Novel visualization for curriculum in silico using syllabus by a combination of cosine similarity, multidimensional scaling methods, and scatter plot: Dynamic curriculum mapping (DCM) for syllabus

Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology recently recommended thathigher learning institutions publicly disclose their course syllabuses and curriculum maps as part of a larger effort to improve the quality of education. Two well-known concerns regarding curriculum maps exist. First, curriculum maps do not include all the curricula of a given university. Second, the construction of a new map every year is difficult for most universities. To address each of these problems, we developed a novel visualization for curriculum using syllabuses by a combination of cosine similarity, multidimensional scaling methods, and scatterplots. We call this method dynamic curriculum mapping (DCM).| 近年、文部科学省は、高等教育機関に対し、教育の質保証や実質化を求めている。その一環として、様々な大学において、教育の質改善に重要な役割を果たすカリキュラムマップが作成されている。しかしながら、カリキュラムマップには、毎年の更新が難しいなどの問題があることがわかっている。そこで我々は、これらの問題を解決するために、シラバスをもとに、コサイン類似度と多次元尺度法と散布図を組み合わせて作成する新しいカリキュラムマップを開発し、動的カリキュラムマップと名付けた。本学のシラバスをもとに、この動的カリキュラムマップを作成したので、併せて報告する

“Eduinformatics”: A new education field promotion

Kobe Tokiwa University is currently performing university reform. To address many pressing and important problems of university reform, we had, over the past three years, determined research questions about these problems and resolved each of them when a problem presented itself, publishing our findings as reports or presenting in meetings. Before we began this research, we thought that there were no relationships between our studies. In this study, we reflect on our research during the last three years. Looking back, we discovered that we can classify our research into six groups by context analysis: group 1: university reform and collaboration between academic faculty and administrative staff, group 2: proposal of novel knowledge-creation models, group 3: novel visualization methods for education, group 4: information and communication technology for education, group 5: evidence-based education, group 6: first-year experience. More abstractly, our research can provide basis for a novel interdisciplinary concept, which we call “eduinformatics.” Based on this research, we propose changes to higher education that will result in increased quality of learning and teaching.| 神戸常盤大学は大学改革の真っ只中にある。われわれは過去3年間、本学における高等教育上の重要な課題を解決すべく、その都度リサーチクエスチョンを定めたうえでそれを解決し、その内容を論文や学会発表という形で公表してきた。今回、これらの一連の研究成果を俯瞰的に眺め、文脈解析を行った結果、われわれの研究が、①大学改革と教職協働、②新たな知の創造モデルの提案、③教育の新可視化法の開発、④ ICTを用いた教育方法の開発、⑤エビデンス・ベースドな教育の実践、⑥初年次教育、の6つの分野に分類できることを見出した。そしてこの6つの分野が、bioinformaticsという既存の概念に倣い、教育研究といういわゆる文系色の濃い分野に、いわゆる理系色を融合させた学際的分野として“eduinformatics”という新たな概念を提唱することで1つに括れることを発見した。この新たな概念を高等教育研究に敷衍することで、わが国の高等教育研究が飛躍的に発展していくことが期待できる

Comprehensive Pan-Genomic Characterization of Adrenocortical Carcinoma

SummaryWe describe a comprehensive genomic characterization of adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). Using this dataset, we expand the catalogue of known ACC driver genes to include PRKAR1A, RPL22, TERF2, CCNE1, and NF1. Genome wide DNA copy-number analysis revealed frequent occurrence of massive DNA loss followed by whole-genome doubling (WGD), which was associated with aggressive clinical course, suggesting WGD is a hallmark of disease progression. Corroborating this hypothesis were increased TERT expression, decreased telomere length, and activation of cell-cycle programs. Integrated subtype analysis identified three ACC subtypes with distinct clinical outcome and molecular alterations which could be captured by a 68-CpG probe DNA-methylation signature, proposing a strategy for clinical stratification of patients based on molecular markers

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles (MISEV2023): From basic to advanced approaches

Extracellular vesicles (EVs), through their complex cargo, can reflect the state of their cell of origin and change the functions and phenotypes of other cells. These features indicate strong biomarker and therapeutic potential and have generated broad interest, as evidenced by the steady year-on-year increase in the numbers of scientific publications about EVs. Important advances have been made in EV metrology and in understanding and applying EV biology. However, hurdles remain to realising the potential of EVs in domains ranging from basic biology to clinical applications due to challenges in EV nomenclature, separation from non-vesicular extracellular particles, characterisation and functional studies. To address the challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field, the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) updates its 'Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles', which was first published in 2014 and then in 2018 as MISEV2014 and MISEV2018, respectively. The goal of the current document, MISEV2023, is to provide researchers with an updated snapshot of available approaches and their advantages and limitations for production, separation and characterisation of EVs from multiple sources, including cell culture, body fluids and solid tissues. In addition to presenting the latest state of the art in basic principles of EV research, this document also covers advanced techniques and approaches that are currently expanding the boundaries of the field. MISEV2023 also includes new sections on EV release and uptake and a brief discussion of in vivo approaches to study EVs. Compiling feedback from ISEV expert task forces and more than 1000 researchers, this document conveys the current state of EV research to facilitate robust scientific discoveries and move the field forward even more rapidly

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.Peer reviewe