Chatbot to Provide Initial Assistance to Erasmus Students in Case of Emergency

Erasmus students spend part of their academic stage in a foreign country, which enriches their experience significantly. During the second semester of the 2019–20 academic year and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many students found themselves isolated and confined in a country that was not their own. Students lived with uncertainty and many doubts about what they could and could not do, while the Erasmus offices of the host universities could not cope with the many and varied issues. This paper proposes a contingency solution for an efficient communication with those students and the Erasmus offices based on a chatbot that serves as the first layer of attention to the Erasmus student facing an emergency. The chatbot has been developed within an Erasmus project with the participation of six European universities, and the first experiences gathered from its use have been very positive. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Analysis of the Capabilities for Research, Development, and Innovation in Telecommunications Engineering Careears

International organizations notes that the main weakness for innovation in Latin American countries is that their national research organizations only evaluate and stimulate pure academic personnel by publications and citations, forgetting those who work in industry, losing a vast potential in each country. Higher education institutions must increase the development and innovation if they want to contribute to the third mission, which means the economic development of a country, in addition to the traditional advanced education and research, to adapt to new realities for the knowledge-based economies. Commercial war, SARS COV-2, and energy crisis drive policymakers and university managers to rethink and redesign institutions. This work offers an approach to measure the research, development, and innovation capabilities of three telecommunications engineering careers in three Latin American universities in Mexico and Ecuador looking for to increasing capabilities when doing collaboration. Results confirm that the knowledge contribution in engineering is proportional to the number of supported engineering careers, even mapped to national and international rankings. Also is confirmed that research is related to the academic production, but development and innovation are more related to an effective relation to industry. © 2022 IEEE.

Impact of relative humidity on COVID-19 transmission

Introduction: The new pathogen SARS-CoV-2 presents a rapid spread, and is the cause of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Given that this virus is recent, the increase in cases of the COVID-19 disease has been a great threat, to which has been added the lack of conclusive information about the disease, its transmission, and its relationship with the different environmental variables.

Vacunación infantil sistemática en pandemia: coberturas mantenidas y mejoradas

El Estado de Alarma, al inicio de la pandemia COVID-19, dificultó la accesibilidad a las vacunaciones infantiles sistemáticas y generó recomendaciones nacionales para asegurar las vacunas prioritarias. Posteriormente se normalizó el programa de vacunaciones, con la campaña MenACWY en los adolescentes en 2020, y la actualización de vacunación en los prematuros y el paso a vacuna VPH9 en 2021. Para valorar el impacto sobre la vacunación infantil, se revisaron las coberturas de vacunación en la pandemia (2020-2021) y se compararon con las prepandémicas (2018-2019). Métodos: Se revisaron las coberturas de vacunación por edad para las vacunas del calendario infantil, valorando la evolución temporal 2017-2021 de cada vacuna. Para cada edad de vacunación (1, 2, 3, 6 y 13 años) se calculó la cobertura global, así como la recta de regresión del conjunto de coberturas por edad y se comparó entre ambos periodos. Resultados: Se mantuvieron buenas coberturas en todo el periodo, más bajas en 2019, pero aumentando en 2020 y 2021. Respecto a 2018-2019, en 2020-2021 las coberturas globales fueron significativamente mejores (p < 0,0001) en los 2 (95,4 vs. 94,1%), 3 (90,0 vs. 86,1%) y, especialmente, 13 (88,9 vs. 80,6%) años de edad. La caída de la cobertura con la edad, con una regresión lineal significativa, fue menor en 2020-2021 (-0,6% por año), pero no significativa respecto a 2018-2019 (-1,1% por año). Las mejoras más relevantes se encontraron con la varicela a los 3 años (del 81 al 89%) y MenC a los 13 años (del 76 al 89%). Conclusiones: A pesar de las dificultades de atención sanitaria de la pandemia, las coberturas de vacunación infantil se han mantenido y mejorado. Factores favorecedores fueron la consolidación, tras su introducción, de la segunda dosis de varicela a los 3 años, y la mejora de la vacunación de adolescentes asociada a la campaña MenACWY.

Advantageous immunosensing platform targeting analytes related to infectious diseases

When it comes to preventive medicine and human safety, biosensing of infectious diseases is crucial. This necessity has become more obvious in the current pandemic scenario. In this context, we proposed a sensible, rapid, one-step and cost-effective immunosensing platform to determine analytes associated to infectious diseases such as gastrointestinal diseases, bacterial vaginosis and COVID-19. The biosensing system exhibits different analytical behavior and optimal time of determination for each analyte tested (E. coli, sialidase and COVID-19 antibodies). Thereby, this technology was proven useful with different matrixes (cauliflower, vaginal swab and human serum) to demonstrate its potential in real applications, proving to be highly sensible, efficient, rapid and cost effective. © 2021 MicroTAS 2021 - 25th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences. All rights reserved.

First-generation BNT162b2 and AZD1222 vaccines protect from COVID-19 pneumonia during the Omicron variant emergence.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify factors predicting pneumonia in adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) emergence. We also evaluated, in fully vaccinated (BNT162b2 or AZD1222) individuals, if the time (<6 or ≥6 months) elapsed since the last shot was received was associated with the risk of severe illness. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective cohort study was conducted in Mexico. METHODS: Data from 409,493 were analyzed, and risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed through generalized linear models. RESULTS: We documented a total of 3513 COVID-19 pneumonia cases (69.5 per 100,000 person-days). In multiple analyses, a protective effect was observed in vaccinated adults (RR = 0.996, 95% CI 0.995-0.997). Male gender, increasing age, and smoking were associated with a greater risk of pneumonia. Individuals with chronic comorbidities (pulmonary obstructive disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension, kidney disease, and immunosuppression) were also at higher risk. Among fully vaccinated subjects (n = 166,869), those who had received the last shot at 6 more months were at increased risk for developing pneumonia (RR = 1.002, 95% CI 1.001-1.003). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the first-generation BNT162b2 and AZD1222 vaccines reduce the risk of COVID-19 pneumonia during the Omicron emergence. We also found that adults with longer interval from the administration of the second shot to illness onset were at increased risk of severe manifestations.

