Résumé
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a forced transition to the virtuality of face-to-face training proposals from universities. But what happened in those higher education careers that already had a distance modality? What lessons learned does the pandemic leave in the subjects that have already been developed online, mediated by digital technologies? In search of answers to these questions, a paradigmatic case study was completed: a distance career with a helping profile, accredited by a private Argentine university2. The research covered two phases: exploration and description, arriving at a categorization that dialogues with con-cepts of the theoretical framework. The data obtained reveals the installation of videoconference as a common practice in traditionally asynchronous spaces. The conclusions highlight the relationship of the categories: social presence and per-sonalization, with the situation of synchrony associated with presence. Everything seems to indicate that the return to normality does not constitute a return to the previous situation, but rather an opening to a transformative process that conso-lidates synchrony as a common practice in distance learning modality, and that causes -in terms of De Alba (2021)- a structural dislocation whose derivations must be mapped to broaden the understanding of the phenomenon.
Résumé
PURPOSE: Objective of this study was to assess the association between testosterone (T) levels and biochemical markers in a cohort of female patients admitted for SARS-CoV-2 infection in a respiratory intensive care unit (RICU). METHODS: A consecutive series of 17 women affected by SARSCoV-2 pneumonia and recovered in the RICU of the Hospital of Mantua were analyzed. Biochemical inflammatory markers as well as total testosterone (TT), calculated free T (cFT), sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), and luteinizing hormone (LH) were determined. RESULTS: TT and cFT were significantly and positively associated with PCT, CRP, and fibrinogen as well as with a worse hospital course. We did not observe any significant association between TT and cFT with LH; conversely, both TT and cFT showed a positive correlation with cortisol. By LOWESS analysis, a linear relationship could be assumed for CRP and fibrinogen, while a threshold effect was apparent in the relationship between TT and procalcitonin, LDH and ferritin. When the TT threshold value of 1 nmol/L was used, significant associations between TT and PCT, LDH or ferritin were observed for values above this value. For LDH and ferritin, this was confirmed also in an age-adjusted model. Similar results were found for the association of cFT with the inflammatory markers with a threshold effect towards LDH and ferritin with increased LDH and ferritin levels for values above cFT 5 pmol/L. Cortisol is associated with serum inflammatory markers with similar trends observed for TT; conversely, the relationship between LH and inflammatory markers had different trends. CONCLUSION: Opposite to men, in women with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, higher TT and cFT are associated with a stronger inflammatory status, probably related to adrenal cortex hyperactivity.