Leveraging an essentials and extension assessment and evaluation model to differentiate in pandemic learning

Teachers at Riverview High School (RHS) in Anglophone East School District, New Brunswick in Canada, have worked as professional learning community teams to establish a new paradigm of assessment and evaluation during the pandemic outbreak. The Essentials and Extension Model of Assessment and Evaluation has successfully been adapted to courses across grades and disciplines to provide support to struggling students and personalized learning opportunities for all students. This model was well established at RHS when schools were closed for the remainder of the 2020 school year due to COVID-19. When teachers and students were required to transition to a remote learning environment, this model facilitated that transition at RHS. This chapter gives an overview of the literature behind the model, a description of the system, and the effects of the model on student learning. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.

Social presence, synchrony, and personalization: challenges of online education in the post-pandemic university

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a forced transition to the virtuality of face-to-face training proposals from universities. But what happened in those higher education careers that already had a distance modality? What lessons learned does the pandemic leave in the subjects that have already been developed online, mediated by digital technologies? In search of answers to these questions, a paradigmatic case study was completed: a distance career with a helping profile, accredited by a private Argentine university2. The research covered two phases: exploration and description, arriving at a categorization that dialogues with con-cepts of the theoretical framework. The data obtained reveals the installation of videoconference as a common practice in traditionally asynchronous spaces. The conclusions highlight the relationship of the categories: social presence and per-sonalization, with the situation of synchrony associated with presence. Everything seems to indicate that the return to normality does not constitute a return to the previous situation, but rather an opening to a transformative process that conso-lidates synchrony as a common practice in distance learning modality, and that causes -in terms of De Alba (2021)- a structural dislocation whose derivations must be mapped to broaden the understanding of the phenomenon.

Different platforms, different plots? The Kremlin-controlled search engine Yandex as a resource for Russia's informational influence in Belarus during the COVID-19 pandemic

Extant research demonstrated that the algorithms of the Kremlin-controlled search engine Yandex, compared to those of its US-based counterpart Google, frequently produce results that are biased toward the interests of Russia's ruling elites. Prior research, however, audited Yandex's algorithms largely within Russia. In contrast, this study is the first to assess the role of Yandex's web search algorithms as a resource for Russia's informational influence abroad. To do so, we conduct a comparative algorithm audit of Google and Yandex in Belarus, examining the visibility and narratives of COVID-19-related conspiracy theories in their search results. By manually analysing the content of 1320 search results collected in mid-April to mid-May 2020, we find that, compared with Google, (1) Yandex retrieves significantly more conspiratorial content (2) that close to exclusively suspects US plotters to be behind the pandemic, even though the virus spread from the Chinese city of Wuhan across the globe.

What is needed to build a personalized recommender system for K-12 students' E-Learning? Recommendations for future systems and a conceptual framework.

Online learning has significantly expanded along with the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Personalization becomes an essential component of learning systems due to students' different learning styles and abilities. Recommending materials that meet the needs and are tailored to learners' styles and abilities is necessary to ensure a personalized learning system. The study conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) of papers on recommendation systems for e-learning in the K12 setting published between 2017 and 2021 and aims to identify the most important component of a personalized recommender system for school students' e-learning. Recommendations for later studies were proposed based on the identified components, namely a personalized conceptual framework for providing materials to school students. The proposed framework comprised four stages: student profiling, material collection, material filtering, and validation.

Parties, Patronage and COVID-19 Vaccination Distribution in Indonesia

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as Indonesia mobilized to deliver vaccines to the population, an unexpected phenomenon occurred: political parties became directly involved in the vaccine delivery effort. In this article, we draw on online reports and interviews to demonstrate that these campaigns acted as an extension of the patronage politics that dominate the country's political arena. The involvement of political parties had little effect on the national vaccination effort, as parties delivered a relatively small number of vaccines and often targeted areas that already had high coverage. Instead, parties and politicians used these events to strengthen links with constituents and supporters. We identify three main pathways that allowed political parties to access the vaccines: lobbying by members of the national legislature's health commission;through local governments;and by direct executive government access to the national Ministry of Health. This "hijacking" of a national policy for clientelistic purposes provides insight into the presence of intra-party coordination of patronage goods but also demonstrates the personalization and fragmentation of patronage distribution highlighted in the existing literature. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the quality of public healthcare and other services in Indonesia.

