Rethinking the Standardized Test: The Pursuit of Diversity and Standardization

AbstractThere are growing concerns that the national policy of student assessment may lead to increased competitions between schools and prevent schools from maintaining diverse and creative curriculum for well-rounded education in Korea. The primary purpose of the study is to provide a brief understanding of Korea's national assessment policy and introduce two cases in which schools have successfully pursued both educational goals simultaneously – improving test scores in basic subjects and maintaining diverse and creative curriculums for well-rounded education

Immunologic function of Virtual Memory CD8+ T cells & Role of KLF2 in effector CD4+ T cell lineage commitment

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. November 2014. Major: Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology and Genetics. Advisor: Stephen Jameson. 1 computer file (PDF); vii, 129 pages.During my Ph.D. training, my research has been focused on two distinct topics: investigating the immunologic fuction of Virtual Memory CD8+ T cells; and elucidating the role of KLF2 in effector CD4+ T cell lineage commitment. In the first part (Chaper 2), we investigate the immunologic properties of foreign-antigen specific memory-phenotype T cells, termed Virtual Memory (VM). Our data indicates that VM cells differ functionally from "true memory" cells, yet VM cells efficiently control a bacterial (Listeria monocytogenes) infection. These data support the novel concept that naturally occurring VM cells contribute to "pre-immune" resistance to infection. In the second part (Chapter 3), we find that expression of the transcription factor Kruppel-like factor 2 (KLF2) expression varies in distinct Th subsets, and downregulation of KLF2 and the trafficking molecule S1PR1 (the well-defined target of KLF2) is required for Tfh differentiation. In addition to promoting S1PR1 expression, we also find that KLF2 induces expression of Blimp-1, which is known to oppose Tfh differentiation. Furthermore, KLF2 also promotes expression of T-bet and Gata3, and enhances Th1 differentiation. These data reveal that KLF2 plays an important role in dictating the lineage differentiation of CD4+ T cells

A Complexity Reduced ML Detector on OFDM-CDM Systems in Mobile Channel

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is one of the most promising techniques for the 4-th generation mobile system. When the OFDM system is applied to cellular environment, it is required to make the transmission scheme robust to other-cell interference (OCI). The use of code division multiplexing (CDM) has been considered to mitigate the OCI in OFDM systems. In cell boundary, it is desirable to design OFDM-CDM transceiver scheme to reduce the effect of OCI. In this paper, we consider transceiver schemes for cell boundary users in the OFDM-CDM downlink. We propose a simplified maximum likelihood (ML) detection scheme that can nearly achieve full ML detection performance. In addition, a new spreading code is proposed for BPSK modulation, yielding a receiver gain of about 1dB regardless of detection schemes. Finally, the performance of the proposed schemes is verified by computer simulation

Other-Cell Interference Reducing Resource Allocation in OFDM-Based Asynchronous Cellular Systems

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is considered as one of the most promising techniques for next-generation wireless access systems. However, it may suffer from the so-called other-cell interference (OCI) in cellular environments. In this paper, we consider a novel resource allocation scheme to reduce the OCI in OFDM-based asynchronous cellular systems. The proposed scheme can reduce the OCI by exploiting repetitive properties of cyclic prefix of OFDM symbol and asynchronous properties between the user and the base stations in other cells. The proposed scheme can be applied to various types of OFDMbased systems such as orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and multicarrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) systems. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can reduce the OCI by nearly up to 1 dB compared to conventional schemes, yielding an increase of the throughput of about 15% near the cell boundary in OFDM-based asynchronous cellular environments

A Framework Design for the Next-Generation Radio Access System

Extensive use of the Internet and huge demands for multimedia services via portable devices require the development of packet-based radio access systems with high transmission efficiency. Advanced radio transmission technologies have recently been proposed to achieve this challenging task. However, few researches have been reported on the design of an integrated system that can efficiently exploit the advantages of these transmission technologies. This paper considers the design of a packet-based cellular system for next-generation radio access. We propose a novel system framework that can incorporate various advanced transmission technologies such as link adaptation, opportunistic packet scheduling, channel coding, and multiantenna techniques. For efficient use of these technologies together, we first investigate the interoperability between these technologies by proposing a so-called cause and effect analysis. Based on this investigation, we design a differentiated-segments-based orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing system, called DiffSeg, to accommodate heterogeneous operating conditions in a seamless manner. Simulation results show that the proposed DiffSeg system can provide a nearly optimum performance with flexible configuration in a wide range of wireless channel conditions

IL-4 sensitivity shapes the peripheral CD8\u3csup\u3e+\u3c/sup\u3e T cell pool and response to infection

Previous studies have revealed that a population of innate memory CD8+ T cells is generated in response to IL-4, first appearing in the thymus and bearing high expression levels of Eomesodermin (Eomes) but not T-bet. However, the antigen specificity and functional properties of these cells is poorly defined. In this study, we show that IL-4 regulates not only the frequency and function of innate memory CD8+ T cells, but also regulates Eomes expression levels and functional reactivity of naive CD8+ T cells. Lack of IL-4 responsiveness attenuates the capacity of CD8+ T cells to mount a robust response to lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection, with both quantitative and qualitative effects on effector and memory antigen-specific CD8+ T cells. Unexpectedly, we found that, although numerically rare, memory phenotype CD8+ T cells in IL-4Rα–deficient mice exhibited enhanced reactivity after in vitro and in vivo stimulation. Importantly, our data revealed that these effects of IL-4 exposure occur before, not during, infection. Together, these data show that IL-4 influences the entire peripheral CD8+ T cell pool, influencing expression of T-box transcription factors, functional reactivity, and the capacity to respond to infection. These findings indicate that IL-4, a canonical Th2 cell cytokine, can sometimes promote rather than impair Th1 cell–type immune responses

Redirected Walking in Infinite Virtual Indoor Environment Using Change-blindness

We present a change-blindness based redirected walking algorithm that allows a user to explore on foot a virtual indoor environment consisting of an infinite number of rooms while at the same time ensuring collision-free walking for the user in real space. This method uses change blindness to scale and translate the room without the user's awareness by moving the wall while the user is not looking. Consequently, the virtual room containing the current user always exists in the valid real space. We measured the detection threshold for whether the user recognizes the movement of the wall outside the field of view. Then, we used the measured detection threshold to determine the amount of changing the dimension of the room by moving that wall. We conducted a live-user experiment to navigate the same virtual environment using the proposed method and other existing methods. As a result, users reported higher usability, presence, and immersion when using the proposed method while showing reduced motion sickness compared to other methods. Hence, our approach can be used to implement applications to allow users to explore an infinitely large virtual indoor environment such as virtual museum and virtual model house while simultaneously walking in a small real space, giving users a more realistic experience.Comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-ZKavhXxd

SWAN: A Distributed Knowledge Infrastructure for Alzheimer Disease Research

SWAN – a Semantic Web Application in Neuromedicine – is a project to develop an effective, integrated scientific knowledge infrastructure for the Alzheimer disease (AD) research community, using the energy and self-organization of that community, enabled by Semantic Web technology. This infrastructure may later be deployed for research communities in other neuromedical disorders. SWAN incorporates the full biomedical research knowledge lifecycle in its ontological model, including support for personal data organization, hypothesis generation, experimentation, laboratory data organization, and digital pre-publication collaboration. Community, laboratory, and personal digital resources may all be organized and interconnected using SWAN’s common semantic framework