Hi-bye friends and the herd instinct: international and home students in the creative arts

The crucial role of social integration for the academic success of home students is a common theme in pedagogical research, but for international students the emphasis has been much more on cultural factors and the challenges of transition. The findings of the International Students’ Experience Project at the University of the Arts, London suggest that this is far from the whole story. International students come to the UK precisely to make cosmopolitan friendships, but are held back—by language and communication, but also, less obviously, by differences in age, qualifications, experience and expectations, and by the need to adapt rapidly to an environment which is new in every sense. While home students surmount the challenges of social integration with relative ease, international students thus need more support. By coming to understand the needs of these students in all their complexity, institutions can play a key role in facilitating integration.     

Validation of two accelerometers to determine mechanical loading of physical activities in children

The purpose of this study was to assess the validity of accelerometers using force plates (i.e., ground reaction force (GRF)) during the performance of different tasks of daily physical activity in children. Thirteen children (10.1 (range 5.4–15.7) years, 3 girls) wore two accelerometers (ActiGraph GT3X+ (ACT), GENEA (GEN)) at the hip that provide raw acceleration signals at 100 Hz. Participants completed different tasks (walking, jogging, running, landings from boxes of different height, rope skipping, dancing) on a force plate. GRF was collected for one step per trial (10 trials) for ambulatory movements and for all landings (10 trials), rope skips and dance procedures. Accelerometer outputs as peak loading (g) per activity were averaged. ANOVA, correlation analyses and Bland–Altman plots were computed to determine validity of accelerometers using GRF. There was a main effect of task with increasing acceleration values in tasks with increasing locomotion speed and landing height (P < 0.001). Data from ACT and GEN correlated with GRF (r = 0.90 and 0.89, respectively) and between each other (r = 0.98), but both accelerometers consistently overestimated GRF. The new generation of accelerometer models that allow raw signal detection are reasonably accurate to measure impact loading of bone in children, although they systematically overestimate GRF.     

Evaluation of a learning analytics tool for supporting teachers in the creation and evaluation of accessible and quality open educational resources

The learning analytics (LA) field seeks to analyze data about students’ interactions, and it has been applied in the development of tools for supporting both learning and teaching processes. Recent research has paid attention on how LA may benefit teachers in the creation of educational resources. However, most of the research on LA solutions is carried out to support teachers in analyzing students’ behavior data collected as they interact with virtual learning environments. While solutions to support teachers in different virtual learning and teaching contexts have become important, to date little research has been done on how LA solutions can help teachers to create and evaluate Open Educational Resources (OERs). This study aims at presenting the evaluation of a LA tool for supporting teachers in the creation and evaluation of accessible and quality OERs considering that both processes fall within the competences that teachers can acquire and strengthen by participating as authors (creation) and evaluators (evaluation) of OERs. The study was conducted with Colombian teachers and the results obtained highlight the positive effect the tool had on the teachers’ acquisition of the competences and the positive attitude they had toward using the tool.     

Project Management Techniques at the Complutense University: Academic Librarians' Perceptions

This study examines how academic librarians at the Complutense University (Spain) perceive project management techniques that are becoming increasingly popular in library and information centers due to the need to comply with their strategic planning and services. To reach this goal, a quantitative and qualitative methodology was applied and a survey, in the form of a questionnaire, was used as a data gathering tool. The response rate was 31.2%. The key findings are based on respondents' education regarding project management skills and their expertise managing projects, as well as the presence of project management courses in the Library and Information Science Spanish curriculum. This study revealed that over one third of the academic staff completed their project management training by self-directed learning. Additionally, over half of them stated that they had not participated in any library project in the last five years, and almost half of the library staff concluded that project management techniques are quite important as formal courses in the Library and Information Science university programs. The study is interesting and revealing for those library and information services professionals who are facing day-to-day to users' demands and Library and Information Science challenges.     