A Proposed Framework for Student's Skills-Driven Personalization of Cloud-Based Course Content

Engaging students' personalized data in the aspects of education has been on focus by different researchers. This paper considers it vital for exploring the student's progress, moreover, it could predict the student's level which consequently leads to identifying the required student material to raise his current education level. Although the topic has been vital before the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the importance of the topic has increased exponentially ever since. The research supports the decision-makers in educational institutions as considering personalized data for the student's educational tasks and activities proved the positive impact of raising the student level. The paper proposes a framework that considers the students' personal data in predicting their learning skills as well as their educational level. The research included engaging five well-known clustering algorithms, one of the most successful classification algorithms, and a set of 10 features selection techniques. The research applied two main experiment phases, the first phase focused on predicting the students' learning skills, and the second focused on predicting the students' level. Two datasets are involved in the experiments and their sources are mentioned. The research revealed the success of the clustering and prediction tasks by applying the selected techniques to the datasets. The research concluded that the highest clustering algorithm accuracy is enhanced k-means (EKM) and the highest contributing features selection method is the evolutionary computation method. © 2023 World Scientific Publishing Company.

A Comprehensive Study on E-learning Environments for Deaf or Hard of Hearing Learners

Quality education is the fundamental right of every individual regardless of the disabilities they have. For the Deaf or Hard of Hearing (d/DHH) people, e-learning is the most promising way to access the educational materials referred to as digital learning objects (LO) at any time and space which increase their autonomous learning skills. This form of instruction delivery was widely accepted during the outbreak of Covid-19. Hence a background study has been conducted to investigate the challenges in teaching the d/DHH learners during the pandemic. This research work aims at providing a personalized e-learning environment to the d/DHH student community belonging to St. Clare Oral Higher Secondary School for The Deaf, situated in Kerala. To build personalized systems, the primary step is to review the existing e-learning solutions available in the literature and the adaptation techniques implemented by them to offer personalization in line with the components of traditional adaptive e-learning systems. The study carried out in this paper illuminates the need of personalized e-learning platforms that adapt the basic needs, abilities and disabilities of deaf learners which will find the 'best learning solutions' in the form of learning objects. © 2023 IEEE.

Exploring the effectiveness of persuasive games for disease prevention and awareness and the impact of tailoring to the stages of change

Persuasive games are widely implemented in the healthcare domain to promote behaviour change among individuals. Previous research shows that using persuasive games increases motivation and awareness, leading to a positive change in behaviour. However, there is little knowledge on which persuasive strategies will motivate people at different Stages of Behaviour Change and whether tailoring persuasive games to match users' stages of change will increase their effectiveness with respect to their motivational appeal towards promoting disease awareness and prevention using the ARCS motivation scales and their intention to adopt the precautionary measures. To address this gap, using COVID-19 as a case study, we designed two different versions of a persuasive game, called COVID Pacman, using different persuasive strategies. The two versions of the game target the same goal of motivating the adoption of precautionary measures. We conducted a quantitative study (N=127) followed by semi-structured interviews of 18 participants. The results of conducting an ANOVA on the quantitative data and thematic analysis on the qualitative study show that tailoring the persuasive games to individual's stages of change by using appropriate persuasive strategies increased their effectiveness with respect to their ability to motivate people to adopt the precautionary measures towards disease prevention compared to the non-tailored version. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Human-Computer Interaction is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

A Smart Testing Model Based on Mining Semantic Relations

Engaging personalization in the education process is considered one of the success factors for raising the educational process quality by altering the educational institutions' vision for gaining more flexibility while attaining the institution's objectives. It is a fact that the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the main reasons that forwarded attention to online learning as an obligatory path rather than being optional until the arisen situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation has altered the educational institutions' perspective permanently. This research proposes an intelligent model which considers the personalized student characteristics in exploring the student learning styles variation, then considering this variation in building the student exam. Following this model ensures the compatibility of the conducted exam with the student's capabilities as well as the course Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) coverage. The balance in building the exam with covering the course objectives as well as the appropriateness with the student's personalized characteristics is the main objective of this research. The proposed model has been applied and proved its applicability in enhancing the students' exam results to 92.36% and raising the exam quality level. © 2013 IEEE.

Engaging citizen resources as catalysts of museum innovation

The key claim of the article is that the Covid pandemic has offered museums important new opportunities to foster more, and more diverse, citizen engagements;and such engagements may be key to sustainable museum innovation in the future. The claims are underpinned by first mapping the characteristics of two leading paradigms in existing museum interaction with the world: a technology paradigm and a personalisation paradigm. Second, the article provides three empirical examples on how museums may apply participatory designs to foster more inclusive and diverse citizen engagements. The examples are based on case studies conducted at a Danish R&D programme, Our Museum. By way of conclusion, it is discussed how and why citizen engagements can catalyse sustainable museum innovation. © 2023, Edicoes Universitarias Lusofonas. All rights reserved.

