Using Google Apps to Teach an Online Course

Boise State uses Blackboard as its main content management system. Moodle is another. But we are free to use whatever platforms we choose. I have been teaching the main online UNIV 106 course since 2005. Since then it has evolved from a single, paper-based course into a hybrid of courses taught by several librarians. UNIV 106 is offered several times during the school year and delivered in a variety of formats: some are offered online, some in person; some are paired with English 102 courses (known as PoWeR: Project Writing and Research); and others are offered based on subject-specific areas (see our complete offerings at http://guides.boisestate.edu/univ106). So we have flexibility as to the way and means we can deliver UNIV 106, both in person and online. But Blackboard has been the primary vehicle for delivering online courses at Boise State University. While Blackboard provides a strong means for creating, organizing, and managing both in-person and online course assignments and coursework, I didn’t particularly like its lack of mobile-friendly output, the use of frames (where the web page are broken up into various areas), and lack of an autosave feature

The Quick Response (QR) Code: Graphic Potential for Libraries

The convergences of Web-ready mobile tools and applications have changed how we interact with our physical and virtual environments. Web-ready mobile devices (particularly smartphones, but tablets and Wi-Fi ready MP3 players are also on the increase) have supplanted the traditional desktop computer. According to IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, a February 7, 2011, press release noted that “Smartphone manufacturers shipped 100.9 million devices in the fourth quarter of 2010...PC manufacturers shipped 92.1 million units” (IDC). For the first time ever, smartphones have outsold traditional desktop computers. This is telling on several levels, the most salient being that our mode of interaction with information in any form (play, work, school, homework, etc.) has shifted from a static environment (wired computer) to a highly mobile one. We are moving (literally!) to on-the-go computing and manage a great deal of our everyday affairs via mobile handheld devices

Counseling and Therapy in Video

Counseling and Therapy in Video (CTiV) offers two models––purchase or license. The outright purchase varies, but ranges from $10,400 to$35,000, depending on annual materials budget and FTE; the annual Web Access Fee costs $250. Subscription options range from$1,500 to $3,600 per year depending on number of concurrent users, with$3,600 being the unlimited price option. Discounts are offered for consortial purchases, and a variety of package pricing options are available

The Undue Cost of Academic Publishing: Democratizing Information Access

Many scholarly articles that contain research useful to the public are locked behind expensive subscription databases. Coupled with existing publishing and tenure/promotion practices, these contribute to a system that excludes the majority of citizens from accessing current academic findings. However, by publishing academic articles in open access journals instead, faculty at colleges and universities can play an important role in making it easier, and less expensive, for the public, media, and local leaders to read their work. This requires faculty to make different choices and a concurrent shift in how academic departments evaluate faculty publications

Media devices in pre-school children: the recommendations of the Italian pediatric society

BACKGROUND: Young children are too often exposed to mobile devices (MD) and most of them had their own device. The adverse effects of a early and prolonged exposure to digital technology on pre-school children has been described by several studies. Aim of the study is to analyze the consequences of MD exposure in pre-school children. METHODS: We analyzed the documented effects of media exposure on children's mental and physical health. RESULTS: According to recent studies, MD may interfere with learning, children development, well being, sleep, sight, listening, caregiver-child relationship. DISCUSSION: Pediatricians should be aware of both the beneficial and side effects of MD and give advice to the families, according to children's age. CONCLUSION: In according to literature, the Italian Pediatric Society suggest that the media device exposure in childhood should be modulated by supervisors

Women in uprising and transitional processes: an introductory note

During uprisings, revolutions and times of conflict, women always walk a very thin tightrope between empowerment and disempowerment, they are forced into positions of responsibility that only the day before were unthinkable, they take up leading roles to guarantee social survival and the future, but this does not guarantee that once the \u2018revolution\u2019 is over, their new power will be acknowledged. Times of upheaval can be times of hope, but also of death, destruction and mourning, in which rights are suspended, old rules are broken. These times are in all senses \u2018exceptional\u2019 times. When they eventually come to an end and some sort of new \u2018order\u2019 is established, women\u2019s participation in bringing about that newness tend to be overlooked, to be seen as \u2018exceptional\u2019 as the times that produced it, as extra-ordinary, anomalous. From there, the step to the restoration of old roles for women and to dis-empowerment is very short. And so women need to start re-negotiating again, to denounce the complicity between the post-conflict present and the status quo, re-organize a vindication of rights and status. The paper focuses on the meaning of this tightrope, this crucial empowerment/disempowerment dialectics in historical moments of political transition for women, during and after uprisings and wars, by referring to one historical experience: the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of the late 1990s

Ferrous Iron Up-regulation in Fibroblasts of Patients with Beta Propeller Protein-Associated Neurodegeneration (BPAN).

Mutations in WDR45 gene, coding for a beta-propeller protein, have been found in patients affected by Neurodegeneration with Brain Iron Accumulation, NBIA5 (also known as BPAN). BPAN is a movement disorder with Non Transferrin Bound Iron (NTBI) accumulation in the basal ganglia as common hallmark between NBIA classes (Hayflick et al., 2013). WDR45 has been predicted to have a role in autophagy, while the impairment of iron metabolism in the different NBIA subclasses has not currently been clarified. We found the up-regulation of the ferrous iron transporter (-)IRE/Divalent Metal Transporter1 and down-regulation of Transferrin receptor in the fibroblasts of two BPAN affected patients with splicing mutations 235+1G>A (BPAN1) and 517_519ΔVal 173 (BPAN2). The BPAN patients showed a concomitant increase of intracellular ferrous iron after starvation. An altered pattern of iron transporters with iron overload is highlighted in BPAN human fibroblasts, supporting for a role of DMT1 in NBIA. We here present a novel element, about iron accumulation, to the existing knowledge in field of NBIA. Attention is focused to a starvation-dependent iron overload, possibly accounting for iron accumulation in the basal ganglia. Further investigation could clarify iron regulation in BPAN

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KNL model. Branch Prediction User-speci ed direct-mapped BHT with 2-bit damping counter. In-Order Issue Out-of-order execution model. Out-of-Order Issue Out-of-order execution model. Functional Units User given. Functional Units User given. EXE latenc

Nutrition and AGE-ing: Focusing on Alzheimer’s Disease

Recently, the role of food and nutrition in preventing or delaying chronic disability in the elderly population has received great attention. Thanks to their ability to influence biochemical and biological processes, bioactive nutrients are considered modifiable factors capable of preserving a healthy brain status. A diet rich in vitamins and polyphenols and poor in saturated fatty acids has been recommended. In the prospective of a healthy diet, cooking methods should be also considered. In fact, cooking procedures can modify the original dietary content, contributing not only to the loss of healthy nutrients, but also to the formation of toxins, including advanced glycation end products (AGEs). These harmful compounds are adsorbed at intestinal levels and can contribute to the ageing process. The accumulation of AGEs in ageing (“AGE-ing”) is further involved in the exacerbation of neurodegenerative and many other chronic diseases. In this review, we discuss food’s dual role as both source of bioactive nutrients and reservoir for potential toxic compounds—paying particular attention to the importance of proper nutrition in preventing/delaying Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, we focus on the importance of a good education in processing food in order to benefit from the nutritional properties of an optimal diet