9,625 research outputs found
HIV-infected pregnant adolescents and youth : results from a European cohort study
No full textGlobally the HIV epidemic mainly affects young people, particularly young females who are vulnerable to acquisition of HIV as a result of their biological and social susceptibility. Women represent an increasing proportion of newly diagnosed HIV cases in Western and Eastern Europe, reaching 35% and 40%, respectively, in 2004. In the European Collaborative Study (ECS), HIV-infected pregnant women are enrolled and their infants followed-up prospectively. By the end of 2005, 5956 women had enrolled, of whom 1912 (32%) were aged < 25 years at delivery. Enrolments of youth declined in Western European centres from 59% in 1985 to 18% in 2005. In Ukraine, youth enrolments declined from 52% in 2001 to 43% in 2005. Median ages of the young and older sub-cohorts were 22.3 and 29.9 years, respectively. Injecting drug use (IDU) was more common in the older than younger sub-cohorts [42% (n = 1684) vs. 35% (n = 675), p < 0.001]. However, young IDUs were more likely to be currently using injecting drugs than older IDUs (59% vs. 38%, p < 0.001), to report current sharing of injecting equipment (22% vs. 13%, p = 0.001) and to report an IDU sex partner (59% vs. 48%, p < 0.02). Young HIV-infected pregnant women in Europe are a heterogeneous group, possibly less identifiable as being at risk of HIV infection. They will have diverse needs for services during and after pregnancy, including harm reduction services and psychosocial support, in addition to a universal need for prevention of mother-to-child transmission services
Intelligent support for group work in collaborative learning environments
No full textThe delivery of intelligent support for group work is a complex issue in
collaborative learning environments. This particularly pertains to the construction
of effective groups and assessment of collaboration problems. This is because the
composition of groups can be affected by several variables, and various methods
are desirable for ascertaining the existence of different collaboration problems.
Literature has shown that current collaborative learning environments provide
limited or no support for teachers to cope with these tasks. Considering this and the
increasing use of online collaboration, this research aims to explore solutions for
improving the delivery of support for group work in collaborative learning
environments, and thus to simplify how teachers manage collaborative group work.
In this thesis, three aspects were investigated to achieve this goal. The first
aspect emphasises on proposing a novel approach for group formation based on
students‘ learning styles. The novelty and importance of this approach is the
provision of an automatic grouping method that can tailor to individual students‘
characteristics and fit well into the existing collaborative learning environments.
The evaluation activities comprise the development of an add-on tool and an
undergraduate student experiment, which indicate the feasibility and strength of the
proposed approach — being capable of forming diverse groups that tend to perform
more effectively and efficiently than similar groups for conducting group
discussion tasks.
The second focus of this research relates to the identification of major
group collaboration problems and their causes. A nationwide survey was conducted
that reveals a student perspective on the issue, which current literature fails to
adequately address. Based on the findings from the survey, an XML-based
representation was created that provides a unique perspective on the linkages
between the problems and causes identified.
Finally, the focus was then shifted to the proposal of a novel approach for
diagnosing the major collaboration problems identified. The originality and
significance of this approach lies in the provision of various methods for ascertaining the existence of different collaboration problems identified, based on
student interaction data that result from the group work examined. The evaluation
procedure focused on the development of a supporting tool and several
experiments with a test dataset. The results of the evaluation show that the
feasibility and effectiveness are sustained, to a great extent, for the diagnostic
methods addressed.
Besides these main proposals, this research has explored a multi-agent
architecture to unify all the components derived for intelligently managing online
collaborative learning, which suggests an overarching framework providing
context for other parts of this thesis
European antibiotic awareness day : a five-year perspective of Europe-wide actions to promote prudent use of antibiotics
No full textFollowing the European Union (EU) Council Recommendation on prudent use of antimicrobial agents in human medicine in 2001, and the success of national campaigns, i.e. Belgium and France, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) decided to establish the European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD) on 18 November as platform to support national campaigns across Europe. This article provides an overview of EAAD tools, materials, and activities developed during the first five years. It shows that EAAD has been successful due to good cooperation between ECDC and national institutions, strong political and stakeholder support and evidence-based development of campaign materials. EAAD has provided a platform for pre-existing national campaigns and encouraged similar campaigns to develop where neither political support had been secured, nor financial support had been available. As a result, participating countries have continuously expressed strong support for ECDC to continue its work on EAAD. This has been endorsed by a steadily increasing number of countries participating and the growing interest of varied professional and stakeholder organisations. We conclude that EAAD should continue to act as catalyst for discussion and as mechanism to raise awareness of the public and prescribers about prudent use of antibiotics.peer-reviewe
Progress in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection in Ukraine: results from a birth cohort study
