Student-led Online Debate, using Work Groups (myBU).

Using User Groups and Discussion Boards for fully-online mature students to debate emotive subject of Globalisation

Managing user engagement in Virtual event platforms

Virtual platforms are considered as an innovative solution, and sometime a disruptive innovation, helping various industries to operate and interact with stakeholders and institutes to educate and inform users. Virtual conference and events have been on the rise and proved to be an effective solution in this unprecedent era. However, how the virtual event was received by users needs to be explored. Applying classical theories of user engagement, this paper aims to understand what has affected participant's level of engagement and attitude towards Virtual conferences over the last 18 months. A sample of 70 participants were recruited and two groups of antecedents of service provider and participants and their relationships with engagement and participants attitude is examined. Data analysis indicated that perceived conference informativeness and perceived service quality indicate 74% and 69% of the total variation in user engagement respectively and 82% and 77% of the total variation in participant's attitude towards virtual conferencing. This is a great insight and in contradiction to factors impacting engagement in a non-virtual environment

A quantitative exploration of the statistical and mathematical knowledge of university entrants into a UK Management School

Mathematical and statistical skills are increasingly important for securing fruitful employment in the modern world. Regardless of the increasing demand for such skills by employers, witnessed at present is a drop in the mathematics and statistics knowledge of university entrants. This paper uses a British university as a case study and exploits the induction week to collect primary data on the mathematical and statistical knowledge of entrants into two degree programmes. The data is then analysed using statistical techniques to identify the current patterns relating to the mathematics and statistics knowledge of students with a view to developing appropriate methods for enhancing their mathematical and statistical knowledge. Our findings indicate statistically significant differences in the mathematical and statistical knowledge of students entering this British university based on the chosen degree programme, gender and educational qualifications

TLR9-based immunotherapy for the treatment of allergic diseases

Toll-like receptors (TLRs), a family of pattern recognition receptors expressed on many cell types of innate immunity, recognize the pathogen-associated molecular patterns of microbes. The hygiene hypothesis suggests that a reduced microbial exposure in early childhood increases the susceptibility to allergic diseases due to deviation in development of the immune system. TLRs are key roles in the right and healthy direction of adaptive immunity with the induction of T-helper 2 toward Th1 immune responses and regulatory T cells. TLR ligand CpG-ODN-based immunomodulation is independent of allergen and it mainly affects innate immune system. While, CpG-oligodeoxynucleotide-based vaccination is allergen specific and induces adaptive immune system. The use of agonists of TLR9 in two distinct strategies of immunotherapy, immunomodulation and vaccination, could be presented as the curative method for the treatment of allergic diseases. First draft submitted: 29 August 2016; Accepted for publication: 8 February 2017; Published online: 17 March 2017 Keywords:  allergic diseases • immunotherapy • TLR9 • Toll-like receptor