An evaluation of an adaptive learning system based on multimodal affect recognition for learners with intellectual disabilities

Artificial intelligence tools for education (AIEd) have been used to automate the provision of learning support to mainstream learners. One of the most innovative approaches in this field is the use of data and machine learning for the detection of a student’s affective state, to move them out of negative states that inhibit learning, into positive states such as engagement. In spite of their obvious potential to provide the personalisation that would give extra support for learners with intellectual disabilities, little work on AIEd systems that utilise affect recognition currently addresses this group. Our system used multimodal sensor data and machine learning to first identify three affective states linked to learning (engagement, frustration, boredom) and second determine the presentation of learning content so that the learner is maintained in an optimal affective state and rate of learning is maximised. To evaluate this adaptive learning system, 67 participants aged between 6 and 18 years acting as their own control took part in a series of sessions using the system. Sessions alternated between using the system with both affect detection and learning achievement to drive the selection of learning content (intervention) and using learning achievement alone (control) to drive the selection of learning content. Lack of boredom was the state with the strongest link to achievement, with both frustration and engagement positively related to achievement. There was significantly more engagement and less boredom in intervention than control sessions, but no significant difference in achievement. These results suggest that engagement does increase when activities are tailored to the personal needs and emotional state of the learner and that the system was promoting affective states that in turn promote learning. However, longer exposure is necessary to determine the effect on learning.     

Microfluidic-driven viral infection on cell cultures: Theoretical and experimental study

Advanced cell culture systems creating a controlled and predictable microenvironment together with computational modeling may be useful tools to optimize the efficiency of cell infections. In this paper, we will present a phenomenological study of a virus-host infection system, and the development of a multilayered microfluidic platform used to accurately tune the virus delivery from a diffusive-limited regime to a convective-dominated regime. Mathematical models predicted the convective-diffusive regimes developed within the system itself and determined the dominating mass transport phenomena. Adenoviral vectors carrying the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) transgene were used at different multiplicities of infection (MOI) to infect multiple cell types, both in standard static and in perfused conditions. Our results validate the mathematical models and demonstrate how the infection processes through perfusion via microfluidic platform led to an enhancement of adenoviral infection efficiency even at low MOIs. This was particularly evident at the longer time points, since the establishment of steady-state condition guaranteed a constant viral concentration close to cells, thus strengthening the efficiency of infection. Finally, we introduced the concept of effective MOI, a more appropriate variable for microfluidic infections that considers the number of adenoviruses in solution per cell at a certain time.     

Converting to belong: immigration,education and nationalisation among young ‘Russian’ immigrant women

The paper examines religious conversion to Judaism among young ‘Russian’ immigrant girls in Israel. Looking into the process of conversion in religious boarding schools for girls only (Ulpana) and in the broader context of the Israeli nation‐state, we examine the strategies the educators contrive in inculcating religiosity among the girls, how they legitimise and facilitate their self‐transformation, and mobilise them to desire a religious subjectivity. At the same time, we study the experiences of the Russian girls in the Ulpana, and the meanings they assign to their conversion as depicted in the personal stories they narrated to us. The paper reveals how the Ulpana operates as a major nationalisation agent that cultivates a path for the girls to belong to the national religious camp, thus assuring their affiliation to Israeli‐Jewish society at large.     

Narratives in Dialogue: Remembering,Experiencing, and Appropriating Changes in the Culture of Australian Rules Football

Abstract

In 1990, the Victorian Football League (VFL) became the Australian Football League (AFL) in a symbolic gesture to mark its continuing, although fragmented, national expansion. This commercially strategic move solidified the League’s enduring transition from a parochial competition of Melbourne and its suburbia to a clinically managed franchise business with a nationwide reach and an under-surface global ambition. In this paper, the continual yet not strictly linear development of the League is positioned as an interaction and, at times, a tension between locality and globality, from which to reflect on the stories of Billy and Steph – two AFL followers separated by a generation and differing life experiences. The paper chronologizes neither the VFL/AFL transition nor the two narratives but instead juxtaposes memories and present-day football encounters of the two fans, illuminating creative personal engagements with the League’s perpetually in-flux structures and offering insights into intimate meanings and utilities of community, belonging, and commodity within the AFL spectatorship culture.     

