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To manage Earth in the Anthropocene, new tools, new institutions, and new forms of international cooperation will be required. Earth Virtualization Engines is proposed as an international federation of centers of excellence to empower all people to respond to the immense and urgent challenges posed by climate change.

Early functional outcome assessments of traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivors may underestimate the long-term consequences of TBI. We assessed long-term temporal changes in functional outcome and quality of life in intensive care unit-managed long-term TBI survivors. This prospective, longitudinal study included 180 patients admitted to a single university hospital during 2000?2002 alive at 15 years post-TBI. Baseline characteristics, including imaging information, were collected. Functional outcome was assessed early (6?24 months) and late (15 years) using the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) and the extended GOS (GOSE). Quality of life was measured at 15 years using the EuroQol Five Dimensions Five Levels (EQ-5D-5L) questionnaire. GOS and GOSE were dichotomized into favorable and unfavorable outcome. An index score was computed for EQ-5D-5L results at 15 years by a standardized valuation protocol. Of 180 patients, 118 replied to 15-year questionnaires. Median age at time of injury was 34 years (interquartile range, 19?45). Using the GCS to assess TBI severity, 67% had a moderate-to-severe TBI. Ninety-seven percent had favorable early functional outcome, and 72% had late favorable functional outcome. Logistic regression found higher age, lower GCS, and Marshall CT III to significantly predict late unfavorable functional outcome. Higher age and Marshall CT III were significant predictors of functional outcome deterioration. Median EQ-5D-5L index score for all patients was 0.88 (0.66?1.00) and correlated positively with GOSE. Most long-term TBI survivors with early favorable outcome also have late favorable functional outcome. Higher age and diffuse brain injury are associated with neurological deterioration. Quality of life was strongly linked to functional outcome.

Abstract Cancer survivors show increased risk for non‐communicable diseases and chronic low‐grade inflammation characterizes the development of such diseases. We investigated inflammatory plasma protein profiles of survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in comparison to healthy controls and after an intervention with a home‐based exercise program. Survivors of childhood ALL aged 16–30 years (n = 21) with a median age at diagnosis 4.9 (1.6–12.9) years and a median time of 15.9 years from diagnosis, and sex‐ and age‐matched healthy controls (n = 21) were studied. Stored plasma samples were analyzed with Olink's 92‐protein‐wide Inflammation panel in 21 ALL long‐term survivors at baseline, after a previous 16‐week home‐based exercise intervention (n = 17) and in 21 age‐ and sex‐matched controls at baseline. Protein expression levels were compared between the groups. Inflammatory protein levels did not differ between the survivors and controls at baseline. Significantly reduced levels after the intervention were found in 11 proteins related to either vascular inflammation, insulin resistance, or both: tumor necrosis factor superfamily member 14 (TNFSF14), oncostatin M (OSM), monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP‐1), MCP‐2, fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF‐21), chemokine (C‐C motif) ligand 4 (CCL4), transforming growth factor alpha (TGF‐α), tumor necrosis factor‐related apoptosis‐inducing ligand 10 (TRAIL), adenosine deaminase (ADA), chemokine (C‐X‐C motif) ligand 6 (CXCL6), and latency‐associated peptide transforming growth factor beta 1 (LAP TGF‐β1). The ALL survivors were not significantly more affected by inflammation than controls at baseline. The survivors’ 16‐week exercise intervention led to significant reduction in inflammatory protein levels. Physical exercise should be promoted for survivors of childhood cancer.

The generation of human stem cell-derived spheroids and organoids represents a major step in solving numerous medical, pharmacological, and biological challenges. Due to the advantages of three-dimensional (3D) cell culture systems and the diverse applications of human pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived definitive endoderm (DE), we studied the influence of spheroid size and 3D cell culture systems on spheroid morphology and the effectiveness of DE differentiation as assessed by quantitative PCR (qPCR), flow cytometry, immunofluorescence, and computational modeling. Among the tested hydrogel-based 3D systems, we found that basement membrane extract (BME) hydrogel could not retain spheroid morphology due to dominant cell–matrix interactions. On the other hand, we found that nanofibrillar cellulose (NFC) hydrogel could maintain spheroid morphology but impeded growth factor diffusion, thereby negatively affecting cell differentiation. In contrast, suspension culture provided sufficient mass transfer and was demonstrated by protein expression assays, morphological analyses, and mathematical modeling to be superior to the hydrogel-based systems. In addition, we found that spheroid size was reversely correlated with the effectiveness of DE formation. However, spheroids of insufficient sizes failed to retain 3D morphology during differentiation in all the studied culture conditions. We hereby demonstrate how the properties of a chosen biomaterial influence the differentiation process and the importance of spheroid size control for successful human iPSC differentiation. Our study provides critical parametric information for the generation of human DE-derived, tissue-specific organoids in future studies.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced teachers to undergo a sudden shift toward technology-enhanced teaching and learning, challenging their capacities for change in many ways. This study explores those factors constraining teachers’ wellbeing and agency that influenced their capacities as teachers in a Finnish university during the first year of the pandemic. Two sets of data were collected, with an online survey in the spring (n = 297) and autumn (n = 246) of 2020. At both times, challenges with workload, time management, and interactions with colleagues were found to be the most constraining factors. Difficulties with work–life balance and home office facilities seemed more of an issue in the spring, whereas transforming teaching and adopting new technological tools were reported as more burdensome in the autumn. The findings show the need for teachers to be heard and holistically supported, particularly when extensive changes in teaching arrangements are expected on a rapid schedule.

