Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences

Abstract Engineers need a breadth of experience to enrich the gene pool of ideas from which elegant engineering solutions can be drawn, called “individual diversity.” While performing large ethnographic research studies where hundreds of engineering students were interviewed, we interviewed Inez, a student that epitomizes individual diversity. Inez is unlike most engineers: she is female, multi‐minority, and from a socio‐economically disadvantaged background. Inez's story is told here using “ethnography of the particular,” where the story of a single individual is explored. Inez has persevered through challenges posed by her lack of familiarity with the culture of engineering, her weak high school preparation, and her feelings of being an outsider in engineering. Inez's story demonstrates that the playing field in engineering is still not level, particularly for socio‐economically disadvantaged students. Her story provides a poignant example of the impact of five of Conefrey's cultural myths of science.

Recently, we and others have proposed screening criteria for “defect-tolerant” photovoltaic (PV) absorbers, identifying several classes of semiconducting compounds with electronic structures similar to those of hybrid lead–halide perovskites. In this work, we reflect on the accuracy and prospects of these new design criteria through a combined experimental and theoretical approach. We construct a model to extract photoluminescence lifetimes of six of these candidate PV absorbers, including four (InI, SbSI, SbSeI, and BiOI) for which time-resolved photoluminescence has not been previously reported. The lifetimes of all six candidate materials exceed 1 ns, a threshold for promising early stage PV device performance. However, there are variations between these materials, and none achieve lifetimes as high as those of the hybrid lead–halide perovskites, suggesting that the heuristics for defect-tolerant semiconductors are incomplete. We explore this through first-principles point defect calculations and Shockley–Read–Hall recombination models to describe the variation between the measured materials. In light of these insights, we discuss the evolution of screening criteria for defect tolerance and high-performance PV materials.

What does an individual with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) perceive first: the forest or the trees? In spite of 30 years of research and influential theories like the weak central coherence (WCC) theory and the enhanced perceptual functioning (EPF) account, the interplay of local and global visual processing in ASD remains only partly understood. Research findings vary in indicating a local processing bias or a global processing deficit, and often contradict each other. We have applied a formal meta-analytic approach and combined 56 articles that tested about 1,000 ASD participants and used a wide range of stimuli and tasks to investigate local and global visual processing in ASD. Overall, results show no enhanced local visual processing nor a deficit in global visual processing. Detailed analysis reveals a difference in the temporal pattern of the local-global balance, that is, slow global processing in individuals with ASD. Whereas task-dependent interaction effects are obtained, gender, age, and IQ of either participant groups seem to have no direct influence on performance. Based on the overview of the literature, suggestions are made for future research.

Abstract Pre‐existing factors are quantitatively evaluated as to their impact on engineering student success. This study uses a database of all engineering students at nine institutions from 1987 through 2002 (a total of 87,167 engineering students) and focuses on graduation in any of the engineering disciplines. We report graduation rate as a function of years since matriculation, and determine the typical time‐to‐graduation. A multiple logistic regression model is fitted to each institution's data to explore the relationship between graduation and demographic and academic characteristics. A pooled model is fitted to six institutions where a complete data set was available. High school GPA, gender, ethnicity, quantitative SAT scores, verbal SAT scores, and citizenship had significant impact on graduation. While HSGPA, SATQ were significant for all models tested, the significance of other predictors varied among institutions. These studies add to the existing body of research about factors affecting the success of engineering students.

Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAP kinases) are a family of kinases that regulates a range of biological processes implicated in the response to growth factors like latelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and stress, such as ultraviolet irradiation, heat shock, and osmotic shock. The MAP kinase family consists of four major subfamilies of related proteins (extracellular regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), p38, and extracellular regulated kinase 5 (ERK5)) and regulates numerous cellular activities, such as apoptosis, gene expression, mitosis, differentiation, and immune responses. The deregulation of these kinases is shown to be involved in human diseases, such as cancer, immune diseases, inflammation, and neurodegenerative disorders. The awareness of the therapeutic potential of the inhibition of MAP kinases led to a thorough search for small-molecule inhibitors. Here, we discuss some of the most well-known MAP kinase inhibitors and their use in cancer research.

