• COVID-19
• ES close

Este informe contiene el análisis de los casos de COVID-19 notificados a la la Red Nacional de Vigilancia Epidemiológica (RENAVE) a partir del 11 de mayo de 2020, debido a la entrada en vigor de la nueva Estrategia de Vigilancia y Control en la fase de transición de la pandemia de COVID-19, a través de la plataforma SiViES (Sistema para la Vigilancia en España), que gestiona el Centro Nacional de Epidemiología conforme a los criterios establecidos en el protocolo de vigilancia en cada momento. Este informe refleja la información suministrada por las CCAA a la RENAVE. La extracción de datos se ha realizado el 07 de octubre de 2020 a las 15:30 h. No

Information and communication technology (ICT) is being immersed in people’s daily lives at an increasingly younger age. It has been key for adolescents to pursue distance education, and their use and mastery of technological means and tools with Internet access has increased. In this study, the motivation, specifically in the interest, digital competence, autonomy, and social interaction, generated by ICTs in the daily lives of adolescents during the pandemic caused by COVID-19 was analyzed. In the study, the objective was to study the motivation, use and commitment generated by ICTs in these students in relation to their gender and age after their confinement to the classroom caused by the first wave of incoming students. An experimental method of descriptive and correlative design was used along with a quantitative method to analyze the data. The data were obtained in the year 2020 through a validated questionnaire committed to the ICT scale used by PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). A total of 924 students from the sixth grade of primary education in the autonomous city of Ceuta (Spain), aged between 10 and 13, participated in the sample. The results reveal that the motivation and commitment to ICT in these age groups were medium in relation to the total mean of results on a Likert-5 scale. Boys scored higher in all the variables analyzed, and both age and gender show correlations, in addition to the factor of prediction. In conclusion, students in the sixth year of primary education, after the confinement period, were medium-high in their use and engagement of ICT. In addition, gender and age affected ICT use and engagement.

Resumen El coronavirus del síndrome respiratorio agudo severo tipo 2 (conocido por sus siglas en inglés, SARS-CoV-2) ha sido responsable del brote de la denominada enfermedad por coronavirus de 2019 (COVID-19), que ha llegado a tener la consideración de pandemia. Las estrategias adoptadas para su prevención han incluido medidas de distanciamiento social, así como la modificación, reducción o interrupción de gran parte de la actividad sanitaria habitual. Esto ha afectado de forma muy notable a la asistencia prestada en las Unidades de Motilidad Digestiva. Superado el pico de mortalidad y contagios por la infección, se ha observado durante las últimas semanas en España y otros países europeos, una reducción paulatina en las cifras de transmisión. Sin embargo, el riesgo de reactivación sigue siendo alto, por lo que es necesario disponer de una planificación que permita a los centros sanitarios reiniciar con seguridad para pacientes y profesionales, las exploraciones instrumentales vinculadas al manejo de la patología motora. La Asociación Española de Neurogastroenterología y Motilidad (ASENEM) ha elaborado una serie de recomendaciones prácticas basadas en la evidencia científica disponible y en el consenso de un panel de expertos, y adaptadas a los riesgos inherentes a cada actividad. Se incluyen propuestas de protección individual, pero también medidas organizativas y estructurales, cuyo objetivo es permitir reanudar progresivamente las exploraciones, minimizando la posibilidad de contagio.

The primary purpose of the present study was to compare the home advantage (HA) and the home team performance in the most relevant European rink hockey leagues (Spanish, Portuguese and Italian), considering the presence or absence of spectators in the competition venues due to the effect of COVID-19 restrictions. The sample was composed of 1665 rink hockey matches (654 from the Spanish league, 497 from the Portuguese league, and 514 from the Italian league) played between the 2018–2019 and 2020–2021 seasons. The HA and match variables comparisons were established using several negative binomial regression models. Results showed that the effect of HA did not disappear despite playing without spectators but decreased from 63.99% to 57.41% (p = 0.002). Moreover, the comparison of the match variables showed that playing with spectators benefited local teams’ performance, especially in the Portuguese and Italian leagues. Playing with spectators favoured local team performance in rink hockey matches, which is more evident in some analysed leagues. However, as HA does not disappear entirely without spectators, it is necessary to study other relevant performance factors that are not directly or indirectly attributable to crowd behaviour in rink hockey performance analyses. The study was supported and funded by the Faculty of Psychology, Education Sciences and Sport Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain, grant number PIF20-21-GRIES

