Digital Badges: A Focus on Skill Acquisition

Statement of the issue: There has been a trend in higher education to focus less on content coverage and to instead focus on student skill development. Digital badges represent one approach to focus on student demonstration of skill. Badges provide students with opportunities to learn, practice and ultimately be assessed on demonstration of a skill. Description of the project: Social work faculty designed two social work courses to incorporate badging exercise. The course required students to complete badges in areas such as self-care, utilization of APA citations, uploading videos into Canvas, and other skills necessary for students to succeed. Rather than have class discussion or lecture on this content, students completed a series of exercises outlined in the badge requirements to receive credit in the course. Description of the outcome: Students who completed the requirements of a badge actually had to demonstrate the desired skill. As students practiced and demonstrated this skill, they left the course not just knowing about a specific content area such as self-care, but with an ability to actually practice self-care. Additionally, the social work department has considered utilizing badges to ensure student capacity around skills that are not specifically covered in any single course Importance: Attendees will be able to describe how they could develop badges to enhance their courses Attendees will be able to articulate how badges can shift the focus from content to be covered to skills to be demonstrated Attendees will be able to outline the benefits of badges to assist students in acquiring necessary skills in a given discipline and document actual mastery of a given skill Suggested Audience: Faculty Presentation Needs: Non

The inflammatory potential of the diet of 1-9-year-old children living in two urbanized and economically active provinces in South Africa

The challenge of preventing and treating noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) has become a global issue of paramount importance. Climbing obesity rates among children could become a major contributor to the burden of NCDs. While there are numerous factors that contribute to the development of obesity and NCDs, an abundance of research suggests that “sustained inflammation is the common denominator of all chronic disease” (Noland, 2017). Low-grade inflammation is characterized by raised concentrations of inflammatory biomarkers without any overt symptoms (Bonaccio et al., 2017). To date, many studies have demonstrated that unhealthy eating patterns contribute to the development and/or maintenance of low-grade inflammation with particular eating patterns having been categorized as either pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory; however, information on the inflammatory potential of the diet of children is sparse, specifically in South Africa. To assess the overall inflammatory potential of an individual's diet, researchers first attempted to provide a tool to classify the inflammatory potential of diets in 2009, with the development of the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) tool (Cavicchia et al., 2009). This tool has since been revised and adapted. Key values used in the calculation of the DII include the inflammatory score for each of the 45 parameters in the tool, the mean±SD intake of the population (adults in this case) of each parameter and the mean±SD intake of the actual study sample (Shivappa et al., 2014); however, there is no version of the DII that is suitable for use in children in the South African setting. The aims of this research are: 1) to adapt the DII for application in South African children (the South African Child Dietary Inflammatory Index: the SACDII) (sub-study 1) 2) to apply the SACDII in the investigation of the inflammatory potential of the diet of 1–9-year-old children in two urbanized and economically active provinces in South Africa and the association thereof with sociodemographic, anthropometric, and dietary diversity variables (sub-study 2) SUB-STUDY 1: Adaptation of the DII for use in South African Children Aim: To adapt the DII for application in South Africa by generating a mean±SD intake value for the food parameters on the adult DII (Shivappa et al., 2014) for South African children. Objectives: To identify quantified dietary surveys that involved 1 – 10-year-old South African children published over the last three decades; to obtain the raw data sets (food codes and grams consumed for each food parameter) of identified surveys from the principal investigators (PIs); to generate a nutrient/food data base that includes values for the majority of the 45 food parameters included in the DII (Shivappa et al., 2014); and to combine all raw data obtained and reanalyse the combined data to derive the mean±SD intake of each food parameter using the generated data base

A Lock Upon All Conduct: Modesty in German Courtly Literature (c. 1175-1220)

This dissertation examines notions of modesty in behavior and appearance as represented in romance and conduct literature of the German Middle Ages. I look to the Winsbecke poems and Thomasin von Zirclaria\u27s Der Welsche Gast as representative samples of conduct literature, considering them alongside the four core courtly romances: Hartman von Aue\u27s Iwein and Erec, Gottfried von Strassburg\u27s Tristan, and Wolfram von Eschenbach\u27s Parzival. The project is guided by four central areas of inquiry. First, I investigate the cleavage between the two genres of romance and conduct literature, exploring the ways in which they cling to each other as reference points and split off from the other\u27s constructs. Second, I pay close attention to gender differences in the practice of modesty, investigating precisely what they are and how they structure gender roles and courtly identity. My third area of emphasis traces the ways in which sight and the body engage with notions of modesty. Finally, I examine the relevant changes the German romance authors make to their French source material. My analysis relies on three primary keywords in locating medieval modesty (zuht, kiusch, and scham), and explores the intersections between scham shame and scham modesty. I show that, compared to the French originals, the German romances demonstrate a far greater interest in the display of the naked or partially naked body. These scenes, which appear with regularity, follow particular patterns according to gender: for example, a naked man is uncourtly, but a partially-naked woman has a high status. Gender is also a determining factor in the overall importance of modesty, particularly as seen in conduct literature: for a man, it is one of several critical components for knightly success, while for a woman, it provides the fundamental structure for her life. I also find unexpected complexities in the relationship between romance and conduct literature. Each genre has its distinct areas of permissiveness and regulation with regard to modest behavior

