“Our innovation stems from the fact that we do not input raw signals; instead, the system extracts 57 pre-selected features from physiological signals such as skin conductance, skin temperature, and blood pulse volume. It is precisely the combination of this feature-based representation with convolutional architecture that allows us to effectively capture the dynamics of physiological responses,” explains one of the study's authors, Laura Gutiérrez Martín, who defended her thesis on this topic at UC3M a few months ago, titled: Expert system for robust alarm detection during fear episodes in cyber-physical systems. “This allows us to drastically reduce computational requirements, making the model occupy less memory space than a photograph taken with a mobile phone,” she adds.

“What we are looking for is to detect fear before an assault occurs, in order to activate a support network that can intervene immediately,” explains another author of the study, Celia López Ongil, professor in the UC3M Department of Electronic Technology and Director of the Institute for Gender Studies (IEG).

The operation is simple and effective. When the system identifies a risk situation, it sends an automatic alert to a "guardian circle." If the individual does not confirm she is safe, the goal is for the system to contact the police directly. Furthermore, all recorded data is encrypted and stored on a secure server so it can be used as judicial evidence if necessary, the researcher explains.

The study achieved accuracy metrics of around 80%, representing a 26.4% improvement over previous versions. Beyond current results, the team continues to work on reducing consumption and enhancing the model, as the use of such devices can help individuals identify their emotional states and support them during subsequent psychological recovery.

“The advantage is that the system could also be extrapolated to other areas, such as the early detection of school bullying. However, technology alone will not solve gender-based violence or bullying. DeepBindi is a support tool that must be complemented with education and social measures”, concludes José Ángel Miranda Calero, also a member of the research team.

The DeepBindi project was developed within the framework of the multidisciplinary team UC3M4Safety and has received funding from the State Research Agency (AEI) and INCIBE. The team is now seeking to complete a large-scale pilot to validate the system in real environments and facilitate its implementation, while continuing research and technological development.

Bibliographic Reference: L. Gutiérrez-Martín, C. López-Ongil, J. A. Miranda-Calero (2026) "DeepBindi: An End-to-End Fear Detection System Optimized for Extreme-Edge Deployment," in IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 688-699, Jan. 2026, doi: 10.1109/JBHI.2025.3587961. e-archivo UC3M: https://hdl.handle.net/10016/49576   

En el acto de entrega del galardón, Jesús Manuel Muñoz Tejeda, CEO y cofundador de la empresa, ha destacado el apoyo de la UC3M: “Ha sido clave en nuestro camino: acceso a talento, a infraestructura y a una red que nos ha ayudado a crecer más rápido. Este reconocimiento es también una muestra de lo que se puede lograr cuando universidad y empresa colaboran.”

En esta edición de los Premios EmprendeXXI, cuyo objetivo ha sido identificar y reconocer aquellos proyectos que generan valor a través de la tecnología, mejoran la vida de las personas y cuidan el planeta con soluciones tecnológicas, el proyecto de la UC3M ha sobresalido entre las 199 candidaturas presentadas. 

Estos premios se entregan desde el año 2007 y se han consolidado como un referente clave para el ecosistema emprendedor, tanto a nivel nacional como autonómico.

One of the most popular activities was dedicated to the future of robotics, led by researchers Alberto Méndez, Alicia Mora, and Gonzalo Espinoza from the Mobile Robots Group. Visitors had the opportunity to interact with the ADAM robot and compete against it in games likerock, paper, scissors, as well as remotely operate robotic grippers. “Our goal is to explain how a robot perceives its environment and how it interacts with it in a controlled manner,” noted the experts from the UC3M Robotics Lab.

Meanwhile, the TECMERIN research group offered a behind-the-scenes look at contemporary audiovisual production with a workshop on 3D animation. Professors Sagrario Beceiro, Luis Cemillán, and Francisco Jiménez conducted real-time demonstrations using Blender, an open-source software, to teach modeling and lighting techniques, as well as their narrative impact in film, video games, and 3D printing. “We conduct various practical demonstrations with video game characters and 3D environments to show how to integrate different modeling and animation tools in an accessible way, while also introducing the latest developments in generative AI,” explains Francisco Jiménez.

Social Science and Radio Coverage

The UC3M’s presence was not limited to the technology on display at the booth. At the Science Agora, researcher Uxía Carral from the Department of Communication delivered a talk titled “The Psychological Price of Misinformation on Social Media.” In her presentation, she analyzed how false content influences perceptions of reality and can lead to emotional well-being issues. “Understanding these dynamics is key to informed decision-making by citizens,” stated Carral.

The event also featured special media coverage by UC3M’s SONORA association. Its members conducted interviews on-site at the fair, capturing visitors’ impressions of this year’s edition.

UC3M’s participation in this event, organized by the madri+d Foundation for Knowledge of the Community of Madrid and in collaboration with the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), was coordinated by the Office for Science and Innovation Information and Outreach (OIDCI) of the Vice-Rectorate for Communication, Culture, and Transparency.

More information:

Flickr album with photos of the event

Madrid is Science Fair website

On the other hand, the stand will also offer the chance to learn some of the three-dimensional (3D) modeling and animation techniques used in contemporary cinema. “All of this using free and open-source software, Blender, with which we will conduct real-time demonstrations in 3D environments and show some tricks related to texturing, lighting, or visual effects,” indicate Sagrario Beceiro, Luis Cemillán, Francisco Jiménez and Ana Mejón, from the Dept. of Communication and the TECMERIN research group (Television-Cinema: memory, representation, and industry) at UC3M. Furthermore, they will explain the application of generative AI in this field and its visual and narrative impact.

“The psychological price of disinformation on social media” is the title of the talk to be given by researcher Uxía Carral, from the UC3M Dept. of Communication, at the Fair’s Science Agora. “Understanding the psychological effects of disinformation on social media is key to analyzing how this content influences the perception of reality, decision-making, and the emotional well-being of citizens,” notes Professor Carral. In her talk, which will take place at 4:00 PM, she will practically address the main dynamics associated with false or misleading content in digital environments that cause anxiety, depression, or Eating Disorders (EDs), among others.

Additionally, the UC3M SONORA association will be present at this edition of the Madrid es Ciencia Fair to provide special radio coverage of the event, featuring a chronicle and several interviews that can be heard via their website (uc3m.es/radiosonora and radiosonora.es).

The Office of Information and Scientific Outreach (OIDCI) of the Vice-Rectorate for Communication, Culture, and Transparency at UC3M coordinates UC3M’s participation in the Madrid es Ciencia 2026 Fair, a scientific outreach event organized by the madri+d Foundation for Knowledge of the Community of Madrid. Additionally, it counts on the collaboration of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) of the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities.

More information:

UC3M website for the Madrid es Ciencia 2026 Fair

The “using std::cpp” conference—promoted by José Daniel García, a professor in the UC3M Department of Computer Science and Engineering and chair of the Spanish subcommittee for programming language standards—has been held at the university's EPS since 2013 (with the exception of the interruption caused by COVID-19). "In this time, it has evolved from an initially national conference into a top-tier international event where the most interesting innovations for software developers are presented each year and experiences are exchanged between engineers from different sectors," explains José Daniel García.This year’s edition consolidates the event’s status as a global benchmark, with high attendance demand that saw registration fill up in record time and a lineup of 22 presentations by leading professionals. Attendees include 10 members of the international committee (ISO C++), who will define the next version of the language (C++26) at a key meeting in London just one week after the event in Leganés.

This year has also seen a push for the participation of female experts in the language, such as Daniela Engert and Frances Buontempo, as well as developers like Berill Farkas, who at just 18 years old will share her programming experience. The event will also serve as a reunion for internationally successful UC3M alumni, such as Javier López (Zimperium, USA) and Gonzalo Juarez (Bolsas y Mercados Españoles).

For the fourth consecutive year, all registration proceeds will go toward funding a full UC3M Alumni Scholarship, enabling a student with an excellent academic record and limited financial resources to cover their tuition costs at UC3M.

The conference will be inaugurated by Luis Enrique García, Vice Rector for Research and Transfer at UC3M; César Huete, Director of the UC3M School of Engineering; and José Daniel García, UC3M Professor and Conference Chair. The event is supported by technology sponsors such as the C++ Alliance, Sea++ software, Qualcomm, JFrog Conan, and Verisure, as well as the Spanish Association for Standardization (UNE)

Further information and full program at:
https://eventos.uc3m.es/go/usingstdcpp-2026 

The ÍEI is a score awarded by Spanish consumers to companies based on the perceived degree of innovation of their products and services, analyzing three aspects: 1. Commercial: Consumers assess the overall degree of innovation of the company's products and services. 2. Social: Reflects the contribution the company generates for society and the environment through innovation. 3. Digital: Measures the extent to which consumers perceive the company as innovative in its digital solutions.

This project is developed by the Institute for Business and Market Development (INDEM) at UC3M, in collaboration with the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) and Neovantas. INDEM acts as a bridge between university research and the business world, promoting the practical application of research to improve business efficiency and effectiveness.

Lola Duque and Lluís Santamaría, heads of the ÍEI and professors in the Department of Business Administration at UC3M, presented the most relevant results from the last four years. Lola Duque noted that "over these four years, there has been a sustained improvement in the perception of innovation by consumers, highlighting the immense effort made by companies." Lluís Santamaría emphasized "the different paths to being perceived as an innovative company and the explanatory power that the social and environmental dimensions exert over the consumer."

During the meeting, Juan de Rus, Managing Partner at Neovantas, delivered a presentation titled "BECO Libraries: The Behavioral Library that Trains AI," emphasizing the need to move toward Artificial Intelligence that integrates human behavior as the foundation of its design. He stressed that "true innovation in AI is that which combines technology and Behavioral Sciences, resulting in what we call Behavioral Innovation."

Additionally, attendees had the opportunity to hear from Kristina Heinonen, Professor of Marketing at the Hanken School of Economics (Finland), who highlighted that "a consumer-centric approach is key to improving corporate innovative capacity." Her intervention provided a better understanding of the role of the Innovation Index Coalition and how collaboration among member countries is driving innovation research and its transfer to society.

The event concluded with a round table of companies noted for consumer-perceived innovation, moderated by Lola Duque and Emma Bernardo, Head of Marketing at Neovantas. Participants included Alfonso Negrete (Country Digital and Innovation Manager at IKEA Spain), José Miguel Grande (Senior Software Development Manager at Amazon), and Ignacio Zunzunegui (Head of Growth for Southern Europe & Latam at Revolut), who reflected on various strategy and implementation issues regarding innovation.

The fourth edition of the ÍEI was compiled from 25,000 consumer surveys, analyzing 131 companies across 21 sectors, representing more than 70% of household consumption. 

Top Perceived Innovators: Ikea (Commercial), Apple (Digital), and Toyota (Social). 

Spanish Leaders: Zara (Commercial Innovation), Idealista (Digital Innovation), and Balay (Social Innovation). 

Sector Leaders: Mutua Madrileña (Insurance), Amazon (E-commerce), Lidl (Supermarkets), Iberia (Airlines), Sanitas (Health Insurance), and Glovo (Delivery Services), among others.

Award-Winning Companies at the 2026 Innovation Awards

• Commercial Winner: Ikea
• Social Winner: Toyota
• Digital Winner: Apple
• Spanish Commercial Winner: Zara
• Spanish Social Winner: Balay
• Spanish Digital Winner: Idealista
• Honorable Mention: Meliá and Wallapop, for being present in the Spanish top 10 of the three innovation indices  (Commercial, Social, and Digital)

The collaboration between UC3M, INDEM, and Neovantas

UC3M is a Spanish public university recognized for its excellence in research, teaching, and innovation. It is ranked as the best Spanish public university for employability according to The Global University Employability Ranking and Survey 2026. It also holds top positions in Spain for overall performance in the latest U-Ranking and is featured among the world’s best universities in the QS World University Rankings 2026. Furthermore, it is the first university in Europe to obtain the dual ACEEU accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social sectors. It also holds other quality accreditations and distinctions, such as the EUR-ACE seal in engineering and AACSB accreditation for its business and finance programs.

The Institute for Business and Market Development (INDEM) is part of the Carlos III University of Madrid and is the entity exclusively responsible for implementing the Spanish Innovation Index (ÍEI). INDEM's mission is to promote, channel, coordinate, and disseminate research and postgraduate teaching related to business development, with a specific focus on contributing to research regarding corporate innovation through an interdisciplinary approach. This work is carried out under the criteria of transparency and excellence to meet the needs of the university community as well as the demands of the business and social environments. INDEM aims to serve as the link between its members and the business and social world, with a commitment to promoting and disseminating applied research to improve business efficiency and effectiveness.

Neovantas is an international management consulting firm that offers a collaborative model with a strong analytical component based on a behavioral perspective and a results-oriented approach. For over 20 years, it has helped clients accelerate the achievement of tangible and significant results in revenue, costs, and/or quality in a sustainable manner over time.

To conduct the research, the team worked with volunteers who participated in experiments designed using virtual reality. During the tests, participants watched videos with and without violent content, while changes in their behavior and voice were analyzed based on the emotions they experienced. “From these recordings, we observed that there were very different behaviors in response to the same stimuli between people who had suffered violence and those who had not,” says the researcher. “It was a serendipitous finding: while looking for something else, we discovered that it was possible to detect whether a person had been a victim of violence simply by analyzing their voice.”

This breakthrough opens the door to important practical applications. On the one hand, the technology could be used as a support tool for the early and non-invasive detection of mental health problems in clinical settings. On the other hand, it could be integrated into digital platforms such as virtual assistants or social care resources. This would facilitate the early identification of victims of gender-based violence and help reduce the problem of underreporting, offering specialized support more quickly and effectively.

“If we can identify signs of gender-based violence when a person calls a helpline, goes to the doctor or a social service, we can act before a fatal event occurs, and even before the person themselves recognize that they are a victim, which would facilitate their psychological recovery, which must begin long before cases reach the media,” concludes Carmen Peláez.

The research is part of the Bindi project, developed by the UC3M4Safety team, which aims to combat gender-based violence by preventing assaults, collecting evidence, and providing early assistance to victims through technology. The UC3M4Safety team is led by Celia López Ongil and Clara Sainz de Baranda Andújar, and includes research staff from the Institute for Gender Studies (IEG), the School of Engineering, and all UC3M faculties, bringing together specialists from more than fifteen areas of knowledge, including engineering, social sciences, and humanities.

“The team has sought to use technology to solve social problems because we believe it can greatly help in the fight against violence and victimization, as well as in helping victims recover from their situation,” concludes IEG director Celia López Ongil, professor in the Department of Electronic Technology at UC3M.

Reyner Fuentes, E., Rituerto González, E., & Peláez-Moreno, C. (2025). Machine Unlearning for Speaker-Agnostic Detection of Gender-Based Violence Condition in Speech. Applied Sciences, 15(22), 12270. https://doi.org/10.3390/app152212270. e-archivo UC3M: https://hdl.handle.net/10016/49236 

In Spain, this is the only project stemming from research developed under European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept funding, as in the case of ISBIOMECH. The EIC Transition grant amounts to €2.4 million, although the company has also attracted private investors, bringing total funding to more than €3 million.

“This project allows us to translate all the basic science we have already developed in previous ERC projects into a commercialization phase with real societal impact,” says Daniel García González, researcher in the Department of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Theory at UC3M, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of 60Nd.

The technology developed by the company combines magneto-active polymers and artificial intelligence to apply programmable, non-invasive mechanical stimuli to 2D and 3D cell cultures. According to the company, this capability enables researchers and pharmaceutical companies to accurately replicate the physical behavior of various diseases and pathologies, identify new therapeutic targets, and even support the design of new drugs and therapies.

“The goal is that within three years we will have a fully commercial product that we can scale. During this time, the company will work with beta testers who integrate this technology to improve the prototype, which already enables pathologies to be reproduced in a far more efficient and scalable way than other solutions,” says Daniel García González from the company’s facilities at the Center for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA) at the UC3M Science Park – Leganés Tecnológico.

According to its creators, NeoMag can transform the way research is conducted in cancer, neurology and dermatology by offering high-precision in vitro models that accelerate therapy discovery. By integrating it into their workflow, researchers can anticipate therapeutic failures before reaching clinical phases, resulting in massive cost savings and a drastic reduction in animal experimentation.

For example, NeoMag can simulate the mechanical microenvironment of tumors to study invasion and metastasis processes in real time, as well as assess the effectiveness of new drugs under mechanical stress conditions. The platform can also recreate dynamic forces associated with traumatic brain injuries or stroke, enabling neuroscientists to study the response of neurons, astrocytes and microglia in a contact-free manner. In addition, it facilitates the modeling of wound healing, fibrosis and dermal remodeling processes, providing far more predictive models for regenerative medicine and dermocosmetic screening.

Transferring basic science to society

Many pathologies develop or worsen due to mechanical alterations in tissues, and many therapies fail because these factors are not considered during their design or evaluation. “The technology we have developed makes it possible to identify these mechanical responses at very early stages, opening new avenues to understand key biological mechanisms and improve drug discovery processes,” explains Daniel García, who founded 60Nd to take this innovation beyond the laboratory and turn it into a product with real impact.

“This spin-off has allowed us to expand capabilities that were already outstanding from a scientific standpoint with capabilities from the business world, such as being able to sell and explain the impact of this technological solution to potential clients, including other scientific researchers and the pharmaceutical industry,” says Ricardo de la Torre González, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of 60Nd.

“This project will require additional funding in the future to scale globally, enabling research teams around the world, both in public and private institutions, to access our solution. The support we have received from the European Commission validates our ability to lead the predictive biology market with NeoMag, which has already earned the trust of world-class laboratories such as the Institut Pasteur in Paris and Imperial College London”, he concludes.

More information:

60Nd website at:
https://www.uc3m.es/ss/Satellite/InnovacionEmprendimiento/es/TextoMixta/1371403497966/
 

ADAM has been built to help elderly people with their daily tasks inside their homes or in care facilities, explains the director of the Mobile Robots Group, Ramón Barber, a professor in the UC3M Department of Systems Engineering and Automation: “We all know people for whom simple gestures, such as someone bringing them a glass of water with a pill or setting the table for them, represent a very significant help. That is the main objective of our robot.”

In the paper presented at IROS 2025 a few weeks ago in China by researchers Adrián Prados and Gonzalo Espinoza of the Mobile Robots Group, they propose a revolutionary approach to coordinate the work of the robot's arms: teaching each arm to perform its task independently (via "imitation learning") and then allowing both to "communicate" through a mathematical system called Gaussian Belief Propagation. This method functions as an invisible and constant dialogue between the arms, allowing them to coordinate in real-time to avoid collisions with each other or with obstacles, without needing to stop to recalculate. The result is fluid, efficient, and natural movement, successfully tested in both simulations and real robots intended for domestic assistance.

Teaching a robot to perform daily tasks remains one of the great challenges in robotics. Traditionally, programming a robot implied writing thousands of lines of code to define every movement. In contrast to this approach, imitation learning proposes a more intuitive alternative: that the robot learns how a person does it by observing and replicating human actions. In this paradigm, the human demonstrates the task (by directly moving the robot's arm or recording themselves performing an action) to teach it, for example, to serve water or organize a shelf. However, simply copying a movement is not enough. If the robot learns to pick up a bottle in an exact position and the bottle is shifted slightly, a system that only imitates will repeat the original gesture and fail. Therefore, the true goal of robotic manipulation is not mechanical repetition, but adaptation and the understanding of movement.

The techniques developed by these researchers address this problem by making the learned movements behave like a "rubber band": if the target changes position, the trajectory deforms smoothly to reach it, maintaining the essence of the action. Thus, the robot can adapt to new situations without losing key properties of the movement, such as keeping a bottle vertical so as not to spill the contents. “The ultimate goal is for robots to stop being simple movement recorders and become authentic coworkers, capable of perceiving their environment, anticipating actions, and collaborating safely in human spaces,” points out Adrián Prados.

Perception, reasoning, and action

In practice, the robot's operation is organized into three phases. First, perception, through the collection of data from the environment via sensors. Then, reasoning, where that information is processed to extract relevant data. Finally, action, when the robot decides how to act, whether moving its base, coordinating its arms, or executing a specific task. To do this, ADAM uses 2D and 3D laser sensors, which allow it to measure distances, detect obstacles, and locate objects, as well as RGB cameras with depth information, which generate three-dimensional models of the environment.

One of the most significant challenges is moving from “seeing” objects to understanding their use and the user's context. Traditionally, this understanding was based on common sense databases. Currently, Alberto Méndez, also a researcher in the Mobile Robots Group, is working on incorporating generative models and artificial intelligence that allow the robot to adapt its behavior to the specific situation and what is happening at any given moment.

Although ADAM is currently an experimental platform, with an approximate cost of between 80,000 and 100,000 euros, the technology is considered mature enough to suggest that, within a timeframe of 10 to 15 years, robots of this type could live with us in our homes at a much more affordable cost.

Beyond the technical advances, this work highlights the role of robotics as part of the solution to population aging, a growing challenge in our society. “Every day there are more elderly people in our society and fewer people who can care for them, so these types of technological solutions are going to become increasingly necessary,” concludes Ramón Barber. In this context, "assistive robots are emerging as a key tool to improve the quality of life and autonomy of people."

Bibliographic references:

A. Prados, G. Espinoza, L. Moreno, R. Barber (2025). "Coordination of Learned Decoupled Dual-Arm Tasks through Gaussian Belief Propagation", 2025 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Hangzhou, China, 2025, pp. 15917-15924, doi: 10.1109/IROS60139.2025.11246414. e-archivo UC3M: https://hdl.handle.net/10016/49244  

Mora A, Prados A, Mendez A, Espinoza G, Gonzalez P, Lopez B, Muñoz V, Moreno L, Garrido S, Barber R (2024). ADAM: a robotic companion for enhanced quality of life in aging populations. Front. Neurorobot. 18:1337608. doi: 10.3389/fnbot.2024.1337608. e-archivo UC3M: https://hdl.handle.net/10016/46290

NEXMO has emerged from the MovEDIHub research project, led by Professor Santiago Martínez de la Casa, of the Department of Systems Engineering and Automation at UC3M, in collaboration with the EDIH Madrid Region project. It also represents the foundation for a future university-backed spin-off. “This initiative seeks to accelerate the digital transformation of the sector through data sharing among public administrations, universities, large corporations and startups”, explains Santiago Martínez de la Casa. “The project is particularly relevant in the context of the recently approved Sustainable Mobility Law, which establishes data sharing as one of its core pillars for improving the region’s competitiveness”, the researcher adds.

NEXMO was presented at an event held on 23 January at Espacio Digitaliza Madrid, during which other leading initiatives were also discussed, including the Integrated Mobility Data Space (EDIM) promoted by the Ministry of Transport, the EDINT project developed by the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), and solutions implemented by EMT Madrid, Madrid City Council and the Madrid Regional Transport Consortium (CRTM).

The NEXMO ecosystem is open to participation through its working groups, the development of use cases and the exploration of opportunities within the hub. It brings together public administrations, mobility operators, technology companies, universities and other stakeholders in the sector. “Being part of NEXMO means joining a network where collaboration, data sovereignty and innovation become competitive advantages and key drivers for transforming the mobility of the future,” the project’s website states.

More information: www.nexmo-datahub.eu

Digital Anatomics S.L. trabaja en el desarrollo de soluciones tecnológicas e innovadoras en el ámbito de la salud que permiten afrontar el tratamiento de patologías complejas, adaptadas a la particularidad de cada paciente. Su producto principal consiste en un sistema de guías quirúrgicas personalizadas en cirugías de columna para colocación de tornillos pediculares, que facilitan la cirugía de precisión, en función de las características, ad hoc, de cada paciente. Los sistemas anatómicos son diseñados por medio de software propio basado en inteligencia artificial. Además, comercializan otras líneas de productos desarrolladas, como guías quirúrgicas personalizadas para osteotomía tibial y réplicas dentales para formación en endodoncia.

Occam Space S.L. está especializada en el desarrollo de soluciones tecnológicas de alta fiabilidad y bajo coste para el sector espacial, con un enfoque particular en el ámbito de los pequeños satélites. Su actividad abarca tanto sistemas embarcados para satélites artificiales y lanzadores espaciales —como sistemas de separación y suelta— como el diseño de equipos auxiliares de tierra destinados a la fabricación, integración y ensayo de satélites. Entre sus principales líneas de negocio se encuentran los sistemas de separación para pequeños satélites, el utillaje de apoyo en tierra, las estructuras y adaptadores para micro-satélites, los actuadores y mecanismos espaciales, así como la consultoría técnica especializada para proyectos del sector aeroespacial.

Unuware S.L. es una empresa tecnológica especializada en el desarrollo de sistemas basados en inteligencia artificial orientados a garantizar el acceso universal a la información. Su objetivo es facilitar servicios de accesibilidad eficientes y de alta calidad, reduciendo al mínimo la intervención humana y optimizando el uso de recursos. Para ello, desarrolla soluciones avanzadas en ámbitos como el subtitulado automático, tanto en tiempo real como en diferido, así como tecnologías para la audiodescripción, la lengua de signos y la traducción, contribuyendo a que contenidos y servicios sean más inclusivos y accesibles para todas las personas.

Más información: 

Web de APTE Top 100 Startups 2025: https://www.apte.org/apte-top-100-startups/ 

“Ponte” allows a Wi-Fi router to manage transmissions when operating robotic arms, internal transport vehicles, factory drone inspection systems, or industrial devices. The algorithm assigns each robot the times and frequencies at which it must transmit, ensuring that packets arrive with a guaranteed latency of less than eight milliseconds for machinery control, allowing an operator to remotely control a robotic arm or a loading robot. In turn, the results show that this algorithm can be incorporated into new-generation Wi-Fi routers, allowing the industrial sector to reduce costs by dispensing with specific solutions such as 5G or 6G for certain cases.

Reliable and secure communication

“‘Ponte’ guarantees that the robot connection will not suffer any delays in 99.99% of cases. In fact, in our experiments we demonstrated that a single Wi-Fi router can simultaneously serve 40 devices with robotic control, autonomous guidance and interactive video applications, while always maintaining the required reliability performance,” says another of the authors of the research, Jorge Martín Pérez, from the Department of Telematic Systems Engineering at UPM.

This article has been published as part of the PREDICT-6G project, coordinated by UC3M and developed within the framework of the European Union's Horizon Europe programme (GA 101095890). “With this advance, we will be able to create more deterministic networks, i.e., networks that are more resilient, have less delay, and can predict their behaviour. What’s more, all this will be achieved using standard technology in networks that are already deployed,” explains PREDICT-6G project coordinator Antonio de la Oliva, professor in the Department of Telematics Engineering at UC3M and another of the authors of this research. 

Bibliographic reference: C. Barroso-Fernández, J. Martín-Pérez, C. Ayimba and A. D. L. Oliva. Time-Sensitive IIoT Flows over Wi-Fi: a Network Calculus Approach, in IEEE Internet of Things Journal, PP(99):1-1 DOI:10.1109/JIOT.2025.3623878

The new system features a computing cluster comprising more than 11,500 physical CPU cores based on high-performance AMD processors, as well as 41 NVIDIA A40 GPUs. All these resources are interconnected via a high-speed network and supported by a redundant storage system offering nearly 1,000 terabytes of capacity. “Thanks to this power and capacity, the infrastructure enables the processing of large volumes of data, the execution of complex numerical simulations, and the training or deployment of advanced artificial intelligence models,” explains David Expósito Singh, from the UC3M Department of Computer Science, one of the promoters of this infrastructure together with Professor Jesús Carretero.

Potential applications

“This system will enable us to carry out extremely high-fidelity scientific simulations, ranging from molecular dynamics to aeronautics; to process very large datasets, such as those derived from societal and environmental data, genetic sequencing, or medical imaging; to accelerate next-generation artificial intelligence and deep-learning models, which are essential in areas such as computer vision, robotics, language processing, and automated discovery; and to apply algorithms, develop new theories, and validate hypotheses in timeframes that, on smaller computers, are measured in months and could now be achieved in hours or days,” explains Jesús Carretero.

This scientific infrastructure, which is part of the UC3M Research Support Center (CAI), is not only available to UC3M researchers, but is also open to public research organizations and external users from the business sector. In addition, it provides services aimed at facilitating technology transfer and the development of research projects requiring large-scale computational resources. The C3 offers advanced hybrid High-Performance Computing (HPC) services and reliable data storage, adapting to projects that require both CPU- and GPU-intensive computing.

The new supercomputer has been funded through European NextGenerationEU funds, as well as national and regional grants, including competitive infrastructure projects awarded by the Spanish State Research Agency (EQC2021-007184-P) for research in the simulation of complex engineering systems, and by the Community of Madrid to support research actions related to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, financed with REACT-EU resources from the European Regional Development Fund (REACT-PREDCOV-CM-23475).

More information:

Scientific Computing Center (C3) website: https://www.uc3m.es/cai/C3 

Photos on Flickr: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCDVAa

This new method estimates the probability that one individual resembles another user based on the data set within the system (e.g., age, gender, interests, etc.), thus providing much more useful information for evaluating and comparing the privacy of its users.

“This approach allows us to examine in greater detail the level of anonymity offered by different digital platforms and understand how small changes in the way data is stored can have a major impact on privacy,” says Rubén Cuevas.

A metric tested through practical use cases

The researchers have applied this metric to platforms such as LinkedIn, X and Meta, and the results show significant differences between them. “We have seen that LinkedIn and X provide greater privacy protection than Meta. We have also found that, with very simple changes, such as replacing a user's exact age with an age range, Meta could improve its privacy level more than tenfold,” explains Rubén Cuevas.

The researchers emphasise the importance of users being aware of the level of privacy provided by the digital services they use in order to reduce the risks associated with leaks or misuse of personal information.

“People should be aware of which databases are storing their information and what protection they provide, as leaks can lead to dangerous practices if the systems are not well designed,” concludes Rubén Cuevas.  

ANTICIPA Project

This project is part of the agreement between INCIBE and UC3M entitled ANTICIPA, included in the Strategic Projects in Spain, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan, with funding from the Next Generation-EU Funds. These initiatives are part of the Global Security Innovation Program, included in the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan (PRTR), through Component 15. Investment 7 Cybersecurity: Strengthening the capabilities of citizens, SMEs, and professionals and promoting the sector.

INCIBE is an entity under the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Administration through the Secretariat of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure, consolidated as a benchmark entity for the development of cybersecurity and digital trust among citizens and businesses. It is also a driver of social transformation and an opportunity for innovation, promoting R&D&I and talent.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching, and innovation. It ranks as the best Spanish public university in employability according to The Global University Employability Ranking and Survey 2026; among the top universities in Spain for its overall performance in the latest edition of the U-Ranking; and among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2026. It is also the first university in Europe to achieve dual ACEEU accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric. It also has other accreditations and quality distinctions, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering and AACSB accreditation in business and finance programs.

Bibliographic reference: A. Merino, A. Cuevas, R. Cuevas. KPN-anonymity: Extension of K-anonymity for user anonymity evaluation on web applications. Array.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.array.2025.100499.

The ROCINANTE project (Taming nonlinear oscillations and turbulence for optimal design and operation of space plasma thrusters), funded with €2 million from the ERC, aims to tackle one of the major challenges in space propulsion: understanding and controlling specific plasma fluctuations inside electrodeless plasma thrusters (EPTs). These devices could revolutionize space travel because they significantly simplify the propulsion system and can operate with virtually any type of propellant, making them especially appealing for long-duration missions that may require in-flight refueling using resources found, for instance, on Mars.

However, current EPTs show relatively low efficiency, largely due to plasma oscillations and turbulence that cause energy losses and damage engine walls. “This is one of the blind spots preventing us from designing truly versatile and efficient thrusters,” explains Mario Merino, principal investigator of the project in UC3M’s Department of Aerospace Engineering. ROCINANTE seeks to understand these phenomena by analyzing plasma fluctuations from multiple angles: obtaining direct experimental measurements, developing a fast and accurate computational model of plasma dynamics, studying how different types of oscillations interact, and exploring —for the first time— the possibility of actively controlling them to mitigate their harmful effects.

To do this, the team will build a specially designed ECR (electron cyclotron resonance) plasma source, equipped with advanced sensors and actuators capable of “listening to” and “seeing” plasma oscillations in great detail, but also altering them. They will also develop an innovative computer simulator —a next-generation particle-in-cell code— to realistically reproduce these phenomena much faster than current tools allow. Through these experiments, simulations, and new data-analysis techniques, ROCINANTE could transform our understanding of plasma dynamics in these devices and pave the way for space thrusters that are far more efficient, durable, and reliable, while opening new research avenues in active fluctuation control.

A new framework for understanding social mobility

The second project selected in this call, EXKIN (Mobility, Sorting and Inequality with Extended Kinship Data), will examine the persistence of socioeconomic inequalities across generations. Its goal is to develop a unified conceptual and empirical framework capable of integrating different measures of intergenerational mobility, from traditional parent-child correlations to multigenerational or surname-based approaches. It will also analyze the transmission of social status across different time horizons.

The research will use administrative records and population databases to reconstruct extensive kinship networks, incorporating links between siblings and spouses. The richness of these structures will provide far more “empirical moments” than previous studies and allow the team to rigorously test predictions derived from the new theoretical framework. Key issues to be addressed include the role of assortative mating, the transmission of skills, and the long-term stability of inequality.

“The project’s findings aim to deepen our understanding of how family environments shape individuals’ life and economic trajectories and to provide tools that support better public-policy design to reduce persistent inequalities,” notes Jan Leonard Stuhler, the project’s principal investigator from UC3M’s Department of Economics.

These research grants highlight UC3M’s strong commitment to excellence in research. To date, the University has secured 21 ERC projects since the program’s creation (8 Starting Grants, 9 Consolidator Grants, and 4 Proof of Concept Grants), with total funding exceeding €28 million.

The study, published in Nature, analyzed more than one million cells using next-generation sequencing technologies.

“What is most surprising,” explains Dr. Iván Ballesteros, professor in the Departament of Neuroscience and Biomedical Sciences and in the Faculty of Health Sciences  at UC3M and researcher at the CNIC – is “is that individual neutrophils live only a few hours, yet this cell population maintains a stable architecture throughout life. It is a pattern that emerges from chaos. Understanding this logic opens new avenues to guide immunity toward healing.”

The work also shows that, until now, the lack of a reliable  benchmark limited our ability to interpret the true role of these cells.

Yale-CNIC scientist Andrés Hidalgo notes that previous studies were largely focused on specific diseases, such as cancer or infection. “Here, we brought together an enormous variety of conditions—from pregnancy and fetal development to infections, cancer, myocardial infarction, and aging.”

By integrating all these data,” adds co–first author Daniela Cerezo-Wallis (Yale University), “we were able to observe how neutrophils follow common patterns despite their apparent diversity.”

Cross-species analyses, explains co–first author Andrea Rubio-Ponce (CNIC), showed that many of these cell programs are unexpectedly conserved between mice and humans. “This greatly facilitates translation to clinical studies and accelerates the development of biomarkers and new therapies,” adds Laiguan Ng of Westlake University.

In addition to bringing order to a traditionally fragmented field, NeuMap provides a practical tool that will allow researchers to identify which neutrophil types are present in a disease and what function they may perform.

The authors emphasize that the atlas will be freely available to the scientific community worldwide.

The research received funding from the Cancer Research Institute; the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities / Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI); Fundación BBVA; Worldwide Cancer Research; NIH; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; Fundación Leducq; IZKF/IMF Münster; Bachynski Family Foundation; Canada Foundation for Innovation; National Medical Research Council and Skin Research Institute of Singapore; National Natural Science Foundation of China; European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR; and the European Regional Development Fund.

In addition to this work with students, the study will include interviews with teachers to identify the real needs they encounter in the classroom. Meanwhile, the textbooks used at this stage of education will be analysed to see how publishers integrate work on this skill, which is explicitly included in the LOMLOE (Spain’s 2020 Organic Law amending the Organic Law on Education).

“We know from previous studies that when we start working on these skills in adolescence, it’s already too late. So it is essential to intervene at an early age,” Eva Herrero points out. “Children of the new generations will have to deal with increasingly sophisticated misinformation, and it is essential that teachers have access to real tools to address it in the classroom.”

The project (AMIKIDS-EP - Media Literacy in Primary Education. How to develop children's critical skills to promote a safe digital environment) is part of the State Research Plan formed by a team of 20 researchers in the fields of communication and education, coordinated by UC3M and involving Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Universidad de Valladolid, Universidad de Huelva, Universidad San Pablo CEU, Universidad de Nebrija, Tecnocampus (Catalonia) and Universidad Europea de Madrid. It also has the support of RTVE, the Catalan Audiovisual Council, iCmedia, and the European Association for Digital Transition, entities that will be particularly involved in the results transfer phase and the design of resources for teachers.

More information:

UC3M Research Portal: AMIKIDS-EP

“The advantage of using topological optimization for part design is that you automatically obtain the optimal shape, instead of having to apply different iterations and calculations,” says one of the authors of the study, Abraham Vadillo Morillas, from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC3M, whose doctoral thesis is based on this area of research. “In addition, this process has other advantages, such as direct and indirect cost savings. For example, an airplane manufactured with a lighter part than the original will be more environmentally friendly and will make travel cheaper for the passenger,” he notes.

A world of applications to discover

Although the experimental evaluation of these advances has been focused on the manufacture of motorcycle parts, the applications of these methods are much broader, as many sectors can benefit from the reduction in weight of their components, as well as the improvement in their rigidity.

“Any part subjected to loads or vibrations can benefit from these advances: from vehicle components to industrial machinery elements, architectural structures, jewellery and even fashion,” explains another of the researchers, Cristina Castejón Sisamón, professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC3M and head of the MAQLAB research group.

The methodology used to achieve these advances consisted of adapting topological optimization to the main manufacturing processes and improving the interpretability and accuracy of the results using new algorithms. In the case of additive manufacturing, the researchers have developed specific methods for 3D printing that have already been used to manufacture motorcycle components that have significantly reduced their weight. 

Recently, the team has begun to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in order to move toward even more autonomous optimization processes. “Our goal is to develop agents that can adjust optimization parameters themselves, in an approach we have called AVM (Adaptive Variable Modelling). In this way, we hope that the new AI-based tools will change the paradigm of mechanical design and enable the generation of optimal parts more quickly, accurately and efficiently,” concludes Castejón.

The doctoral thesis produced based on this line of research was the first related to the MotoStudent competition project in which UC3M participates with its students and the MOTO-MAQLAB-UC3M association. This line of research began more than ten years ago with the aim of supporting students participating in this competition. The results of the research are already tangible in the different prototypes that have participated in several editions of MotoStudent, some of which are on display at the entrance to the Torres Quevedo Building on the Leganés Campus. 

Bibliographic references:

Vadillo, A., Meneses, J., Bustos, A. et al. Improving performance and convergence in topology optimization for print-ready designs. Struct Multidisc Optim 68, 189 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00158-025-04090-z 

Vadillo Morillas, A (2024). Novel methods in topology optimisation for additive/subtractive manufacturing in the digital environment. Application to motorbike design. Tesis doctoral Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica. https://hdl.handle.net/10016/46241

Participants were asked to walk while listening to three types of footstep sounds: one unmodified, one with footsteps that sounded as if they were produced by a lighter body, and one with footsteps that sounded as if they were produced by a heavier body. In addition, participants answered questionnaires about their body image, possible symptoms of eating disorders, and the breadth of their social support networks.

The results of this experiment showed that people with larger and more diverse social networks were generally less influenced by the sound illusion and tended to be more satisfied with their body image and have fewer symptoms of eating disorders. Conversely, the modified effects of the steps were more intense in people with smaller social networks, leading to the conclusion that body perception and its malleability not only depend on immediate sensory stimuli but are also influenced by the social structure in which the person is integrated. 

“The implications of our study are that your circle of friends influences how you perceive your own body. If you have a wider circle of friends, you perceive your body in a more positive way,” says Anxo Sánchez, a researcher in the Department of Mathematics at UC3M. “People would think that self-perception depends on oneself, but in reality it depends on the number of people who support you and surround you,” explains another of the study's authors, Amar D'Adamo, a researcher in the Department of Computer Science at UC3M.

These findings show that having broad and diverse social support reinforces the stability of body self-perception and protects against the influence of external signals that could distort it. This discovery, in turn, opens the door to new social interventions that serve to promote a more positive body image and mitigate the effects of weight-related stigma.

In addition, the team proposes the use of mobile applications to help people who may suffer from disorders associated with a negative self-perception of their own body: "At the i_mBODY Lab, we develop sensory technologies that allow us to change the perception of the body. We are also very focused on applications because we want to understand how we can use these technologies to support people," explains Ana Tajadura, head of the i_mBODY Lab, researcher at the Department of Computer Science at UC3M and ERC grantee.

This research has been supported by the European Research Council (ERC grant agreement No. 101002711; BODYinTRANSIT project), as well as the BBVA Foundation through its Fundamentos program and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the BASIC (PID2022-141802NB-I00) and SENSEBEAT-DS (PID2023-150259OB-C21) projects. In turn, the project has been funded by the Carlos III University of Madrid and the European Union (Horizon 2020 research and innovation program -Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant Agreement No. 801538).

Bibliographic reference:

D’Adamo, A. Sánchez, A. De Coster, L. Tajadura-Jiménez, A. (2025).Sound effects on body perception vary with the social support network of individuals. iScience, Volume 28, Issue 8, 2025, 113091, ISSN 2589-0042, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113091

Jesús Gonzalo Muñoz (Madrid, 1958) has been a Professor in the area of Fundamentals of Economic Analysis in the Department of Economics at UC3M since 2003. He received his PhD from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 1991. He was a professor for five years at Boston University in Massachusetts, also in the US. His research focuses on the areas of econometrics and climate change. He has more than 7,900 citations on Google Scholar and ranks in the top 3% and 5% worldwide in most of the impact indicators for RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) publications. In addition, two of his articles are among the top 1% of the most cited articles in economics. He is a Fellow of the Journal of Econometrics and the International Association of Applied Econometrics.

Daniel García González (Leganés, 1992) is an associate professor in the Department of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Theory at UC3M, where he directs the MULTIBIOSTRUCTURES Lab, focused on the development of multifunctional materials and their application in biomechanics, soft robotics, and mechanobiology. An industrial engineer and PhD from UC3M, he completed a postdoc at the University of Oxford, where he studied the mechanical behavior of brain tissues and their functional response. He is the principal investigator of an ERC Starting Grant (4D-BIOMAP; GA 947723) and two ERC Proof of Concept grants (MAGMATED, GA 101247449; ISBIOMECH, GA 101081713), in addition to several national projects and international collaborations. He has been awarded the Matilde Ucelay National Research Prize for Young People, is co-founder of the spin-off 60Nd S.L., and is a member and current secretary general of the Young Academy of Spain.

This list, which has gained considerable resonance in recent years, has been coordinated by John Ioannidis of Stanford University and was recently published by Elsevier under the title: August 2025 data-update for “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators”. 

It uses Elsevier's Scopus database as a reference and ranks researchers according to various bibliometric indicators: total number of citations, H-index, co-author adjusted H-index, number of citations to articles as sole, first, or last author, etc.

Two lists of highly cited researchers

This ranking provides two lists of researchers who are among the top 2% most cited in their scientific fields: one that quantifies their impact throughout their research career, and another list for their impact in the previous year (2024).

This edition features 43 members of UC3M: 30 (out of a total of 230,333) in the list that analyzes their entire research career and 31 (out of a total of 187,674) in the list that refers only to the impact of their research in 2024. The details are broken down in the following table: 

This project marks a milestone due to its approach and its team members, which include a notable number of women and Spanish participants. Participants include: Sara García Alonso, reserve astronaut for the European Space Agency (ESA); Isabel Vera Trallero, director of the Office of Space and Society at the Spanish Space Agency; and Beatriz Puente-Espada, director of the Aerospace Medicine Training Center (CIMA) of the Air and Space Force. The Spanish team is completed by: Professor Óscar Flores Arias, director of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at UC3M; master's student Huc Pentinat Llurba at TAMU; and the participation of the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA).

Cutting-edge science to counteract the challenges of microgravity

During space missions, the absence of gravity gradients causes a redistribution of body fluids towards the head, which can cause vision problems, increased intracranial pressure, and increased risk of blood clots in the neck. To combat these effects, the team tested a technique called Lower Body Negative Pressure (LBNP), which applies negative pressure to the legs to redistribute fluids back to the lower body and normalize circulation.

“The most interesting thing about this project is that we are evaluating such a promising countermeasure as LBNP in real microgravity conditions. This will allow us to analyze the effectiveness of LBNP in protecting the ocular and cardiovascular health of astronauts, two of the major challenges of long-duration space missions,” says Oscar Flores. In addition to marking a turning point in protecting the health of astronauts, “the validation of the LBNP technique may also open the door to medical applications here on Earth” he adds. 

Throughout the parabolic flight, the effectiveness of this technique will be analyzed by measuring blood circulation in the neck and other cardiovascular and ocular parameters. This collaborative effort is an example of global research with renowned partners in the US, such as the University of California, Davis, and the University of Florida. The project is funded by ESA, NASA, TAMU, and Lockheed Martin Corporation, underscoring its international importance.

“Our goal is not to diagnose cancer, but to provide physicians with an effective tool to monitor the evolution of the disease after treatment,” explains Joaquín Martínez-López, president of Altum Sequencing. “Current diagnostic tools have sensitivity limitations, which makes early detection of these relapses difficult, but thanks to NGS (next generation sequencing) DNA sequencing technology, we can detect one tumour cell among a million healthy cells from a simple blood sample,” he adds. 

The methodology used to detect relapses so early begins with an initial tumour biopsy. Next, patient-specific mutations are identified. This is followed up by blood tests looking for traces of these mutations in circulating tumour DNA. 

"The advantage of our technology is that it is very minimally invasive, versatile and tailored to each tumour type. In addition, the cost is significantly reduced by focusing only on mutations relevant to each patient. This also allows us to avoid unnecessary treatments and minimizes the risk of false positives," adds Marina Planas, CEO of Altum Sequencing.

The potential of this innovation goes beyond breast cancer, as the technology is applicable to any type of solid tumour. The researchers are therefore working to obtain the necessary regulatory approvals in both Europe and the United States with the aim of making this tool available in hospitals around the world. "We started with haematological cancers such as multiple myeloma and acute myeloid leukaemia, but we are already seeing good results in lung cancers as well, so our goal is to transform cancer monitoring. Today, we can detect one cell in a million. In the future, it will be one in ten million," concludes the CEO.

The company plans to advance the integration of emerging technologies with the implementation of generative artificial intelligence throughout this year. After incorporating machine learning algorithms into its processes, its goal now is to use this new technology to improve diagnostic accuracy, optimize the adaptation of treatments and provide more useful and personalized information to patients.

Altum Sequencing has been supported by the Centre for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA) at the UC3M Science Park, located in the Leganés Tecnológico Science, Technology and Business Park. It has also received support from the Community of Madrid, the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER, for its acronym in Spanish). The company also collaborates with the 12 de Octubre Hospital, the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, HM hospitals, the Hospital Regional de Málaga, and other research centres such as the CNIO, Universidad Complutense and IBIMA, which have coordinated the study from Málaga, thanks to its principal investigator, Iñaki Comino.

Bibliographic reference: Comino-Méndez, I., Velasco-Suelto, J., Pascual, J. et al. Identification of minimal residual disease using the clonesight test for ultrasensitive ctDNA detection to anticipate late relapse in early breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res 27, 65 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13058-025-02016-7

This scientific project has determined that innovative changes in the organization of working time can increase productivity and improve the work-life balance of workers, as well as retain talent. "The 4-day working day attracts many skilled workers. The first companies to implement them will have workforces that are more engaged and less willing to leave for competitors. It is therefore strategic for pioneering companies to opt for these measures before they become the general rule," says another of the researchers involved in the InnovaWorking project, Pablo Gimeno Díaz de Atauri, from the Department of Labor and Social Security Law at the Complutense University of Madrid.

The researchers have also analyzed the importance of worker participation through trade unions, although they point out that it is advisable to avoid magic formulas. "Not all sectors allow the same solution. For everything to work, it is important that companies take into account their specific conditions of production, organization and shifts, and that workers' representatives express their needs," says Ana Belén Muñoz Ruiz, professor in the UC3M Department of Social and International Private Law. 

Labor innovations beyond the technology sector

The cases studied as part of this project show that it is possible to apply these measures outside the technology sector, such as in the construction, metal or catering industries. However, they have found that not all countries respond equally to flextime. For example, in countries where national legislation guarantees collective bargaining and collective agreements are binding, such as France and Spain, the formulas are more innovative. On the other hand, in Hungary and Ireland, where social dialogue is weaker, where there are more legal rigidities and where there is less of a bargaining tradition, initiatives tend to come from companies.

The continuing aging of the population in most European countries has brought about a change in the age profile of the workforce. Some companies are adopting different initiatives in this field, such as reducing weekly working hours, in order to encourage their older employees to stay with the company. According to the researchers, this new context makes it necessary to rethink the organization of working time, adapting it to the needs of a diverse workforce and to the social and economic challenges of the present. In fact, InnovaWorking's research results could have an impact on European labor policies concerning the expansion of digitization at work and also evidence the need to regulate the right to digital disconnection by workers.

InnovaWorking (Innovative and flexible approaches to working time) is a European scientific project funded by the European Commission (GA 101126491) and coordinated by UC3M. Also participating in this consortium are: Hague University of Applied Sciences from the Netherlands, Tampereen Korkeakoulusaatio SR (TAU) from Finland, Eotvos Lorand Tudomanyegyetem (ELTE) from Hungary, University College Dublin, National University of Ireland, the trade unions of UGT, the First of May Cultural Foundation of CCOO (F1M), as well as the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). 

Organized in collaboration with the European Parliament and OPERA – Alianza 4 Universidades in Bruselas.

More information:

https://www.elforodelabos.es/innovaworking/

The information collected through sensors placed in the soil is analysed by AI models and used to implement better strategies for the early prevention of pests or climatic damage such as frost, drought, hail and periods of torrential rain. “Currently, our predictive models are focused on olive trees and tomatoes, but the methodology developed is applicable to more than 80 types of crops, from extensive to woody,” adds Samuel López.

For data collection, they have designed a wireless sensor that is inexpensive and can also collect data in real time in order to optimize decisions on irrigation and fertilizer application. The latest step in the company's R&D&I has been to develop new AI algorithms and implement new sensors: flow meters to monitor irrigation remotely, rain gauges to monitor relative humidity and ambient temperature, plus anemometers for wind and other radiation sensors. 

“All this data modelling allows us to anticipate the needs of the farm, either in terms of irrigation or air expulsion. At the end of the day, data and AI are there to be used and to make our lives easier, not only helping farmers in their decision-making, but also making agriculture more efficient and sustainable,” concludes Samuel López.

Apart from its applications in the area of intensive agriculture, the technology developed by Plantae is being used in professional gardening and to optimize pitch maintenance at several professional football clubs in Spain. 

In addition to the development of services and new algorithms dedicated to AI, Plantae is focusing on a new NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) sensor. This device aims to distinguish between nutrients, thereby improving fertilization strategies and reducing carbon footprints, a global necessity within sustainability strategies and the fight against climate change.

This start-up has been supported by the Business Incubator of the Centre for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA) at the UC3M Science Park, located in the Leganés Tecnológico Science, Technology and Business Park. 

More information:

https://www.uc3m.es/parquecientifico/cartera-empresas-marcas/plantae

Daniel García González is the only finalist affiliated with a Spanish university. The other finalists are associated with institutions such as the Centre for Genomic Regulation, the Institute for Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) and the University of Chicago (USA).

An industrial engineer and PhD graduate with international distinction from UC3M, García González (Leganés, 1992) completed postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford, focusing on the mechanical behavior of brain tissue and its functional response. He currently leads several research projects, including a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant project (4D-BIOMAP; GA 947723), an ERC Proof of Concept project (ISBIOMECH; GA 101081713), and various national initiatives. He has established a multidisciplinary laboratory—MULTIBIOSTRUCTURES Lab (Multifunctional Structures and Biomechanics)—at the Innovation Center for Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA) within the UC3M Science Park in Leganés Tecnológico. There, he develops novel multifunctional materials and theoretical formulations that integrate mechanics with other physical phenomena, applying them to bioengineering challenges in collaboration with a broad international network. García González has completed research stays at numerous prestigious institutions and is a member of the Young Academy of Spain, where he currently serves as secretary. Among his many accolades, he received the 2023 National Research Award for Young Researchers ‘Matilde Ucelay’ in the Engineering and Architecture category, in recognition of the originality and interdisciplinary impact of his groundbreaking contributions to the development of smart and multifunctional materials and their applications in bioengineering.

In the field of innovation, García González has spearheaded the creation of 60Nd, S.L., a UC3M-backed spin-off specializing in the design and production of instrumentation for simulating biological processes influenced by mechanical stimuli in vitro. The company aims to develop and commercialize disruptive technology to induce mechanical activation in cells using magneto-sensitive materials. This technology opens new avenues for research in mechanobiology and mechanomedicine, with the potential to reduce time and costs in pharmaceutical research phases and to enhance the quality and effectiveness of treatments.

Spain’s Organic Law 2/2023 on the University System (LOSU) outlines three core missions of universities: teaching, research, and the transfer and exchange of knowledge. For an institution to be recognized as a university, it must meet adequate standards across all these areas. “The problem is that, unlike public universities, private institutions typically allocate very limited resources to research,” explained Sanz-Casado. As of the 2024–25 academic year, Spain has 50 public and 41 private universities, according to data from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

The IUNE Observatory serves as a vital tool for monitoring the scientific activity of institutions across both public and private sectors. Its annual reports assess university R&D&I through 42 indicators grouped into eight key dimensions: scientific output, analysis by subject area, emerging research activity, training capacity, competitiveness, funding, innovation, and academic staff. “To my knowledge, no other country has such a comprehensive and publicly accessible observatory for university scientific activity,” Sanz-Casado added.

Academic staff in public and private universities

The number of tenured faculty members in public and private universities has evolved significantly over the past decade. While staffing growth in public universities (including civil servants and permanent contract holders) has slowed, private universities have experienced annual increases of around 6%, reaching a peak of 11.73% in the most recent period.

In terms of scientific productivity per faculty member, public universities steadily increased their output until 2021, reaching 1.15 publications per professor, before seeing a slight decline to 1.02% in 2022. In contrast, productivity at private institutions has remained stagnant at approximately 0.4 publications per professor, despite staff increases. “This trend reflects both the steady rise in output and the lack of faculty renewal in public universities,” the report notes.

Scientific publications

The overall annual growth in scientific publications has slowed from an average of 5.92% to 4.86%. Similarly, the average productivity of the Spanish University System—measured as publications per professor—has decreased from a growth rate of 6.32% to 5.47%.

“These figures confirm a downward trend in recent years, driven in part by declining faculty numbers at public universities, which have decreased at an average rate of 0.6% annually in the current decade,” the report states. “Spanish universities—especially public ones—are the main drivers of research in the country and serve as a backbone for the national scientific system. Strengthening collaboration between universities and other key stakeholders in the system is essential,” the report concludes.

The IUNE Observatory is supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, as well as by a large number of institutions such as the (Spanish) National Quality Assessment and Accreditation Agency (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Spanish University Rectors’ Conference (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for  Industrial Technological Development  (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Catalan University System Quality Agency (AQU Catalunya, in its Spanish acronym) and the Basque University System Quality Agency (Unibasq, in its Spanish acronym).

More information: https://iune.es/ 

From research to business

The CR3A Spin-off programme encourages scientists to explore new ways of capitalising on the results of their research and transforming their findings into business opportunities. In addition, it offers specialised support and mentoring for initiatives that reach a certain level of maturity and can be developed into an innovative company.

“The aim is to facilitate and support the transition from academic research to the creation of knowledge-based companies (known as KBCs), thus contributing to economic development and technological progress,” says Ascensión Sáenz, head of the SEI's Business Creation and Acceleration Area at UC3M.

To this end, the programme will offer a series of workshops and training activities over a period of six months, specifically designed to guide research personnel through the process of transforming their projects into business opportunities. The sessions will provide the tools and knowledge necessary for them to reach the level of maturity required to become an innovative company. Among other topics, they will address issues related to financial aspects, intellectual property, marketing, team management, obtaining investors and other regulatory and legal aspects, for example. 

Strengthening innovative companies

The CONSOLIDA programme provides support to UC3M spin-offs which are already established, as well as other start-ups linked to the Centre for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA) of the UC3M - Leganés Tecnológico Science Park which seek to consolidate in the market and achieve sustainable growth. To this end, the Centre aims to support these companies in various ways: strengthening their organisational and operational structure, developing strategies to scale up their businesses and access new markets, and accessing new sources of funding. In addition, it seeks to expand the companies' contact and partner networks and implement collaboration between research groups and industry for the co-creation of innovative solutions, among other avenues of action. 

“This programme is aimed at companies that already have a minimum viable product (MVP) and are looking to advance in some crucial stages, such as demonstration, pilot development, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services,” explains the director of the UC3M SEI, Ana Acebrón Rodicio.

CONSOLIDA is working with experienced industry mentors who provide personalised advice in each case. On the one hand, it provides advice on the preparation of financing proposals and the search for investors, such as investment funds, business angels and venture capital firms. On the other hand, it holds practical workshops focused on topics such as advanced financial management, strategic marketing, product development and international expansion. Finally, the progress of the spin-off is continuously monitored during and after the programme, in order to ensure that the objectives set are being met and to make adjustments to the strategy if necessary.

Web CR3A y CONSOLIDA

https://www.uc3m.es/innovation/Programas_CR3A_CONSOLIDA

“Our company was created to address two of the biggest challenges facing the space sector today: space debris removal and in-orbit services. The latter allow us to extend the useful life of satellites and carry out key activities such as refueling, repair and towing of satellites from their initial orbit to their final destination,” explains Jesús Manuel Muñoz Tejeda, CEO and co-founder of PERSEI Space. 

Space debris poses a very serious threat to the sustainability of space operations since, due to the high speed at which debris moves in Earth orbit, an impact can result in severe damage and the generation of more small debris. In addition, the current density of space debris is already above the threshold that triggers an uncontrolled chain of collisions, known as the Kessler syndrome.  

To get rid of this space junk, PERSEI Space is working on space tethers, a technology with three key features. “The first is that it does not need fuel, unlike other de-orbiting systems. The second is that our technology is reversible; it can serve to both increase and decrease the orbital height . And the third feature is that it is scalable, since it serves a wide range of satellite masses. With all this, we can develop autonomous de-orbiting systems, a unique feature of our technology that ensures that the satellite does not leave space debris, even if it ceases to be operational,” explains Jesús Manuel Muñoz Tejeda.

Space tethers 

The system is based on electrodynamic tethers, aluminum ribbons, generally hundreds of meters long and a few centimeters wide, which work by interacting with the ionospheric plasma and the Earth's magnetic field to generate a force known as the Lorentz force. 

“The interaction of the electric current in the tether with the Earth's magnetic field generates a drag force capable of lowering the satellite's altitude, facilitating its de-orbiting without requiring fuel, which translates into significant savings in mass and volume,” says Gonzalo Sánchez Arriaga, professor in the UC3M Department of Aerospace Engineering and co-founder of PERSEI Space.

PERSEI Space is leading a first demonstration mission for 2026, thanks to a launch opportunity facilitated by ESA's Flight Tickets Initiative and the European Commission. The deorbiting equipment for this demonstration has a mass of 20 kg, and includes a space tether approximately 430 meters long that, once in orbit, will deploy and interact with the ambient plasma and magnetic field, generating a drag force that will deorbit the satellite within a few months. This equipment has been funded with 2.5 M€ by the European Innovation Council, and in collaboration with SENER Aerospace, the University of Padua and the Technical University of Dresden. The development of the technology could not be more timely, as new European and US guidelines have reduced the maximum time satellites can remain in orbit after the end of their mission from 25 to 5 years.

The company PERSEI Space has signed ESA's Zero Space Debris Charter initiative, which seeks to achieve a sustainable space by 2030. The company, in turn, is linked to the UC3M's Business Creation and Entrepreneurial Development program and also has the support of the Madrid City Council.

More information: 

https://www.uc3m.es/ss/Satellite/InnovacionEmprendimiento/en/TextoMixta/1371408324113/PERSEi_Space,_S.L.

The people behind this project have explained that one of the many applications of this new technology is to make networks capable of recognizing if there is a higher concentration of people in a certain area, if an elderly person has suffered a fall at home, or to optimize the distribution of coverage by dynamically adapting to the needs of users.

Other potential uses that MultiX is currently working on are industrial automation processes and home-connected healthcare. “On the one hand, we want networks to be able to coordinate the movement of robots in real time, detecting obstacles and enabling more efficient task management,” explains Antonio de la Oliva. “On the other hand, the project is working on contactless health monitoring in the domestic environment. That is, through connected home devices, it will be possible to monitor vital signs such as heart rate or respiration. In fact, the network could even detect emergency situations, such as a heart attack, and potentially alert health services.”

MultiX is also notable with regard to its focus on sustainability, a key challenge for 6G technology. Therefore, in order to maximize energy efficiency and reduce resource consumption, the project uses artificial intelligence to implement low-power solutions and thus adapt to the requirements of future networks. 

The project will substantiate its progress through two proof-of-concepts designed to demonstrate practical applications of the technologies developed. The first consists of a multilayer digital network twin, aimed at optimizing processes in the field of industrial manufacturing. The second proof will focus on contactless health monitoring in the home environment, with the aim of transforming home healthcare. These technologies, combined with AI, could optimize diagnosis and treatment in health-related matters even from home, according to the researchers.

The MultiX project has been funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme (GA 101192521) and involves: Apple Technology Engineering BV&CO (Germany), BubbleRAN (France), Siemens AG (Germany), Telefónica S.A. (Spain), Networks (Italy), INTEL Deutschland GmbH (Germany), InterDigital Europe Ltd. (United Kingdom), Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecommunicazioni (Italy), the Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics (Germany), the Fundació Privada i2CAT - Internet i Innovació Digital a Catalunya (Spain), the IMDEA Networks Foundation (Spain), the Institute for Acceleration Systems and Applications (Greece), NEC Laboratories Europe GmbH (Germany), Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A. OTE (Greece), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), Universidad de Cantabria and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain). Within this organizational structure, Professor Antonio de la Oliva (UC3M) acts as Principal Researcher, Valerio Frascolla (INTEL) as Innovation Director and Xi Li (NEC) as Technical Director. The project began in January 2025 and is expected to complete its work in June 2027.

MultiX project website:

https://multix-6g.eu

In addition to the software, the system is composed of a specialized electromechanical controller, called “eJamar”, which is capable of measuring, through specialized sensors, the entire range of motion of the hand and wrist, as well as the patient's grip strength. The system, in turn, is able to store this information during each session, so that a specialist can consult the patient's condition and check their progress over time, automatically recording metrics (strength profiles, fatigue, reaction times, etc.) that cannot be obtained using traditional methods. A paper on the development of this system was recently published in the scientific journal Applied Sciences.

During the initial phase of the research, the researchers identified certain requirements that had not been met by traditional upper extremity rehabilitation treatments. “We realized that training games (or serious games) were being used to support rehabilitation treatments, but that there were very few physical devices dedicated to promoting hand mobility and improving grip strength. So, it was precisely from this vacuum that the idea of designing a device to meet this need arose”, explains one of the study's authors, Andrés Fernando Cela Rosero, from the UC3M Department of Systems Engineering and Automation. 

The system, funded by Roboasset, i-REHAB project, which in turn is supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and co-financed by the European Union and iRoboCity2030-CM, which is supported by the R&D Activity Programmes in the Community of Madrid, has been approved by doctors and specialized personnel so that this rehabilitation technology is easy to implement in routine clinical practice. “In fact, we have already completed a series of tests with patients in rehabilitation stages and the results are very encouraging”, says another of the researchers, Edwin Daniel Oña Simbaña, also from the UC3M Department of Systems Engineering and Automation. “In this way, by combining a traditional treatment with 30 minutes of exercises with our exergames, patients have improved both their range of motion and their grip strength by up to 100%”, he adds. 

Another advantage of this device is that it can be used in a wide range of cases, from fractures or hand injuries to neurological pathologies such as stroke, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's disease.

In turn, given the simplicity of the system, the researchers believe that these interactive video games can be a useful tool for telerehabilitation, as they can contribute to reducing the waiting list for patients to access these treatments. For this reason, the authors of the study encourage both health entities and users to try this technology in order to continue working in this line of research.

Bibliographic reference: Cela AF, Oña ED, Jardón A. (2024). eJamar: A Novel Exergame Controller for Upper Limb Motor Rehabilitation. Applied Sciences. 2024; 14(24):11676. https://doi.org/10.3390/app142411676 

Until now, these factors were considered unavoidable shortcomings of the 3D printing process. However, the researchers have managed to control these characteristics by integrating advanced computational tools and experimental trials, which has allowed them to manufacture structures that are sensitive and capable of transforming mechanical signals into electrical signals.

“A key point about this discovery is that it can be extrapolated to other types of 3D printing technology in which softer materials could be used,” adds Javier Crespo, also from UC3M's Department of Mechanics of Continuous Media and Theory of Structures. The researcher is optimistic that it will be possible to design materials that lay the foundations for future advances in additive manufacturing, thanks to the combination of these new computational tools. 

This new research, backed up by extensive experimental validation, provides a reliable approach to minimising the differences between the different behaviours of conductive components and represents a major step forward in the design of multifunctional materials, according to its authors. “For example, in the field of engineering, these structures could be used both for the manufacture of soft robots and for obtaining virtual data that can serve machine learning technologies,” notes Javier Crespo. 

Emilio Martínez-Pañeda, professor at the University of Oxford and co-author of the study, pointed out that “the research opens up endless opportunities, enabling the development of intelligent materials and sensors that could be of great use in the aerospace industry or in infrastructure monitoring.” 

“And not only that,” adds Daniel García-González, “with these new materials we could also create patches or dressings that warn us how many times we are flexing our knee so that, in the event that we have an injury, we are alerted if we are passing certain critical points where we are going to cause damage to our muscles.”

Bibliographic reference: Crespo-Miguel, J., Lucarini, S., Garzon-Hernandez, S., Arias, A., Martínez-Pañeda, E., Garcia-Gonzalez, D. (2025). In-silico platform for the multifunctional design of 3D printed conductive components. Nature Communications 16, 1359. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56707-y

Keeping with the theme of safety, the researcher points out that the flexible material from which the joint is made facilitates the absorption of any impacts that the robots may cause during the performance of their tasks, resulting in increased safety in their interactions with humans. This flexibility also allows for operations to be carried out in confined environments or in handling situations that require greater adaptability to the work environment. “And that's not all: this type of joint can function as an independent actuation module or connected with other joint modules to form a highly functional robotic handling chain,” says Concha Monje.

Another characteristic of the soft joint is that it bends with a constant curvature, which significantly simplifies its mathematical model. This facilitates the design of control systems that allow robust operation at a very low computational cost.

Finally, the researcher highlights the fact that the joint can be manufactured using standard 3D printers, with elastic materials that do not require a large investment, allowing for rapid and very economical manufacturing.

Currently, the UC3M RoboticsLab team is developing a robotic claw whose fingers feature the patented joint design. This allows it to grip objects with a high degree of dexterity, facilitated by the different contact surfaces with which the robotic arm can engage in order to attain said grip.

Referencia de la patente: C.A. Monje, C. Relaño, L.F. Nagua, S. Martínez, C. Balaguer, Eslabón para articulación blanda y articulación blanda que comprende dicho eslabón. P202030726. 19/06/2024. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

https://consultas2.oepm.es/InvenesWeb/detalle?referencia=P202030726

https://consultas2.oepm.es/ceo/jsp/busqueda/busqRapida.xhtml

To produce the uniform and regular oil lenses, the researchers immersed a glass plate vertically in water. Upon contact with the glass, the surface of the water rose a few millimetres up the plate, creating a kind of liquid micro-toboggan, called a meniscus. Taking advantage of this formation, and using a syringe, they injected an oily substance onto the plate. This oil, upon touching the water toboggan, was dragged by its own weight, fragmenting into monodisperse liquid lenses of regular shape, as if it were a trickle dripping from a tap. This whole process, explain the authors of the research, was accurately recorded using high-speed cameras (capable of capturing up to 50,000 images per second) to see the details of the rapid fragmentation process of the oil droplets on the water.

“The good thing is that this system, in addition to being inexpensive and reproducible (it can even be recreated in a rudimentary way at home), has many applications,” explains another of the study's authors, Lorène Champougny, who also carried out this research in the UC3M Department of Thermal and Fluids Engineering and is currently working at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Toulouse, France. “In the environmental arena, for example, it could help to better understand how oil spills are fragmented and dispersed on the ocean surface. This, in turn, could be used to design more effective mitigation strategies,” she adds.

However, its applications also have repercussions in other fields. As the researcher points out, “this discovery could also be used to investigate the treatment of water-repellent surfaces that are used to manufacture waterproof coatings for fabrics such as coats, hiking boots or motorcyclists' helmets. Likewise, in the food industry, it could be used to make lighter and healthier dietary dairy products, such as low-fat butters, by incorporating precise mixtures of water and air into their compositions.”

The study, recently published in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters, was carried out by UC3M researchers in collaboration with Jacco H. Snoeijer and Vincent Bertin, scientists working at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. The research was funded by Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation, Grant PID2020- 114945RB-C21 financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/50110001103 and by the European Union through the Marie Curie grant (2020-2022) obtained by Lorène Champougny.

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.254001

https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00459

https://hdl.handle.net/10016/45439

However, the researcher says that there are intermediate solutions that could be based on co-regulation, i.e. the creation of supervisory bodies made up of journalists (associations, unions) and experts (jurists, sociologists, institutional representatives and citizens). This could mitigate the reservations that part of society has in relation to the media, especially when it comes to sensitive issues such as public health, since, according to other data obtained during the research, only 60% of the people who participated in the study said that they believed that journalism seeks the truth.

“It is clear that if journalists want to avoid external interference, they need to be extremely self-regulating and tell the truth with honesty and professional rigour; in a post-pandemic context, ensuring the accuracy of information is essential to protect not only the right to information, but also the right to health, two essential foundations of a democratic society,” says Carlos Maciá-Barber.

The study, based on 1,800 online interviews nationwide and recently published in Frontiers in Communication, also reflects the need for people to learn to combat disinformation and fake news from an early age, since our perception of information manipulation varies according to age. For example, the research reveals that adults feel more confident when it comes to recognising journalistic truth: “This is because media consumption is much higher among the adult population, who tend to have a relatively high level of education and feel able to distinguish between what is the truth and what is a lie,” explains the author of the research. “And precisely because of this self-perception of strength in the face of misinformation, adults are less likely to verify the news that reaches them through the media or social networks.”

In turn, the results show that young people are more aware of their vulnerability and, therefore, make more of an effort to check whether the information they receive is accurate or not. “The unwillingness of many adults to cross-check the messages they receive, especially on health issues, can represent a major risk. We thus need to be careful when it comes to consulting Dr. Google and Nurse Wikipedia. Hoaxes on social media can cost us our lives,” concludes Carlos Maciá-Barber.

Bibliographic reference: Maciá-Barber, C. (2024). The COVID-19 pandemic and journalistic ethics: Spanish citizens' demand for external control of health communication in the media. Frontiers in Communication. Sec. Media Governance and the Public Sphere Volume 9 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1518052

With this research, financed by the Community of Madrid through the agreement-subvention for the encouragement and promotion of research and technology transfer at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (ORIGEN-CM-UC3M), the aim is to increase the protection of vehicle occupants regardless of gender in the search for a safer and more inclusive future. This is key, since anatomical and behavioural differences could mean women face a greater risk of muscular or cervical injuries due to limitations in the design of current belts during emergency braking, according to the researchers. 

“This project can provide valuable information to improve not only the future safety of autonomous vehicles, but also that of current means of transport such as trains, buses or subways, where sudden decelerations can cause injuries,” says Silvia Santos.

To carry out the study, they have designed a series of tests in which women with different anthropometric characteristics will travel in instrumented vehicles, with sensors that will measure their biomechanical response at the articular, kinematic and muscular level during different situations, such as braking in autonomous vehicles in the direction of travel or in reverse. The data obtained will be analysed with artificial intelligence tools in order to identify patterns that can help improve current safety systems and to analyse how the seatbelt affects passenger safety.

“For this reason, the university is inviting women of different ages and physical characteristics to participate in this study,” says Eva Herrero, from the UC3M Department of Communications, who is seeking collaboration in order to ensure that safety systems are inclusive and effective. “With this research, the university is reaffirming its commitment to the transfer of knowledge to society. In fact, it is thanks to the collaboration of different sectors that this type of synergistic project can be carried out, showing how scientific research can have a direct impact on people's daily lives,” she adds.

Another of the objectives of this project, which also involves the UC3M Department of Communication, is to analyse the presence of gender in institutional campaigns on road safety in order to carry out more inclusive prevention actions. “This will help to highlight all the different circumstances and provide a more comprehensive and inclusive knowledge of road safety,” concludes Herrero, who is also a member of UC3M's University Institute of Gender Studies (IEG).

More information: https://www.uc3m.es/investigacion/origen

"Automatic Content Recognition works like a kind of visual Shazam, taking screenshots or audio to create a viewer profile based on their content consumption habits. This technology enables manufacturers’ platforms to profile users accurately, much like the internet does," explains one of the study's authors, Patricia Callejo, a professor in UC3M's Department of Telematics Engineering and a fellow at the UC3M-Santander Big Data Institute. "In any case, this tracking, regardless of the usage mode, raises serious privacy concerns, especially when the TV is used solely as a monitor."

The findings, presented in November at the Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) 2024, highlight the frequency with which these screenshots are transmitted to the servers of the brands analysed: Samsung and LG. Specifically, the research showed that Samsung TVs sent this information every minute, while LG devices did so every 15 seconds. "This gives us an idea of the intensity of the monitoring and shows that smart TV platforms collect large volumes of data on users, regardless of how they consume content, whether through traditional TV viewing or devices connected via HDMI, like laptops or gaming consoles," Callejo emphasises.

To test the ability of TVs to block ACR tracking, the research team experimented with various privacy settings on smart TVs. The results demonstrated that, while users can voluntarily block the transmission of this data to servers, the default setting is for TVs to perform ACR. "The problem is that not all users are aware of this," adds Callejo, who considers this lack of transparency in initial settings concerning. "Moreover, many users don’t know how to change the settings, meaning these devices function by default as tracking mechanisms for their activity."

This research opens up new avenues for studying the tracking capabilities of cloud-connected devices that communicate with each other (commonly known as the Internet of Things, or IoT). It also suggests that manufacturers and regulators must urgently address the challenges that these new devices will present in the near future.

Bibliographic reference: Anselmi, G., Vekaria, Y., D'Souza, A., Callejo, P., Mandalari, Am., Shafiq, Z. (2024). Watching TV with the Second-Party: A First Look at Automatic Content Recognition Tracking in Smart TVs. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM on Internet Measurement Conference (IMC '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 622–634. https://doi.org/10.1145/3646547.3689013   

The chatbot can be a very useful tool, enabling researchers to perform complex image analysis tasks in a simple and intuitive manner. For example, if a researcher needs to process microscopy images using segmentation models, the chatbot can help select and execute the appropriate model.

The assistant is based on extensive language models and employs a technique called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), which enables real-time access to databases. “The main advantage is that we do not train the model with specific information; instead, we extract it from up-to-date sources, minimising errors known as ‘hallucinations’, which are common inaccuracies in other AI models like ChatGPT,” adds Arrate Muñoz Barrutia, professor in the Department of Bioengineering at UC3M and another author of the study. “This ensures the user receives truthful and contextualised information, which is the most important thing for us.”

The BioImage.IO Chatbot has additional advantages, as it is also optimised to work directly with microscopes and other laboratory equipment through an extension system that allows researchers to control these devices using simple commands sent directly from the chatbot interface. “Another benefit of our assistant is that it is open-source,” notes Muñoz Barrutia, “allowing other developers to continue creating new modules and improving the tool.”

The model was refined by these UC3M researchers in collaboration with Ericsson Inc and with significant contributions from Wanlu Lei, Gabriel Reder and Wei Ouyang at KTH’s Departments of Intelligent Systems and Applied Physics, respectively. Team members recently presented it at the I2K (From Images to Knowledge) 2024 congress held in Milan, Italy. This team has successfully integrated the chatbot into cloud-based platforms running on web browsers, enabling real-time database queries for image analysis. According to Fuster-Barceló, this extensibility is one of the chatbot’s major advantages, as it facilitates integration into different workflows, including third-party websites and other research systems.

As for the next steps, the researchers plan to enhance the chatbot’s capabilities with a more versatile AI model, capable of reading scientific articles and assisting in experiment planning. This could pave the way for advanced automation in research settings and, perhaps, greater democratisation in access to complex scientific tools, they conclude.

References: 

Lei, W., Fuster-Barceló, C., Reder, G. et al (2024). BioImage.IO Chatbot: a community-driven AI assistant for integrative computational bioimaging. Nat Methods 21, 1368–1370. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-024-02370-y

Arrate Muñoz-Barrutia, A (2024). BioImage.IO chatbot: A community-driven AI assistant for integrative computational bioimaging. I2K (From Images to Knowledge). October 23-25 2024. Milan, Italy. https://www.i2kconference.org/ 

The Spandrels project, led by Andrea Ianiro, addresses the challenge of predicting turbulence, phenomena that affect the aerodynamic drag of transport vehicles and their emissions. Combining concepts of fluid mechanics and machine learning, Ianiro seeks to develop sensors that revolutionize aerodynamics, promoting the design of more sustainable transportation systems.

The proposal, inspired by nature, seeks to replicate the efficiency of sensors in insect wings, as they can accurately detect very small changes in air flow. Ianiro's goal is to design sensors based on these models to control turbulence more efficiently, reducing the need for large amounts of data.

The second project, led by Ignacio Jurado, analyzes the role of consent of losers in democratic stability. This concept, fundamental to political legitimacy, has been called into question after events such as the attack on the Capitol in the US and the Congress in Brazil.

Jurado's research will study how elite narratives and policy proposals can reinforce or weaken this consent. Combining longitudinal analyses, comparative surveys and experiments in twenty established democracies, it will seek to understand how the breakdown of consent affects political behavior and social cooperation.

The grants obtained by Andrea Ianiro and Ignacio Jurado highlight UC3M's commitment to research excellence. In total, the university has obtained 18 ERC projects since the creation of the program (8 Starting Grants, 8 Consolidator Grants and 2 Proof of Concept) with an overall funding of around 30 million euros. 

The EPIQ chair will leverage the joint capabilities of UC3M and Arquimea’s Research Center (ARC), which has more than 500 employees. Its goal is to accelerate the adoption of emerging quantum technologies, enhancing their societal benefits in areas such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, advanced robotics, photonics, electronics and quantum technologies.

The chair is led by Cristina de Dios Fernández, Associate Professor in UC3M’s Department of Electronic Technology, overseeing research on quantum sensing, and Marta Portela, from the same department, who leads research on quantum cryptography. The chair’s team comprises 18 researchers from UC3M, including members of the Electronic Technology Department (SITec group, Microelectronics group), the Physics Department (QUEST group) and the Mathematics Department. The ARC will have 10 researchers and engineers specialising in photonics, electronics and quantum technologies involved.

A meeting was recently held to present the project, with the participation of the CEO of Arquimea Research Center, Rubén Criado, and the head of its Quantum and Photonics (Orbital) Division, Borja Jerez, both of whom hold doctorates from UC3M and are alumni of the university. Numerous team members also attended and the challenges the project will face during its initial four years of funding were highlighted, which primarily involve strengthening research in emerging technologies and contributing to the competitiveness of the global high-tech market in strategic areas such as microelectronics.

The chair also includes an educational plan that includes the awarding of eight annual scholarships for master’s students and four industrial PhD fellowships co-funded by Arquimea. These initiatives aim to train the next generation of experts in microelectronics and quantum technologies, equipping them with practical skills and experience in applied projects, which will lead to innovative solutions and faster integration of these technologies in industry.

Real Influence seeks to provide an improved alternative to impact factor, which calculates the average number of citations per scientific publication. The issue with this system, according to the researchers, is that it provides information about the individual visibility of each publication but is not immune to distortions caused by highly cited articles, among other drawbacks. For example, the impact factor measurement tends to be higher in fields where publications and citations are more frequent (such as biomedical sciences or technology) or does not reflect the long-term impact of a publication (since it typically measures citations within two years after publication).

“Our initial goal in creating Real Influence was to develop a tool that would make it possible to show the visibility of all publications in a journal and allow for comparisons between them,” explains Perianes. “This approach enables comparisons of journal distributions of different sizes without distortions, which is especially important as it avoids disadvantages for journals with lower output compared to those with significantly higher publication volumes.”

To conduct the study, recently published in the journal Quantitative Science Studies, the team compared the performance of the new indicator across nearly four hundred journals in the fields of Library and Information Science, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The analysis results show that Real Influence is less vulnerable to manipulation, better represents the complete distribution of publications and, above all, provides a more detailed and fairer perspective based on the visibility of each article.

The methodology of Real Influence is inspired by the use of percentiles in fields such as economics or paediatric growth. This approach avoids biases caused by exceptionally cited articles by not only evaluating the citations received, but also considering the relative position of each article within the universe of citations within its category. This makes it easily adaptable and implementable in any data system compatible with citation studies, such as WoS or Scopus.

Reference: Perianes-Rodríguez, A. Mira, B. S. Martínez-Ávila, D.  Cabrini Grácio, M. C. Real influence: A novel approach to characterize the visibility of journals and publications. Quantitative Science Studies, págs 778–804 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00316

The next meeting, focused on “Artificial Intelligence and Health”, will be held this Thursday, November 28, from 12pm to 2pm, in the auditorium of the Center for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA) at the UC3M Science Park. This event will address how AI is transforming healthcare, from the analysis of symptoms and the treatment of diseases to the planning of healthcare management systems. Among the speakers at this table are José Manuel Molina López, Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at UC3M; Antonio Artes, Professor of Signal and Communications Theory at UC3M and founder of the startup eB2; Fernando Fernández Rebollo, Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at UC3M and founder of the startup InRobotics; María Muñoz, Business Development Director at Telefónica Tech; and María José Herrero Villa, head of Innovation Ecosystem Development at UC3M's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Service.

