Digitally retelling the tale: children’s learning encounters and materiality

While much existing work on digital storytelling with young people has focused prominently upon presenting their own personal narratives and viewpoints, relatively little attention has been given to learning that could arise from digital adaptations by young children of existing and well-known stories. This article reports work exploring learning activities through a case study involving three pupils (aged 8, 10 and 12) and their teachers engaged over a six-month period in digitally retelling a fairy tale from a printed storybook. In addition to considering the role of the printed text and the learning opportunities arising from its digital retelling, discussion focuses on how the findings cohere with more recently developing theoretical perspectives on learning that in addition to the social take into account the role of the material

Glikoznanost - nova smjernica u suvremenom dizajniranju lijekova

Glycans are the most abundant and most diverse biopolymers in nature. Because of their highly specific interactions with physiological receptors, they participate in many crucial biological processes. All these processes are potential targets for therapeutic intervention, and carbohydrate-based drugs are rapidly being taken up by the modern biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. Recent developments in the field of glycobiology have overcome the problem of glycan analysis and synthesis; and many compounds based on carbohydrates are now in various stages of clinical trials. This article presents glycoproteins in a new light, as an important biopharmaceutical target, giving an overview of their potential use as therapeutic glycoproteins and proteoglycans, inflammation blockers, cancer therapeutics and vaccines, inhibitors of pathogenic microbes, viral inhibitors and potential aids in the treatment of lysosomal diseases, neurological diseases and transplantation rejection.Glikani su najrasprostranjeniji i najraznolikiji biopolimeri prisutni u prirodi. Zbog svojih interakcija s fiziološkim receptorima sudjeluju u mnogim ključnim biološkim procesima. Svi ti procesi potencijalna su meta terapeutskih intervencija pa lijekovi bazirani na ugljikohidratima nalaze svoje mjesto u suvremenoj biotehnologiji i farmaceutskoj industriji. Razvojem glikobiologije prevladan je problem sinteze i analize glikana pa su mnogi spojevi bazirani na ugljikohidratnim strukturama trenutno u različitim fazama kliničkih ispitivanja. Ovaj članak predstavlja glikoproteine u novom svjetlu, kao važne biofarmaceutske ciljeve, dajući pregled njihove potencijalne primjene kao terapijskih glikoproteina i proteoglikana, inhibitora upale, lijekova i vakcina u liječenju tumora, inhibitora patogenih mikroorganizama i virusa, te potencijalnih sredstava u liječenju lizosomskih i neuroloških bolesti te transplantacijskih reakcija

Deep Learning Based Packet Detection and Carrier Frequency Offset Estimation in IEEE 802.11ah

Wi-Fi systems based on the IEEE 802.11 standards are the most popular wireless interfaces that use Listen Before Talk (LBT) method for channel access. The distinctive feature of a majority of LBT-based systems is that the transmitters use preambles that precede the data to allow the receivers to perform packet detection and carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation. Preambles usually contain repetitions of training symbols with good correlation properties, while conventional digital receivers apply correlation-based methods for both packet detection and CFO estimation. However, in recent years, data-based machine learning methods are disrupting physical layer research. Promising results have been presented, in particular, in the domain of deep learning (DL)-based channel estimation. In this paper, we present a performance and complexity analysis of packet detection and CFO estimation using both the conventional and the DL-based approaches. The goal of the study is to investigate under which conditions the performance of the DL-based methods approach or even surpass the conventional methods, but also, under which conditions their performance is inferior. Focusing on the emerging IEEE 802.11ah standard, our investigation uses both the standard-based simulated environment, and a real-world testbed based on Software Defined Radios.Comment: 13 pages, journal publicatio

Study of Subjective and Objective Quality Evaluation of 3D Point Cloud Data by the JPEG Committee

The SC29/WG1 (JPEG) Committee within ISO/IEC is currently working on developing standards for the storage, compression and transmission of 3D point cloud information. To support the creation of these standards, the committee has created a database of 3D point clouds representing various quality levels and use-cases and examined a range of 2D and 3D objective quality measures. The examined quality measures are correlated with subjective judgments for a number of compression levels. In this paper we describe the database created, tests performed and key observations on the problems of 3D point cloud quality assessment

