Learning in multicultural virtual teams: university's role in training globally competent graduates

Economic globalization and intensive information exchange has shifted former ideas of borders between countries and continents, having involved people in more extensive international interaction as well as oriented them towards increased personal and business relationships with representatives of other cultures. In this respect current and future students are more likely to become employed abroad or by companies that operate in the global environment. The internalization of the labor market is largely contributed to by expanding development of information and communication technology: virtual work is becoming as common as face-to-face work. Within the given context university graduates are challenged to 44 demonstrate socalled global competences which address one’s ability to work successfully with people from other cultures. This competence is considered an increasingly important skill set for upcoming graduates. This paper briefly discusses the meaning and dimensions of the concept and research into pedagogical approaches to developing students’ global competence via university’s virtual learning environment. The paper also highlights multicultural virtual teamwork as a necessary condition for developing such a competence

Ice imaging in aircraft anti-icing fluid films using polarized light

Article presents how to enhance ice contrast in the visible spectrum by using ice birefringence and polarized light reflection. The method can be used for both visual inspection and automatic ice detection systems

Phenological shifts of abiotic events, producers and consumers across a continent

Ongoing climate change can shift organism phenology in ways that vary depending on species, habitats and climate factors studied. To probe for large-scale patterns in associated phenological change, we use 70,709 observations from six decades of systematic monitoring across the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Among 110 phenological events related to plants, birds, insects, amphibians and fungi, we find a mosaic of change, defying simple predictions of earlier springs, later autumns and stronger changes at higher latitudes and elevations. Site mean temperature emerged as a strong predictor of local phenology, but the magnitude and direction of change varied with trophic level and the relative timing of an event. Beyond temperature-associated variation, we uncover high variation among both sites and years, with some sites being characterized by disproportionately long seasons and others by short ones. Our findings emphasize concerns regarding ecosystem integrity and highlight the difficulty of predicting climate change outcomes. The authors use systematic monitoring across the former USSR to investigate phenological changes across taxa. The long-term mean temperature of a site emerged as a strong predictor of phenological change, with further imprints of trophic level, event timing, site, year and biotic interactions.Peer reviewe

Pilot study of the influence of a communicator’s speech characteristics on a recipient’s willingness to maintain interaction in cross-cultural online communication

The success of cross-cultural online communication in an academic environment is defined by the degree of student involvement in such an interaction. The authors’ experience testifies that a number of objective, language, and psychological factors may decrease the activeness of these interactions, and as a result learning may not be effective for students in these types of cross-cultural interactions. Among such factors the current article investigates the influence of a communicator’s speech peculiarities on a recipient’s willingness to maintain interaction in native-to-nonnative, written online communication in the English language. The study was aimed at verifying a hypothesis about the influence of Russian communicants’ speech characteristics on American communicants’ willingness to maintain conversations. The research method chosen was content analysis. Thematic chats involving Russian and American students participating in the Global Understanding course were analyzed. The results of the content analysis allowed us to distinguish certain Russian communicants’ written speech characteristics, such as the prevalence of language and grammar mistakes, the degree of vocabulary richness, and the use of complex sentences. Significant correlations were discovered between the American communicants’ willingness to maintain conversations and the number of mistakes, indicators of lexical richness and scarcity in Russian communicants’ utterances. Language and speech mistakes as well as the quantity of words in the utterances of micro themes had the highest number of significant correlations with indicators of the willingness to maintain conversations. The first factor, language and speech mistakes, decreased the willingness to maintain conversations, whereas the second factor, the number of words in Russian students’ utterances, increased such willingness

Learning in multicultural virtual teams: university's role in training globally competent graduates

Economic globalization and intensive information exchange has shifted former ideas of borders between countries and continents, having involved people in more extensive international interaction as well as oriented them towards increased personal and business relationships with representatives of other cultures. In this respect current and future students are more likely to become employed abroad or by companies that operate in the global environment. The internalization of the labor market is largely contributed to by expanding development of information and communication technology: virtual work is becoming as common as face-to-face work. Within the given context university graduates are challenged to 44 demonstrate socalled global competences which address one’s ability to work successfully with people from other cultures. This competence is considered an increasingly important skill set for upcoming graduates. This paper briefly discusses the meaning and dimensions of the concept and research into pedagogical approaches to developing students’ global competence via university’s virtual learning environment. The paper also highlights multicultural virtual teamwork as a necessary condition for developing such a competence

Differences in spatial versus temporal reaction norms for spring and autumn phenological events

For species to stay temporally tuned to their environment, they use cues such as the accumulation of degree-days. The relationships between the timing of a phenological event in a population and its environmental cue can be described by a population-level reaction norm. Variation in reaction norms along environmental gradients may either intensify the environmental effects on timing (cogradient variation) or attenuate the effects (countergradient variation). To resolve spatial and seasonal variation in species' response, we use a unique dataset of 91 taxa and 178 phenological events observed across a network of 472 monitoring sites, spread across the nations of the former Soviet Union. We show that compared to local rates of advancement of phenological events with the advancement of temperature-related cues (i.e., variation within site over years), spatial variation in reaction norms tend to accentuate responses in spring (cogradient variation) and attenuate them in autumn (countergradient variation). As a result, among-population variation in the timing of events is greater in spring and less in autumn than if all populations followed the same reaction norm regardless of location. Despite such signs of local adaptation, overall phenotypic plasticity was not sufficient for phenological events to keep exact pace with their cues-the earlier the year, the more did the timing of the phenological event lag behind the timing of the cue. Overall, these patterns suggest that differences in the spatial versus temporal reaction norms will affect species' response to climate change in opposite ways in spring and autumn

Мышечная дистрофия Дюшенна: современные подходы к ведению и лечению пациентов

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is one of the most common forms of childhood muscular dystrophies. Its incidence is 1 in 3.5–6 thousand newborn boys according to various sources. The disease is caused by the mutation in the DMD gene coding the dystrophin protein, it leads to the dystrophin absence or malfunction. The disease is characterized by proximal muscle weakness and gastrocnemius muscles pseudohypertrophy. In average, patients lose the ability to walk by themselves by the age of 11 and become nonambulatory. The authors have present modern epidemiological data and etiopathogenesis features of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and have described clinical signs of different disease stages. The algorithm and key points of differential diagnosis are indicated. Special attention was given to the patients’ management: pathogenetic treatment and rehabilitation of pediatric patients.Мышечная дистрофия Дюшенна — одна из наиболее частых форм мышечных дистрофий детского возраста. По разным источникам, заболеваемость миодистрофией Дюшенна оценивается как 1 на 3,5–6 тыс. новорожденных мальчиков. В основе заболевания лежит мутация гена DMD, кодирующего белок дистрофин, приводящая к отсутствию или недостаточной функции дистрофина. Заболевание характеризуется слабостью проксимальных и псевдогипертрофией икроножных мышц, и в среднем к 11 годам пациенты теряют возможность самостоятельно передвигаться и становятся неамбулаторными больными. Авторами представлены современные эпидемиологические данные и особенности этиопатогенеза мышечной дистрофии Дюшенна, описаны клинические характеристики разных стадий болезни. Подробно представлен алгоритм и указаны ключевые этапы дифференциально-диагностического поиска. Особое внимание уделено вопросам лечения пациентов, в том числе патогенетическому лечению, реабилитации пациентов детского возраста

Alirocumab and cardiovascular outcomes after acute coronary syndrome

BACKGROUN

Alirocumab and Cardiovascular Outcomes after Acute Coronary Syndrome

BACKGROUN