In this article, we present an innovative approach to adult participation in children's play development. Our theoretical background is based on Vygotsky's play concept, but we claim that adult play guidance is important and carries out different functions from one to seven years of age. We propose that an adult's minimal role in moving the boundaries of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) is connected to failures of participation in joint play. Adults have to become genuine partners in children's play and must use appropriate narrative methods in order to create the ZPD for children. Based on the analysis of our data, we will describe the strategy for joint interaction and define the steps of adult intervention in children's play. We will discuss how essential it is for university courses on child development to include active participation by students in the study of children's play.

Because of segregation in neighborhoods and schools, college may provide the first opportunity for many young adults to interact closely with members of different racial and ethnic groups. Little research has examined how interracial friendships form during this period. This article investigates changes in the racial composition of friendship networks in the transition from high school to college and how aspects of the college environment are related to such changes. Interracial friendships increase for whites, decrease for blacks, and show little change for Latinos and Asians. The habits of friendship formation that are acquired during adolescence and features of residential and extracurricular college contexts influence the formation of interracial friendships. The race of one's roommate, the degree of interracial contact in residence halls, and participation in various types of extracurricular activities are most strongly related to the formation of interracial friendships.

One of the methods, which directs pedagogical technologies towards interactive learning, embraces preparation and presentation of projects. The contribution of project-based learning to (self-)development of learners’ general and subject competencies has been widely acknowledged. However, seeking to develop student's (as future teacher's of music) competency of project activities, it is necessary to apply strategies and methods of project-based learning as one of the most essential means of (self-)education in higher education institutions. The article presents the attitude of lecturers from Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences towards problems and possibilities of application of paradigm of project-based learning in the process of music education studies.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the construct and criterion validity of the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group 2004 (BILAG-2004) index for assessing disease activity in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). METHODS: Patients with SLE were recruited into a multicenter cross-sectional study. Data on SLE disease activity (scores on the BILAG-2004 index, Classic BILAG index, and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index 2000 [SLEDAI-2K]), investigations, and therapy were collected. Overall BILAG-2004 and overall Classic BILAG scores were determined by the highest score achieved in any of the individual systems in the respective index. Erythrocyte sedimentation rates (ESRs), C3 levels, C4 levels, anti-double-stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA) levels, and SLEDAI-2K scores were used in the analysis of construct validity, and increase in therapy was used as the criterion for active disease in the analysis of criterion validity. Statistical analyses were performed using ordinal logistic regression for construct validity and logistic regression for criterion validity. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated. RESULTS: Of the 369 patients with SLE, 92.7% were women, 59.9% were white, 18.4% were Afro-Caribbean and 18.4% were South Asian. Their mean +/- SD age was 41.6 +/- 13.2 years and mean disease duration was 8.8 +/- 7.7 years. More than 1 assessment was obtained on 88.6% of the patients, and a total of 1,510 assessments were obtained. Increasing overall scores on the BILAG-2004 index were associated with increasing ESRs, decreasing C3 levels, decreasing C4 levels, elevated anti-dsDNA levels, and increasing SLEDAI-2K scores (all P < 0.01). Increase in therapy was observed more frequently in patients with overall BILAG-2004 scores reflecting higher disease activity. Scores indicating active disease (overall BILAG-2004 scores of A and B) were significantly associated with increase in therapy (odds ratio [OR] 19.3, P < 0.01). The BILAG-2004 and Classic BILAG indices had comparable sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV. CONCLUSION: These findings show that the BILAG-2004 index has construct and criterion validity.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: For athletes, the main purpose of nutrition is to ensure the compensation of increased energy consumption and the need for nutrients in the athlete's body, thereby enabling maximum adaptation to physical loads. The aim of this study was to determine the habits of highly trained endurance athletes depending on sports type, sex and age in order to improve the planning and management of the training of athletes using targeted measures. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In 2009-2012, the dietary habits of 146 endurance athletes were analyzed. The actual diet of Lithuania endurance athletes was investigated using a 24-h dietary survey method. Data on the athletes' actual diet were collected for the previous day. RESULTS: It was found that 80.8% of endurance athletes used lower-than-recommended amounts of carbohydrates in their diet, and more than 70% of athletes used higher-than-recommended levels of fat, saturated fatty acids, and cholesterol. The diet of female athletes was low in carbohydrates, dietary fiber, protein, omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, iron, manganese, and zinc. Athletes aged 14-18 years tended to consume quantities of protein that were either lower than recommended or excessive. CONCLUSIONS: The diet of highly trained endurance athletes does not fully meet their requirements and in this situation cannot ensure maximum adaptation to very intense and/or long-duration physical loads. The diet of highly trained endurance athletes must be optimized, adjusted and individualized. Particular attention should be focused on female athletes.

