UNDERSTANDING STUDENT ENGAGEMENT AND LEARNING OUTCOMES: THE ROLE OF LEARNING STYLES

Despite extensive research on the influence of student engagement in the classroom on student learning outcomes, few studies have examined student learning styles and their engagement in learning activities. In this research-in-progress paper, we propose a research model to examine whether student engagement during role-play exercises will lead to better learning and satisfaction, and the role learning style plays in influencing engagement. We conducted a survey study to evaluate our research model. Preliminary results show partial support for our research model. Our research will make contributions to the theoretical understanding of the relationships between engagement, learning styles and learning outcomes. Our study will also provide practical guidance for instructors to design instructional activities that accommodate for individual learning style differences

Co-activation of Taxonomic and Thematic Relations in Spoken Word Comprehension: Evidence From Eye Movements

Evidence from behavior, computational linguistics, and neuroscience studies supported that semantic knowledge is represented in (at least) two semantic systems (i.e., taxonomic and thematic systems). It remains unclear whether, and to what extent taxonomic and thematic relations are co-activated. The present study investigated the co-activation of the two types of semantic representations when both types of semantic relations are simultaneously presented. In a visual-world task, participants listened to a spoken target word and looked at a visual display consisted of a taxonomic competitor, a thematic competitor and two distractors. Growth curve analyses revealed that both taxonomic and thematic competitors attracted visual attention during the processing of the target word but taxonomic competitor received more looks than thematic competitor. Moreover, although fixations on taxonomic competitor rose faster than thematic competitor, these two types of competitors started to attract more fixations than distractor in a similar time window. These findings indicate that taxonomic and thematic relations are co-activated by the spoken word, the activation of taxonomic relation is stronger and rise faster than thematic relation

Modeling the role of p53 pulses in DNA damage- induced cell death decision

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The tumor suppressor p53 plays pivotal roles in tumorigenesis suppression. Although oscillations of p53 have been extensively studied, the mechanism of p53 pulses and their physiological roles in DNA damage response remain unclear.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To address these questions we presented an integrated model in which Ataxia-Telangiectasia Mutated (ATM) activation and p53 oscillation were incorporated with downstream apoptotic events, particularly the interplays between Bcl-2 family proteins. We first reproduced digital oscillation of p53 as the response of normal cells to DNA damage. Subsequent modeling in mutant cells showed that high basal DNA damage is a plausible cause for sustained p53 pulses observed in tumor cells. Further computational analyses indicated that p53-dependent PUMA accumulation and the PUMA-controlled Bax activation switch might play pivotal roles to count p53 pulses and thus decide the cell fate.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The high levels of basal DNA damage are responsible for generating sustained pulses of p53 in the tumor cells. Meanwhile, the Bax activation switch can count p53 pulses through PUMA accumulation and transfer it into death signal. Our modeling provides a plausible mechanism about how cells generate and orchestrate p53 pulses to tip the balance between survival and death.</p

Characterizing two-phase flow relative permeabilities in chemicalflooding using a pore-scale network model

A dynamic pore-scale network model is presented for investigating the effects of interfacial tension and oil-water viscosity on relative permeability during chemical flooding. This model takes into account both viscous and capillary forces in analyzing the impact of chemical properties on flow behavior or displacement configuration, as opposed to the conventional or invasion percolation algorithm which incorporates capillary pressure only. The study results indicate that both water and oil relative-permeability curves are dependent strongly on interfacial tension as well as an oil-water viscosity ratio. In particular, water and oil relative-permeability curves are both found to shift upward as interfacial tension is reduced, and they both tend to become linear versus saturation once interfacial tension is at low values. In addition, the oil-water viscosity ratio appears to have only a small effect under conditions of high interfacial tension. When the interfacial tension is low, however, water relative permeability decreases more rapidly (with the increase in the aqueous-phase viscosity) than oil relative permeability. The breakthrough saturation of the aqueous phase during chemical flooding tends to decrease with the reduction of interfacial tension and may also be affected by the oil-water viscosity ratio