Peter Karvaš v kontexte existencializmu

The article reflects dramatic work of Peter Karvaš in the context of existentialist philosophy. It points to the connection between the social situation and the author´s topic choice, emotional engagement and approach to characters. In the article the author defines the basic features of existentialist philosophy in the work of Peter Karvaš providing analysis of selected extracts. In particular the article deals with the issue of how male characters react to the same situation and their motives behind the reaction. The article also reveals subjective view of Karvaš on social events and their impact on people and Karvaš himself.

Associations of topic-specific peer review outcomes and institute and center award rates with funding disparities at the National Institutes of Health

A previous report found an association of topic choice with race-based funding disparities among R01 applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health (‘NIH’) between 2011 and 2015. Applications submitted by African American or Black (‘AAB’) Principal Investigators (‘PIs’) skewed toward a small number of topics that were less likely to be funded (or ‘awarded’). It was suggested that lower award rates may be related to topic-related biases of peer reviewers. However, the report did not account for differential funding ecologies among NIH Institutes and Centers (‘ICs’). In a re-analysis, we find that 10% of 148 topics account for 50% of applications submitted by AAB PIs. These applications on ‘AAB Preferred’ topics were funded at lower rates, but peer review outcomes were similar. The lower rate of funding for these topics was primarily due to their assignment to ICs with lower award rates, not to peer-reviewer preferences.

Topic choice for a STEM lesson with local practice context

One of the main features of STEM education is to be oriented towards practical activities and knowledge application to solve real-life problems. However, in the first step of deployment, teachers often use copied problem contexts from abroad. There are many difficulties in approaching, creating excitement and motivation for students when it is not close to their real life. The more relevant the topic to the real local context is, the more important it is to motivate students to participate and at the same time make it easy for teachers to find topics for the STEM educational model. In this study, when choosing a topic associated with a real local context, both teachers and students easily reach and achieve goals with the STEM educational model.

National Institutes of Health Institute and Center Award Rates and Funding Disparities

A previous report found an association of topic choice with race-based funding disparities among R01 applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") between 2011-2015. The report noted that applications submitted by African American or Black ("AAB") Principal Investigators ("PIs") skewed toward a small number of topics that were less likely to be funded (or "awarded"). It was suggested that the lower award rates may be related to biases of peer reviewers against topics preferred by AAB PIs. However, the previous report did not account for differential funding ecologies among NIH Institutes and Centers ("ICs"). In a re-analysis, I find that 10% of 148 algorithmically-designated topics account for 50% of applications submitted by AAB PIs. These applications on "AAB Preferred" topics are indeed funded at lower rates than applications on other topics, but their peer review outcomes are similar. The lower rate of funding for applications focused on AAB Preferred topics is likely primarily due to their assignment to ICs with lower award rates. In probit regression analyses, I find that topic choice does partially explain race-based funding disparities, but IC-specific award rates explain the disparities to an even greater degree.

Practical Methodology for the Design of Educational Serious Games

Educational serious games are primarily intended to teach about or train on a subject. However, a serious game must also be catchy for the player to want to play it multiple times and thus learn while playing. The design of educational serious games includes game experts and pedagogical experts that must be able to efficiently communicate to produce a product that is both educationally efficient and fun to play. Although there are some design frameworks to help with this communication, they are usually more conceptual and do not distinguish the fun factor from the learning contents well, making communication difficult. In this paper, a new practical methodology is presented to support the design process of this kind of digital games. This methodology is more all-encompassing because it identifies all the main steps that are needed to define the learning mechanisms in an educational serious game, from topic choice to user experience. It also separates the game’s learning contents from other mechanics used to keep the game fun to play. Finally, some practical examples are shown, illustrating the use of this methodology.