Flipped versus conventional classes in a Saudi Arabian university

This thesis presents an investigation of the implementation of the flipped classroom in higher education in Saudi Arabia, which addressed three main research questions: 1- Is there any difference in acquisition of knowledge, and student attitudes, between students who take a flipped class and those who take a conventional class? 2- Is there any difference in the use of time, and approach to study, between students who take a flipped class and a conventional class? 3- What factors affect the implementation of flipped class? The study compared two groups of students, those who learned using the flipped classroom and those who learned through traditional lectures followed by an activity session. In the flipped classroom, face-to-face time was reduced from 3 to 2 hours and activity time was doubled from 1 to 2 hours. The participants were 491 female students; half of them were taught in a flipped classroom and the other half by conventional method. Instructors, content, materials, assignments, and exam questions were the same in both groups. As this study used the mixed method approach, the data were collected by questionnaires, interviews, classroom observation, students’ diaries, and marks’ reports and Blackboard Learn reports. At the end of the course, there were no significant differences in test or assignment marks between students studying by the two methods. With regard to students’ attitudes toward the flipped classroom, 60% of the students in the flipped classroom reported that they preferred this method, whereas 14% of the students reported having a negative attitude toward it. About 45% of students in the flipped classroom group reported a positive attitude towards face-to-face lectures, differing significantly from the perspective of those in the conventional group, 75% of whom reported a positive attitude. However, even with the positive attitude toward flipped class, one of the main findings showed that only 39% of the learners “always” watched the videos as required, and the trend of watching the videos showed a decrease in the number of views over time. However, viewing rates increased sharply during the period of exam study, as learners watched these videos again, or even for the first time. This thesis also explores flipped classroom students’ study habits inside and outside the classroom, and investigates the factors behind these behaviours, including their motivations and the obstacles to study which they faced. For example, shortage of time and issues with students’ self-regulation were the main factors that hindered students from watching the videos, as a result, not watching the videos influenced the quality of their participation in classroom activity negatively. Investigating the students’ experience in flipped class also showed other factors which were related to the adoption of a strategic or surface approach to learning

Akhirin ワ マウス セキズイ ノ シンケイ カンサイボウ セイギョ ニ カンヨ スル

熊本大

Assessing Patient Engagement in Health Care: Proposal for a Modeling and Simulation Framework for Behavioral Analysis

Human behavior plays a vital role in health care effectiveness and system performance. Therefore, it is necessary to look carefully at the interactions within a system and how a system is affected by the behavioral responses and activities of its various components, particularly human components and actions. Modeling patients’ engagement behaviors can be valuable in many ways; for example, models can evaluate the effects of therapeutic interventions on health improvement, health care effectiveness, and desired outcomes of changing health lifestyles. Modeling and simulation (M&S) help us to understand the interactions within a whole system under defined conditions. M&S in patient behavior analysis involve models that attempt to identify certain human behaviors that most likely have an impact on health care operations and services. Our study’s overall aims are (1) to investigate the impacts of patients’ engagement and various human behavior patterns on health care effectiveness and the achievement of desired outcomes and (2) to construct and validate a framework for modeling patient engagement and implementing and supporting patient management best practices, health policy-making processes, and innovative interventions in health care. We intend to extract routinely collected data of different parameters from general patients diagnosed with chronic diseases, such as diabetes. Our plan is to design data sets and extract health data from a pool of >4 million patient records from different general practices in England. We will focus on the primary electronic medical records of patients with at least 1 chronic disease (>200,000 records). Simulation techniques will be used to study patient engagement and its impact on health care effectiveness and outcome measures. The study will integrate available approaches to develop a framework for modeling how patients’ behaviors affect health care activities and outcomes and to underline the characteristics and salient factors that operational management needs to be aware of when developing a behavioral model for assessing patient engagement. The M&S framework, which is under development, will consider patient behavior in context and the underlying factors of human behavior with the help of simulation techniques. The proposed framework will be validated and evaluated through a health care case study. We expect to identify leading factors that influence and affect patient engagement and associated behavioral activities and to illustrate the challenges and complexities of developing simulation models for conducting behavioral analyses within health care settings. Additionally, we will assess patients’ engagement behaviors in terms of achieving health care effectiveness and desired outcomes, and we will specifically evaluate the impacts of patient engagement activities on health care services, patient management styles, and the effectiveness of health interventions in terms of achieving the intended outcomes—improved health and patient satisfaction. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/3009

