Dept. of Informatics and Quantitative Methods

There are well documented reasons for University staff to become even more effective teachers to meet the challenges arising from -dropping of learning skills in mathematics during recent decades, -changes in life conditions, -preference for visual forms of information, -university audiences not fully oriented to the study. As a starting point in our considerations we take the idea that teaching means helping students to learn. In this paper we introduce and discuss ideas and strategies for active learning from , together with those of . We also cite the thoughts of Zucker (1996) and a summary of strategies formulated by Zweck . The inceasing web frequency of the theme of active learning shows its significance and special web pages within universities are now reserved for instructions on how to engage students in active learning. Apart from the technical aspects there are other, inner, aspects associated with active learning: to promote positive feelings, to cultivate mastery and to provide a joy of discovery for a learner. Research of human brain implies that it is impossible to separate emotion from logical thought and learning. Some strategies that have been proved as effective include: -questions posing, -problem formulating as a story to be continued, -communication with learners, -creating a conviction that learning means self-work, mainly outside of a class. We present our experience with some of these, and discuss also proposal to provide a "survival guide" to students new to university study.

The accuracy of binary discrimination models (discrimination between cases with and without any condition) is usually summarized by classification matrix (also called a confusion, assignment, or prediction matrix). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve can visualize the association between probabilities of incorrect classification of cases from the group without condition (False Positives) versus the probabilities of correct classification of cases from the group with condition (True Positives) across all the possible cut-point values of discrimination score. Area under ROC curve (AUC) is one of summary measures. This article describes the possibility of AUC estimate with the use of web based application of bootstrap (resampling). Bootstrap is useful mainly to data for which any distributional assumptions are not appropriate. The quality of the bootstrap application was evaluated with the use of a special programme written in C .N ET language that allows to automate the process of repeating different experiments. Estimates of AUC and confidence limits given by bootstrap method were compared with bi-normal and nonparametric estimates. Results indicate that usually bootstrap confidence intervals are narrower than nonparametric one, mainly for small data samples.

The aims of the present study were to assess the changes of individual plasma amino acid levels in relation (1) to the severity of liver damage and (2) to the process of liver recovery. Acute liver injury was induced by an intragastric administration of CC14 diluted in olive oil in doses of 2, 4 and/or 6 g of CC14 per kg b.w. The control rats received olive oil only. Animals were sacrificed at 16, 24, 48 and 96 hours after treatment. The severity of liver injury was assessed by histological examination, by changes in ALT and AST in the blood plasma and by changes in liver weight. Statistical analysis was carried by ANOVA, p < 0.05 was considered significant. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient was used as a measure of the degree of linear relationship between variable and dose. In the period of the development of acute liver damage, i.e. at 16 and 24 hours after treatment, an increase in blood plasma amino acid levels and positive correlations with the dose of CC14 were observed for most individual amino acids. The only exception was arginine which decreased in a dose dependent manner. At a phase of liver recovery, i.e. at 48 and 96 hours after CC14 treatment, the concentrations of some individual amino acids decreased below the control values. The negative correlation with the dose of CC14 occurred for taurine and isoleucine (at 48 hours) and taurine, threonine, valine, methionine, isoleucine and leucine (at 96 hours).

The aims of the present study were to assess the changes of individual plasma amino acid levels in relation (1) to the severity of liver damage and (2) to the process of liver recovery. Acute liver injury was induced by an intragastric administration of CC14 diluted in olive oil in doses of 2, 4 and/or 6 g of CC14 per kg b.w. The control rats received olive oil only. Animals were sacrificed at 16, 24, 48 and 96 hours after treatment. The severity of liver injury was assessed by histological examination, by changes in ALT and AST in the blood plasma and by changes in liver weight. Statistical analysis was carried by ANOVA, p < 0.05 was considered significant. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient was used as a measure of the degree of linear relationship between variable and dose. In the period of the development of acute liver damage, i.e. at 16 and 24 hours after treatment, an increase in blood plasma amino acid levels and positive correlations with the dose of CC14 were observed for most individual amino acids. The only exception was arginine which decreased in a dose dependent manner. At a phase of liver recovery, i.e. at 48 and 96 hours after CC14 treatment, the concentrations of some individual amino acids decreased below the control values. The negative correlation with the dose of CC14 occurred for taurine and isoleucine (at 48 hours) and taurine, threonine, valine, methionine, isoleucine and leucine (at 96 hours).

The mechanism by which glutamine produces a favorable effect in the treatment of sepsis, injury, burns and abdominal irradiation is not completely understood. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of alanyl-glutamine (AlaGln) administration on the metabolism of proteins in irradiated rats. The rats were exposed to whole-body irradiation (8 Gy) and then fed intragastrically with a mixture of glucose and amino acids either with AlaGln or without AlaGln. At 48 hours after irradiation, parameters of whole-body protein metabolism and DNA synthesis in intestinal mucosa were investigated using a primed, continuous infusion of [1-14 C]leucine and [ 3 H]thymidine. In addition, we evaluated the effect of irradiation and AlaGln on gut morphology, blood count and amino acid concentrations in blood plasma and skeletal muscle. Control rats were not irradiated but were given identical treatment. An increase in whole-body leucine oxidation, and insignificant changes in whole-body proteolysis and in protein synthesis were observed after irradiation. In irradiated rats we observed a decrease in muscle glutamine concentration, a decrease in protein synthesis in jejunum, colon and heart, and an increase in synthesis of proteins of blood plasma and spleen. Morphological examination and measurement of DNA synthesis failed to demonstrate any favorable effect of AlaGln supplementation on irradiated gut. However, administration of AlaGln resulted in a decrease in whole-body proteolysis and leucine oxidation which caused an increase in the fraction of leucine incorporated into the pool of body proteins. We conclude that the data obtained demonstrate that irradiation induces metabolic derangement associated with increased oxidation of essential branched-chain amino acids 96 M. Holec ˇek et al. (valine, leucine and isoleucine) and that these disturbances can be ameliorated by administration of AlaGln.

Background and aim: Progress in laboratory diagnostics of IgE-mediated allergy is the use of component-resolved diagnosis. Our study analyses the results of specific IgE to 295 allergen reagents (117 allergenic extracts and 178 molecular components) in patients suffering from atopic dermatitis (AD) with the use of ALEX2 Allergy Explorer. Method: The complete dermatological and allergological examination, including the examination of the sensitization to molecular components with ALEX2 Allergy Explorer testing, was performed. The statistical analysis of results was performed with these methods: TURF (total unduplicated reach and frequency), best reach and frequency by group size, two-sided tests, Fisher’s exact test, and chi-square test (at an expected minimum frequency of at least 5). Results: Altogether, 100 atopic dermatitis patients were examined: 48 men, 52 women, the average age 40.9 years, min. age 14 years, max. age 67 years. The high and very high level of specific IgE was r...

Visualization of multidimensional data is presented here as a tool for displaying quantitative content of data. The aim of visualization methods is to arrange information about the data file in such a way that new visual information is descriptive and informative enough and able to commu- nicate ideas easily and intuitively. With the using of graphical information it is possible to reach more profound understanding of the data and derive relevant information and knowledge from the data. This article is concerned with the categorization of visualization methods and brings extensive references related to this field. It focuses on selected symbol plots (profiles, polygons, face diagrams) in more details. The article describes fundamentals of these selected visualization techniques and also their advantages and disadvantages. It studies the characteristics of symbol plots when different mapping methods of attributes or different methods of placement of the sym- bols are used. Package “s...