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Background: Pediatric patients with intestinal failure are critically dependent on central venous access for nutrition and fluids. Long-term central venous access can be complicated by recurrent infections, catheter malfunction, and venous stricture and thrombosis. Prior studies have discussed hybrid procedures to salvage suboptimal central venous access sites; however, data is very limited. Methods: This is a retrospective review of six pediatric patients with intestinal failure (IF) and long-term total parenteral nutrition (TPN) dependence who underwent one or more hybrid procedures for achieving complex vascular access, vascular mapping, and/or salvage of vascular access sites. Results: Median age at the time of intervention was 1.4 years (range 2.5 weeks – 2.6 years) with a median weight of 10 kg (range 3.3–13.8 kg). The median number of lifetime central lines was 4 (range 2–6). Indications for hybrid intervention included line fractures, occlusions, dislodgement, recurrent infections, and refractory central line infection. The most common procedures included vascular access, vein mapping, and balloon angioplasty of occluded central veins. The median procedure time was 4.6 h (range 1.3–5.9 h) with a median procedural radiation dose of 2.2 Gycm2 (range 0.1–6.7 Gycm2). All patients who underwent hybrid procedures had successful exchange and/or rehabilitation of the at-risk access site. Conclusions: These cases highlight the importance of vascular mapping for identifying potential access sites, as well as techniques for successful vascular rehabilitation for maintenance or salvage of existing central venous access. A multidisciplinary hybrid approach is a feasible and effective means of maintaining central venous access.

La presente investigación tuvo como objetivo aprovechar el mucilago de cacao Mocambo (Theobroma bicolor Hump & Bonpl.) para la obtención de un néctar. Se utilizó un diseño completamente al azar con arreglo bifactorial para la comparación de las medias, como factor A las concentraciones de mucilago de cacao mocambo (25%, 50% y 100%) y como factor B (CMC y sin CMC ) como estabilizante. Las variables estudiadas fueron fisicoquímicas, microbiológicos y análisis sensoriales. Se obtuvo una viscosidad de 69,92, turbidez de 54,37, °Brix de 13,23, pH de 3,45 y una acidez titulable de 0,42. La colorimetría no presentó diferencias significativas en sus resultados. El tratamiento con 25% de mucilago de cacao Mocambo presentó un mayor agrado y preferencia por parte de los catadores. La utilización de mucilago obtenido de cacao Mocambo puede ser utilizado como subproducto en la industria alimentaria.

El presente estudio tuvo como objetivo evaluar la inclusión de mucilago de cacao nacional como estabilizante en néctar de jackfruit. Para el cual, se utilizó un Diseño Completamente al Azar, donde el factor en estudio fue las distintas concentraciones de mucílago (5, 10 y 15 %). Se evaluó características físico-químicos (°Brix, pH y acidez titulable, viscosidad, estabilidad y colorimetría), además, se realizó un análisis sensorial (color, olor, sabor y aceptabilidad), mediante una escala hedónica de 9 puntos, finalmente se llevó a cabo, la determinación del tiempo de vida útil del tratamiento con mejores resultados sensoriales. En cuanto, a las características físico-químicas, se observó diferencia significativa, estableciendo al T3 con mayor valor en las variables °Brix (17), pH (4,63), acidez titulable (1,96%), viscosidad (0,02774 mPa.s), una menor sedimentación (0,8%), además, en relación a colorimetría existió significancia estadística en la coordenada a* obteniendo valores de -1,02 a -1,26. En cuanto a las categorías sensoriales, los tratamientos estudiados, no presentaron diferencia significativa, sin embargo, el T3 obtuvo la mejor valoración en las categorías evaluadas. Por otro lado, la vida útil del néctar fue de 14 días ya que presentó buena calidad microbiológica según lo especificado en la Norma “INEN 2337: 2008”.