Pengaruh Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Risk Terhadap Kinerja Perusahaan

ESG risk telah menjadi kebutuhan investor global dan domestik dalam berinvestasi di pasar modal untuk menilai risiko keberlanjutan perusahaan dalam jangka panjang. Penelitian ini memberikan bukti empiris pengaruh ESG risk terhadap kinerja perusahaan, yang diproksikan melalui kinerja akuntansi dan kinerja pasar. Return on asset (ROA) dan Return on Equity (ROE) digunakan untuk mengukur kinerja akuntansi, sedangkan Tobin’s Q dan Price Earnings Ratio (PER) sebagai pengukur kinerja pasar. Penelitian ini dilakukan terhadap 57 observasi pada perusahaan terindex ESG Leaders (IDXESGL) di Bursa Efek Indonesia selama tahun 2020-2022. Data dianalisis menggunakan regresi data panel, dengan random effect model untuk ROA, ROE dan Tobin’s Q serta pooled least square untuk PER. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ESG risk berdampak pada menurunnya kinerja perusahaan yang diukur dengan PER, namun tidak berdampak kepada kinerja perusahaan yang diukur menggunakan ROA, ROE dan Tobins’s Q. Serangkaian robusstnest test seperti estimasi 2SLS, GMM dan GLS dilakukan untuk menguji goodness of fit model prediksi. Hasil penelitian memberikan bukti yang kuat bahwa ESG risk dapat menurunkan kinerja pasar yang diukur dengan PER. Penelitian ini mengindikasikan bahwa perusahaan dengan nilai ESG risk yang tinggi memiliki risiko ESG material serta kontroversi yang tinggi dalam kegiatan bisnisnya. Ketersediaan skor ESG risk dapat membantu investor meningkatkan efisiensi pasar, terutama bagi mereka yang memperhatikan faktor ESG untuk mencapai tingkat pengembalian yang lebih tinggi dari investasi merek

Regulation of the neural niche by the soluble molecule Akhirin

Though the adult central nervous system has been considered a comparatively static tissue with little turnover, it is well established today that new neural cells are generated throughout life. Neural stem/progenitor cells (NS/PCs) can self‐renew and generate all types of neural cells. The proliferation of NS/PCs, and differentiation and fate determination of PCs are regulated by extrinsic factors such as growth factors, neurotrophins, and morphogens. Although several extrinsic factors that influence neurogenesis have already been reported, little is known about the role of soluble molecules in neural niche regulation. In this review, we will introduce the soluble molecule Akhirin and discuss its role in the eye and spinal cord during development

Regulation of the neural niche by the soluble molecule Akhirin

Though the adult central nervous system has been considered a comparatively static tissue with little turnover, it is well established today that new neural cells are generated throughout life. Neural stem/progenitor cells (NS/PCs) can self‐renew and generate all types of neural cells. The proliferation of NS/PCs, and differentiation and fate determination of PCs are regulated by extrinsic factors such as growth factors, neurotrophins, and morphogens. Although several extrinsic factors that influence neurogenesis have already been reported, little is known about the role of soluble molecules in neural niche regulation. In this review, we will introduce the soluble molecule Akhirin and discuss its role in the eye and spinal cord during development

Tsukushi expression is dependent on Notch signaling and oscillated in the presomitic mesoderm during chick somitogenesis

During somitogenesis, segmentation of the body axis occurs by epithelial somites budding off from the rostral end of the unsegmented presomitic mesoderm (PSM), and its molecular regulation is achieved by a molecular oscillator and signaling molecules. Tsukushi (TSK) is a unique secreted protein and involved in diverse biological cascades in vertebrate embryos by modulating several signaling pathways at the extracellular region. However, the involvement of TSK in somitogenesis remains unknown. In this study, we investigated the detailed expression patterns of TSK at different developmental stages of a chick embryo. Chick-TSK (C-TSK) is expressed in the PSM and shows an oscillation pattern with three phases. The oscillation pattern of C-TSK in the PSM is similar to that of c-Notch1 and c-haity1, but not to c-Delta1. Our in vitro data showed that Notch signaling is necessary for the normal expression of C-TSK and that expression of C-TSK is an intrinsic property of the anterior PSM. These data suggest that TSK plays a role in chick somitogenesis. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved