Identifying the potential risks of political eparticipation for adult learners

Adult education encourages digital literacy as an unmitigated good. In the current conjuncture, it does not encourage political literacy to the same degree. There is undoubtedly a nexus between the two, with a need for political literacy in the online environment. This paper argues that many adult learners remain ill-equipped to competently 'read' and respond to the political messages they receive online. Moreover, the problem is escalating rapidly, as the methods that political parties employ to influence people become increasingly subtle and sophisticated. At the same time we see the rise in 'fake news,' in extremism of all kinds and the declining status of the 'expert' in a 'post truth world' (Mele et al., 2017). Given this context, this paper asks the following questions: what are the perceptions of a sample of trainee teachers working in UK further and adult education with regard to the place of online political literacy in the curriculum? do these perceptions chime with what we know of the status of political literacy in current UK qualifications and curricula? in light of the answers to these questions, are adult learners being adequately equipped to protect their data and interpret the political messages they receive through social media? Whilst the authors recognise the potential of the internet to mobilise political engagement and as an enabler of activism in many contexts, this paper focuses on the attendant risks of e-participation

Ignite

This alternative newspaper was published at the University of North Dakota and features articles written at University, as well as re-prints from national publications. This undated issue features the following articles: GI Coffee Houses by Donna Michelson (originally printed in Mobilizer); The Mexico City Massacre by Tim Reynolds (originally printed in The Rag); They vs. Them by Mike Shahane; and several News Notes blurbs spread throughout the issue.https://commons.und.edu/und-books/1072/thumbnail.jp

In vivo detection of cortical optical changes associated with seizure activity with optical coherence tomography.

The most common technology for seizure detection is with electroencephalography (EEG), which has low spatial resolution and minimal depth discrimination. Optical techniques using near-infrared (NIR) light have been used to improve upon EEG technology and previous research has suggested that optical changes, specifically changes in near-infrared optical scattering, may precede EEG seizure onset in in vivo models. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a high resolution, minimally invasive imaging technique, which can produce depth resolved cross-sectional images. In this study, OCT was used to detect changes in optical properties of cortical tissue in vivo in mice before and during the induction of generalized seizure activity. We demonstrated that a significant decrease (P < 0.001) in backscattered intensity during seizure progression can be detected before the onset of observable manifestations of generalized (stage-5) seizures. These results indicate the feasibility of minimally-invasive optical detection of seizures with OCT

Senior Recital

List of performers and performances

Familiarity and Within-Person Facial Variability: The Importance of the Internal and External Features

As faces become familiar, we come to rely more on their internal features for recognition and matching tasks. Here, we assess whether this same pattern is also observed for a card sorting task. Participants sorted photos showing either the full face, only the internal features, or only the external features into multiple piles, one pile per identity. In Experiments 1 and 2, we showed the standard advantage for familiar faces—sorting was more accurate and showed very few errors in comparison with unfamiliar faces. However, for both familiar and unfamiliar faces, sorting was less accurate for external features and equivalent for internal and full faces. In Experiment 3, we asked whether external features can ever be used to make an accurate sort. Using familiar faces and instructions on the number of identities present, we nevertheless found worse performance for the external in comparison with the internal features, suggesting that less identity information was available in the former. Taken together, we show that full faces and internal features are similarly informative with regard to identity. In comparison, external features contain less identity information and produce worse card sorting performance. This research extends current thinking on the shift in focus, both in attention and importance, toward the internal features and away from the external features as familiarity with a face increases

Improvement Initiative to Develop and Implement a Tool for Detecting Drug-Drug Interactions During Oncology Clinical Trial Enrollment Eligibility Screening

Objectives Screening subjects for drug-drug interactions (DDIs) before enrollment in oncology clinical trials is integral to ensuring safety, but standard procedures or tools are not readily available to screen DDI in this setting. Our objectives were to develop a DDI screening tool for use during oncology clinical trial enrollment and to test usability in single-center and multicenter pilot studies. Methods A multistage approach was used for this quality improvement intervention. Semistructured interviews with individuals responsible for DDI screening were conducted to develop a prototype tool. The tool was used for screening DDI in subjects enrolling in National Clinical Trials Network trials of commercially available agents during a single-center 3-month pilot. Improvements were made, and a 3-month multicenter pilot was conducted at volunteer SWOG Cancer Research Network sites. Participants were surveyed to determine tool usability and efficiency. Results A tool was developed from semistructured interviews. A critical feature was reporting which medications had specific pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic characteristics including transporter and cytochrome P450 substrates, inhibitors, or inducers and QT prolongation. In the 12-site study, average (SD) DDI screening time for each patient decreased by 15.7 (10.2) minutes (range, 3–35 minutes; P \u3c 0.001). Users reported the tool highly usable, with \u3e90% agreeing with all positive usability characterizations and disagreeing with all negative complexity characterizations. Conclusions A DDI screening tool for oncology clinical trial enrollment was created and its usability confirmed. Further testing with more diverse investigator sites and study drugs during eligibility screening is warranted to improve safety and data accuracy within clinical trials