CTIC Foundation

Background: There is pressing urgency to identify therapeutic targets and drugs that allow treating COVID-19 patients effectively. Methods: We performed in silico analyses of immune system protein interactome network, single-cell RNA sequencing of human tissues, and artificial neural networks to reveal potential therapeutic targets for drug repurposing against COVID-19. Results: We screened 1,584 high-confidence immune system proteins in ACE2 and TMPRSS2 co-expressing cells, finding 25 potential therapeutic targets significantly overexpressed in nasal goblet secretory cells, lung type II pneumocytes, and ileal absorptive enterocytes of patients with several immunopathologies. Then, we performed fully connected deep neural networks to find the best multitask classification model to predict the activity of 10,672 drugs, obtaining several approved drugs, compounds under investigation, and experimental compounds with the highest area under the receiver operating characteristics. Conclusion: After being effectively analyzed in clinical trials, these drugs can be considered for treatment of severe COVID-19 patients. Scripts can be downloaded at https://github.com/muntisa/immuno-drug-repurposing-COVID-19.

The emergence of new technologies and the opening of hardware and software platforms for the development of embedded systems, has facilitated the design, integration, and development of new communication monitoring and control systems. In recent years, the world population has grown rapidly, so the demand for fresh and healthy foods has increased its demand. Besides that, there is a widespread search for a more natural and healthy alimentation, that is why there is a tendency for people to start growing and harvesting their own food. The main objective of this paper is to design and develop the automation of a greenhouse for self-consumption using a free development platform, which accelerates the integration process, reducing time and execution costs.

Abstract For decades, disruption of the bilateral symmetry of body structures has been related to underperformance and, hence, to fitness. In fish, this concept coupled with the claimed evidence for increased fluctuating asymmetry (FA) of pairs of hard structures, such as otoliths under conditions of stress, has led to the use of otolith FA (OFA) as a proxy for individual fitness and population success. Interpreting those significant differences in OFA in relation to stress-inducing environments and using them to identify suboptimal conditions for survival is especially appealing in the context of, for example, assessing climate change using historical otolith collections. Despite several works that give evidence to support the usefulness of OFA approach, we report on a number of unpublished and published datasets from a wide range of both, wild populations and experimental designs that show no correlation between OFA and any of the usual indicators of fitness or between OFA and expected stress gradients. Our results suggest that there may be a strong bias in the published literature towards positive relationships, despite the enormous importance of negative results for understanding the significance of OFA. These results might shed light on the interpretability of OFA in both laboratory and field studies.

This paper analyses late presentation (LP) of HIV infection, and its determinants, among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Spain, newly diagnosed with HIV (2003-2011) in 15 sexually transmitted infection/HIV counselling and testing clinics. LP was defined as <350 CD4 cells/µL or AIDS. In total, 3,081 MSM were included (2,499 having CD4/AIDS); overall LP was 25.3%. LP was higher in men older than 34 years, those not previously HIV-tested (adjusted odds ratio (aOR):3.1; 95% confidence intervals (CI):2.3-4.2) , and those tested > 12 months before diagnosis (12-24 months (aOR:1.4; 95% CI:1.0-2.0); > 24 months (aOR:2.2; 95% CI:1.7-3.0)). LP was less likely in MSM reporting a known HIV-infected partner as infection source or symptoms compatible with acute retroviral syndrome. 'Region of birth' interacted with 'educational level' and 'steady partner as infection source': only African and Latin-American MSM with low educational level were more likely to present late; Latin-American men attributing their infection to steady partner, but no other MSM, had LP more frequently. In Spain, HIV testing among MSM should be promoted, especially those > 34 years old and migrants with low educational level. The current recommendation that MSM be tested at least once a year is appropriate.

