Digital Learning - Before, During, and After Covid-19. A study on teaching methods based on digital tools in an EFL classroom in a lower secondary school in Norway.

Denne oppgaven undersøkte hvordan Covid-19 pandemien kan ha påvirket lærernes undervisningsmetoder i engelskfaget basert på digitale verktøy. I tillegg undersøkte den hvordan fjernundervisning og digital undervisning kan ha påvirket elevenes engelsklæring. Undersøkelsen var kvalitativ. Tre engelsklærere gjennomførte et semistrukturert intervju, og deres 128 elever i 10. klasse på en videregående skole i en by i Norge gjennomførte en nettbasert undersøkelse. Det teoretiske rammeverket for denne oppgaven tok utgangspunkt i at samfunnet vi lever i er digitalt, og det finnes argumenter for at unge i dag er digitale innfødte eller digitale innvandrere. Bruk av digitale verktøy som undervisningsmetode i et engelsk klasserom i Norge er ikke noe nytt i dag. Ikke bare er digitale ferdigheter en del av de grunnleggende ferdighetene i LK20, men det er også med på å motivere språklæring for svake elever siden tilgangen til læring gjennom digitale verktøy er mye større enn den har vært. I tillegg skal lærerne gi elevene det de trenger der de er i dag i undervisningen og møte elever fra deres virkelighet. Forskningen i denne oppgaven viser at variasjon i engelskundervisningen er en vesentlig faktor for både elever og lærere. Da Covid-19 pandemien rammet Norge, ble alle kastet inn i en situasjon med digital fjernundervisning og læring, og den varierte undervisningen og teorien om hvor viktig det er for lærere å kunne bruke digitale verktøy som undervisningsmetode ble underbygd. Selv om denne undersøkelsen har undersøkt flere variabler om hvordan Covid-19 pandemien kan ha påvirket lærernes undervisningsmetoder og elevenes engelsklæring, gjenstår det mer teori og mer forskning om dette spesielle temaet.This thesis examined how the Covid-19 pandemic may have affected teachers' teaching methods in the English subject based on digital tools. In addition, it investigated how remote earning and digital teaching may have affected students' English learning. The survey was qualitative. Three English teachers conducted a semi-structured interview, and their 128 students in 10th grade at an upper secondary school in a city in Norway conducted an online survey. The theoretical framework for this thesis was based on the society we live in today is digital, and there are arguments for young people today who are digital natives or digital immigrants. The use of digital tools as a teaching method in an English classroom in Norway is nothing new today. Not only are digital skills part of the basic skills in LK20, but it also helps to motivate language learning for weak students since the access to learning through digital tools is much greater than it has been. In addition, teachers must give students what they need where they are today in teaching and meet students from their reality. The research in this thesis shows that variation in English teaching is an essential factor for both students and teachers. And when the Covid-19 pandemic hit Norway, everyone was thrown into a situation of digital remote teaching and learning, and the varied teaching and the theory of the importance for teachers to know how the digital tools can be used as a teaching method became even more important. Although this research has examined several variables on how the Covid-19 pandemic may have affected teachers teaching methods and students' English learning, more theory and more research on this particular topic remains

Det vita giftet eller naturens hälsodryck? : En nätverksanalys av hur mjölk representeras online

The aim of our study is to understand how milk is represented online, more specifically on the Swedish web. We are interested in how information is being produced and distributed online, and also how networks of information are interconnected. We choose to examine milk because of the current controversies that have flourished online between a Swedish oat milk company and a Swedish milk organisation. The debate begun when the company that produces oat milk claimed that it was healthier than cow milk. The perception of milk in Swedish society has changed through history, which we also discuss. We use a mixed methods approach, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative method consists of network analysis, using a tool called Issue Crawler, which we have used to identify issue networks connected to milk on the Swedish web, and digital analysis using Google and Google Trends. Some of the webpages that are a part of the issue networks have then been chosen and studied qualitatively through text analysis. Our theoretical framework is based on Stuart Hall’s theory of representation and on danah boyd’s concept of networked publics, which we have used to analyse our results. We discuss which companies and organisations hold the key role of the debate online and how this in the long run may affect people. Our conclusions show that the actors visible in the debate about milk on the Swedish web mainly are blogs concerning health, governmental organisations and news sites. The different actors describe and represent milk in different ways depending on what issue network they are part of. Some actors describe milk as healthy and vital for the human body, others describe milk as the unhealthy and dangerous, while others are more neutral. The networked publics we have found consist of what we call the norm, those who are anti-milk consumption, and those who are pro-milk consumption

