Evangelische Hochschule Nürnberg
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This paper presents the ongoing development of HAnS (Hochschul-Assistenz-System), an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) designed to support self-directed digital learning in higher education. Initiated by twelve collaborating German universities and research institutes, HAnS is developed 2021–2025 with the goal of utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data in academic settings to enhance technology-based learning. The system employs AI for speech recognition and the indexing of existing learning resources, enabling users to search and compile these materials based on various parameters. Here, we provide an overview of the project, showcasing how iterative design and development processes contribute to innovative educational research in the evolving field of AI-based ITS in higher education. Notwithstanding the potential of HAnS, we also deliberate upon the challenges associated with ensuring a suitable dataset for training the AI, refining complex algorithms for personalization, and maintaining data privacy.
Background: An ever-increasing number of patients seek health information via the internet. However, there is an overabundance of differing, often low-quality information available, while a lack of health literacy makes it difficult for patients to understand and assess the quality and trustworthiness of the information at hand. The web portal tala-med was thus conceived as an evidence-based, up-to-date, and trustworthy information resource for lower back pain (LBP), which could be used by primary care physicians (PCPs) and patients during and following consultations for LBP. The current evidence demonstrates that patients with LBP could benefit from web portals. However, the use of such portals by patients remains low, thus limiting their effectiveness. Therefore, it is important to explore the factors that promote or hinder the use of web portals and investigate how patients perceive their usability and utility.
Objective: In this study, we investigated the acceptance, usability, and utility of the web portal tala-med from the patient perspective.
Methods: This qualitative study was based on telephone interviews with patients who had access to the web portal tala-med from their PCP. We used a semistructured interview guide that consisted of questions about the consultation in which patients were introduced to tala-med, in addition to questions regarding patient perceptions, experiences, and utilization of tala-med. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed through framework analysis.
Results: A total of 32 half-hour interviews were conducted with 16 female and 16 male patients with LBP. We identified 5 themes of interest: the use of tala-med by PCPs during the consultation, the use of tala-med by patients, its usability, added values derived from its use, and the resultant effects of using tala-med. PCPs used tala-med as an additional information resource for their patients and recommended the exercises. The patients appreciated these exercises and were willing to use tala-med at home. We also identified factors that promoted or hindered the use of tala-med by patients. Most patients rated tala-med positively and considered it a clear, comprehensible, trustworthy, and practical resource. In particular, the trustworthiness of tala-med was seen as an advantage over other information resources. The possibilities offered by tala-med to recap and reflect on the contents of consultations in a time-flexible and independent manner was perceived as an added value to the PCP consultation.
Conclusions: Tala-med was well accepted by patients and appeared to be well suited to being used as an add-on to PCP consultations. Patient perception also supports its usability and utility. Tala-med may therefore enrich consultations and assist patients who would otherwise be unable to find good-quality web-based health information on LBP. In addition, our findings support the future development of digital health platforms and their successful use as a supplement to PCP consultations.
Treatment thresholds and minimal clinically important effect sizes of antiosteoporotic medication
(2022)
Background
Patient decisions to take preventative treatments for osteoporosis depend on their perceptions of fracture risk, medication effect sizes (ES) of benefits and harms. However, physicians and lay persons may have differing perceptions of risks and medication efficacy. Both tend to overestimate medication benefits. This study surveyed at what risk physicians would prescribe and lay persons would be willing to take bisphosphonates, the minimum ES both groups do demand and the physicians estimates of the actual benefit of bisphosphonates.
Design
Cross-sectional online questionnaire survey.
Methods
Respondents were confronted with a case vignette with an osteoporotic patient (10-year femoral fracture risk: 32%). They were asked at what threshold of 10-year-risk of femoral neck fracture they would prescribe or take a drug. They were asked for the minimum ES (absolute risk reduction, ARR) they demand from bisphosphonates to prescribe or take them. Physicians were asked to provide their estimate of the actual ARR of bisphosphonates.