Abstract Biliary-tract-carcinomas (BTC), pancreatic-ductal-adenocarcinomas (PDAC) and adenoidcystic-carcinomas (AC) have in common that they are traditionally treated with large clinical-target-volumes (CTV). The aim of this study is to examine the impact of pretreatment-[68Ga]FAPI-PET/CT on target-volume-definition and posttreatment-[68Ga]FAPI-PET/CT-response-assessment for BTC-, PDAC- and AC-patients referred to radiation-therapy. All consecutive BTC-, PDAC-, and AC-patients who received pretreatment-[68Ga]FAPI-PET/CT±[18F]FDG-PET/CT were included from 01.01.2020 to 01.03.2022. MTV and SUVmax were separately generated based on [68Ga]FAPI- and [18F]FDG-PET/CT-images. A [68Ga]FAPI- and [18F]FDG-based-CTV was defined. Treatment-plans were compared. Treatment-response was reassessed by a second [68Ga]FAPI-PET/CT and [18F]FDG-PET/CT after treatment-completion. Intermodality comparison of lesion-to-background-ratios [SUVmax_lesion/SUVmean_background] for individual timepoints t 1 and t 2 revealed significant higher values for [68Ga]FAPI compared to [18F]FDG (t 1 , p = 0.008; t 2 , p = 0.005). Intermodality comparison of radiation-therapy-plans showed that [68Ga]FAPI-based planning resulted in D100% = 97.2% and V95% = 98.8% for the [18F]FDG-MTV. [18F]FDG-based-planning resulted in D100% = 35.9% and V95% = 78.1% for [68Ga]FAPI-MTV. [18F]FDG-based-planning resulted only in 2 patients in V95% > 95% for [68Ga]FAPI-MTV, and in 1 patient in D100% > 97% for [68Ga]FAPI-MTV. GTV-coverage in terms of V95% was 76.4% by [18F]FDG-based-planning and 99.5% by [68Ga]FAPI-based-planning. Pretreatment [68Ga]FAPI-PET/CT enhances radiation-treatment-planning in this particular group of patients. While perilesional and tumoral follow-up [18F]FDG-uptake behaved uniformly, perilesional and tumoral reaction may differ in follow-up [68Ga]FAPI-imaging. Complementary [68Ga]FAPI- and [18F]FDG-imaging enhance treatment-response-assessment.

Exploratory data analysis (EDA), data visualization, and visual analytics are essential for understanding and analyzing complex datasets. In this project, we explored these techniques and their applications in data analytics. The case discusses Tableau, a powerful data visualization tool, and Google BigQuery, a cloud-based data warehouse that enables users to store, query, and analyze large datasets. It also explored the benefits and applications of both tools and their integration with other platforms and services. The project offers an introductory insight into Tableau's functionalities, employing a data file from the US Census Bureau via Google BigQuery.