A Deep Learning Algorithm for Prediction of Age-Related Eye Disease Study Severity Scale for Age-Related Macular Degeneration from Color Fundus Photography

Acknowledgments The authors thank the Age-Related Eye Disease Study participants and the Age-Related Eye Disease Study Research Group for their valuable contribution to this research, and all study participants for contributing to the Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg study.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

SATISFAÇÃO DOS USUÁRIOS DO RESTAURANTE UNIVERSITÁRIO DA UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA MARIA: UMA ANÁLISE DESCRITIVA

Essa pesquisa tem por objetivo avaliar o nível de satisfação dos usuários do Restaurante Universitário da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria - RS, por meio de métodos estatísticos descritivos. Foi elaborado um questionário com questões de perfil, avaliação da satisfação e da importância em relação à 41 itens relacionados ao Restaurante Universitário. Os itens de satisfação apresentaram uma consistência interna de 0,93. Participaram da pesquisa, 1.855 usuários, entre alunos, docentes e técnicos administrativos. Observou-se que a maioria dos usuários é do sexo feminino, solteiros, situados na faixa etária de 17 a 30 anos, alunos sem o benefício socioeconômico, que cursam a graduação e almoçam em grupo. A maioria dos respondentes frequenta o restaurante entre o meio dia e uma hora da tarde, e até pelo menos três vezes por semana, onde o preço atrativo é a principal motivação para frequentá-lo. A maioria dos atributos foram avaliados de forma positiva, com destaque para a iluminação interna, o preço cobrado, a localização, a acessibilidade, as formas de pagamento, o atendimento, o tamanho do restaurante, a organização do buffet, o conforto e o layout. Com relação aos itens avaliados insatisfatoriamente, merecem destaque a ventilação, o abrigo contra o sol e a chuva e os itens relacionados com a demanda de usuários

An artificial intelligence algorithm is highly accurate for detecting endoscopic features of eosinophilic esophagitis

The endoscopic features associated with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) may be missed during routine endoscopy. We aimed to develop and evaluate an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm for detecting and quantifying the endoscopic features of EoE in white light images, supplemented by the EoE Endoscopic Reference Score (EREFS). An AI algorithm (AI-EoE) was constructed and trained to differentiate between EoE and normal esophagus using endoscopic white light images extracted from the database of the University Hospital Augsburg. In addition to binary classification, a second algorithm was trained with specific auxiliary branches for each EREFS feature (AI-EoE-EREFS). The AI algorithms were evaluated on an external data set from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC), and compared with the performance of human endoscopists with varying levels of experience. The overall sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of AI-EoE were 0.93 for all measures, while the AUC was 0.986. With additional auxiliary branches for the EREFS categories, the AI algorithm (AI-EoE-EREFS) performance improved to 0.96, 0.94, 0.95, and 0.992 for sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and AUC, respectively. AI-EoE and AI-EoE-EREFS performed significantly better than endoscopy beginners and senior fellows on the same set of images. An AI algorithm can be trained to detect and quantify endoscopic features of EoE with excellent performance scores. The addition of the EREFS criteria improved the performance of the AI algorithm, which performed significantly better than endoscopists with a lower or medium experience level

Uma análise crítica da aplicação do método Janela do Cliente na avaliação da qualidade do Restaurante Universitário

