"This Time Changed my Life”: Discourses and Experiences of Domestic Workers During the Pandemic in Granada and Zaragoza, Spain

The purpose of this article is to analyze how the covid-19 pandemic affected the perceptions and uses of time of domestic workers in Spain, focusing, in particular, on the cities of Granada and Zaragoza. Our work derives from the project "El cuidado importa. Impacto de género en las cuidadoras/es de mayores y dependientes en tiempos de la Covid-19” (CUMADE) coordinated by Universidad Rovira I Virgili de Tarragona-Cataluña (Spain), and run by interdisciplinary research teams from ten Spanish universities between the months of September 2020 and January 2021. The research is qualitative, based on in-depth interviews, and designed to investigate the impact of covid-19 on the care of the elderly and dependents and, more specifically, on the domestic workers' sector. Temporality, so severely affected by the uncertainty and unpredictability of the new situation, provides an interesting axis for qualitative analysis of the discourses of women workers on the way in which the pandemic has conditioned their daily lives. To undertake this analysis, we base ourselves on the work of Ramón Ramos on las imágenes sociales del tiempo (the social images of time). This approach represents an original and novel analysis of the reality of domestic workers, while at the same time dialoguing with other recent work on this issue. The images of time as a resource, scenario, or horizon serve to analyze the discourse of our interviewees and show how time, understood as a social category, has structured and organized their lives. We consider what they have been able to do and what they have not been able to do, the distribution and intensification of tasks, their plans for the future, and the physical and emotional impact of the pandemic. © 2023, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota Colombia. All rights reserved.

Pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures in residents of Virú during the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction: COVID-19 has caused concern in the Peruvian population due to the health impact it generates and given the slow progress of vaccination, people opt for pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures to prevent the disease. Objective: Analyze the association of pharmacological and non-pharmacological preventive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic with the characteristics of the inhabitants of Virú, Peru. Methods: A cross-sectional, correlational design was applied. A questionnaire of questions was used based on the characteristics of the inhabitants (age, sex and type of work) and food consumption, use of solutions and medicines for the prevention of COVID-19. The presence of COVID-19 was evaluated with the rapid test called Standard™ COVID 19 IgM/IgG;the sample was of 191 residents who went to Guadalupito Health Center in Virú. Results: The non-pharmacological measures most frequently applied by villagers during the COVID-19 pandemic were the consumption of citrus fruits (79%), garlic, onions (42%) and kion (26%). The pharmacological ones were ivermectin (14%) and paracetamol (12%). None of the measures were associated with the presence of COVID-19. Conclusions: Health professionals should emphasize through the different media that the measures analyzed in this study cannot prevent COVID-19. This constitutes valuable information for those people who do not take into account the usefulness of vaccines and challenge the disease by limiting their lives, with the exclusive use of certain foods, herbs and medicines.

Virtual labs for the study of enzymatic stirred tank bioreactors

Virtual laboratories have successfully proven to be very versatile and intuitive when simulating experiments in science, biotechnology, and engineering. These tools must complement the experiments carried out in real labs or pilot plants. This study describes the creation of a virtual laboratory through the Easy JavaScript Simulation platform. A web-based simulation of an enzymatic stirred-tank bioreactor has been built using a dynamic model. This simulation reproduces the behavior of a continuous bioreactor, including the deviations of ideal mixing conditions as by the use of an in tanks-in-series model for nonideal flow. This article describes the continuous dynamic model in a stirred tank bioreactor, as well as the operation of a tool capable of carrying out virtual practice with students. Practice scripts have been developed that should be used by students during the practical classes. This interactive tool is powerful and useful to develop many experiments by varying the different input parameters, saving time and resources. In addition, the tool allows following teaching sessions in specific situations such as the health situation derived from the pandemic caused by COVID-19.