As a response to finding innovative ways of using games as tools for learning we explore the design process of creating a game system meant to promote self-directed learning. This thesis explores what design pillars a game system needs to follow when making a game that is meant to promote self-directed learning through reflection on cause and effect relations. We use a theoretical framework based on procedural rhetoric and self-directed learning in video games to inform our design process when creating an eco-adapted game system that provides experimentation opportunities. We adapt an ecosystem as a simulated real life context for our game environment and identify the major design pillars that video games looking to promote self-directed learning needs to consist of. The major pillars we found most important were; 1, activate participation, to engage the player by allowing them to experiment with different perspectives and the game state. 2, avoid correlating rhetorical arguments, to not influence players as they set their own goals when playing in an informal setting. 3, provide observational clarity, to let players learn how the actions they perform affect the actors and events in the game system. 4, enable trial and error, to give players time to explore multiple approaches in a safe environment where they can fail and try again without penalties. This thesis focuses primarily on the design process and documentation around the creation of a game system that adapts self-directed learning principles as a central design directive. In our design documentation we provide an open discussion of our design process around the decisions, findings, and implementations that make our simulation. / Som ett svar på att hitta innovativa sätt att använda spel som verktyg för lärande undersöker vi designprocessen för skapandet av ett spelsystem som är avsett att främja självstyrd inlärning. Denna uppsats undersöker vilka designpelare ett spelsystem behöver följa när man skapar ett spel som är avsett att främja självstyrd inlärning genom reflektion över orsaks- och påverkansrelationer. Vi använder ett teoretisk ramverk baserat på procedurell retorik och självstyrd inlärning i datorspel för att informera vår designprocess när vi skapar ett eko-adapterat spelsystem som ger experimenteringsmöjligheter. Vi anpassar ett ekosystem som en simulerad verklig omgivning till vår spelmiljö och identifierar viktiga designpelare som datorspel som vill främja självstyrd inlärning behöver bestå av. De huvudsakliga pelarna som vi fann viktigast är; 1, aktivera deltagande, för att engagera spelarna genom att låta dem experimentera med olika perspektiv och spelets tillstånd. 2, undvik korrelerande retoriska argument, för att inte påverka spelarna när de sätter sina egna mål medan de spelar i en informell miljö. 3, ge observationsklarhet, så att spelarna lär sig hur handlingarna de utför påverkar aktörerna och händelserna i spelsystemet. 4, möjliggör försök och misstag, för att ge spelarna tid att utforska flera tillvägagångssätt i en säker miljö där de kan misslyckas och försöka igen utan straff. Denna uppsats fokuserar främst på designprocessen och dokumentationen kring skapandet av ett spelsystem som tillämpar självstyrda inlärningsprinciper som ett centralt designdirektiv. I vår designdokumentation ger vi en öppen diskussion om vår designprocess kring de beslut, resultat och implementeringar som utgör vår simulering.

Suicide is a significant public health issue in the US. Despite national and international prioritization since 1996, little definitive progress has been made in terms of identification and intervention in cases of elevated suicide risk. Forty percent of those who died by suicide attended an emergency department within a year of death. Therefore, universal suicide risk screening in emergency departments could prove a vital component to a national suicide prevention strategy. The present study empirically evaluated the universal suicide risk screening program recently implemented at Parkland Health and Hospital System. The sample consisted of patients over 18 years of age (N=333,855; Mage=42.7, 32% male) screened as part of routine clinical care from May 4th, 2015, through November 3rd, 2015. The Parkland Algorithm for Suicide Screening (PASS) is part of a clinical decision support system for responses to Columbia - Suicide Severity Rating Scale Clinical Practice Screener (C-SSRS) items, leading to an automated clinical response via three suicide risk stratification levels: no action for no risk identified, psychiatric social worker assessment for moderate risk identified, and psychiatrist/psychologist interview for high risk identified. The present study used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, which found the PASS predicted disposition (z=30.46, p<.001, AUC=.78, CI95=.77, .81). This study also evaluated the cutpoints separating suicide risk stratification and levels of clinical response. The results supported the first cutpoint and highlighted a need for additional data to address the second cutpoint. The results of the present study suggest that the universal suicide risk screening program at Parkland Health and Hospital System is an important step toward addressing suicide prevalence in the US.

