ASCE's Response to the Pandemic: Execution of a Remote ExCEEd Teaching Workshop

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshop (ETW) started in 1999 and has produced 1035 graduates from 266 colleges and universities throughout the world. ASCE has conducted 44 week-long, in-person workshops without interruption for over two decades. The ExCEEd graduates returned to their home universities and applied the lessons of this workshop to the classes they teach. The details and long-term benefits of the ETW have been reported in many venues. In Spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the nation and remained a persistent threat throughout 2021. As a result, the in-person workshops scheduled for Summer 2020 and Summer 2021 were canceled. This paper is the third in a three-part series that describe and assess how ASCE modified and continued the ExCEEd program during this difficult period. This third paper focuses on the behind-the-curtain activities conducted before and during the two-week virtual remote ETW (R-ETW) held from July 5-16, 2021. The findings are shared through the perspectives of the R-ETW Site Coordinator, Content Providers, Mentors, Assistant Mentors, and to a lesser degree, the participants. This paper covers the implementation of the planning and logistics of the R-ETW rehearsals, execution, challenges overcome, assessment of the effort, and recommendations for the future. Effects of the changes are described in the context of the ExCEEd Teaching Model. The challenges and opportunities discussed in this paper are of interest to higher education and professional communities interested in forming or developing virtual workshops or learning communities with missions similar to that of the ASCE ETW. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

ASCE's Response to the Pandemic: A Virtual ExCEEd Community Exchange

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshop (ETW) started in 1999, and it has produced 1035 graduates from 266 colleges and universities throughout the world. ASCE has conducted 44 week-long, in-person workshops without interruption for over two decades. ExCEEd graduates have returned to their home universities and applied the lessons of this workshop to the classes they teach. The details and success of the ETW have been reported in many venues. In Spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the nation and remained a persistent threat throughout 2021. As a result, the in-person workshops scheduled for Summer 2020 were canceled and in Summer 2021 was reimagined as a virtual offering. This paper is the first in a three-part series that describe and assess how ASCE modified and continued the ExCEEd program during this difficult period. This paper specifically overviews the response by the ASCE Committee on Faculty Development (CFD) to create the virtual ExCEEd Community Exchange (ECX) following the cancellation of the Summer 2020 ASCE ExCEEd Teaching Workshop. The ECX program is a virtual venue for civil engineering educators to meet and share their ideas and lessons-learned with a broader community. The paper covers the creation of the ECX program, including its motivation, vision, and implementation, and presents opportunities and challenges for the continued success of this virtual community program. Details are provided on the format of these ECX sessions and the topics discussed, along with feedback from ECX presenters, moderators, and attendees. Information from this paper will be helpful to professional societies and other organizations looking for meaningful ways to engage and strengthen communities of engineering educators through virtual professional development programming. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

PHILOSOPHICAL INCIDENCES IN THE DIGITAL SOCIETY: IDEOLOGIES, DISINFORMATION AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONFUSION

Through the dissemination of informative elements (i.e., any item created and disseminated with the purpose of conveying information) in the digital society, disinformation modifies 1) the social and political ideology of users of social networks and other digital tools, as well as their worldview and overall ideas about reality;2) the ethical behaviour of the subject in the world, which includes violent, terrorist, and stochastic terrorist acts;and 3) the conditions of veracity that are granted to a fact in order to label it as truthful, which results in the phenomenon of epistemological confusion, whereby veracity is granted to a fact just by wishing it to be true, instead of appealing to voices having recognized authority.

ESSENTIALLY UNCARE: CHALLENGES OF TECHNOCARE IN THE COVID ERA

The relationship between care and technoscience generates a highly dynamic field of study in the social sciences, such as the project in which the results presented here have been incorporated (Sustainability of care for people in a situation of dependency: experiences and dilemmas in the design of techno-care. PT18-2624;PAIDI2020). This article analyses the implications of technology on the specific work of the Home Help Service (HHS). To do so, a longitudinal qualitative approach was conducted through interviews with HHS auxiliaries whose discourses provide an opportunity to study how care practices have been reconfigured by technology following the onset of the pandemic. Other aims that have focused the analysis are to discover the requirements with regard to competencies, abilities and skills that the new situation requires to be mobilised as well as the demands that this entails;and to identify how they help to define care with technologies in a space that tends to resist changes such as the domestic environment.

