The Relationship of Perceptual Learning Modality Preference and the Use of an On-Line Learning Environment to Achieve Non-Technology Related Course Objectives

The purpose of this thesis study was to explore the possibility of a relationship between perceptual learning modality preference and efficacy in the use of an on-line learning environment to achieve non-technology related course objectives. Subjects were 30 adult students enrolled in the CaseNET course administered by the University of Virgina. Two research questions were explored: 1.) Is there a difference in feelings of student efficacy, in a course which uses Internet technology to achieve non-technology related course objectives, for auditory, visual, and tactile learners? 2.) Is there a difference in the use of student adaptation techniques for tactile, visual, and auditory learners in their use of Internet course materials to achieve course objectives? The students\u27 learning modality preferences were determined using a 25 item sensory modality preference inventory completed by the student on-line, which simultaneously returned their preference on the screen and recorded it in a data base. Levels of efficacy and adaptation were measured according to the students\u27 answers on an exit survey, also taken on-line, which were submitted by the student to the data base. Findings imply that no perceptual modality preference group had a particularly low sense of efficacy in the use of an on-line environment to achieve non-technology related course objectives. For those questions on the exit survey indicating high efficacy, with a range of 13-56 and a mean of 42.66, auditory learners averaged a score averaged a score of 49.60, visual learners scored an average of 41.00, and tactile learners scored an average of 41.58. A high score indicates high efficacy. Adaptation scores were calculated based on the students\u27 response to exit survey questions inquiring as to their attempts to manipulate the on-line environment. Auditory learners had an average adaptation score of 1.48, visual learners had an average adaptation score 1.66, and tactile learners had an average adaptation score of 1.63, with a range of 1-2 and a mean of 1.62. A high score indicates low adaptation. Tables reporting significant findings are included. It is contended that perceptual modality preference is a necessary criteria for the evaluation of on-line environments as an instructional tool. The author provides recommendations for further study

Gastrophilanthropy: Utopian Aspiration and Aspirational Consumption as Political Retreat

In this paper we inquire into the practice of gastrophilanthropy—the individualized consumption of food products under the aegis of philanthropic action. In particular, we examine the case of the philanthropic cupcake. By positioning gastrophilanthropy within the complex of consumption and social relations of power we attempt to shed light on why it has become so well accepted in society today and how the impulse to consume and the impulse to be philanthropic relate to each other and to the contemporary political moment. We question the transformative impact of gastrophilanthropy on those who practice it and on those for whom it is supposedly practiced

Exact procedures for solving the discrete ordered median problem

The Discrete Ordered Median Problem (DOMP) generalizes classical discrete location problems, such as the N-median, N-center and Uncapacitated Facility Location problems. It was introduced by Nickel [S. Nickel. Discrete Ordered Weber problems. In B. Fleischmann, R. Lasch, U. Derigs, W. Domschke, and U. Rieder, editors, Operations Research Proceedings 2000, pages 71–76. Springer, 2001], who formulated it as both a nonlinear and a linear integer program. We propose an alternative integer linear programming formulation for the DOMP, discuss relationships between both integer linear programming formulations, and show how properties of optimal solutions can be used to strengthen these formulations. Moreover, we present a specific branch and bound procedure to solve the DOMP more efficiently. We test the integer linear programming formulations and this branch and bound method computationally on randomly generated test problems.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologí

UTILIZAÇÃO DOS INSTRUMENTOS IFBR E WHODAS 2.0 NO CONTEXTO BRASILEIRO: UMA REVISÃO INTEGRATIVA DA LITERATURA

Introdução: o Índice de Funcionalidade Brasileiro e o World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 são instrumentos padronizados criados para avaliar as deficiências em diversos grupos populacionais. Objetivo: analisar a utilização do Índice de Funcionalidade Brasileiro e World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0  no Brasil. Métodos: foi realizada uma revisão integrativa da literatura. As fontes de informação utilizadas foram a Web of Science, SciELO Citation Index, SciELO.Org, PubMed, Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde e a Embase. Resultados: foram identificados 21 artigos que atenderam os critérios de seleção: estudos que analisam o perfil da funcionalidade em determinadas condições de saúde, sobre propriedades psicométricas, medida de desfecho e opinião de especialistas. O único estudo sobre o Índice de Funcionalidade Brasileiro foi uma análise de especialistas sobre as dificuldades e potencialidades do seu uso. Conclusão: a revisão expõe a necessidade em compreender melhor as propriedades do Índice de Funcionalidade Brasileiro para balizar a concessão de benefícios a pessoas com deficiência e que o World Health Organization Assessment Schedule (2.0) se mostra um instrumento prático e genérico que contribui para o entendimento da funcionalidade das pessoas em uma visão biopsicossocial

Tourist Photographers and the Promotion of Travel: the Polytechnic Touring Association, 1888–1939