Language policies have been drafted in Nordic higher education with the obvious, but unproblematised and unchallenged motivation caused by internationalisation. In this article, we analyse the various motivations for drafting language policies in Nordic higher education and the ideological implications of those motivations. We do this by approaching the question from multiple (macro, meso and micro) viewpoints, in order to make visible some of the undercurrents in higher education language policy. We are particularly interested in the explicit motivations for language policy change, and the explicit and implicit actors and action represented in our data. We will first discuss the background for internationalisation in Nordic higher education and then move on to our analysis of policy documents, survey data on the motivations for language policy drafting in Nordic higher education institutions. Our results indicate that "internationalisation" turns into a national question in the motivations. It also appears that the institutions are reactive (rather than active) in responding to perceived needs to draft a language policy.

This article provides readers with an understanding of the concept of the personal learning environment (PLE). It suggests that PLEs can be used in two complementary ways: as a developmental lens for integrating ICT and creating new pedagogical practices and digital literacies for academic language learning, and as a context in which learners can practise and develop core skills such as digital literacies, team and knowledge work, and interactional skills--skills that are needed for success in today's knowledge economy. The article places PLEs within the broader development related to the cultural changes brought on by the proliferation of Web 2.0 technologies--participation, teamwork and co-design--and considers PLEs in relation to digital literacies and 21st-century skills. It then reports on a research-and-development project that makes use of design-based research and creates tools and models for learner-centred technology integration on the basis of a rich set of data and experiments. The article presents theoretical as well as practical insights into implementing PLEs in higher education (HE) language centre teaching and outlines principles for implementation in formal education. It concludes by expressing the need to purposefully balance the structure provided by traditional approaches to learning against ways of organising it with the nearly unlimited resources and participatory aspects afforded by the new media.

Describes the pedagogical framework of an interdisciplinary, international project entitled NINTER (Networked Interaction: Theory-Based Cases in Teaching and Learning). Discusses a pedagogical model for teacher and staff development programs in a networked environment; distributed cognition; cognitive apprenticeship; challenges for educational communication; results from a Web-based university course; and future research. (Author/LRW)

A global 40-year simulation from 1980 to 2019 was performed with the FinROSE chemistry-transport model based on the use of coupled chemistry GCM-data. The main focus of our analysis is on climatological-scale processes in high latitudes. The resulting trend estimates for the past period (1980–1999) agree well with observation-based trend estimates. The results for the future period (2000–2019) suggest that the extent of seasonal ozone depletion over both northern and southern high-latitudes has likely reached its maximum. Furthermore, while climate change is expected to cool the stratosphere, this cooling is unlikely to accelerate significantly high latitude ozone depletion. However, the recovery of seasonal high latitude ozone losses will not take place during the next 15 years.

Looking and visuality imply an audience. The aim of this paper is to open audience's passive role as a communicative receiver for discussion. The paper will focus on the productive practices of a digital fandom network of science fiction and fantasy genre literature. It connects Walter Benjamin's notions of the afterlife of texts and the translator's task (1924, 1936) to fandom as a productive network (Fiske, 1992; Jenkins, 1992). The empirical analysis draws from an ethnographic study of a Finnish science fiction and fantasy literature fandom Rising Shadow digital network, www.risingshadow.net. The analysis illuminates how networked exchanges produce translation zones and loving closeness as a form of afterlife of genre texts facilitating learning, accumulation of expertise within fandom network, and even professional development that is linked to commercial publishing and fan production in media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe the development and performance of a three-dimensional global middle atmospheric chemistry transport model FinROSE. The FinROSE chemistry transport model includes a numerical scheme for stratospheric chemistry with parameterizations for heterogeneous processing on polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) and on liquid binary aerosols together with a parameterisation of large nitric acid trihydrate particles (i.e. NAT-rocks) and PSC sedimentation. The total number of trace species in the model is 34 and the total number of gas-phase reactions, photodissociation processes and heterogeneous reactions is about 150. The model is forced by external wind and temperature fields. The simulations are normally performed in a 5° × 10° (1at. x ling.) grid from the surface up to around 0.1 hPa, with a vertical resolution of ca. 1.5 km in the stratosphere. Long-term simulations (40 to 50 years) have been done using winds and temperatures from ECMWF ERA40 analyses. The performance of the model in describing the stratospheric composition and chemistry is shown and evaluated in this paper. In general, the FinROSE results show a good comparison with measured total ozone. Also the timing, the depth and the deepening of the Antarctic ozone hole, and the responsible process are captured well in the model simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]