Background: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and aggressive brain tumor with poor clinical outcome. Identification and development of new markers could be beneficial for the diagnosis and prognosis of GBM patients. Deregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs or miRs) is involved in GBM. Therefore, we attempted to identify and develop specific miRNAs as prognostic and predictive markers for GBM patient survival.Methods: Expression profiles of miRNAs and genes and the corresponding clinical information of 480 GBM samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset were downloaded and interested miRNAs were identified. Patients' overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) associated with interested miRNAs and miRNA-interactions were performed by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. The impacts of miRNA expressions and miRNA-interactions on survival were evaluated by Cox proportional hazard regression model. Biological processes and network of putative and validated targets of miRNAs were analyzed by bioinformatics.Results: In this study, 6 interested miRNAs were identified. Survival analysis showed that high levels of miR-326/miR-130a and low levels of miR-323/miR-329/miR-155/miR-210 were significantly associated with long OS of GBM patients, and also showed that high miR-326/miR-130a and low miR-155/miR-210 were related with extended PFS. Moreover, miRNA-323 and miRNA-329 were found to be increased in patients with no-recurrence or long time to progression (TTP). More notably, our analysis revealed miRNA-interactions were more specific and accurate to discriminate and predict OS and PFS. This interaction stratified OS and PFS related with different miRNA levels more detailed, and could obtain longer span of mean survival in comparison to that of one single miRNA. Moreover, miR-326, miR-130a, miR-155, miR-210 and 4 miRNA-interactions were confirmed for the first time as independent predictors for survival by Cox regression model together with clinicopathological factors: Age, Gender and Recurrence. Plus, the availability and rationality of the miRNA-interaction as predictors for survival were further supported by analysis of network, biological processes, KEGG pathway and correlation analysis with gene markers.Conclusions: Our results demonstrates that miR-326, miR-130a, miR-155, miR-210 and the 4 miRNA-interactions could serve as prognostic and predictive markers for survival of GBM patients, suggesting a potential application in improvement of prognostic tools and treatments.

Background: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and aggressive brain tumor with poor clinical outcome. Identification and development of new markers could be beneficial for the diagnosis and prognosis of GBM patients. Deregulation of microRNAs (miRNAs or miRs) is involved in GBM. Therefore, we attempted to identify and develop specific miRNAs as prognostic and predictive markers for GBM patient survival.Methods: Expression profiles of miRNAs and genes and the corresponding clinical information of 480 GBM samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset were downloaded and interested miRNAs were identified. Patients' overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) associated with interested miRNAs and miRNA-interactions were performed by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. The impacts of miRNA expressions and miRNA-interactions on survival were evaluated by Cox proportional hazard regression model. Biological processes and network of putative and validated targets of miRNAs were analyzed by bioinformatics.Results: In this study, 6 interested miRNAs were identified. Survival analysis showed that high levels of miR-326/miR-130a and low levels of miR-323/miR-329/miR-155/miR-210 were significantly associated with long OS of GBM patients, and also showed that high miR-326/miR-130a and low miR-155/miR-210 were related with extended PFS. Moreover, miRNA-323 and miRNA-329 were found to be increased in patients with no-recurrence or long time to progression (TTP). More notably, our analysis revealed miRNA-interactions were more specific and accurate to discriminate and predict OS and PFS. This interaction stratified OS and PFS related with different miRNA levels more detailed, and could obtain longer span of mean survival in comparison to that of one single miRNA. Moreover, miR-326, miR-130a, miR-155, miR-210 and 4 miRNA-interactions were confirmed for the first time as independent predictors for survival by Cox regression model together with clinicopathological factors: Age, Gender and Recurrence. Plus, the availability and rationality of the miRNA-interaction as predictors for survival were further supported by analysis of network, biological processes, KEGG pathway and correlation analysis with gene markers.Conclusions: Our results demonstrates that miR-326, miR-130a, miR-155, miR-210 and the 4 miRNA-interactions could serve as prognostic and predictive markers for survival of GBM patients, suggesting a potential application in improvement of prognostic tools and treatments.

