ORT Braude College

ABSTRACT Integrating professional skills into engineering education is increasingly essential, yet there is no clear definition or common approach. This study presents the SiRAM model, designed to embed these skills into course content, enhancing 21st‐century engineering education. Through two case studies, we examined students' awareness and manifestation of key skills, particularly emotional awareness. Results indicate that students recognise their strengths and weaknesses and internalise skill‐related language, emphasising the importance of self‐awareness. The SiRAM model enhances both theoretical and practical understanding by introducing an innovative approach to skills integration in engineering education, encompassing a broad spectrum of professional skills with a focus on reflection and self‐awareness. Findings highlight the importance of embedding self‐awareness and emotional intelligence into engineering curricula and provide administrators and course designers with valuable tools to strengthen students' career readiness.

Today’s virtual reality (VR) environments can offer highly immersive experiences to users and a high sense of presence in these environments. Moreover, this sense of presence can be felt simultaneously in several virtual worlds, while users interact with each and move between them. In the current study, we hypothesized that enhancing humans’ physical capabilities by being present in several virtual worlds simultaneously will contribute positively to task switching training. We evaluated our hypothesis by examining the effectiveness of task switching training when the tasks are executed in one, two, and four different virtual worlds. The study randomly assigned 59 participants to one of three between-participants groups. The results demonstrated that although participants’ training experiences in the 1–World, 2–Worlds, and 4–Worlds groups were similar regarding training time and errors performed during training, the varied environments produced different results in the transfer phase. More worlds caused significantly longer transfer times. Additionally, the 4–Worlds group made many more errors when selecting the correct model to be assembled compared to the 1–World group. Hence, our hypothesis was not supported, with the findings pointing in the opposite direction. Instead of improving the task switching training, switching between tasks located in several different virtual worlds caused performance to deteriorate in the transfer task. The findings might imply that performing tasks set in multiple virtual worlds simultaneously can lower the cognitive load compared to performing them in one environment and can deteriorate the transfer of training. • We examined the effectiveness of task switching training in several virtual worlds. • The tasks were executed in one, two, or four different virtual worlds. • More worlds caused significantly longer transfer times. • The 4–Worlds group made more errors when selecting the correct model.

Atherosclerosis is a complex cardiovascular disease characterised by the accumulation of lipids, inflammatory cells, and fibrous elements within arterial walls, leading to plaque formation and increased risk of cardiovascular events. Recent evidence highlights the pivotal roles of purinergic receptors in mediating the inflammatory and cellular processes associated with atherosclerosis. This review examines the roles of purinergic receptors in the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis, with a particular focus on the P1 subtype (A2A and A3 receptors), the P2X subtype (P2X4 and P2X7 receptors), and the P2Y subtype (P2Y2, P2Y11, and P2Y12 receptors). The A2A and A3 receptors are involved in modulating vascular inflammation, endothelial cell function, and vascular smooth muscle cell calcification. P2X4 has been implicated in the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and the promotion of plaque inflammation, whereas P2X7 contributes to vascular inflammation, plaque progression, and rupture. The P2Y2 receptor plays critical roles in regulating vascular inflammation and calcification, smooth muscle cell migration, and plaque growth. Furthermore, the P2Y11 receptor has been shown to modulate endothelial cell inflammation, while P2Y12 is associated with lipid accumulation, foam cell formation, vascular smooth muscle cell migration, and plaque development. By synthesising current knowledge on the involvement of purinergic signalling in atherosclerosis, this review discusses potential therapeutic targets for intervention. Specifically, P2Y receptor antagonists present promising avenues for reducing inflammation and improving vascular function in atherosclerotic patients. However, despite the advancements in understanding purinergic receptor functions, challenges remain in translating this knowledge into clinical practice. Further research is essential to unravel the intricate signalling pathways of these receptors and to develop effective biomarker strategies and therapeutic interventions aimed at combatting atherosclerosis and its associated complications.