The Costumer Window method has the main function to measure the level of importance and the degree of satisfaction with the products or services provided by the company, being a tool able to identify the weak points and powers of the company. The purpose of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the application of the method the client window in quality evaluation of University Restaurant, from Federal University of Santa Maria – RS (UFSM). The research involved 1,855 users, including students, teachers and administrative staff. The results showed that in the three units of the University Restaurant, most of the items evaluated is in Quadrant A of the Costumer Window, called "competitive force", ie, most of the items is important to the user and are attended of satisfactorily by restaurants. However, some items are in Quadrant D of the Costumer Window, called "competitive vulnerability", these items are important to the user but they are not being attended adequately. The results of this survey were forwarded to the administration of University Restaurant, which can generate subsides for the formulation of proposals to improvements (changes or adaptations) in the assessed attributes.O método da Janela do Cliente tem por principal função medir o nível de importância e o grau de satisfação em relação aos produtos ou serviços prestados pela empresa, sendo uma ferramenta capaz de identificar os pontos falhos e as potências da empresa. O objetivo desse artigo é apresentar uma análise critica da aplicação do método Janela do Cliente na avaliação da qualidade do Restaurante Universitário da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria – RS (UFSM). Participaram da pesquisa, 1.855 usuários, entre alunos, docentes e técnicos administrativos. Os resultados mostraram que, nas três unidades do Restaurante Universitário, a maioria dos itens avaliados encontra-se no Quadrante A da Janela do Cliente, denominado “força competitiva”, ou seja, a maioria dos itens é importante para o usuário e são atendidos de forma satisfatória pelos restaurantes. No entanto, alguns itens encontram-se no Quadrante D da Janela do Cliente, denominado “vulnerabilidade competitiva”, sendo esses itens importantes para o usuário, porém não estão sendo atendidos de forma adequada. Os resultados dessa pesquisa foram encaminhados à administração do Restaurante Universitário, onde poderão gerar subsídios para formulação de propostas que visam melhorias (mudanças ou adaptações) nos atributos avaliados

Satisfação dos usuários de um Restaurante Universitário: adaptação de uma escala a partir da Teoria da Resposta ao Item

The client’s opinion is one of the most accurate way to evaluate the performance of an organization. The university restaurants play an important role in public institutions of undergraduate education, representing the democratization of the university space, contributing to dropout rate reduction, and improving living conditions for the clients. Item response theory has been presenting good performance in different management applications, including customer satisfaction assessment. Thus, the goal of this paper is to create a scale to evaluate the user satisfaction level of the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM) restaurant considering the two-parameter logistic model (2PL) and item response theory (IRT). The data were obtained based on a form prepared using the Google Docs program, in a total of 1.855 respondents. A descriptive analysis of the considered data is presented and the 2LM model was fitted. The results show at what level of the satisfaction assessment the clients of the UFSM university restaurant are situated and the interpretation of the levels. The 2PL and IRT are identified as suitable tools for the data analysis.A avaliação da satisfação de clientes é uma das formas mais eficientes de analisar o desempenho de uma organização. Os restaurantes universitários desempenham um papel de destaque nas Instituições Públicas de Ensino Superior, representam a democratização do espaço universitário, contribuem para a redução dos índices de evasão escolar e possibilitam melhores condições de vida para os usuários. A Teoria de resposta ao item vem mostrando um bom desempenho em várias aplicações na área da gestão, inclusive na avaliação do nível de satisfação de clientes.  Nesse sentido, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo criar uma escala para mensurar o nível de satisfação dos usuários do Restaurante Universitário da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, por meio do Modelo Logístico de Dois Parâmetros (ML2) da Teoria da Resposta ao Item (TRI). Os dados foram obtidos por meio de um formulário elaborado utilizando o aplicativo Google Docs, totalizando 1.855 respondentes. Uma análise descritiva dos dados é apresentada e em seguida o ML2 é ajustado.  Foi possível identificar em que nível da escala de satisfação os usuários do RU da UFSM estão situados, assim como a interpretação desses níveis. Verificamos que o ML2 da TRI foi adequado para a análise proposta

Genetic Burden of TNNI3K in Diagnostic Testing of Patients With Dilated Cardiomyopathy and Supraventricular Arrhythmias

BACKGROUND: Genetic variants in TNNI3K (troponin-I interacting kinase) have previously been associated with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), cardiac conduction disease, and supraventricular tachycardias. However, the link between TNNI3K variants and these cardiac phenotypes shows a lack of consensus concerning phenotype and protein function. METHODS: We describe a systematic retrospective study of a cohort of patients undergoing genetic testing for cardiac arrhythmias and cardiomyopathy including TNNI3K. We further performed burden testing of TNNI3K in the UK Biobank. For 2 novel TNNI3K variants, we tested cosegregation. TNNI3K kinase function was estimated by TNNI3K autophosphorylation assays.RESULTS: We demonstrate enrichment of rare coding TNNI3K variants in DCM patients in the Amsterdam cohort. In the UK Biobank, we observed an association between TNNI3K missense (but not loss-of-function) variants and DCM and atrial fibrillation. Furthermore, we demonstrate genetic segregation for 2 rare variants, TNNI3K-p.Ile512Thr and TNNI3K-p.His592Tyr, with phenotypes consisting of DCM, cardiac conduction disease, and supraventricular tachycardia, together with increased autophosphorylation. In contrast, TNNI3K-p.Arg556_Asn590del, a likely benign variant, demonstrated depleted autophosphorylation. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate an increased burden of rare coding TNNI3K variants in cardiac patients with DCM. Furthermore, we present 2 novel likely pathogenic TNNI3K variants with increased autophosphorylation, suggesting that enhanced autophosphorylation is likely to drive pathogenicity.</p