The series will run until mid-December and will hold the rest of the debate at UC3M's Madrid-Puerto de Toledo Campus. It will address a wide variety of topics related to AI, including: public transportation, autonomous vehicles and tourism (on Dec. 2); the economy, from start-ups to the automation of customs processes and the personalization of international trade (Dec. 4); the impact of AI tools on learning and the ethical challenges posed by the creation of synthetic content and authorship in education (Dec. 9).  The series will end on December 16 with a round table to take stock of the topics discussed and reflect on the future of a society increasingly dependent on intelligent tools, as well as the advances and challenges associated with them.

Para la elaboración del IRS 2025 se han utilizado diferentes indicadores divididos en tres bloques: aportaciones, proceso y resultados. Dentro del bloque de aportaciones se evalúa el porcentaje de financiación para investigación que se destina a la investigación científica interdisciplinar y el número de personas empleadas en investigaciones interdisciplinares. En el bloque de proceso se valora si la universidad dispone de métricas que midan el éxito de la investigación disciplinar; si proporciona espacios físicos específicos para estos equipos; si les proporciona soporte administrativo; y si la universidad cuenta con un sistema de titularidad o promoción que reconozca la investigación interdisciplinar. El bloque de salidas determina el número de publicaciones de investigación científica interdisciplinar normalizado por número de personal; el número de publicaciones de investigación científica interdisciplinar normalizado por el total de publicaciones científicas; las citaciones fuera de la disciplina; la calidad de las publicaciones de investigación científica interdisciplinar; y la reputación de la ayuda a los equipos multidisciplinares. 

Los datos han sido recogidos directamente de las universidades e instituciones y validados por THE. 

Más información

Biocomposites developed by BIOntier cover applications as diverse as vehicle components, battery casings and dashboard panels, aeronautical structures and industrial equipment adapted to the thermal and mechanical demands of the industry. They are also used as structural impact absorbers designed to improve collision safety, low-pressure hydrogen storage tanks and high-pressure tanks designed to increase the durability of purification systems.

Towards a greener and more competitive industry

UC3M is participating in the project as leader of a work package focused on the experimental characterisation of these materials. This includes the design of tests to analyse the performance of the biocomposites under different loading conditions and working environments, as well as numerical simulation based on the data obtained in the tests. ‘Our laboratory performs part of these tests, combining experimental analysis and computational simulations to provide a complete picture of the behaviour of these materials,’ Alvaro explains.

All these experiments aim to improve both the synthesis and stability of biocomposites, while reducing their ecological footprint. ‘This is in line with the objectives of the circular bioeconomy, promoting sustainable materials that can compete in the global market, facilitating their integration into existing industrial products,’ concludes Álvaro.

The BIOntier project (Breaking Frontiers in sustainable and circular biocomposites with high performance for multi-sector applications), coordinated by the FORTH research centre in Greece and with funding of more than EUR 7 million (GA 101155925), brings together 25 partners including universities, research centres, SMEs and large companies from 12 countries. 

One of the main objectives of SUSTAIN-6G is to develop new solutions to tackle sustainability challenges using the tools provided by 6G communications technologies. The consortium will dedicate considerable time to working on use cases for three specific areas, aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“On one hand, the project will develop a more sustainable mobile network technology, and on the other, it will use mobile networks in various sectors to make them more sustainable,” explains Albert Banchs. “Specifically, the research at UC3M will focus on developing more sustainable computing technologies for mobile networks,” he adds.

Peter Merz, Vice President of Nokia Standards, said: “The UN Paris Agreement committed the world to combatting climate change. Every industry must do its part. SUSTAIN-6G will show how the communications industry will apply the next generation of networking to creating that sustainable future, overcoming not just environmental challenges but societal and economic challenges as well.”

Smart grids, telemedicine, and smart agriculture

In the case of smart grids, the consortium will explore how 6G could be used to create microgrids that manage electricity demand. SUSTAIN-6G will also investigate the use of AI technologies for real-time control of distribution networks. This could lead to more efficient and resilient grids that minimize disruptions while providing the flexibility to draw energy from diverse sources as the world transitions to renewables like solar and wind.

In e-health and telemedicine, the consortium will generate new ideas on how 6G can make digital health more inclusive. 6G infrastructure could not only provide a far-reaching infrastructure for securely transmitting and analyzing medical data, but it also could be the foundation for new home-based online assessment services. These networks could improve the diagnosis and treatment process in underserved communities. Meanwhile AI could help detect disease outbreaks at early stages.

The consortium will also investigate how 6G connectivity could be allocated on a temporary basis to enable smart agricultural applications that require high bandwidth, sensing, telemetry, data analytics and automation. For instance, 6G’s edge cloud capabilities could be harnessed to handle high-priority farming-equipment automation tasks during harvests or provide advanced processing capabilities that integrate data from field sensors, climate stations, soil analysis and satellite imagery to provide contextualized information during the growing season.

SUSTAIN-6G has broad representation from industry and academia. The consortium includes network equipment and services vendors, communications services providers, industrial equipment manufacturers, European research institutions and universities, and many small-and medium-sized enterprises. SUSTAIN-6G will kick off in January of 2025 and is scheduled to complete its work in 2027.

IMPACTLAB

The Aerospace Structures Impact Laboratory (IMPACTLAB) is equipped with facilities for conducting mechanical tests (with specific experience in dynamic and impact testing) over a wide range of deformation speeds and temperatures. This laboratory has 6 pneumatic launchers (of various calibers) to perform high-speed impact tests across a broad range of energies. Additionally, it has expertise in modeling solid mechanics problems using proprietary tools and commercial numerical codes.

During the visit, the facilities and machinery used at IMPACTLAB to conduct impact tests on various types of structures and materials were showcased. These impact tests, along with the analysis of how structures and materials behave under impact, are applicable in various fields, such as aerospace, defense (military protective equipment), and safety (personal protective equipment), among others.

ASROB

The Assistive Robotics Laboratory (ASROB) develops and showcases advances in systems engineering and automation technologies that can be integrated into domestic environments with autonomous capabilities. These systems are based on environmental sensing or robotic elements, equipped with powerful AI algorithms to enhance the well-being of everyone, especially to improve the quality of life for elderly individuals and those with special needs.

During the second visit, different projects and applications being worked on at ASROB were presented, such as: the Pressmatic project (a control system for assistive devices used in tasks requiring gripping ability), the ASIBOT robot (a kind of "appliance" that can move through connectors placed anywhere in the home, performing various daily assistance tasks for disabled individuals), and the Tuina Physiotherapist Robot, which will soon be released on the market. They also presented their work on functional rehabilitation systems and progress monitoring through Serious Games, as well as systems for functional restoration and enhanced capabilities.

More Information:

Innovation Spaces APTE website:

https://www.apte.org/espacios-de-innovacion-apte 

Departments benefiting from this grant must commit to opening a permanent position in the researcher’s field of expertise before the end of the program. The recruited researcher is expected to fully integrate into the assigned department, actively participate in its projects and activities (including up to 100 hours of teaching per year), and submit a proposal to one of the calls of the European Research Council (ERC) within the first three years of joining the University.

The deadline for submitting applications is December 18, 2024. All information on the program, including updated documentation, is available on the UC3M Research and Transfer Program website. Interested applicants are encouraged to consult this portal for details on the application process and specific conditions of the call.

More information:

UC3M Research and Transfer Program and other UC3M grants:
https://www.uc3m.es/investigacion-apoyopdi/financiacion/programa-propio

“Hay que observar y evaluar el funcionamiento de las estrategias regulatorias ante los avances de la IA e identificar las limitaciones que las soluciones actuales tienen ante el progreso tecnológico, en los valores y la estabilidad democráticos, en la solidez de las instituciones, la protección de los derechos fundamentales, y la inclusión social y la justicia distributiva. Entender y medir las implicaciones de las normas en el mercado y en los esfuerzos para la innovación. Imaginar nuevas formas de regular más dinámicas y adaptativas. Incorporar en el modelo regulatorio los nuevos parámetros sobre los que se desarrollan los “modelos de frontera” más sofisticados. Y, por tanto, reflexionar y proponer un modelo de gobernanza y regulación de una IA de frontera responsable y sostenible·, explica Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell, catedrática de Derecho Mercantil de la UC3M y directora de la Cátedra de Investigación. 

Hoy en día, las empresas de todos los sectores son “tecnológicas”, por tanto, todas las organizaciones -no sólo las compañías tecnológicas- necesitan incorporar talento especializado y con habilidades para llevar a cabo su digitalización y el despliegue de tecnologías como la IA. Según un reciente estudio de Microsoft sobre Tendencias Laborales, el 52% de las empresas cree que la falta de personal especializado es la principal barrera para el despliegue masivo de la Inteligencia Artificial, y el 64% de los directivos españoles asegura que no contrataría a alguien sin conocimientos de IA.

Es necesario, por tanto, el fomento de estas habilidades y una correcta formación en IA para potenciar la empleabilidad y acelerar el crecimiento económico. 

Con esta vocación y los fines antes descritos nace la “Cátedra Microsoft–UC3M sobre Inteligencia Artificial, Fundamentos y Horizontes”, en la que se irán incorporando los conocimientos y resultados que se obtengan del trabajo entre la UC3M y Microsoft en proyectos y programas conjuntos de investigación científica e innovación tecnológica. 

“En Microsoft trabajamos para impulsar la adopción de IA responsable para mejorar la competitividad de nuestra economía. Lo más importante para acelerar este proceso, así como la transformación digital de empresas y administraciones públicas, es contar con el talento adecuado. Por ello, fomentamos la puesta en marcha de iniciativas de formación como la que presentamos hoy junto a la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, que potenciará las capacidades y mejorará la empleabilidad de los jóvenes”, señala Gabriel López, director de Relaciones Institucionales de Microsoft en España. 

La Cátedra se anunció en un evento organizado por ambas entidades, en el Campus de Puerta de Toledo de la UC3M y cuya apertura corrió a cargo de la secretaria de Estado de Digitalización e Inteligencia Artificial, María González Veracruz.

UC3M also offers a wide range of informative courses and workshops on topics as diverse as visual literacy, learning to fly paper aeroplanes with engineering, thermal cameras, body sound design, the determining factors of the media agenda, historical fakes, the future of cardiology and surgical medicine, the magic of an aeroreactor, information manipulation, animated films, acoustic painting, rehabilitation with wearable technology, soft robots and the transmission of information with visible light.

There will also be talks on ‘mathematics’ with cards and numbers, female law professors and collaborative robotics, as well as demonstrations and exhibitions on the aerodynamics of cars and planes, bioenergy, the wave nature of light and the hidden secrets of jets. Guided tours are also organised on unique pieces from the National Archaeological Museum that captivated artists, on advanced refrigeration for sustainable energy applications or to experience science through its characters.

Activities for Secondary Schools 

Other activities are aimed specifically at secondary schools, baccalaureate and vocational training centres, which can be booked through this website. There will be fifteen workshops and demonstrations on topics such as animation and 3D modeling, biodiversity, cybercrime, women scientists in film, the construction of nest boxes, the coexistence of music and technology, audiovisual creation with AI, disinformation on social networks, micro-robotics, asphalt production, rover programming, the space sound of the music of the future and autonomous vehicles.

UC3M is participating in this science outreach event organized by Fundación madri+d with the aim of actively involving citizens in science, technology and innovation, in addition to promoting scientific vocations among the youngest, eliminating gender barriers from the first cycles of education. In addition, UC3M's activities have the collaboration of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

More information: 

UC3M Science and Innovation Week 2024 website
https://www.uc3m.es/investigacion/semana-ciencia-2024

Here are ten recommendations regarding certain key issues to be taken into account when it comes to pursuing a successful scientific career in Spain: 

• Funding. There are different funding opportunities available at different stages of a research career. Taking the time to learn about the calls for proposals and applying for them with guidance can help to create and consolidate research groups. There are great opportunities available regarding the frontiers of knowledge and our ability to adapt methodologies from one area of knowledge to others.

• Objectives. During the process of preparing a research project, it is important to consider its purpose but also to pay attention to its alignment with the objectives of the programme and to seek an impact in different areas (generation of knowledge, technology transfer, training of researchers, social awareness of relevant issues, etc.).

• Collaboration. Research should be a collaborative process, where projects carried out in different groups and institutions feed back into each other, providing creative solutions to emerging methodological problems and leading to a continuous evolution of the research field.

• Contacts. During the early stages of a research career, it is important to start developing an international network of contacts. For this purpose, there are numerous mobility grants available at regional, national and international level that facilitate access to prestigious research groups. Other suitable forums for this purpose involve participation in international conferences.

• Publications. When preparing a scientific article, rather than being guided by curricular purposes, it is advisable to reflect on its relevance, impact and the reproducibility of the results provided. As with grants, it is a good idea to familiarise yourself with the editorial policy and publication format by reading articles in the journal in which you wish to be published.

• Evaluation. There is a global trend, which is beginning to be seen in Spain, for scientific curricula to be evaluated in terms of quality rather than quantity. Thus, factors such as the originality of scientific contributions or their socio-economic impact are becoming increasingly important, as opposed to the number of published results and other quantitative indicators. 

• Entrepreneurship. The scientific knowledge acquired also enables the launch of technology-based companies and spin-offs created on the basis of laboratory results. Although Spain's indicators are good in terms of knowledge generation, there is much room for improvement as regards the transfer of this knowledge to the business sector.

• Patents. It is important to understand and be aware of the different industrial property protection mechanisms and how they work. Aligning strategies for the protection and dissemination of results is essential, because major opportunities can be missed and potential avenues for commercialisation can be closed off. A long-term strategy for the protection and exploitation of results is therefore recommended.

• Public dissemination of science. Clearly communicating the main ideas and implications of R&D&I raises awareness of the value of research, technological advances and their benefits for society. In addition, doing so can have a positive impact on the academic career of research staff, enhancing their profile, reputation and links with companies.

• Science and public policy. There is a growing interest in having scientific advisory mechanisms that allow institutions and government representatives to make scientifically informed decisions in areas of major social importance, such as education, health, energy and industry, among others. In this context, scientific advisors should not prescribe decisions, but rather provide objective knowledge by explaining the implications of each specific action.

The experiment was conducted in four different settings, providing participants with information about the color choices of their direct contacts and also those at greater social distances. In other words, they not only knew which color their “friends” chose, but also their “friends of friends”. The researchers used a mathematical model that accounts for both direct and indirect interactions in the network to adjust the experimental results and determine how influence decays with social distance.

“This study challenges the common assumption that only direct interactions determine the dynamics of innovation adoption,” adds IFISC researcher Ernesto Estrada. “We have shown that individuals are also significantly influenced by their second and third circles of contacts.”

The findings have important implications for understanding how ideas, behaviors and technologies spread in society. Moreover, they could be applied in areas such as public health policy, marketing or social change. This interdisciplinary work combines experimental methods with advanced mathematical models to shed light on the complex processes of social influence in the diffusion of innovations. “These results are obtained by treating all 'friends' as an indistinguishable group. Solving and trying to predict this influence at a particular level will require more work” says María Pereda, researcher at UPM. 

The researchers conclude that this study opens new avenues for investigating how innovations spread in social networks and suggests that strategies to accelerate the adoption of new ideas or technologies should take into account not only direct connections, but also the influence of wider social circles.

Reference: Manuel Miranda, María Pereda, Angel Sánchez, Ernesto Estrada, Indirect social influence and diffusion of innovations: An experimental approach, PNAS Nexus, Volume 3, Issue 10, October 2024, pgae409, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae409 

La finalidad última es que tanto en el sector público como en la empresa privada, o en el tercer sector, se tenga una conexión más directa con la universidad pública para la mejora y la evaluación de su toma de decisiones.

“It is important to create synergies between the university and the company in order to generate maximum value by transforming theoretical research into tangible innovation within the company, and Universia will provide an advanced technological environment, real use cases and a team of experts, both in the corporate world and in AI,” says José Manuel de la Chica, director of Generative AI at Banco Santander.

The resolution of the Ministry provides for the admission of 15 national and 7 international chairs, which will address 10 areas of knowledge: aeronautics and aerospace, agriculture, green algorithms, health sciences, sustainable development, data economy, responsible and ethical AI, music and arts, demographic challenge and language technologies.

The AImpulsa UC3M-Universia Chair, which will include a multidisciplinary representation of researchers from the University, experts in the field from the financial institution and other international scientists, aims to address the challenges of the exploitation of personal data by large technology companies and the ethical implications of data privacy. One of the objectives of its research programme is to create a new personal data economy that is transparent, fair, inclusive and responsible.

“This will make it possible to maintain and improve current economic incentives, while reducing the harmful impact on the most vulnerable people and communities, promoting a new and healthier productive economic fabric based on this new data economy that we intend to explore during the course of the chair. On the other hand, at IBiDat, we are immersed in a disruptive line of research, focused on developing models and algorithms linked to AI that are interpretable and unbiased. The results will be tested in the very stimulating collaboration we have with Universia”, says the head of the AImpulsa Chair, Rosa Elvira Lillo, a professor of Statistics and Operations Research at UC3M and director of the big data research institute IBidat (uc3m-Santander Big Data Institute).

According to the creators of this Chair, in the era of the digital economy in which we find ourselves, large technology companies are accumulating huge amounts of personal data, driving big profits and generating a new data economy, according to the creators of this Chair. An OECD study shows that in the United States alone, these data-based companies had a turnover of more than $60 billion in 2017. In Canada, the amount was around 1.4 billion dollars and in the European Union it was estimated at between 19 and 50 billion euros in 2016. “In parallel to this phenomenon, deep and growing concerns are emerging about privacy, ethics and fairness in the use of this data and in the algorithms that use it to learn and predict,” explains another of the researchers participating in the AImpulsa UC3M-Universia Chair, Rubén Cuevas, Associate Professor in UC3M's Telematics Engineering Department and deputy director of IBiDat.

That is why the AImpulsa UC3M-Universia Chair on Data Economy and Responsible Applied Artificial Intelligence for the Creation of Exponential Value proposes an initiative with an ambitious and advanced comprehensive and technical focus, according to the researchers. Specifically, they have the ambition to be at the forefront of innovation in the application of solutions to ensure interpretability and fairness in AI algorithms by developing advanced and large-scale models. To do this, they will use deep neural networks, reinforcement learning algorithms and natural language processing, as well as simulation models, mechanism design and experimentation of large social and economic systems.  

Their research programme also includes a novel economic analysis of the impact of applying responsible algorithms, with the aim of encouraging the adoption of this type of solution by big data and AI technology companies. Instead of using traditional approaches such as strict regulations or sanctions (whose results may be limited or even counterproductive in some complex scenarios being generated by the new data economy), the researchers propose to develop innovative and scalable economic incentives that encourage companies to adopt and promote responsible AI in the medium and long term. To do this, they will design economic models and mechanisms that take advantage of the most advanced techniques in game theory, mechanism design, economics and information theory and computer privacy to create systems that encourage the adoption of responsible AI, and also penalise the use of algorithms that are harmful to society.

“All of these challenges, and all those appearing on the horizon in relation to the new AI economy, will be continuously explored within the Chair, demonstrating once again that knowledge transfer is fundamental in industry, something we at Universia are firmly convinced of,” says De la Chica.

“At UC3M's IBiDat, we are convinced that the AImpulsa chair will provide significant developments in aspects of AI that have not been explored until now, which will provide more confidence throughout the debate around the use of these methodologies, since our purpose is to move towards a fairer, more explainable and more efficient AI,” concludes Lillo.

More than half of the activities will take place at the UC3M Madrid-Puerta de Toledo Campus during the afternoon and evening of Friday, September 27. At 5:30 pm, there will be a talk covering everything from the biocultural rights of indigenous populations to the existing problems in the Mar Menor lagoon. Half an hour later, at 6:00 pm, there will be four activities on how AI fills visual gaps in images, how to make 5G telecommunications visible, the functioning of neuromorphic cameras used in fluid dynamics and thermal cameras used in aeronautical research. At 7:00 pm, there will be another demonstration on how data is used to discover unknown patterns in turbulence. And finally, at 7:30 pm, three other activities will take place on the mysteries of printed materials, the revolution in biomedical research with chatbots and the science of skin regeneration.

The UC3M Leganés Campus will host three informative activities that same evening, starting at 5:00 pm, on the topics of aeroacoustics and analysis of turbulent jets in an anechoic chamber, how to detect electric arcs in hybrid airplanes within the framework of air safety and how to optimize a Formula 1 racing car or an airplane with helium bubbles and AI. Another activity will be held at the Getafe Campus at 5:30 pm on the perceptual possibilities of interacting with body transformation devices, while there will be a virtual presentation and online debate from 5:00 pm on technological development and digital transformation.

The following day, Saturday 28, at 10:00 am, there will be a guided tour and testing of magnetic materials for biomedicine and soft robotics, which will take place in a laboratory at the UC3M Science Park’sCentre for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA).

These UC3M activities, organized by its Office of Information and Dissemination of Science and Innovation (OIDCI), are part of European Researchers’ Night in Madrid, an event that includes numerous free science outreach activities and that is being held simultaneously in 23 countries and more than 400 cities in Europe and beyond. In Madrid, the science outreach project, called NIGHTMADRID, is coordinated by Fundación madri+d and funded by the European Union within the Horizon Europe Programme, under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions with grant agreement number 101.162.110. In addition, UC3M's activities are supported by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), part of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

More information: 

Website for European Researchers’Night at UC3M
https://www.uc3m.es/inicio/nocheinvestigadores

“We're tremendously excited to combine our diverse expertise to investigate this cutting-edge question,” said Lesman, principal investigator on the grant. “Our preliminary models suggest cells may be able to communicate over relatively long distances through dynamic motions in the extracellular matrix, similar to how spiders sense vibrations through their webs. But this has never been directly studied before.”

Mortimer, a biologist who studies vibrational communication in animals such as spiders and elephants, will lead the experimental work to record and characterize the hypothesized cell-generated vibrations using state-of-the-art laser vibrometry techniques.

“I'm eager to apply approaches from my research on macro-scale animal communication to eavesdrop on the nanoscale whispers between cells,” she said.

The measured physical properties of the vibrations will feed into computational models led by Zaera to map how the signal propagates through the extracellular matrix.

“My lab's existing finite element models of fibrous materials are well-poised to simulate how the extracellular matrix, with its complex architecture, conducts dynamic mechanical information,” Zaera said.

Finally, the team will study how cells detect and respond to the vibrational signals at a molecular level using live microscopy and biomarkers, advised by Genin, a cell mechanobiology expert.

“From my research on how cells transduce minute mechanical forces during wound healing and fibrosis, I anticipate these vibrations may activate mechanosensitive signaling pathways to coordinate cell behavior,” Genin said.

This new mode of cell-cell communication, if validated, could have important implications for both healthy and disease processes involving cell interaction and collective behavior, from embryonic development to wound healing to cancer metastasis, the researchers said.

“By understanding the ‘language’ that cells use to talk to each other through extracellular matrix vibrations, we may identify new ways to promote healing and block pathological conditions,” Lesman said. “For example, we could potentially program 'messages' to stimulate tissue regeneration, or jam signals that enable tumor cell invasion.”

The research program will involve developing new techniques to 3D bioprint defined cell-matrix structures to control cell-cell distance and orientation. The project aims to show that cells can generate, propagate and perceive complex vibrational information through the extracellular matrix and elucidate the key cell and matrix parameters that govern this process.

“This high-risk, high-reward, interdisciplinary research is only possible through international collaboration,” Genin said. “By combining our complementary expertise, we can pursue this exciting hypothesis at the frontier of cellular mechanobiology in a way that none of us could do alone. Interesting research will come out of this regardless of whether experiments ultimately support our hypothesis.”

The team said this work may open a new paradigm to understand and engineer how cells coordinate their individual activities into collective behaviors, with potential future applications in regenerative medicine, cancer therapy and synthetic biology.

“We're thrilled to have the opportunity to work together on this potentially groundbreaking project,” Genin said. “And we're very grateful to the Human Frontiers Science Program for sharing our vision of using innovative, cross-disciplinary science to explore a potential new pathway for how cells communicate.”

The research project led by Natalia Fabra, entitled "Socio-Economic Challenges and Opportunities of the Energy Transition: ENERGY-IN-TRANSITION", will be carried out over the next five years. Its main objective is to expand the frontiers of knowledge in the field of energy and environmental economics, addressing the new socio-economic challenges and opportunities that arise with the Energy Transition.

Its objectives include analyzing the design of electricity markets with a high penetration of renewable energies and pioneering research on the new regulation of green hydrogen. It will also delve into the distributional repercussions of climate and energy policies, providing solutions to avoid potentially regressive effects. Special attention will be paid to quantifying the socio-economic effects on the territory, such as the impacts on the labor market and demographics due to the closure of thermal power plants and the deployment of renewable energy investments. In addition, it will identify the causes of local opposition to new renewable plants and propose measures to increase their social acceptance. Finally, it will analyze the impact of the recent energy crisis on the adoption of solar self-consumption in households, and investigate the distributional implications of different options to promote it. As a result, the project will provide relevant conclusions for the implementation of climate and energy policies aimed at enhancing the efficiency and equity of the Energy Transition.

Methodologically, the project will use a combination of theoretical models, econometric techniques, simulation tools and surveys. It will develop new models on long-term contracting in the electricity market, apply advanced Machine Learning methods to create counterfactual scenarios for policy analysis, and design simulation tools to evaluate the interaction between various regulatory measures.

UC3M is one of the Spanish universities with the highest number of ERC grants, a commitment to the internationalization of EU research. Specifically, the University has already obtained 12 ERC projects (8 Starting Grants, 6 Consolidator Grants, 2 Proof of Concept  and 1 Advanced Grant) with an overall funding of almost 27 million euros. More information: https://www.uc3m.es/investigacion/ERC 

Engineering

In the area of engineering, Daniel García González, professor of Mechanics of Continuous Media and Theory of Structures at UC3M, has won a Leonardo 2024 Grant with his project: “Conceptualization of mechano-electrical sensors using hybrid magneto-rheological elastomers”. This project proposes the design of a new generation of soft mechanical sensors with binary electrical responses to kinematic thresholds, with the ability to adhere to biological tissues and to accommodate large cyclic deformations. For this purpose, a multi-material design framework will be created to allow the integration of autonomous repair responses (through magneto-mechanical interactions) with conductive electrical properties dependent on mechanical deformation.

The implementation of this type of technological applications will allow the conceptualization of soft biomechanical sensors. These solutions have great potential to improve the effectiveness of bioengineering solutions for cardiac or pulmonary pathologies. For example, the lack of ability of the heart to contract or relax properly is known as heart failure, which is often due to changes in the stiffness of the muscle and a weakness in its mechano-electrical response. The devices derived from the proposed project have great potential for integration with biomechanical actuators allowing bidirectional communication between functional biological responses and soft robotics systems. Furthermore, the proposed technology could be used as soft biomechanical sensors to measure kinematic parameters (e.g. joint rotations) during sports or daily activities (especially relevant during rehabilitation periods). 

Computer science and data science

In the area of computer science and data science, Pablo Martínez Olmos, associate professor of Signal Theory and Communications at UC3M, has won a Leonardo 2024 Grant with his project: “THAI: Towards Humble And Discoverable AI”. This project addresses the concern about overconfidence and unreliability in generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). As AI technologies continue to reshape various industries, the project's main motivation lies in mitigating the risks associated with AI's persuasive capabilities, in particular the generation of plausible but unfounded results, known as hallucinations. THAI aims to develop generative AI methods that reduce overconfidence by reducing certainty without solid information. 

This initiative is crucial to maintain the credibility of AI technologies and ensure user confidence by distinguishing between reliable and unreliable AI-generated content. In addition, the project aims to improve security by developing robust training methods that reduce the vulnerability of AI systems to attacks, which could take advantage of overconfidence to extract sensitive information or generate harmful content. Finally, the project aims to identify detectable traces in AI-generated content, making it easier to distinguish between real and synthetic results. These goals collectively contribute to the advancement of more discernible, reliable and ethically sound AI technologies, addressing foundational challenges of generative AI and paving the way for more responsible applications.

The HumanIC network brings together leading academic teams from across Europe with partners from the hospital and healthcare HVAC industry. The aim is to train early-career engineers and scientists to take a new approach to human-centred indoor climate in healthcare environments.

What is a human-centred indoor climate?

Human-centred indoor climate is defined as the micro-environment surrounding and in close proximity to a human body. The concept focuses on human beings and their surrounding environment, which should be understood as a specific micro-environment, rather than the "physical vicinity" of a human body. 

The human-centred indoor climate of hospitals plays a key role in the safe and effective delivery of healthcare. Operating theatres, isolation rooms, treatment rooms and laboratories allow increasingly sophisticated treatments to be administered safely to patients, while wards, consulting rooms and waiting rooms provide essential facilities for patient interaction, comfort and well-being during recovery.

Healthcare associated infections (HAI)

It is estimated that more than 4 million patients acquire a healthcare associated infection (HAI) in the European Union each year. On any given day, some 80,000 patients suffer at least one HAI, i.e. one in every 18 patients in European hospitals.

The global antimicrobial resistance crisis means that HAIs pose an increasing cost and mortality risk. The hospital environment is responsible for 20% of all HAIs, and there is clear evidence that building design and human activities contribute to the transmission of infectious diseases.

Improving the indoor environment of a hospital building can reduce the costs associated with airborne diseases by 9% to 20%. Ventilation and indoor air are of particular concern, and numerous studies show that airflow controls the spread and exposure to airborne pathogens.

The work carried out at UC3M focuses on the experimental study and development of reduced models for complex flows in hospital environments. The fluid field will be studied using advanced experimental techniques such as laser velocimetry. From the field measurements, a simplified airflow model will be identified that will allow the development of algorithms for real-time flow estimation in operating theatres.

The impact of pandemics and climate change

The WHO acknowledged that during the Covid-19 pandemic many hospitals were working over capacity, with patients recovering in rooms that were never designed for them. Added to this, climate change is increasing health demands (future pandemics, heat-related diseases and infections; surgical site infection and mortality), challenging hospitals to maintain comfortable, human-centred thermal indoor climate conditions and, at the same time, driving hospitals to reduce energy consumption.

The HumanIC consortium considers human interactions with indoor environments and how this affects the transient dispersion of contaminants (particularly in protected microenvironments at risk, such as surgery) as a central prerequisite for the safe operation of these facilities. In particular, it is central to eliminating or minimising threats from airborne pathogens while ensuring good thermal comfort. HumanIC will generate new knowledge on the physical transmission processes and interactions between pollutants and airflow, and apply this knowledge to optimise the design of technical solutions and develop novel methods for visualising and controlling the human-centred indoor climate in hospital environments.

The HumanIC project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie programme (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-DN-01, project no. 101119726). The project partners are the following:  Warsaw University of Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Aalto University, St. Olavs Hospital, University of Coimbra - Polo II, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Fundación Para la Investigación Biomédica Hospital Gregorio Marañón, University of Leeds, Granlund Oy, Halton Oy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, ActiveTek Medica, REHVA, Drees & Sommer SE, Avidicare AB and Industry.

Solaris Vita proposes an agrovoltaic solution that combines thin flexible solar films with greenhouses and can generate electricity while maintaining agricultural activity. The organic photovoltaics (OPV) used by this startup is an emerging technology that uses thin films of organic semiconductors to convert sunlight into electricity.

This idea arises with a clear social objective: the donation of solar factories to the neediest countries. In addition, this company aims to revolutionize the Spanish energy sector by implementing cutting-edge technology in unconventional spaces. 

As Miguel Iglesias explained, "it has been a long road that began in October 2023 and ended just last week" The founder of Solaris Vita highlighted "the enormous reception that the project has had and the great interest shown in what we are building. This victory helps us to drive our vision forward and reaffirms the importance of implementing innovative solutions in the agricultural and photovoltaic sector".

Spanish finalist 

Solaris Vita has reached Gen-E after winning the National Entrepreneurship Competition, organized by Junior Achievement Spain. This meeting is part of the Startup Programme, which aims to foster entrepreneurial skills in young people such as creativity, effort and teamwork. For David Hernández Cela, from UC3M's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Service, "the work that Junior Achievement Spain does with the Startup Programme and the other initiatives is vital to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit in young people, and at UC3M we are committed to and support these initiatives. In addition, I have been able to live the GEN-E experience in Catania and enjoy the hundreds of young entrepreneurs who have shown their innovations with social impact. Congratulations to all the participants and especially to Solaris Vita, UC3M's representative from Spain, who has achieved a well-deserved second place".

Thanks to the mentoring of professional volunteers from different companies and the support of the teachers, the young people acquired the skills that have enabled them to design their own entrepreneurial projects. Miguel Iglesias has only words of thanks for them: "We can only thank all the people who have supported Solaris Vita and are involved in the project. None of this would be possible if it were not for them".

During the 2023-2024 academic year, 449 young university and vocational training students have developed their projects within the framework of this program, which is subsidized by the Madrid City Council, through Madrid Emprende, and sponsored by Naturgy, Tikehau Capital, Fundación PwC, SAP, BNY Mellon and SpainCap.

The Junior Achievement Foundation is one of the world's largest international non-profit organizations in entrepreneurship education, financial education and career guidance. It develops programs in more than 120 countries and in 30 languages, benefiting more than 10.5 million young people each year. Junior Achievement has been working in Spain since 2001 to empower the talents of young people and equip them with the skills they need to make a successful transition to employability.  

Solaris Vita is a UC3M student project that has had direct support for more than 2 years from the Center for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA) of the UC3M Science Park, with personalized mentoring, training, workshops and participation in the Explorer and Startup Program.

More information: https://solarisvita.com/

“Unlike previous research, which mainly focused on the pink tax in consumer goods, this specifically examines gender-based price discrimination in online advertising, revealing a significant correlation between the digital marketing pink tax and a country's level of development,” explains one of the study's authors, Amir Mehrjoo, a PhD student at IMDEA Networks and UC3M.

“This suggests that economic progress does not necessarily equate to gender equality in the digital market and may even exacerbate existing biases,” adds another author, Ángel Cuevas, a researcher in the Department of Telematic Engineering at UC3M.

The study points to some possible explanations for the notable disparity in DMPT between developed and less developed countries. Firstly, higher demand, as in developed countries, women may be the primary decision-makers for purchases (increasing demand and the cost of advertising targeting them). Secondly, the Human Development Index (HDI), which correlates with higher DMPT, suggesting that economic development may exacerbate gender biases. Thirdly, cultural factors, because in less developed countries, traditional gender roles may reduce the focus on advertising targeting women. And fourthly, regulatory issues, because developed countries have stricter regulations on gender discrimination in advertising, but their enforcement may be less effective in less developed countries.

Country and sector differences Middle Eastern and African countries with low HDI do not experience the digital marketing pink tax. “Possibly, the lower internet penetration rates and less developed digital advertising markets in these regions could contribute to this phenomenon. In less developed digital advertising markets, there may be fewer granular segmentation options available, including gender segmentation, which could reduce opportunities for price discrimination,” says Amir Mehrjoo.

The most affected sectors, where advertisers pay significantly more to target women, are hobbies (advertisers pay 64% more to target women in this category), style and fashion (the digital marketing pink tax is 53% higher for women), and travel (they pay 49% more to reach the female audience).

In the long term, the researchers hope that their work will encourage both advertisers and policymakers to take action, such as drafting and implementing stricter regulations and guidelines to prevent these discriminatory practices.

After all, “our understanding of the world is determined by the information we consume, much of which is filtered through algorithms that determine what we see on the Internet,” notes another of the study's authors, Rubén Cuevas, also from the Department of Telematic Engineering at UC3M. “These algorithms, although designed to optimize the user experience, may inadvertently perpetuate biases with significant social consequences. Our research highlights one of these biases, the digital marketing pink tax, demonstrating how seemingly neutral algorithms contribute to gender inequality,” concludes Mehrjoo.

Bibliographic reference: Mehrjoo, A., Cuevas, R. & Cuevas, Á. Online advertisement in a pink-colored market. EPJ Data Sci. 13, 36 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-024-00473-2

Regarding productivity per lecturer, in the case of SUPE, productivity has been growing annually until 2021 (with 1.15 documents per lecturer), decreasing slightly in 2022 to 1.02%. “This result is consistent with the annual increases in production and, in practice, with the lack of replacement of the teaching staff at public universities,” say the report’s authors. However, in SUEPr, productivity per lecturer remains stagnant at around 0.4 documents, despite the higher growth in teaching staff. 

General slowdown

The new edition of the IUNE Observatory’s annual report  shows a slowdown in the fall of the Spanish University System (SUE, in its Spanish acronym)’s main research indicators compared to those observed since the 2008 financial crisis, with a gradual recovery from 2020 onwards. 

According to the data in this edition, the number of scientific publications has gone from growing annually at an average of 5.92% to 4.86% (practically one percentage point less). On a similar scale, the average productivity of the SUE (measured by the number of publications per lecturer) has decreased from 6.32% to 5.47%. ”This data confirms the trend of recent observatories in which decreases in these indicators have been observed, which are due, in part, to reductions in the number of teaching staff at public universities, which have fallen by 0.6% annually in the current decade,” say the report’s authors. 

In terms of research collaboration indicators for the period studied, the percentage of publications in international collaboration stands at 50.8%, increasing over the years at an average annual rate of 6.5%. On the other hand, 26.1% of publications are in national collaboration, with an average annual growth rate of 4.4%. Finally, non-collaborative publications account for 23.2% of the total and have been gradually decreasing, with the exception of the years 2020 and 2021, when they experienced a slight increase.

Just over half (51%) of the SUE’s scientific work is published in high-visibility journals (of the so-called first quartile), of which 7.8% appear in the top three journals of their subject category (Top3). As for the percentage of open access publications, there has been a considerable increase in the total number of SUE publications, as they have almost doubled (from 39.8% to 73.48%) in the decade studied.

Regarding innovative activity, the number of patents registered by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO) has been decreasing significantly since 2014 (when the maximum value of the series was reached, with 665 patents). In 2020, it reached its minimum value and has risen slightly in subsequent years, reaching a total of 232 patents in 2022, the last year of the study. 

The IUNE Observatory is supported by the (Spanish) Ministry of Universities, as well as by a large number of institutions such as the (Spanish) National Quality Assessment and Accreditation Agency (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Spanish University Rectors’ Conference (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for  Industrial Technological Development  (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Catalan University System Quality Agency (AQU Catalunya, in its Spanish acronym) and the Basque University System Quality Agency (Unibasq, in its Spanish acronym).

More information: https://iune.es/ 

The event was attended by personnel involved in research projects from 23 countries. The UC3M representation shared the stage with five other European entities chosen for their best practices, such as the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IBEC) in Barcelona, the Fondation Sciences mathématiques in Paris, University College Dublin, Ca Foscari University in Venice and the French region of Brittany. 

The session was attended by the head of the Marie S. Curie Actions department at the REA, Begoña Arano, the staff of the REA's COFUND Management Unit (led by Graham Wilkie) and representatives of the MSCA program at the European Commission's Directorate General for Education.

CONEX-Plus is a training and professional development program based on the so-called "triple i" dimension: international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary. The 30 fellows it has funded have been able to complete modules dedicated to relevant cross-cutting skills and industry training.

This program has been awarded the HR Excellence in Research, which recognizes its full compliance with the principles of the European Charter and Code for Researchers.

CONEX-Plus is funded by UC3M and the European Commission through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND action (GA 801538) of the European Framework Program Horizon 2020.

Durante los días 26, 27 y 28 de junio se van a llevar a cabo diferentes actividades: 

• Un hackathon para idear soluciones creativas al reto ‘AI Fair Play Hackathon: Ensuring Equality in Language Technology’. Esta actividad está patrocinada por NEC Laboratories Europe GmbH.
• Una muestra de posters de ideas y proyectos innovadores realizados por más de 60 estudiantes. 
• La impartición de más de 15 talleres sobre el uso y desarrollo de diferentes Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (TIC), incluidos aquellos talleres técnicos de entidades como Airbus, Telefónica o Scalian España.
• Una feria de empleo y networking con empresas punteras. 

Asimismo, se han programado dos conferencias magistrales a cargo de Marta Villegas (Barcelona Supercomputing Center) y Virginia Dignum (AI Policy Lab @Umeå University). 

Este evento internacional ha sido celebrado en anteriores ediciones en ciudades como Manchester, Barcelona, Roma o Praga. Mediante esta iniciativa anual, ACM-W crea un foro internacional para compartir proyectos, adquirir nuevos conocimientos, establecer vínculos y, especialmente, poner en valor el trabajo de las mujeres en las distintas áreas STEM. 

womEncourage pretende aportar una perspectiva responsable de la informática y abarcar nuevos espacios de desarrollo, como la inteligencia artificial, la ingeniería software, la ciberseguridad y la interacción entre persona y computadora para que se tengan en cuenta las preocupaciones relevantes sobre el impacto social de las tecnologías digitales.

Más información

Hiili, which means “carbon” in Finnish, is developing a pioneering technology that will represent a notable evolution with respect to the proofs of concept scientifically validated by the UC3M research team. This technology combines Internet measurement techniques and the development of models based on Machine Learning, a discipline in the field of AI that makes it possible to identify patterns in massive data and develop predictive analysis. All this allows for an accurate estimate of the energy consumption of the company's digital activity. Currently, they have an operational product for digital advertising and a prototype to measure the energy consumption generated by the use of AI solutions, such as Chat-GPT or Gemini language models.

“We already offer a product that works with direct measurements of energy consumption, which makes Hiili the solution that provides the most accurate measurements of energy consumption and carbon footprint in this area,” says Rubén Cuevas. In addition, with these medium- and long-term developments, they also want to contribute to achieving the sustainable development goals in the area of sustainability and climate change.

Hiili's ultimate goal is to help companies and public entities measure the carbon footprint generated by their digital activity, with a primary focus on the energy consumption that an entity's activity generates in third parties. “In addition to measuring their carbon footprint, Hiili will provide information that will allow entities to make informed decisions to reduce their carbon footprint without affecting their business KPIs”, says Ángel Cuevas. 

“This collaboration has been evolving over several years. UC3M has been researching digital energy consumption since 2017 and has been a crucial partner for us in our previous company, Cavai. Together with the University, we have started this project with the goal of becoming a leading emissions data company,” says Steffen Svartberg, another of Hiili's founding partners.

To understand their business model, the researchers use a soft drink company as an example, which has a large direct energy consumption due to its own activities (such as the production of its beverages in bottling plants). However, this company also spends a lot of money on marketing activities that have no direct consumption of their own. “When we see an advertisement for the soft drink on our television or smartphone, the company is generating energy consumption that occurs on our devices, on a third party. While the measurement of direct emissions is something that has been developing in many companies and public entities in recent years, the measurement of indirect emissions is a complex technological challenge that Hiili has begun to address,” explains Rubén Cuevas.

This technology is not limited to digital advertising and AI, but is scalable and can be adapted to all digital services, including websites, apps, platforms and other digital infrastructure. This makes Hiili's solution a versatile resource for companies looking to measure, monitor and reduce the environmental impact of all digital activities.

UC3M participates in the share capital of this spin-off in order to contribute to its business development. This minority and temporary shareholding is articulated in accordance with the regulations for the creation of knowledge-based university companies. There are currently a total of 11 spin-offs in which UC3M participates, supported by the programme for the creation of and shareholding in spin-offs, located in the University's Science Park ‘s Centre for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA, in its Spanish acronym).

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En esta edición, las tres mejores presentaciones fueron : "Músculos artificiales para reducir las listas de espera", un proyecto de Paloma Mansilla Navarro del Doctorado en Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y Automática , que mostró la nueva generación de  exoesqueletos robóticos; "Construyendo un mañana sostenible: nuevos materiales para reactores nucleares", un trabajo realizado por Facundo Tomás Masari del Doctorado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de Materiales, donde la aplicación de nuevas tecnologías de inteligencia artificial (IA) ayudan a buscar soluciones innovadoras en el diseño y preparación de materiales de muy altas prestaciones; e "Hydrogel scaffolds for myocardial repair: Cupid's Engineering" una investigación de Blanca Limones Ahijón, del Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Biomédica , que utiliza novedosas tecnologías para generar tejidos que permitan la intervención en enfermedades cardiacas,. 

El jurado valoró la calidad y claridad de estas presentaciones y las premió con 900, 600 y 300 euros (primer, segundo y tercer premio respectivamente).  Un año más, el concurso ofreció una panorámica de las investigaciones que las doctorandas y  doctorandos desarrollan en la UC3M, así como los avances que realiza el personal joven investigador de la Universidad. 

Thesis Talk es una iniciativa organizada por la Escuela de Doctorado UC3M por la que las personas participantes deben realizar una presentación de su proyecto doctoral en menos de cuatro minutos, en castellano o inglés, sin más apoyo que una diapositiva o transparencia. El jurado, compuesto por docentes de la UC3M y profesionales de fuera, valora las habilidades, el orden y claridad de expresión y la capacidad para exponer ideas y atraer la atención del público.

Este formato de presentaciones está promovido por la Universidad de Queensland (Australia) y ha sido adoptado por más de 200 universidades en todo el mundo. 

Más información: 
Web de Thesis Talk 

The three-day event was attended by representatives of 10 companies and projects that have emerged from research or technologies in which UC3M has collaborated, such as: Applied Innovative Methods, Cassini Geopolitical Consulting, Evidence-Based Behavior, Hiili, Inrobics Social Robotics, Laboratorio Hipermedia, Ownmed Innovation, Seevia Technologies, Unuware and VitroFI Biosystems. These spin-offs develop products and services in the fields of audiovisual accessibility, human behavior, intelligent driving, sports training, international geopolitics, aeronautical meteorology, bioengineered skin, digital advertising, social robotics and digestive medicine.

UC3M's participation in the Madrid City Hall stand is co-funded by the City Council's Innovation and Entrepreneurship area, within the framework of the aid that UC3M receives to promote the creation and consolidation of spin-offs since 2021.

Another company that forms part of UC3M's ESA BIC node (one of the European Space Agency's four business incubation centres in the Community of Madrid), Cedrion, presented its solutions in a space provided by the Fundación para el Conocimiento madri+d. This start-up is dedicated to the design, development and manufacture of ionic wind devices with two main applications: the purification and disinfection of viruses and bacteria through cold plasma in biosanitary environments; and the cooling of electronic components for sectors such as aerospace and automotive. 

YUFE start-up and student competition

Two companies belonging to UC3M's business incubation and acceleration program have been selected as finalists in the start-up competition at this year's South Summit Madrid. On the one hand, Altum Sequencing, a spin-off of the Fundación para la Investigación Biomédica del Hospital 12 de Octubre (FIBH12O), which has patented a system for the early identification of specific genetic markers of tumors and the quantification of cancer cells after response to drug treatments. On the other hand, Hydra Space Systems, from UC3M's ESA BIC node, has developed an optimised communications solution for connecting devices for the so-called Internet of Things in remote areas, ensuring efficiency and low connectivity costs for sectors such as precision agriculture and monitoring of the sea and the environment.

In addition, the University has facilitated the attendance at this forum of 35 undergraduate, master's and doctoral students from YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe), a network formed by ten young universities at the forefront of research and teaching. Thanks to this, these students who participate in YUFE Ideas Lab (the incubation programme of this network) have been able to receive training in entrepreneurship. They come from five universities of this alliance: Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), Cyprus (Cyprus), Eastern Finland (Finland), Maastricht (Netherlands) and Rijeka (Croatia).

More information: 

UC3M at South Summit 2024
https://eventos.uc3m.es/118081/detail/la-uc3m-en-south-summit-2024.html

‘This patent arises from the problems with existing techniques for aligning the facets (the individual specular elements) of heliostats, as they are either time-consuming or inaccurate,’ explain the authors of the patent. ‘The procedure and system for aligning the facets of a heliostat in a solar field offers an accurate technique that allows for simpler and faster assembly and maintenance in the solar plant compared to other methods,’ they point out.

UC3M also received a special mention in the category of Best Patent by a young inventor (under 40 years of age) for the patent ‘Device and method for characterizing the rough profile of a tissue sample’ (P202030210), by Roberto Fernández, Asier Marcos and Jorge Ripoll, from the University's Bioengineering Department. This invention in the field of microscopy describes a device designed to obtain useful information for the characterisation of rough tissue samples and three procedures to determine different parameters with it, such as the degree of anisotropy of the sample, its roughness frequency and amplitude, and the local average velocity of movement.

"The patented device makes it possible to determine changes in tissue structure indicative of inflammation and tumors using optical technology. This facilitates the early detection of various abnormalities, even before they show visible signs, says the developers.‘This technology can be implemented as a module in endoscopes (in vivo diagnostic tests) and microscopes (in vitro diagnostic tests), demonstrating its diagnostic efficacy in oesophageal or colon cancer,’ they add. 

This is the third edition of the ‘Awards for the Best Inventions Protected by Industrial Property Rights’, which have established themselves as a benchmark for the General State Administration's support for innovation and its protection by means of industrial property rights. The purpose of these awards is to distinguish the protection of research results through patents and utility models granted during the year 2022.

The protection of research results at the University is carried out through its Servicio de apoyo al Emprendimiento y la Innovación (Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Service), located in the Centro de Innovación en Emprendimiento e Inteligencia Artificial (C3N-IA; Centre for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence), at the Parque Científico UC3M (UC3M Science Park).

This work, published in the scientific journal Ecological Economics, shows that political leadership also plays a crucial role in building public support for climate policies. “Politicians must promote the fight against climate change, because otherwise citizens will lose interest in the subject and also stop fighting”, adds Anxo Sánchez.

Regional differences

Using a simplified model of the Spanish socio-political system, researchers have also found significant regional differences in this context. “There are citizens who may live in urban areas, such as Madrid, and others who may live in more agricultural areas... and what we have found with our model is that support for environmental policies is stronger in some regions than in others”, explains another of the study's authors, Alberto Antonioni, a researcher at UC3M's Interdisciplinary Group of Complex Systems (GISC, in its Spanish acronym).

The study's findings have implications for public policy design. Regional variability in policy acceptance, for example, indicates that communication strategies and policy interventions should be tailored to each region's specific characteristics and needs, according to the researchers. In addition, the study results suggest that encouraging citizen participation is crucial to increase the acceptance of climate change mitigation policies.

In order to carry out this research, the authors developed a computational model known as agent-based simulation, which basically consists of programming agents that make decisions based on what they observe around them. The model was calibrated with data from a survey on attitudes and support for climate policies in Spain carried out by the Elcano Royal Institute.

This work is part of the effort that UC3M dedicates to the fight against climate change. In fact, the University has launched the Strategic Climate Initiative, which aims to bring together all of the university's research groups that have something to say about climate issues in order to promote knowledge transfer in this area and increase the social impact, among other actions.

More information: 

Lipari, F.  Lázaro-Touza, L. Escribano, G.  Sánchez, A.  Antonioni, A. (2024). When the design of climate policy meets public acceptance: An adaptive multiplex network model. Ecological Economics, Volume 217, 108084, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.108084 

Lipari, F.  Lázaro-Touza, L. Escribano, G.  Sánchez, A.  Antonioni, A. (2023). Four lessons on the interaction between climate change mitigation policies and social behaviour. Real Instituto Elcano. https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/four-lessons-on-the-interaction-between-climate-change-mitigation-policies-and-social-behaviour/
 

When asked about her research, Vanesa Guerrero explains that she would like the models and tools she develops to help with more informed and interpretable decision-making to be used by professionals in different fields and for them to be beneficial for their work. In this way, people could better understand why a mathematical model or algorithm decides, for example, whether or not to give someone a loan or what is the suitable dose of a certain medication depending on the patient's characteristics. 

“This project focuses on functional data, that is, data where for each observation there are one or more curves reflecting the evolution of certain characteristics over time [...] It is a methodological project that can have applications in fields as diverse as medicine, meteorology, demography and economics, among others”, says the researcher. In fact, “machine learning and artificial intelligence play a crucial role in the development of algorithms for data-based decision-making”, she concludes.

These L'Oréal and UNESCO prizes, which are focusing on the fields of physical-mathematical sciences, technology and engineering this year, aim to support this research work and bring women's leadership to the forefront of Spain's scientific field. The research projects have been chosen by a jury made up of scientific experts in the areas covered in this edition: María A. Blasco, director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO, in its Spanish acronym); Pilar López Sancho, research lecturer in the Materials Theory and Simulation Department at the CSIC’s Madrid Institute of Materials Science; Nuria Oliver, co-founder and director of the ELLIS Alicante Foundation; and Mateo Valero, director of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (National Supercomputing Centre). 

The L'Oréal-UNESCO ‘For Women in Science’ programme has launched the careers of more than 4,100 female scientists under the age of 40 worldwide since it was created in 1998. In Spain, the programme has acknowledged the careers of 87 female scientists in total, to whom it has awarded grants worth over 1.3 million euros.

Vanesa Guerrero (Guadalcanal, Seville; 1989) has a Bachelor's degree (2012) and a PhD (2017) in Mathematics from the University of Seville. She later became a visiting lecturer in the Department of Statistics at UC3M, where she currently works, since July 2022, with a Juan de la Cierva contract. She has also carried out research stays at the Copenhagen Business School (Denmark) and the École Polytechnique (France). Among her scientific achievements, she has been awarded the Ramiro Melendreras Prize from the Society of Statistics and Operations Research and the Ramiro Melendreras Foundation, the Vicent Caselles Prize from the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society and the BBVA Foundation, and the Extraordinary Doctorate Prize in the branch of Mathematics from the University of Seville. This new award for Vanesa “contributes to encouraging leadership and making my research visible, therefore helping to consolidate my scientific career. In addition, this award provides added motivation to continue in the long-distance race that research can sometimes be”.

AI Methods, S.L., led by Manuel Soler and Javier García-Heras, researchers from the Aerospace Engineering Department, aims to reduce the risk of weather-related events in aviation by promoting greater availability of weather information and better connectivity to provide more frequent weather updates to airlines, air navigation service providers and other organisations. In order to do this, it develops cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) models to predict weather patterns more reliably than is possible when using traditional weather prediction algorithms.

Hiili, S.L., led by Ángel and Rubén Cuevas Rumín, researchers from the Telematics Engineering Department, develops technological solutions that combine Internet measurement techniques and Machine Learning-based models to give an accurate estimate of the energy consumption of a company's digital processes. The first product is focused on the field of digital advertising. Specifically, the level of granularity offered by its system will allow a precise quantification of a company or brand's energy consumption for each advert that it shows to a user. From 2025, according to a European directive, companies will have to report on how their business model impacts sustainability.

Persei Space, S.L., led by Gonzalo Sánchez Arriaga and Manuel Sanjurjo Rivo, researchers from the Aerospace Engineering Department, aims to develop and commercialise space products, in both the software and hardware fields, through space propulsion solutions based on electrodynamic tethers. In addition to being lightweight and scalable, space tethers can produce a drag or propulsive force in orbit without using propellant, making them ideal for space debris deorbiting and orbital mobility applications to provide in-orbit services.  

Seevia Technologies, S.L., led by Abdulla Al-Kaff and Fernando García Fernández, researchers from the Systems Engineering and Automation Department, focuses on the creation of high added-value technological solutions, focused on the application of AI and computer vision in the automotive sector, as well as in traffic monitoring and other tasks related to the Smart City concept. Its expertise lies in the development of perception systems based on information from a wide variety of sensors, including LiDAR, radar, cameras and GPS. 

60Nd, S.L., led by the researcher Daniel García González, from the Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis Department, is a spin-off dedicated to the design and production of lab instrumentation for the in vitro simulation of biological processes influenced by mechanical effects. It aims to commercialise a disruptive technology to induce mechanical activations in cells through magneto-responsive materials. This technology allows for new research possibilities in the fields of mechanobiology and mechanomedicine, with high potential to reduce time and costs during pharmaceutical research phases and to improve the quality and efficiency of treatments.

Including these companies, UC3M is currently a shareholder of 11 spin-offs which are supported by the programme for the creation of and shareholding in spin-offs, located in the University's Science Park's Centre for Innovation in Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence (C3N-IA, in its Spanish acronym). The other companies are: Cyclomed Technologies, Evidence Based Behavior, Inrobics Social Robotics, Laboratorio Hipermedia, LeapWave Technologies and Power Smart Control. In addition, UC3M is also a shareholder of Sensia Solutions.

Un crecimiento del 40% respecto a la pasada edición

En esta edición, 376 equipos de toda España, 1.389 niñas y 674 mentores completaron el programa, lo que supone un 85% del total de las niñas inscritas y un crecimiento del 40% con respecto al pasado año.  

De ellas, más de 850 niñas organizadas en 218 equipos acudieron a esta 8ª edición celebrada en la UC3M con el objetivo común de resolver algún problema de su comunidad en materias relacionadas con los objetivos ODS como medioambiente, salud, igualdad, educación y pobreza. 

Los equipos participantes junto a sus mentores, voluntarios en la organización, y llegados desde distintas comunidades autónomas como Madrid, Galicia, Castilla y León, Castilla La Mancha, País Vasco, Andalucía, Aragón y Cantabria, han mostrado en la feria de stands y ante un jurado formado por más de 200 profesionales del mundo de la tecnología sus trabajos realizados durante cuatro meses que han supuesto la construcción de un prototipo de una solución tecnológica mediante aplicaciones móviles y proyectos de inteligencia artificial, un plan de marketing y comunicación y otro de negocio para un posible lanzamiento al mercado de estas ideas. 

El evento también contó con la participación de diferentes personalidades del mundo de la cultura, la ciencia y la política para mostrar su apoyo a esta iniciativa tan importante, que inspira y empodera a las niñas como futuras emprendedoras y líderes.

El rector de la UC3M, Ángel Arias, señaló que este era un día muy importante, especial y diferente para la Universidad. “Estáis vosotras y llenáis la universidad de talento, de ilusión y algo aún más importante:  la fuerza de los sueños, de las buenas ideas y del trabajo en equipo. Para crear un buen futuro hay que imaginarlo y dentro de vosotras está esa fuerza que la sociedad necesita para transformarse en positivo. Por ello quiero agradecer muy especialmente a nuestra invitada de honor Sara Garcia Alonso la primera mujer española candidata a astronauta, además una brillante investigadora científica en el centro de investigaciones contra el cáncer, y un ejemplo para todas y todos de esa fuerza transformadora que nuestra sociedad necesita. Como Sara, detrás de cada una de vosotras hay una persona con curiosidad, con ganas de explorar, de entender y mejorar el mundo, con las ganas de aprender que alimentan el motor de la ciencia. En este sentido Technovation Girls ayuda a canalizar esas ganas y de materializarlas con soluciones de ciencia y tecnología pero también con un enfoque en las humanidades. Pero el conocimiento no es solo eso, lo más importante aún es que uséis todo lo aprendido para cumplir vuestros sueños y para hacer un mundo mejor para todas las personas que lo habitamos”. 

La presidenta de Power to Code, Alicia Mancheño, apostilló que estas niñas como Technovation Girls comparten el vínculo de cambiar el mundo a través de la tecnología. “Pertenecéis a esa Comunidad de mujeres que a lo largo de la historia ha ido construyendo cosas que nos ha permitido estar aquí. Pero, lo que os distingue son las fuerzas de las redes que podéis construir y donde os podéis apoyar. Os invito a apoyaros en estas redes para hacer el bien y para construir el futuro”. 

Nera González, embajadora de Technovation Girls, afirmó que “habéis trabajado con propósito, aprendiendo cosas nuevas junto con vuestras amigas y mentores, y os habéis divertido mucho. Continuad este camino que habéis iniciado. Soñad, mirad a las estrellas… Sed curiosas, estáis diseñando el futuro del mundo, disfrutad y pasadlo bien”.

Tras la deliberación del jurado, se hizo entrega de los premios que este año recayeron en:

Categoría BEGINNERS (mañana)

• Primer premio: SMALL TECHNICS
• Segundo premio: GO CODE
• Tercer premio: LAS TECNOLINCES
• Cuarto premio: 1ST TECHNOLOGY GIRLS
• Quinto premio: SOLVING GIRLS
• Sexto premio: DORI-TEX

Categoría BEGINNERS (tarde)

• Primer premio: CRAZY IDEAS ALWAYS
• Segundo premio: MECHA GIRLS
• Tercer premio: PUERTOLLANO WONDERFUL GIRLS
• Cuarto Premio: THE GLORIUS TEAM
• Quinto premio: VERISURE EQUIPO 8
• Sexto premio: TECHNOMAGIC 2024
• Séptimo premio: VERISURE QUIPO 9

Categoría JUNIOR (mañana)

• Primer premio: GIRLS FOR POWER
• Segundo premio: LOCAS POR LA TECH!
• Tercer premio: PI-ÑA TEAM
• Cuarto premio: VERISURE EQUIPO 12

Categoría JUNIOR (tarde)

• Primer premio: LAS TECHNOSTARS
• Segundo premio: PAM TECH GIRLS
• Tercer premio: THE CODEBREAKERS
• Cuarto premio: NORSPTECH
• Quinto premio: CARBALLO TX

Categoría SENIOR 

• Primer premio: LAS NUTRISOLUTIONS
• Segundo premio: FLOWING

Tras este evento, los equipos finalistas de la final regional de Madrid participarán en una semifinal online ante un jurado internacional,en el que optarán a participar en el evento mundial. Solo 15 equipos llegarán a la final mundial que se celebrará en octubre, en la ciudad norteamericana de San Francisco.   

De todos los premiados, solo 15 equipos llegarán a la final mundial que se celebrará en la ciudad norteamericana de San Francisco el próximo mes de octubre.

Más información

La Universidad obtuvo el sello en diciembre de 2016, tras la adhesión a la Carta y del Código. El proceso de renovación se inició en septiembre de 2023 con la visita y posterior evaluación por parte de la Comisión Europea. La UC3M obtuvo la máxima puntuación posible por parte de la institución, que señaló que se avanzaba con las acciones adecuadas y de calidad, según lo descrito en el plan de acción. 

El sello HR está cada vez más integrado en la Universidad, lo que ha posibilitado su renovación hasta 2026, fecha en la que habrá que realizar un autoanálisis y evaluación interna, tal y como establece el sello de calidad HR Excellence in research.

El proyecto HRS4R de la UC3M está impulsado desde el Servicio de Recursos Humanos y Organización de la Universidad en colaboración con el Servicio de Investigación.

Más información

The researchers have developed a typology of deepfakes, which makes it easier to identify and neutralise them. According to the results of the study, some political leaders (such as Trump or Macron) were the main protagonists of content referring to drug use or morally reprehensible activities. There is also a considerable proportion of pornographic deepfakes that harm women's integrity, particularly exposing famous singers and actresses. They are generally shared from unofficial accounts and spread quickly via instant messaging services, the researchers say.

The proliferation of deepfakes, or the frequent use of images, videos or audios manipulated with AI tools, is a highly topical issue. “This type of prefabricated hoax is especially harmful in sensitive situations, such as in pre-election periods or in times of conflict like the ones we are currently experiencing in Ukraine or Gaza. This is what we call 'hybrid wars': the war is not only fought in the physical realm, but also in the digital realm, and the falsehoods are more significant than ever”, says Ruiz Incertis.

The applications of this research are diverse, from national security to the integrity of election campaigns. The findings suggest that the proactive use of AI on social media platforms could revolutionise the way we maintain the authenticity of information in the digital age.

The research highlights the need for greater media literacy and proposes educational strategies to improve the public's ability to discern between real and manipulated content. “Many of these deepfakes can be identified through reverse image searches on search engines such as Google or Bing. There are tools for the public to check the accuracy of content in a couple of clicks before spreading content of dubious origin. The key is to teach them how to do it”, says Raquel Ruiz Incertis. It also provides other tips for detecting deepfakes, such as paying attention to the sharpness of the edges of the elements and the definition of the image background: if the movements are slowed down in the videos or whether there is any facial alteration, body disproportion or strange play of light and shadows, everything indicates that it could be AI-generated content. 

In addition, the study's authors also see the need for a legislation that obliges platforms, applications and programmes (such as Midjourney or Dall-e) to establish a “watermark” that identifies them and allows the user to know at a glance that the image or video has been modified or created entirely with AI.

The research team has used a multidisciplinary approach, combining data science and qualitative analysis, to examine how fact-checking organisations apply AI in their operations. The main methodology is a content analysis of around thirty publications taken from the websites of the aforementioned fact-checkers where this AI-manipulated or manufactured content is disproved. 

Bibliographic reference: Garriga, M., Ruiz-Incertis , R., & Magallón-Rosa, R. (2024). Artificial intelligence, disinformation and media literacy proposals around deepfakes. Observatorio (OBS*), 18(5). https://doi.org/10.15847/obsOBS18520242445 

During the introduction to the event, Beatriz Rosique, the head of external promotion of the Vice Rector's Office for Research and Transfer who announced that she is leaving her position upon retirement, spoke about the origins of this event, which go back a decade. It was in 2012, with the project “Communicating Innovation”, which was supported by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, in its Spanish acronym) and consisted of a meeting at the Círculo de Bellas Artes with some of the major players in this field.

The first round table, focusing on the contribution and dialogue of innovation sources and players and moderated by Atlas Tecnológico journalist, Eugenio Mallol, was attended by: Elena Chavarría, communication manager at the multinational Thales; Emilio Corchado, creator of StartupOlé; Soledad Díaz, manager of the Association of Science and Technology Parks (APTE, in its Spanish acronym); Mónica de la Fuente, marketing manager of the company AEQ, Eva López, head of marketing and communication at the Technological Institute of Computer Science (ITI/Fedyt, in its Spanish acronym); and Lluís Santamaría, a UC3M lecturer and co-head of the University's Spanish Innovation Index (ÍEI, in its Spanish acronym).

Some key ideas on innovation sources and players 

• “Without communication and innovation there is no transformation; they must go hand in hand”, Eugenio Mallol.
• “When you have a close relationship with a journalist, previously overlooked issues to report may arise in the company”, Elena Chavarría.
• “The communication team must be aligned with the vision and values that the CEO wants to project”, Emilio Corchado.
• “It's important to filter the valuable information to detect where the innovation really is”, Soledad Díaz.
• “The important thing about technology isn’t the technology itself, but what you do with it”, Mónica de la Fuente.
• “It's not only what you say and how you say it that’s important, but also when you say it”, Eva López.
• “Consumer perception is valuable information for redefining a company's communication policies”, Lluís Santamaría.

Later, journalist Juanma Romero, director of Emprende TVE, gave a talk on how to become visible with AI and empathy. “If you have a good idea but you don’t know how to communicate it, it’s as if you never had it”, he said in his talk, alluding to a quote by Pericles (“Having knowledge but lacking the power to express it clearly is no better than never having any ideas at all”). In this sense, he pointed out that the spokespeople have to know how to communicate and relate to journalists.

The event’s next round table, focusing on the contribution of R&D&I communication channels and media, was moderated by the founder and CEO of inBusiness 5.0, Francisco Hortigüela, and was attended by: Pilar Alcázar, editor of Emprendedores magazine; Andrés Dulanto, editor-in-chief of the EFE Agency; Susana Herrera, professor of journalism and director of the Innovation on Digital Media Group at UC3M; Alberto Iglesias, director of Disruptores at El Español; María Lacalle, business development at Innovaspain; Eva Lorente, CEO of the LorenteComunicaciónagency.

Some key ideas about R&D&I communication channels and media

• “Advertising is what you say about yourself, communication is what others say about you”, Francisco Hortigüela.
• “Not every entrepreneur is newsworthy, but must be innovative”, Pilar Alcázar.
• “We must condemn what is being done badly and explain what is being done well in R&D&I journalism”, Andrés Dulanto.
• “The university can provide examples of good practice in innovation communication from the academic field”, Susana Herrera.
• “Journalists and the media have critical work to do; the challenge is separating the wheat from the chaff because there's also a lot of posturing and selling smoke in this field”, Alberto Iglesias.
• “We are interested in explaining innovation as a process to change the economic and social model”, María Lacalle.
• “It is not enough to promote a project, you also have to publicise what is being done”, Eva Lorente.

The event was concluded by the moderators of the round tables together with the academic director of UC3M's Office of Information and Dissemination of Science and Innovation (OIDCI, in its Spanish acronym), Elías Sanz. The latter highlighted the importance of communication for knowledge transfer: “The University makes a great effort in research and innovation, but in order to transform this into results, processes and services that are passed on to society, good public communication of R&D&I is also necessary”.

Finally, there was a workshop on the value of public communication of R&D&I for research staff, given by Fco. Javier Alonso, technical manager of the UC3M Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit (UCC+i, in its Spanish acronym), who spoke about the benefits of public communication of science at the institutional level. 

The map allows you to search for information on a total of 727 research groups in different ways, both by universities and by thematic areas and sub-areas, or by free text. To do this, the research activities of all the groups have been assigned to one of the 19 thematic areas and 54 sub-areas into which the State Research Agency (AEI, in its Spanish acronym) classifies research activity. Another way to search is by using any of the terms of the lines of research, in addition to searching directly by the name of the group's main researcher.

The A4U is a strategic university alliance between four leading Spanish public universities: UAB, UAM, UC3M and UPF. A4U's objectives include promoting research in Europe; raising its profile and improving its international reputation by promoting contacts in priority and strategic countries and areas; improving mobility options for students, teaching staff and researchers; and enhancing teaching quality, with a clear commitment to inter-university degrees, programmes in English and online training.

More information:

Map of A4U research groups:
https://research.a-4u.eu

The answer to all these questions is yes, according to the researchers who are part of the RefMap project. In particular, their vision for sustainable aviation is embodied in tangible objectives and concrete proposals. In this three-year project, experts from the general aviation sector come together to marry the two worlds of air traffic management and unmanned aircraft systems traffic management, focusing their research primarily on future aviation business models.

The RefMap multidisciplinary consortium is made up of 11 partners, including universities, SMEs and experts from 8 European countries and its aim is to reduce the environmental impact of airline air travel and unmanned aerial systems by creating a digital service that optimises flight paths at both the individual level (micro scale) and the air transport system level (macro scale).

Using environmental data (such as wind, noise, CO2 and other gas emissions), RefMap's analytical platform will help airlines, airports and regulators to make more environmentally friendly choices. This will lead to stricter, evidence-based environmental policy-making in the aviation sector and the development of new aviation business models in line with the EU Green Agenda.

The first results of the technical work

RefMap's UK partner, the University of Salford, has completed the first in a series of experiments aimed at understanding the human response to drone noise. The ultimate goal is to develop a model to predict the disturbance caused by drone noise and to help optimise their trajectory to reduce the impact on communities.

In addition, RefMap is now able to predict the wind around realistic urban areas, which can be used to explore and optimise UAV trajectories using a low-fidelity computational fluid dynamics model. The Delft University of Technology, together with AgentFly Technologies, have been working on it, and their teams are already planning the next experimental campaign in the Czech Republic to measure the noise emitted by a wide range of unmanned aerial vehicle operations.

In addition, RefMap's coordinator, the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, has developed an emissions method, adapting existing ones for traditional fuels, to take into account sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) in different mixing ratios.

Within the framework of this project, a comprehensive and detailed analysis will be presented at UC3M that explores the feasibility and potential of using climate-friendly flight planning as an operational measure to mitigate the climate impact of the aviation sector. “The results obtained so far show that the effectiveness of climate-optimised route planning in mitigating climate impact is closely related to daily weather conditions, thus acting as a crucial indicator,” say the project's researchers, María Cerezo and Manuel Soler, from UC3M's Aerospace Engineering Department.

The RefMap project started on the 1st of February 2023 and is scheduled to end on the 31st of January 2026, coordinated by the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. In addition to UC3M, the following institutions are part of the project: AgentFly Technologies s.r.o. (AFT), Delft University of Technology (TUD), DronePrep, Future Needs Management Consulting (FN), Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS), Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH), S&T, University of Birmingham, University Institute of Lisbon, and University of Salford. The project has received funding from the European Union's HORIZON Research and Innovation Programme and, more specifically, from CINEA (European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency) of the European Commission, under grant agreement number 101096698.

More information: 

RefMap project website

Verifiable computation provides integrity, fairness and privacy, essential properties in applications that outsource data processing tasks. Within the possible solutions, there are general proof systems, such as those used in some blockchain, which have scalability problems when dealing with computations with large amounts of data. On the other hand, solutions designed specifically for these applications are more efficient, but often incompatible with each other, making it difficult to scale them up or integrate them into larger data processing chains.

The study

Researchers have introduced a new framework aimed at bridging this gap by combining the performance advantages of custom solutions with the versatility of general-purpose test systems. At its core is a modular approach to verifiable computation of sequential operations, which is based on a new cryptographic primitive known as VE (Verifiable Evaluation Scheme).

The researchers demonstrate the practical application of their framework in artificial intelligence by proposing a novel VE adapted to convolution operations, capable of handling multiple interconnected input and output channels. "Our protocol can be easily integrated into a data processing chain to enable full verification of, for example, predictions made by convolutional neural networks (CNNs), which are the basis of most artificial intelligence models," says David Balbás, PhD student at IMDEA Software and researcher of this study. In addition, the paper also presents new VEs for image processing, which allow efficient verification of editing or retouching, including operations such as cropping, blurring, rescaling and other more complex operations.

The team has produced a prototype application of its testing systems that is a significant improvement on existing techniques. "Our benchmarking shows that our proofs are five times faster to generate and ten times faster to verify than the best existing solutions so far, in addition to introducing theoretical innovations in the algorithms," explains Damien Robissout, research programmer at Institute IMDEA Software and also co-author of the study.

These results not only improve the efficiency and scalability of cryptographic proof systems but also open up new possibilities for ensuring the integrity, fairness and privacy of data processing tasks in various applications of artificial intelligence and image processing. "Nowadays, this approach is essential in the field of application we are considering, because a technological advance is not such if it does not merit the trust of end users," says another of the study's authors, Maribel González Vasco, Professor of Excellence in the UC3M Department of Mathematics.

The application generated in the study is open source and its modular nature paves the way for its extension and integration into various tools within a data processing chain. In this way, the researchers clear the way for versatile and robust deployment of verifiable computation in applications as diverse as financial ethics, personal data protection or artificial intelligence regulation, among others.

This work is part of the PICOCRYPT project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 101001283).

Bibliographic reference:

Balbás, D. Fiore, D. González-Vasco, M. I. Robissout, D. Soriente, C. (2023). Modular Sumcheck Proofs with Applications to Machine Learning and Image Processing. CCS '23: Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications. Pages 1437–1451. https://doi.org/10.1145/3576915.3623160

Five factors have been taken into account to prepare this study: the university's academic reputation; its reputation in the business world; the average number of citations that the scientific publications of its research staff have received in Scopus over the years; the “h-index”, which measures both the quantity (productivity) and quality (impact) of research activity; and the international network of research activities.

Prepared by the British consultancy firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), this global ranking evaluates the performance of programmes offered at 1,559 institutions worldwide. This analysis has been published annually since 2011 and focuses on a total of 55 academic disciplines.

QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024

In view of this situation, the MAPFRE Foundation's Ageingnomics Research Centre has published and presented “Housing and Pensions. A guide to monetising housing and improving your pension”, at UC3M's Madrid-Puerta de Toledo Campus, carried out by experts Juan Ángel Lafuente Luengo, professor of Financial Economics and Accounting at the UJI, and Pedro Serrano Jiménez, Associate Professor of Financial Economics and Accounting at UC3M. This publication aims to offer the elderly a simple and comprehensible tool so they can learn about the different options that exist to make their property profitable and provide liquidity without changing homes, as well as to discover the existence of insurance and financial products that improve their purchasing power.

During the presentation of the guide held at UC3M, its authors, together with the director of the Ageingnomic Research Centre, Juan Fernández Palacios, presented some of the options included in the document and addressed the importance of seniors being aware of such alternatives to complement public retirement benefits.

The guide points out that the latest available statistics indicate that a significant proportion of adults are facing their retirement with shortages. Currently, the average retirement pension in Spain stands at 1,438.20 euros, an amount that has increased compared to last year and which guarantees a basic level of sustenance, but is often insufficient to maintain the retired population's quality of life, especially considering the current economic situation and the fact that they will progressively need more resources to cover their dependency needs. Thus, housing monetisation options are presented as an effective solution to supplement the average pension.

Housing and pensions: alternatives for monetising housing

Selling or renting a property is the most common decision to obtain extra income in retirement by profiting from real estate assets. However, not all seniors have a second home to move to and, furthermore, 45% of the over-55s have no intention of relocating in the future, a trend that is growing with increasing age. For this reason, having additional resources that do not involve having to move, and that help to supplement the public pension, is essential for this group. Thus, the guide, in addition to discussing traditional alternatives such as retaining or transferring ownership, focuses on new monetisation alternatives.

“Taking into account that more than 8 out of 10 seniors own their own home, it is essential that they are aware that there are different insurance and financial products with which they can improve their purchasing power and, therefore, their standard of living during this stage of retirement. Through the monetisation of housing, real estate assets can be converted into liquid money and, as with pension plans or insurance, it is another instrument that seniors can use to supplement public retirement benefits,” says Juan Fernández Palacios.
 
To facilitate understanding of the different options available, the Ageingnomics Research Centre paper divides the new alternatives for monetising housing into two groups: those that involve a lifetime transfer of home ownership, and those that retain ownership.
 
In the first, the owner can obtain liquidity by selling the property during their lifetime, but retaining the right to reside in it for life. This is achieved through the transfer of ownership of the property in exchange for cash, while maintaining the right to reside in the property until death. Within this group are the sale of the bare ownership, reverse housing and real estate annuities.

In the second type of alternative, there is no transfer of ownership, but liquidity is obtained through a financial institution. Reverse mortgages and advance rent payments can be used to do this. This option is very useful for homeowners who want to protect the transfer of their property to their heirs. In this way, the property is retained by the owner over the age of 55 until their death, after which it will pass to their heirs. “These new ways of monetising housing expand the range of possibilities both for homeowners, in order to finance their retirement using their real estate assets, and for investors, increasing the set of investment assets available on the market,” says Pedro Serrano Jiménez, co-author of the study and a lecturer in UC3M's Business Economics Department. 

More information: 

Vivienda y pensión. Guía para monetizar la vivienda y mejorar tu pensión

Este clúster pretende convertir a la Comunidad de Madrid en un referente internacional, líder en el desarrollo de tecnologías de Inteligencia Artificial y en su aplicación, que la dotarán de servicios digitales inteligentes, haciendo que vivir en Madrid sea una experiencia única en lo referente a sostenibilidad y calidad de vida.

Entre las funciones del clúster está el establecimiento y la realización de toda actividad que signifique una aportación a la comunidad usuaria de inteligencia artificial y al fomento de la economía local. Además, tiene la pretensión de impulsar la implantación, estandarización y la utilización de las tecnologías relativas a esta disciplina. 

Asimismo, desde este centro se promoverá la automatización inteligente de los procesos de negocio y se fomentará el conocimiento y el uso del concepto de inteligencia artificial por parte de la sociedad. Uno de los objetivos es impulsar su utilización, así como el de las tecnologías asociadas necesarias, entre las administraciones, empresas y agentes sociales. Para ello, se realizarán campañas de divulgación y se impartirán seminarios, congresos, jornadas y eventos, entre otros.

La misión es establecer un marco de colaboración en el ecosistema de innovación de la CM que permita generar talento y atraer inversión con el objetivo de impulsar la adopción de tecnologías de Inteligencia artificial, capaces de generar una ventaja competitiva en la región, haciendo empresas más eficientes y una sociedad más sostenible.

"The project identified barriers currently hindering the transitions towards 6G, limiting the network sustainability and the seamless interactions among operators. We plan to break these barriers, using novel techniques based on e.g. artificial intelligence", says another of the researchers who are part of the project, Marco Gramaglia, a lecturer in the UC3M Department of Telematics Engineering. "From UC3M, we're going to lead the architectural definition work, trying to impact the 6G standardization process that will start in 2025; and we'll design solutions for the efficient RAN operation", he says.

By proposing and developing three critical architecture innovations – Global Services Based Architecture (GSBA), Zero Trust Exposure Layer (ZTL), and Continuous Compute Layer (CCL) -, ORIGAMI will create unique global standards, promote green transition, give new impetus to accessibility and inspire innovative applications and new business models, maximizing the exploitation of AI-based Network Intelligence functions. The project will conduct eight real-world demonstrations at six experimental sites and two large-scale international datasets from two major operators, which will validate its technology and research results.

“The environment proposed by ORIGAMI will streamline communication and interoperability at all levels of the network, pave the way for truly global standards, democratize access to extremely heterogeneous computing resources, and allow third parties to securely program their virtual networks in zero-trust environments”, says Dr. Javier García Rodrigo, Project Coordinator at Telefónica Digital Innovation. “This research – Dr. García Rodrigo continues – is probably the first in Europe to holistically address substantial barriers to the success of 6G, from limitations in the control and interoperability of virtualized infrastructure to the lack of adequate support for global operations and billing, which are increasingly common in real-world scenarios”.

The project extends the scope of previous works such as DAEMON, led by IMDEA Networks Institute and based on the 5G architectural model, intending to increase the full potential of virtualization and programmability. To achieve this objective, ORIGAMI will adopt a completely renewed perspective: proposing a novel cross-plane architecture for 6G networks that supports original exposure and computation layers. A framework of functionalities within which actions such as supporting the global operation model of vertical applications, mass IoT deployment, or maximizing the potential of virtualization and programmability stand out.

Marco Fiore, Principal Investigator of IMDEA Networks Institute in the project, highlights the institution’s contribution to this scientific performance: “We bring our expertise in AI-based network function design and network user plane programmability. Specifically, we will work to develop and demonstrate in industrial-level experimental testbeds new machine learning models that can operate on heterogeneous user planes through efficient model design and hardware allocations. This approach will enable more agile access to the capabilities of modern programmable transport domains. For network operators, our solutions will translate into increased speed, accuracy, and scalability compared to the current state of the art.”

The ORIGAMI project is funded by the European Commission (GA 101139270) as part of the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU). Coordinated by Telefónica Research and Development, it involves 31 researchers from 9 countries and brings together some of the main industry and academic players in the mobile telecommunications ecosystem in Europe, such as: NEC Laboratories Europe, Telecom Italia (TIM), EMnify, FOGUS Innovations & Services, Cumucore, IS-Wireless, Net AI, IMDEA Networks, i2CAT and the Technische Universiteit Delft, in addition to UC3M. 