Dynamic conservation of forest genetic resources (FGR) means maintaining the genetic diversity of trees within an evolutionary process and allowing generation turnover in the forest. We assessed the network of forests areas managed for the dynamic conservation of FGR (conservation units) across Europe (33 countries). On the basis of information available in the European Information System on FGR (EUFGIS Portal), species distribution maps, and environmental stratification of the continent, we developed ecogeographic indicators, a marginality index, and demographic indicators to assess and monitor forest conservation efforts. The pan-European network has 1967 conservation units, 2737 populations of target trees, and 86 species of target trees. We detected a poor coincidence between FGR conservation and other biodiversity conservation objectives within this network. We identified 2 complementary strategies: a species-oriented strategy in which national conservation networks are specifically designed for key target species and a site-oriented strategy in which multiple-target units include so-called secondary species conserved within a few sites. The network is highly unbalanced in terms of species representation, and 7 key target species are conserved in 60% of the conservation units. We performed specific gap analyses for 11 tree species, including assessment of ecogeographic, demographic, and genetic criteria. For each species, we identified gaps, particularly in the marginal parts of their distribution range, and found multiple redundant conservation units in other areas. The Mediterranean forests and to a lesser extent the boreal forests are underrepresented. Monitoring the conservation efficiency of each unit remains challenging; however, <2% of the conserved populations seem to be at risk of extinction. On the basis of our results, we recommend combining species-oriented and site-oriented strategies.

Abstract There is a small but growing body of evidence that entrepreneurship programs add value to students, the degree programs in which they are housed, and the institutions that host them. The Engineering Entrepreneurs Program at North Carolina State University, a program in which undergraduate students participate in design teams formed around technology start‐up company themes, was started with funding from the NSF‐sponsored SUCCEED (Southeastern Universities and Colleges Coalition for Engineering Education) Coalition primarily to improve the confidence and retention of engineering students. Multiple assessment approaches including surveys, focus groups, interviews, longitudinal assessment of retention and academic performance, and anecdotal evidence triangulate on the success of this program at meeting its primary objectives and others. Particularly, the longitudinal study revealed that program participants had higher engineering retention rates (70 percent vs. 51 percent) and GPAs (3.08 vs. 2.83) than a matched set of non‐participants. The program and its rigorous assessment serve as models for the engineering entrepreneurship community.

The performance of professional strength and power athletes is influenced, at least partly, by genetic components. The main aim of this study was to investigate individually and in combination the association of ACE (I/D), ACTN3 (R577X) and PPARGC1A (Gly482Ser) gene polymorphisms with strength/power-oriented athletes' status in two cohorts of European athletes. A cohort of European Caucasians from Russia and Lithuania (161 athletes: by groups - weightlifters (87), powerlifters (60), throwers (14); by elite status - 'elite' (104), 'sub-elite' (57); and 1,202 controls) were genotyped for ACE, ACTN3 and PPARGC1A polymorphisms. Genotyping was performed by polymerase chain reaction and/or restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Statistically significant differences in ACTN3 (R577X) allele/genotype distribution were not observed in the whole cohort of athletes or between analysed groups separately when compared with controls. The odds ratio for athletes compared to controls of the ACE I/I genotype was 1.71 (95% CI 1.01-2.92) in the Russian cohort and for the ACE I/D genotype it was 2.35 (95% CI 1.10-5.06) in the Lithuanian cohort. The odds ratio of being a powerlifter in PPARGC1A Ser/Ser genotype carriers was 2.11 (95% CI: 1.09-4.09, P = 0.026). The ACTN3 (R577X) polymorphism is not associated with strength/power athletic status in two cohorts of European athletes. The ACE I/I genotype is probably the 'preferable genotype' for Russian athletes and the ACE I/D genotype for Lithuanian strength/power athletes. We found that the PPARGC1A (Gly482Ser) polymorphism is associated with strength/power athlete status. Specifically, the PPARGC1A Ser/Ser genotype is more favourable for powerlifters compared to controls.

Summary This study was conducted in Slovenia, and explored the views of a sample of 226 pupils (aged 14‐15 years) regarding their motivation to learn English and the views of a sample of 95 student teachers regarding their motivation to become a teacher of English. The data consisted of two questionnaires. The first questionnaire asked the pupils to rate the importance of each of 15 reasons for wanting to learn English. The most frequent reasons given by pupils were ‘Because English is an international language’, ‘Because English helps me with advanced study’ and ‘Because English will help me with my future career’. The second questionnaire asked the student teachers to rate the importance of each of 20 reasons in influencing their decision to become a teacher of English. The most frequent reasons given by the student teachers were ‘I enjoy the subject I will teach’, ‘English is important to me’ and ‘I want to help children succeed’. The findings are further explored in terms of the relative importance of the different types of motivation involved.

This study examined the effects of utilizing a wearable activity tracker in a credit-based physical activity instructional program (PAIP) for promoting physical activity (PA) in college students. Fourteen PAIP courses in a large public university were randomly assigned into intervention (k = 7; n = 101) and control (k = 7; n = 86) groups. All courses focused on a core curriculum that covers basic exercise and behavioral science contents through lectures and activity sessions. A Misfit Flash activity tracker was provided to students in the intervention group. Objective PA assessments occurred at baseline, mid-, and end-of-semester during a 15-week academic semester. The control group showed a significant reduction in moderate- and vigorous-intensity PA (MVPA) minutes from baseline to the end-of-semester (P <.05), whereas the intervention group showed no changes in MVPA minutes over time. However, the intervention group also showed increased sedentary time and decreased time spent in light-intensity PA during the intervention period. Taken together, the present study found null effects of utilizing the wearable activity tracker in promoting PA in college students suggesting that intervention of primary using the wearable activity tracker as a behavior change strategy may not be effective to increase in PA in this setting.

AIMS: This study seeks to establish (1) if different types of non-traditional family structures are related equally to adolescent cigarette smoking; (2) if each type of family structure is related equally to adolescent smoking in different countries and (3) if differences in such patterns can be explained by the prevalence of such family structures in each country. DESIGN: Self-reported cigarette smoking among 33 978 students in Cyprus, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom is analysed with multi-level hierarchical regression models. FINDINGS: Adolescents living with both biological parents smoke less than those living with single mothers, who in turn smoke less than those living with single fathers, mothers-stepfathers, or with neither biological parent. Living with fathers-stepmothers is associated with less smoking than living with single fathers, mother-stepfathers, or with neither biological parent, but does not differ from living with both biological parents or single mothers. The effects of living with single mothers, single fathers, or with neither biological parent are stronger in countries where such family types are less common. Differences in the strength of effects between countries become non-significant once the prevalence of each family type has been taken into account. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents living with both biological parents smoke less than their counterparts in most other family types, and adolescents living with single mothers or fathers-stepmothers smoke less than those living in other non-traditional family structures. The strength of this pattern varies inversely with the prevalence of such households in each country.