Results
114 physicians and 140 lay persons answered (convenience sample/snowball distribution). The 10-year-risk threshold of lay persons (Mdnlay = 60%) willing to take medication was twice as high as the physicians’ threshold (Mdnphy = 30%) to prescribe it (p < .001). The median minimum ARR physicians demanded for bisphosphonates prescription was 17%, whereas lay persons demanded 22% (p < .001). Physicians estimated the actual ARR of bisphosphonates to be 12%. This estimated effect size was below their own minimum threshold for prescription.
Conclusions
Lay persons tolerate a higher fracture risk and demand a larger benefit of antiosteoporotic medication for fracture prevention than physicians. Physicians demand higher minimum benefits than their own estimates which in turn are above the benefit evidence suggests. Physicians should be more familiar with ES of antiosteoporotic drugs concerning patient outcomes and actively advise lay persons before preventive treatment decisions are taken.
Serotonin immunoreactivity was previously found in myenteric neurons co-innervating motor endplates in the mouse esophagus striated muscle and aninvolvement in motility control was suggested. However, it is not known ifother neuroactive substances are present in these neurons and to what extentthey co-localize. First, vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) was established as abona fide marker for putative inhibitory myenteric neurons by evaluating co-localization with neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) and neuropeptide Y(NPY). Then, co-localization of serotonin and VIP was tested in co-innervatingaxons on motor endplates, which were visualized withα-bungarotoxin (α-BT)by multilabel immunofluorescence. Myenteric ganglia were also surveyed forco-localization in neuronal perikarya and varicosities. nNOS, NPY, and VIPwere completely co-localized in enteric co-innervating nerve terminals onmotor endplates. After co-staining with VIP, we found (a) serotonin (5-HT)-positive nerve endings without VIP (44% of 5-HT-positively innervated end-plates), (b) 5-HT- and VIP-positive endings without co-localization (35%), and(c) 5-HT- and VIP-positive endings with co-localization (21%). About one-fifthof nerve terminals on motor endplates containing 5-HT originate from putativeinhibitory peptidegic nitrergic neurons. However, the majority represents a different population presumably subserving different functions.
Background and teaching situation: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had a substantial didactic impact on medical teaching. In Erlangen, the lecture “General Practice” was offered asynchronously and digitally in an inverted-classroom concept. Contents were available via a learning platform. The lecture was presented using annotated videos, consolidation materials and control questions. A forum encouraged for discussions and feedback and collected in-depth aspects for a case-based video consultation. The aim of this work is to evaluate and critically examine the digital teaching concept during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Methodology: Two semester cohorts evaluated the lecture. Overall impression of the lecture, didactic elements, suitability and the desired future lecture format were surveyed quantitatively. Free text answers were evaluated by means of qualitative content synthesis.
Results: In terms of overall impression, the students (N=199) rated the lecture on average as “very good” (M=1.41, SD=.57). Digital methods were perceived as suitable for supporting self-study, and digital usage was rated as unproblematically (M=1.18, SD=.50). Desired future teaching formats were blended learning concepts (79.4%). Organisation, structure and content presentation were highly appreciated. The time for completing the course was perceived critically. The students urged for more practical and consolidating lecture work.
Discussion and implications: The results illustrate high acceptance of digital teaching and underline the demand for future blended learning concepts. It is particularly important to better consider the students’ time investment and practical relevance of digital self-learning mechanisms.
Post-migrant societies in Europe are characterized by political, cultural, religious, and social changes. Where people meet under the conditions of migration and globalization, new places and spaces of negotiating are arising. They are formed by provocative questions, dynamic reorientation, and social transformation, in particular regarding religious affiliations, contexts and experiences. This article will consider challenges and the resources of religion in terms of coping with ambiguity and building up post-migrant community relations. In this context, the concept of the ‘contact zone’ as a post-migrant place or space provides an insight to social spaces where cultures and religions meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in emotionally charged contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, like displacement and their aftermaths. These contact zones offer a place of discussing power, oppression, and religious diversities, but also find innovative perspectives for post-migrant identities. With reference to this, three case studies based on experiences of refugees in Europe with contact zones in refugee centers, schools and educational institutions allow for an understanding of the significance of places, the feeling of rootlessness and the findings of new places of religious identity, of ‘embodied’ habitation and participation. Finally, this article emphasizes the meaning of public speech in post-migrant societies from a Christian perspective.
