The DISCOVER Model: A Prescriptive Method for Instructional Tool Selection and Use in Seeking to Boost Instructor Immediacy and Social Presence in Online Courses

Higher education faculty who teach online can face numerous challenges in providing optimal experiences for their students. Besides their potentially limited instructional design expertise and understanding of how to optimize technology to support learning, faculty may have difficulties in finding ways to make themselves be perceived as real people who are approachable, caring, and likeable due to online nature of the learning context. As a preliminary means to address these issues, the current study focused on the development of the DISCOVER Model, which was designed to provide higher education faculty with a framework to develop actionable plans in the creation of audio and video media assets while focusing on best practices to boost student perceptions of instructor immediacy and instructor social presence. This model, developed as an enhancement to the ADDIE model of instructional design, provides a sequence of eight steps across design and development, and implementation and evaluation phases, that guide instructors through making informed choices in creating media assets and revising them. This mixed-method study took place at a university in the Appalachian region of the United States and focused on two undergraduate courses and two graduate courses taught by three instructors. The instructors used The DISCOVER Model to create media assets for their courses and 136 students opted into completing an online survey about their experiences that sought to measure their perceptions of instructor immediacy and social presence. Instructors participated in regular meetings and a summative interview with the researcher and six students were interviewed. Instructors were also assigned model adherence scores by the researcher based on how closely they were perceived to follow the model in creating their media assets. The results indicated that instructors who showed high model adherence had students who indicated moderately high perceptions of instructor social presence and immediacy. Further, graduate students indicated higher perceptions of social presence perceptions than undergraduate students. Findings and implications were discussed

Distinct metabolic programs induced by TGF-β1 and BMP2 in human articular chondrocytes with osteoarthritis

Objectives: Cellular energy metabolism is important for the function of all tissues, including cartilage. Recent studies indicate that superficial and deep subpopulations of articular chondrocytes (ACs) have distinct metabolic profiles. At the cellular and molecular level, osteoarthritis (OA) is characterised by alteration from a healthy homoeostatic state towards a catabolic state. Several molecular pathways, including transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) and bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signalling, have been identified as critical players in the pathogenesis and progression of OA. However, the manner in which these factors influence cellular energy metabolism in ACs is not well understood. This study investigates the effect of TGF-β or BMP signalling on energy metabolism in human articular chondrocytes (hACs). Methods: ACs were isolated from residual macroscopically full thickness and intact cartilage from the femoral condyle of human samples obtained from patients with OA. ACs were treated with Vehicle (control), TGF-β1 or BMP2 for 48–72 hours. Metabolic assays were performed to determine glucose consumption, lactate production and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, whereas the mitochondrial stress test was performed to determine oxygen consumption rate. Protein was isolated to assess translational activity and was evaluated using Western blot. Results: We showed that TGF-β1, known to maintain chondrocyte homoeostasis, stimulated glycolysis by upregulating key glycolytic factors, such as glucose transporter 1 (Glut1) and hexokinase II, while reducing oxidative phosphorylation in hACs. In contrast, BMP2 enhanced mitochondrial metabolism and oxidative phosphorylation and had a minimal effect on key glycolytic regulators. Conclusions: Our data revealed distinct metabolic programs induced by TGF-β1 and BMP2 in hACs, suggesting that the regulation of cellular metabolism may represent a new mechanism underlying the pathogenesis of OA. The translational potential of this article: The findings define the regulation of energy metabolism as a potential novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of OA

Effect of Ultrasound Radiation Force on the Choroid

Purpose: While visualization of the retina and choroid has made great progress, functional imaging techniques have been lacking. Our aim was to utilize acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) response to probe functional properties of these tissues. Methods: A single element 18-MHz ultrasound transducer was focused upon the retina of the rabbit eye. The procedure was performed with the eye proptosed and with the eye seated normally in the orbit. The transducer was excited to emit ARFI over a 10-ms period with a 25% duty cycle. Phase resolved pulse/echo data were acquired before, during, and following ARFI. Results: In the proptosed eye, ARFI exposure produced tissue displacements ranging from 0 to 10 lm, and an immediate increase in choroidal echo amplitude to over 6 dB, decaying to baseline after about 1 second. In the normally seated eye, ultrasound phase shifts consistent with flow were observed in the choroid, but enhanced backscatter following ARFI rarely occurred. ARFI-induced displacements of about 10um were observed at the choroidal margins. Larger displacements occurred within the choroid and in orbital tissues. Conclusions: We hypothesize that elevated intraocular pressure occurring during proptosis induced choroidal ischemia and that acoustic radiation force produced a transient local decompression and reperfusion. With the eye normally seated, choroidal flow was observed and little alteration in backscatter resulted from exposure. Clinical application of this technique may provide new insights into diseases characterized by altered choroidal hemodynamics, including maculopathies, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma

Final-state interactions in the response of nuclear matter

Final-state interactions in the response of a many-body system to an external probe delivering large momentum are normally described using the eikonal approximation, for the trajectory of the struck particle, and the frozen approximation, for the positions of the spectators. We propose a generalization of this scheme, in which the initial momentum of the struck particle is explicitly taken into account. Numerical calculations of the nuclear matter response at 1 $< |{\bf q}| <$ 2 GeV/c show that the inclusion of this momentum dependence leads to a sizable effect in the low energy tail. Possible implications for the analysis of existing electron-nucleus scattering data are discussed.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figure

