HEA Flexible Learning Practice Guide

This Guide is designed to help practitioners develop flexible learning processes across a range of domains and levels and to aid subsequent implementation. It starts by providing practitioners with some contested definitions of flexible learning and argues a case for a particular approach; it articulates a set of overarching principles for flexible learning processes; covers the parameters of flexible learning and outlines what falls outside of scope; it considers the implications for staff and institutions when operationalising flexible learning processes and possible impact on students; finally, it provides brief synopses of others' innovative approaches in this domain alongside further resources. The immediate intention is to build confidence in those seeking to use more inclusive, collaborative and flexible pedagogical processes in enhancing student success. A longer-term ambition is to develop an emerging network of practitioners as part of our Flexible Learning Community of Practice who can use this Guide as a conduit for sharing further ideas and to use as a springboard for taking flexible learning to a new level. The Guide should be read in conjunction with the illustrative case studies and with the HEA Framework for Flexible Learning in higher education (2015) against which many of its key principles are aligned

Life and progress in Australasia

Mode of access: Internet

Lower limb amputation in children: report and experience in 21 cases

It is reported the experience in 21 patients, average age of 6 years old, who were submitted to 26 lower limb amputation due to congenital malformation (14), infection (6) and others. It is discussed the procedures, complications, advantages and disadvantages of each amputation level. It is concluded that amputation in children is still an option to be considered, mainly for allowing the patent a rapid recovery both functional and social.Os autores apresentam os resultados de 21 pacientes, com idade média de 6 anos, submetidos à 26 amputações do membro inferior por malformações congênitas (14), infecções (06) e outras. Discute-se os procedimentos, as complicações, as vantagens e desvantagens de cada nível de amputação. Concluem que a amputação na criança continua sendo uma opção a ser considerada, principalmente por propiciar rápida recuperação funcional e social do paciente.61

Sensate composite calcaneal flap in leg amputation: a full terminal weight-bearing surface—experience in eight adult patients

Despite modern reconstruction techniques and replantation, the preservation of a severely traumatised limb, or even a limb affected by a congenital malformation, usually gives poorer functional results compared with amputation and prosthetisation. The aim of this study was to describe a hind foot (including the calcaneum and fat pad) sensate flap with a surface that allows full terminal weight bearing in transtibial amputations in adults. Between June 2007 and September 2008, eight patients underwent leg amputations with a sensate composite calcaneal flap reconstruction of the stump. Patients consisted of four men and four women with a mean age of 46.5 (26–66) years. All amputations were unilateral. The mean follow-up was 28.3 (25–42) months. There were no complications. Calcaneum tibial fusion was observed in all patients in a mean time of 3.5 (3–4) months. A below-knee prosthesis was adapted at 16 weeks postoperatively in all cases, and no need for stump revision occurred in this series during the entire follow-up period. A transtibial amputation covered with a sensate plantar flap preserving the calcaneum was proposed. In theory, the anatomic structures spared in this technique provide a strong, full, weight-bearing terminal surface of the stump that will last a lifetime

Combining natural language processing and metabarcoding to reveal pathogen-environment associations.

Cryptococcus neoformans is responsible for life-threatening infections that primarily affect immunocompromised individuals and has an estimated worldwide burden of 220,000 new cases each year-with 180,000 resulting deaths-mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Surprisingly, little is known about the ecological niches occupied by C. neoformans in nature. To expand our understanding of the distribution and ecological associations of this pathogen we implement a Natural Language Processing approach to better describe the niche of C. neoformans. We use a Latent Dirichlet Allocation model to de novo topic model sets of metagenetic research articles written about varied subjects which either explicitly mention, inadvertently find, or fail to find C. neoformans. These articles are all linked to NCBI Sequence Read Archive datasets of 18S ribosomal RNA and/or Internal Transcribed Spacer gene-regions. The number of topics was determined based on the model coherence score, and articles were assigned to the created topics via a Machine Learning approach with a Random Forest algorithm. Our analysis provides support for a previously suggested linkage between C. neoformans and soils associated with decomposing wood. Our approach, using a search of single-locus metagenetic data, gathering papers connected to the datasets, de novo determination of topics, the number of topics, and assignment of articles to the topics, illustrates how such an analysis pipeline can harness large-scale datasets that are published/available but not necessarily fully analyzed, or whose metadata is not harmonized with other studies. Our approach can be applied to a variety of systems to assert potential evidence of environmental associations

PhillydotMap: The Shape of Philadelphia

This book is the outgrowth of a working group entitled, “Modeling Urban Environmental Impacts on Health, Development, and Behavior sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Urban Research. The purpose of the working gropu was to engage faculty from across campus and to encourage their collaborative use of GIS technology in the modeling of urban form and function. These ten chapters represent a wide range of GIS applications, from community-based social services to public history to social science research

Endurance and resistance exercise: acute postprandial responses and chronic training adaptations

Obesity is linked to lower lipid oxidation and elevations in resting and postprandial triglyceride (TG) concentrations, and is associated with many chronic disease risks including CVD. Exercise is commonly used to overcome such disruptions in lipid dynamics, but the comparison of various exercise modalities and their role in rectifying such metabolic inadequacies is scarce. Using the ingestion of isotope labeled [U-13C] palmitate, we investigated postprandial TG and fatty acid (FA) metabolism and the contributing hormonal changes from an acute bout of endurance (E) and resistance (R) exercise in obese women. In comparison to a sedentary control condition, we found significantly elevated exogenous and endogenous derived lipid oxidation during the postprandial period in both E and R. Analysis of plasma FA and TG concentration revealed significant attenuations in endogenously derived TG, and elevations in exogenously derived plasma FA. The only significant change as a function of condition in hormone concentration during the postprandial period was for growth hormone (GH), which was significantly elevated in both E and R in comparison to a sedentary control. While combining both E and R within the same exercise session in a chronic exercise regimen results in improvements in body composition and fitness, there is still considerable debate as to whether there is a benefit to performing E either before or after R. We investigated the concurrent ordering (E-R, R-E) of 60 min combined E + R during an 8-week intervention to determine potential differences in body composition and physical fitness in inactive women. We found that combined E and R significantly increased aerobic capacity, upper and lower body strength, as well as FFM regardless of the order they were performed. In summary, compared to a sedentary control, a pre-meal bout of exercise enhances the postprandial rise in growth hormone in obese women. This is associated with enhanced whole body fatty acid oxidation and reduced appearance of only endogenously derived TG in the bloodstream. These results were unaffected by type of exercise (E or R). In a separate study of combined E and R, the order of exercise had no impact on fitness parameters and both groups improved over an 8-week intervention. Collectively, these data suggest that E and R have equivalent and beneficial effects on postprandial fat trafficking and physical fitness in untrained women.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Patrick Michael Davit

Creating enabling learning environments for students with severe learning difficulties in a special school setting

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