Individual Video Training iVT and Annotating Academic Videos AAV: two complementing technologies

Individual Video Training iVT and Annotating Academic Videos AAV: two complementing technologies 1. Recording communication skills training sessions and reviewing them by oneself, with peers, and with tutors has become standard in medical education. Increasing numbers of students paired with restrictions of financial and human resources create a big obstacle to this important teaching method. 2. Everybody who wants to increase efficiency and effectiveness of communication training can get new ideas from our technical solution. 3. Our goal was to increase the effectiveness of communication skills training by supporting self, peer and tutor assessment over the Internet. Two technologies of SWITCH, the national foundation to support IT solutions for Swiss universities, came handy for our project. The first is the authentication and authorization infrastructure providing all Swiss students with a nationwide single login. The second is SWITCHcast which allows automated recording, upload and publication of videos in the Internet. Students start the recording system by entering their single login. This automatically links the video with their password. Within a few hours, they find their video password protected on the Internet. They now can give access to peers and tutors. Additionally, an annotation interface was developed. This software has free text as well as checklist annotations capabilities. Tutors as well as students can create checklists. Tutor’s checklists are not editable by students. Annotations are linked to tracks. Tracks can be private or public. Public means visible to all who have access to the video. Annotation data can be exported for statistical evaluation. 4. The system was well received by students and tutors. Big numbers of videos were processed simultaneously without any problems. 5. iVT http://www.switch.ch/aaa/projects/detail/UNIBE.7 AAV http://www.switch.ch/aaa/projects/detail/ETHZ.9

How do different aspects of self-regulation predict successful adaptation to school?

Self-regulation plays an important role in successful adaptation to preschool and school contexts as well as in later academic achievement. The current study relates different aspects of self-regulation such as temperamental effortful control and executive functions (updating, inhibition, and shifting) to different aspects of adaptation to school such as learning-related behavior, school grades, and performance in standardized achievement tests. The relationship between executive functions/effortful control and academic achievement has been established in previous studies; however, little is known about their unique contributions to different aspects of adaptation to school and the interplay of these factors in young school children. Results of a 1-year longitudinal study (N = 459) revealed that unique contributions of effortful control (parental report) to school grades were fully mediated by children’s learning-related behavior. On the other hand, the unique contributions of executive functions (performance on tasks) to school grades were only partially mediated by children’s learning-related behavior. Moreover, executive functions predicted performance in standardized achievement tests exclusively, with comparable predictive power for mathematical and reading/writing skills. Controlling for fluid intelligence did not change the pattern of prediction substantially, and fluid intelligence did not explain any variance above that of the two included aspects of self-regulation. Although effortful control and executive functions were not significantly related to each other, both aspects of self-regulation were shown to be important for fostering early learning and good classroom adjustment in children around transition to school.

Treatment of aortic stenosis with a self-expanding transcatheter valve: the International Multi-centre ADVANCE Study.

AIM Transcatheter aortic valve implantation has become an alternative to surgery in higher risk patients with symptomatic aortic stenosis. The aim of the ADVANCE study was to evaluate outcomes following implantation of a self-expanding transcatheter aortic valve system in a fully monitored, multi-centre 'real-world' patient population in highly experienced centres. METHODS AND RESULTS Patients with severe aortic stenosis at a higher surgical risk in whom implantation of the CoreValve System was decided by the Heart Team were included. Endpoints were a composite of major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE; all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, stroke, or reintervention) and mortality at 30 days and 1 year. Endpoint-related events were independently adjudicated based on Valve Academic Research Consortium definitions. A total of 1015 patients [mean logistic EuroSCORE 19.4 ± 12.3% [median (Q1,Q3), 16.0% (10.3, 25.3%)], age 81 ± 6 years] were enrolled. Implantation of the CoreValve System led to a significant improvement in haemodynamics and an increase in the effective aortic valve orifice area. At 30 days, the MACCE rate was 8.0% (95% CI: 6.3-9.7%), all-cause mortality was 4.5% (3.2-5.8%), cardiovascular mortality was 3.4% (2.3-4.6%), and the rate of stroke was 3.0% (2.0-4.1%). The life-threatening or disabling bleeding rate was 4.0% (2.8-6.3%). The 12-month rates of MACCE, all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and stroke were 21.2% (18.4-24.1%), 17.9% (15.2-20.5%), 11.7% (9.4-14.1%), and 4.5% (2.9-6.1%), respectively. The 12-month rates of all-cause mortality were 11.1, 16.5, and 23.6% among patients with a logistic EuroSCORE ≤10%, EuroSCORE 10-20%, and EuroSCORE >20% (P< 0.05), respectively. CONCLUSION The ADVANCE study demonstrates the safety and effectiveness of the CoreValve System with low mortality and stroke rates in higher risk real-world patients with severe aortic stenosis.

