Digital Sovereignty of Older Citizens for a Self-Determined Use of Personal Health Records: E-Learning Design and Study Results from the EPA-Coach Project

Promoting digital literacy and digital sovereignty has become one of the key policies in Europe. Digital sovereignty has been defined as the ability to act and exercise freedom of choice in the digital world. While digital services and applications offer great opportunities for the older generations to live independently and communicate with family and friends, the digital sovereignty of citizens including older adults has become a concern of policy-makers. Hence fostering digital sovereignty has been seen as an important objective for a self-determined use of digital media including control over own data. This paper presents an approach to designing an e-learning application for senior learners, which is aimed at fostering the digital sovereignty of older citizens in using Personal Health Records (PHR) in Germany. This e-learning application, called ePA-Coach, is designed in a research project funded by the Federal German Ministry of Education and Research to offer an opportunity for citizens 65+ to acquire digital skills needed for the self-determined use of PHR. The paper presents the digital literacy framework for exercising digital sovereignty related to PHR, which was developed in the ePA-Coach project based on the European Digital Competence Framework. We describe how this framework was applied in the design of micro-learning units and combined with gamification techniques from the Octalysis framework. Finally, we outline results from two exploratory studies with older citizens which revealed strong preferences for design elements related to digital sovereignty such as choice and control of the learning progress

Uppfattningen om likhetstecknets innebörd hos elever i skolår tre

I vår studie undersöker vi vilken uppfattning elever i årskurs tre har om likhetstecknet samt hur lärarens arbetssätt och arbetsmetoder kan påverka elevers förståelse av likhetstecknets innebörd. I studien använder vi oss av två insamlingsmetoder: en kvantitativ undersökning med en klass i årskurs tre och kvalitativa intervjuer med tio grundskollärare. I undersökningen utgår vi från en konstruktivistisk syn på förståelse och undervisning. Som bakgrund för studien använder vi tidigare internationell forskning vilken behandlar elevers förståelse för likhetstecknet samt lärarens undervisningsmetoder om likhet. Vår undersökning har påvisat att även om eleverna visat bra förståelse av likhetstecknet när de löser diagnosuppgifter av strukturell typ, har de problem med att skriftligt förklara likhetstecknets innebörd. Intervju undersökning har visat att läraren är medvetna om vikten att utveckla båda den dynamiska och statiska uppfattningen av likhetstecknet samt att en del elever inte har utvecklat den statiska uppfattningen. Från vår undersökning drar vi slutsatsen att den bristande förståelse för symbolens innebörd kan bero på olika faktorer: för snabbt övergång från konkret till abstrakt arbetssätt, läromedel där likhetstecknet ofta presenteras som symbol för svar på en räkneoperation och elevers språksvårigheter

Applying machine learning on high-performance thin-layer chromatography using the complementary developing solvents concept

Predicting chromatographic results is a difficult task for many analysts, especially in Thin-Layer Chromatography (TLC) where reproducibility is always a critical point. The availability of suitable equipment and rigorous standardization of parameters has transformed TLC into High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) and made reproducibility of results a reality. With recent non-targeted screening methods using the concept of complementary developing solvents, HPTLC has become a medium to high throughput technique that generates large sets of data, allowing the construction of predictive models. In this study, we evaluated to which extend HPTLC RF are decoded from molecular chemical properties. Various regressors (support vector machine, random forest, linear regression) trained with 178 reference substances predicted the RF values of 20 reference substances belonging to different chemical classes. We show that the performance of the model is bound to the similarity between the training and the test sets. The proposed methodology further encourages the use of computational methods for evaluation of HPTLC data. Thus, the nature of an unknown zone within the chromatogram could be matched with potential candidates based on predicted RF. </p

Prenatal acquired cytomegalovirus infection should be considered in children with autism

Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of congenital cytomegalovirus infection (CMV) in a representative sample of children with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: In a representative group of 115 preschool children with autism spectrum disorder, of whom 33 also had intellectual disability, the dried blood spots from the newborn metabolic screening were analysed for CMV DNA using TaqMan polymerase chain reaction. Results: One of the 33 children with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability – 3% of that group – had congenital CMV infection. The corresponding prevalence in newborn infants in Sweden is 0.2%. None of the 82 children without intellectual disability had congenital CMV. Conclusion: The finding lends some further support for congenital CMV being one of the many aetiologies underlying autism spectrum disorder with intellectual disability. The rate of 3% of congenital CMV in children with autism spectrum disorder with intellectual disability has implications for the medical work‐up. The finding of congenital CMV also indicates the need for repeated hearing assessments in the child. There is a need for similar studies with much larger samples

Comparative exoproteome profiling of an invasive and a commensal Staphylococcus haemolyticus isolate

Staphylococcus haemolyticus is a skin commensal emerging as an opportunistic pathogen. Nosocomial isolates of S. haemolyticus are the most antibiotic resistant members of the coagulase negative staphylococci (CoNS), but information about other S. haemolyticus virulence factors is scarce. Bacterial membrane vesicles (MVs) are one mediator of virulence by enabling secretion and long distance delivery of bacterial effector molecules while protecting the cargo from proteolytic degradation from the environment. We wanted to determine if the MV protein cargo of S. haemolyticus is strain specific and enriched in certain MV associated proteins compared to the totalsecretome. The present study shows that both clinical and commensal S. haemolyticus isolates produce membrane vesicles. The MV cargo of both strains was enriched in proteins involved in adhesion and acquisition of iron. The MV cargo of the clinical strain was further enriched in antimicrobial resistance proteins. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD010389. Biological significance: Clinical isolates of Staphylococcus haemolyticus are usually multidrug resistant, their main virulence factor is formation of biofilms, both factors leading to infections that are difficult to treat. We show that both clinical and commensal S. haemolyticusisolates produce membrane vesicles. Identification of staphylococcal membrane vesicles can potentially be used in novel approaches to combat staphylococcal infections, such as development of vaccines

Proteome profiling of secreted and membrane vesicle associated proteins of an invasive and a commensal Staphylococcus haemolyticus isolate

Bacterial membrane vesicles (MVs) mediate bacterial virulence by enabling secretion and long distance delivery of bacterial effector molecules. Staphylococcus haemolyticus has now been demonstrated to produce membrane vesicles (MVs). The protein content of S. haemolyticus MVs was identified by Mass spectrometry and compared to proteins identified in the total secretome. This information is presented in this data article. Further background and interpretation of the data can be found in the article: Comparative exoproteome profiling of an invasive and a commensal S. haemolyticus isolate (Cavanagh et al., in press). Data are available via Proteome Xchange with identifier PXD010389

A legal perspective of carbon rights and benefit sharing under REDD+: A conceptual framework and examples from Cambodia and Kenya

This article discusses two key issues in REDD+ design and implementation at the national level – carbon rights, and benefit sharing. Both carbon rights and benefit sharing can be understood as new legal concepts (although they build on existing law), and as legal concepts they offer a framework for addressing related areas of REDD+ policy. Many countries are currently considering how to manage carbon rights and benefit sharing issues, including Cambodia and Kenya. Both of these countries host existing forest carbon projects and are also in the process of designing national REDD+ programmes. This article uses a conceptual framework for carbon rights and benefit sharing derived from legal analysis to consider the cases of both Cambodia and Kenya, and also includes a general discussion of the challenges countries might encounter when considering how to manage carbon rights and benefit sharing in the context of REDD+ implementation