Criminal networks exploit vulnerabilities in the global financial system, using it as a conduit to launder criminal proceeds. Law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, and regulatory organizations often scrutinize voluminous financial records for suspicious activities and criminal conduct as part of anti-money laundering investigations. However, such studies are narrowly focused on incidents and triggered by tip-offs rather than data mining insights. This research models cross-border financial flows using a network theoretic approach and proposes a symmetric-key encryption algorithm to preserve information privacy in multi-dimensional data sets. The newly developed tools will enable regulatory organizations, financial institutions, and law enforcement agencies to identify suspicious activity and criminal conduct in cross-border financial transactions. Anti-money laundering, which comprises laws, regulations, and procedures to combat money laundering, requires financial institutions to verify and identify their customers in various circumstances and monitor suspicious activity transactions. Instituting anti-money laundering laws and regulations in a country carries the benefit of creating a data-rich environment, thereby facilitating non-classical analytical strategies and tools. Graph theory offers an elegant way of representing cross-border payments/receipts between resident and non-resident parties (nodes), with links representing the parties' transactions. The network representations provide potent data mining tools, facilitating a better understanding of transactional patterns that may constitute suspicious transactions and criminal conduct. Using network science to analyze large and complex data sets to detect anomalies in the data set is fast becoming more important and exciting than merely learning about its structure. This research leverages advanced technology to construct and visualize the cross-border financial flows' network structure, using a directed and dual-weighted bipartite graph. Furthermore, the develops a centrality measure for the proposed cross-border financial flows network using a method based on matrix multiplication to answer the question, "Which resident/non-resident nodes are the most important in the cross-border financial flows network?" The answer to this question provides data mining insights about the network structure. The proposed network structure, centrality measure, and characterization using degree distributions can enable financial institutions and regulatory organizations to identify dominant nodes in complex multi-dimensional data sets. Most importantly, the results showed that the research provides transaction monitoring capabilities that allow the setting of customer segmentation criteria, complementing the built-in transaction-specific triggers methods for detecting suspicious activity transactions. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Banking Sector Education and Training Authority (BANKSETA) / UP Postgraduate Bursary / Industrial and Systems Engineering / PhD / Unrestricted

Perception of dichotic chords (free recall and directed recall), nonsense syllables (CVs), and three-pair digits was assessed on 24 musicians and 24 nonmusicians. On the dichotic-CV and dichotic-digit free-recall tasks, there was a significant right-ear advantage, but there were no group differences. With the dichotic-chords, free-recall condition, a significant left-ear advantage was observed but no group difference. For the dichotic-chords, directed-recall conditions, the musicians performed significantly better by 10 percent than the nonmusicians. Unexpectedly, for the dichotic chords, the 62-72 percent correct performances were better on the free-recall condition than the 42-55 percent performances on the directed-recall conditions. These differences between the two response modes were attributed to the difficulty of the dichotic-chord listening tasks and the probabilities associated with the closed-set response paradigms. The findings suggest that the dichotic-chord paradigm used in this study should not be included in clinical protocols used to assess auditory perceptual abilities.

Transcription initiation is a key step at which gene expression can be regulated. The sigma subunit of RNA polymerase provides the enzyme with the ability to recognize promoter sequences and initiate transcription at specific sites on the chromosome. The molecular basis of sigma function is not well known. It has been suggested that sigma factors confer promoter specificty by making direct contacts to the promoter DNA (Losick and Pero, 1981). To test this idea, suppressors of promoter down mutations were sought that affected the promoter recogniton properties of the σ70 subunit of E. coli RNA polymerase. Four such sigma mutants were obtained, two of which are allele-specific. One of these mutants has a change at a position in the predicted helix-turn-helix DNA binding structure which lies in a conserved region of the protein (region 4). This mutant specifically suppresses promoter down mutations in the -35 region of the promoter. The other mutant has a change at a residue that lies in a predicted α-helix of conserved region 2. This mutant specifically suppresses promoter mutations in the -10 region of the promoter. These data support the idea that regions 2 and 4 of sigma interact with the -10 and -35 regions of the promoter, respectively.

The goal of this dissertation was to explore how self-directed learners assess their learning in informal contexts. Self-directed learners experience high intrinsic motivation and learner control, so studying these learners? experiences provides valuable insights into learning. I pose four questions: 1) How do self-directed learners in informal contexts satisfy their need for a) autonomy, b) relatedness, c) competence, and d) prioritize the satisfaction of these needs? 2) How do self-directed learners in informal contexts self-regulate their learning? 3) What affordances are perceived by informal learners during self-directed learning? 4) What relationships exist between the satisfaction of learners? basic needs, self-regulation, and perceived affordances during self-directed, informal learning? I employ multiple methodologies, including interviews (N = 19) and an open-ended survey (N = 154), and based on this evidence, theorize a Lanes of Learning model to explain how learners regulate learning, assess competence, involve others, and use tools to meet their needs. Participants? needs also influenced which learning tools they integrated and, from those, what they perceived as possible, including accessibility, personalizability, and adaptability. Evidence shows learners in 1) Lane A prefer efficiency, collect confirming cues, involve others to meet a goal, and use tools that provide a set of correct steps; 2) Lane B prefer structure, collect confirming cues and add affirming cues, involve others for functional purposes, and used tool that resemble the real thing; 3) Lane C prefer depth and chase information as it becomes relevant, collect affirming cues, involve others for emotional reasons, and use tools that provides more information to chase; and, 4) Lane D prefer innovation, collect affirming cues and add confirming cues, involve others to build a network, and use tools that are inspirational, not educational. I argue people are motivated to learn when that learning is on their terms, and this motivation manifests in the strategies and processes taken by individuals during learning.