More information

ECOCredGT is implemented mainly in Guatemala, with the support of European partners from Spain and Austria, to establish a national model of digital credentials for vocational training that can then be extrapolated to other countries. Other outcomes of the project include the training of staff at participating institutions, the implementation of micro-courses that promote employability and the creation of an observatory in Latin America to monitor the status of digital credentials and share good practices and success stories.

“The capacity building generated thanks to ECOCredGT will strengthen the foundation for exploring the future issuance of digital credentials for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in a validated ecosystem with international recognition and interoperability”, concludes Carlos Alario. “Although it focuses on a single country (Guatemala), dissemination is expected to reach many other countries within this region. I think this type of project is important in the context of collaboration between Europe and Latin America”, he says.

ECOCredGT (acronym for “Towards a digital credential ecosystem to strengthen actions for job creation”) is a project funded by the European Union (GA 10112912) within the framework of the Erasmus+ programme. Coordinated by UC3M, it also involves the Galileo University (Guatemala), the Technical University of Graz (Austria) and the Kinal Foundation (Guatemala). And it follows the path of other previous recent projects in which some of these institutions have collaborated, such as PROF-XXI, MOOC-Maker or E-LANE. The views and opinions expressed in this news story are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).

More information: 

ECOCredGT project website

The DepolarisingEU network seeks to address this problem by promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and developing effective interventions to mitigate undemocratic partisanship. “This initiative represents a crucial step in countering the divisive forces of radical polarisation and strengthening European civil spheres,” says Professor Maria Luengo. “By collaborating with civil and media organisations, we aim to promote pluralism and enhance democratic values in the digital age,” she adds. 

DepolarisingEU will use a multifaceted approach, drawing on cultural sociology and civil sphere theory to provide a regulatory framework for understanding and addressing radical polarisation. Through collaborative research, the network seeks to identify best practices and develop practical tools to effectively counter, redress and prevent radical polarisation. 

“Our goal is to equip people and communities with the necessary skills and knowledge to engage in civil and constructive dialogue,” explains Nadya Jaworsky, a lecturer at Masaryk University (in the Czech Republic) and vice president of this action. “By promoting communication interventions and improving media literacy, we can mitigate the negative impact of digital media on polarisation and promote a more inclusive public discourse”.

Redressing Radical Polarisation: Strengthening European Civil Spheres facing Illiberal Digital Media (DepolarisingEU) is an initiative that started in November 2023 with 23 researchers from 12 countries, although it currently already has over 100 researchers from 34 countries. The project will run for four years, until 2027, when they hope to have made significant contributions to the field of sociology and communication studies.

More information: 

Redressing Radical Polarisation: Strengthening European Civil Spheres facing Illiberal Digital Media (DepolarisingEU) https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA22165/

Traditionally, social sciences have studied the structure of relationships between individuals in a society (how many friendships a person has, how they cultivate them, how much they rely on them or need them to make everyday decisions, etc.) as a field independent of the cultural context (nationality, ethnicity, language, religion...). The aim of this project is to understand both dimensions in a single common framework. “We are going to consider it all as one thing: culture makes society, society makes culture”, says Anxo Sánchez. 

To do this, the researchers will apply machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to a massive amount of data from three sources. On the one hand, the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), a Yale University database that provides highly detailed information “on almost all the ethnographies published worldwide”, says José Luis Molina. On the other hand, a cultural classification based on the analysis of more than two billion personal Facebook profiles, work that part of the UC3M team has carried out and which has made it possible to “group the world's cultures into different clusters according to their similarity, as well as measuring the distances between cultures”, says the project coordinator. And lastly, our own surveys will be carried out in a dozen countries around the world. 

“We have a very bold plan”, says Christopher McCarty, “which is to understand the origins of this social structure surrounding you and how it interacts with culture. We've already published a first article in PNAS Nexus where we showed that there is a relationship between social structure and culture”. The sample of that study was limited, both in terms of the number of individuals and cultural groups, and wasn't sufficiently representative to draw large-scale conclusions. The great contribution that this new project will incorporate is that the analysis sample will be much larger and more culturally diverse.

According to Molina, this is “the first time” that a project analysing the human condition from the perspectives of personal networks and cultural origin will be undertaken, covering practically all of the world's ethnographies and large cultural groups. “This research represents a new and innovative approach to understanding human societies, offering a promising avenue for future cross-cultural studies, which we hope will contribute significantly to various fields, such as anthropology, psychology, sociology, network science and computational social science”, adds Anxo Sánchez.

In addition to this contribution that seeks to bridge the gap between two areas of knowledge, society and culture, the project leaders are convinced that the findings will go beyond academia: “Just as our previous studies have provided important evidence to prevent abusive behaviour in schools such as bullying, we are sure that this new project will have an impact on how to address issues such as, for example, the integration of migrants into societies”, says Sánchez.

The BBVA Foundation's Fundamentals Programme seeks to support exploratory, fundamental and interdisciplinary research on core issues in basic science. After assessing a total of 305 applications, the committees of expert evaluators have awarded five grants of 600,000 euros each in five areas of knowledge: Physics and Chemistry; Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence; Biology and Biomedicine; Environmental Sciences; and Social Sciences.

To do this, the researchers have worked with spheroids to simulate how cells behave in a real tumor under different mechanical conditions. These spheroids consist of groups of tumor cells embedded in a fibrillar matrix whose characteristics can be modulated. “They are very powerful systems that are increasingly being used to study tumor behavior and to study possible therapies”, explains another of the researchers, Arrate Muñoz-Barrutia, a Professor in UC3M's Bioengineering Department.

Thanks to these spheroids, researchers have been able to modify certain biological or mechanical aspects of these tumors in the laboratory and evaluate how these variables influence cell proliferation and migration. They then transformed these observations into mathematical equations implemented in a computational model. In this way, they were able to test in parallel (in the computer simulator and in the experimental model with the spheroids in the laboratory) the variables that influence the growth of these tumors. “Our new multi-compartment spheroid system allowed us to control and modulate the system’s biomechanical properties via collagen density and E-cadherin expression, which are known to play a role in breast cancer progression. It was very exciting to work with this team to see the story come together from both experimental and computational perspectives”, says another of the study's authors, Denis Wirtz, from JHU's Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department.

“While experimentally, proliferation and invasion are often measured as two independent parameters, we observed a strong coupling of these processes. Although they could not be isolated using traditional experimental outputs, the computational model allowed us to study these processes independently and gather insights from the biomechanical properties of our system”, adds another of the JHU team's researchers, Ashleigh Crawford.

Future applications of this study are promising, according to the researchers. “If we know which mechanical parameters determine whether the tumor grows more or less, then we could use that data to improve treatment or develop new drugs in the medium or long term”, says Daniel García González. “We think that these studies open the door to the development of technologies that allow us to characterize the mechanics of the tumor, which can add relevant information for the choice of cancer therapy”, adds Arrate Muñoz-Barrutia.

The team of scientists also highlights the importance of multidisciplinary research in this case, since contributions have been made from computational and mathematical to purely biological fields. “My training as a biomedical engineer, studying at UC3M, has allowed me to collaborate in all parts of this research and to create bridges of communication between disciplines that use different terminologies”, says another of the study's authors, Clara Gómez Cruz, a PhD student in UC3M's Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis Department.

This research is part of 4D-BIOMAP (Biomechanical Stimulation based on 4D Printed Magneto-Active Polymer), a project funded by the European Research Council through an ERC Starting Grant from the European Union's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020 (GA 947723). It has also received funding from the USA's National Institute of Health and National Cancer Institute.

Bibliographic reference:

Crawford A.J. Gomez-Cruz, C. Russo G. C. Huang, W. Bhorkar I. Roy, T, Muñoz-Barrutia, A. Wirtz, D. Garcia-Gonzalez, D. (2024).  Tumor proliferation and invasion are intrinsically coupled and unraveled through tunable spheroid and physics-based models.  Acta Biomaterialia, Volume 175, Pages 170-185, ISSN 1742-7061. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2023.12.043

One of the specific aspects this Chair will focus on is the development of a set of indicators that will make it possible to define and evaluate territorial cohesion policies. To do this, different dimensions will be taken into account, such as: social welfare, economic dynamism, environmental conservation and political governance. This indicator will be called iCORE.

“All these research activities will be based on semantic web technologies and open and linked data to promote and enhance open science initiatives in relation to territorial cohesion policies,” explains the researcher in charge of the Chair, Javier García Guzmán, Associate Professor in UC3M's Computer Science Department. “The research community will be able to access the generated datasets through access points based on semantic technologies, and citizens will be able to access them through GIS viewers of iCORE information and its comparison with other external entities (autonomous communities and countries),” he adds.

In addition, the Chair will enable permanent collaboration between the Regional Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Local Administration, through the Directorate-General for Territorial Rebalancing and UC3M. “This Chair will promote research and the development of open data analysis activities, and most importantly, it will encourage research and scientific talent in the field of local administration. Applying innovation to optimise and make the management of public administration more efficient is one of our main priorities,” said the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Local Administration, Miguel Ángel García Martín.

Within the framework of this Chair, research will be carried out on different artificial intelligence techniques for the exploitation and use of the generated data in the definition and evaluation of related policies. “The first case study advancing on the datasets that are already being generated consists of determining the distance to public services from each of the population centres in the Community of Madrid,” reveals Antonio de Amescua, a professor in UC3M's Computer Science Department and a member of the Chair's monitoring committee. 

Within the scope of the Chair's activity, studies encouraging the creation of talent in the area will also be sponsored, through the granting of scholarships, support for the completion of doctoral theses and final degree projects, the creation of thesis awards and Final Bachelor's and Master's Degree projects, etc.

This initiative has an investment of 300,000 euros provided by the regional government until 2026 and will allow the evaluation of public initiatives for territorial competitiveness and assess the suitability of promoting new businesses that boost local economies.

More information: 

LODCoreMadrid project website
http://lodcoremadrid.es 

Spain is obliged to urgently address the transition from a care model based on institutionalised settings to a community-based support model, the study argues. To this end, it highlights some key elements, such as considering people in need of care as subjects of rights, considering that the need for support is a consequence of the social structure, access to affordable and accessible housing, developing a network of inclusive community and family-based support, care, foster care and services (ACAIS), and recognising the rights to independent living and inclusion in the community, among others.

“Deinstitutionalisation is a political, social and cultural process, which provides for the transition from care in environments of isolation and segregation, generically identified as institutions, towards modalities of care and support, in line with a rights-based approach, which are person-centred and promote social participation and inclusion in the community,” explain the authors of the study.

This research is part of the EDI project, which aims to help ensure the transition from an institutionalised care model to one based on a human rights framework. To this end, five studies have been carried out, focusing on people with disabilities, the elderly, homeless people, children and adolescents and another with a transversalapproach.

These four population groups “share a situation of vulnerability that manifests itself in terms of structural discrimination based on an ableist, ageist, adult-centred and individualist cultural model”, says the project's lead researcher, Rafael de Asís Roig, a professor in UC3M's International Public Law, Ecclesiastical Law and Philosophy of Law Department.

In carrying out the studies, in which fifty researchers have participated in five working groups, various methodological techniques were applied, such as: analysis of databases, bibliography, cases, regulations and jurisprudence, surveys, in-depth interviews and discussion groups, etc.

The EDI project will continue to work on ensuring that all people in need of care can lead a life of choice in the community. Specifically, throughout 2024, seminars and conferences will be organised to debate and expand on the conclusions reached in the studies and scientific and other outreach publications will be produced.

More information:

Website of the study on the processes of deinstitutionalisation and transition towards personalised and community support models 

The opening talk will take place on Thursday the 14th at 9am, given by Manuel Gimeno and Adela Pérez, director of parametric engineering and head of parametric architecture at SACO Technologies. In this talk they will explain how, from a company in Zaragoza, they work on architectural projects through programming to make large installations possible, such as the video facade of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper, located in Dubai, or the Sphere building in Las Vegas.

The talk programme includes speakers from UC3M, research staff and alumni, who will talk about their research on topics such as the development of a new treatment of quantum games to implement in a video game; the design of personalised treatments for patients through augmented reality and 3D printing; cybersecurity applied to the video game Minecraft; advances in GPS navigation for air and space vehicles; and artificial intelligence. 

During the two days there will also be an exhibitors’ area with capacity for more than 20 companies. This space is sponsored by firms such as UC3 Foundation, Repsol, Nextdigital, Sngular and Okta, among others. In addition to showcasing new technologies, companies will take advantage of the event to recruit talent and evaluate the CVs of those interested in working or doing internships with them.

On Monday the 11th of March, T3chFest Ed Day will also be held, a day aimed at students in their final years of secondary education or studying technology-based A-Levels. The aim is for them to learn about the impact that technology and engineering have on our daily lives and on society. This insight into technology will be carried out through talks and practical workshops on scientific-technological outreach taught by UC3M research staff and alumni.

More information 

This ranking is prepared by UC3M's Institute for Business Development (INDEM, in its Spanish acronym), in collaboration with the consulting firm Neovantas. “The ÍEI is a very useful tool for companies, as it systematically collects perceived innovation from the consumers' point of view. The result is the annual rating and classification of the main business-to-consumer (B2C) companies operating in Spain according to different indicators, which makes it possible for us to know the relative attractiveness and loyalty of their customers,” explained INDEM Director, Lluis Santamaría, who was in charge of presenting this index at the event.

The event also featured a presentation on Behavioural Innovation by the director and partner of Neovantas, Juan de Rus, who has been actively involved in the ÍEI from the beginning. In his speech, he addressed the importance of behavioural economics in companies: “Based on the analysis and understanding of behaviour, the success of investment in innovation and entrepreneurship increases, as well as allowing products and services to be adapted to the current market, improving their perception index”, he pointed out.

Later, the head of the ÍEI, Lola Duque, a lecturer in the Business Economics Department, presented the results for 2023. The ranking's top company only had changes in 5 of the 21 sectors analysed, compared to the data from the previous edition of the study, “which is indicative of the stability and positioning marked in the Spanish consumers' perception of innovation”, she said. However, within each sector, there are dynamics regarding what consumers perceive. Specifically, “data analysis indicates that consumers place greater value on social and sustainable innovation than on digital innovation. Therefore, a major challenge for companies is finding the right balance between these two types of innovation in order to continue to be pioneers in the market”, he concluded. The event finished with a panel of representatives from the winning companies, consisting of Ikea, Balay and Ouigo, who shared their experience in the field of innovation.

This second edition of the ÍEI has been prepared using more than 23,000 surveys, analysing a total of 120 brands from 21 sectors of the Spanish market. The most innovative companies in each of the 3 sections (commercial, digital and social) were: Apple (commercial and digital), Toyota (social), Zara (Spanish commercial) Cabify (Spanish digital) and Balay (Spanish social). In addition, there was a special mention for the highest climber in the commercial ranking, which went to YouTube.

The following table shows the winning companies in each of the sectors analysed:

The INDEM Institute for Business Development is associated with UC3M's Business Economics Department and is the entity responsible (exclusively) for implementing the ÍEI. INDEM's mission is to promote, channel, coordinate and disseminate postgraduate research and teaching work related to business development, paying particular attention to contributing to research related to business innovation, taking an interdisciplinary approach. This work is carried out according to the criteria of transparency and excellence, in order to satisfactorily serve both the university community and the demands of the business and social environment. INDEM aims to be the link between its members and the business and social world, with a commitment to promoting and disseminating applied research to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business activity.

Neovantas is an international management consultancy firm that provides a collaboration model with a strong analytical component with behavioural and results-oriented optics. For over 15 years, it has helped its customers to accelerate the achievement of tangible and significant results in income, costs and/or quality in a sustainable manner over time.

Este ranking está elaborado por el Instituto para el Desarrollo de Empresas y Mercados (INDEM) de la UC3M, con la colaboración de la consultora Neovantas. “El ÍEI es una herramienta muy útil para las empresas, ya que recoge de manera sistemática la innovación percibida desde el punto de vista de los consumidores. El resultado es la calificación y clasificación anual de las principales empresas business to consumer (B2C) que operan en España en función de distintos indicadores, lo que permite conocer cuál es el atractivo relativo y la lealtad de sus clientes”, ha explicado el director del INDEM, Lluis Santamaría, quien fue el encargado de realizar la presentación de este índice en el acto. 

El evento también ha contado con una ponencia sobre Behavioral Innovation del director y socio de Neovantas, Juan de Rus, quien ha participado activamente desde sus inicios en el ÍEI. En su intervención abordó la importancia de la economía conductual en las empresas: “A partir del análisis y comprensión de los comportamientos, aumenta el éxito de la inversión en innovación y emprendimiento, además de permitir adaptar los productos y servicios al mercado actual, mejorando su índice de percepción”, ha señalado.

A continuación, la responsable del ÍEI, Lola Duque, profesora del Dpto. de Economía de la Empresa, presentó los resultados del año 2023. De los 21 sectores analizados hubo cambios de la primera empresa en el ranking en sólo 5 de ellos, respecto a los datos de la anterior edición del estudio, “lo que es indicativo de la estabilidad y posicionamiento marcado en la percepción de la innovación de los consumidores españoles”, ha indicado. Sin embargo, dentro de cada sector sí que se observan dinámicas respecto a lo que los consumidores perciben. En concreto, “el análisis de los datos indica que los consumidores dan un mayor valor a la innovación social y sostenible que a la innovación digital. Por ello, un reto importante para las empresas radica en encontrar el balance apropiado entre estos dos tipos de innovación para continuar siendo pioneras en el mercado”, ha concluido. El acto se cerró con un panel de representantes de las empresas ganadoras compuesto por Ikea, Balay y Ouigo, quienes contaron su experiencia en el ámbito de la innovación.

Esta segunda edición del ÍEI se ha elaborado mediante más de 23.000 encuestas, analizando un total de 120 marcas de 21 sectores del mercado español. Las empresas más innovadoras en cada uno de los 3 apartados (comercial, digital y social) han sido: Apple (comercial y digital), Toyota (social), Zara (comercial español) Cabify (digital español) y Balay (social español). Además, se ha realizado una mención especial al mayor escalador del ranking comercial, que ha recaído en YouTube. 

El Instituto para el Desarrollo Empresarial INDEM está asociado al Departamento de Economía de la Empresa de la UC3M y es la entidad responsable (en exclusiva) de implementar el ÍEI. La misión del INDEM es promover, canalizar, coordinar y difundir la labor investigadora y de docencia de tercer ciclo relacionada con el desarrollo empresarial, con especial atención a contribuir en la investigación relativa a la innovación empresarial, asumiendo un enfoque interdisciplinario. La citada labor se desarrolla bajo los criterios de transparencia y excelencia, a fin de atender satisfactoriamente tanto a la comunidad universitaria como a las demandas del entorno empresarial y social. El INDEM pretende ser el vínculo entre sus miembros y el mundo empresarial y social, con un compromiso de impulso y divulgación de la investigación aplicada a la mejora de la eficiencia y eficacia de la actividad empresarial.

Neovantas es una consultora de dirección internacional que aporta un modelo de colaboración con un fuerte componente analítico con óptica conductual y orientado a resultados. Desde hace más de 15 años ayuda a sus clientes a acelerar la obtención de resultados tangibles y significativos en ingresos, costes y/o calidad de manera sostenible en el tiempo. 

Empresas ganadoras en cada uno de los sectores analizados

47 researchers from different areas of the university and nearly 25 companies have participated in its development. This initiative demonstrates UC3M's R&D&I capabilities to address the most relevant open innovation challenges through multidisciplinary collaboration between companies and experts from different organisations and areas of knowledge.

The presentation, which took place on the 6th of March at UC3M's Science Park, was attended by UC3M's Vice Rector for Research and Transfer, Luis Enrique García-Muñoz; the Deputy Minister of Universities, Research and Science of the Community of Madrid, Ana Ramírez de Molina; the General Director of the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), José Moisés Martín; and the Director of UC3M's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Service (SEI, in its Spanish acronym), Virgilio Díaz. 

The first challenge, generative artificial intelligence, was also presented, with the participation of the University's research staff and representatives of companies and startups. The event was moderated by Alberto Iglesias, journalist and director of the media outlet called “Disruptores e Innovadores”.

Five demonstrations were also carried out:

• BINDI, a UC3M project in the field of security for the prevention of violence against women.
• UNUWARE, a UC3M startup specialised in AI for accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities.
• AEON-T. An ESA-BIC industrial start-up dedicated to the industrialisation of the manufacture of lightweight composite parts. 
• 4D-BIOMAP, an ERC project aimed at biomechanical stimulation based on magneto-active polymers by 4D printing.

The closing ceremony was led by the General Director of Research and Technological Innovation of the Community of Madrid, Marina Villegas; and the Deputy Vice-Rector for Transfer, Innovation and the UC3M Science Park, Mario Merino. 

More information: https://www.uc3m.es/innovacion/RETOS_PARA_INNOVAR_JUNTOS_2024

Two workshops will be held during the morning, between 10 am and 2:30 pm. Firstly, “How do aircraft contrails affect climate change?”, given by Raúl Quibén Figueroa, Bun-Kim San, Manuel Soler Arnedo and Adrián Zarzoso, researchers from the UC3M Aerospace Engineering Department's E-CONTRAIL project (GA101114795). In the proposed experiments, visitors will be able to create a cloud in a pressure bottle and test the thermal behaviour of two atmospheres when irradiated by a heat source.

“Discover the skills of the TIAGo assistive robot” is the title of the other morning activity at the UC3M stand, which will be carried out by Juan G. Víctores and Francisco José Naranjo Campos, researchers from UC3M's Systems Engineering and Automation Department. They will explain how TIAGo works, an assistive robot that combines perception, navigation, manipulation and human interaction skills, which they are using in the Robotics Lab in several lines of current and future AI-related research.

Two other activities will take place in the afternoon, from 3:30 pm to 8 pm. On the one hand, “AI in smartphones for the biometric recognition of hand veins”, in which Raúl García Martín, a researcher from the UC3M Electronic Technology Department's University Group of Identification Technologies (GUTI, in its Spanish acronym), will show the device that has been designed, patented and manufactured at the University to carry out this vascular biometric recognition from any computer, smartphone or tablet through a USB-C port.

In “True Detective: Are you smarter than AI?”, which will be led by Uxía Carral Vilar, a researcher from the UC3M Communication Department's MediaLab group, there will be a race against time to detect disinformation created by AI. To do this, participants will be able to carry out three tests to recognise fake or real news, fake identities on social networks and detect deep fakes (fake AI-generated videos). The challenge will be to do it in less than 5 minutes.

Other UC3M activities at the Madrid es Ciencia Fair

On the same day at 11:30 am at the Science Agora, Sara Correyero, UC3M alumni and co-founder of the startup Ienai Space, will give a lecture entitled “Are we facing a new space race?” on the proliferation of new satellite launches. Their functions are very diverse, from taking photographs of the Earth to analysing the effects of climate change, including space surveillance or Internet access from anywhere in the world, for example.

Throughout the Madrid es Ciencia Fair, from the 7th to the 9th of March from 10 am to 8 pm and at a separate stand, researchers from UC3M's Autonomous Mobility and Perception Lab (AMPL) (Fernando García Fernández, Abdulla Al Kaff, Armando Astudillo Olalla, Sergio Campos Novoa, Fernando Vela Hidalgo, Alberto Gil Cuadrado, Javier Gómez Eguizabal and Martín Palos Lorite) will be presenting their ERIS test vehicle, which they are using to develop computer vision technologies applied to race environments and smart cities.

The Madrid es Ciencia Fair 2024 is an event organised by the madri+d Knowledge Foundation, of the Community of Madrid, which is designed as a comprehensive sample of scientific and technological innovation in the Community of Madrid from a recreational and participatory point of view. In addition, it intends for its own protagonists (researchers, entrepreneurs, teachers, students...) to show and explain science and its impact on our daily lives. 

More information:

UC3M website about the Madrid es Ciencia Fair 2024

BRAVIOO, funded by the European Union (GA 101129180), is coordinated by UC3M's University Ombudsman Office and involves collaboration with the University Ombudsman Office for Students at the Universidade da Beira Interior (Portugal) and the Spanish consulting firm OpenODS as European partners. Eight Latin American universities are participating in the project: two in Argentina (the National University of Cordoba and the National University of the Northeast); two in Bolivia (the Private Technological University of Santa Cruz and the Private University of Valle); two in Chile (the Adolfo Ibáñez University and the University of La Frontera); and two in Honduras (the National Autonomous University of Honduras and the Francisco Morazán National Pedagogical University).

Project activities focus on providing training tools for participating entities through MOOC courses, which can be easily revised and updated. Additionally, rules and regulations will be developed to facilitate the establishment and reinforcement of University Ombudsman Offices. “The aim is to foster idea exchange, share experiences, and strengthen ties between European and Latin American cultures to establish and standardize Ombudsman Offices across all participating universities,” adds María del Mar Sánchez Pinilla, UC3M's Deputy University Ombudsman.

BRAVIOO (Building Reinforced and Advanced Capacities in Human Rights between Latin American and European HEIs increasing the Visibility and Institutionalization of Ombudspersons Offices) falls under the Capacity Building High Education within the Erasmus+ program, promoting transnational cooperation projects among higher education institutions. Objectives include modernizing and internationalizing higher education, increasing cooperation with the EU, and fostering intercultural awareness.

The UC3M International Relations Service collaborates in administrative and financial activities throughout the project phases, providing support from proposal to project management and justification. “We also assist all consortium partners in meeting legal and administrative requirements mandated by the European Commission,” notes the Erasmus+ International Projects Manager Raquel Navalpotro Gil from UC3M's International Relations Service.

“The project has been highly regarded by the European Commission, securing maximum funding (approximately 800,000 euros) and being one of the few projects to involve four non-European countries,” states Emilio Olías. “This presents a significant challenge, but also a deeply gratifying opportunity,” he concludes.

More information:

UC3M University Ombudsman Office (in Spanish):
https://www.uc3m.es/defensoria-universitaria/inicio 

Researchers from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have been trying to find the location of a mobile phone with a single station for some time. Based on a new technology (called 802.11az), which offers more refined and accurate location capabilities, they have developed a prototype router that uses two WiFi devices and a positioning algorithm. The prototype is able to find out the location of a mobile phone 7 metres away with errors of less than around 3 centimetres. In addition, it is able to use the bouncing of the WiFi signal off a wall so the station (or access point, or router) can find the mobile phone.

It would be ideal to be able to locate a mobile phone using a single station, according to the researchers. But to avoid having to use triangulation, the signal from the antenna needs to be able to be very well targeted at the mobile phone it is searching for. And the only way to do so is by using antennas with high directivities operating at high frequencies. Specifically, technologies like 5G/WiFi-7 can use frequencies higher than 20GHz that allow the antenna to be very well targeted at the mobile phone. In addition, high frequencies help to more accurately find out when the signal arrived. All of this makes high-frequency wireless networks the perfect candidate for locating the mobile phone with a single antenna.

Following a study that began thanks to COVID funds from the Community of Madrid to find out, using WiFi, where a citizen with COVID had moved to, the team of researchers from UPM and UC3M set up a project to find the position of a mobile phone with a single station. They therefore came across the 802.11az technology known as next-generation positioning, which, among other things, specifies a new method for locating a mobile phone. “In other words, this WiFi upgrade is designed to let your router know more accurately where you are,” say the researchers. “The way it works is simple: the 60GHz antenna rotates until it locates you in front and then starts a measurement. During the measurement, the router sends several messages to which the mobile phone responds. Each of these messages includes the time it was sent, so the router is able to know how long the signal is in the air and find out how far away you are. The further away you are, the longer the signal is in the air,” they continue.

When the UPM and UC3M researchers started working with 802.11az, the upgrade was still a draft pending approval by the international community. In other words, router manufacturers had no plans to incorporate the 802.11az upgrade. However, PhD students Pablo Picazo Martínez and Carlos Barroso Fernández created a prototype router, incorporating this upgrade, which uses two WiFi devices whose antennas emit at 60GHz (high frequency) and a positioning algorithm they have developed.

“The accuracy of our prototype demonstrates that future routers could find the location of a robot in a factory without the need for a camera or motion sensors, lowering costs in factories,” the researchers say. “As well as knowing exactly where you are sitting in your house,” they conclude.

More information:

Bibliographic reference: Pablo Picazo-Martínez, Carlos Barroso-Fernández, Jorge Martín-Pérez, Milan Groshev, Antonio de la Oliva. IEEE 802.11az Indoor Positioning with mmWave. IEEE Communications Magazine 2024. arXiv:2303.05996. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2303.05996
https://oa.upm.es/76960/1/80211az-mmwv-positioning.pdf

“We began the research on the 29th of September 2020 (after signing a collaboration agreement with the Community of Madrid) and just three days later, on the 2nd of October, the power supply was cut in sectors 5 and 6," says one of the researchers, Jorge Martínez Crespo, Associate Professor in UC3M's Electrical Engineering Department. "We then focused on the impact of this power cut on the homes in these sectors and measured the environmental conditions inside the houses,” he adds.

What they found shows a global overview of high social vulnerability, with extreme situations of cold and heat depending on the seasons. “It is possible, and even common in homes with several indicators of instability (low income, poor building quality, inadequate equipment or homes affected by disconnections), to identify temperatures in the most used rooms below 10°C in winter or even above 40°C in summer,” says another of the researchers, Ulpiano Ruiz-Rivas Hernando, head of UC3M's Appropriate Technologies for Sustainable Development Group.

“These types of measures allow us to identify the circumstances there and should allow political action to resolve these problems,” says Ulpiano Ruiz-Rivas. In this sense, the report recommends restoring the electricity supply in sector 6, which has been without electricity since October 2020. “It doesn't seem justifiable that after the sudden power cut, more than three years ago, no structural measures have been implemented”, say the authors of the study, recently published in the scientific journal Energy Research & Social Science by Ulpiano Ruiz-Rivas and Jorge Martínez-Crespo together with Sergio Tirado-Herrero (Autonomous University of Madrid) and Raúl Castaño Rosa (University of Tampere, Finland). The four of them regret that no diversification of supply has been undertaken, given the existence of other medium-voltage power lines in the area that could alleviate the overload. They also noticed the lack of a tender to develop collective self-consumption facilities from the nearest public facilities.

The power cut also posed a “threat” to other sectors of La Cañada Real, according to the researchers. As a result, the inhabitants of the area looked for alternative sources of supply, such as solar panels or diesel generators, which can be seen today along different points of the route and which represent the fundamental change in terms of electricity generation or production. “As a result of the emergency situation created by the disconnection of the power supply, there is increased instability and the emergence of cases of extreme energy poverty that would be difficult to find in other areas of the EU or in the global North in general,” the project report states.

In order to carry out this research, the analysis of census data of the entire population of La Cañada was combined with a more specific study of a sample of households. To do so, on the one hand, interviews were carried out on energy use and needs and, on the other hand, there were campaigns to measure indoor environment conditions in homes, together with temporary monitoring of the power supply continuity in sectors 5 and 6 of La Cañada. This approach is what has made it possible to visualise and characterise the problems linked to access to energy faced by the population of La Cañada Real Galiana, the researchers say.

A situation generating some controversy in this area is the drug market, which is located approximately one kilometre inside sector 6. “This can logically have an energy impact, because there is a large demand for electricity for the marijuana plantations, but we haven't taken measurements in that area. But what we have been able to measure is the impact of an intervention in a marijuana plantation, with the destruction of the electrical installation in the area and the resulting supply disruption in a certain area, which affects other neighbours who live nearby and who have nothing to do with it”, says Jorge Martínez.

This project has received funding from the 13th Call for Grants for UC3M Cooperation Projects, in addition to support from UC3M's Social Council through two grants for social commitment actions within the framework of sustainable development at the University in the 2020 and 2021 calls.

More information: 

Martínez Crespo, J., Hernández Jiménez, F., Ruiz-Rivas Hernando, U. (2023). Informe Final del Proyecto "Diagnóstico de los usos y necesidades energéticas de la población de la Cañada Real Galiana". e-Archivo:  http://hdl.handle.net/10016/38662 

Ruiz-Rivas Hernando, U., Tirado-Herrero, S., Castaño-Rosa, R.,  Martínez Crespo, J. (2023). Disconnected, yet in the spotlight: Emergency research on extreme energy poverty in the Cañada Real informal settlement, Spain.  Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 102, August 2023, 103182 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2023.103182 

The A4U General Assembly was held last week at UC3M and was attended by all the alliance rectors. During the session, the positions of the board of directors were renewed, with a two-year mandate and a rotating presidency among the four partner universities, with UPF as the university replacing UC3M leading the alliance in this period. During the session, the presentation of the new director of OPERA, Ignasi Salvadó, took place, who set the goal of consolidating the role of this office as a bridge between Brussels and Spain, promoting collaboration and knowledge exchange in research practices and their internationalisation. The value that OPERA represents for the Alliance universities was recognised by the four rectors.

In 2024, OPERA's 15th anniversary will be celebrated in Brussels. To commemorate this anniversary, throughout the year the office will hold several events to recognise the contributions of its former directors (Marta Truco, Stephanie Ulbrig and Jorge Molina) in promoting European research and supporting researchers' access to EU R&D funding.

"Working with such important research universities is a privilege and makes my role in Brussels really exciting. Promoting and supporting such excellent research and researchers is incredibly rewarding," said Dr Ignasi Salvadó, Director of OPERA.

Workspaces in the heart of Europe since 2009

Located in Brussels, OPERA works closely with the European project offices of each of the Alliance universities. It also works directly with the European Commission and other European institutions and networks, and maintains close links with Spanish institutions in Brussels operating in the field of R&D and innovation. The OPERA office provides A4U researchers with a set of meeting spaces (3 rooms with capacity for 15, 20 and 80 people) and 12 individual workstations with Internet connection and photocopy, fax and printing services. Access to them is free, subject to prior reservation. OPERA is also well connected to the airport and just a few minutes away from the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and the European Parliament.

OPERA serves A4U researchers, a strategic university alliance between four leading Spanish public universities: UAB, UAM, UC3M and UPF. A4U's objectives include promoting research in Europe; raising its profile and improving its international reputation by promoting contacts in priority and strategic countries and areas; improving mobility options for students, teaching staff and researchers; and enhancing teaching quality, with a clear commitment to inter-university degrees, programmes in English and online training.

More information:

Office for the Promotion of European Research Activities (OPERA)

The UC3M STEM for Girls Technology Workshops will take place on the 9th of February at 6pm, aimed at girls and young women in their 4th year of Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO, in its Spanish acronym), A Level students and those in vocational training. The aim is to bring together research work being carried out in different fields at the University in an entertaining way: telecommunications, computer science, bioengineering, electricity and renewable energies.

The "<ESCR>B" interactive show will take place on Monday the 12th at 7pm at the UC3M Auditorium. The work consists of a real-time dramatic writing video game with artificial intelligence about women's participation in science.

A round table discussion entitled "Women, Science, Outreach and Heritage" is scheduled on Wednesday the 14th at the Getafe campus at 12:00 in classroom 17.2.75; and the "Data Science" gymkhana is at 11:00 in the Aula Magna. The latter is aimed at students in their 1st to 4th years of Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO, in its Spanish acronym).

From the 5th to the 16th of February, M. Julia Fernández-Getino García and Lianet Méndez-Monsanto, lecturers in UC3M's Signal Theory and Communications Department, will hold the workshop "Journey inside a mobile phone".

On Tuesday the 20th there will be a talk-concert on music and physics, entitled "The sound of the wind", which is aimed at secondary schools and sixth form colleges. The session will be delivered by the populariser, physicist and pianist Almudena Martín Castro.

The activities programme will end in the last week of February with the workshop "Build your first satellite", which will be delivered to primary school students by María Cerezo Magaña, a lecturer in UC3M's Aerospace Engineering Department, and Cecilia Hernández Rodríguez, head of the Spanish Space Agency's Science and Exploration Department.

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“Another notable finding in this work has to do with the production date of the Spanish works that are available within the services. And here what we have been able to confirm is that the vast majority are recent productions, especially in the 2010s,” explains one of the authors of the report, Pedro Gallo, from the Audiovisual Diversity research group in UC3M's Communication Department. “This could have to do with the fact that these companies are not limited exclusively to acquiring and distributing already produced works, but that they seem to be increasingly interested in producing their own works,” says Gallo.

The researchers have also observed that international co-production (considered as 'Spanish works', also films and series produced through agreements with other countries), is also very important among the works available in the catalogues analysed. In this sense, they have found that Argentina and France are the countries with which Spanish works that are available in the Netflix or Amazon Prime Video catalogues, for example, are most frequently produced.

Another concept that this report analyses is the prominence given to Spanish works in the services, that is, some of the mechanisms that determine how easy it is for a user to find certain works and not others. And what it confirms is that such mechanisms for highlighting the presence of Spanish works have ample room for improvement. Netflix is the only service that has sections dedicated to Spanish films and series, which can be accessed via the top navigation bar of the interface (menu) and the carousels on the homepage. In contrast, the rest of the services offer varied results regarding the existence and location of these types of sections.

This report is part of the research project “Diversidad y servicios audiovisuales bajo demanda por suscripción (Diversity and subscription-based on-demand audiovisual services) (ref.: PID2019-109639RB-I00)” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the State Research Agency (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/) and carried out with the support of the Spanish Film University Institute (IUCE-UC3M).

More information: Albornoz, Luis A., García Leiva, María Trinidad, y Gallo, Pedro (2023). Disponibilidad y prominencia de obra española en servicios audiovisuales por suscripción (Availability and prominence of Spanish works in subscription-based audiovisual services). 2023 Edition. Audiovisual Diversity Research Group, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, pp. 1-33. ISBN: 978-84-16829-89-7. https://diversidadaudiovisual.org/disponibilidad-y-prominencia-de-obra-espanola-en-servicios-audiovisuales-por-s uscripcion-edicion-2023/   

These results indicate that “the affective endowment that family firms prioritize (known as socio-emotional wealth (SEW)) which goes beyond the organizational goal of value maximization (without forgetting financial goals) seems to have a positive effect on employees’ welfare. Therefore, family firms provide a work environment aligned with the desire to offer employment security,” states one of the study's authors, María José Sánchez Bueno, professor at the Department of Business Administration (UC3M).

Considering the role played by family control and political risk in terms of employment security, this research provides an integrative perspective to explore internal and external factors that may affect workers’ protection in potentially “undesirable” conditions such as the elimination of positions. In particular, family businesses appear to be less likely to make decisions such as employee downsizing because doing so threatens their socio-emotional wealth (workforce reductions evoke negative perceptions such as lack of trust or the weakening of loyalty in remaining employees). “Our study reveals that family control has an important effect on job security, and this effect may be more critical under situations of political turbulence,” says professor Sánchez Bueno.

This line of research focuses on job security, which, according to these scholars, is a key issue for our society as the ability to cover essential expenses depends on enjoying lifetime employment. “Even during good economic periods, companies may reduce their head count because employee downsizing has become a worldwide phenomenon aimed at reducing costs and improving efficiency, for example”, concludes María José Sánchez Bueno.

Bibliographic reference: Gomez-Mejia, L.R., Sanchez-Bueno, M. J., Miroshnychenko, I., Wiseman, R. M., Muñoz-Bullón, F., De Massis, A. (2023). Family control, political risk and employment security: A cross-national study. Journal of Management Studies, forthcoming. Open Access. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joms.12970 

Two advanced experimentation services from the SLICES-Madrid node (slices-madrid.eu), will be presented at this conference hosted at UC3M. SLICES-Madrid will allow, among other services, large-scale experiments to be carried out with a very powerful Internet of Things (IoT) satellite service with coverage throughout Europe. One of the researchers who has driven this project, Carmen Guerrero, from the UC3M Department of Telematics Engineering, highlights the usefulness of this infrastructure as an instrument for the scientific community in the area of future networks. “They will have access to cutting-edge deployments to carry out experiments that are currently not readily available to scientists in general, or that do not even exist today. In fact, there is currently a lack of access to experimental facilities and SLICES will provide these services to the research community in Europe”.

“This is a very important milestone because it represents that Europe is aware of the need for strategic autonomy in information technologies. We have to join forces to improve their R&D capabilities in this respect,” says Arturo Azcorra, director of IMDEA Networks and professor at UC3M. And he adds: “This is great news, therefore, for the academic and business world, as well as for society. It is a milestone that we can consider global in scope in the field of open experimentation via satellite.”

We are currently experiencing a major technological revolution in the area of ICT. The scientific community is constantly researching new solutions to support this transformation and therefore contribute to improving our lives. As a result, several scientific infrastructures have emerged that offer experimentation services with cutting-edge resources, which are otherwise only offered in industrial R&D laboratories with limited functionality. And it is precisely to combat these problems that the ESFRI SLICES research infrastructure has been launched, providing high-quality experimentation services with emerging technologies in fields such as 5G/6G, the Internet of Things (IoT), Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) or Cloud Computing, for example.

About IMDEA Networks and UC3M

The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2024 and among the best universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M is the first university in Europe to obtain ACEEU dual accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric, and it also has other accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes.

IMDEA Networks is a research institute for computer and communication networks, whose multinational team works on fundamental science and cutting-edge technology. As a growing, English-speaking institute based in Madrid, Spain, IMDEA Networks offers a unique opportunity to pioneering scientists who aspire to develop their ideas. IMDEA Networks has established itself internationally at the forefront in the development of future network principles and technologies. Our highly-reputed research team is designing tomorrow's networks today.

More information:

Scientific Large Scale Infrastructure for Computing/Communication Experimental Studies: Spanish node https://www.slices-madrid.eu/

These results suggest a growing distrust in science among young people, which explains, for example, the lack of scientific vocations in this segment. "Young people don't want to go into careers in science, technology and mathematics, because they believe that science is not a method for the search for truth and even that it is dangerous for the future of human beings," says one of the study's authors, Carlos Elías, a Professor of Journalism in UC3M's Department of Communication.

"It is paradoxical, and very worrying, that the generations with the greatest access to information and education, the best educated in the history of Spain, are the ones that consume the least information and are the most distrustful of science and journalism, two fields that share the search for truth. We must reflect deeply on what is happening," says Alberto Quian, a lecturer of Journalism at USC and co-author of the study.

The results of this work show that age and ideology are the factors that have the greatest effect on the use of different types of information sources. With regard to the consumption of traditional media, the people who consult them most are those at the political centre, while those on the left tend to rely more on official sources (such as health authorities); in contrast to those on the right, who prefer research organisations (such as the CSIC, the Carlos III Institute, etc.) or universities. On the other hand, "anti-vaxxers, however, prefer alternative sources (programmes such as Cuarto Milenio or La Estirpe de los Libres, for example). And this is because the traditional media support vaccines," the researchers point out.

This work, funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Community of Madrid and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, is based on a descriptive survey of a sample of 1,800 people, representative of the Spanish population, of legal age and residents of the 17 autonomous communities, carried out between the 6th and 22nd of June 2022.

The results of this work could be applied in the field of education and public policy, according to the researchers. "I think we need to influence schools, colleges and universities, in something called 'educommunication', so that young people understand what the reliable sources are and the implications of science and the scientific method," says Carlos Elías. 

More information: Quian, Alberto; Elías, Carlos; Soengas-Pérez, Xosé (2023). “Consumption of information and citizen’s perception of the sources consulted during the Covid-19 pandemic: A study of the situation based on opinion polls”. Profesional de la información, v. 32, n. 4, e320413.  https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2023.jul.13  

The use of microorganisms to control mosquito-borne diseases has been used before. However, most methods to block the development of malaria-causing Plasmodium parasites transmitted by different species of mosquitoes have been based on genetically modified bacteria. The Delftia tsuruhatensis bacteria featured in this new research published in Science, one of the world's leading scientific journals, inhibits the malaria parasite and is naturally present in the environment.

The study's authors came across the microbe by chance, after noticing that a colony of mosquitoes they were using in GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) research for new drug development were becoming increasingly difficult to infect with Plasmodium. They later found that all the samples contained a bacterial strain called Delftia tsuruhatensis TC1, which they discovered slows the growth of Plasmodium in the mosquito's intestine, where the parasite develops before moving into the insect's salivary glands. Experiments with rodents carried out at Johns Hopkins University (USA) revealed that this disruption of Plasmodium growth led to a reduction in transmission: only a third of mice bitten by mosquitoes carrying these bacteria became infected, compared with 100% of mice bitten by mosquitoes not repopulated with the bacteria. They also found that mosquitoes only need to eat a few bacteria to be colonised and that, once inside the insect, the bacteria remain there, continually blocking the parasite's development.

Field studies carried out in Burkina Faso and modelling have shown that Delftia tsuruhatensis TC1 has the potential to complement malaria transmission control. In fact, according to the results of the study, this bacterium can reduce the parasite load in mosquitoes by up to 73%, thanks to the production of a molecule, called harmane, which is also found in plants used in traditional medicine in some cultures.

"The identification of a bacteria that prevents the development of the parasite stages that occur in mosquitoes without affecting them provides a novel approach with very little chance of developing resistance, since it is not detrimental to the mosquitoes," explains one of the study's authors, Alfonso Mendoza Losana, currently a distinguished researcher in UC3M's Bioengineering Department and initiator of the project at GSK. "In addition, it is a non-genetically modified bacteria, which allows for rapid introduction in the field," he highlights.

This idea has been patented by GSK and Alfonso Mendoza Losana is one of the two authors of this innovation to reduce malaria transmission. In addition, this research has received funding from GSK Spain, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the British government's Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Bibliographic reference: Huang, W. et al (2023). Delftia tsuruhatensis TC1 symbiont suppresses malaria transmission by anopheline mosquitoes. Science. 381 (6657):533–540. DOI: 10.1126/science.adf8141 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf8141 

IEEE Fellow grades are conferred for the contributions of the researchers to a particular line of work. In the case of Ana García Armada, from UC3M’s Signal Theory and Communications Department, it is for her contributions to wireless communications transceivers. While in the case of Arrate Muñoz Barrutia, from UC3M’s Bioengineering Department, it was for her contributions to biomedical image processing. Both will take possession of this award from the 1st of January 2024, which is when the appointments are made official. 

Ana García Armada is a professor in UC3M’s Signal Theory and Communications Department and head of the Communications Research Group. With a PhD in Telecommunications Engineering, she is developing her research activity in the field of mobile communications, having led various national and international projects. Her research has resulted in nine book chapters and over 250 publications in journals and international conferences, as well as five patents. She has carried out research stays at leading institutions, such as Stanford University or Bell Labs, among others. She is part of the Expert Group of the European mobile communications platform Network Europe and has been the Spanish representative and Vice-President of the ESA Joint Board on Communication Satellite Programmes 5G Advisory Committee. She is currently the Vice-President of Member and Global Activities of the IEEE Communications Society. She has received an Excellence Award from the Social Council and a Best Teaching Practices Award from UC3M, in addition to the third Bell Labs Innovation Award 2014. She has also received the Outstanding Service Award from the Women in Communications Engineering (WICE) committee, the Outstanding Service Award from the SPCE committee of the IEEE Communications Society, and the IEEE ComSoc/KICS Exemplary Global Service Award. She is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Communications and an Area Editor of the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society.

Arrate Muñoz Barrutia is a professor  in UC3M’s Bioengineering Department and Senior Researcher at the Gregorio Marañón Health Research Institute. With a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and Telecommunications Engineering from the Public University of Navarre, she has dedicated her research activity to biomedical image processing, with a current emphasis on the development of tools that bring advances in artificial intelligence closer to biomedical researchers. Her research has resulted in five book chapters and over 120 publications in JCR journals and international conferences with proceedings, as well as a patent. In addition to her international experience at EPFL, she has carried out research stays at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and John Hopkins University (JHU). She has received several awards, including the Excellence Award for Young Researchers from the UC3M Social Council, a Leonardo grant from the BBVA Foundation, a Ramón y Cajal contract, and an EPFL Excellence Scholarship to study at the Doctoral School in Communication Systems. She is currently the President of the Steering Committee of the International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) and co-organiser of the IEEE SPS/EMBS International Summer School on Biomedical Imaging. She was an elected member (representing Region 8) of the IEEE EMBS Administrative Committee. She is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging journal (since 2015) and Executive Editor of the Biological Imaging journal (since 2021).

"The study examines the main parameters that condition environments such as Iraq's, which are devastated by climate change, environmental degradation and overlapping layers of violence, along with other political, economic and social problems, in order to examine how the law (particularly international law) can have a positive catalytic effect," says the researcher. In this regard, it explores the bodies that could be responsible for investigating crimes against the environment committed by Daesh. "The terrorist group practised a scorched earth policy in the territories from which it was withdrawing as a result of its defeat," says Abad.

It also analyses the main obstacles and legal channels that can be used to obtain justice for this type of crime, highlighting how this whole issue lies in an area of convergence between multiple legal sectors: human rights, environmental law, laws of armed conflict, international criminal law, international responsibility and transitional justice, among others. "This intersection of legal areas offers complexity, but also new possibilities. In particular, the relationship between nature and transitional justice deserves to be explored further, in order to promote the right to truth in a comprehensive way and to ensure that a pro-nature perspective begins to become transversal," says the author.

The main outcome of this research is that there is an official body, called UNITAD, created by the United Nations Security Council in 2017 to investigate mass atrocity crimes in Iraq, which would still have time to conduct research on the environmental consequences of the latest armed conflict in the country. "Given that this body was created with the aim of gathering and preserving evidence of crimes committed by Daesh in order to promote accountability, it should play a crucial role in researching crimes against nature, some of which would be linked to the commission of genocide against the Yazidis. This research work by UNITAD would perform several essential functions: it would promote awareness, while helping to prevent impunity and ensure adequate reparations. In short, UNITAD's actions could generate a chain reaction, which would help to define and prosecute the crime of ecocide at the international level", highlights Montserrat Abad.

The study appeals to the need for a holistic approach to crimes against nature (which includes humans) through the Iraqi case. The findings of this research can be applied to other post-conflict scenarios in order to prevent another cycle of armed conflict or terrorism. "It is crucial to take a comprehensive view and to take into account that nature is a common good for future generations. Only when official bodies take up this challenge and carry out their work accordingly will qualitative progress be made," the author concludes.

Bibliographic reference: Abad Castelos, M. (2023) “Towards a Holistic Consideration of Crimes Against Nature Committed in Times of Armed Conflict: A Critical Approach to the Case of Iraq”, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 12(3), pp. 77-92. doi: 10.5204/ijcjsd.2707.

These systems increase companies' capacity to analyse and exploit employees' personal data. "Above all, I am concerned about whether, through this technology, companies could learn about the health data of their workers for non-preventive purposes," says the researcher. The European Union is currently working on the Artificial Intelligence Act that will introduce limits and guarantees against the use of this technology, which is expected to come into force at the end of 2026. At the same time, other technical standards are being prepared. "However, the approval process is slow and, meanwhile, the current regulations do not offer real protection to employees," concludes Ana Belén Muñoz Ruiz. These systems can affect a wide range of fundamental rights: the right to personal data protection, privacy, non-discrimination and, above all, the mental health of employees.

Her book analyses some of the first judicial decisions on this issue in Europe. For example, the Hungarian Data Protection Agency's ruling of 8th February 2022. This specific case involved software that used AI and analysed and evaluated the emotional states of customers and employees of a bank in order to manage complaints, monitor call quality and increase employee efficiency. "This example is just a precedent for new realities in which we will experience new problems arising from the work-related use of algorithms and AI in companies," says the expert. In the United States and other countries such as China, there have been warnings that some companies are using these practices in the workplace. In the European Union, since July 2022, it has been mandatory to include a fatigue and drowsiness detector in newly registered cars.

Even in the case of emotion recognition systems that do not use biometric data, as in the case of chatbots and RPA (robotic process automation) robots, the use of this technology may even pulverise the fundamental right to privacy when the monitoring takes place in the workplace, according to the expert, as the traditional limits and guarantees linked to the fundamental rights to privacy and personal data protection do not seem to be sufficient.

Are companies entitled to use it? The book analyses this question at two points. Firstly, regarding the biometric data of the employee in line with compliance with the daily obligations of companies, such as time logging (in fact, time logging via fingerprint or other biometric data has been questioned in countries such as Austria, France, Italy or Norway). Secondly, on the legitimisation of companies for the use of automated emotion recognition systems. "After my studies, I conclude that improving customer satisfaction and employee performance or integrating people with disabilities do not seem to be sufficient reasons. While safety at work is a duty that the company must fulfil and can justify the processing of employee data, its extension to automated emotion recognition systems is highly questionable," concludes Ana Belén Muñoz Ruiz.

More information: 

Muñoz Ruiz, Ana Belén (2023). Biometría y sistemas automatizados de reconocimiento de emociones: Implicaciones Jurídicos-Laborales. Ed. Tirant lo Blanch. ISBN: 9788411693066.
https://libreria.tirant.com/es/libro/biometria-y-sistemas-automatizados-de-reconocimiento-de-emociones-implicaciones-juridicos-laborales-ana-belen-munoz-ruiz-9788411693066  

In Spain, UC3M has been the pioneer in the development of AWES technologies and, working together with CT since 2021, they have developed several projects and infrastructures, consolidating their knowledge of this new technology and positioning Madrid at the top of the AWES industry. In fact, UC3M and the company CT have recently established a joint research chair to strengthen R&D&I work in this field, whose goal for 2024 is to build a complete prototype of an AWE yo-yo machine in Spain.

The new prototype will be manufactured and integrated in the Aerospace Engineering Department's AWES-Lab. Since it is located in the UC3M Science Park, where they also have a hangar, they will have the necessary space to carry out research tasks. "In addition, since the university's startups are located in the Science Park, the AWE research line will be connected to an innovation and transfer environment", said Gonzalo Sánchez Arriaga, one of the Chair's directors, a lecturer in UC3M's Aerospace Engineering Department. "AWES are disruptive technologies that operate at high altitude and generate electrical energy. They combine classic electrical engineering and aeronautics disciplines, such as the design of electrical machines, aeroelasticity and control, with other more recent and unconventional disciplines related to drones and tether dynamics," he adds.

Furthermore, the chair also promotes the creation of the AWES-Flight Test Centre. "We hope that it will act as a magnet for companies in the industry, given that the idea is to develop an infrastructure where AWE companies can operate their prototypes without interruption, in a controlled environment, and surrounded by an auxiliary industry that provides support," says the other head of the Chair, David Santos Martín, lecturer in UC3M's Electrical Engineering Department.

According to AgustínArjonilla, AWE Systems Manager at CT, "this technology is expected to play a key role in the future due to its lower investment costs. At CT we are committed to embarking on this project, as we have capabilities in all these unique areas within the European aeronautical sector, as well as vast experience in more than 200 national and international renewable energy projects. This is an industry that requires heterogeneous and advanced knowledge both within aeronautical engineering – for example the conceptual design of aircraft, and computing – such as advanced modelling and simulation – and which, finally, requires advanced technologies in the generation, storage and distribution specific to renewable energies".

This opening is the prelude to the Airborne Wind Energy Conference 2024, the world's most important event in the field of AWE technologies, which has chosen Madrid as the venue, with UC3M as the hosting institution.

CT is a leading technology company, providing innovation and engineering services in the aeronautical, space, marine, automotive, rail, energy and industrial plant industries. CT pushes the boundaries of technology through innovation, and takes efficiency to the next level by covering the entire product lifecycle, from design and manufacturing to after-sales support. With more than 35 years of experience, CT's success today is driven by more than 1,800 expert engineers spread across seven countries, on three continents.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2024 and among the best universities for the employability of their graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M is the first university in Europe to obtain ACEEU dual accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric, and it also has other accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes. Its Aerospace Engineering Department is currently developing numerous cutting-edge lines of research, including the AWE systems research group.

The ranking is carried out by the consultancy firm Emerging and published by Times Higher Education (THE).

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"This project aims to determine the effectiveness of combining these sources of information to prevent suicide attempts and to accurately determine the profile of people who repeat a suicide attempt, which will allow us to design more effective prevention strategies," the researchers explain. A study will be carried out with people who have been treated for attempted suicide in one of the seven hospitals participating in the project, distributed among four autonomous communities.

"The combination of artificial intelligence and mobile technologies is key in this project by providing a behavioural marker that is related to the risk of attempting suicide in the short term," explains one of the researchers involved in this project, Antonio Artés, a professor in UC3M's Signal Theory and Communications Department.

The work is based on the fact that, according to data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), each year, around 800,000 people around the world take their own lives, and many more attempt to do so. Deaths by suicide are a serious public health problem and represent the second leading cause of death in people between 15 and 29 years of age. A significant percentage of people who attempt suicide without success attempt it again during the following year.

The project is led by Dr Enrique Baca-García, head of the Department of Psychiatry at the Jiménez Díaz Foundation University Hospital, in consortium with Dr Antonio Artés, from UC3M; Dr Miguel Ruiz Veguilla, from the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital-Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBIS, in its Spanish acronym)-Cibersam; Dr Pilar Alejandra Saiz Martínez, from the University of Oviedo; and Dr Víctor Pérez Sola, from the Hospital del Mar.

CaixaResearch for Health Research is a competitive call for proposals, to which 493 were submitted this year, with 33 initiatives selected. The "la Caixa" Foundation recently held the award ceremony for these grants for research projects in biomedicine and health to be carried out in research centres, hospitals and universities in Spain and Portugal.

This work, published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), presents a detailed study of the social relationships of students at 13 secondary schools, including more than 3,000 students and around 60,000 reported positive and negative relationships, along with evidence of students' personal traits. "We can predict quite accurately (90%) whether two people are friends or if they do not get on simply by knowing how many friends and enemies they have in common," adds Anxo Sánchez. 

"Our results suggest a nucleation mechanism of social relationships based on individual traits, followed by a growth and evolution of the friendship network dominated by a triadic influence (friends of friends of friends)," says another of the study's authors, María Pereda, from UPM's Department of Organisational Engineering, Business Administration and Statistics. "This suggests that not only do our close friendships have an effect on us, but even people we know indirectly can affect our behaviour and decisions. This discovery has exciting implications for how we understand social dynamics and the role we play in it," she adds.

This work is important because it challenges the common belief that friendships are based on similarity – that is, homophily – say the researchers. This understanding may have important implications for how we understand and build our friendships, especially in societies where cultural and thought homogeneity may be highly valued. "If people understand that they do not need to be the same to be friends, they may be more willing to seek friendships with people who have different backgrounds, interests and perspectives," says Maria Pereda. "In addition, if homophily is not the only important thing when it comes to creating new relationships, but we can connect with other people simply because they are friends of our friends, then diversity will increase and, with it, polarisation will decrease," adds another of the study's authors, Pablo Brañas, a professor in the Department of Economics at Loyola University.

This research provides useful data and results for the management of classrooms, schools and educational centres. "For example, it allows us to know when students may be at risk of social exclusion, because they have few good relationships and many bad ones," says another of the study's authors, José Antonio Cuesta, a professor in UC3M's Department of Mathematics. "We detect the social climate in the classrooms very well, it takes a complete picture of how people get along at the school and what these relationships are like (which the teaching staff are sometimes unaware of), and thanks to this, this issue could be reorganised to try to improve the social climate". In fact, UC3M is collaborating in this area with a company from Zaragoza, Kampal, to produce software that will help school counsellors to intervene in situations of vulnerability.

In addition, the research may also have implications for the creation of workplace policies and practices. For example, if employers understand that differences among workers can be beneficial for creativity and job performance, they could encourage diversity in their teams and work environments. In short, this research can help us build healthier and more productive relationships in our personal and professional lives.

Bibliographic reference: Ruiz-García, M., Ozaita, J., Pereda, M., Alfonso, A., Brañas-Garza, P., Cuesta, J. A., & Sánchez, S. (2023). Triadic influence as a proxy for compatibility in social relationships. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(13), e2215041120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215041120 

The modelling of this balance between health and economic impact, published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Human Behaviour, is the result of years of work by an interdisciplinary team of research staff with backgrounds in economics and epidemiology, as well as physics, computer science and applied mathematics, all united by a shared expertise in complexity science. This international research group combined economic modelling with epidemic data to create a comprehensive tool that can predict the health-economic outcomes of political and health measures during a pandemic. "The model developed represents significant progress that can help governments plan responses to future pandemics," says one of the study's authors, Esteban Moro, from MIT´s Sociotechnical Systems Research Centre and UC3M.

Among the conclusions obtained in the study on the effectiveness of government interventions, researchers have found that both stricter lockdowns and strong change in behaviour lead to more unemployment and fewer COVID-19 deaths. In addition, closing non-physical (non-customer contact) industries, such as manufacturing, has little impact on infections but significantly increases unemployment. Delaying the start of protective measures does little to help the economy and worsens epidemic outcomes in all scenarios.

This study also rejects the idea (more widespread in the US than in Spain) that self-protection of those most vulnerable to the virus would have saved the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, their results have revealed that low-income workers bear the brunt of political decisions related to the health-economy trade-off; that is, the measures lead to more job losses and more lives saved among low-income workers than among high-income workers.

For Alberto Aleta, one of the two lead authors of the work, this study sheds light on the divergent views that arose during the pandemic: "According to some, the lockdowns did not impose a trade-off between health and economy because if the virus had not remained under control, the economy would have been damaged anyway. According to others, with the virus out of control, at-risk people would spontaneously minimise contact, obtaining better epidemiological and economic results, without trade-offs between health and the economy. These debates remained unresolved, partly due to the lack of quantitative, data-driven models that could provide clear scientific evidence in favour of one position or the other. Until now.”

"Studying the rules of human behaviour and incorporating them into models is crucial for making the most effective decisions in crisis situations," says Yamir Moreno. "Our work shows that the availability of detailed data makes it possible to build agent-based models to study mitigation strategies and behavioural feedback during a pandemic. Although lockdowns and a change in behaviour lead to similar scenarios, the latter is the result of self-organisation, while the former can be implemented as soon as required for maximum effectiveness."

This research article is timely, given the debate on measures during COVID-19, according to Esteban Moro: "Governments around the world have begun their 'moments of reflection', reviewing the effectiveness of a wide range of policies implemented during that pandemic," he says. The innovative model provided by this international consortium of researchers offers detailed insights based on urban mobility data, indicating that both forced lockdowns and voluntary behaviour change lead to a significant impact on health and the economy. "The model challenges the proposal that it was possible to save lives without doing any damage to the economy. Those who made such claims were not basing their belief on quantitative analysis," adds Esteban Moro.

This international team of scientists includes researchers from the CENTAI Institute in Turin; the University of Zaragoza; the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna; the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; Northeastern University (Boston & Portland); the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School; the Bloomington University School of Public Health; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the Santa Fe Institute.

Bibliographic reference: Marco Pangallo, Alberto Aleta, R. Maria del Rio Chanona, Anton Pichler, David Martín-Corral, Matteo Chinazzi, François Lafond, Marco Ajelli, Esteban Moro, Yamir Moreno, Alessandro Vespignani, y J. Doyne Farmer (2023). "The unequal effects of the health–economy trade-off during the COVID-19 pandemic”, Nature Human Behaviour. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01747-x

"The idea is to be able to manufacture protective structures with 3D printing to reduce their cost, minimise waste, personalise their design and offshore their manufacturing, given that it could be carried out in-situ, which would be a great advantage especially for aerospace and defence applications," explains Juan Carlos Nieto Fuentes, Marie Curie CONEX-Plus researcher (GA 801538) from UC3M’s Department of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis, who recently published this work in the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids.

"The article presents a new experimental technique launched at the Impact Laboratory of the UC3M Science Park, where we carry out fragmentation tests at impact speeds of up to 400 metres per second," explains another of the authors, José Antonio Rodríguez Martínez, a Senior Lecturer in the same UC3M department who has developed this research within the framework of PURPOSE, a European Union ERC Starting Grant (GA 758056) project.

The researchers have filmed these tests with two high-speed cameras and have also carried out X-ray tomography of the printed material structures, before and after being tested, with the collaboration of colleagues from the IMDEA Materiales Institute, who have carried out the microstructural characterisation of the samples. "Specifically, we have determined the distribution in shape and size of the pores resulting from the printing process and we have investigated their effect on the formation and propagation of cracks, and thus on the energy absorption capacity of the structure," says Federico Sket, senior scientist at IMDEA Materials, who has participated in this study from this research institute together with his colleague Jonathan Espinoza, research assistant at the institute.

The fragmentation experiments were carried out at the UC3M Impact Laboratory using a helium-driven gas gun. Specifically, the researchers launched a circular, conical-nosed projectile weighing about 150 grams that hit a thin-walled tube at speeds ranging from 200 to 400 metres per second (between 720 and 1,440 km/h). In this case, the diameter of the projectile is larger than the diameter of the tube, which expands radially as the projectile advances, until multiple fractures form, resulting in fragmentation of the sample.

"The technique is simpler, faster to use, flexible and has a lower operating cost than systems that use explosives or electromagnetic systems. Our device also allows us to carry out more experiments in less time and thus obtain a number of tests that provide statistically significant results," explain Sergio Puerta and David Pedroche, laboratory technicians from UC3M's Department of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis, who were involved in carrying out the experiments.

The researchers say that this is a pioneering methodology and hope to lay the foundations for a protocol that will make it possible to systematically determine whether a printed structure is capable of absorbing energy upon impact, based on the characterisation of its porous microstructure and its correlation with fragmentation mechanisms. "This technique will ultimately tell us whether metal 3D printing is a viable technique for building protective structures," says José Antonio Rodríguez Martínez. "In the US there are already specific programmes promoted by the Department of Defence and the Department of Energy to fund this line of research, so we hope that the European Union and the Government of Spain will also develop a long-term vision that will allow us to bring the fundamental research we are carrying out into engineering practice," he concludes.

Bibliographic reference:  J.C. Nieto-Fuentes, J. Espinoza, F. Sket, J.A. Rodríguez-Martínez (2023). High-velocity impact fragmentation of additively-manufactured metallic tubes. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, Volume 174, 105248, ISSN 0022-5096, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2023.105248

After that, the UC3M Vice-Rector for Research and Transfer, Luis Enrique García Muñoz, spoke about the research activity being carried out at the University in the area of AI. In addition, the director of the Master's degree in Applied Artificial Intelligence, Jesús García Herrero, explained the teaching being carried out in this field. The meeting ended with a debate and the conclusions of the event.

The event was attended by research and innovation representatives from the companies that make up the UC3M Business Forum: Acciona, Airbus Group, Ericsson, Santander Group, Iberdrola, Indra, Microsoft, PWC, Repsol, Sener Aerospace, Siemens and Telefónica.

At the forum, there was a presentation on “Measuring innovation: new approaches to an old problem”, led by Cristina Garmendia. The round table "Instruments to accelerate innovation" was then held, which discussed national, regional and local transfer programmes, as well as private capital investment. This was led by the General Director of Research and Technological Innovation of the Community of Madrid, and was attended by representatives from different organisations.

During the event there was also an exhibition with different proofs of concept and demonstrators developed at UC3M. 

The event ended with the presentation of two R&D&I Challenges: "Disruption in Cultural Industries" and "Metaverse, science or fiction?". For this purpose, a panel of representatives of companies and agents of the R&D&I ecosystem took part in the event.

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Owmed Innovation's main technology is the Ostofix device, a system that enables the ostomy patient to control their continence and allows them to decide when to remove the waste material. This means a significant improvement in the quality of life of people with this type of surgery, as it allows an intestinal transit which is as close to normal as possible. The solution doesn't require additional surgery or medical prescription. 

Compared to existing alternatives, Ostfix enables self-management of the expulsion of faecal and urinary material and reduces the risk of staining during collection. This brings about a substantial improvement in the quality of life of ostomy patients, which also has an impact on mental health.

Ownmed Innovation is a company founded by Ana Ye, an alumnus of the UC3M Bioengineering Bachelor's degree. Also part of the entrepreneurial team are Manuel Desco, a professor in the University's Bioengineering and Aerospace Department; Jesús García-Foncillas, director of the Cancer Institute and the Oncology Department at the Jiménez Díaz Foundation University Hospital; and Joaquín Solanes, director of the SPI Business Consultancy. 

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The SWE Awards is an annual awards ceremony organised by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) to recognise those professionals and researchers who are making significant contributions to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines and to the advancement of women in the field of engineering.  

The award ceremony was held from the 26th to the 28th of October in Los Angeles (California). The event brought together more than 20,000 professionals and research staff from these disciplines.

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UC3M excels due to the agreements it has with more than 3,000 companies and institutions for undergraduate and postgraduate students to carry out professional internships. In total, it offers 38 undergraduate degrees and 13 double degrees, and its educational model is based on continuous development, which gives greater prominence to the students' efforts, their involvement in classes and the preparation of work, exercises and internships.

Forbes is a magazine founded in the United States that publishes lists related to the field of business and finance every year. The latest published list is the one that brings together the ten Spanish universities achieving the highest employment among their graduates.

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This ranking, which has achieved great prestige in recent years, was coordinated by John Ioannidis from Stanford University and was recently published by Elsevier under the title "October 2023 data-update for "Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators"". It uses Elsevier's Scopus database as a reference and classifies research staff according to different bibliometric indicators: the H-index, the co-authorship-adjusted H-index, the total number of citations, the number of citations to articles as sole, first or last author, among others.

This ranking provides two lists of researchers who are within the top 2% most cited in their scientific fields: one that quantifies their impact throughout their entire research career and another list for their impact from the previous year (2022). The details are broken down in the following table: 
 

Several talks and round tables focus on issues such as: science and technology in the face of disinformation on social media; the humanisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI); the AI revolution and what makes us human; Sorolla and Winthuysen, art and science in two painters [and] landscapers in the Spain of Ramón y Cajal; and the voyage of Jorge Juan, the Spanish sailor who measured the shape of the Earth. In addition, several activities will take place virtually, such as an online meeting between research staff on fake news and democracy; and a webinar on visual narratives for improving visual literacy.

Activities for secondary schools

Some activities are specifically aimed at those in the 3rd and 4th years of secondary school, A Levels and vocational training. Reservations can be made through this website. There will be several workshops on topics such as the creation of an insect hotel to promote biodiversity, magnetic induction for heating, the technological challenges facing photonics researchers in Spain and 3D modelling and animation technologies. In addition, there will also be a guided tour of the Colmenarejo Campus to the "Water Sphere" exhibition.

UC3M has also organised two other exhibitions. Firstly, an exhibition on clean power generation using giant comets and other airborne systems, which will take place on Tuesday 7th November in the hall of the Rey Pastor Library on the Leganés Campus. Secondly, an exhibition entitled "STEM Women who changed the world, and are changing it at Leganés Tecnológico Park", which can be seen on Friday 17th November in the hall of the UC3M Science Park.

There will also be other guided tours of different scientific environments, such as: three Robotics Lab laboratories where research is carried out on social robotics, exoskeletons, humanoids and industrial robots; and a dramatised tour of different bioengineering laboratories at the University.

The University is also organising several demonstrations. On the one hand, an activity co-organised with the UNED, to learn about and experience dangerous situations in a self-driving car. On the other hand, another activity, co-organised with the Arganda City Council, which shows what the eye does not see: what makes it possible to watch videos on a phone?

More information: UC3M Science and Innovation Week 2023 Website

Smart homes are becoming increasingly interconnected, comprising an array of consumer-oriented IoT devices ranging from smartphones and smart TVs to virtual assistants and CCTV cameras. These devices have cameras, microphones, and other ways of sensing what is happening in our most private spaces—our homes. An important question is, can we trust that these devices in our homes are safely handling and protecting the sensitive data they have access to?

“When we think of what happens between the walls of our homes, we think of it as a trusted, private place. In reality, we find that smart devices in our homes are piercing that veil of trust and privacy—in ways that allow nearly any company to learn what devices are in your home, to know when you are home, and learn where your home is. These behaviours are generally not disclosed to consumers, and there is a need for better protections in the home,” said David Choffnes, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Executive Director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University.

The research team’s extensive study, titled “In the Room Where It Happens: Characterizing Local Communication and Threats in Smart Homes,” was presented this week at the ACM Internet Measurement Conference (ACM IMC’23) in Montreal (Canada). The paper delves for the first time into the intricacies of local network interactions between 93 IoT devices and mobile apps, revealing a plethora of previously undisclosed security and privacy concerns with actual real-world implications.
While most users typically view local networks as a trusted and safe environment, the study’s findings illuminate new threats associated with the inadvertent exposure of sensitive data by IoT devices within local networks using standard protocols such as UPnP or mDNS. These threats include the exposure of unique device names, UUIDs, and even household geolocation data, all of which can be harvested by companies involved in surveillance capitalism without user awareness.

According to Vijay Prakash, PhD student from NYU Tandon who co-authored the paper, “analysing the data collected by IoT Inspector, we found evidence of IoT devices inadvertently exposing at least one PII (Personally Identifiable Information), like unique hardware address (MAC), UUID, or unique device names, in thousands of real world smart homes. Any single PII is useful for identifying a household, but combining all three of them together makes a house very unique and easily identifiable. For comparison, if a person is fingerprinted using the simplest browser fingerprinting technique, they are as unique as one in 1.500 people. If a smart home with all three types of identifiers is fingerprinted, it is as unique as one in 1.12 million smart homes.”

These local network protocols can be employed as side-channels to access data that is supposedly protected by several mobile app permissions such as household locations. “A side channel is a sneaky way of indirectly accessing sensitive data. For example, Android app developers are supposed to request and obtain users’ consent to access data like geolocation. However, we have shown that certain spyware apps and advertising companies do abuse local network protocols to silently access such sensitive information without any user awareness. All they have to do is kindly asking for it to other IoT devices deployed in the local network using standard protocols like UPnP.”, said Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez, Associate Research Professor of IMDEA Networks and co-founder of AppCensus.
“Our study shows that the local network protocols used by IoT devices are not sufficiently protected and expose sensitive information about the home and the use we make of the devices. This information is being collected in an opaque way and makes it easier to create profiles of our habits or socioeconomic level,” adds Juan Tapiador, professor at UC3M.

The Wider Implications

The impact of this research extends far beyond academia. The findings underscore the imperative for manufacturers, software developers, IoT and mobile platform operators, and policymakers to take action to enhance the privacy and security guarantees of smart home devices and households. The research team responsibly disclosed these issues to vulnerable IoT device vendors and to Google’s Android Security Team, already triggering security improvements in some of these products.
 

The project for which he has received a Leonardo Grant is based on the study of syringomyelia, a disease that produces an accumulation of fluid in the form of a cyst in the spinal cord, causing chronic pain and loss of function in the arms and legs. It is known that the movement of cerebrospinal fluid (the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord) is related to the development of this disease. In many cases, the channel in which this fluid is located is partially obstructed and hinders its natural movement. However, it is not known how this, in turn, produces a build-up of fluid in the spinal cord. The aim of Coenen's project is to generate knowledge to help in the arrest and treatment of syringomyelia, through theoretical models, numerical simulations and MRI measurements.

The BBVA Foundation's Leonardo Grants aim to support science and culture in order to promote projects by researchers and cultural creators between the ages of 30 and 45 in the intermediate period of their careers. In this edition, 58 personal and innovative projects will be made possible in ten areas of scientific knowledge and culture.

The name of these BBVA Foundation Grants invokes the inspiration of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) as a universal symbol of curiosity and passion for knowledge, openness and continuous exploration of new fields and problems, as well as dialogue between the fields of natural and life sciences, technology, humanities and the arts.

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The R&D&i maps show UC3M's scientific capabilities to innovate in different market sectors and seek solutions for society. It is also useful for research staff and the business sector interested in creating synergies with the University. The information listed comes from periodically updated databases.

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Obesity does affect academic performance

The report block dedicated to the skills and abilities of adolescents addressed issues such as the effects of the presence of students with a migrant background and cohesion in the classroom or the impact of childhood obesity. In this regard, the study by Loyola University researcher María José Vázquez concludes that students with a migrant background are not particularly different from the rest of their peers in the same circumstances, except in two aspects: they have a greater preference for risk (they are less prudent) and they are more altruistic.

On the other hand, regarding the impact of childhood obesity on the academic performance of secondary school students, the presented study has revealed that obesity negatively affects academic performance and cognitive skills, especially in the case of girls.

Friendships, enmities and relational networks

As for the type of friendships and enmities within the classroom, the study by Anxo Sánchez, from UC3M, indicates that "two students will be friends with greater or lesser probability depending on the friendships and enmities they have in common; in fact, a quantity can be defined, which is like a sum of friendships and enmities, that allows us to predict with a probability of nearly 90% whether two students are friends or not". In addition, it has been found that the fact that personal attitudes are more or less prosocial is not related to making friends, which speaks to the fundamental role that social context plays in building relationships. 

On the other hand, Pablo Brañas Garza, professor of economics at Loyola University, has analysed whether young people correctly predict who their friends and enemies are. The results show that students with high cognitive abilities are better at predicting who their friends and enemies are. It has also been concluded that those who are in the peripheral areas of the relationship networks are perfectly aware of their position in the network, while those in central positions don't know it.

UC3M has also studied the temporal evolution of friendships in a specific institute, where data has been collected on eight different occasions over three years. The results confirm the existence of Dunbar circles in the structure of relationships, that is, there are small groups of best friends that are more stable than ordinary friends, and explain the different nature of enmities, which are far more volatile and less frequent. They also show that only 60% of relationships are reciprocal, a very stable number across the different data collections.

Finally, researchers from the University of Barcelona have studied the characteristics that cause a student to be chosen as a partner for carrying out work. Not surprisingly, boys choose boys and girls choose girls. However, there is another essential element: boys and girls with better grades are always chosen first to form the groups, unlike students who suffer bullying, who are not chosen.

Work is currently underway on a platform so that schools can access these studies, according to Tere García, director of the Department of Quantitative Methods at the University of Granada, who presented this means of transferring results to society. The event ended with a speech from María Castro, Professor of Research and Diagnostic Methods in Education at the Complutense University of Madrid, who addressed the social implications of this type of study and its results for education. 

The results presentation event, held at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, was attended by the Cotec Foundation's Director of Education and Training, Ainara Zubillaga, and the Professor of Behavioural Economics at Loyola University, Pablo Brañas Garza, responsible for presenting the results, as well as the researchers responsible for the different studies.

Teens Lab, a consortium for adolescent behavioural research

The studies carried out by around twenty researchers from Loyola University, the University of Barcelona, the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, the University of Granada and the University of the Basque Country correspond to the results of various projects funded in public research calls by the State Research Agency, the Andalusian Regional Government, the European Union, the Basque Government, the Andalusian Agency for International Development Cooperation and the María Maeztu Unit of Excellence.

All this work has led to the creation of this laboratory for the study of adolescent behaviour in our country. With the slogan "improving our young people's education with data", this consortium will make a qualitative leap in data collection to definitively confirm the results, obtain new conclusions with larger samples and move on to the next phase of their practical application, entering the field of interventions to improve different aspects of adolescents' well-being and performance in schools.

In the future, we hope to be able to work with hundreds of schools located in areas with different income levels and geographical locations, for which it would be necessary to establish a stable research team, with data management and processing staff, as well as software that allows, on the one hand, massive and simultaneous data collection, as well as the return of results to the schools, so that they can be used by teachers, tutors and counsellors. It is also essential to have sufficient computing resources to be able to apply advanced machine learning techniques to the entire volume of data available.

References: see all references to published scientific articles and all information about TeensLab here:  https://loyolabehlab.org/teenslab/

In the same way, the mayor of Leganés, Miguel Ángel Recuenco, highlighted the work of the Community of Madrid, the Leganés City Council and UC3M to turn the municipality into a national and international leader in AI and demonstrated the need for specialised talent for emerging technologies.

UC3M currently has 30 research groups working in the area of artificial intelligence. These groups belong to 11 departments: Bioengineering; Communication; Private Law; Public State Law; Humanities – Philosophy, Language and Literature; Computer Science; Aerospace Engineering; Systems Engineering and Automation; Telematics Engineering; Electronic Technology; and Signal and Communications Theory. Six institutes, four chairs and two R&D&I centres at UC3M are also involved in research in this field.

The University also has the Living Lab for Assistive Technologies and Artificial Intelligence, a space located in its Science Park where innovation and design processes related to the field of health are carried out. The main objective of this Living Lab is to house the complete cycle of technology development for diagnostic assistance, monitoring and human-machine interaction. 

On the other hand, UC3M has a recommendations guide for teaching and learning with generative AI (a type of AI with machine learning that produces answers based on the questions asked). The purpose of this document is to offer a practical tool for the university community in the face of the challenge that the emergence of this technology poses for higher education.

In terms of teaching, UC3M offers a Double Master's Degree in Computer Engineering and Applied Artificial Intelligence, belonging to the Graduate School of Engineering and Basic Sciences. 

In this edition, the new scholarships were awarded by Ignacio Rodríguez-Solano, director of the Renault Foundation in Spain; Juan Manuel García, CIO and CDO of Repsol; Ramón Femenía on behalf of Enrique Díaz-Tejeiro; José Daniel García Sánchez, director of the "using std::cpp 2023" Congress; and Ana López Ortega, director of the UC3M Alumni Office, on behalf of the Ramón Areces Foundation and Philips. 

Since its launch in 2012, 146 students have been awarded UC3M Alumni scholarships, representing a commitment of more than 2 million euros. Of these, 80 have already graduated. This support makes it easier for them to move and settle into the Community of Madrid. 

The scholarships are named after former UC3M students, who contribute so that other young people have the opportunity to study at the same university. During the 12 years of the programme, lecturers, students and staff from the university community have contributed to the funding. In addition, contributions have been made by the writers Rosa Montero and Lorenzo Silva; the president of Solaria, Enrique Díaz-Tejeiro; the former president of UC3M’s Social Council, Matías Rodríguez Inciarte; and Alberto Grau, from the company Bunzl. More than 45 entities have also collaborated, such as Academic Partnerships, Acciona, ACM, Airbus Group, Alea Media, Altamira, Axa, Baker & Mckenzie, Casico, CESyA, Deloitte, Enagás, DAMM Foundation, Ebro Foundation, ONCE Foundation, Gregorio Marañón Hospital Foundation for Biomedical Research, Profesor Uría Foundation, Ramón Areces Foundation, Renault Foundation, Urrutia Elejalde Foundation, VASS Foundation, Inditex, Indra, Ineco, Interactiva Facility (Ibergest Group), Mercedes Benz, Olmata, Otis, Philips, PWC, Repsol, SMS Quality and Volkswagen Group Spain.

Donations, in various forms, can be made throughout the year on the UC3M Alumni donation website https://aa.uc3m.es/becasalumni and go entirely towards funding the scholarships.

