• COVID-19
• 2014-2023close
• Open Access close
• ES close
• English close
• Diposit Digital de Documents de la UAB close

Altres ajuts: Fundacio "la Caixa" (LCF/PR/SR20/52550004)

La tesi consta de tres estudis empírics que analitzen el paper de les noves tecnologies i la innovació en tres dimensions concretes: la primera infància, l'educació terciària i les desigualtats en la distribució funcional de l'ingrés. El primer capítol aporta evidència sobre l'efecte causal de l'Internet d'alta velocitat en el desenvolupament infantil a la primera infància. Per això, aprofitem les diferències geogràfiques en la introducció de la fibra òptica a la llar a Uruguai i el mesurament de test de desenvolupament infantil a través d'una enquesta a la primera infància. Els resultats mostren que un augment de 10 punts percentuals en l'esperança de l'exposició a la fibra òptica al llarg dels primers anys de vida disminueix els resultats dels tests entre un 8% i un 18% d'una desviació estàndard a les àrees comunicació, resolució de problemes i habilitats socials. Les mides dels efectes són més grans per a les nenes; nens i nenes amb pares més educats; nens i nenes que viuen a la capital. A més, l'anàlisi de mecanismes suggereix que els efectes es deuen tant a l'augment del temps que les nenes i els nens passen davant de la pantalla com a canvis en les pràctiques de criança de pares. El segon capítol se centra en com les noves tecnologies poden afectar el sistema educatiu terciari analitzant l'impacte de COVID-19, i el canvi al'aprenentatge en línia, en estudiants que viuen lluny d'un campus universitari. Per fer l'anàlisi, utilitzo el context institucional d'Uruguai i segueixo una estratègia de diferència en diferències en què defineixo el grup tractat com a estudiants que viuen lluny de la universitat. Busco respondre dues preguntes: quins són els efectes de la pandèmia i el canvi a l'aprenentatge en línia sobre (i) els resultats acadèmics d'estudiants ja matriculats el 2020, i (ii) les decisions de matriculació el 2021. Les dades provenen dels registres administratius d'estudiants de primer any per al període 2017-2021. Pel que fa a la primera pregunta, els resultats mostren una reducció de les taxes d'abandó per a estudiants de primer any el 2020, però no hi ha altres efectes sobre resultats acadèmics condicionats a l'abandó. Sobre la segona pregunta, trobo un augment de la matrícula en llocs sense campus universitaris per al 2021, cosa que suggereix que l'aprenentatge en línia podria ser una estratègia per augmentar la matrícula a l'educació terciària. Al tercer capítol analitzo la relació entre la innovació i la desigualtat, en particular, com la tecnologia es relaciona amb la participació laboral a nivell d'empresa per a un país llatinoamericà en desenvolupament. Per això primer descric la participació laboral a nivell d'empresa a l'Uruguai utilitzant registres administratius de l'Agència Tributària. En segon lloc, combino dues fonts de dades per obtenir un panell d'empreses on puc mesurar la innovació i la participació laboral. A partir d'aquestes dades, considero la relació entre la innovació i la participació laboral mitjançant una regressió de mínims quadrats ordinaris i una d'efectes fixos. Els meus resultats mostren que el comportament a nivell micro de la participació laboral és més estable que la xifra agregada, però amb una gran dispersió i un augment del valor afegit de les empreses amb baixa participació laboral cap al final del període. Pel que fa a la relació entre la innovació i la participació, trobo una associació negativa, impulsada principalment per la innovació en intangibles. D'altra banda, la innovació en activitats de formació s'associa positivament amb la participació laboral. La tesis consta de tres estudios empíricos que analizan el papel de las nuevas tecnologías y la innovación en tres dimensiones concretas: la primera infancia, la educación terciaria y las desigualdades en la distribución funcional del ingreso. El primer capítulo aporta evidencia sobre el efecto causal del Internet de alta velocidad en el desarrollo infantil en la primera infancia. Para ello, aprovechamos las diferencias geográficas en la introducción de la fibra óptica al hogar en Uruguay y la medición de test de desarrollo infantil a través de una encuesta en la primera infancia. Los resultados muestran que un aumento de 10 puntos porcentuales en la esperanza de la exposición a la fibra óptica a lo largo de los primeros años de vida disminuye los resultados de los test entre un 8% y un 18% de una desviación estándar en las áreas de comunicación, resolución de problemas y habilidades sociales. Los tamaños de los efectos son mayores para las niñas; niños y niñas con padres y madres más educados; niños y niñas que viven en la capital. Además, el análisis de mecanismos sugiere que los efectos se deben tanto al aumento del tiempo que niñas y niños pasan frente a la pantalla como a cambios en las prácticas de crianza de padres y madres. El segundo capítulo se centra en cómo las nuevas tecnologías pueden afectar al sistema educativo terciario analizando el impacto de COVID-19, y el cambio al aprendizaje en línea, en estudiantes que viven lejos de un campus universitario. Para realizar el análisis, utilizo el contexto institucional de Uruguay y sigo una estrategia de diferencia en diferencias en la que defino el grupo tratado como estudiantes que viven lejos de la universidad. Busco responder dos preguntas: cuáles son los efectos de la pandemia y el cambio al aprendizaje en línea sobre (i) los resultados académicos de estudiantes ya