Gene transfer engineering for astrocyte-specific silencing in the CNS.

Cell-type-specific gene silencing is critical to understand cell functions in normal and pathological conditions, in particular in the brain where strong cellular heterogeneity exists. Molecular engineering of lentiviral vectors has been widely used to express genes of interest specifically in neurons or astrocytes. However, we show that these strategies are not suitable for astrocyte-specific gene silencing due to the processing of small hairpin RNA (shRNA) in a cell. Here we develop an indirect method based on a tetracycline-regulated system to fully restrict shRNA expression to astrocytes. The combination of Mokola-G envelope pseudotyping, glutamine synthetase promoter and two distinct microRNA target sequences provides a powerful tool for efficient and cell-type-specific gene silencing in the central nervous system. We anticipate our vector will be a potent and versatile system to improve the targeting of cell populations for fundamental as well as therapeutic applications.

Macroporous Scaffolds for Bone Engineering. Studies on Cell Culture and Ectopic Bone Formation

Bone engineering is a rapidly developing area of reconstructive medicine where bone inducing factors and/or cells are combined with a scaffold material to regenerate the structure and function of the original tissue. The aim of this study was to compare the suitability of different macroporous scaffold types for bone engineering applications. The two scaffold categories studied were a) the mechanically strong and stable titanium fiber meshes and b) the elastic and biodegradable porous polymers. Furthermore, bioactive modifications were applied to these basic scaffold types, and their effect on the osteogenic responses was evaluated in cell culture and ectopic bone formation studies. The osteogenic phenotype of cultured cell-scaffold constructs was heightened with a sol-gel derived titania coating, but not with a mixed titania-silica coating. The latter coating also resulted in delayed ectopic bone formation in bone marrow stromal cell seeded scaffolds. However, the better bone contact in early implantation times and more even bone tissue distribution at later times indicated enhanced osteoconductivity of both the coated scaffold types. Overall, the most promising bone engineering results were obtained with titania coated fiber meshes. Elastic and biodegradable poly(ε-caprolactone/D,L-lactide) based scaffolds were also developed in this study. The degradation rates of the scaffolds in vitro were governed by the hydrophilicity of the polymer matrix, and the porous architecture was controlled by the amount and type of porogen used. A continuous phase macroporosity was obtained using a novel CaCl2 • 6H2O porogen. Dynamic culture conditions increased cell invasion, but decreased cell numbers and osteogenicity, within the scaffolds. Osteogenic differentiation in static cultures and ectopic bone formation in cell seeded scaffolds were enhanced in composites, with 30 wt-% of bioactive glass filler.

Improving anterior deltoid activity in a musculoskeletal shoulder model - an analysis of the torque-feasible space at the sternoclavicular joint.

Modelling the shoulder's musculature is challenging given its mechanical and geometric complexity. The use of the ideal fibre model to represent a muscle's line of action cannot always faithfully represent the mechanical effect of each muscle, leading to considerable differences between model-estimated and in vivo measured muscle activity. While the musculo-tendon force coordination problem has been extensively analysed in terms of the cost function, only few works have investigated the existence and sensitivity of solutions to fibre topology. The goal of this paper is to present an analysis of the solution set using the concepts of torque-feasible space (TFS) and wrench-feasible space (WFS) from cable-driven robotics. A shoulder model is presented and a simple musculo-tendon force coordination problem is defined. The ideal fibre model for representing muscles is reviewed and the TFS and WFS are defined, leading to the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a solution. The shoulder model's TFS is analysed to explain the lack of anterior deltoid (DLTa) activity. Based on the analysis, a modification of the model's muscle fibre geometry is proposed. The performance with and without the modification is assessed by solving the musculo-tendon force coordination problem for quasi-static abduction in the scapular plane. After the proposed modification, the DLTa reaches 20% of activation.

Creating customer relationship management concept for engineering and service business

Customer relationship management has been one essential part of marketing for over 20 years. Today’s business environment is fast changing, international and highly competitive, and that is why the most important factor for long-term profitability is one-to-one customer relationships. However, managing relationships and serving customers that are profitable has been always challenging. In this thesis the objective was to define the main obstacles that the case company must overcome to succeed in CRM. Possible solutions have also been defined. The main elements of the implementation i.e. people, processes and technologies, can clearly be found behind these matters and solutions. This thesis also presents theoretical information about CRM and it is meant to act as a guide book inside the organisation to spread information about CRM for those who are not so familiar with the topic.