PurposeThis study aimed to assess interfraction stability of the delivered dose distribution by exhale-gated volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) or intensity-modulated arc therapy (IMAT) for lung cancer and to determine dominant prognostic dosimetric and geometric factors.MethodsClinical target volume (CTVPlan) from the planning CT was deformed to the exhale-gated daily CBCT scans to determine CTVi, treated by the respective dose fraction. The equivalent uniform dose of the CTVi was determined by the power law (gEUDi) and cell survival model (EUDiSF) as effectiveness measure for the delivered dose distribution. The following prognostic factors were analyzed: (I) minimum dose within the CTVi (Dmin_i), (II) Hausdorff distance (HDDi) between CTVi and CTVPlan, (III) doses and deformations at the point in CTVPlan at which the global minimum dose over all fractions per patient occurs (PDmin_global_i), and (IV) deformations at the point over all CTVi margins per patient with the largest Hausdorff distance (HDPworst). Prognostic value and generalizability of the prognostic factors were examined using cross-validated random forest or multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP) classifiers. Dose accumulation was performed using back deformation of the dose distribution from CTVi to CTVPlan.ResultsAltogether, 218 dose fractions (10 patients) were evaluated. There was a significant interpatient heterogeneity between the distributions of the normalized gEUDi values (p60% was associated with predicted gEUD values above 95%. Dmin had the highest importance for predicting the gEUD over all analyzed prognostic parameters by out-of-bag loss reduction using the random forest procedure. Cross-validated random forest classifier based on Dmin as the sole input had the largest Pearson correlation coefficient (R=0.897) in comparison to classifiers using additional input variables. The neural network performed better than the random forest classifier, and the gEUD values predicted by the MLP classifier with Dmin as the sole input were correlated with the gEUD values characterized by R=0.933 (95% CI, 0.913–0.948). The performance of the full MLP model with all geometric input parameters was slightly better (R=0.952) than that based on Dmin (p=0.0034, Z-test).ConclusionAccumulated dose distributions over the treatment series were robust against interfraction CTV deformations using exhale gating and online image guidance. Dmin was the most important parameter for gEUD prediction for a single fraction. All other parameters did not lead to a markedly improved generalizable prediction. Dosimetric information, especially location and value of Dmin within the CTVi, are vital information for image-guided radiation treatment.

The SSIS SEL Brief + Mental Health Scales (SSIS SELb+MHS) are multi-informant assessments developed in the United States to assess the social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies and emotional behavior concerns (EBCs) of school-age youth. Although there are translations of the SEL items of the SSIS SELb+MHS available in other languages, a German translation has never been completed and validated, despite the growing need for SEL and mental health assessment in German-speaking countries. To address this need, this study's primary purpose was the examination of a German translation of the assessment with a specific focus on measurement invariance and concurrent validity invariance testing with 821 3rd through 6th-grade students in Austria and Germany. Results indicated that the SELb+MHS items clustered into 2 SEL factors and 2 EBC factors. With regard to measurement invariance, the SELb+MHS functioned similarly across both Austria and Germany and full scalar invariance was achieved. Additionally, the overall pattern of concurrent validity relationships was as expected and similar across countries. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Student--teacher gender congruence is suggested to be related to increased student performance, but little is known about the contexts in which these effects occur. Based on literature on gender stereotypes this study hypothesizes different effects of student-teacher gender congruence for male and female students across school subjects and in different educational contexts. Using administrative data of secondary schools in The Netherlands (N > 50,000), this study examined to what extent student-teacher gender congruence is associated with male and female students' performance in the subjects math, physics, Dutch language, and French language. Further this study explored the role of students' educational level, schools' religiousness, and schools' location in these relations. As expected, we found that gender congruence was positively related to female students' performance in math and physics and to male students' performance in Dutch language and French language. However, the role of educational context differed for male and female students across subjects and lacked a clear pattern that corresponded to the gender stereotypes hypotheses. This study emphasizes that effects of student-teacher gender congruence can differ in magnitude and direction in different contexts, encouraging future research to use qualitative methods to examine how context influences the role of gender in education.

Frailty is a health concern for many adults with intellectual disability and should be measured to detect at-risk conditions, monitor disease, plan treatment, and gauge mortality. This descriptive pilot study evaluated measurement consistency (inter-rater agreement) of the Intellectual Disability-Frailty Index Short Form among multiple assessors with 20 adults (M age = 48.3 years) who had intellectual and multiple disabilities. Agreement percentages were computed for (a) non-frail, pre-frail, and frail categories derived from total index scores, and (b) each of 17 deficits listed on the form. Low average inter-rater agreement (<85%) was obtained on the index frail categories, several of the assessed deficits had acceptable inter-rater agreement (84.2-100%), while the majority of deficits were associated with moderate-to-low agreement percentages. Though research supports the Intellectual Disability-Frailty Index Short Form as a valid and practical frailty assessment instrument, our findings suggest that full-scale inter-rater agreement must be improved by adding more specificity to the form, clarifying instructions for assessors, and providing competency-based training in assessment implementation.