Bulding ambidexterity through creativity mechanisms: Contextual drivers of innovation success

Do creativity methods consistently produce a significant net effect on innovation? Are the impacts of creativity methods related to operating context? Based on an ambidexterity perspective, we examine the effectiveness of different creativity methods on overcoming the tensions of the innovation process at individual and team levels. Drawing on European Union Community Innovation Survey (CIS2010) data collected from 23,537 firms, we estimate causal effects of creativity on innovation through a multivalued treatment effect methodology. Our results show that implementing ambidexterity in creativity methods increases the firm´s propensity to innovate and to introduce a market novelty. However, the effect on firm turnover is not always clear. Also, we detect that ambidexterity is more effective in firms that are large in size, have high levels of R&D investment and operate in manufacturing sectors. We discuss the implications of these findings for practice and for future research.     

‘Quality revolution’ in post-Soviet education in Russia: from control to assurance?

Employing the analytical framework of a discourse-driven social change, this paper unpacks the neoliberal concept of ‘educational quality’ in the course of Russian education modernisation reform from 1991 to 2013. Since the early 1990s, the global neoliberal discourse has served as the backbone for post-Soviet educational ideology. Alongside other major reform initiatives, the ‘quality revolution,’ proclaimed by the Russian Government in the early 1990s, signified a rhetoric shift away from the Soviet-era quality control towards a neoliberal quality assurance paradigm. Through fine-grained textual analysis of policy documents and political statements by key educational stakeholders, the analysis unpacks the discursive underbelly of the new quality paradigm, in an attempt to determine whether a paradigmatic transformation has taken place. The paper argues that despite the nominally proclaimed shift towards a quality assurance model of educational governance, the representation of educational stakeholders and responsibilities within the new quality paradigm continues to correspond to the Soviet-era command-and-control authoritarian model. The study challenges the popular claim of a neoliberal turn in Russian education and suggests that a neoconservative authoritarian approach to education governance has been smuggled in under the disguise of ‘quality assurance.’     

Paradoxes of Sahrawi refugees' educational migration: promoting self-sufficiency or renewing dependency?

Education is often prioritised by refugee children and families, as well as by their political representatives and international actors alike. This article explores the specificities of the Sahrawi refugee education system, focusing in particular on the nature, motivations and implications of Sahrawi refugee youths' educational migration to Cuba through a scholarship programme designed to promote self-sufficiency and socio-economic development in the Sahrawi refugee camps. Drawing upon interviews conducted with Cuban-educated Sahrawi refugees in Cuba and in their Algerian-based refugee camps I argue that, despite educational migration having become a central part of Sahrawi refugee children's, youths' and adults' imaginary landscapes, Sahrawi youths' educational migration to Cuba is ultimately paradoxical in nature, reshaping and reinforcing, rather than reducing, Sahrawi refugees' dependence upon Western aid providers.     

The Simple View of Reading: Is It Valid for Different Types of Alphabetic Orthographies?

We present a meta-analysis to test the validity of the Simple View of Reading Gough & Tunmer (Remedial and Special Education, 7:6–10, 1986) for beginner readers of English and other, more transparent, orthographies. Our meta-analytic approach established that the relative influence of decoding and linguistic comprehension on reading comprehension is different for readers of different types of orthography during the course of early reading development. Furthermore, we identified key differences in the relations among different measures of decoding and reading comprehension between readers of English and other more transparent orthographies. We discuss the implications for reading instruction and the diagnosis of reading difficulties, as well as our theoretical understanding of how component skills influence reading comprehension level.     

Developing an evidence-based public health informatics course*

Objectives

This study assessed the need to develop a public health informatics (PHI) introductory course and determine contents of such a course.

Methods

Community assessments employing focus group interviews and an online survey were utilized to determine course need and content.

Results

Results revealed a need to provide PHI training to graduate public health students and suggested broad course content requirements. Results indicated lack of awareness of libraries and librarians as sources of public health information.

Conclusions

A graduate PHI course was developed and delivered. Additionally, implementation of a subject guide increased the library''s profile.