More information: UC3M Alumni Scholarships website 

This initiative aims to provide students with a simulated practical experience to allow them to develop their vocation within the branch of tax law. The main objective of the Tax Law Moot Court is to encourage study and practical specialization in this branch of law, a specialization of the law that is constantly evolving and has great social relevance.

The competition has revolved around a case study prepared by experts and has been developed through a written and oral phase. These stages were evaluated by a panel of recognized tax law specialists with extensive professional experience in the field from the legal profession, academia, the judiciary and tax administration.

This event was organised by UCM, UAM and UC3M, three institutions with extensive teaching and research experience in the field of tax law. In addition, several law firms and other collaborating entities, such as Cuatrecasas, Pérez-Llorca, Uría Menéndez and the Spanish Association of Tax Advisors (AEDAF, in its Spanish acronym), were also involved in organising and promoting the event.

The company was incorporated in the last quarter of 2022 as a technology-based company (TBC) from UC3M. The driving force behind this business idea was Guillermo Carpintero, professor and director of the University’s Optics and Laser Technology Group. In addition, the entrepreneurial team is made up of Álvaro Jiménez, Daniel Gallego, Alejandro Rivera, Muhsin Ali and Santiago Gómez. All of them are or have been part of UC3M.

The University supports this project as a shareholder and by facilitating innovation through the Programme for Creation and Participation in Spin-offs, located in its Science Park. With the signing of this agreement, UC3M is now a member of six technology-based companies.

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The invitation to Nuria Oliver to give the inaugural lecture is part of UC3M's initiative to focus on AI this academic year. In this context, in his closing statement during this event, UC3M Rector Ángel Arias recalled the need to recover classical values, those included in the university's motto -homo homini sacra res-, in order to face challenges such as those posed by AI. He also announced the granting of 20 of the University's own grants to research transversal aspects of this new technology.

He also confirmed the support and constructive dialogue with the Community of Madrid's Ministry of Digitalisation, which has already announced the Artificial Intelligence Cluster's location in the UC3M Science Park Building. In turn, the University is carrying out research transfer actions in this area through different city councils. In this sense, the commitment to AI is transversal and involves research staff from the School of Engineering, Faculty of Social and Legal Sciences and the Faculty of Humanities, Communication and Documentation at UC3M.

With this set of measures, and others to be announced soon, UC3M is firmly committed to establishing itself as a benchmark institution in the field of AI.

UC3M, IMDEA Networks and the University of the Basque Country are participating in the Spanish SLICES node (SLICES-ES). Specifically, the first infrastructure open to the European scientific community for testing in the field of telecommunications and with a very powerful Internet of Things (IoT) satellite service with Europe-wide coverage will be established in Madrid. "It is therefore a very important milestone because what it represents is that Europe is aware of the need to have strategic autonomy in information technologies. We must join forces to improve our R&D capabilities in this regard," says Arturo Azcorra, director of IMDEA Networks and a professor at UC3M. He also adds: "This is great news, therefore, for the academic and business world, and for society. We can consider it to be a global milestone in the field of open experimentation via satellite".

During the official presentation of the national Spanish node, which took place at the Hotel Riu Plaza de España, researchers working in areas and platforms related to the Spanish SLICES node at different levels took part. For example, Carlos Jesús Bernardos, professor at UC3M, and Joerg Widmer,  research director at IMDEA Networks, spoke about how it will be used in the development of 6G and in experimentation with millimetre wave networks.

Another of the researchers who has driven this project, Carmen Guerrero, from UC3M's Telematics Engineering Department, highlights the usefulness that this infrastructure will have for the research community in the area of future networks. "They will have access to cutting-edge deployments to carry out experiments that are currently not readily available to scientists in general, or that do not even exist today. In fact, there is currently a lack of access to experimental facilities and SLICES will provide these services to the research community in Europe".

About IMDEA Networks and UC3M

IMDEA Networks is a research institute for computer and communication networks, whose multinational team works on fundamental science and cutting-edge technology. As a growing, English-speaking institute based in Madrid, Spain, IMDEA Networks offers a unique opportunity to pioneering scientists who aspire to develop their ideas. IMDEA Networks has established itself internationally at the forefront in the development of future network principles and technologies. Our highly-reputed research team is designing tomorrow's networks today.

The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2024 and among the best universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M is the first university in Europe to obtain ACEEU dual accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric, and it also has other accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes.

This year's edition also has the largest number of activities proposed for students to date. In total, 41 meetings with top-level companies will be on offer, where university students will be able to learn about the profiles they are looking for and the professional future they offer, and apply for selection tests. 6 workshops will also be held to learn how to prepare a CV, pass a selection interview, get the most out of your LinkedIn profile, or present yourself in 2 minutes, among others. Both activities require prior registration through the website.

Students and graduates will be able to come into direct contact with human resources managers of large companies from a wide range of sectors and follow the talks, meetings and presentations aimed at finding employment. To facilitate submitting CVs to companies and avoid the use of paper, students will be able to register them directly on the website and submit them using a QR code.

In this 2023 edition, conferences and workshops are returning to advise university students on issues related to their professional future. In addition, one of the most in-demand activities from previous years is returning, the “Bridge to employment”, where university students have a personal interview with a guidance technician, with whom they can carry out a digital audit of their CV, review it and have a professional photo taken. Full information on the activities is available at forempleo.uc3m.es.

137 companies participated in last year's edition and there were more than 4,000 in-person visitors. Of the visitors received, 67% of the attendees were looking for internships/end-of-degree projects and 33% were directly seeking work. The website registered 116,230 visits.

UC3M maintains a high employability rate for its students. According to the latest available study (Class of 2020), 91.1% of graduates were working within 2 years of graduating. It has also obtained very good results in international employability rankings such as those carried out by QS and THE. Contributing to this is its ability to attract talent, the quality of its educational offer and the support for its students’ employability developed by the “UC3M Guidance & Employment” service, managed by the Universidad Carlos III Foundation, and which has the collaboration of over 4,000 companies for internships and the implementation of numerous other employability support initiatives.

This year the fair has special sponsorship from ACCENTURE, BBVA, Deloitte, EY and KPMG.

More information: Forempleo 2023 website

These awards have a 30,000 euro prize for each category, and distinguish Spanish researchers with noteworthy careers and international relevance in their respective research areas. They also recognise the merit of young people – with a maximum age of 40 – who have accomplished significant achievements in the early stages of their careers. In the latter case, of the 185 nominations received, 97 were men and 88 were women; and the average age of the award winners is 37.

"This award makes me feel very proud of the work I have done over the years and, above all, enormously grateful to all of my mentors, collaborators, the university’s research service and especially to all the members of my group. The recognition is equally as much for them as it is for me. Furthermore, receiving this award gives us a boost of enthusiasm and motivation to continue the development of soft materials that can interact intelligently with biological systems and advance their technological implementation," says Daniel García González.

An industrial engineer and Doctor from UC3M with an international honourable mention, Daniel García González (Leganés, 1992) did a postdoc at Oxford University where he studied the mechanical behaviour of brain tissues and their functional response. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Continuum Mechanics and Structure Theory at the University and leads various research projects: he is PI of an ERC Starting Grant project (4D-BIOMAP; GA 947723), an ERC Proof of Concept project (ISBIOMECH; GA 101081713) and other national projects. He has started a multidisciplinary laboratory at the UC3M Science Park, called MULTIBIOSTRUCTURES Lab, which experimentally develops new multifunctional materials, as well as theoretical formulations which combine mechanics with other physics and their applications to bioengineering problems in the framework of a wide network of international collaborations. He has carried out other research placements in numerous prestigious institutions and is part of the Young Academy of Spain.

More information: 

The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation grants the 2023 National Research Awards

This ranking, carried out for the first time by the British consultancy firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), analyses the performance of universities in four areas: teaching, employability, internationalisation and research. To do this, it is based on twelve metrics: the institution’s academic reputation, which accounts for 30% of the total score; its reputation from the point of view of employers (15%); the citations that the research staff’s scientific publications have received (10%); the international research network (10%); scientific publications by faculty (5%); alumni employment results (5%); the ratio between teaching staff and students (5%);  the institution’s sustainability (5%); the number of foreign teaching staff (5%); international students (2.5%) and their diversity (5%); and the proportion of the university's students participating in exchange programmes at other institutions (2.5%).

The top European positions in this ranking are held by the University of Oxford (in the United Kingdom), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Switzerland) and the University of Cambridge (in the United Kingdom). In total, this ranking includes a total of 690 universities from 42 locations.
 
More information: QS Europe University Rankings 2024 

This need is met by TrialsNet, a European research project that will carry out large-scale experiments on use cases that can improve the quality of life in urban environments. It will use advanced network technology to make progress in three areas: infrastructure, transport, safety and security; eHealth and emergencies; and culture, tourism and entertainment.

"Our goal is to test this cutting-edge technology at both the network infrastructure and application level, on a large scale and with a broad base of real users. We will implement it in museums, airports, hospitals and sports venues to assess both the social benefits and the performance of this technology," says Marco Gramaglia, a lecturer in UC3M's Telematics Engineering Department and a researcher on this project.

The development of this project will help application developers to understand the benefits of current 5G technology and manufacturers to know the necessary features for the applications envisaged in 6G networks in order to focus the next phase of research. "These advantages will allow developers to make the most of current technology and provide operators and manufacturers with a clear direction for future research in the evolution towards 6G. The result will be useful for both industry and academic researchers, as it will allow us to understand what is needed for the next generations of mobile networks," says Gramaglia.

The project also has an Open Call, where new use cases, improvements to existing cases and new network deployments can be proposed.

TrialsNet is funded by the European Union through the Horizon Europe programme (GA no. 101095871), coordinated by Ericsson Telecomunicazioni (TEI) and consists of 22 other actors: Athens International Airport (AIA), Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni (CNIT), Comune di Torino (COTO), Crossmedia (CROSSM), Dimos Athinaion Epicheirisi Michanografisisis (DAEM), Ericsson Spain (ERC), Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Interuniversitair Micro-Electronica Centrum (IMEC), Nextworks (NXW), Orange Romania (ORO), Promozione Per L'innovazione Fra Industria e Università (PIIU), Prosegur (PROS), Real Wireless (RW), Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento Sant'Anna (SSSA), Telecom Italy (TIM), Telefónica Research and Development (TID, in its Spanish acronym), Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M),  Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Romania (TUIASI), Wings ICT Solutions (WINGS) and Yerba Buena VR (YBVR).

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On the morning of  Friday 29th, an activity will be held for secondary schools. At 11:15 am in the UC3M Auditorium there will be a theatrical show with talks by researchers on various aspects related to the challenges of a green Europe, such as concentrated solar power, the impact of aircraft contrails on climate change, wireless communications with lower energy consumption or the use of lasers in livestock farming to monitor gases that are harmful to climate change.

During this event there will also be two guided tours to UC3M scientific facilities. On Friday 29th at 6 pm at the UC3M Leganés Campus, visitors will be able to visit an aerospace research laboratory where various techniques are being tested to better understand fluid dynamics and achieve more sustainable aircraft. On Saturday 30th at 10 am there will be another guided tour to a laboratory in the UC3M Science Park to see how tests on technological developments are being carried out to communicate with our cells.

These UC3M activities are part of the European Researchers' Night in Madrid, an event which includes numerous free scientific outreach activities and is being held simultaneously in more than 350 European cities. In Madrid, this project to support the careers of research staff, called MADRIDNIGHT, is promoted by the Vice-Presidency, Ministry of Education and Universities and coordinated by the madri+d Foundation, and is funded by the European Union within the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme, under grant agreement number 101,061,343.

More information: 

European Researchers' Night at UC3M website

"Digital technologies have advanced to such an extent that, often, teachers don't know how to apply and use these technologies to teach better. This is why it's necessary to create centres that support, help and train teachers in these new learning-applied technologies," says Carlos Delgado Kloos, a lecturer in the Telematics Engineering Department and lead researcher of this project.

Throughout the duration of this project, guides and models of advanced CEAs have been developed, focusing on the development of teaching skills in three areas: pedagogy, technology and strategic management. Professionals have also been trained in management and innovation skills to promote cultural changes in teaching and learning. 

In this regard, teacher training plans have been designed for quality management: active and hybrid methodologies; monitoring and assessment strategies through learning analytics; and research on teaching practice itself for continuous improvement. The aim is to train teaching staff to carry out efficient educational innovation processes, both in person and virtually.

"In addition, these centres have benefited from this European funding for the purchase of infrastructure and equipment for the demonstration and teaching of the use of these technologies. These spaces have been created and the means have been deployed to provide this training to the teaching staff at each of the universities," says Delgado Kloos.

Sustainable cooperation between Latin American and European higher education institutions has also been encouraged, building a cooperation network. "It is not limited to these four universities. It is a demonstrator so that other institutions can also learn about it and follow a similar path," says the researcher.

The PROF-XXI project was carried out within the framework of the Erasmus+ programme (GA 609767-EPP-1-2019-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). It was developed from January 2020 to July 2023 and seven partners from five countries worked on it: the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), the University of San Buenaventura (Colombia), the University of Cauca (Colombia), Galileo University (Guatemala), the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, Aberta University (Portugal) and Toulouse 3 Paul Sabatier University (France).

"We are now facing another big challenge, which is that of generative artificial intelligence. This will change everything, including education, and although we have to prevent it from being used fraudulently, it will also allow us to go further. Therefore, this is a great revolution that will bring about a big change in education and we are already thinking about how we can respond to this great challenge before us," concludes Carlos Delgado Kloos.

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However, research to date has found it difficult to accurately distinguish these biometric differences between people with and without pain. There have been several factors, such as the scarcity of data related to this issue, the particularities of each type of chronic pain and the inherent complexity in the measurement of biometric variables.

“People with chronic pain often adapt their movements to protect themselves from further pain or injury. This adaptation makes it difficult for conventional biometric analysis methods to accurately capture physiological changes. Hence the need to develop this system”, says Doctor Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi, a postdoctoral researcher at the i_mBODY Laboratory in UC3M’s Computer Science Department, who led this study.

The research carried out by UC3M has developed a new method that uses a type of deep learning called s-RNNs (sparsely connected recurrent neural networks) together with GRUs (closed recurrent units), which are a type of neural network unit that is used to model sequential data. With this development, the team has managed to capture changes in pain-related body behaviour over time. Furthermore, it surpasses existing approaches to accurately classify pain levels and pain-related behaviour.

The innovation of the proposed method has been to take advantage of an advanced deep learning architecture and add additional features to address the complexities of sequential data modelling. The ultimate goal is to achieve more robust and accurate results related to sequential data analysis.

“One of the main research focuses in our lab is the integration of deep learning techniques to develop objective measures that improve our understanding of people’s body perceptions through the analysis of body sensor data, without relying exclusively on direct questions to individuals”, says Ana Tajadura Jiménez, a lecturer from UC3M’s Computer Science Department and lead researcher of the BODYinTRANSIT project, who leads the i_mBODY Laboratory.

The new method developed by the UC3M research team has been tested with the EmoPain database, which contains data on pain levels and behaviours related to these levels. “This study also highlights the need for a reference database dedicated to analysing the relationship between chronic pain and biometrics. This database could be used to develop applications in areas such as security or healthcare”, says Mohammad Mahdi.

These results of this research are used in the design of new medical therapies focused on the body and different clinical conditions. “In healthcare, the method can be used to improve the measurement and treatment of chronic pain in people with conditions such as fibromyalgia, arthritis and neuropathic pain. It can help control pain-related behaviours and tailor treatments to improve patient outcomes. In addition, it can be beneficial for monitoring pain responses during post-surgical recovery”, says Mohammad Mahdi.

In this regard, Ana Tajadura also highlights the relevance of this research for other medical processes: “In addition to chronic pain, altered movement patterns and negative body perceptions have been observed, such as in eating disorders, chronic cardiovascular disease or depression, among others. It is extremely interesting to carry out studies using the above method in these populations in order to better understand medical conditions and their impact on movement. These studies could provide valuable information for the development of more effective screening tools and treatments, and improve the quality of life of people affected by these conditions”.

In addition to health applications, the results of this project can be used for the design of sports, virtual reality, robotics or fashion and art applications, among others.

This research is carried out within the framework of the BODYinTRANSIT project, led by Ana Tajadura Jiménez and funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (GA 101002711).

"The need arises from the limited number of studies that have focused on examining the proportion and influence of gender on two of the most relevant indicators of scientific evaluation: visibility and citations. Despite the fact that there is observational evidence that shows that women continue to have structural imbalances in the exercise of their research careers, this work offers empirical evidence that highlights the difficulties for women in academic careers," says Manuel Goyanes, a lecturer in UC3M's Department of Communication and one of the authors of the article.

To carry out this study, the research team compiled information from the Scopus and Scival databases, which contain a list of the most productive authors in different disciplines. The study was limited to research staff in the field of communication in Europe and the United States and the period of analysis was from 2010 to 2019.

The results show that of the 5,500 academics with the highest productivity rates, 3,954 are men and 1,546 are women. When filtered by country, the percentage of men is also significantly higher in each of them, with Germany and Ukraine as the countries with the greatest gender inequalities. The countries with the highest parity are Spain and the United States, although the situation is far from equal.

"The results show that men are still more productive, from which we can conclude that women's views, projects and expectations are overlooked. Women are also under-represented among the most productive elite. This does not correspond to the sociological distribution of the analysed area, where the number of female researchers is greater than that of male researchers and where they are also a majority as first authors in the main communication journals," says Goyanes.

On the other hand, the study shows that the most productive women's articles have greater visibility than those of the most productive men. However, their articles are less cited. "In other words, with an equal number of visits to their articles, women are less cited than men. Assuming that the first step in citing an article is reading it, the most productive women in communication need greater visibility in order to have similar citation levels to men," explains the researcher.

In future lines of research, the aim is to continue analysing the inequalities of women in science, "emphasising these imbalances at different levels, such as access to editorial committees of scientific journals, co-authorship, scientific awards or academic reputation," concludes Manuel Goyanes.

Bibliographic reference:

Rajkó, A., Herendy, C., Goyanes, M., & Demeter, M. (2023). The Matilda Effect in Communication Research: The Effects of Gender and Geography on Usage and Citations Across 11 Countries. Communication Research, 00936502221124389.

"Future applications are expected to demand much more bandwidth, as well as much lower and bounded latencies [i.e., they demand immediacy]. The applications include autonomous vehicles, spatial computing and augmented reality," says Carlos Bernardos, a lecturer from UC3M's Telematics Engineering Department and a project researcher.

Due to this requirement, the European consortium that makes up the DESIRE6G project will design and develop a contactless organisation, management and control platform through native integration of artificial intelligence, to support the requirements of extreme URLLC applications (i.e. requiring ultra-fast and reliable communications).

"The project's developments will allow applications such as autonomous driving, industrial robotics, spatial computing or augmented reality to be viable and more efficient. With current technologies, these examples of applications are directly unfeasible or have fields of use which are limited to a narrow set of cases," Bernardos says. Furthermore, this new network architecture is also expected to reduce energy consumption. "Reducing the energy consumption and carbon footprint of communications networks is a growing concern due to the importance of networks in today's multi-level society."

To achieve this goal, the research team is using terahertz communication, artificial intelligence and machine learning to design new hardware and software components that will be the basis of the new wireless communication system. The system to be developed will be tested in two scenarios using extended reality and a digital twin application (a virtual replica of a product to efficiently adapt new solutions to the real product).

The DESIRE6G project is a three-year project (from January 2023 to December 2025) and is funded by the European Commission's Horizon Europe program (GA 101096466). The consortium is made up of 14 partners including universities, technology-based SMEs and other industry-related organisations: University of Amsterdam (project coordinator), Ericsson (technical coordinator), Telefónica, Nvidia, Nubis, Accelleran, Solidshield, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, University of Oulu in Finland, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, University of Budapest, Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni, NEC Laboratories Europe and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna.

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"The society aims to facilitate contact between academics, researchers, professionals and students, as well as all people or entities interested or active in this field, as well as to promote the practice of scientific-technical research in the area," explains Isabel Segura Bedmar.

AI and biomedicine

The area of AI has been experiencing a major revolution in recent years. Recent initiatives such as ChatGPT are helping to make society aware of a field of knowledge that has really existed for decades, IABiomed points out. "In the area of biomedicine in particular, this revolution is leading to thousands of global initiatives in which AI plays an extremely relevant role. At a national level, the area of AI in biomedicine has been developing for years, mainly in academic environments, although today many other stakeholders (especially from the business sector) are already part of this revolution", says the Society.

The scientific-technical objectives of this society include promoting scientific activity collaboration among its members, as well as multidisciplinary research in the area of AI in biomedicine. In addition, IABiomed seeks to promote actions to generate resources in terms of infrastructures or services that are of interest to the stakeholders involved in the area, for training, outreach and research purposes. On the other hand, this company will establish links and synergies with companies and other organisations (public and private) in the sector and will actively participate in technology watch activities in the area.

More information: IABiomed website

The research staff who have developed this application, from institutions such as UC3M, the European Space Agency or IGEO (CSIC-UCM), paid special attention so that the developed virtual reality was reliable. "We strive to look for available information on the terrain, the soil texture or the colours that we could see if we were actually in the real scenario. In addition to the effort in implementing the scenarios, the need to check and consult the details we included meant that the development time was longer than initially stipulated," says virtual reality applications developer, Christian Pérez Nicolás, who has a Master's degree in Space Engineering from UC3M.

Virtual reality glasses and controllers are required to use these simulators, as well as associated software that makes it possible to have a fully interactive experience. It is also possible to view immersive 3D videos using a mobile phone and virtual reality glasses such as Google Cardboard. In addition, the virtual reality experience includes a geoethical perspective on the use of planetary resources in a similar way to how they are used on Earth, according to goals and targets 13, 14 and 15 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

On the project’s website, where the application will be available for all those interested in "travelling" around the Solar System, you can also find videos showing a virtual reality project prior to NESTOR VR that makes it possible to visit the facilities of a moonbase and carry out real lunar soil spectroscopy missions.

In order to develop this system, several tests were carried out with students from several secondary schools in the Community of Madrid at UC3M's Leganés Campus. "We collected direct feedback with these tests so that the application is as attractive as possible to students," says another of the researchers involved in this project, Sara Guerrero Aspizua, a lecturer from the University's Bioengineering Department. All of this has made it possible to develop these simulations which, as the project's website says, could provide the opportunity to learn about planetary science and experience space adventures on a scale never seen before.

More information: NESTOR project website

This goal is at the origin of the proposal which involved lecturers from the Social Sciences Department (the aforementioned, as well as Ilke Toygür, Işık Özel and Stefano Battilossi), María Luengo (Communication), Natalia Fabra (Economics), Antonio Estella (Public Law), Ángel Cuevas (Telematics Engineering) and Maria José Álvarez (Business Economics). "Thanks to this interdisciplinary dialogue, the goal is to strengthen the role of citizens, politics and civil society in the European policy-making process in order to be able to address the challenges facing Europe more effectively and inclusively," says Juan Antonio Mayoral.

The centre to be set up within the framework of this €100,000 euro three-year grant has three general objectives. Firstly, to strengthen and promote excellence in teaching and interdisciplinary research in EU studies. Secondly, to promote, expand and consolidate a community of academics and relevant social, political and economic actors for the search for inclusive solutions to current EU challenges. And thirdly, to bring the EU closer to society and to Spanish and European students and young people to promote their participation in the Centre's activities.

Specifically, the following actions are planned, among others: the creation of a European degree and minors in collaboration with the YUFE Alliance; updating the contents of existing bachelor's and master's degree courses in an interdisciplinary way; and the organisation of conferences, workshops and research seminars based on a common agenda on the Europeanisation of Spanish law, economics, politics, media and society.

Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence, proposed and hosted by a higher education institution, are sources of reference and knowledge on EU-related topics. They bring together the experience and skills of high-level experts with the aim of developing synergies between the various disciplines and resources of EU studies. They also play a key role in reaching out to students from faculties that do not normally address EU-related issues, as well as policy makers, civil servants, civil society and the general public.

More information:  Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence

The PREDICT-6G project aims to create deterministic networks that ensure the transmission of messages in a given time. The goal is to create a comprehensive solution that improves the services that 6G technology aims to offer.

To do this, the project team has been working since January 2023 on the creation of a multi-technology and multi-domain data plane, an inter-domain control plane using artificial intelligence and a digital twin framework (a virtual replica of a product to efficiently adapt new solutions to the real product). These developments will complement each other to optimise the capabilities of wired and wireless networks. The ultimate goal is the development of a deterministic 6G network solution.

"All sectors can benefit from this technology, since all networks would benefit from being more reliable and predictable. Industrial control systems need networks with deterministic latency and low delay variation. For example, home WiFi has many errors and is not particularly reliable, so improving this technology could provide other types of services such as augmented reality," says project coordinator Antonio de la Oliva, a lecturer in UC3M's Department of Telematics Engineering.

The different functions carried out within the project will be validated and tested at the European events Nokia Budapest Open Lab and Madrid Open Lab 5TONIC.

The PREDICT-6G project is being developed within the framework of the European Union's Horizon Europe programme (GA 101095890). The consortium, coordinated by UC3M, is made up of companies, institutions and universities from seven European countries: Atos Iberia and Spain, COGNINN Greece, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Ericsson Spain, Gestamp, Intel Deutchland, Interdigital Europe, MTU Autralo Alpha Lab, Nextworks, Nokia, Politecnico di Torino, Software Imagination & Vision, Telefónica, Università degli Studi di Padova and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

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The second award-winning project was Green Up, promoted by Amalia Cid and Marina Torelli, graduates in Computer Engineering from UC3M, and Ángela Sueiro, a graduate in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. This initiative has received the Energy Sustainability Award from Naturgy and the ESG Impact Award from PwC. Both awards have a 1,000 euro prize. Green Up aims to make cities greener by placing vertical gardens on the facades of local businesses. The purpose is to involve citizens in this process through an augmented reality mobile application from which they can sponsor these gardens and interact with different people in a community.

UC3M, from its Entrepreneurship and Business Development area, has been collaborating with the Junior Achievement Foundation in the Startup Programme inter-university competition since 2009 within the framework of the Emprende UC3M programme. The University participates in the mentoring and training of entrepreneurs through tools that allow them to analyse the viability of their business ideas and shape their projects.

The Junior Achievement Foundation is an international, US-based, non-profit organisation, for the promotion of entrepreneurial training, financial education and job preparation. Since 2001, the Foundation has been working in Spain with schools, business organisations and governments to promote and develop youth entrepreneurship.

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This European R+D+i consortium reacts to these challenges in two ways. On the one hand, the political risks associated with these technologies will be analysed to prevent possible negative implications for EU democracies. As a result, regulatory innovations will be established to detect and mitigate the risks of deepfakes. On the other hand, the opportunities offered by GANs to revitalise the democratic commitment of citizens will be assessed.

To do so, three case studies will be developed within the framework of SOLARIS. The first aims to understand the psychological aspects of the perceived trustworthiness of GANs through a controlled experiment in laboratory conditions. The second simulates the circulation of threatening GANs content on social networks to detect risks and design mitigation strategies. The third co-creates value-based GAN content to raise awareness of key global democratic topics (for example, climate change, gender dimension or human migration). 

“GANs are also an opportunity to improve democratic awareness and expand active and inclusive citizenship”, says Antonio Estella de Noriega, who also holds an ad personam Jean Monnet Chair in European Economic Governance Law at UC3M. In this sense, GANs “can be used to do good and have positive uses in the journalistic, historic or legal fields, for example”, adds the lecturer.

UC3M is developing the regulatory part of this project, which consists of making a proposal for legal rules in this area. "The biggest challenge is precisely how quickly changes are taking place. By its very nature, what law does is work on a certain frozen image of reality and, in general terms, reality does not advance as quickly as AI is advancing," he explains. "What we may be regulating today might not work for us in six or nine months' time because it could become obsolete," he adds.

The SOLARIS (Strengthening demOcratic engagement through vaLue-bAsed geneRative adversarIal networkS) project is funded with almost three million euros by the European Union (EU)’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme (GA 101094665). Coordinated by the University of Amsterdam, it will take place between 2023 and 2026 with the participation of a dozen institutions and private companies from Albania, Germany, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

More information: 

SOLARIS project website

University and business: the multiplying win-win effect

The Chair is currently oriented towards a strategic topic for companies, in that diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) policies and the committent to inclusive leadership occupy a prominent place on the business agenda. Therefore,  organisations are increasingly aware that having inclusive leaders, who value and take advantage of workforce diversity and all stakeholders, allows them to understand society’s needs, making more conscious, responsible and sustainable decisions.

The added value of this initiative is based on the fact that university-business collaboration produces an indisputable symbiosis. Firstly, the University will offer students experiences and learning that will train them in innovative visions of diversity, equity and inclusion and leadership – fundamental pillars of the business world –, while companies will have the opportunity to be closer to the source of knowledge, drawing on university research in order to continue progressing in their strategies. In this way, the implementation of this Chair will produce a win-win effect with great potential to accelerate and provide greater specificity to leadership and diversity policies, amplifying results and progressing in the proposed objectives. For its development, a multidisciplinary team will be created from the academic and business spheres, made up of highly reputable professionals, who will contribute different perspectives and experiences.

The UC3M Rector, Ángel Arias, emphasised that the creation of this Chair allows for the creation of a “custom” ecosystem of interaction and collaboration between UC3M, the CEOE, the CEOE Foundation and the Adecco Foundation, which implies the development of a set of actions that will benefit all of the institutions involved. He also added that “leadership and diversity represent one of the fundamental and transversal pillars of the strategy of business organisations today. The Chair will serve as a platform to develop research activities of common interest, will facilitate the development of knowledge and excellence and will have a social impact”.

The professor who will direct the Chair, Carmen Paz-Aparicio, thanked the signatories for all of their support and trust and pointed out that "it is a source of joy for UC3M and, of course, for me that the main entity representing companies in Spain, the CEOE, shares the interest in the development and execution of this initiative, as well as the achievement of its goals, committing itself to its support and promotion”. Finally, she added that "this Chair on Leadership and Diversity, framed within the CEOPorlaDiversity (CEOForDiversity) Alliance, is a dream come true, working and collaborating directly with the leaders of the most important companies in our country, which constitutes an excellent platform for knowledge transfer between the university, the business world and our society".

Meanwhile, the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, emphasised the importance of "continuing to make progress in the creation of spaces for collaboration and in the alliance between the business and academic worlds, so that companies can give the best of themselves to society, in this case combining research, leadership and inclusion as gateways towards progress".

Along the same lines, the president of the CEOE Foundation, Fátima Báñez, has assured that this chair "represents another step in the CEO for Diversity Alliance" and "an investment in excellence, in science and in talent to grow from rigour and keep this project at the forefront in Europe". "One more example that shows that companies think big, bringing business and the university closer together for Spanish society," she added.

Enrique Sánchez said: "This initiative is an excellent opportunity to accelerate the much-needed rapprochement between the business world and the university environment. By uniting the strengths of both agents, we promote an environment of collaboration and mutual enrichment that will provide a more academic approach to the diversity and leadership policies that we have been proposing and developing in the Alliance since 2019, while at the same time boosting the education and training of future professionals in such strategic and relevant dimensions for companies. The fact that the #CEOPorLaDiversity (#CEOForDiversity) Alliance is made up of 91 committed CEOs and their operational teams, gives a high profile to this Chair, which will be able to advance with its goals, sponsored by people who believe in diversity and who strive to exercise inclusive leadership".

Research, training and knowledge transfer

The Leadership and Diversity Chair will be structured around three main lines of action: research activities, training activities and initiatives for the transfer and dissemination of the knowledge generated.

In terms of research, an Ideas Laboratory will be set up to identify strategic study areas, promoting the preparation of reports and studies, research projects that will lead to articles in scientific publications, as well as the organisation of national and/or international congresses, where work focused on leadership and diversity will be presented.

In terms of training, activities will be developed to train students and teachers in leadership and diversity. Work will also be done to improve the skills of business leaders in this field. To this end, training scholarships will be promoted for the completion of doctoral theses related to the Chair, awards will be created for research work, postgraduate programmes or training courses for management teams and business leaders.

In addition, among other activities, competitions to generate ideas will be promoted among students, with the mission of improving leadership and diversity in companies. Finally, the knowledge generated in the Chair will be shared through transfer and outreach activities such as conferences, round tables, press releases and media calls, etc. The Chair will also create its own website with different profiles on social networks, which will be managed by a scholarship holder, responsible for its coordination and management.

About UC3M

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2024 and among the best universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M is the first university in Europe to obtain ACEEU dual accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric, and it also has other accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes.

About the #CEOPorLaDiversidad Alliance

This Alliance, led by the Adecco Foundation and the CEOE Foundation, aims to unite the CEOs of the main companies in Spain around a common and innovative vision of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), acting as drivers and ambassadors to help accelerate the development of strategies that contribute to business excellence, talent competitiveness in Spain and the reduction of inequality and exclusion in Spanish society.

Regarding productivity in research, the report notes that it has increased during the period studied. In this sense, as of 2018 all public universities have exceeded the value of one publication per lecturer per year. The universities that excel most in this area are the UPF, the UAB, the University of Barcelona (UB), the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), the UAM, the UC3M, the Miguel Hernández University (UMH), the University of Girona (UdG) and the University of Valencia (UV).

Regarding scientific collaboration data, approximately half of the publications are carried out with international co-authors, while almost a third of the publications are carried out in national collaborations.  Emerging scientific production included in the ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index), which mainly includes Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences publications, has almost doubled since 2011, with public universities responsible for 89% of this.

The impact of the research carried out by Spanish universities has grown throughout the period studied, taking into account the number of annual citations. However, there has been a general stagnation in visibility when looking at publications in first quartile journals. In contrast, the number of open access publications has almost doubled since the start of the series, accounting for 68% of all publications in 2021.

Regarding innovative activity, the number of patents registered by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM, in its Spanish acronym) has been declining since 2015, reaching the minimum value of the series in 2020 and rising slightly in 2021.

The number of permanent lecturers (staff members and those with permanent contracts) in the SUE has increased between 2012 and 2021 due to the increase in the number of lecturers in private universities, which has grown in this period at a global annual rate of 7.46%. However, in that decade, public university staff have lost 3,750 lecturers (an average negative growth of -0.54%). 

In terms of attracting and training talent, different trends are also observed, since while FPI and FPU contracts decreased moderately in the period studied, Juan de la Cierva contracts saw considerable growth. On the other hand, Ramón y Cajal contracts skyrocketed because the Juan de la Cierva incorporation contracts have been absorbed by the Ramón y Cajal call.

The IUNE Observatory is supported by the (Spanish) Ministry of Universities, as well as a large number of institutions, such as the (Spanish) National Quality Assessment and Accreditation Agency (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Spanish University Rectors' Conference (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Catalan University System Quality Agency (AQU Catalunya, in its Spanish acronym) and the Basque University System Quality Agency (Unibasq, in its Spanish acronym).

More information: https://iune.es/

On the other hand, UC3M is the best Spanish public university in the ranking of universities where the junior lawyers who are joining the large law firms this year completed their undergraduate degrees. It is behind ICADE and ahead of universities such as Pompeu Fabra and the Autonomous University of Madrid.

The “Universities and Law Firms 2023” report published by El Confidencial, which includes 60 universities and business schools, aims to become a tool to connect law firms, training centres and future lawyers. This report is “the best picture of the elite firms’ centres of choice to attract their future lawyers, as well as the essential features of the profile of these young professionals”, say the authors of the report.

To prepare the report, 18 of the main law firms in Spain provided data of the universities where the professionals who, this year, are starting (or have started) their internships prior to entering the job market, studied their Bachelor's and Master's degrees for Access to the Legal Profession.

More information: Universities and Law Firms 2023 Report by El Confidencial

To advance current networks, researchers and technologists in TERA6G project aim to build wireless information superhighways, increasing the speed of information in mobile networks from 100 megabits per second in 5G to 10 gigabits per second in 6G (that is, 100 times faster) to reduce the waiting time in data exchange by an order of magnitude. “And this will be achieved by, among other efforts, raising the carrier frequencies into the terahertz range”, explains Guillermo Carpintero. The terahertz range, lying between the radio-frequency (microwaves) and optical (infrared) bands, is the last frontier of the electromagnetic spectrum with great potential in the field of mobile communications.

The main objective of this project is to develop the devices enabling high-speed wireless links and which in addition can be controlled so that the operators can turn channels on and off depending on users’ needs. “One of the objectives of the 6G generation is to reduce power consumption, and an effective way to do so is by continuously adapting the capacity of the network to the user demand at all times. For example, when do you need more capacity from communications networks? Basically in the morning, when people are on their way to work, watching videos or series while commuting, as well as in the evening when they go back home becoming idle at night when everyone is covered by their own wifi at home. Therefore, we need devices that allow us to adapt the capacity to the users’ needs to thus save energy”, concludes Guillermo Carpintero.

To do this, the project brings together both hardware developers (those who will create these new wireless photonic devices) and developers of the control layers of communications networks. This project also draws on the knowledge generated in previous European scientific projects developed by the members of the TERA6G consortium within the framework of H2020, such as: ARIADNE, GA871464; FUDGE-5G, GA871668; TERAWAY GA871668; and TERRANOVA GA761794.

With all this, they hope to achieve a secure, uninterrupted communications system that meets key performance characteristics. First of all, it must be agile, providing an ultra-wide bandwidth in the terahertz range used to enable handling a large number of users through MIMO techniques (multiple inputs and multiple outputs, involving a large number of antennas and beams). Secondly, it must be scalable, allowing the number and capacity of communication channels to be adapted to the users' needs at all times. And thirdly, it must be reconfigurable, so that it can combine communications functions with sensing functions that locate the user's location and enable more efficient communication).

TERA6G (TERAhertz integrated systems enabling 6G Terabit-per-second ultra-massive MIMO wireless networks) has received funding from the Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU) under the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement GA 101096949, which will be carried out between 2023 and 2026. Coordinated by UC3M, it has a budget of over 6 million euros and brings together 10 partners from five different countries. Among others, those participating include research centres such as the Fraunhofer Institute (Germany); educational institutions such as the University of Piraeus and the Athens Polytechnic (both in Greece) and the University of Oulu (Finland); SMEs such as LioniX or PHIX (in the Netherlands) and Cumucore (Finland) and large companies such as Intracom Telecom (Greece) and Telefónica (Spain).

More information: 

TERA6G project website

This ranking, first developed in 2004 by the British consultancy firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), analyses the performance of universities in four areas: teaching, employability, internationalisation and research. To do this, it is based on nine metrics (three more than last year), the institution’s academic reputation, which accounts for 30% of the total score; its reputation from the point of view of employers (15%); the ratio between teaching staff and students (10%); the citations that the research staff’s scientific publications have received (5%); the number of foreign teaching staff (5%) and international students (5%); the international research network (5%); alumni employment results (5%); and the institution’s sustainability. 

The top global positions in the twentieth edition of this ranking are held by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Harvard University and Stanford University. In total, this ranking includes a total of 1,499 universities from 104 locations. Of the ranked universities, 35 are in Spain.

More information:

QS World University Rankings 2024 website

The winning team received training from Pilar Perales Viscasillas and Juan Manuel Ramírez Cirera, lecturers from the Private Law Department, who said that they were very happy with our students’ achievement and satisfied to have been able to contribute to their practical training.

UC3M was also represented by Analía Bianca Cozzarelli Muñoz de Baena, Pedro Miguel Mata Chacín and Martín Caballero (semifinals, Bachelor’s Degree in Law and Double Degree in Law and Political Science);  Pedro Lucas Medina Corrales and Mariester Muñoz Ceschini (last sixteen, Double Degree in Law and Business Administration and Bachelor’s Degree in Law); Cristina Aledo Díaz, Eduardo Mario Lago Montero and Romina Haro Podadera (semifinals, Double Degree in Law and Economics); Pablo Monrabal Espejo, Inmaculada Posada Gil and Ruth Smith Cuadrado (last sixteen, Double Degree in Law and Business Administration); and Michael Withers and Rui Xin Liu Jin (last sixteen, Bachelor’s Degree in Law). The first four teams also received training from lecturers Pilar Perales Viscasillas and Juan Manuel Ramírez Cirera. 

More information: 

Sixth edition of the mock trial competition of ELSA Spain and Uría Menéndez Website

Four main milestones have been reached during the project’s three-year duration. The first of these was the creation of the Fair School methodology, prepared manually for teaching teams and translated into six languages. It includes a conceptual framework based on the construction of narratives, social-emotional learning and restorative practices. It also has a set of activities to be carried out in the classroom with students and their families.

The second consisted of the preparation of four activities called Serious Games, which refers to recreational, short-term activities based on the values of democratic coexistence. These are: “The Message of the Trees”, created in Turkey; “Learn about my culture”, created in Portugal; “Globetrotters”, created in Spain; and “My Perspective”, created in Poland. Each of these games is translated into six languages and addresses topics related to diversity, respect, tolerance and self-care. Their effectiveness has already been tested with over 400 teachers and students in secondary schools in Spain, Turkey, Poland and Portugal.

The third was the creation of five digital modules aimed at teaching staff, with the aim of making them aware of and teaching them the methodology for its subsequent application. The modules are called “The role of teachers as facilitators”; “Restorative Justice”; “Social-emotional Learning”; and “Methodology to be used in secondary schools”. Each one is translated into five languages and lasts 10 hours, including theoretical and practical activities. At the end of each module there is a test for self-assessment of knowledge. This material has been tested with 105 teachers from the four countries belonging to the Fair School consortium.

The last milestone was a pilot test of the methodology in the consortium countries. It lasted six months, with two quarterly implementation cycles. 414 people participated in it, including 396 students and 18 teachers.

In addition, during the three-year duration, other types of relevant activities have been carried out for the proper implementation of the methodology, such as the international meeting of teaching teams from the four consortium schools or the five transnational conferences for coordination and joint work.

The project “Fostering a fair and inclusive environment for secondary school students in intercultural school environments through a new pedagogical method based on restorative practices and social and emotional learning” (Fair School” (reference 2020-1-ES01-KA201-083026) has been funded by the Erasmus+ Programme under the supervision of the Spanish Service for the Internationalisation of Education. The research was coordinated by UC3M, in collaboration with partners from different European countries: the Ignacio Aldecoa Secondary School in Getafe (Spain); the SPEL school network (Portugal); the non-profit organisation SOS Malta; the University of Bialystok and the Princess Anna Sapieha Jabłonowska School (Poland); the Maltepe secondary school and the IAAD research and technological innovation organisation (Turkey); and the private consultancy firm In Dialogue (The Netherlands).

More information about Fair School

More information about Erasmus+

“The aim of this award is to give visibility to women innovators and leaders in the additive manufacturing sector, an area led mainly by men”, explains Alba González. In her case, her research is a direct application of 3D printing in human health. “We have developed innovative hip and pelvic implants for patients with bone defects so complex that they couldn’t have been operated on with the implants available on the market, and thanks to our technology and know-how we have given them back the possibility of walking and having a normal life”, she says.

Alba González Álvarez develops customised implants for complex bone reconstructions in orthopaedic, maxillofacial and thoracic surgery in her research within the framework of UC3M’s CONEX-Plus programme, collaborating with surgeons from different national and international hospitals for the clinical transfer of her research results. “The implants we develop are designed with the specific shape and mechanical-biological properties that each patient requires. And this is achieved thanks to multidisciplinary collaboration between surgeons, engineers, researchers and industry, as well as the effective application of the latest digital technologies such as virtual surgical planning, 3D CAD biomechanical design, additive manufacturing and surgical navigation”, explains the researcher. “This approach to personalised medicine is demonstrating an improvement in the precision, safety and outcomes of complex bone reconstructions”, she concludes.

Alba González Álvarez has collaborated with international surgeons, engineers and companies to develop a wide variety of innovative custom implants that have been successfully used in patients in the fields of orthopaedic, maxillofacial, thoracic, spine and plastic surgery. In fact, last year she won the National Design Award for her custom bone implants. She has worked in companies and hospitals in the United Kingdom and France using biomechanics, 3D printing and 3D CAD design for patients and in 2018 she completed a Marie Curie industrial PhD in spine implant development at the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). Alba has presented her work as a guest speaker at numerous international events dedicated to surgery as well as technology and innovation. Her motivation, she says, “is to improve patients’ lives by creating pioneering solutions with the application of the latest 3D technologies”.

More information: TCT Awards 2023

New milestones in R+D+I

In terms of the results presented, it is worth noting the significant increase in funding raised in research and transfer compared to the previous two years, rising from 68 million euros in 2019 and 2020 to more than 103 million euros in 2021 and 2022 at UC3M. In this regard, 42.4 million euros come from the European Union’s Next Generation funds.

The number of R+D projects started in this period has also increased compared to the previous two years, rising from 316 to a total of 359. In addition, UC3M remains in Spain’s Top10 in scientific articles per lecturer and has gone on to publish almost 50 percent of its scientific articles in Open Access (through the gold and hybrid routes), when in the previous period it didn’t reach 25 percent.

In terms of attracting research talent, during 2021-2022 three new ERC (European Research Council) projects were added, bringing the total number of ERC Grants currently active at the University to 10. In addition, 28 researchers have been incorporated through Conex-Plus, a mobility and training programme that aims to promote the career of experienced research staff within the framework of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) European Union COFUND scheme.

In the field of transfer, in 2021 and 2022 there were 6 national and 40 international patent applications, there were 32 incubated companies (21 startups and 11 spin-offs), 107 valid software registrations and 167 technological offers. Funding raised through contracts with companies and other entities amounted to more than 19 million euros and the number of companies with which UC3M collaborates on international projects reached 188.

ACEEU accreditations

During this period, UC3M has become the first university in Europe to obtain two accreditations from the ACEEU (Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial and Engaged Universities), as an “Entrepreneurial University” and an “Engaged University”. This recognition certifies UC3M’s contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric and places it as a leading university in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation and research.

More information:

2021-2022 Research and Transfer ReportWebsite

“The problem is that there are more and more satellite launches and many of them have autonomous manoeuvring capabilities, forming part of constellations of thousands of objects. Therefore, it is very interesting to be able to autonomously detect these manoeuvres in order to keep track of the real position of these satellites”, explains the researcher from UC3M’s Aerospace Engineering Department, Guillermo Escribano, one of the authors of this work recently published in the journal Acta Astronáutica.

What these researchers have developed is an algorithm that detects and characterises these satellite manoeuvres more effectively. To do this, they use data from sensors that track the movement of space objects (such as telescopes or radars, for example) and combine them with statistical information. “The basic idea is to process all of these measurements and correlate them with objects that we already have in the catalogue”, says Guillermo Escribano. “With this we are able to track them even if the satellites carry out manoeuvres we’re not aware of”, says another of the researchers, Manuel Sanjurjo Rivo, also from UC3M’s Aerospace Engineering Department.

This development could be used to improve the accuracy of space object tracking and cataloguing systems currently in use, which could help to reduce the space debris problem, according to the researchers. In fact, the algorithm has already been implemented by the company GMV, where other researchers who are authors of this paper work, to carry out tracking and validation campaigns for space object cataloguing systems.

In this context, it is essential not only to have an estimate of the position and speed of objects in space, but also to properly characterise the uncertainty of these estimates by considering the information provided by tracking sensors or even by the spacecraft operators themselves. "According to the type of information obtained from tracking sensors, whose data update times range around 12 hours, knowledge of the dynamics is essential. Manoeuvres therefore pose a challenge to current automated association and estimation systems due to a lack of reliable information about how the object moves," concludes Manuel Sanjurjo Rivo. Hence the importance of the developments proposed in the framework of this research.

Bibliographic references:

Porcelli, L. Pastor, A. Cano, A. Escribano, G. Sanjurjo-Rivo, M. Escobar, D. Di Lizia, P. (2022). Satellite maneuver detection and estimation with radar survey observations. Acta Astronautica, Volume 201, Pages 274-287, ISSN 0094-5765.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2022.08.021

Escribano, G., Sanjurjo-Rivo, M., Siminski, J. A., Pastor, A., & Escobar, D. (2022). Automatic maneuver detection and tracking of space objects in optical survey scenarios based on stochastic hybrid systems formulation. Advances in Space Research, 69(9), 3460-3477. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2022.02.034

This year’s winners, who received prizes of 900, 600 and 300 euros, were: Ana Raya Collado, a Humanities PhD student, with the presentation: “The power of maps in the Western Sahara conflict”; María Loureiro, a Signal Processing and Communications Engineering PhD student, with the presentation: “Predictive robots”; and Facundo Masari, a Materials Science and Engineering PhD student, with the presentation: “Looking ahead: new  steels for nuclear power plants and clean energy”.

The Thesis Talk participants must give a presentation in less than three minutes, in Spanish or English, with only a presentation slide or an overhead slide. The jury, made up of UC3M lecturers and external professionals, assesses the PhD students’ ability to present the objective and results of their theses, the background and impact of the research, as well as the order and articulacy and their ability to present ideas and attract the audience’s attention.

This presentation format – Three Minute Thesis (3MT) – developed by the University of Queensland (Australia), has been adopted by more than two hundred universities worldwide.

More information: 

Thesis Talk 2023 website
 

The event was attended by the rector of the UC3M, Ángel Arias; the president of the Social Council of the University, Francisco Marhuenda García; the director of Santander Universities and Universia Spain, Susana García Espinel; On behalf of Airbus, the person in charge of Collaboration with Universities, Cristina García Aliste, El acto ha contado con la presencia del rector de la UC3M, Ángel Arias; el presidente del Consejo Social de la Universidad, Francisco Marhuenda García; la directora de Santander Universidades y Universia España, Susana García Espinel; por parte de Airbus la responsable de Colaboración con Universidades, Cristina García Aliste, y el presidente de la Asamblea de Madrid, Enrique Ossorio Crespo, así como el exrector de la UC3M, Daniel Peña.

The Excellence Awards aim to promote research and value the work carried out by four University groups: young PhD research staff, students, administration and services staff and alumni, giving visibility to their projects and their academic and professional careers.

Specifically, in this fifteenth edition of the Excellence Awards, 172,000 euros will be distributed among the 69 winners. Among the winners are 10 young PhD researchers of international repute, receiving 13,000 euros each, and 22 students who have excelled due to their excellent academic record, receiving 1,000 euros. Three prizes (first prize and two runners-up prizes) totalling 20,000 euros are awarded to teams of administrative and service staff. Lastly, a diploma and recognition trophy are awarded to 10 former University students who stand out for their outstanding professional development or entrepreneurial activity in two categories: those who graduated between 2017 and 2019 and those who graduated before 2017.

Emprende Awards

During the event, the Emprende 2022 Awards were also presented in the TFM and TFG categories. The TFM Emprende Awards honour work carried out in the 2021/22 academic year by UC3M master's degree students who create business ideas that stand out due to their brilliance and viability. This award, with a 10,000 euro prize, went to Daniel García López, from the UC3M Master's Degree in Robotics and Automation, for his project on an assistance system in supermarkets for the visually impaired.

The TFG Emprende award has a 20,000 euro prize, which is used to finance entrepreneurial or training activities in this area. This year the winner was Ana Ye Zhang, from the UC3M Biomedical Engineering Bachelor's Degree, for the design of an anti-reflux device for ostomies, called OSTOFIX.

Banco Santander, Airbus and UC3M

Banco Santander's support for the Excellence Awards, through Santander Universities, is part of the relationship that both institutions have maintained since 1999 for the development of various academic projects. Banco Santander maintains a firm commitment to progress and inclusive and sustainable growth with a pioneering and consolidated commitment to education, employability and entrepreneurship, which it has been developing for more than 26 years and which distinguishes it from other financial institutions in the world. The bank has allocated more than 2.2 billion euros and has supported more than one million students, professionals and entrepreneurial projects through agreements with more than 1,300 universities.

Airbus is part of the Business Forum, an initiative created in 2012 by the UC3M Social Council to strengthen relationships between the university and business fields. As part of this collaboration, Airbus also participates in the funding of the Excellence Awards, awarding the students with the two best records in the Aerospace Engineering Bachelor's Degree.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2023 and among the best universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M is the first university in Europe to obtain ACEEU dual accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric, and it also has other accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes.

The UC3M Social Council fulfils, among others, the role of encouraging society's participation in university activity, especially in its financing, and fostering relations between the University and its cultural, professional, economic and social environment.

More information:

UC3M Social Council Excellence Awards

UC3M Social Council Emprende Award

The average age of the ten new academics is 38 and there is an equal number of men and women among them. Their profiles cover different fields of knowledge including archaeology, art, sports science, study of materials, philology, physiology, history, industrial, mechanical and aerospace engineering and immunology.

The new academic from UC3M, Daniel García González, is 30 years old and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis. An industrial engineer and Doctor from UC3M with an international honourable mention, he did a postdoc at University of Oxford where he studied the mechanical behaviour of brain tissues and their functional response. He is currently PI of an ERC Starting Grant project (4D-BIOMAP; GA 947723), an ERC Proof of Concept project (ISBIOMECH; GA 101081713) and other national projects. He has started a multidisciplinary laboratory, called MULTIBIOSTRUCTURES Lab, which experimentally develops new multifunctional materials, as well as theoretical formulations combining mechanics with other physics and their applications to bioengineering problems in the framework of a wide network of international collaborations. He has carried out other research stays in numerous prestigious institutions.

With Daniel García González joining the Young Academy of Spain, UC3M now has two members in the institution, after Juan Antonio Mayoral Díaz-Asensio (from the Department of Social Sciences) joined last year.

The Young Academy of Spain was founded in 2019 by seven Spanish researchers who are members of the Global Young Academy. Its main objective is to give visibility to the best young researchers in our country and to encourage vocations at an early age. One of its distinguishing features is that membership of the Academy is limited to 5 years, which preserves the youth of the corporation's 50 academics, with 10 new academics joining each year to replace those whose membership ends that year.

More information: 

Young Academy of Spain:
https://academiajoven.es/academicos/

After the good results achieved last season with their MFT02 single-seater (they won first prize in Cost & Manufacturing, placed second in the skidpad test and third in the Formula Student Spain Engineering Design), this year they have again gone for a traditional aerodynamic package in this competition, which consists of a front and rear wing without the use of fans (to force the flow). "The MFT03 is the result of nine months of hard work and the improvement of a base which is as solid and competitive as last year's car", says the MAD Formula Team. All the aerodynamic components used are optimised through computational fluid dynamics programmes and made of carbon fibre, with the aim of achieving the highest aerodynamic efficiency and reducing weight as much as possible. In fact, the vehicle's monocoque weighs just 32 kg. "We have achieved this with extensive use of pre-preg fibre, a core based on an aluminium 'honeycomb' and very precise autoclave curing cycles, all thanks to our main sponsors: Gurit and Fidamc," they add.

This new prototype will be put to the test at the first official event on the calendar: from the 8th to the 13th of July at the Assen Circuit in the Netherlands. After this first competition, they will take part in Formula Student Austria (in Spielberg, from the 22nd to the 27th of July), in Formula Student Portugal (in Lisbon, from the 31st of July to the 6th of August) and will finish in Formula Student Germany (in Hockenheim, from the 14th to the 20th of August).

A multidisciplinary team

The MAD Formula Team, made up of almost a hundred students from different UC3M degrees, has working groups specialised in different parts of the car, such as aerodynamics, chassis, dynamics, electronics, driving technologies or the powertrain, without forgetting its marketing department or team management. In addition to the various engineering specialities, this is a project that requires extensive interdisciplinary knowledge and skills. For this reason, other fields such as business administration and management, audiovisual communication, economics or journalism, among others, converge. Apart from designing and manufacturing the car, the students also participate in cost analysis, the search for sponsors and programming, among other tasks.

The origins of this UC3M team go back more than a decade, when the vehicle was first conceived, and in 2016 it took part in a competition for the first time under the name Formula UC3M. "Since then, the team has evolved a lot, always with the enthusiasm that new members bring and showing that it is a true pool of talent and innovation, without forgetting all the former members who have made the team grow," says the founder and academic director of the UC3M MAD Formula Team, Daniel García-Pozuelo, professor in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering and researcher at the University's "Duque de Santomauro"  Motor Vehicle Safety Institute. "This project", he adds, "is an opportunity for students to develop academically, personally and professionally".

"For me, MAD Formula Team is the perfect complement to my studies at university," says Diego Rosado Barbero, a member of the team's Dynamics Department and a Mechanical Engineering Degree student at UC3M. "Being able to put into practice all the knowledge acquired during my degree is very positive, especially when it comes to such an exciting, ambitious and complete project, both at an academic and human level", he explains.

A university competition

When designing a single-seater of this type, it is important that the vehicle is "safe for the driver, as well as for the team members working around the car, guaranteeing sufficient reliability so that it does not fail before the end of the competition", says Daniel García-Pozuelo. Not surprisingly, one of the requirements for achieving a good score is to complete all the tests.

This competition consists of two types of tests: static, based on aspects such as the design and innovation of vehicle parts, cost analysis and business plan; and dynamics, which take into account the effectiveness and efficiency of the car in aspects such as acceleration, handling, stability and resistance.

Formula Student SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) is an international inter-university competition organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), an independent mechanical engineering society based in London (UK) which aims to develop and inspire young engineers to be entrepreneurs and innovators. For this event, teams from each institution conceive, design and manufacture a single-seater car which they then race at renowned circuits such as Assen (Netherlands), Hockenheim (Germany), Montmeló (Spain) and Silverstone (UK), among others. It is a relevant competition at the university and professional level, with the support and collaboration of sponsoring multinational companies, which offers the opportunity to demonstrate and test both the creativity and skills of engineering students, as well as giving them the opportunity to create ties for a future professional career.

More information: nhttps://www.madformulateam.com/

In this context, the NETCOM group of UC3M’s Telematics Engineering Department recently held the first synchronisation meeting of the six subprojects that make up 6G-DATADRIVEN, together with the companies that participate in it. In the meeting, which took place on the Leganés Campus, UC3M lecturer and project coordinator, Carlos J. Bernardos, presented the project’s vision, outlined the steps to follow and developed synergies between the project’s partners. 

“The 6G-DATADRIVEN project provides us with an exceptional opportunity to work on the development and evaluation of the technologies that will shape future 6G networks, together with the most relevant Spanish companies in the sector. This will catalyze industrial innovation in 5G and 6G in Spain, as well as UC3M’s leading position in 5G and 6G network research activities”, says Carlos J. Bernardos.

This proposal is one of the pillars for the deployment of advanced 5G and 6G technologies of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan for the Spanish economy (PRTR, in its Spanish acronym). The UNICO R+D 6G 2023 programme is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU Recovery Fund to promote convergence, resilience and transformation in the European Union.

More information:

Project website

Both teaching activities and research and innovation activities are taken into account when preparing this ranking. UC3M also ranks first in Spain for teaching, along with two other public universities and three private institutions. UC3M also excels in research and innovation, where the ten best-performing Spanish universities are public, ranking third nationally along with another university.

The eleventh edition of this ranking analyses 20 indicators related to quality, internationalisation, production and available resources. In teaching, aspects such as minimum marks, the number of lecturers per 100 students, the percentage of foreign students and students in international mobility programmes, and evaluation and success rates, for example, are taken into account. In research and innovation, the citations per document, the average impact factor, PhD staff contracts, the percentage of publications in journals in the first quartile, the number of patents granted per PhD lecturer, the competitive public resources obtained and the PhD theses read, among others, are evaluated.

Employability analysis

This new edition of the U-Ranking report also carries out an analysis of the employability of Spanish university graduates for the first time. The study focused on the work experience of graduates who graduated in 2014 and entered the labour market in the growth years prior to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this global ranking of employability by university, UC3M is among the top five Spanish public universities, behind the Politécnica de Madrid, Politécnica de Cartagena, Politécnica de Catalunya and Pública de Navarra universities.

According to other conclusions obtained, Spanish university graduates enjoy significant advantages when it comes to employability compared to other levels of studies: they suffer less from the impact of unemployment, are less sensitive to economic crises, have higher salaries and better quality jobs, with a large proportion being concentrated in highly qualified occupations. In the analysis of the determinants of employability, the degree completed is the variable that has the greatest impact on employability and job quality. The second most important determinant for employability is the autonomous community where residence is established after graduation.

More information:

U-Ranking report
https://www.u-ranking.es/informe

This confinement of the insects responds to a constant of proportionality between force and displacement. Researchers have found that for low confinement values, the movement of the insects in the swarm is chaotic (their movements change a lot if the initial conditions are changed). In this context, the phase shift occurs when the swarm splits into several swarms that are, however, closely related to each other, because there are insects moving from one to another. At the critical line between phases of this shift, the distance between two insects in the swarm that are influenced by each other is proportional to the size of the swarm, even if the number of insects in the swarm grows indefinitely. This is called “scale-free chaos” and hasn’t been discovered until now, according to the researchers. “As the number of insects increases, the critical line moves towards zero confinement. What happens is that the maximum distance between two insects that still feel each other’s influence is proportional to the size of the swarm. It doesn’t matter how many insects we put in it. And that represents an absolute novelty that we have discovered”, explains one of the study’s authors, Luis L. Bonilla, director of UC3M’s Gregorio Millán Barbany Institute.

Specifically, what these mathematicians predict through numerical simulations is that certain swarms of insects (specifically a class of small flies) have scale-free chaotic behaviour, which translates into certain power laws with exponents similar to those measured in nature. They have also found a simplified mean-field theory that corroborates the scale-free chaos phase shift. "It would be good to look for and find the phase shift between chaotic phases that we predict, either in observations in nature or in controlled laboratory studies", says another of the authors of the research, UCM mathematician Rafael González Albaladejo, who is also linked to UC3M's Gregorio Millán Barbany Institute.

The formation of herds is one of the manifestations of so-called "active matter", made up of something like self-propelled individuals that form a whole, the researchers explain. It can be a swarm of insects, a flock of sheep, a flock of birds, a school of fish, but also bacteria in motion, melanocytes (the cells that distribute pigments in the skin) or artificial systems such as periodically shaken irregular grains or seeds. "Herd formation mechanisms play a role in some of these systems, so the results we have obtained can be linked to biology, to the study of cells, and beyond that, to the study of tumours and other diseases," adds Rafael González Albaladejo.

How do so many animals move in unison? These researchers explain that each individual only senses its neighbours and moves accordingly, even though it has no perspective on the movement of the whole herd. And depending on whether they use sight, hearing or the vibrations of the fluid in which they are immersed, the concept of neighbour can change quite a bit. Sheep moving together see and sense those around them, while birds in a flock see their nearest neighbours, even if they are quite far apart. "Moving accordingly may mean that they move in the same direction as their neighbours (the norm) or they may adopt different strategies depending on the situation. For example, if a crowd is trying to get out of a crowded pen with more than one gate, there are times when not following neighbours is advantageous," they explain.

It has taken the mathematicians about two years to carry out this research work. Initially, they set out to explain experiments by studying the conventional phase shift between a crowd of insects that fill a space with constant density and become ordered when passing a critical value of the control parameter (e.g. by decreasing the noise). But then they decided to add a harmonic potential to confine the swarm and explore what happens when the attractive force between individuals decreases. "We discovered many periodic, quasi-periodic and finally chaotic states for a fixed number of insects that we increased. The surprising thing is the transition between chaotic states that we didn't know or assume existed, and we were able to find the correct arguments and tests to support their existence," says another of the study's authors, Ana Carpio, from UCM's Department of Mathematical Analysis and Applied Mathematics, who points out that there is still a lot to be done based on this work. "From experimentally seeking confirmation of our predictions and better adapting the model to experimental observations, to carrying out theoretical and mathematical research that goes beyond our numerical simulations," she concludes.

Bibliographic references:

González-Albaladejo, R. Carpio, A.  Bonilla, L.L. (2023). Scale-free chaos in the confined Vicsek flocking model. Phys. Rev. E 107, 014209. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.107.014209  

González-Albaladejo, R. Bonilla, L.L. (2023). Mean field theory of chaotic insect swarms. Phys. Rev. E (letter, aceptado). arXiv preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.1408 

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UC3M has managed to excel in six SDGs (one more than last year). Specifically, it ranks between positions 101-200 worldwide in four goals: SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) and SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals). It also occupies an important position (in the Top 301-400) in SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) and SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure).

Times Higher Education (THE) builds on the 17 SDGs to measure the social and economic impact of universities, including issues related to climate change, gender equality, health and well-being. This is the first university ranking to use these indicators.

Más información: 

THE Impact Rankings 2023 website

El Laboratorio de Humanidades, Comunicación y Documentación de la UC3M es una propuesta formativa para el alumnado con inquietud por las humanidades, el teatro, la música, la comunicación y el mundo audiovisual. Se desarrolla en la Facultad de Humanidades, Comunicación y Documentación en el Campus de Getafe del 26 al 30 de junio en horario de mañana. Está dirigido a estudiantes de 2º, 3º, 4º secundaria y 1º bachillerato.

Tecnocamp está orientado a estudiantes que sienten interés por la tecnología, la ciencia, la ingeniería y el emprendimiento. Se desarrolla en la Escuela Politécnica Superior, en el Campus de Leganés, del 3 al 7 de julio y del 10 al 14 de julio. Durante la jornada de mañana se imparten talleres de robótica, ciberseguridad, diseño 3D, electrónica, fotónica, matemáticas y bioimpresión y, por la tarde, se realizan actividades culturales y deportivas. El alumnado se aloja en el Colegio Mayor Residencia de Estudiantes Fernando Abril Martorell de Leganés. Además, como parte del programa también se realiza una visita a una empresa tecnológica.

Más información: 

Web del programa de verano UC3M para alumnado de secundaria y bachillerato

The submitted work must pass an internal evaluation process at the school. Several aspects are assessed for these prizes: originality and innovation in the research objective, the approach and development of the work; methodological rigour, correctness in the approach and reaching of conclusions; and the explicit and reasoned mention of the Sustainable Development Goals to which the research project contributes.

At the prize-giving ceremony, which takes place today in the Auditorium of UC3M’s Madrid-Puerta de Toledo Campus, a total of six prizes will be awarded, two for each of the following categories: Arts and Humanities; Science, Health Sciences, Engineering and Architecture; and Social and Legal Sciences.

In addition to the corresponding diplomas, the prize-winners will receive non-cash benefits or economic endowment prizes (worth 550 euros for those in first place and 450 euros for those in second place in each of the three categories). In turn, they will be exempt from paying the first enrollment credits in the first year of any of the degrees or doubles degrees offered at UC3M for the 2023-2024 academic year. Meanwhile, the University’s Social Council will distribute up to 5,000 additional euros among the schools where the winning teams have studied their A Levels.

Participating schools

This year, 57 applications were submitted from a total of 14 schools. 80 percent were public schools (secondary schools (IES, in its Spanish acronym)) and the rest were subsidised and private schools from municipalities such as Alcorcón, Boadilla del Monte, Las Rozas, Leganés, Madrid, Majadahonda, Navalcarnero, Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Valdemoro and Villanueva de la Cañada. 60 percent of the entries were submitted by women and five of the six awards were carried out by women. In addition, all of the winning entries only had female tutors.

This year’s winning entries went to students from the following secondary schools. In the area of Arts and Humanities, first place went to IES Profesor Ángel Ysern (Navalcarnero) and second place went to IES San Mateo (Madrid). In the area of Social and Legal Sciences, first place went to IES Profesor Ángel Ysern (Navalcarnero) and second place went to IES Margarita Salas (Majadahonda). In the area of Science, Health Sciences, Engineering and Architecture, first place went to IES Prado de Santo Domingo (Alcorcón) and second place went to IES Margarita Salas (Majadahonda).

More information:

UC3M Social Council Prizes for Secondary School Research Work Website
 

UC3M has achieved a total of 25 high performance indicators (4 more than last year), only behind the  Autonomous University of Barcelona (with 29) and the University of Navarra (with 28), and ahead of the Autonomous University of Madrid and the University of Barcelona (both with 24).

UC3M excels in the dimension of international orientation, in which it ranks second in Spain, together with the Autonomous University of Barcelona. In addition, it ranks third in the country in the dimension of knowledge transfer due to the number of high performance indicators.

Prominent position in Social Sciences

The tenth edition of this ranking includes 3,266 degrees (214 more than last year) with the aim of comparing the situation of universities according to the aforementioned indicators. Its online tool analyses 29 areas of knowledge and this year the ranking has updated the information on degrees in the field of Social Sciences and Earth Sciences and has incorporated the analysis of Journalism and Communication.

UC3M is among the top 3 Spanish universities in the number of highest performance indicators in five degrees: Business Administration and Management, Political Science, Law, Economics and Journalism and Communication.

The CYD 2023 Ranking includes results on the performance of 80 Spanish universities (all the public universities – 48 – and 32 private), which represent 93% of the 86 universities providing undergraduate education included in the RUCT (Register of Universities, Centres and Degrees).

The main objective of the CYD Foundation (Knowledge and Development), founded in December 2002 with a university and business vision, is to analyse and promote the contribution of universities to Spain’s economic and social development, as well as to broaden the links between universities and business and society in general.

CYD Ranking website: www.rankingcyd.org

The article “Cultural glocalisation in the age of on-demand video” focused on studying content of three SVOD platforms based in the US and with subsidiaries in a large number of countries: Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime Video. The main objective was to review a selection of audiovisual works broadcast between 2020 and 2021 to observe to what extent these productions are representative of cultural diversity.

“What we aim to do with this research is to recognise the catalogue through the technique of mapping or cartography. For a time, the idea of on-demand video was justified as a promise of unlimited catalogues where we could access all audiovisual material. We are now perhaps more aware that this was hyperbole and, in a way, an advertising strategy. This paper has analysed the new on-demand video industry from the perspective of diversity. What this article proposes is an analysis of content diversity, that is, what type of content is offered”, says Josep Pedro, lecturer in the UC3M Department of Communication and researcher in this study.

To do this, three categories have been established. The first of these is place diversity, which quantifies the works according to country of production. The second category is gender diversity, which includes works that have discourses related to feminism, empowerment, the discovery of sexuality, contemporary affective-sexual relationships and/or different types of masculinities. The final category is ethnic-racial diversity, which establishes productions that have representations of non-white ethnic-racial identities. “These categories are not exclusive because we can potentially recognise a work that is representative of place diversity, gender diversity and racial diversity at the same time”, says the researcher.

Four criteria were set to select the works for the study: they are categorised as original productions; they relate to place and gender diversity and ethnic-racial identity in terms of production, theme, narrative, characters or cast; they have been successful for the critic, the public or in terms of advertising campaigns; and they have aroused media or social coverage or controversy.

The results of this study indicate that 47% of the productions analysed fall into the category of place diversity. Likewise, 34% are categorised as gender diversity. Titles identifying with the ethnic-racial diversity category were less than 20%.

At the company level, the findings point to Netflix as the platform with the most works within these three categories, with place diversity containing the most. This is followed by Amazon Prime Video and, in last place, HBO.

"According to the results, Netflix emerges as the SVOD whose catalogue most closely fits the content diversity categories tracked. While one of the keys to Netflix's success lies in its ability to engage with different regional cultures through its 'originals', HBO and Amazon Prime Video's 'originals' illustrate a greater hegemony of the US and the UK, which remains the main player in the European film and TV audiovisual industry", Josep Pedro concludes. 

Bibliographic reference: Pedro, J. (2022). Cultural glocalisation in in the age of on-demand video. Content diversity on Netflix, HBO and Prime Video. Visual Review. International Visual Culture Review, vol. 9, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.37467/revvisual.v9.3699. 

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Since the 2017-2018 academic year, UC3M students from different degrees have volunteered in a mentoring programme aimed at girls and young women from public schools and colleges in the Community of Madrid. Each year, teams from all over the world, supported by local mentoring networks, develop technological applications that propose solutions to problems in their immediate environment in areas such as health, the environment, sustainability, helping the elderly, poverty, the integration of people with disabilities or equality. They also develop the business plan and its implementation. This year over 180 teams, 130 mentors and a total of 400 girls from our community are taking part.

The University is integrating this activity into its STEM for Girls UC3M programme for the promotion of technological and scientific vocations, aimed at girls and young women in secondary school and studying A Levels. This programme has received the first STEAM Alliance award for female talent from the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training in the Entities and Organisations category. It has also been awarded as the entity with the best educational programme in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the first edition of the STEM Talent Girl Awards, organised by the ASTI Foundation in collaboration with the Castilla and León Regional Government’s Ministry of Family and Equal Opportunities, and has been supported by the Ministry of Equality and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT in its Spanish acronym). 

Technovation Girls is a Technovation programme, a global technology and engineering organisation, and is the largest technological entrepreneurship competition for girls. In Madrid, it is promoted by the non-profit organization Power to Code which acts as ambassador. 

The event will be welcomed by Ángel Arias, Rector of UC3M, and Teresa Riesgo, General Secretary of Innovation from the Ministry of Science and Innovation. The president of Power to Code, the Technovation Girls Ambassador, Eva Bláquez Agudo, Vice-Rector for Institutional Relations, Culture and Equality, and Paloma Díaz, Head of School of Engineering at UC3M, will also take part.

More information:

Technovation Girls 2023 Website

This innovation arises from the need to improve surgical procedures in which the technique called “spinal arthrodesis” is used. This technique is applied in operations for multiple spinal pathologies and consists of permanently joining a series of vertebrae together to prevent deformities and pain. However, a critical step during its application is the drilling of the vertebrae for the subsequent placement of the pedicle screws. This step, which is traditionally performed freehand, increases the likelihood that the screws will not be inserted in their optimal position, the duration of the surgery and the risk of complications, such as bleeding and infections.

The software, designed by researchers from the UC3M Bioengineering Department and Digital Anatomics, allows healthcare workers to plan, before the operation, where to place the screws in spinal surgeries. “Our product consists of surgical templates or guides, designed automatically and made of biopolymer, which adapt and copy the shape and anatomy of each patient’s bone. This allows the surgeon, for example, to cut or drill in the exact position”, says Alejando Reyero, founder of the Digital Anatomics company and a UC3M alumnus.

The University’s Biomedical Science and Engineering lab (BSEL) has participated in the development of the software algorithm using artificial intelligence applied to medical imaging. “We have done so from a CT image. The intention is to locate each of the vertebrae independently, that is, to know the exact position of each vertebrae and automatically contour these vertebrae. To do this, we have used public databases where around 200 images already existed. Based on this database, we have trained an algorithm that is capable of learning to locate and segment the vertebrae”, says Javier Pascau, researcher and deputy director of UC3M’s Bioengineering Department.

To date, over a hundred surgeries have been performed using the TOR JIG software. It has been found that the patients who underwent surgery recovered faster, hospital stays were shorter and the understanding of each patient’s pathology, as well as the search for alternative therapeutic options, was simpler and more effective.

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Esta innovación surge de la necesidad de mejorar las intervenciones quirúrgicas en las que se utiliza la técnica denominada “artrodesis espinal”. Esta técnica se aplica en operaciones de múltiples patologías de columna vertebral y consiste en dejar unidas de manera permanente una serie de vértebras para evitar deformaciones y dolores. Sin embargo, un paso crítico durante su aplicación es el taladro de las vértebras para la posterior colocación de los tornillos pediculares. Este paso, que tradicionalmente se realiza a mano alzada, aumenta la probabilidad de que los tornillos no queden insertados en su posición óptima, el tiempo de duración de la intervención y el riesgo de sufrir complicaciones, como sangrado e infecciones. 

El software diseñado por investigadores del Departamento de Bioingeniería de la UC3M y Digital Anatomics permite que el personal sanitario pueda planificar, antes de la operación, dónde van a ubicar los tornillos de las cirugías de columna. “Nuestro producto consiste en unas plantillas o guías quirúrgicas, diseñadas de forma automática y fabricadas en biopolímero, que adaptan y copian la forma y anatomía del hueso de cada paciente. Esto permite al cirujano, por ejemplo, cortar o taladrar en la posición exacta”, señala Alejandro Reyero, fundador de la empresa Digital Anatomics y alumni de la UC3M.

El laboratorio de Ciencia e Ingeniería Biomédica (BSEL) de la Universidad ha desarrollado el algoritmo del software mediante inteligencia artificial aplicada a la imagen médica. “Lo hemos hecho a partir de una imagen TAC. Lo que se quiere es localizar cada una de las vértebras de manera independiente, es decir, saber qué posición exacta tiene cada vértebra y contornear automáticamente esas vértebras. Para ello, hemos utilizado bases de datos públicas donde ya existían unas 200 imágenes. Sobre esa base de datos hemos entrenado un algoritmo que es capaz de aprender a localizar y segmentar las vértebras”, apunta Javier Pascau, investigador y subdirector del Departamento de Bioingeniería de la UC3M. 

Hasta la fecha, se han realizado más de un centenar de cirugías utilizando el software TOR JIG. Se ha constatado que los pacientes intervenidos han tenido una recuperación más rápida, los periodos de estancia en el hospital han sido menores y la comprensión de la patología de cada paciente, así como búsqueda de opciones terapéuticas alternativas, ha sido más sencilla y eficaz.

Version française (French version)

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Esta innovación surge de la necesidad de mejorar las intervenciones quirúrgicas en las que se utiliza la técnica denominada “artrodesis espinal”. Esta técnica se aplica en operaciones de múltiples patologías de columna vertebral y consiste en dejar unidas de manera permanente una serie de vértebras para evitar deformaciones y dolores. Sin embargo, un paso crítico durante su aplicación es el taladro de las vértebras para la posterior colocación de los tornillos pediculares. Este paso, que tradicionalmente se realiza a mano alzada, aumenta la probabilidad de que los tornillos no queden insertados en su posición óptima, el tiempo de duración de la intervención y el riesgo de sufrir complicaciones, como sangrado e infecciones. 

El software diseñado por investigadores del Departamento de Bioingeniería de la UC3M y Digital Anatomics permite que el personal sanitario pueda planificar, antes de la operación, dónde van a ubicar los tornillos de las cirugías de columna. “Nuestro producto consiste en unas plantillas o guías quirúrgicas, diseñadas de forma automática y fabricadas en biopolímero, que adaptan y copian la forma y anatomía del hueso de cada paciente. Esto permite al cirujano, por ejemplo, cortar o taladrar en la posición exacta”, señala Alejandro Reyero, fundador de la empresa Digital Anatomics y alumni de la UC3M.

El laboratorio de Ciencia e Ingeniería Biomédica (BSEL) de la Universidad ha desarrollado el algoritmo del software mediante inteligencia artificial aplicada a la imagen médica. “Lo hemos hecho a partir de una imagen TAC. Lo que se quiere es localizar cada una de las vértebras de manera independiente, es decir, saber qué posición exacta tiene cada vértebra y contornear automáticamente esas vértebras. Para ello, hemos utilizado bases de datos públicas donde ya existían unas 200 imágenes. Sobre esa base de datos hemos entrenado un algoritmo que es capaz de aprender a localizar y segmentar las vértebras”, apunta Javier Pascau, investigador y subdirector del Departamento de Bioingeniería de la UC3M. 

Hasta la fecha, se han realizado más de un centenar de cirugías utilizando el software TOR JIG. Se ha constatado que los pacientes intervenidos han tenido una recuperación más rápida, los periodos de estancia en el hospital han sido menores y la comprensión de la patología de cada paciente, así como búsqueda de opciones terapéuticas alternativas, ha sido más sencilla y eficaz.

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

“The adoption of electoral systems that generate incentives to cultivate the vote for people (open lists), as occurs in Brazil, Finland, Luxembourg or Switzerland, for example, can contribute to creating less ideological elections and, therefore, to reducing polarisation”, says one of the study’s authors, Pedro Riera, a lecturer in UC3M’s Social Sciences Department. 

In open list electoral systems, the parties do not establish an order of candidates, but the voters themselves determine it. That is, a party's most voted candidate is ranked in first place, while the second most popular candidate is ranked in second place, and so on. In these cases, "the personal characteristics of the candidates have a great influence: Who are you? Where were you born? What have you done? What do you do for a living?  Where do you live?... these are things that citizens take into account when voting," says Professor Riera. "And there is much more competition between candidates from the same party, something that doesn't happen in Spain where closed lists are used and where it makes no sense for the 23rd candidate on a list to compete with the candidate in 19th place," he explains. 

This work, which was carried out with the collaboration and financial support of the BBVA Foundation, through a Leonardo scholarship, and the Ramón Areces Foundation, tries to contribute an additional argument to the ongoing discussion in the academic field about reforms that may be necessary in electoral systems. "One of the things we suggest, based on our results, is that the adoption of open lists may have this potential advantage of making political elections less ideological and perhaps more focused on other types of elements that different candidates can contribute," adds Pedro Riera.

Bibliographic reference: Riera, P. Cantú, F. (2022). Electoral systems and ideological voting. European Political Science Review, Volume 14 , Issue 4 , November, pp. 463 – 481. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773922000248 

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The results presentation was attended by Juan José Vaquero, Vice-Rector of Scientific Policy at UC3M, and Ignacio García Fenoll, Deputy Director-General of Innovation Coordination at the Ministry of Science and Innovation. Also in attendance were José Luis Cortina, president of Neovantas, and Lluis Santamaria, director of the Institute for the Development of Companies and Markets (INDEM, in its Spanish acronym). The latter pointed out that customer reactions to companies’ innovation proposals, as well as innovation at the sectoral level, were analysed for the development of ÍEI,

Tor Wallin Andreassen, a lecturer at the Norwegian School of Economics, also participated in the event as a guest speaker, who explained that this index has been developed for seven years in other countries such as Norway, the United States or Denmark.

The event finished with a panel from the companies Zara, Balay and Cabify, who discussed their experience in the field of innovation.

About the INDEM Institute

The Institute for the Development of Companies and Markets (INDEM) is associated with the Business Economics Department at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, and is the entity responsible (exclusively) for implementing the Innovation Index in Spain. INDEM’s mission is to promote, channel, coordinate and publicise third-cycle research and teaching work related to business development, with particular attention to contributing to research related to business innovation, taking an interdisciplinary approach. This work is carried out under the criteria of transparency and excellence, in order to satisfactorily serve both the university community and the demands of the business and social environment. INDEM aims to be the link between its members and the business and social world, with a commitment to promoting and publicising applied research to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business activity.

About Neovantas

It is an international management consultancy firm that provides a collaboration model with a strong analytical component with behavioural and results-oriented optics. For over 15 years, it has helped its customers to accelerate the achievement of tangible and significant results in income, costs and/or quality in a sustainable manner over time.

