Virtual exchanges in higher education: developing intercultural skills of students across borders through online collaboration

Virtual exchange has been defined as a form of virtual mobility which aims to expand the reach and scope of traditional intercultural learning programs. This paper presents an example of a virtual exchange called InterCult - Intercultural Competences - which aimed to give an opportunity for students from Germany, France, and Brazil to explore intercultural aspects through online collaboration, i. e. to learn differences between own culture and other cultures by communicating and working on tasks together by using digital media. The research path was divided into three phases: project design, virtual exchange, and evaluation. The data collected during the virtual exchange involved the analysis of online conversations in international groups, face-to-face discussions during the classes at the end of each activity in national groups, the videos produced and shared in the online community, online meetings between the teachers, and the results of the online survey. Data were analyzed based on three perspectives: technology; engagement and collaborative work; intercultural competences. Results showed this type of experience is extremely important for a generation who will have to work in multicultural teams and contexts.El intercambio virtual se ha definido como una forma de movilidad virtual cuyo objetivo es ampliar el alcance y ámbito de los programas tradicionales de aprendizaje intercultural. Este artículo presenta un ejemplo de un intercambio virtual llamado InterCult - Competencias Interculturales - que pretendía dar la oportunidad a los estudiantes de Alemania, Francia y Brasil de explorar aspectos interculturales a través de la colaboración en línea, es decir, aprender las diferencias entre la propia cultura y otras culturas mediante la comunicación y el trabajo conjunto en tareas mediante el uso de medios digitales. El trabajo de investigación se dividió en tres fases: diseño del proyecto, intercambio virtual y evaluación. Los datos recogidos durante el intercambio virtual incluyeron el análisis de conversaciones en línea en grupos internacionales, discusiones cara a cara durante las clases al final de cada actividad en grupos nacionales, los videos producidos y compartidos en la comunidad en línea, reuniones en línea entre los profesores, y los resultados de la encuesta en línea. Los datos se analizaron desde tres perspectivas: tecnología; implicación y trabajo colaborativo; competencias interculturales. Los resultados mostraron que este tipo de experiencia es extremadamente importante para una generación que tendrá que trabajar en equipos y contextos multiculturales

Detection superiority of 7 T MRI protocol in patients with epilepsy and suspected focal cortical dysplasia

In 11 adult patients with suspicion of Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) on 1.5 T (n = 1) or 3 T (n = 10) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), 7 T MRI was performed. Visibility, extent, morphological features and delineation were independently rated and subsequently discussed by three observers. Additionally, head-to-head comparisons with corresponding 3 T images were made in the eight patients with a previous 3 T MRI and sustained suspicion of FCD. Comparison with histopathology was done in the five patients that underwent surgery. All lesions, seen at 1.5 and 3 T, were also recognized on 7 T. At 7 T FLAIR highlighted the FCD-like lesions best, whereas T2 and T2* were deemed better suited to review structure and extent of the lesion. Image quality with the used 7 T MRI setup was higher than the quality with the used 3 T MRI setup. In 2 out of 11 patients diagnosis changed, in one after re-evaluation of the images, and in the other based on histopathology. With the used 7 T MRI setup, FCD-like lesions can be detected with more confidence and detail as compared to lower field strength. However, concordance between radiologic diagnosis and final diagnosis seems to be lower than expected

Culture, Identity and Learning: A Mediation Model in the Context of Blogging in Teacher Education

National culture has been an influential framework for comparative and international research. However, current theories suggest that people and societies are rather more complex constructs than their cultural layer. This work is based on a previous study in which, when students from Spain were compared to German students, the former showed higher levels of identity with their blogs and learning impact. The current study is a step forward as it presents the differences in identity and learning impact in blogging between Spanish and Israeli student teachers and offers a mediation model in which the relationship between culture and learning is mediated by the identity factor. The results show that Spanish student teachers feel more identified with their blogs and thus perceive a greater learning impact. Accordingly, this work suggests that blogging could act as learning spaces that may raise students’ identity with their learning products and their self-perceived learning impact

