Relation of Individual Time Management Practices and Time Management of Teams

Full research paper-Team configuration, work practices, and communication have a considerable impact on the outcomes of student software projects. This study observes 150 college students who first individually solve exercises and then carry out a class project in teams of three. All projects had the same requirements. We analyzed how students' behavior on individual pre-project exercises predict team project outcomes, investigated how students' time management practices affected other team members, and analyzed how students divided their work among peers. Our results indicate that teams consisting of only low-performing students were the most dysfunctional in terms of workload balance, whereas teams with both low-and high-performing students performed almost as well as teams consisting of only high-performing students. This suggests that teams should combine students of varying skill levels rather than allowing teams with only low performers or letting students to form teams without constraints. We also observed that individual students' poor time management practices impair their teammates' time management. This underlines the importance of encouraging good time management practices. Most teams reported that they divided tasks in a way that is beneficial for the acquisition of technical skills rather than collaboration and communication skills. Only a few teams assigned tasks so that students would have worked only on tasks they already knew and thus felt most comfortable to work with.Team configuration, work practices, and communication have a considerable impact on the outcomes of student software projects. This study observes 150 college students who first individually solve exercises and then carry out a class project in teams of three. All projects had the same requirements. We analyzed how students' behavior on individual pre-project exercises predict team project outcomes, investigated how students' time management practices affected other team members, and analyzed how students divided their work among peers. Our results indicate that teams consisting of only low-performing students were the most dysfunctional in terms of workload balance, whereas teams with both low-and high-performing students performed almost as well as teams consisting of only high-performing students. This suggests that teams should combine students of varying skill levels rather than allowing teams with only low performers or letting students to form teams without constraints. We also observed that individual students' poor time management practices impair their teammates' time management. This underlines the importance of encouraging good time management practices. Most teams reported that they divided tasks in a way that is beneficial for the acquisition of technical skills rather than collaboration and communication skills. Only a few teams assigned tasks so that students would have worked only on tasks they already knew and thus felt most comfortable to work with.Peer reviewe

Prion-specific and surrogate CSF biomarkers in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease:diagnostic accuracy in relation to molecular subtypes and analysis of neuropathological correlates of p-tau and A beta 42 levels

The differential diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) from other, sometimes treatable, neurological disorders is challenging, owing to the wide phenotypic heterogeneity of the disease. Real-time quaking-induced prion conversion (RT-QuIC) is a novel ultrasensitive in vitro assay, which, at variance with surrogate neurodegenerative biomarker assays, specifically targets the pathological prion protein (PrPSc). In the studies conducted to date in CJD, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) RT-QuIC showed good diagnostic sensitivity (82\u201396%) and virtually full specificity. In the present study, we investigated the diagnostic value of both prion RT-QuIC and surrogate protein markers in a large patient population with suspected CJD and then evaluated the influence on CSF findings of the CJD type, and the associated amyloid-\u3b2 (A\u3b2) and tau neuropathology. RT-QuIC showed an overall diagnostic sensitivity of 82.1% and a specificity of 99.4%. However, sensitivity was lower in CJD types linked to abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) type 2 (VV2, MV2K and MM2C) than in typical CJD (MM1). Among surrogate proteins markers (14-3-3, total (t)-tau, and t-tau/phosphorylated (p)-tau ratio) t-tau performed best in terms of both specificity and sensitivity for all sCJD types. Sporadic CJD VV2 and MV2K types demonstrated higher CSF levels of p-tau when compared to other sCJD types and this positively correlated with the amount of tiny tau deposits in brain areas showing spongiform change. CJD patients showed moderately reduced median A\u3b242 CSF levels, with 38% of cases having significantly decreased protein levels in the absence of A\u3b2 brain deposits. Our results: (1) support the use of both RT-QuIC and t-tau assays as first line laboratory investigations for the clinical diagnosis of CJD; (2) demonstrate a secondary tauopathy in CJD subtypes VV2 and MV2K, correlating with increased p-tau levels in the CSF and (3) provide novel insight into the issue of the accuracy of CSF p-tau and A\u3b242 as markers of brain tauopathy and \u3b2-amyloidosis

