José Antonio Montero

A Comparison of Electrospun Polymers Reveals Poly(3-Hydroxybutyrate) Fiber as a Superior Scaffold for Cardiac Repair

The development of biomaterials for myocardial tissue engineering requires a careful assessment of their performance with regards to functionality and biocompatibility, including the immune response. Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB), poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL), silk, poly-lactic acid (PLA), and polyamide (PA) scaffolds were generated by electrospinning, and cell compatibility in vitro, and immune response and cardiac function in vitro and in vivo were compared with a noncrosslinked collagen membrane (Col) control material. Results showed that cell adhesion and growth of mesenchymal stem cells, cardiomyocytes, and cardiac fibroblasts in vitro was dependent on the polymer substrate, with PHB and PCL polymers permitting the greatest adhesion/growth of cells. Additionally, polymer substrates triggered unique expression profiles of anti- and pro-inflammatory cytokines in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Implantation of PCL, silk, PLA, and PA patches on the epicardial surface of healthy rats induced a classical foreign body reaction pattern, with encapsulation of polymer fibers and induction of the nonspecific immune response, whereas Col and PHB patches were progressively degraded. When implanted on infarcted rat heart, Col, PCL, and PHB reduced negative remodeling, but only PHB induced significant angiogenesis. Importantly, Col and PHB modified the inflammatory response to an M2 macrophage phenotype in cardiac tissue, indicating a more beneficial reparative process and remodeling. Collectively, these results identify PHB as a superior substrate for cardiac repair.

Appropriateness of e-learning resources for the development of transversal skills in the new European Higher Education Area

The new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) implies not only a change in the content, length and name of the university degrees, but also a change in the pedagogical methodology. In this study, e-learning possibilities in the new scenario, where the main actor is the student, have been analyzed. Students must acquire specific knowledge of their profession, but also transversal skills for the work they develop in their jobs. So, interpersonal, teamwork, learning, communication or computing skills must be essential pieces of the instructional designs of the university degrees. The paper is focused on the analysis of the technological tools most frequently used in the learning management systems (LMSs), and of how these tools facilitate the development of the transversal skills mentioned in the Tuning Project. Tools are divided into contents tools (text, videos, simulators, e-labs, etc) and communication tools (forums, e-mail, virtual classrooms, etc.). Opinion polls to professors from engineering and humanities degrees from different Spanish universities, most of them with experience in distance education, have been used in the analysis

Master in Teacher Training: A real implementation of Active Learning

Teaching methods based on lectures often result in student passivity rather than pro-activity with the only goal of the student being to pass the final exam. Consequently, content retention is temporary and true learning is not achieved. Lack of student motivation can be solved by using Active Learning methodologies: serious games, Project-Based Learning (PBL), blended learning, etc. In addition, these methodologies enhance the development of the competences of students and provide a better evaluation of outcomes, provided adequate tools are used. However, apart from this, a more profound use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is needed to improve the effectiveness of learning and to create a learning system adapted to our current society. Learning Management Systems (LMS), social networks and blogs are indispensable for the efficient application of innovative learning methodologies. The Master in Teacher Training (MTT) provides an ideal case study as the most relevant features of Active Learning are present. The main contributions to this learning environment have been the incorporation of Active Learning methodologies (using real scenarios and project-based collaborative learning), an innovative method for assessing the Master and the impact of technology in learning. All of these have resulted in very positive results in relative to academic marks, surveys and entrepreneurship.

Do Multimedia Contents increase the effectiveness of learning

In an engineering online degree, contents are usually given in a few different modalities: text, hypertext, video-clips and simulators or virtual laboratories. The aim of this study is to find out about their appropriateness for learning electrical engineering. In this paper, comparative studies on what kind of contents are better for the effective learning of some technical concepts are presented. The analysis is based on pilot tests in which students are divided into two statistically equivalent groups. Students in each group study with a different modality. Then the results from the two groups are compared. Besides these tests, students opinion polls are analyzed. The results obtained demonstrate how multimedia contents are more efficient than texts in the learning process of certain concepts. Nevertheless, problems or failures in the technology used have a very negative effect

Context-Based gesture recognition

Most gesture recognition systems are based only on hand motion information, and are designed mainly for communicative gestures. However, many activities of everyday life involve interaction with surrounding objects. We propose a new approach for the recognition of manipulative gestures that interact with objects in the environment. The method uses non-intrusive vision-based techniques. The hands of a person are detected and tracked using an adaptive skin color segmentation process, so the system can operate in a wide range of lighting conditions. Gesture recognition is based on hidden Markov models, combining motion and contextual information, where the context refers to the relation of the position of the hand with other objects. The approach was implemented and evaluated on two different domains: video conference and assistance, obtaining gesture recognition rates from 94 % to 99.47 %. The system is very efficient so it is adequate for use in real-time applications.