The main protease (Mpro) of SARS-CoV-2 is central to its viral lifecycle and is a promising drug target, but little is known concerning structural aspects of how it binds to its 11 natural cleavage sites. We used biophysical and crystallographic data and an array of classical molecular mechanics and quantum mechanical techniques, including automated docking, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, linear-scaling DFT, QM/MM, and interactive MD in virtual reality, to investigate the molecular features underlying recognition of the natural Mpro substrates. Analyses of the subsite interactions of modelled 11-residue cleavage site peptides, ligands from high-throughput crystallography, and designed covalently binding inhibitors were performed. Modelling studies reveal remarkable conservation of hydrogen bonding patterns of the natural Mpro substrates, particularly on the N-terminal side of the scissile bond. They highlight the critical role of interactions beyond the immediate active site in recognition and catalysis, in particular at the P2/S2 sites. The binding modes of the natural substrates, together with extensive interaction analyses of inhibitor and fragment binding to Mpro, reveal new opportunities for inhibition. Building on our initial Mpro-substrate models, computational mutagenesis scanning was employed to design peptides with improved affinity and which inhibit Mpro competitively. The combined results provide new insight useful for the development of Mpro inhibitors.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has supposed a challenge for some economic sectors that have suffered preventive lockdowns during the last year for mitigating the virus propagation. Among them, hostelry is one of the most affected sectors, especially indoor establishments in which the contagion probability significantly increases. In this context, preserving the interpersonal distance while wearing facemasks in these establishments has been demonstrated as a key factor to control the virus propagation in hostelry environments. The achievement of this objective entails the addressing of the Table Location Problem (TLP) which allows the maximization of the distance among the tables of a particular establishment. The TLP is considered as NP-Hard suggesting the application of metaheuristics to achieve competitive results in acceptable times. In this paper we propose a novel algorithm for the TLP (MA-GB-Chains) based on memory chains to select the more promising individuals for applying a local search procedure to introduce knowledge during the optimization process. This algorithm has been proved in a real hostelry environment reaching improved results to previous approaches to the TLP thus fulfilling the main objectives of this paper.

The retail industry and the boom of the e-commerce business in recent years, which has increased even more in the last year due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19, is a very present issue in our society today and will certainly have a major impact in the future. The ecosystem built by Amazon, leading it to become the world's largest global retailer, encompasses a myriad of issues and nuances that have led to the creation of businesses that revolve around and depend solely on Amazon’s marketplace. Since Amazon implemented its Fullfilment by Amazon (FBA) business concept, a number of companies that channel their entire sales pipeline through Amazon's marketplace have emerged, thereby establishing a group of third-party sellers that operate within Amazon's ecosystem and that offer a wide range of products to Amazon's consumers. As a result of this rise of FBA businesses, over the last two years there have emerged companies dedicated to acquiring companies that operate through Amazon and aggregating them under a consolidated entity. Those holdings focus on improving the operations of the acquired companies in order to maximise profits. The objective of this thesis is to analyse the ecosystem built by Amazon, grasping the importance of the role played by these third-party sellers and getting to understand the emergence of these aggregators of companies, how they analyse the opportunities, their acquisition strategy and how they operate the acquired companies once they are consolidated under the same umbrella. In order to understand this issue, the thesis has been divided into three main sections. The first section, "Literature Review", presents the current landscape of the retail industry, delving into the e-commerce business to then analyse the e-commerce leader by excellence, Amazon, in order to finally jump to the FBA business and the companies that have emerged from the business boom of the last few years. The second section presents a more practical approach, with the case study of Heroes, a British company specialized in this business of aggregating companies bought through Amazon, and other players, with a special focus on Thrasio, the pioneer in this industry. Finally, the conclusions extracted from the literature review section and the case studies are presented.

Adolescence is a critical period in the consolidation of healthy lifestyles that can last into adulthood. To analyze changes in food consumption and eating behaviors in high-school adolescents during the first confinement, a cross-sectional study was conducted at the end of confinement in Spain. Changes in the frequency or quantity of consumption of different types of food and food-related behaviors were analyzed. Socioeconomic and health-related variables were also considered. To determine whether dietary changes were related to socioeconomic position (SEP), Poisson regression models with robust variance were estimated. Overall, there were some changes towards a healthier diet such as an increase in fruit consumption (38.9%) and a decrease in the consumption of soft drinks (49.8%), sweets and pastries (39.3%), and convenience foods (49.2%). Some changes, however, were related to less healthy behaviors, such as a more irregular pattern of meal distribution (39.9%) or an increase in snacking between meals (56.4%). Changes towards less healthy eating were also related to students’ SEP. The risk of worsening the diet was found to be 21% higher in adolescents from a more disadvantaged SEP. Future public policies could be adapted to avoid increasing nutritional and health inequalities.