This article investigates the potential mathematical learning opportunities arising from a digital activity designed to enhance students' comprehension of equations. Employing a commognitive-oriented lens, the analysis explores the potential mathematical discourses that could emerge from students' interactions with a digital scale inspired by the balance-model metaphor for teaching linear equations. Utilising the Realization Tree construct, we visually map potential realizations and mathematical connections related to various mathematical objects that can be discussed through the activity. Our analysis reveals that the dynamic nature of the digital artifact can facilitate insightful discourses around equations, numbers, and inequalities. The dynamic environment can also invite students to ask 'what if…' questions about the scale and different weight blocks, leading to explorative participation in the discourse about equations. We discuss the affordances of the activity and future implications of the Realization Trees we build in examining the learning opportunities enacted in actual students' interaction with such an activity.

Teachers routinely observe and interpret student behavior to make judgements about whether and how to support their students' learning. Simulated cases can help pre-service teachers to gain this skill of diagnostic reasoning. With 118 pre-service teachers, we tested whether participants rate simulated cases presented in a serial-cue case format as more authentic and become more involved with the materials compared to cases presented in a whole case format. We further investigated whether participants with varying prior conceptual knowledge (what are symptoms of ADHD and dyslexia) gain more strategic knowledge (how to detect ADHD and dyslexia) with a serial-cue versus whole case format. We found that the case format did not impact authenticity ratings but that learners reported higher involvement in the serial-cue case format condition. Bayes factors provide moderate evidence for the absence of a case format effect on strategic knowledge and strong evidence for the absence of an interaction of case format and prior knowledge. We recommend using serial-cue case formats in simulations as they are a more authentic representation of the diagnostic reasoning process and cognitively involve learners. We call for replications to gather more evidence for the impact of case format on knowledge acquisition. We suggest a further inquiry into the relationship of case format, involvement, and authenticity but think that a productive way forward for designing authentic simulations is attention to aspects that make serial-cue cases effective for diverse learners. For example, adaptive feedback or targeted practice of specific parts of diagnostic reasoning such as weighing evidence.

The intentional and sustained actions to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in school psychology science and scholarship, will have reciprocal and dynamic influences on graduate preparation and practice. Herein, the "School Psychology Review" leadership team provides reflections on several of our intentional efforts, to date, to advocate for and advance DEI in school psychology scholarship, and the associated implications for graduate preparation and practice. Contemporary actions of the "School Psychology Review" leadership team have included; (a) establishing commitments to advocating for and advancing DEI as the foundation of our scholarship; (b) diversifying journal leadership and editorial board members to reflect the diverse student body school psychologists serve; (c) preparing future diverse journal leadership through mentored editorial fellowship programs, and a student editorial board with members from diverse backgrounds; (d) featuring special topics relevant to further understanding and supporting diverse and minoritized children, youth, families, and school communities; (e) providing professional-development opportunities and resources; (f) implementation of Open Science opportunities in the journal, (g) implementing triple anonymous peer review to reduce bias, and (h) implementing a journal action plan focused on advancing DEI. Collectively these efforts are aimed to influence positive change in advancing and sustaining DEI efforts in school psychology science, scholarship, graduate preparation and practice.

There is a need to better understand the agentic choices that students make to communicate meaning through their multimodal compositions. Utilizing a case study approach, this article examines the composing of two first-grade students and discusses how these students utilized multimodal composing techniques from structured writing units during an "open unit" where students were given wider parameters for making intentional decisions with their compositions. Analysis of students' compositions revealed that students chose to use and design composing techniques from the previous focal units in their compositions. Findings suggest that focal writing units, followed by open composing, allows students to have more agency as writers to make creative intertextual connections as they design techniques from available designs they've learned in order to serve their own compositional needs.