Precise engineering of genomes holds great promise to advance our understanding of gene function and biotechnological applications. DNA double strand breaks are repaired via imprecise non-homologous end joining repair or via precise homology-directed repair processes. Therefore, we could harness the DSBs to engineer the genomes with a variety of genetic outcomes and with singlebase- level precision. The major barrier for genome engineering was the generation of site-specific DNA DSBs. Programmable DNA enzymes capable of making a complete and site-specific cut in the genome do not exist in nature. However, these enzymes can be made in in vitro as chimeric fusions of two modules, a DNA binding module and a DNA cleaving module. The DNA cleaving module can be programmed to bind to any user-defined sequence and the DNA cleaving module would generate DSBs in the target sequence. These enzymes called molecular scissors include zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) and transcriptional activator like effector nucleases (TALENs). The programmability of these enzymes depends on protein engineering for DNA binding specificity which may be complicated, recourse intensive and suffer from reproducibility issues. Recently, clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/ CRISPR associated endonuclease 9 (Cas9) an adaptive immune system of bacterial and archaeal species has been developed for genome engineering applications. CRISPR/Cas9 is an RNA-guided DNA endonuclease and can be reprogrammed through the engineering of single guide RNA molecule (sgRNA). CRISPR/Cas9 activity has been shown across eukaryotic species including plants. Although the engineering of CRISPR/Cas9 is quite predictable and reproducible, there are many technological challenges and improvements that need to be made to achieve robust, specific, and efficient plant genome engineering. Here in this thesis, I developed a number of technologies to improve specificity, delivery and expression and heritability of CRISRP/Cas9-modification in planta. Moreover, I used these technologies to answer basic questions to understand the molecular underpinning of the interplay between splicing and abiotic stress. To improve Cas9 specificity, I designed and constructed a chimeric fusion between catalytically dead Cas9 (dCas9) and FOKI catalytic DNA cleaving domain (dCas9.FoKI). This synthetic chimeric fusion enzyme improved Cas9 specificity which enable precision genome engineering. Delivery of genome engineering reagents into plant cells is quite challenging, I developed a virus-based system to deliver sgRNAs into plants which facilitates plant genome engineering and could bypass the need for tissue culture in engineering plant genomes. To improve the expression of the CRISPR/Cas9 machinery in plant species, I developed a meiotically-driven expression of CRISPR/Cas9 which improved genome editing and heritability of editing in seed progeny, thereby facilitating robust genome engineering applications. To understand the molecular basis of the interplay between splicing stress and abiotic stress, I used the CRISPR/Cas9 machinery to engineer components of the U2snRNP complex coupled which chemical genomics to understand the splicing stress regulation in response to abiotic stress conditions. Finally, I harnessed the technological improvements and developments I have achieved with CRISPR/Cas9 system to develop a directed evolution platform for targeted trait engineering which expands and accelerates trait discovery and engineering of plant species resilient to climate change conditions.

Polymer nanoparticles (PNPs) that exhibit selective stimuli-responsive degradation and drug release at tumor sites are promising candidates in the development of smart nanomedicines. In this thesis, we demonstrate a microfluidic approach to manufacturing biological stimuli-responsive PNPs with flow-tunable physicochemical and pharmacological properties. The investigated PNPs contain cleavable disulfide linkages in two different locations (core and interface, DualM PNPs) exhibiting responsivity to elevated levels of glutathione (GSH), such as those found within cancerous cells. First, we conduct a mechanistic study on the microfluidic formation of DualM PNPs without encapsulated drug. We show that physicochemical properties, including size, morphology, and internal structure, of DualM PNPs are tunable with manufacturing flow rate. Microfluidic formation of DualM PNPs is explained by the interplay of shear-induced coalescence, shear-induced breakup, and intraparticle chain rearrangements. In addition, we demonstrate that rates of GSH-triggered changes in size and internal structure are linearly correlated with initial PNP sizes and internal structures, respectively. Next, we expand our study to focus on microfluidic control of pharmacological properties of DualM PNPs containing either an anticancer drug (paclitaxel, PAX-PNPs) or a fluorescent drug surrogate (DiI-PNPs). Microfluidic PAX-PNPs and DiI-PNPs show similar sizes and morphologies with their non-drug-loaded counterparts under the same flow conditions. We then show that pharmacological properties of DualM PNPs, including encapsulation efficiency, GSH-triggered release rate, cell uptake, cytotoxicity against MCF-7 (cancerous) and HaCaT (healthy), and relative difference in MCF-7 and HaCaT cytotoxicity, all increase linearly as flow-directed PNP size decreases, providing remarkably simple process-structure-property relationships. In addition, we show that microfluidic manufacturing improves encapsulation homogeneities within PNPs relative to bulk nanoprecipitation. These results highlight the potential of flow-directed shear processing in microfluidics for providing controlled manufacturing routes to biological stimuli-responsive nanomedicines optimized for specific therapeutic applications. Finally, we summarize various design strategies of biological stimuli-responsive PNPs. We show that the location and density of disulfide linkages within PNPs determines stimulus-triggered degradation mechanism and kinetics. In addition, we show various bottom-up approaches to tune PNP responsivities that involves chemical processing, including formulation chemistry and intramolecular forces. Along with the top-down microfluidic approach that we demonstrate experimentally, this chapter provides a more comprehensive understanding of process-structure-property relations opening up vast possibilities for manufacturing smarter nanomedicines. / Graduate

