Ground-breaking fresh ideas: introduction to the special issue for young researchers

The IJTEL young researcher special issue on ‘Ground-breaking fresh ideas in technology enhanced learning’ is a bit different than other journal special issues. The main idea of IJTEL’s editor in chief Ambjörn Naeve was to have a platform where PhD students and early post-docs can present their visions for TEL. Freed from the empirical limitations of a dissertation, it should allow young researchers to take a step back and bring fresh ideas to the field. This concept was picked up by an enthusiastic group of guest editors consisting of PhD students and young postdocs at JTEL Summer School 2010. But not only is the theme something different, we also tried to innovate in the process: the programme committee included experienced reviewers as well as novel reviewers to get different perspectives on the submitted papers. Furthermore, we provided an ideas clinic, where potential authors could present their ideas and seek feedback and collaboration. An abstract submission prior to the full paper submission completed the effort to provide as much feedback and guidance as possible. The whole process was overseen by managing editor Fridolin Wild to guarantee the high quality standards of both IJTEL and Inderscience.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Features of Chronic Bronchitis in Different Age Groups

Background: Lung diseases are assuming greater relevance and importance today. Chronic bronchitis is a self-nosology, which may precede the development of COPD, the importance of which can hardly be overestimated. The main problem in this disease is caused by late diagnosis and treatment due to the delay by patients in seeking medical help. The aim of the work was to study the distribution and exposure to tobacco smoke, especially chronic bronchitis, depending on various factors, including age. Methods: We examined 1779 persons, including 855 men and 924 women. The mean age of the population was 35.83±8.3 years. We conducted surveys and spirometry. The outcome was assessed after a bronchodilation test was performed with salbutamol 400 mcg. We performed all statistical analysis using software package Statistica 10. Results: We identified chronic bronchitis in 9.2% of the cases in the group of younger individuals and in 14.9% of the cases in the group of older individuals, during the active detection of chronic bronchitis using questionnaires. The prevalence of cigarette smoking was slightly higher among the younger (39.5%) than the older persons (33.6%); the frequency of smoking in a group of chronic bronchitis was reliably higher. Also, in this group, the performance spirometry reliably decreased. Conclusions: Outpatient survey is an effective method of identifying chronic bronchitis. Smoking is a major risk factor in the group of young respondents and the prevalence of smoking is inversely related to the education level of the respondents, regardless of age. As the decline in the Forced Expiratory Volume (FEV1 and FEV1/FVC) is the main criterion diagnosis of COPD, it revealed significant declines in the FEV1 of the younger smoking individuals, which may help to predict the development of COPD in the older age group

Marketing Research and Entry Mode Suggestions, Case Turijobs Tourism Services S.L.

The thesis was conducted for the Spanish company Turijobs Tourism Services S.L., which operates in the tourism employment sector. The interest in the subject has risen during the practical training period of one of the authors in the company. The goal of this work was to investigate which factors are to be taken into consideration when planning the entry into the Russian market. The theoretical part consists of two different sets. The first one describes how a marketing research should be conducted, which technics should be used and what marketing research divisions exist. The second part contains the information about the international market entry strategies, the SWOT analysis and factors influencing the decision making process. The practical part describes the application of the marketing research and the formulation of the entry mode strategy. During the research the main competitors as well as the potential customers have been identified. It has been discovered that there are no competitors focusing on the tourism labour market specifically, but on the labour market in general. The analysis has shown that the Russian tourism market is narrow nowadays. However, on the positive note it is slowly developing. The environmental research has given an understanding of the Russian tourism sector in general. Based on the results of research suitable pricing, promotion and placement strategies have been chosen. After the research has been completed, the conclusion that the Russian market can be seen as a niche market for the tourism labour services has been made. The final part of the thesis contains the information on the market entry mode. It has been decided that the franchising would be the most suitable way of entering. The further recommendations to the commissioner were given

Widespread distribution of HLA-DR-expressing cells in macroscopically undiseased intima of the human aorta : a possible role in surveillance and maintenance of vascular homeostasis

The architectonics and cell composition of the human large arteries are not sufficiently understood. The present study is the first to undertake an analysis of the distribution and quantities of HLA-DR-expressing cells in grossly undiseased human intima using immunohistochemical and immunofluorescent analysis, complemented by the advantages of confocal microscopy. The study revealed a widespread distribution of HLA-DR-expressing cells throughout the intimal space where the cells were integrated into continuous networks via long cell processes. Numbers of HLA-DR+ cells were found to be significantly larger in the middle third of the intima than in the superficial and deep intimal portions. We speculate that a widespread distribution of HLA-DR-expressing cells in the intima of normal human aorta might play a role in the surveillance and maintenance of vascular homeostasis

