2,524 research outputs found
Identifying key Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) dimensions associated with academic success amongst postgraduate medical students
No full textMany elements have been identified as contributors of academic success amongst medical students but to group these components in order to develop guidelines for intervention strategies is atypical. One such tool which could allow this possibility is the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) developed by the University of Bristol. ELLI is an online self-assessment instrument which identifies and measures the dimensions of learner development. It comprises of 90 key questions used to measure the seven dimensions of learning power: changing and learning; meaning making; critical curiosity; creativity; learning relationships; strategic awareness and resilience.
This study used ELLI to explore learning dimensions as potential drivers for academic success. A small cohort of thirty-three first year postgraduate medical students consented and completed the first ELLI before starting formal classes. Only eighteen of these completed it a second time, 45 days later. The data from the ELLI questionnaires were analysed both for the whole cohort and separately for each academic performance group (defined using grade point averages).
The results showed that the students obtained the highest scores for the meaning making or changing and learning dimensions, and the lowest scores for creativity or resilience. After a period of postgraduate study, only the successful students displayed significant improvements in the mean ELLI scores, with increases for all ELLI dimensions apart from resilience. Those who were less successful made declines in more than one dimension.
It was concluded that ELLI is an effective instrument for identifying key learning dispositions and it is proposed that an intervention could be developed in the future to improve academic achievement
Exploring narratives of lifelong learning: a case study of two primary school teacher's professional practice in implementing a lifelong learning project.
No full textThe aim of this research is to explore the everyday narratives for two year 5 teachers in a primary school when asked to implement a lifelong learning project into their classroom. Teachers have few opportunities to pause and reflect on their professional practice, so the two year 5 teachers were highly motivated to engage with the research given that the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) was being piloted in their classes. With this purpose, I undertook a narrative approach.
There was also a strong rationale behind providing the teachers with a space in which to have a reflective conversation to allow their narratives to be told. This came from an underlying concept within ELLI, that students have the opportunity to reflect upon their own learning and yet it is not naturally inbuilt for the teachers. The teacher participants constructed a narrative over time as they explored both the negative and positive aspects of implementing a lifelong learning project.
In my analysis I was interested in both the structural element to how the narrative is spoken but also what significant themes are produced across the narratives and the commonalities found. The analysis is a combination of work based on Gee (1991), Mischler (1995) and Riessman (2008) and includes my own part in the co-construction of the narrative.
The narratives allow the teachers to explore their pedagogy and belief system into lifelong learning not only for the children but also for themselves. I identified and interpreted the significant themes from the teachers’ narratives, reflecting how they link to the literature review and the identified learning dimensions within ELLI. Although the experience is around the lifelong learning project, the narrative that unfolds goes far beyond this and reflects very much the individual belief systems, ethical viewpoints, experience, culture and pedagogy as teachers.
Key words: narrative, lifelong learning, reflective conversation, ELLI, teachers, professional practice
Beyond Visualization
No full textBetween 1500 and 1800, the rapid evolution of postal communication allowed ordinary men and women to scatter letters across Europe like never before. This exchange helped knit together what contemporaries called the ‘respublica litteraria’, a knowledge-based civil society, crucial to that era’s intellectual breakthroughs, formative of many modern values and institutions, and a potential cornerstone of a transnational level of European identity. Ironically, the exchange of letters which created this community also dispersed the documentation required to study it, posing enormous difficulties for historians of the subject ever since. To reassemble that scattered material and chart the history of that imagined community, we need a revolution in digital communications. Between 2014 and 2018, an EU networking grant assembled an interdisciplinary community of over 200 experts from 33 different countries and many different fields for four years of structured discussion. The aim was to envisage transnational digital infrastructure for facilitating the radically multilateral collaboration needed to reassemble this scattered documentation and to support a new generation of scholarly work and public dissemination. The framework emerging from those discussions – potentially applicable also to other forms of intellectual, cultural and economic exchange in other periods and regions – is documented in this book
Omnichannel Retail in Practice: A Look at Applied Solutions in the Fashion Industry
No full textThe digital and technological transformation, whose effects have profoundly influenced the last two decades, and which has recently undergone a sudden acceleration, changed how fashion brands produce, sells and communicate and also how individuals come into contact with fashion, experience, share, and “consume” it. Within this framework, fashion has progressively embraced and incorporated technologies in the retail system opening up to new opportunities in terms of communication and distribution strategies, pushing towards an increased integration between physical and digital systems. In the light of current consumer dynamics, the omnichannel approach is evolving into a phygital one, with the progressive merging of the material and digital dimensions. Retail spaces are undergoing a process of proliferation and integration of channels, multiplication of messages and narratives, increase of services resulting in a new “augmented” scenario. Assuming a design perspective, the paper aims to investigate the nature and the impact of digital transformation in fashion retailing, with a focus on in-store technologies and their relationship with spaces and the customer journey, identifying, starting from the most recent fashion retail concepts, some possible scenarios and innovation trajectories
Exceptionally Long-Lived Individuals (ELLI) Demonstrate Slower Aging Rate Calculated by DNA Methylation Clocks as Possible Modulators for Healthy Longevity