The prevailing utility, and indeed necessity, of clinical staging models applied in considerations of neuropsychiatric disease progressions is discussed from the perspectives of schizophrenia spectrum disorders and affective disorders, cannabis in schizopsychotic disorder, incidences of affect and psychosis, staging disorders in aging and the indices and prevalence of apathy. There would appear to be a strong current consensus that the pursuit of clinical staging of these and other brain disease states has contributed a systematic conceptual instrument to facilitate the better understanding, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment as derived from a multitude of genetic predispositions, symptoms and syndromes, early-onset and prodromal phases, recurrences and relapses, that have complicated the situation of the patient. Through a staging determination of the disorder, elements of diagnosis will describe the progression of symptoms/syndromes through pre-onset, prodromal, first-episode, recurrences and relapses, and treatment resistance thereby facilitating the eventual prognosis, intervention alternatives and treatment. This approach varies from observations of individuals at early stages of development (infancy, childhood, adolescece) to early middle age, in the case of diseases expressed through the aging processes. Essentially, the major contribution of the staging model may lie in the early identification, diagnosis, and treatments of disorders that afflict the brain and central nervous system.

Forskning har visat att rationella tal är ett problematiskt matematiskt område för elever att lära sig i samtliga årskurser. Progressionen inom området kan bli lidande och så även andra matematiska områden som baseras på förståelsen för rationella tal. Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie är att utforska hur lärare samtalar om bråkundervisning i årskurs 1–3 utifrån kända missuppfattningar om rationella tal. Fyra semistrukturerade fokusgruppsintervjuer genomfördes med verksamma lärare i årskurs 1–3. Det insamlade materialet analyserades utifrån variationsteorin, därefter kopplades resultatet samman med tidigare forskning och variationsteorin. En slutsats som dras ur lärarnas samtal om hur en gynnsam bråkundervisning kan utformas är att det går att urskilja variationsmönster utan att lärarna medvetet uttrycker detta. Ett antagande görs om att medvetenhet om variationsteorin skulle kunna bidra till att bråkundervisningen blir mer gynnsam och att elevers kunskapsprogression därmed kan gynnas.

This research examines how low-level vocabulary students, in particular, might better progress tohigher levels of vocabulary in the EFL context. In addition, a variety of strategies and teachingmethods are analysed. Vocabulary is the foundation of language learning and is an essential partof reading, writing and speaking. This research examines the importance of high frequencywords, teaching methods and strategies in the EFL classroom. Several methods and strategies areanalysed to compare and draw conclusions regarding which are the most effective. To be able tofind answers to these questions, a number of scientific articles and experimental studies werereviewed. Our findings indicate that the 2,000 most common words in the English language areimportant in order to progress to higher levels of vocabulary. The research also showed thatstudents who possessed the high frequency words were superior in reading, writing and speakingcompared to the students who did not have this word level. Additionally, students with largervocabulary gained significantly more vocabulary from activities and reading. Choosing the correctteaching strategy and method has proven to be important in order to develop students’vocabulary. Strategies such as visual aids, function-based teaching and post-reading tasks haveshown to be effective methods for teaching vocabulary. Although the 2,000 most frequent wordsis an important learning goal, the teachers’ choice of methods to achieve this is crucial.

The advent of recent high throughput sequencing technologies resulted in an unexplored big data of genomics and transcriptomics that might help to answer various research questions in Parkinson’s disease(PD) progression. While the literature has revealed various predictive models that use longitudinal clinical data for disease progression, there is no predictive model based on RNA-Sequence data of PD patients. This study investigates how to predict the PD Progression for a patient’s next medical visit by capturing longitudinal temporal patterns in the RNA-Seq data. Data provided by Parkinson Progression Marker Initiative (PPMI) includes 423 PD patients with a variable number of visits for a period of 4 years. We propose a predictive model based on a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) with dense connections. The results show that the proposed architecture is able to predict PD progression from high dimensional RNA-seq data with a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 6.0 and rank-order correlation of (r=0.83, p<0.0001) between the predicted and actual disease status of PD. We show empirical evidence that the addition of dense connections and batch normalization into RNN layers boosts its training and generalization capability.