Identification of novel small molecules that inhibit STAT3-dependent transcription and function

Activation of Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3) has been linked to several processes that are critical for oncogenic transformation, cancer progression, cancer cell proliferation, survival, drug resistance and metastasis. Inhibition of STAT3 signaling has shown a striking ability to inhibit cancer cell growth and therefore, STAT3 has become a promising target for anti-cancer drug development. The aim of this study was to identify novel inhibitors of STAT-dependent gene transcription. A cellular reporter-based system for monitoring STAT3 transcriptional activity was developed which was suitable for high-throughput screening (Z’ = 0,8). This system was used to screen a library of 28,000 compounds (the ENAMINE Drug-Like Diversity Set). Following counter-screenings and toxicity studies, we identified four hit compounds that were subjected to detailed biological characterization. Of the four hits, KI16 stood out as the most promising compound, inhibiting STAT3 phosphorylation and transcriptional activity in response to IL6 stimulation. In silico docking studies showed that KI16 had favorable interactions with the STAT3 SH2 domain, however, no inhibitory activity could be observed in the STAT3 fluorescence polarization assay. KI16 inhibited cell viability preferentially in STAT3-dependent cell lines. Taken together, using a targeted, cell-based approach, novel inhibitors of STAT-driven transcriptional activity were discovered which are interesting leads to pursue further for the development of anti-cancer therapeutic agents

Genome-wide association study identifies Sjögren’s risk loci with functional implications in immune and glandular cells

Sjögren’s disease is a complex autoimmune disease with twelve established susceptibility loci. This genome-wide association study (GWAS) identifies ten novel genome-wide significant (GWS) regions in Sjögren’s cases of European ancestry: CD247, NAB1, PTTG1-MIR146A, PRDM1-ATG5, TNFAIP3, XKR6, MAPT-CRHR1, RPTOR-CHMP6-BAIAP6, TYK2, SYNGR1. Polygenic risk scores yield predictability (AUROC = 0.71) and relative risk of 12.08. Interrogation of bioinformatics databases refine the associations, define local regulatory networks of GWS SNPs from the 95% credible set, and expand the implicated gene list to >40. Many GWS SNPs are eQTLs for genes within topologically associated domains in immune cells and/or eQTLs in the main target tissue, salivary glands.Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH): R01AR073855 (C.J.L.), R01AR065953 (C.J.L.), R01AR074310 (A.D.F.), P50AR060804 (K.L.S.), R01AR050782 (K.L.S), R01DE018209 (K.L.S.), R33AR076803 (I.A.), R21AR079089 (I.A.); NIDCR Sjögren’s Syndrome Clinic and Salivary Disorders Unit were supported by NIDCR Division of Intramural Research at the National Institutes of Health funds - Z01-DE000704 (B.W.); Birmingham NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (S.J.B.); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2155 – Projektnummer 390874280 (T.W.); Research Council of Norway (Oslo, Norway) – Grant 240421 (TR.R.), 316120 (M.W-H.); Western Norway Regional Health Authority (Helse Vest) – 911807, 912043 (R.O.); Swedish Research Council for Medicine and Health (L.R., G.N., M.W-H.); Swedish Rheumatism Association (L.R., G.N., M.W-H.); King Gustav V’s 80-year Foundation (G.N.); Swedish Society of Medicine (L.R., G.N., M.W-H.); Swedish Cancer Society (E.B.); Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation (K.L.S.); Phileona Foundation (K.L.S.). The Stockholm County Council (M.W-H.); The Swedish Twin Registry is managed through the Swedish Research Council - Grant 2017-000641. The French ASSESS (Atteinte Systémique et Evolution des patients atteints de Syndrome de Sjögren primitive) was sponsored by Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (Ministry of Health, PHRC 2006 P060228) and the French society of Rheumatology (X.M.).publishedVersio