Impact Assessment for Data Network's Rehabilitation. Case of Ecuador

Access to the Internet is necessary to ensure equity for the right to education. However, about 75% of school-age children in rural areas of the world do not have access to the Internet at home. In the Ecuadorian context, only 5.1% of the rural population uses the Internet in public/state schools. Therefore, actions are necessary to reduce the digital gap to improve the quality of education in rural communities in Ecuador. An initiative of IEEE Ecuador, with the support of IEEE SIGHT and the Municipality of Nabón, allowed the rehabilitation of a data network in 40 schools in the Nabón community in 2020. This paper examines the impact of the project, through of the collection of quantitative and qualitative data through stakeholder surveys, to evaluate the impact of data network rehabilitation in the community during the first year of operation. The results show that the Internet in schools has improved the quality of education for students, has allowed children and young people to have access to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has decreased the dropout rate in the benefited schools. The Internet service in schools has also allowed families to save money and entertain themselves. The paper also reports on the evaluation of the social impact of the project, through a Social Return On Investment (SROI) analysis. © 2021 IEEE.

Corona, higher risk for testicular cancer development?

Introduction & Objectives: In November 2019 the first case of Sars-Cov2 was noticed in Wuhan, China. This virus was finally spreading all over the world and we have a pandemic situation with an unclear outcome. Several different groups have already published that the virus can be present in the testis after infection, however with unknown consequences. Materials & Methods: FPPE tissue samples from patients died with or of Corona (n=6) compared with healthy donors (n=5), seminoma without metastasis (n=5) and seminoma with metastasis (n=5) were analyzed and compared via qRT-PCR for the expression of microRNAs (miRs) which are predominantly overexpressed in Seminoma and in metastazing cells, miR-199-3p, miR-498 and miR-371a-3p. Beyond this, an IHC for Androgenreceptor (AR) and ACE2 was performed. The median age of the corona patients was 70 years. Results: In 50% of all corona FFPE samples, a significant upregulation of the seminoma specific miR-371a-3p was detectable, whereas all other tumor specific miRs were negative. In H&E staining of the FFPE samples in 50% of all patients the spermatogenesis was reduced/absent. IHC for AR in COVID positive and negative testes showed loss of immunoreactivity in Sertoli cells of Covid-positive cases vs controls. Conclusions: Our group presented here for the first time a possible late onset complication after Sars-Cov2 infection, namely the increased risk for developing seminoma due to the upregulation of the seminoma specific miR-371a-3p.

Decreased risk of COVID-19 pneumonia in children and adolescents during the Delta variant emergence.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to evaluate factors associated with the risk of COVID-19 pneumonia in children (aged <10 years) and adolescents (aged 10-19 years) before (March 2020-April 2021) and during (May-July 2021) the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant emergence. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective and nationwide cohort study was conducted in Mexico. METHODS: Data from 26,961 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 were analyzed. Risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to evaluate the association of the evaluated exposures with the risk of COVID-19 pneumonia. RESULTS: The overall incidence rate of pneumonia was 23.0 per 10,000 person-days, and it was lower during the Delta variant emergence (30.3 vs. 9.4 person-days, p < 0.001). In multiple analysis, a decreased risk of pneumonia was observed among those cases occurring in May 2021 or later (vs. March 2020-April 2021, RR = 0.98, 95% CI 0.97-0.99) and among older patients (RRper year = 0.998, 95% CI 0.996-0.998). Other comorbidities (namely, obesity, chronic kidney disease, diabetes mellitus, immunosuppression, or malignant tumors) were associated with an increased risk of severe COVID-19 manifestations. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that during the Delta variant emergence, children and adolescent patients were at reduced risk of COVID-19 pneumonia in Mexico. Further research is needed to identify factors determining the observed scenario.

Study of Basic Reproduction Number Projection of SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic in USA and Brazil

In December 2019, a group of patients presented a diagnosis of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Hubei Province, Wuhan, China. By January 2020, authorities around the world faced a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). By August 2020, the two countries with the highest number of SARS-CoV-2 infections are the USA and Brazil. The transmission rate of a virus is studied from the basic reproduction number (R0). The SIR model is the simplest compartmental epidemiological model (Susceptible, Infectious and Recovered). The SIR model can be used to estimate R0 by fitting the curve of the infected compartment to the experimental curve of infected subjects per day. The aim of this work is to study the projection of the R0 of SARS-CoV-2 in the USA and Brazil. For this purpose, five experiments were performed by adjusting the SIR model curve of infected compartment to experimental data at five time intervals (the first 14, 28, 42, 56 and 187 days for the USA data, and 177 days for Brazil data). In the first two time intervals the R0 varied between 5.46 and 7.75 for the USA data and 1.84 and 4.29 for Brazil data, and in the last three time intervals the R0 decreased to 1.05 for the USA data and 1.01 for Brazil data, suggesting that the social distancing measures implemented in both countries were able to decrease the infection spreading. The differences in the R0 values of the five experiments imply that R0 also depends on the preventive measures implemented to face the pandemic. © 2020 IEEE.