Religious Literacy in Early Childhood Education as a Societal Resource in Immigrant Societies
(2022)
Western immigration societies are struggling with numerous of educational challenges. Every third, sometimes every second child has an immigration biography and teachers working in early childhood education are often minimally prepared to deal with the resulting diverse and complex conditions of cultural and religious diversity. Children and Childhood studies show that religion is an essential reference point for migrant families and their children. How could these empirical settings be transformed into intercultural and inter-religious competences and spiritual well-being in early childhood education? In which ways religious education in pre-schools provides a “safe place” or space of negotiating (religious) identity, value building, resilience, and the capacity to deal with pluralism and otherness? On the basis of empirical and theoretical results, the opportunities of religious education in early childhood education for developing an attitude of global citizenship should be taken into serious consideration
This paper deals with the question, to what extent, in the German context, have biblical didactic implications and systemic requirements in religious education led to social inequality in heterogeneous classrooms. Based on four different case studies in elementary, middle, and vocational schools, an empirical insight is provided that sheds exploratory and descriptive light on the construction of reality in the context of biblical learning. The analysis clearly shows that physical as well as socialization-related limitations, structural and systemic conditions in the German school system, and also strangeness and existential irrelevance, are obvious barriers that prevent students in heterogeneous settings from accessing biblical learning. In the synopsis, with theological–pedagogical implications as well as didactical challenges, it becomes clear how necessary difference-sensitive Bible didactics in the context of heterogeneity and social inequality is. Finally, based on the empirical evidence of the analyzed case studies and the theoretical framings, concrete expectations for biblical learning in religious education, in relation to heterogeneity and social inequality, are highlighted.
The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of different coping styles on situational coping in everyday life situations and gender differences. An ecological momentary assessment study with the mobile health app TrackYourStress was conducted with 113 participants. The coping styles Positive Thinking, Active Stress Coping, Social Support, Support in Faith, and Alcohol and Cigarette Consumption of the Stress and Coping Inventory were measured at baseline. Situational coping was assessed by the question “How well can you cope with your momentary stress level” over 4 weeks. Multilevel models were conducted to test the effects of the coping styles on situational coping. Additionally, gender differences were evaluated. Positive Thinking (p = 0.03) and Active Stress Coping (p = 0.04) had significant positive impacts on situational coping in the total sample. For women, Social Support had a significant positive effect on situational coping (p = 0.046). For men, Active Stress Coping had a significant positive effect on situational coping (p = 0.001). Women had higher scores on the SCI scale Social Support than men (p = 0.007). These results suggest that different coping styles could be more effective in daily life for women than for men. Taking this into account, interventions tailored to users’ coping styles might lead to better coping outcomes than generalized interventions.
Employees of the public employment services (PES) are street-level bureaucrats who shape activation policy on the ground. This paper examines how PES staff use enhanced discretion in an innovation project carried out by the German Federal Employment Agency. Applying a bottom-up perspective, we reconstruct PES employees’ logic of action and the dilemmas they face in improving counselling and placement services. According to our findings, placement staff use enhanced discretion to promote more individualised support and an adequate matching of jobseekers and employers. The use of discretion is framed by organisational norms and reward mechanisms and by the current labour market situation. Our analyses are based on qualitative interviews and group discussions with placement staff.
Employees of the public employment services (PES) are street-level bureaucrats who shape activation policy on the ground. This paper examines how PES staff use enhanced discretion in an innovation project carried out by the German Federal Employment Agency. Applying a bottom-up perspective, we reconstruct PES employees’ logic of action and the dilemmas they face in improving counselling and placement services. According to our findings, placement staff use enhanced discretion to promote more individualised support and an adequate matching of jobseekers and employers. The use of discretion is framed by organisational norms and reward mechanisms and by the current labour market situation. Our analyses are based on qualitative interviews and group discussions with placement staff.
