Robot education peers in a situated primary school study: personalisation promotes child learning

The benefit of social robots to support child learning in an educational context over an extended period of time is evaluated. Specifically, the effect of personalisation and adaptation of robot social behaviour is assessed. Two autonomous robots were embedded within two matched classrooms of a primary school for a continuous two week period without experimenter supervision to act as learning companions for the children for familiar and novel subjects. Results suggest that while children in both personalised and non-personalised conditions learned, there was increased child learning of a novel subject exhibited when interacting with a robot that personalised its behaviours, with indications that this benefit extended to other class-based performance. Additional evidence was obtained suggesting that there is increased acceptance of the personalised robot peer over a non-personalised version. These results provide the first evidence in support of peer-robot behavioural personalisation having a positive influence on learning when embedded in a learning environment for an extended period of time

Consumer perceptions of co-branding alliances: Organizational dissimilarity signals and brand fit

This study explores how consumers evaluate co-branding alliances between dissimilar partner firms. Customers are well aware that different firms are behind a co-branded product and observe the partner firms’ characteristics. Drawing on signaling theory, we assert that consumers use organizational characteristics as signals in their assessment of brand fit and for their purchasing decisions. Some organizational signals are beyond the control of the co-branding partners or at least they cannot alter them on short notice. We use a quasi-experimental design and test how co-branding partner dissimilarity affects brand fit perception. The results show that co-branding partner dissimilarity in terms of firm size, industry scope, and country-of-origin image negatively affects brand fit perception. Firm age dissimilarity does not exert significant influence. Because brand fit generally fosters a benevolent consumer attitude towards a co-branding alliance, the findings suggest that high partner dissimilarity may reduce overall co-branding alliance performance

An “Electronic Fluorescent Pictograph” Browser for Exploring and Analyzing Large-Scale Biological Data Sets

Background. The exploration of microarray data and data from other high-throughput projects for hypothesis generation has become a vital aspect of post-genomic research. For the non-bioinformatics specialist, however, many of the currently available tools provide overwhelming amounts of data that are presented in a non-intuitive way. Methodology/Principal Findings. In order to facilitate the interpretation and analysis of microarray data and data from other large-scale data sets, we have developed a tool, which we have dubbed the electronic Fluorescent Pictograph – or eFP – Browser, available a

Synthesis and Characterization of ZnO Nanowire–CdO Composite Nanostructures

ZnO nanowire–CdO composite nanostructures were fabricated by a simple two-step process involving ammonia solution method and thermal evaporation. First, ZnO nanowires (NWs) were grown on Si substrate by aqueous ammonia solution method and then CdO was deposited on these ZnO NWs by thermal evaporation of cadmium chloride powder. The surface morphology and structure of the synthesized composite structures were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The optical absorbance spectrum showed that ZnO NW–CdO composites can absorb light up to 550 nm. The photoluminescence spectrum of the composite structure does not show any CdO-related emission peak and also there was no band gap modification of ZnO due to CdO. The photocurrent measurements showed that ZnO NW–CdO composite structures have better photocurrent when compared with the bare ZnO NWs

"You have to get wet to learn how to swim" applied to bridging the gap between research into personnel scheduling and its implementation in practice

Personnel scheduling problems have attracted research interests for several decades. They have been considerably changed over time, accommodating a variety of constraints related to legal and organisation requirements, part-time staff, flexible hours of staff, staff preferences, etc. This led to a myriad of approaches developed for solving personnel scheduling problems including optimisation, meta-heuristics, artificial intelligence, decision-support, and also hybrids of these approaches. However, this still does not imply that this research has a large impact on practice and that state-of-the art models and algorithms are widely in use in organisations. One can find a reasonably large number of software packages that aim to assist in personnel scheduling. A classification of this software based on its purpose will be proposed, accompanied with a discussion about the level of support that this software offers to schedulers. A general conclusion is that the available software, with some exceptions, does not benefit from the wealth of developed models and methods. The remaining of the paper will provide insights into some characteristics of real-world scheduling problems that, in the author’s opinion, have not been given a due attention in the personnel scheduling research community yet and which could contribute to the enhancement of the implementation of research results in practice. Concluding remarks are that in order to bridge the gap that still exists between research into personnel scheduling and practice, we need to engage more with schedulers in practice and also with software developers; one may say we need to get wet if we want to learn how to swim

