Search

In most academic institutions, students with learning impairments (LIs) are entitled to various accommodations as a means of compensating for their impairment. Ensuring that the appropriate accommodations were selected requires an intelligent support tool to track their effectiveness. In this article, we regard the effectiveness of such accommodations in terms of their quality and reliability. High-quality accommodations allow students with LIs equal access and equal opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge compared to their peers who do not have LIs. Highly reliable accommodations mean a significant performance difference between students with LIs who actually use the accommodations compared with students with LIs who do not use the accommodations, given similar student characteristics. Previous literature is inconclusive regarding the evidence of the effectiveness of such accommodations since different accommodations may have a different effect on different subgroups of exams and students. This article proposes a methodology, based on ordinal interpretable models, that produce practical insights to professionals who are responsible for students with LIs, to address the problem of exploring the effectiveness of learning accommodations. The suggested models use the ordinal information of the target variables for evaluating student performance and yield practical insights for designing the most suitable accommodation for a student with LIs based on their characteristics. The ordinal interpretable models are evaluated using a database of tens of thousands of engineering students. The results demonstrate that the suggested interpretable models perform significantly better than the compared algorithms on all measures.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how learning disabilities (LDs), in combination with accommodations, affect the performance of a decision-tree to predict the stability of academic behaviour of undergraduate engineering students. Additionally, this study presents several examples to illustrate how a college could use the resultant model to choose the appropriate accommodation to give a student with a learning disability, from among a set of possible accommodations. The findings show that: (1) The models yield superior performance in predicting the stability category for a given student when the LD and accommodation factors are included; (2) Different types of accommodation action have different effects on the stability of academic behaviour, depending on the student pattern. Such a model could be useful for engineering faculties, as it would allow them to predict the stability of academic behaviour and to provide early intervention for students who are likely to need additional support.

In this study, we suggest combining the monitoring of actual examination time used with grades in order to assess examination time extensions in terms of access provision and expected outcome. Using naturally-occurring data collected from a large sample (N = 2315) of undergraduate engineering students, we argue that extended examination time may be regarded as providing equal access when a disabled student actually utilizes "more" examination time than a normally achieving student, regardless of the grade obtained. We further argue that extended examination time may be regarded as resulting in the expected outcome when a disabled student either (a) utilizes "less" or "equal" examination time and achieve grades that are lower than a normally achieving student, or (b) utilizes "more" examination time and achieve grades that are "equal" to a normally achieving student. In our data, equal access was provided in all courses (i.e. disabled students utilized more time than normal achievers), but the expected outcome (i.e. equal grades) was not observed in software and English examinations. The results of this study emphasize the importance of monitoring actual time usage in addition to performance measures when assessing examination time extensions.

We draw on cognitive and behavioural theories and on the artificial intelligence literature in order to propose a framework of future operator – workstation interaction in the 'Industry 4.0' era. We name the proposed framework 'Operator – Workstation Interaction 4.0'. The latter's capabilities permit an adaptive, ongoing interaction that aims to improve operator safety, performance, well-being, and satisfaction as well as the factory's production measures. The framework is composed of three subsystems: (1) the observation subsystem which observes the operator and the processes occurring in the workstation, (2) the analysis subsystem which generates understanding and implications of the observations output, (3) the reaction subsystem which determines if and how to respond. The paper describes these elements and illustrate them using an example of a fatigued worker. The contributions, implications, and limitations of the proposed framework are discussed, and future research directions are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

10.1172/JCI65842. Introduction Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) are major chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) in humans. Although the etiology and pathogenesis of IBD remain uncertain, it is believed [...], The inhibitory effects of vitamin D on colitis have been previously documented. Global vitamin D receptor (VDR) deletion exaggerates colitis, but the relative anticolitic contribution of epithelial and nonepithelial VDR signaling is unknown. Here, we showed that colonic epithelial VDR expression was substantially reduced in patients with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. Moreover, targeted expression of human VDR (hVDR) in intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) protected mice from developing colitis. In experimental colitis models induced by 2,4,6-trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid, dextran sulfate sodium, or CD[4.sup.+]CD45R[B.sup.hi] T cell transfer, transgenic mice expressing hVDR in IECs were highly resistant to colitis, as manifested by marked reductions in clinical colitis scores, colonic histological damage, and colonic inflammation compared with WT mice. Reconstitution of Vdr-deficient IECs with the hVDR transgene completely rescued Vdr-null mice from severe colitis and death, even though the mice still maintained a hyperresponsive Vdr-deficient immune system. Mechanistically, VDR signaling attenuated PUMA induction in IECs by blocking NF-kB activation, leading to a reduction in IEC apoptosis. Together, these results demonstrate that gut epithelial VDR signaling inhibits colitis by protecting the mucosal epithelial barrier, and this anticolitic activity is independent of nonepithelial immune VDR actions.

Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) treated with anti-tumor-necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα) exhibited lower serologic responses one-month following the second dose of the COVID-19 BNT162b2 vaccine compared to those not treated with anti-TNFα (non-anti-TNFα) or to healthy controls (HCs). We comprehensively analyzed long-term humoral responses, including anti-spike (S) antibodies, serum inhibition, neutralization, cross-reactivity and circulating B cell six months post BNT162b2, in patients with IBD stratified by therapy compared to HCs. Subjects enrolled in a prospective, controlled, multi-center Israeli study received two BNT162b2 doses. Anti-S levels, functional activity, specific B cells, antigen cross-reactivity, anti-nucleocapsid levels, adverse events and IBD disease score were detected longitudinally. In total, 240 subjects, 151 with IBD (94 not treated with anti-TNFα and 57 treated with anti-TNFα) and 89 HCs participated. Six months after vaccination, patients with IBD treated with anti-TNFα had significantly impaired BNT162b2 responses, specifically, more seronegativity, decreased specific circulating B cells and cross-reactivity compared to patients untreated with anti-TNFα. Importantly, all seronegative subjects were patients with IBD; of those, >90% were treated with anti-TNFα. Finally, IBD activity was unaffected by BNT162b2. Altogether these data support the earlier booster dose administration in these patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]