More information

In “Discover how to carry out open digital archaeology”, researchers from UC3M’s Humanities Department: History, Geography and Art show how they work in the University’s Open Digital Archaeology Laboratory (LADA, in its Spanish acronym), where they carry out citizen science focused on the analysis and digital processing of information related to the Community of Madrid’s archaeological heritage. Those attending will be able to use tools used in this field or learn how to photograph a site or how to process images for research. This outreach activity is part of a project supported by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, in its Spanish acronym) of the Ministry of Science and Innovation.

In the activity “Journey to digital cinema since the 19th century”, lecturers from the TECMERIN (Television-cinema, Memory, Representation and Industry) Research Group from UC3M’s Communications Department, will show how some pre-cinematographic inventions work and their technical evolution up to now. The aim is to reflect on the social use of technology in relation to moving images, whose individual consumption was already present in the origins of cinema. This outreach activity is part of two R+D+I projects: “Cinema and television in Spain in the era of digital change and globalisation (1993-2008): identities, consumption and forms of production” (PID2019-106459GB-I00); and “Colonial institutional documentary and amateur cinema: analysis and uses” (PID2021-123567NB-I00).

During the afternoon, from 3:30 pm to 8 pm, two other scientific outreach activities will be held: “Artificial Intelligence in the remote control of a robotic arm” and “Unveiling the secrets of fluid dynamics”.

In “Artificial Intelligence in the remote control of a robotic arm”, researchers from UC3M’s Telematics Engineering Department will allow attendees to wirelessly control a robotic arm with a joystick and test the consequences that certain interferences may have. In addition, they will teach how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help mitigate this interference for smooth robot control. This outreach activity is funded by the Horizon Europe programme in the PREDICT-6G (GA 101095890), Hexa-X-II (GA 101095759) and DESIRE6G (GA 101096466) projects, by the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and by Digital Transformation and Next Generation EU funds through the UNICO 5G I+D 6G-EDGEDT and 6G-DATADRIVEN projects.

It will also be possible to participate in “Unveiling the secrets of fluid dynamics” to observe the flow of particles exiting a nozzle (similar in shape to those mounted on aircraft engines). Researchers from UC3M’s Aerospace Engineering Department will explain how this turbulent flow visualisation technique, often used in aerodynamics, works. This outreach activity is part of NEXTFLOW (Next-generation Flow diagnostics for control), an ERC (949085) project funded by the European Commission and the ARTURO (Active Turbulence Control for Sustainable Aeronautical Propulsion) project, funded by the State Research Agency (AEI, in its Spanish acronym) - PID2019-109717RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.

Other UC3M activities at the Madrid es Ciencia Fair

On the same day at the fair’s Science Agora, from 4 pm to 4:20 pm, an interactive and informative talk entitled “Mathemagics with cards and numbers” will be held, given by a lecturer from UC3M’s Mathematics Department. There will be several card “guessing” games with the participation of attendees and, afterwards, the lecturer will explain why each trick works. In all cases, the tricks can be explained through mathematics and, therefore, it is not a question of illusionism and sleight of hand.

On Saturday 25th from 10 am to 8 pm, in a space next to the stand for the madri+d Knowledge Foundation, of the Community of Madrid, the MOTO-MAQLAB-UC3M exhibition will take place. The MOTO-MAQLAB-UC3M team will bring their prototype motorcycle, developed by University students with the support of the Mechanical Engineering Department and the MAQLAB research group. This team is participating in MotoStudent, an international competition in which students from universities around the world design and manufacture a racing bike.

The Madrid es Ciencia Fair 2023 is an event organised by the madri+d Knowledge Foundation, of the Community of Madrid, which is designed as a comprehensive sample of scientific and technological innovation in the Community of Madrid from a recreational and participatory point of view. In addition, it intends for its own protagonists (researchers, entrepreneurs, teachers, students...) to show and explain science and its impact on our daily lives.

UC3M website about the Madrid es Ciencia Fair 2023

“A society without spectacle is headed towards totalitarianism. All rhetoric of the “immersive” type is oriented toward propping up that loss of spectacular distance with the narrative. [...] Without this distance, the very notion of the political, knowledge, and freedom is in peril. Neither criticism nor freedom is possible without distance from representation”, observed Professor Carrera.

The “ideology of transparency” and the simulation of empowerment in the digital environment have perpetrated this shortening of the space between the stage and the audience, “directly devouring the audience and having them, supposedly, go up on stage.” In contrast, the article points to the mystics as the most radical theorists of the spectacle, with a discourse “in which the Self becomes a spectacular device, not a commodity that nurtures a reified and technocratic discourse. The mystic Self reestablishes the subject as a political space and intimacy as a transitional place in which discourse and action once again encounter each other”, the author explained. 

As an example of the spectacular logic, the author cites Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone, because of the way of inhabiting the language it represents and as reflection upon a broader and more political notion of spectacle. 

Myriad analyses of this play have interpreted it as the struggle of an Antigone, representative of the private logic against political power: “clashes of private conscience and public welfare”, in the words of George Steiner. That is, the generalized interpretation is that of Antigone as an impassioned private subject, in line with a generalized cliché of femininity, and Creon symbolizing the cold-heartedness of power. However, Carrera’s proposal is in opposition to that interpretation and holds that “Creon did not consider the logic of Antigone to be the private or sentimental at all, as has been systematically interpreted; he considered it framed completely within the dimension of the public”. Furthermore, she added: “Antigone is resistance, yes, but not the resistance of the private individual to power. Antigone is the political, an eminently discursive act of resistance, defense, and attack against Creon, in whom the political has become ossified, reduced to the most primary, defensive expression and who can only maintain his position by resorting to physical violence and repression (...) Creon represents the political as a parapet that keeps him from being destroyed by his errors, his failures and his lies to the citizens.  It is clearly Creon who has turned the political into a domestic and personal matter, not Antigone”.

In this sense, Antigone is reclaimed as a figure of resistance, not, as it has been said, of the individual against power nor against patriarchy: “Antigone is a pitched battle played out in the scenario of language until Creon’s arrogance and impotency against the dialectic capacity of Antigone breaks the agreement and puts an end to the dialogic. If Antigone were simply the female doomed to end in a sacrificial fight against patriarchy it would not have endured nor would her figure or diction continue to fascinate [...]. What is tragic in the tragedy is the language, not the destiny of some characters who should not be identified with persons in the habitual sense. That is always the tragedy of language, staged at a point in which there is no possibility of judgement nor empathy”, the professor explained. 

Bibliographic reference:

Carrera, P. (2023). Antígona o la razón espectacular. Signa: Revista de la Asociación Española de Semiótica, 32, 289-308.

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With this collaboration agreement, UC3M and Fenin will launch projects in the field of Biosciences and Health Technologies, focusing on Neuroscience and other medical areas. In addition, UC3M’s market approach and the transfer of healthcare technologies and medical devices will be promoted. On the other hand, there are plans to carry out prospective reports, both in the field of employment and vocations and in the scientific-technical field, and to facilitate the employment of University students.

This agreement will facilitate the organisation of training and knowledge dissemination programmes. It will also encourage participation in joint projects, both nationally and internationally, and mutual advice on issues related to the activity of both entities.

About UC3M

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and is among the best universities in the world for employability, according to the THE Global University Employability Ranking. It has numerous accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes, among others. UC3M is a member of international European networks of excellence such as YERUN (Young European Research Universities) or YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe). 

About FENIN

The Spanish Federation of Healthcare Technology Companies represents over 500 manufacturing, distribution and import companies established in Spain, which make up over 80% of the total turnover of healthcare technology. Founded in 1977, the Federation is at the service of a strategic business sector which is essential for our healthcare system and for the population’s health. A sector that provides professionals and patients with technologies, products and services involved in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, control and monitoring of diseases, and which contributes to the continuous improvement of people’s quality of life, normalising the patient’s life.

Dual-comb systems work by interfering light from two optical sources, called optical frequency combs. This mixing process generates a signal, called an interferogram, at a speed that, until very recently, was too fast to be captured even by very high-speed cameras.

The research team for this patent has developed a system based on a dual-comb electro-optical source made with fibre optic components. The main part is a dual-comb illuminator capable of generating two frequency combs that interfere at much lower frequencies than can be obtained with other systems. This makes it possible to detect that signal with any camera that has sensitivity in the emission range of the dual-comb system used. In addition, it is capable of working in different frequency ranges (near-infrared, mid-infrared and terahertz).

The technologies based on frequency combs used to date made it possible to analyse a single point of the sample, towards which the light source was sent. The system patented by the UC3M research team makes it possible to spectrally analyse the entire sample and is pioneering in terms of the measurement used because it uses a dual frequency comb instead of the spectral interrogators that current hyperspectral cameras are equipped with.

From this characterisation it can, in addition to identifying the compound, analyse other parameters such as its temperature, pressure and concentration. “The need arises from the shortcomings of current technologies, in which the measurements are very slow and optical absorptions are not identified precisely enough. The high optical resolution with which we can characterise the entire sample with our technology is essential when we work, for example, with gases”, says Pedro Martín Mateos, lecturer in UC3M’s Electronic Technology Department and project researcher.

This system makes it possible to analyse the chemical composition of a complete sample and can be used in many sectors. To date, it has been tested for the detection and analysis of gases, as well as for studying the characteristics of different foods and materials, such as plastic. “We have already demonstrated its usefulness for the study of gaseous samples. This would be useful for the development of more efficient burners or for safety issues. We have also used it for the analysis of certain foods and even for drying wood, and we are starting to develop a system that will allow us to monitor combustion processes with new fuels or alternative fuels, such as hydrogen,” concludes the researcher.

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Until now, this team of researchers had made several advances in the design and manufacturing of these structures, but they were very limited in terms of shape-design and programming of intelligent responses. The work presented in their latest study, published in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies, has allowed them to open up new possibilities by developing a novel4D printing methodology. “This technology allows us to not only control the way we print three-dimensional structures, but also to give them the ability to change their properties or geometry in response to the action of external magnetic fields, or the ability to modify their electric properties when they deform”, explains one of the researchers, Daniel García González, head of the ERC 4D-BIOMAP (GA 947723) project and associate professor in UC3M’s Department of Continuum Mechanics and Structure Theory.

This type of printing is complex since the material to be extruded transitions from liquid to solid during the printing process. It is therefore necessary to understand the material dynamics to adapt the manufacturing process and obtain a material which is sufficiently liquid when it flows through the printer nozzle but, at the same time, solid enough to maintain a specific shape. To this end, they have developed an interdisciplinary methodology that combines theoretical and experimental techniques allowing them to build the printing device from scratch, both the physical part of the device (the hardware) and the computer programmes that allow it to be controlled (the software).

A self-healing material

The researchers have also developed a new material concept that is capable of healing itself autonomously without the need for external action, according to another recent publication in the journal Composites Part B: Engineering. “This material consists of a soft polymer matrix embedded with magnetic particles with a remanent field. For practical purposes, it is as if we had small magnets distributed in the material, so that, if it breaks, when the resulting parts are brought together again, they will physically join recovering their structural integrity”, says Daniel García González.

Thanks to these advances, which have led to several registered patents, these scientists have been able to print three types of functional materials: some that change their shape and properties in response to external magnetic fields; others with self-healing capability; and others whose electrical properties (conductivity) vary according to their shape or deformation. With the first type of material, they have developed smart substrates to transmit forces and signals to cellular systems, so that they can influence biological processes such as cell proliferation or migration. These materials can also be used to design soft robots whose performance can be controlled by magnetic fields.

The combination of materials with self-healing capabilities and whose electric conduction properties vary with deformation opens up enormous possibilities in the development of sensors. “We can think of sensors that, attached to our body, collect information about our movement from variations in electric conductivity. In addition, the material’s self-healing capability allows the design of sensors with binary signals. For example, if we have had a knee injury and need to limit rotation to a maximum value, we can incorporate a small band of this material over our joint. This way, when we exceed this maximum rotation, the material will break showing an abrupt change in its electric properties, thus providing a warning signal. However, when returning the knee to a relaxed state, the material's healing capability will result in recovery of the electric signal. This way we can monitor our movements and warn of risky conditions after surgery or during rehabilitation periods”, says Daniel Garcia González.

Bibliographic references:

Lopez-Donaire, M.L. Aranda-Izuzquiza, G. Garzon-Hernandez, S. Crespo-Miguel, J. Fernández-de la Torre, M.;  Velasco, D. Garcia-Gonzalez, D. (2023). Computationally Guided DIW Technology to Enable Robust Printing of Inks with Evolving Rheological Properties. Advanced Materials Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.202370012

Garcia-Gonzalez, D. Ter-Yesayants, T., Moreno-Mateos, M.A., Lopez-Donaire, M.L. (2023). Hard-magnetic phenomena enable autonomous self-healing elastomers, Composites Part B: Engineering, Volume 248, 110357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2022.110357

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This new R+D+i map is useful for research staff and the industrial sector interested in creating synergies with the University.

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According to the study’s results, the cheapest rates include buying direct traffic to a website, getting “likes” on Instagram or getting views on multimedia platforms. For example, 1000 “likes” on Instagram cost 1.3 euros, while 2 euros can get 1000 views on YouTube or 1000 plays on Spotify. Interestingly, several services are offered for free so customers can check their quality and thus be convinced to invest in different ones. This way, for less than 9 cents you can get 1000 views on TikTok, SoundCloud or Instagram/IGTV. Buying Instagram followers is more expensive: for 4.3 euros you can get 1000. And then there are other more expensive services because they involve some personalisation, such as reviews on Google or TripAdvisor, which range at around 1 euro per text.

As Narseo Vallina-Rodríguez, associate research lecturer at IMDEA Networks and another of the work’s authors,  says, “potential consumers of this type of service can be anyone depending on the type of review: from influencers who want to promote their channels on social media to brands trying to promote the visibility of their products”.

This study, recently published in the scientific journal Computers & Security, is part of a wider research project on the ecosystem of services that provide fake activity and identity services on the internet. The aim of this research is to quantify and analyse the evolution of the global market price of services that (re)sell artificial interactions on social media and content distribution platforms, something that has rarely been studied in academic literature, according to the researchers.

Some platforms regularly provide reports on what they call “inorganic behaviour”, especially to report the volume of deactivated accounts and the purpose they served. However, the total volume of fake interactions on current platforms is unknown.

Is there any way to detect this fraudulent use of social media? “Platform providers can implement proactive measures to detect and identify accounts used to generate fake reviews. In the past, efforts were made to detect fake accounts on social networks such as Twitter, which were very effective and could be implemented to tackle this problem. However, it is a very costly effort”, explains Vallina-Rodríguez. 

To carry out this study, the researchers identified a significant sample of interaction resale panels (more than fifty) and collected data every day for 4 months on their service catalogue and the evolution of their prices. Once all this data was filtered and standardised, it was processed to analyse the service catalogue, the evolution of prices, the factors affecting the latter and the buying and selling activity in specialised forums.

Bibliographic reference: 

Nevado-Catalán, D. Pastrana, S. Vallina-Rodriguez, N. Tapiador, J. (2023) An Analysis of fake social media engagement services. Computers & Security, Volume 124, 103013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2022.103013 

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The opening talk, which will take place on Thursday the 2nd of March at 9:00, will be given by the president of the Spanish Association of Video Game and Entertainment Software Production and Development Companies (DEV, in its Spanish acronym), Valeria Castro, co-founder of one of Spain’s biggest indie video game studios. Subsequently, as a commitment to the fusion of art and technology, in the UC3M Auditorium you will be able to see an extract from the Forms String Quartet work, a concert for a string quartet, electronics and digital imaging created by the audiovisual research studio Playmodes.

The talks programme includes more than a dozen speakers from UC3M who will talk about their research on topics such as: vocal biomarkers for disease detection; metaverse law; body transformation experiences with smart clothing (wearables); the operation of turnstiles, cards and recharge points in the Madrid Metro; intelligent materials for biological cell control; or the use of generic user data on social networks such as Facebook or LinkedIn.

There will be an exhibitors’ area at the fair, where attendees can find 25 stands, sponsored by firms such as Accenture, Airbus, Banco Santander, Idealista, Ikea or Zara, among others. In addition to showcasing the new technologies they use, the companies will take advantage of the event to recruit talent and evaluate the CVs of those interested in working or doing internships with them.

On Tuesday the 28th of February, T3chFest Ed Day will also be held, a day aimed at students in their final years of secondary education or studying technology-based A-Levels, so that they can discover more about the impact that technology and engineering have on our daily lives and on society. This insight into technology will be carried out through talks and practical workshops on scientific-technological outreach taught by UC3M research staff.

More information: T3chFest website 

Unlike what was expected, the results of this research show that, when carrying out political discussions in the classroom, girls lose even more self-confidence and the gender gap is further accentuated.

The European consortium G-EPIC, in which a UC3M team is taking part, led by Gema García Albacete, a lecturer from the Social Sciences Department, aims to identify why this happens, as well as to design a methodology and guide to be used in schools.

To understand how inequalities in political attitudes and orientations arise, G-EPIC will start by carrying out classroom observations and quantitative data analysis. In addition, the research team will use experimental techniques among closed groups of students to identify aspects that limit the development of political confidence. These experiments and interventions will be evaluated through comparisons with control groups.

G-EPIC will also carry out an evaluation of the national context and the local and European political framework to design strategies and regulations that promote more equitable political participation in terms of gender. The methodology generated within the framework of this project aims to become an international reference of good practices to promote gender equity in politics from the classroom. This guide will be distributed to schools across Europe, with the aim of making it possible to reduce gender inequalities in political participation and leadership.

This project, which will last for 36 months and which is funded with 3 million euros by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe programme (GA 101095000), is coordinated by the Free University of Brussels (Belgium). Together with UC3M, in Spain, also participating are the Justus Liebig University in Giessen (Germany), the University of Roehampton (United Kingdom), Aarhus University (Denmark), Charles University (Czech Republic) and the European organisation Gender5+. 

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To do this, a Google live transcription system and a subtitling tool developed by CESyA, called Mercurio, will be used. This system allows live subtitling of the radio thanks to voice recognition and natural language processing tools. The sound, which is collected during the broadcast, is processed and sent to the DTT signal synchronised with the generated subtitles, so that everyone can have equal access to the radio programming broadcast by the National Radio.

This collaboration between RTVE and CESyA was created to respond to the needs of deaf people, ensuring their rights and in compliance with the public service entrusted to both entities.

CESyA is an advisory centre for the Royal Board on Disability of the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 and is managed by UC3M. Consolidated by the General Law on Audiovisual Communication as one of the state centres of reference in matters of audiovisual accessibility for people with disabilities, it has the collaboration of the Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities (CERMI, in its Spanish acronym), whose multidisciplinary project consists of promoting accessibility in the audiovisual media environment through subtitling and audio-description services.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and is among the best Spanish universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking and the QS Graduate Employability Ranking. UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes, among others.

On the 14th of February at 11am, there will be a gymkhana on data science dedicated to the climatologist Eunice Foote, one of the first researchers on the greenhouse effect. This year, the theme of the gymkhana responds to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13: "Climate Action". It is aimed at secondary school students to develop students' critical thinking, promote the scientific method and raise awareness of the importance of data interpretation and analysis in everyday life.

On Tuesday the 21st of February at 11am, “The Sound of The Wind: a colloquium talk on Physics and Music” is scheduled at the UC3M Auditorium. This event will address the communicating vessels between both disciplines from the time of Pythagoras to the present day. The speaker, Almudena Martín Castro, a physicist and pianist, will be taking part in the event, and will narrate interesting facts about wind instruments, their origins and evolution throughout history in an entertaining way. Excerpts of classical works and soundtracks will be performed by the Alma Ensemble wind quintet.

From Monday 13th of March to Thursday 16th of February, the UC3M Women in Science and Technology #STEAMfemenino programme will take place at the UC3M Science Park, an initiative by the Association of Spanish Scientific and Technology Parks (APTE, in its Spanish acronym) and led by UC3M, a member of APTE, in the social environment of Leganés. During these days, there will be a series of workshops focused on improving four SDGs (6, 7, 10 and 11), technological visits to six LeganésTecnológico companies and a video contest. In total, 200 students and tutors from Leganés secondary schools are expected to take part in the programme, thanks to the collaboration of the Leganés City Council. The workshops are being organised with the Créate Foundation thanks to the sponsorship of AEQ, Avizor, Solusoft and Thales.

This European call, with a success rate of 14 percent, is allocating 657 million euros to 321 research projects from all over the continent (selected from 2,222 proposals).

The relevance of judicial trust

“The relevance of judicial trust for the legal integration of Europe” is the title of the research project led by Juan Antonio Mayoral that has obtained ERC funding for the next five years. Its main objective is to define the interdisciplinary nature of the concept of trust between judges in the European Union’s legal system.

As part of the project they aim to develop empirical indicators that are useful in different aspects. Firstly, to help determine legal, sociological and political factors that lead judges to trust or distrust one another. Secondly, these indicators will be used to test the impact that judicial trust has on cooperation between courts through mechanisms such as, for example, preliminary rulings where national judges have the power to request the European Union Court of Justice to assist them in the interpretation of EU law.

For this work the project will implement a mixed methods design combining the legal analysis of judicial decisions with interviews, experiments and surveys of judges from the 27 member countries of the European Union and the EU Court of Justice.

"The results will help to understand the importance of trust for the functioning of judicial systems and to identify practices and institutions that are capable of increasing mutual trust within European courts" explains Juan Antonio Mayoral. In fact, this proposal "has generated interest from both judges and various judicial organisations, including the European Network of Judicial Councils, whose support and participation will be crucial for the project to succeed," he says.

Finally, regarding the Consolidator Grant competition process, Juan A. Mayoral emphasises that "obtaining a grant of this magnitude is also the result of the hard work carried out and support received by the family, staff and colleagues at UC3M and other institutions where I have developed my career, such as iCourts".

UC3M is one of the Spanish universities with the highest number of ERC grants, a commitment to the internationalisation of EU research. Specifically, the University has already obtained 14 ERC projects (8 Starting Grants and 6 Consolidator Grants) with a total funding of approximately 24 million euros.

More information:

ERC Consolidator Grants 2022

The research compiles a three-year dataset (from 2019 to 2021) with information from the Facebook pages of 234 political parties. The authors made use of the 2019 European Parliament elections and 18 other electoral processes to create and validate their models: “Our methodology benefits from being a low-cost execution process that measures ideology and polarisation”, adds another of the researchers, Ángel Cuevas, Senior Lecturer in UC3M’s Telematics Engineering Department. Given that data from a social network is used, it is possible to observe changes in political trends in each of the countries analysed, and to see the evolution of these changes month by month.

All of the information can be found on a freely accessible web portal, called EU Political Barometer (https://eupoliticalbarometer.uc3m.es).

The data available from the 1st of January 2019 makes it possible to compare different European countries, and is also useful for studying the degree of polarisation.

This research project is funded by the Community of Madrid through the "Encouraging Young PhD Students' Research" line of the Multiannual Agreement with UC3M (EU-MEASURE-CM-UC3M), within the framework of the V PRICIT (Fifth Regional Plan for Scientific Research and Technological Innovation).

Bibliographic reference: Caravaca, F., González-Cabañas, J., Cuevas, Á. et al. (2022). Estimating ideology and polarization in European countries using Facebook data. EPJ Data Sci. 11, 56. Published: 22 November 2022. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-022-00367-1 

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This proposal, led by Belén Ruiz Mezcua and Lourdes Moreno López, professors in UC3M’s Computer Science Department, has three key areas: detecting problems currently encountered in terms of accessibility, offering support to Public Administrations regarding cognitive and sensory accessibility (such as help guides or other types of documentation), and designing a proof of concept that provides good practices and design guidelines to be applied to an emergency healthcare service that meets the needs of all people with disabilities.

The other project that has received funding, called “The class for all, to ensure accessibility in education (Access2Class)”, aims to reduce communication barriers that make the communication process difficult or impossible and create an obstacle for people with sensory disabilities (hearing and cognitive) accessing information in the field of education.

These difficulties have worsened for students with sensory disabilities as a result of the online classes that were taught during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Therefore, this project’s research team, led by José Manuel Sánchez Pena, professor in UC3M’s Electronic Technology Department, seeks to create a platform to facilitate the teaching of accessible online classes, with a system of channels with automatically generated subtitles, audio description and sign language.

The YUFE Challenge Teams aim to develop creative thinking through collaborative and multidisciplinary work. The challenges will be carried out online and in English. This call has four challenges:

Ecosocial (ecological + social) collapse: this challenge aims to find collective strategies to solve the ecosocial crisis (specifically the energy and climate crisis). The work teams have from the 1st of March to the 28th of June to achieve this.

How to overcome barriers to social integration of refugees in the local environment of the host region?: the challenge consists of finding solutions to help eliminate the cultural, linguistic, legal and administrative barriers that refugees encounter, in order to facilitate their social integration in destination countries. The deadline for this challenge is from the 20th of February until the 22nd of May.

Redressing polarisation through digital communicative interventions: intends to find formulas to curb existing polarisation in digital communication through social media. The idea is to create a set of tools that combines communicative depolarisation skills and good practice guidelines. This challenge begins on the 20th of February and ends on the 20th of May.

Smart and Green Touristic Destinations: to solve the problem of so-called “mass tourism”. The aim is to find a form of tourism that reduces pollution and gentrification and protects the environment, through solutions interconnected with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the objectives of the European Union’s Green Deal. The deadline is from the 1st of March to the 30th of June.

Carrying out these challenges will allow students to obtain the Estrella Profesional (Professional Star) accreditation, which can be validated for credits in their degree.

About YUFE

The YUFE Alliance is made up of 9 European universities: University of Antwerp (Belgium), University of Bremen (Germany), Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), University of Cyprus, University of Essex (England), University of Eastern Finland, Maastricht University (The Netherlands), Nicolaus Copernicus University of Torun (Poland) and University of Rijeka (Croatia); as well as two collaborating partners: ETS Group and Adecco Group.

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This new mathematical model makes it possible to study the type of transitions in ecological interactions. “One of the conclusions we have found is that there is a clear trend towards mutualism: ecological interactions can start in any way, but in the majority of cases they eventually lead to a mutualistic relationship”, says one of the researchers, José Antonio Cuesta Ruiz, professor in UC3M’s Mathematics Department, who recently published this work in the scientific journal Physical Review E together with researchers from UPM, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid and Universidad del Pacífico at Lima (Peru).

In this article, they have also shown the high frequency with which these transitions occur in nature, discovering evolutionary trajectories that go through various intermediate states, according to the researchers: “Despite being a simple model, its emergent behavior is complex, it shows transitions between different ecological relationships, and is able to go through different stages of mutualism, predation and competition before reaching its final state”, add Javier Galeano and Juan Manuel Pastor, lecturers at UPM and co-authors of the work.

For their study, the researchers have used classical models of population dynamics, to which they have applied a standard technique in evolutionary theory, called adaptive dynamics. This technique allows them to find dynamic equations for the parameters of the population model, which determine the nature of ecological interactions, making it possible to study how these interactions change over time. “These types of models, despite being very simple, are able to capture essential elements to provide mechanisms of emergent phenomena. They are very useful when studying complex systems”, says Cuesta.

Bibliographic reference: Luciano Stucchi, Javier Galeano, Juan Manuel Pastor, Jose María Iriondo, José A. Cuesta (2022).  Prevalence of mutualism in a simple model of microbial coevolution. Physical Review E. Vol. 106, Iss. 5. Published 1 November 2022.

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The annual ranking of companies in these three indexes will be published in collaboration with the consulting firm Neovantas. It collects more than 24,000 responses annually, from customers from 120 companies in 20 sectors, representing over 80% of Spanish household spending.

The first ranking of the most innovative companies in Spain will be published at the end of the first quarter of 2023.

About UC3M

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and is among the best universities in the world for employability, according to the THE Global University Employability Ranking. It has numerous accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes, among others. UC3M is a member of international European networks of excellence such as YERUN (Young European Research Universities) or YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe). 

About the INDEM Institute

The INDEM Institute for Business Development is associated with the Business Economics Department at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and is the entity responsible for implementing the Innovation Index in Spain. This institution aims to be the link between its members and the business and social world, with a commitment to promote and disseminate research applied to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of business activity.

About Neovantas 

Neovantas is an international management consultancy that provides a collaborative model with a strong analytical, behavioural and results-oriented approach. For more than 15 years it has been helping its customers to accelerate the achievement of tangible and significant results in revenue, costs and/or quality in a sustainable manner over time.

Functionally graded materials are capable of withstanding large thermal increases, which makes them particularly suitable for the construction of an aircraft fuselage or for the different components of an engine (both aircraft and rocket). In addition, they can inhibit the propagation of cracks and fissures. This property makes them useful in defence applications, such as the development of materials that are more resistant to high-speed impacts in order to improve the performance of protective structures, according to the researchers. Interest in functionally graded materials is also growing in biomedical applications, such as bone implants made from these materials that achieve optimal mechanical behaviour with the desired bone biocompatibility. "These types of materials, due to their characteristics, are going to bring about a revolution in the field of structural engineering. We are going to achieve more efficient, sustainable and cheaper materials, because they tend to minimise production costs and times (eliminating excess material) and allow for the customisation of mechanical properties for specific applications," emphasised Guadalupe Vadillo.

UC3M researchers are going to focus on modelling the behaviour of these materials; specifically, in the development of the computational aspect that has to do with numerical simulations. This will serve as a basis so that other project partners can subsequently use this data to develop and optimise these materials.

There are now 3D printers that can print not only polymeric and metallic materials, but also ceramics. When it comes to combining several materials in the same structure, as investigated in this project, the main challenge relates to how to optimise the properties of these composites by combining the best characteristics of each material. The aim is to spatially vary the mechanical properties in such a way that the response of the structure to a given industrial application can be customised.

DIAGONAL (Ductility and Fracture Toughness analysis of functionally graded materials) is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Staff Exchanges (SE) project coordinated by UC3M (GA 101086342) that will run from 2023 to 2027. It involves ten universities and research centres: four European beneficiary institutions (UC3M and Universidad de Sevilla, in Spain; the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, in Poland; and the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, in Italy) together with six partner institutions: four from the United States (University of Florida, Northwestern University, Texas A&M University, University of Minnesota Twin Cities), one from Australia (Monash University) and one from Brazil (Universidade Federal de Santa Maria). The MSCA-SE projects aim to create networks to promote the exchange of knowledge between different universities and research centres at an international level by encouraging the mobility of its members through research stays and outreach activities (scientific conferences and symposia, courses, seminars, etc.).

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"By applying artificial intelligence, we can predict short-term changes to the amount of sulphur dioxide present in the atmosphere and the dynamics of thunderstorms around airports," says Manuel Soler, from UC3M's Department of Aerospace Engineering, who is heading up the project. In fact, within the framework of this project, tests have been carried out with the new prototype at two European airports, Brussels and Milan.

The information provided by this new early warning system is of great help when it comes to decision-making by operators involved in air traffic, such as controllers, pilots and other participants in the aeronautical sector.In the event of an emergency due to natural phenomena, this system will allow them to access information -which has been tailored to their needs - through an interface that displays the data in a simple and intuitive manner. "In the field of artificial intelligence and in the age of data, it can still be difficult to access all the information (which is often very heterogeneous), process it and store it in a way that makes it accessible. This has been the main challenge we have faced in the project," says Manuel Soler.

Another notable and innovative aspect of this project - in which scientists and technology experts from Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy and the UK have collaborated - lies in the consideration of climate impact as an additional harmful effect. "Although it does not put the safety of the aircraft at risk, it does put the planet at risk," according to the researchers. They have thus been able to identify the areas where the passage of aircraft has the greatest impact on the climate by contributing to global warming.They call these areas 'ECHO areas'. "This tool for identifying and predicting ECHO areas is at an early stage of development but has great potential for use by air network managers and Air Navigation Service providers, allowing them to designate certain areas as 'ecological' and to take certain decisions, such as limiting or regulating traffic therein," adds Manuel Soler. This information could also be passed on to airlines so that they can integrate it into their tools and develop more environmentally friendly flight plans.

As a result of this research, collaborations have been established with other European scientific projects, such as FlyATM4E, focused on optimising trajectories for greener aviation, and ISOBAR, aimed at predicting imbalances between capacity and demand in airspace. These collaborations have led to new lines of research that combine the early warning platform developed by ALARM with other potential features that are of great interest in today's aviation sector, such as fog prediction or the effects of condensation trails (the linear trail of clouds left behind by some flights in certain atmospheric conditions) on climate change.

ALARM (multi-hAzard monitoring and earLywARning) is a project funded by SESAR Joint Undertaking, which is supported by the EU H2020 Programme (GA 891467), and which has been developed over the last two years. It is coordinated by UC3M and involves partners from five European countries: the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), the University of Padua (Italy) and two small companies in the aeronautical sector, the British company SATAVIA and the Italian company SYMOPT.

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This is the second time that the UC3M Department of Economics has received this distinction, after the one obtained in the 2014 call.

More information:

The Ministry of Science and Innovation allocates €54M to 18 Severo Ochoa and María de Maeztu centres and units of excellence

Engineering: Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Telematics Engineering, Thermal and Fluid Engineering, Systems Engineering and Automation, Continuum Mechanics and Structural Theory, Electronics Technology and Signal and Communications Theory.

Law: Private Law, Public State Law and Private Social and International Law.

Physics and Mathematics.

The presentation of this technological map took place on the 25th of October 2022, at an event on the “R+D+i Challenge in New Space”. The event was attended by, among others, the principal of the UC3M Polytechnic School, Paloma Díaz, and the commissioner of PERTE Aerospace, Miguel Belló.

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In addition, the research team has developed intelligent controllers based on artificial intelligence techniques, which allow these joints to be able to support different loads at their end while carrying out their tasks. These controllers estimate the load that the robot has picked up and ensure precise positioning so that the joint maintains its integrity. “We are able to estimate the deformation they are undergoing by measuring the material itself. This measurement of the deformation is necessary to know what position the joint is in, what stresses it is undergoing and to be able to act and control it”, says the researcher.

One of this project’s contributions is at the healthcare level. For example, people who need robotic assistance to carry out certain tasks will be able to have robots which are safer and more versatile in their movement.

As part of this research, ‘origami’-style joints based on paper folding have also been developed. Acetate and carbon nanofibre sensors were used for this. “There is an innovative line that deals with origami, which are deformable volumes that allow mobility of the joint itself”, says Concha Monje.

All of these developments are being implemented in the TEO humanoid robot, belonging to the UC3M Roboticslab, which already has a soft neck-like joint. “Soft robotics is expected to have a direct impact on the development of robots. It is already a reality that small and medium-sized international companies are investing in the commercialisation and development of this type of robotics, and the figures are expected to rise”, the researcher concludes.

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Several talks and round tables focus on current issues such as 3D bioprinting and the future of organ transplants; the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence; climate migration and the COP27 debate; climate change communication activism; readings against sexual violence; ethics for machines; the future of artificial intelligence and robotics; the relationship between competition, mental health and institutional support in sport and research; the origin, impact and solutions for space debris; and alternatives from a care perspective for a paradigm shift in social justice and sustainability facing the climate, pandemic, energy and humanitarian crises.

UC3M has also organised two exhibitions. Firstly, an exhibition entitled “Mujeres que cambiaron el mundo, y lo están cambiando (Women who changed the world, and are changing it)” in Leganés Tecnológico, which can be seen from the 7th to the 18th of November in the exhibition hall of the Julián Besteiro Cultural Centre in Leganés. Secondly, an exhibition on power generation using giant comets and drones which will take place on Thursday 10th of November in the hall of the Rey Pastor Library on the Leganés Campus and which can be attended by both secondary schools (in the morning) and the general public (in the afternoon).

Activities for secondary schools

Some activities are specifically aimed at those in the 3rd and 4th years of secondary school, A Levels and vocational training. Reservations can be made through this website. There will be several workshops on topics such as energy storage for an efficient energy transition, photonics research, neural networks that classify images, the phenomenon of fluidisation, the spatial sound of future music, concentrated solar thermal energy, “matemágicas (matemagics)” with letters and numbers, 3D imaging technologies and how an antenna is manufactured and measured. In addition, secondary schools will also be able to take several guided tours, such as a tour of UC3M’s Colmenarejo Campus to discover its biodiversity through different activities or a tour of the University’s machine and thermal engine laboratories.

There will also be other guided tours of different scientific environments, such as: three Robotics Lab laboratories where research is carried out on social robotics, exoskeletons, humanoids and industrial robots; a visit to the National Archaeological Museum where the influence of Pompeii and Herculaneum will be shown through some collections which aren’t on display to the public; a visit to the Open Digital Archaeology Laboratory (LADA-UC3M), focused on the analysis and digital processing of information related to the archaeological heritage of the Community of Madrid; and a dramatised tour of different bioengineering laboratories at the University.

The University is also organising several demonstrations to show the public how different technologies work, such as the use of Artificial Intelligence to mitigate interference in a robotic arm; the Light-Fidelity (LiFi) concept, which combines wireless communication and LED technology; conducting experiments on the physical principles behind the movement of satellites in space; and a final demonstration on plasma discharge in multiple devices to observe the basic principles of electric propulsion with a device capable of flying thanks to air ionisation.

UC3M is participating in this scientific outreach and public participation event organised by the Community of Madrid through the madri+d Foundation for Knowledge, with the aim of actively involving the public in science, technology and innovation, as well as promoting scientific vocations among the youngest, eliminating gender barriers from the first years of vocational education.

More information:

UC3M Science and Innovation Week 2022 Website

Although there was some attribution of intention of these APTs, until now there wasn’t a mathematical link that would allow these attacks to be modelled. However, this work led by lecturer González and published in the Security and Communication Networks journal indicates that it is possible to establish this link. “The model is based on information published by the media and other economic indicators to explain the occurrence of APTs”, says another of the study’s authors, lecturer José María de Fuentes, from the same UC3M research group. The motivations for these cyberattacks are very varied. “They are much more sophisticated than those that can affect normal users. They are usually aimed at intellectual property theft or espionage”, says Lorena González Manzano.

This research opens the door to future lines of work, such as “the prediction of cyberattacks through the observation of other variables which have nothing to do with the cyber world”, according to de Fuentes. "For example, in some cases the data on the level of exports (such as mobile phones) is useful to determine if a cyber attack is likely to occur in a given country", adds lecturer González Manzano. 

This work is interdisciplinary in nature and integrates “geopolitical factors (to understand the relationship between countries) with data on cyberattacks and combines all of this with a mathematical perspective”, explain the researchers. This has been possible thanks to the CAVTIONS-CM-UC3M project, co-funded by the Community of Madrid and UC3M and led by lecturer González together with lecturer FlorabelQuispe, from UC3M’s Department of Public International Law, Ecclesiastical Law and Philosophy of Law.

Bibliographic Reference:  L González-Manzano, JM de Fuentes, C Ramos, Á Sánchez, F Quispe (2022). Identifying Key Relationships between Nation-State Cyberattacks and Geopolitical and Economic Factors: A Model. Security and Communication Networks, volume 2022, article ID 5784674, 11 pages. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/5784674

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Concentrated Solar Power Tower (SPT) energies are focused towards a renewable and sustainable energy future. However, receivers today are critical systems due to the demanding conditions in which they operate. The biggest challenge associated with receiver design is finding the balance between efficiency, lifetime and cost. “The main objective of this project is avoiding the early rupture of the receiver tubes, which is caused by the combined action of high thermal gradients (temperature variation per unit of distance), stresses and corrosion produced by the high radiation fluxes affecting them. To this end, new manufacturing techniques have been used in order to modify the tubes’ properties depending on their spatial position, reducing the negative effect of the thermal gradients within them”, says the researcher.

The BBVA Foundation Leonardo Grants aim to support science and culture. It is a highly competitive call.

More information about Becas Leonardo 2022

To obtain this data, the indicator which is commonly used is chronological age. However, the ageing of each person is also related to their lifestyle, among other factors.

The Aristóteles project, carried out by a UC3M research team, has developed a new methodology for the use of a more precise indicator when calculating real population ageing. The development consists of an algorithm which predicts people’s biological age by identifying factors that contribute to population ageing, and calculates the magnitude of the influence of each one.

“Ageing is progressive and very complex because each person ages differently. Some of the influential elements are modifiable, so using another type of indicator, such as biological age, gives us a tool that allows us to identify unhealthy factors in order to correct them and thus increase life expectancy”, says María Durbán, researcher in the Department of Statistics and project coordinator.

This predictive algorithm is the first to combine lifestyle and genetic and non-genetic biomarkers in the same model. Its main applications are in the medical and public health fields, as well as in business fields.

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Regarding discrimination between journalistic genres, 92.1% say that they are able to distinguish between information and opinion, but researchers found that 64.4% confuse an opinion piece with an informative text. In relation to the preferred platforms to get information, the majority do so through social media (55.5%), television (29.1%) and their family and friends groups (7.9%), ahead of digital newspapers (6.5%) or radio (1%).

Researchers have studied how teenagers deal with the media from a mixed approach. Firstly, they carried out a quantitative analysis, surveying more than 1600 ESO students from public schools in Spain. Secondly, they carried out more than 75 in-depth interviews with teachers at this level of education. According to the teaching staff at these schools, among students there is a media consumption which is characterised by the intensive and uncritical use of certain audiovisual and digital media such as TikTok, Instagram or YouTube.

Following the interviews with teachers, the majority of secondary school teaching staff noted the opportunity to introduce content related to how the media works into the curriculum. In this sense, they have detected that when working with students in the classroom on topics related to the content they consume on their social media, the students’ motivation and attention is greater.

This research, carried out with the support of a BBVA Foundation Leonardo Grant for Cultural Researchers and Creators, shows that media and information literacy is still a pending subject in the secondary school curriculum.

More information: Herrero-Curiel, E., & La-Rosa, L. (2022). Secondary education students and media literacy in the age of disinformation. Comunicar, 73. https://doi.org/10.3916/C73-2022-08

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In the first workshop, which will be held at UC3M’s Higher Polytechnic School (EPS, in its Spanish acronym) on the 5th and 6th of October, both teachers from UC3M’s COSEC (COmputer SECurity Lab) research group and professionals from the sector will participate to provide an overview of possible jobs associated with this discipline. In this way, students interested in finding work in this sector can learn about different specialisation profiles in this field and, in turn, headhunters can improve candidate search techniques.

The rest of the workshops for the 2022/23 academic year, which will be held at the EPS on different dates until next July, will focus on topics such as cryptography, cybersecurity risks for public employees, protection against hackers or the development of blockchain technologies, among others. You can view the full programme on the event’s website. In addition, as part of the CyberCamp UC3M–INCIBE, other activities will take place until 2025.

About CyberCamp

CyberCamp is the reference event for the development of cybersecurity and the digital confidence of citizens and entities created by INCIBE. Since 2014, it has been established as a free initiative for all audiences that has promoted the culture of cybersecurity through different meetings. In this new stage, which begins with the events held at UC3M, CyberCamp maintains its participatory essence and is committed to promoting the development of knowledge and skills of people and organisations in the field of cybersecurity.

About INCIBE

The National Cybersecurity Institute is an entity under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, through the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, established as a reference entity for the development of cybersecurity and digital confidence of citizens and companies. It is also a driving force for social change and an opportunity for innovation, promoting R+D+i and talent.

About UC3M

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and is among the best universities in the world for employability, according to the THE Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes, among others. It has exchange agreements with universities in 60 countries on 5 continents and is a member of international European networks of excellence such as YERUN (Young European Research Universities) or YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe).

The Social Council will allocate up to 10,000 euros in prizes to be distributed between the two modalities of participation described above. It will also offer the possibility of actively participating in the implementation of the winning initiatives, always under the coordination of the University (through the Vice-President’s Office for Scientific Policy and Vice-chancellorship of Research and Transfer).

The activities that may be presented may have different orientations. Firstly, those that allow the joint identification of social challenges, needs or demands that can be jointly addressed or resolved. Secondly, activities for the co-creation of innovative products and/or services (linked to these challenges, needs or demands), and which can be jointly developed or applied. Thirdly, the transfer of talent from UC3M to society.

The assessment criteria for both modalities are: the innovative nature and efficiency of the proposal, the involvement of the University’s stakeholders and social partners, the projection and scope of the proposal, the internal and external collaborations which enhance its effectiveness and the capacity to be implemented in the short and medium term.

More information: Society-UC3M Bonding Initiatives Contest

• Engineering: Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Telematics Engineering, Thermal and Fluids Engineering, Systems Engineering and Automation, Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis, Electronic Technology and Signal Theory and Communications.
• Humanities, Documentation and Communication: Communication and Geography.
• Law: Criminal Law and Public State Law.
• Economics: Economics, Business Economics and Statistics.
• Social Sciences: Social Analysis.
• Mathematics and Physics: Physics and Mathematics.

This new R+D+i map will create synergies between the University and the industrial sector.

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During the morning of Friday 30th, two activities will be held for secondary schools. First, at 11 am in the UC3M Auditorium, there will be a theatrical show with talks by researchers on various aspects related to our well-being, such as water, pollution caused by aeroplanes, the health of our cells or technology’s impact on our body’s perception. Secondly, at 12 pm in another space on the Leganés campus, there will be a talk on the artificial skin which is manufactured by 3D bioprinting in UC3M’s research laboratories.

During the afternoon of Friday 27th September, two other activities will be held. A webinar on diversity, equity and inclusion in the field of open science will begin at 5 pm, while at 6 pm on the Leganés campus, there will be a workshop and demonstration on how to reduce the environmental impact of aeroplanes.

Two activities will take place on Saturday 1st October. At 10 am there will be a guided tour of a laboratory at the UC3M Science Park to carry out tests with magneto-active smart materials that can stimulate our cells. In the afternoon, at 5 pm, there will be a webinar explaining how to combine different disciplines (biology, engineering, chemistry...) and solve common problems.

These UC3M activities are part of the European Researchers’ Night, an event which includes numerous free scientific outreach activities and which is held simultaneously in more than 350 European cities. In the Community of Madrid, this project is promoted by the Ministry of Science, Universities and Innovation, coordinated by the madri+d Foundation and funded by the European Union within the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme, under grant agreement number 101,061,343. This project to support the career of research staff aims to raise awareness of their role and the importance of their work for society’s well-being.

More information:

European Researchers' Night at UC3M website

Carrying out these activities will allow students to apply for the YUFE Star Programme, in particular the so-called Professional Star. With this accreditation system, students can apply for credit validation in their degree.

Through the Challenge Teams, a series of real challenges will be proposed to work teams, in order to solve them with new and innovative solutions at a social, scientific and technological level. This activity will be carried out by teams of students and teaching staff from YUFE universities.

On the other hand, the Entrepreneurial Training Activities aim to promote entrepreneurial skills through resources and training activities which allow these skills to be acquired. This year there are three types of activity:

• MOOCS are free, online, open courses, selected from those carried out by the best universities and/or prestigious institutions.
• The Talk Shows programme consists of a series of talks given by experts in the field of innovation. 
• A competition called “Yufethon”, which will be held for the first time this year. This online event will bring different working groups together in order to solve a specific problem. The goal is to promote and encourage innovation, talent and the development of new ideas which provide value to society.

About YUFE

The YUFE Alliance is made up of 10 European universities: the University of Antwerp (Belgium), the University of Bremen (Germany), the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), the University of Cyprus, the University of Essex (England), the University of Eastern Finland, Maastricht University (the Netherlands) and the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy). It also has three collaborating partners: ETS Group, Kiron Open Higher Education gGmbH and Adecco Group.

For more information and registration

Over the next four years, the nine universities that are part of this network will have the opportunity to intensify and consolidate their current proposal for collaboration in education, research and innovation.

This milestone places UC3M and the YUFE alliance at the forefront of European universities and makes it possible to continue the work carried out by UC3M in the last three years and to launch new initiatives, such as the European Degrees programme or other institutional cooperation instruments that will allow the acquisition of a legal status for the current alliances and the single European student card.

The Madrid ‘hub’ will receive nearly three million euros over a three-year period to launch innovation initiatives. Through it, companies will be able to experiment with digital technologies, robotics, automation, software, hardware and business models in order to understand and develop new business opportunities. In addition, they will gain the necessary skills and training to implement different digital innovations. Furthermore, they will receive support to find investments and launch feasibility studies and develop business plans or incubation and acceleration programmes, among others.

These programmes “provide access to the technical expertise and experimentation of UC3M’s research groups, enabling a ‘try before you invest’ strategy, helping companies to improve business or production processes, products or services using digital technologies”, says Juan José Vaquero, Vice President of Scientific Policy at UC3M.

EDIH-Madrid is a physical space shared by professionals, entrepreneurs, startups and investment centres to develop innovative spaces. “UC3M’s participation in EDIH-Madrid will allow us to implement and transfer all of our knowledge on robotics, automation, digitalisation and applied AI to the productive sector” says Carlos Balaguer, professor and senior researcher at the UC3M Robotics Lab.

In addition to UC3M, the Madrid European Digital Innovation Hub consists of the Madrid Association of Metal Companies (AECIM, in its Spanish acronym), the Henares Business Association (AEDHE, in its Spanish acronym), the Connected Mobility Hub Association, the EIT DIGITAL initiative, the Audiovisual Producers' Rights Management Association (EGEDA, in its Spanish acronym), the City of Alcobendas Foundation, the madri+d Knowledge Foundation, the Hewlett-Packard company and the IDConsortium consultancy firm.

The content of the training activities is the same for all the universities and the topics taught include big data, artificial intelligence, digital marketing, process automation and internet of things.

This training is voluntary and is carried out combining face-to-face, synchronous online and asynchronous online teaching. The qualification obtained is unique and common to all Madrid universities (200 hours, which corresponds to 20 ECTS).

The programme will welcome 200,000 students from Madrid universities who have completed 50 percent of the Bachelor’s Degree credits and alumni who graduated the previous year. Registration is open until the 20th of September or until places are filled.

This initiative is part of the lifelong learning courses of the universities awarding the CAPACITA D qualification, which allows the company to know the digital skills level of university students on a scale of 1 to 4, as is already the case with foreign languages.

More information and registration

In addition, UC3M ranks highest among Spanish public universities in the list of universities where future lawyers have taken their bachelor's degree course. It ranks behind ICADE and ahead of universities such as the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Deusto.

The "Universities and Law Firms 2022" report published by El Confidencial, which includes 59 universities and business schools, aims to become a tool for connecting firms, universities and future lawyers. According to its authors, the report "aims to identify the institutions which are proving to be most effective as regards training students in accordance with the needs of law firms".

To compile the report, 17 of the main law firms in Spain provided data on the universities where the lawyers who are starting (UC3M once again tops the list of universities where graduates who are doing internships ator have started) their internships prior to entering the labour market this year obtained their qualification to enter the legal profession (bachelor's and master's degrees).

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UC3M once again tops the list of universities where graduates who are doing internships at the 17 largest law firms in Spain have taken their master’s degree in Law.

In addition, UC3M ranks highest among Spanish public universities in the list of universities where future lawyers have taken their bachelor's degree course. It ranks behind ICADE and ahead of universities such as the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Deusto.

The "Universities and Law Firms 2022" report published by El Confidencial, which includes 59 universities and business schools, aims to become a tool for connecting firms, universities and future lawyers. According to its authors, the report "aims to identify the institutions which are proving to be most effective as regards training students in accordance with the needs of law firms".

To compile the report, 17 of the main law firms in Spain provided data on the universities where the lawyers who are starting (UC3M once again tops the list of universities where graduates who are doing internships ator have started) their internships prior to entering the labour market this year obtained their qualification to enter the legal profession (bachelor's and master's degrees).

More information:

https://www.elconfidencial.com/juridico/2022-07-12/carlos-iii-icade-ie-destacan-ranking-universidades-preferidas-bufetes_3458829/ 

The presentation of this technological map took place on the 7th of July, 2022 at an event chaired by the journalist Cristina Gallach, who is currently the special commissioner for the Spanish Government’s Alliance for the New Language Economy. UC3M research staff, such as Victoria Pavón, Paloma Martinez and Carlos Balaguer, and representatives from the business association AMETIC, the National Library of Spain and Telefónica also participated.

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One of the main differences between the first study, carried out in 2016, and the current one is the period over which the analysis is carried out. In this study, in addition to quantifying the short-term impact (referring to the 2018-2019 academic year), a longer period of time has also been taken into account, between 2000 and 2018. Another difference is the breadth of the Madrid university sector considered. The current report analyses six public and eight private universities which had academic activity during the 2018-2019 academic year.

Short-term contributions

In 2018, the Madrid university sector as a whole generated income (gross value added) that accounted for 3.15% of the regional GDP. Of this percentage, 1.83% is attributable to universities and 1.32% to students, visitors and conference attendees. This represents 3.38% of the total wage income received by families in the Community of Madrid in that year. Furthermore, the Madrid university sector contributed 103,182 jobs, which corresponds to 3.42% of total employment in the region.

Impact of the pandemic

From the data collected for the 2020-2021 academic year, it is estimated that the Madrid university sector’s contribution to the regional GDP in 2020 was 2.67% and the total jobs generated accounted for 2.78% of employment (compared to 3.42% in 2018). With this rough estimate, the report concludes that, regarding the economic impact of 2018, the contribution to regional GDP decreased by 15% and the contribution to employment by 19%. This is due to the drop in students enrolled in the 2020-2021 academic year, as well as in visitors and conference attendees, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tax contribution

As a whole, taxation via personal income tax and VAT of graduates from any of the Madrid universities (public and private) in 2018 was 7,665.1 million euros.

On the other hand, by comparing the additional tax revenue of those who completed their studies in 2018 in one of the Madrid public universities with the 932.6 million euros that these universities receive from the Community of Madrid, it can be deduced that with the additional taxes paid by graduates, €5.8 would be returned annually to Madrid society for each euro invested by the Community of Madrid in the funding of public universities.

Long-term impact

In the period between 2000 and 2018, all Madrid universities (public and private) contributed 0.4 percentage points to the economic growth of the Community of Madrid. In other words, 19% of the average total growth of the Madrid economy in that period is attributable to contributions from the region’s universities.

This second edition of the study was directed and coordinated by Rosario Romera, a lecturer of Statistics at UC3M and a member of the Interuniversity Institute "Advanced Research on Evaluation of Science and Universities" (INAECU, in its Spanish acronym), a joint centre created by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, of which the universities that make up the 4U Alliance are currently members.

The project will provide schools with a publication containing information on restorative, narrative and socio-emotional theories, case studies, practical tools and strategies for implementation in schools, with specific guidance for the educational community (teaching and counselling staff, students, management, families and inspectors...).

A web platform will also be made available to these staff in order to facilitate the learning of these methods and strategies.

On the other hand, a set of four Serious Games (simulation) will be developed for students to participate in the transformation of schools into more inclusive and safe spaces. “This initiative aims to explore new inclusive methodologies based on the collaboration between schools and civil society organisations, where the University has a fundamental role”, says Helena Soleto

The first phase of the project started at the end of 2020 and was carried out electronically due to the pandemic. Since the end of 2021, various face-to-face activities have taken place. The most recent took place in mid-June 2022 through a meeting of school teachers in Espinho (Portugal). An exchange of experiences on the Fair School methodology took place at this event.

The aim for the coming months is to implement the Fair School methodology in the four schools that are part of the consortium, to evaluate its real usefulness in school communities and plan its subsequent application in other European Union countries.

In developing Fair School, UC3M is working with partners from six countries: the Ignacio Aldecoa Secondary School in Getafe (Spain); the SPEL school network (Portugal); the non-profit organisation SOS Malta; the University of Bialystok and the Princess Anna Sapieha Jabłonowska School (Poland); the Maltepe secondary school and the IAAD research and technological innovation organisation (Turkey); and the private consultancy firm In Dialogue (The Netherlands).

This project is funded by ERASMUS+ and its full name is "Fostering inclusive and fair environment for secondary students at intercultural school settings through a novel pedagogical method based on restorative practices and social & emotional learning" (reference 2020-1-ES01-KA201-083026).

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Regarding productivity in research, the report notes that it has increased during the period studied. Regarding scientific collaboration data, approximately half of the publications are carried out with international co-authors, while almost a third of the publications are carried out in national collaborations. The SUE’s impact and visibility, measured respectively in the number of annual citations and publications in first-quartile journals, have grown throughout the period studied.

Staffing costs in public universities are growing at an average annual rate of 1.7%. This expenditure was practically stagnant at around 6 billion euros per year throughout the crisis and subsequent years.

The analysis of competitiveness, through the attraction of resources, shows that it is decreasing in national projects, while it is increasing in European projects. In other words, researchers are increasingly turning to international research funding formulas.

New in this year’s edition is information on open access publications, which has almost doubled over the period analysed, reaching 59% in 2020. Another new feature is the incorporation of indicators of emerging scientific production (that generated in regional areas and new scientific fields which have gained importance in recent years) included in the ESCI index (Emerging Sources Citation Index), which mainly includes Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences publications. Since 2011, emerging scientific production has almost doubled, with public universities responsible for 97%.

The IUNE Observatory is supported by the (Spanish) Ministry of Universities, as well as a large number of institutions, such as the (Spanish) National Quality Assessment and Accreditation Agency (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Spanish University Presidents' Conference (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Catalan University System Quality Agency (AQU Catalunya, in its Spanish acronym) and the Basque University System Quality Agency (Unibasq, in its Spanish acronym).

More information: https://iune.es/

Furthermore, if the vehicles that didn’t pass the inspection had done so, an additional 13,517 road accidents, 11,643 injuries and 146 deaths would have been avoided.

From an environmental point of view, MOT centres have prevented 575 premature deaths due to exposure to particulate matter (PM). If all passenger vehicles were to pass an MOT, 207 premature deaths due to exposure to particulate matter could be avoided in a year.

The number of vehicles that didn’t pass the MOT rose in 2021

The report reveals worrying data on the number of vehicles that didn’t pass the MOT in 2021. In terms of passenger vehicles, the percentage that didn’t pass the MOT reached 26.48%, given that at least 4,717,227 of the inspections that should have been carried out didn’t take place. This represents an increase of 64.04% compared to 2017.

In terms of light goods vehicles (VTML, in its Spanish acronym), 54% didn’t pass the MOT, corresponding to 3,242,570 mandatory inspections. This represents an increase of 82.12% compared to 2017. As for mopeds and motorcycles, the percentage that didn’t pass the MOT was 65.1%, as 1,535,722 mandatory inspections weren’t carried out. This is an increase of 11.42% compared to 2017.

Relationship between the MOT status, road accident rate and age of the vehicle fleet

This study, which updates the previous one carried out in 2018, also shows the substantial increase in the number of vehicles involved in road accidents with fatalities whose MOT had expired at the time of the accident. It also highlights the correlation between the severity of road accidents and the age of the vehicles involved; showing that, between the fifth and sixth year of activity, the number of serious road accidents (with fatalities) related to technical faults is increasing substantially. Hence the importance of vehicles having their periodic roadworthiness tests up to date.

These conclusions were presented at UC3M’s Madrid-Puerta de Toledo campus, in an event in which the General Director of Industry and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Galo Gutiérrez Monzonís; the president of the Road Safety Commission of the Congress of Deputies, Juan José Matarí; and the professor and director of the UC3M Mechanical Engineering Department, José Luis San Román spoke, accompanied by the president of the AECA-ITV, Alejandro Pastor, and the managing director of the association, Guillermo Magaz.

However, most public databases only contain the frequency of resistant pathogens, which is aggregated data calculated from MIC measurements and predefined resistance thresholds. “For example, for a given pathogen, the antibiotic resistance threshold may be 4: if a bacterium has an MIC of 16, it is considered resistant and is counted when calculating the resistance frequency”, says Pablo Catalán, lecturer and researcher in the UC3M Mathematics Department and author of the study. In this regard, the resistance reports that are carried out nationally and by organisations such as the WHO are prepared using this aggregated resistance frequency data.

To conduct this research, the team has analysed a database which is ground-breaking, as it contains raw data on antibiotic resistance. This database, called ATLAS, is managed by Pfizer and has been public since 2018. The working group led by UC3M has compared the information of 600,000 patients from over 70 countries and has used machine learning methods (a type of artificial intelligence technique) to extract resistance evolution patterns.

By analysing this data, the research team has discovered that there are resistance evolution patterns that can be detected when using the raw data (MIC), but which are undetectable using the aggregated data. “A clear example of this is a pathogen whose MIC is slowly increasing over time, but below the resistance threshold. Using this frequency data we wouldn’t be able to say anything, since the resistance frequency remains constant. However, by using MIC data we can detect such a case and be on alert. In the paper, we discuss several clinically relevant cases which have these characteristics. Furthermore, we are the first team to describe this database in depth”, says Catalán.

This study makes it possible to design antibiotic treatments that are more effective in controlling infections and curbing the rise of resistance which causes many clinical problems. “The research uses mathematical ideas to find new ways of extracting antibiotic resistance patterns from 6.5 million data points”, concludes the research author. 

Bibliographic reference: 

Catalán, P., Wood, E., Blair, J.M.A. et al. Seeking patterns of antibiotic resistance in ATLAS, an open, raw MIC database with patient metadata. Nat Commun 13, 2917 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30635-7 

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The idea of this project is to be able to carry out studies replicating complex biological processes through a new virtually assisted experimental system, which allows non-invasive and real-time control of the mechanical environment. Biological cells and tissues are continuously subjected to mechanical stress from their surrounding substrate, so analysing and controlling the forces that influence their behaviour would be a milestone for the “mechanobiology” community.

The system proposed by 4D-BIOMAP is based on the use of extremely soft magneto-active polymers that mimic the stiffness of biological materials. Thanks to their qualities, magneto-active materials allow researchers to carry out unrestricted monitoring of biological substrates, as the applied mechanical changes during experimentation can be reversible.

“Supported by the computational model, we have used all this basic science to design a smart actuation system which, coupled to a microscope developed within the ERC, allows us to visualise the cellular response in situ. In this way, we have consolidated a comprehensive framework to stimulate cellular systems with magneto-active smart materials”, says Daniel García González. This proposed framework paves the way to understanding the complex “mechanobiological” processes that occur during dynamic deformation states, such as traumatic brain injury, pathological skin scarring or fibrotic remodelling of the heart during a myocardial infarction, for example.

Researchers from the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, Imperial College London and the Instituto de Investigacion Sanitaria Gregorio Marañon de Madrid (Gregorio Maranon Health Research Institute in Madrid) have participated in the scientific paper describing these advances, recently published in the journal Applied Materials Today. Within UC3M, lecturers Miguel Ángel Moreno, Jorge González, Clara Gomez, Maria Luisa López and Ángel Arias from the Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis Department, as well as Arrate Muñoz and Diego Velasco from the Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering Department are participating.

4D-BIOMAP (Biomechanical Stimulation based on 4D Printed Magneto-Active Polymer) is a five-year project funded by the European Research Council with 1.5 million euros through an ERC Starting Grant from the European Union’s Research and Innovation Framework Programme, Horizon 2020 (GA 947723). This research project applies a multidisciplinary perspective, involving knowledge of disciplines such as solid mechanics, magnetism and bioengineering and combines computational, experimental and theoretical methodologies.

More information: 

Moreno-Mateos, M. A., Gonzalez-Rico, J., Nunez-Sardinha, E., Gomez-Cruz, C., Lopez-Donaire, M. L., Lucarini, S. Arias, A., Muñoz-Barrutia, A., Velasco, D. Garcia-Gonzalez, D. (2022). Magneto-mechanical system to reproduce and quantify complex strain patterns in biological materials. Applied Materials Today, 27, 101437. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352940722000762

4D-BIOMAP Project website: www.multibiostructures.com

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Both teaching activities and research and innovation activities were taken into account when preparing this tenth edition of the U-Ranking. UC3M also ranks first in Spain for teaching, along with two other public universities and five private institutions.  UC3M also excels in research and innovation, where the ten best-performing Spanish universities are public, ranking third nationally (moving up a position compared to the year before) along with two other universities.

This ranking analyses 20 indicators related to quality, internationalization, production and available resources. In teaching, aspects such as minimum marks, the number of lecturers per 100 students, the percentage of foreign students and students in international mobility programmes, and evaluation and success rates, for example, are taken into account. In research and innovation, the citations per document, the average impact factor, PhD staff contracts, the percentage of publications in journals in the first quartile, the number of patents granted per PhD lecturer, the competitive public resources obtained and the PhD theses read per every 100 PhD lecturers, among others, are evaluated.

More information: U-Ranking report

Currently, the Y-Balance Test (YBT) and Star Excursion Balance Test (SEBT), two clinical assessment exercises to determine the risk of injury to the patient’s lower limbs, are used. They are carried out manually, with oversized systems that aren’t easily transportable and require constant supervision by physiotherapists.

This new device consists of a platform on which the patient rests the foot of the limb undergoing treatment. The platform contains extendable arms, with presence sensors at each end. During a YBT exercise, the other foot has to go over them. Another set of sensors is attached to the patient’s tibia using a calf brace, which measures the lateral tilt and loss of verticality of the kneecap during the YBT test. When the patient is in a position that may be potentially harmful or damaging, the detector communicates this to the base. All this data is sent to the patient’s mobile device through a Wi-Fi connection.

“These measures are helpful for physiotherapist work. They help to personalise the exercises to be carried out with each patient. In addition, the system’s portability and connectivity significantly reduce the specialist’s constant clinical supervision”, concludes Ricardo Vergaz Benito, from the UC3M Department of Electronic Technology.

More information:

Vergaz Benito, R., Lomas Jiménez, S. y Rodríguez Sanz, D. (2022). Dispositivo para rehabilitación de rodilla (ES 2 850 357 B2). Oficina Española de Patentes y Marcas (Spanish Patent and Trademark Office).

Version française (French version)

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The essay refers to many different kinds of fragmentary structures. Drawing on a wide selection of examples ranging from cinema to painting or photography, through architecture, philosophy or music, it shows how the fragment is rooted in reality and desire, while, at the same time, turning its back on dogmatic forms of realism.

Don Quixote serves as an outstanding example of fragmentary structure. Las Meninas by Velázquez, the icon filmed at the end of Andrei Rublev by Tarkovski, the works of the architect Louis Kahn or the Victory of Samothrace are other examples that are alluded to: “Victory is not in mourning for its absent head. It is this absence that establishes it as an enigma, as an inexhaustible text, an infinite variant. The absence of a face (culturally bearing what is supposed to be the main identity traits), far from anonymising that body, enhances its being with all the strength of possible faces. Victory isn't a headless body, it's a body that promises thousands of faces, thousands of 'closures', none of them specific, all forged by the desire of the receiver. It isn't the lack that characterises this fragmented figure, it's the significant excess”.

Through this journey, La lógica del fragmento (The Logic of the Fragment) highlights the structural relationship between art and politics, a link that has been practically relegated to what is known as "committed art". Fragment and totality both belong to the realm of discourse and representation (with its ethical and political ramifications) and they do not refer to objective states of the world, but to proposals and fields of action, expectation and affection and displays of meaning, the author concludes.

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The heads of the chair, Marta García Mandaloniz, Senior Lecturer of Commercial Law at UC3M and Rafael Mínguez Prieto, partner and head of the financial practice at the Cuatrecasas Madrid office, agree that this chair will help to create and strengthen collaborative links with networks of experts and transversal research groups, providing both a theoretical and practical approach and promoting the training of law and economics students.

More information:

Cuatrecasas UC3M Chair

Judicialisation, Respect for institutions and Courts in Spain (JuRisT, in its Spanish acronym)
The project, led by Juan Antonio Mayoral Díaz-Asensio, from the UC3M Social Sciences Department, aims to guide judicial and political personnel on specific actions to protect the social legitimacy of the judiciary.

Responsible Algorithms – Development of a European regulatory framework for the responsible automation of decision-making and contractual relationships
The research team, coordinated by Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell, from the UC3M Private Law Department, will analyse whether the European system is suitable for the use of automation in the contractual cycle, creating a Practical Guide to improve the system of algorithms and artificial intelligence.

The positive effects of making disagreements on social media visible
The main goal of the project, led by Antonio Gaitán Torres from the UC3M Department of Humanities – Philosophy, Language and Literature, is to understand the effects of making moral disagreements visible in digital contexts, in relation to the phenomena of polarisation, segregation, extremism and radicalisation.

The projects selected in this programme have received funding of more than 130,000 euros in total.

The BBVA Foundation received a total of 620 applications for this contest, from which 35 projects have been selected.

During the pandemic, the emergency services faced an excess of requests for their services. In particular, the ambulance service was overloaded with requests which led to an unprecedented deterioration in response times. This had an impact, not only on the management of ambulances for transporting COVID-19 patients, but also on the transfer of patients with other serious and urgent conditions.

“The general objective of the Ambulate-CM multidisciplinary project is to design an advanced, sustainable and dynamic solution for managing the ambulance service in pandemic situations”, explains Beatriz López Boada, from UC3M’s Mechanical Engineering Department. This multidisciplinary project – in which engineering, social science, statistics and business administration researchers participate – seeks new strategies and protocols to achieve an agile and efficient response from ambulances which guarantees prompt and adequate care of patient transfers.

State-of-the-art home care with IntCARE-CM

As well as the increased demand for ambulances, another obvious consequence of the pandemic has been the pressure on the hospital system. The IntCARE-CM project focuses on the technological and biomedical field in order to care for patients outside the hospital and provide them with quality care at home. The aim is to develop a comprehensive care and home care system for the early identification and monitoring of patients through the use of artificial intelligence, automatic fitness monitoring technologies and care robots, among others.

“With the help of technology, we want to provide patients with quality healthcare at home”, says Antonio Artés Rodríguez, from UC3M’s Signal and Communications Theory Department. This project deals with five research projects that aim to study new ways of linking technology to a more effective treatment of different types of patients, primarily infectious patients, cancer patients, patients with mental health problems and those with cognitive impairment.

PredCov-cm a system for predicting the spread of viruses

The aim of the PredCov-CM project is to develop a system which allows different information sources to be combined in order to model future scenarios for the spread of COVID-19, or other similar contagious diseases. “This involves the development of innovative performance methodologies in the field of data analytics. In addition, a comprehensive approach will be taken which combines epidemiological, social, economic and media analysis aspects”, says David Expósito Singh, from UC3M’s IT Department. PredCov-CM will make it possible to monitor viruses and assess the effectiveness of the political or social action taken to mitigate the effects of pandemics.

The Community of Madrid has signed 12 collaboration agreements with the region’s six public universities and six IMDEA (Madrid Institutes for Advanced Studies) foundations, through which it will invest 49 million euros in 26 major studies for research into the SARS-COV-2 virus and the COVID-19 disease. This aid comes from the REACT-EU resources of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), funded as part of the European Union’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and includes the purchase of the necessary equipment to expand the capabilities of the working groups and promote the modernisation of laboratories.

The second award-winning project was Urbanmate, launched by David Fernández, a Bachelor's Degree student in Telecommunications Technologies Engineering at UC3M, Inés García, a Bachelor's Degree student in Sound and Image Engineering at UC3M and Alex Cirebea, a graduate in Tourism from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC). This entrepreneurial team received the SpainCap Viability Projection Award, with a prize of 1,000 euros, advice and free access to the annual training course for venture capital professionals. Urbanmate seeks to develop an application to digitise residential developments with the aim of facilitating and optimising space reservations and procedures related to the neighbourhood community.

Through its Business Acceleration and Incubation Programme, UC3M has been collaborating with the Junior Achievement Foundation in the Startup Programme inter-university competition since 2009. The University participates in the mentoring and training of entrepreneurial projects, by carrying out a business plan which analyses the viability of the different business ideas.

The Junior Achievement Foundation is an international, US-based, non-profit organisation, for the promotion of entrepreneurial training, financial education and job preparation. Since 2001, the Foundation has been working in Spain with schools, business organisations and governments to promote and develop youth entrepreneurship.

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This event, which will take place in the University’s Aula Magna, celebrates the 25th anniversary of the UC3M Social Council. The event was attended by UC3M’s Vice Chancellor, Juan Romo; the president of Santander Universities and the University’s Social Council, Matías Rodríguez Inciarte; the director of Santander Universities and Universia Spain, Susana García Espinel; on behalf of Airbus, the head of Collaboration with Universities, Cristina García Aliste and the General Director of Universities and Higher Artistic Education of the Community of Madrid,  Ricardo Díaz Martín, as well as the former president of the Social Council, Rodrigo Echenique and the former UC3M Vice Chancellor, Daniel Peña. A commemorative report on the 25th anniversary of the Social Council will also be presented. 

In this fourteenth year of the Excellence Awards, 192,000 euros will be distributed among the 52 winners. Among the winners are 10 young PhD researchers of international repute, receiving 15,000 euros, and 22 students who have excelled due to their excellent academic record, receiving 1,000 euros. In addition, 20,000 euros are awarded to a team of administrative and service staff. Lastly, a diploma and recognition trophy are awarded to 10 former University students who stand out for their outstanding professional development or entrepreneurial activity in two categories: those who graduated between 2016 and 2018 and those who graduated before 2016.

The Excellence Awards aim to promote research and value the work carried out by four University groups: young PhD research staff, students, administration and services staff and alumni, giving visibility to their projects and their academic and professional careers.

Emprende Awards

During the event, the Emprende Awards were also presented. The TFM Emprende Awards honour work carried out in the 2020/21 academic year by UC3M master's degree students who create business ideas that stand out due to their brilliance and viability. The first TFM Emprende Award, with a 10,000 euro prize, went to “Crea Producciones”, a project by Lucía Villegas Rico, from the UC3M Master's Degree in Entrepreneurship and Business Creation. The second TFM Emprende Award, with a 5,000 euro prize, went to Víctor Prieto Fernández, a student of the UC3M Master's Degree in Entrepreneurship and Business Creation, with his business proposal "HEYMATE!".

The TFG Emprende Awards honour students who have completed innovative Final Bachelor’s Degree Projects. The total cash prize amounts to 20,000 euros, which is used to finance entrepreneurial or training activities in this area. The first TFG Emprende award, with a 10,000 euro prize, was received by Esther Montero Blanco, from the UC3M Biomedical Engineering Bachelor’s Degree, and Laura Garrido Cediel, a UC3M Mechanical Engineering graduate, for the “LIFEBOT. Robot Móvil para Asistencia Hospitalaria” (“LIFEBOT. Mobile Robot for Hospital Care”) project. The second award, also with a 10,000 euro prize, went to the “Pública Diferencia” (“Public Difference”) project, developed by Andrea Monroy Gómez, from the UC3M Business Administration Bachelor’s Degree.

Banco Santander and UC3M

Banco Santander's support for the Excellence Awards, through Santander Universities, is part of the relationship that both institutions have maintained since 1999 for the development of various academic projects. Both entities have recently renewed their collaboration agreement to continue launching scholarship and award projects and programmes to promote academic mobility, university entrepreneurship and excellence, in addition to supporting UC3M's research to attract top-level national and international researchers through initiatives such as the UC3M-Santander Chairs of Excellence or the CONEX-Plus programme.

Banco Santander remains firmly committed to progress and inclusive and sustainable growth with a pioneering and consolidated commitment to education, entrepreneurship and employment, which it has been developing through Santander Universities for more than 25 years and which distinguishes it from the rest of the world’s financial institutions. Since its launch, the bank has allocated more than 2,100 million euros and has supported more than 790,000 students, professionals and entrepreneurial projects through agreements with nearly 1,000 universities and institutions in 15 countries.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2022 and among the best universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M is the first university in Europe to obtain ACEEU dual accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric, and it also has other accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes.

The UC3M Social Council fulfils, among others, the role of encouraging society's participation in university activity, especially in its financing, and fostering relations between the University and its cultural, professional, economic and social environment.

More information: 

UC3M Social Council Awards 2022

AR experiences allow us to materialise and interact with all the senses and with a large amount of information which is invisible as it is embedded in the devices around us and in the different environments we inhabit. However, so far, graphical or textual information, provided by conventional network analysers or instructions from a remote operator, is complex for most people.

The Telefónica and UC3M team’s project takes key aspects into account, such as the inhabitants of each home being able to see a Wi-Fi signal coverage map and other contextual data that helps them better understand the infrastructure around them, perceiving the services that are available through intuitive visualisations.

“Augmented reality can improve many processes by making the invisible visible, but responsible innovation requires understanding how people perceive this technology and what expectations or fears they have. Working with the Telefónica team has allowed us to focus on a real use case but at the same time apply a research approach which puts people, in our case families, at the centre of the innovation. It has been a challenge for us to combine different ways of working in order to achieve results very quickly”, says Paloma Díaz, professor and researcher in the UC3M IT Department.

“Our goal was to improve the user experience and augmented reality allows us to simplify processes, such as the one provided by this solution, compared to other currently available solutions which are more complex”, says Antonio Guzmán, director of Digital Home at Telefónica. “As we always like to say, it’s about making technology more human and making people’s lives easier. We’re very satisfied with the results obtained and, what’s more, we believe that reducing the distance between companies and universities is crucial for growing in talent and impact on society”.

University-company binomial

The digital revolution is changing the way that new knowledge is created, developed and transferred and, therefore, how we innovate. Today, more than ever, connected spaces are needed to share knowledge and learning, that is why it is vital that companies and universities work together in order to generate impactful developments.

After many years of collaboration with the university and great results, Telefónica has gone a step further and has decided to explore new forms of cooperation and partnerships through its Open Innovation Campus area, whose mission is to be a two-way bridge between the academy and business. As a result of these synergies, in 2021 the Immersive Technologies LabStudio was created, made up of researchers from the UC3M IT Department and Telefónica experts for the development of projects. 

UC3M maintains relationships with companies and institutions, with the aim of transferring its R&D and identifying the demands for solutions or challenges to accelerate business innovation. This collaboration between the university and the business sector is carried out through contracts, chairs, R&D&I centres, meetings and forums, or its own programmes such as Lab4pymes.

More information: LabStudio | Research Project Telefónica Spain Agreement (uc3m.es) 

This sensor works by using reflectance spectroscopic techniques, that is, using light beams and photodetectors to analyse the vehicle’s surroundings. “Our sensor is based on a double-frequency optical comb, optical means for directing the comb’s output beam, a photodetector and a receiving optic”, explains Marta Ruiz Llata, PhD in Electrical, Electronic and Automation Engineering at UC3M. Based on the light signal received, this electronic photodetector analyses the radio frequency spectrum of the detected signal and translates it into a visible image of the condition of the road.

Until now, other techniques and models for detecting the condition of the asphalt already existed; the novelty of this innovation is that it allows real-time recognition. “Other systems that use more than one emitter with different wavelengths can’t be used to measure road conditions with a moving vehicle, since the required integration time is too long”, says Pablo Acedo Gallardo, PhD in Telecommunications Engineering at UC3M. 

More information:

M.Ruiz Llata, P. Acedo Gallardo, O. E. Bonilla Manrique, J. E. Posada Román, P. Martín Mateos, “Road Condition Sensor and Method for Detecting the State Condition of the Roadway”, EP 3 742 155 A1, European Patent Office, 25th of November, 2020.

Version française (French version)

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The lack of green spaces in the city of Madrid prevents the absorption of pollution. The solution proposed by Greener City is to transform cities into gardens. Its innovative idea is based on converting population centres into green spaces by setting up vertical gardens on the facades of venues and companies. These gardens are adjustable, portable and self-sufficient for easy installation.

The GreenUp project is based on a gamified application, where, thanks to Augmented Reality, citizens can sponsor vertical gardens in their city, interact with them or get regular feedback, among other things.

15 projects took part in this year’s Explorer UC3M Space programme, with 33 entrepreneurs and 5 researchers from UC3M. Overall, 42% of the participants were women.

About Explorer UC3M Space

Explorer UC3M Space is an initiative to support entrepreneurship as part of Banco Santander’s “Jóvenes con Ideas” (“Young People with Ideas”) Explorer programme. The aim is to inspire and promote the development of their startups, providing them with connections for the internationalisation of their projects and the search for funding.

More information about the programme

The video game can directly identify attention deficit symptoms in a few minutes and only requires a computer, making it a cheap and efficient way to check the severity of inattention in patients. Currently,  PiTDAHgoras focuses on the early detection of ADHD; it can also be used as a complement to the initial diagnosis made by a professional, as a symptom monitoring tool and as therapy for the treatment of this disorder.

The awards jury has chosen to give the award to PiTDAHgoras for being a free tool that addresses the rights of children with ADHD; and for considering the project as “a work that is developed in an interdisciplinary way, between psychologists and technicians, and which bases its application on games and interrelationships”.

About the Queen Letizia Awards

The Royal Board on Disability’s aim with these awards is the development of programmes and activities to raise awareness on disability and universal accessibility, specifically, in areas related to research, accessibility and universal design in municipalities, inclusion in the workplace, accessible information and communication technologies, artistic creation or interpretation, promotion and encouragement of inclusive sports and the knowledge and effective implementation of the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

This year’s challenges focus on subjects as diverse as digital transformation and 5G and 6G communications, blockchain and legislative challenges at the economic level, Big Data and machine learning, personalised medicine and early diagnosis, social media and fake news, agricultural policies and rural development, aviation and satellites, the ecological transition, sustainability and electric vehicles, new production models and responsible consumption, and equality, international cooperation and social innovation.

All these subjects are included in ten programmes: “The construction of a hybrid and interconnected society”, “The success of DeFis and decentralised finance”, “Circular economy, a new way of life and consumption”, “Stand up to cancer: the importance of data”, “Attention and truthfulness, ingredients for the new digital recipe”, “Spanish in artificial intelligence: from technology to social application”, “The primary sector for a world with overpopulation”, “The new space: the space race of the 21st century”, “Transport for people in the sustainability league”, and “When innovation is focused on serving people”.

The “R+D+i Challenges to Innovate Together Programme” is an activity co-funded by the call for Liaison Entities 2018 of the Community of Madrid (Reference OI2018/PC-UC3M-5152, Acronym PC-UC3M) and ERDF funding, (European Regional Development Fund).

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E.T. PACK-Fly aims to solve this problem by developing a device capable of deorbiting, that is, decreasing the altitude of the orbit of the space debris until it is eliminated during the reentry in the Earth’s atmosphere. Unlike conventional propulsion systems, the E.T. PACK-Fly equipment uses a disruptive technology, known as an electrodynamic space tether, that does not require propellant. This electrodynamic tether is a very thin aluminium tape (about two centimetres wide and a couple of kilometres long), which works by using the plasma around the Earth and the geomagnetic field to generate an electric current. This electrodynamic effect results in a force known as the Lorentz drag. This force deorbits the satellite up to the reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, where it is eliminated by the heat generated by this process. The tether is the fundamental part of the deorbiting device which, since it does not require fuel, is small and light. It is also designed to stabilise the attitude of the satellite, and to control the deorbiting manoeuvre in order to avoid possible collisions with other objects.

