The challenge of career education

In the past, the collective experiences of graduates accessing the labour market and retaining a job were fairly straightforward, but now they have given way to individual, fragmented, and unpredictable career paths. The process of career development should begin early in university studies, or even in high school, in order to support our most educated citizens in finding their place and expression in society through work. This paper seeks to contribute to an increased understanding of the state of play of career development in students and graduates of the Tourism degree program at the University of Macerata, Italy. It reports empirical data gathered from them and explores ramifications of the results for changes in pedagogy

Professional competences of pre-service teachers: from the F2F to the online learning programme

The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges for the global higher education community: it has required faculty and students to respond to an unprecedented challenge and to shift suddenly from traditional face-to-face curriculum to distance learning formats through virtual classrooms. Some learning programmes, such as the TFA, had a strong theoretical-practical characterisation and were therefore delimited by regulations requiring full in-presence (F2F) and compulsory attendance. Due to the pandemic, the one-year teaching-learning programme for support teachers (TFA) followed the same path and was redesigned by universities for distance education. The re-design at the University of Macerata was based on pedagogical assumptions: technology was intended as a support to achieve learning outcomes. Our study aims to investigate perceptions of the theoretical and practical skills acquired from the F2F and the online format, considering a group of students enrolled for different school orders who followed both the current online programme and the previous years\u2019 F2F programm

TAS2R38 bitter taste genotype is associated with complementary feeding behavior in infants

Background: Genetically mediated sensitivity to bitter taste has been associated with food preferences and eating behavior in adults and children. The aim of this study was to assess the association between TAS2R38 bitter taste genotype and the first complementary food acceptance in infants. Parents of healthy, breastfed, term-born infants were instructed, at discharge from the nursery, to feed their baby with a first complementary meal of 150 mL at 4 to 6 months of age. They recorded the day when the child ate the whole meal in a questionnaire. Additional data included food composition, breastfeeding duration, feeding practices, and growth at 6 months. Infants' TAS2R38 genotypes were determined at birth, and infants were classified as "bitter-insensitive" (genotype AVI/AVI) and "bitter-sensitive" (genotypes AVI/PAV or PAV/PAV). Results: One hundred seventy-six infants and their mothers were enrolled; completed data were available for 131/176 (74.4%) infants (gestational age 39.3 \ub1 1.1 weeks, birth weight 3390 \ub1 430 g). Bitter-insensitive were 45/131 (34.3%), and bitter-sensitive were 86/131 (65.6%). Thirty-one percent of bitter-insensitive infants consumed the whole complementary meal at first attempt, versus 13% of bitter-sensitive ones (p = 0.006). This difference was significant independently of confounding variables such as sex, breastfeeding, or foods used in the meal. Growth at 6 months did not differ between the two groups. Conclusions: Differences in TAS2R38 bitter taste gene were associated with acceptance of the first complementary food in infants, suggesting a possible involvement in eating behavior at weaning

Anti-TNF's for Postoperative Recurrence in Crohn's Disease: The If's and How's

Recurrence of Crohn\u2019s disease (CD) is extremely frequent after surgery and its prevention remains a fundamental problem in the medical management of these patients. As of today, none of the medications traditionally used to treat the spontaneous disease (i.e. mesalamine, steroids, immunosuppressives and antibiotics) has shown a clear benefit. Recent data, coming from our center and from a small RCT do indicate that infliximab is extremely effective in preventing this complication in the large majority of patients. While additional, larger studies may be desirable, the strength and consistency of the available data suggest that future trials may merely confirm these observations. A number of issues however remain to be solved and include the long term strategy in patients treated for years with infliximab, whether treating early endoscopic lesions may be as effective as preventing them and whether immuno-soppressives should be used together with infliximab. A thorough understanding of the mechanisms by which infliximab appears so effective in the postoperative setting may provide us with essential information regarding patients\u2019 management and, ultimately, highlight the molecular mechanisms at the very basis of Crohn\u2019s disease

Educational tourism and local development: The role of universities

On the basis of a scoping review of the literature about educational tourism-a type of tourism in which the traveller's primary or secondary objective is learning-this study summarizes views on how Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) can foster local development through educational tourism. The results show that international students can be considered as educational tourists, and their stay can benefit them and the destination. In this context, the university can actively facilitate relationships between tourists and local stakeholders to foster learning at the destination and improve the sustainability of the local economy; some reports about specific cases are described. We argue that the tourism component should be considered by any institution organising or managing educational programmes, in order to exploit the opportunities offered by the destination for the achievement of learning goals. More specifically, the paper focuses on educational tourism related to HEI students in international mobility programs, who are educational tourists inasmuch as their overall experience at the destination includes leisure and tourism activities. Further research is needed to formulate models of intervention

Testing the Acoustical Corrections for Reflections on a Facade

The assessment of noise levels, in the proximity of a building or on its fac¸ade, is a requirement of the European Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EC concerning environmental noise produced by road and railway traffic, airports and industries. The corrected values for the noise levels and the problems of measuring noise near a fac¸ade are discussed here for the case of road traffic. A complete set of measurements in different situations was performed along several roads in an urban environment as well as in a controlled situation using a loudspeaker. The experimental results are then compared against theoretical models and international standards, in particular those that suggest to use a +3 or +6 dB correction as a function of the microphone position and the NordTest method. Some suggestions are given for the different corrective factors to apply when measuring environmental noise between 0 and 2 m away from a building fac¸- ade, and practical solutions identified.JRC.I.5-Physical and chemical exposure

Openpedagogypractices:acasestudyinundergraduateeducation

The study reports about an open education practice in undergraduate education, by analysing the openness of a course in which the teacher was not a ‘self-declared’ open educator. It explores data from involved educators, students and entrepreneurs, who participated in a project-based learning pathway carried out online. Data collection included observation of the process by an external researcher, final questionnaires and interviews to participants. Conclusions argue that open education practices (OEPs) can also be found in courses which have not been designed purposely as ‘open’, and that further work is needed to understand students’ perceptions in open practices