Teaching Digital Multimedia as a Component of Business Education

The growth of the Internet and the explosion of digital communication technologies in the 1990s have given rise to the importance of digital multimedia in the American economy. We define multimedia as the transmission of content through a combination of text, graphics, pictures, sound, animation, video, and hyperlinks, resulting in communication that is multisensory and potentially interactive. Multimedia has had an impact on Internet marketing, the music and motion picture industries, the education industry, and healthcare. It is therefore relevant to marketing and information systems and would seem to have a place in business curricula. The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of teaching digital multimedia in a business discipline. A review of multimedia offerings in higher education indicates that the concepts, technical aspects, and creation of digital multimedia are taught variously in computer science, the creative arts, communication, or psychology but are largely absent from the domain of business disciplines. We report on our experiences teaching a three-credit, 15-week, junior/senior-level Digital Multimedia course under the Computer Information Systems heading. Topics associated with the course include conceptual understanding of digital multimedia, business and legal issues surrounding digital multimedia, and technical underpinnings and skills in the creation of multimedia. A key component of the course is a semester-long team project on a topic selected by each group of students. Challenges in teaching the course include cost of hardware, software, and facilities; containment of the scope of topics; differing expectations of students entering the course; and availability of support materials

Development of a Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Education Curriculum for Ultrasound Technologists and Musculoskeletal Fellows: An Adventure in Co-Learning

Musculoskeletal ultrasound is highly operator dependent. Appropriate training is essential to provide high quality imaging to patients. We developed a combined musculoskeletal ultrasound curriculum for our musculoskeletal imaging fellows and our ultrasound technologists to help provide this training. This combined curriculum allows fellows to teach technologists about anatomy and pathology, and the technologists to instruct the fellows on sonographic technique. After viewing our poster exhibit, the learner should: 1.Understand the benefits of co-learning between musculoskeletal imaging fellows and ultrasound technologists 2.Be able to identify key components of a musculoskeletal ultrasound curriculum for both ultrasound technologists and musculoskeletal imaging fellows 3.Understand how we implemented this curriculum in our department through learning sessions. We will review the learning needs of ultrasound technologists as well as those of the musculoskeletal fellows. The curriculum consists of both a didactic component and a hands on component, covering several joints. The learners are given directed readings. During the lecture portion of the curriculum, anatomy, sonographic anatomy, sonographic pathology, and scan technique are reviewed. During the hands on portion of the curriculum, the faculty member first demonstrates the sonographic technique for the particular joint. Next, the faculty facilitates practice scanning between the ultrasound technologists and the musculoskeletal imaging fellows, who work together to provide education to each other based on their skill sets. Methods of assessment will be discussed. We will discuss how we implemented our multiple monthly learning sessions. We will include survey feedback from ultrasound technologists, musculoskeletal imaging fellows, and musculoskeletal imaging faculty. We will discuss implications and future proposals

Primary leptomeningeal oligodendrogliomatosis

Primary leptomeningeal oligodendrogliomas (PLOs) are rare intracranial malignancies where tumors grow in the subarachnoid space without an obvious connection to the brain or spinal cord parenchyma. Adding to the three previously reported cases of PLO with no parenchymal involvement we report a fourth case of the same in this paper in a 50-year-old woman presenting with unrelenting headaches. CT scan of her head revealed hydrocephalus and MRI revealed diffuse enhancement of her leptomeninges throughout her brain and spine, prominent over the basilar region. Biopsy obtained using a frameless stereotactic biopsy showed sharply defined cell borders, clear cytoplasm, and rounded nuclei consistent with an oligodendroglioma. Our case suggests that PLO can mimic diffuse forms of granulomatous meningitis and should be suspected in patients that clinically and radiographically present like granulomatous meningitis but without blood or CSF markers for the same

Deweyan tools for inquiry and the epistemological context of critical pedagogy

This article develops the notion of resistance as articulated in the literature of critical pedagogy as being both culturally sponsored and cognitively manifested. To do so, the authors draw upon John Dewey\u27s conception of tools for inquiry. Dewey provides a way to conceptualize student resistance not as a form of willful disputation, but instead as a function of socialization into cultural models of thought that actively truncate inquiry. In other words, resistance can be construed as the cognitive and emotive dimensions of the ongoing failure of institutions to provide ideas that help individuals both recognize social problems and imagine possible solutions. Focusing on Dewey\u27s epistemological framework, specifically tools for inquiry, provides a way to grasp this problem. It also affords some innovative solutions; for instance, it helps conceive of possible links between the regular curriculum and the study of specific social justice issues, a relationship that is often under-examined. The aims of critical pedagogy depend upon students developing dexterity with the conceptual tools they use to make meaning of the evidence they confront; these are background skills that the regular curriculum can be made to serve even outside social justice-focused curricula. Furthermore, the article concludes that because such inquiry involves the exploration and potential revision of students\u27 world-ordering beliefs, developing flexibility in how one thinks may be better achieved within academic subjects and topics that are not so intimately connected to students\u27 current social lives, especially where students may be directly implicated