The European Innovation Council (EIC) has funded the E.T. PACK-Fly project through its EIC Transition programme. With a duration of two and a half years, the project will start in September 2022 and it aims to prepare the flight model of a deorbit device to be launched into orbit in 2025. RFA and SENER Aeroespacial have already signed the launch service agreement. The E.T. PACK-Fly project is the continuation of the E.T. PACK project, also funded by the EIC. A first prototype of the deorbit device was developed and built in the framework of E.T.PACK.  “We are very grateful to the EIC for the trust it has placed in us and its commitment to the development of technologies that allow a sustainable use of the space environment”, says Gonzalo Sánchez Arriaga, Associate Professor at UC3M and coordinator of the E.T. PACK and E.T. PACK-Fly projects. "It is important to invest in disruptive technologies that can mitigate the proliferation of space debris while generating wealth and new business opportunities," he concludes.

Furthermore, Lorenzo Tarabini, director of the E.T.PACK-Fly project at SENER Aeroespacial, points out: “This project gives us the opportunity to build and qualify for space, through a complete series of tests, a light, compact and completely autonomous platform for deorbiting the final stages of launchers. The E.T.PACK-Fly platform is expected to be launched in 2025 with RFA to demonstrate its proficiency and pave the way for commercial exploitation of deorbiting technology.” In the same vein, the CCO at RFA Jörn Spurmann adds that “we are very pleased that this innovative initiative will continue to receive funding to take it to the next level. Space debris removal is one of the most pressing challenges in space and it is part of RFA's philosophy and vision to enable sustainable solutions like E.T-PACK”.

More information
E.T. PACK project website

Another project is "Building an ecosystem for research and development in non-terrestrial networks (satellite and HAP) and B5G (3GPP rel. 17 and later)". Its objectives include the development of a proposal for the architectural integration of NTN (Non terrestrial networks) with 3GPP R17.

The third selected project, "Data-driven Next Generation Networks (B5G and 6G) for Sustainable Manufacturing and Emergency Response," focuses on designing a system architecture that evolves and enriches current 5G systems to support manufacturing industries, making them more sustainable and benefiting from the massive use of data, as well as emergency systems.

The "New technologies for the sustainable development of 6G in extreme environments" project, will investigate the use of highly innovative technologies to increase the range and 6G networks sustainably in terms of their environmental impact and cost in extreme circumstances, either due to difficult access, aggressiveness of the environment, time requirements or level of protection of the natural environment.

On the other hand, one of the objectives of the "Sustainable orchestration of vRAN, UAV and 6G surfaces" project is the design of an architecture for the sustainable orchestration of radio access networks (RAN).

The sixth project, "Preserving the privacy of multi-tenant networks", aims to create a set of appropriate tools for exchanging data between parties in a multi-stakeholder scenario.

The "Cloud Native Network Functions for 6G" project will create a new infrastructure ecosystem to efficiently support the new software paradigm, as well as the design of new virtual network functions that benefit from this ecosystem.

Finally, a project to promote Telecommunications Engineering studies has received funding, entitled "Activities for promoting Telecommunications studies and attracting talent, both nationally and internationally".

These projects are funded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation and the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR.

This study, carried out by Florabel Quispe Remón, a researcher in the UC3M Department of Public International Law, analyses the origin and evolution of transitional justice, determining its characteristics, the historical and political context in which it developed and the role of this legal concept in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Human Rights System. "Many of these crimes have not been investigated by the governments that succeeded others that had committed human rights violations. In many cases, amnesty laws have been adopted, leaving the direct and indirect victims unprotected," explains the researcher.

The research describes how the Inter-American Court (an autonomous judicial institution whose purpose is to apply and interpret the American Convention on Human Rights), must apply measures to enforce the basic principles of transitional justice.

These principles include the recognition of the dignity of victims, the right to historical memory and to know the truth about what happened, the State's obligation to assume responsibility and repair damages, and the end of impunity for those responsible for the facts. "This involves the adoption of mechanisms that facilitate access to justice for vulnerable groups, taking their needs into account, as well as the appointment of Truth Commissions and the establishment of specific bodies responsible for gathering information on the victims and the facts, leaving a record of what happened," says Quispe.

The ultimate goal of transitional justice is the reconciliation of society, since impunity for these crimes creates deep-rooted resentment which prevents peaceful coexistence. States being held liable for the actions of governments is the first step in regaining public confidence in their institutions and in their countries.

More information:

Quispe Remón, F. (2021). Transitional Justice, Victims and Human Rights in the Light of International Law and the Inter-American System of Human Rights. The Age of Human Rights Journal, (17), 300–327. https://doi.org/10.17561/tahrj.v17.6440

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

In order to capture as much solar energy as possible, it is essential that these heliostat facets are properly aligned. "An alignment error of just two milliradians in these heliostats produces about a 30 percent loss in a plant's annual energy production," explains Alberto Sánchez González, professor in the UC3M Department of Technical and Fluid Engineering. Currently, there are several techniques to align heliostat facets: on-sun, mechanical and optical. However, these techniques have a number of drawbacks, such as their imprecision, their unique viability under ideal laboratory conditions and/or the large amount of resources required (time and personnel). "The objective of this research has been to create a procedure for aligning heliostat facets in a simpler, more accurate and more cost-effective way than in previous systems," says José Carlos Castillo Montoya, professor in the Department of Systems Engineering and Automation.

The method patented by both researchers uses the reflection of a nearby (reference) heliostat on the target heliostat, seen from a camera located on the back of the reference heliostat. In this way, regular imaging by the camera makes it possible determine if there is misalignment (deviation from the ideal orientation of the target heliostat facets), in which case the corresponding adjustment would be carried out. "The images taken by the camera are compared with those that should ideally be seen in the absence of misalignment. The theoretical optical model, which generates the ideal images, also makes it possible to determine the alignment error in each of the facets", explains Sánchez. "This method is much simpler than similar methods based on placing a camera on the upper portion of the tower, as the distance between the camera and the heliostat is reduced, thus improving accuracy," concludes Castillo.

More information:

Castillo Montoya, J. C. y Sánchez González, A. (2022). Procedimiento y sistema para alinear las facetas de un heliostato de un campo solar (ES 2 891 178 A1). Oficina Española de Patentes y Marcas (Spanish Patent and Trademark Office).

This work, published in JAMA Dermatology magazine, reports the efficacy of gentamicin in achieving a significant production of plectin in the patient's skin cells. "Gentamicin intravenous treatment in the patient increased plectin levels in her skin and slightly decreased skeletal and respiratory muscle weakness. Overall, it had a positive impact on quality of life," says Marcela del Río, professor in the UC3M Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering, director of the Chair and head of the CIBERER group.

This study, developed by a multidisciplinary group of researchers and clinicians, has made it possible to treat a patient with an urgent need to improve her condition. The Asociación DEBRA-Piel de Mariposa (DEBRA-Butterfly Skin Association) has also collaborated in its development.

Bibliographic reference:

Martínez-Santamaría L, Maseda R, de Arriba MDC, Membrilla JA, Sigüenza AI, Mascías J, García M, Quintana L, Esteban-Rodríguez I, Hernández-Fernández CP, Illera N, Duarte B, Guerrero-Aspizúa S, Woodley DT, Del Río M, de Lucas R, Larcher F, Escámez MJ. Evaluation of Systemic Gentamicin as Translational Readthrough Therapy for a Patient With Epidermolysis Bullosa Simplex With Muscular Dystrophy Owing to PLEC1 Pathogenic Nonsense Variants. JAMA Dermatol. 2022 Mar 2. doi: 10.1001/jamadermatol.2022.0112. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35234827.

Bolling MC, Has C, Bruckner AL. Understanding the Potential Promise and Pitfalls of Intravenous Gentamicin as a Therapy for Epidermolysis Bullosa. JAMA Dermatol. 2022 Mar 2. doi: 10.1001/jamadermatol.2021.5630. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35234816.

Although 80.6% of workers on these platforms benefit in terms of flexibility and easy access to employment, the problems arising from misclassification of their employment status result in substantial monetary costs for EU Member States, as the low level of taxes imposed on  self-employed workers means that countries lose revenue intended for their general budgets. 

Thus, the report finds that general legal uncertainty prevents compliance with labour and tax regulations, as well as social protection regulations relating to lack of professional development, unpaid working time, or potential occupational health and safety risks, among others.

"The initiative has been designed to address three key issues: the legal classification of workers; the algorithm used by platforms and their composition; and implementation and transparency issues in the regulations, at a European cross-border level", says Ana Belén Muñoz, from the Labour Law, Economic Changes and New Society research group.

The report sets out a series of guidelines to determine the employment status of platform workers through a set of criteria intended primarily to encourage their conversion from self-employed to salaried workers. The study also addresses the Directive proposal concerning information and consultation on issues relating to the algorithms of these platforms. Finally, it recommends that the platforms declare their activity in the country in which they operate and make certain information about the people working through them available to national authorities.

To obtain these results, the methodology used consisted of a triangulation that combined, in addition to the review of previous regulations, the analysis of four digital work platforms: Upwork, Freelancer.com, PeoplePerHour and Guru.com; an online survey for workers on these platforms and other salaried workers in nine of the twenty-seven Member States; and interviews with interest groups.

Interviews with platform managers show that if they are forced to change their business model to make the people who provide services through them salaried workers, they would only be able to hire some of their current workers. In addition, one of the platforms interviewed, located in the delivery sector, stated that shipping costs would increase by 30-40%. However, the report insists that the objective of the proposals is to improve working conditions in digital platform work while supporting the opportunities, innovation and flexibility offered by the platform economy: "Although the current situation has certain benefits (...) the consequences of the absence of an employment relationship are far greater."

The study has received financial support from the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation "EaSI" (2014-2020).

More information:

European Comission. (2020). Study to support the impact assessment of an EU initiative to improve the working conditions in platform work.

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During the development of the HITCOMP project, components made from a thermoplastic base have been shown to be more efficient, from the perspective of their thermal properties, than thermosetting composites. A known property that makes them very useful is that they can be recast, reshaped, processed and recycled, without the need for any additional curing process in order to harden and set. In addition, they are more versatile, cheaper and eco-friendly materials than conventional thermosetting composites and have a longer service life, thanks to their high resilience —they can be recycled or repaired more easily— and fatigue resistance —wear and tear— and corrosion. The introduction of these materials would mean having safer and lighter aircraft which consume less fuel, improve energy efficiency and reduce their emissions.

To get the most out of thermoplastics in the aerospace industry, due to their capacity to melt and deform when overheated, it is necessary to determine their behaviour when subjected to heat, fire and mechanical loads. The HITCOMP project has developed a test laboratory with new infrared (IR) thermography techniques in order to obtain accurate and non-intrusive measurements of the actual temperature of materials during fire tests. The ultimate aim is to conduct virtual tests on thermoplastics and compare their performance in real applications with those of conventional thermosetting composites.

“The aerospace sector is undergoing a transition to a more electric aircraft. This involves more heat and eventually fire sources, increasing the heating effect on the structure”, explains Fernando López, lead researcher and coordinator of the HITCOMP project, from the UC3M Department of Physics. "In this context, our project aims to establish an innovative methodology which allows a characterisation of thermoplastics that involves fewer resources and improves the prediction of their behaviour and resistance when subjected to mechanical loads or fire and high temperatures."

The measurements obtained by infrared thermography allow computer simulations to be carried out, which virtualize testing to select this type of material in the aeronautical industry. Its implementation is expected to "significantly reduce the number of validation tests, which are mandatory and greatly increase the cost and delay the approval of this type of material in the industry." The IR models and equipment have already been transferred to the Airbus company so that it can study their industrial application.

During the research process, the team has also developed a new method —inspired by the previous results of UC3M's Sensors, Remote Detection and Infrared Imaging Laboratory (LIR-InfraRed LAB)— which allows the use of these infrared imaging techniques to remotely determine the thermal properties of these materials, without contact.

The HITCOMP project has been funded by the Horizon 2020 programme as part of the 2020 call for proposals for Research and Innovation Actions (RIA), and is part of the 2019 European Union Clean Sky 2 announcement. Likewise, it is supported by the Spanish National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA, in its Spanish acronym), the high-tech IR company, Sensia Solutions and the Airbus Fire Lab.

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In this context, the chair aims to promote sustainability, human rights, diversity, inclusion and reduce vulnerability, through the generation of theoretical-practical knowledge that facilitates the improvement of public programmes and policies; the identification of models in the field of economics and social entrepreneurship; the comparison of Spanish reality with other programmes, public policies and advocacy policy frameworks for these subjects in other countries; the development of good practice models and the replication of policies that have been effective in generating inclusive contexts; the development of a repository of initiatives; the formation of alliances between the different participants linked to the 2030 Agenda; the implementation of research programmes which promote the generation of knowledge; and the organisation of multidisciplinary work meetings.

In order to achieve these objectives, a general activities programme has been developed and will be carried out during the four years of the Chair. One of them is the creation of an interdisciplinary working group, made up of specialists and members of civil society. It also aims to launch study programmes and at least one annual seminar, focused on some of the Chair's areas of work. In addition, collective publications and annual reports containing the results of the working groups and seminars will be made. In this regard, expert, technical and legal opinions and studies will also be produced. Finally, an online knowledge production platform will be created based on the research results of the working group and the needs expressed by civil society, social movements, public institutions and companies.

As part of this chair, UC3M and INDRA's Radio Frequency, Electromagnetism, Microwaves and Antennas research group (GREMA in its Spanish acronym) aims to develop, totally or partially, the following lines of work: advanced technologies for components integrated in microwave and millimetre-wave bands; electromagnetic systems modelling for the creation of so-called "digital twins"; design and development of active antennas in microwave bands, antenna arrays and antenna measurement planning and strategies; study of disruptive systems and technologies, with emphasis on the development and integration of transmitters and receivers in radar and communications systems (radars and quantum sensors); development of antennas and satellite communications systems, quantum communication systems and photonic and radio integration technologies.

"The innovations provided by this chair are linked to the development of innovative technologies such as 6G, satellite, defence and quantum computing technologies, taking into account the sustainability aspects which are currently required", says the head of the chair, Daniel Segovia, Professor of the UC3M Department of Signal Theory and Communications.

The University will contribute to the development of these activities by providing teaching and research staff, as well as the scientific-technical and administrative infrastructure. In turn, Indra will provide the technical and documentary support that is needed.

This research proposes an innovative technique for identifying people, based on the exclusive characteristics of their heartbeat. To do this, electrocardiograms (ECG) are used and five musical qualities are analysed: dynamics, rhythm, timbre, pitch and tonality —commonly used to characterise audio files—, applying them to the sound of heartbeats. Thus, a combination of parameters is obtained from these five qualities, which is unique for each person and has an accuracy rate of 96.6%.

“Biometric identification based on cardiac recording has been studied for years, proving to be effective. The main novelty of our work is that we look at the ECG recording, which is a temporary signal, as if it were a sound wave. From there, we analyse this sound wave using the qualities that are commonly used to characterise music”, explains Carmen Cámara, a researcher from UC3M's Computer Science Department.

The main advantage of this technique is the universality of its identification, since, to this day, certain people still cannot be recognised by certain types of biometrics —in cases of injury, amputation or disabling physical characteristics—, but the heartbeat is a bio-signal which is present in all human beings, without exception. Another advantage is its low cost and non-invasive operation: "Nowadays, there are already smart bracelets and watches that perform ECG recordings, so it would be sufficient to install an application on them which uses our identification algorithm", says researcher Pedro Peris-López, also from UC3M's Computer Science Department.

This technique is currently under development. Although the future of cardiac identification is promising, researchers say that they must "continue this line of research, before considering commercialisation." One of the critical aspects of this study is analysing the behaviour of the system according to the different activities that the person carries out, such as walking, running, resting, doing physical exercise or being in a stressful situation. Furthermore, factors such as the use of pacemakers or the effects of an arrhythmia must be taken into account.

Age is also a factor to consider: “Due to our ageing, the signal changes slightly over time. This means that our system must be updated approximately every five years”, the researchers say.

Bibliographic reference:

Cámara, Carmen; Peris-Lopez, Pedro; Safkhani, Masoumeh; Bagheri, Nasour. (2022). ECGsound for human identification. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 72, 103335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bspc.2021.103335

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This study analyses the physical characteristics of this celestial body and the possible effects that its approach to Earth may have. Gabriel Borderes-Motta, a researcher at UC3M's Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering, explains that “collision is not the only possibility in approach events like this one. The gravitational interaction between a planet and a body such as Apophis can change the shape of the body, break the body into pieces, disintegrate possible loose stones on the asteroid's surface, or even remove other bodies orbiting the asteroid (such as rocks, satellites, or rings)... Our study focuses on the last two possibilities: what happens to the possible stones on the surface and the asteroid's orbit."

How to experiment with an asteroid

Research in the space sector presents the challenge that, in most cases, it is impossible to directly experiment with space materials. For this reason, numerous investigations are approached from the field of mathematics and physics, taking the greatest possible number of variables into account.

The research team responsible for this study has analysed both the physical aspects of the asteroid —among them, its shape and the characteristics of its gravitational field—, as well as the factors that can influence its trajectory and its slope angle, such as the radiation pressure or disturbance inflicted due to its proximity to Earth.

To carry out this piece of research, the team has carried out a set of numerical simulations —two simulation environments with three experimental cases each— using a disk of 15,000 particles of different sizes in the close environment of Apophis as a sample. The objective has been to try to predict how the particles orbiting the asteroid will react to different situations and how these assumptions may influence the behaviour of Apophis.

The first set of simulations was designed considering only the gravitational disturbance of Apophis in 24-hour periods over 30 years. The second set of simulations included disturbance caused by solar radiation pressure. Three cases were proposed in both sets, in which the asteroid had different densities. “We evaluated a 340-metre polyhedron with a uniform density in three different cases. In each case, the starting point was a different particle density, from highest to lowest”, says Gabriel Borderes-Motta.

From these simulations, it was concluded that the asteroid's slope angle was greater at low densities (4°) than at high densities (2°); in addition, the lower the particle density and the higher the solar radiation pressure, the fewer particles remained intact. In other words, in a scenario where Apophis has a low density, approximately 90% of the loose stones would be removed from its surface during the approach to Earth. In addition, the results have shown that Apophis's approach could slightly affect the tides and cause some landslides on the asteroid's surface.

The team hopes that the asteroid's approach to Earth in 2029 will be an opportunity to improve the 3D model used to run space simulations, as well as to allow them to more accurately investigate and predict the effects on Apophis's surface. All of this would mean an increase in knowledge about asteroids, which would allow us to be better prepared in the event that new celestial bodies pass close to Earth.

Bibliographic reference:

G Valvano, O C Winter, R Sfair, R Machado Oliveira, G Borderes-Motta, T S Moura. (2022) APOPHIS – effects of the 2029 Earth’s encounter on the surface and nearby dynamics. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 510, Issue 1, February 2022, pp. 95–109.  https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3299

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The study reveals, for example, that Madrid's gastronomy could have inherited typical dishes from farms in the central areas of Roman Spain, such as potaje and cocido (typical soup and stew). Researchers have found remains of pots that were used to cook these dishes, with a very similar method to the current one. Those peasants threw a piece of meat together with the available vegetables and left them on the fire in a very uncontrolled way, while they carried out the agricultural work. "They left the pot on the fire very early in the morning, went to work in the fields, came back and ate communally, because the patterns we see on the crockery give us a much more collective vision," explains Professor Bermejo. This also gives us clues about the social relationships of that period: the act of eating was not an individual process, but a collective one, which could bring a large number of people together.

Sites in Barajas, Fuenlabrada, Getafe or Leganés

Due to their provisional nature —associated with the different constructions and public works where these rescue excavations have been carried out—, none of these archaeological settlements have been preserved and most people are unaware of their existence. One of the objectives of this research project is to give greater visibility to these sites, both socially and from a scientific point of view.

"Many of these sites are in towns such as Barajas, Fuenlabrada, Getafe or Leganés, where many people who are not aware of the existence of this archaeological heritage that reflects the life of the humblest sectors of past societies are living", explains Professor Bermejo.

Innovation and knowledge transfer in archaeology

In the case of prospecting – the exploration of the land to discover the existence of sites –two elements have revolutionised the practice of archaeological research in recent decades, according to scientists. The first one has been the use of GPS devices and other remote sensing systems for the georeferencing of archaeological findings. The second one is the generalisation of geographic information systems (GIS), which have made it possible to analyse a huge amount of archaeological data in relation to different geographic and environmental variables. "In the case of the analysis of archaeological findings from excavations, the use of new methodological perspectives such as the so-called household archaeology is revolutionising our way of understanding the archaeological record", says Jesús Bermejo.

The results of this research project, as well as other related studies, are collected in The Archaeology of Peasantry in Roman Spain (De Gruyter, 2022), the first monographic volume that addresses the subject of Roman peasantry in the Peninsula. This publication, co-edited by Jesús Bermejo together with Ignasi Grau, professor of Archaeology at the University of Alicante, brings together the contributions of a group of researchers who are developing pioneering and innovative perspectives focused on Hispanic-Roman rural society through different methodological strategies and various archaeological records. Many of these projects are based on the development of archaeological prospecting in various peninsular regions, such as the interior of the province of Alicante or various places in southern Extremadura. In other cases, the studies arise as a result of different excavation work, such as those carried out in the surroundings of the Villa de Almenara de Adaja-Puras, in the province of Valladolid. In this regard, the volume features a large amount of archaeological information which is unpublished or published in a very fragmentary way.

More information:

Bermejo Tirado, Jesús & Grau Mira, Ignasi (2022). The Archaeology of Peasantry in Roman Spain, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2022.  https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110757415 

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The career opportunity conferences will offer information on current and future options in different sectors, and can be followed both in person and online. In addition, an online International Employment conference will be held, with information on finding internships, employment and volunteering work worldwide.

The workshops and orientation sessions, which can be followed electronically, will present the key points for successfully approaching a job interview. These sessions end by drafting a real CV with the support of a guidance specialist.

The activities are complemented by the Legal Employment Marathon, which will be held in person on the 15th of March and will welcome some of the most prominent law firms. This conference will address the keys to develop a professional career in the legal sector and will include four panel discussions with speakers from large firms and a networking session, in which students will have the opportunity to chat directly with law firm representatives.

UC3M maintains a high rate of student employability. According to the latest study published this month, March 2022, the employment rate is 90.6%. In addition, it is collaborating with more than 4,000 companies for internships.

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The projects that will participate this year are: 

• 5 Senses, which aims to develop a technological platform to solve the day-to-day difficulties of people with functional diversity.
• Coaching con Anita (Coaching with Anita), a project for the accompaniment and creation of communities through academic, nutritional, personal and transpersonal coaching.
• Consultoras de la felicidad (Happiness Consultants), which aims to develop a digital platform to improve the personal well-being of workers.
• Delogys, a service that will use artificial intelligence to offer senior citizens personalised plans with which they can feel active and accompanied.
• Graphenergy, for the production of paint with photovoltaic properties capable of transforming solar energy into consumable electrical energy.
• Greener City, a project to set up vertical gardens on building facades.
• Insecteat, a project that will focus on breeding Tenebrio Molitor, also known as the mealworm, to offer protein solutions for human and animal nutrition.
• Investinc, for the creation of an application that allows young people to maximise their savings capacity and improves their access to financial market information.
• LiFi4Food, an initiative for the development of sensor networks that use light as an energy source to operate.
• Mediación Empresarial / Organizacional (Business/Organisational Mediation), which aims to promote mediation for the resolution of extrajudicial conflicts in companies.
• Pareil, a restoration company which promotes access to work for people at risk of social exclusion.
• Picmash, for the creation of a mobile application for editing images and graphics.
• Teremeg Lab, to develop an artificial skin model which cosmetic and pharmaceutical laboratories can test their products on.
• Urbamate, proposes a web application that digitises and optimises the management of residents of the same development.
• We Living Madrid, a digital network with a marketplace function for finding an apartment to rent, tenant or person to share with.

Each project will develop their ideas collaboratively and will receive tailored advice and training in innovation and business models at UC3M until June. At the end of this period, the best rated team will receive training and advice from investment companies in different locations, including Silicon Valley. 

About the "Jóvenes con ideas"  ("Young people with ideas") Explorer programme

This young entrepreneurship initiative is sponsored by Banco Santander, through Santander Universities, and coordinated by the Santander International Entrepreneurship Centre (CISE in its Spanish acronym). UC3M is hosting one of the Explorer Spaces that this programme has distributed throughout Spain, Portugal and Argentina.

More information about the programme

In addition, it points out that the rise of the Internet has contributed substantially to the economic devaluation of news production. "Cost-free culture is a phenomenon that has emerged from the popularisation of the Internet, which we define as a tendency of citizens to consider news as a public good that should be made available to society for free," says Goyanes.

This study analyses the relationship between citizens and digital information, in a context where news has lost its traditional value as a differentiated product: "If many newspapers find themselves in a difficult financial situation, it is precisely because they aren't investing in the human and technological resources required to offer an interesting product", says the researcher.

Bibliographic reference: Goyanes, M., Demeter, M. y  de Grado, L. (2022). The culture of free: Construct explication and democratic ramifications for readers’ willingness to pay for public affairs news. Journalism, 23(1), 207-223.

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The aim of this European initiative is to promote the creation and growth of European companies in this sector, by making the necessary technology and services available to the participating projects, and ensuring value and innovation creation through team training and networking. 

UC3M is responsible for coordinating the Madrid hub from its Entrepreneurship and Innovation Service and has developed a new acceleration programme in which 23 startups and scaleups have participated. Throughout the duration of the programme, the selected companies have received training and mentoring, and have participated in business meetings. The project ended with a "Demo Day", held as part of the international entrepreneurship event Startup OLÉ.

Another of the initiatives organised by UC3M was a six-day Hackathon, where the participating companies were able to explore business opportunities arising from the exploitation of Earth observation data and the use of DIAS platforms (data and information access services). In this event, there were 123 participants from 24 countries, who participated in more than 30 training activities, case presentations or initiative developments.

Go2Space-HUBs has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 870370 and within the framework of the Cassini initiative. The consortium, led by UC3M, has had five other partners from five different countries: EUN, TECPAR, TEHNOPOL, IPN and MAC, from Belgium, Poland, Estonia, Portugal and Spain respectively.

In this work, recently published in the world's leading scientific dermatology journal, the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, researchers have, for the first time, successfully designed and generated DNA oligonucleotide aptamers with high affinity and specificity for the FPR2 receptor (Formyl Peptide Receptor 2). "The activation of this receptor has been able to effectively trigger the wound repair process in a humanized experimental model”, explains the work's main author, Dr. Marta Carretero, a CIEMAT researcher within the framework of this Chair.

The aptamers used in this study are single-stranded DNA oligonucleotides that adopt a three-dimensional structure, giving them a high affinity and specificity for the FPR2 receptor. By activating it, the researchers are also able to activate the tissue repair programme, in other words, the biological process that is severely impaired and hampered in patients with skin ulcers. "This work represents nanomedicine's success in an area in which conventional therapeutic strategies have not yet achieved expected results despite multiple attempts", says UC3M professor, Marcela del Río, director of the UC3M-CIEMAT-IIS-FJD Research Chair.

This work has been carried out by a multidisciplinary team of scientists from the UC3M-CIEMAT-IIS-FJD Research Chair, the CIBER of Rare Diseases and the Aptamer Group of the Instituto Ramón y Cajal de Investigación Sanitaria [Ramón y Cajal Institute for Health Research] (IRYCIS). All of this has been carried out within the framework of NanoSmell (Artificial remote-controlled odorants), a research project funded by the European Union's H2020 Programme (GA 662629) within FET-OPEN. This type of call supports R+D+I that explores new foundations for breakthrough technologies.

Bibliographic reference: 

Arriba MDC, Fernández G, Chacón-Solano E, Mataix M, Martínez-Santamaría L, Illera N, Carrión-Marchante R, Martín ME, Larcher F, González VM, Del Río M, Carretero M. FPR2 DNA Aptamers for Targeted Therapy of Wound Repair.  J Invest Dermatol. 2022 Jan 1:S0022-202X(21)02688-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jid.2021.12.026. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34979109.

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

During the afternoon shift at the University's stand, from 3pm to 8pm, attendees will be able to learn symmetric cryptography (data encryption and authentication techniques) through Crypto Go, an educational card game created by the researchers themselves. "We want to teach, in a fun way, the security risks we face if we browse the Internet without safeguards and how cryptography allows us to protect our communications", says the researcher responsible for this activity, Ana Isabel González-Tablas, from the Computer Science Department at UC3M. Attendees will be able to learn the rules of Crypto Go, which consists of 108 cards representing 6 types of cryptographic tools that each player can combine in different ways, looking for combinations that provide reliable data protection with the highest possible level of security. The game has several levels and can be used for beginner's cryptography activities, training of professionals in this sector or, if you have some cryptography knowledge, for the sheer pleasure of playing.

That same day, 2nd of March, from 4:30pm to 5pm, in the Agora at the Madrid esCiencia Fair, an interactive and informative talk will take place about the relationship between archaeology, cinema and video games through the vision of two icons in these areas, Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. "The heroes and heroines of archaeology in film and video games are intergenerational references worldwide. Their courage and physique draw you in, but the scientific realities and experiences in their decisions and actions, such as the significance of being astonished, what facts and data are crucial, the capricious link between knowledge and luck, or that perseverance lays the foundation for the discovery are barely noticed", points out the person in charge of this activity, researcher Carlos Maciá-Barber, professor of Journalism at the UC3M Communications Department. In his talk, he will show the links that exist between different archaeological investigations and various aspects of this, such as Hollywood movies or some popular video games.

Other UC3M activities carried out in collaboration with the madri+d Foundation

During the four days of the Fair, from the 2nd – 5th of March, in a space next to the stand for the madri+d Knowledge Foundation, of the Community of Madrid, the MECATRAN research group from UC3M will show its instrumented vehicle, a buggy equipped with sensors and actuators that, in the last few years, have been incorporated into mass production vehicles, in order to improve their safety and comfort. "These systems, which have traditionally been developed to help drivers drive the vehicle, play a key role in self-driving cars", says the head of the MECATRAN research group, MaríaJesúsLópez Boada, professor in UC3M's Mechanical Engineering Department. These vehicles make up different networks, such as intra-vehicle and inter-vehicle networks. "On the one hand, the latter network uses shared service platforms and cloud computing, reducing information storage and the computational load on the vehicle. On the other hand, intra-vehicle networks seek to identify both vehicle and road conditions, which is essential for safe driving, vehicle and road maintenance and efficient traffic management".

Furthermore, several researchers from European scientific projects at UC3M will be at the stand for the madri+d Knowledge Foundation, of the Community of Madrid, with various activities. On the 2nd of March, Fabio di Cosmo, CONEX-Plus researcher at the UC3M Mathematics Department, will hold a workshop to talk about the relationship between group theory and some mathematical puzzles in the form of games. On the 4th of March, several activities will take place. Firstly, Carlos Romero Villarreal, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie researcher at the UC3M Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical Engineering Department, will perform an experiment to learn how to generate hydrogen, the clean energy of the future. Secondly, Manuel José López Morales, Early Stage Researcher of the H2020 TeamUp5G project in the UC3M Signal Theory and Communications Department, will perform an experiment to understand the gain of 5G antennas. Thirdly, Diego González Morín, also an Early Stage Researcher of the TeamUp5G project, will hold an exhibition on the capabilities of extended reality using virtual reality glasses.

In addition, a UC3M spinoff, Inrobics Social Robotics, will present its healthcare rehabilitation solution, an autonomous robotics system based on Artificial Intelligence. This activity will take place on the 2nd of March at the stand for start-ups collaborating with the madri+d Technology-Based Entrepreneurship Area.

The Madrid esCiencia Fair 2022 has been designed as a comprehensive display of scientific-technological innovation in the Community of Madrid from a recreational and participatory point of view. It brings together scientists, professors, entrepreneurs, programmers, artists and other professionals from the R&D&I sector, who provide first-hand knowledge of concepts in the field of research in the new era of digital transformation. In addition, it aims for its own participants (researchers, entrepreneurs, teachers, students...) to be the ones who show and explain science in all its beauty and its impact on our daily lives. This event is organised by the madri+d Knowledge Foundation, of the Community of Madrid, and, in the case of UC3M, has the support of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, in its Spanish acronym) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

"Our contribution consists of the design and development of a fully automatic system, based on computer vision techniques, which allows us to characterise the cells under study by analysing videos captured by biologists using the intravital microscopy technique", says one of the authors of this work, Professor Fernando Díaz de María, head of the UC3M Multimedia Processing Group. Automatic measurements of the shape, size, movement and position relative to the blood vessel of a few thousand cells have been made, compared to traditional biological studies that are usually supported by analyses of a few hundred manually characterised cells. In this way, it has been possible to carry out a more advanced biological analysis with greater statistical significance.

This new system has several advantages, according to the researchers, in terms of time and precision. Generally speaking, "it is not feasible to keep an expert biologist segmenting and tracking cells on video for months. On the other hand, to provide an approximate idea (because it depends on the number of cells and 3D volume depth), our system only takes 15 minutes to analyse a 5-minute video", says another of the researchers, Ivan González Díaz, Associate Professor in the Signal Theory and Communications Department at UC3M.

Deep neural networks, the tools these engineers rely on for cell segmentation and detection, are basically algorithms that learn from examples, so in order to deploy the system in a new context, it is necessary to generate sufficient examples to enable their training. These networks are part of machine learning techniques, which in turn is a discipline within the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In addition, the system incorporates other types of statistical techniques and geometric models, all of which are described in another paper, recently published in the Medical Image Analysis journal.

The software that implements the system is versatile and can be adapted to other problems in a few weeks. "In fact, we are already applying it in other different scenarios, studying the immunological behaviour of T cells and dendritic cells in cancerous tissues. And the provisional results are promising", says another of the researchers from the UC3M team, Miguel Molina Moreno.

In any case, when researching in this field, researchers stress the importance of the work of an interdisciplinary team. "In this context, it is important to recognise the prior communication effort between biologists, mathematicians and engineers, required to understand the basic concepts of other disciplines, before real progress can be made", concludes Fernando Díaz de María.

More information:

Crainiciuc, G., Palomino-Segura, M., Molina-Moreno, M., ..., González-Diaz, I., Díaz-de-María, F., Hidalgo, A. Behavioural immune landscapes of inflammation. Nature 601, 415–421 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04263-y  

Molina-Moreno, M. González-Díaz, I. Sicilia, J. Crainiciuc, G. Palomino-Segura, M. Hidalgo, A. Díaz-de-María, F. (2022). ACME: Automatic feature extraction for cell migration examination through intravital microscopy imaging. Medical Image Analysis, v. 77, 102358. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.media.2022.102358 

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The EU's data protection strategy is setting an example for the rest of the world in terms of legislation and innovation. Its current priorities include promoting the development of products and services based on personal data which the user has control over. To do this, it is necessary to have a regulatory framework, accompanied by policies and tools that facilitate its implementation.

"PIMCITY's PDK offers companies the tools to exploit user data in a respectful way”, says one of the researchers participating in the project, Rubén Cuevas, from the UC3M Telematics Engineering Department.

PIMCITY.eu is a project that develops the PIMS (Personal Information Management Systems) philosophy in a practical way and in which, in addition to UC3M, the Internet Users Association (AUI), IAB Spain, IMDEA Networks, Telefónica and other European partners participate. As Pérez Subías, president of the AUI, explains: "The PIMS philosophy allows individuals to manage, control their data, know by who, how and what their data is used for, know the value they generate and share the benefits".

Through this PDK you can store personal data, manage consents, know the value of the data, import, export or anonymise data sets. Its use is free, all software is open source and it is available in the PIMCity GitLab repository.

The PIMCity project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 871370. In addition to UC3M, the Internet Users Association, Ermes Cyber Security, Fastweb, IAB Spain, IMDEA Networks, NEC, Ku Leuven CiTiP, LS Tech, Politecnico di Torino, Taptap, Telefónica and Wibson participate in the project.

More information:www.pimcity.eu

The Ágora Telefónica-UC3M in Women and Technology: “A human vision to break up stereotypes” will also take place on the 11th of February at 1pm. This activity will take place in a hybrid format (both on-site and online) at the University’s School of Engineering and will be open to the public. There will be three spaces for discussion and analysis at this event: one dedicated to women’s access to careers related to IT; another that focuses on inspiring projects and ideas from female lecturers and students within this field; and a third that will showcase technology projects that focus on people and their needs.

The STEM for Girls technological workshops will take place on the same day at 6pm. These workshops are aimed at girls and young people in their 4th year of high school, A-Level students and those undertaking training courses. It is about bringing together research work carried out in different fields at the University: 3D organ bioprinting, adhesives and paints materials science, cryptography and cybersecurity, app development and augmented reality, the operation of mobile batteries, electrical engineering and photovoltaic solar energy, and telecommunications in the transmission of information.

Other activities during the week

At 11am on Tuesday 8th February, an activity for centres of secondary education about “El Enigma Agustina”, a film that focuses on a female scientist who lived in Spain in the first third of the 20th century, will take place in the UC3M’s Auditorium on the Leganés Campus. This event, which will be attended by the actress who played the protagonist, the director and actor in the documentary, covers topics such as relativity, quantum mechanics and cosmology, as well as some basic ideas about the history of science.

On Wednesday 9th February, a session will be held at 10:30am for high schools in which participants can learn about cryptography using the Crypto Go game. Basic cybersecurity concepts will be presented in a fun way and the usefulness of symmetric cryptography for understanding the risks involved in surfing the internet without security will be explained. The activity will highlight the contribution of different female scientists to this field of computer science.

A Female Science and Technology event will take place on Thursday 10th and Friday 11th February at the UC3M’s Science Park. This initiative has been organised by the Association of Science and Technology Parks of Spain. A series of workshops focusing on improving four of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for our environment and a video competition will take place during these days. In total, 240 female high school students from Leganés are expected to take part in the programme, thanks to the collaboration of the Leganés Town Council.

However, this transformation has not been carried out using traditional regulatory instruments, such as Directives or Regulations, but using technical reports drawn up by experts at European institutions outside of the institutionalised channels of administrative power. These instruments have succeeded in gaining enough relevance to become profound legislative reforms. Research by a lecturer at the UC3M’s Department of Social and Private International Law, Daniel Pérez del Prado, included in the book “El impacto social de la gobernanza económica europea” (Tirant lo Blanch, 2021), analyses documentation emanating from European economic governance from 2011 to 2019. 

According to Pérez del Prado, “the main conclusions of the study are devastating. There is clear evidence that austerity policies, that have been implemented since 2010, were one of the factors that explain Europe’s relapse into the crisis, its prolonged time period and its direct effects on social protection systems and policies,” he says. “Due to drastic cuts (in pensions, unemployment, health care, etc.), they did not act as social dampening mechanisms. Moreover, structural reforms were aimed at labour markets, not other markets,” he adds. Although, he explains, “the economic policies imposed as a form of greater coercion through bailouts had a large impact on the level of well-being and working conditions in most of the European and, in particular, Spanish population.”

Furthermore, this research delves into the justification provided in order to promote these measures. “The social law model that European institutions propose to Member States is clearly orthodox, it avoids the traditional role of social law and is incompatible. It is assumed that experts at the European institutions are the only ones who are able to understand what is right for their citizens and, therefore, they are responsible for formulating lines of action to follow. However, many of the measures that were promoted were painful, lacked the necessary contrast with other approaches or perspectives, and did not include a cost-benefit analysis,” the author notes.

The study concludes with an analysis of future policies and their implementation.  “We wonder whether activating the general exception clause in the Stability and Growth Pact, and other decisions (such as the SURE Regulation or the Recovery Plan for Europe, Next Generation EU), will cause a real change in the cycle or if it is an exception at a very specific time,” concludes Daniel Pérez del Prado.

Bibliography: Perez del Prado, D. (2021). Impacto Social de la Gobernanza Económica Europea. Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia. ISBN: 978-84-1378-930-9.

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Blood vessels are more like active organs than rigid ducts. Specifically, the arteries are covered by vascular musculature that allows them to contract or expand in response to different stimuli. For example, when a blood vessel that feeds an organ detects an increase in pressure at its inlet, it can respond to that increase in pressure by contracting (compressing its muscles) in order to reduce flow and protect the organ. “This effect is called the myogenic mechanism, and there are similar effects that cause the flow through a blood vessel, which is not a linear function of the pressure difference, but a non-linear function that sometimes has a negative differential resistance,” notes Miguel Ruiz García. 

This theoretical model, which allows the size of the network to be estimated using a method that takes the connections between ducts into account and predicts the frequency of pressure oscillations, was recently presented at the International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications. “We were able to observe interesting phenomena, such as the appearance of waves that travel through these complex networks. It turns out that the frequency of these oscillations changes as we change the structure of the network in very different ways. Explaining why these different structural changes lead to similar changes in frequency was very challenging and we were only able to do it using a topological metric: a value that measures the “effective” size of the network,” explains Miguel Ruiz García.

They are called topological metrics because they use the network’s topology, in other words, they take their internal connections into account. “We can measure, for example, the distance between cities in kilometres and say that Madrid is closer to Teruel than to Barcelona. However, if we measure the distance as 1 divided by the number of trains that travel from Madrid to each of these cities on a daily basis, then Barcelona is much “closer” than Teruel according to our new way of measuring. This type of measure provides us with information about the difficulty of travelling from one point to another within the network,” says the researcher. “Similarly, the topological measure we use tells us the effective size of the system, so if the system is smaller effectively then waves take less time to get from one end to another and their frequency increases. This is similar to the previous example, in which it is easier to get to Barcelona than Teruel,” he concludes.

“Our theoretical results could help other researchers better understand the oscillations that are observed in blood that circulates in our brain, as these blood vessels present the conditions that our model is studying,” says Miguel Ruiz García. “On the other hand,” he continues “we hope that our experimental work will develop new devices that help control flow in microfluidic devices (devices with very small pipes that are used in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as in many laboratory devices)”.

This piece of research began when Miguel Ruiz García was working as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania (USA), along with lecturer Eleni Katifori. This research has been able to be developed thanks to his incorporation into the UC3M as a CONEX-Plus talent attraction programme researcher, funded by the University and the European Commission through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Actions (GA 801538) from the European Horizon 2020 Framework Programme. 

More information:

Ruiz-Garcia, M. Katifori, E. (2021). Topology controls the emergent dynamics in nonlinear flow networks. The 10th International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications. November 30 - December 2.. Madrid, España. https://complexnetworks.org/ 

Ruiz-Garcia, M. Katifori, E. (2021). Emergent dynamics in excitable flow systems, Physical Review E 103 (6), 062301. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.103.062301

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The cost for the European Union of non-FAIR research data is approximately 10.2 billion Euros each year, according to an analysis by the European Commission. “This happens because the money is invested in research, but the data that is collected (one of the most expensive parts of research) remains in each working group, without metadata, without being systematised or described—they are not shared, cannot be found and reused for further research,” explain two researchers taking part in FAIR4Health, Tony Hernández and Eva M. Méndez from the UC3M’s Department of Library and Information Sciences. 

“FAIRification” of the data 

An analysis of the main restrictions and possible ways of enabling the implementation of a FAIR data policy in EU research institutions has been carried out within the framework of this research project. To this effect, a “FAIRification” process has been implemented by the GO FAIR initiative, which addresses the ethical, legal and technical aspects of health data.

Just as the data is checked for accuracy, researchers believe that it can be “fairicated”, in other words, checked to see if it complies with the FAIR principles. In order to do so, “fairification” tools for health data have been developed within the framework of the FAIR4Health project. These tools consist of independent desktop applications that were developed to cure and validate data (Data Curation Tool) and to de-identify and anonymise data (Data Privacy Tool). 

Case studies

The FAIR4Health solution has been validated by two case studies. The first consisted of analysing the impact of multimorbidity patterns (having at least two chronic diseases) and polypharmacy (taking more than 3 medicines at the same time) on mortality rate (at 6 months) and cognitive decline in older people. 

The second case study aimed to develop, validate and assess the accuracy of a clinical decision support tool which was used to predict Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients’ readmission after being discharged.

The @FAIR4Health Improving Health Research in the EU through FAIR Data project, which recently came to an end, has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 824666. The consortium, led by the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital from the Andalusian Health Service  with the participation of the UC3M, has relied on 17 partners belonging to health research organisations, businesses and universities in eleven different countries: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey. 

More information: 

Website for the FAIR4Health project

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According to the conclusions of this report, Spanish organisations have had a large stake in H2020. 12,500 organisations opted for funding with 63,730 proposals. However, given that securing funding is highly competitive for this R&D&I programme, only 3,759 Spanish organisations, 2,737 of which are companies, were able to secure funding. Spain is the fourth country in terms of grants, with a return rate of 10.4%, behind Germany, the United Kingdom and France.

Additionally, Spain is the first country to lead collaborative R&D&I projects (RIAs and IAs), with a total of 1,187 projects. In this respect, the UC3M ranks among the 20 most prominent Spanish organisations and fourth among universities.

The universities have achieved 20.8% of the Spanish return, obtaining a grant of 1,270.8 million Euros. Overall, they have taken part in 22,415 proposals and secured funding for 2,757 R&D&I activities, with a success rate of 12.3%. The UC3M has taken part in more than 800 proposals and secured more than 64 million Euros of funding, with a success rate of around 17% (compared to 13% nationally and 12% at a European level).

Ranked among the best Spanish universities for R&D&I in H2020

The UC3M ranks among the most prominent Spanish universities for economic return in H2020, regardless of the institutions’ size. The University is ranked seventh nationally, behind the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Pompeu Fabra University, the Polytechnic University of Valencia and Barcelona; and ahead of three universities: the University of Valencia, the Complutense University of Madrid and the University of the Basque Country, for example. 

The UC3M’s participation in the EU’s R&D&I framework programmes (FP) has increased significantly in recent decades. In the FP6, which ran between 2002 and 2006, the UC3M secured 5.26 million Euros; in the FP7, between 2007 and 2013, this figure increased to 24 million Euros; while in FP8, the UC3M has secured more than 64 million Euros in funding.

More information: results of Spanish participation in H2020

Generally speaking, “higher levels of news consumption via traditional online media is associated with higher purchasing power and higher levels of education. On the other end of the spectrum, higher levels of Facebook consumption are associated with lower purchasing power and lower levels of education,” notes one of the study’s authors, Iñaki Úcar, researcher at the UC3M-Santander Big Data Institute. 

Researchers highlight some of the possible consequences of this difference in use: “As platforms, such as YouTube, or social networks, such as Facebook, have been used to spread misinformation, and the relative use of these platforms is higher in areas where the population has lower levels of education and lower-income, the effect of this misinformation is likely to have affected these areas more,” explains Esteban Moro, from the UC3M’s Department of Mathematics.

The paper, recently published in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface uses anonymous aggregated telephone data in France to predict census variables. Researchers believe that, due to globalization, these results could apply to countries with similar cultures and of similar wealth, such as countries around Europe and North America.

The digital gap in usage that they have detected is particularly large for certain types of services, such as social media, audio and visual streaming, email, and consumption of news content. “This is a rather surprising result, especially given that the analysis has been carried out in dozens of cities in a developed European country, where it could be assumed that digital gaps would have been closed due to the omnipresent availability of access to mobile broadband,” notes another of the study’s authors, Marco Fiore, a researcher at the IMDEA Networks Institute.

In this study, scientists have demonstrated, quantitatively and on a large scale, the validity of hypotheses on the heterogeneity of mobile services usage by different socio-economic groups for the first time. “Prior to our study, these hypotheses had only been validated using qualitative studies on small groups of individuals. Demonstrating that this phenomenon is valid for hundreds of thousands of users is an important step forward,” concludes Esteban Moro.

More information: Ucar, I. Gramaglia, M. Fiore, M. Smored, Z. Moro, E. (2021).  News or social media? Socio-economic divide of mobile service consumption. December, Volume 18 Issue 185 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0350

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Participants can register directly using the electronic form on the website (see below). Each student may choose one workshop per day among the 13 workshops on offer (5 more than last year). These sessions will focus on topics such as the accessibility of technology, 3D organ bioprinting, app creation for the digital city, cryptography and cybersecurity, electronics, atomic emission spectroscopy, photonics, microchips that are used in biology, spatial sound, and telecommunications, among others. 

This experience aims to bridge the gap between the university world and secondary school students to provide them with information about the degrees offered by the UC3M in this field. The workshops aim to promote STEM career vocations and reinforce students’ skills in the area of technology. 

More information:  UC3M Technological Fridays Website

It would be used in a similar way to current antigen sensors: a sample of the patient’s saliva is dissolved in a buffer solution and then placed on to the sensor’s surface. The measurement would be available in a few minutes. “The advantage over current antigen-based sensors is the greater sensitivity and specificity of the photo-electrochemical sensor measurements, which are comparable to more complex measurements, such as those from fluorescence-based sensors, and they are simpler, cheaper, and faster than PCR-based sensors,” says the research’s lead author, Mahmoud Amouzadeh Tabrizi, CONEX-Plus researcher at the UC3M’s Department of Electronic Technology.

The science behind the aptasensor 

A photo-electrochemical sensor can be likened to a solar cell or the process of photosynthesis: in both cases, given the presence of light (photons), a specific material (or molecule) is able to generate an electrical current (electrons). “In our case, we used a surface that contains graphitic carbon nitride-cadmium sulphide quantum dots (C3N4-CdS) with photoactive properties. It is on this surface that a specific receptor is immobilised in such a way that, in the presence of the target molecule, it binds to the bioreceptor, thereby reducing the current generation associated with the presence of light. On this particular sensor, the bioreceptor  used is an aptamer that is capable of interacting with the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, hence the name photo-electrochemical aptasensor,” explains Mahmoud Amouzadeh Tabrizi. The results of this and other research by the group concerning the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in saliva were recently published in several scientific journals, such as Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical and Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

“The idea now is to supplement these results, using the research group’s experience, with the development of comprehensive biomedical instruments and diagnostics in order to create a high-sensitivity and specificity, portable and potentially low-cost diagnostic system that can eventually be used in clinical practice,” notes another of the authors, Pablo Acedo, head of the UC3M’s Sensors and Instrumentation Techniques Group (SITec). “We are seeking a diagnosis similar to those currently available when reading blood glucose levels in patients with diabetes, for example. We are also aiming to contact companies that may be interested in these developments,” he adds. 

A critical factor when manufacturing this type of nanomaterial-based electrochemical sensor involves correctly characterising the surface of the material and the receiver that is immobilised on the surface. In order to do this, researchers have used various techniques and technologies, such as scanning electron microscopes (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). “The results obtained from using all of these techniques allow us to ensure that both the manufacture of the desired photosensitive nanomaterial and the immobilisation of the bioreceptor has been properly carried out,” says Pablo Acedo. 

This research is being undertaken within the framework of the BIOPIELTEC-CM (New Technologies for the Manufacture and Optimisation of Tissue: Skin as a Model System; P2018/BAA-4480) project. This consortium, which has received funding from the Regional Government of Madrid and the European Union, aims to bring together leading research groups from the Madrid region to face one of the most significant technological challenges within the biomedical and biotechnological field: developing technologies that manufacture tissue and organs, as well as organ-on-a-chip systems, and the optimisation of all of these technologies for their clinical and industrial application. In addition to this, the research has been made possible thanks to Mahmoud Amouzadeh Tabrizi joining the UC3M as a CONEX-Plus programme researcher, funded by the university and the European Commission through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Actions (GA 801538) as part of the European Horizon 2020 Framework Programme.

More information:

Tabrizi, M.A. Nazari, L.Acedo, P. (2021). A photo-electrochemical aptasensor for the determination of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 receptor-binding domain by using graphitic carbon nitride-cadmium sulfide quantum dots nanocomposite. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, Volume 345, 130377, ISSN 0925-4005, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2021.130377 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092540052100945X 

Tabrizi, M.A. Fernández-Blázquez, J. P. Medina, D.M, Acedo, P. (2022). An ultrasensitive molecularly imprinted polymer-based electrochemical sensor for the determination of SARS-CoV-2-RBD by using macroporous gold screen-printed electrode. Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Volume 196, 113729, ISSN 0956-5663, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2021.113729. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956566321007661 

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Having analysed “Original” productions in the catalogue of Netflix Spain from a diversity point of view, researchers have concluded that most of the titles are produced by American companies, while there are very few Spanish productions. Similarly, when examining linguistic diversity, they also highlight the fact that English is the dominant language in productions. This prevalence of English is offset by a wide range of dubbed and subtitled productions. “However, Netflix’s dubbing and subtitling strategy within the Spanish market has, so far, ignored the linguistic diversity of a country with three co-official languages in certain areas,” says Mª Trinidad García Leiva, lecturer at the UC3M’s Department of Communication and Media Studies and codirector of this project. 

Netflix’s content offering elicits debates about threats that cultural identities may face due to the large amount of American content being offered and the lack of diversity in the origin of their productions. This is why the European Union has reformulated its Audiovisual Media Services Directive, by forcing companies like Netflix to offer at least 30% European productions in its catalogues. This regulatory change has also been analysed by the UC3M’s Audiovisual Diversity research group.  

The results of this study could be of interest to entities within the sector and that are responsible for implementing policies aimed at ensuring audiovisual diversity. The “Audiovisual diversity and online platforms: The case of Netflix” project (CSO2017-83539-R) has received funding from the European Regional Development Fund from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Spanish State Research Agency. 

Currently, the UC3M’s Audiovisual Diversity research group is developing a project called “Diversity and on-demand subscription-based audiovisual services” (PID2019-109639RB-I00), which is being financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. “The aim of research is to describe and analyse, in terms of promoting and/or protecting audiovisual diversity in the industry, the changes caused by the presence of companies offering on-demand subscription-based audiovisual services in the Spanish market. Special attention is being paid to those who operate on a global scale and whose parent companies are located in the United States. In other words, Netflix Spain, HBO Spain, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Disney+”, concludes Luis A. Albornoz.

Bibliography:

Albornoz, L.A. y García Leiva, M.T. (2021). Netflix Originals in Spain: Challenging diversity. European Journal of Communication. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231211012174 

A volunteer programme has been launched within the framework of this project, led by Jesús Bermejo Tirado from the UC3M’s Institute of Culture and Technology, as part of this Open Digital Archaeology Laboratory (LADA, in its Spanish acronym). The activity has just begun and is planned to continue until next May. People interested in the project will meet for two hours a week to work on archaeological materials linked to various archaeological projects within the Community of Madrid.

Volunteers will receive training in different areas, including archaeology and digital humanities, archaeology in the Madrid area, digital tools, open access databases, CAD software (such as Inkscape in vector format and GIMP in raster format), geographic information systems (QGIS), and in the design and management of research in digital formats.

All of the work undertaken by volunteers will be integrated into an open access project and their efforts will be recognised in the credits of these publications, so that they can serve as a record of their participation.

More information:
https://www.uc3m.es/deporte/voluntariado/crowdsourcing_arqueologia

These bio-residues are characterised by high humidity, which requires a drying pre-treatment process before they are processed using conventional thermal technologies (such as pyrolysis, gasification, or dry torrefaction). “This is not an economic option, as a significant amount of energy is used for the drying pre-treatment. In order to solve this, hydrothermal biomass carbonisation (HTC) could be an interesting technology that could be used to process this waste, as the drying pre-treatment is not needed,” explains Jesús Gómez Hernández, from the UC3M’s Department of Thermal and Fluids Engineering’s Energy Systems Engineering research group.

He is one of the authors of an article that was recently published in the scientific journal Renewable Energy, which details how HTC can be used in conjunction with a solar power facility to make the process more sustainable and extract energy from pine residues, corn stover, or rice husks, for example. “The products obtained could be applied to energy production processes, the improvement of soil substrates, supercapacitors, and bio-refineries to create a fossil-fuel-free economy, opening a technological path toward a circular economy,” say the authors of this paper.

The HTC consists of a thermochemical treatment in order to process the biomass in a reactor with hot water (between 180 and 250 degrees) at a high pressure (from 10 to 40 bar) to obtain a high value-added product: hydrocarbon. “In other words, the natural process for the formation of coal from biomass is reproduced under laboratory conditions,” explains Jesús Gómez Hernández. The main drawback is that HTC requires a lot of energy. It is at this point that researchers have introduced an innovation by using another renewable energy source: solar energy.

“Our work analytically models an HTC process for twin-screw reactors coupled to a linear beam-down solar field (LBD) in order to be sustainable in terms of energy,” note the researchers. The system would operate roughly as follows: two sets of reflective mirrors redirect the solar rays to another secondary mirror that concentrates all the solar energy on the screw reactor, which is installed on the floor due to its weight. They have found that this could extract energy in a renewable and sustainable way from different lignocellulosic biomasses, the most abundant raw material for bio-fuel production available on Earth.

More information: 

J.V. Briongos, S. Taramona, J. Gómez-Hernández, V. Mulone, D. Santana (2021). Solar and biomass hybridization through hydrothermal carbonization,Renewable Energy, Volume 177, Pages 268-279,ISSN 0960-1481, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.05.146. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148121008296

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This reveals a potential privacy issue, according to the team of researchers, made up of José González-Cabañas, Ángel Cuevas, Rubén Cuevas, Juan López-Fernández, and David García. “It allows hyper-personalised ads to be created that may have a greater effect on the user who receives them,” explains Ángel Cuevas, from the UC3M’s Telematic Engineering Department.

This issue exposes users to new risks that arise from the combination of interests. There are two types of data within this framework: firstly, data that directly reveals an individual’s identity (such as their ID No., phone number, or email address), which require the individual’s consent in order for companies to use them, and secondly, data that cannot be attributed to a particular user, such as their interests, gender, or age. “What if we can identify an individual using Facebook without their permission just by combining their interests?” the researchers ask. 

From a theoretical point of view, these scientists have demonstrated that very little user information, only four rare and specific interests, make them unique in a database consisting of billions of users. Previous studies have pointed to this, however, they worked with a much smaller database of users, of about one million users. This ability to segment users in a very specific manner is called “nanotargeting” by the researchers and in practical terms, it has been demonstrated that this can be done on Facebook with almost zero cost. In other words, reaching an individual user among the 2,800 million active profiles on the social network is possible.

To do this, researchers conducted an experiment: they created 21 advertising campaigns that were intended to reach three of the authors of this work. “On the one hand, we are the advertiser on Facebook and, on the other, the advertisement is targeted at each of us. We built a model to see how many interests we would need in order to reach a specific person with a high probability, then we validated it using the campaigns,” explains another researcher from the UC3M who wrote this work, José González Cabañas. “By combining 5 random interests, the ad did not reach the chosen user. However, the probability of success increased as the number of interests rose to 7, 9, etc. We saw that in the real experiment, 20 and 22 interests guaranteed success. However, only 4 interests are required, if they are very rare and specific interests.”

From a marketing point of view, this option could be extremely useful for companies that want to create hyper-personalised campaigns for their customers. However, from a user protection perspective “what we are actually asking the advertising platforms is that they take steps that prevent nanotargeting from being carried out. In this sense, the advertising platform should, in accordance with parameters defined by the advertiser and estimations provided by the platform, ensure that the advertisement may reach a group of at least 1000 users, for example, in order to protect an individual’s privacy and avoid nanotargeting,” concludes Ángel Cuevas.

More information: Unique on Facebook: Formulation and Evidence of (Nano)targeting Individual Users with non-PII Data. José González-Cabañas, Ángel Cuevas, Rubén Cuevas, Juan López-Fernández, David García. IMC '21: Proceedings of the 21st ACM Internet Measurement Conference November 2021 Pages 464–479. Published:02 November 2021. https://doi.org/10.1145/3487552.3487861
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3487552.3487861

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During the accreditation process, which began in 2020, the University has been evaluated by various international committees that have assessed both its current situation and how it has evolved in five areas: orientation and strategy; capacity of the human and organisation resources; enabling and facilitating conditions; education, research, and the third mission, and innovation and impact. 

The UC3M is the seventh university in the world to be accredited and the second to obtain the dual accreditation. There are currently 55 universities undertaking the evaluation process. 

The projects involved were: 

• Robotics Lab, which presented a rotary sensor for dense 3D mapping in order to provide mapping services in civil engineering, mining construction, or space documentation sectors;
• Intelmet, with a proposal for a tool based on artificial intelligence about weather data, with the aim of creating a product that improves weather information available to air navigation service providers;
• TERMeG-INTEGRA, with a project to create artificial skin models that can be used for testing drugs and cosmetics;
• Horatso, which has developed eco-efficient mortars that can store thermal energy; 
• Nonlinear Solid Mechanics, a project about implementing routines (analytical calculations and simulations) in order to describe the mechanical behaviour of new materials; 
• Biosol-Gel, which has developed biodegradable coatings containing different pharmaceuticals for patients who require joint prostheses;
• SUNBOX, a low-cost LED-based 3D-printed solar simulator that is modular, lightweight and compact, and
• Flashlawbot, a platform that answers legal questions in order to provide support to lawyers and improve their competitiveness.

During the six-week Cr3ce programme, the market fit of the results of each research project has been validated and each team has been assisted in making decisions about the subsequent development of each project. In addition to this, they have been provided with the tools they need to connect with companies in the industrial sector.

Cr3ce is a programme that takes place partially online and partially on the Leganes and Getafe Campuses, managed by the Vice-President for Scientific Policy’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Service in collaboration with the Open Innovation Community (OIC) and the Association of Spanish Seniors for Technical Cooperation (SECOT, in its Spanish acronym). 

More information

“By using specific geometric arrangements, such as topology, we broke this rotational symmetry so that the sound can slide through the whispering gallery in a fully controlled manner. In addition, we also added gain, a property that allows the wave to be amplified in order to break the chiral symmetry (an object’s property of not being superposable with image)”, notes one of the researchers, Johan Christensen, from the UC3M’s Department of Physics. 

These laboratory tests have demonstrated that when these elements are applied, the resulting sound resembles to the sound of a high-intensity laser beam. This effect could have a significant impact on highly controllable sound guidance and sound direction and could be applied in medical and industrial imaging. In addition to this, this process could also be carried out using other types of subjects, such as light, in future research.

This study was developed with Nanjing University (China), where empirical research tests were conducted. “While at the UC3M, we developed the theory to help us acquire a basic understanding of the physics involved, the work carried out by our Chinese collaborators consisted of wrapping carbon nanotube film around the artificial network elements that form the whispering gallery and connect them to the appropriate electrical circuitry,” explains Christensen.

This study was carried out within the framework of PHONOMETA (Frontiers in Phononics: Party-Time Symmetric Phononic Metamaterials), a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant that is being directed by Johan Christensen (GA No.: 714577). 

More information:

Hu, B., Zhang, Z., Zhang, H. et al (2021). Non-Hermitian topological whispering gallery. Nature 597, 655–659 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03833-4

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For example, we know if they are raising their arm, but we also know if they turn their spine to compensate for difficulty when doing so. All of this information is compiled and entered into the clinical reports that are generated,” says Fernando Fernández, professor at the UC3M’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering and founding partner of Inrobics.

The objective is to improve rehabilitation therapies using imitation-based activities and a series of exercises, as well as provide additional tools for health care staff to optimise these sessions. “For example, for patients like children, interacting with a robot is like playing with a toy. They never think they are going to the hospital for rehabilitation, they think they are going to play. This is the added value that we offer. On the other hand, we are also able to enrich the therapist’s working situation, as they often lack tools adapted to specific patient’s profiles,” says José Carlos Pulido, founding CEO of Inrobics.

In addition to this, the platform, which has been designed by paediatric professionals (cognitive and functional diversity) along with geriatric professionals (active ageing and accompaniment), can also be used at home as a remote rehabilitation resource to improve family balance and quality of life.

The Spanish National Hospital for Paraplegics (Toledo) is the first centre to conduct a clinical trial using these artificial intelligence tools, which have been used with paediatric patients.with spinal cord injuries.

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This document identifies research activity being undertaken by a total of 19 research groups and laboratories at the University in different areas of knowledge. This document has collected interdisciplinary R&D&I and considers work undertaken in the Departments of Social Analysis, Library and Information Sciences, Public Law, Business Administration, Entrepreneurship and Strategy, Statistics, Humanities, Computer Science and Engineering, Systems Engineering and Automation, Telematic Engineering, and Signal Theory and Communications.

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According to this paper, nearly 60% of all students surveyed said that they knew how to tell the difference between real and fake news. Instead, “when we showed them four headlines (2 real and 2 fake), 50.21% guessed correctly and 49.78% did not. In particular, almost 60% recognised (guessed correctly) the fake headline in the case of two COVID-19 headlines, but the ratio was reversed when it came to news about an event, as 52.6% failed to identify a hoax about illegal immigration,” notes Herrero. 

Six out of ten students do not know the names of any journalists

The practice of making access to information available to everyone opens the door to an unprecedented flow of content. However, this does not necessarily translate into quality information. “64% of high school students are unable to name a single journalist. Among those who can name one, they are professionals who have a large presence on social media, such as Jordi Évole or Sara Carbonero”, the researcher explains. “This reflects the reality that teenagers’ media references are not, with a few exceptions, journalists or media professionals, who are supposed to be filters when sharing information, that has been checked and verified by difference sources and that are (or should be) transparent about those sources”. ºº

Teenagers follow current affairs on social media and their media references are influencers. “The most popular networks within this age group are Instagram, with 64.5%, and TikTok, with 10.4%, followed by WhatsApp, 9%, and YouTube, 5%. Respondents mentioned up to 14 different social networks and 31 influencers who they usually look to when consuming media,” says Herrero, who also points to a gender bias: “Up to 463 different influencers were mentioned in the surveys, more than 85% of which were men. Although four women (Marta Díaz, Rivers, Paula Gonu and Dulceida) appear in the Top 10 influencers overall, when asked, only men, no women, appeared in their Top 10. In other words, female referents were only included in the Top 10 of the total sample due to responses provided by women”.

The relationship with content is superficial and impulsive, says the researcher: “We asked them and found that they share things without clicking on the news article, they simply see the headline or the photo which “entices you”, which appeals to basic emotions.” This coincides with one of the perceptions that teachers—the project interviewed head teachers, subject heads, and teachers at public centres in all of the autonomous communities and in Ceuta and Melilla in depth—share: “ESO students compulsively consume audio-visual material without pausing to digest its contents. This makes it easier for everything to be believed because of a lack of critical capacity and a lack of searching for other sources. Thus, the influencer becomes a source of authority.” 

According to the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE, in its Spanish acronym), 70% of the population between the ages of 10 and 15 have access to a mobile phone, their main way of accessing the internet. However, the universalisation of the platform has not matched the development of skills that enable them to deal with the large amount of information they receive daily in a skilful and critical manner, which is precisely what media literacy seeks to do and the reason that it is part of the ESO curriculum.

Guide for ESO teachers

In partnership with maldita.es, a Guide for ESO teachers has been created which provides resources for teachers to work on media literacy in an interdisciplinary way in the classroom. This guide is freely available on the project’s website: https://www.uc3m.es/investigacion/alfamedeso/alfamedESO-maldita

This new surgical navigation system has been developed by engineers from the Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering at UC3M, in collaboration with the Departments of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Neurosurgery, thanks to funding from Instituto de Salud Carlos III under grant PI18/01625.The development and validation of the navigation system have been published in Scientific Reports journal and other publications, as it is the first research to apply personalized planning and surgical navigation to the treatment of craniosynostosis.

Craniosynostosis is a congenital defect affecting 1 in every 2000 live births worldwide. It is a condition in which one or more of the skull’s sutures fuse prematurely, resulting in cranial deformities and asymmetry of the baby’s face. These deformities can cause an increase in intracranial pressure which prevents the brain from growing and developing correctly. In these cases, surgical intervention is necessary to normalise the morphology of the patients’ cranial and orbital regions, avoiding functional and aesthetic problems during later growth.

Surgery to treat craniosynostosis involves cutting the affected bone tissue, reshaping it in the most appropriate way, and replacing it on the patient’s cranium in the correct position to achieve the desired cranial morphology. Accuracy when reshaping and positioning the bone is essential, as slight variations can have an adverse effect on the patient’s long-term functional and aesthetic results. 

Until now, this procedure has been based on subjective assessment and previous experience of the surgeons. After years of working on this project, researchers at the Hospital Gregorio Marañón and UC3M have developed a workflow based on virtual pre-operative planning, tailored to each patient, and surgical navigation technology. 

The triple guidance and navigation system allows surgeons to estimate the exact position of bone fragments, with millimetric accuracy, during the surgical intervention. A high-resolution screen, positioned close to the surgical field, allows medical staff to visualize a three-dimensional representation of the actual position of the bone fragments with respect to the target preoperative plan. This enables surgeons to confirm that they are meeting the objectives defined while planning the surgery and allows them to make unlimited corrections to ensure an optimal outcome. 

In addition to this, this system integrates augmented reality visualization, allowing virtual planning images to be superimposed directly onto the surgical area. This visualization technique substitutes the use of external screens in the operating rooms, allowing surgeons to visualize all the information on the surgical field. This ensures that the surgical team will achieve good aesthetic and functional results for the patients. This augmented reality solution is based on previous work in collaboration between UC3M and the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology at Hospital Gregorio Marañón.

This system has already been used on a total of 7 patients, obtaining optimal surgical results in all of them. According to researchers working on this project, integrating this system into clinical practice will ensure greater accuracy and repeatability in these open cranial modelling surgeries. In addition, the dependency on surgeons’ experience and subjective assessment during the procedure will also be reduced. 

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón are currently working with researchers at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, United States to introduce these new advances in the planning and treatment of craniosynostosis. This surgical navigation and guidance system is an international reference in technological innovation, applying research results to daily clinical practice.

Related scientific publications:

D. García-Mato, S. Ochandiano, M. García-Sevilla, C. Navarro-Cuéllar, J.V. Darriba-Allés, R. García-Leal, J. A. Calvo-Haro, R. Pérez-Mañanes, J.I. Salmerón, J. Pascau.  “Craniosynostosis surgery: workflow based on virtual surgical planning, intraoperative navigation and 3D printed patient-specific guides and templates” Sci. Rep., vol. 9, no. 1, p. 17691, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-54148-4 

D. García-Mato, R. Moreta-Martinez, M. García-Sevilla, S. Ochandiano, R. García-Leal, R. Pérez-Mañanes, J. A. Calvo-Haro, J.I. Salmerón, J. Pascau., “Augmented reality visualization for craniosynostosis surgery” Comput. Methods Biomech. Biomed. Eng. Imaging Vis., vol. 0, no. 0, pp. 1–8, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681163.2020.1834876

García-Mato D, García-Sevilla M, Porras AR, Ochandiano S, Darriba-Allés JV, García-Leal R, Salmerón JI, Linguraru MG, Pascau J. Three-dimensional photography for intraoperative morphometric analysis in metopic craniosynostosis surgery. Int J Comput Assist Radiol Surg. 2021 Feb;16(2):277-287. doi: 10.1007/s11548-020-02301-0. Epub 2021 Jan 8. PMID: 33417161. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11548-020-02301-0

Pose Díez de la Lastra A, García-Duarte Sáenz L, García-Mato D, Hernández-Álvarez L, Ochandiano S, Pascau J. Real-Time Tool Detection for Workflow Identification in Open Cranial Vault Remodeling. Entropy (Basel). 2021 Jun 26;23(7):817. doi: 10.3390/e23070817. PMID: 34206962; PMCID: PMC8303376. https://doi.org/10.3390/e23070817

D. García Mato, A. Porras, S. Ochandiano, G. F. Rogers, R.García-Leal, J.I. Salmerón, J. Pascau, M. Linguraru. Effectiveness of Automatic Planning of Fronto-orbital Advancement for the Surgical Correction of Metopic Craniosynostosis, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery - Global Open: November 2021 - Volume 9 - Issue 11 - p e3937 doi: 10.1097/GOX.0000000000003937 https://doi.org/10.1097/GOX.0000000000003937

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There will also be several guided tours of the science laboratories at the UC3M’s School of Engineering, where the characterisation of the engines that will take us to Mars, controlling air in a wind tunnel, and the development of humanoid robotics is being undertaken. In addition to this, there will be a guided tour of the Prado Museum through the eyes of artists from Rome and Pompeii and a couple of demonstrations in which participants can learn about LiFi connectivity (Light Fidelity) and test a wheelchair simulator using a motion platform and virtual reality glasses.

Several round tables will take place that focus on current topics, such as science and journalism about “vaccines” against fake news, the academic and professional future of motorcycling, Artificial Intelligence in the face of climate change, Chinese management, energy poverty and digitisation, or violence against children. In addition to this, two lectures will address looking back in the audio-visual genres of horror and science fiction, or the ethics and behaviour of androids. On the other hand, participants can visit an exhibition about the work of female scientists and technologists in the main hall of the Leganés Central Library.

Other activities will take place online, such as a webinar about gender and social vulnerability, an online meeting with researchers about rehabilitation and clinical diagnosis through serious games and virtual reality, a virtual didactic walkthrough of induction heating, a webinar about designing infographics for climate change, and another online meeting with female researchers about the risks of technology. 

Activities for the IES (Institute for Secondary Education)

Some activities are aimed specifically at students in their 3rd and 4th year of secondary education, those in their final years of high school, and those undertaking training cycles. Tickets for these activities can be reserved via this website. A concert-conference will take place in the UC3M’s Leganés Auditorium which will deepen the relationship between music and other fields, such as medicine, sport, painting, literature, and cinema. In addition to this, there will be an online meeting to discuss blockchain, micro assets, and digital currency, as well as a workshop about the importance of optics and mirrors for concentrating the sun. The following week will begin with two workshops aimed at educational centres: one about photonics, fake news and scientific methods, and the other about elemental analysis using atomic emission spectroscopy. Finally, there will be a guided exhibition about generating clean energy using large kites and drones, as well as a workshop about experimenting with spatial sound and music of the future.

The UC3M is taking part in this scientific disclosure event which encourages the population to take part and is organised by the Community of Madrid via the Fundación para el Conocimiento madri+d, which aims to get the public actively involved in science, technology, and innovation, as well as encourage scientific vocations among the younger population eliminating gender barriers from the first training cycles. The event is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation’s Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, in its Spanish acronym).

More information: UC3M 2021 Science and Innovation Week website

Laboratory experiments used for this type of study, partially developed at the Institute of Volcanology in Rome, reproduce both the evolution of the shear strength on a point of a fault and the propagation of the seismic rupture on temporal and spatial scale. 

This provides information about the deformation processes that control seismic mechanics. “We are able to measure the exact point at which the phenomenon is happening. In addition to this, we can determine the increase in temperature in very small areas, which would not be possible using other techniques. The techniques we have used in this research can withstand extreme situations and temperatures greater than 1,200 degrees,” notes Carmen Vázquez, lecturer at the UC3M’s Department of Electronic Technology and one of the researchers taking part in this study.

Optical fibre was used to measure the temperature between two tectonic faults during an earthquake, as this technique can be used to take measurements in environments that are difficult to access. 

It is also an economical technology and allows measurements to be taken remotely. “We have two stones; in one stone we made a hole that we fed the optical fibre through, we then measure the temperature on the contact surface between the two surfaces. This simulates a seismic test, in other words, what might happen during an earthquake or volcanic process,” says Arántzazu Núñez-Cascasm, a Juan de la Cierva Visiting Professor at the UC3M’s Department of Electronic Technology and researcher on the project. 

The technique used for this study can also be used in other industrial sectors. “It could be applied to industrial machine processes where friction occurs between two materials which causes a sharp increase in temperature. It would allow us to know whether the machine processes are adequate and, therefore, whether the work tool is being damaged or if there will be any subsequent breakages,” concludes Carmen Vázquez.

Bibliography: Aretusini, S., Núñez-Cascajero, A., Spagnuolo, E., Tapetado, A., Vázquez, C., & Di Toro, G.(2021). Fast and localized temperature measurements during simulated earthquakes in carbonate rocks. Geophysical Research Letters, 48(9). https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL091856 

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The information in each section is displayed in a descriptive and integrated way, which makes it easier to analyse the evolution of different parameters in regard to the previous period. In addition to this, data and graphs can be downloaded as spreadsheets to make the information easier to access and visualise.

An update to this report is that the information about scientific production is linked to the UC3M’s “Research Portal”, where readers can access and consult updated information. “This portal has become the main repository for collecting the University’s scientific output. It also allows us to consult the technologies that have been developed by our researchers,” says the UC3M’s Vice-President for Scientific Policy, Juan José Vaquero.

Scientific output, funding raised and attracting talent

In regard to these results, the significant increase in the amount of funding raised in research and transfer in 2019-2020 is worth noting; a 55.6 percent increase with respect to the previous period. 25.2 million Euros from European programmes are a major contributor to this figure, representing an increase of 50 percent compared to the previous period. The funding raised through R&D contracts with companies for the transfer of knowledge from the university to the company is also worth noting. This amount increased by 27 percent with respect to the previous period and remains one of the main sources of funding raised through the modality of contracts, Article 83.

The data collected in this report about scientific production reveals that there has been a positive evolution, particularly for scientific articles, which increased by 13 percent when compared to the same previous period.

In terms of attracting research talent, 46 PhD candidates joined the University in 2019-2020 through various public calls for applications. These calls include the Conex-Plus programme, European Research Council (ERCs) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie programmes, Ramón y Cajal and Juan de la Cierva grants, or talent attraction programmes within the Community of Madrid, among others.

In regard to transfer, this report includes data about patent applications (10 national and 13 international), companies founded at the University (25 start-ups and 11 spin-offs), current software registrations (97), and technological offers (162). The report also includes information about funding secured through contracts with companies and other entities (almost 8 million Euros) and the number of companies that the UC3M collaborates with on international projects (188). 

More information:

Report on Research and Transfer 2019-2020 website

“Over the past five years, image analysis has been shifting away from traditional mathematical- and observational-based methods towards data-driven processing and artificial intelligence. This major development makes detecting and identifying valuable information in images easier, faster, and increasingly automated in almost every research field. When it comes to life science, deep-learning-, a subfield of artificial intelligence, is showing an increasing potential for bioimage analysis. Unfortunately, using the deep-learning models often requires coding skills that few life scientists possess. To make the process easier, image analysis experts from several institutions have developed deepImageJ. An open-source plugin described in a paper published this month in Nature Methods", explains one of the project's principal investigators, Arrate Muñoz Barrutia. She is a professor at UC3M Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering and senior researcher at IISGM.

Using neural networks in biomedical research

This type of artificial intelligence involves training a computer to perform a task by drawing on large amounts of previously annotated data. It is like CCTV systems that perform facial recognition or mobile-camera apps that enhance photos. Sophisticated computational architectures called artificial neural networks are the basis of deep-learning models. Multiple processing layers form these networks, and the layers can mathematically model the data at different levels of abstraction.As previously commented, developers train the neural networks to solve specific research purposes, such as recognising certain types of cells or tissue lesions or improving image quality.

Once trained, the information needed to perform the task, called the neural network model, is stored as a structured file in the computer and can be easily reused with deepImageJ. Namely, deepImageJ enables researchers worldwide to apply them with just a few clicks. “This application bridges the gap between artificial neural networks and the researchers who use them. A life-sciences researcher can now ask an IT engineer to design and train an automatic learning algorithm to carry out a specific task. The scientist can then use the development easily through a user interface, without seeing a single line of code,”observedDaniel Sage. He’s a researcher from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne(EPFL Center for Imaging) in Switzerland, who is supervising the project’s development. 

Open-source, collaborative software

The plugin is released as open-source software and free of charge. It is a collaborative resource that enables engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians and biologists to work together more efficiently. Namely, researchers worldwide can contribute to improving deepImageJ by sharing their user experiences, proposing improvements, and requiring updates. 

“Our objective is for this resource to be used more and more by researchers from any conventional computer and without needing to have any programming knowledge. So that as many researchers can use the plugin as possible, our research team is also developing virtual seminars, training material, and online resources. The materials are designed with both programmers and life scientists in mind so that users can quickly come to grips with the new method. The more users who employ the tool, the more interaction between developers and biomedical researchers will be enhanced. This interaction will thus accelerate the dissemination of new technological developments. Above all, the advancement of biomedical research,” Professor Muñoz Barrutia pointed out. 

Publication in Nature Methods

The study’s principal authors are Arrate Muñoz Barrutia (UC3M and IISGM) and Daniel Sage (EPFL Center for Imaging). Estibaliz Gómez de Mariscal (UC3M and IISGM), Carlos García López de Haro (UC3M and IISGM), Michael Unser (EPFL Center for Imaging) and LaurèneDonati (EPFL Center for Imaging), and collaborators from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology inStockholm (Sweden), Wei Ouyang and Emma Lundberg form the collaborators' team. They have been made possible for the deepImageJ project's development and most relevant advances to be published inNature Methods. The latter isa monthly scientific publication reviewed by editors from the Nature Publishing Group,providing relevant information on new scientific techniques and laboratory methods.  This work has received financial support fromMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, AgenciaEstatal de Investigación, of the Spanish Government, European Regional Development fund, the COST action NEUBIAS, 2017 Leonardo grant of the BBVA Foundation, EPFL Center for Imaging, Erling-Persson Family Foundation and Kunt and Alice Wallenger Foundation. 

For more information:

Manuscript  

Web page

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Those interested in the Fair can register at forempleo.uc3m.es and will be able to share their CVs with companies when they visit their stands during the event. In addition to this, the virtual Fair offers university students the opportunity to talk directly to recruiters, via chats or video calls, register for job and internship offers, as well as attend corporate presentations, talks about careers and employment, and presentations about current topics that will contribute to their knowledge of their career options. 

163 organisations from a range of sectors, including banking, consultancy, law firms, consumer goods, IT, engineering, official bodies, and other organisations such as the Banco de España, the CNI (National Intelligence Centre) and the OCDE (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), have confirmed that they will be taking part in the Fair so far. Forempleo has secured special sponsorship from Accenture, BBVA, INDRA, EY, and SALESFORCE again.

The UC3M maintains a high number of professional placements for its students. According to the most recent study available (2018), 93.4% of its graduates found work the year following their graduation. The University’s ability to attract talent, the quality of education and the support it provides for its students in terms of their employability contribute to this figure. The “UC3M Professional Guidance and Employment” Service, managed by the Universidad Carlos III Foundation, works with more than 3,000 companies to provide internships and implement other employability support initiatives.