matriculados en 2020, y (ii) las decisiones de matriculación en 2021. Los datos provienen de los registros administrativos de estudiantes de primer año para el período 2017-2021. En cuanto a la primera pregunta, los resultados muestran una reducción de las tasas de abandono para estudiantes de primer año en 2020, pero no se encuentran otros efectos sobre resultados académicos condicionados al abandono. Sobre la segunda pregunta, encuentro un aumento de la matrícula en lugares sin campus universitarios para 2021, lo que sugiere que el aprendizaje en línea podría ser una estrategia para aumentar la matrícula en la educación terciaria. En el tercer capítulo analizo la relación entre la innovación y la desigualdad, en particular, cómo la tecnología se relaciona con la participación laboral a nivel de empresa para un país latinoamericano en desarrollo. Para esto, primero describo la participación laboral a nivel de empresa en Uruguay utilizando registros administrativos de la Agencia Tributaria. En segundo lugar, combino dos fuentes de datos para obtener un panel de empresas en el que puedo medir la innovación y la participación laboral. A partir de estos datos, estimo la relación entre la innovación y la participación laboral mediante una regresión de mínimos cuadrados ordinarios y una de efectos fijos. Mis resultados muestran que el comportamiento a nivel micro de la participación laboral es más estable que la cifra agregada, pero con una gran dispersión y un aumento del valor añadido de las empresas con baja participación laboral hacia final del período. En cuanto a la relación entre la innovación y la participación, encuentro una asociación negativa, impulsada principalmente por la innovación en intangibles. Por otro lado, la innovación en actividades de formación se asocia positivamente con participación laboral. The dissertation consists of three empirical studies that analyze the role of new technologies and innovation, focusing on three particular dimensions: early childhood, tertiary education, and inequalities in the functional distribution of income. The first chapter provides empirical evidence on the causal effect of high-speed internet on early childhood development. To do this, we exploit the geographic differences in the introduction of fiber-optic-to-the-home (FTTH) in Uruguay and survey data on development tests for early childhood. Results show that an increase in 10 percentage points in the lifetime exposure to fiber optic during early childhood decreases development scores between 8% and 18% of a standard deviation in the areas of communication, problem solving, and social skills. Our heterogeneous effects analysis shows that the effect sizes are larger for girls, children with more educated parents and living in the capital city. In addition, the analysis of potential mechanisms behind the effect suggests that effects are driven by an increase in children's screen time and by changes in parental practices. The second chapter focuses on youth and how new technologies can affect the educational system. More specifically, I analyze the impact of COVID-19 and the shift to online learning on students living far away from a university campus. Distance to university has been shown to be a relevant factor in students' decisions to continue studying after secondary school and their academic outcomes. Therefore, the generalized shift to online learning could have opened a window of opportunity for those students living far away from the major urban centers. To do the analysis, I take advantage of the institutional setting in Uruguay and follow a difference-in-differences strategy where I define the treated group as those living far away from a university. Overall, I am able to answer two questions: what are the effects of the pandemic and the online shift on (i) academic outcomes for those students already enrolled in 2020, and (ii) enrollment decisions in 2021. The data come from administrative records of first-year students for the period 2017-2021. Regarding the first question, results show a reduction in the dropout rates for the freshmen students in 2020, but no other effects are found on academic outcomes conditional on dropout. Concerning the second question, I find an enrollment increase in places without university campuses for 2021, suggesting that online learning could be a strategy to increase tertiary education enrollment. Finally, in the third chapter, I shift the attention to the labor market to study the relationship between innovation and inequality. Particularly, I aim to contribute to the understanding of how technology relates to the labor share at the firm level for a Latin-American developing country. I contribute to this objective by first describing the labor share at a micro-level in Uruguay. To do that, I use administrative records from the tax office at the firm level. Second, I combine two data sources to obtain a panel of firms for which I can measure innovation and labor share. Using this data, I estimate the relationship between innovation and labor share using an ordinary least squared and a fixed effect regression. My findings show that the micro-level behavior of the labor share is more stable than the aggregate figure but with large dispersion and with an increase in the value-added share by firms with low labor shares by the end of the period. Regarding the relationship between innovation and labor share, I find a negative association, mainly driven by innovation in intangibles. On the other side, innovation in training activities is positively associated with the labor share.