Ethanol as an antifungal treatment for paper: short-term and long-term effects

In paper conservation ethanol is used as an antifungal agent. However, information on the antifungal efficacy of this alcohol is scarce and often inconsistent. In this study, we clarify if ethanol is effective and safe to use in paper conservation in the short as well as in the long term. None of the tested ethanol concentrations (5–100%) promoted conidia germination, but rather delayed or entirely inhibited it, depending on alcohol concentration and contact time. In a simulation of an interventive treatment of samples colonized by fungi, all the tested ethanolic solutions (30, 70, and 100%) revealed antifungal activity. The best results were obtained with 70% ethanol, showing fungicidal properties on four of the five-tested fungal species (Aspergillus niger, Cladosporium cladosporioides, Penicillium chrysogenum, and Penicillium corylophilum). No deleterious effects of 70% ethanol on the tested paper were observed either in the short or in the long term.     

Measuring the effectiveness of online problem solving for improving academic performance in a probability course

Education and Information Technologies - Research on impact in student achievement of online homework systems compared to traditional methods is ambivalent. Methodological issues in the study...     

Long pentraxin 3 as a marker of COVID-19 severity: evidences and perspectives

IntroductionSeveral laboratory tests are characteristically altered in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), but are not totally accurate in predicting the disease outcome. The long pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is quickly released directly at inflammation sites by many immune cell types. Previous studies have shown that PTX3 correlated with disease severity in various inflammatory conditions. Our study investigated the use of PTX3 as a potential marker of COVID-19 severity and compared its performance in detecting a more severe form of the disease with that of routine laboratory parameters.Materials and methodsStored serum samples of RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 cases that had been obtained at hospital admission were retrospectively analysed. Intensive care unit (ICU) stay was considered a surrogate endpoint of severe COVID-19. Pentraxin 3 was measured by a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.ResultsA total of 96 patients were recruited from May 1st, 2020 to June 30th, 2020; 75/96 were transferred to ICU. Pentraxin 3 was higher in ICU vs non-ICU patients (35.86 vs 10.61 ng/mL, P < 0.001). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models demonstrated that the only significant laboratory predictor of ICU stay was PTX3 (OR: 1.68 (1.19-2.29), P = 0.003), after controlling for comorbidities. The Receiver Operator Characteristic curve analysis showed that PTX3 had a higher accuracy compared to C-reactive protein (CRP), lactate dehydrogenase (LD), ferritin in identifying ICU patients (AUC of PTX3 = 0.98; CRP = 0.66; LD = 0.70; ferritin = 0.67, P < 0.001). A cut-off of PTX3 > 18 ng/mL yielded a sensitivity of 96% and a specificity of 100% in identifying patients requiring ICU.ConclusionHigh values of PTX3 predict a more severe COVID-19.     

Linguistic kernels for answer re-ranking in question answering systems

Answer selection is the most complex phase of a question answering (QA) system. To solve this task, typical approaches use unsupervised methods such as computing the similarity between query and answer, optionally exploiting advanced syntactic, semantic or logic representations.     

Inflectional morphology and dyslexia: Italian children’s performance in a nonword pluralization task

In this study, we present the results of an original experimental protocol designed to assess the performance in a pluralization task of 52 Italian children divided into two groups: 24 children with developmental dyslexia (mean age 10.0 years old) and 28 typically developing children (mean age 9.11 years old). Our task, inspired by Berko’s Wug Test, had the aim of testing the subjects’ ability to apply pluralization rules to nonwords in the morphologically complex context of Italian nominal inflection. Results demonstrate that dyslexics display poorer morphological skills in comparison to controls, showing lower accuracy in the task. Furthermore, the dissimilar performances reported by the subjects in the different conditions indicate that the ability to inflect nonwords depends on factors such as the rule’s productivity, frequency, and opacity with respect to gender. Finally, the children’s performance in this task was significantly related to their reading proficiency, and it could predict accuracy in word reading independently of phonological awareness and working memory.     

Stereotypes of Older Lesbians and Gay Men

This study examined stereotypes of older lesbians and gay men. Key findings are that older lesbians and gay men were perceived as similar to older heterosexual women and men with regard to aging stereotypes, such as being judicious. At the same time, sexual minorities were targets of unique stereotypes. Consistent with the implicit inversion theory, lesbians were conceived as similar to heterosexual men, and gay men similar to heterosexual women with regard to gender-stereotypic traits, and regardless of age. These findings suggest the persistence into late adulthood of the belief that lesbians and gay men are inverted females and males.