No full textBackground: Ukraine was the epicentre of the HIV epidemic in Eastern Europe, which has the most rapidly accelerating HIV epidemic world-wide today; national HIV prevalence is currently estimated at 1.6%. Our objective was to evaluate the uptake and effectiveness of interventions for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) over an eight year period within operational settings in Ukraine, within the context of an ongoing birth cohort study.Methods: The European Collaborative Study (ECS) is an ongoing birth cohort study in which HIV-infected pregnant women identified before or during pregnancy or at delivery were enrolled and their infants prospectively followed. Three centres in Ukraine started enrolling in 2000, with a further three joining in September 2006.Results: Of the 3356 women enrolled, 21% (689) reported current or past injecting drug use (IDU). Most women were diagnosed antenatally and of those, the proportion diagnosed in the first/second trimester increased from 47% in 2000/01 (83/178) to 73% (776/1060) in 2006/07 (p < 0.001); intrapartum diagnosis was associated with IDU (Adjusted odds ratio 4.38; 95% CI 3.19-6.02). The percentage of women not receiving any antiretroviral prophylaxis declined from 18% (36/205) in 2001 to 7% in 2007 (61/843) p < 0.001). Use of sdNVP alone substantially declined after 2003, with a concomitant increase in zidovudine prophylaxis. Median antenatal zidovudine prophylaxis duration increased from 24 to 72 days between 2000 and 2007. Elective caesarean section (CS) rates were relatively stable over time and 34% overall. Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) rates decreased from 15.2% in 2001 (95% CI 10.2-21.4) to 7.0% in 2006 (95% CI 2.6-14.6). In adjusted analysis, MTCT risk was reduced by 43% with elective CS versus vaginal delivery and by 75% with zidovudine versus no prophylaxis.Conclusion: There have been substantial improvements in use of PMTCT interventions in Ukraine, including earlier diagnosis of HIV-infected pregnant women and increasing coverage with antiretroviral prophylaxis and the initial MTCT rate has more than halved. Future research should focus on hard-to-reach populations such as IDU and on missed opportunities for further reducing the MTCT rate
Exploratory talk within collaborative small groups in mathematics
No full textThis report describes one aspect of a wider research study on exploratory talk within collaborative small groups in secondary mathematics lessons. It outlines students’ views of using collaborative activity to learn mathematics. The fuller research study explores the extent to which exploratory talk occurs in collaborative peer groups in secondary mathematics classrooms
European collaborative projects
No full textSIGLELD:81/23343(European). / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo
Essentials for Standardising the Undergraduate Urology Curriculum in Europe : Outcomes of a Delphi Consensus from the European School of Urology
No full textFunding/Support and role of the sponsor: None. Acknowledgments: We want to acknowledge the European Association of Urology personnel dedicated to keeping this work going during the COVID-19 crisis.Peer reviewe
36th European Group for Organizational Studies Colloquium (EGOS), University of Hamburg
No full textSocial entrepreneurship (Mair & Marti, 2006; Zahra, Gedajlovic, Neubaum, & Shulman, 2009) and impact investment (Bugg-Levine & Emerson, 2011; Höchstädter & Scheck, 2015) have garnered interest especially in the realm of practitioners, and to an extent also among academics. Social entrepreneurs and impact investors have a twofold perspective to the global environmental and social problems: on the one hand they are intrinsically motivated to contribute to a ‘better tomorrow’, and on the other hand they view the problems as also business opportunities. These viewpoints also constitute a continuum between fully philanthropic activities and fully profit oriented activities (Brandstetter & Lehner, 2015; Sainio, 2018; Seymour, 2012), where the endpoints are populated at one end by NGOs and philantrophists, and at the other by traditional corporations and investors. The social entrepreneurs and impact investors populate various areas on the continuum, joined together by their belief in the possibility of combining the perspectives. In this article we cluster these entrepreneurs and investors under the label of ‘transformative business’. It is the aim of our research to explore the mechanism through which these aspirations embedded in the ideology of Oxygen 2050 may or may not be realized. As such, our research contributes to filling the lacunae in academic knowledge in two contemporary and relevant areas: first, we contribute to the understanding of the role of interorganizational and interindividual networks in tackling the ‘wicked problems’, and secondly we contribute to the nascent literatures of social entrepreneurship and impact investment from an ecosystem perspective. Our research question is simple: How does the value of transformative business ecosystems materialize? </p
Assessment of (computer-supported) collaborative learning
No full textWithin the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CS)CL research community there has been an extensive dialogue on theories and perspectives on learning from collaboration, approaches to scaffold (script) the collaborative process, and most recently research methodology. In contrast, the issue of assessment of collaborative learning has received much less attention. This article discusses how assessment of collaborative learning has been addressed, provides a perspective on what could be assessed, and highlights limitations of current approaches. Since assessment of collaborative learning is a demanding experience for teachers and students alike, they require adequate computer-supported and intelligent tools for monitoring and assessment. A roadmap for the role and application of intelligent tools for assessment of (CS)CL is presented
The effect of functional roles on perceived group efficiency during computer-supported collaborative learning
No full textIn this article, the effect of functional roles on group performance and collaboration during computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is investigated. Especially the need for triangulating multiple methods is emphasised: Likert-scale evaluation questions, quantitative content analysis of e-mail communication and qualitative analysis of open-ended questions were used. A comparison of fourty-one questionnaire observations, distributed over thirteen groups in two research conditions – groups with prescribed functional roles (n = 7, N = 18) and nonrole groups (n = 6, N = 23) – revealed no main effect for performance (grade). Principal axis factoring of the Likert-scales revealed a latent variable that was interpreted as perceived group efficiency (PGE). Multilevel modelling (MLM) yielded a positive marginal effect of PGE. Most groups in the role condition report a higher degree of PGE than nonrole groups. Content analysis of e-mail communication of all groups in both conditions (role n = 7, N = 25; nonrole n = 6, N = 26) revealed that students in role groups contribute more ‘coordination’ focussed statements. Finally, results from cross case matrices of student responses to open-ended questions support the observed marginal effect that most role groups report a higher degree of perceived group efficiency than nonrole groups
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