Assessment and learning outcomes: the evaluation of deep learning in an on-line course

Using an online learning environment, students from European countries collaborated and communicated to carry out problem based learning in occupational therapy. The effectiveness of this approach was evaluated by means of the final assessments and published learning outcomes. In particular, transcripts from peer-to-peer sessions of synchronous communication were analysed. The SOLO taxonomy was used and the development of deep learning was studied week by week. This allowed the quality of the course to be appraised and showed, to a certain extent, the impact of this online international course on the learning strategies of the students. Results indicate that deep learning can be supported by synchronous communication and online meetings between course participants.</p

Collaboration and teamwork: immersion and presence in an online learning environment

In the world of OTIS, an online Internet School for occupational therapists, students from four European countries were encouraged to work collaboratively through problem-based learning by interacting with each other in a virtual semi-immersive environment. This paper describes, often in their own words, the experience of European occupational therapy students working together across national and cultural boundaries. Collaboration and teamwork were facilitated exclusively through an online environment, since the students never met each other physically during the OTIS pilot course. The aim of the paper is to explore the observations that here was little interaction between students from different tutorial groups and virtual teamwork developed in each of the cross-cultural tutorial groups. Synchronous data from the students was captured during tutorial sessions and peer-booked meetings and analysed using the qualitative constructs of ‘immersion’, ‘presence’ and ‘reflection in learning’. The findings indicate that ‘immersion’ was experienced only to a certain extent. However, both ‘presence’ and shared presence were found by the students, within their tutorial groups, to help collaboration and teamwork. Other evidence suggests that communities of interest were established. Further study is proposed to support group work in an online learning environment. It is possible to conclude that collaborative systems can be designed, which encourage students to build trust and teamwork in a cross cultural online learning environment.</p

The provision of education and training for healthcare professionals through the medium of the internet

This paper describes a new initiative to provide Internet based courses to student and professional occupational therapists in four centres in the UK, Belgium the Netherlands and Sweden. The basis of this collaborative Occupational Therapy Internet School (OTIS) is the concept of the “Virtual College”. This comprises the design and implementation of a sophisticated Internet-based system through which courses can be managed, prepared and delivered online in an effective fashion, and where students can communicate both with the staff and their peers. The aim is to support and facilitate the whole range of educational activities within a remote electronic environment. A major feature of the course organisation is the adoption of a problem-based approach in which students will collaborate internationally to propose effective intervention in given case study scenarios. The paper outlines the rationale for OTIS, the content and structure of the courseware, the technical specification of the system and evaluation criteria. In addition to the more conventional web-based learning facilities generally offered, a number of agent-based approaches are being adopted to assist in the management of the course by ensuring the proper delivery of course materials and to assist the functioning of project groups. </p

Hooked on Classics: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit 25 years on

This chapter sets out to to reassess the critical reception of Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit 25 years after its initial publication. It argues that the text operates on many different levels, circulating as a much loved comic novel of growing up, as teaching material, as an aspect of popular/literary culture, and as part of Winterson’s own mythobiography. Its success may be attributed to the ways in which the narrative ‘hooks’ itself onto classic texts, which circulate in the culture’s collective unconscious. This chapter will combine these emphases and consider the novel as a literary classic that both subverts the canon and inscribes the tradition in the process of reworking autobiography as art. It will draw on recent interviews with Winterson to suggest that the novel represents a ‘cover story’ that conceals the sense of loss intrinsic to Winterson’s origin story

Mechanisms of redundancy and specificity of the Aspergillus fumigatus Crh transglycosylases

Transglycosylases strengthen the fungal cell wall by forming a rigid network of crosslinks. Here, Fang et al. show that the five Crh transglycosylases of Aspergillus fumigatus are dispensable for cell wall integrity in vitro, and solve the crystal structure of Crh5 in complex with chitooligosaccharides

Valuing Health Gain from Composite Response Endpoints for Multisystem Diseases

Objectives: This study aimed to demonstrate how to estimate the value of health gain after patients with a multisystem disease achieve a condition-specific composite response endpoint. Methods: Data from patients treated in routine practice with an exemplar multisystem disease (systemic lupus erythematosus) were extracted from a national register (British Isles Lupus Assessment Group Biologics Register). Two bespoke composite response endpoints (Major Clinical Response and Improvement) were developed in advance of this study. Difference-in-differences regression compared health utility values (3-level version of EQ-5D; UK tariff) over 6 months for responders and nonresponders. Bootstrapped regression estimated the incremental quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), probability of QALY gain after achieving the response criteria, and population monetary benefit of response. Results: Within the sample (n = 171), 18.2% achieved Major Clinical Response and 49.1% achieved Improvement at 6 months. Incremental health utility values were 0.0923 for Major Clinical Response and 0.0454 for Improvement. Expected incremental QALY gain at 6 months was 0.020 for Major Clinical Response and 0.012 for Improvement. Probability of QALY gain after achieving the response criteria was 77.6% for Major Clinical Response and 72.7% for Improvement. Population monetary benefit of response was £1 106 458 for Major Clinical Response and £649 134 for Improvement. Conclusions: Bespoke composite response endpoints are becoming more common to measure treatment response for multisystem diseases in trials and observational studies. Health technology assessment agencies face a growing challenge to establish whether these endpoints correspond with improved health gain. Health utility values can generate this evidence to enhance the usefulness of composite response endpoints for health technology assessment, decision making, and economic evaluation

Synthesis and optical properties of bis(oligophenyleneethynylenes)

Copyright © 2006 American Chemical SocietyBis(oligophenyleneethynylenes) 1−4 were prepared as representative members of a new class of potential nonlinear optical materials. The optical properties of 1−4 were examined for evidence of restricted rotation of the aryl rings when compared to their single-strand precursors, which could potentially increase their nonlinear response through more effective conjugation. The effect of altering the electron density of the terminating functional group of these compounds on their properties was also investigated

The synthesis of bis(oligophenyleneethynylenes): novel potential nonlinear optical materials

Various functionalised phenyleneethynylene dimers 10 and trimers 12 were synthesised by palladium-catalyzed Sonogashira methodology. These dimers and trimers were coupled to 1,8-diido-10-methoxyanthracene to generate bis(oligophenyleneethynylenes) 17 and 18. Preliminary results towards the construction of both phenyleneethynylene and phenylenevinylene hybrid motifs are presented.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0040402

Casos practico de valuación de empresa: ideas promocionales

"El presente trabajo de tesis, se inicio en el año 2013, donde se pretendía realizar la valuación de la impresa Ideas Promocionales, siendo de un familiar cercano, se presumió que seria fácil contar con la información contable para realizar el avalúo. Se solicito la información contable básica para realizar la valuación, pero la información no era proporcionada; a mediados del 2014, la empresa descubrió que el contador no había realizado los ejercicios fiscales de los últimos años, por lo que este, fue despedido, por lo que no se contaba con la información básica. A inicio del año 2015, se volvió a solicitar la información, ya que la contabilidad de la empresa estaba a cargo de otra firma de contadores. Se recibieron estados de resultados, balance general, de los últimos 3 años: 2014, 2013, 2012. Pero los balances y el estado de resultados, parecían incompletos o con información dudosa. Después se confirmo que en efecto la información estaba en un proceso de re-estructuración contable, por lo que no reflejaban la realidad de la empresa. Por lo que se opto en realizar el caso práctico de valuación, con la premisa de que como no hay información oficial de la empresa, se parte de estimaciones por parte del dueño, para establecer supuestos y elaborar la valuación