La incorporacion de las Tecnologias de la Informacion y Comunicacion (TIC) en las empresas es considerada como una herramienta para incentivar la competitividad a traves de la formacion y acumulacion de conocimientos para la generacion de innovaciones. El efecto de la inversion en TIC no es lineal, ya que depende de las condiciones del entorno, asi como de las capacidades internas de las empresas. En el caso de Mexico, la incorporacion de esta tecnologias en las firmas no se ha reflejado en un aumento de la competitividad, por lo que en el presente trabajo el objetivo es analizar las condiciones de uso de las TIC en las Mipymes en una region de Mexico, por medio de una encuesta aplicada a 1,006 empresas del estado de Aguascalientes, a partir de la cual se concluye que se presenta una sub-utilizacion y un uso deficiente de las herramientas tecnologicas disponibles, lo que se refleja en una limitada incorporacion en las actividades productivas, como consecuencia de la escasa formacion de capacidades especificas para la gestion y produccion.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients present functional and structural changes of the respiratory system that have a profound influence on cardiac autonomic dysfunction. To analyse heart rate variability in COPD patients under stable condition and during acute exacerbation episodes (AECOPD). Twenty three severe COPD male patients, 69.6 ± 7.3 years, in stable condition were followed up for two years. Home visits were carried out by a nurse every month, and home or hospital visits were arranged on demand. Every three months an ECG, oxygen saturation and spirometric recording was obtained for each patient. If the patient presented AECOPD compatible clinical data the same measurements were performed before any change of treatment. Spectral parameters of heart rate variability in time and frequency domains were obtained from ECG. The time evolution of power in low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) bands were obtained from the spectrogram. In addition, we calculated the LF/HF ratio and total heart rate variability power (POW). We analysed 154 patient-visit records during the follow up, pertaining to 23 patients and 8 controls; 19 of the patients had experienced at least one AECOPD. Stable COPD patients had higher HF values than control subjects. No significant differences were found in LF, LF/HF ratio or POW variables. AECOPD patients had higher LF, HF and POW than the stable COPD and control groups. AECOPD patients exhibited signs of increased autonomic activity compared with stable COPD.

A laser-stripe system for the automation of welding processes in heavy industries is presented. Conventional methods use human intervention. A new solution using only common usage computer components has been developed, offering at least the same quality of performance at a low price, making laser systems without human intervention attractive for cost sensitive applications in heavy industries. A new system that guarantees satisfactory tracking results even when the welding gap geometry varies strongly or is distorted by noise has been developed.

The web of data is a new evolutionary step of the web that involves the publication, interchange and consumption of meaningful, raw data by taking full benefit of the web architecture. All the parties involved in the tourism industry should consider the opportunities offered by this new web. Entry barriers are low because existing data sources and documents can be easily leveraged to be part of this extended web. At the same time, new services and platforms that exploit the data are beginning to show the large potential for increased technological and business opportunities. A new scenario of large-scale information availability and efficient data flows is discussed in this chapter.

Reinforcement Learning is a learning methodology through an agent interacting with the environment. Actor-Critic methods have a separated memory structure to present the independence between the policy and the value function. In systems where the states are defined as continuous, there is a problem with dimensionality, and an approximation method has to be used. The classic Reinforcement Learning algorithms can be combined with Fuzzy Logic techniques to store all value functions, since Fuzzy Logic has been proved to be an effective universal approximator. This work propose a Fuzzy Actor-Critic method to compute and store the state values using fuzzy logic to get a state approximation. Phenol is one of the most important water pollutants on chemistry industries. A phenol biodegradation process consist on a Sequence Batch Reactor (SBR), that need an near optimal filling policy for its correct operation. Fuzzy Actor Critic learning strategy offers a operation policy and it can be linguistically interpreted by the process experts, this approach can be useful to propose a comprehensive filling policy of a biodegradation SBR process.

La enseñanza de la lectura y la escritura ha sido una prioridad en todas las épocas puesto que estos procesos constituyen acciones lingüísticas,cognitivas y socioculturales que inciden en la apropiación de los conocimientos, permitiendo al sujeto en interacción significar, interpretar y comprender el mundo. Los usos sociales de la lectura y la escritura, el disfrute de la literatura y los usos técnicos se involucran en la vida personal y social de adolescentes mediante todo tipo de textos que ofrece la vida escolar y los medios. Lograr una lectura comprensiva e intertextual exige trabajo colectivo,reflexión sobre los usos del lenguaje, y el análisis del discurso, así como también concebir su enseñanza como procesos de interacción entre un lector, un texto y su contexto.