Virtual pedagogical agents (VPAs), i.e. computer generated characters in pedagogical roles, populate the digital society in increasing numbers. They are found in educational programs from preschool to university. In a broader educational context, they function as virtual medical counsellors, physical exercise coaches and guides on city web pages – and they also appear in edutainment and infotainme

How can an artificial island and a bridge-building project shape the dreams and plans for a transnational region? In this article I examine the making of the Oresund region of Denmark and Sweden by analyzing the intertwining of bridge construction and region building, from the early dreams and plans, to the actual construction phase, to the ceremonial opening in 2000, and to the difficult transiti

The IWA Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 (ADM1) was presented in 2002 and is expected to represent the state-of-the-art model within this field in the future. Due to its complexity the implementation of the model is not a simple task and several computational aspects need to be considered, in particular if the ADM1 is to be included in dynamic simulations of plant-wide or even integrated systems. I

Aims: Several studies have shown that self-rated health (SRH ) is associated with drug use. The aim of this study was to investigate the possible interaction between SRH and use of analgesics and hypnotics and its ability to predict disability pension. Methods: In 1974-78, complete birth-year cohorts of middle-aged male residents in Malmö, Sweden, were invited to a health screening, and the cohort

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Traditional patterns relating to how to handle pregnancy and birth are often challenged due to migration. The purpose of this study was to describe Middle Eastern mothers' experiences of the maternal health care services in Sweden and the involvement of their male partner. METHODS: Thirteen immigrant mothers from the Middle East who had used the maternal health services in Sw

This paper describes a highly digitized direct conversion receiver of a single-chip quadruple-band RF transceiver that meets GSM/GPRS and EDGE requirements. The chip uses an advanced 0.25-mum BiCMOS technology. The I and Q on-chip fifth-order single-bit continuous-time sigma-delta (SigmaDelta) ADC has 84-dB dynamic range over a total bandwidth of +/-135 kHz for an active area of 0.4 mm(2). Hence,

This study was aimed to characterize the ability of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) to differentiate into osteoblasts in vitro. Twenty-three women and 20 men at late adulthood (52-92 years of age) were selected for the study. MSCs were isolated and cultured in vitro and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, secretion of amino-terminal propeptide of type I procollagen (PINP), type III

Home mechanical ventilation (HMV) is increasingly used as a therapeutic option to patients with symptomatic chronic hypoventilation. There is, however, a paucity of solid data on factors that could affect prognosis in patients on home ventilation. In the present study, our aim was to study several factors in these patients with potential influence on survival. We examined 1526 adult patients from

Purpose - To provide an integrated perspective to similarities and differences between approaches to automated classification in different research communities (machine learning, information retrieval and library science), and point to problems with the approaches and automated classification as such. Design/methodology/approach - A range of works dealing with automated classification of full-text

During atrial fibrillation (AF), time-frequency analysis of atrial signal has been applied to describe fibrillatory frequency trends. Recently, temporal changes in spectral shape have been investigated using the spectral profile technique. This profile is computed recursively by fitting each short-time log-spectrum to a spectral template, using amplitude scaling and frequency shifting. The purpose

The adsorption of H2O on Ge(100)2×1 was studied with angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy. The surface was exposed to H2O at 160 K. The sample was then heated to 300 K where the measurements were performed. The surface band structure was mapped in the [010] direction. We find six bands that we assign to a surface-adsorbate structure. One band with binding energy in the region 4.6–4.9 eV is as

We report lifetime measurements for three of the 5d(9)6p levels in An II and relativistic multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock (MCDF) calculations of lifetimes and transitions probabilities in this ion. The work was motivated by significant disagreements between previous experimental 5d(9)6p lifetimes, obtained by means of the beam-foil (BF) method and theoretical data based on Hartree-Fock calculations