The focus of this article is to describe Bayesian estimation, including construction of prior distributions, and to compare parameter recovery under the Bayesian framework (using weakly informative priors) and the maximum likelihood (ML) framework in the context of multilevel modeling of single-case experimental data. Bayesian estimation results were found similar to ML estimation results in terms of the treatment effect estimates, regardless of the functional form and degree of information included in the prior specification in the Bayesian framework. In terms of the variance component estimates, both the ML and Bayesian estimation procedures result in biased and less precise variance estimates when the number of participants is small (i.e., 3). By increasing the number of participants to 5 or 7, the relative bias is close to 5% and more precise estimates are obtained for all approaches, except for the inverse-Wishart prior using the identity matrix. When a more informative prior was added, more precise estimates for the fixed effects and random effects were obtained, even when only 3 participants were included. (PsycINFO Database Record

The current paper presents the analysis of linguistic characteristics of commercial and social advertising slogans. There is no uniform definition of the advertising slogan in the scientific literature, therefore, an attempt to provide the definition of a slogan in the context of marketing communication was made. One of the main functions of both social and commercial advertising is to provide information to the target audience and make it act in a way desired by the advertisers. As language, either spoken or written, has a powerful influence over people and their behaviour, the article analysis the language of advertising from the linguistic point of view and focuses on the phonological and semantic characteristics of slogans for commercial and social advertising campaigns. The analysis of 110 English slogans (55 commercial and 55 social advertising campaigns) showed the frequent use of both sound techniques and figurative language in commercial advertising slogans, which make the slogans more memorable, attractive and highlighting the advertised brand in a positive way. In contrast, the sound techniques and figurative language are scarce in slogans for social advertising campaigns.

As personal digital devices have become increasingly embedded in schools, what they do tends to silently fall into the background and generally be taken for granted. In order to scrutinize the silent doings of digital devices, this paper explores how attending to breakdowns as a methodological heuristic device can be an insightful entry point to surface and analyze these doings. By conducting a sociomaterial ethnographic study in one Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) school, this paper disentangles four different breakdowns that occurred during the ethnographic study. The analysis reveals a particular mode of digital doings at school, coined as digital pedagogics, that characterizes the school space–time as plastic and poly-synchronous and curates lesson activities. Moreover, this mode is heavily conditioned by and through the school’s sociomaterial infrastructure. The paper concludes that in the wake of the breakdowns, the school’s infrastructure comes into being not merely as a bundle of cables and basic structures that make the school function, but more importantly as a complex configuration of clouds, software and interfaces, algorithms and patterns, standards, protocols and negotiations. This sets the condition for framing contemporary digitized schools within a particular techno-scholastic milieu.

UNLABELLED: Desflurane is a potentially useful anesthetic for ambulatory surgery, but it has had limited evaluation in spontaneously breathing patients. After the induction of anesthesia with propofol and laryngeal mask insertion, 90 patients were randomized to receive isoflurane (0.25%-1%), propofol (50-200 microg x kg(-1) x min(-1)), or desflurane (1.4%-6%) for anesthetic maintenance. Respiratory complications were uncommon; only six patients coughed (three who received isoflurane, one who received propofol, and two who received desflurane), and no anesthetic produced significant respiratory depression. Purposeful movement was significantly more common with propofol (19 patients; 63%) compared with isoflurane (7 patients; 23%) or desflurane (2 patients; 6.7%), but no patient had recall. Emergence times were similar in the isoflurane, propofol, and desflurane groups (5.1 +/- 2.3, 5.6 +/- 3.1, and 4.4 +/- 1.4 min, respectively). Later recovery end points and pain and sedation visual analog scale scores did not differ among groups. Overall, 85 patients (94%) were free from postoperative nausea and vomiting. Desflurane produced few respiratory complications in spontaneously breathing ambulatory patients but offered no improvement in emergence or recovery compared with isoflurane. Propofol also did not reduce recovery times or side effects; however, it was more difficult to maintain an adequate depth of anesthesia. We conclude that neither desflurane nor propofol offered any major advantages over the older anesthetic, isoflurane, under the conditions of our study. IMPLICATIONS: The new inhaled anesthetic desflurane is acceptable in spontaneously breathing outpatients despite its known ability to irritate the airway. The i.v. anesthetic propofol was associated with more patient movement (without awareness) during surgery. Neither anesthetic conferred any clinically significant advantages over the older inhaled drug, isoflurane.