A proposed architectural learner model for a personalized learning environment.

Nowadays, the need for e-learning is amplified, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. E-learning platforms present a solution for the continuity of the learning process. Learners are using different platforms and tools for learning. For this, it is necessary to model the learner for the personalization of the learning environment according to his needs, and characteristics, which will allow having a more effective and efficient environment. The existing literature maintains that the learner model represents the basis and the key to adaptation. To achieve this goal, we propose a new adaptation aspect of the learner model by integrating relevant information such as learning style, domain-related data, assessment-related data, and affective data. It has advantages in terms of precision as it solves the problem of management uncertainty of some parameters. Our approach suggests that the combination of stereotype method, fuzzy logic, and similarity techniques is an appropriate approach for initializing and updating the learner model for learning personalization.

Feasibility and acceptability of an mHealth physical activity intervention in adolescents with chronic abdominal pain

Objective: The current study served as a proof of concept that aimed to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of an mHealth physical activity text-messaging intervention, Network Underwritten Dynamic Goals Engine (NUDGE) in adolescents with chronic abdominal pain. Methods: The study included 40 adolescents (20 NUDGE group, 20 matched control group) between 13 and 17 years-of-age with chronic abdominal pain. Adolescents in the NUDGE group participated in a mHealth physical activity text-messaging intervention over 14-days. The NUDGE program encouraged participants to set personalized physical activity goals, self-monitor their progress toward their goal, and provided feedback to participants. To objectively assess levels of physical activity, adolescents wore an accelerometer over the 14-study days. At the end of the study, participants completed a satisfaction questionnaire (i.e., CSQ-8). Study procedures were conducted remotely via telehealth procedures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Results indicated that it was feasible to successfully adapt our procedures to remotely recruit 20 participants, collect physical activity data utilizing wrist-worn accelerometry (84.6%), and provide research staff support for technical difficulties (< 4 hours). Participants indicated high levels of acceptability with NUDGE. However, participant engagement with NUDGE was low (57.8%). The preliminary effect size for participants in the NUDGE group was nonsignificant compared to the matched control group. Conclusions: The current study indicates the feasibility of remotely recruiting and collecting accelerometer data in a clinical setting for youth with chronic abdominal pain. Findings suggest that future mHealth physical activity interventions for youth with chronic pain could consider utilizing strategies to increase engagement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The effect of a coaching model on developing an active learning environment using a learning management system

Using a learning management system (LMS) to deliver robust content for K-12 students became an essential part of the discussion of technology's place in K-12 education when teachers were forced to teach online at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Teachers used an LMS to deliver content in various ways and as part of different instructional models. Transformative student-centered learning occurs when teachers design active learning experiences within an LMS with deliberate attention to how the lesson is delivered and the students' product or process to participate successfully. This study examined the effect of a personalized coaching model on an educator's technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) when designing an active learning environment using an LMS. Using results from the district administered Technology Uses and Perceptions Survey (TUPS), baseline data guided the development of personalized professional development (PD) in the form of a one-to-one coaching cycle for teachers interested in designing a more student-centered active learning environment. The coaching cycle followed the Technology Integration Matrix-Coaching (TIM-C) cycle. Field notes from the coaching cycle and responses from semi-structured interviews were qualitatively analyzed using thematic coding. Comparing the results of the TUPS administration in conjunction with themes extracted from interviews highlighted a correlation among the TUPS needs assessment, the PD coaching model, and a teacher's TPK self-efficacy using an LMS to facilitate an active learning environment. Teachers that identified using an LMS as a highly useful tool in teaching stated they were highly skilled in using the tool.Additionally, those teachers who participated in coaching sessions were receptive to trying new ways to design active learning lessons that included presenting content and activities in the LMS. They reported positive interactions with the coaching process. Teachers built confidence with each lesson that was transformed into a higher level of active learning through their work with the coach. Planning for transformational active learning lessons infiltrates teachers' pedagogical knowledge levels and improves their technological pedagogical knowledge in small stages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

The U.S.-Threat Discourse, Hawkish and Maneuvered Public, and China's Foreign Policy

It has been argued that Chinese public opinion is often instrumentalized by the government to accomplish maneuverability and flexibility in Chinese foreign policy. Meanwhile, the dynamic social media environment continues to develop in novel and sometimes unanticipated ways that have various consequences for Chinese foreign policy. Can the authoritarian Chinese government dynamically shape public opinion using social media as the main communication channel to produce and collect responses to international affairs? What effect does a highly unified public opinion have on China's foreign policy? The dynamics of posts on Weibo throughout 2020 and the frequency of comments pertaining to specific issues are examined in this study through content and sentiment analysis. The results demonstrate an alignment and suggest a correlation between Chinese public opinion and the attitudes of the party-state on China's foreign policy. The results indicate that Chinese public opinion exhibited an increasing sense of the superiority of China's achievements, an endogenous preference for more hawkish attitudes toward the U.S., and a drive for a "wolf warrior" diplomacy. This is both a consequence of governmental manipulation and education over the long term and a catalyst for a more hawkish foreign policy in the future. In the long run, the highly unified public opinion that has been intentionally created by the party-state may eventually require additional effort to justify foreign policy positions that the public considers insufficiently assertive.

