Teaching Digital Multimedia as a Component of Business Education

The growth of the Internet and the explosion of digital communication technologies in the 1990s have given rise to the importance of digital multimedia in the American economy. We define multimedia as the transmission of content through a combination of text, graphics, pictures, sound, animation, video, and hyperlinks, resulting in communication that is multisensory and potentially interactive. Multimedia has had an impact on Internet marketing, the music and motion picture industries, the education industry, and healthcare. It is therefore relevant to marketing and information systems and would seem to have a place in business curricula. The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of teaching digital multimedia in a business discipline. A review of multimedia offerings in higher education indicates that the concepts, technical aspects, and creation of digital multimedia are taught variously in computer science, the creative arts, communication, or psychology but are largely absent from the domain of business disciplines. We report on our experiences teaching a three-credit, 15-week, junior/senior-level Digital Multimedia course under the Computer Information Systems heading. Topics associated with the course include conceptual understanding of digital multimedia, business and legal issues surrounding digital multimedia, and technical underpinnings and skills in the creation of multimedia. A key component of the course is a semester-long team project on a topic selected by each group of students. Challenges in teaching the course include cost of hardware, software, and facilities; containment of the scope of topics; differing expectations of students entering the course; and availability of support materials

The Effectiveness of the Porch Index of Communicative Ability as a Diagnostic Tool in Assessing Specific Behaviors of Senile Dementia

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The relative influence of intellectual disabilities and autism on sensory impairments and physical disability:A whole‐country cohort of 5.3 million children and adults

Background: Intellectual disabilities and autism are lifelong and often co‐occur. Little is known on their extent of independent association with sensory impairments and physical disability. Methods: For Scotland's population, logistic regressions investigated age–gender‐adjusted odds ratios (OR) of associations, independently, of intellectual disabilities and autism with sensory impairments and physical disability. Results: 1,548,819 children/youth, and 3,746,584 adults. In children/youth, the effect size of intellectual disabilities and autism, respectively, was as follows: blindness (OR = 30.12; OR = 2.63), deafness (OR = 13.98; OR = 2.31), and physical disability (OR = 43.72; OR = 5.62). For adults, the effect size of intellectual disabilities and autism, respectively, was as follows: blindness (OR = 16.89; OR = 3.29), deafness (OR = 7.47; OR = 2.36), and physical disability (OR = 6.04; OR = 3.16). Conclusions: Intellectual disabilities have greater association with the population burden of sensory impairments/physical disability, but autism is also associated regardless of overlap with intellectual disabilities. These may impact further on communication limitations due to autism and intellectual disabilities, increasing complexity of assessments/management of other health conditions. Clinicians need to be aware of these important issues

Education and employment outcomes of young adults with a history of developmental language disorder

Background: Developmental language disorder (DLD) presents a considerable barrier for young adults to engage in further education and training. Early studies with young adults with DLD revealed poor educational achievement and lack of opportunities to progress in education. More recent studies have provided more positive findings. Relatively sparse data exist, however, on current cohorts and the factors that predict outcomes. Aims: To examine educational and employment outcomes in young adulthood in a sample of people with histories of DLD, compared with an age-matched peer group without DLD. We ask: How do educational pathways and early jobs compare between those with and without DLD? Are young adults with DLD receiving similar levels of income as their peers? To what extent are language and literacy abilities associated with outcomes? Methods & Procedures: Participants included 84 individuals with DLD (67% males) and 88 age-matched peers without DLD (56% males). Participants were on average 24 years of age. They completed a battery of psycholinguistic, literacy and nonverbal skills assessments. Data were also collected on educational qualifications, current educational status, extent of educational support received, employment status, history and support, as well as current income. Outcomes & Results: Those with DLD obtained lower academic and vocational qualifications. Higher educational/vocational qualifications were associated with better language, better reading and higher PIQ. There were few differences between the two groups in terms of engagement with education but the mean age at leaving education was significantly earlier in the participants with DLD. Substantially more participants with DLD reported receiving support or dispensation from their educational institution. There was no significant difference between groups in the proportion of young people currently employed, though a higher proportion of the age-matched peers was in work full-time. Participants with DLD were much more likely to be in non-professional occupations. However, when examining pay in relation to types of occupation, the groups’ incomes were broadly comparable. Conclusions & Implications: At the group level, young people with a history of DLD more commonly have less skilled employment and more rarely achieve professional roles. At the individual level, there is considerable variation with smaller but not trivial proportions of young adults with a history of DLD showing good educational and employment outcomes. There are positive aspects to early adult outcomes for some young people with a history of DLD

A pragmatic harm reduction approach to manage a large outbreak of wound botulism in people who inject drugs, Scotland 2015

Abstract Background People who inject drugs (PWID) are at an increased risk of wound botulism, a potentially fatal acute paralytic illness. During the first 6 months of 2015, a large outbreak of wound botulism was confirmed among PWID in Scotland, which resulted in the largest outbreak in Europe to date. Methods A multidisciplinary Incident Management Team (IMT) was convened to conduct an outbreak investigation, which consisted of enhanced surveillance of cases in order to characterise risk factors and identify potential sources of infection. Results Between the 24th of December 2014 and the 30th of May 2015, a total of 40 cases were reported across six regions in Scotland. The majority of the cases were male, over 30 and residents in Glasgow. All epidemiological evidence suggested a contaminated batch of heroin or cutting agent as the source of the outbreak. There are significant challenges associated with managing an outbreak among PWID, given their vulnerability and complex addiction needs. Thus, a pragmatic harm reduction approach was adopted which focused on reducing the risk of infection for those who continued to inject and limited consequences for those who got infected. Conclusions The management of this outbreak highlighted the importance and need for pragmatic harm reduction interventions which support the addiction needs of PWID during an outbreak of spore-forming bacteria. Given the scale of this outbreak, the experimental learning gained during this and similar outbreaks involving spore-forming bacteria in the UK was collated into national guidance to improve the management and investigation of future outbreaks among PWID

