Teaching communication strategies for the workplace: a multimodal framework

Recent changes in Higher Education (HE) approaches to content delivery, coupled with breakthroughs in the Information and Communications Technology field, have led to a whole new multimodal approach to teaching (Jewitt, C. 2009). In: Jewitt, C. (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of multimodal analysis. Routledge, London & New York; Jewitt, C. (2013). Multimodal methods for researching digital technologies. In: Jewitt, C. and Brown, B. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of digital technology research. Sage, London, pp. 250–265; Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse. Bloomsbury Academic, London). Multimodality in language teaching increasingly draws on multiple channels of communication and not simply text on a page. Multimodal awareness and competence are also paramount in intercultural and interpersonal communication, which has become increasingly common in today’s global workplace. Through the description of the activities implemented in the English for Professional Purposes (EPP) course entitled English for the World of Work, held at the University of Verona, we will illustrate our multimodal, EPP framework based on Littlewood’s learning continuum, which ranges from analytical study to experiential practice (2014). Our principal aim, however, is to highlight ways in which the didactic framework fosters an awareness of and competence in key areas such as multimodal competence and intercultural awareness as skills required for effective communication in today’s world of work.

Bioelementology and Nutritionology of the Brain

New insights into the mechanisms underlying the action of macro- and trace elements on the brain and the microbiota-gut-brain axis will promote the development of food interventions aimed at optimizing brain function and preventing or treating neurodegenerative disorders and other age-related conditions. Rehabilitation of the seven most common deficiencies of trace elements — iron, zinc, copper, selenium, cobalt, chromium and iodine — can increase global IQ, cognitive brain neurocommunication and the intellectual development of Homo sapiens in the 21st century. Further structural-functional and cognitive development of the brain will require quantitative and qualitative provision of new tools of bioelementology and brain nutritionology. N. P. Romanchuk studies show that for new neurogenesis and neuroplasticity, to manage human neuroplasticity and biological age, for modern neurophysiology and neurorehabilitation of cognitive impairment and cognitive disorders, sufficient functional and energy nutrition of the brain is needed. Authors’ works in the creation of a new protective functional and epigenetic nutrition, the clinical application of strategic combined and hybrid methods and tools in the neurorehabilitation of the circadian system, the use of artificial intelligence in the functioning of the “cognitive brain” and “visceral brain” and brain-microbiota neural networks are a promising applied direction in personalized medicine. Psychoneuroimmunological communications and neuroendocrinological multimodal methods make it possible to significantly increase the duration of an active and high-quality healthy life of a person. Modern communications are multilevel, multi-paradigm and interdisciplinary models of information exchange. The new competencies of psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology and neuroeconomics play a strategic role in interdisciplinary science and interdisciplinary planning and decision-making, in creating a fundamentally new theory that will explain our decisions with genes, neuronal activity, our brain's perception of information, the influence of neurosociology and neuroevolution.

Network Diffusion Embedding Reveals Transdiagnostic Subnetwork Disruption and Potential Treatment Targets in Internalizing Psychopathologies

Network diffusion models are a common and powerful way to study the propagation of information through a complex system, they and offer straightforward approaches for studying multimodal brain network data. We developed an analytic framework to identify brain subnetworks with impaired information diffusion capacity using the structural basis that best maps to resting state functional connectivity and applied it towards a heterogeneous internalizing psychopathology (IP) cohort. This research provides preliminary evidence of a transdiagnostic deficit characterized by information diffusion impairment of the right area 8BM, a key brain region involved in organizing a broad spectrum of cognitive tasks, that may underlie previously reported dysfunction of multiple brain circuits in the IPs. We also demonstrate that models of neuromodulation involving targeting this brain region normalize IP diffusion dynamics towards those of healthy controls. These analyses provide a framework for multimodal methods that identity diffusion disrupted subnetworks and potential targets for neuromodulatory intervention based on previously well-characterized methodology.

Source imaging of high-density visual evoked potentials with multi-scale brain parcellations and connectomes

We describe the multimodal neuroimaging dataset VEPCON (OpenNeuro Dataset ds003505). It includes raw data and derivatives of high-density EEG, structural MRI, diffusion weighted images (DWI) and single-trial behavior (accuracy, reaction time). Visual evoked potentials (VEPs) were recorded while participants (n=20) discriminated briefly presented faces from scrambled faces, or coherently moving stimuli from incoherent ones. EEG and MRI were recorded separately from the same participants. The dataset contains pre-processed EEG of single trials in each condition, behavioral measures, structural MRIs, individual brain parcellations at 5 spatial resolutions (83 to 1015 regions), and the corresponding structural connectomes computed from fiber count, fiber density, average fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity maps. For source imaging, VEPCON provides EEG inverse solutions based on individual anatomy, with Python and Matlab scripts to derive activity time-series in each brain region, for each parcellation level. The BIDS-compatible dataset can contribute to multimodal methods development, studying structure-function relations, and to unimodal optimization of source imaging and graph analyses, among many other possibilities.