A method for designing automatic assessment systems based on teachers reasoning for evaluating subjective engineering student's competences

The convergence towards the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) entails the implementation of active teaching methodologies with the final goal of allowing students to develop new competences and skills. As a consequence, the degree of achievement of these competences has to be evaluated appropriately by means of the definition of formal and reliable evaluation processes. In this context, evaluating transversal/soft competences makes this goal specially challenging. This work introduces a method Based on Teachers Reasoning (BoTR) to allow the design of automatic assessment systems for the evaluation of transversal competences of students. BoTR defines a methodology that takes into account the subjective criteria applied by teachers when assessing the considered competence to build an automatic assessment system. After introducing BoTR, we apply this method to assess the teamwork competence for real students of engineering, describing the application of the three stages of the BoTR method in a real scenario.

Data Analysis of Coaching and Advising in Undergraduate Students. An Analytic Approach

This paper aims to analyze the data collected from a first approach at the process of applying coaching techniques in the advisor service of students in their first course of engineering. In this context, resources and techniques from the field of coaching can be very useful for the advisor, as those resources influence the student to reflect and be more aware of the situation he/she is living. This process should help prevent problems such as the frustration and insecurity that can appear among students, not only in the early stages of their studies, as we will show in the paper, and minimizing the number of student dropouts. Finally, we will discuss about whether the coaching process has improved the main objective of these types of approaches: that the student will be more qualified to take the appropriate decisions with greater discretion, motivation and responsibility in his/her engineering studies.

Hydrogen Sulfide Improves Cardiomyocyte Function in a Cardiac Arrest Model

Background Cardioplegic arrest is a common procedure for many types of cardiac surgery, and different formulations have been proposed to enhance its cardio-protective effect. Hydrogen sulfide is an important signaling molecule that has cardio-protective properties. We therefore studied the cardio-protective effect of hydrogen sulfide in cardiac cell culture and its potential therapeutic use in combination with cardioplegia formulations. Materials/Methods We added hydrogen sulfide donor GYY4137 to HL-1 cells to study its protective effect in nutrient starved conditions. In addition, we tested the potential use of GYY4137 when it is added into two different cardioplegia formulations: Cardi-Braun® solution and del Nido solution in an ex vivo Langendorff perfused rat hearts model. Results We observed that eight-hour pre-treatment with GYY4137 significantly suppressed apoptosis in nutrient-starved HL-1 cells (28% less compared to untreated cells; p<0.05), maintained ATP content, and reduced protein synthesis. In ex vivo experiments, Cardi-Braun® and del Nido cardioplegia solutions supplemented with GYY4137 significantly reduced the pro-apoptotic protein caspase-3 content and preserved ATP content. Furthermore, GYY4137 supplemented cardioplegia solutions decreased the S-(5-adenosyl)-L-methionine/S-(adenosyl)-L-homocysteine ratio, reducing the oxidative stress in cardiac tissue. Finally, heart beating analysis revealed the preservation of the inter-beat interval and the heart rate in del Nido cardioplegia solution supplemented with GYY4137. Conclusions GYY4137 preconditioning preserved energetic state during starved conditions, attenuating the cardiomyocytes apoptosis in vitro. The addition of GYY4137 to cardioplegia solutions prevented apoptosis, ATP consumption, and oxidative stress in perfused rat hearts, restoring its electrophysiological status after cardiac arrest. These findings suggested that GYY4137 sulfide donor may improve the cardioplegia solution performance during cardiac surgery.

Technological needs calling for the application of coaching in university advising: functional proposal

Starting university studies in the field of engineering represents a significant change of habits of study for the majority of students. Throughout this new educational stage, the work of the academic tutor (or advisor) is essential for guiding and accompanying the student. This process should help to prevent problems such as the frustration and insecurity that can appear, mainly among students in the early stages of their studies and usually after the first tests. In this context, resources and techniques from the field of coaching are very useful for the tutor, as those resources influence the student to reflect and be more aware of the situation in which he/she is living. The objective of these processes is for the student to be more qualified to take the appropriate decisions with greater discretion, motivation and responsibility. This paper presents a first approach in the process of applying coaching techniques in the tutoring of students in their first course of engineering, and subsequently presents the design, at the functional level of a technological application, that would make it possible to use resources of the coaching to tutors without a deep formation in coaching.

Carpet with presence detector

A carpet with presence detector consists of a big capacitor manufactured with usual materials inside the textile fabrication process, instead of metal sheet and dielectric plastics, ceramics, etc. It is a challenge to build a robust capacitor for an environment subject to frequent deformations. Moreover, we must add the difficulty of detecting small changes in the capacity of considerably big surfaces, to which 50/60 Hz noise is easily joined up. Besides, detector electronics must communicate with a central system by the means of a wireless link, since this electronics must be built in inside the textile and it has to maintain hermetically protected. For this reason, a charging battery system based on inductive connection has been added. This system is protected by a European patent with reference EP20060725828.