La producción de aguardiente de caña en la provincia de Manabí es una actividad desarrollada desde tiempos ancestrales, manteniéndose de generación en generación como fuente de ingresos económicos. La investigación tuvo como objetivo evaluar las condiciones higiénicas sanitarias en la elaboración de alcohol artesanal en la provincia de Manabí. Para la recolección de los datos se tomaron muestras de 40 productores de aguardiente de caña, a los cuales se les realizó un diagnóstico inicial de las condiciones higiénicas sanitarias que aplican en el proceso de elaboración. Se elaboró una herramienta de evaluación basado en los requerimientos establecidos en la Normativa Técnica Sanitaria de Alimentos-Resolución ARCSA-DE-067-2015-GGG, el mismo que incluyó aspectos relacionados con: instalaciones y equipos, higiene del personal; y operaciones de producción. Según el análisis de varianza hubo diferencias significativas, es decir, no cumplieron con los requisitos establecidos por la ARCSA, lo que mostró la falta de inocuidad en el producto final, considerándose un factor de riesgo para quienes consumen alcohol artesanal.

This study investigated the concerns and perceptions associated with COVID-19 and its variants among faculty, students, staff, and administrators at an R2 research university. Participants: n = 189 participants from the university community. A Qualtrics™ survey was used to draw responses from the university community. The results of this study revealed that (1) Approximately 2/3 of survey respondents are concerned about the appearance of Delta and Omicron COVID-19 variants; (2) 53.7% of respondents were inclined to get vaccinated after the new COVID-19 variants surfaced; (3) 22.2% of respondents tested positive for COVID-19 after becoming fully vaccinated; (4) 70.4% of respondents said they would get the booster shot for COVID-19; (5) 77.2% of respondents felt that there would be a new COVID variant identified this year beyond Delta and Omicron; and (6) Less than 20% of survey respondents feel safe on campus during the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic. There remains a general feeling of vulnerability while on campus two years into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Purpose: The digital transformation and the increased use of technologies have changed the world of work severely. With it, collaboration and cooperation methods among employees. Therefore, new ways of working together must be applied to work in an international and digital working environment. For Vocational Education and Training (VET), developing new (transversal) competencies to engage in virtual teamwork is necessary to adequately prepare young professionals for the present and future labor market. However, there is little research on the current situation in VET regarding virtual teamwork. Approach: We deployed a cross-sectional design and collected data from N = 181 commercial apprentices in Germany regarding virtual teamwork. We analyze our data using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the interrelationships between input, process, and outcome variables to foster satisfaction and innovative learning in virtual teams as desired targets of VET. To assess these results regarding virtuality, the complexity of tasks, gender of the apprentices, and the size of the training firms, we derived a multigroup analysis (MGA) of our model. Findings: The results indicate that organizational factors have the most significant influence concerning the relationship between input and process factors. Surprisingly, the technical affinity of individuals has only a minor effect. Regarding the relationship between process and outcome factors, motivation and responsibility have the highest impact on innovative learning, whilst communication culture severely affects the perceived satisfaction in virtual teamwork. Conclusion: The findings lead to valuable insights on factors influencing virtual teamwork in VET and can help to design learning programs to prepare young professionals to smoothly transition to and successfully master their future working environments by using new ways of collaboration and cooperation. This is particularly relevant for VET, as prior research has focused primarily on primary and secondary education. Lastly, we identify potential scales and items that help capture some of the inherent constructs of virtual teamwork.

