Tutorial on Support Vector Machines

The aim of this tutorial is to help students grasp the theory and applicability of support vector machines (SVMs). The contribution is an intuitive style tutorial that helped students gain insights into SVM from a unique perspective. An internet search will reveal many videos and articles on SVM, but free peer-reviewed tutorials are generally not available or are incomplete. Instructional materials that provide simplified explanations of SVM leave gaps in the derivations that beginning students cannot fill. Most of the free tutorials also lack guidance on practical applications and considerations. The software wrappers in many modern programming libraries of Python and R currently hide the operational complexities. Such software tools often use default parameters that ignore domain knowledge or leave knowledge gaps about the important effects of SVM hyperparameters, resulting in misuse and subpar outcomes. The author uses this tutorial as a course reference for students studying artificial intelligence and machine learning. The tutorial derives the classic SVM classifier from first principles and then derives the practical form that a computer uses to train a classification model. An intuitive explanation about confusion matrices, F1 score, and the AUC metric extend insights into the inherent tradeoff between sensitivity and specificity. A discussion about cross-validation provides a basic understanding of how to select and tune the hyperparameters to maximize generalization by balancing underfitting and overfitting. Even seasoned self-learners with advanced statistical backgrounds have gained insights from this tutorial style of intuitive explanations, with all related considerations for tuning and performance evaluations in one place.

591The “Big 6”: A purpose-based framework for motivating and teaching epidemiologic methods

Focus of Presentation Many beginning students in health-related fields do not understand the types of questions that epidemiology can address. This results in underappreciation of the relevance of epidemiology. Even students dedicated to learning epidemiology and/or medicine have difficulty identifying the common features of disparate research questions and hence are limited in their ability to critique research. The reasons for these limitations are multifold, but we believe that traditional approaches of teaching epidemiology □ by study design □ is a substantial contributor. To better promote and deepen understanding of epidemiology, we have developed a purpose-based teaching approach called the “Big 6”. Findings In courses aimed towards graduate students in epidemiology and medical students, we now introduce what epidemiologic research can do and how to perform it according to the general purpose/goal/objective of research. We focus on six of the most common purposes/goals/objectives - the “Big 6”. Conclusions Introducing epidemiology according to general purposes of research (the “Big 6”) gives students a framework to understand the relevance of epidemiology and rapidly critique the validity of epidemiologic research. Key messages A purpose-based approach to teaching epidemiology may be more engaging and promote better understanding and application of epidemiologic methods.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BEGINNING AND ADVANCED STUDENTS USING SPECIFIC ANALOGICAL STIMULI DURING DESIGN-BY-ANALOGY

Studies reported the effects of different types and different levels of abstraction of analogical stimuli on designers. However, specific, single visual analogical stimuli on the effects of designers have not been reported. We define this type of stimuli as specific analogical stimuli. We used the extended linkography method to analyze the facilitating and limiting effects of specific analogical stimuli and free association analogical stimuli (nonspecific analogical stimuli) on the students' creativity at different design levels. The results showed that: (1) Advanced students focused on exploring the depth of the design problem while beginning students tended to explore the breadth of the design problem. (2) Nonspecific analogical stimuli enhanced the creativity of beginning students. However, its impact on advanced students is less pronounced. (3) The specific analogical stimuli attract the students into design fixation. Furthermore, it has a more pronounced effect on advanced students. These results illustrate the differences in the effects of specific analogy stimuli on the students at different design levels. It clarifies the use of analogical stimuli in design and the teaching of analogical design methods in design education.