Women's experience of continuity of midwifery care in North-Eastern Italy: A qualitative study.

INTRODUCTION: The establishment of a maternity path is often hampered by the fragmentation of care processes resulting in discontinuity of care. The interruption of continuity of care negatively affects the experience of maternity. The purpose of this research is to analyze the experience of women who get midwifery continuity of care from pregnancy till after childbirth. METHODS: A qualitative study using a phenomenological-grounded approach was undertaken. Audio-recorded semi-structured interviews were taken from 11 pregnant women who received midwifery care during maternity. This research was carried out between March 2020 and February 2021. RESULTS: Continuous and quality care is what allows women to develop new skills, increasing awareness and confidence in themselves and in their abilities both during pregnancy and after delivery. Assistance provided by competent professionals allows women to be taken in charge globally with greater personalization of care.Since the research was carried out during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the repercussions that the situation had on women during maternity were also experienced negatively, such as the interruption of continuity of care or the inability to choose whom to have next to. CONCLUSIONS: From the perspective of prevention and protection of maternal and child health, in the short- and long-term, it becomes essential to focus on developing maternal competencies. This may be possible by implementing midwifery continuity of care pathways with an appropriate and flexible organizational system capable of responding to women's needs throughout the maternity journey, even during periods of a health emergency.

Covid-19 WhatsApp sticker memes in Oman

In this paper, the form and function of personalized Covid-19 WhatsApp sticker memes created and shared as social laments by citizens in Oman are examined. The compiled data set of 288 WhatsApp stickers was taken from a larger ethnographic project on Arabs and Covid-19. To collect and analyze the data, perspectives from visual semiotics were integrated with participatory and geosemiotic approaches to ground the stickers socially and globally. Six functions of Covid-19 WhatsApp stickers in Oman were identified: expressing political dissent, creating public signs, promoting religious agenda, indexing frustration, expressing levity, and constructing counter-discourse. Based on this analysis, it is suggested that by creating and using WhatsApp stickers during the 2020-2021 Covid-19 pandemic, Omani citizens positioned themselves as agentive participants in charge of their own lives, thus, solidifying a decade-long request for a new form of public-government relationship. The paper adds to research on Arabic digital communication and pandemic discourse. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Evaluation of the association of CES1 (rs2244613) polymorphisms with the safety of remdesivir in hospitalized patients with COVID-19

Introduction. An outbreak of novel COVID-19 infection has become a real challenge for the entire human society, and first of all for the healthcare services. The development of new drugs is a complex and lengthy process. At the beginning of the pandemic, it forced an intensive study of well-known drugs for the therapy. Remdesivir was first investigated as a potential treatment for Ebola virus. After beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in vitro evaluations demonstrated its activity against SARS-CoV-2. Subsequent clinical studies showed the efficacy of remdesivir in shortening the time to recovery. Aim. To evaluate the effect of the carriage of polymorphic alleles of the CES1 gene (A > C, rs2244613) on the safety profile of remdesivir therapy. Materials and methods. A total of 154 patients hospitalized with coronavirus infection were included in the study. All patients received remdesivir as etiotropic therapy in the standard regimen: 200 mg on the first day followed by 100 mg daily for 5-10 days. In the course of observations, clinical and laboratory signs of adverse events were reported. Venous blood samples were collected from each patient for pharmacogenetic studies. Genotyping was performed using the real-time polymerase chain reaction technique. Statistical analysis: вata were analysed by using IBM SPSS Statistics, Version 23.0. Results. There were no significant associations of carriage of various CES1 variants with the frequency of adverse reactions (bradycardia, nausea, vomiting) and laboratory markers of adverse events (ALT, AST, creatinine levels). Conclusion. In our study, no association was found between the carriage of CES1 gene polymorphisms and the safety parameters of remdesivir in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Further research into the possibilities of personalizing COVID-19 therapy through pharmacogenetic testing is needed. © 2022, Remedium Group Ltd. All rights reserved.

Integration of art and technology in personalized radiation oncology care: Experiences, evidence, and perspectives.

