VAT And Electronic Books

The publishing sector has experienced an important change linked to the emergence of electronics books. This new reality has an impact in the cultural industry and demands the adaptation of public regulations that affect the production and consumption of cultural goods and services. For this purpose, the authors carry out an analysis of the legislation applicable to the cultural sector, focusing on the publication of electronic books, in order to meet the impact of these measures in the economy.The importance of public action is made clear in the protection of copyright and the fight against illegal access, in order not to reduce tax collection, because this could be negative for the support of the worselfare state.The analysis is carried out for the Spanish case, although the results obtained may be extrapolated to the rest of the states of the European Union, given that the regulations are community-based

Assessment of Creative Thinking in an Introductory Robotics Course Using Final Project

This study describes development of an assignment (the final project) used for assessment of creative thinking in an undergraduate robotic course. Robotics inherently demands creativity, requiring exploration and investigation among several different methods to eventually generate a satisfactory solution. Assessment of students’ creative thinking fits naturally into our robotic course, which has a 2.5-hour lab session each week for students to work on physical/simulated robots. Students are asked to complete three projects over one semester. This paper describes the re-design and fine-tuning of the final project such that assessment of creative thinking can be incorporated into this robotic course as a regular component. While many courses offer opportunities for students to work on projects, feedback were usually provided at the stage of final products. The process of creative thinking was instead insufficiently assessed. The objective of this study is to design a well-structured robotic-specific assignment that emphasizes and promotes creative thinking throughout the semester. Five weeks were allocated in fall 2020 for the final project. Constructive feedback was provided to students weekly, which in turn improved the overall quality of the final products. Instead of using one single topic/task in the final project, several candidate topics are provided. Each group, typically consisting of one or two students, are allowed to select the one that they are most interested in pursuing. Each candidate topic is associated a “risk index”, indicating how challenging this option can be as perceived by the instructor, and thus the level of risk that students need to take to complete this particular task. A lower risk index corresponds to a less risk-taking decision. Further, for each candidate topic, hints and suggestions of possibly more than one method are provided. Students’ ability of embracing contradictions is evaluated by if students have considered and/or implemented various methods. A higher assessment score is given to groups who have investigated and compared multiple different methods (at least more than one method) before settling down on one solution. Acquiring competencies is evaluated based on the cumulative/overall capability that each student has acquired and demonstrated from the beginning till the end of the semester. Solving problems is evaluated by the completeness of the task, being definitely satisfactory, satisfactory, acceptable, or unacceptable. Finally, evaluation of innovative thinking is based on if each group has proposed and implemented their own solutions other than those suggested. In summary, five out of six performance criteria from the Creative Thinking Value Rubric were assessed in fall 2020 using the final project of the robotic course offered. Creative Thinking Value Rubric was used for the performance criteria. This paper presents three carefully-designed candidate topics for the final project, together with the collected assessment results. We believe that by including this assessment as a regular course component, students’ creative thinking capability will be enhanced to better prepare them for future careers

The myosin interacting-heads motif present in live tarantula muscle explains tetanic and posttetanic phosphorylation mechanisms

Striated muscle contraction involves sliding of actin thin filaments along myosin thick filaments, controlled by calcium through thin filament activation. In relaxed muscle, the two heads of myosin interact with each other on the filament surface to form the interacting-heads motif (IHM). A key question is how both heads are released from the surface to approach actin and produce force. We used time-resolved synchrotron X-ray diffraction to study tarantula muscle before and after tetani. The patterns showed that the IHM is present in live relaxed muscle. Tetanic contraction produced only a very small backbone elongation, implying that mechanosensing-proposed in vertebrate muscle-is not of primary importance in tarantula. Rather, thick filament activation results from increases in myosin phosphorylation that release a fraction of heads to produce force, with the remainder staying in the ordered IHM configuration. After the tetanus, the released heads slowly recover toward the resting, helically ordered state. During this time the released heads remain close to actin and can quickly rebind, enhancing the force produced by posttetanic twitches, structurally explaining posttetanic potentiation. Taken together, these results suggest that, in addition to stretch activation in insects, two other mechanisms for thick filament activation have evolved to disrupt the interactions that establish the relaxed helices of IHMs: one in invertebrates, by either regulatory light-chain phosphorylation (as in arthropods) or Ca(2+)-binding (in mollusks, lacking phosphorylation), and another in vertebrates, by mechanosensing

Parameter identification problems in the modelling of cell motility

We present a novel parameter identification algorithm for the estimation of parameters in models of cell motility using imaging data of migrating cells. Two alternative formulations of the objective functional that measures the difference between the computed and observed data are proposed and the parameter identification problem is formulated as a minimisation problem of nonlinear least squares type. A Levenberg–Marquardt based optimisation method is applied to the solution of the minimisation problem and the details of the implementation are discussed. A number of numerical experiments are presented which illustrate the robustness of the algorithm to parameter identification in the presence of large deformations and noisy data and parameter identification in three dimensional models of cell motility. An application to experimental data is also presented in which we seek to identify parameters in a model for the monopolar growth of fission yeast cells using experimental imaging data. Our numerical tests allow us to compare the method with the two different formulations of the objective functional and we conclude that the results with both objective functionals seem to agree

