Study of the approved degrees in pharmacy

La implementación de los estudios universitarios al Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES), se ha regulado en España con la publicación del Real Decreto 1393/2007, que establece la ordenación de las enseñanzas universitarias oficiales de Grado, Master y Doctorado. En este contexto, el Ministerio de Educación ya ha aprobado los primeros estudios de Grado en Farmacia adaptados al EEES de algunas universidades españolas. El objetivo de nuestro trabajo es analizar los planes de estudio de los títulos de Grado en Farmacia que han sido aprobados. Hemos estudiado la planificación de las enseñanzas en cuanto a los Módulos requeridos para la verificación del título oficial, así como otros Módulos propios. También hemos analizado el porcentaje de carga lectiva de las materias en el plan de estudios, atendiendo a su carácter: básicas, obligatorias y optativas. Por último, hemos examinado la selección de las materias que constituyen los módulos. Podemos concluir que los planes de estudio de las universidades analizadas presentan una gran uniformidad en cuanto a los contenidos formativos. La mayor diversidad en la trayectoria curricular tiene lugar en la selección de las asignaturas optativas, así como en los Módulos de carácter humanístico, estos últimos frecuentes en las universidades privadas.To comply with the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in Spain, a law was published (RD 1393/2007) which regulates official studies for degrees, masters and doctorates. Several new Pharmacy degrees have been approved by the Ministry for Education according to this law, both in public and private universities. The objective of our work was to analyse these Pharmacy degrees, paying attention to the content of the various modules, as well as to the relative percentage of teaching load within each topic in the curricula according to its nature: basic, obligatory and optional. We can conclude that the degrees of all universities analysed are very homogeneous, particularly in regard to the formative content of the established modules, in accordance to the general guidelines. The greater variation seems to be located in optional subjects as well as in Art and Humanities modules, the latter being quite common in private universities

Student perception of our teaching strategies

La implantación de los nuevos grados, dentro del EEES, supone un aumento en la participación del alumno en su aprendizaje y la introducción de nuevas estrategias docentes. Debido a ello, nuestro objetivo ha sido valorar la opinión de los alumnos sobre tres aspectos: las estrategias docentes utilizadas en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, la metodología de evaluación y la importancia que otorgan a la adquisición de competencias transversales, como hablar en público o trabajar en equipo. Para ello, se ha realizado un estudio, a través de una encuesta voluntaria y anónima a los alumnos de tres asignaturas de Farmacia. De los datos obtenidos destacamos que un 93.1% afirmó que la asistencia a clase ayuda a comprender la asignatura y que un 82.8% consideró que la participación activa en el aula le ayuda a aprender. Respecto a las estrategias docentes, los alumnos eligieron las explicaciones del profesor y la pizarra como el método más útil para su aprendizaje, quedando en segundo lugar la realización de ejercicios, prácticas y en último lugar, las presentaciones en Power Point. Como conclusión, los alumnos valoran positivamente aquellas estrategias que fomentan su participación, así como el sistema de evaluación continua. Sin embargo, hemos de resaltar la alta valoración otorgada a las explicaciones del profesor en la pizarra. Por ello, los datos obtenidos deberían hacernos reflexionar sobre la importancia de incluir nuevas estrategias docentes que fomenten la participación del alumno, pero sin olvidar, el valor del que quizá sea el instrumento docente más antiguo, la pizarra y el profesor.The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) will change our teaching methodology with the implementation of new teaching strategies and greater participation of students in the learning process. The objective of our study is to evaluate the students’ views in three main areas: a) teaching strategies promoted by the lecturer for the teaching/learning process, b) evaluation methods and c) achieve good competence in other areas such as oral communication skills or team-work. Thus we designed a questionnaire which was filled by Pharmacy students from various years (n=118; 40.5% males and 59.5% females) registered in several subjects. Analysis of data revealed that 93.1% considered that attendance to lectures helped them to understand the topics covered. A good proportion (82.8%) was also of the view that participating in lectures was a good aid to learning. The students valued the teachers explanations and the use of the blackboard as the most useful for them to learn followed by practicals and exercises and lastly by PowerPoint presentations. Our data suggest that students value strategies that make them participate in their own learning process as well as a system of continuing evaluation. The results obtained highlight the importance of teaching strategies which stimulate student participation but also the high value the students allocate to the most classic and characteristic features of any classroom: teacher and blackboard

MesopTroph, a database of trophic parameters to study interactions in mesopelagic food webs

