Bases pour la reformulation des politiques de logement dans les régions rurales: caractérisation du patrimoine résidentiel et du statut socio-économique des municipalités dans Castille-La Mancha

Housing policy in Spain has traditionally been conceived as being uniform throughout the country; giving preference to the housing economic dimension over the social, environmental and territorial ones; promoting the private property culture; and following an urban-metropolitan logic. Facing this notion of housing policy, this article holds the need to recognize local and regional conditions in its design and accordingly moving towards an agenda whose main axis is the rent, rehabilitation, and intervention in the existing urban fabric. Taking as a case study the rural region of Castilla-La Mancha, this article presents a cluster analysis that identifies types of municipalities based on their socioeconomic characteristics and physical conditions of their housing stock, with the aim of adapting housing policy for the different types of municipalities.La política de vivienda en España ha sido tradicionalmente concebida de manera uniforme para todo el territorio nacional, anteponiendo la dimensión económica de la vivienda a la social, ambiental y territorial, promoviendo la cultura de la propiedad privada, y siguiendo una lógica urbana-metropolitana. Frente a esta concepción y forma de hacer de la política de vivienda, este artículo mantiene la necesidad de reconocer condiciones locales y regionales para su diseño y, conforme a ello, apuesta por avanzar hacia una agenda cuyo eje fundamental sea el alquiler, la rehabilitación y la intervención en el tejido urbano existente. Tomando como caso de estudio la región rural de Castilla-La Mancha, este artículo plantea un análisis clúster para identificar tipos de municipios en función de sus características socioeconómicas y de las condiciones físicas de su parque de viviendas, con el objetivo de adecuar la política de vivienda para las diferentes tipologías de municipios.La politique du logement en Espagne a traditionnellement été conçue de manière uniforme dans tout le territoire national, en mettant la dimension économique du logement devant à la sociale, environnementale et territoriale, en promouvant la culture de la propriété privée et en suivant une logique urbaine-métropolitaine. Face à cette conception et façon de faire de la politique du logement, cet article maintient la nécessité de reconnaître les conditions locales et régionales pour sa planification et en conséquence il avance vers un agenda dont l’axe principal est le loyer, la réhabilitation et l’intervention dans le tissu urbain existant. Prenant comme étude de cas la région rurale de Castilla-La Mancha, cet article présente une analyse de cluster pour identifier les types de municipalités en fonction de leurs caractéristiques socio-économiques et les conditions physiques de leur stock de logements, dans le but d’adapter la politique du logement pour les différents types de municipalités

Developing speaking competences in technical English for Spanish civil engineering students

[EN] Traditionally, Spanish schools of civil engineering provide their students a class on “Technical English” in order to develop their language skills. However, this class does not cover all the skills that the student would need in the labor market and mainly focuses in the reading and writing skills, and in a lower degree in the speaking and listening ones. This paper proposes a series of innovative and informal training activities (cine-forum on technical civil engineering topics and role playing on real professional situations) that allow Spanish civil engineering students to develop English skills that can rarely be worked in the classroom (i.e. speaking, negotiating and conversing), encouraging debate, participation, and fostering their self-confidence to speak about technical-English topics in public. Although the students’ level of English is much lower than expected, they all agree on the importance of technical English for their future career. The results also show the students’ lack in skills that are difficult to train in regular classes (speaking and talking). Consequently, this situation would require to provide complementary activities like the ones suggested in this project in order to develop these skills and increase the students’ demand for engineering classes taught in English.Romero De Ávila Serrano, V.; Diaz García, S.; Asensio Sánchez, L.; Lozano Galant, JA.; Moyano Enríquez De Salamanca, A.; Porras Soriano, R.; Poveda Bautista, E.... (2017). Developing speaking competences in technical English for Spanish civil engineering students. En Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1228-1236. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD17.2017.55641228123

Developing Students’ Communication in Technical English with Project Based Learning Methodology

Technical communication is an extremely important soft skill for civil engineers at the workplace. Due to globalization trends this technical communication often should be performed in English. If we join the fact that undergraduate engineering programs in Spain have been taught exclusively in Spanish, with which in addition, in rare cases those programs provide intentionally placed discipline-specific technical communication experiences, this all amounts to a major problem, regarded as an obstacle that limit undergraduates’ opportunities to work abroad. Aware of this problem, some schools provide their students with a brief course on “Technical English”. However, this course does not cover all the skills that the student would need in the labour market, such as speaking and listening abilities. This paper promotes an innovative teaching methodology that allows Spanish Civil Engineering students to hone English communication skills through “Lunch&Movies” sessions. In each session a documentary about technical Civil Engineering topics is shown. After the screening, students work in small inter-cohort groups with a guiding lecturer. These groups debate on different questions related to the video, encouraging participation, and fostering their self-confidence to talk about technical English topics in public. Different surveys were developed to demonstrate the students’ interest in learning technical English, and to evaluate the benefit for the attendees and their achievements. The results show that the students are conscious of the importance of technical English for their future careers, and most of them improved their initial level as the sessions progressed and they gained confidence in the foreign language. Also, through a pilot subject in English, it was demonstrated that the participants of the “Lunch&Movies” sessions obtained better oral qualifications than those who did not participate. In fact, the overall results indicated that Lunch & Movie sessions can improve students' technical oral skills as well as their own perceptions of their abilities