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which excels in research, teaching and innovation. It ranks among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and appears among the best Spanish universities in terms of employability of its graduates, according to the most recent edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global Employability Ranking and the QS Graduate Employability Ranking 2022. The UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality distinctions, such as the EUR-ACE label in the field of Engineering and an AACSB accreditation in Business and Finance programmes, among others.

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Therefore, in the context of climate change, “if people perceive it as an imminent risk, the social norm of saving energy on heating and/or air conditioning within households may increase, which would lead to lower emissions; however, as long as the perceived risk does not pose a threat, or decreases, these social norms are adhered to less,” note the authors of this paper, which was recently published in the Nature Communications journal.

Another case where the results of this study could be applied is the COVID pandemic. “Since the vaccinations have been implemented, society perceives the risk as being lower. This leads to two things that align with our study; on the one hand, in groups where there were not many people complying with the regulation of wearing a mask, such as among younger age groups, this norm has suddenly disappeared. On the other hand, however, older people continue to wear them outside, even when it is no longer compulsory to do so. In the case of the latter group, a habit has been formed due to previously strict mask wearing regulations (we should also consider the pressure exerted by those wearing masks on those who did not),” notes Anxo Sánchez.

In order to conduct their research, the scientists designed a social experiment consisting of 300 participants, who were split into groups of six. They were asked to make one decision every day for a month: they were asked to contribute a number of points (as if they were money) in order to prevent a catastrophe. If they did not “invest” enough, the catastrophe would strike and everyone would lose their points. They were then asked about their expectations in regard to what other participants would contribute and what others expected of them, which allowed scientists to identify the social norm and to study the behaviour of those who assimilated these cooperative norms. 

This study is framed within the context of collective (or emergent) phenomena observed in complex systems, with a perspective inspired by physics. In this sense, each individual had their own expectations and norms, but modified them by observing others, and only when these expectations and norms were shared by many people did they become social norms. 

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Bibliography: Szekely, A., Lipari, F., Antonioni, A. et al. Evidence from a long-term experiment that collective risks change social norms and promote cooperation. Nat Commun 12, 5452 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25734-w  More info: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25734-w

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The new knowledge map incorporates 44 research groups and the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Joint Institute - Santander Big Data Institute (IBiDAT, in its Spanish acronym), which carries out cross-section scientific work related to the area of Health Sciences and Engineering, both at a national and international level.

This report is compiled of interdisciplinary R&D and involves different areas of knowledge, in addition to bioengineering, it includes areas such as physics, mathematics, other engineering or social sciences disciplines, such as statistics, economics, law and documentation.

UC3M R&D in the area of biomedical technologies and health sciences

The aim of this project is to develop a new system software for future Exascale computers in order to optimise massive data handling operations so that applications can run faster and therefore perform better. "It is quite a ground-breaking project when you look at what has traditionally happened in high-performance computing. This is because, for the first time, we are dealing with the optimisation and readjustment of the I/O system while the applications are running," says Jesús Carretero, a lecturer in the UC3M’s Department of Computer Science and head of the ADMIRE project at the University.

The main technological challenge facing the research team on the ADMIRE project involves creating software that optimises I/O management, i.e., information flows. This software must be able to adapt dynamically to computational requirements and the ways in which information is stored. For this, a global software layer is needed that interacts with all the components of the system in order to coordinate them. Essentially, it must be able to adapt and manage in an efficient and dynamic manner the storage resources available. This can be achieved by means of machine learning at all levels of the system hierarchy.

The project aims to streamline all the data movement in a computer, as well as to minimise this movement between the storage system and the compute nodes. This requires creating a new layer of system software and adapting applications. "High performance computing typically involves what's called offline running. In other words, users can leave their jobs running, for hours or days, and after a certain amount of time it is completed and the results are delivered. What our project proposes is that, while these jobs are running, the operating system itself can optimise the performance of the system so that they run faster," says Carretero. 

This research project, funded by the EuroHPC JU (GA 956748), involves fourteen partners from various European countries: the UC3M and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) in Spain; DataDirect Networks, ParaTools and INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique) in France; Forschungszentrum Jülich, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Max Planck Institutes and Experts and Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, in Germany; the Italian companies Cineca, E4 Computer Engineering and CINI (Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per l'informatica), the KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden; and the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center in Poland. 

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In this eighth edition of the U-Multirank report, the UC3M obtained the maximum rating of very good performance in thirteen indicators (five more than last year), equal with the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña and second only to the Universidad Pompeu Fabra. The UC3M also obtained a good performance rating in eight other indicators.

According to the ranking, the UC3M particularly excels in two areas: knowledge transfer (where aspects such as publications with industrial partners, private fundraising and patents with companies are assessed); and international focus (where aspects such as student and faculty mobility, foreign language degrees and international doctorates are assessed).

This international ranking includes results for 1,945 universities in 96 countries around the world and analyses more than 12,000 study programmes in 30 different subjects. Based on empirical data, U-Multirank compares institutions with similar profiles and allows users to create customised rankings by selecting indicators according to their interests and priorities. The data used by U-Multirank comes from a variety of sources: the institutions themselves, international bibliometric and patent databases, ministries and surveys of more than 100,000 students at participating universities.

The U-Multirank project, promoted by the European Commission, is supported by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the EU's Erasmus+ programme and the Santander Group. It is conducted by way of an independent consortium led by the Centre for Higher Education (CHE) in Germany, the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) at the University of Twente, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at the University of Leiden (both in the Netherlands) and the Fundación Conocimiento y Desarrollo (CYD) in Spain.

U-Multirank 2021website: https://www.umultirank.org

There will be a public interdisciplinary colloquium about European construction and sustainability held at 7pm on Friday 24th September at the UC3M’s Madrid Puerta de Toledo Campus, which will bring academics and journalists together to discuss the subject and address different international research related to this field.

In addition to this, researchers who are taking part in European scientific projects at the UC3M will organise shows, workshops, guided tours and webinars that will take place in the afternoon on Friday 24th and Saturday 25th September. These activities will address a range of topics, such as experimental aerodynamics, 5G communications, the future of plasma rockets, magnetic smart materials, powder metallurgy, and scientific engineering vocations.

These activities at the UC3M, organised by the Vice Rector for Communication and Culture, are part of the European Researchers’ Night, an event that hosts numerous free scientific outreach activities and has been held in more than 300 cities across Europe at the same time since 2005. This project is being promoted in Madrid by the Ministry of Science, Universities, and Innovation, coordinated by the Madri+d Foundation and funded by the European Union as part of the Horizon 2020 Programme for research and innovation under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, with grant agreement number 101.036.010. Its main goals are to bring the researchers closer to the local population, so that they can get to know and understand their work and the benefits it brings to society, to foster scientific vocations among students, and promote entrepreneurial spirit. This event also has the support of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

More information:

Website for the European Researchers’ Night at the UC3M 

The system has been created using commercial LED lights which light up in spectral ranges, from ultraviolet to infrared, and is programmed to be controlled via a user interface. This system is made from 3D-printed modules, each of which has its own particular function.

One of the advantages of this device is that it is easy to reproduce, which reduces the cost of simulators that are currently available on the market by a third. “The simulators currently on the market are large and expensive, and also have a limited maintenance and service life. This model seeks to serve a niche market: public and private research centres who have an interest in creating a team that is dedicated to measuring the degradation of experimental cells at a low cost; and solar energy companies who want to develop their own products,” says Eduardo López Fraguas, a PhD student at the UC3M and the main driving force behind Sunbox.

Its main application is characterising solar cells. However, it can also be used in other sectors, such as the textile industry, which needs to analyse how a material reacts to a certain type of light.

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This book, aimed at all those “of woman born”, to quote Adrienne Reich's words, examines motherhood through a medley of voices from academia and related to the field of Communication: “It encompasses a wide range of themes from diverse areas of culture, such as painting, music, literature, photographic representation, cinema, television series, advertising or social networks”, noted the book’s other co-editor, Carmen Ciller, Professor in the UC3M Department of Communication, who has written a chapter about the motherhood experience, and its reflection in film.

Many movies tackle the theme of motherhood in one way or another. In her chapter, Carmen Ciller examines films such as “A Woman Under the Influence” 

(1974), by John Cassavetes; “My Life Without Me”, (2003), by Isabel Coixet; and “Julieta” (2016), by Pedro Almodovar.  In fact, this director is one of the filmmakers that has delved most into the theme of motherhood in his work, according to Carmen Ciller, who highlights the presence of the word itself in titles such as  “Todo sobre mi madre” (1999) (All About My Mother) and the recently released “Madres Paralelas”, (2021) (Parallel Mothers). “A movie is a construction by the author, who is including a subjective and personal vision about what she or he feels and wishes to project.  From this point of view, the majority of narratives about motherhood are geared towards the personal ambit and not so much towards its social and political repercussions.  And that is one of the main questions that creators would need to address”, Professor Ciller notes. 

This book presents a wide-ranging collection of issues and approaches related to motherhood.  One chapter focuses on the experience during the recent lockdown (that by Nancy Berthier), while others return to examine the era of punk (Angels Bronsoms and Rosa Franquet) or the representation of these types of themes in Instagram (Eva Herrero).  Additionally, other texts deal with aspects such as abortion and fetus graves (Giulia Colaizzi), motherhood and resistance (Margarita Ledo), childbirth as a frontier (Carmen Arocena), motherhood and the film and television series narrative (Carmen Ciller and Charo Lacalle) and the representation of motherhood in the apochryphal gospels and the Bible (Pilar Carrera).

In this chapter on the biblical text, the author focuses attention on the female and maternal figure that appears in some apochryphal gospels and the texts of Genesis in the Old Testament. “I was interested in examining the Bible since a large part of the modern western imaginary is inspired by certain readings and interpretations of sacred texts. For example, it is said that Eve tempted Adam by offering him the apple, but not that Eve was absolutely fascinated by the dimension of knowledge”, Professor Carrera explains. “She wants to learn, she wants to know, that is why she eats from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil… it is eminently a desire for adventure and for knowledge, an intellectual dimension. And this foray into the terrain of creation and knowledge is punished, precisely, with “pain in childbearing’”, she continues.  That is, the dimensions of knowing, creation, and motherhood are all intertwined “in a way that is neither coincidental nor innocent”, in the words of the author, who concludes: “in reality it is about punishment for the audacity of thinking, for fascination with knowing”.

This book forms part of Cátedra +Media, a new collection from the publishing company, made up of short collective essays about contemporary issues. Other published volumes are: “El cuerpo y la cámara” (The Body and The Camera), by Margarita Ledo; “Basado en hechos reales” (Based on Actual Facts), by Pilar Carrera; “Espacios de intimidad y cultura material” (Spaces of Intimacy and Material Culture), by Fernando Broncano; and  We have come to not see", by Jordi Teixidor, forthcoming.

Bibliographic reference: Carrera, Pilar; Ciller, Carmen (2021). Maternidades. Políticas de la representación. Ed. Cátedra +media. Madrid, España, 20/05/2021. ISBN 978-84-376-4280-2

https://www.catedra.com/libro/masmedia/maternidades-pilar-carrera-9788437642802/ 

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This report from the IUNE Observatory, coordinated by the INAECU Institute (UAM-UC3M), monitors R&D&I within the Spanish University System (SUE, in its Spanish acronym) using a set of indicators based on several large aspects: scientific activity, analysis by areas of knowledge, training capacity, competitiveness, funding, innovation, and teaching staff.

Increase in university scientific production

In regard to scientific production, a growing trend in the number of publications in the Web of Science (WoS) has been observed, with similar year-on-year rates of change since 2016. In addition to this, publications in the first quartile journals of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), those that have had the most impact, increased between 2017 and 2019 for the entire SUE. The Autonomous Communities of Catalonia, Madrid, Andalusia, and Valencia have the highest number of publications in the WoS for the period between 2010 and 2019, accumulating 25%, 18%, 14%, and 11% of the total national production.  The five universities with the highest volume of publications are the University of Barcelona (UB, in its Spanish acronym), UAB, the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM, in its Spanish acronym), the University of Valencia (UV, in its Spanish acronym), and the UAM.

In relation to the ability to attract national and international funding, the main institutions that stand out are those that form part of the A4U (the UAB, the UAM, the UC3M, and the UPF). In terms of the volume of National Plan projects per 100 members of teaching staff, the five universities that occupy the top positions are the UPF, the UC3M, the UAM, the UB and the University of Lleida (UDL, in its Spanish acronym). For international research projects within the European Union’s Framework Programme per 100 members of teaching staff, the UPF, the UC3M, the UAB, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC, in its Spanish acronym), and the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM, in its Spanish acronym) stand out.

Innovation, training, and attracting research talent

In the field of innovation, performance is addressed in aspects such as patents or revenue derived from R&D work with companies. In terms of the number of national patents, as in previous editions of the Observatory, the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), followed by the University of Seville (US, in its Spanish acronym), and the Valencia Polytechnic University (UPV, in its Spanish acronym) stand out. In relation to performance, when calculated based on the number of teaching staff, the University of Burgos (UBU, in its Spanish acronym) and the UC3M appear in the top positions in 2019. In terms of revenue generated by R&D contracts and consultations per 100 members of teaching staff, the highest values correspond to two Madrid universities, the Alcalá University (UAH, in its Spanish acronym) and the UC3M, two Catalan universities, the UB and Rovira i Virgili University (URV, in its Spanish acronym), and the University of Cantabria (UC, in its Spanish acronym).

In the area of formative capacity and talent attraction, indicators such as the number of doctoral theses per 100 members of teaching staff are analysed and institutions such as the UAB, the UAM, the University of Girona (UdG, in its Spanish acronym), the UPF, and the URV stand out. For FPU contracts (grants for training university teaching staff) per 100 members of teaching staff, the University of Granada (UGR, in its Spanish acronym) stands out, followed by the University of Almería (UAL, in its Spanish acronym), the University of Córdoba (UCO, in its Spanish acronym), the University of Málaga (UMA, in its Spanish acronym), and the UV. In terms of FPI contracts (predoctoral grants for training doctoral students), the five public universities with the highest ratings in 2019 are the UPF, the UC3M, the UAM, the URV, and the UB. For Juan de la Cierva contracts per 100 members of teaching staff, the UPF, the UC3M, the UAM, the UdG, and the University of La Rioja stand out, while for Ramón y Cajal contracts per 100 members of teaching staff, the five universities with the highest ratings in 2019 are the UPF, the UAM, the UB, the UAM, and the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC, in its Spanish acronym).

The IUNE Observatory is currently supported by the Spanish Ministry of Universities, as well as by a large number of institutions, such as the Spanish National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Conference of Spanish University Presidents (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Agency for Quality of the Catalan University System (AQU Catalunya), and the Agency for Quality of the Basque University System (Unibasq).

More information: www.iune.es

Researchers have already developed an initial strategy for planning routes and preventing collisions for drone swarms in three-dimensional environments, in an article published in the Sensors journal. In order to do this, they first designed a 3D model that simulates an urban environment, where they established take-off and landing zones. Then they tested a planning algorithm that was responsible for calculating optimal, fluid routes for a set of drones. Finally, they implemented different measures (flights at different altitudes, distance control, etc.) to obtain a strategy for avoiding possible collisions.

Researchers at the LABYRINTH project are developing these technologies within the framework of U-Space, a new European drone air traffic management system led by the SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) initiative. This new framework is designed to integrate low-level drone operations, below 120 metres (400 feet), safely and efficiently into European airspace.

“Air controllers use ATM (Air Traffic Management) to safely manage the traffic of commercial aircraft. Similarly, developing an Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) system that allows drones to share airspace with other drones and aircraft is imperative,” explains Francisco Valera, another scientist taking part in this project and a member of NETCOM (Networks and Communications Services) at the UC3M. This research group, along with Telefonica I+D and the IMDEA Networks Institute, recently presented an experimental study about the use of mobile technologies in drone networks in the Sensors journal.

Possible applications

Drones can be useful in different applications, such as delivering and transporting goods, monitoring in different environments, or accessing places that are difficult to reach in emergency situations, for example. However, there have been concerns about the safety of these flights until now, which have limited their use and it is often illegal to use drones in certain public areas. It is estimated that by 2035 there will be approximately 400,000 drones flying within Europe, so the biggest challenge in this regard will be safely managing drone traffic in cities and other areas with high levels of congestion.

The foreseen applications within the LABYRINTH project framework concern different environments in Spain. For example, work is being undertaken with the Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT, in its Spanish acronym) to use drones to improve road transport, analysing aspects such as speed control, measuring the distance between vehicles, identifying license plates, and following up on and providing support in the event of accidents. Another initiative with the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA, in its Spanish acronym) is intending to use drones at airports to control unauthorised access, inspect tracks, or use them as a deterrent against birds. In the case of managing emergencies at large gatherings (such as at concerts or sporting events), a collaboration with the SAMUR-Protección Civil of Madrid is in place for pre-emergency surveillance operations (identifying exit routes, medical care points or danger zones, calculating street capacity) and assistance with medical operations (faster routes to incidents, transporting specialised material or medicine).

LABYRINTH (Ensuring drone traffic control and safety) is a project funded by the European Union’s H2020 Programme (GA 861696) that is being coordinated by the UC3M. This R&D&I consortium is made up of 13 research centres and industrial partners from 5 countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, and Italy). The Spanish institutions that are participating, along with the UC3M, are the Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT), the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), the SAMUR-ProtecciónCivil of Madrid and the companies Expace on Board Systems, Inncome, PONS Seguridad Vial and Telefonica I+D. The Western Ligurian Sea Port Authority (Italy), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the German Institute for Standardization (DIN), the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), and the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) are also taking part in the project.

More information: Website for the LABYRINTH project

Bibliography: 

Blanca López, Javier Muñoz, Fernando Quevedo, Concepción A. Monje, Santiago Garrido, Luis E. Moreno (2021). Path Planning and Collision Risk Management Strategy for Multi-UAV Systems in 3D Environments. Sensors. Key: A Volume: 21, N. 4414 (2021), p. 1-21. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/s21134414

VictorSanchez-Aguero, Luis F. Gonzalez, Francisco Valera, Ivan Vidal y Rafael A. López da Silva (2021). Cellular and Virtualization Technologies for UAVs: An Experimental Perspective. Sensors. Volume 21(9), N. 3093; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/s21093093 

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Quantification of the cancer cells that remain after treatment allows relapses to be anticipated and subsequent treatment to be adjusted to the individual, reducing mortality levels. “On the other hand, this system allows us to develop more and better drugs and helps us avoid using unnecessary treatments, which also reduces the cost of healthcare,” says Barrio.

Cancer is currently the third leading cause of death around the world. In 2020, 2.7 million people were diagnosed in the European Union and 1.3 million lost their lives because of this disease. In addition to this, the total cost of treatment within Europe amounted to 199 trillion Euros, according to data provided by the company. 

Altum Sequencing is working with the UC3M to train predoctoral staff by adding to its team of PhD students from the University over a period of three years. The UC3M’s Industrial PhD programme is facilitating multidisciplinary collaboration for the development of big data techniques, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, with the aim of accelerating the results of biomedical research. In addition to providing training, Industrial PhD programmes promote the transfer of knowledge and synergies between the University and the industrial sector.

This spin-off of the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid is also collaborating in different clinical trials and has marketed this technology with a Chinese company to be used in the Asian market.  

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He has designed the methodology for this project which includes numerical simulations and mathematical models that will be validated using high-speed impact experiments. “The success of this proposal would be a real revolution in the design and calculation of metal impact protection structures used in the aerospace, aeronautics, automotive, and civil safety industries, allowing 3D printing to be used to optimise its resistance, reduce its weight and, thus, its manufacturing and maintenance costs,” says the researcher.

The BBVA Foundation’s Leonardo Grants aim to support science and culture in order to promote projects belonging to researchers and cultural creators between the ages of 30 and 45 who are in the intermediate period of their careers. These grants support 59 innovative personal projects in 11 areas of knowledge. This is a highly competitive call for proposals, as 1,615 applications were received, from which the projects considered to be of the highest excellence were selected by an evaluation committee comprised of independent experts.

The name of these BBVA Foundation grants draws inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) as a universal symbol of curiosity and passion for knowledge, the opening up and continuous exploration of new fields and problems, as well as dialogue between natural and life sciences, technology, humanities, and the arts.

More information:

59 Leonardo Grants awarded to Researchers and Cultural Creators in 9 areas of science and culture

Currently, traditional storage systems cannot manage the extreme scale of this data, say the researchers. “The biggest challenge for new massive computing infrastructures is not their computing capacity, but rather processing and moving data,” explains Francisco Javier García Blas, associate professor at the UC3M’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering and ASPIDE coordinator. It is at this point that the results obtained within the framework of this European R&D&I project can be particularly useful, as they contribute to the definition of a new programming model, APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), and of methodologies for expressing data-intensive tasks in Exascale systems. “In addition to this, practically all of the software being developed is freely available to the community,” he adds.

The framework developed in the ASPIDE project can be used for facilitating the design of software that is commonly used in supercomputing and Big Data-related sectors. The framework has two big benefits. First, it improves the performance of applications using task scheduling, data locality, and intensive parallelism techniques. Second, it implements a processing infrastructure, namely AIDE, which provides a flexible development mechanism of data-intensive application.

Researchers have applied the advantages of these utilities and programming mechanisms to multiple use cases used in the project with a direct reach and impact at a societal level. On the one hand, they have accelerated the massive processing of magnetic resonance studies, which are used to gather metrics about the brain’s microstructure and connectivity, in order to improve the diagnosis of mental illnesses. In addition to this, they have applied Deep Learning techniques to the automatic detection of parasites in beehives, with the aim of improving the bees’ quality of life and preventing the decline of this pollinating species. Finally, the technology developed has also been applied to massive data processing in urban environments and mobile telephony industries.

ASPIDE (ExAscale ProgramIng models for extreme Data procEssing) is a project funded by the EU H2020 Programme (GA 801091) that is coordinated by the UC3M. This R&D&I consortium is made up of both academic and industrial institutions, as well as of health research institutions from six European countries. Its project partners include the University of Calabria (Italy), the Universität Klagenfurt (Austria), research centres such as the Poznan Supercomputing and Network Centre (Poland), and the Institute e-Austria Timisoara, companies such as BULL/ATOS (France) and INTEGRIS S.p.A. (Italy), and institutions such as the ServicioMadrileño de Salud (SERMAS) in Spain.

More information:

The ASPIDE project website 

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With a Degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, a Master’s Degree in Communication Systems and Digital Technologies, and a PhD in Applied Acoustics from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, the UC3M lecturer, Ana Tajadura, has undertaken research at various international centres, such as the “Lab of Action & Body” at the Royal Holloway, University of London (United Kingdom), at the NTT Communication Science Laboratories (Japan), and at the University College London’s Interaction Centre. During her career, she has led multidisciplinary teams and projects that focused on advancing research into the perception of our bodies using technology, as well as designing body-centred interfaces that support people’s needs. In this regard, she has worked with doctors on studies with physically inactive people, those with chronic pain, eating disorders, and those who have suffered strokes.

The other recipients of the Banco Sabadell Foundation Awards were as follows: The Award for Economic Research was awarded to Monica Martínez Bravo, Doctor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for her contributions to the field of political economy and economic development; the Award for Biomedical Research went to Guadalupe Sabio, Doctor at the University of Extremadura in collaboration with the British Medical Research Council in Dundee, for her contributions to the understanding of why obesity causes cardiometabolic diseases.

Por su parte, Cyclomed Technologies está desarrollando un acelerador de partículas, de fácil uso e instalación, que permitirá realizar desde la producción hasta la aplicación de isótopos radioactivos para marcar anticuerpos. El isótopo radioactivo es un átomo inestable que al desintegrarse emite una huella que se puede detectar. Los anticuerpos marcados por estos isótopos permiten iniciar medicinas personalizadas y tratamientos específicos para cada persona. Así, este desarrollo ayudaría a la mejora del diagnóstico, tratamiento y seguimiento de la evolución de la enfermedad de cada paciente. Además, reduciría costes y aceleraría el proceso industrial del desarrollo de fármacos. Esta spin-off cuenta con el apoyo de CIEMAT y la UC3M, de la empresa industrial ANTEC, de Chasing Science, la Fundación para el conocimiento Madri+d y el Parque Científico de Madrid, así como Mind the Gap-Fundación Botín y NEOTEC- CDTI como principales inversores.

Con la firma de este acuerdo, la UC3M  participa en seis empresas de base tecnológica. Todas ellas están apoyadas por el programa de creación y participación en Spin-offs de la Universidad, ubicado en su Parque Científico.

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Por su parte, Cyclomed Technologies está desarrollando un acelerador de partículas, de fácil uso e instalación, que permitirá realizar desde la producción hasta la aplicación de isótopos radioactivos para marcar anticuerpos. El isótopo radioactivo es un átomo inestable que al desintegrarse emite una huella que se puede detectar. Los anticuerpos marcados por estos isótopos permiten iniciar medicinas personalizadas y tratamientos específicos para cada persona. Así, este desarrollo ayudaría a la mejora del diagnóstico, tratamiento y seguimiento de la evolución de la enfermedad de cada paciente. Además, reduciría costes y aceleraría el proceso industrial del desarrollo de fármacos. Esta spin-off cuenta con el apoyo de CIEMAT y la UC3M, de la empresa industrial ANTEC, de Chasing Science, la Fundación para el conocimiento Madri+d y el Parque Científico de Madrid, así como Mind the Gap-Fundación Botín y NEOTEC- CDTI como principales inversores.

Con la firma de este acuerdo, la UC3M  participa en seis empresas de base tecnológica. Todas ellas están apoyadas por el programa de creación y participación en Spin-offs de la Universidad, ubicado en su Parque Científico.

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In addition to this, by receiving a single optical signal, the system can also monitor temperature changes in the fibre core, energy distribution using optical means at different network points, and the state of the communication channel used within the fibre. “If lots of energy is sent, the temperature inside the fibre might increase and, therefore, could be damaged. This system helps us know how much energy we are sending and make sure that the infrastructure we are using to send that energy is in good condition and we are not damaging it,” notes Vázquez.

The system can also be integrated into the communications channel itself, with minimal insertion losses and monitoring on a different control channel to the channel being used to send energy. Currently, there is no commercial system that integrates this type of technique, according to the research team.

This patent has been created in collaboration with the ITEAM-UPV’s Photonics Research Labs, who manufactured the semi-reflective mirrors embedded in the optical fibres. “Fibre-manufactured devices monitor the power reaching the nodes in real time, while indicating the temperature, without affecting the power of the data being transmitted. This is the basis for the technique developed by the UC3M group,” notes Salvador Sales, professor and researcher at the ITEAM-UPV. 

The results of research published recently in the Journal of Lightwave Technology scientific journal, which is co-edited by the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the IEEE Photonics Society, show some of the applications that the developed invention may have.

This patent has been developed within the framework of a wider line of research, which has obtained a set of results. BlueSPACE (5G PPP BlueSpace Project Grant 762055) is a three-year European research project, led by Eindhoven University of Technology, that aims to develop next-generation wireless technologies. BlueSpace aims to contribute technologies to increase the speed of the current network, while seeking to reduce energy consumption by using centralised technologies and multicore fibres. The UC3M’s contributions to remote light-power have been evaluated in order to be part of the innovative technologies funded by the European Union and of Innovation Radar, an initiative from the European Commission.  

Bibliography: 

Fahad M. A. Al-Zubaidi, Student Member, IEEE, J. D. Lopez Cardona, D. S. Montero y C. Vázquez  (2021). Optically Powered Radio-over-Fiber Systems in Support of 5G Cellular Networks and IoT. Journal of Lightwave Technology. https://doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2021.3074193 

Patent Reference:

https://consultas2.oepm.es/InvenesWeb/detalle?referencia=P201931134 

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The U-Ranking considered both teaching and research and innovation activities while compiling its ninth edition. In regard to teaching, the UC3M also ranks number one in Spain, along with two other public and five private universities. In regard to research and innovation, in which ten public universities are the Spanish universities that have the highest performance, the UC3M stands out by ranking fourth nationally.

This ranking assesses 20 indicators related to quality, university internationalisation, output and resources available. In regard to teaching, aspects such as evaluation and success rate, faculty-student ratio, the percentage of international students, or the cut-off mark are taken into account. In regard to research and investigation, competitive public resources earned, availability of research staff, citations per document and the average impact factor, the percentage of international co-authors, doctoral theses read, or the number of patents granted, among others, are evaluated.

The main update in this edition of the U-Ranking, apart from the improvements in terms of information available and its updates, has been analysing the evolution of the map of degrees in the university system, the creation of new degrees and double degrees and the discontinuation of others, as well as adapting new offers to meet the demands of families and the labour market.

More information:  U-Ranking Website

In this thirteenth edition of the Awards for Excellence, 192,000 Euros will be distributed among the 59 winners. Among the winners are 10 young PhD researchers with an international profile who will receive 15,000 Euros; as well as 22 students distinguished by their excellent academic record, who will receive 1,000 Euros. In addition to this, 20,000 Euros will be awarded to a team of administrative and services staff, and to a second project with a secondary award, for their participation in initiatives and actions that took place during the 2019-20 academic year to provide solutions and maximise opportunities to alleviate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the UC3M community. Finally, a diploma and trophy of recognition is being awarded to 10 University alumni who excel due to their remarkable professional development or entrepreneurial activity in two categories; those who graduated between 2015 and 2017, and those who graduated more than five years ago.

The Awards for Excellence aim to promote research and acknowledge the work carried out by four University groups: alumni, students, young PhD researchers, and administrative and services staff. Furthermore, they provide an opportunity to highlight young researchers with an international profile, the most outstanding students, administrative and services staff who have undertaken innovative projects, and University graduates with exemplary professional careers.

2020 Emprende Awards

The Emprende Awards were also given during the event. The TFM Emprende Awards distinguish dissertations written by UC3M master’s degree students, who have created business ideas that stand out for their excellence and viability, during the 2019/20 academic year. The first TFM Emprende Award, which comes with 10,000 Euros, was awarded to “ARAX”, a project developed by Antonio López-Terradas Paniagua, a student on the UC3M’s Master’s Degree in Aeronautical Engineering. This project is a drone and machine learning-based solution in the field of precision wine-making which provides farmers with an action plan to manage their resources and predict the evolution of their crops, in terms of their health and production status. The second TFM Emprende Award, which also comes with 10,000 Euros, was awarded to Romina Valdés Quintana, a student on the UC3M’s Master’s Degree in Entrepreneurship and Business Creation, for her “ATIK” business proposal, which provides a marketing proposal for a female sportswear brand that is made of recycled materials, initially oriented towards the sports of tennis and padel. 

The TFG Emprende Awards distinguish the students who have written innovative Bachelor’s Dissertations. The total amount being awarded is 19,500 Euros, which is intended to be used to finance entrepreneurial or training activities within this field. The first TFG Emprende Award, with 6,500 Euros, was awarded to Carlos Cantero Gómez and Álvaro Huecas Moreno for their project “Assisbot: Mobile hospital assistance and control robot”. This project addresses the development of a robotic solution in order to reduce nosocomial infections (those contracted in hospital environments). To do this, the environment is analysed by measuring different parameters and micro-organisms are removed from the air and surfaces using ultraviolet light. In addition to this, it can also transport different materials, avoiding human presence wherever possible. The second prize, with 6,500 Euros, was awarded to the project “Solar Heaters: Clean heat in industrial processes”, developed by Darío Pardillos Pobo. This entrepreneurial proposal suggests the use of preheating raw material in industrial processes, using thermo-solar technology developed and patented by the UC3M. This idea can be applied in the asphalt industry, which could reduce its environmental impact as well as production costs. The third prize, with 6,500 Euros, was awarded to Alejandro Matías Delgado-Ureña Ocaña and César Sebastián Muñoz for their proposal “Agricop: Analysis of specific crops using hexacopter and satellite images”. This business idea is intended to facilitate farmers’ access to decision-making solutions based on satellite and/or drone-generated image analysis. This precision farming solution offers users the possibility to optimise crop parameters, increasing their productivity. This project is being presented by a multidisciplinary team that has already developed a prototype and tested it at the UC3M’s Science Park.

Banco Santander and the UC3M

Banco Santander’s support for the Awards for Excellence, through Santander Universities, is part of the framework of the relationship that has been maintained by the two institutions since 1999 for the development of different academic projects. In fact, both entities have recently renewed their collaboration agreement in order to continue to promote projects and programmes for scholarships, grants and awards to promote academic mobility, university entrepreneurship, as well as supporting UC3M research to attract first-rate national and international researchers through initiatives such as the UC3M-Santander Chairs of Excellence or the CONEX-plus programme.

Banco Santander, leader in responsible banking, maintains its firm commitment to progress and inclusive and sustainable growth with a pioneering and consolidated commitment to higher education that it has developed through Santander Universities for 25 years and that distinguishes it from other global financial institutions. The institution has allocated more than 2,000 million Euros in total and has awarded more than 630,000 grants since it began.

The UC3M Social Council, among its many functions, promotes societal engagement in university activity, particularly in its funding, and in promoting links between the University and the cultural, professional, economic and social community.

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which excels in research, teaching and innovation. It ranks among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and appears among the best Spanish universities in terms of employability of its graduates, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) Global Employability Ranking. The UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality distinctions, such as the EUR-ACE label in the field of Engineering and an AACSB accreditation in Business and Finance programmes, among others.

More information: 

UC3M 2021 Awards for Excellence

There are two types of AMD: the dry or atrophic phase, which is usually the first and most common phase which progresses slowly; the acute phase, known as the wet or exudative phase, which occurs less frequently but has a worse prognosis at a visual level. In this latter form of AMD, there is an angiogenesis under the retina, an abnormal growth of very fragile blood vessels that may lose fluid or bleed, which can knock off and destroy the photoreceptor cells needed to see.

In their research, scientists from the UC3M have created a computational model simulation of angiogenesis (the propagation of blood capillaries) that takes how this process occurs in the eye into account. “What happens in this case is that, with age, a barrier (called the Bruch’s membrane) that separates the capillary vessels from the inner part of the retina becomes less permeable and, therefore, does not deliver enough oxygen or nutrients to the photoreceptors. They then emit a signalling protein (called a vessel endothelial growth factor) that diffuses, passes to the blood vessels, and triggers this angiogenesis, which is what causes the disease,” explains Luis L. Bonilla from the UC3M’s “Gregorio MillánBarbany” University Institute for Modelling and Simulation in Fluid Dynamics, Nanoscience and Industrial Mathematics, who recently published a scientific article with Rocío Vega and Manuel Carretero in the Biomedicines journal.

In practice, relatively little is known about the evolution and appearance of this disease and researchers hope that using this mathematical modelling they will be able to better understand how this pathology is created, how long it takes to progress, and if there is a way to stop it using current therapies. “The model has several parameters that characterise the progression of the disease. One can change them and predict how the disease will progress according to values, so it can be used to control how the process happens,” explains Professor Bonilla.

Numerical simulations of the model suggest that therapies based on decreasing growth factors and proteins that are crucial in angiogenesis may temporarily slow the disease down, while other therapies based on improving cell adhesion may be more effective in the long term. In addition to this, this model could be used to research other retinal diseases, scientists say, such as diabetic retinopathy or that associated with premature babies, as, in these cases, these diseases also occur due to abnormal blood vessel growth.

Bibliography:  R. Vega, M. Carretero, L. L. Bonilla, Anomalous Angiogenesis in Retina. Biomedicines 9, 224 (2021) (21 pp). doi:10.3390/biomedicines9020224

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Cada año, se reta a grupos de un máximo de cinco niñas a desarrollar un plan de negocio y una aplicación móvil para solucionar un problema de su comunidad y dar respuesta a una necesidad social relacionada con las áreas de educación, igualdad, medioambiente, salud, paz o pobreza. Este año, a pesar de las complicaciones, las jóvenes y sus mentores han conseguido sacar adelante sus proyectos. Este evento que organiza la UC3M está pensado para que los equipos puedan exponer sus proyectos y el público asistente de forma virtual pueda intervenir y preguntar en directo por las aplicaciones y su desarrollo.

La bienvenida de esta jornada virtual correrá a cargo de la vicerrectora de Estudiantes e Igualdad de la UC3M, Mónica Campos. A continuación participará la responsable del Programa STEM for Girls UC3M, Celeste Campo, vicerrectora adjunta de Promoción de la Universidad. Posteriormente intervendrán los cinco equipos semifinalistas a nivel mundial en las categorías senior y junior. Después participará la General Manager of Europe at CoverWallet, an Aon Company, Elena Gonzalez-Blanco García. Clausurará el evento Alicia Mancheño, de Power to Code, embajadores regionales de Technovation Girls.

La Universidad integra esta actividad en su programa STEM for Girls UC3M de fomento de vocaciones tecnológicas y científicas, dirigido a niñas y jóvenes de secundaria y bachillerato. Este programa se ha desarrollado a lo largo del curso 2020/21 en cuatro ámbitos de trabajo: actividades de mentoring, competiciones, talleres tecnológicos y artes escénicas. Esta actividad, además, cuenta con apoyo del Ministerio de Igualdad a través de la Convocatoria anual que realiza el Instituto de las Mujeres.

Esta jornada se podrá seguir a través del canal de YouTube de la UC3M: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xcf9xmesVA 

Este año los equipos participantes podrán exponer sus apps en una feria virtual que se desarrollará del 11 al 13 de junio, en la que intervendrá con una ponencia Sara Guerrero, profesora del departamento de Bioingeniería de la UC3M. Enlace Feria Technovation Girls.

Más información: Web del evento Technovation Girls 2021

As part of the YUFE Challenge Teams, institutions and companies from different sectors, as well as the general public, will propose a series of real-life challenges to the working teams that they will need to solve and deliver innovative solutions at social, scientific, and technological levels. This activity will take place in multidisciplinary teams in which students from YUFE universities can participate.

For its part, the Entrepreneurial Training Activities aim to promote students’, staff and the general public’s entrepreneurial skills, by guiding participants using training resources that will allow them to acquire these new skills. There will be two types of resources available in this first edition:

MOOCs are free online open courses, chosen from the best universities and/or prestigious organisations, whose information will be available on the YUFE website.

The Talk Shows programme consists of a series of talks given by experts from the field of innovation. They will be offered online by Alliance universities over a ten-month period. Each session will last two hours, the first of which will be open to the general population and the second will be reserved for YUFE students.

Prior registration will be required in order to attend all of these activities. Calls for registration and upcoming events can be found on the YUFE website.

Taking part in these activities will allow students aim for the YUFE Star Programme, in particular, the Professional Star. 

About YUFE

The YUFE Alliance is made up of the following universities: the University of Antwerp (Belgium), the University of Bremen (Germany), the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), the University of Cyprus, the University of Essex (England), the University of Eastern Finland, Maastricht University (The Netherlands) and the Tor Vergata University of Rome (Italy). It also collaborates with six partners: the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun (Poland), the University of Rijeka (Croatia), the Educational Testing Service, the European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME, the Kiron Open Higher Education for Refugees, and the Adecco Group.

More information

Increasing conventional power voltage levels to higher values is necessary in order to deal with these power levels. These voltage magnitudes in equipment that operate at high altitudes result in undesirable ionisation processes, such as the appearance of electric arcs, due to the low air density. A phenomenon that can damage other electrical circuits and structural components.

This is why it is necessary to detect these electric arcs as quickly as possible, so that the circuit can be disconnected before it is damaged. This is the focus of the “High Power Switching System and Arc Detection for High Voltage and Direct Current Embedded Networks (HV-NET)” (“Sistema de conmutación alta potencia y detección de arcos para redes embarcadas de corriente continua y alta tensión (HV-NET)”), led by ADS with the participation of the UC3M’s Diagnosis of Electrical Machines and Insulating Material (DIAMAT, in its Spanish acronym) research group, including professors Guillermo Robles and Juan Manuel Martínez Tarifa. 

The system currently under development allows electric arcs to be detected by means of a lightweight and low-cost sensor (essential in aerospace environments), designed specifically for this application as well as a signal processing system implanted in an acquisition card. In addition to the aerospace sector, the UC3M and Airbus project could be implemented into photovoltaic power plants.

With the results obtained thus far, the DIAMAT-ADS research team has applied for a European patent and are being considered to present their research at various international conferences and in magazines.

The sideslip angle is the angle formed between the vehicle's alignment and the direction of its motion relative to its centre of gravity, while the roll angle is the rotation of the vehicle in relation to its longitudinal movement. "The innovative feature of this research project is the design of an 'observer' that makes it possible to simultaneously estimate the vehicle's sideslip and roll angles for a network-induced control system with transmission delay, based on a communication structure activated by events and combined with neural networks," explains one of its authors, Beatriz López Boada, professor in UC3M’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, who recently published the study in the journal "Nonlinear Dynamics" together with colleagues from the School of Transportation Science and Engineering at Beihang University (China).

To estimate these properties, the observer uses measurements from sensors that are already available in most series production vehicles, which would reduce the cost of its implementation. These sensors provide information on steering wheel rotation and roll or travelling speed, which makes it possible to estimate the aforementioned angles. The device also employs artificial intelligence tools, using what are known as neural networks which assess the non-linear behaviour of the vehicle and perform an initial estimate of the results.

The design presented by these researchers is also capable of adapting to external phenomena, i.e., disturbances which are not vehicle-dependent, but which affect its dynamic behaviour, such as adverse weather conditions or uneven terrain. Furthermore, this data is relayed through a communication network, which delays signal transmission. This delay and an event-triggering condition have been taken into account in the design of the estimator, which limits the amount of data sent to the network, preventing it from being overloaded.

This research project has been carried out as part of the EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030, promoted by the European Commission. The goal of this initiative is to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries on European roads by half within a decade and to zero by 2050. To this end, it is supporting the roll-out of various projects, from the improvement of infrastructures and vehicle safety technologies to actions focused on the behaviour of drivers and emergency services.

It is also part of the national project Intelligent Driving Safety System under an IoT platform with low-cost devices (IoT4SafeDriving) [RTI2018-095143-B-C2], funded by the Spanish State Innovation Agency, part of the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. Researchers from UC3M’s Dept. of Computer Science and the Dept. of Signal Theory and Communications and Telematics Engineering at the Universidad de Valladolid were also involved.

Bibliographic reference: López Boada, María Jesús; López Boada, Beatriz; Zhang, Hui (2021). Event-triggering H-infinity-based observer combined with NN for simultaneous estimation of vehicle sideslip and roll angles with network-induced delays. Nonlinear dynamics, vol. 103, Feb. 2021, pp. 2733-2752 ISSN: 0924-090X https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-021-06269-7 e-archivo UC3M: https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/handle/10016/32207

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Juan José Vaquero López, the Vice President for Scientific Policy, and Carlos Blanco Bermejo, the Deputy Manager for Research and Knowledge Transfer, among others, represented the UC3M at the welcome event, which was held in the UC3M Campus of Leganés. Researchers from the previous CONEX program and some CONEX-Plus Buddies,  researchers from the UC3M who will help with any queries or doubts in regard to resources and services at the University as well as help facilitate the integration of the new fellows, also took part in the online event.

The CONEX-Plus professional development and training programme is based on what is called the Triple "i" dimension: international, intersectoral and interdisciplinary. The research staff who participate will benefit from the training programme with modules dedicated to relevant transversal skills and training in the industry. To this end, fourteen entities (companies, international bodies, NGOs, etc.) will collaborate to carry out training courses of between 2 and 12 months. They also can choose other entities related to their projects. Special attention will also be given to the dissemination of the programme and the results of the research to wider society.

CONEX-Plus is funded by the UC3M, the European Commission - through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND action (GA 801538) of the European Framework Programme Horizon 2020. This programme is one of the instruments of the UC3M for the achievement of the objectives contained in its Strategic Plan for the period 2016-2022. The UC3M has been awarded the "HR Excellence in Research" distinction by the European Commission.  This award recognises the commitment of the University to supporting the personal and professional development of its researchers and acknowledges its full compliance with the principles of the Charter and the European Code for Researchers.

More information: https://www.uc3m.es/investigacion/conex

Compared to other existing platforms, Collaborative Health innovates in the use of a search analogy, in other words, a passive sonar, which reports pertinent data and potential risk in a given area. 

The project has already concluded, and the tool is currently being deployed in Ecuador and Spain for the detection of diseases such as COVID-19, Influenza and Zika virus. Juan Miguel Gómez Berbís, a lecturer in UC3M’s Computer Science Department and lead researcher on the project, says that "at such a critical time in this pandemic, collaboration and information exchange among scientists is more important than ever". 

The development of the project was complex and involved a collaborative effort: "We are convinced that in the times we are living in, it represents a significant milestone and is a tool that will help citizens and health authorities to identify, prevent and act in advance of any outbreaks of new or existing diseases", says Ignacio Martinez, director of Communications and Business Development at Dantia Tecnología. Two other researchers from UC3M's Software Engineering Lab (SEL) group, Antonio de Amescua Seco and Lisardo Prieto Gonzalez, also worked on the project.

This technological device is fitted into accessories worn by the user and identifies situations of threat by means of physiological variables such as heart rate, temperature and skin conductance, and physical variables such as voice changes or sounds from the surrounding environment. The system analyses these variables in real time and, if it determines that a situation is dangerous, sends alerts and requests for help to a previously defined circle of people.

The device was developed by UC3M4Safety, a multidisciplinary team focused on detecting, preventing and combating violence against women. The team consists of UC3M researchers Clara Luis Mingueza, José Carlos Robredo García, José Miranda Calero, Maria Ángeles Blanco Ruiz and Manuel Felipe Canabal Benito.

About Explorer UC3M Space

Explorer UC3M Space is an initiative aimed at supporting entrepreneurship within the framework of Banco Santander's Explorer programme "Jóvenes con Ideas" (“Young People with Ideas”). The aim is to inspire and promote start-ups, providing the young people involved with connections to help with the internationalisation of their projects and their pursuit of funding. This year, the percentage of women who took part in the Explorer UC3M Space programme was 54 percent, the highest percentage of all the programme's editions to date. 

More information on the programme

The UC3M has improved its number of high-performance indicators, from 23 to 24, in the new edition of the ranking. In addition to this, the UC3M stands out nationally in the international outlook and transfer of knowledge aspects, in which it ranks second nationally alongside other universities, according to the high-performance indicators.

The eighth edition of this ranking is comprised of 2,998 degrees with the aim of comparing the universities’ standing with the aspects mentioned above. Its online tool allows you to analyse 27 areas of knowledge, 2 more than the previous edition.

The CYD 2021 Ranking comprises of performance results in 77 Spanish universities (all public - 48 - and 29 private) which represent 89.5% of the 86 universities that teach degree courses that appear in the Spanish Register of Universities, Education Centres and Degrees (RUCT, in its Spanish acronym). This ranking allows future university students to measure and compare the quality of the educational centres to make an informed decision regarding which degree they want to study and which university they do it at.  

CYD Ranking website: www.rankingcyd.org

The 5G technology being implemented within the framework of this project will increase the speed (compared to current 4G communication) by ten, as well as decrease latency (the delay in the propagation of information packages within a network) and increase the reliability of communications. “All of this will make applications such as the self-driving car, augmented reality or the connection of multiple devices to the Internet a reality, in what is called the Internet of Things”, explains the project’s lead researcher and coordinator, Carlos J. Bernardos, from the UC3M’s Department of Telematic Engineering.

The aim of the 5Growth project is validating the benefits associated with this technology in real-world environments (departing from the laboratories where the initial 5G tests were carried out) and using specific applications. This will allow 5G technology to be used in environments previously disregarded for mobile communications technologies, such as factories of the future which “will have levels of automation and precision that have never been seen until now, thanks to 5G”, says Carlos J. Bernardos.

5Growth is an R&D&I consortium funded by the European Commission, coordinated by the UC3M. The project began in June 2019 and will run for 33 months. There are 21 institutions from seven European countries working on the project, including universities and research institutes, (in addition to the UC3M, the Centre TecnològicTelecomunicacions Catalunya, the Instituto de Telecomunicações, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the Polytechnic University of Turin, and the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies), global providers (Ericsson, InterDigital, NEC, Nokia), operators (Telefónica, Telecom Italia, Altice Labs/Portugal Telecom), vertical industries (COMAU, EFACEC, INNOVALIA), and SMEs (Mirantis, Nextworks, Telcaria).

madri+d Award for the Best Idea

In addition, In this edition of the awards, the start-up ienai SPACE, which is part of the corporate portfolio of technology-based companies belonging to the Incubator in the UC3M’s Science Park, has been awarded the madri+d Award for the Best Idea for the development of electric propulsion modules for small satellites.

This company, driven by three former UC3M students who received their PhDsfrom the University, Sara Correyero Plaza, Daniel Pérez Grande and Mick Wijnen, offers scalable propulsion systems that are fully tailored to the needs of each client, as well as support and consultancy services related to platform architecture and mission analysis.

13th edition of the madri+d Awards

“These thrusters have a cylindrical ionization chamber that is open at one end, through which plasma is ejected and accelerated, guided by an applied magnetic field”, explains the lead researcher for this new project, Mario Merino, from the Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering at UC3M. His goal is to unveil the physical foundations of these thrusters in order to understand the mechanisms involved in the electromagnetic heating of the plasma and its particle transport, increasing their efficiency.

A plasma has its own characteristics that are not observed in solids, liquids, or gases, so it is considered another state of matter. Understanding the role of turbulence and the interaction of the plasma with the electromagnetic fields and with the thruster walls are some of the key objectives of this project. “We are also going to investigate a new geometry for electrodeless plasma thrusters for the first time, based on a patent of the University”, notes Mario Merino. This new geometry would avoid many of the problems that current cylindrical thrusters have, such as the fact that they do not have complete magnetic shielding of their walls. “A lot of plasma is being lost to the back wall, causing the inefficiency of the thruster”, he adds.

The thruster that the researchers intend to develop would solve this problem with a new U-shaped geometry and a toroidal magnetic field (in the form of a “doughnut” deformed at one end) that would protect all thruster walls from the direct impact of the plasma. “It would meet the propulsion needs for space missions at very different powers and with multiple propellants, in Earth orbit as well as for missions to the Moon or Mars, in a cheaper, more efficient and more durable way”, scientists note. 

Researchers will use a multidisciplinary methodology within the framework of this project. On the one hand, they will develop state-of-the-art models and simulations of the plasma and electromagnetic fields. On the other hand, they will conduct experiments in the University’s Plasma and Space Propulsion and Team’s (EP2) vacuum chambers in order to directly observe how these thrusters work, using a complete range of plasma diagnostic systems. Finally, they will use advanced data-driven analysis techniques that will allow to squeeze out a great deal of information from simulation and experimental data.

“The ZARATHUSTRA project will also allow us to train at least six young researchers in cutting-edge simulation and experimentation techniques in plasma physics, propulsion system development, and other related areas, reinforcing the capabilities of EP2 at UC3M, which has extensive experience in research and innovation on various space propulsion technologies”, adds Mario Merino. 

ZARATHUSTRA (Revolutionizing Advanced Electrodeless Plasma Thrusters for Space Transportation) is a five-year project funded by the European Research Council with 1.5 million Euros through an ERC Starting Grant within the European Union’s Horizon research and innovation programme (GA 950466). 

ERC Zarathustra project website

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

According to the authors of the study, 70% of the news analysed complied with directions included in the Spanish Royal Board on Disability’s Style Guide about disability for communication professionals, providing an inclusive image of this group. It has been concluded that the situation in regard to disability in the media is gradually improving, although complete normalisation has not been achieved. Media professionals “should find a balance between reporting using as much data as possible while maintaining a level of respect for those with disabilities, avoiding promoting negative images related to them”, says one of the authors of the study, Gema López Sánchez, predoctoral researcher at CESyA - UC3M.

This research has been based on a methodological triangulation that includes a bibliographic analysis, another quantitative analysis of two hundred digital news outlets from 2019, along with interviews with expert sources. Different factors were taken into account during the analysis of the news, such as the type of media outlet, the journalistic genre of the news, the section in which it is published, the main source, the type of disability represented, and the approach, among other things.

Where can this news be found?

According to the results of this research, information about disability is usually found in the local digital press and local supplements of the national press, most often within the news genre and in the society section, followed by the events section (the latter section is more common for news about individuals). The national media outlets that report the most news about disability are La Vanguardia, 20 Minutos, El Economista and ABC.

In terms of information sources, 38% of the news analysed came from press releases and events organised by organisations with direct links to disability, mainly CERMI (Spanish National Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities) and ONCE (Spanish National Organisation for Blind People). Therefore, organisations and associations put pressure on the media to deal with issues that are relevant to them. On the other hand, 19% of the online newspapers that have the highest amount of news related to disability cited news agencies (Servimedia, EFE and Europa Press) as sources.

Profile of those featured in news about disability

The type of disability that appeared most often in the press within the period studied was intellectual disability, followed by physical disabilities (organic or mobility), sensory disabilities (blindness, deafness and deafblindness) and debilitating mental illness. The latter is the least represented disability, only being mentioned in four of the two hundred information outlets.

Media coverage of disability usually refers to groups, and one led by individuals presents a gender gap in which two out of every three news stories focus on men, without LGBTQ+ representation. Few stories focus on individuals, and in these cases they appear to become spokespeople for their disability or star in news-related events.

López-Sánchez, G., Utray, F. y Ruiz-Mezcua, B. (2020) Representación de la discapacidad en la prensa digital española. Revista Española de la Discapacidad. 8 (2). 33-35. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5569/2340-5104.08.02.02.

Other challenges include creating a network of networks, in other words, a digital ecosystem that connects all available data sources, and developing an energy-optimised digital infrastructure with the aim of reducing the environmental footprint of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

The project also aims to produce efficient and affordable solutions for global service coverage, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of communications. Finally, the project aims to achieve extreme bit rates and extremely low (imperceptible) latencies. 

In order to achieve these objectives, the research team will split the project into three phases: the first will define trends and identify gaps, use cases and requirements for technology enablers; the second will define the project’s architecture and will develop the first set of solutions; and the third and final phase will develop and demonstrate the final versions of the vision, architecture and technology enablers using concept tests.

Hexa-X started on the 1st January this year and will run for two and a half years. Many of its results are expected to be incorporated into future 6G devices that will be launched in 2030.

More information

At the end of the training period, those responsible for the best project will travel to the European Innovation Academy (Lisbon), where they will receive training and advice, and have contact with investment companies from different places around the world, Silicon Valley, among others.

One of the most important pieces of information about this edition of the programme is the percentage of women who are participating in Explorer UC3M Space, 54% of the total number of participants, the highest number of women that have ever participated in the programme. 

About the Explorer programme “Young people with ideas” 

The UC3M hosts one of the 54 Explorer Spaces that are distributed throughout Spain, Portugal, and Argentina. Explorer, promoted by Banco Santander through Santander Universities and co-ordinated by the Santander International Entrepreneurship Centre (CISE, in its Spanish acronym), provides free training, support and mentoring while the programme is taking place.

Information about projects that are part of the Explorer UC3M Space 2021

More information about the programme

The ALARM project, which involves scientists and technologists from Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, considers that the environmental impact should be treated as a further hazard. “One of the ALARM project’s key ambitions is to produce overnight predictions of potential hot spots, meaning areas with high potential in terms of their combined carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other emissions that affect climate change”, notes Manuel Soler. In other words, this warning system would develop an information service that contains the critical areas and points that aircraft should avoid in order to reduce the impact flights have on global warming, which can occur, for example and in a very visible way, when aeroplanes produce the so-called contrails (the linear trail of clouds that some planes leave behind in certain weather conditions).

The project aims to create a prototype which can assimilate a wide range of atmospheric data collected by terrestrial and satellite observation systems. It will combine all of this with Artificial Intelligence algorithms to improve the forecasts that are currently used. “This system will create alerts that will be shared via aeronautical communication channels, so that controllers, pilots and other players in the aeronautical sector can access this information quickly in the event of an emergency”, explain the project’s researchers.

The ALARM (multi-hAzard monitoring and earLy wARning) project, which will run until the end of 2022, receives funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme (GA 893204) and is one of several projects within the research and innovation portfolio managed by SESAR Joint Undertaking. The project is coordinated by the UC3M and is composed of partners from five European countries: the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Royal Belgian Institute of Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), the University of Padua (Italy), and two small aeronautical companies: SATAVIA (United Kingdom) and SYMOPT (Italy).

More information: The ALARM project website

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Version française (French version)

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

These figures demonstrate UC3M’s researchers commitment and experience and the University’s participation in European R&D&I projects in consortium with other universities and companies. These indicators were presented during an online workshop about Horizon Europe (HE), the EU’s ninth R&D&I framework programme, which will be undertaken between 2021 and 2027 and will rely on a budget of 95 billion Euros.

This online workshop, called “The UC3M, committed to Horizon Europe”, was opened by the University’s President, Juan Romo, and was attended by the R&D&I councillor from the Permanent Representative of Spain to the European Union, Clara Eugenia García García, and representatives from the Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, in its Spanish acronym), as well as by various Project Officers from the European Commission. The event was closed by the UC3M’s Vice-President for Scientific Policy, Juan José Vaquero.

HE is built around three pillars: Scientific excellence, global challenges and European industrial competitiveness, and innovative Europe. HE will initially cover five flagship missions to find solutions to the following social challenges: curing cancer; getting healthier oceans, seas, coasts, and water; developing intelligent and climate neutral cities; working towards healthier food and soil; and adapting to climate change, including social transformations.

More information: 

Horizon Europe, new European Framework Programme

These liquid filaments are inherently unstable due to their surface tension, resulting in a process in which small disturbances are amplified causing the drops to fragment. This can be seen in saliva filaments, for example, that form on our lips and eventually end up being expelled in the form of droplets during speech, or in the water stream in showers which “breaks” when it is very narrow and ends up forming small droplets. “This is because spheres are the geometric shape with the smallest surface for a fixed given volume, so adopting a spherical shape minimises surface energy”, explain Alejandro Martínez Calvo and Alejandro Sevilla Santiago from the UC3M’s Fluid Mechanics Group.

In their research, recently published in the Physical Review Letters journal, they have theoretically and numerically studied a case in which the filament surface is viscous, which occurs when the surface is covered by a concentration of molecules (usually called surfactants). In some cases, these types of molecules are able to form a complex structure that gives the surface some resistance to flow, which manifests itself through surface viscosity.

The measurement of the coefficient of surface viscosity of liquid filaments and biological membranes consisting of these molecules is a challenge at the moment, due to the physiochemical complexity associated with hydrodynamic coupling of the filament’s surface with its interior. In their work, the scientists have discovered a new universal framework where the surface tension is in dynamic equilibrium with the surface viscous force, resulting in an exponential thinning of the filament radius until it ends up taking the form of drops of spherical vesicles, with a time decay that depends only on the surface properties, among which is the surface viscosity.

This work would be a significant step for the development of a non-intrusive method of measurement of viscosity coefficients which would have a greater accuracy than those currently available. Current methods of measurement make use of moving mechanical parts that distort the interface, such as cones, plates, cylinders, or rings that are placed on the surface and moved around in a controlled manner. These intrusive methods create variations in molecule concentration that give rise to surface elastic forces, in addition to their own surface viscose forces that are intended to be measured. “In this configuration we have studied, the distortion of the interface is not caused from the outside of the system through mechanical methods but occurs spontaneously. Thus, the measurement technique that could be developed with our idea would be non-intrusive, as measuring the rate at which the filament is distorted using photographic techniques would be sufficient”, state the researchers.

Bibliography: Martínez-Calvo, A. Sevilla, A. (2020). Universal Thinning of Liquid Filaments under Dominant Surface Forces. Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 114502 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.114502

A system for the lexical simplification of Spanish texts

The EASIER project, of the Human Language and Accessibility Technologies Group (HULAT) in the UC3M’s Computer Science and Engineering Department, has developed a system that helps people, primarily those with intellectual disabilities, to better understand texts. The system provides a lexical simplification of Spanish texts, offering different aids for understanding. It also detects complex words in the text and helps the user to improve their reading and comprehension of the text by using simple synonyms, a definition, or a pictogram for every complex word that is detected. 

The EASIER web platform can be accessed from any digital device and has extensions for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers. The tool is accessible within the regulatory framework of the (WCAG) 2.1 Standard and it is easy and intuitive to use, following cognitive accessibility criteria.

Innovative Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning methods, as well as Easy Read and Plain Language resources, have been used to develop and assess this solution. In addition to this, people with intellectual disabilities have participated in its implementation by evaluating the cognitive accessibility of the interface and the suitability of the system’s functionality. “Without the participation of people in the design and development processes of products and service, there’s no real social impact,” notes Lourdes Moreno, researcher from the UC3M’s HULAT group and project leader. 

An app to detect crises in autistic people

On its part, the PETRA project, developed by a research team from the UC3M’s Signal Theory and Communications Department, seeks to improve the communication of people who have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These people interact with others in a different way than most and have certain communication issues (verbal and non-verbal), as well as limitations when it comes to understanding the emotions and intentions of others.

In order to improve their relationships in a social environment, the PETRA project has developed a free mobile application, called cuidaTEA, that is capable of characterising the behaviour of these people, finding personalised patterns, and detecting changes that allow crisis episodes associated with, for example, anxiety, sleep or behaviour disorders to be predicted. In order to do this, the cuidaTEA mobile application uses different sources of information on mobile devices (steps, app usage or usage time) which are processed by artificial intelligence algorithms. “In this way, we are trying to improve these patients’ communication skills via a system that, automatically and in real time, generates a direct alert to their caregivers’ mobile phones, so that they know how they are”, explains Pablo Martínez Olmos, professor at the University’s Signal Theory and Communications Department and lead scientist on the project. 

The application is already available on iOS and Android and, currently, is in the experimental phase of clinical trials, in collaboration with the Fundación Jiménez Díaz University Hospital Health Research Institute. 

Call for Indra-Universia Foundation grants

The Call for grants for Research projects in Indra Technologies, in collaboration with the Universia Foundation, has been consolidated over five editions as the first call of its kind in Spain. Indra has contributed to the development of more than 60 projects within the framework of its Accessible Technologies, an initiative launched more than 15 years ago as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility, that aims to reduce the digital divide and put innovation at the service of people with disabilities.

About Indra

Indra is one of the leading global technology and consulting companies and the technological partner for core business operations of its customers worldwide. It is a world-leader in providing its own solutions in specific segments in Transport and Defence markets, and the leading firm in digital transformation consultancy and Information Technologies in Spain and Latin America through its affiliate Minsait. Its business model is based on a comprehensive offer of its own products, with a high-value, and with a high innovation component. At the end of the 2020 financial year, Indra achieved revenue of €3,043 million, almost 48,000 employees, a local presence in 46 countries and business operations in over 140 countries.  

About the Universia Foundation

The Universia Foundation, powered by Universia, sponsored by Banco Santander through Santander Universities, is a private, non-profit organisation that has focused its work on educational and work-related guidance, diversity and fairness, the digital transformation of universities, entrepreneurship, and impact measurement of the university ecosystem according to international standards (SDGs) for more than 10 years. It has been an Employment Agency, in collaboration with the Spanish Public Employment Service, for the implementation of employment mediation activities since 2012. On an international level, it is a Global Compact signatory, committed to adhering to the United Nations Global Compact Principles.

About the UC3M

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which excels in teaching, research and innovation. It ranks among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and appears in the Times Higher Education (THE) 150 Under 50 ranking. It has more than 870 agreements with universities from 56 countries, among which are some of the best in the world, according to the Shanghai Rankings. 20% of its students are international students. The UC3M is a partner of the Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE) alliance, one of the networks selected by the EU in its European Universities Initiative. The UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality distinctions, such as the EUR-ACE label in the field of Engineering and an AACSB accreditation in Business and Finance programmes, among others.

“While current efforts to integrate Network Intelligence (NI) into mobile networks aim to fine-tune machine learning solutions so that they can be adapted to network environments, DAEMON is updating the approach and aiming to update network architecture so that it supports NI operations”, says project coordinator, Marco Fiore, Research Associate Professor at the IMDEA Networks Institute.

Progress achieved in this project is expected to be applied to practical network environments to enable high performance, while also making efficient use of underlying radio-electrical and computing resources, reducing the energy footprint of mobile networks, and increasing their reliability.

The DAEMON (aDAptive and sElf-Learning MObile Networks; network intelligence for adaptive and machine learning mobile networks) Project is being coordinated by the IMDEA Networks Institute and is being undertaken from January 2021 to December 2023. It is being funded by the European Union’s H2020-ICT-2020-2 call for information and communication technologies. This research consortium is comprised of researchers from the UC3M, as well as other institutions, such as the IMEC (Belgium), the University of Malaga (Spain), the Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands), and important participants from the industry, such as world-leading manufacturers, such as NEC Laboratories Europe GmbH (Germany) and Nokia Bell Labs (Belgium), leading operators such as OTE (Greece) and Telefónica I+D (Spain), as well as innovative SMEs such as ADLINK Technology (France), Software Radio Systems (Ireland) and WINGS ICT (Greece).

En una serie de trabajos previos, este grupo investigador español había conseguido notables avances encadenados en la eficacia de distintas estrategias de edición genómica, llegando a alcanzar los niveles de producción de colágeno VII necesarios para una aplicación clínica realista en células madre adultas. 

Corrección precisa del gen causante de la enfermedad

En el trabajo que ahora se publica en la prestigiosa revista Molecular Therapy, se describen nuevos avances en tecnología de edición genómica para la corrección de las mutaciones causantes de la epidermólisis bullosa distrófica recesiva. Estos desarrollos tecnológicos han sido también objeto de una solicitud de patente.

El nuevo abordaje, que emplea herramientas CRISPR/Cas9 combinadas con la transferencia de las secuencias de reemplazo génico mediante un vector adenoasociado, da lugar a una corrección precisa y eficiente del gen COL7A1 en células de piel con capacidad de regenerar la epidermis a largo plazo y de restablecer la adhesión dermo-epidérmica. 

La demostración de eficacia y precisión de este nuevo protocolo de edición genómica permite pensar en futuros ensayos clínicos basados en esta metodología que se abre paso en la terapéutica de enfermedades raras.

Referencia bibliográfica: “Correction of recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa by homology-directed repair-mediated genome editing”. Bonafont et al. Molecular Therapy DOI: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2021.02.019

On the education front, one of the main aspects of this agreement,there are other courses of action included, such as the Santander Progreso Grants, which aim to facilitate access to higher education for students who perform well academically in any undergraduate or post-graduate degree and will take into account candidates’ difficult economic circumstances. Another key programme that makes up part of this collaboration is the Santander - Consejo Social Grants which recognise and motivate effort and contribution to the excellence of the university community each year, in particular young research staff and students at the University.

In terms of entrepreneurship, a variety of activities will be developed that promote entrepreneurial spirit among undergraduate, post-graduate and PhD students through the Santander Explorer programme, which has its own co-working centre at the UC3M. In addition to this, training programmes in this field will be carried out across all degree programmes.

The UC3M and Santander Universities, within the framework of this collaboration, will also continue to work on various technological cooperative projects to drive the digital transformation of management and certain value-added services for the university community, such as the use of the Smart University Card and other online resources.

Santander and its commitment to higher education

The grant programme promoted by Banco Santander through Santander Universities has formed part of its commitment to progress and inclusive and sustainable growth and of its leading position as a socially responsible bank for 25 years. In addition to this, it is considered one of the largest initiatives of its kind supported by a private institution, which has already allocated almost 2,000 million Euros to Education since 2002 and has awarded 600,000 grants since 2005.

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which excels in teaching, research and innovation. It ranks among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and appears among the best Spanish universities in terms of employability of its graduates, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) Global Employability Ranking.  In fact, 93.4% of its graduates gain employment within the first year of graduating and their overall satisfaction is extremely positive: 96.6% of them would recommend studying at the UC3M. The UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality distinctions, such as the EUR-ACE label in the field of Engineering and an AACSB accreditation in Business and Finance programmes, among others.

It is estimated that around 500,000 civil works for the installation of wiring, piping and other small-diameter underground scoring are carried out in Europe each year. These works are typically carried out by opening a ditch, extending the pipeline, then filling in the ditch. “The advantage of this robot is that it is possible to carry out the same drilling work without having to open a ditch, which prevents noise, pollution and inconvenience for citizens”, the researcher notes.

Within the framework of this project, funded by the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Innovation (GA 731968) and in which scientists from Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy and the United Kingdom are participating, the system has been tested under laboratory conditions. In particular, several underground drilling tests on land in northern Germany as well as in the Community of Madrid have been carried out.

The system prototype has caught the attention of the private sector, of both European and north American companies, and is currently continuing to be developed with the aim of starting tests in real urban environments. Researchers estimate that it could be ready to operate in cities within 2 to 3 years.

“The use of innovative localisation, mapping and navigation techniques, along with sensors and geo-radars, allows the systems to be adapted to different fields”, explains the project coordinator Carlos Balaguer, professor at the UC3M’s Department of Systems Engineering and Automation and one of the directors of the RoboticsLab. Introducing these advanced robotic technologies which have cognitive and control capabilities has multiple possible applications, adds Professor Balaguer: “It will increase Europe’s competitive edge in search and rescue operations (landslides), mining, civil applications (such as water, gas, fibre optics lines), exploration techniques, mapping, etc”.

BADGER (roBot for Autonomous unDerGround trenchless opERations, mapping and navigation) is a European R&D&I consortium, coordinated by the UC3M, in which researchers and technologists from the Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (Greece), the School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow (Scotland, United Kingdom), IDS GeoradarSrl (Italy), Robotnik Automation SLL (Spain), SingularLogic S.A. (Greece) and TRACTO-TECHNIK GmbH&Co.KG (Germany) are participating. 

More information: www.badger-robotics.eu

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Version française (French version)

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The objects that surround us are part of our identity as much as our physical characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity and character or personality, Professor Broncano asserts. “They express our social position with respect to its multiple variables of economic, social or cultural capital, but from the symbolic point of view, they are the product of our history and biography.”In this way, the clothing, furniture, housing and means of transport that we choose all shape us to some extent. “They function in a similar way to the words we use and to our concepts of the world, as well as the social medium we inhabit. As they are a medium where our practices transpire, they are a shaping force for our character and define the different traits of our identity or identities,” he points out.

An example he analyzes in his essay are the differences in the identities of people who live in a rural area vis-a-vis those living in big cities. In this case, diverse elements associated with these differences will immediately come to mind, such as a tractor, livestock and crops for the former, and the subway, broad avenues and office buildings for the latter case.

This essay highlights the mediated forms made up by artifacts along with the spaces and times that shape these elements. Its fundamental idea is that the relationships that make up our social life in intimate settings(friendships, love life, family, work…) are enabled through the artificial medium that makes them possible, Broncano concludes, believing that this “material culture” shaped by the artificial niches in which we live has not been sufficiently valued. “All of it is as cultural as musical contents, literature and the knowledge we possess. Culture is a transformation of material in its form, use and meanings which, at the same time, transform us,” Professor Broncano continued.

In order to analyze these questions, the researcher has used an ethno-methodological and ethnographic approach, focusing on what the forms of everyday life in all of their aspects teach us. “This requires constant attention to our surroundings and attempting to see things that have become invisible because of our familiarity with them,” he further explained.

This book forms part of “Cátedra +Media”, a new collection from this publisher of short essays and other contributions on contemporary issues. Other books already published are “El cuerpo y la cámara” by Margarita Ledo Andión, full professor of Audiovisual Communication at Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, and “Basado en hechos reales” by Pilar Carrera, professor in the UC3M Department of Communication.

Version française (French version)

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

On Friday 12th February, a theatrical performance of “El Enigma Agustina” will be broadcast live on YouTube at 11am, aimed at high school students in the 3rd and 4th years as well as undergraduate students. This activity focuses on a female scientist who lived in Spain in the first third of the 20th century and addresses topics such as relativity, quantum mechanics and cosmology, as well as issues related to the history of Spanish science. Educational centres can participate as spectators, as well as being able to choose students to take part in the virtual colloquium about the documentary with two of its protagonists, communicator, Natalia Ruiz Zelmanovitch, and astrophysicist, Manuel González García. UC3M Deputy Vice-President for Equality, Rosario Ruiz Franco, has also planned a closing speech. In order to take part in this event, you must have previously seen the documentary “El enigma Agustina”. Registration and more information are available on this website.

In addition to this, an online exhibition about female STEM researchers (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) who try to inspire and awaken curiosity for girls and young women in science has been organised. The exhibition has been structured in two parts: firstly, a website with 15 virtual panels about female researchers at the UC3 School of Engineering summarising their scientific area, describing the scope of their research and choosing a prominent quote related to R&D&I; secondly, another area with 17 virtual panels with information about important women in the history of science and technology, such as Frances Arnold, Elizabeth Blackburn, Anita Borg, Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Hipatia de Alejandría, Sally Kristen Ride, Hedy Lamarr, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Ada Lovelace, Lise Meitner, María Mitchell, Grace Murray Hopper, Margarita Salas, Vera Rubin, Karen Spärck Jones and Jill Tarter. All of this information is available on this website.

These activities are part of STEM for Girls UC3M, a programme that promotes STEM vocations for girls and young women in collaboration with the Institute of Women at the Spanish Ministry of Equality. One of the programme’s main objectives is to familiarise high school students with role models who inspire them to choose their university studies without gender biases. To do this, the programme comprises four areas of work: mentoring activities, performing arts, competitions, and technological workshops. More information is available at www.uc3m.es/stemforgirls

Collaboration with APTE

The UC3M’s Vice-President of Students and Equality, Mónica Campos, will announce STEM for Girls UC3M during an online conference on 11th February at 3.30pm to highlight Spanish initiatives that promote women’s talent in science, technology, and innovation. This event is being organised by the Association of Science and Technology Parks in Spain (APTE, in its Spanish acronym), through the coordination of the Spanish Technological Platform for Disruptive Technologies (DISRUPTIVE). More information and registration are available on this website.

You can also visit the “Mujeres que cambiaron el mundo” (Women who changed the world) online exhibition, which aims to highlight women’s contribution to R&D&I throughout history. The UC3M developed this exhibition within the framework of the second edition of “Women in Science and Technology”, an initiative promoted by the APTE. This exhibition is structured in three parts. Firstly, there are eight panels with information about important women in the history of science and technology, such as Ada Lovelace, Alice Ba, Arlene Sharpe, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Cristiane Nusslein-Volhard, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Hedy Lammar, Hipatia de Alejandría, Katherine Jackson, Lene Vestergaard Hau, Marie Curie, Margarita Salas, Rita Levi-Montalccini, Rosalind Franklin and Valentina Tereshkova. Secondly, there are two panels about the scientific activity of researchers and technologists at the UC3M. Finally, there is a third panel showing the work of 24 young women in STEM who work at companies in the University’s and Leganés Tecnológico Science Park. All of this information is available in Spanish and English on the following website.

The opening of this new laboratory kicks off the process of integrating the avionics system into the deorbit device. The consortium will have the first complete prototype of the device ready by late 2022 and plans to mature it in a later project that will end with an in-orbit demonstration by late 2024. The goal is to have the system operational in 2025. 

E.T.PACK consortium includes UC3M (Coordinator), SENER Aeroespacial, the universities of Padua (Italy) and Dresden (Germany), the Fraunhofer Institute (Germany) and the Spanish company Advanced Thermal Devices. E.T.PACK has also received support from the Government of the Community of Madridthrough one of its Industrial Doctorates.

E.T.PACK, an autonomous deorbiting kit

The main goal of E.T.PACK is to develop an autonomous deorbit device or “kit” based on electrodynamic tether technology. The small kit will be mounted on satellites in the future. Once activated from the ground, the kit will deploy an electrodynamic tether that will interact passively with the Earth's magnetosphere, producing a drag force that will cause the satellite to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up. The electrodynamic tether, a very thin aluminum tape of about a couple of centimeters wide and a couple of kilometers long, uses the ionospheric plasma and the geomagnetic field to generate an electrical current that, thanks to an electrodynamic effect, gives rise to a force known as Lorentz drag. This force deorbits the satellite and produces the re-entry, thus contributing to the sustainable use of the outer space. 

SENER Aeroespacial engineer’s Sergio Garcia González, also PhD candidate at UC3M supervised by Prof. Gonzalo Sánchez-Arriaga (E.T.PACK coordinator), is responsible for the integration of the avionic system into the kit. Mr. García explains that "there are already systems for deorbiting satellites, but they use conventional propulsion, which increases their cost. Because space debris is a growing problem, institutions like the European Commission and the Government of Community of Madrid are sponsoring research to find effective, low-cost alternatives. Our space tether system could be one of those solutions." 

The reality is that, at present, no country requires companies to the deorbit their satellite at the end of life. The system proposed by E.T.PACK aims to reverse this trend by providing a light, low-cost and highly effective system.The deorbiting kit will be able to communicate with the ground, stabilize a satellite of mass up to 1,000 kg and control the deorbiting maneuver to prevent collisions with other objects.

SENER and the UC3M have a successful history of collaborations, including HIPATIA, the evolution of the helicon plasma thruster for space propulsion; the development of photon technologies; and a demonstration CubeSat mission, along with other innovations for the space sector.

Electrodynamic Tether technology (video): https://youtu.be/MkP2LJQnE_U

This project was carried out during the final quarter of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 health crisis and its very present economic and social consequences, therefore, it will be interesting to compare whether these results will be maintained once the pandemic has passed, according to the authors of the paper.

The UC3M researchers involved in this project are Antonio Cabrales, professor in the Department of Economics, and Anxo Sánchez, professor in the Department of Mathematics. “The study was triggered by the need to understand the population’s real preferences in regard to public expenditure. This isn’t an easy feat. For example, if you think about how many people say their favourite television programmes are the documentaries on La 2. When you compare this data with actual viewing figures, you realise that this isn’t the case. Surveys are needed that are compatible with people’s real motivations and take the cognitive complexity of the task into account,” says Antonio Cabrales.

An innovative methodology was used to carry out this project, combining a demoscopic survey (on a large representative sample of the Spanish population) with an economically motivated experiment using behavioural economic techniques. The results show a very high level of consistency between what the public say when asked for their opinion and what they do in an experiment that they can earn money from.

“The experiment motivated by economic gain confirms the results of surveys conducted using standard methodology, but it also provides interesting results that the surveys did not highlight,” notes Anxo Sánchez.

The second prize was awarded to the project “Solar Heaters: Clean heat in industrial processes”, developed by Darío Pardillos Pobo. This entrepreneurial proposal suggests the use of preheating raw material in industrial processes, using thermo-solar technology developed and patented by the UC3M. This idea can be applied in the asphalt industry, which could reduce its environmental impact as well as production costs.

The third prize was awarded to Alejandro Matías Delgado-Ureña Ocaña and César Sebastián Muñoz for their proposal “Agricop: Analysis of specific crops using hexacopter and satellite images”. This business idea is intended to facilitate farmers’ access to decision-making solutions based on satellite and/or drone-generated image analysis. This precision farming solution offers users the possibility to optimise crop parameters, increasing their productivity. This project is being presented by a multidisciplinary team that has already developed a prototype and tested it at the UC3M’s Science Park.

By awarding these prizes, the University supports the entrepreneurial spirit of its undergraduate students, helping drive innovation and business creation. This call is aimed at Final Dissertations related to entrepreneurship subjects that have obtained the TFG-EMPRENDE certificate from the UC3M during the academic year in which the call took place.

In this work, published in PLoS Computational Biology, researchers from the UC3M and UCM have now used a combination of mathematical modelling, numerical simulations and a topological analysis of data extracted from simulations and experiments in order to understand how cancer cells invade healthy cells. “A simplification of the early stages of cancerous metastasis is that tumor cells move as a collective and displace a group of normal cells in healthy tissue,” explain the paper’s authors, Luis L. Bonilla and Carolina Trenado, from the UC3M Department of Mathematics, and Ana Carpio, from the UCM Department of Applied Mathematics.

“By selecting the right cell groups and using an appropriate software and cellular dynamics, we have been able to simulate the way in which cancerous cells invade healthy tissue,” the scientists note. In order to carry out this simulation, they have used data from previous experiments and a Voronoi diagram (named after the Russian mathematician Gregory Voronoi) to conduct an irregular tessellation in which cells are polygons that do not overlap and have no spaces between them. In the model, the centers of cells are subject to forces of a different origin, the researchers explain, some maintain tessellation and optimize the area and perimeter, others are inertial forces of biological origin, and there are active forces aligning the speeds of neighboring cells, as well as friction and noise.

In order to automatically track the progression of the barrier or boundary between cancerous and normal cells, researchers have used topological data analysis techniques, which are being used for the first time in this type of study. “Based on a series of successive images from experiments, as well as numerical simulations, topological changes in the interfaces have been grouped, plotted, and classified automatically as the cancer cells progress,” note the scientists.

The techniques developed within the framework of this study can be scaled up to a larger volume of data, if these studies were to be carried out on a larger scale. In addition to this, these same techniques may be relevant in the field of tissue bioengineering to study how the biophysical characteristics of different materials affect organ and tissue regeneration.

Bibliography:  Bonilla LL, Carpio A, Trenado C (2020) Tracking collective cell motion by topological data analysis. PLoSComput Biol 16(12): e1008407.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008407

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

“It is a collation of the standards protecting freedom of expression tailored to the needs of legal practitioners working in the area of criminal law, and especially aimed at criminal investigations; organised by type of crime and by legal concept,” explains the project coordinator, Jacobo Dopico, Professor of Criminal Law at the UC3M. He adds that the tool may also be useful for journalists looking for context for potential news items of this type.

To handle decisions such as the admissibility or inadmissibility of a complaint or suit, the dismissal or continuation of a criminal process, and even the acquittal or conviction for this type of offence, LibEx provides an analysis of the principal material and procedural aspects of each of these offences, as well as a comprehensive presentation of the specific cases dealt with by Spanish and European courts.

The work carried out by the LibEx expert group focuses on issues related to freedom of expression in the context of an open and pluralistic society: "We share a commitment to freedom of expression," says Dopico. LibEx is a project that came about as the result of a small group of academics (the Working Group on Freedom of Expression), which has been extended to researchers from different universities (Barcelona, Carlos III, Complutense, Jaume I in Castellón, Murcia, Oviedo, Basque Country, Rey Juan Carlos, Valladolid) and attorneys and former lawyers of the Constitutional Court. Currently, the project is being run within the Criminal Policy Studies Group in partnership with the UC3M, through a partnership agreement led by Professor Jacobo Dopico.

