Pedagogical agents: Influences of artificially generated instructor personas on taking chances

Educational institutes are currently facing the new normality that an ongoing pandemic situation has brought to teaching and learning. Distributed learning with content that blends over several platforms and locations needs to be created with didactic expertise in a feasible manner. At the same time, the possibilities for creating and distributing digital content have developed rapidly. Advanced computing supports the creation of artificial images, natural speech, and even natural-looking but non-existent persons. Since such generative content is often also published under a Creative Commons license, it presents as viable option for designing learning content, assignments, or instructions for tasks. However, there is still limited evidence on how, for example, generated pedagogical agents (tutors) influence behaviour and decisions. This study investigated the influences of artificially generated tutor personas in a decision-making task distributed internationally on the Google Play store. The field experiment extended the balloon analogue risk task (BART) with instructions from generated persona photographs to evaluate potential influences on risk-taking behaviour. In a between-subject design, either a female tutor, a male tutor, or no tutor picture at all was presented during the task. The results (N=74) show a higher risk propensity when displaying a male artificial instructor compared to a female instructor. Participants also proceed with greater caution when instructed by a female tutor as they reflect longer before initiating the next step to pump up the balloon. Further lines of research and experiences from the distribution of an investigative instruction app on Google Play are summarised in the conclusive implications

THE QUEST GAME-FRAME: BALANCING SERIOUS GAMES FOR INVESTIGATING PRIVACY DECISIONS

Digitalisation permeates all areas of social life. The use of digital games in research settings to analyse social phenomena is thereby no exception. However, games that can successfully achieve research ob- jectives and at the same time create an engaging experience require thoughtful balancing. When inves- tigating decision-making, for example, asking players directly about their reasoning in the game is breaking the game flow and prone to distorting influences from the game experience. This paper presents the design science (DS) process of a quest-based game-frame (QGF) oriented on the investigation of privacy decision-making. The design-empirical cycle of the QGF is outlined and applied to design two privacy decision scenarios for investigating reflection tendencies. The conducted binational experiment reflects the behaviour of 78 educators, university students and high-school students from Austria and Norway in online ordering security and fake news sharing while monitoring the game flow. Results demonstrate the potential of the QGF for unobtrusively investigating privacy decisions while maintaining high fluency of performance. Significant differences between educators and high-school students are found in time spent for reflection before making online security decisions. Additionally, Norwegian high-school students show a low awareness when deciding on real/fake news sharing

The Role of Bicycles in Driver Assistance Regulations and NCAP - Status and Outlook

Over the last years, bicycles have been addressed in newly developed driver assistance systems for passenger cars on a voluntary basis, and beginning with the blind spot assist systems, this tendency has been picked up by vehicle regulations and systems are made mandatory. This paper intends to give a detailed summary of which vehicle regulations are currently addressing bicycles, when they come into force and if they will be mandatory in the EU. Also, the performance of already available active safety systems for bicycles (not covered by regulatory requirements) and their technological potential will be included

Arabidopsis PHOSPHATE TRANSPORTER1 genes PHT1;8 and PHT1;9 are involved in root-to-shoot translocation of orthophosphate

In plants, the uptake from soil and intercellular transport of inorganic phosphate (Pi) is mediated by the PHT1 family of membrane-spanning proton : Pi symporters. The Arabidopsis thaliana AtPHT1 gene family comprises nine putative high-affinity Pi transporters. While AtPHT1;1 to AtPHT1;4 are involved in Pi acquisition from the rhizosphere, the role of the remaining transporters is less clear

Compactness of immersions with local Lipschitz representation

We consider immersions admitting uniform representations as an L-Lipschitz graph. In codimension 1, we show compactness for such immersions for arbitrary fixed finite L and uniformly bounded volume. The same result is shown in arbitrary codimension for L less than or equal to 1/4

O PENSAMENTO ADORNIANO EM CONSTELAÇÃO COMO PRÁTICA SOCIAL INICIAL DA TEORIA HISTÓRICO-CRÍTICA

O PENSAMENTO ADORNIANO EM CONSTELAÇÃO COMO PRÁTICA SOCIAL INICIAL DA TEORIA HISTÓRICO-CRÍTIC

The geometry of thermodynamic control

A deeper understanding of nonequilibrium phenomena is needed to reveal the principles governing natural and synthetic molecular machines. Recent work has shown that when a thermodynamic system is driven from equilibrium then, in the linear response regime, the space of controllable parameters has a Riemannian geometry induced by a generalized friction tensor. We exploit this geometric insight to construct closed-form expressions for minimal-dissipation protocols for a particle diffusing in a one dimensional harmonic potential, where the spring constant, inverse temperature, and trap location are adjusted simultaneously. These optimal protocols are geodesics on the Riemannian manifold, and reveal that this simple model has a surprisingly rich geometry. We test these optimal protocols via a numerical implementation of the Fokker-Planck equation and demonstrate that the friction tensor arises naturally from a first order expansion in temporal derivatives of the control parameters, without appealing directly to linear response theory

Radiolytic mapping of solvent-contact surfaces in photosystem II of higher plants: Experimental identification of putative water channels within the photosystem

Background: Substrate water must reach the buried Mn4O 5Ca cluster in Photosystem II. Results: OH produced by radiolysis modified buried amino acid residues. These were mapped onto the PS II crystal structure. Conclusion: Two groups of oxidized residues were identified which form putative pathways to the Mn4O5Ca cluster. Significance: Identification of water and oxygen channels is crucial for our understanding of Photosystem II function. © 2013 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc

Association of Noncirrhotic Portal Hypertension in HIV-Infected Persons and Antiretroviral Therapy with Didanosine: A Nested Case-Control Study

Background. Noncirrhotic portal hypertension (NCPH) is a newly described life-threatening liver disease of unknown cause in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected persons. Postulated pathogenesis includes prolonged exposure to antiretroviral therapy, particularly didanosine. Methods. We performed a nested case-control study including 15 patients with NCPH and 75 matched control subjects of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study to investigate risk factors for the development of NCPH. Matching criteria were similar duration of HIV infection, absence of viral hepatitis, and follow-up to at least the date of NCPH diagnosis in the respective case. Results. All 15 case patients had endoscopically documented esophageal varices and absence of liver cirrhosis on biopsies; 4 died because of hepatic complications. At NCPH diagnosis, case patients and control subjects were similar concerning sex; race; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stage; HIV-RNA level; CD4 cell count nadir; and lipids and lipodystrophy. Differences were found in age (conditional logistic regression odds ratio [OR] for 10 years older, 2.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4-6.1); homosexuality (OR, 4.5; 95% CI, 1.2-17); current CD4 cell count <200 cells/µL (OR, 34.3; 95% CI, 4.3-277); diabetes mellitus (OR, 8.8; 95% CI, 1.6-49); alanine aminotransferase level higher than normal (OR, 13.0; 95% CI, 2.7-63); alkaline phosphatase higher than normal (OR, 18.3; 95% CI, 4.0-85); and platelets lower than normal (OR, 20.5; 95% CI, 2.4-178). Cumulative exposure to antiretroviral therapy (OR per year, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.0-1.6), nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1-1.7), didanosine (OR, 3.4; 95% CI, 1.5-8.1), ritonavir (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.0-1.9), and nelfinavir (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.0-1.9) were longer in case patients. Exposure to nonnucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor and other protease inhibitors were not different between groups. In bivariable models, only the association of NCPH with didanosine exposure was robust; other covariables were not independent risk factors. Conclusions. We found a strong association between prolonged exposure to didanosine and the development of NCP