BioMeT and algorithm challenges: A proposed digital standardized evaluation framework

Technology is advancing at an extraordinary rate. Continuous flows of novel data are being generated with the potential to revolutionize how we better identify, treat, manage, and prevent disease across therapeutic areas. However, lack of security of confidence in digital health technologies is hampering adoption, particularly for biometric monitoring technologies (BioMeTs) where frontline healthcare professionals are struggling to determine which BioMeTs are fit-for-purpose and in which context. Here, we discuss the challenges to adoption and offer pragmatic guidance regarding BioMeTs, cumulating in a proposed framework to advance their development and deployment in healthcare, health research, and health promotion. Furthermore, the framework proposes a process to establish an audit trail of BioMeTs (hardware and algorithms), to instill trust amongst multidisciplinary users

Analyzing Use of Thanks to You: Insights for Language Teaching and Assessment in Second and Foreign Language Contexts

This investigation of thanks to you in British and American usage was precipitated by a situation at an American university, in which a native Arabic speaker said thanks to you in isolation, making his intended meaning unclear. The study analyzes use of thanks to you in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus to gain insights for English language instruction /assessment in the American context, as well as English-as-a-lingua-franca contexts where the majority of speakers are not native speakers of English or are speakers of different varieties of English but where American or British English are for educational purposes the standard varieties. Analysis of the two corpora revealed three functions for thanks to you common to British and American usage: expressing gratitude, communicating "because of you" positively, and communicating "because of you" negatively (as in sarcasm). A fourth use of thanks to you, thanking journalists/guests for being on news programs/talk shows, occurred in the American corpus only. Analysis indicates that felicitous use of thanks to you for each of these meanings depends on the presence of a range of factors, both linguistic and material, in the context of utterance

FIRE (facilitating implementation of research evidence) : a study protocol

Research evidence underpins best practice, but is not always used in healthcare. The Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARIHS) framework suggests that the nature of evidence, the context in which it is used, and whether those trying to use evidence are helped (or facilitated) affect the use of evidence. Urinary incontinence has a major effect on quality of life of older people, has a high prevalence, and is a key priority within European health and social care policy. Improving continence care has the potential to improve the quality of life for older people and reduce the costs associated with providing incontinence aids

Trialing project-based learning in a new EAP ESP course: A collaborative reflective practice of three college English teachers

Currently in many Chinese universities, the traditional College English course is facing the risk of being ‘marginalized’, replaced or even removed, and many hours previously allocated to the course are now being taken by EAP or ESP. At X University in northern China, a curriculum reform as such is taking place, as a result of which a new course has been created called ‘xue ke’ English. Despite the fact that ‘xue ke’ means subject literally, the course designer has made it clear that subject content is not the target, nor is the course the same as EAP or ESP. This curriculum initiative, while possibly having been justified with a rationale of some kind (e.g. to meet with changing social and/or academic needs of students and/or institutions), this is posing a great challenge for, as well as considerable pressure on, a number of College English teachers who have taught this single course for almost their entire teaching career. In such a context, three teachers formed a peer support group in Semester One this year, to work collaboratively co-tackling the challenge, and they chose Project-Based Learning (PBL) for the new course. This presentation will report on the implementation of this project, including the overall designing, operational procedure, and the teachers’ reflections. Based on discussion, pre-agreement was reached on the purpose and manner of collaboration as offering peer support for more effective teaching and learning and fulfilling and pleasant professional development. A WeChat group was set up as the chief platform for messaging, idea-sharing, and resource-exchanging. Physical meetings were supplementary, with sound agenda but flexible time, and venues. Mosoteach cloud class (lan mo yun ban ke) was established as a tool for virtual learning, employed both in and after class. Discussions were held at the beginning of the semester which determined only brief outlines for PBL implementation and allowed space for everyone to autonomously explore in their own way. Constant further discussions followed, which generated a great deal of opportunities for peer learning and lesson plan modifications. A reflective journal, in a greater or lesser detailed manner, was also kept by each teacher to record the journey of the collaboration. At the end of the semester, it was commonly recognized that, although challenges existed, the collaboration was overall a success and they were all willing to continue with it and endeavor to refine it to be a more professional and productive approach

Pragmatic interoperability in the enterprise : a research agenda

Eective collaboration among today's enterprises is indispensable. Such collaborative synergy is important to foster the creation of innovative value-added products and services that would have otherwise been dicult to achieve if enterprises work in isolation. However, it is a widely held belief that interoperability problems have been one of the perennial hurdles in achieving such collaboration. This research aims to improve the current state of the art in enterprise interoperability research by zeroing in on the notion of pragmatic interoperability(PI). When enterprise systems collaborate by exchanging information, PI goes beyond the compatibility between the structure and the meaning of shared information, it further ensures that the intended eect of the message exchange is realized. This paper outlines our research agenda to address the analysis, design, development and evaluation of a pragmatically interoperable solution for enterprise collaboration

The Benefits of Peer Review and a Multisemester Capstone Writing Series on Inquiry and Analysis Skills in an Undergraduate Thesis.

This study examines the relationship between the introduction of a four-course writing-intensive capstone series and improvement in inquiry and analysis skills of biology senior undergraduates. To measure the impact of the multicourse write-to-learn and peer-review pedagogy on student performance, we used a modified Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education rubric for Inquiry and Analysis and Written Communication to score senior research theses from 2006 to 2008 (pretreatment) and 2009 to 2013 (intervention). A Fisher-Freeman-Halton test and a two-sample Student's t test were used to evaluate individual rubric dimensions and composite rubric scores, respectively, and a randomized complete block design analysis of variance was carried out on composite scores to examine the impact of the intervention across ethnicity, legacy (e.g., first-generation status), and research laboratory. The results show an increase in student performance in rubric scoring categories most closely associated with science literacy and critical-thinking skills, in addition to gains in students' writing abilities