The study of the vocal cords in the process of stuttering

Stuttering is a disorder of fluency, occurring in both children and adults. It prevents free and smooth transition from one articulation to another, and to maintain an appropriate pace, rhythm and intonation of speech. Pathological stuttering is accompanied by physiological symptoms, often combined with co-movements of the body, face, hyperactivity and spasticity. Emotionally it affects communication and social language. Inability to speak liquid leads to tension and stress of speaking. In problems of medical diagnosis, including planning and monitoring the therapy and rehabilitation of voice organs or speech-related organs, it is necessary to evaluate the qualitative features of the acoustic signal of deformed speech

Development of an intelligent motion controller and its application to the automation of a McBain-Bakr balance

This paper presents a modular approach to motion control using a microconlroller-based stepper motor driver. As an application of the driver, an inexpensive and portable one-dimensional robot was built to automate an existing experimental setup for measurement of adsorption isotherms using the McBain-Bakr technique. Automatic recording of position versus time yields data for the sludy of adsorption/desorption dynamics

Analiza wpływu zmian kursu walutowego na inflację w Polsce za pomocą modelu VECM

This paper applies Vector Error Correction (VEC) methodology to investigate effects of exchange rate shocks to inflation and price setting processes in Poland, since National Bank of Poland (NBP) have adopted inflation targeting policy and floating exchange rate regime in 1998. The size and the speed of the pass-through at different stage of pricing chain (import prices, producer prices, consumer prices) is measured by impulse response function (IRF). In addition, the relative importance of the exchange rate shocks using forecast errors variance decompositions from the estimated VECM is investigated. The results are interpreted in the context of NBP's conduct of monetary policy, in the prospect of euro area accession

Games, copyright, piracy : South African gamers' perspectives

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-126).This thesis examines video games, copyright law and gamers' attitudes to copyright infringement, with particular reference to South Africa. The work provides an overview of the debates about copyright law and digital media, and offers an analysis of attitudes expressed by South African gamers about copyright infringement, popularly termed 'piracy'. The thesis reveals that, while about 70% of the gamers in this study share content illegally, they express complex and varying motivations for doing so, and have various and conflicting means of understanding the supposed illegality of the act. Some of the issues raised by participants in this study relate to contested perspectives on Digital Rights Management (DRM). In this work, I argue that DRM erodes civil liberties and does not necessarily extend the interests of gaming corporations. In this regard, the thesis explores alternative strategies to the restrictive approaches adopted by advocates of DRM as well as prohibitive copyright laws and multilateral agreements on intellectual property. In essence, this work intends to establish middle ground between gamers, who place a high premium on usability and affordability of gaming products, and the gaming corporations, who are interested in extending market share as well as protecting what they deem to be their intellectual property

Wezwanie dłużnika do zapłaty i pisemne oświadczenie dłużnika o uznaniu długu jako podstawy wydania nakazu zapłaty w postępowaniu nakazowym

The aim of the study is to interpret the terms of a dunning letter and a recognition of claim, which may determine issuing a writ of payment in the proceedings by writ of payment. The commentary points the necessary components, which have to be involved in the above-mentioned documents to condition the issuance of this judgement. Due to the strong connection between civil procedure and civil law, the author refers to views based on substantive law, confronting them with the purpose and regulations of the proceedings by writ of payment. In conclusion, the author argues that every document which includes creditor’s will for debtor to fulfill the performance may be qualified as a dunning letter, and a recognition of claim may be expressed as a contract, a settlement, as well as a knowledge statement about the specific debt in a definite amount.Celem opracowania jest wykładnia pojęć wezwania do zapłaty i uznania długu, które mogą determinować wydanie nakazu zapłaty w postępowaniu nakazowym. W komentarzu wskazano elementy konieczne, które muszą się znaleźć w wyżej wskazanych dokumentach, aby warunkować wydanie takiego orzeczenia. Poprzez silny związek postępowania cywilnego z prawem cywilnym autor odwołuje się również do poglądów zbudowanych na kanwie prawa materialnego, konfrontując je z celem i przepisami postępowania nakazowego. W konkluzji podnosi, że wezwaniem do zapłaty jest każdy dokument, z którego można odczytać wolę wierzyciela, aby dłużnik świadczenie spełnił, uznanie długu natomiast może stanowić zarówno umowa uznania, ugoda, jak i oświadczenie wiedzy dłużnika co do istnienia konkretnego długu w określonej wysokości