Atherosclerosis, a chronic inflammatory disease, involves a complex interplay between endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, and inflammatory mediators. Cell-to-cell junctions, including adherens junctions (AJs), tight junctions (TJs), and gap junctions (GJs), play a critical role in maintaining vascular integrity and regulating cellular interactions in the vascular wall. This review summarises the molecular mechanisms by which these junctions contribute to atherosclerosis, focusing on key proteins like VE-cadherin (AJs), ZO-1, occludin, and claudins (TJs), and connexins (GJs). Dysregulation of these junctions, driven by factors such as oxidative stress, pro-inflammatory cytokines, atheroprone shear stress (aSS), and lipid-mediated signalling pathways, leads to endothelial dysfunction, increased permeability, monocyte infiltration, and plaque instability. Furthermore, the role of signalling pathways, including NFκB, PI3K/AKT, and Wnt/β-catenin, in the regulation of junctional proteins is explored. Emerging factors, including oxygenated cholesterol, radiation, and various drugs, provide new insights into junctional modulation in atherosclerosis. The potential of targeting junctional proteins and their associated pathways for therapeutic interventions is also discussed. Future studies focusing on the detailed mechanisms of junctional dysregulation in vivo and the clinical translation of these findings are necessary to develop novel therapeutic strategies for atherosclerosis. Clinical trial number Not applicable.

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is an advanced chronic inflammatory disease and the leading cause of death worldwide. The pathological development of ASCVD begins with atherosclerosis, characterised by a pathological remodelling of the arterial wall, lipid accumulation and build-up of atheromatous plaque. As the disease advances, it narrows the vascular lumen and limits the blood, leading to ischaemic necrosis in coronary arteries. Exosomes are nano-sized lipid vesicles of different origins that can carry many bioactive molecules from their parental cells, thus playing an important role in intercellular communication. The roles of exosomes in atherosclerosis have recently been intensively studied, advancing our understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms. In this review, we briefly introduce exosome biology and then focus on the roles of exosomes of different cellular origins in atherosclerosis development and progression, functional significance of their cargoes and physiological impact on recipient cells. Studies have demonstrated that exosomes originating from endothelial cells, vascular smooth muscle cells, macrophages, dendritic cells, platelets, stem cells, adipose tissue and other sources play an important role in the atherosclerosis development and progression by affecting cholesterol transport, inflammatory, apoptotic and other aspects of the recipient cells' metabolism. MicroRNAs are considered the most significant type of bioactive molecules transported by exosomes and involved in ASCVD development. Finally, we review the current achievements and limitations associated with the use of exosomes for the diagnosis and treatment of ASCVD.

This study presents a Systematic Literature Mapping (SLM) on cooperative and collaborative motion planning for multi-unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In this study, titles, abstracts, and keywords of 309 articles published between 2014 and 2024 were analyzed using natural language processing. It has identified six dominant research topics, analyzed the temporal trends showing a growing interest in the field, and highlighted some co-relation between the topics and future research opportunities, such as addressing coverage problems in dynamic and non-free environments. Thus, this SLM provides an overview of the field.

In geosciences, soil–water interactions are defined by soil water potential, which provides a quantitative estimate of the soil water thermodynamic state. Due to the interactions between water and soil particles, soil water has different physical properties than free water; hence, analyzing soil water may require different methods and approaches. Typically, soil water potential is defined as the sum of three independent functions: gravitational, osmotic, and matric. However, there is a problem with this definition because the osmotic and matric potentials exhibit coupling effects. Moreover, due to its high values, the matric potential dominates the total potential, whereas the gravitational potential may appear negligible. However, gravity may lead to different flow mechanisms altering the soil’s mechanical behavior. As a result, it may not be valid to calculate the total water potential as the algebraic sum of the different potentials. There are also mathematical challenges in the common use of water potential; as soil saturation decreases, water potential can reach thousands of kPa, which requires mathematical balancing in the equations by multiplying it by a variable with a value near zero. However, multiples of numbers of different magnitudes are problematic from a mathematical perspective, especially when applied to numerical analysis. This paper discusses the strengths and limitations of the definitions and mathematical formulations of this variable.