Engineering Geology for Society and Territory: volume 2: landslide processes

This book is one out of 8 IAEG XII Congress volumes, and deals with Landslide processes, including: field data and monitoring techniques, prediction and forecasting of landslide occurrence, regional landslide inventories and dating studies, modeling of slope instabilities and secondary hazards (e.g. impulse waves and landslide-induced tsunamis, landslide dam failures and breaching), hazard and risk assessment, earthquake and rainfall induced landslides, instabilities of volcanic edifices, remedial works and mitigation measures, development of innovative stabilization techniques and applicability to specific engineering geological conditions, use of geophysical techniques for landslide characterization and investigation of triggering mechanisms. Focuses is given to innovative techniques, well documented case studies in different environments, critical components of engineering geological and geotechnical investigations, hydrological and hydrogeological investigations, remote sensing and geophysical techniques, modeling of triggering, collapse, runout and landslide reactivation, geotechnical design and construction procedures in landslide zones, interaction of landslides with structures and infrastructures and possibility of domino effects. The Engineering Geology for Society and Territory volumes of the IAEG XII Congress held in Torino from September 15-19, 2014, analyze the dynamic role of engineering geology in our changing world and build on the four main themes of the congress: environment, processes, issues, and approaches.

A Dependency Parsing Approach to Biomedical Text Mining

Biomedical research is currently facing a new type of challenge: an excess of information, both in terms of raw data from experiments and in the number of scientific publications describing their results. Mirroring the focus on data mining techniques to address the issues of structured data, there has recently been great interest in the development and application of text mining techniques to make more effective use of the knowledge contained in biomedical scientific publications, accessible only in the form of natural human language. This thesis describes research done in the broader scope of projects aiming to develop methods, tools and techniques for text mining tasks in general and for the biomedical domain in particular. The work described here involves more specifically the goal of extracting information from statements concerning relations of biomedical entities, such as protein-protein interactions. The approach taken is one using full parsing—syntactic analysis of the entire structure of sentences—and machine learning, aiming to develop reliable methods that can further be generalized to apply also to other domains. The five papers at the core of this thesis describe research on a number of distinct but related topics in text mining. In the first of these studies, we assessed the applicability of two popular general English parsers to biomedical text mining and, finding their performance limited, identified several specific challenges to accurate parsing of domain text. In a follow-up study focusing on parsing issues related to specialized domain terminology, we evaluated three lexical adaptation methods. We found that the accurate resolution of unknown words can considerably improve parsing performance and introduced a domain-adapted parser that reduced the error rate of theoriginal by 10% while also roughly halving parsing time. To establish the relative merits of parsers that differ in the applied formalisms and the representation given to their syntactic analyses, we have also developed evaluation methodology, considering different approaches to establishing comparable dependency-based evaluation results. We introduced a methodology for creating highly accurate conversions between different parse representations, demonstrating the feasibility of unification of idiverse syntactic schemes under a shared, application-oriented representation. In addition to allowing formalism-neutral evaluation, we argue that such unification can also increase the value of parsers for domain text mining. As a further step in this direction, we analysed the characteristics of publicly available biomedical corpora annotated for protein-protein interactions and created tools for converting them into a shared form, thus contributing also to the unification of text mining resources. The introduced unified corpora allowed us to perform a task-oriented comparative evaluation of biomedical text mining corpora. This evaluation established clear limits on the comparability of results for text mining methods evaluated on different resources, prompting further efforts toward standardization. To support this and other research, we have also designed and annotated BioInfer, the first domain corpus of its size combining annotation of syntax and biomedical entities with a detailed annotation of their relationships. The corpus represents a major design and development effort of the research group, with manual annotation that identifies over 6000 entities, 2500 relationships and 28,000 syntactic dependencies in 1100 sentences. In addition to combining these key annotations for a single set of sentences, BioInfer was also the first domain resource to introduce a representation of entity relations that is supported by ontologies and able to capture complex, structured relationships. Part I of this thesis presents a summary of this research in the broader context of a text mining system, and Part II contains reprints of the five included publications.

Cardiac tissue engineering by electrical stimulation with subcutaneous and cardiac adipose-tissue derived progenitor cells (ATDPCs)

A major challenge of cardiac tissue engineering is directing cells to establish the physiological structure and function of the myocardium being replaced. In native heart, pacing cells generate electrical stimuli that spread throughout the heartcausing cell membrane depolarization and activation of contractile apparatus. We ought to examine whether electricalstimulation of adipose tissue-derived progenitor cells (ATDPCs) exerts phenotypic and genetic changes that enhance theircardiomyogenic potential.

Students’ viewpoint on engineering subjects taught in English

The European Educational Institutions have the challenge and the commitment to enhance multilingual competence and teaching curricular subjects in a foreign language is seen as one of the most promising alternatives. In that context, professors teaching different engineering subjects at the School of Engineering of the UPC at Manresa (EPSEM) have been involved in projects aiming at analyzing the current linguistic situation and developing some on-line open access materials using CLIL as a strategy. They formed the u-Linguatech Research Group on Multilingual Communication in Science and Technology in order to provide such resources in an effective and efficient way. In this paper, we focus on students’ perception of the improvement of their multilingual competence throughout their Engineering degree, by means of subjects taught in English by non-native speakers. Data about the English level of current students are taken into account. We also describe the use of the above resources to improve the quality of subjects learning related to Chemical Engineering curricula.