Experiential learning in adult education is on the rise. A small private college in the southeast United States initiated a program that required 3 experiential learning projects to be completed in addition to coursework. The problem was that less than 8% of students had independently developed their first project. Instead, they completed a project proposed by faculty. This situation resulted in student dependency on faculty rather than promoting self-directed learning. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding about how to help students develop independent projects for the self-directed learning program. Experiential and self-directed learning theories formed the conceptual framework. The guiding question focused on how a select group of students described their ability to conduct a self-directed learning project. For this case study, individual interviews and documents were collected from 7 participants in the self-directed learning program. Analysis of the data by coding individual units of meaning revealed these 5 themes, which formed the basis of the findings: characteristics, self-motivation, lack of assistance received, personal gain, and advice for others. The commonly held major theme was personal gain. The second theme, goal setting, was discrepant. These were the major findings, which formed the basis for a proposed professional development training program for faculty facilitating the self-directed learning program. The implication for social change include emphasizing the importance of self-directed learning, supporting faculty for self-directed learning, and promoting lifelong learning. As a result of participating in this training, faculty will be better able to mentor students in the self-directed learning program.

Nous cherchons dans ce travail à qualifier et quantifier les différentes formes d’attrition prévalant dans les MOOC. En sus du retrait volontaire, dont nous détaillons les différentes formes, l’attrition est dominée avant tout par différentes formes de non-participation : la majorité des inscrits ne se connectent jamais à la formation, ou n’y réalisent qu’un nombre minimal d’actions, sans intention de s’y investir. La prépondérance de cette forme d’attrition s’explique en partie par l’existence sur les plates-formes d’hébergement d’une offre abondante, qui incite les utilisateurs à s’inscrire à plus de cours qu’ils n’ont la possibilité de suivre. Un certain nombre de participants s’investissent dans la formation jusqu’à son terme bien qu’ils n’obtiennent pas le certificat. Ils représentent néanmoins une forme d’attrition marginale. Il en va de même pour l’échec académique, compris comme l’incapacité à répondre au niveau d’exigence des activités évaluées. Les MOOC sont le plus souvent de niveau introductif, les participants peuvent le plus souvent recommencer des activités auxquelles ils auraient échoué. La plupart des utilisateurs suivent le cours avec l’intention d’en réinvestir le contenu dans leur vie personnelle ou professionnelle. L’incapacité des dispositifs à répondre à cette logique, qui correspond à certains égards à un projet d’apprentissage, explique vraisemblablement une partie significative du retrait volontaire. La plupart des répondants souhaitent obtenir le certificat de la formation, bien qu’il ne représente que rarement la principale motivation sous-tendant l’inscription. Cet intérêt ne relève pas systématiquement de buts de performance. / We aim at describing, quantifying and understanding the diversity of situations that explain the low completions observed in MOOCs, based on learning analytics, registration data from the French MOOC platform FUN, course structures, surveys and semi-structured interviews. Most of the attrition is explained by different types of non-starts, and to a lesser extent by voluntary withdrawal: most registrants do not show up in the cours, or do a minimal number of actions, with no intention to engage in the course whatsoever. The existence of an abundant catalog in most platforms drives users to register to more courses than they can follow. Some users view most of the videos of the course without engaging in the tasks required to obtain the certificate, but they represent a small part of the attrition. Academic dismissal is likely to be limited given the fact that most MOOCs are of introductory level, most evaluations are automated and multiple attemps are allowed. Most users follow the course with the intention to apply its content in their personal or professionnal life; a MOOC is most often the equivalent of a learning project. The inability to answer the needs of such learning projects may explain a significant proportion of the voluntary withdrawal. Few learners register in order to obtain a certificate, but most of them are interested in it.