How minimal grade goals and self-control capacity interact in predicting test grades

The present research examined the prediction of school students' grades in an upcoming math test via their minimal grade goals (i.e., the minimum grade in an upcoming test one would be satisfied with). Due to its significance for initiating and maintaining goal-directed behavior, self-control capacity was expected to moderate the relation between students' minimal grade goals and their actual grades. Self-control capacity was defined as the dispositional capacity to override or alter one's dominant response tendencies. Prior to a scheduled math test, 172 vocational track students indicated their minimal grade goal for the test and completed a measure of self-control capacity. The test grade was assessed at a second time of measurement. As expected, minimal grade goals more strongly predicted the actual test grades the higher the students' self-control capacity. Implications can be seen in terms of optimizing the prediction and advancement of academic performance.

Adaptation of career goals to self and opportunities in early adolescence

Development of career goals that are adapted to self and opportunities is a central component of adolescent career preparation. The present longitudinal study (conducted throughout the eighth grade with three assessment points) investigated how 330 Swiss adolescents simultaneously adapt career goals to interests, scholastic achievement and environmental opportunities. Results demonstrated that students increasingly adapt their goals to the environment. Mean adaptation to environment related positively to degree of adaption to interests and achievement. Increased adaptation to environment over time related to increased adaptation to achievement but to decreased adaptation to interests. Gender, attended school type and nationality moderated adaptation processes. Structurally disadvantaged students (girls, lower requirements school track, immigrant students) reported more conflict in aligning adaptation to environment with adaptation to interests.

Ethnically-based rejection sensitivity and academic achievement: The danger of retracting into one’s heritage culture

This study examined the relation between ethnically based rejection sensitivity and academic achievement in a sample of 936 immigrant students in Germany and Switzerland. The theory of race-based rejection sensitivity that originated in North America was extended to immigrant students in Europe. The rough political climate against immigrants in Europe makes it probable that immigrant youth face particular difficulties and are affected by ethnically based rejection sensitivity, at least as much as—or even more than—minority youth in the United States. Using a standardized literacy performance test and multilevel analyses, we found that ethnically based rejection sensitivity was negatively related to academic achievement for immigrant students. This relation was partially mediated by a strong contingency of the students' self-worth on the heritage culture, as well as by a low number of native German or Swiss majority-group friends. We interpret these processes as immigrant students' efforts to cope with ethnically based rejection sensitivity by retracting into their heritage culture and avoiding majority-group contact, which unfortunately, however, at the same time also results in lower academic achievement. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Synchronous and Time-Lagged Effects between Occupational Self-Efficacy and Objective and Subjective Career Success: Findings from a Four-Wave and 9-Year Longitudinal Study

We integrated research on the dimensionality of career success into social-cognitive career theory and explored the positive feedback loop between occupational self-efficacy and objective and subjective career success over time (self-efficacy → objective success → subjective success → self-efficacy). Furthermore, we theoretically accounted for synchronous and time-lagged effects, as well as indirect reciprocity between the variables. We tested the proposed model by means of longitudinal structural equation modeling in a 9-year four-wave panel design, by applying a model comparison approach and indirect effect analyses (N = 608 professionals). The findings supported the proposed positive feedback loop between occupational self-efficacy and career success. Supporting our time-based reasoning, the findings showed that unfolding effects between occupational self-efficacy and objective career success take more time (i.e., time-lagged or over time) than unfolding effects between objective and subjective career success, as well as between subjective career success and occupational self-efficacy (i.e., synchronous or concurrently). Indirect effects of past on future occupational self-efficacy via objective and subjective career success were significant, providing support for an indirect reciprocity model. Results are discussed with respect to extensions of social-cognitive career theory and occupational self-efficacy development over time.