Syftet med detta examensarbete är att undersöka och belysa hur formativ bedömning används i praktiken enligt verksamma mellanstadielärare. Ett delsyfte är även att undersöka hur den formativa bedömningen följs upp under elevernas skolgång. Undersökningen är kvalitativ och materialet samlades in via intervjuer med åtta legitimerade lärare som är behöriga i ämnet svenska och undervisar i årskurs 4–6. Det teoretiska perspektivet som studien vilar på är det sociokulturella perspektivet med fokus på begrepp som den proximala utvecklingszonen, scaffolding, mediering och appropriering. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att lärarna arbetar formativt i den utsträckning de kan för att nå elevernas fulla potential inom skrivutvecklingen. Lärarna berättar att återkopplingen ligger till grund för att ta elevernas lärande vidare. Vi fick ta del av både positiva och negativa aspekter av det formativa arbetet. Det positiva som lyfts är framförallt att eleverna genom formativ bedömning utvecklar sitt skrivande till det bättre. En negativ aspekt som lyfts är tidsbristen, lärarna anser att de inte har tillräckligt med tid till återkoppling. Vi fick även ta del av hur lärarna följer och synliggör elevernas progression. Avslutningsvis har studien samlat flera tillvägagångssätt för att arbeta formativt med skrivutveckling.

Studiens syfte är att synliggöra möjligheter och begränsningar för kontinuitet och progression i barns naturvetenskapliga lärande inför övergången från förskola till förskoleklass. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkt är det sociokulturella perspektivet. För att identifiera möjligheter och begränsningar genomfördes intervjuer med barn, förskollärare och förskoleklasslärare. Resultatet i studien presenteras i fyra teman; barnens intressen, utmanande lärandeinnehåll och arbetssätt, samarbete och insyn samt prioriterade utvecklingsområden. Resultaten visade att barnen förväntar sig och önskar utmanande, nya innehåll och arbetssätt som inkluderar inslag av deras personliga intresseområden. Både förskolan och förskoleklassen behöver arbeta medvetet med naturvetenskap för att skapa möjligheter för kontinuitet och progression. Naturvetenskapsundervisning kan och bör utgå från barns intressen och kombineras med andra ämnesinnehåll i tema- och projektarbeten samt utformas med hänsyn till barns erfarenheter och proximala utvecklingszoner för att främja progression i barns naturvetenskapliga lärande. Detta skapar i sin tur tillfällen att beröra naturvetenskapen i samverkan mellan förskola och förskoleklass inför övergången. Resultaten har även visat att förskollärare ochförskoleklasslärare måste prioritera samverkan och skapa insyn i varandras verksamheter för att främja ett gott samarbete inför övergången till förskoleklass.

Detta examensarbete har som syfte att studera progressionen i följande läroböcker; (a) Lilla Mattestegen första till sjätte boken (Jakobson och Marand, 2005a-f) och (b) Mattestegen (Backström och Rosenlund, 2003a-d), inom tre kunskapsområden; problemlösning, taluppfattning och rumsuppfattning. Genom att utgå från de mål som skolverket har satt upp för åk 5 och de teoretiska förkunskaper inom de tre kunskapsområden, undersöks de kunskaper som krävs för att lösa tre räkneuppgifter i Mattestegen B Höst/Vår Steg 5-8 (Backström och Rosenlund, 2003d). Undersökningen visar att läromedlet tar upp de kunskaper som eleverna behöver. Begreppen utvecklas i en logisk struktur, presenteras med hjälp av vardagsbegrepp, beskrivs i förhållande till andra begrepp och framställs med hjälp av lärarens engagemang och barnens kreativitet.

The purpose of this qualitative research was to acknowledge the gap in literature concerning the relationship between female leadership in a Swedish context with impostor syndrome. The focus was on analyzing whether impostor syndrome has an impact on the career progression of female leaders and how organizations can either exacerbate or mitigate the effects of suffering from impostor syndrome in the workplace.  In order to reach a conclusion aligned with the purpose and to respond to the conducted research questions, six semi-structured interviews were conducted with women in different leadership positions, operating within different companies and industries in Sweden. The interviews along with the theoretical framework allowed the authors to perform a thematic analysis in order to structure and analyze the gathered information.  The empirical data that was collected provided sufficient evidence for the authors to draw conclusions with regards to the posed research questions. It was concluded that impostor syndrome is a phenomenon that was frequently experienced among the female leaders, which could be confirmed in the literature. It could also be concluded that this was not a factor that had hindered them in their career progression. Moreover, the organizational support systems could be concluded to have a great impact in how the effects of impostor syndrome could be mitigated or further exacerbated.