Leveraging the Use of Mobile Applications to Increase Knowledge Retention in a Classroom Lecture

This research sought to determine if the use of mobile applications (e.g., iPhone® apps) had an impact on students’ ability to learn new material. A control group was compared against a group of students who used mobile devices during a statistics lecture. Students participated separately in a lecture followed by a period of either pencil and paper only or technology-assisted examples. They then took a quiz over the material. The data collected shows that the app group outperformed the control group on every question and scored 16% higher overall. A post-experimental survey found that participants in the app group felt strongly that mobile applications helped them understand the new concepts more clearly and were more confident in their ability to quickly learn this new material than the control group. Overall, this research demonstrates that technology-assisted learning positively impacts students’ learning. It also suggests that technology is changing the way people think and learn.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Revealing Repton: bringing landscape to life at Sheringham Park

The year 2012 marked 200 years since Humphry Repton (1752–1818) produced his design for Sheringham Park in north Norfolk, bound as one of his Red Books. On paper, Repton is England’s best-known and most influential landscape gardener. On the ground, his work is much harder to identify, focused as it was on light touches that equated more to landscape makeover than the landscape making of his predecessor Lancelot “Capability” Brown. This paper documents and evaluates a project that celebrated this bicentenary through a temporary exhibition within the visitor centre of Sheringham Park, whilst also making reference to the commemoration of his work in other places and on paper. In attempting to reveal Repton at Sheringham, we explore the context of the 1812 commission and the longer landscape history of the site, as well as the different methods of representing Repton on site that are open to site owners and managers

Demographic, clinical and antibody characteristics of patients with digital ulcers in systemic sclerosis: data from the DUO Registry

OBJECTIVES: The Digital Ulcers Outcome (DUO) Registry was designed to describe the clinical and antibody characteristics, disease course and outcomes of patients with digital ulcers associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc). METHODS: The DUO Registry is a European, prospective, multicentre, observational, registry of SSc patients with ongoing digital ulcer disease, irrespective of treatment regimen. Data collected included demographics, SSc duration, SSc subset, internal organ manifestations, autoantibodies, previous and ongoing interventions and complications related to digital ulcers. RESULTS: Up to 19 November 2010 a total of 2439 patients had enrolled into the registry. Most were classified as either limited cutaneous SSc (lcSSc; 52.2%) or diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc; 36.9%). Digital ulcers developed earlier in patients with dcSSc compared with lcSSc. Almost all patients (95.7%) tested positive for antinuclear antibodies, 45.2% for anti-scleroderma-70 and 43.6% for anticentromere antibodies (ACA). The first digital ulcer in the anti-scleroderma-70-positive patient cohort occurred approximately 5 years earlier than the ACA-positive patient group. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides data from a large cohort of SSc patients with a history of digital ulcers. The early occurrence and high frequency of digital ulcer complications are especially seen in patients with dcSSc and/or anti-scleroderma-70 antibodies

Effects of neurotrophins on neural crest and Schwann cell migration

The neural crest is a migratory population of cells that gives rise to a wide range of cell types in the peripheral nervous system of vertebrate embryos. It has been shown that neural crest cells migrate along very specific pathways throughout the embryo. The reason for such specificity is not fully known. During the last years, some known axon pathfinding repellants (ephrinB2, SemaIIIa, Slit2, etc) have been shown to repel neural crest cells as well during their migration through the somites. However, we know very little about the migratory clues that guide the neural crest for the rest of their path. The goal of this study was to find which other molecules are capable of guiding the neural crest. For this purpose we had set out to screen a group of neurotrophic factors that are expressed at the same time that the crest is migrating through the embryo. Our aim was to look at the effect of neurotrophins on neural crest migration and Schwann cell precursors. Experiments by live imaging in special chambers suggest that: a) neural crest cells are attracted to glia derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and Heregulinb1; and b) that Schwann cell precursors increase their speed in the presence of GDNF, NGF, Heregulinb1 and Macrophage inhibitory factor (MIF). These preliminary data suggests that neural crest and Schwann cells use a variety of neurotrophic factors as guiding clues during their extensive migration in the embryo

Dynamics of quarks and leptons : theoretical Studies of Baryons and Neutrinos

The Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics (SM) is the present theoryfor the elementary particles and their interactions and is a well-established theorywithin the physics community. The SM is a combination of Quantum Chromodynamics(QCD) and the Glashow{Weinberg{Salam (GWS) electroweak model. QCDis a theory for the strong force, whereas the GWS electroweak model is a theoryfor the weak and electromagnetic forces. This means that the SM describes allfundamental forces in Nature, except for the gravitational force. However, the SMis not a nal theory and some of its problems will be discussed in this thesis.In the rst part of this thesis, several properties of baryons are studied suchas spin structure, spin polarizations, magnetic moments, weak form factors, andnucleon quark sea isospin asymmetries, using the chiral quark model (QM). TheQM is an eective chiral eld theory developed to describe low energy phenomena of baryons, since perturbative QCD is not applicable at low energies. The resultsof the QM are in good agreement with experimental data.The second part of the thesis is devoted to the concept of quantum mechanicalneutrino oscillations. Neutrino oscillations can, however, not occur within the GWSelectroweak model. Thus, this model has to be extended in some way. All studiesincluding neutrino oscillation are done within three avor neutrino oscillationmodels. Both vacuum and matter neutrino oscillations are considered. Especially,global ts to all data of candidates for neutrino oscillations are presented and alsoan analytical formalism for matter enhanced three avor neutrino oscillations usingtime evolution operators is derived. Furthermore, investigations of matter eectswhen neutrinos traverse the Earth are included.The thesis begins with an introductory review of the QM and neutrino oscillationsand ends with the research results, which are given in the nine accompanyingscientic articles.QC 2010061

A new genus and species of Felidae (Mammalia) from Rusinga Island, Kenya, with notes on early Felidae of Africa

The lower Miocene (Burdigalian) deposits of the Hiwegi Fm., Rusinga Island, Kenya, have yielded a single specimen of a small felid. This specimen, here identified as the holotype of a new genus and species, is of the size of the smallest living Felidae. It shows some features of primitive, “Pseudaelurus-grade” cats, but also features of both morphology and metrics that are intermediate between this grade and modern Felidae, suggesting a transitional taxon. This is in contrast with Diamantofelis and Namafelis from Namibia, which, though aberrant, are more clearly of “Pseudaelurus-grade”. The Rusinga specimen is the most derived felid specimen of the lower Miocene