Actitudes de emprendimiento y los "Cinco Grandes": una comparación intercultural entre España y Estados Unidos

Culture may interact with personality to facilitate or inhibit entrepreneurial behaviors. 296 undergraduates in the United States and 257 in Spain completed the Big Five Personality Inventory and the Entrepreneurial Attitudes Scale for Students (Mean age = 20.16 years; SD = 3.39). We hypothesized that across cultures, conscientiousness and openness would predict greater risk taking whereas neuroticism and agreeableness would be a negative correlate. Personality variables explained a larger proportion of the variance in entrepreneurial attitudes in the U.S. data. The associations between the personality dimensions and entrepreneurship varied considerably by country and gender. Significant positive correlations were found between conscientiousness and risk taking only for Spanish men. Neuroticism was significantly and negatively correlated with risk taking only for American participants.La cultura puede interactuar con la personalidad para facilitar o inhibir las conductas emprendedoras.  296 estudiantes universitarios en Estados Unidos y 257 en España completaron el inventario de los Cinco Grandes de Personalidad y la escala de Actitudes Emprendedoras para Estudiantes (Media de edad = 20.16 años; DT = 3.39). Se hipotetiza que, a través de culturas, conciencia y apertura serán predictores de mayor toma de riesgos, mientras neuroticismo y amigabilidad lo harán en negativo. Las variables de personalidad explican una mayor proporción de varianza en actitudes emprendedoras en los datos estadounidenses. Las asociaciones entre las dimensiones de personalidad y emprendimiento varían considerablemente por país y género. Se encontraron correlaciones positivas significativas entre conciencia y toma de riesgos solo en hombres españoles. El neuroticismo correlaciona negativa y significativamente con la toma de riesgos, solo en el caso de los participantes americanos

Successful transition to elementary school and the implementation of facilitative practices specified in the Reggio-Emilia philosophy

Systematic, mandated facilitation of school transitions is an important but understudied aspect of the Reggio-Emilia approach to early childhood education admired internationally as best practice. We studied the links between Northern Italian transition practices and academic achievement, school liking, cooperativeness, and problem behaviors. We followed 288 students across a transition from preschool to elementary school. Schools varied in their implementation of transition practices. High implementation of Reggio-type transition practices was related to significantly more school liking and significantly fewer problem behaviors after the transition. At follow-up at the end of the post-transition year, high-implementation schools were still characterized by lower levels of problem behavior. These data indicate that the facilitation of school transitions in the Reggio-Emilia tradition is associated with successful post-transition adjustment

Demographic Indicators Influencing Learning Activities in MOOCs: Learning Analytics of FutureLearn Courses

Big data and analytics for educational information systems, despite having gained researchers’ attention, are still in their infancy and will take years to mature. Massive open online courses (MOOCs), which record learner-computer interactions, bring unprecedented opportunities to analyse learner activities at a very fine granularity, using very large datasets. To date, studies have focused mainly on dropout and completion rates. This study explores learning activities in MOOCs against their demographic indicators. In particular, pre-course survey data and online learner interaction data collected from two MOOCs, delivered by the University of Warwick, in 2015, 2016, and 2017, are used, to explore how learnerdemographic indicatorsmay influence learner activities. Recommendations for educational information system development and instructional design, especially when a course attracts a diverse group of learners, are provided

How is Learning Fluctuating? FutureLearn MOOCs Fine-Grained Temporal Analysis and Feedback to Teachers

Data-intensive analysis of massive open online courses (MOOCs) is popular. Researchers have been proposing various parameters conducive to analysis and prediction of student behaviour and outcomes in MOOCs, as well as different methods to analyse and use these parameters, ranging from statistics, to NLP, to ML, and even graph analysis. In this paper, we focus on patterns to be extracted, and apply systematic data analysis methods in one of the few genuinely large-scale data collection of 5 MOOCs, spread over 21 runs, on FutureLearn, a UK-based MOOCs provider, that, whilst offering a broad range of courses from many universities, NGOs and other institutions, has been less evaluated, in comparison to, e.g., its American counterparts. We analyse temporal quiz solving patterns; specifically, the less explored issue on how the first number of weeks of data predicts activities in the last weeks; we also address the classical MOOC question on the completion chance. Finally, we discuss the type of feedback a teacher or designer could receive on their MOOCs, in terms of fine-grained analysis of their material, and what personalisation could be provided to a student