Visuaalinen virheenjäljitin Java-kielelle ohjelmoinnin perusopetukseen

Tässä diplomityössä suunniteltiin ja toteutettiin ohjelmoinnin perusopetukseen ohjelmien visualisointityökalu. Tämän lisäksi suunniteltiin uusi diagramminotaatio olio-ohjelman ajonaikaisen tilan esittämiseen. Työ sisältää katsauksen oppimisteorioihin sekä nykyiseen opetukseen Teknillisessä Korkeakoulussa ja oppilaiden oppimisongelmiin kursseilla. Esitämme yhtenä ratkaisuna näihin ongelmiin visualisointityökalujen käyttämisen ohjelmoinnin opetuksessa; luennoilla kurssihenkilökunnan ja harjoituksissa opiskelijoiden itsensä toimesta. Oppilaiden ongelmat ohjelmointikursseilla liittyvät erityisesti olio-ohjelmoinnin keskeisiin käsitteisiin, kuten olioiden välisiin viittauksiin, olioiden luomiseen ja olio-ohjelman suorituksen etenemiseen ohjelman olioiden välillä. Näiden ongelmakohtien pohjalta asetettiin visualisointityökalulle joukko vaatimuksia, joiden perusteella tutkittiin olemassaolevien visualisointityökalujen soveltuvuutta tähän tarkoitukseen. Mikään arvioiduista, järjestelmistä ei täyttänyt kaikkia vaatimuksia, joten työssä päädyttiin toteuttamaan oma järjestelmä joka visualisoi esimerkkiohjelmien ja opiskelijoiden rakentamien ohjelmien suoritusta havainnollisella tavalla. Koska olioiden, viittausten ja metodikutsujen esittämiseen animoidussa muodossa ei löytynyt valmiita tunnettuja notaatioita, suunniteltiin työn osana myös uusi notaatio. Tämä notaatio - Program State Graph, pyrkii visualisoimaan opiskelijoiden hankaliksi kokemia ohjelmointikielen ominaisuuksia. Rakentamamme visualisointityökalu esittää ja ylläpitää edellämainitun notaation avulla mukaista diagrammia suoritettavasta ohjelmasta. Ohjelman suoritusta seurataan myös korostaen ohjelmakoodista suoritettavaa koodiriviä. Toteutettu ohjelma sisältää myös lähdekoodiparserin, jonka avulla koodista voidaan korostaa haluttuja elementtejä lukemisen helpottamiseksi

Host manipulation by parasites : adaptation to enhance transmission?

Otto Seppälä tutki väitöskirjassaan loisten kykyä manipuloida isäntiään mahdollisena strategiana tehostaa loisten siirtymistä uusiin isäntäyksilöihin. Monien loisten on havaittu vaikuttavan mm. isäntiensä käyttäytymiseen ja ulkonäköön. Erityisesti ravintoketjuissa saaliseläimistä saalistajiin kulkeutuvilla loisilla isännän manipulointia on yleisesti pidetty loisten evolutiivisena sopeumana altistaa isännät saalistajille ja täten tehostaa loisten siirtymistä elinkierrossa eteenpäin. Manipulaatioteoriaa on kuitenkin vain harvoin testattu kriittisesti selvittämällä saalistuskokein loisten aiheuttamien käyttäytymismuutosten vaikutusta isäntien saalistusalttiuteen.Seppälä selvitti useiden eri kalalajien silmissä yleisen Diplostomum spathaceum -loisen vaikutusta kalojen käyttäytymiseen, värinsäätelyyn ja saalistusalttiuteen.Trophically-transmitted parasites may predispose infected hosts to predation by altering their phenotype. This can be either an adaptation of the parasites to enhance their transmission to the next hosts in the life cycle or a non-adaptive side-effect of infection. In this thesis, I examined whether the Diplostomum spathaceum (Trematoda) eye fluke can manipulate the phenotype of its fish intermediate hosts to increase their susceptibility to predation, and if this could be an adaptation of the parasite to enhance its onward transmission to the bird definitive hosts. In laboratory experiments, I found that anti-predator behaviour of infected fish was reduced compared to uninfected fish. Parasitized fish did not prefer the surface layers of the water column more than control fish, but did show a weaker reaction to an approaching simulated avian predator. Furthermore, their ability to adjust to the environment using cryptic coloration and cryptic behaviour was reduced. These changes led to an increase in the susceptibility of fish to simulated avian predation (capture by dip-net). This result was not reproduced when fish were exposed to predation by wild birds in a field experiment, possibly because the experimental set-up allowed birds to feed on fish in an easy, unnatural manner. Catchability of fish in the laboratory increased with the coverage of parasite-induced cataracts, which suggests that impaired vision may be the definitive mechanism leading to manipulation. Moreover, cataract formation was most intensive after parasites had completed their development, resulting in host manipulation only after parasites had reached infectivity to bird hosts. Furthermore, manipulation was not observed to be costly for the parasite, because it did not predispose fish to predation by non-host piscivorous fish. These findings suggest that manipulation of the fish host may increase the probability of parasite transmission to bird hosts, and thus be a parasite strategy evolved to enhance transmission