Mesopelagic organisms play a crucial role in marine food webs, channelling energy across the predator-prey network and connecting depth strata through their diel vertical migrations. The information available to assess mesopelagic feeding interactions and energy transfer has increased substantially in recent years, owing to the growing interest and research activity in the mesopelagic realm. However, such data have not been systematically collated and are difficult to access, hampering estimation of the contribution of mesopelagic organisms to marine ecosystems. Here we present MesopTroph, a georeferenced database of diet, trophic markers, and energy content of mesopelagic and other marine taxa compiled from 203 published and non-published sources. MesopTroph currently includes data on stomach contents, carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes, major and trace elements, energy density, fatty acids, trophic positions, and diet proportion estimates for 498 species/genera. MesopTroph will be expanded with new data emerging from ongoing studies. MesopTroph provides a unique tool to investigate trophic interactions and energy flow mediated by mesopelagic organisms, and to evaluate the ecosystem services of this community

Implementation of Classroom of Pharmacy at the Faculty of Health Sciences

El Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES) supone un cambio en nuestras metodologías docentes, que deben orientarse hacia una mayor participación del alumno en el proceso de enseñanzaaprendizaje, así como a satisfacer la necesidad de formación del mundo laboral. Por ello, y en base a la necesidad de nuestra Universidad de adaptar la docencia de Farmacia al Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior, la Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud de la Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera, ha desarrollado un proyecto para implantar un aula que simule una Oficina de Farmacia. Entre los perfiles laborales del farmacéutico, el de Oficina de Farmacia es el más frecuente, por ser esta la ocupación laboral mayoritaria. La labor en las farmacias comunitarias consiste básicamente en la conservación, dispensación, asesoramiento y elaboración de medicamentos. Todo ello, unido al ejercicio de la atención farmacéutica, conlleva una gran carga de responsabilidad, un conocimiento y vigilancia de la legislación establecida al respecto y una base científica y técnica importante. La farmacia es, a su vez, un centro de educación y prevención sanitaria, dietética y cosmética. Con el objetivo de que nuestros alumnos desarrollen todas las competencias necesarias para el farmacéutico en la Facultad de Salud se implantó el Aula de la Farmacia.The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) represents a shift in our teaching methodology, which should now be steered towards a greater participation of students in the teaching-learning process and should satisfy the employment market’s need for trained professionals. In this context, our university has sought to adapt its pharmacy teaching programme to the EHEA, and so the Faculty of Health Sciences of the CEU Cardenal Herrera University has developed a project to create a space that simulates a working pharmacy. Among the different professional profiles within the discipline of pharmacy, a position in a chemist’s/drugstore is the most common, as the majority of pharmacists are employed as such. The work of community pharmacies basically consists of the storing, dispensing and preparation of medication. These tasks, combined with the pharmaceutical care provided to patients and customers, involve a great deal of responsibility that depends on knowledge and safeguarding of the current legislation and a solid scientific and technical training. A pharmacy is, at the same time, a centre of education and prevention in health, diet and cosmetics. With all of this in mind, the Pharmacy Room was created by the Health Sciences Faculty with the objective of allowing our students to develop all the skills expected of a pharmacist

Forest carbon sequestration:the impact of forest management

In this chapter, we describe alternative ways in which forests and forestry can help to mítigate climate change, along with the potential impact of these activities. The three carbon storage compartments should be considered inall impact estimates. Carbon content in living biomass is easily estimated via species-specific equations or by applying factors to oven-dry biomass weights (e.g.,lbañez et al.,2002, Herrero et al.,2011,Castaño and Bravo, 2012).Litter carbon content has been analysed in many studies on primary forest productivity, though information regarding the influence of forest management on litter carbon content is less abundant (Blanco et al., 2006). In the last decade,efforts have been made to assess soil carbon in forests, but studies on the effect of forest management on soils show discrepancies (Lindner and Karjalainen,2007).Hoover (2011), for example,found no difference in forest floor carbon stocks among stands subjected to partial or complete harvest treatments in the United States.Instituto Universitario de Gestión Forestal Sostenibl

Large deep-sea zooplankton biomass mirrors primary production in the global ocean

The biological pump transports organic carbon produced by photosynthesis to the meso- and bathypelagic zones, the latter removing carbon from exchanging with the atmosphere over centennial time scales. Organisms living in both zones are supported by a passive flux of particles, and carbon transported to the deep-sea through vertical zooplankton migrations. Here we report globally-coherent positive relationships between zooplankton biomass in the epi-, meso-, and bathypelagic layers and average net primary production (NPP). We do so based on a global assessment of available deep-sea zooplankton biomass data and large-scale estimates of average NPP. The relationships obtained imply that increased NPP leads to enhanced transference of organic carbon to the deep ocean. Estimated remineralization from respiration rates by deep-sea zooplankton requires a minimum supply of 0.44 Pg C y(-1) transported into the bathypelagic ocean, comparable to the passive carbon sequestration. We suggest that the global coupling between NPP and bathypelagic zooplankton biomass must be also supported by an active transport mechanism associated to vertical zooplankton migration

