Investigating Task Understanding in Online Repositories Equipped with Topic Map Indexes: Implications for Improving Self-Regulatory Processes in Graduate Learners

Theories of cognitive information retrieval can work in concert with those of educational psychology to better formalize self-regulatory processes, such as task understanding, in online learning. Results from a prior statistical exploration of 38 graduate learners using a topic map (ISO 13250) index to browse an online repository of instructor-annotated essays in order to complete an ill-structured essay task indicate improved performance and task understanding. This follow-up study analyzes the inductive content of interviews and computer-based user traces for a theoretical sample of 12 of these 38 learners, showing how the semantic nature of the topic map enabled them to pursue distinct paths to browse essays according to individual task understanding and information need.Les modèles de recherche d’information cognitive et de la psychologie de l’éducation peuvent travailler de pair pour mieux formaliser les processus reliés à l’autorégulation, comme la compréhension des tâches, dans un contexte d’apprentissage virtuel. Les résultats d’une étude antérieure de 38 élèves de maîtrise et de doctorat, lesquels utilisaient une carte thématique (ISO 13250) pour parcourir un ensemble d’épreuves écrites annotées et ainsi compléter une épreuve écrite mal structurée, semblent indiquer un rendement et une compréhension accrus de leurs tâches. Dans cette étude complémentaire, l’analyse inductive des entrevues et des fichiers journaux traces d’un échantillon théorique de 12 de ces 38 élèves montre comment la nature sémantique de la carte thématique a permis aux élèves de suivre des cheminements distincts en parcourant les épreuves écrites annotées selon leur degré de compréhension des tâches et leur besoin d’information

Quantification of the glycogen cascade system: the ultrasensitive responses of liver glycogen synthase and muscle phosphorylase are due to distinctive regulatory designs

BACKGROUND: Signaling pathways include intricate networks of reversible covalent modification cycles. Such multicyclic enzyme cascades amplify the input stimulus, cause integration of multiple signals and exhibit sensitive output responses. Regulation of glycogen synthase and phosphorylase by reversible covalent modification cycles exemplifies signal transduction by enzyme cascades. Although this system for regulating glycogen synthesis and breakdown appears similar in all tissues, subtle differences have been identified. For example, phosphatase-1, a dephosphorylating enzyme of the system, is regulated quite differently in muscle and liver. Do these small differences in regulatory architecture affect the overall performance of the glycogen cascade in a specific tissue? We address this question by analyzing the regulatory structure of the glycogen cascade system in liver and muscle cells at steady state. RESULTS: The glycogen cascade system in liver and muscle cells was analyzed at steady state and the results were compared with literature data. We found that the cascade system exhibits highly sensitive switch-like responses to changes in cyclic AMP concentration and the outputs are surprisingly different in the two tissues. In muscle, glycogen phosphorylase is more sensitive than glycogen synthase to cyclic AMP, while the opposite is observed in liver. Furthermore, when the liver undergoes a transition from starved to fed-state, the futile cycle of simultaneous glycogen synthesis and degradation switches to reciprocal regulation. Under such a transition, different proportions of active glycogen synthase and phosphorylase can coexist due to the varying inhibition of glycogen-synthase phosphatase by active phosphorylase. CONCLUSION: The highly sensitive responses of glycogen synthase in liver and phosphorylase in muscle to primary stimuli can be attributed to distinctive regulatory designs in the glycogen cascade system. The different sensitivities of these two enzymes may exemplify the adaptive strategies employed by liver and muscle cells to meet specific cellular demands

Exploring the development of graduate learners' monitoring proficiencies and task understandings in a complex writing task

This thesis study presents an exploration of the development of graduate learners' monitoring proficiencies and task understandings in the context of a complex writing task. Participants were seventeen students enrolled in a graduate Learning Theories course, engaged in writing six, weekly learning logs; logs were based on the content being covered in the course. Data was collected primarily using a self-assessment tool, the Task Analyzer and Performance Evaluator, which accompanied each learning log. Measures analysed included instructors' performance assessments, students' predicted performances, students' prediction confidence scores, independently scored performances on the logs, criteria justification scores, and monitoring proficiencies, which included bias and discrimination. Results suggest that learners showed improved monitoring proficiencies as instruction progressed. Findings also reveal that while learners exhibited signs of a general monitoring ability across the six logs, prediction confidence, bias and discrimination abilities were mostly unrelated to one another. While learners showed improved criteria justification scores as instruction progressed, there were no relationships found between this measure of task understanding and monitoring abilities. The findings are discussed in relation to recent research on the domain-generality of monitoring and instructional features that promote self-regulation. Due to the exploratory nature of this study and the small sample size, findings cannot be generalized and must be treated with caution. Further research is needed to better characterize monitoring abilities in adult learners engaged in complex, writing tasks

