An Exploratory Study of Personalization and Learning Systems Continuance

Learning systems are widely adopted by institutions worldwide in the new millennium. The challenge on utilization of learning systems is switched from users’ pre-acceptance behaviours (whether they are likely to adopt learning systems) to post-acceptance behaviours (whether they will continue to use the learning systems). It is commonly expected that successfully adopted learning systems that have, at one time, been perceived as being useful and easy to use would likely achieve a high rate of user continuance. However, reality can be different as user continuance is often not as high as expected. The continuance of learning systems draws our attention because the investment in institutionalizing a learning system is huge. There is also a theoretical gap between technology acceptance and system continuance for which continuance behaviour cannot be explained by traditional technology acceptance models. This study extends a post-adoption model on habit and IS continuance to investigate the effect of personalization (which includes personal content management, personal time management and privacy control) on learning system continuance. Empirical results suggest that personalization has a positive influence on perceived usefulness and habit, but does not directly influence continuance intention

A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF A CROWD WISDOM ONLINE LEARNING COMMUNITY PLATFORM ON STUDENT LEARNING

The use of collective intelligence applications in educational settings has been reported in the literature for almost two decades. These collective intelligence applications aggregate individual knowledge via different synchronous and asynchronous mode of communications and Web 2.0 applications which support learning, communication and collaboration activities, and create “Wisdom of the Crowds”. Crowdsourcing further extends these collective intelligence processes in a distributed and crossorganizational way. This paper evaluates the effects and impacts of crowd wisdom applications on a peer assisted learning support service titled Peer-Assisted Learning scheme using Supplemental Instruction (PALSI) in a higher education institution in Hong Kong. Adopting the Design Science approach, an Online Learning Community (OLC) platform was developed tap on the Wisdom of Crowds and its effectiveness on student learning was evaluated. The OLC platform is not designed to replace existing face-to-face PALSI learning sessions and activities. Rather it helps to provide an additional online platform for supplementing and facilitating interaction between student mentors and mentees and among student mentees as well. The OLC platform is designed in a way that supports indexed and search functions who join the PALSI scheme, and it can also be archived as a repository for future reference by similar courses. Empirical analysis was carried out to evaluate the relationship between user participation and assessment results. Statistics show that students who made use of the OLC platform obtained better grades

Antecedents Of Information Systems Habit In Sporadic Use Of Learning Systems: Personalization And Peer Effects

Research on Information Systems (IS) habit formation has been focused mostly on IS habit’s effect on IS continuance. Antecedents of IS habit formation, as reported in the literature, are primarily on users’ prior behavior and comprehensiveness of usage. Most of the literature focus on analyzing the relationship between users’ IS usage behavior and IS habit. Limited work has been reported to investigate genuine and practical ways to develop IS habit, as well as to address the issue of sporadic IS usage, which leads to different interpretations on IS habit and continuance. This study purports to address the theoretical gap on issues related to IS habit antecedents and sporadic IS usage habit in the educational context. Adopting an empirical survey in universities’ (sub-degree and postgraduate settings) learning systems usage, data from cross-sectional survey on learning systems usage on per-course basis is analyzed. Theoretically, our results suggest that IT functionality design (personalization) and social factor (peer effect) have strong and positive relationship on IS habit with respect to the sporadic usage nature of course based learning systems. Practically, we suggest some dimensions for teachers on curriculum design that facilitate IS habit development, e.g., maintaining an online community with substantial student peer input at the early stage of a course

Developing Learning System Continuance with Teachers and Students: Case Study of the Echo360 Lecture Capturing System

Research on learning system continuance has been focused mostly on students’ conscious behaviour. While the institutional decision to adopt and sustain the deployment of a new technology provides strong support for organisational adoption, the key factor for achieving long-term continuance relies on individual behaviour from different stakeholders, e.g., students, support staff and teachers. Existing literature on Information Systems (IS) continuance, however, suffers from weaknesses. On the one hand, perceptions from other stakeholders, such as teachers and support staff, are often neglected in the literature. On the other hand, there is a theoretical gap in explaining continuance behaviour through traditional models because unconscious automatic behaviour (e.g., IS habit) plays a more critical role in influencing continuance behaviour than previously expected. This study takes a qualitative approach to identify perceptions from students and teachers on which features and usage patterns of a lecture capturing system (Echo360) would develop long-term continuance behaviour through both conscious and unconscious behaviours. Our results suggest that long-term continuance can be achieved by a combination of Information Technology (IT) artefact extension (e.g., providing better search functionality and multimedia tagging) and developed IS habits through curriculum design