The longitudinal impact of self-efficacy and career goals on objective and subjective career success

The present research reports on the impact of occupational self-efficacy and of career-advancement goals on objective (salary, status) and subjective (career satisfaction) career attainments. Seven hundred and thirty four highly educated and full-time employed professionals answered questionnaires immediately after graduation, three years later, and seven years later. Controlling for discipline, GPA at master’s level, and gender, we found that occupational self-efficacy measured at career entry had a positive impact on salary and status three years later and a positive impact on salary change and career satisfaction seven years later. Career-advancement goals at career entry had a positive impact on salary and status after three years and a positive impact on status change after seven years, but a negative impact on career satisfaction after seven years. Women earned less than men, but did not differ from men in hierarchical status and in career satisfaction. Theoretical implications for socio-cognitive theorizing and for career-success research as well as applied implications for vocational behavior are discussed.

Social support reciprocity and occupational self-efficacy beliefs during mothers’ organizational re-entry

The present study assesses the effects of a lack of social support reciprocity at work on employees' occupational self-efficacy beliefs. We assume that the self-efficacy effects of received support and support reciprocity depend on the specific work context (e.g., phase in the process of organizational socialization). 297 women who returned to work after maternity leave participated at three measurement points (five weeks, eleven weeks, six months after re-entry). We measured self-reported received and provided support as well as occupational self-efficacy beliefs. Women who received a high amount but provided only little support at work (overbenefitting) reported lowered self-efficacy beliefs. As expected, this effect was not found at the beginning of re-entry, but only later, when over-benefitting began to be negatively related to recipients' self-efficacy beliefs.

Labeling in the Classroom: Teacher Expectations and their Effects on Students' Academic Potential

The transition to high school can be challenging for some adolescents, resulting in drops of academic functioning (Barber & Olsen, 2004; Smith, 2006). While changes in academic demands and the disparity between adolescent needs and the environmental characteristics of high school have both been cited as possible contributors to this decrease in academic and personal functioning (Barber & Olsen, 2004), it is possible that teachers may play an even larger role in undermining these students’ functioning, specifically through labeling. Although labeling, and how it can lead to self-fulfilling prophesies, is a concept that has been thoroughly researched and applied to the field of criminology and deviant behavior, it is the goal of this current study to investigate if labeling also occurs in the classroom setting and how such labels ultimately effect the academic potential of high school students.

The association between academic achievement and health status among eighth -grade Hispanic students in Houston

This cross-sectional study examines the association between health and academic achievement among Hispanic eighth-grade students in the Houston Independent School District. As part of the district's 3 year Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative to enhance comprehensive educational programs, a brief anonymous questionnaire was administered in the classroom to 359 students in two schools during a one-month period in the early part of the 2001 school year. ^ The primary study questions are: Among this sample of Hispanic adolescents, is there a significant association between academic achievement and health status? and in this same population, is there a significant association between health risk behavior and health status? The specific aims of this research are: (1) to describe the association between academic achievement and health status; (2) to describe the association between health risk behaviors and health status; and (3) to describe the relative contribution of health risk behaviors and academic achievement to adolescent health status among this sample of Hispanic adolescents. ^ The survey instrument was a 32-item questionnaire that incorporated: several academic achievement questions measuring usual grades, school-related performance, attendance, student and perceived parental satisfaction with academic achievement, and educational aspirations; two health and quality of life scales measuring adolescent self-reported health; and specific measures of health risk behavior, e.g., frequency of tobacco cigarette smoking, alcohol and other drug use, aggression, and suicidal ideation and behavior that were incorporated from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Questions pertaining to sexual behavior and pregnancy were omitted to comply with school district guidelines. ^ Analysis revealed that strong associations between academic achievement and health status and between health risk behaviors and health status were observed after controlling for the covariates. Eight factors were found to be significantly associated with poor health status: usual grades (low), academic performance (low), academic achievement beliefs (low), classroom and homework performance satisfaction (low), ever drinking alcohol (6 or more times), suicidality (ever thought about, planned for, or sought medical help after attempting suicide), gender (female), and age (15 years and older). (Abstract shortened by UMI.) ^

Self, writing and feminine transactions in Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Clarice Lispector’s The stream of life