Children’s interactive storytelling in Virtual Reality

This article reports on one stage of a project that considered twenty 8–12-years-olds use of Virtual Reality (VR) for entertainment. The entire project considered this in relation to interaction and engagement, health and safety and how VR play fitted into children’s everyday home lives. The specific focus of this article is solely on children’s interaction and engagement with a range of VR content on both a low-end and high-end head mounted display (HMD). The data were analysed using novel multimodal methods that included stop-motion animation and graphic narratives to develop multimodal means for analysis within the context of VR. The data highlighted core design elements in VR content that promoted or inhibited children’s storytelling in virtual worlds. These are visual style, movement and sound which are described in relation to three core points of the user’s journey through the virtual story; (1) entering the virtual environment, (2) being in the virtual story world, and (3) affecting the story through interactive objects. The findings offer research-based design implications for the improvement of virtual content for children, specifically in relation to creating content that promotes creativity and storytelling, thereby extending the benefits that have previously been highlighted in the field of interactive storytelling with other digital media.

How Do Children Experience the Embodied Communication and Leadership of Teachers? Expressing the Voices of Children Through Artistic, Sensual, and Multimodal Methods in Educational Research

This article focuses on children’s lived experiences with teachers in school, and shows how a multimodal methodological perspective can strengthen the voices of children in educational research. The authors illustrate how a strong children’s perspective can be established with a methodical starting point inspired by phenomenology, critical utopian action research, and arts-based research. The inquiry is especially focused on how the embodied communication of the teacher’s professional practice is experienced by children and transformed from an often silent bodily knowledge to esthetic, artistic, and verbal formats. In order to understand the children’s lived experiences of life in school, they were invited into an open and playful future workshop. The workshop creates a dialogical space where the verbal, sensuous, emotional, and bodily expressions of both criticism and dreams can be articulated. It’s a space that can be seen as potentially activist material, because it allows for the dominance of the already existing structures to possibly be exceeded. Therefore, the article also includes children’s concrete artistic interpretations of the embodied leadership of their teachers. The empirical material shows how the artistic, visual, and aesthetic practices can transform the child’s lived experiences and contribute to creating an open space, where images, imagery, and metaphorical explorations are possible. The children’s voices show how they experience being seen, being invisible, or being touched by their teachers. They also show how they experience being afraid and exposed in the classroom. It is perhaps just here that the forms of expression in art offer a dialogic, collaborative foundation, where embodied experiences can be transformed into forms of knowledge that are more accessible to reflection and exploration. This could be a first step toward change.

Artificial Intelligence for COVID-19: Rapid Review

Background COVID-19 was first discovered in December 2019 and has since evolved into a pandemic. Objective To address this global health crisis, artificial intelligence (AI) has been deployed at various levels of the health care system. However, AI has both potential benefits and limitations. We therefore conducted a review of AI applications for COVID-19. Methods We performed an extensive search of the PubMed and EMBASE databases for COVID-19–related English-language studies published between December 1, 2019, and March 31, 2020. We supplemented the database search with reference list checks. A thematic analysis and narrative review of AI applications for COVID-19 was conducted. Results In total, 11 papers were included for review. AI was applied to COVID-19 in four areas: diagnosis, public health, clinical decision making, and therapeutics. We identified several limitations including insufficient data, omission of multimodal methods of AI-based assessment, delay in realization of benefits, poor internal/external validation, inability to be used by laypersons, inability to be used in resource-poor settings, presence of ethical pitfalls, and presence of legal barriers. AI could potentially be explored in four other areas: surveillance, combination with big data, operation of other core clinical services, and management of patients with COVID-19. Conclusions In view of the continuing increase in the number of cases, and given that multiple waves of infections may occur, there is a need for effective methods to help control the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite its shortcomings, AI holds the potential to greatly augment existing human efforts, which may otherwise be overwhelmed by high patient numbers.

Enhancing mathematical noticing of graphs through movement, voice, and metaphor: An intervention with two students with visual impairment

This qualitative study explores the potential for metaphor, movement, gesture, and vocalization in helping learners notice mathematically important features of graphs, and in making mathematics more accessible for learners with visual impairment. Two elementary school students with visual impairment were introduced to several multimodal activities related to the graphs of mathematical functions, using a pre-/post-assessment methodology. Video recordings of the session were coded for qualitative changes in engagement with graphs through multimodal representations. After the activity intervention, both students showed improvements in their ability to voice, gesture, and describe details of mathematical graphs with accuracy and understanding. The findings demonstrate the potential of multimodal methods for teaching mathematics and enhancing other skill areas through movement, metaphor, voice, and gesture. The findings suggest that full-bodied experience with graphs can provide foundational support for learners with visual impairment to work with print or tactile graphics. We propose that purposeful selection of materials and collaboration between teachers of students with visual impairment, mathematics educators, and teachers of dance and physical education can enhance the design and implementation of effective lessons using multimodal means.