A Case Study of Factors Influencing Performance in the Practice Environment

Athletes’ practice environment can influence their competitive performance. The influencing performance factors present in practice are understudied, and the aim of this study was to explore these factors. Using a case-study approach, the authors investigated a basketball practice environment to reveal influencing performance factors. Participants were 15 members of a U.K. Elite Academy Basketball League team based in a sixth-form college (equivalent to American high school age) that included 10 players, 2 coaches, 1 strength and conditioning coach, 1 academic teacher, and the head of sport (mean age 21.8 yr). A case-study approach was adopted to collect data from interviews, focus groups, and direct observations to provide a holistic assessment of the practice environment. Data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis, which revealed 6 overarching themes: effort, status, individuality, preparation, team drive, and practice vision. Data analysis exposed several themes of influencing performance factors unreported in previous literature, suggesting that practice environments should be viewed as a stand-alone field of investigative enquiry. The results from this study provide a much-needed foray into the psychological influences of practice and give practitioners the opportunity to reflect on the results against their own practice environments.</jats:p

Drug Resistance Mutations for Surveillance of Transmitted HIV-1 Drug-Resistance: 2009 Update

Programs that monitor local, national, and regional levels of transmitted HIV-1 drug resistance inform treatment guidelines and provide feedback on the success of HIV-1 treatment and prevention programs. To accurately compare transmitted drug resistance rates across geographic regions and times, the World Health Organization has recommended the adoption of a consensus genotypic definition of transmitted HIV-1 drug resistance. In January 2007, we outlined criteria for developing a list of mutations for drug-resistance surveillance and compiled a list of 80 RT and protease mutations meeting these criteria (surveillance drug resistance mutations; SDRMs). Since January 2007, several new drugs have been approved and several new drug-resistance mutations have been identified. In this paper, we follow the same procedures described previously to develop an updated list of SDRMs that are likely to be useful for ongoing and future studies of transmitted drug resistance. The updated SDRM list has 93 mutations including 34 NRTI-resistance mutations at 15 RT positions, 19 NNRTI-resistance mutations at 10 RT positions, and 40 PI-resistance mutations at 18 protease positions

Glutathione and glutamate in schizophrenia: a 7T MRS study

In schizophrenia, abnormal neural metabolite concentrations may arise from cortical damage following neuroinflammatory processes implicated in acute episodes. Inflammation is associated with increased glutamate, whereas the antioxidant glutathione may protect against inflammation-induced oxidative stress. We hypothesized that patients with stable schizophrenia would exhibit a reduction in glutathione, glutamate and/or glutamine in the cerebral cortex, consistent with a postinflammatory response, and that this reduction would be most marked in patients with residual schizophrenia an early stage with positive psychotic symptoms has progressed to a late stage characterised by long-term negative symptoms and impairments. We recruited 28 patients with stable schizophrenia and 45 healthy participants matched for age, gender and parental socio-economic status. We measured glutathione, glutamate and glutamine concentrations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), left insula, and visual cortex using 7T proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS). Glutathione and glutamate were significantly correlated in all three voxels. Glutamine concentrations across the three voxels were significantly correlated with each other. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) produced three clear components: an ACC glutathione-glutamate component; an insula-visual glutathione-glutamate component; and a glutamine component. Patients with stable schizophrenia had significantly lower scores on the ACC glutathione-glutamate component, an effect almost entirely leveraged by the sub-group of patients with residual schizophrenia. All three metabolite concentration values in the ACC were significantly reduced in this group. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that excito-toxicity during the acute phase of illness leads to reduced glutathione and glutamate in the residual phase of the illness

A Computational Profiling of Changes in Gene Expression and Transcription Factors Induced by vFLIP K13 in Primary Effusion Lymphoma

Infection with Kaposi's sarcoma associated herpesvirus (KSHV) has been linked to the development of primary effusion lymphoma (PEL), a rare lymphoproliferative disorder that is characterized by loss of expression of most B cell markers and effusions in the body cavities. This unique clinical presentation of PEL has been attributed to their distinctive plasmablastic gene expression profile that shows overexpression of genes involved in inflammation, adhesion and invasion. KSHV-encoded latent protein vFLIP K13 has been previously shown to promote the survival and proliferation of PEL cells. In this study, we employed gene array analysis to characterize the effect of K13 on global gene expression in PEL-derived BCBL1 cells, which express negligible K13 endogenously. We demonstrate that K13 upregulates the expression of a number of NF-κB responsive genes involved in cytokine signaling, cell death, adhesion, inflammation and immune response, including two NF-κB subunits involved in the alternate NF-κB pathway, RELB and NFKB2. In contrast, CD19, a B cell marker, was one of the genes downregulated by K13. A comparison with K13-induced genes in human vascular endothelial cells revealed that although there was a considerable overlap among the genes induced by K13 in the two cell types, chemokines genes were preferentially induced in HUVEC with few exceptions, such as RANTES/CCL5, which was induced in both cell types. Functional studies confirmed that K13 activated the RANTES/CCL5 promoter through the NF-κB pathway. Taken collectively, our results suggest that K13 may contribute to the unique gene expression profile, immunophenotype and clinical presentation that are characteristics of KSHV-associated PEL