A global surveillance system for crop diseases

To satisfy a growing demand for food, global agricultural production must increase by 70% by 2050. However, pests and crop diseases put global food supplies at risk. Worldwide, yield losses caused by pests and diseases are estimated to average 21.5% in wheat, 30.0% in rice, 22.6% in maize, 17.2% in potato, and 21.4% in soybean (1); these crops account for half of the global human calorie intake (2). Climate change and global trade drive the distribution, host range, and impact of plant diseases (3), many of which can spread or reemerge after having been under control (4). Though many national and regional plant protection organizations (NPPOs and RPPOs) work to monitor and contain crop disease outbreaks, many countries, particularly low-income countries (LICs), do not efficiently exchange information, delaying coordinated responses to prevent disease establishment and spread. To improve responses to unexpected crop disease spread, we propose a Global Surveillance System (GSS) that will extend and adapt established biosecurity practices and networking facilities into LICs, enabling countries and regions to quickly respond to emerging disease outbreaks to stabilize food supplies, enhancing global food protection

A saturated map of common genetic variants associated with human height

Common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are predicted to collectively explain 40-50% of phenotypic variation in human height, but identifying the specific variants and associated regions requires huge sample sizes(1). Here, using data from a genome-wide association study of 5.4 million individuals of diverse ancestries, we show that 12,111 independent SNPs that are significantly associated with height account for nearly all of the common SNP-based heritability. These SNPs are clustered within 7,209 non-overlapping genomic segments with a mean size of around 90 kb, covering about 21% of the genome. The density of independent associations varies across the genome and the regions of increased density are enriched for biologically relevant genes. In out-of-sample estimation and prediction, the 12,111 SNPs (or all SNPs in the HapMap 3 panel(2)) account for 40% (45%) of phenotypic variance in populations of European ancestry but only around 10-20% (14-24%) in populations of other ancestries. Effect sizes, associated regions and gene prioritization are similar across ancestries, indicating that reduced prediction accuracy is likely to be explained by linkage disequilibrium and differences in allele frequency within associated regions. Finally, we show that the relevant biological pathways are detectable with smaller sample sizes than are needed to implicate causal genes and variants. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive map of specific genomic regions that contain the vast majority of common height-associated variants. Although this map is saturated for populations of European ancestry, further research is needed to achieve equivalent saturation in other ancestries. A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.Peer reviewe

Transcriptional responses of Pseudomonas syringae to growth in epiphytic versus apoplastic leaf sites

Some strains of the foliar pathogen Pseudomonas syringae are adapted for growth and survival on leaf surfaces and in the leaf interior. Global transcriptome profiling was used to evaluate if these two habitats offer distinct environments for bacteria and thus present distinct driving forces for adaptation. The transcript profiles of Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae B728a support a model in which leaf surface, or epiphytic, sites specifically favor flagellar motility, swarming motility based on 3-(3-hydroxyalkanoyloxy)alkanoic acid surfactant production, chemosensing, and chemotaxis, indicating active relocation primarily on the leaf surface. Epiphytic sites also promote high transcript levels for phenylalanine degradation, which may help counteract phenylpropanoid-based defenses before leaf entry. In contrast, intercellular, or apoplastic, sites favor the high-level expression of genes for GABA metabolism (degradation of these genes would attenuate GABA repression of virulence) and the synthesis of phytotoxins, two additional secondary metabolites, and syringolin A. These findings support roles for these compounds in virulence, including a role for syringolin A in suppressing defense responses beyond stomatal closure. A comparison of the transcriptomes from in planta cells and from cells exposed to osmotic stress, oxidative stress, and iron and nitrogen limitation indicated that water availability, in particular, was limited in both leaf habitats but was more severely limited in the apoplast than on the leaf surface under the conditions tested. These findings contribute to a coherent model of the adaptations of this widespread bacterial phytopathogen to distinct habitats within its host

A stochastic model of Escherichia coli AI-2 quorum signal circuit reveals alternative synthesis pathways

Quorum sensing (QS) is an important determinant of bacterial phenotype. Many cell functions are regulated by intricate and multimodal QS signal transduction processes. The LuxS/AI-2 QS system is highly conserved among Eubacteria and AI-2 is reported as a ‘universal' signal molecule. To understand the hierarchical organization of AI-2 circuitry, a comprehensive approach incorporating stochastic simulations was developed. We investigated the synthesis, uptake, and regulation of AI-2, developed testable hypotheses, and made several discoveries: (1) the mRNA transcript and protein levels of AI-2 synthases, Pfs and LuxS, do not contribute to the dramatically increased level of AI-2 found when cells are grown in the presence of glucose; (2) a concomitant increase in metabolic flux through this synthesis pathway in the presence of glucose only partially accounts for this difference. We predict that ‘high-flux' alternative pathways or additional biological steps are involved in AI-2 synthesis; and (3) experimental results validate this hypothesis. This work demonstrates the utility of linking cell physiology with systems-based stochastic models that can be assembled de novo with partial knowledge of biochemical pathways