Treatment with tocilizumab or corticosteroids for COVID-19 patients with hyperinflammatory state: a multicentre cohort study (SAM-COVID-19)

Objectives: The objective of this study was to estimate the association between tocilizumab or corticosteroids and the risk of intubation or death in patients with coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) with a hyperinflammatory state according to clinical and laboratory parameters. Methods: A cohort study was performed in 60 Spanish hospitals including 778 patients with COVID-19 and clinical and laboratory data indicative of a hyperinflammatory state. Treatment was mainly with tocilizumab, an intermediate-high dose of corticosteroids (IHDC), a pulse dose of corticosteroids (PDC), combination therapy, or no treatment. Primary outcome was intubation or death; follow-up was 21 days. Propensity score-adjusted estimations using Cox regression (logistic regression if needed) were calculated. Propensity scores were used as confounders, matching variables and for the inverse probability of treatment weights (IPTWs). Results: In all, 88, 117, 78 and 151 patients treated with tocilizumab, IHDC, PDC, and combination therapy, respectively, were compared with 344 untreated patients. The primary endpoint occurred in 10 (11.4%), 27 (23.1%), 12 (15.4%), 40 (25.6%) and 69 (21.1%), respectively. The IPTW-based hazard ratios (odds ratio for combination therapy) for the primary endpoint were 0.32 (95%CI 0.22-0.47; p < 0.001) for tocilizumab, 0.82 (0.71-1.30; p 0.82) for IHDC, 0.61 (0.43-0.86; p 0.006) for PDC, and 1.17 (0.86-1.58; p 0.30) for combination therapy. Other applications of the propensity score provided similar results, but were not significant for PDC. Tocilizumab was also associated with lower hazard of death alone in IPTW analysis (0.07; 0.02-0.17; p < 0.001). Conclusions: Tocilizumab might be useful in COVID-19 patients with a hyperinflammatory state and should be prioritized for randomized trials in this situatio

The knowledge-based economy in new globalization arenas: metropolitan reorganizations in the Madrid city-region

Madrid is undergoing a major transition from an old economy to a new economy, whose importance lie in its knowledge content that returns a higher value added and productivity than other regular services, providing cities with higher wages, higher incomes, and higher fiscal capacity. This dissertation addresses the regional economic development challenge in the current New Economy that characterizes the beginning of the 21st century. Just like manufacturing during the 19th century, the New Economy is raising today some concern on what its best spatial structure (i.e. monocentric or polycentric, concentrated or deconcentrated) and urban form (i.e. in dedicated office buildings or in mixed-use buildings within the urban tissue) would be in order to maximize its productivity and positive externalities while minimizing any negative ones. The three main questions and objectives undertaken by this dissertation are (1) to understand the spatial location structures of the knowledge-based economy within metropolitan areas that are currently undergoing reconfiguration processes; (2) to compare the location of the knowledge-based economy in different global city-regions (with a special emphasis in Madrid and its extended city-region) and to shed light on the debatable validity of these development policies; and (3) to verify whether or not office spaces, as the natural realm where the knowledge economy unfolds, follow a similar location pattern as KIBS, and what is their urban form. The main contributions offered by this dissertation are the following. First, KIBS in the Madrid city-region locate in a concentrated and polycentric pattern. This dissertation considers the City of Madrid as a “gateway city” connecting the Madrid city-region to the rest of the world’s networked economy via Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS). Surrounding the City of Madrid, there is a series of medium-sized cities “in cooperation” with Madrid’s global role and, at the same time, “in competition” for the subsequent places in the hierarchy. They all complement each other as places feeding into Madrid’s global role. However, we observe at least two different types of medium-sized cities. First, modern suburban cities or NECs geographically closer to the metropolitan core are influenced by a morphological and functional polycentrism. Second, remoter HACs undergoing a metropolitan integration are subject only to a functional polycentrism through their connection to limited access infrastructures (i.e. highways, HSR, ICTs) and business and producer services relations with the rest of the city-region. The city-region network is largely shaped by the daily economic relations of business service firms that interweave and forge the links and interrelations between the nodes in global city-regions. Second, this dissertation analyzes the location and composition of the knowledge-based economy in six case studies, three European city-regions (London, Paris, and Madrid) and three U.S. city-regions (New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago) in order to understand whether their urban structure (polycentricity or monocentricity) is a help or a hindrance to KIBS development. We found that the more polycentric a city is, the more polycentric its KIBS will be, but the less amount of KIBS will agglomerate. Other key findings are that not all the centers are specialized in KIBS and that certain KIBS are highly concentrated in just a few centers, meaning that localization economies are more important in these KIBS than urbanization economies. Finally, this dissertation found that office spaces have a similar locational structure as KIBS in the Madrid city-region, with a surprising large proportion of offices in mixed-use buildings scattered within the urban realm. Office spaces are the natural realm where the current knowledge-based economy in city-regions is unfolded. The urban system transformations in metropolitan territories have led to their restructuring and to a new (re)distribution of economic activities between the urban cores and the suburban and peripheral areas. The results show two different location patterns depending on the built environment’s age: (1) older subcenters have central and denser office locations that develop organically in the same direction as the urban tissue does; and (2) more recent developed subcenters have office locations connected to closer roads and highway intersections. In addition, the urban form adopted by these spaces is analyzed, finding out that (3) offices in mixed-use buildings are a large proportion of the city-region’s office space complementing the single and multi-office buildings