Dirac states with knobs on: interplay of external parameters and the surface electronic properties of 3D topological insulators

Topological insulators are a novel materials platform with high applications potential in fields ranging from spintronics to quantum computation. In the ongoing scientific effort to demonstrate controlled manipulation of their electronic structure by external means, stoichiometric variation and surface decoration are two effective approaches that have been followed. In ARPES experiments, both approaches are seen to lead to electronic band structure changes. Such approaches result in variations of the energy position of bulk and surface-related features and the creation of two-dimensional electron gases.The data presented here demonstrate that a third manipulation handle is accessible by utilizing the amount of illumination a topological insulator surface has been exposed to under typical experimental ARPES conditions. Our results show that this new, third, knob acts on an equal footing with stoichiometry and surface decoration as a modifier of the electronic band structure, and that it is in continuous competition with the latter. The data clearly point towards surface photovoltage and photo-induced desorption as the physical phenomena behind modifications of the electronic band structure under exposure to high-flux photons. We show that the interplay of these phenomena can minimize and even eliminate the adsorbate-related surface band bending on typical binary, ternary and quaternary Bi-based topological insulators. Including the influence of the sample temperature, these data set up a framework for the external control of the electronic band structure in topological insulator compounds in an ARPES setting. Four external knobs are available: bulk stoichiometry, surface decoration, temperature and photon exposure. These knobs can be used in conjunction to tune the band energies near the surface and consequently influence the topological properties of the relevant electronic states.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure

Quantum confined peptide assemblies with tunable visible to near-infrared spectral range

Quantum confined materials have been extensively studied for photoluminescent applications. Due to intrinsic limitations of low biocompatibility and challenging modulation, the utilization of conventional inorganic quantum confined photoluminescent materials in bio-imaging and bio-machine interface faces critical restrictions. Here, we present aromatic cyclo-dipeptides that dimerize into quantum dots, which serve as building blocks to further self-assemble into quantum confined supramolecular structures with diverse morphologies and photoluminescence properties. Especially, the emission can be tuned from the visible region to the near-infrared region (420 nm to 820 nm) by modulating the self-assembly process. Moreover, no obvious cytotoxic effect is observed for these nanostructures, and their utilization for in vivo imaging and as phosphors for light-emitting diodes is demonstrated. The data reveal that the morphologies and optical properties of the aromatic cyclo-dipeptide self-assemblies can be tuned, making them potential candidates for supramolecular quantum confined materials providing biocompatible alternatives for broad biomedical and opto-electric applications

Overview of the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey: mapping nearby galaxies at Apache Point Observatory

We present an overview of a new integral field spectroscopic survey called MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory), one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) that began on 2014 July 1. MaNGA will investigate the internal kinematic structure and composition of gas and stars in an unprecedented sample of 10,000 nearby galaxies. We summarize essential characteristics of the instrument and survey design in the context of MaNGA's key science goals and present prototype observations to demonstrate MaNGA's scientific potential. MaNGA employs dithered observations with 17 fiber-bundle integral field units that vary in diameter from 12'' (19 fibers) to 32'' (127 fibers). Two dual-channel spectrographs provide simultaneous wavelength coverage over 3600-10300 Å at R ~ 2000. With a typical integration time of 3 hr, MaNGA reaches a target r-band signal-to-noise ratio of 4-8 (Å–1 per 2'' fiber) at 23 AB mag arcsec–2, which is typical for the outskirts of MaNGA galaxies. Targets are selected with M * 109 M ☉ using SDSS-I redshifts and i-band luminosity to achieve uniform radial coverage in terms of the effective radius, an approximately flat distribution in stellar mass, and a sample spanning a wide range of environments. Analysis of our prototype observations demonstrates MaNGA's ability to probe gas ionization, shed light on recent star formation and quenching, enable dynamical modeling, decompose constituent components, and map the composition of stellar populations. MaNGA's spatially resolved spectra will enable an unprecedented study of the astrophysics of nearby galaxies in the coming 6 yr