We analyse individuals' preferences vaccine-distribution schemes in the World, the EU, and their country of residence that emphasise circumstances rather than outcomes or effort. We link preferences to previously-measured cognition, and find that high-cognition individuals are 35% more likely to always support such schemes. These preferences are not driven by scheme convenience nor vaccine hesitancy, but appear to be caused by prosociality. We argue that this latter is linked to the perception of less equality of opportunity in society: despite having similar ideals about the role that effort and luck should play in life, high-cognition individuals perceive outcomes to be more determined by luck.

The protective capacity and duration of humoral immunity after SARS-CoV-2 infection are not yet understood in solid organ transplant recipients. A prospective multicenter study was performed to evaluate the persistence of anti-nucleocapsid IgG antibodies in liver transplant recipients 6 months after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) resolution. A total of 71 liver transplant recipients were matched with 71 immunocompetent controls by a propensity score including variables with a well-known prognostic impact in COVID-19. Paired case-control serological data were also available in 62 liver transplant patients and 62 controls at month 3 after COVID-19. Liver transplant recipients showed a lower incidence of anti-nucleocapsid IgG antibodies at 3 months (77.4% vs. 100%, p <.001) and at 6 months (63.4% vs. 90.1%, p <.001). Lower levels of antibodies were also observed in liver transplant patients at 3 (p =.001) and 6 months (p <.001) after COVID-19. In transplant patients, female gender (OR = 13.49, 95% CI: 2.17-83.8), a longer interval since transplantation (OR = 1.19, 95% CI: 1.03-1.36), and therapy with renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors (OR = 7.11, 95% CI: 1.47-34.50) were independently associated with persistence of antibodies beyond 6 months after COVID-19. Therefore, as compared with immunocompetent patients, liver transplant recipients show a lower prevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and more pronounced antibody levels decline.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has already caused over a million deaths worldwide, and this death toll will be much higher before effective treatments and vaccines are available. The causative agent of the disease, the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, shows important similarities with the previously emerged SARS-CoV-1, but also striking differences. First, SARS-CoV-2 possesses a significantly higher transmission rate and infectivity than SARS-CoV-1 and has infected in a few months over 60 million people. Moreover, COVID-19 has a systemic character, as in addition to the lungs, it also affects the heart, liver, and kidneys among other organs of the patients and causes frequent thrombotic and neurological complications. In fact, the term "viral sepsis" has been recently coined to describe the clinical observations. Here I review current structure-function information on the viral spike proteins and the membrane fusion process to provide plausible explanations for these observations. I hypothesize that several membrane-associated serine proteinases (MASPs), in synergy with or in place of TMPRSS2, contribute to activate the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Relative concentrations of the attachment receptor, ACE2, MASPs, their endogenous inhibitors (the Kunitz-type transmembrane inhibitors, HAI-1/SPINT1 and HAI-2/SPINT2, as well as major circulating serpins) would determine the infection rate of host cells. The exclusive or predominant expression of major MASPs in specific human organs suggests a direct role of these proteinases in e.g., heart infection and myocardial injury, liver dysfunction, kidney damage, as well as neurological complications. Thorough consideration of these factors could have a positive impact on the control of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Acknowledgments. This work was supported by grants PID2019-104681RB-I00. Data courtesy of Dr Konstantina Kontopoulou. In the presence of a continuous response test/biomarker, it is often necessary to identify a cut-off point value to aid binary classification between diseased and non-diseased subjects. The symmetry-point approach which maximizes simultaneously both types of correct classification is one way to determine an optimal cut-off point. In this article, we study methods for constructing confidence intervals independently for the symmetry point and its corresponding sensitivity, as well as respective joint nonparametric confidence regions. We illustrate using data on the generation of antibodies elicited two weeks post-injection after the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in adult healthcare workers.

