Literature Review: Conflict Resolution in Post-Secondary Online Education

This article seeks to provide a review of research literature published between 2008 and 2014 that discusses conflicts arising within the online education process, and their resolution within the online context. The goal of this article is to establish a current overview of related literature that can become the foundation of future studies in this field. An online search produced 48 references that were considered relevant to the purpose of this review. After a brief introduction of the topic, main definitions are provided. A section outlining the method for the development of the review follows including discussions of delimitations, the search, and reference descriptions. More background information is provided through a brief history of online education in the U.S. and an overview of the theories used in current studies in the field. The main body of the article describes common themes and emphases of online education conflict resolution that resulted from the literature analysis. After the uniqueness of online education conflict is established, strategies of virtual conflict resolution are described. Other common themes include foci on the instructor, the learner, and dynamics social interaction. The article closes with a categorized summary of suggested future research found in the literature

Determination of albuminuria in the urine of diabetics for prevention and control of diabetic nephropathy

The issue: Diabetes has become the main cause of endstage renal disease. The costs for the treatment of diabetic patients with endstage renal disease have increased in the last years and have become a relevant economic topic of the health service. The first unspecific predictor of a diabetic nephropathy is an albuminuria. The screening for diabetic nephropathy uses microalbuminuria as a proof. Objectives: * What significance does the determination of albuminuria have on the precaution and course-control of the diabetic nephropathy? a) in type 1 diabetic patients, b) in type 2 diabetic patients * Which is an appropriate time to determine the albuminuria for the purpose of precaution and course-control of the diabetic nephropathy? a) in type 1 diabetic patients, b) in type 2 diabetic patients * Which method of testing is most effective concerning economic and medical aspects? Methods: Published literature from 1998 up to 2004 was identified by searching in the most important databases. Most of the guidelines were found by hand searching in the internet. Results: Of 2,792 citation titles and abstracts examined, 274 articles were retrieved for full-text review. Five metaanalyses and reviews, one review about clearing of guidelines (regarding 18 international guidelines) and four guidelines met the inclusion criteria for screening for microalbuminuria and type 1 diabetes. Seven metaanalyses, one HTA report, one review about clearing of guidelines (regarding 17 international guidelines), and seven guidelines met the inclusion criteria for screening for microalbuminuria and type 2 diabetes.At the moment, the determination of albuminuria still has a great significance because it is recommended in most published literature and guidelines. The time to determine the albuminuria depends on the age of the patients and their type of diabetes. Type 2 diabetic patients should start the determination when the diabetes is diagnosed whereas the determination is recommended five years later when type 1 diabetic patients are concerned. Most guidelines recommend a screening for microalbuminuria every year. Discussion and conclusion: All guidelines and most of the literature recommend this screening. However, these recommendations are only based on expert consensus. The specificity of this screening is rather low. False positive tests in type 2 diabetic patients will cause psychological problems. A positive test leads to the recommendation to achieve "normal blood pressure" and "normoglycaemia" - but this applies to each diabetic patient. Based on these facts, the screening for albuminuria in type 1 or type 2 diabetes patients cannot be recommended as long as benefit has not been demonstrated by large, clinical, controlled trials. Without an evidence of the benefit, this screening cannot be economic

Leading Evangelical Seminaries in German-Speaking Europe: A Transcendental Phenomenology

This transcendental phenomenology describes the essential experiences of lead administrators of evangelical seminaries in German-speaking Europe. Changes on a global scale in the educational sector are influencing the seminaries, and lead to processes of organizational academization and leadership professionalization. These developments have a profound influence on the role of the leadership of these seminaries. Each of the six lead administrators was interviewed three times to gather in-depth, thick, and rich descriptions of their lived experience with the phenomenon. For triangulation, observations, analyses of documents, and audio and visual data, as well as research memos and journals were included. The theoretical frameworks of spiritual leadership, servant leadership, and workplace spirituality guided the investigative process. Four textures emerged that describe what the lead administrators experience in their role: (a) leading spiritually; (b) leading collaboratively; (c) leading professionally; and (d) leading academically. Furthermore, four structures describe how the participants experience the phenomenon of seminary leadership: (a) experiencing leadership as a responsibility; (b) experiencing the negative dimensions of leadership; (c) experiencing the positive dimensions of leadership; and (d) experiencing leadership as a spiritual calling. Finally, three essential experiences and three essential influences of the phenomenon could be synthesized from the textural and structural descriptions. The essential experiences include the experience of spirituality, significance and meaning, and relationship. The essential influences include professionalization, academization, and diversification. The findings corroborate the literature in several points, but also added to existing knowledge of the phenomenon of leading evangelical seminaries in German-speaking Europe

