On the Myth of a General National Culture. Making Visible Specific Cultural Characteristics of Learners in Different\ud Educational Contexts

The concept of a few values that can characteristically explain all units of culture (Schneider, 1968, pp.1-2) within any national context generally sounds promising. In order to take design-oriented decisions on culture-specific research questions, such characteristic values, particularly if already determined for many countries, would allow a massive reduction of effort. However, we were unsure if the contexts of academic and professional education allowed the adoption of such values without loosing the characteristic information, which are crucial for designing context sensitive e-Learning contents. In both educational scenarios we investigated the subcultures ‘faculty’, ‘university’, ‘enterprise’, and ‘nation’. In this paper, we exemplarily discuss our study’s results regarding one selected topic\ud from our questionnaire, i.e. the ‘role of the lecturer’. Actually, we found major differences between the investigated scenarios. Thus, we came to the conclusion\ud that in our context, adapting, e. g. Hofstede’s national values, would not lead to a learning design that takes the context-specific cultural differences into consideration

Human immunodeficiency virus infection of the human thymus and disruption of the thymic microenvironment in the SCID-hu mouse.

Infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) results in immunosuppression and depletion of circulating CD4+ T cells. Since the thymus is the primary organ in which T cells mature it is of interest to examine the effects of HIV infection in this tissue. HIV infection has been demonstrated in the thymuses of infected individuals and thymocytes have been previously demonstrated to be susceptible to HIV infection both in vivo, using the SCID-hu mouse, and in vitro. The present study sought to determine which subsets of thymocytes were infected in the SCID-hu mouse model and to evaluate HIV-related alterations in the thymic microenvironment. Using two different primary HIV isolates, infection was found in CD4+/CD8+ double positive thymocytes as well as in both the CD4+ and CD8+ single positive subsets of thymocytes. The kinetics of infection and resulting viral burden differed among the three thymocyte subsets and depended on which HIV isolate was used for infection. Thymic epithelial (TE) cells were also shown to endocytose virus and to often contain copious amounts of viral RNA in the cytoplasm by in situ hybridization, although productive infection of these cells could not be definitively shown. Furthermore, degenerating TE cells were observed even without detection of HIV in the degenerating cells. Two striking morphologic patterns of infection were seen, involving either predominantly thymocyte infection and depletion, or TE cell involvement with detectable cytoplasmic viral RNA and/or TE cell toxicity. Thus, a variety of cells in the human thymus is susceptible to HIV infection, and infection with HIV results in a marked disruption of the thymic microenvironment leading to depletion of thymocytes and degeneration of TE cells

Konstruktion sozialer Systeme als Gegenstand der Wirtschaftsinformatik – Relevanz und Implikationen für Adoption, Nutzung und Erfolgsmessung

Die Diskussion um Ziele, Inhalte und Nutzen eines konstruktionsorientierten Forschungsansatzes ist nicht spezifisch für die Wirtschaftsinformatik. Auch in der Managementforschung findet eine solche seit einigen Jahren unter zum Teil überraschend ähnlichen Vorzeichen statt. Für die Wirtschaftsinformatik ist diese insoweit relevant, als dass die soziale Komponente gerade bei der Adoption und Erfolgsmessung der zu konstruierenden sozio-technischen Informationssysteme (oder gar „möglichen Welten“) eine nicht zu vernachlässigende Rolle spielt. Dieser Beitrag zeigt zentrale Ergebnisse der „Design Science“-Diskussion in der Managementforschung auf und diskutiert Implikationen für die Erfolgsmessung für Artefakte der Wirtschaftsinformatik

Ein Modell für verantwortungsvolles Handeln in der IT-Organisation

In der Betriebswirtschaft ist verantwortungsvolles Handeln, repräsentiert durch Konzepte wie Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Corporate Citizenship (CC) oder Nachhaltigkeit/Sustainability, eine in Forschung und Praxis breit diskutierte Thematik. Eine umfassende Übertragung der Problematik auf das IT-Management hat jenseits von isolierten Einzelthemen wie „Green IT“ etc. jedoch noch nicht stattgefunden. In diesem Beitrag wird deshalb ein Modell vorgestellt, welches auf der einen Seite einen ganzheitlichen Rahmen für verantwortungsvolles Handeln in der IT-Organisation eröffnet, und auf der anderen Seite Stellschrauben für die aktive, verantwortungsvolle Beeinflussung des Wettbewerbsumfelds aufzeigt. Konkretisiert wird das aufgezeigte Modell anhand verschiedener Maßnahmenfelder zur Umsetzung verantwortungsvollen Handelns

Einführung und Etablierung einer Kultur des Wissenteilens in Organisationen

Die Bedeutung des Themenfeldes Wissensmanagement wird in der Literatur häufig mit der Vielzahl an Veröffentlichungen in der jüngsten Vergangenheit begründet. Weiterhin wird mit der zunehmenden Globalisierung und der damit verbundenen Intensivierung des Wettbewerbs im Hinblick auf Sicherung und Ausbau von Wettbewerbsvorteilen argumentiert. Demnach wird es immer wichtiger Daten, Fakten, Erfahrungen, Erkenntnisse, Informationen und gar das Wissen einer Organisation zu organisieren, zu lenken und zu managen. Die Betrachtung von Wissen als sogenannter vierter Produktionsfaktor ist selbstverständlich geworden. Dementsprechend ist die Bereitschaft von Organisationen, in Wissensmanagement-Systeme zu investieren, gestiegen

An Overview of Wearable Haptic Technologies and Their Performance in Virtual Object Exploration.

