Open University of Catalonia

About: Open University of Catalonia is a education organization based out in Barcelona, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Context (language use) & Higher education. The organization has 1943 authors who have published 4646 publications receiving 64200 citations. The organization is also known as: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya & UOC.

Targeted clearance of senescent cells using an antibody-drug conjugate against a specific membrane marker

Abstract: A wide range of diseases have been shown to be influenced by the accumulation of senescent cells, from fibrosis to diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s and other age-related pathologies. Consistent with this, clearance of senescent cells can prolong healthspan and lifespan in in vivo models. This provided a rationale for developing a new class of drugs, called senolytics, designed to selectively eliminate senescent cells in human tissues. The senolytics tested so far lack specificity and have significant off-target effects, suggesting that a targeted approach could be more clinically relevant. Here, we propose to use an extracellular epitope of B2M, a recently identified membrane marker of senescence, as a target for the specific delivery of toxic drugs into senescent cells. We show that an antibody–drug conjugate (ADC) against B2M clears senescent cells by releasing duocarmycin into them, while an isotype control ADC was not toxic for these cells. This effect was dependent on p53 expression and therefore more evident in stress-induced senescence. Non-senescent cells were not affected by either antibody, confirming the specificity of the treatment. Our results provide a proof-of-principle assessment of a novel approach for the specific elimination of senescent cells using a second generation targeted senolytic against proteins of their surfaceome, which could have clinical applications in pathological ageing and associated diseases.

Developing teacher skills to support collaborative online language learning

Abstract: The significance of collaborative learning through social interaction and interdependence is widely recognised in the social constructivist perspective on learning and the ability to work collaboratively is a core graduate skill. The importance of online learning systems has been widely recognised, with the arrival of new Web 2.0 environments greatly enhancing opportunities for fostering increased peer interaction, collaboration and learner autonomy. However, although many language teachers are keen to exploit these possibilities, their training and experience may not have equipped them to develop and support collaborative learning or to adapt to the different teacher roles required. This paper describes a project between the Department of Languages at The Open University (UK) and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain, which gave a group of teachers practical experience of organising and engaging in collaborative online language learning in order to understand how it feels in practice. The experien...

Smartphone Usage Diversity among Older People

Abstract: Older people are a minority in digital media, in terms of both access and use. While the divide in access has decreased, this is not the case with the divide in use. In this chapter, we go deeper into the divide in use, by studying the diversity of smartphone usage among older people. We have used three complementary perspectives: tracked use, reported use, and reflections on use. According to our study, between 2014 and 2016 the divide in smartphone use increased between younger individuals and older people. Moreover, older smartphone users in Spain are a diverse user group, which includes basic, proficient and advanced users. Proficient users are the most common group. Basic users are often new users with little experience of digital technologies who usually achieve their communication goals by other means. We used a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods. This approach allowed us to show the limited and at the same time diverse use of smartphones by older people. These results question the stereotypes that only associate older people with a limited use of digital technologies. They also help to raise awareness of the importance of taking the particular characteristics of older proficient smartphone users into account in the design of intelligent systems, in order to fight structural ageism.

Towards energy-efficient reactive thermal management in instrumented datacenters

Abstract: Virtual Machine (VM) migration is one of the most common techniques used to alleviate thermal anomalies (i.e., hotspots) in cloud datacenter's servers of by reducing the load and, therefore, decreasing the server utilization. However, there are other techniques such as voltage scaling that also can be applied to reduce the temperature of the servers in datacenters. Because no single technique is the most efficient to meet temperature/performance optimization goals in all situations, we work towards an autonomic approach that performs energy-efficient thermal management while ensuring the Quality of Service (QoS) delivered to the users. In this paper, we explore ways to take actions to reduce energy consumption at the server side before performing costly migrations of VMs. Specifically, we focus on exploiting VM Monitor (VMM) configurations, such as pinning techniques in Xen platforms, which are complementary to other techniques at the physical server layer such as using low power modes. To support the arguments of our approach, we present the results obtained from an experimental evaluation on real hardware using High Performance Computing (HPC) workloads on different scenarios.

Industrial Location and Spatial Dependence: An Empirical Application

Abstract: Liviano D. and Arauzo-Carod J.-M. Industrial location and spatial dependence: an empirical application, Regional Studies. This paper tries to resolve some of the main shortcomings in the empirical literature on location decisions for new plants, that is, spatial effects and over-dispersion. Spatial effects are omnipresent, being a source of over-dispersion in the data as well as a factor shaping the functional relationship between the variables that explain a firm's location decisions. Using count data models, empirical researchers have dealt with over-dispersion and excess zeros by developments of the Poisson regression model. This study aims to take this a step further by adopting Bayesian methods and models in order to tackle the excess of zeros, spatial and non-spatial over-dispersion, and spatial dependence simultaneously. Data for Catalonia (Spain) are used and location determinants are analysed to that end. The results show that spatial effects are determinant. Additionally, over-dispersion is deco...