Innovación Docente en Historia Económica en el EEES

El Proyecto de Innovación Docente se aplicó sobre 450 alumnos de la asignatura de Historia Económica en el primer curso del Grado de Finanzas y Contabilidad. En esta asignatura se había utilizado tradicionalmente una metodología basada en clases magistrales con el apoyo de lecturas y materiales complementarios. El proyecto docente introducía una metodología de enseñanza mixta utilizando la plataforma virtual de la Universidad de Sevilla. A través de esta plataforma se realizaron actividades presenciales y también de e-learning en la web. La temática principal de estas actividades se centró en las crisis económicas. Esto se concretó a partir de estudio de casos: la crisis finisecular del siglo XIX, la crisis de 1929 y las crisis de finales del siglo XX y principios del XXI (crisis del petróleo de 1973, crisis financiera de los años 90 y la crisis económica actual). A través del material aportado por el profesor en la red y en las actividades complementarias presenciales (prensa, lecturas de historia económica y documentales) se establecen las causas, efectos y aspectos comunes y diferenciales de estas crisis.The Teaching Innovation Project was applied to 450 students of the Subject of Economic History of the first year of the Finance and Accounting Degree. This topic had used to be a traditional method based on master classes with the support of complementary readings and dossiers. Teaching project introduced a blended learning using the University of Seville web site. Through this platform and attending classes were also e-learning. The main topic of these activities are focused on the economic crisis with cases studies: the crisis of 1873, the Great Depression of 1929, the crisis of 1973 oil crisis, financial crisis 90’s years and the current economic crisis. Through the network materials, and exercises in class (press, reading of economic history and documentaries are established the causes, effects and common and differents aspects of these crisis

Multifunctional Proteins : Involvement in Human Diseases and Targets of Current Drugs

Multifunctionality or multitasking is the capability of some proteins to execute two or more biochemical functions. The objective of this work is to explore the relationship between multifunctional proteins, human diseases and drug targeting. The analysis of the proportion of multitasking proteins from the MultitaskProtDB-II database shows that 78% of the proteins analyzed are involved in human diseases. This percentage is much higher than the 17.9% found in human proteins in general. A similar analysis using drug target databases shows that 48% of these analyzed human multitasking proteins are targets of current drugs, while only 9.8% of the human proteins present in UniProt are specified as drug targets. In almost 50% of these proteins, both the canonical and moonlighting functions are related to the molecular basis of the disease. A procedure to identify multifunctional proteins from disease databases and a method to structurally map the canonical and moonlighting functions of the protein have also been proposed here. Both of the previous percentages suggest that multitasking is not a rare phenomenon in proteins causing human diseases, and that their detailed study might explain some collateral drug effects

Les collections ferroviaires du Conservatoire des arts et métiers, support de l’enseignement technique

Les collections ferroviaires du Musée des arts et métiers se sont progressivement constituées depuis la fin des années 1830 et forment aujourd’hui un ensemble patrimonial exceptionnel. Ces collections présentent l’originalité de ne comporter aucun élément de matériel roulant (moteur ou tracté) préservé mais nombre pièces détachées et dessins probablement réunis dans une présentation complémentaire des cours de la chaire de Mécanique appliquée aux arts du Conservatoire des arts et métiers. Enrichies de plusieurs modèles réduits à caractère pédagogique (qui en forment la partie la plus remarquable), ces collections ont fait l’objet d’une réactualisation après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Cette étude se propose d’apporter des éléments de réponse quant à la constitution de ce patrimoine unique tout en s’intéressant aux modalités d’acquisition et aux typologies présentes dans cette collection.The railway collections of the Musée des arts et métiers have been gradually established since the late 1830s. They now form a unique heritage. These collections do not include any element of preserved engines or coaches but many parts and drawings probably used in a complementary presentation of the lessons of the chair of Applied Mechanics of the Conservatoire des arts et métiers. Enriched with educational models, these collections have been brought up to date after the World War II. This paper wants to provide some answers about the formation of this unique heritage while addressing methods of acquisition

Optimal network topologies: Expanders, Cages, Ramanujan graphs, Entangled networks and all that

We report on some recent developments in the search for optimal network topologies. First we review some basic concepts on spectral graph theory, including adjacency and Laplacian matrices, and paying special attention to the topological implications of having large spectral gaps. We also introduce related concepts as ``expanders'', Ramanujan, and Cage graphs. Afterwards, we discuss two different dynamical feautures of networks: synchronizability and flow of random walkers and so that they are optimized if the corresponding Laplacian matrix have a large spectral gap. From this, we show, by developing a numerical optimization algorithm that maximum synchronizability and fast random walk spreading are obtained for a particular type of extremely homogeneous regular networks, with long loops and poor modular structure, that we call entangled networks. These turn out to be related to Ramanujan and Cage graphs. We argue also that these graphs are very good finite-size approximations to Bethe lattices, and provide almost or almost optimal solutions to many other problems as, for instance, searchability in the presence of congestion or performance of neural networks. Finally, we study how these results are modified when studying dynamical processes controlled by a normalized (weighted and directed) dynamics; much more heterogeneous graphs are optimal in this case. Finally, a critical discussion of the limitations and possible extensions of this work is presented.Comment: 17 pages. 11 figures. Small corrections and a new reference. Accepted for pub. in JSTA

Prácticas alimentarias en la Edad del Hierro en Cataluña

The aim of this paper is to provide a state of the research on the eating habits concerning the Iron Age populations of Catalonia, with particular attention to the Iberian period, under the Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya project “Eating and Drinking in the periphery of the Graeco-Roman world: cultural and food habits of the northern Iberian (6th-2nd cent. BCE)”. The main goal of this project is the study of food habits in the Catalan Iberian world from a global and interdisciplinary approach that considers all aspects of the food phenomenon (technical, instrumental, social, cognitive) as an expression of a specific cultural reality

A hypothesis explaining why so many pathogen virulence proteins are moonlighting proteins

Moonlighting or multitasking proteins refer to those proteins with two or more functions performed by a single polypeptide chain. Proteins that belong to key ancestral functions and metabolic pathways such as primary metabolism typically exhibit moonlighting phenomenon. We have collected 698 moonlighting proteins in MultitaskProtDB-II database. A survey shows that 25% of the proteins of the database correspond to moonlighting functions related to pathogens virulence activity. Why is the canonical function of these virulence proteins mainly from ancestral key biological functions (especially of primary metabolism)? Our hypothesis is that these proteins present a high conservation between the pathogen protein and the host counterparts. Therefore, the host immune system will not elicit protective antibodies against pathogen proteins. The fact of sharing epitopes with host proteins (known as epitope mimicry) might be the cause of autoimmune diseases. Although many pathogen proteins can be antigenic, only a few of them would elicit a protective immune response. This would also explain the lack of successful vaccines based in these conserved moonlighting proteins. This review looks at why so many pathogen virulence proteins are from the primary metabolism and are conserved between pathogen and host