Managing the Process of International Collaboration in Online Course Development: A Case-Example Involving Higher Education Institutions in Ireland,Switzerland, Austria,and the United Kingdom

There has been significant growth recently in online learning and joint programmes of education involving collaborative partnerships between and among higher education institutions in different jurisdictions. Utilising an interdisciplinary team model (Care and Scanlan 2001), we describe in this article the process of collaboration among four European institutions in Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom in order to develop and deliver an accredited online course on the management of work-related stress for health and social care workers. This course was also one of the first to pilot a system of equivalency between two European vocational and higher education credit schemes to promote learner mobility and recognition of a new international qualification. Although this process of collaboration occurred within a pan-European context, important lessons may be drawn from this explanation that are of potential interest to the wider international audience.     

Femoral indicator injection for transpulmonary thermodilution using the EV1000/VolumeView®: do the same criteria apply as for the PiCCO®?

Objective

Comparison of global end-diastolic volume index (GEDVI) obtained by femoral and jugular transpulmonary thermodilution (TPTD) indicator injections using the EV1000/VolumnView® device (Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, USA).

Methods

In an 87-year-old woman with hypovolemic shock and equipped with both jugular and femoral vein access and monitored with the EV1000/VolumeView® device, we recorded 10 datasets, each comprising duplicate TPTD via femoral access and duplicate TPTD (20 ml cold saline) via jugular access.

Results

Mean femoral GEDVI ((674.6±52.3) ml/m²) was significantly higher than jugular GEDVI ((552.3±69.7) ml/m²), with P=0.003. Bland-Altman analysis demonstrated a bias of (+122±61) ml/m², limits of agreement of ?16 and +260 ml/m², and a percentage error of 22%. Use of the correction-formula recently suggested for the PiCCO® device significantly reduced bias and percentage error. Similarly, mean values of parameters derived from GEDVI such as pulmonary vascular permeability index (PVPI; 1.244±0.101 vs. 1.522±0.139; P<0.001) and global ejection fraction (GEF; (24.7±1.6)% vs. (28.1±1.8)%; P<0.001) were significantly different in the case of femoral compared to jugular indicator injection. Furthermore, the mean cardiac index derived from femoral indicator injection ((4.50±0.36) L/(min·m²)) was significantly higher (P=0.02) than that derived from jugular indicator injection ((4.12±0.44) L/(min·m²)), resulting in a bias of (+0.38±0.37) L/(min·m²) and a percentage error of 19.4%.

Conclusions

Femoral access for indicator injection results in markedly altered values provided by the EV1000/VolumeView®, particularly for GEDVI, PVPI, and GEF.

     

Qualitätssicherung in Kindertageseinrichtungen

Obwohl heute ein weitgehender Konsens darüber vorliegt, dass der Qualit?tssicherung bei Humandienstleistungen ein ganz besonderer Stellenwert zukommt, fehlt eine systematische Auseinandersetzung mit den Gründen und M?glichkeiten einer solchen Qualit?tssicherung. Am Beispiel der Bildung, Erziehung und Betreuung von Kindern in Kindertageseinrichtungen sollen deshalb in diesem Beitrag systematische überlegungen zu einer Qualit?tssicherung zusammengetragen und diskutiert werden. In einem ersten Teil des Beitrags werden prim?r aus ?konomischer, jedoch auch aus p?dagogischer Perspektive die unterschiedlichen Gründe für eine Qualit?tssicherung au?erhalb des Marktes dargelegt. Eine solche Qualit?tssicherung muss jedoch nicht vom Staat selbst übernommen werden, vielmehr hat dieser lediglich die Rahmenbedingungen für ein funktionierendes Qualit?tssicherungssystem zu setzen. Der Beitrag stellt dar, welche Anforderungen ein solches Qualit?tssicherungssystem prinzipiell erfüllen muss, im Anschluss daran wird überprüft, inwiefern diese Anforderungen im deutschen Kindertageseinrichtungsbereich erfüllt sind. Als Ergebnis kann festgehalten werden, dass das deutsche Qualit?tssicherungssystem zu keinen ausreichenden Ergebnissen führt und daher reformbedürftig ist. Als Ansatzpunkt für solche Reformüberlegungen schlagen wir ein Gütesiegelsystem vor, das — in Kombination mit einer Subjektf?rderung über Kinderbetreuungsgutscheine — wettbewerbliche Elemente nicht nur bei der Zuteilung von Finanzmitteln, sondern auch bei der Qualit?tssicherung nutzbar macht. Damit verspricht das Gütesiegelsystem im Vergleich zum bisherigen System effizienter und effektiver zu sein.     