Este artículo realiza un acercamiento a Orlando, de Virginia Woolf, y a Agua viva, de Clarice Lispector, como obras que logran escribir la multiplicidad, la fluidez y la contingencia del ser. Jugando con las convenciones de la biografía y la autobiografía respectivamente, estas obras encuentran los medios para presentar un sujeto multidimensional y para mostrar, en particular, cómo la dimensión relacional, forjada por un orden simbólico patriarcal, ha hecho de la mujer el “otro" del hombre; un “otro" que debe ser dominado. Se exploran en este artículo los conceptos de “economía masculina" y “economía femenina" teorizados por Hélène Cixous y se propone al lenguaje poético como un medio capaz de eludir los dictados del falocentrismo. Lo poético, que no puede ser nunca agotado por uno o varios sistemas de significación, brinda la posibilidad de ir más allá de las categorizaciones y de explorar la multiplicidad. Tanto Orlando como Agua viva muestran las estrategias y las esperanzas de personajes y escritoras que ven en el lenguaje poético, en la “escritura femenina" como la entiende Cixous, el potencial de desarticular la “economía masculina" y abrir un nuevo espacio para sujetos diversos, múltiples y complejos.

Epitaxial self-alignment: A new route to hybrid active plasmonic nanostructures

Concepts of lateral ordering of epitaxial semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are for the first time transferred to hybrid nanostructures for active plasmonics. We review our recent research on the self-alignment of epitaxial nanocrystals of In and Ag on ordered one-dimensional In(Ga)As QD arrays and isolated QDs by molecular beam epitaxy. By changing the growth conditions the size and density of the metal nanocrystals are easily controlled and the surface plasmon resonance wavelength is tuned over a wide range in order to match the emission wavelength of the QDs. Photoluminescence measurements reveal large enhancement of the emitted light intensity due to plasmon enhanced emission and absorption down to the single QD level.

Self Learning and self evaluation exercises database in basic mechanics: a theoretical-practical approach

In the School of Mines of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) the first course of different degrees has been implemented and adapted to the European Higher Educational Area (EHEA). In all of the degrees there is a first semester course which gathers all the contents of basic mechanics: from the first kinematics concepts to the rigid solid plane motion Before the Bologna process took place, the authors had established the final assessment of the theoretical contents through open questions of theoretical-practical character In the present work, the elaboration of a wide database containing theoretical-practical questions that students can access on line is presented. The questions are divided in thirteen different questionnaires composed of a number of questions randomly chosen from a certain group in the database. Each group corresponds to a certain learning objective that the student knows. After answering the questionnaire and checking the grade assigned according to the performance of the student, the pupils can see the correct response displayed on the screen and widely explained by the professors. This represents a 10% of the final grade. As the student can access the questionnaires as many times as they want, the main goal is the self-assessment of each learning objective and therefore, getting the students involved in their own learning process so they can decide how much time they need to acquire the required level.

The influence of transparency on self-evaluation as part of the university accreditation process in Peru.

In order to show the choice of transparency as the guiding principle of the accreditation process, the article evaluates its influence on the fundamental subprocess of self-evaluation, thereby confirming that transparency is an essential tool for continuous improvement of academic processes and those of educational quality management. It fosters educational innovation and permits the sustainability of the continuous accreditation process over time, resulting in greater probabilities of university self-regulation through systemization of the process, with the objective of continuous improvement of university degree programs. The article analyzes the influence of transparency on each activity of the self-evaluation process according to the Peruvian accreditation model prepared under the total quality approach, as a reference for other accreditation models, proposing concrete transparency actions and evaluating its influence on the stakeholder groups in the self-evaluation process, as well as on the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. It is concluded that transparency has a positive influence on the training of human capital and the formation of the university?s organizational culture, facilitating dissemination, understanding and involvement of the stakeholder groups in the continuous improvement of accreditation activities and increasing their acceptance of change and commitment to the process. It is confirmed that transparency contributes toward increasing the efficiency index of the self-evaluation process by reducing operating costs through adequate, accessible, timely contribution of information by the stakeholders and through the optimization of the time spent gathering relevant information. In addition, it is concluded that transparency contributes toward increasing the effectiveness index of self-evaluation by facilitating the achievement of its objectives through synthetic, useful, reliable interpretation of the education situation and the formulation of feasible improvement plans based on the adequacy, relevance, visibility, pertinence and truthfulness of the information analyzed.