Sustainability, Social Impact, Learning and Training Innovation in Online Experimentation

Experimentation is an essential ingredient in any learning strategy about Sciences and Technologies (SciTech in the following). That is why the research on online experimentation is paramount to help confront the skill shortage in SciTech disciplines, by stimulating the development of more effective online learning and training approaches. Nonetheless, in this sector "functional" aspects are often overrated by researchers and no specific attention is paid to the sustainability of their proposals or to the possibility to analyze and improve the achieved social impact. A better integration among these aspects is then essential to move online experimentation research out of its infancy, to improve its perceived value and to increase its diffusion.</p

Ilustrando Argentina a través de los paisajes del poema "El gaucho Martín Fierro"

[ES] El presente proyecto de carácter práctico consiste en ilustrar el poema El gaucho Martín Fierro, libro de género gauchesco. En él, se hará un recorrido por los diferentes paisajes mencionados en el libro por el protagonista, consiguiendo plasmar el paisaje de la Pampa argentina a través de ellos. Para desarrollar el proyecto utilizaré tanto técnica digital como tradicional. Dado que el libro se divide en trece cantos, cada uno de ellos empezará con un pequeño trabajo de grabado representando un elemento tradicional y, a lo largo que cada canto, nos encontraremos las ilustraciones principales en técnica digital, principalmente trabajando las tintas planas. El fin último de este proyecto es desarrollar las habilidades obtenidas durante el grado en el campo de la ilustración y explorar las posibilidades plásticas del color y de las técnicas empleadas. Además de renovar y dar una imagen moderna de un libro tradicional como es El gaucho Martin Fierro.[EN] The present project consists in illustrating the book El gaucho Martin Fierro, that belongs to the gauchesco genre. In it, we will travel through different landscapes that the main character mentions in the book, getting to capture the landscape of the Argentine pampa through them. To develop this project, I will use traditional and digital techniques. Since the book is divided into thirteen songs, each of them starts with a little linocut illustration that represents a traditional element of Argentine culture and, along each song, there are digital landscape illustrations, mainly working spot colors. The goal of this project is to develop the skills obtained during the degree in the field of illustration and to explore the plastic possibilities of the color and techniques that have been used. In addition, to renew and modernize the image of such a traditional book as Martín Fierro is.Vaira Garcia, ML. (2021). Ilustrando Argentina a través de los paisajes del poema "El gaucho Martín Fierro". Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/170942TFG

Ultrasonographic Fetal Growth Charts: An Informatic Approach by Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of Ethnicity on Diagnoses Based on a Preliminary Report on Salentinian Population

Clear guidance on fetal growth assessment is important because of the strong links between growth restriction or macrosomia and adverse perinatal outcome in order to reduce associated morbidity and mortality. Fetal growth curves are extensively adopted to track fetal sizes from the early phases of pregnancy up to delivery. In the literature, a large variety of reference charts are reported but they are mostly up to five decades old. Furthermore, they do not address several variables and factors (e.g., ethnicity, foods, lifestyle, smoke, and physiological and pathological variables), which are very important for a correct evaluation of the fetal well-being. Therefore, currently adopted fetal growth charts are inadequate to support the melting pot of ethnic groups and lifestyles of our society. Customized fetal growth charts are needed to provide an accurate fetal assessment and to avoid unnecessary obstetric interventions at the time of delivery. Starting from the development of a growth chart purposely built for a specific population, in the paper, authors quantify and analyse the impact of the adoption of wrong growth charts on fetal diagnoses. These results come from a preliminary evaluation of a new open service developed to produce personalized growth charts for specific ethnicity, lifestyle, and other parameters

A neuronal network of mitochondrial dynamics regulates metastasis.

The role of mitochondria in cancer is controversial. Using a genome-wide shRNA screen, we now show that tumours reprogram a network of mitochondrial dynamics operative in neurons, including syntaphilin (SNPH), kinesin KIF5B and GTPase Miro1/2 to localize mitochondria to the cortical cytoskeleton and power the membrane machinery of cell movements. When expressed in tumours, SNPH inhibits the speed and distance travelled by individual mitochondria, suppresses organelle dynamics, and blocks chemotaxis and metastasis, in vivo. Tumour progression in humans is associated with downregulation or loss of SNPH, which correlates with shortened patient survival, increased mitochondrial trafficking to the cortical cytoskeleton, greater membrane dynamics and heightened cell invasion. Therefore, a SNPH network regulates metastatic competence and may provide a therapeutic target in cancer

Would You Prescribe Mobile Health Apps for Heart Failure Self-care? An Integrated Review of Commercially Available Mobile Technology for Heart Failure Patients

Treatment of chronic diseases, such as heart failure, requires complex protocols based on early diagnosis; self-monitoring of symptoms, vital signs and physical activity; regular medication intake; and education of patients and caregivers about relevant aspects of the disease. Smartphones and mobile health applications could be very helpful in improving the efficacy of such protocols, but several barriers make it difficult to fully exploit their technological potential and produce clear clinical evidence of their effectiveness. App suppliers do not help users distinguish between useless/dangerous apps and valid solutions. The latter are few and often characterised by rapid obsolescence, lack of interactivity and lack of authoritative information. Systematic reviews can help physicians and researchers find and assess the 'best candidate solutions' in a repeatable manner and pave the way for well-grounded and fruitful discussion on their clinical effectiveness. To this purpose, the authors assess 10 apps for heart failure self-care using the Intercontinental Marketing Statistics score and other criteria, discuss the clinical effectiveness of existing solutions and identify barriers to their use in practice and drivers for change

