.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Implementing technology in healthcare : insights from physicians

Technology has significantly changed the way health organizations operate. However, the role it plays in healthcare systems remains unclear. This aim of this study was to evaluate the opinion of physicians regarding e-health and determine what factors influence their opinion and describe the advantages, inconveniences and threats they may perceive by its use. A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study. A questionnaire which had been previously designed and validated by the authors was used to interview physicians from the Barcelona Medical Association. 930 physicians were contacted by phone to participate in the study. Seven hundred sixty physicians responded to the questionnaire (response rate: 82%). The usefulness of telemedicine scored 7.4 (SD 1.8) on a scale from 1-10 (from the lowest to the highest) and the importance of the Internet in the workplace was 8.2 points (SD 1.8). Therapeutic compliance (7.0 -SD 1.8-) and patient health (7.0 -SD 1.7-) showed the best scores, and there were differences between professionals who had and had not previously participated in a telemedicine project (p < 0.05). The multivariate regression model explained the 41% of the variance for 7 factors: participation in telemedicine project (p < 0.001), quality of clinical practice (p < 0.001), patient health (p < 0.001), professional workload (p = 0.005), ease-of-use of electronic device (p = 0.007), presence of incentives for telemedicine (p = 0.011) and patient preference for in-person visits (p = 0.05). Physicians believe in the usefulness of e-health. Professionals with previous experience with it are more open to its implementation and consider that the benefits of technology outweigh its possible difficulties and shortcomings. Physicians demanded projects with appropriate funding and technology, as well as specific training to improve their technological abilities. The relationship of users with technology differs according to their personal or professional life. Although a 2.0 philosophy has been incorporated into many aspects of our lives, healthcare systems still have a long way to go in order to adapt to this new understanding of the relationship between patients and their health. The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12911-017-0489-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Proceso de Bolonia (VI): aprendiendo comunicación para la salud en el Grado de Medicina

La comunicación forma parte de la actividad clínica y en ocasiones determina el éxito o fracaso del proceso asistencial. Sin embargo, no ha sido reconocida en los planes de estudio del Estado español hasta muy recientemente, sobre todo con el impulso del llamado 'Plan Bolonia'. En el año 2009 se aprobó en la Facultad de Medicina de la Universitat de Barcelona un nuevo plan docente que proponía incorporar la enseñanza de la comunicación en las materias clínicas y pre-clínicas, contabilizando entre 3 y 6 créditos europeos (ECTS), como competencia transversal. El presente artículo aborda el diseño de esta competencia, los pros y contras, cómo se inserta en diferentes asignaturas y cómo puede evaluarse

Healthcare risk stratification model for emergency departments based on drugs, income and comorbidities: the DICER-score

Background During the last decade, the progressive increase in age and associated chronic comorbidities and polypharmacy. However, assessments of the risk of emergency department (ED) revisiting published to date often neglect patients' pharmacotherapy plans, thus overseeing the Drug-related problems (DRP) risks associated with the therapy burden. The aim of this study is to develop a predictive model for ED revisit, hospital admission, and mortality based on patient's characteristics and pharmacotherapy.MethodsRetrospective cohort study including adult patients visited in the ED (triage 1, 2, or 3) of multiple hospitals in Catalonia (Spain) during 2019. The primary endpoint was a composite of ED visits, hospital admission, or mortality 30 days after ED discharge. The study population was randomly split into a model development (60%) and validation (40%) datasets. The model included age, sex, income level, comorbidity burden, measured with the Adjusted Morbidity Groups (GMA), and number of medications. Forty-four medication groups, associated with medication-related health problems, were assessed using ATC codes. To assess the performance of the different variables, logistic regression was used to build multivariate models for ED revisits. The models were created using a stepwise-forward approach based on the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). Area under the curve of the receiving operating characteristics (AUCROC) curve for the primary endpoint was calculated.Results851.649 patients were included; 134.560 (15.8%) revisited the ED within 30 days from discharge, 15.2% were hospitalized and 9.1% died within 30 days from discharge. Four factors (sex, age, GMA, and income level) and 30 ATC groups were identified as risk factors and combined into a final score. The model showed an AUCROC values of 0.720 (95%CI:0.718-0.721) in the development cohort and 0.719 (95%CI.0.717-0.721) in the validation cohort. Three risk categories were generated, with the following scores and estimated risks: low risk: 18.3%; intermediate risk: 40.0%; and high risk: 62.6%.ConclusionThe DICER score allows identifying patients at high risk for ED revisit within 30 days based on sociodemographic, clinical, and pharmacotherapeutic characteristics, being a valuable tool to prioritize interventions on discharge. Risk scores are often used to predict the clinical outcomes of patients in many healthcare settings.To the date, no prediction model of emergency department (ED) visits based on patients' pharmacotherapy, income level, and comorbidities have been developed.We have designed an ED risk score combined four risk factors (sex, age, comorbidity score and income level) and 30 drug categories to identify those patients at high risk of health-care visit

Gestión integral del ciclo del agua como elemento educador y de sensibilización ambiental en el Campus del Baix Llobregat de la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC)

Aprovechando el interés del campus como espacio semiurbano en el que se combinan aspectos naturalísticos con tecnológicos, y como primer paso para conseguir la sensibilización necesaria para proteger el campus de los malos hábitos humanos se diseñó una actividad formativa y de sensibilización ambiental que pudiera revertir en la comunidad universitaria y en otros colectivos externos a la universidad. Con esta finalidad nació el proyecto Itinera, como un medio para dar relevancia, difusión y consolidación a un abanico de iniciativas que se habían ido desarrollando en el campus del Baix Llobregat, así como para impulsar nuevas actuaciones que solidificasen todavía más los proyectos iniciados. El núcleo visible del proyecto Itinera consistía en un itinerario ambiental que recorría el Campus del Baix Llobregat, y en el que se describían doce puntos de interés ambiental.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

What do we know about Immunity to SARS-CoV-2? Implications for Public Health Policies

Additional support from ISGlobal’s Antoni Plasència and Josep M. AntóAs the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, so does our knowledge of the magnitude, type and durability of the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 as a result of natural infection or vaccination. This information is crucial since it will largely define the strategies we need to implement in order to protect individuals and populations. With this in mind, the GCMSC presents its second report, where they review the current knowledge on immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and the implications in terms of public health policies

Post-Acute COVID Syndrome (PACS): Definition, Impact and Management

Additional support from ISGlobal’s Antoni Plasència and Josep M. AntóA variety of studies suggest that up to 10-15% of all patients with COVID-19 may present persistent symptomatology weeks or even months after the original infection. Given the accumulated burden of COVID-19 in Catalonia, Spain, we speculate that over 90,000 patients could have been or are currently affected by persistent symptoms or sequelae. The Multidisciplinary Collaborative Group for the Scientific Monitoring of COVID-19 (GCMSC) presents its third report where they propose a clear set of case definitions of Post-Acute COVID syndrome (PACS) and its sub-categories and recommend a comprehensive medical examination to characterise the clinical features and complications when assessing PACS