Corona Health
(2021)
Physical and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic is typically assessed via surveys, which might make it difficult to conduct longitudinal studies and might lead to data suffering from recall bias. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) driven smartphone apps can help alleviate such issues, allowing for in situ recordings. Implementing such an app is not trivial, necessitates strict regulatory and legal requirements, and requires short development cycles to appropriately react to abrupt changes in the pandemic. Based on an existing app framework, we developed Corona Health, an app that serves as a platform for deploying questionnaire-based studies in combination with recordings of mobile sensors. In this paper, we present the technical details of Corona Health and provide first insights into the collected data. Through collaborative efforts from experts from public health, medicine, psychology, and computer science, we released Corona Health publicly on Google Play and the Apple App Store (in July 2020) in eight languages and attracted 7290 installations so far. Currently, five studies related to physical and mental well-being are deployed and 17,241 questionnaires have been filled out. Corona Health proves to be a viable tool for conducting research related to the COVID-19 pandemic and can serve as a blueprint for future EMA-based studies. The data we collected will substantially improve our knowledge on mental and physical health states, traits and trajectories as well as its risk and protective factors over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and its diverse prevention measures.
Introduction: In emergency care, geriatric requirements and risks are often not taken sufficiently into account. In addition, there are neither evidence-based recommendations nor scientifically developed quality indicators (QI) for geriatric emergency care in German emergency departments. As part of the GeriQ-ED© research project, quality indicators for geriatric emergency medicine in Germany have been developed using the QUALIFY-instruments. Methods: Using a triangulation methodology, a) clinical experience-based quality aspects were identified and verified, b) research-based quality statements were formulated and assessed for relevance, and c) preliminary quality indicators were operationalized and evaluated in order to recommend a feasible set of final quality indicators. Results: Initially, 41 quality statements were identified and assessed as relevant. Sixty-seven QI (33 process, 29 structure and 5 outcome indicators) were extrapolated and operationalised. In order to facilitate implementation into daily practice, the following five quality statements were defined as the GeriQ-ED© TOP 5: screening for delirium, taking a full medications history including an assessment of the indications, education of geriatric knowledge and skills to emergency staff, screening for patients with geriatric needs, and identification of patients with risk of falls/ recurrent falls. Discussion: QIs are regarded as gold standard to measure, benchmark and improve emergency care. GeriQ-ED© QI focused on clinical experience- and research-based recommendations and describe for the first time a standard for geriatric emergency care in Germany. GeriQ-ED© TOP 5 should be implemented as a minimum standard in geriatric emergency care.
A longitudinal pilot study on stress-levels in the crowdsensing mHealth platform TrackYourStress
(2019)
Background: The mobile phone app, TrackYourStress (TYS), is a new crowdsensing mobile health platform for ecological momentary assessments of perceived stress levels.
Objective: In this pilot study, we aimed to investigate the time trend of stress levels while using TYS for the entire population being studied and whether the individuals’ perceived stress reactivity moderates stress level changes while using TYS.
Methods: Using TYS, stress levels were measured repeatedly with the 4-item version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4), and perceived stress reactivity was measured once with the Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale (PSRS). A total of 78 nonclinical participants, who provided 1 PSRS assessment and at least 4 repeated PSS-4 measurements, were included in this pilot study. Linear multilevel models were used to analyze the time trend of stress levels and interactions with perceived stress reactivity.
Results: Across the whole sample, stress levels did not change while using TYS (P=.83). Except for one subscale of the PSRS, interindividual differences in perceived stress reactivity did not influence the trajectories of stress levels. However, participants with higher scores on the PSRS subscale reactivity to failure showed a stronger increase of stress levels while using TYS than participants with lower scores (P=.04).
Conclusions: TYS tracks the stress levels in daily life, and most of the results showed that stress levels do not change while using TYS. Controlled trials are necessary to evaluate whether it is specifically TYS or any other influence that worsens the stress levels of participants with higher reactivity to failure.