More information: LibEx project website

Previous scientific research, such as Sture Forsén’s study in 2013, has pointed to several defects that may have affected the metronome, causing it to function slower, which would have led the composer from Bonn to choose faster marks than those actually proposed. In order to validate this explanation, researchers from the UC3M and UNED have systematically compared the metronomic marks with contemporary interpretations. This requires physical skills to model the metronome mathematically, analyse data, computing, usability, and, of course, music skills. Overall, they have analysed the tempo and its variations for each movement of 36 symphonies interpreted by 36 different conductors, a total of 169 hours of music.

“Our study has revealed that conductors tend to play slower than Beethoven indicated. Even those who aim to follow his directions to the letter! The tempi indicated by the composer are, in general, too fast, to the point that, collectively, musicians tend to slow them down,” says Iñaki Ucar, one of the authors of this research, data scientist at the UC3M’s Big Data Institute, and clarinetist. This slowing down follows, on average, a systematic deviation, so it is not random, but conductors tend to play consistently below Beethoven's marks. “This deviation could be explained by the composer reading the scale of the apparatus in the wrong place, for example, under the weight instead of above. Ultimately, this would be a problem caused by using new technology,” says Almudena Martín Castro, the other author of the study, user experience designer and pianist, who carried out this research within the framework of her Bachelor Thesis for her Degree in Physics at UNED. 

In this study, researchers have developed a mathematical model for the metronome based on a double pendulum, perfected with three types of corrections which take the amplitude of its oscillation, the friction of its mechanism, the impulse force, and the mass of its rod, an aspect that had not been considered in previous work, into account. “With the help of this model, we developed a methodology for estimating the original parameters of Beethoven’s metronome from photographs that are available and the patent outline,” the work explains. In addition to this, they dismantled a modern metronome to measure it and use it to validate both the mathematical model and methodology.

The researchers tried to identify a “break” in the metronome that gave rise to the slow tempi usually followed by musicians. They tried to change the metronome’s mass (it may have been damaged and a piece may have fallen off), move it onto the rod, increase the friction (the metronome may have been poorly lubricated) and even testing the assumption that the apparatus may have been misplaced, leaning over the piano while the composer was creating his music. “None of the hypotheses matched what the data told us, which is a homogeneous slowdown in the tempi on the entire scale. Finally, we considered the fact that the deviation matches the size of the metronome’s weight exactly, and we also found the annotation ‘108 or 120’ on the first page of the manuscript for his ninth symphony, which indicates that the composer doubted where he was reading at least once. Suddenly, it all made sense: Beethoven was able to write down a lot of these marks by reading the tempo in the wrong place,” they explain. 

This methodology could be applied when investigating the work of other classical composers, as they are able to extract the tempo from a musical recording and clean up the data so they can be compared. “Studying the relationship between the tempo played and marks from other composers would be very interesting, or even looking for the ‘correct tempo’ for composers who did not leave any metronomic marks. Is it possible that there is an average tempo at which people usually interpret Bach's fugues, for example?” they ask. 

More information: 

Bibliography: Martín-Castro, Almudena; Ucar, Iñaki (2020). Conductors’ tempo choices shed light over Beethoven’s metronome. PLOS ONE. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0243616

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

For example, when we watch a reality show on television, we are aware of the fact that we are facing a process of mediation, of representation, and we feel it as something external. However, when we use Facebook or WhatsApp we have somehow lost the notion of being in front of a sort of spectacle, even though the mediation process is exactly the same. “There is a naturalisation of representation which is very dangerous, as it also involves a loss of critical distance”, says Pilar Carrera.

According to the researcher, if we examine our relationship with mass media screens and interfaces during the 20th century up to the present day, we can easily see how the trend has been a sustained and progressive reduction in physical and symbolic distance,  as well  as  an increasing sophistication in forms of control through mass media technology that have penetrated the individual’s private and intimate spaces.

“When cinema began, it was consumed in public theatres. The screen made its way into our homes (a private space) with the arrival of television. The internet is the first medium that has directly entered the intimate space. This trend has accelerated during the COVID crisis”, Pilar Carrera explained. “This pandemic has been virtually filtered through a single medium: the internet. This has produced a monumental discursive deficit because its entire narrative has reached us almost exclusively via this media".

The impact of lockdown

The lockdown brought about by COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented restriction of public freedom in countries with a long-standing democratic tradition, combined with the generalisation of legitimate and compelling digital surveillance undertaken in the name of ‘public interest’, especially through smartphones, according to this paper. “It is the perfect example of encapsulated privacy and tightly controlled media, accompanied by large, extensive and frenetic use of the internet as the only window that is ‘open to the outside world’ and the only means of contact as vicarious as it is frustrating with the other”, Pilar Carrera noted.

In a nutshell, the COVID-19 crisis has allowed us to grasp the true scope of the internet in terms of social control and engineering, after decades of the public adapting, internalising, and adopting this communication network en masse. “In this perfect storm, where two viral environments (the internet and COVID-19) have collided, the structural links between the internet and socio-political isolation have become apparent,” she concluded.

Bibliography: 

Carrera, Pilar (2020). Digital interiors. The Internet Housing Policies. Meet the Age of Confinement. EU-topías. A Journal on Interculturality, Communication, and European Studies, Vol. 19, pp. 5-18. DOI: 10.7203/eutopias.19.17870http://eu-topias.org/interiores-digitales/ - PDF

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中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Economy, climate change and emissions 

The project is called “Climate change and economic challenges in Spanish society” (CC-ECHASS) and is being presented by Esther Ruiz, professor at the UC3M’s Department of Statistics. It aims to analyse the effects of climate change on the economy and financial sector, using advanced quantitative methods, in particular, insurance coverage and bank exposures in Spain based on different extreme risk scenarios. Climate risk assessment is based on probability predictions of climate variables (temperatures, precipitation, CO2 emissions) observed at extreme intervals (minimum and maximum, which is where the biggest risks are found). In addition to this, measuring the uncertainty of these predictions allows probabilities to be assigned to possible future scenarios, so the economic effects of climate change in different scenarios will be assessed. Measuring uncertainty in predictions is important for making well-informed decisions.

“The socio-economic impacts of low-emission zones” (URBAN_SKIES) is the name of the project being presented by Natalia Fabra, professor at the UC3M’s Department of Economics, which will focus on investigating the long-term socio-economic effects of low-emission zones (LEZ). It will examine, in particular, whether these areas are effective enough to change the composition of a fleet of vehicles with the incorporation of cleaner vehicles, change habits in favour of shared mobility options and enhance economic activity within restricted areas. To do so, the project will use high frequency and hyperlocal data (vehicle registration data, car and bicycle sharing, bank card transactions, socio-demographic profiles, etc.) to analyse the socio-economic impacts of LEZs in Madrid and Barcelona from the perspective of the most modern econometric techniques. It aims to contribute to the debate about two important global socio-economic issues; the design of environmental policies and the future of cities.

In addition to this, the application allows you to enjoy the Madrid Christmas lights without being there just by searching through the list of available streets. Each of them gives a description of the lights in this area and its representative image.

The “Accessible Christmas” tour is made up of twenty spots that can be visited, including the Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, and Plaza de Canalejas, and offers three audio description formats; one that uses real voices, one with synthetic voices, and one that uses adapted language for younger audiences.

Ultimately, the goal of “Accessible Christmas” is to allow everyone to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere in Madrid.

This system has been developed by teaching and research staff in the HULAT research group, which belongs to the UC3M’s Computer Science and Engineering Department, whose main activity consists of carrying out R&D&I projects related to natural language processing technologies, information retrieval and extraction in several application domains, search of answers systems, usability, and accessibility of user interfaces.

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In addition to the quality and variety of training programmes, the ranking also takes into account factors such as graduates’ salary increase and participants’ satisfaction. In order to obtain the classification, the British publication takes an average of the five main classifications undertaken throughout the year (MBA, EMBA, Master in Management, Open Executive Education and Custom Programmes).

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which excels in teaching, research and innovation. It features among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking. In 2017, the UC3M became the first Spanish public university to obtain the AACSB accreditation, an international organisation that recognises the best educational centres in the world for their teaching and research quality in business administration, accounting, finance and marketing.

More information: European Business School Rankings 2020

The first step in this programme is inviting students with disabilities to participate if they meet the requirements (they must be enrolled on any undergraduate or postgraduate course at the UC3M and have a recognised disability). On the other hand, the mentors are professionals put forward by Inserta and who have knowledge and experiences that may be useful to others and that they are able to share. 

Within the framework of this initiative, students and mentors will be regularly monitored throughout the programme, also includes communication and training sessions, the use of working tools and the exchange of best practices in mentoring and an evaluation at the end of the activities. 

The programme is part of the Social Inclusion and Social Economy (POISES, in its Spanish acronym) and the Youth Employment (POEJ, in its Spanish acronym) operational programmes, which the ONCE Foundation is developing through Inserta, co-financed by the European Social Fund and Youth Employment Initiative, to increase the training and employment of people with disabilities.

More information:

UC3M Mentor Programme for university students with disabilities

Inserta Empleo Website

START’s objective is the development of research algorithms for optimising air transport networks in terms of their resilience (the system’s recovery capacity) when facing this kind of disruptive phenomena. “The storms we are analysing in this project are convective, typically cumulonimbus (a type of cloud), which are very energetic and dangerous for an aircraft in flight, so pilots tend to systematically avoid them”, explains the project’s coordinator, Manuel Soler, from the UC3M’s Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering. In addition to heavy rain, these storms often present hail, lightning, and thunder, and may eventually block airports or large airspace corridors.

“It is important that, when developing these algorithms, they are resilient, in other words, they can automatically react to storms and recover the system. In this way, flights could be planned with the knowledge that there is a chance that storms will occur in a particular area, even if the specific place and time are unknown,” the researcher explains. In addition to this, the system will also take other factors that may cause uncertainty when planning flights into account, such as the different aircraft models being used, their weight and cargo, gusts of wind, or take-off and landing attempts.

Scientists anticipate that the final result of this project will be a flight planning software that will improve air transport system indicators, reducing delays, increasing their capacity, and improving safety. It will also improve airlines’ economic indicators by reducing their costs and increasing their revenue with improved flight timing.

On a methodological level, this project requires a multidisciplinary approach. On the one hand, scientists will use Artificial Intelligence to characterise the uncertainty of all of the elements that make up air traffic, using an epidemiological model to simulate how delays in the system spread at the network level. On the other hand, they will use Big Data (data science) to analyse how large volumes of information can be processed continuously, in addition to the development of these flight optimisation algorithms.

START (A Stable and resilienT ATM by inTegrating Robust airline operations into the neTwork) is a European scientific project funded by the European Commission (GA 893204) that started this year and will run until 2022. It is being coordinated by the UC3M and has partners participating from five European countries: Boeing Deutschland (Germany), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the French National Civil Aviation School (France), the flight planning company Flightkeys (Austria), the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (Spain) and the Istanbul Technical University (Turkey). 

More information: START Project website www.start-atm.com

• START (traduction française / french translation)

• START (中文翻譯 / chinese translation)

STEM4GirlsUC3M is a programme aimed at promotingtechnological and scientific careersamong girls and young women in secondary level education. It has been running since the 2018/2019 academic year with the implementation of various technological workshops, a mentoring programme, the exchange of experiences between researchers and students and a performing arts project. This activity is also supported by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT in the Spanish acronym) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and the Institute of Women and Equal Opportunities.

The awards ceremony was held digitally and was inaugurated by Ruth Pindado, Director General for Women inthe Castilla y León Regional Government. During her address, she welcomed the creation of these awards, which will provide "greater social recognition for the integration of our young women into what are known as the STEM disciplines".

The judging panel for this first edition of the STEM Talent Girl Awards was made up of experts and executives in the technology sector, such as Isabel Blanco, Minister for Family and Equal Opportunities in the Castilla y León Regional Government; Javier Rodríguez Zapatero, Chairman of ISDI; Elena Díaz-Alejo, Manager of Corporate Citizenship and Institutional Relations at Samsung; Alberto Gómez Barahona, President of the Universidad Isabel I; José María de la Torre, Managing Director Southern Europe, Chairman and Board Member of Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Cristina Vall-Losada, Head of Global Corporate Communications; David Calle, CEO & Founder of BeUnicoos; and María Jesús Prieto, a telecommunications engineer from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

More information at: https://talent-girl.com/stg-awards/

In this edition of the scientific disclosure event, other formats can be found online, such as a cinema forum about science fiction and new technologies, a competition for investigating the truth behind Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter using Artificial Intelligence, or an exhibition about “Women who made history and continue to do so” which can be visited via the website. In addition to this, several guided tours will be carried out around the UC3M’s science laboratories to learn about how 3D printing is used in the manufacture of aircraft materials, understand how an induction cooker and its electromagnetic fields work, or experiment with sound technology to listen to your own body’s sounds and promote physical activity. In another two online meetings with researchers, attendees can raise doubts about issues such as the Spanish University’s commitment to sustainability or gender equality, tolerance, and human rights in the post-COVID-19 era.

In the framework of the UC3M’s Science and Innovation Week, two sets of interactive online round tables will take place to reflect on current topics. On the one hand, the Interuniversity Institute for Advanced Research on the Evaluation of Science and University (INAECU, in its Spanish acronym) will present four virtual meetings about sustainable mobility, collaborative technology, public health, and gender equality, based on actions carried out in Madrid’s municipalities in face of the problems arising from COVID-19 and which include the population’s participation. On the other hand, the Equality Unit of the Vice-President of Students and Equality at the University has organised a series of three virtual round tables to discuss the role women from different fields, such as law, history, or sociology, play in the pandemic, comparing it to the role women played in the 1918 flu pandemic.

There are four other activities that are specifically aimed at secondary schools, places for these activities can be reserved through a designated website. Two of these events are online meetings with researchers, focusing on topics such as the technological challenges of energy transition in public transport and the application of Automation in self-driving cars and drones. The other two activities are a webinar about the revolution of mobile communication (from WiFi to Li-Fi) and an online escape room about symmetric cryptography. 

The Madrid Science and Innovation Week is a scientific disclousure event and encourages the population to take part and is organised by the Fundación para el Conocimiento madri+d of the Council of Science, Universities and Innovation in the Community of Madrid, which aims to promote the active participation of the population in scientific activities through the involvement of the public in the production of knowledge and in public debate as an agent of the system. The UC3M has participated in this event for more than a decade and offers the opportunity to get a closer look at the work done by its researchers, as well as their R&D&I results. This edition is also supported by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, in its Spanish acronym).

More information: UC3M Semana de la Ciencia y de la Innovación Website 

Based on this technology, Cedrión can be used in two ways: it can be used to clean the air and surfaces. The first is a silent system which disinfects rooms that have people inside, it recirculates the air and neutralises bacteria and viruses. The second use cleans any surface in the room when it is empty. To do this, the system releases ions which, once disinfected, are reconnected in neutral particles. 

The testing of this disinfection system will begin in November at the Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology (CNB-CSIC, in its Spanish acronym), testing the neutralisation of the strains of Coronavirus that affect humans, including SARS-COV-2. The start-up, which was housed in the UC3M - ESA BIC Madrid Region node until 2019, plans to have the system tested and certified by the end of this year so that it can be installed in hospitals, schools, and offices, among other spaces. 

“We have tested the system using different types of bacteria, being able to neutralise 99.99% in less than a minute. We’ve also started testing strains of the Coronavirus that do not affect humans, and have had some very promising results,” Medina concludes. 

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The average age of the 59 grant holders selected in this call is 38.5 years old. In terms of the geographical distribution of the work centres, they are divided among 13 autonomous communities: 17 have been awarded to residents in Madrid, 11 in Catalonia, 10 in Andalusia, 5 in the Basque Country and Galicia, and the rest are distributed among Aragon, the Canary Islands, Castile-La Mancha, Castile and León, the Valencian Community, Murcia, and La Rioja.

Projects from the UC3M

Miguel Artola Blanco is a Postdoctoral researcher “Juan de la Cierva” at the UC3M’s Department of Social Sciences. His research project seeks to open up a new perspective into the study of the Interwar period by exploring the relationship between inequality and the triumph (or failure) of democracies. He is researching three countries (Spain, the United States and France) with different trajectories and who had different experiences of solutions during this period. The research focuses on the middle and working classes, understanding that they were key actors in the changes that occurred in these decades. It aims to connect three areas that have been studied separately thus far: the economic changes that these groups experienced, the stability (or bankruptcy) of each of these political regimes, and the new institutional framework of social and labour policies.

Stefano Discetti is aLecturer at the UC3M’s Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering. His research focuses on techniques for improving the aerodynamic efficiency of methods of transport, which are responsible for approximately 29% of the total CO2 emissions generated by humans. Given that a large percentage of the energy needed to travel is due to aerodynamic resistance, his project proposes tapping into advances in Artificial Intelligence in order to achieve real-time closed loop control of aerodynamic flows. The research will consist of two parts: a theoretical study and computational simulations of learning techniques for their application in fluid mechanics and adapting these automatic learning strategies to experimental environments.

Eva Herrero Curiel is a Lecturer of Journalism at the UC3M’s Department of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication. Her research project will study how teachers in secondary and further education in Spain work with their students from the perspective of the media: what they teach them, the methodology they use, and their perceptions of the students’ use of media and social media. Once the information has been collected, proposals will be made to implement actions within curricula that will help promote media literacy among students in order to foster a more critical thinking and consumption of media and the information they generate. According to international studies, 64% of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 around the world consider digital media (including social media) their main source of information.

Violeta Ruiz Almendral is a Lecturer of Financial and Tax Law at the UC3M’s Department of Public State Law. Her project aims to investigate the constitutional system of distributing powers between the state, autonomous communities, and local bodies in terms of financial and tax matters, considering the current model designed by the Spanish Constitution and integration into the European Union, as well as its evolution in practice. The research will analyse the dynamic functioning of the constitutional system of territorial financing, and the implications the system has on financial powers - both those relating to income (taxes and duties) as well as expenses (flows that make up the local and regional financing systems) and examining the main judicial questions raised through an examination of disputes,mainly in the courts (Court of Justice of the European Communities and Constitutional Court).

Each year, groups of up to 5 girls take on the challenge of developing a business plan and a mobile application that solves a problem in their community and that responds to a social need related to education, equality, environment, health, peace, or poverty. This year, despite complications, the young women and their mentors managed to get their projects off the ground. This forum organised by the UC3M is designed to give teams the opportunity to present their projects and receive live questions and feedback from the virtual audience about the applications and their development.

The UC3M’s Vice-President for Students and Equality,Mónica Campos, will host the welcome ceremony. This will be followed by an informative talk by the evolutionary and molecular biologist, Elena Gómez-Díaz, from The Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine "López-Neyra” of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC, in its Spanish acronym) in Granada, and then the six finalist teams in the junior and senior categories will present their projects for the Technovation Girls Madrid 2020 competition, where they will answer questions from the audience. Finally, Power to Code, Technovation Girls regional ambassadors, will give a speech.

The UC3M is incorporating this activity into its STEM4GirlsUC3M programme to promote technological and scientific vocations, aimed at girls and young women in secondary and higher education. This programme has taken place throughout 2019/20 with a series of different technological workshops, the mentor programme, the exchange of experiences between female researchers and students, and a performing arts project. This event is also supported by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, in its Spanish acronym) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and the Spanish Institute of Women and Equal Opportunities.

You can follow the day’s activities via the UC3M’s YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/gaFb-dgj6LA

Register for this event via the Technovation Girls 2020 Event website

Canard Drones is the other company linked to the UC3M in the final. It develops its activity at the University’s Science Park. Its main line of work is the real-time calibration of navigational support systems in airports, using automated drones instead of manned aircraft. This start-up has developed a software that allows drones to be used when reviewing the proper functioning of airport signal and navigation systems.

Furthermore, the other finalists included two other Spanish companies who competed against four Mexican start-ups, a start-up from Argentina, one from Brazil and one from Chile. The eleven finalists presented their projects to a jury comprised of innovation and entrepreneurial specialists. 

The X Global Awards aim to power new companies and offer them economic support, training, and personalised advice. The award is part of Santander X, a global network of university entrepreneurship created by the Banco Santander and universities from different countries, including the UC3M. This platform was created in 2017 with the aim of promoting innovative projects and creating a university entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The online sessions on Entrepreneurship and social economy will be held on the following day, the 14th October, with a colloquium on “Women and the situation caused by COVID-19” and a workshop on environmental resilience. You must complete the pre-registration in order to attend these sessions.

An Ideathon and a Pitching competition will take place on the 15th October, with prizes of training and advice for the winning team. The Second Entrepreneurship Week at the UC3M will end on the 16th October with an online workshop titled “The decision of being an entrepreneur”.

All of these activities are included in the Entrepreneurial Passport and may be validated for optional credits. The Entrepreneurial Passport provides students at the UC3M with a comprehensive catalogue of activities related to entrepreneurship. 

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“The aim of the UC3M’s aerospace engineering area is to use the hangar as a teaching space that has two objectives. Firstly, we intend to establish an exhibition area for aeronautical and aerospace components, equipment and systems. Secondly, we want to have a small drone flight area. Having this exhibition area is very convenient for teaching as it allows students to get to know, visualise and touch real structures. The horizontal stabilizer that Airbus has just donated to us will be the main feature of this exhibition, which we will complete with other components and systems,” Pablo Fajardo stated.

The horizontal stabilizer, also known as the tailplane, is the small wing that sits on the tail of the aircraft and the component which keeps the aircraft balanced on its traverse axis. The piece that was donated to the University by Airbus belongs to the A320 aircraft family, weighs 700kgs and measures 12.5x4.5m (similar to the length of a bus). 

A multidisciplinary team made up of more than 40 people worked on its design at the Airbus Commercial Aircraft plant in Getafe. The UC3M and Airbus are collaborating on the academic as well as the R&D&I fields from the Airbus-UC3M Joint Technologies Activity Centre. The transfer of knowledge and technology in the aerospace sector are being promoted through this joint action space. The centre aims to contribute to improving productive framework competitivity and economic and social development.

The research team assumes that the crisis is affecting different sectors and agents in a very unbalanced manner, in a situation that is enormously damaging for many, but in which there are also other sectors and agents that are benefiting, leading to a big relocation shock which policies should help accommodate. To this effect, they will use dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models integrated with epidemiological and technological change models, as a way to incorporate  heterogeneity in the demand and supply sides of the Spanish economy. Their main goal is to gather quantitative evidence that allows policy makers to adopt the most effective measures in this or any future crises.

The projects chosen in this special call for the BBVA Foundation’s Scientific Research Team Support Programme will explore different aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus, the pathogen that caused the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on different levels. In total, 20 projects involving more than 400 researchers have been promoted in the fields of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, Biomedicine, Ecology and Veterinary Medicine, Economics and Social Sciences, and Humanities.

“For example, most of the structural elements in cars are made of ductile metal, so that they are able to absorb energy in the event of a collision. This means that security will be increased if a traffic accident occurs. So, understanding and predicting how ductile metals fracture is equal to optimising the design of energy absorbing structures in impacts in critical industrial sectors,” explains one of the study’s authors, Guadalupe Vadillo from the Nonlinear Solid Mechanics research team in the UC3M’s Department of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis.

Her piece of work was recently published in the International Journal of Plasticity and has identified two mechanisms which cause the failure of the material. Firstly, the appearance and growth of micro pores which cause the material to soften until it breaks, and secondly, coalescence, which occurs when several micro pores within the material join and interact with each other, accelerating the fracture.

“During this work, we have identified how the micro voids or intrinsic micro pores in the material grow, shrink and interact with each other by accelerating or delaying the fracture of this material, depending on the viscosity of the material (how quickly it deforms when a load is applied), the speed at which the load is applied to the material and the loading path (direction and other factors),” Guadalupe Vadillo summarises.

Advances in this field improve our understanding of how 3D printed ductile metals behave and will help us design and manufacture sturdier parts and components in a variety of industries. These materials can be used in processes where energy absorption is important, such as in the manufacture of new fuselages in the aerospace industry, different car parts in the automotive industry or for developing implants in the biomedical industry.

This research is part of the QUANTIFY project, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) Action which was created to promote training and research placements among academic staff from different institutions around the world. This European research project, which is part of the Horizon 2020 programme (GA777896) is being led by the UC3M and 8 institutions (4 European and 4 American) are taking part in order to share knowledge to understand the effect of anisotropy and porosity on the breakdown of lightweight structures.

Bibliography: Reboul, J. Ankit Srivastava, A. Osovski, S. Vadillo, G. (2020). Influence of strain rate sensitivity on localization and void coalescence. International Journal of Plasticity, volume 125, pages 265-279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijplas.2019.09.007

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Within this framework, the UC3M is among the top 20 Spanish organisations in terms of economic return in H2020, participating in 82 projects in total, ranking in the top 5 institutions in the Community of Madrid. In addition to this, the UC3M ranks tenth nationally for leadership of cooperative research and innovation projects (16) and stands out among Spanish organisations with the highest return on Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Spain’s position in H2020

Overall, a quarter of the proposals that have obtained H2020 funding has at least one Spanish representative, meaning that there are 6,719 funded proposals and 12,414 participations in total. Spain ranks third in terms of participation.

In the absence of data for 2020 (the most recent year in which the current Horizon 2020 programme has taken place), Spain is the fourth country in terms of grants with 10.1% and 4,761.6 million Euros from the announcements for proposals awarded by the program at the EU 28 level. Spain ranks behind Germany (16.4%), the United Kingdom (14%), and France (12.3%).

In terms of the territorial distribution of grants in Spain, the top five autonomous communities have more than 80% of Spanish funding. Catalonia is in first place, with 28.3% of the funds, followed by the Community of Madrid (25.6%), the Basque Country (14.5%), the Valencian Community (8.6%) and Andalusia (6.2%).

Horizon 2020 (H2020) is the main financial instrument for research activities, technological development, demonstration, and innovation in Europe with around 75,000 million Euros in funding for the period between 2014 and 2020. The Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities manages the participation of Spanish organisations within the Framework Programme through the CDTI (Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology) for innovation and technology vertices (Industrial Leadership and Social Challenges) and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, in its Spanish acronym) for science and basic research (Excellent Science).

“The greatest challenge that scientists are facing is how to reach this frequency range, which sources to use and which connectors to employ, given the serious limitations of current technology.  TERAMeasure aims to revolutionize high frequency technology by developing connectors that operate continuously over the entire range from 30 GHz up to 3000 GHz,” Carpintero emphasizes. This will be achieved by combining photonic integration and silicon micro-structuring technologies to develop a new range of broadband contactless interconnections. “Being contactless is a fundamental feature of our solution because  at high frequencies the size of the connectors is approximately a few hundred microns (similar to the diameter of a hair root), making them very delicate. This feature will protect the connectors from damage as well as enable  contact independent of the quality of the physical contact.”

Disruptive applications

Frequencies in this range have numerous applications, including analysis of tissues and materials. Molecules and compounds exhibit resonances within this range of frequencies, enabling us to identify their presence (using spectroscopy techniques).Within the framework of this project we aim to demonstrate the potential of our contactless interconnections for  analyzing skin, searching for subcutaneous cancer and  monitoring the healing process of  severe burn injuries in collaboration with a group from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC in its Spanish acronym). Another field of application to be explored within the framework of the project is silicon integrated circuits used in manufacturing quality control with Protemics, a project partner in this field,which benefit from the use of higher resolution images at high frequencies when locating manufacturing faults. 

TERAMeasure was recently presented at an EPIC Webinar on Microwave Photonics andis a European Commission Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Open project. These projects are intended to develop breakthrough research to create new technologies which go beyond the current state of the art technology.

TERAMeasure (Non-contact millimeter and Terahertz frequency measurement paradigm for instrumentation and sensing applications unlocking metrology-grade results) will run until mid-2023. The project has received over 3M€ funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 862788, it is being coordinated by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, funded by  an approximate 3M Euro budget and involves the KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for Telecommunications (Germany), Anritsu EMEA (United Kingdom) and Protemics GmbH (Germany).

More information: 

Website for the TERAMeasure project

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

UC3M is in charge of managing the Madrid hub where it is currently working on creation of a specific program to accelerate, during the years of the project, a total of 20 start-ups and scale-ups that carry out their activity in one of the four areas that the program encompasses: space-related projects for a digitalized Europe (Big Data, IoT, Smart Cities and Smart Transport), space-related projects and applications to solve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); space-related projects in defense and security (Cyber, Big Data, Fintech);  and spacetech projects. 

In the first edition of the HUB-Madrid Acceleration program, which will begin in September, the companies chosen will have access to on-line training and mentoring for three months on issues related to the space market and channels and opportunities for financing. In addition, activities and events at the national and international level will take place, as well as sessions regarding knowledge, management and processing data from the observation platform for the Tierra DIAS Environment.  Likewise, the European Space Agency (ESA) Technology portfolio will be delved into, along with work in obtaining European program funding, such as the SME Instrument for innovative projects.  

With the startup of Go2Space-HUBs new initiatives are expected to be generated that complement those currently being undertaken at the European level, and foster the creation of applications and solutions that entail growth and commercialization of scalable and profitable solutions.   

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Publications and productivity 

Scientific publications published in the Web of Science (WoS) by researching lecturers at Spanish universities have increased by almost 7%, in comparison to the data from the Observatory’s previous annual edition (2008 - 2017), increasing from a total of 471,435 to 502,055 papers. In contrast to this, “the number of lecturers remains pretty much the same, which implies an increase in productivity in terms of papers produced per lecturer”, states IUNE coordinator, Elías Sanz, UC3M’s Full Professor. The number of lecturers has risen from 62,648 in 2009 to 63,782 in 2018, whilst the number of publications per lecturer per year has increased from 0.61 to 0.95. 

In terms of Autonomous Communities, Catalonia has a total of 129,063 publications (25.7% of the SUE total), the Community of Madrid has exceeded 100,000 publications for the first time (101,332; 20.18% of the SUE) and Andalusia ranks in the third position, with 81,748 publications (16.28%), followed by Valencia with 66,196 publications (13.18%). The SUE average for this decade is 33,876, a 7.49% increase from the previous IUNE report (31,513 papers).  

In regard to subject areas, Experimental Sciences stand out, with a total of 185,201 papers (36.88% of the SUE total), followed by Medicine and Pharmacology (139,939; 27.87%), Architecture, Engineering and Computer Sciences (132,022; 26.29%), Life Sciences (81,750; 16.28%), Social Sciences (55,362; 11.02%) and Arts and Humanities (31,703; 6.31%). “The low percentages in the Social Sciences and Humanities can be explained, to a large extent, by the uneven coverage of the database used (WoS)”, the Report noted.

In relation to the citations received, which are considered an indicator of the quality and transcendence of the work, these papers had a total of 8,065,382 citations in the WoS database;which is an average of 16.06 citations per paper, an increase on the number obtained between 2008 and 2017 with 14.32 citations per paper. This may also be due to the visibility of the publications, given that researchers at Spanish universities currently publish more in journals in the first quartile (the most prestigious in every field), with an increase from 51.60% of works in 2009 to 53.39% in 2018.

Patents and innovation and collaboration with the business sector 

A total of 5,141 patents have been granted by the Spanish Patent and Trademarks Office (OEPM, in its Spanish acronym) to Spanish universities during the decade between 2009 and 2018, an increase of 37.61%. As seen in previous reports, polytechnic universities are granted the most patents. 

In this period, funding obtained by universities, linked to consultancies and contracts for research and development, has generated a volume of income above 2,959 million Euros. However, this is a decrease on data from 2009; falling from 413.4 to 189.97 million Euros in 2018. 

By analysing the evolution of funding obtained through providing research and development services to companies, the report shows that this income has grown mainly from 2016, reaching 139.99 million Euros in 2018, compared to 23.87 million Euros in 2009. Funding received through licenses has increased from 2.5 million Euros in 2009 to3.6 in 2018.

National and international R&D&I projects 

One of the indicators used to assess the competitiveness is Spanish universities’ involvement in European projects. The total number of participations in the past decade was 3,652, increasing from 293 projects in 2009 to 427 in 2018; an increase of 45.73% and an average accumulative increase of 4.27% (as opposed to 4.75% in the previous period). 

In terms of National Plan projects, 22,764 were identified within the period and a decrease of 20.93% is confirmed, in relation to the previous period, decreasing from 2,766 projects in 2009 to 2,187 in 2018. 

Concerning attraction and training talent, the report indicates an increase of 4.2% in the number of Juan de la Cierva’s contracts, increasing from 187 in 2009 to 251 in 2018, with an average accumulative increase of 3.32%. However, Ramón y Cajal’s contracts have decreased significantly (by 9.8%), falling from 132 in 2009 to 119 in 2018; a decrease of 9.84%.

Further information: 

Informe IUNE

Tableau interactive tables

In contrast to the current system of “respeaking”, presently in use and which requires someone to introduce and send the transcription, the system developed by UC3M carries out the process in the cloud, and requires almost no human intervention, infrastructure or specific location.  “The system analyses results in real time from several voice recognizers and constructs a final transcript with results that are superior to individual results from the individual systems,” García Crespo pointed out.  

This software is in accordance with subtitling regulations and produces a maximum of 37 characters in two or three lines, as the norm requires.  Furthermore, it automatically includes punctuation and identifies the correct terms used in each area, which have been added individually by region to obtain a more efficient transcript and reduce the errors produced by other similar systems.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranking,which began to be developed in 2003 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China) to assess the quality of the best 500 universities in the world, has been published since 2009 by an independent consultancy firm, the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. Currently, it analyzes  which are the top universities in the world in 54 academic fields, divided into five broad areas: natural sciences, social sciences, life sciences, engineering and medicine.

This ranking uses five criteria to assess universities: the number of scientific articles published; their impact according to a normalized citation index; the percentage of publications with international collaboration; the number of publications selected for high impact journals and top conferences; and the number of researchers from the institution who have received prestigious awards in their fields, such as the Nobel Prize or Fields Medal.

Further information: 

Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020 website

The masters in finance ranking analyzes the career and salary progress of alumni, international reach, student and faculty diversity, and value for money, among other parameters.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that stands out for its teaching, research and innovation.  It is ranked amount the best 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 under 50 ranking. In 2017 UC3M became the first Spanish public university to obtain accreditation from AACSB, an international organization which recognizes the top centers of higher learning worldwide in teaching and research quality in the areas of business administration, accounting, finance and marketing.

Financial Times Business Education ranking

This comprehensive system automatically and continuously gathers user activity through a mobile phone or any other smart device, providing information about mobility, physical and social activity, mobile phone use, sleep data and emotional state.  For mental health patient care, it provides healthcare personnel with the patient’s state in real time in order to improve care and treatment, while at the same time optimizing efficiency in hospital and appointment management, which contributes to lowering mental health treatment costs that today in Spain exceed 80,000 million euros annually. 

The shareholder team of eB2 is mostly made up of University researchers.  With the signing of this agreement, UC3M forms part of the social capital and governing entity for the technology-based company.

With the addition of this company, UC3M now participates in four spin-offs and which are supported by the UC3M Business Incubator and Accelerator Program. The other three companies are Laboratorio Hipermedia, Power Smart Control and Sensia Solutions.

Further information

The project, in addition to locating the scenes, analyzes them according to their length, revealing Gran Via as the street with the most cinematographic presence, followed by Cibeles, the Plaza Mayor and the Puerta de Alcala. However, certain changes can be perceived over time:  as new urban spaces have been created, the number of these film settings have diminished. “As the city has grown, attention has shifted to other areas, also due to cinema’s commitment to narrating different stories.  With “Cine Quinqui” (Petty Thief Cinema) in the 1970’s, and later as of the 2000’s, the city’s periphery began to be represented from a more social perspective, and accordingly other small icons emerged, such as the area of “Las Colmenas”  (The Beehives)  in Ciudad Lineal, constituting a symbol of the peripheral city,” pointed out by Paula Bordonada, PhD student in the UC3M Department of Communication.

“Film conditions the collective imagination associated with geographic space, but also contributes to giving unknown or lesser-known urban or natural locales greater visibility, so that they become known to the populace. This generates a different kind of link between residents and their communities fomenting niche tourism, and in some way it can serve as an incentive for its maintenance or improvement,” explained the Geocine principal investigator, Carlos Manuel Valdés, professor in the UC3M Department of Humanities, History, Geography and Art. 

The research team has worked with more than 300 films and identified and georeferenced more than 2,000 scenes which are the source for the web map viewer included in the project webpage. To locate films shot in the Madrid Regional Community, they use information published by IMDb, film offices and specialized bibliography along with full viewing of the films.  “The inventory depends a good deal on the film’s repercussions, information provided by the production teams or the date of shooting, so that quite often we see new films being added,” Valdés concluded.

Currently, the research group is examining the presence of other Spanish cities in audiovisual fiction and undertaking specific studies, such as analyzing Spanish movies filmed in the Lavapiés neighborhood throughout history, or how specific settings, such as the Plaza de Cascorro and Ribera de Curtidores street, are established as symbols of the neighborhood itself and of the traditional and authentic Madrid.

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Of the total Spanish output for scientific articles published in the Web of Science (WoS) database during the period analyzed (2009-2018), 13.6% is produced by one of the four member universities of the A4U group. These four universities together present a high degree of productivity, with 2.11 articles per professor a year, 2.62 times higher than the SUE average (0.81 articles per professor/year).

As for quality and impact of scientific publications, the A4U has a higher percentage of articles (55.75%) in first quartile journals (the most prestigious ones in each field) than the Spanish university system (52.92%). In relation to the number of citations, usually an indicator of the quality and transcendence of the work, the relative impact of the A4U throughout the period analyzed is 21.27 citations per document, nearly 4 points higher than that obtained by all of the other universities together (17.62 citations per document). For absolute impact (total number of citations), the A4U obtains16.4% of all the citations received by all of the Spanish universities.

Commitment to internationalization and research

The data from the INAECU report also show that collaboration of the A4U has a markedly international character. The universities from this alliance represent 15.67% of international collaboration for all Spanish universities.

The report likewise includes a comparative study of the A4U and other international university systems. On one hand, it analyzes four universities belonging to the Yerun association (Young European Research Universities Network) best classified in the last edition of the ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities) ranking: Brunel University London, University of Antwerp, Dauphine Université Paris, and Tor Vergata University of Rome. On the other hand, it is compared to the top five British universities in terms of number of faculty members: University College London; Oxford University; Cambridge University; Imperial College of London; and University of Manchester.

The analysis reveals how the quality of A4U research also maintains a level of excellence on an international scale. Its range of publications in the WoS journals is higher than each one of the universities from the Yerun association included in the study, as well as the sum of all their output combined.At the same time, the A4U holds fifth position in terms of WoS output with respect to the British universities analyzed. Annual output by researchers and professors placesA4U in the third sport with respect to the British universities analyzed, and in second place with respect to the Yerun universities chosen.

During the period 2014-2018 the citations per document for the A4U placed it in the second position compared with the Yerun universities included in this study, and in fifth position with respect to the British ones. The A4U has the second highest percentile of Highly Cited Papers when compared to the Yerun universities, and the fifth highest with respect to the British universities. Lastly, the study highlights that the A4Uis secondin percentage of publications in Open Access,with respect to the Yerun universities selected for analysis.

This report from INAECU (Research Institute for Higher Education and Science Institute)comprised of the Autónoma de Madrid and Carlos III de Madrid universities, assesses the R+D+i of the institutions through a set of indicators on economic resources, competitiveness, excellence, scientific and technological output, visibility in international rankings and research training. For this purpose, it has used information obtained from the IUNE Observatory, the Spanish Center for Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), the WoS, the ARWU, QS and THE rankings, the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM), the European Patent Office (OEP), the Ministry for Universities, and the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE).

Further information: 

Informe 2020 de la actividad científica de la A4U (PDF)

For two years both research groups have divided their work into two parts.  On one hand, the Evolutionary Computation and Neural Networks (EVANNAI) Group at UC3M has focused on applying artificial intelligence techniques to select the best model or combination of models for each meteorological situation, location and time horizon, as well as obtaining prediction intervals to estimate uncertainty in the forecasts. On the other hand, the Atmosphere and Solar Radiation Modeling (MATRAS) Group at UJA has focused on design and improvement of different solar radiation forecasting methods, for which they have used different methodologies such as cloud chambers, satellite images and meteorological models.  

The most striking result obtained in this research is that the optimal modeling combination lowers the forecast error by around 30% with respect to the best models in each time horizon. “This is the first time that five independent models have been compared and thanks to artificial intelligence and mathematical processing we have been able to reduce the margin of error in each forecast horizon, which represents an economic savings because it reduces the cost of solar energy integration,” explained the project’s coordinator, David Pozo, Full Professor of Applied Physics at UJA.

“The use of artificial intelligence and specifically machine learning techniques enable the forecasts of different models to be automatically and efficiently integrated, with the model itself providing the best forecast for each time horizon. Furthermore, the use of evolutionary optimization techniques allows quantifying uncertainty for each of the forecasts. Incorporation of these new techniques into the context of renewable energies has led to important improvements with respect to the initial techniques,” explained those leading the study at UC3M, Inés M. Galván and Ricardo Aler, Associate Professors in the Computer Science and Engineering Department.

The researchers have determined the moment of the time horizon during which each model is more reliable, as occurs for example with the use of satellite images during the first two or three hours or the use of the numerical weather prediction model after the fourth or fifth hour. And among others things, it has also concluded that forecasting near coastal areas is more difficult even within the margin of an hour.

Part of this study has been published in two articles in the scientific journal Solar Energy, and another part isin the review process for other journals. The project has been supported by funding from the Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness, and with collaboration from the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lisbon and Abengoa Solar.

Bibliographic references: 

Rodríguez-Benítez, F. J., Arbizu-Barrena, C., Huertas-Tato, J., Aler-Mur, R., Galván-León, I., & Pozo-Vázquez, D. (2020). A short-term solar radiation forecasting system for the Iberian Peninsula. Part 1: Models description and performance assessment. Solar Energy, 195, 396-412.

Huertas-Tato, J., Aler, R., Galván, I. M., Rodríguez-Benítez, F. J., Arbizu-Barrena, C., &Pozo-Vázquez, D. (2020). A short-term solar radiation forecasting system for the Iberian Peninsula. Part 2: Model blending approaches based on machine learning. Solar Energy, 195, 685-696.

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The most vulnerable areas, according to the proportional concentration of at-risk groups, are Castellón, Cantabria and Gipuzkoa. Likewise, Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca, and Navarre are the areas which have the least hospital coverage in relation to their vulnerable population, according to the conclusions of the study.

“The analysis of indicators which affect the evolution of the virus or risk in a particular geographic area in isolation could lead to incorrect conclusions or biased assessments. The multi-variable rates provide a more comprehensive analysis”, the report indicates.

Extracting multi-variable rates facilitates a broader analysis of the evolving behavior of the COVID-19 pandemic based on several factors such as, the area, the population’s mobility or possible propagation of the virus in relation to the phased recovery of commercial and industrial activity, for example.

From 25km to 5km a day during isolation

At a national level, the population’s mobility decreased from 25 to 5 kilometres per person per day during the isolation period, a decrease of approximately 80%. In addition, the study finds that the restriction of all non-essential activity began to significantly affect mobility about 5 days later. 

“These results can help institutions and the community analyse various indicators and better understand the COVID19 pandemic”, explains one of the report’s authors, Rubén Cuevas, a professor at the UC3M’s Telematics Engineering Department. This research has been carried out as part of the TAPTAP Digital-UC3M Chair. “Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to use our geospatial engine, called Sonata Location Intelligence (LI), to gain an understanding of the population’s mobility, demographic significance and interactions with points of interest or essential services, such as hospitals, pharmacies or supermarkets, during the isolation period”, notes Álvaro Mayol, Partner and Chief Product & Technology Officer at TAPTAP Digital.

This tool enables additional analyses with regard to other issues related to COVID-19. “Because the data provided by TAPTAP and its partner, Predicio, is global, we are now working on a scientific article which compares population mobility patterns in different countries”, notes Rubén Cuevas. 

More information: TAPTAP COVID-19 Report

Dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa is a rare congenital disease caused by mutations to the COL7A1 gene. Depending on the intensity of the condition, patients can present with fragile skin, blistering, ulcers,skin and mucosal inflammation and other consequences such as infections, malnutrition,and a heightened risk of skin cancer. Nonsense mutations today represent 11% of the mutations underlying human genetic diseases. 

“It is essential to be able to find new compounds that are more powerful and less toxic than those now in use. We have the tools and capabilities to identify from among the large number of compounds to be tested some that will meet that requirement”, explains the lead researcher for the project at the University, Dr. Fernando Larcher from the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Group (TERMeG) in UC3M’s Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering.

“We believe that innovative approaches are essential to find novel treatment opportunities for patients suffering from severe diseases with unmet medical needs. We are convinced that this collaborative research project will add substantial value to our ongoing research efforts to find treatments for this and other severe genetic diseases”, commented Thomas Huber, Research Director at Almirall.

Olga Genilloud, Director of Science at MEDINA Foundation emphasized that “a multi-disciplinary project approach is a unique opportunity to contribute our natural product libraries for the identification of possible starting points for the development of new products to treat this disease.”

Almirall will lead the project, contributing its compound library, strong capabilities in assay development and its extensive experience in research and development of new drugs. MEDINA Foundation provides access to its one-of-a-kind library of microbial extracts and its high-screening capacity platform as well as its extensive experience in drug discovery. The CDTI is financing this collaborative program under its individual R&D project financing initiative, created to pursue its mission to promote innovative research in Spain. UC3M’s bioengineering group brings to the collaboration its proven expertise in genetic disease and in the generation of patient-derived in vitro models of epidermolysis bullosa.

“Our study is a first step towards an analysis of the impact of the pandemic from the job offer point of view. Future research may complement this by examining the impact on job demand, the decline in consumption or the supply-chain effects”, explains one of the researchers, Warn N. Lekfuangfu, professor at the UC3M’s Department of Economics. 

This research focuses on Thailand as a case study, but the findings must be relevant for other countries with similar labour market structures, especially those in which a large portion of the population are self-employed and there is a poor social net for labour protection. The findings can provide useful insights for policymakers and leaders in charge of labour and economic management and who are tasked with de-escalation planning, in order to balance pandemic containment and the associated economic burdens. 

According to researchers, the group of workers who are most likely to be proportionally affected by the health crisis are precisely one of the most vulnerable; those who have less income. They have also observed that this occurs because, in many cases, in this type of work (in sectors such as agriculture, construction or manufacturing) it is not possible for the workers to work remotely and earn an income. “Without adequate government intervention to support income or employment for the poor, the adverse effect of COVID-19 could worsen income inequality in the population”, indicated one of the authors, Suphanit Piyapromdee, of the Department of Economics at University College London.

The researchers also found that low income workers, such as farmers and construction workers, tend to work in jobs that require less physical proximity to other people at work than higher income workers, such as office workers or schoolteachers. “Our analysis suggests that workers in jobs which cannot be adapted to work from home, but do not require frequent physical contact with others, should be allowed to return to their workplaces first. This happens to one-third of low-income workers,” states Nada Wasi, of the Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research at the Bank of Thailand. She added that “On the other hand, those who usually work in close physical proximity to others, but whose jobs are well-suited to work from home, may be the last to return to normalcy”.

Researchers have also found differences in couples’ jobs based on their income. According to PonpojePorapakkarm, of GRIPS, “couples in low-income households are more likely to have similar occupations and are highly concentrated in jobs which cannot be adapted to work from home. Whereas high income workers have a lower correlation between husband and wife occupations.” The study has found that 60% of couples in low income households have similar occupations, whereas this only occurs in 20% of high-income households.

Bibliography: Lekfuangfu, W., Piyapromdee, S., Porapakkarm, P., Wasi, N. (2020). Covid Economics: Vetted and Real-Time Papers. New Implications of Job Task Requirements and Spouse's Occupational Sorting'. Volume 12, 2020, (May 1st, 2020), page 87-103.

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Recently a new family of electrodeless plasma engines has been designed to solve part of these problems.  Nevertheless, as an incipient technology, it brings some other issues with it. “These engines have a cylindrical ionization chamber that is open on one side, where the plasma accelerates due to an applied magnetic field. The drawback is that the magnetic field also thrusts part of the plasma against the back wall of the ionization chamber, leading to losses in efficiency,” Merino pointed out.   

The new engine patented by UC3M solves this problem by modifying its design: instead of having a cylindrical chamber, it has a U-shaped ionization chamber and a magnetic field designed in concordance with it, which would minimize the losses of plasma on walls.  “The two sides of the "U" expel streams of plasma in a shape we have baptized as a “dual magnetic nozzle”, Merino continued. 

This engine would resolve the efficiency and durability problems of the space engines that currently exist, and would provide greater flexibility to the mission by deflecting the plasma stream magnetically, without the need to use mobile parts. Additionally, it would meet the needs for propulsion in carrying out space missions in different earth orbits, such as that of the Moon, or Mars, in a less costly, more efficient and durable way.   

Reference: M. Merino "Motor espacial de plasma sin electrodos con geometría en U", Spanish Patent Office, PCT patent ES2733773 (2019)

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

For its part, InvestIA Capital is a software investment tool developed by Alberto Huertas Ramírez and Miguel Bernal Moya, students in the UC3M bilingual Computer Science and Engineering program. This system’s objective is to assist patrimony, investment funds and SICAV managers, among others, in improving their annual performance.  The technology developed for this software is based on Artificial Intelligence, and within this branch, the continuous and interconnected learning called Deep Learning. This project was awarded the PwC prize, endowed with 1,000 euros, and the Science Park of Madrid Prize, which offers six months’ free space in their facilities. 

Unigow is a collaborative platform whose aim is to connect university students and baccalaureate students to help and assess the latter in their choice of degree studies and university.  More than one thousand students have volunteered to help and another thousand have requested information.  This project, promoted by Alejandro Cañada Hinojosa, a student from the UC3M Management and Technology degree program, has been awarded the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) prize, which classifies if for the GSEA Madrid competition, and the Madrid Emprende prize, through which the Madrid municipal government offers it space in its business incubator.

UC3M, through its Programa de Aceleración e Incubación de Empresas (Business Startup and Incubation Program), has collaborated with the Junior Achievement Foundation in the interuniversity Startup Programme since 2009. The University participates in tutoring and training entrepreneurs through developing business plans that analyze the viability of the projects’ different business ideas.

“Our article shows that hydrogen flames are capable of propagating in very narrow spaces of a millimeter or so, creating an undesirable and dangerous situation,” explained Fernando Veiga, one of the researchers who has carried out a large share of the experimental work.   

Using hydrogen as a fuel can help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but its storage and transport can hold certain risks. In this study, researchers have empirically shown that the gas can burn in unexpected situations. For that purpose, the team tested dilutions of gaseous fuel in a space just a few millimeters wide and found that the hydrogen could burn steadily even when its concentration was only 5% in volume.  

Fractal structures

Hydrogen flames are almost invisible to the naked eye and emit very little radiant heat, which makes them difficult to detect.  To do so, the researchers used a special method to trace their movement and a high speed camera to track the path of the flames during their propagation.  They confirmed that they form a fractal path as they propagate, that is, they adopt a geometric form whose basic structure is repeated on different scales. “The video recording reveals this fractal path, which precisely permits the flame efficient access to new fuel as it burns,” Mario Sánchez Sanz pointed out.

Hydrogen constitutes a clean and efficient energy, and as such, energy generation technologies based on its use will significantly increase in the near future.  Accordingly, “their design and safety protocol will have to take these new ways for propagation into consideration,” observed Daniel Martínez Ruiz, professor at the ETSI Aeronáutica y del Espacio (The School of Aeronautics and Space Engineering) of the UPM. 

These results can be useful for engineering teams that design hydrogen storage systems, who will need to take into account its extreme flammability, even in very narrow spaces. Hydrogen fuel cells are used as a source of energy in cars and motorcycles, for example. “A hydrogen leak and its accumulation in a confined space could lead to these types of flames,” added Mario Sánchez Sanz. 

According to the researchers, more studies of this type are needed to assess safety in relation to leaks in hydrogen-powered vehicles and other related devices. Above all, within  today’s context of needing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change, it seems imperative to accelerate development and use of hydrogen-based energy technologies. 

Bibliographic references: F. Veiga-López et al. (2020): Unexpected Propagation of Ultra-Lean Hydrogen Flames in Narrow Gaps. Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 174501.

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

This genetic condition is caused by mutations of the COL7A1 gene, which codes for collagen 7, a protein that is essential for the attaching of the epidermis to the dermis. In Spain, there is a high prevalence of a mutation which is localised in the exon 80 gene (it is present in approximately 50% of Spanish patients), which justifies the development of a precision therapy targeted at this region of the gene. Until this product was developed, CRISPR/Cas9 molecular tools lacked the necessary effectiveness for a realistic clinical application in adult stem cells, such as haematopoietic or skin cells. Therefore, these strategies couldn't compete with conventional gene addition therapies using viral vectors. 

This advanced therapeutic product, which uses the CRISPR/Cas9 tool in a highly efficient way, was successfully confirmed by a preclinical model of disease and was published in the Molecular Therapy journal in 2019. This new medicine  complies with two of the most sought-after properties of developing new therapies at present: biological security and therapeutic effectiveness. 

With this, CIBERER has already promoted 10 orphan drugs which have been designated by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), four of which have also been designated by the American agency (FDA).

EMA designation as an orphan drug has advantages, such as receiving commercial authorisation for 10 years, in which similar products cannot be commercialised, the availability of free or reduced cost assistance protocols, free scientific advice, and exemption of payment for designation. In addition to this, the entities that develop orphan drugs have access to specific EU grants and member state programs.

About CIBERER

The Centre for Network Biomedical Research (CIBER) is a consortium dependent on the Carlos III Health Institute (The Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities) and is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). In its Rare Diseases research area (CIBERER), CIBER is the reference centre in Spain for the research of rare diseases. Its main aim is to coordinate and promote a basic, clinical and epidemiological research. It also encourages research in laboratories to reach out to sufferers of the condition and provide scientific answers to questions that arise from medical staff and patient interactions. CIBER is made up of a group of more than 700 professionals and integrates 60 research groups. It also relies on 18 linked clinical groups. 

www.ciberer.es

About the UC3M

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which excels in teaching, research and innovation. It ranks 34th globally in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and is featured in the Times Higher Education (THE) 150 Under 50. It is the top university in Spain and third in Europe for the number of students participating in the Erasmus Programme. It has more than 870 agreements with universities from 56 countries, among which are some of the best in the world, according to Shanghai Ranking's’ Academic Ranking of World Universities. 20% of the students at the UC3M are international students. The UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality distinctions, such as the EUR-ACE label in the field of Engineering and an AACSB accreditation in Business and Finance programmes, among others. 

www.uc3m.es

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The health emergency caused by the expansion of COVID-19 has clearly shown the need for hospital material such as ventilators, which are an indispensable element for patients admitted to the ICU suffering from greater respiratory distress. There are ventilators available for foreseen emergency situations, known as automatic or mechanical “ambu-bags”, a provisional solution that is not suitable for long-term care of patients in the ICU. For this reason, there is a need for ventilators with the necessary features to treat patients with the coronavirus who require intensive care. In Spain there is currently not sufficient industrial production of these devices and the international market does not have a sufficient supply to cover the needs during these days of the emergency nor for the coming months.

Researchers from the UC3M and the HGUGM have finished the assembling the first units of the prototype. Tests and validations using the prototypes on pigs will begin and, at the same time, the homologation process of the Community of Madrid, in accordance with current regulations and following procedures established by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Healthcare Equipment. With the actual operation of the first ventilator units, the EC Marking will also be advanced, which will extend their international homologation and will allow these products to remain and be useful in our healthcare system once the current emergency situation is finished. 

This project can contribute to the creation of a national industry with a certain production capacity and autonomy to respond to needs such as those today. Especially in the face of new waves of the virus, which are a definite possibility until a large-scale vaccine has been created. In fact, campaign promoters are in contact with companies who may be interested in manufacturing, thus increasing the production capacity of equipment that is designed for accessible manufacturing, even with the complex specifications of ICU equipment. This is achieved because technology will be open, and it has been designed with components that are available from different suppliers. In doing so, an alternative to the high-end ventilators in the ICUs will be provided, thus giving a quicker and more economic response to COVID-19 patients who share very delicate pulmonary pathologies. 

The ICU ventilators proposed within the project’s framework function in mandatory mode and in assisted mode: the first meets the needs of patients with greater respiratory distress, who cannot breathe on their own; while with the second, the machine does not force the patient to breath, but rather assists them at their rhythm and rounds out their effort, continuously measuring the flow, volume and pressure of air that is inhaled and exhaled.  Furthermore, this ICU ventilator carries out positive pressure control at end expiration (PEEP), a fundamental feature for COVID-19 patients so that their lungs are not damaged.  The system informs the specialized medical staff at all times through a control panel about ventilator parameters and integrates a visualization of the graphics for lung pressure and air volume to facilitate checking that the patient is adequately ventilated. 

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Biomass encompasses, in general, residues and waste from agriculture, forestry, livestock and industry that have energy generating potential, as well as the organic matter in water treatment sewage sludge and municipal solid waste. The project’s proposal is to carry out the biomass torrefaction process in a low oxygen-content  atmosphere, using air instead of nitrogen, reducing the cost and partially burning the gasses released during torrefaction in order to get the energy necessary to reach the desired temperature and to significantly reduce the air’s oxygen content.

The main objective is to enable the technology to be used at the local level, which will allow the biomass torrefaction process to be undertaken in areas close to those of production, with subsequent savings in transport.

At the same time, locating the combustion process closer to where the biomass is produced would allow farmers and livestock owners to transform their residuals and waste into quality fuel, and thus help to boost the economy for these sectors.

The MIT-Spain“la Caixa” Foundation Seed Fund program was established with the objective of fostering partnerships between research groups of excellence in Spain and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Collaboration with MIT is highly valued as it is one of the top research institutes worldwide.

For the third edition of the program’s call for proposals, which opened in 2019, a total of 25 projects from 23 public institutions were presented. After evaluation by a committee of experts, 12 of these projects were selected in the fields of health, global economy and energy. The call is endowed with a total amount of over 300,000 euros to cover travel expenses and stays in Spain and in Boston for starting up the research projects.

This initiative is aimed at research that represents an important contribution to the corresponding area of study, demonstrates complementarity between the MIT team and the Spanish institution, involves significant participation by undergraduate and graduate students, and is likely to be sustainable beyond the funding period.

“Thanks to this system we can automatically detect and alert a  person who stands out from the rest due to an abnormal body temperature, enabling this process to be carried out in a quick, comfortable and functional way,” explained Francisco Cortés, Sensia Solutions CEO, who is also a researcher in the LIR-Infrared Lab at UC3M.

This system consists of three elements: a HIGIA thermal camera, a temperature reference pattern with calibration certification, and an interface for PC control and viewing through SENSIA’s RedLooksoftware. “Once installed at a facility’s entry point, the system is able to function with other elements in the access area, such as turnstiles or automatic doors, without the need for an individual to be monitoring. Accordingly, if the system detects a body temperature higher than the established threshold, the turns tile will automatically block so as to impede entry of the individual in question,” Cortés pointed out. 

This system is now commercially available and has already been installed to screen the body temperature of employees in Spanish companies, such as Repsol, Petronor and Iturri. This solution has been designed based on the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard for medical imaging equipment IEC 80601-2-78: 2019.

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Thanks to the magnetisation of cork, the ease of capturing particles with the help of a magnet allowing them to be positioned in a particular place to, for example, modify rigid polymers when an area needs to be more ductile than the rest as it is going to be subjected to impact is added to the inherent advantages of the material, such as its low weight an impact resistance. Using the magnet, a greater number of magnetic cork particles are put in a certain place to achieve greater flexibility. 

It can also be used to remove contaminants captured by these particles from a liquid. “One of its uses would be to absorb heavy metals from water. In other words, removing contaminants from water”, notes Abenojar, although she points out that this application is still being studied.

The magnetisation of other polymer and ceramic materials, such as silicon carbide or boron carbide, that could be used as sensors are currently being tested.

This patent has led to another application from the University of Porto under the title “Methodology and apparatus to manufacture functionally graded joints using magnetized micro particles” (application number: PAT354/2019). “Moreover, the patent is being applied for in Europe as well as the US in order to transfer it to a company that will manage it”, Abenojar concludes.

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Researchers and technicians from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the University Hospital Gregorio Marañón (HGUGM) have designed and developed a new ventilator prototype for Intensive Care Units (ICU) in the fight against the health crisis caused by COVID-19. The assembly of two units has just been completed in order to start animal tests and homologation processes.

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Research into a new high-precision radiology system for the coronavirus

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) is participating in a research project together with the Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón (HGUGM), the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria San Carlos and the company Sedecal Molecular Imaging (SMI), project coordinator, to develop a new high-precision radiology system for coronavirus pulmonary involvement.

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Researchers develop a computer simulator that recreates the spread of COVID-19 in Europe

A team of Spanish researchers have designed and validated a simulator to enable study of the evolution of the COVID-19 illness in Spain and in all Europe, based on parameters such as climate, social distancing policies and transportation. This research work has been carried out by scientists and technologists from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), the Centro Nacional de Epidemiología (CNE) and the Consorcio Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red (CIBER) from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), in conjunction with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS).

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The effectiveness of social distancing strategies in the face of an epidemic has been analysed

The complete isolation of the population in the face of an epidemic such as COVID-19 is a strategy that requires subsequently adopting active measures in order to maximise its effectiveness, such as conducting large scale diagnostic tests, isolating people with symptoms and identifying those with whom they have had contact. This is one of the main conclusions from a study conducted by a team of researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), the University of Zaragoza, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the ISI Foundation in Italy.

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A device to treat sleep apnea adapted for use as respiratory support for COVID-19 patients

A team of researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and Hospital Gregorio Marañón have adapted and evaluated an apparatus normally utilized to treat sleep apnea for its use as respiratory support for patients with COVID-19. The device could aid seriously ill patients before they are admitted into critical care, as well as providing support for patients who are progressing favorably in an intensive care unit.

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Manufacturing protective screens against COVID-19

3D printing systems are being used to manufacture protective screens that can be used to help combat COVID-19 in the Madrid Community.This initiative has been started by researchers from the UC3M Department of Systems Engineering and Automation and the UC3M Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering, in coordination with the University’s Technical Office and with collaboration from the IT and Communications Service, having already distributed the first units to hospitals, civil protection teams, police, and nursing homes in the region. 

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Innovations developed by start-ups and spin-offs linked to UC3M

Start-ups and spin-offs linked to UC3M through the Business Incubation and Acceleration Program–such as SENSIA Solutions, AEON-T, Luz WaveLabs, ionIDE Telematics, and APTENT Soluciones- are currently working on different lines of activity to help manage and combat COVID-19.  These lines include 3d printing, subtitling to facilitate remote work for persons with hearing disabilities, and smart devices installed in hospital beds for making video calls.

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UC3M spin-off develops a thermographic camera that measures body temperature at a distance

A spin-off from the LIR-Infrared Lab (Laboratorio de Sensores, Teledetección e Imagen en el Infrarrojo) at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), SENSIA Solutions, has adapted its thermographic camera technology, called HIGIA, in order to manufacture a new high precision system for measuring body temperature that can be used to detect fever in individuals accessing facilities, in the wake of the healthcare emergency brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak.

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Low income workers will be disproportionately affected by COVID-19

Low income workers in developing countries face a higher risk of income loss during the COVID-19 isolation as it is more difficult for them to work from home. This is one of the results of a new international, economic study in which researchers at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have participated whose results provide useful information for planning post-pandemic de-escalation.

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Computer simulations to improve social measures against COVID-19

Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have been granted funding by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Carlos III Health Institute, ISCIII) for a research project related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19. In this context, a set of computer simulations will be carried out which will allow researchers to assess different scenarios of propagation, the effect on the climate or the effectiveness of targeted immunisation, among other things. Its results, which are expected to be obtained in the coming weeks, could help improve mitigation strategies for the virus in Spain and Europe.

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A geospatial analysis identifies the areas most vulnerable to COVID-19

A report based on a geospatial analysis conducted by researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) in collaboration with TAPTAP Digital, using additional data from Predicio and Tamoco, identifies the areas in Spain that require increased measures of protection against new outbreaks of the COVID19 epidemics.

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After arrival of the first  devices on March 28, a small number of them were sent to the Servicio de Medicina y Cirugía Experimental del Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón de Madrid to analyze their function. This service is headed by Dr. Manuel Desco, who is a professor in the UC3M Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering. From that date until April 7, this unit and the Servicio de Neumología del Gregorio Marañónworked on exploring the optimal use for this machine in managing the COVID-19 crisis. They likewise counted on support from BBVA in obtaining components (3D printed connectors with collaboration from Accenture), sensors (an oximeter borrowed from the Hospital Universitario de Getafe) and direct communication via Skype with technicians from the Yuwell manufacturer in Nanjing (China), in addition to support from the group of collaborators at Respiradores4all (www.respiradores4all.com).

As a consequence of this collaborative effort, these devices have been able to be adapted and classified without the need to use any additional component.Thus, instead of pressurized air, the device can supplya mix that is rich in oxygen,providing the oxygen and pressure needed by the patient. Accordingly, it could be used in the fight against COVID-19, if this is ascertained in the hospitals where the equipment is distributed. If this is the case, the devices could be used, first, for patients whose condition is deteriorating to the point where they need to be admitted to intensive care (so that admission can be delayed or even avoided),and secondly, for patients who are in the ICU, but whose condition is not excessively compromised, in an assisted mode, or for patients who are in the process of being taken off them the conventional invasive ventilator to make the conventional ventilator available for other patients.  In these cases, the device could be effective in relieving pressure on the hospital’s ICU services, as well as in treating patients in other wards.

Within the framework of this project, the researchers seek to combine Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Tomosynthesis (with low dose x-ray imaging)to develop a low cost device able to substantially increase the diagnostic accuracy of the radiology, up to levels comparable to that of a CAT scan. Furthermore, this system would offer much greater availability and would be more versatile, and could even be installed in vehicles or in portable triage tents.

“The incorporation of IA algorithms can contribute to facilitating diagnosis, accelerating image analysis and reducing the dose of radiation the patient receives”, explained the project’s principal investigator, Manuel Desco, the researcher from the Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering Department at UC3M and the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón at HGUGM.

The general objective of the initiative is to adapt technological developments already on course to meet the specific needs of radiology imaging required by the COVID-19 epidemic. The project is estimated to last six months, and when finished, its aim is to have a new completely functional radiology system, capable of making “quasi-tomographic” X-ray studies.

This system has numerous advantages over current approaches. First, it allows greater diagnostic accuracy in radiology, which is critical for the clinical management of the patient. Secondly, it increases availability of diagnostic tools at an affordable cost. Third, it facilitates the epidemiological characterization of the outbreak, improving detection of pulmonary involvement. Fourth, it simplifies the work of the radiologists. Finally, it guarantees optimization of the dose administered to the patient.

According to the first results obtained, the researchers point out that the possible number of cases in Spain could be greater than those detected at the national level, which would situate Spain as currently having more than three million people affected, including asymptomatic cases.

Another scenario that has been simulated is reincorporation to the workplace, finding that if workplace reincorporation is not accompanied by social distancing and personal protection, the epidemic would very likely be reproduced, with between three and fourteen million people being infected during the second curve, depending on the social distancing policy applied.

This simulator is able to recreate the social characteristics of diverse groups in the population (students, workers, seniors, and the unemployed), their relationships in different environments (school, work, home, and leisure) and a transportation model that simulates the spatial dynamics of the spread of the virus between different regions.  In addition, EpiGraph also includes modeling of the interaction between the spread of COVID-19 and climate and meteorological factors, such as temperature, barometric pressure and humidity levels. 

This work has been coordinated in the ARCOS (Computer Architecture, Communications and Systems)research group at UC3M, with experience in real-time simulation of systems and high performance computing, among other research lines.  In addition to the participation of scientists and technologists from BSC-CNS and ISCIII, there has been collaboration from the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention.

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Along these same lines, the companies AEON-T and Luz WaveLabs, from the UC3M Science Park, are working with 3D printing to supply parts, mainly protective visors for healthcare personnel. Distribution is being managed through their own channels.

At the same time, the start-up ionIDE Telematics, has installed its smart devices, called ionPad, in several hospitals in Spain, so that hospitalized patients can communicate with their families through video calls and telephone calls. The tablet also has an extensive catalogue of audiovisual and entertainment content
incorporated.

Finally, APTENT Soluciones, a UC3M spin-off linked to the Spanish Center for Subtitling and Audio Description (CESYA), has made its services available to facilitate remote work for individuals with hearing disabilities through subtitling and interpreting with sign language in real time, for online meetings and video
conferences.

A team of more than ten people are currently working in shifts at the UC3M’s School of Engineering. They are strictly complying with personal isolation requirements and the use of individual protective equipment enforced by health authorities. The supply of materials and distribution of production are primarily being coordinated with services from the Leganes City Council, who is providing support for the collection and transport of materials needed to produce the screens.

The 3D printer model that is currently being used is approved by the Department of Health of the Community of Madrid, according to the subgroup of the Community of Madrid Coronavirus Makers (https://covidmadrid.com/). Printing models, instructions for calibrating equipment, forms to register units that are being created and distribution groups that have been set up to organise transport can be found on their website.

Furthermore, various companies from the UC3M Science Park are following this line of work in a supplementary way. AEON-T and Luz WaveLabs use 3D printing to supply parts, mainly the protective visors for health care personnel. They manage the distribution of the material they produce through their own channels.

The opening ceremony, which will take place at 9 a.m. on Thursday 12th March, will be attended by the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation, Pedro Duque, as well as UC3M’s President, Juan Romo, the Head of the Polytechnical School, Daniel Segovia, and other university representatives. It will be followed by an opening show that combines art and technology directed by “Chagall”, a Dutch musician and interpreter living in London. 

115 activities over three days

A total of 82 presentations will take place in five different locations during the first two days of TechFest 2020. Thursday 12th starts with a conference given by researchers from the UC3M and the IMDEA Networks Institutes, which has recently received an award from the Spanish Data Protection Agency for its article about pre-installed software on Android devices. This year, scientific educators, such as Ignacio Crespo, Manuel Toharia or Santi Cremades, are expected to attend, along with the dozens of presentations about different technology developments. Scientific journalists specialised in science and technology subjects will also participate, such as Laura Chaparro, Pampa García and Patricia Fernández de Lis, or those specialised in data and research, such as Mar Cabra or Kiko Llaneras. 

The fair will have an exhibition zone in which attendees can find 25 stands, sponsored by companies such as Accenture, Airbus, Ericsson, Fictizia or Microsoft, among others. Companies will use the meeting to recruit talent and assess CVs of those interested in working or doing internships with them, as well as demonstrating how new technologies are used.

Saturday 14th March will be dedicated to learning from different perspectives. There will be 20 workshops on the topic of cutting-edge technologies, as well as a Hackathon, a group competition in which they implement ideas into projects that connect technology to the sustainable development purposes. There will also be an area with stands, providing information about different technological communities and projects. Lastly, there will be various talks throughout the day introducing new technologies in a freely accessible way for family audiences. This aims to facilitate the reconciliation and approach of technology to new generations.

More information: Web T3chFest

It identifies the research activity of a total of 25 research groups, 3 laboratories and the UC3M Institute - Santander Big Data in the field of AI. Additionally, it includes infrastructures, patents, technology and other capacities.

The R&D&I compiled in this document is of a multidisciplinary nature and includes the work undertaken in engineering (aerospace, electronic, computer science, systems, automation and telematic) and in other very diverse fields of knowledge, such as law (social and international, private and public) and humanities.

Contact: comercializacion@uc3m.es 

R&D&I UC3M map in the field of artificial intelligence

All the experiments carried out are based on sensors that should be cooled, almost reaching the lowest reachable temperature of -273ºC. These sensor cooling systems make the production of sensors that carry out these experiments extremely complicated both technologically and in terms of costs. “The innovation of this research resides in the fact that there is no need for cryogenic conditions and work at room temperature is possible, so that it allows us to create a small and light signal sensor (the dimensions of which may be similar to those of a conventional smartphone) which makes its use easier in applications for which the current technology is unfeasible or exponentially increases the complexity and cost, such as in space probes for observing the Earth, of astronomical sources or imaging equipment for disease diagnosis”, explain the researchers who will undertake the project in the UC3M’s Signal Theory and Communications Department.  

The agreement will last for three years. After the signing of the agreement, the Vice President for Science Policy of the UC3M, Juan José Vaquero, thanked the SENER Foundation for its support of this project and highlighted "the importance of creating links between universities and companies to promote an industrial network in which technology transfer is transversal in its applications, as well as an option to retain the talent of our young people in Spain". On his part, the President of the SENER Foundation and Vice President of SENER, Andrés Sendagorta, stated that "the support of this research project by the SENER Foundation is a very clear materialization of its foundational objectives, of the search for scientific knowledge and its application to improve people's lives. Furthermore, it is a way of promoting the relationship with the University, in order to advance in a joint work in effective and efficient projects". 

Applications of the technology

The device resulting from this research could be applied in three main areas; biomedicine, climate change and weather prediction and astronomy and cosmology. In the area of biomedicine, it could be used for analysing living tissues, in a non-invasive and innocuous way, to detect cancerous or potentially cancerous cells through imaging. This could be translated into a simple, painless and early method of skin cancer detection (something fundamental in the prognosis of this type of illness). Likewise, this technology could be used for controlling and monitoring people with diabetes, in the early diagnosis known as “diabetic foot”.

Regarding the study of climate change and the prediction of natural disasters, it will allow us to create observational images of Earth from which we can learn about certain meteorological phenomena (such as storms and explosive cyclogenesis), in order to obtain more information regarding these occurrences and with an earlier warning. This will allow meteorologists to make better predictions of the formation and behaviour of atmospheric phenomena, establish better and more reliable prediction models and anticipate their effects. 

In the field of astronomy and cosmology, experts require extremely sensitive signal sensors that capture very weak signals, such as those that come from the hypothetical Big Bang and that can be used to obtain more information about the origin of the universe. Nowadays we have sensors that detect these types of signals, but with certain limitations: they use very complicated, cumbersome and expensive technology; in addition, they have to operate in cryogenical conditions so that the signal is not contaminated by other sources such as our own galaxy (generally known as foreground emissions). This new device would allow these weak signals to be detected, in many cases imperceptible for conventional sensors and, in addition, do so while eliminating the difficulties raised by cryonics, both for its use on earth and for use during space missions.

“The Chair intends to address the image of the female technologist in a familiar way, not only stressing the important references in research but also those technologists that develop their academic and professional careers in this field. We wish to communicate that technological development has a fundamental human and humanist perspective in digital transformation”, comments the head of the Chair, Paloma Díaz, a professor from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the UC3M.

In addition, the framework of the Chair is intended to raise awareness of the importance of incorporating women into ICT studies to overcome the current gender gap in this field. “When an important, higher skilled, more stable and higher paid part of the labour market requires programming and computing skills, a portion of the population (women) being automatically excluded for subjective reasons represents a problem. As well as the fact that we do not have more diverse teams with which to provide different perspectives on the use of technology that avoid bias”, points out Paloma Díaz.

The collaboration of the UC3M with a key company in the ICT sector such as Telefónica will allow a wide variety of extra activities to be offered to students at the University, such as training courses, innovation encouragement and talent spotting events and the possibility of carrying out tutelary Undergraduate and Master’s Dissertations. A fundamental characteristic of the activities to be promoted will be emphasising the transdisciplinary nature of technology and its contribution to addressing the digital transformation of society in a sustainable and inclusive way.

This chair will reinforce the efforts and initiatives that have already been carried out by the UC3M with the aim of contributing to increasing the ratio of women undertaking Engineering studies and to draw attention to the presence of women in areas of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

The standard treatment of tuberculosis consists of the combined administration of three or four antibiotics, all of which were developed more than 60 years ago. The minimum duration of treatment is six months, although if the infection is of the resistant type, the treatment needs to be e extended to about two years. "The appearance of these bacteria resistant to conventional treatments forces us to look for new drugs which, in combination with others which are in use, can fight the new strains," the researchers explain. "This represents a challenge for Europe as well as a global issue, since if we do not fight against multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the disease could become a global problem."

ERA4TB focuses on a drug’s development phase which begins once a new potentially effective drug has been identified and runs until the first clinical trials. This phase, in which the safety and efficacy of the compound are verified and the best dosage is determined, is a process that costs between 10 and 20 million euro and can last up to six years. Therefore, if a new treatment is developed in which four compounds are combined sequentially, the waiting time is more than twenty years. The ERA4TB project proposes abandoning this sequential scheme in order to adopt a parallel development pathway that allows for the simultaneous research of more than a dozen potentially effective molecules against tuberculosis. This approach, which would take the form of an adaptive collaborative network, will allow ERA4TB to optimise the costs of developing new drugs against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and, more importantly, to significantly reduce the times taken developing the new combined treatments needed to eradicate this epidemic, the researchers say.

“We are very excited about the launch of ERA4TB, a unique collaborative project in the field of tuberculosis, in which the experience of public partners and a portfolio of promising preclinical candidate drugs from pharmaceutical companies come together in order to accelerate the development of new clinical candidates. The ultimate goal is to provide an innovative and distinctive combination regimen for the treatment of tuberculosis, which can play a key role in the programme for the eradication of the disease," says project leader David Barros, vice-president of Global Health R&D at GlaxoSmithKline and head of research at the tuberculosis unit.

The project has two significant goals. First, to take at least six new antibiotics to clinical trials as well as two combinations of these which are safe and effective treatments against any form of tuberculosis. And, secondly, to guarantee that the network created in the project is sustainable so that the capacities and the collaboration built between experts and institutions last over time and become well-established in Europe, so it can also be used for the development of other drugs to fight antimicrobial resistance.

One of the keys to achieving these objectives lies in the collaboration between the 31 partners that make up this consortium, who come from the academic world, the pharmaceutical industry and from non-profit organisations who specialised in the fight against tuberculosis. “This is a major initiative that consists of partners from Europe and the US and which will make Europe a centre of knowledge in this area of research. The collaboration between institutions is evident in that both industrial partners and non-profit entities bring to the consortium their own compounds which are potentially effective against tuberculosis, so that the research into the effectiveness of these molecules and their combinations might begin from the first day of the project,” the researchers explain.

Stewart Cole, scientific leader of ERA4TB and President of the Institut Pasteur, said “ERA4TB has assembled an impressive array of resources to seamlessly harness the agility and innovation of academia with the pragmatism and professionalism scientific expertise of pharma.  I am confident that this powerful European initiative will speed the path to tuberculosis elimination.”

Spain, a force in the fight against tuberculosis

“The ERA4TB project will turn Spain into an important pole of research against tuberculosis at a global level, due to the significance and the number of organisations that form the main core of the initiative,” says Juan José Vaquero from the UC3M’s Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering and coordinator of the project.

Four of the Spanish participating entities are located in the Madrid region: the UC3M, the Madrid Health Service (SERMAS in its Spanish acronym), GlaxoSmithKline and Synapse Managers. In addition to coordinating the project, the group led by Professor Vaquero at the UC3M is responsible for the initiative’s biomedical imaging activities. This group plays a very active role both in the development of new diagnostic imaging equipment and in the implementation of artificial intelligence technologies, such as deep learning, which allow the researchers to quantify the progression of the disease by interpreting the images acquired. The SERMAS, through the Pharmacology Department of the La Paz University Hospital and its Clinical Trials Unit (UCICEC) will be responsible for coordinating the studies of the first administration to humans planned within the project. It will also make its hospital infrastructure (La Paz and La Princesa University Hospitals and the San Carlos Clinic) available to the consortium to carry out the necessary studies. The GlaxoSmithKline company is leading the project and providing scientific resources and a significant number of the new compounds which are to be investigated in the project. The company Synapse Managers, specialised in international biomedical research projects, will be in charge of managing the consortium.

Lastly, another Spanish organisation is participating in the initiative, a mixed team of researchers from the ARAID Foundation and the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR). A facility will be fitted out in the latter organisation which is unique in Europe in the public field dedicated to Hollow-Fibre Infection Model (HFIM) technology, a bioreactor in a level 3 biological safety environment that allows for the manipulation and investigation of human pathogens, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In addition, the team from this university will develop a new system of analysis which will allow for the identification of antibiotics with the capacity to interfere with the systems by which the bacteria interacts with the infected patient.

ERA4TB (European Regimen Accelerator for Tuberculosis) is funded by the European Union (EU) Research and Innovation Framework Programme, Horizon 2020 (GA853989) and by the European pharmaceutical industry through the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA). It is conducted under the auspices of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private partnership between EFPIA and the EU to accelerate the development of better and safer medicines for patients.

The kick-off meeting of the ERA4TB project is being held in Madrid on the 29th and 30th of January, 2020 and shall be attended by representatives from most of the member institutions, which are: in Spain, the UC3M, as coordinating entity of the project, and GlaxoSmithKline Research and Development SL (GSK), the Madrid Health Service (SERMAS), Synapse Research Management Partners S.L. and the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR); in Germany, Evotec International GmbH (EVT), Forschungszentrum Borstel, Klinikum Der Universitaet Zu Koeln (UKÖ); in Belgium, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV (JANSSEN), Sciensano (SCI); in Denmark, Gritsystems AS (GRIT); in the US, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), TB Alliance (TBA); in France, Bioaster Fondation de Coopération Scientifique (BAR), ImaBiotech SAS (IBT), Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (IDMIT), Institut Pasteur de Lille Foundation (IPL), Institut Pasteur (IPP); in Ireland, Critical Path Institute, Limited (C-Path); in Italy, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Universita degli Studi Di Padova (UNIPD), Universita degli Studi Di Pavia (UPV); in Latvia, Latvijas Organiskās Sintēzes Institūts (IOS); in the Netherlands, QPS Netherlands BV (QPS); in the United Kingdom, University of Dundee-Drug Discovery Unit (DDU), The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Public Health England - Department of Health (PHE); in Switzerland, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Foundation Innovative Medicines for Tuberculosis (iM4TB); and in Sweden, Lund Universitet (LUND) and Uppsala Universitet (UU). In addition, the project consists of five other collaborating partners from the US, which are: Cornell University (CORU), Colorado State University (CSU), Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH), Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

More information:

Project website: www.era4tb.org

ERA4TB project (chinese version)