Organizational characteristics promoting and inhibiting creativity: comparing practitioners´ and researchers´ views on managing innovativeness

Change is faster than ever in the globalizing world which emphasizes the need for companies to be able to constantly adjust to their environment. Thus the ability to innovate and be innovative can be regarded very important for companies to be able to secure their survival and success. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the discussion about what constitutes an innovative organization. The study strived for answering two questions. Firstly, from the point-of-view of practitioners, what are the organizational characteristics that promote and inhibit creativity and innovativeness and how should these characteristics be managed, specifically in the context of a post-merger group? Secondly, are these views of practitioners in line with those of researchers in the academia? Thus, the second research question aimed for assessing whether a research-practice gap could be identified in this field of research. The study was conducted using qualitative means, namely interviews. This research method was deemed the most appropriate as the aim was in gathering views and sentiments from individual managers in a more in-depth manner instead of choosing to gather more shallow data from a greater number of individuals. The analysis of interview data was conducted using qualitative content analysis. From the empirical data, five critical elements for managing innovativeness were detected. First, substantial differences between employees´ competence-levels are likely to restrict an organization´s ability to innovate. Second, lack of common group-wide processes is not optimal for innovativeness, and mergers further complicate creating these processes. Third, top-management´s role is crucial in the management of innovativeness, especially as the driver and communicator of change. Fourth, inadequate managerial behavior and skills are detrimental for innovativeness: managers need to interact and communicate with their subordinates frequently and effectively, in addition to providing them with sufficient resources to enable refining of ideas. Fifth, excess workload likely leads to a negative mindset that hardly is an innovation-inducing state of mind. The views of practitioners seemed to be in line with the views of researchers to a very large extent. Thus it can be concluded that a research-practice gap could not be identified. The study contributes to the discussion of promoting and inhibiting organizational characteristics for innovativeness by providing empirical knowledge from managers of a post-merger group. This knowledge might offer some insight for other practitioners, too. Furthermore, the study contributes to the general discussion on research-practice gap by focusing on the context of managing innovativeness. By speaking for the absence of a research-practice gap, the study offers an opposing view to the prevailing discussion

