Five Lenses on Team Tutor Challenges: A Multidisciplinary Approach

This chapter describes five disciplinary domains of research or lenses that contribute to the design of a team tutor. We focus on four significant challenges in developing Intelligent Team Tutoring Systems (ITTSs), and explore how the five lenses can offer guidance for these challenges. The four challenges arise in the design of team member interactions, performance metrics and skill development, feedback, and tutor authoring. The five lenses or research domains that we apply to these four challenges are Tutor Engineering, Learning Sciences, Science of Teams, Data Analyst, and Human–Computer Interaction. This matrix of applications from each perspective offers a framework to guide designers in creating ITTSs

IL-17 Expression in the Time Course of Acute Anti-Thy1 Glomerulonephritis

Background Interleukin-17 (IL-17) is a new pro-inflammatory cytokine involved in immune response and inflammatory disease. The main source of IL-17 is a subset of CD4+ T-helper cells, but is also secreted by non-immune cells. The present study analyzes expression of IL-17 in the time course of acute anti- thy1 glomerulonephritis and the role of IL-17 as a potential link between inflammation and fibrosis. Methods Anti-thy1 glomerulonephritis was induced into male Wistar rats by OX-7 antibody injection. After that, samples were taken on days 1, 5, 10 (matrix expansion phase), 15 and 20 (resolution phase). PBS-injected animals served as controls. Proteinuria and histological matrixes score served as the main markers for disease severity. In in vitro experiments, NRK-52E cells were used. For cytokine expressions, mRNA and protein levels were analyzed by utilizing RT-PCR, in situ hybridization and immunofluorescence. Results Highest IL-17 mRNA-expression (6.50-fold vs. con; p<0.05) was found on day 5 after induction of anti-thy1 glomerulonephritis along the maximum levels of proteinuria (113 ± 13 mg/d; p<0.001), histological glomerular-matrix accumulation (82%; p<0.001) and TGF-β1 (2.2-fold; p<0.05), IL-6 mRNA expression (36-fold; p<0.05). IL-17 protein expression co-localized with the endothelial cell marker PECAM in immunofluorescence. In NRK-52E cells, co-administration of TGF-β1 and IL-6 synergistically up-regulated IL-17 mRNA 4986-fold (p<0.001). Conclusions The pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-17 is up-regulated in endothelial cells during the time course of acute anti-thy1 glomerulonephritis. In vitro, NRK-52E cells secrete IL-17 under pro-fibrotic and pro-inflammatory conditions

Using an insect mushroom body circuit to encode route memory in complex natural environments

Ants, like many other animals, use visual memory to follow extended routes through complex environments, but it is unknown how their small brains implement this capability. The mushroom body neuropils have been identified as a crucial memory circuit in the insect brain, but their function has mostly been explored for simple olfactory association tasks. We show that a spiking neural model of this circuit originally developed to describe fruitfly (Drosophila melanogaster) olfactory association, can also account for the ability of desert ants (Cataglyphis velox) to rapidly learn visual routes through complex natural environments. We further demonstrate that abstracting the key computational principles of this circuit, which include one-shot learning of sparse codes, enables the theoretical storage capacity of the ant mushroom body to be estimated at hundreds of independent images

Grenseområdene Norge-Russland. Luft- og nedbørkvalitet, april 2011-mars 2012.

Smelteverkene på russisk side av den norsk-russiske grense slipper ut store mengder svoveldioksid (SO2) og tungmetaller. Dette gir forhøyede konsentrasjoner også på norsk side. Denne rapporten inngår i kartlegging av miljøbelastningen i grenseområdene og omfatter målinger av luftkvalitet, nedbørkvalitet og meteorologi