Validated Intraclass Correlation Statistics to Test Item Performance Models

A new method, with an application program in Matlab code, is proposed for testing item performance models on empirical databases. This method uses data intraclass correlation statistics as expected correlations to which one compares simple functions of correlations between model predictions and observed item performance. The method rests on a data population model whose validity for the considered data is suitably tested, and has been verified for three behavioural measure databases. Contrarily to usual model selection criteria, this method provides an effective way of testing under-fitting and over-fitting, answering the usually neglected question "does this model suitably account for these data?

Fusarium: more than a node or a foot-shaped basal cell

Recent publications have argued that there are potentially serious consequences for researchers in recognising distinct genera in the terminal fusarioid clade of the family Nectriaceae. Thus, an alternate hypothesis, namely a very broad concept of the genus Fusarium was proposed. In doing so, however, a significant body of data that supports distinct genera in Nectriaceae based on morphology, biology, and phylogeny is disregarded. A DNA phylogeny based on 19 orthologous protein-coding genes was presented to support a very broad concept of Fusarium at the F1 node in Nectriaceae. Here, we demonstrate that re-analyses of this dataset show that all 19 genes support the F3 node that represents Fusarium sensu stricto as defined by F. sambucinum (sexual morph synonym Gibberella pulicaris). The backbone of the phylogeny is resolved by the concatenated alignment, but only six of the 19 genes fully support the F1 node, representing the broad circumscription of Fusarium. Furthermore, a re-analysis of the concatenated dataset revealed alternate topologies in different phylogenetic algorithms, highlighting the deep divergence and unresolved placement of various Nectriaceae lineages proposed as members of Fusarium. Species of Fusarium s. str. are characterised by Gibberella sexual morphs, asexual morphs with thin- or thick-walled macroconidia that have variously shaped apical and basal cells, and trichothecene mycotoxin production, which separates them from other fusarioid genera. Here we show that the Wollenweber concept of Fusarium presently accounts for 20 segregate genera with clear-cut synapomorphic traits, and that fusarioid macroconidia represent a character that has been gained or lost multiple times throughout Nectriaceae. Thus, the very broad circumscription of Fusarium is blurry and without apparent synapomorphies, and does not include all genera with fusarium-like macroconidia, which are spread throughout Nectriaceae (e.g., Cosmosporella, Macroconia, Microcera). In this study four new genera are introduced, along with 18 new species and 16 new combinations. These names convey information about relationships, morphology, and ecological preference that would otherwise be lost in a broader definition of Fusarium. To assist users to correctly identify fusarioid genera and species, we introduce a new online identification database, Fusarioid-ID, accessible at www.fusarium.org. The database comprises partial sequences from multiple genes commonly used to identify fusarioid taxa (act1, CaM, his3, rpb1, rpb2, tef1, tub2, ITS, and LSU). In this paper, we also present a nomenclator of names that have been introduced in Fusarium up to January 2021 as well as their current status, types, and diagnostic DNA barcode data. In this study, researchers from 46 countries, representing taxonomists, plant pathologists, medical mycologists, quarantine officials, regulatory agencies, and students, strongly support the application and use of a more precisely delimited Fusarium (= Gibberella) concept to accommodate taxa from the robust monophyletic node F3 on the basis of a well-defined and unique combination of morphological and biochemical features. This F3 node includes, among others, species of the F. fujikuroi, F. incarnatum-equiseti, F. oxysporum, and F. sambucinum species complexes, but not species of Bisifusarium [F. dimerum species complex (SC)], Cyanonectria (F. buxicola SC), Geejayessia (F. staphyleae SC), Neocosmospora (F. solani SC) or Rectifusarium (F. ventricosum SC). The present study represents the first step to generating a new online monograph of Fusarium and allied fusarioid genera (www.fusarium.org)

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049