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Since the onset of conflict in Syria in 2011, several heritage sites have suffered partial or complete destruction. The ancient city of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980, was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2013, alongside five other Syrian heritage sites. Between 2015 and 2017, Palmyra experienced the loss of nearly 40% of its historic buildings and landmarks. The site's remote location and ongoing armed conflict pose additional challenges in accessing and preserving it. This paper introduces an interactive online platform employing 360° media to document and disseminate information about the world heritage site of Palmyra. The platform contributes to the safeguarding process of Palmyra, facilitating public engagement and interaction with the site. It also has potential applications for other sites in Syria and beyond. The platform allows users to explore both archival and current information of damaged historical monuments and buildings, revealing their layered histories before and after demolition. Employing interactive 360° media, similar to applications like Google Street View, the platform offers a reality-based digital environment. Users can virtually move into different buildings or follow specific pathways within the site, accessing archival information and documentation about particular monuments and buildings along their journey. This project serves as a unique informational resource for decision-makers and policy planners, aiding in the understanding of the site and the development of relevant strategies and recommendations. It also proves beneficial as an educational tool. The collective understanding fostered by this platform is expected to positively influence post-conflict restoration and reconstruction plans, making it an invaluable asset for research and educational purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores whether and how peer pressure influenced students' participation in web-based peer learning (WPL). Fifteen students enrolled in a university reading course were followed over the course of one semester, and interviews with them along with the researcher's observational notes on their learning activities were qualitatively analyzed. Peer pressure slowly and steadily occurred during the students' WPL, with the students feeling differently about it at different levels. All of the students became somewhat used to it later in the semester. The peer pressure was mainly influenced by technological factors (e.g., the openness of the web platform) and non-technological factors (e.g., the academic gaps between students), along with other accompanying reasons (e.g., self-motivation for looking academically decent). The study concludes that students' experiences of peer pressure in relation to WPL involved a gradual process, had multiple causes, and ultimately positively impacted the students, although in the process, peer pressure exerted either negative or positive power on the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of game experiences based on the player's location has increased recently due to proliferation of and innovation in related technologies. In the educational context, the goal of these games has been to increase the player's skills with respect to a particular topic. When pervasive or narrative components are added; however, complexity of construction and support increases, requiring a tool to manage the information both appropriately and dynamically. Space and pervasiveness of social interaction work together to achieve objectives through the exchange of information between several pervasive games to provide a better game experience. This paper presents a platform enabled to create game experiences based on the player's location to improve students' skills by applying the pervasive narrative. It then validates a game experience designed and built in a higher education environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural products (NPs) are a valuable source for anti-inflammatory drug discovery. However, they are limited by the unpredictability of the structures and functions. Therefore, computational and data-driven pre-evaluation could enable more efficient NP-inspired drug development. Since NPs possess structural features that differ from synthetic compounds, models trained with synthetic compounds may not perform well with NPs. There is also an urgent demand for well-curated databases and user-friendly predictive tools. We presented a comprehensive online web platform (InflamNat, http://www.inflamnat.com/ or http://39.104.56.4/) for anti-inflammatory natural product research. InflamNat is a database containing the physicochemical properties, cellular anti-inflammatory bioactivities, and molecular targets of 1351 NPs that tested on their anti-inflammatory activities. InflamNat provides two machine learning-based predictive tools specifically designed for NPs that (a) predict the anti-inflammatory activity of NPs, and (b) predict the compound-target relationship for compounds and targets collected in the database but lacking existing relationship data. A novel multi-tokenization transformer model (MTT) was proposed as the sequential encoder for both predictive tools to obtain a high-quality representation of sequential data. The experimental results showed that the proposed predictive tools achieved an AUC value of 0.842 and 0.872 in the prediction of anti-inflammatory activity and compound-target interactions, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The accurate prediction and annotation of gene structures from the genome sequence of an organism enable genome-wide functional analyses to obtain insight into the biological properties of an organism. Objectives: We recently developed a highly accurate filamentous fungal gene prediction pipeline and web platform called TaF. TaF is a homology-based gene predictor employing large-scale taxonomic profiling to search for close relatives in genome queries. Methods: TaF pipeline consists of four processing steps; (1) taxonomic profiling to search for close relatives to query, (2) generation of hints for determining exon–intron boundaries from orthologous protein sequence data of the profiled species, (3) gene prediction by combination of ab inito and evidence-based prediction methods, and (4) homology search for gene models. Results: TaF generates extrinsic evidence that suggests possible exon–intron boundaries based on orthologous protein sequence data, thus reducing false-positive predictions of gene structure based on distantly related orthologs data. In particular, the gene prediction method using taxonomic profiling shows very high accuracy, including high sensitivity and specificity for gene models, suggesting a new approach for homology-based gene prediction from newly sequenced or uncharacterized fungal genomes, with the potential to improve the quality of gene prediction. Conclusion: TaF will be a useful tool for fungal genome-wide analyses, including the identification of targeted genes associated with a trait, transcriptome profiling, comparative genomics, and evolutionary analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas (PAs) can generate many benefits inside and outside their borders, and achieving objectives for diverse stakeholders raises many challenges. There are many examples of successful PA management around the globe, although a systematic and comprehensive approach to developing and sharing these solutions has been lacking. We present "solutioning" as a structured process of peer-learning, which can inform management strategies in and around protected areas. We explain how the PANORAMA—Solutions for a Healthy Planet initiative has put solutioning into practice through an interactive community and web portal to learn about protected area solutions around the globe. Unlike other web platforms and initiatives reviewed, PANORAMA facilitates adaptation of solution elements (i.e., building blocks) for novel implementation. Supported by theories of resilience and peer-learning, PANORAMA appears to have potential to promote efficiency and equitable benefits for PAs and associated stakeholders focused on nature conservation and sustainable development, although further research is needed to assess whether this learning leads to better solutions or more effective PA management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]