37 research outputs found

    A Study on the Use of Lecture Recordings in Different Mobile Learning Settings

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    Lecture recordings represent a convenient means to supplement traditional face-to-face lectures and also to establish pure e-learning scenarios. We provide lecture recordings to our students since roughly one decade by now. The recordings are used by traditional students present at the universitys campus as well as students studying a virtual study path who are not on-site. In the last two semesters we have provided the lecture recordings in different complementary formats: a rich proprietary format based on special presentation softwarewell suited for desktop-PCs, notebooks, and netbooksand a standard video format allowing the use on smartphones and other mobile devices. In this paper we present the results of a survey on the usage of the lecture recordingsespecially considering the mobile use of the lecture recordings and the expected future potential. In particular, the two different student groups involved make these results interesting. In our perception the main finding is that mobile learning using lecture recordings is beneficial in specific situations, but not as a dominant learning model. A perspective can be seen in mobile learning as part of a broader ubiquitous learning scenario

    The influence of human interaction on guinea pigs: behavioral and thermographic changes during animal-assisted therapy

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    Guinea pigs are often involved in animal-assisted therapy (AAT) but there is little knowledge about the effects of human contact on guinea pigs involved in AAT. The aim of this study was to investigate effects of availability of a retreat, presence of conspecifics, prior experience with AAT, and human interaction on indicators of welfare in guinea pigs involved in AAT. Guinea pigs of both sexes and different ages (n=20) were assigned to a randomized, controlled within-subject trial with repeated measurements. Each guinea pig was tested in four settings: (I) therapy with retreat possibility with conspecifics, (II) therapy with retreat possibility without conspecifics, (III) therapy without retreat possibility, and (IV) setting without human interaction. We measured changes in eye temperature, as a proxy to infer stress levels, at 5-s intervals with a thermographic camera. All sessions were video recorded and the guinea pigs' behavior was coded using continuous recording and focal animal sampling. For the statistical analysis we used generalized linear mixed models, with therapy setting as a fixed effect and individual guinea pig as a random effect. We observed a temperature increase relative to baseline in settings (I) therapy with retreat with conspecifics present and (III) therapy without retreat. The percentage of time a guinea pig was petted was positively correlated with a rise in the eye temperature independent of the setting. Time spent eating was reduced in all therapy settings (I-III) compared to the setting without HAI (human animal interaction) (IV). In the setting with retreat (I), guinea pigs showed more active behaviors such as locomotive behavior or startling compared to the setting without retreat (III) and the setting without HAI (IV). When no retreat was available (III), they showed more passive behaviors, such as standing still or freezing compared to therapy with retreat (I). Based on our results we identified the behaviors "reduced eating", "increased startle" and "increased freezing" as indicators of an increased stress level. Petting the guinea pigs was correlated with a rise in the eye temperature and might be a factor which can cause stress. Our results support the suggestion that guinea pigs involved in AAT should have a retreat possibility, should have access to conspecifics, and should be given time to adapt to a new setting. In this way, stress might be reduced

    Osmotische Wirkung von Kochsalz: Ein Schülerexperiment zur Bestimmung der Zellsaftkonzentration bei verschiedenen Gemüsearten

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    Salze sind für Lebewesen lebenswichtig. In hohen Konzentrationen wirken sie aber u.U. toxisch. In vorhergehenden Unterrichtseinheiten haben sich die Schüler*innen bereits mit dem Aufbau und der Struktur von tierischen und pflanzlichen Zellen beschäftigt. In der vorliegenden Einheit wird den Schüler*innen die Gelegenheit gegeben, die Wirkung von Salzen auf Zellen zu verstehen. Eine Messung der Gewichtsveränderung, verursacht durch osmotische Vorgänge in den Zellen, ermöglicht die Bestimmung und den Vergleich der Zellsaft-Konzentration von Gemüsearten

    31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

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    Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

    Metadata for Learning Objects - A Cure for Information Overflow?

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    Information overflow is one of the downsides that digitalisation brought with it. This obvious fact also applies to the field of e-learning. For this reason, concepts and systems supporting learners in handling the enormous amount of information such as personal learning environments have recently gained more attention. It gets more and more important to offer individual capabilities to store, retrieve, and keep track of the different learning contents or learning objects. Of course, metadata can be very useful to organise learning objects. Therefore, we have examined different metadata standards. Based on our insights, we developed a structure of metadata attributes in order to efficiently store learning objects. The results are presented in this paper. Also, thoughts on how to gain this metadata by employing different specific standards are given. To our understanding the use of a reasonable subset of metadata supports tutors and learners at the same time
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