The Polytechnic Touring Association (PTA) was a London-based, originally philanthropic turned commercial travel firm whose historical origins coincided with the arrival of the Kodak camera in 1888 – thus, of popular (tourist) photography. This article examines the PTA’s changing relationship with tourist photographers, and how this influenced the company’s understanding of what role photography could play in promoting the tours, in the late nineteenth and early twenty century. This inquiry is advanced on the basis of the observation that, during this time, the PTA’s passage from viewing tourists as citizens to educate, to customers to please, paralleled the move from using photography-based images to mixed media. Such a development was certainly a response to unprecedented market demands; this article argues that it should also be considered in relation to the widening of photographic perceptions engendered by the democratization of the medium, to which the PTA responded, first as educator, then as service provider. In doing so, the article raises several questions about the shifting relationship between “high”, or established, and “low”, or emerging, forms of culture, as mass photography and the mass marketing of tourism developed

Prognostic impact of vitamin B6 metabolism in lung cancer

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are routinely treated with cytotoxic agents such as cisplatin. Through a genome-wide siRNA-based screen, we identified vitamin B6 metabolism as a central regulator of cisplatin responses in vitro and in vivo. By aggravating a bioenergetic catastrophe that involves the depletion of intracellular glutathione, vitamin B6 exacerbates cisplatin-mediated DNA damage, thus sensitizing a large panel of cancer cell lines to apoptosis. Moreover, vitamin B6 sensitizes cancer cells to apoptosis induction by distinct types of physical and chemical stress, including multiple chemotherapeutics. This effect requires pyridoxal kinase (PDXK), the enzyme that generates the bioactive form of vitamin B6. In line with a general role of vitamin B6 in stress responses, low PDXK expression levels were found to be associated with poor disease outcome in two independent cohorts of patients with NSCLC. These results indicate that PDXK expression levels constitute a biomarker for risk stratification among patients with NSCLC.publishedVersio

The CXCL12γ Chemokine Displays Unprecedented Structural and Functional Properties that Make It a Paradigm of Chemoattractant Proteins

The CXCL12γ chemokine arises by alternative splicing from Cxcl12, an essential gene during development. This protein binds CXCR4 and displays an exceptional degree of conservation (99%) in mammals. CXCL12γ is formed by a protein core shared by all CXCL12 isoforms, extended by a highly cationic carboxy-terminal (C-ter) domain that encompass four overlapped BBXB heparan sulfate (HS)-binding motifs. We hypothesize that this unusual domain could critically determine the biological properties of CXCL12γ through its interaction to, and regulation by extracellular glycosaminoglycans (GAG) and HS in particular. By both RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry, we mapped the localization of CXCL12γ both in mouse and human tissues, where it showed discrete differential expression. As an unprecedented feature among chemokines, the secreted CXCL12γ strongly interacted with cell membrane GAG, thus remaining mostly adsorbed on the plasmatic membrane upon secretion. Affinity chromatography and surface plasmon resonance allowed us to determine for CXCL12γ one of the higher affinity for HS (Kd = 0.9 nM) ever reported for a protein. This property relies in the presence of four canonical HS-binding sites located at the C-ter domain but requires the collaboration of a HS-binding site located in the core of the protein. Interestingly, and despite reduced agonist potency on CXCR4, the sustained binding of CXCL12γ to HS enabled it to promote in vivo intraperitoneal leukocyte accumulation and angiogenesis in matrigel plugs with much higher efficiency than CXCL12α. In good agreement, mutant CXCL12γ chemokines selectively devoid of HS-binding capacity failed to promote in vivo significant cell recruitment. We conclude that CXCL12γ features unique structural and functional properties among chemokines which rely on the presence of a distinctive C-ter domain. The unsurpassed capacity to bind to HS on the extracellular matrix would make CXCL12γ the paradigm of haptotactic proteins, which regulate essential homeostatic functions by promoting directional migration and selective tissue homing of cells

Search for new particles in events with energetic jets and large missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A search is presented for new particles produced at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV, using events with energetic jets and large missing transverse momentum. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 101 fb(-1), collected in 2017-2018 with the CMS detector. Machine learning techniques are used to define separate categories for events with narrow jets from initial-state radiation and events with large-radius jets consistent with a hadronic decay of a W or Z boson. A statistical combination is made with an earlier search based on a data sample of 36 fb(-1), collected in 2016. No significant excess of events is observed with respect to the standard model background expectation determined from control samples in data. The results are interpreted in terms of limits on the branching fraction of an invisible decay of the Higgs boson, as well as constraints on simplified models of dark matter, on first-generation scalar leptoquarks decaying to quarks and neutrinos, and on models with large extra dimensions. Several of the new limits, specifically for spin-1 dark matter mediators, pseudoscalar mediators, colored mediators, and leptoquarks, are the most restrictive to date.Peer reviewe