Trustworthiness of Context-Aware Urban Pollution Data in Mobile Crowd Sensing

Urban pollution is usually monitored via fixed stations that provide detailed and reliable information, thanks to equipment quality and effective measuring protocols, but these sampled data are gathered from very limited areas and through discontinuous monitoring campaigns. Currently, the spread of mobile devices has fostered the development of new approaches, like Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS), increasing the chances of using smartphones as suitable sensors in the urban monitoring scenario, because it potentially contributes massive ubiquitous data at relatively low cost. However, MCS is useless (or even counter-productive), if contributed data are not trustworthy, due to wrong data-collection procedures by non-expert practitioners. Contextualizing monitored data with those coming from phone-embedded sensors and from time/space proximity can improve data trustworthiness. This work focuses on the development of an algorithm that exploits context awareness to improve the reliability of MCS collected data. It has been validated against some real use cases for noise pollution and promises to improve the trustworthiness of end users generated data

Deregulation of MiR-34b/Sox2 Predicts Prostate Cancer Progression.

Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer will have an indolent and curable disease, whereas approximately 15% of these patients will rapidly progress to a castrate-resistant and metastatic stage with high morbidity and mortality. Therefore, the identification of molecular signature(s) that detect men at risk of progressing disease remains a pressing and still unmet need for these patients. Here, we used an integrated discovery platform combining prostate cancer cell lines, a Transgenic Adenocarcinoma of the Mouse Prostate (TRAMP) model and clinically-annotated human tissue samples to identify loss of expression of microRNA-34b as consistently associated with prostate cancer relapse. Mechanistically, this was associated with epigenetics silencing of the MIR34B/C locus and increased DNA copy number loss, selectively in androgen-dependent prostate cancer. In turn, loss of miR-34b resulted in downstream deregulation and overexpression of the stemness marker, Sox2. These findings identify loss of miR-34b as a robust biomarker for prostate cancer progression in androgen-sensitive tumors, and anticipate a potential role of progenitor/stem cell signaling in this stage of disease

Posterior Titanium Screw Fixation without Debridement of Infected Tissue for the Treatment of Thoracolumbar Spontaneous Pyogenic Spondylodiscitis

Study DesignRetrospective study.PurposeThe aim of our study was to analyze the safety and effectiveness of posterior pedicle screw fixation for treatment of pyogenic spondylodiscitis (PSD) without formal debridement of the infected tissue.Overview of LiteraturePosterior titanium screw fixation without formal debridement of the infected tissue and anterior column reconstruction for the treatment of PSD is still controversial.MethodsFrom March 2008 to June 2013, 18 patients with PSD underwent posterior titanium fixation with or without decompression, according to their neurological deficit. Postero-lateral fusion with allograft transplantation alone or bone graft with both the allogenic bone and the autologous bone was also performed. The outcome was assessed using the visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain and the Frankel grading system for neurological status. Normalization both of C-reactive protein (CRP) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate was adopted as criterion for discontinuation of antibiotic therapy and infection healing. Segmental instability and fusion were also analyzed.ResultsAt the mean follow-up time of 30.16 months (range, 24–53 months), resolution of spinal infection was achieved in all patients. The mean CRP before surgery was 14.32±7.9 mg/dL, and at the final follow-up, the mean CRP decreased to 0.5±0.33 mg/dL (p <0.005). Follow-up computed tomography scan at 12 months after surgery revealed solid fusion in all patients. The VAS before surgery was 9.16±1.29 and at the final follow-up, it improved to 1.38±2.03, which was statistically significant (p <0.05). Eleven patients out of eighteen (61.11%) with initial neurological impairment had an average improvement of 1.27 grades at the final follow-up documented with the Frankel grading system.ConclusionsPosterior screw fixation with titanium instrumentation was safe and effective in terms of stability and restoration of neurological impairment. Fixation also rapidly reduced back pain

Ghost mitochondria drive metastasis through adaptive GCN2/Akt therapeutic vulnerability

Cancer metabolism, including in mitochondria, is a disease hallmark and therapeutic target, but its regulation is poorly understood. Here, we show that many human tumors have heterogeneous and often reduced levels of Mic60, or Mitofilin, an essential scaffold of mitochondrial structure. Despite a catastrophic collapse of mitochondrial integrity, loss of bioenergetics, and oxidative damage, tumors with Mic60 depletion slow down cell proliferation, evade cell death, and activate a nuclear gene expression program of innate immunity and cytokine/chemokine signaling. In turn, this induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), activates tumor cell movements through exaggerated mitochondrial dynamics, and promotes metastatic dissemination in vivo. In a small-molecule drug screen, compensatory activation of stress response (GCN2) and survival (Akt) signaling maintains the viability of Mic60-low tumors and provides a selective therapeutic vulnerability. These data demonstrate that acutely damaged, ghost mitochondria drive tumor progression and expose an actionable therapeutic target in metastasis-prone cancers

Lucia Vaira's Quick Files

The Quick Files feature was discontinued and it’s files were migrated into this Project on March 11, 2022. The file URL’s will still resolve properly, and the Quick Files logs are available in the Project’s Recent Activity