Learning environmental justice and adult education in a Scottish community campaign against fish farming

Community campaigns against local sources of pollution and environmental degradation form the building blocks of movements for environmental justice. They also constitute important locations for people to learn about the environment and obtain outlooks, knowledge and skills with which to tackle pollution and address sustainable alternatives. The learning which occurs is usually informal and involves collective learning for action. A challenge to formal educators is to be able to support such learning. This account is of the learning which has been achieved during a community campaign against fish farming in the community of Scoraig in Wester Ross, north-west Scotland. We identify a complex diversity of learning within the community, involving information-gathering and critical analysis, between those active in the campaign and those supportive but less active, and in interaction between formal and informal education

The Impact of Telehealthcare on the Quality and Safety of Care:A Systematic Overview

<div><p>Background</p><p>Telehealthcare involves the use of information and communication technologies to deliver healthcare at a distance and to support patient self-management through remote monitoring and personalised feedback. It is timely to scrutinise the evidence regarding the benefits, risks and costs of telehealthcare.</p><p>Methods and Findings</p><p>Two reviewers searched for relevant systematic reviews published from January 1997 to November 2011 in: The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, IndMed and PakMed. Reviewers undertook independent quality assessment of studies using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tool for systematic reviews. 1,782 review articles were identified, from which 80 systematic reviews were selected for inclusion. These covered a range of telehealthcare models involving both synchronous (live) and asynchronous (store-and-forward) interactions between provider and patients. Many studies showed no differences in outcomes between telehealthcare and usual care. Several reviews highlighted the large number of short-term (<12 months) feasibility studies with under 20 participants. Effects of telehealthcare on health service indicators were reported in several reviews, particularly reduced hospitalisations. The reported clinical effectiveness of telehealthcare interventions for patients with long-term conditions appeared to be greatest in those with more severe disease at high-risk of hospitalisation and death. The failure of many studies to adequately describe the intervention makes it difficult to disentangle the contributions of technological and human/organisational factors on the outcomes reported. Evidence on the cost-effectiveness of telehealthcare remains sparse. Patient safety considerations were absent from the evaluative telehealthcare literature.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>Policymakers and planners need to be aware that investment in telehealthcare will not inevitably yield clinical or economic benefits. It is likely that the greatest gains will be achieved for patients at highest risk of serious outcomes. There is a need for longer-term studies in order to determine whether the benefits demonstrated in time limited trials are sustained.</p></div

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

E-learning: globalisation and technical change in universities - a comparative case study of Japanese and Scottish higher education

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

If not the Virtual university then what? Co-producing e-learning and configuring its users

This paper reflects the changing notion of the Virtual University and its realization. We introduce an approach from the Sociology of Science and Technology (STS) which analyses the construction of the “student as a user” as seen through the “eyes of designers”. We ask how social relations are built into technological artefacts. In showing how socio-technical developments transcend sometimes contradict and various notions of “the student” we discuss difficulties and chances of bridging the gap between designers of e-learning-artefacts and its assumed addresses. (DIPF/Orig.

Learning environmental activism through social networking sites?

Environmental movements, like a number of other movements, are increasingly using social networking sites (SNS) to recruit new members, to fundraise, to promote their causes and to facilitate their campaigning activity. SNS therefore enable social movement organisations to engage with a wider body of supporters, and may lead supporters to expect greater involvement in setting policy in this new public sphere or to reuse materials in unexpected ways. Are social networking sites changing the nature of the relationship between social movement organisations and their supporters and are we seeing the emergence of a new public sphere of activism

Learning environmental activism through social networking

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HANABI Final Report

The project centred on students who were spending their third year of the MA Honours in Japanese undergraduate pro gramme at the University of Edinburgh on exchange placements at universities in Japan. We aimed to enhance their year abroad experience by addressing such issues as social isolation, limited pedagogical support, differences between courses at various Japa nese host institutions and retrospective assessment. We decided to use Nintendo DSi handheld games consoles, with the application Flipnote Studio that allows users to create and share handwritten scripts via WiFi, as an e - learning tool. This combination enables uses to maintain long - distance connections, be cause the consoles are small, portable devices on which users can handwrite directly onto the touch screen with a stylus. Handwriting practice is crucial for learners of non - alphabetical writing systems such as Japanese, which has three distinct types of c haracter and requires mastery of more than 3000 for fluency. We explored ways of using the consoles to link third - year students with co - students elsewhere in Japan and with tutors back home. After two introductory workshops in Japan demonstrating how to us e the DSi effectively as an e - learning tool, online tutoring was delivered with interactive language exercises and feedback to supplement the students' formal language learning at their host universities and exposure to the Japanese - speaking environment, c ulture and society in everyday life. We assessed the use of advanced games consoles as a medium for delivering e - learning to communities of students learning non - European languages and also considered whether there were any aspects that might benefit non - l anguage programmes

Ultraviolet B-induced maturation of CD11b-Type Langerin² dendritic cells controls the expansion of foxp3⁺ regulatory t cells in the skin

Skin dendritic cells (DCs) are divided into several subsets with distinctive functions. This study shows a previously unappreciated role of dermal CD11b-type Langerin2 DCs in maintaining immunological self-tolerance after UVB exposure. After UVB exposure, dermal CD11b-type Langerin2 DCs upregulated surface CD86 expression, induced proliferation of Foxp3+ regulatory T (Treg) cells without exogenous Ags, and upregulated a set of genes associated with immunological tolerance. This Treg-expansion activity was significantly hampered by CD80/CD86 blockade in vivo. These results indicate that CD11b-type Langerin2 DCs from the UVB-exposed skin are specialized to expand Treg cells in the skin, which suppress autoimmunity.</p