Campus Mental Health: Implications for Instructors Supporting Students

The recent escalation in student suicides due to mental health problems has encouraged higher education institutions to not only modify their overall support structures, but to also (re)define the role of faculty and staff. Despite the increased attention given to student mental health in Canadian higher education institutions, little is known and understood about how instructors view their role as supporters or promoters of student mental health. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of college instructors in supporting students with mental health problems or illnesses. Participants were 42 instructors between the ages of 25 to 64 from Molize College in Toronto, Ontario. Qualitative ethnography was employed to gather data from participants, specifically through a survey questionnaire and interviews. A constructivist framework was adopted to analyze and understand the values, perceptions, meanings, and practices post-secondary instructors carry around notions of student mental health and intervention. Findings revealed that instructors were generally aware of student mental health concerns in post-secondary institutions, but that greater awareness was still warranted, namely in the areas of instructor mental health and location of support services. Findings also demonstrated that most instructors evaluated their knowledge and confidence in relation to student mental health as poor, which was often credited to limited relevant professional development and training. Additionally, data indicated that instructors carried skepticism towards the role of some student support services departments, as well as towards their own role when supporting the mental health and well-being of students. On a final note, findings revealed that instructors commonly employed four practices to support the mental health and well-being of students: conversation, referral, accommodations, and curricular inclusion and instruction. Future studies are encouraged to acknowledge the narratives of instructors through ethnographic inquiry, to allow for greater insights into their awareness, knowledge/confidence, responsibilities, and practices when it comes to supporting the mental health and well-being of students in higher education settings. Incorporating the instructor may not be a panacea for the shortcomings of current mental health policies and practices in higher education settings, but it can certainly represent a colossal step in that direction. KEYWORDS: student mental health, higher education, instructor

The role of spalt proteins in development and disease

AbstractThe spalt proteins are encoded by a family of evolutionarily conserved genes found in species as diverse as Drosophila, C. elegans and vertebrates. In humans, mutations in some of these genes are associated with several congenital disorders which underscores the importance of spalt gene function in embryonic development. Recent studies have begun to cast light on the functions of this family of proteins with increasing understanding of the developmental processes regulated and the molecular mechanisms used. Here we review what is currently known about the role of spalt genes in vertebrate development and human disease

The Sound of Interconnectivity; The European Vasculitis Society 2022 Report

The first European Vasculitis Society (EUVAS) meeting report was published in 2017. Herein, we report on developments in the past 5 years which were greatly influenced by the pandemic. The adaptability to engage virtually, at this critical time in society, embodies the importance of networks and underscores the role of global collaborations. We outline state-of-the-art webinar topics, updates on developments in the last 5 years, and proposals for agendas going forward. A host of newly reported clinical trials is shaping practice on steroid minimization, maintenance strategies, and the role of newer therapies. To guide longer -term strategies, a longitudinal 10-year study investigating relapse, comorbidity, malignancy, and survival rates is at an advanced stage. Disease assessment studies are refining classification criteria to differentiate forms of vasculitis more fully. A large international validation study on the histologic classification of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) glomerulonephritis, recruiting new multicenter sites and comparing results with the Kidney Risk Score, has been conducted. Eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA) genomics offers potential pathogenic subset and therapeutic insights. Among bio-markers, ANCA testing is favoring immunoassay as the preferred method for diagnostic evaluation. Consolidated development of European registries is progressing with an integrated framework to analyze large clinical data sets on an unprecedented scale

Electrons surfing on a sound wave as a platform for quantum optics with flying electrons

Electrons in a metal are indistinguishable particles that strongly interact with other electrons and their environment. Isolating and detecting a single flying electron after propagation to perform quantum optics like experiments at the single electron level is therefore a challenging task. Up to date, only few experiments have been performed in a high mobility two-dimensional electron gas where the electron propagates almost ballistically. Flying electrons were detected via the current generated by an ensemble of electrons and electron correlations were encrypted in the current noise. Here we demonstrate the experimental realisation of high efficiency single electron source and single electron detector for a quantum medium where a single electron is propagating isolated from the other electrons through a one-dimensional channel. The moving potential is excited by a surface acoustic wave, which carries the single electron along the 1D-channel at a speed of 3\mum/ns. When such a quantum channel is placed between two quantum dots, a single electron can be transported from one quantum dot to the other, which is several micrometres apart, with a quantum efficiency of emission and detection of 96% and 92%, respectively. Furthermore, the transfer of the electron can be triggered on a timescale shorter than the coherence time T2* of GaAs spin qubits6. Our work opens new avenues to study the teleportation of a single electron spin and the distant interaction between spatially separated qubits in a condensed matter system.Comment: Total 25 pages. 12 pages main text, 4 figures, 5 pages supplementary materia