Rethinking care from the perspective of the community and vulnerable populations: Buenos Aires and Madrid during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Crisis situations that affect care provision such as that caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic invite us to reflect on how responsibilities are distributed among the different actors. The multiple changes in everyday lives caused by the pandemic were accompanied by state actions and community initiatives. This context involved various ways of identifying and interpreting care and responding to the needs detected. This article describes and reflects on significant experiences of community organization among vulnerable populations in the cities of Madrid and Buenos Aires to provide the necessary care during the pandemic. The study relied on secondary sources: specialized bibliography, newspaper articles, technical reports, legislation and official government websites. In addition, key informants were consulted.

Vascular endothelial damage in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia and SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy

Background: Endothelial dysfunction is crucial in moderate to severe SARS-CoV-2 infection. Preeclampsia is an endothelial pregnancyrelated syndrome that shares some clinical and analytical features with COVID19. COVID19 signs in pregnant women might be misdiagnosed as preeclampsia leading to an iatrogenic preterm delivery. Aims: To address whether endothelial damage, microvascular thrombosis and dysregulated immune response exhibit different patterns in preeclampsia and COVID19 in pregnancy. Methods: Plasma samples were obtained from pregnant women with COVID19 pneumonia classified into moderate ( n = 10) or severe disease ( n = 9). Endothelial damage and immune response markers were assessed, including VCAM-1, TNF-receptor I (TNFRI), angiotensin II (ANGII), heparan sulfate (HS), PAI-1, dsDNA for neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), C5b9, thrombomodulin (TM) and ADAMTS-13 activity. Results were compared to those in SARS-CoV-2 negative including healthy pregnant women as controls (C, n = 10), and patients with preeclampsia (PE, n = 13). Results: All endotheliopathy markers were significantly increased in severe COVID19 and PE patients compared to healthy pregnants ( p <0,05, Table 1), except TM and ADAMTS-13 activity. Patients with moderate COVID19 presented a biomarker profile similar to the observed in control patients. Severe COVID19 and PE profiles were distinctive among them regarding four markers: VCAM-1, TNFRI and ANGII, clearly higher in PE, and HS, significantly lower in PE. The principal component analysis (PCA) in Figure 1, demonstrated the separation between severe COVID19 and PE from moderate COVID19 or uncomplicated pregnancies. The first and second components explained 29.1% and 18.4% of the variance between groups. (Figure Presented) Conclusions: Severe COVID19 exhibits signs of endothelial damage and immune dysregulation and some of them are shared with preeclampsia. However, there are specific markers with the potential to discriminate between both conditions. Investigation in this direction could help to develop new strategies for the prevention and treatment of both entities. Grants: Fundació Clínic (HCB/2020/0401), JazzPharmaceuticals (IST-16-10355), Fundació La Marató de TV3 (202026-10).

The aquaculture supply chain in the time of covid-19 pandemic: Vulnerability, resilience, solutions and priorities at the global scale.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has had severe, unpredictable and synchronous impacts on all levels of perishable food supply chains (PFSC), across multiple sectors and spatial scales. Aquaculture plays a vital and rapidly expanding role in food security, in some cases overtaking wild caught fisheries in the production of high-quality animal protein in this PFSC. We performed a rapid global assessment to evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related emerging control measures on the aquaculture supply chain. Socio-economic effects of the pandemic were analysed by surveying the perceptions of stakeholders, who were asked to describe potential supply-side disruption, vulnerabilities and resilience patterns along the production pipeline with four main supply chain components: a) hatchery, b) production/processing, c) distribution/logistics and d) market. We also assessed different farming strategies, comparing land- vs. sea-based systems; extensive vs. intensive methods; and with and without integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, IMTA. In addition to evaluating levels and sources of economic distress, interviewees were asked to identify mitigation solutions adopted at local / internal (i.e., farm-site) scales, and to express their preference on national / external scale mitigation measures among a set of a priori options. Survey responses identified the potential causes of disruption, ripple effects, sources of food insecurity, and socio-economic conflicts. They also pointed to various levels of mitigation strategies. The collated evidence represents a first baseline useful to address future disaster-driven responses, to reinforce the resilience of the sector and to facilitate the design reconstruction plans and mitigation measures, such as financial aid strategies.