Drug Target Prediction and Repositioning Using an Integrated Network-Based Approach

<div><p>The discovery of novel drug targets is a significant challenge in drug development. Although the human genome comprises approximately 30,000 genes, proteins encoded by fewer than 400 are used as drug targets in the treatment of diseases. Therefore, novel drug targets are extremely valuable as the source for first in class drugs. On the other hand, many of the currently known drug targets are functionally pleiotropic and involved in multiple pathologies. Several of them are exploited for treating multiple diseases, which highlights the need for methods to reliably reposition drug targets to new indications. Network-based methods have been successfully applied to prioritize novel disease-associated genes. In recent years, several such algorithms have been developed, some focusing on local network properties only, and others taking the complete network topology into account. Common to all approaches is the understanding that novel disease-associated candidates are in close overall proximity to known disease genes. However, the relevance of these methods to the prediction of novel drug targets has not yet been assessed. Here, we present a network-based approach for the prediction of drug targets for a given disease. The method allows both repositioning drug targets known for other diseases to the given disease and the prediction of unexploited drug targets which are not used for treatment of any disease. Our approach takes as input a disease gene expression signature and a high-quality interaction network and outputs a prioritized list of drug targets. We demonstrate the high performance of our method and highlight the usefulness of the predictions in three case studies. We present novel drug targets for scleroderma and different types of cancer with their underlying biological processes. Furthermore, we demonstrate the ability of our method to identify non-suspected repositioning candidates using diabetes type 1 as an example.</p> </div

Network reconstruction for c-Myc as a common drug target in different cancers.

<p>The blue, green and magenta boxes show uniquely up-regulated genes that were predicted as drug targets (within the top 100 predictions) for the indicated cancer type and that contribute to the regulation of cell proliferation. c-Myc (in the middle) is the top drug target prediction for all three cancer types and is involved in the regulation of cell proliferation as well. Downstream targets of c-Myc are shown in the gray box below c-Myc and are uniformly up-regulated in all three cancer types. Cyan stars represent known drug targets for the respective cancer type. Purple stars correspond to drug targets that have been associated with other diseases and can be readily repositioned to the treatment of this type of cancer, while yellow stars indicate unexploited drug targets that can be used for the development of novel treatment strategies. Red thermometers show significantly up-regulated genes in (1) Thyroid Cancer, (2) Colon Cancer, and (3) Melanoma.</p

Core network of predicted drug targets in cancers.

<p>(A) shows the commonly predicted drug targets (within the top 100 predictions) for colorectal cancer, thyroid cancer, ovarian cancer, melanoma, acute myeloid leukemia, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Yellow stars represent known disease biomarkers for neoplasms obtained from the Metabase resource. Cyan stars highlight genes that are known drug targets for at least one of the six types of cancer. (B) shows diseases that are significantly associated with the predicted drug targets. The diseases are ordered by the percentage of genes they cover. Neoplasms are found to cover all of the predicted drug targets. (C) shows the most enriched KEGG pathways for the predicted drug targets <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0060618#pone.0060618-Kanehisa1" target="_blank">[45]</a>. Cancer-related pathways are most enriched followed by pathways for specific cancers as well as cancer-related signaling pathways.</p

An integrated map of HIV-human protein complexes that facilitate viral infection.

Recent proteomic and genetic studies have aimed to identify a complete network of interactions between HIV and human proteins and genes. This HIV-human interaction network provides invaluable information as to how HIV exploits the host machinery and can be used as a starting point for further functional analyses. We integrated this network with complementary datasets of protein function and interaction to nominate human protein complexes with likely roles in viral infection. Based on our approach we identified a global map of 40 HIV-human protein complexes with putative roles in HIV infection, some of which are involved in DNA replication and repair, transcription, translation, and cytoskeletal regulation. Targeted RNAi screens were used to validate several proteins and complexes for functional impact on viral infection. Thus, our HIV-human protein complex map provides a significant resource of potential HIV-host interactions for further study

Consensus method performance.

<p>(A) The plot shows the median AUC for each disease model. The highest AUC of 93.19% is achieved for hyperplastic polyposis syndrome and the lowest for ischemic stroke with 63.27%. (B) and (C) show the ROC curves for hyperplastic polyposis syndrome and periodontitis, which achieved the highest performance. The blue areas around the AUC curves represent the 95% confidence intervals.</p