The study compared two survey datasets from higher education students in Germany and Ghana regarding access to digital devices; perceived value of digital media, tools, and services used for learning; gap analysis of the actual and desired use of digital teaching and learning formats; and types of media usage profiles among students. The findings underscored commonalities between the two groups, revealing that students in both contexts are equipped with mobile devices, and are highly utilized for their learning. Similarly, both student groups exhibit a preference for utilizing external media, tools and services not owned nor administered by their respective universities. However, a stark contrast emerged in terms of the provision of, and expressed demand for digital teaching and learning formats, attributable to significant disparities in the underlying internet infrastructure and service provision between the two countries. The high intensity in the use of videos, social networks and messaging applications means majority of the students in both contexts were classified as entertainment users of media by means of a latent class analysis. While students in Germany showed differentiation between non-traditional and traditional students in terms of their media usage patterns, there was little differentiation among Ghanaian students. The study concludes by offering suggestions for enhancing support for non-traditional learning and improving digital education in Ghana and similar contexts.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to explore the simultaneous supervision experiences of counselors-in-training. Simultaneous supervision is when a supervisee receives clinical supervision from multiple supervisors. Sometimes this supervision includes a university supervisor and a site supervisor. Other times this supervision occurs when a student has multiple sites in one semester and receives supervision at each site. Counselors-in-training described their experiences with simultaneous supervision during the course of their education. Four superordinate themes emerged: making sense of multiple perspectives, orchestrating the process, supervisory relationship dynamics, and personal dispositions and characteristics. Results indicated that counselors-in-training experienced compounded benefits and challenges. Implications for supervisors, supervisees, and counselor education programs are provided.

Digital transformation (DT) has become essential for higher education institutions (HEIs), with its value becoming increasingly evident since the COVID-19 pandemic. This holds true for HEIs in developing countries as well, where DT is a strategic priority despite the challenges posed by the digital divide. Leadership is recognized as both a critical factor and a prerequisite for successful implementation of DT in HEI within such contexts. This study explored challenges and leadership responses that facilitate successful DT implementation in the context of Ghanaian HEIs. The study aims to offer insights for policymakers, administrators, and stakeholders within African HEIs, to facilitate the development of contextually relevant and effective DT strategies. Employing a qualitative multiple case study approach, data was collected through semistructured interviews with senior administrators leading Open, Distance, and Digital Education (ODDE) implementation at three Ghanaian public universities. Thematic and content analysis were then used to analyze the interview data. The findings revealed that the universities were driven to pursue DT initiatives by both internal demands (e.g., to improve existing service delivery through technology) and external pressures to use the affordances of technology to increase access and participation through non-traditional learning modes. Despite facing structural, technological, and human resource challenges, the study observed positive signs of leadership-enabled DT initiatives to support post-COVID-19 efforts. However, these efforts have unfolded within a less coordinated policy climate and have been predominantly driven topdown, with Vice-Chancellors initiating and spearheading digital leadership responses. Meanwhile, there was little evidence of cross-cutting leadership across the universities to support DT efforts. The study concludes by arguing for the contextualisation of DT in higher education and offers suggestions for university leaders in Ghana and other relevant developing contexts to enhance their DT efforts.

The preschool years, spanning from birth to age six, are crucial periods for acquiring social-emotional learning (SEL) skills. An effective way to address social-emotional learning deficits is to implement evidence-based intervention programs. The purpose of this article is to review specific evidencebased social-emotional learning intervention programs for preschool children, drawing from resources such as books, peer-reviewed journal articles, and conference proceedings. In this context, five social-emotional learning intervention programs, including First Step to Success, I Can Problem Solve, Incredible Years, PATHS, and Strong Start Pre-K, documented in the social-emotional learning literature, were reviewed. Each program was evaluated based on its target group, duration, focus, delivery method, and experimental effects. The reviews found that play-based activities, puppets and stories, role-playing, and family involvement were common components of these programs. The majority of programs focused on problem-solving skills, and all had positive effects on preschoolers' social-emotional learning skills. Based on the reviews, it was underlined that social-emotional learning intervention programs are effective when their content, process, and delivery methods are developmentally appropriate for the target group. Accordingly, it was seen that the widespread implementation of evidence-based social-emotional learning intervention programs is essential to improve the basic social-emotional learning skills of preschool children and to address their potential deficits. Continuous evaluation and refinement of social-emotional learning intervention programs, guided by feedback from educators, parents, and researchers, was also highlighted as crucial to increase their impact. By prioritizing the implementation of evidence-based social-emotional learning intervention programs with appropriate components and delivery methods, the stakeholders of education can facilitate the holistic development of preschool children and lay a strong foundation for their future social-emotional well-being.