Earliest Predictor of Dropout in MOOCs: A Longitudinal Study of FutureLearn courses

Whilst a high dropout rate is a well-known problem in MOOCs, few studies take a data-driven approach to understand the reasons of such a phenomenon, and to thus be in the position to recommend and design possible adaptive solutions to alleviate it. In this study, we are particularly interested in finding a novel early detection mechanism of potential dropout, and thus be able to intervene at an as early time as possible. Additionally, unlike previous studies, we explore a light-weight approach, based on as little data as possible – since different MOOCs store different data on their users – and thus strive to create a truly generalisable method. Therefore, we focus here specifically on the generally available registration date and its relation to the course start date, via a comprehensive, larger than average, longitudinal study of several runs of all MOOC courses at the University of Warwick between 2014-1017, on the less explored European FutureLearn platform. We identify specific periods where different interventions are necessary, and propose, based on statistically significant results, specific pseudo-rules for adaptive feedback

Vortex stability of interacting Bose-Einstein condensates confined in anisotropic harmonic traps

Vortex states of weakly-interacting Bose-Einstein condensates confined in three-dimensional rotating harmonic traps are investigated numerically at zero temperature. The ground state in the rotating frame is obtained by propagating the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the condensate in imaginary time. The total energies between states with and without a vortex are compared, yielding critical rotation frequencies that depend on the anisotropy of the trap and the number of atoms. Vortices displaced from the center of nonrotating traps are found to have long lifetimes for sufficiently large numbers of atoms. The relationship between vortex stability and bound core states is explored.Comment: 5 pages, 2 embedded figures, revtex. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Nucleation of vortex arrays in rotating anisotropic Bose-Einstein condensates

The nucleation of vortices and the resulting structures of vortex arrays in dilute, trapped, zero-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates are investigated numerically. Vortices are generated by rotating a three-dimensional, anisotropic harmonic atom trap. The condensate ground state is obtained by propagating the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in imaginary time. Vortices first appear at a rotation frequency significantly larger than the critical frequency for vortex stabilization. This is consistent with a critical velocity mechanism for vortex nucleation. At higher frequencies, the structures of the vortex arrays are strongly influenced by trap geometry.Comment: 5 pages, two embedded figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. A (RC

A systematic review of potential long-term effects of sport-related concussion

Systematic review of possible long-term effects of sports-related concussion in retired athletes

Combinations of β-lactam or aminoglycoside antibiotics with plectasin are synergistic against methicillin-sensitive and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Bacterial infections remain the leading killer worldwide which is worsened by the continuous emergence of antibiotic resistance. In particular, methicillin-sensitive (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are prevalent and the latter can be difficult to treat. The traditional strategy of novel therapeutic drug development inevitably leads to emergence of resistant strains, rendering the new drugs ineffective. Therefore, rejuvenating the therapeutic potentials of existing antibiotics offers an attractive novel strategy. Plectasin, a defensin antimicrobial peptide, potentiates the activities of other antibiotics such as β-lactams, aminoglycosides and glycopeptides against MSSA and MRSA. We performed in vitro and in vivo investigations to test against genetically diverse clinical isolates of MSSA (n = 101) and MRSA (n = 115). Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were determined by the broth microdilution method. The effects of combining plectasin with β-lactams, aminoglycosides and glycopeptides were examined using the chequerboard method and time kill curves. A murine neutropenic thigh model and a murine peritoneal infection model were used to test the effect of combination in vivo. Determined by factional inhibitory concentration index (FICI), plectasin in combination with aminoglycosides (gentamicin, neomycin or amikacin) displayed synergistic effects in 76-78% of MSSA and MRSA. A similar synergistic response was observed when plectasin was combined with β-lactams (penicillin, amoxicillin or flucloxacillin) in 87-89% of MSSA and MRSA. Interestingly, no such interaction was observed when plectasin was paired with vancomycin. Time kill analysis also demonstrated significant synergistic activities when plectasin was combined with amoxicillin, gentamicin or neomycin. In the murine models, plectasin at doses as low as 8 mg/kg augmented the activities of amoxicillin and gentamicin in successful treatment of MSSA and MRSA infections. We demonstrated that plectasin strongly rejuvenates the therapeutic potencies of existing antibiotics in vitro and in vivo. This is a novel strategy that can have major clinical implications in our fight against bacterial infections