Parannuksia ohjelmointitaidon arviointimenetelmiin

This thesis concerns assessment techniques used in university level programming education. The motivation is in improving existing assessment methods to yield more detailed or fundamentally different kinds of information which can be used to provide higher quality feedback to the student. One central theme in this thesis is the use of program reading and tracing skills in different aspects of programming. Tracing is a critical skill in reading and writing code and debugging. Simple tracing exercises can be used to test understanding of programming language constructs and program execution. We present results from an international study of student competence in tracing program code in the end of their first programming course. The results highlight that while students are expected to have elementary skills in program construction, some of them lack knowledge of execution of programs of the same difficulty. The effect of students' annotations and solving strategies on tracing performance was analyzed further. Tracing exercises can also be used to test understanding of data structures and algorithms. Visual algorithm simulation is a method in which a student manipulates data structure visualizations with a mouse, trying to simulate the steps of a given algorithm. A successful simulation is evidence of understanding the core concepts of that algorithm. Automatic assessment and delivery of visual algorithm simulation problems is implemented in the tool TRAKLA2. In this thesis we present a technique that improves TRAKLA2's assessment, trying to interpret errors in student simulations using information on known misconceptions and by simulating careless errors. Another topic studied in this thesis is whether mutation testing can be applied to evaluating the adequacy of software tests made by students. In mutation testing the effectiveness of a test suite in discovering errors is evaluated by seeding errors into the program under test. A well constructed test suite should find most such errors quite easily. Code coverage analysis, the method used in available assessment platforms, can yield results that give the students false understanding of the quality of their testing. Feedback from programming exercises assessed by unit tests has traditionally been in the form of text. Explaining more complicated object hierarchies textually can be complicated to understand. The last topic covered is using visualization to convey information either in a domain specific visual format or in a form of a generic visualization. An empirical study of student performance comparing the two types of input against detailed textual feedback is presented as a part of the thesis.Väitöskirjassa käsitellään ohjelmoinnin opetuksessa käytettäviä arviointimenetelmiä yliopisto-opetuksessa. Motivaationa työlle on kehittää nykyisiä menetelmiä tuottamaan yksityiskohtaisempaa tai olennaisesti uudentyyppistä informaatiota, jonka pohjalta opiskelijoille voitaisiin antaa korkealaatuisempaa palautetta. Yksi keskeisistä teemoista työssa on ohjelmakoodin lukemisen ja mentaalisesti simuloidun koodisuorituksen (jäljitys, tracing) soveltaminen ohjelmoitaessa. Jäljitys on keskeinen taito sekä ohjelmakoodin tuottamisen, ymmärtämisen, että virheiden korjaamisen kannalta. Jäljitystehtäviä voidaan käyttää ohjelmakoodin ja sen suorituksen ymmärtämisen arvioinnissa. Väitöskirjassa esitetään tuloksia kansainvälisestä tutkimuksesta, jossa opiskelijoilla, joiden oletetaan pystyvän rakentamaan toimivia ohjelmia, todettiin olevan vaikeuksia simuloida monimutkaisuudeltaan samankaltaisen koodin suoritusta. Lisäksi tutkittiin opiskelijan käyttämien apumerkintöjen ja ratkaisustrategioiden vaikutusta jäljitykseen. Jäljitystehtäviä voidaan käyttää myös tietorakenne- ja algoritmitietouden mittaukseen. Visuaalinen algoritmisimulaatio on menetelmä, jossa opiskelija manipuloi hiirellä tietorakennevisualisaatioita yrittäen simuloida jonkin algoritmin toimintaa. Onnistunut simulaatio osoittaa ymmärrystä algoritmin toimintaperiaatteista. Algoritmisimulaatiotehtävien jakelu ja automaattinen tarkastus on toteutettu TRAKLA2 työkalussa. Väitöskirjassa esitellään parannus TRAKLA2:n arvostelualgoritmeihin, joka pyrkii tulkitsemaan opiskelijoiden virheitä tunnettujen väärinkäsitysten ja huolimattomuusvirheiden kautta. Väitöskirjassa tutkitaan lisäksi voitaisiinko mutaatiotestausta käyttää opiskelijoiden tuottamien yksikkötestien arviointiin. Mutaatiotestauksessa testien riittävyyttä arvioidaan kylvämällä satunnaisvirheitä ohjelmaan ja kokeilemalla löytääkö testijoukko nämä virheet. Hyvin rakennettu testisetti löytää pääosan tällaisistä virheistä. Koodikattavuusanalyysi, yleisemmin käytetty riittävyyden mitta, voi tuottaa arvostelukäytössä valheellisen positiivisia tuloksia. Yksikkötesteillä tuotettu palaute on perinteisesti annettu opiskelijalle tekstimuotoisena. Monimutkaisempien oliohierarkioiden kuvaaminen sanallisesti johtaa helposti hankalasti ymmärrettävään lopputulokseen. Väitöskirjassa tutkitaan vielä voitaisiinko tämäntyyppistä palautetta antaa visuaalisessa muodossa. Kahden eri visualisaatiotyypin ja sanallisen palautteen vaikutusta tehtävien ratkontaan tutkittiin empiirisessä kokeessa

Data from: Potential for adaptation to climate change: family-level variation in fitness-related traits and their responses to heat waves in a snail population