COVID-19 and 5G conspiracy theories: long term observation of a digital wildfire

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the lives of people worldwide, and consequently, it has dominated world news since March 2020. Thus, it is no surprise that it has also been the topic of a massive amount of misinformation, which was most likely amplified by the fact that many details about the virus were not known at the start of the pandemic. While a large amount of this misinformation was harmless, some narratives spread quickly and had a dramatic real-world effect. Such events are called digital wildfires. In this paper we study a specific digital wildfire: the idea that the COVID-19 outbreak is somehow connected to the introduction of 5G wireless technology, which caused real-world harm in April 2020 and beyond. By analyzing early social media contents we investigate the origin of this digital wildfire and the developments that lead to its wide spread. We show how the initial idea was derived from existing opposition to wireless networks, how videos rather than tweets played a crucial role in its propagation, and how commercial interests can partially explain the wide distribution of this particular piece of misinformation. We then illustrate how the initial events in the UK were echoed several months later in different countries around the world.publishedVersio

Don't Trust Your Eyes: Image Manipulation in the Age of DeepFakes

We review the phenomenon of deepfakes, a novel technology enabling inexpensive manipulation of video material through the use of artificial intelligence, in the context of today’s wider discussion on fake news. We discuss the foundation as well as recent developments of the technology, as well as the differences from earlier manipulation techniques and investigate technical countermeasures. While the threat of deepfake videos with substantial political impact has been widely discussed in recent years, so far, the political impact of the technology has been limited. We investigate reasons for this and extrapolate the types of deepfake videos we are likely to see in the future.publishedVersio

Early and Differential Diagnosis of Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment Design and Cohort Baseline Characteristics of the German Dementia Competence Network

Background: The German Dementia Competence Network (DCN) has established procedures for standardized multicenter acquisition of clinical, biological and imaging data, for centralized data management, and for the evaluation of new treatments. Methods: A longitudinal cohort study was set up for patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), patients with mild dementia and control subjects. The aims were to establish the diagnostic, differential diagnostic and prognostic power of a range of clinical, laboratory and imaging methods. Furthermore, 2 clinical trials were conducted with patients suffering from MCI and mild to moderate Alzheimer's Disease (AD). These trials aimed at evaluating the efficacy and safety of the combination of galantamine and memantine versus galantamine alone. Results: Here, we report on the scope and projects of the DCN, the methods that were employed, the composition and flow within the diverse groups of patients and control persons and on the clinical and neuropsychological baseline characteristics of the group of 2,113 subjects who participated in the observational and clinical trials. Conclusion: These data have an impact on the procedures for the early and differential clinical diagnosis of dementias, the current standard treatment of AD as well as on future clinical trials in AD. Copyright (C) 2009 S. Karger AG, Base

Digestive enzymes of fungal origin as a relevant cause of false positive Aspergillus antigen testing in intensive care unit patients

BACKGROUND Galactomannan antigen (GM) testing is widely used in the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis (IA). Digestive enzymes play an important role in enzyme substitution therapy in exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. As digestive enzymes of fungal origin like Nortase contain enzymes from Aspergillus, a false-positive result of the test might be possible because of cross-reacting antigens of the cell wall of the producing fungi. We, therefore, asked whether the administration of fungal enzymes is a relevant cause of false-positive GM antigen test results. METHODS Patients with a positive GM antigen test between January 2016 and April 2020 were included in the evaluation and divided into two groups: group 1—Nortase-therapy, group 2—no Nortase-therapy. In addition, dissolved Nortase samples were analyzed in vitro for GM and β-1,3-D-glucan. For statistical analysis, the chi-squared and Mann‒Whitney U tests were used. RESULTS Sixty-five patients were included in this evaluation (30 patients receiving Nortase and 35 patients not receiving Nortase). The overall false positivity rate of GM testing was 43.1%. Notably, false-positive results were detected significantly more often in the Nortase group (73.3%) than in the control group (17.1%, p < 0.001). While the positive predictive value of GM testing was 0.83 in the control group, there was a dramatic decline to 0.27 in the Nortase group. In vitro analysis proved that the Nortase enzyme preparation was highly positive for the fungal antigens GM and β-1,3-D-glucan. CONCLUSIONS Our data demonstrate that the administration of digestive enzymes of fungal origin like Nortase leads to a significantly higher rate of false-positive GM test results compared to that in patients without digestive enzyme treatment

Perplexity – a new predictor of cognitive changes in spoken language? – results of the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development and Aging (ILSE)

Abstract: In addition to memory loss, progressive deterioration of speech and language skills is among the main symptoms at the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) as well as in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Detailed interview analyses demonstrated early symptoms years before the onset of AD/MCI. Automatic speech processing could be a promising approach to identifying underlying mechanisms in larger studies or even support diagnostics. Perplexity as a measure of predictability of text could be a sensitive indicator of cognitive deterioration. Therefore, voice recordings from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development and Aging were analyzed with regard to neuropsychological parameters in participants that develop MCI/AD or remain cognitively healthy. Preliminary results indicate that perplexity predicts severity of cognitive deficits and information processing speed obtained 10–12 years later in participants who developed MCI/AD in contrast to those who stayed healthy. Findings support the heuristic value of research on the diagnostic potential of automatic speech processing