Quantitative explorations of graduate learners' monitoring proficiencies and task understandings in the context of ill-structured writing assignments : from learner to work task as unit of analysis

Research has debated the degree of domain generality of monitoring skills through the theoretical lens of self-regulated learning, largely in the context of studies involving college/undergraduate-level objective, multiple-choice tests. The present quantitative study sheds some much-needed light on the nature of monitoring skills in 39 adult learners tackling ill-structured writing tasks for a graduate-level e-learning theory course in the domain of educational technology. Performance prediction and confidence in predictions were collected through a theoretically-grounded self-assessment tool termed TAPE (Task Analyzer and Performance Evaluator). Monitoring proficiencies were calculated using the instructor's assessment of performance and the TAPE-related measures. Using "learner" as unit of analysis, repeated measures procedures reveal improvements in the instructor's assessment of performance but not in any monitoring proficiencies. While the task-generality of the monitoring skills of discrimination and bias is confirmed through correlational analyses, facets of their specificities stand out due to the absence of intra-monitoring measure correlations. Subsequently, using the 247 instances of the writing task as unit of analysis, parametric multiple regression procedures demonstrate that 39% of variance in individual essay performance is predicted by combined variances in absolute prediction accuracy, discrimination, performance prediction and self-assessment scores. In addition, non-parametric ordinal and multinomial regression procedures reveal that individual essay performance can be predicted from the monitoring measures of bias, prediction confidence and absolute prediction accuracy, as well as from the self-assessment scores. The dual levels of analyses allow not only the quantitative description of learners' content-specific calibration of performance on a writing task, but also contextualized, essay-specific insight into how individual performance on an instance of the writing task is influenced by measures of monitoring and task understanding. Results are interpreted in light of the novel procedures undertaken in calculating monitoring measures like bias using the theoretical notion of performance prediction capability. Findings are also discussed with respect to the "work task as unit of analysis" approach which enables not only the generalization to the tasks completed for the specific course described in this study, but also the interchangeability of the tasks when treating variables such as time, class session, individual student and gender as fixed effects in the various regression approaches adopted for analyse

Painless Tooth Extraction by Jalandhara Bandha Yoga

Tooth extraction is the removal of a tooth from its socket in the bone. It is a Minor surgical procedure. It comes under Aharana Karma among Astavidha Shastra Karma, as mentioned by Acharya Sushruta, the pioneer of Indian surgery. Tooth extraction is performed for various reasons. However for tooth extraction local anaesthesia is mandatory. Extraction of tooth without anaesthesia is un imaginable. But this is possible by a Yoga and Ayurvedic technique. i.e. Painless Tooth Extraction by Jalandhara Bandha Yoga. Tooth Extraction by Jalandhara Bandha Yoga requires No Anesthesia! No Injection! No Spray! No Antibiotics! and No Analgesics! It’s purely a combination of Yoga and Ayurvedic Technique

Topic Maps as Indexing Tools in the Educational Sphere: Theoretical Foundations, Review of Empirical Research and Future Challenges

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Peeling of linearly elastic sheets using complex fluids at low Reynolds numbers

We investigate the transient, fluid structure interaction (FSI) of a non-Newtonian fluid peeling two linearly elastic sheets at low Reynolds numbers. Two different non-Newtonian fluids are considered; a simplified sPTT model, and an inelastic fluid with shear thinning viscosity (generalized Newtonian fluid). In the limit of small gap between the sheets, we invoke a lubrication approximation and numerically solve for the gap height between the two sheets during the start-up of a pressure-controlled flow. What we observe is that for an impulse pressure applied to the sheet inlet, the peeling front moves diffusively toward the end of the sheet when the fluid is Newtonian. However, when one examines a complex fluid with shear thinning, the propagation front moves sub-diffusively in time , but ultimately reaches the end faster due to an order of magnitude larger pre-factor for the propagation speed. We provide scaling analyses and similarity solutions to delineate several regimes of peeling based on the sheet elasticity, Wi number (for sPTT fluid), and shear thinning exponent (for generalized Newtonian fluid). To conclude, this study aims to afford to the experimentalist a system of knowledge to delineate the peeling characteristics of a certain class of complex fluids