Interpretation of y-scaling of the nuclear response

The behavior of the nuclear matter response in the region of large momentum transfer, in which plane wave impulse approximation predicts the onset of y-scaling, is discussed. The theoretical analysis shows that scaling violations produced by final state interactions are driven by the momentum dependence of the nucleon-nucleon scattering cross section. Their study may provide valuable information on possible modifications of nucleon-nucleon scattering in the nuclear medium.Comment: 4 pages with 3 figures. To appear in Physical Review Letter

Compositeness effects, Pauli's principle and entanglement

We analyse some compositeness effects and their relation with entanglement. We show that the purity of a composite system increases, in the sense of the expectation values of the deviation operators, with large values of the entanglement between the components of the system. We also study the validity of Pauli's principle in composite systems. It is valid within the limits of application of the approach presented here. We also present an example of two identical fermions, one of them entangled with a distinguishable particle, where the exclusion principle cannot be applied. This result can be important in the description of open systems

Human Behavior Models for Agents in Simulators and Games: Part I: Enabling Science with PMFserv

This article focuses on challenges to improving the realism of socially intelligent agents and attempts to reflect the state of the art in human behavior modeling with particular attention to the impact of personality/cultural values and affect as well as biology/stress upon individual coping and group decision-making. The first section offers an assessment of the state of the practice and of the need to integrate valid human performance moderator functions (PMFs) from traditionally separated sub-fields of the behavioral literature. The second section pursues this goal by postulating a unifying architecture and principles for integrating existing PMF theories and models. It also illustrates a PMF testbed called PMFserv created for implementating and studying how PMFs may contribute to such an architecture. To date it interconnects versions of PMFs on physiology and stress (Janis-Mann, Gillis-Hursh, others); personality, cultural and emotive processes (Damasio, Cognitive Appraisal-OCC, value systems); perception (Gibsonian affordance); social processes (relations, identity, trust, nested intentionality); and cognition (affect- and stress-augmented decision theory, bounded rationality). The third section summarizes several usage case studies (asymmetric warfare, civil unrest, and political leaders) and concludes with lessons learned. Implementing and inter-operating this broad collection of PMFs helps to open the agenda for research on syntheses that can help the field reach a greater level of maturity. Part II presents a case study in using PMFserv for rapid scenario composability and realistic agent behavior

Diagnosis and Decision-Making in Telemedicine

This article provides an analysis of the skills that health professionals and patients employ in reaching diagnosis and decision-making in telemedicine consultations. As governmental priorities continue to emphasize patient involvement in the management of their disease, there is an increasing need to accurately capture the provider–patient interactions in clinical encounters. Drawing on conversation analysis of 10 video-mediated consultations in 3 National Health Service settings in England, this study examines the interaction between patients, General Practitioner (GPs), nurses, and consultants during diagnosis and decision-making, with the aim to identify the range of skills that participants use in the process and capture the interprofessional communication and patient involvement in the diagnosis and decision-making phases of telemedicine consultations. The analysis shows that teleconsultations enhance collaborative working among professionals and enable GPs and nurses to develop their skills and actively participate in diagnosis and decision-making by contributing primary care–specific knowledge to the consultation. However, interprofessional interaction may result in limited patient involvement in decisionmaking. The findings of this study can be used to inform training programs in telemedicine that focus on the development of effective skills for professionals and the provision of information to patients

A Demonstration of the PMF-Extraction Approach: Modeling The Effects of Sound on Crowd Behavior

The vast majority of psychology, sociology, and other social-science literature describing human behavior and performance does not reach the eyes of those of us working in the modeling and simulation community. Our recent work has been concerned with the extraction and implementation of Human Behavior Models (HBMs)/Performance Moderator Functions (PMFs) from this literature. This paper demonstrates how our methodology was applied to extract models of the effects of music and sound on both individuals and groups and to implement them in a simulated environment. PMFs describing how several classes of sound affect decision-making and performance were constructed based on well-established psychological models. These PMFs were implemented in a simulation of protesters and security guards outside a prison that demonstrates how the presence of chanting and music changes the response of protesters to police aggression. The extraction of PMFs from the literature, the synthesis of a coherent, cohesive model, and the implementation and results of the simulation are discussed

Human Behavior Models for Agents in Simulators and Games: Part II Gamebot Engineering with PMFserv

Many producers and consumers of legacy training simulator and game environments are beginning to envision a new era where psycho-socio-physiologic models could be interoperated to enhance their environments\u27 simulation of human agents. This paper explores whether we could embed our behavior modeling framework (described in the companion paper, Part 1) behind a legacy first person shooter 3D game environment to recreate portions of the Black Hawk Down scenario. Section 1 amplifies the interoperability needs and challenges confronting the field, presents the questions that are examined, and describes the test scenario. Sections 2 and 3 review the software and knowledge engineering methodology, respectively, needed to create the system and populate it with bots. Results (Section 4) and discussion (Section 5) reveal that we were able to generate plausible and adaptive recreations of Somalian crowds, militia, women acting as shields, suicide bombers, and more. Also, there are specific lessons learned about ways to advance the field so that such interoperabilities will become more affordable and widespread