Clinical Characteristics and Risk Factors of Respiratory Failure in a Cohort of Young Patients Requiring Hospital Admission with SARS-CoV2 Infection in Spain: Results of the Multicenter SEMI-COVID-19 Registry.

Age is a risk factor for COVID severity. Most studies performed in hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV2 infection have shown an over-representation of older patients and consequently few have properly defined COVID-19 in younger patients who require hospital admission. The aim of the present study was to analyze the clinical characteristics and risk factors for the development of respiratory failure among young (18 to 50 years) hospitalized patients with COVID-19. This retrospective nationwide cohort study included hospitalized patients from 18 to 50 years old with confirmed COVID-19 between March 1, 2020, and July 2, 2020. All patient data were obtained from the SEMI-COVID Registry. Respiratory failure was defined as the ratio of partial pressure of arterial oxygen to fraction of inspired oxygen (PaO2/FiO2 ratio) ≤200 mmHg or the need for mechanical ventilation and/or high-flow nasal cannula or the presence of acute respiratory distress syndrome. During the recruitment period, 15,034 patients were included in the SEMI-COVID-19 Registry, of whom 2327 (15.4%) were younger than 50 years. Respiratory failure developed in 343 (14.7%), while mortality occurred in 2.3%. Patients with respiratory failure showed a higher incidence of major adverse cardiac events (44 (13%) vs 14 (0.8%), p320 U/I (OR, 1.69; 95% CI, 1.18 to 2.42; p=0.0039), AST >35 mg/dL (OR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.2 to 2.52; p=0.003), sodium 35 mg/dL (OR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.2 to 2.52; p=0.003), sodium 8 mg/dL (OR, 2.42; 95% CI, 1.72 to 3.41; p Young patients with COVID-19 requiring hospital admission showed a notable incidence of respiratory failure. Obesity, SAHS, alcohol abuse, and certain laboratory parameters were independently associated with the development of this complication. Patients who suffered respiratory failure had a higher mortality and a higher incidence of major cardiac events, venous thrombosis, and hospital stay

Promoción turística sostenible de la reserva de la biosfera Tajo-Tejo Internacional

Convocatoria proyectos de innovación de Extremadura 2020/2021Se describe un proyecto llevado acabo por varios centros educativos ubicados en la zona de la Reserva de la Biosfera Tajo-Tejo Internacional (RBTTI) que pretendía contribuir a la transformación sostenible del entorno mediante su conocimiento y promoción, implementando las competencias digital, social y ciudadana y la cultura emprendedora mediante metodologías activas como el aprendizaje servicio. Entre los objetivos principales del proyecto destacan: dar a conocer las implicaciones de la RBTTI; diseñar una campaña de promoción de la RBTTI mediante trípticos y vídeos promocionales; conocer la Reserva a través de las principales vías pecuarias y caminos que comunican los pueblos; descubrir los principales elementos socioculturales, históricos y tradicionales de la Reserva; valorar la importancia del territorio para conservar la biodiversidad: paisajes, ecosistemas, fauna y flora representativa; relacionar la trashumancia y las vías pecuarias como rasgos identificativos de la Reserva, vinculándolo con la historia y rasgos culturales de los pueblos y valorar el emprendimiento y la iniciativa personal, el asosiacionismo y creación de redes de cooperación en y entre pueblos como motor de desarrolloExtremaduraES

ESICM LIVES 2016: part two : Milan, Italy. 1-5 October 2016.

Meeting abstrac