Evaluation of a metal shear web selectively reinforced with filamentary composites for space shuttle application. Phase 1 summary report: Shear web design development

An advanced composite shear web design concept was developed for the Space Shuttle orbiter main engine thrust beam structure. Various web concepts were synthesized by a computer-aided adaptive random search procedure. A practical concept is identified having a titanium-clad + or - 45 deg boron/epoxy web plate with vertical boron/epoxy reinforced aluminum stiffeners. The boron-epoxy laminate contributes to the strength and stiffness efficiency of the basic web section. The titanium-cladding functions to protect the polymeric laminate parts from damaging environments and is chem-milled to provide reinforcement in selected areas. Detailed design drawings are presented for both boron/epoxy reinforced and all-metal shear webs. The weight saving offered is 24% relative to all-metal construction at an attractive cost per pound of weight saved, based on the detailed designs. Small scale element tests substantiate the boron/epoxy reinforced design details in critical areas. The results show that the titanium-cladding reliably reinforces the web laminate in critical edge load transfer and stiffener fastener hole areas

Using Debates as Assessment in a Physiotherapy Capstone Course: A Case Example

While not a new teaching and learning approach, debating may be considered novel when included in a suite of more traditional teaching and learning activities. Despite the potential benefits of debates for the development of generic skills, their use in physiotherapy education remains unreported. Thus, our aim was to evaluate student satisfaction of a debate assessment item in a physiotherapy capstone course. We recruited students enrolled in a final year physiotherapy course undertaking a group debate assessment. Students were invited to complete two surveys of their expectations regarding the debate assessment, and their satisfaction after completing the debate. Students were further invited to participate in a focus group. All students participated in the debate (n = 20). Six students (30%) completed the first survey, 16 students (80%) completed the second survey, and seven students (35%) participated in the post-debate focus group. We found that before the assessment item students were apprehensive about the debate, however they felt it would be a beneficial learning experience. After the debate, students claimed they enjoyed the novel assessment and were supportive of its continued inclusion in the capstone course, however, students were ambivalent on the inclusion of debates in earlier courses in the program

Rat subthalamic stimulation : Evaluating stimulation-induced dyskinesias, choosing stimulation currents and evaluating the anti-akinetic effect in the cylinder test

In experimental deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN HFS), stimulation currents just below the appearance threshold of stimulation-induced dyskinesias has often been used. The behavioral effect of STN HFS can be measured by the reversal of forelimb use asymmetry produced by hemiparkinsonism can be measured with the cylinder test among other tests. We used 18 Wistar rats with 6-hydroxydopamine induced hemiparkinsonism to test a customized scale to rate the severity of stimulation-induced dyskinesia; we then used these ratings to choose low and high stimulation currents. Subsequent cylinder tests showed that stimulation at the higher current, inducing mild and short-lived dyskinesias, was required for robust improvement in forelimb use, contradicting the use of currents below stimulation-induced dyskinesia threshold. It was also beneficial to separately count both all touches and first touches with the cylinder wall; this provided additional sensitivity and robustness to our results. Scoring stimulation-induced dyskinesias can be used as a quantitative measure of dyskinesias and to choose stimulation currents. Cylinder test scoring separately for both first and all touches can improve both sensitivity and reliability. STN HFS at a current producing short-lived dyskinesias was required for robust improvement in forelimb use asymmetry. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Semi-automatic assessment of unrestrained Java code: a Library, a DSL, and a workbench to assess exams and exercises