Background: On-going global climate change poses a serious threat for natural populations unless they are able to evolutionarily adapt to changing environmental conditions (e.g. increasing average temperatures, occurrence of extreme weather events). A prerequisite for evolutionary change is within-population heritable genetic variation in traits subject to selection. In relation to climate change, mainly phenological traits as well as heat and desiccation resistance have been examined for such variation. Therefore, it is important to investigate adaptive potential under climate change conditions across a broader range of traits. This is especially true for life-history traits and defences against natural enemies (e.g. parasites) since they influence organisms’ fitness both directly and through species interactions. We examined the adaptive potential of fitness-related traits and their responses to heat waves in a population of a freshwater snail, Lymnaea stagnalis. We estimated family-level variation and covariation in life history (size, reproduction) and constitutive immune defence traits [haemocyte concentration, phenoloxidase (PO)-like activity, antibacterial activity of haemolymph] in snails experimentally exposed to typical (15 °C) and heat wave (25 °C) temperatures. We also assessed variation in the reaction norms of these traits between the treatments. Results: We found that at the heat wave temperature, snails were larger and reproduced more, while their immune defence was reduced. Snails showed high family-level variation in all examined traits within both temperature treatments. The only negative genetic correlation (between reproduction and antibacterial activity) appeared at the high temperature. However, we found no family-level variation in the responses of most examined traits to the experimental heat wave (i.e. largely parallel reaction norms between the treatments). Only the reduction of PO-like activity when exposed to the high temperature showed family-level variation, suggesting that the cost of heat waves may be lower for some families and could evolve under selection. Conclusion: Our results suggest that there is genetic potential for adaptation within both thermal environments and that trait evolution may not be strongly affected by trade-offs between them. However, rare differences in thermal reaction norms across families indicate limited evolutionary potential in the responses of snails to changing temperatures during extreme weather events

Relative importance of chemical attractiveness to parasites for susceptibility to trematode infection

While the host immune system is often considered the most important physiological mechanism against parasites, precontact mechanisms determining exposure to parasites may also affect infection dynamics. For instance, chemical cues released by hosts can attract parasite transmission stages. We used the freshwater snail Lymnaea stagnalis and its trematode parasite Echinoparyphium aconiatum to examine the role of host chemical attractiveness, physiological condition, and immune function in determining its susceptibility to infection. We assessed host attractiveness through parasite chemo‐orientation behavior; physiological condition through host body size, food consumption, and respiration rate; and immune function through two immune parameters (phenoloxidase‐like and antibacterial activity of hemolymph) at an individual level. We found that, although snails showed high variation in chemical attractiveness to E. aconiatum cercariae, this did not determine their overall susceptibility to infection. This was because large body size increased attractiveness, but also increased metabolic activity that reduced overall susceptibility. High metabolic rate indicates fast physiological processes, including immune activity. The examined immune traits, however, showed no association with susceptibility to infection. Our results indicate that postcontact mechanisms were more likely to determine snail susceptibility to infection than variation in attractiveness to parasites. These may include localized immune responses in the target tissue of the parasite. The lack of a relationship between food consumption and attractiveness to parasites contradicts earlier findings that show food deprivation reducing snail attractiveness. This suggests that, although variation in resource level over space and time can alter infection dynamics, variation in chemical attractiveness may not contribute to parasite‐induced fitness variation within populations when individuals experience similar environmental conditions.ISSN:2045-775

Substrate specificity of phenoloxidase-like activity in an ecoimmunological model species Lymnaea stagnalis

Ecoimmunological research on molluscs and other invertebrates frequently quantifies phenoloxidase (PO) activity to estimate the strength of the immune function. PO enzymes form different families whose relative roles in oxidative reactions are typically unknown. Understanding this could allow enzyme-specific assays with higher accuracy than in commonly used nonspecific assays. We tested the contribution of different PO enzyme families to haemolymph PO-like activity in Lymnaea stagnalis snails using substrates specific to enzymes detected in L. stagnalis transcriptome data (p-phenylenediamine, specific to laccases; L-tyrosine, specific to tyrosinases) and compared the reactions to those with a nonspecific substrate (L-dopa). We found laccase-like but no tyrosinase-like activity. However, reactions with L-dopa were the strongest, possibly due to other oxidative enzymes in snail haemolymph. Laccase-like activity is common in molluscs, and we propose the use of enzyme-specific assays in future ecoimmunological studies of this taxon. The lack of tyrosinase-like activity in L. stagnalis contradicts earlier transcriptome data, which calls for investigating the expression of PO enzymes in L. stagnalis at the proteome level.ISSN:1464-3766ISSN:0260-123