One-on-one mentoring for final year medical students during the neurosurgery rotation

Background Medical students show varying clinical practical skills when entering their final year clinical clerkship, which is the final period to acquire and improve practical skills prior to their residency. We developed a one-on-one mentoring program to allow individually tailored teaching of clinical practical skills to support final year students with varying skill sets during their neurosurgical clinical clerkship. Methods Each participating student (n = 23) was paired with a mentor. At the beginning students were asked about their expectations, teaching preferences and surgical interest. Regular meetings and evaluations of clinical practical skills were scheduled every 2 weeks together with fixed rotations that could be individually adjusted. The one-on-one meetings and evaluations with the mentor gave each student the chance for individually tailored teaching. After completion of the program each student evaluated their experience. Results The mentoring program was well received by participating students and acquisition or improvement of clinical practical skills was achieved by most students. A varying practical skill level and interest in the field of surgery was seen. Conclusions A neurosurgical one-on-one mentoring program is well received by final year medical students and allows for individually tailored learning of clinical practical skills.

Results from the test of economic literacy in Germany and Japan: A critical discussion on the gender effect

University lecturers and coordinators of business and economics courses around the world are faced with the challenge that beginning students in these courses have heterogeneous entry conditions in terms of personal characteristics. This article focuses on the economic knowledge of German and Japanese beginning students in a business and economics degree programme. The German and Japanese versions of the US-American Test of Economic Literacy were used for the assessment of the economic knowledge of German ( N = 901) and Japanese ( N = 571) students. The TEL consists of 45 items in two questionnaire versions and is based on 20 globally accepted core standards of economics. The analyses in this paper are based on the total score of all 45 items of the TEL as well as the subscores for the 20 standards. A special focus of this paper is on gender-specific differences in economic knowledge. While gender has a strong effect on economic knowledge in Germany, only a small number of the core standards in Japan exhibit a difference between male and female test takers. The paper concludes by applying interpretative approaches to the different findings in both countries and suggests potential methods for further research on the gender effect in economics education.

TouchTerrain—3D Printable Terrain Models

TouchTerrain is a simple-to-use web application that makes creating 3D printable terrain models from anywhere on the globe accessible to a wide range of users, from people with no GIS expertise to power users. For coders, a Python-based standalone version is available from the open-source project's GitHub repository. Analyzing 18 months of web analytics gave us a preliminary look at who is using the TouchTerrain web application and what their models are used for; and to map out what terrains on the globe they chose to 3D print. From July 2019 to January 2021, more than 20,000 terrain models were downloaded. Models were created for many different use cases, including education, research, outdoor activities and crafting mementos. Most models were realized with 3D printers, but a sizable minority used CNC machines. Our own experiences with using 3D printed terrain in a university setting have been very positive so far. Anecdotal evidence points to the strong potential for 3D printed terrain models to provide significant help with specific map-related tasks. For the introductory geology laboratory, 3D printed models were used as a form of “training wheels” to aid beginning students in learning to read contour maps, which are still an important tool for geology.

Multilevel Analysis of Economic Literacy among International Students

International student mobility has increased in the past years. The inclusion of a highly heterogeneous group of students requires updated recruitment and admission strategies. A particularly vulnerable group of international students are refugees, who have an exceptionally high risk of dropping out of their studies. We present an entrance assessment of incoming international students from 77 countries who are at the beginning of their studies in Germany. Based on this unique sample, we examine (i) whether there are systematic country-specific effects on the economic literacy of beginning students of business and economics and (ii) whether refugee students differ from the group of international students. The results show that refugee students have a higher level of economic literacy although their country-specific prerequisites are worse. Hence, the results highlight the high relevance of an international assessment of heterogeneous vulnerable learner groups to promote their integration into the increasingly internationalized higher education sector.

Solfeggi and the Acquisition of Style

In the old conservatories the equivalent of “music 101” was the class in solfeggio. This was where beginning students learned to read music, to distinguish the sizes of intervals, and to learn scales and arpeggios. Today syllables like “Do, Re, Mi” are connected with scale degrees (steps 1, 2, 3 respectively). This was not the case originally. “Mi,” for example, meant a tone with a whole step below it in the scale and a half step above it. Thus both “E,” “B,” and “F♯” were all “Mi.” Similarly, “F,” “C,” and “B♭” were all “Fa.” The chapter details how this worked and gives examples of lessons in the old style of solfeggio.