Parents play a vital role in supporting children with learning disabilities, but little is known about their understanding of this diagnosis. The experiences of parents with the diagnostic process and the services their children receive post-diagnosis vary widely. Parents who participated in this study reported that they understand learning disabilities broadly but not their underlying neurobiology. Those who noted understanding the neurobiology indicated that it helped them better support their child, and those who did not understand it wanted to learn more. Parents generally noted that their children received less support during COVID-19 and that they had to seek more private services in order to support their child's academic progress, which caused additional strain on families. Finally, parents reported that having a child with a learning disability negatively affected their mental health, especially when parents feel like they have had to advocate strongly for their child to receive services.

Purpose: During the last decade, new continuing learning pathways have been designed and implemented in the Dutch Vocational Education and Training (VET) column aiming to foster students' transitions between successive educational levels. Prototypical examples of such continuing learning pathways are the Green Lyceum (GL) and the Technical Talent Development programme (TTD). In the present exploratory study, GL and TTD were compared in terms of curriculum design aspects and students' acquired VET diplomas and transitions to higher VET levels. Methods: Ten curriculum design aspects of GL and TTD were described through curriculum description forms and focus group discussions to be able to determine similarities and differences between both learning trajectories. Moreover, acquisition of VET diplomas and transitions to higher VET levels of students from both programmes were compared. Findings: The ultimate goal of GL was to promote student transitions to higher professional bachelor (HBO) programmes while TTD mainly intended to increase student numbers in the technical domain at the secondary VET level. For GL, a new and integrated VET curriculum was built with specific ingredients to prepare students for the HBO level. For TTD, the contents of the regular VET programmes were roof tile stacked in an accelerated curriculum with a stronger focus on vocation-oriented assignments in the technical domain. Conclusion: If the ultimate goal of a continuing learning pathway is to promote students' transitions to higher VET levels, curriculum design aspects as represented in GL seem more effective. However, if the focus is on promoting students' diploma acquisition at lower VET levels for specific sectors, curriculum design aspects as represented in TTD seem more effective.

Educational data mining has allowed for large improvements in educational outcomes and understanding of educational processes. However, there remains a constant tension between educational data mining advances and protecting student privacy while using educational datasets. Publicly available datasets have facilitated numerous research projects while striving to preserve student privacy via strict anonymization protocols (e.g., k-anonymity); however, little is known about the relationship between anonymization and utility of educational datasets for downstream educational data mining tasks, nor how anonymization processes might be improved for such tasks. We provide a framework for strictly anonymizing educational datasets with a focus on improving downstream performance in common tasks such as student outcome prediction. We evaluate our anonymization framework on five diverse educational datasets with machine learning-based downstream task examples to demonstrate both the effect of anonymization and our means to improve it. Our method improves downstream machine learning accuracy versus baseline data anonymization by 30.59%, on average, by guiding the anonymization process toward strategies that anonymize the least important information while leaving the most valuable information intact.

Boolean nested canalizing functions (NCFs) have important applications in molecular regulatory networks, engineering and computer science. In this paper, we study their certificate complexity. For both Boolean values $b\in\{0,1\}$, we obtain a formula for $b$-certificate complexity and consequently, we develop a direct proof of the certificate complexity formula of an NCF. Symmetry is another interesting property of Boolean functions and we significantly simplify the proofs of some recent theorems about partial symmetry of NCFs. We also describe the algebraic normal form of $s$-symmetric NCFs. We obtain the general formula of the cardinality of the set of $n$-variable $s$-symmetric Boolean NCFs for $s=1,\dots,n$. In particular, we enumerate the strongly asymmetric Boolean NCFs.