No full textExceptionally long-lived individuals (ELLI) who are the focus of many healthy longevity studies around the globe are now being studied in Israel. The Israeli Multi-Ethnic Centenarian Study (IMECS) cohort is utilized here for assessment of various DNA methylation clocks. Thorough phenotypic characterization and whole blood samples were obtained from ELLI, offspring of ELLI, and controls aged 53–87 with no familial exceptional longevity. DNA methylation was assessed using Illumina MethylationEPIC Beadchip and applied to DNAm age online tool for age and telomere length predictions. Relative telomere length was assessed using qPCR T/S (Telomere/Single copy gene) ratios. ELLI demonstrated juvenile performance in DNAm age clocks and overall methylation measurement, with preserved cognition and relative telomere length. Our findings suggest a favorable DNA methylation profile in ELLI enabling a slower rate of aging in those individuals in comparison to controls. It is possible that DNA methylation is a key modulator of the rate of aging and thus the ELLI DNAm profile promotes healthy longevity
Venezia, la ‘festa mobile’: per un Atlante in fieri. Luoghi, figure e forme della favola antica nel primo Rinascimento
No full textWhen trying to handle historical data, it can be confusing and frustrating for the reader to view and understand the information behind the documents. This is where digital technologies can be extremely useful: the article illustrates the ongoing work of a group of scholars for the creation of the atlas “FRIDA” whose objective is to represent all the events linked to Venice in the period between 1450 and 1550, using the famous bird’s eye view of Venice, printed by Jacopo de Barbari in 1500 as a geographical base for mapping events. All information related to civic-religious feasts, wedding parties, Carnival, funerals, occasional parties for passages of illustrious guests, triumphal entries, processions, banquets, liturgical ceremonies, dances, music, tournaments, jousting and theatrical performances of comedies, farces and tragedies of which spatial information was available have been linked to places on the map. The main idea is to visualize the complexity of “mobile feasts” (a description borrowed from Ernest Hemingway), exceeding the limits of the information list. In this way it was possible to begin to identify the places of events, the movements of the processions in the city space, but also the connection of the individual performances, the network of actors and artefacts — images, poems — in the Venice of Marin Sanudo. The Venetian diarist is in fact the main source of information at the base of the mapping made in the interactive atlas which, through three different levels of analysis, manages to bring together the historical, geographical and literary, visual and sound objects that we track in the pages of the Diarii
The low-FODMAP diet and the gluten-free diet in the management of functional abdominal bloating and distension
No full textThis review summarizes current knowledge on the role of low-FODMAP diet and gluten-free diet in functional abdominal bloating and distension, an emerging disorder of gut-brain interaction characterized by remarkable costs for healthcare systems and a significant impact on the patient’s quality of life. Ingested food plays a key role in the pathophysiology of disorders of gut-brain interaction as up to 84% of patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) report food-triggered symptoms. Potential pathogenetic mechanisms of food-related symptoms in these patients are discussed, focusing on bloating and abdominal distension. These mechanisms provide the rationale for dietary treatment in patients with functional abdominal bloating and distension. The role of fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols (FODMAPs) and gluten in functional abdominal bloating and distension is examined. Current literature evaluating the efficacy of the low-FODMAP diet and the gluten-free diet in abdominal bloating and distension is analyzed. Available evidence originates mainly from studies on patients with IBS, since clinical studies on selected cohorts of patients with only functional abdominal bloating and distension have been missing to date. Promising evidence on the potential efficacy of the low-FODMAP diet in functional abdominal bloating and distension is provided by the reduction of the bloating observed in patients with IBS. Regarding the gluten-free diet, there is insufficient evidence to recommend it to reduce bloating and abdominal distension. In conclusion, this review asserts the need for a close collaboration with experts in nutrition to optimize the management of these patients and reduce the risks associated with elimination diets
Gibberellin Content of Apple Fruit as Affected by Genetical and Environmental Factors
No full textGibberellin content of fruitlets of different varieties and of different 'Golden Delicious' clones was investigated for two subsequent years in fruit samples collected weekly on the same trees starting when the fruit was 15 mm diameter (two weeks after petal fall), until July, when the fruit reached 50 mm diameter. The analysis of GA3, GA4 and GA7 content of fruitlets, performed by HPLC, showed that the pattern of GA 4 and GA7 variation in that period was different in different clones and varieties, but was substantially identical in the two years, thus highlighting significant differences between cultivars but also confirming the correlation among relative content of GA4 and GA 7 and russeting appearance. The differences observed in GAs level in different years are probably due to different climatic conditions as it was observed in apple fruitlets of the same cultivars grown in different countries. Correlation was found between cultivar sensitivity to russet and fruit shape. Relations between GAs content and early growth rate of fruitlet, fruit lengthening and russeting are discussed
Does gluten intake influence the development of celiac disease-associated complications?
No full textCeliac disease (CD) is regarded as the most common autoimmune enteropathy in western countries. Epidemiological studies indicate that approximately 1:100 individuals may present with histologically proven CD. CD develops in genetically predisposed subjects after gluten ingestion. It usually subsides after gluten is withdrawn from their diet. Gluten is the only known environmental factor that affects the progression/regression of the intestinal villous atrophy, which is the hallmark of this disease. CD generally follows a benign course after gluten elimination. However, it is also associated with the development of other autoimmune disorders or of intestinal malignancies. The issue of whether such complications, sometimes of significant clinical and prognostic impact, are or are not the result of ongoing gluten ingestion, is an important one that has been investigated over the recent years with conflicting results. In terms of practical implications, the presence of a positive correlation between gluten intake and the development of severe complications would lead to the need for early diagnosis and mass screening. The lack of such correlation would instead suggest a less aggressive diagnostic strategy. This review aims at critically summarizing the evidence supporting either hypothesis. Copyright © 2013 by Lippincott Williams &Wilkins
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