Evaluation of Blur and Gaussian Noise Degradation in Images Using Statistical Model of Natural Scene and Perceptual Image Quality Measure

In this paper we present new method for classification of image degradation type based on Riesz transform coefficients and Blind/Referenceless Image Spatial Quality Evaluator (BRISQUE) that employs spatial coefficients. In our method we use additional statistical parameters that gives us statistically better results for blur and all tested degradations together in comparison with previous method. A new method to determine level of blur and Gaussian noise degradation in images using statistical model of natural scene is presented. We defined parameters for evaluation of level of Gaussian noise and blur degradation in images. In real world applications reference image is usually not available therefore proposed method enables classification of image degradation by type and estimation of Gaussian noise and blur levels for any degraded image

The prevalence and genotype of 21-hydroxylase deficiency in the Croatian Romani population

ObjectiveCongenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) owing to 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21-OHD) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder caused by pathological variants in the CYP21A2 gene. After a high prevalence of classic 21-OHD CAH in the Romani population was reported in the Republic of North Macedonia, we decided to estimate the prevalence of 21-OHD in Croatia and, if high, assess the possible causes and estimate the frequency of particular CYP21A2 variants.DesignCross-sectional study.MethodsData from a Croatian 21-OHD genetic database was reviewed, and only Romani patients were included in the study. CYP21A2 genotyping was performed using allele-specific PCR, MLPA, and Sanger sequencing.ResultsAccording to a survey conducted in 2017, Croatia had 22,500 Romani people and six of them had a salt-wasting (SW) form of 21-OHD. All were homozygous for the c.IVS2-13A/C-G pathological variant in intron 2 and descended from consanguineous families belonging to different Romani tribes. The calculated prevalence of 21-OHD in Croatian Romani is 1:3,750, while in the Croatian general population, it is 1:18,000. Three of the six Romani patients originated from two neighboring villages in North-western Croatia (Slavonia County), as well as the seventh patient who is of mixed Romani/Croatian descent and heterozygous for the c.IVS2-13A/C-G pathological variant (not included in the prevalence calculation).ConclusionA high prevalence of SW 21-OHD in the Croatian Romani population caused by the homozygous cIVS2-13A/C-G pathological variant was found. In addition to isolation and consanguinity, other possible reasons could be the heterozygous advantage of the CYP21A2 gene pathological variant and the bottleneck effect as a result of the Romani Holocaust in World War II

Insights into complexity of congenital disorders of glycosylation

Biochemical and biological properties of glycoconjugates are strongly determined by the specific structure of its glycan parts. Glycosylation, the covalent attachment of sugars to proteins and lipids, is very complex and highly-coordinated process involving > 250 gene products. Deficiency of glycosylation enzymes or transporters results in impaired glycosylation, and consequently pathologi-cal modulation of many physiological processes. Inborn defects of glycosylation enzymes, caused by the specific mutations, lead to the development of rare, but severe diseases – congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDGs). Up today, there are more than 45 known CDGs. Their clinical manifestations range from very mild to extremely severe (even lethal) and unfortunately, only three of them can be effectively treated nowadays. CDG symptoms highly vary, though some are common for several CDG types but also for other unrelated diseases, especially neurological ones, leaving the possibility that many CDGs cases are under- or misdiagnosed. Glycan analysis of serum transferrin (by isoelectric focusing or more sophisticated methods, such as HPLC (high-performance liquid chromatography) or MALDI (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization)) or serum N-glycans (by MS), enzyme activity assays and DNA sequence analysis are the most frequently used methods for CDG screening and identification, since no specific tests are available yet. In this review we summarize the current knowledge on the clinical, biochemical and genetic characteristic of distinct CDGs, as well as existing diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, aiming to contribute to the awareness on the existence of the-se rare diseases and encourage the efforts to elucidate its genetic background, improve diagnostics and develop new strategies for their treatment