Religious Identity Formation Among Adolescents: The Role of Religious Secondary Schools

The purpose of this article is to examine the role religious secondary schools play in the religious identity formation of adolescents. Although several research studies have found a correlation between enrollment in private religious schools and adolescents’ religious identity formation, the researchers of these studies have only speculated about which specific characteristics of religious schools are responsible for this formation in the lives of adolescents. Through a review of the literature, the present article identifies several characteristics of religious secondary schools that may contribute to the process of religious identity formation: a community of religious peers, the presence of religious adults, and an exposure to religious instruction. Implications for Christian secondary school practitioners are also discussed

Epigenomic regulation of heart failure: integrating histone marks, long noncoding RNAs, and chromatin architecture.

Epigenetic processes are known to have powerful roles in organ development across biology. It has recently been found that some of the chromatin modulatory machinery essential for proper development plays a previously unappreciated role in the pathogenesis of cardiac disease in adults. Investigations using genetic and pharmacologic gain- and loss-of-function approaches have interrogated the function of distinct epigenetic regulators, while the increased deployment of the suite of next-generation sequencing technologies have fundamentally altered our understanding of the genomic targets of these chromatin modifiers. Here, we review recent developments in basic and translational research that have provided tantalizing clues that may be used to unlock the therapeutic potential of the epigenome in heart failure. Additionally, we provide a hypothesis to explain how signal-induced crosstalk between histone tail modifications and long non-coding RNAs triggers chromatin architectural remodeling and culminates in cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis

Robot path planning using a genetic algorithm

Robot path planning can refer either to a mobile vehicle such as a Mars Rover, or to an end effector on an arm moving through a cluttered workspace. In both instances there may exist many solutions, some of which are better than others, either in terms of distance traversed, energy expended, or joint angle or reach capabilities. A path planning program has been developed based upon a genetic algorithm. This program assumes global knowledge of the terrain or workspace, and provides a family of good paths between the initial and final points. Initially, a set of valid random paths are constructed. Successive generations of valid paths are obtained using one of several possible reproduction strategies similar to those found in biological communities. A fitness function is defined to describe the goodness of the path, in this case including length, slope, and obstacle avoidance considerations. It was found that with some reproduction strategies, the average value of the fitness function improved for successive generations, and that by saving the best paths of each generation, one could quite rapidly obtain a collection of good candidate solutions