Population ageing and ICT: An exploratory review of technology innovation trough digital applications

The multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change produced by population ageing affects not only the quality of life of elderly people but also of our societies. Some dimensions of population ageing grow and expand over time (e.g. knowledge of the world events, or experience in particular situations), while others decline (e.g. reaction time, physical and psychological strength, or other functional abilities like reduced speed and tiredness). Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can help elderly to overcome possible limitations due to ageing. As a particular case, biometrics can allow the development of new algorithms for early detection of cognitive impairments, by processing continuous speech, handwriting or other challenged abilities. Among all possibilities, digital applications (Apps) for mobile phones or tablets can allow the dissemination of such tools. In this article, after presenting and discussing the process of population ageing and its social implications, we explore how ICTs through different Apps can lead to new solutions for facing this major demographic challenge.

Effect of partial-thickness tear on loading capacities of the supraspinatus tendon: a finite element analysis.

Partial-thickness tears of the supraspinatus tendon frequently occur at its insertion on the greater tubercule of the humerus, causing pain and reduced strength and range of motion. The goal of this work was to quantify the loss of loading capacity due to tendon tears at the insertion area. A finite element model of the supraspinatus tendon was developed using in vivo magnetic resonance images data. The tendon was represented by an anisotropic hyperelastic constitutive law identified with experimental measurements. A failure criterion was proposed and calibrated with experimental data. A partial-thickness tear was gradually increased, starting from the deep articular-sided fibres. For different values of tendon tear thickness, the tendon was mechanically loaded up to failure. The numerical model predicted a loss in loading capacity of the tendon as the tear thickness progressed. Tendon failure was more likely when the tendon tear exceeded 20%. The predictions of the model were consistent with experimental studies. Partial-thickness tears below 40% tear are sufficiently stable to persist physiotherapeutic exercises. Above 60% tear surgery should be considered to restore shoulder strength.

The unfathomable secret remains: a reverse engineering study of SEO factors on Google's search engine

The vast majority of users don’t seek results beyond the second page offered by the search engine, so if a site fails to be among the top 20 (second page), it says that this page does not have good SEO and, therefore, is not visible to the user. The overall objective of this project is to conduct a study to discover the factors that determine (or not) the positioning of websites in a search engine.

International journal of engineering education

This work presents an analysis of the assessment tools used by professors at the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya to assess the generic competencies introduced in the Bachelor’s Degrees in Engineering. In order to conduct this study, a survey was designed and administered anonymously to a sample of the professors most receptive to educational innovation at their own university. All total, 80 professors responded to this survey, of whom 26% turned out to be members of the university’s own evaluation innovation group (https://www.upc.edu/rima/grups/grapa), GRAPA. This percentage represents 47% of the total GRAPA membership, meaning that nearly half of the professors most concerned about evaluation at the university chose to participate. The analysis of the variables carried out using the statistical program SPSS v19 shows that for practically 49% of those surveyed, rubrics are the tools most commonly used to assess generic competencies integrated in more specific ones. Of those surveyed, 60% use them either frequently or always. The most frequently evaluated generic competencies were teamwork (28%), problem solving (26%), effective oral and written communication (24%) and autonomous learning (13%), all of which constitute commonly recognized competencies in the engineering profession. A two-dimensional crosstabs analysis with SPSS v19 shows a significant correlation (Asymp. Sig. 0.001) between the type of tool used and the competencies assessed. However, no significant correlation was found between the type of assessment tool used and the type of subject, type of evaluation (formative or summative), frequency of feedback given to the students or the degree of student satisfaction, and thus none of these variables can be considered to have an influence on the kind of assessment tool used. In addition, the results also indicate that there are no significant differences between the instructors belonging to GRAPA and the rest of those surveyed

A virtual mathematics learning environment for engineering students

Teachers of the course Introduction to Mathematics for Engineers at the UOC, an online distance-learning university, have designed,developed and tested an online studymaterial. It includes basic pre-university mathematics, indications for correct follow-up of this content and recommendations for finding appropriate support and complementarymaterials. Many different resources are used,depending on the characteristics of thecontents: Flash sequences, interactive applets, WIRIS calculators and PDF files.During the last semester, the new study material has been tested with 119 students. The academic results and student satisfaction have allowed us to outline and prioritise future lines of action.

A Virtual Mathematics Learning Environment for Engineering Students

Teachers of the course Introduction to Mathematics for Engineers at the UOC, an online distance-learning university, have designed and produced online study material which includes basic pre-university mathematics, instructions for correct follow-up of this content and recommendations for finding appropiate support and complementary materials.