Channel adaptive rate control for energy optimization

Low energy consumption is one of the main challenges for wireless video transmission on battery limited devices. The energy invested at the lower layers of the protocol stack involved in data communication, such as link and physical layer, represent an important part of the total energy consumption. This communication energy highly depends on the channel conditions and on the transmission data rate. Traditionally, video coding is unaware of varying channel conditions. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer approach in which the rate control mechanism of the video codec becomes channel-aware and steers the instantaneous output rate according to the channel conditions to reduce the communication energy. Our results show that energy savings of up to 30% can be obtained with a reduction of barely 0.1 dB on the average video quality. The impact of feedback delays is shown to be small. In addition, this adaptive mechanism has low complexity, which makes it suitable for real-time applications.     

Comparative analysis of delayed alternation learning in cats,mice, and guinea pigs

The performance of cats, guinea pigs, and mice in a delayed alternation paradigm was compared both during initial learning and following a 10-day retention interval. The testing situation (a modified T-maze), the length of the delay period (10 sec), and the amount of training per session and per week were kept identical for all three species. The results indicated that (1) animals of all three species acquired the task within similar time spans, (2) a considerable variance was apparent in the performance of individual animals independent of their species, and (3) guinea pigs, as a group, appeared to need a somewhat longer time to acquire delayed alternation than did mice and cats. Relearning of the task following the 10-day interval seemed to follow similar laws in all three species.     

The knowledge base and text recall: Evidence from a short-term longitudinal study

In a short-term longitudinal study, we investigated how domain-specific knowledge in soccer influences the amount of text recall and comprehension in elementary school and junior high school children of high and low overall aptitudes. Both level of soccer knowledge and overall aptitude were varied in a factorial design. Third, fifth, and seventh grade children were given several measures of text recall and comprehension and were retested on these measures about 1 year later. Performance was more a function of soccer knowledge than of aptitude level.     

Editorial

It has become somewhat of a custom for the editors of this journalto praise, at this place, the thematic and geographical diversityof the research presented in the respective issue. We will notbreak with this custom this time, but, with the twinkling ofan eye, begin by stating that diversity is almost lacking inone respect in this issue: gender. If it were not for one co-authorand the ‘World Opinion’ and ‘Book Reviews’sections, this would be an all-male issue, authorwise. A     

Editorial

This issue of the journal has a full complement of articlesabout public opinion processes and methodological topics relatedto the reliability and validity of public opinion data. In accordwith the journal's stated policies, they reflect the work     

The Development of Metacognitive Knowledge in Children and Adolescents: Major Trends and Implications for Education

ABSTRACT— This article gives an overview of developmental trends in research on metacognition in children and adolescents. Whereas a first wave of studies focused on the assessment of declarative and procedural metacognitive knowledge in schoolchildren and adolescents, a second wave focused on very young children's "theory of mind" (ToM). Findings from a recent longitudinal study are presented that demonstrate developmental links between early ToM and subsequent declarative metacognitive knowledge, mainly mediated by language competencies. The relevant literature further indicates that developmental trends in declarative and procedural metacognitive knowledge clearly differ. Whereas the findings for declarative metacognitive knowledge show steady improvement through childhood and adolescence, mainly due to increases in knowledge about strategies, the results are not similarly clear-cut for procedural metacognition. Age trends observed for this component of metacognition are significant for self-control activities but not pronounced for monitoring abilities. These findings have important implications for education, emphasizing the role of strategy training procedures in different instructional domains and illustrating teachers' potential impact on the improvement of monitoring and control processes.