Biochemical indices and life traits of loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) from Cape Verde Islands

The loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) is an endangered marine reptile for whom assessing population health requires knowledge of demographic parameters such as individual growth rate. In Cape Verde, as within several populations, adult female loggerhead sea turtles show a size-related behavioral and trophic dichotomy. While smaller females are associated with oceanic habitats, larger females tend to feed in neritic habitats, which is reflected in their physiological condition and in their offspring. The ratio of RNA/DNA provides a measure of cellular protein synthesis capacity, which varies depending on changes in environmental conditions such as temperature and food availability. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the combined use of morphometric data and biochemical indices as predictors of the physiological condition of the females of distinct sizes and hatchlings during their nesting season and how temperature may influence the physiological condition on the offspring. Here we employed biochemical indices based on nucleic acid derived indices (standardized RNA/DNA ratio-sRD, RNA concentration and DNA concentration) in skin tissue as a potential predictor of recent growth rate in nesting females and hatchling loggerhead turtles. Our major findings were that the physiological condition of all nesting females (sRD) decreased during the nesting season, but that females associated with neritic habitats had a higher physiological condition than females associated with oceanic habitats. In addition, the amount of time required for a hatchling to right itself was negatively correlated with its physiological condition (sRD) and shaded nests produced hatchlings with lower sRD. Overall, our results showed that nucleic acid concentrations and ratios of RNA to DNA are an important tool as potential biomarkers of recent growth in marine turtles. Hence, as biochemical indices of instantaneous growth are likely temperature-, size- and age-dependent, the utility and validation of these indices on marine turtles stocks deserves further study.The authors thank the Cape Verde Ministry of Environment (General Direction for the Environment), INDP (National Fisheries Institution), the Canary Islands Government (D.G. Africa and D.G. Research and Universities), ICCM (Canarian Institution for Marine Sciences), the Andalusian Government (Andalusian Environmental Office) and AEGINA PROJECT (INTERREG IIIB) for funding and hosting them during this study. The authors also thank the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the COMPETE - Operational Competitiveness Programme, and national funds through FCT - PEst-C/MAR/LA0015/2011 for supporting the biochemical analysis

Pelagic larval duration of 10 temperate cryptobenthic fishes

The pelagic larval duration (DPL) for 10 temperate cryptobenthic species belonging to three families: Gobiidae, Gobiesocidae and Blenniidae was investigated. Overall, the Gobiesocidae presented short DPLs varying between 11 and 18 days, the Gobiidae’s DPL ranged between 14 and 39 days, and Parablennius pilicornis (Blenniidae) had an average of 33 days (range 31–37 days). Two subtypes of settlement marks were found among individuals of the same species

Costs and benefits of automation for astronomical facilities

The Observatorio Astrof\'isico de Javalambre (OAJ{\dag}1) in Spain is a young astronomical facility, conceived and developed from the beginning as a fully automated observatory with the main goal of optimizing the processes in the scientific and general operation of the Observatory. The OAJ has been particularly conceived for carrying out large sky surveys with two unprecedented telescopes of unusually large fields of view (FoV): the JST/T250, a 2.55m telescope of 3deg field of view, and the JAST/T80, an 83cm telescope of 2deg field of view. The most immediate objective of the two telescopes for the next years is carrying out two unique photometric surveys of several thousands square degrees, J-PAS{\dag}2 and J-PLUS{\dag}3, each of them with a wide range of scientific applications, like e.g. large structure cosmology and Dark Energy, galaxy evolution, supernovae, Milky Way structure, exoplanets, among many others. To do that, JST and JAST are equipped with panoramic cameras under development within the J-PAS collaboration, JPCam and T80Cam respectively, which make use of large format (~ 10k x 10k) CCDs covering the entire focal plane. This paper describes in detail, from operations point of view, a comparison between the detailed cost of the global automation of the Observatory and the standard automation cost for astronomical facilities, in reference to the total investment and highlighting all benefits obtained from this approach and difficulties encountered. The paper also describes the engineering development of the overall facilities and infrastructures for the fully automated observatory and a global overview of current status, pinpointing lessons learned in order to boost observatory operations performance, achieving scientific targets, maintaining quality requirements, but also minimizing operation cost and human resources.Comment: Global Observatory Control System GOC