Medical Student Motivation to Work in E-learning

Nowadays information technology is widley used in studying process thus enabling students to acquire knowledge in a convenient place and time. It is a novel approach and a challenge for both – the students and the faculty of Latvian University Riga Medical College (LU RMK). In order to provide and develope e-learning environment LU RMK has launched a Project whose main objective is „to develop guidelines and video training materials in the e-environment for students and faculty staff in order to provide a more efficient studying process”. Implementation of the project has been started with a pilot study „Medical students’ motivation to work in e-environment”, designed to explore students’ motivation and factors affecting the work of the e environment. Methods: A pilot study using a quantitative method – a survey. To achieve the goal 209 students have been surveyed in the LU RMK

The long-term X-ray variability properties of AGN in the Lockman Hole region

We present the results from a detailed X-ray variability analysis of 66 AGN in the Lockman Hole, which have optical spectroscopic identifications. We compare, quantitatively, their variability properties with the properties of local AGN, and we study the "variability-luminosity" relation as a function of redshift, and the "variability-redshift" relation in two luminosity bins. We use archival data from the last 10 XMM observations of the Lockman Hole field to extract light curves in the rest frame, 2-10 keV band. We use the "normalized excess variance" to quantify the variability amplitude. Using the latest results regarding the AGN power spectral shape and its dependence on black hole mass and accretion rate, we are able to compute model "variability-luminosity" curves, which we compare with the relations we observe. When we consider all the sources in our sample, we find that their variability amplitude decreases with increasing redshift and luminosity. These global anti-correlations are less pronounced when we split the objects in various luminosity and redshift bins. We do not find a significant correlation between variability amplitude and spectral slope. The "variability-luminosity" relation that we detect has a larger amplitude when compared to that of local AGN. We also find that, at a given luminosity, the variability amplitude increases with redshift up to z~1, and then stays roughly constant. Our results imply that the AGN X-ray mechanism operates in the same way at all redshifts. Among objects with the same luminosity in our sample, the black hole mass decreases and the accretion rate increases with larger redshift.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&