Cancer diagnoses expose patients to traumatic stress, sudden changes in daily life, changes in the body and autonomy, with even long-term consequences, and in some cases, to come to terms with the end-of-life. Furthermore, rising survival rates underline that the need for interventions for emotional wellbeing is in growing demand by patients and survivors. Cancer patients frequently have compliance problems, difficulties during treatment, stress, or challenges in implementing healthy behaviors. This scenario was highlighted during the COVID-19 emergency. These issues often do not reach the clinical attention of dedicated professionals and could also become a source of stress or burnout for professionals. So, these consequences are evident on individual, interpersonal, and health system levels. Oncology services have increasingly sought to provide value-based health care, considering resources invested, with implications for service delivery and related financing mechanisms. Value-based health care can improve patient outcomes, often revealed by patient outcome measures while seeking balance with economical budgets. The paper aims to show the Gemelli Advanced Radiation Therapy (ART) experience of personalizing the patients' care pathway through interventions based on technologies and art, the personalized approach to cancer patients and their role as "co-stars" in treatment care. The paper describes the vision, experiences, and evidence that have guided clinical choices involving patients and professionals in a co-constructed therapeutic pathway. We will explore this approach by describing: the various initiatives already implemented and prospects, with particular attention to the economic sustainability of the paths proposed to patients; the several pathways of personalized care, both from the patient's and healthcare professional perspective, that put the person's experience at the Gemelli ART Center. The patient's satisfaction with the treatment and economic outcomes have been considered. The experiences and future perspectives described in the manuscript will focus on the value of people's experiences and patient satisfaction indicators, patients, staff, and the healthcare organization.

`Virtual sphere' in the framework of knowledge strategy and the function as common educational tool: Knowledge societies in COVID-19 era

Habermas' (1974) concept of the `public sphere' (offentlichkeit) enabled the bourgeoisie to participate in the process of discussing social issues and making various decisions which were influential in the formation of the laws regulating social life. Same time, it is an important common educational tool. Although the public sphere refers to citizens expressing their idea in a society, the virtual sphere has rapidly moved on to the Internet environment using social media. Within the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread to many countries and has been causing serious repercussions as a pandemic. The use of digital technologies has increased significantly during the pandemic, and they have helped transform people's lives. In this context, Discussion of virtual sphere has also gained importance. Codification and personalization types of knowledge strategy will be followed in this study by conceptualizing a framework, which will be designed by understanding the virtual sphere in a society. There is still a literature gap the relationship between public sphere and virtual sphere as well as the lack of understanding for the integration of knowledge strategies (codification and personalization) with virtual sphere 1.0 and 2.0 in the context of tacit and explicit knowledge. The main problematic issue of this study revolves around how two type of knowledge strategies could be used by virtual spheres 1.0 and 2.0. Two propositions which will be expected to contribute to the literature were developed in the study to understand the roles of two types of knowledge strategies in relation to virtual sphere variants regarding the digital society and knowledge society.

Evaluation of the association of CES1 (rs2244613) polymorphisms with the safety of remdesivir in hospitalized patients with COVID-19

Introduction. An outbreak of novel COVID-19 infection has become a real challenge for the entire human society, and first of all for the healthcare services. The development of new drugs is a complex and lengthy process. At the beginning of the pandemic, it forced an intensive study of well-known drugs for the therapy. Remdesivir was first investigated as a potential treatment for Ebola virus. After beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in vitro evaluations demonstrated its activity against SARS-CoV-2. Subsequent clinical studies showed the efficacy of remdesivir in shortening the time to recovery. Aim. To evaluate the effect of the carriage of polymorphic alleles of the CES1 gene (A > C, rs2244613) on the safety profile of remdesivir therapy. Materials and methods. A total of 154 patients hospitalized with coronavirus infection were included in the study. All patients received remdesivir as etiotropic therapy in the standard regimen: 200 mg on the first day followed by 100 mg daily for 5-10 days. In the course of observations, clinical and laboratory signs of adverse events were reported. Venous blood samples were collected from each patient for pharmacogenetic studies. Genotyping was performed using the real-time polymerase chain reaction technique. Statistical analysis: вata were analysed by using IBM SPSS Statistics, Version 23.0. Results. There were no significant associations of carriage of various CES1 variants with the frequency of adverse reactions (bradycardia, nausea, vomiting) and laboratory markers of adverse events (ALT, AST, creatinine levels). Conclusion. In our study, no association was found between the carriage of CES1 gene polymorphisms and the safety parameters of remdesivir in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Further research into the possibilities of personalizing COVID-19 therapy through pharmacogenetic testing is needed. © 2022, Remedium Group Ltd. All rights reserved.