Aquesta publicació s'elabora a partir de les contribucions de cadascú dels membres nacionals que integren la Network of Eurofound Correspondents. Pel cas d'Espanya la contribució ha estat realitzada per l'Alejandro Godino (veure annex 4 Network of Eurofound Correspondents) This report presents Eurofound's research on telework during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. It explores changes in the incidence of telework, working conditions experienced by employees working from home and changes to regulations addressing issues related to this working arrangement. The findings reveal a rapid escalation of telework triggered by the pandemic: in 2021, 2 out of 10 European employees were teleworking - a figure that most likely would not have been reached before 2027 had the pandemic not occurred. The health crisis unleashed the social and technological potential for flexibility in terms of working time and place. The impacts of telework on working conditions were initially difficult to determine because it was difficult to disentangle them from pandemic-induced factors, such as lockdowns and school closures. However, both the positive impacts, such as the contribution of telework to improving work-life balance, and the negative impacts, such as reduced social interaction and an increase in overtime worked, have become more evident. The rise in telework and an awareness of its implications for working conditions have prompted a renewed focus on regulatory frameworks, with new telework regulations passed in several EU Member States

The new coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has rapidly spread all around the world, eliciting many questions and doubts about the pathogenesis of the disease and treatment. Mortality has been related to a prothrombotic state. Risk factors for the infection and for severe forms of COVID-19 have still to be defined. According to data collected, women appear to be less prone to severe forms of the disease and their mortality was lower than for men. The role of female hormones in the modulation of inflammation may be the reason behind this gender gap. Considering the prothrombotic state activated by the virus, hormone therapies have been placed under investigation as possible increasing risk factors for severe forms. Moreover, new vaccines and their rare thrombotic side effects have increased the concern about this issue. The goal of this review is to go over the mechanisms that lead up to thrombosis during COVID-19, trying to explain the possible reasons why women seem to be naturally protected. The expert opinions about whether to continue/discontinue hormonal therapies are reviewed. Moreover, available data about the so-called 'vaccine induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopaenia' caused by vaccines against COVID-19 are discussed.

Pòster Juny

Socioeconomic inequalities in health persist in Spain. This can be explained, partly, by the interaction of multiple variables, including education and gender. The covid-19 pandemic intensified the potential impact of two critical factors on health inequalities: health literacy and the socioeconomic digital divide. This article explores these factors within the relationship between education and individual self-reported health status among a representative sample of the Spanish population aged 50-79. The main findings suggest that women report worse health than men, and that low-educated groups report worse health than their high-educated counterparts. Internet usage and having "adequate" levels of health literacy are associated with better health among the low-educated groups.