We often interact with our environment through manual handling of objects and exploration of their properties. Object properties (OP), such as texture, stiffness, size, shape, temperature, weight, and orientation provide necessary information to successfully perform interactions. The human haptic perception system plays a key role in this. As virtual reality (VR) has been a growing field of interest with many applications, adding haptic feedback to virtual experiences is another step towards more realistic virtual interactions. However, integrating haptics in a realistic manner, requires complex technological solutions and actual user-testing in virtual environments (VEs) for verification. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent wearable haptic devices (HDs) categorized by the OP exploration for which they have been verified in a VE. We found 13 studies which specifically addressed user-testing of wearable HDs in healthy subjects. We map and discuss the different technological solutions for different OP exploration which are useful for the design of future haptic object interactions in VR, and provide future recommendations

Transient bilateral abducens neuropathy with post-tetanic facilitation and acute hypokalemia associated with oxaliplatin: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Oxaliplatin is a cytotoxic platinum compound that is in widespread use in the treatment of gastrointestinal cancers. It has been occasionally associated with acute motor neuropathy, but the precise mechanism is uncertain. To the best of our knowledge, we report the first case of a patient demonstrating post-tetanic facilitation in the setting of transient bilateral abducens neuropathy and hypokalemia, after being infused with oxaliplatin.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 47-year-old Indian woman with metastatic gastric cancer was receiving an oxaliplatin infusion at the initiation of her third cycle of palliative chemotherapy. She developed acute bilateral abducens neuropathy with post-tetanic facilitation alongside acute laryngopharyngodysesthesia and hypokalemia. Following supportive management, including potassium infusion and warming, her neurological signs and symptoms were spontaneously resolved. This syndrome did not recur in subsequent cycles following prolongation of infusion duration and the addition of supportive calcium and magnesium infusions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The novel clinical observation of post-tetanic facilitation highlights a possible involvement of voltage-gated channels at the presynaptic terminals in the mechanism of acute oxaliplatin neurotoxicity.</p

Detecting acute neurotoxicity during platinum chemotherapy by neurophysiological assessment of motor nerve hyperexcitability

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Platinum-based drugs, such as cisplatin and oxaliplatin, are well-known for inducing chronic sensory neuropathies but their acute and motor neurotoxicities are less well characterised. Use was made of nerve conduction studies and needle electromyography (EMG) to assess motor nerve excitability in cancer patients during their first treatment cycle with platinum-based chemotherapy in this study.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Twenty-nine adult cancer patients had a neurophysiological assessment either before oxaliplatin plus capecitabine, on days 2 to 4 or 14 to 20 after oxaliplatin plus capecitabine, or on days 2 to 4 after carboplatin plus paclitaxel or cisplatin, undertaken by a neurophysiologist who was blinded to patient and treatment details. Patients completed a symptom questionnaire at the end of the treatment cycle.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Abnormal spontaneous high frequency motor fibre action potentials were detected in 100% of patients (n = 6) and 72% of muscles (n = 22) on days 2 to 4 post-oxaliplatin, and in 25% of patients (n = 8) and 13% of muscles (n = 32) on days 14 to 20 post-oxaliplatin, but in none of the patients (n = 14) or muscles (n = 56) tested prior to oxaliplatin or on days 2 to 4 after carboplatin plus paclitaxel or cisplatin. Repetitive compound motor action potentials were less sensitive and less specific than spontaneous high frequency motor fibre action potentials for detection of acute oxaliplatin-induced motor nerve hyperexcitability but were present in 71% of patients (n = 7) and 32% of muscles (n = 32) on days 2 to 4 after oxaliplatin treatment. Acute neurotoxicity symptoms, most commonly cold-induced paraesthesiae and jaw or throat tightness, were reported by all patients treated with oxaliplatin (n = 22) and none of those treated with carboplatin plus paclitaxel or cisplatin (n = 6).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Abnormal spontaneous high frequency motor fibre activity is a sensitive and specific endpoint of acute oxaliplatin-induced motor nerve hyperexcitability, detectable on EMG on days 2 to 4 post-treatment. Objective EMG assessment of motor nerve excitability could compliment patient-reported symptomatic endpoints of acute oxaliplatin-induced neurotoxicity in future studies.</p

Oxaliplatin neurotoxicity – no general ion channel surface-charge effect

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Oxaliplatin is a platinum-based chemotherapeutic drug. Neurotoxicity is the dose-limiting side effect. Previous investigations have reported that acute neurotoxicity could be mediated via voltage-gated ion channels. A possible mechanism for some of the effects is a modification of surface charges around the ion channel, either because of chelation of extracellular Ca²⁺, or because of binding of a charged biotransformation product of oxaliplatin to the channel. To elucidate the molecular mechanism, we investigated the effects of oxaliplatin and its chloride complex [Pt(dach)oxCl]^-on the voltage-gated Shaker K channel expressed in <it>Xenopus </it>oocytes. The recordings were made with the two-electrode and the cut-open oocyte voltage clamp techniques.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>To our surprise, we did not see any effects on the current amplitudes, on the current time courses, or on the voltage dependence of the Shaker wild-type channel. Oxaliplatin is expected to bind to cysteines. Therefore, we explored if there could be a specific effect on single (E418C) and double-cysteine (R362C/F416C) mutated Shaker channels previously shown to be sensitive to cysteine-specific reagents. Neither of these channels were affected by oxaliplatin. The clear lack of effect on the Shaker K channel suggests that oxaliplatin or its monochloro complex has no general surface-charge effect on the channels, as has been suggested before, but rather a specific effect to the channels previously shown to be affected.</p