Mobile apps are increasingly utilized to gather data for various healthcare aspects. Furthermore, mobile apps are used to administer interventions (e.g., breathing exercises)to individuals. In this context, mobile crowdsensing constitutes a technology, which is used to gather valuable medical databased on the power of the crowd and the offered computationalcapabilities of mobile devices. Notably, collecting data withmobile crowdsensing solutions has several advantages comparedto traditional assessment methods when gathering data overtime. For example, data is gathered with high ecological validity, since smartphones can be unobtrusively used in everyday life. Existing approaches have shown that based on these advantages new medical insights, for example, for the tinnitus disease, can be revealed. In the work at hand, data of a developed mHealth crowdsensing platform that assesses the stress level and fluctuations of the platform users in daily life was investigated. More specifically, data of 1797 daily measurements on GPS and stress-related data in 77 users were analyzed. Using this data source, machine learning algorithms have been applied with the goalto predict stress-related parameters based on the GPS data of the platform users. Results show that predictions become possible that (1) enable meaningful interpretations as well as (2) indicate the directions for further investigations. In essence, the findings revealed first insights into the stress situation of individuals over time in order to improve their quality of life. Altogether, the work at hand shows that mobile crowdsensing can be valuably utilized in the context of stress on one hand. On the other, machine learning algorithms are able to utilize geospatial data of stress measurements that was gathered by a crowdsensing platform with the goal to improve the quality of life of its participating crowd users.
Mobile apps are increasingly utilized to gather data for various healthcare aspects. Furthermore, mobile apps are used to administer interventions (e.g., breathing exercises) to individuals. In this context, mobile crowdsensing constitutes a technology, which is used to gather valuable medical data based on the power of the crowd and the offered computational capabilities of mobile devices. Notably, collecting data with mobile crowdsensing solutions has several advantages compared to traditional assessment methods when gathering data over time. For example, data is gathered with high ecological validity, since smartphones can be unobtrusively used in everyday life. Existing approaches have shown that based on these advantages new medical insights, for example, for the tinnitus disease, can be revealed. In the work at hand, data of a developed mHealth crowdsensing platform that assesses the stress level and fluctuations of the platform users in daily life was investigated. More specifically, data of 1797 daily measurements on GPS and stress-related data in 77 users were analyzed. Using this data source, machine learning algorithms have been applied with the goal to predict stress-related parameters based on the GPS data of the platform users. Results show that predictions become possible that (1) enable meaningful interpretations as well as (2) indicate the directions for further investigations. In essence, the findings revealed first insights into the stress situation of individuals over time in order to improve their quality of life. Altogether, the work at hand shows that mobile crowdsensing can be valuably utilized in the context of stress on one hand. On the other, machine learning algorithms are able to utilize geospatial data of stress measurements that was gathered by a crowdsensing platform with the goal to improve the quality of life of its participating crowd users.
Stem cell research has been a problematic endeavour. For the past twenty years it has attracted moral controversies in both the public and the professional sphere. The research involves not only laboratories, clinics and people, but ethics, industries, jurisprudence, and markets. Today it contributes to the development of new therapies and affects increasingly many social arenas. The matrix approach introduced in this book offers a new understanding of this science in its relation to society. The contributions are multidisciplinary and intersectional, illustrating how agency and influence between science and society go both ways.
Conceptually, this volume presents a situated and reflexive approach for philosophy and sociology of the life sciences. The practices that are part of stem cell research are dispersed, and the concepts that tie them together are tenuous; there are persistent problems with the validation of findings, and the ontology of the stem cell is elusive. The array of applications shapes a growing bioeconomy that is dependent on patient donations of tissues and embryos, consumers, and industrial support. In this volume it is argued that this research now denotes not a specific field but a flexible web of intersecting practices, discourses, and agencies. To capture significant parts of this complex reality, this book presents recent findings from researchers, who have studied in-depth aspects of this matrix of stem cell research.
This volume presents state-of-the-art examinations from senior and junior scholars in disciplines from humanities and laboratory research to various social sciences, highlighting particular normative and epistemological intersections. The book will appeal to scholars as well as wider audiences interested in developments in life science and society interactions. The novel matrix approach and the accessible case studies make this an excellent resource for science and society courses.