CNS targets of adipokines

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from American Physiological Society via the DOI in this record.Our understanding of adipose tissue as an endocrine organ has been transformed over the last twenty years. During this time a number of adipocyte-derived factors or adipokines have been identified. This paper will review evidence for how adipokines acting via the central nervous system (CNS) regulate normal physiology and disease pathology. The reported CNS-mediated effects of adipokines are varied and include the regulation of energy homeostasis, autonomic nervous system activity, the reproductive axis, neurodevelopment, cardiovascular function, and cognition. Due to the wealth of information available and the diversity of their known functions, the archetypal adipokines leptin and adiponectin will be the focused on extensively. Other adipokines with established CNS actions will also be discussed. Due to the difficulties associated with studying CNS function on a molecular level in humans, the majority of our knowledge, and as such the studies described in this paper, comes from work in experimental animal models; however, where possible the relevant data from human studies are also highlighted

Higher COVID-19 pneumonia risk associated with anti-IFN-α than with anti-IFN-ω auto-Abs in children

We found that 19 (10.4%) of 183 unvaccinated children hospitalized for COVID-19 pneumonia had autoantibodies (auto-Abs) neutralizing type I IFNs (IFN-alpha 2 in 10 patients: IFN-alpha 2 only in three, IFN-alpha 2 plus IFN-omega in five, and IFN-alpha 2, IFN-omega plus IFN-beta in two; IFN-omega only in nine patients). Seven children (3.8%) had Abs neutralizing at least 10 ng/ml of one IFN, whereas the other 12 (6.6%) had Abs neutralizing only 100 pg/ml. The auto-Abs neutralized both unglycosylated and glycosylated IFNs. We also detected auto-Abs neutralizing 100 pg/ml IFN-alpha 2 in 4 of 2,267 uninfected children (0.2%) and auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-omega in 45 children (2%). The odds ratios (ORs) for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia were, therefore, higher for auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-alpha 2 only (OR [95% CI] = 67.6 [5.7-9,196.6]) than for auto-Abs neutralizing IFN-. only (OR [95% CI] = 2.6 [1.2-5.3]). ORs were also higher for auto-Abs neutralizing high concentrations (OR [95% CI] = 12.9 [4.6-35.9]) than for those neutralizing low concentrations (OR [95% CI] = 5.5 [3.1-9.6]) of IFN-omega and/or IFN-alpha 2

Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with critical influenza pneumonia

In an international cohort of 279 patients with hypoxemic influenza pneumonia, we identified 13 patients (4.6%) with autoantibodies neutralizing IFN-alpha and/or -omega, which were previously reported to underlie 15% cases of life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia and one third of severe adverse reactions to live-attenuated yellow fever vaccine. Autoantibodies neutralizing type I interferons (IFNs) can underlie critical COVID-19 pneumonia and yellow fever vaccine disease. We report here on 13 patients harboring autoantibodies neutralizing IFN-alpha 2 alone (five patients) or with IFN-omega (eight patients) from a cohort of 279 patients (4.7%) aged 6-73 yr with critical influenza pneumonia. Nine and four patients had antibodies neutralizing high and low concentrations, respectively, of IFN-alpha 2, and six and two patients had antibodies neutralizing high and low concentrations, respectively, of IFN-omega. The patients' autoantibodies increased influenza A virus replication in both A549 cells and reconstituted human airway epithelia. The prevalence of these antibodies was significantly higher than that in the general population for patients 70 yr of age (3.1 vs. 4.4%, P = 0.68). The risk of critical influenza was highest in patients with antibodies neutralizing high concentrations of both IFN-alpha 2 and IFN-omega (OR = 11.7, P = 1.3 x 10(-5)), especially those <70 yr old (OR = 139.9, P = 3.1 x 10(-10)). We also identified 10 patients in additional influenza patient cohorts. Autoantibodies neutralizing type I IFNs account for similar to 5% of cases of life-threatening influenza pneumonia in patients <70 yr old