Additive Approximation Schemes for Load Balancing Problems

We formalize the concept of additive approximation schemes and apply it to load balancing problems on identical machines. Additive approximation schemes compute a solution with an absolute error in the objective of at most ? h for some suitable parameter h and any given ? > 0. We consider the problem of assigning jobs to identical machines with respect to common load balancing objectives like makespan minimization, the Santa Claus problem (on identical machines), and the envy-minimizing Santa Claus problem. For these settings we present additive approximation schemes for h = p_{max}, the maximum processing time of the jobs. Our technical contribution is two-fold. First, we introduce a new relaxation based on integrally assigning slots to machines and fractionally assigning jobs to the slots. We refer to this relaxation as the slot-MILP. While it has a linear number of integral variables, we identify structural properties of (near-)optimal solutions, which allow us to compute those in polynomial time. The second technical contribution is a local-search algorithm which rounds any given solution to the slot-MILP, introducing an additive error on the machine loads of at most ?? p_{max}

Natural Language Processing Methods to Identify Oncology Patients at High Risk for Acute Care with Clinical Notes

Clinical notes are an essential component of a health record. This paper evaluates how natural language processing (NLP) can be used to identify the risk of acute care use (ACU) in oncology patients, once chemotherapy starts. Risk prediction using structured health data (SHD) is now standard, but predictions using free-text formats are complex. This paper explores the use of free-text notes for the prediction of ACU instead of SHD. Deep Learning models were compared to manually engineered language features. Results show that SHD models minimally outperform NLP models; an l1-penalised logistic regression with SHD achieved a C-statistic of 0.748 (95%-CI: 0.735, 0.762), while the same model with language features achieved 0.730 (95%-CI: 0.717, 0.745) and a transformer-based model achieved 0.702 (95%-CI: 0.688, 0.717). This paper shows how language models can be used in clinical applications and underlines how risk bias is different for diverse patient groups, even using only free-text data.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 2 table

Binary and nonbinary description of hypointensity for search and retrieval of brain MR images

Diagnosis accuracy in the medical field, is mainly affected by either lack of sufficient understanding of some diseases or the inter/intra-observer variability of the diagnoses. We believe that mining of large medical databases can help improve the current status of disease understanding and decision making. In a previous study based on binary description of hypointensity in the brain, it was shown that brain iron accumulation shape provides additional information to the shape-insensitive features, such as the total brain iron load, that are commonly used in clinics. This paper proposes a novel, nonbinary description of hypointensity in the brain based on principal component analysis. We compare the complementary and redundant information provided by the two descriptions using Kendall's rank correlation coefficient in order to better understand the individual descriptions of iron accumulation in the brain and obtain a more robust and accurate search and retrieval system

Scheduling with Machine Conflicts

We study the scheduling problem of makespan minimization while taking machine conflicts into account. Machine conflicts arise in various settings, e.g., shared resources for pre- and post-processing of tasks or spatial restrictions. In this context, each job has a blocking time before and after its processing time, i.e., three parameters. We seek for conflict-free schedules in which the blocking times of no two jobs intersect on conflicting machines. Given a set of jobs, a set of machines, and a graph representing machine conflicts, the problem SchedulingWithMachineConflicts (SMC), asks for a conflict-free schedule of minimum makespan. We show that, unless $\textrm{P}=\textrm{NP}$, SMC on $m$ machines does not allow for a $\mathcal{O}(m^{1-\varepsilon})$-approximation algorithm for any $\varepsilon>0$, even in the case of identical jobs and every choice of fixed positive parameters, including the unit case. Complementary, we provide approximation algorithms when a suitable collection of independent sets is given. Finally, we present polynomial time algorithms to solve the problem for the case of unit jobs on special graph classes. Most prominently, we solve it for bipartite graphs by using structural insights for conflict graphs of star forests.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure

Apprendimento fortuito: riconoscere e promuovere le potenzialità del microblogging

Il presente contributo introduce il concetto di apprendimento fortuito nel contesto di microblogging e discute le potenzialità di scoperte impreviste e inattese per l'apprendimento. L’apprendimento fortuito, come sottoinsieme dell’apprendimento incidentale, fa riferimento a un apprendimento che avviene tramite l’acquisizione di nuove intuizioni, con la scoperta di aspetti sconosciuti e il riconoscimento di connessioni apparentemente non correlate.Questo tipo di apprendimento può avvenire per caso e in quanto sottoprodotto di altre attività come lo scorrimento tra le informazioni ottenute tramite il flusso di aggiornamenti del proprio stato sociale sul microblog. Si sostiene che il coinvolgimento nel microblogging, in una rete sociale aperta di utenti che generano frequentemente nuove informazioni, aumenta le possibilità di scoperta fortuita. Il contributo esamina i possibili elementi che facilitano l'apprendimento fortuito e termina con alcune raccomandazioni per la ricerca futura

Lack of effect of pravastatin on cerebral blood flow or parenchymal volume loss in elderly at risk for vascular disease

<p><b>Background and Purpose:</b> Ageing is associated with a decline in cerebral blood flow. Animal studies have shown that cholesterol-lowering therapy with statins might preserve cerebral blood flow (CBF). We examined the effect of 40 mg pravastatin on the decline in CBF and brain volume in a subset of elderly subjects participating in the PROspective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk (PROSPER) trial.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> Randomization was not stratified according to whether or not subjects participated in the MRI substudy. In 391 men (n=226) and women (n=165) aged 70 to 82 years (mean±SD, 75±3.2), we measured total CBF (in mL/min) at baseline and after a mean±SD follow-up of 33±1.4 months with a gradient-echo phase-contrast MRI technique. Total CBF was defined as the summed flows in both internal carotid and vertebral arteries. Parenchymal volume (whole brain) was segmented with the use of in-house–developed semiautomatic software.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Total CBF significantly declined in the placebo-allocated group, from 521±83 to 504±92 mL/min (P=0.0036) and in the pravastatin-allocated group from 520±94 to 506±92 mL/min (P=0.018). This decline was not significantly different between treatment groups (P=0.56). There was also a significant reduction in brain volume over time (P<0.001), which was not different between the treatment groups (P=0.47). When expressed per unit of parenchymal volume, the decline in CBF over time was no longer statistically significant.</p> <p><b>Conclusions:</b> Elderly people at risk for cerebral vascular disease had a significant decline in CBF with increasing age that was explained by a concomitant reduction in brain volume. Treatment with 40 mg pravastatin daily had no beneficial effect on total CBF.</p&gt

Usability and Acceptance of Exergames Using Different Types of Training among Older Hypertensive Patients in a Simulated Mixed Reality

Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) exergames are promising tools for increasing training motivation. However, the use of exergames with mixed reality (MR) headsets remains under-researched. Older adults with hypertension could also benefit from the increased training adherence associated with MR. Endurance and strength endurance exercises are recommended for this group to lower blood pressure. The aim of the preliminary study (n = 22) was to compare the usability and acceptance of two exergames, which represent two different training types-strength endurance training (SET) and endurance training (ET). The developed exergame prototypes were applied in "simulated MR" using a VR head-mounted display. We examined the following outcomes: usability (TUI), intention to use (TUI), subjective task load (NASA-TLX), frustration (NASA-TLX), and presence (PQ). The results showed that frustration was significantly greater in the ET than in the SET (p = 0.038). Presence was significantly higher in the SET (p = 0.002). No significant differences in usability and acceptance were found in the exergames. The results indicate that usability and acceptance are not related to the type of training when utilizing MR exergames. Whether the results are transferable with a real MR headset must be determined in further research