© ACM 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2729094.2742615Automated marking of multiple-choice exams is of great interest in university courses with a large number of students. For this reason, it has been systematically implanted in almost all universities. Automatic assessment of source code is however less extended. There are several reasons for that. One reason is that almost all existing systems are based on output comparison with a gold standard. If the output is the expected, the code is correct. Otherwise, it is reported as wrong, even if there is only one typo in the code. Moreover, why it is wrong remains a mystery. In general, assessment tools treat the code as a black box, and they only assess the externally observable behavior. In this work we introduce a new code assessment method that also verifies properties of the code, thus allowing to mark the code even if it is only partially correct. We also report about the use of this system in a real university context, showing that the system automatically assesses around 50% of the work.This work has been partially supported by the EU (FEDER) and the Spanish Ministerio de Economíay Competitividad (Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación) under grant TIN2013-44742-C4-1-R and by the Generalitat Valenciana under grant PROMETEOII2015/013. David Insa was partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación under FPU grant AP2010-4415.Insa Cabrera, D.; Silva, J. (2015). Semi-automatic assessment of unrestrained Java code: a Library, a DSL, and a workbench to assess exams and exercises. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2729094.2742615SK. A Rahman and M. Jan Nordin. A review on the static analysis approach in the automated programming assessment systems. In National Conference on Programming 07, 2007.K. Ala-Mutka. A survey of automated assessment approaches for programming assignments. In Computer Science Education, volume 15, pages 83--102, 2005.C. Beierle, M. Kula, and M. Widera. Automatic analysis of programming assignments. In Proc. der 1. E-Learning Fachtagung Informatik (DeLFI '03), volume P-37, pages 144--153, 2003.J. Biggs and C. Tang. Teaching for Quality Learning at University : What the Student Does (3rd Edition). In Open University Press, 2007.P. Denny, A. Luxton-Reilly, E. Tempero, and J. Hendrickx. CodeWrite: Supporting student-driven practice of java. In Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education, pages 09--12, 2011.R. Hendriks. Automatic exam correction. 2012.P. Ihantola, T. Ahoniemi, V. Karavirta, and O. Seppala. Review of recent systems for automatic assessment of programming assignments. In Proceedings of the 10th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, pages 86--93, 2010.H. Kitaya and U. Inoue. An online automated scoring system for Java programming assignments. In International Journal of Information and Education Technology, volume 6, pages 275--279, 2014.M.-J. Laakso, T. Salakoski, A. Korhonen, and L. Malmi. Automatic assessment of exercises for algorithms and data structures - a case study with TRAKLA2. In Proceedings of Kolin Kolistelut/Koli Calling - Fourth Finnish/Baltic Sea Conference on Computer Science Education, pages 28--36, 2004.Y. Liang, Q. Liu, J. Xu, and D. Wang. The recent development of automated programming assessment. In Computational Intelligence and Software Engineering, pages 1--5, 2009.K. A. Naudé, J. H. Greyling, and D. Vogts. Marking student programs using graph similarity. In Computers & Education, volume 54, pages 545--561, 2010.A. Pears, S. Seidman, C. Eney, P. Kinnunen, and L. Malmi. Constructing a core literature for computing education research. In SIGCSE Bulletin, volume 37, pages 152--161, 2005.F. Prados, I. Boada, J. Soler, and J. Poch. Automatic generation and correction of technical exercices. In International Conference on Engineering and Computer Education (ICECE 2005), 2005.M. Supic, K. Brkic, T. Hrkac, Z. Mihajlovic, and Z. Kalafatic. Automatic recognition of handwritten corrections for multiple-choice exam answer sheets. In Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO), pages 1136--1141, 2014.S. Tung, T. Lin, and Y. Lin. An exercise management system for teaching programming. In Journal of Software, 2013.T. Wang, X. Su, Y. Wang, and P. Ma. Semantic similarity-based grading of student programs. In Information and Software Technology, volume 49, pages 99--107, 2007

Initial treatment strategy and clinical outcomes in Finnish MS patients : a propensity-matched study

Background The optimal treatment strategy with disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) remains uncertain. Objective To compare outcomes of initial treatment with infusion therapies and starting therapy with medium efficacy therapy in a propensity-matched cohort of Finnish RRMS patients. Methods A total of 154 RRMS patients initiating natalizumab, alemtuzumab, ocrelizumab or rituximab as first DMT (high efficacy DMT, heDMT group) and 1771 patients initially treated with injectable therapies, teriflunomide or dimethylfumarate and escalated based on disease activity (moderate efficacy DMT, meDMT group) were identified from the Finnish MS registry. Nearest neighbor propensity matching (1:1, caliper 0.1) was performed for age, sex, baseline Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), annual relapse rate (ARR) one year prior DMT and time since MS symptom onset. Primary outcome was time to 6-month confirmed EDSS progression and the secondary outcome time to first relapse. Results In the propensity-matched group comparisons, the probability of 6-month confirmed disability progression (CDP) at 5 years after DMT start was 28.4% (95% CI 15.7-39.3) in the heDMT group (n = 66) and 47.0% (95% CI 33.1-58.1) in meDMT group (n = 66), p = 0.013. Probability of relapse at 5 years was 34.6% (95% CI 24.1-43.6) for heDMT (n = 105) and 47.2% (95% CI 36.6-56.1) for meDMT (n = 105), p = 0.019. Conclusions Initiating MS-therapy with heDMT significantly reduced the risk of 5-year disability progression and relapse compared to using meDMT as first DMT choice in propensity-matched groups of Finnish MS-patients.Peer reviewe

Protist predation can select for bacteria with lowered susceptibility to infection by lytic phages

Background: Consumer-resource interactions constitute one of the most common types of interspecific antagonistic interaction. In natural communities, complex species interactions are likely to affect the outcomes of reciprocal co-evolution between consumers and their resource species. Individuals face multiple enemies simultaneously, and consequently they need to adapt to several different types of enemy pressures. In this study, we assessed how protist predation affects the susceptibility of bacterial populations to infection by viral parasites, and whether there is an associated cost of defence on the competitive ability of the bacteria. As a study system we used Serratia marcescens and its lytic bacteriophage, along with two bacteriovorous protists with distinct feeding modes: Tetrahymena thermophila (particle feeder) and Acanthamoeba castellanii (surface feeder). The results were further confirmed with another study system with Pseudomonas and Tetrahymena thermophila. Results: We found that selection by protist predators lowered the susceptibility to infections by lytic phages in Serratia and Pseudomonas. In Serratia, concurrent selection by phages and protists led to lowered susceptibility to phage infections and this effect was independent from whether the bacteria shared a co-evolutionary history with the phage population or not. Bacteria that had evolved with phages were overall more susceptible to phage infection (compared to bacteria with history with multiple enemies) but they were less vulnerable to the phages they had co-evolved with than ancestral phages. Selection by bacterial enemies was costly in general and was seen as a lowered fitness in absence of phages, measured as a biomass yield. Conclusions: Our results show the significance of multiple species interactions on pairwise consumer-resource interaction, and suggest potential overlap in defending against predatory and parasitic enemies in microbial consumer-resource communities. Ultimately, our results could have larger scale effects on eco-evolutionary community dynamics.Peer reviewe