PBwiki on-line learning: The effectiveness of pedagogical role online teachers' on students with difference learning style in their critical thinking

PBwiki (Peanut Butter wiki) is an asynchronous online learning that integrates collaborative learning.By using this web-based software tool, students can create, add, remove and edit content in hypertext quickly and easily.In this paper, a study on the teachers’ pedagogical roles on students’ critical thinking skill in a PBwiki environment will be discussed.The students’ learning style (active or reflective learning style) as a moderating variable was investigated to identify whether PBwiki online learning influence their critical thinking in essay writing.A total of 120 Form Six (Grade 12) students from two high schools in Penang were involved in this 2x2 factorial quasi-experimental study.These students have to write and edit their essays in General Study’s subject with the assistance of pedagogical role online teachers (PROT).Felder and Soloman (2001) instrument were used to measure the moderating variable.Paul’s (1993) model were used to analyze student’s critical thinking in online General Studies essay writing.The findings shows that students who received the PROT treatment performed significantly better in critical thinking score and enhanced students’ critical thinking in General Studies essay writin

CASUAL FACTROS OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR IN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

This study was conducted to find out the casual factors of criminal behavior in, Punjab Pakistan. Punjab is the largest province of Pakistan and crime ratio is also highest in this province. A questionnaire of 114 items was constructed through focus group discussion, Literature and DSM-5. Five point Likert scale was used to measure the casual factors. Data was collected from 200 criminals who conducted the crime more than one time. Data was collected from District jails of Multan and Vehari from south Punjab. Mean value was selected as 2 for mentioning a factors as cause of criminal behavior which indicate the presence of a factor. In last 20 factors were mentioned as casual factors of criminal behavior including physical abuse in schools, stubbornness in childhood, feelings of hopelessness and helplessness in childhood, strict family restrictions in childhood. Failure in intimate relations, high media exposure, short temperament, feelings of revenge and deprivation in childhood. Most of the criminals found to get their primary and secondary education in schools whereas there were lowest ratio of criminals who get religious education. There is needed to make policies to reduce these casual factors to control crime in Pakistan. Key Words: Crime, Criminal Behavior, Criminal Tendency, Criminal Factors, Causes of Crime.

Fostering resilience among children: a life skills intervention

The promotion of Child Mental Health can lead to prevention of mental illness. 'Life Skills Education is a proven method for promoting mental health. This indicates that life skills education is required by young people for their holistic development and hence it should be imparted. Well designed, tested and delivered life skills programmes can achieve much in helping children and adolescents become more responsible, healthy and resilient both during childhood and as adults. The concept of resilience emerged in the psychiatric literature in the 1980's, in an attempt to understand individual differences in their responses to stress and adversity, which has a direct linkage with wellbeing. Resilience and Life Skills Training are topics of interests to school psychologists, yet little is known about the relationships among the two. It was hypothesized that resilience would mediate the relationship with Life Skills. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Life Skills Training for fostering Resilience. The training was conducted over a period of 30 days for 60 min per day. A total of 15 students participated in the training programe. Wagnild and Young's Resilience Scale was utilized for assessing the resilience before and after the training programme. The result of the training indicates a positive effect on life skills training for fostering resilience. The statistical analysis also indicates that there is an improvement in the level of resilience on the experimental group

Job preferences among marginalized and non-marginalized youth in Malaysia

This study aimed to explore the factor job preferences among youth in marginalized and non-marginalized in Sabah. Preferences job four dimensions identified in this study, namely communality, job comforts, job goals and self-realization. The study will also explore the different job preferences by demographic background, namely gender and multi-ethnic. A total of 5954 youths was involved, ranging from marginalized (N = 4107) and non-marginalized (N = 1847). The study found no significant differences in job preferences among marginalized and non-marginalized youth in Malaysia as a whole. However, job comforts show selected key factor in the youth as job preferences. For multi-ethnic difference that there were no significant differences for non-marginalized youth, but there are significant differences in the dimensions of self-realization for marginalized youth. The implications of this study are identified factor can contribute to the implementation of government policies to help young people get jobs

Cytokine expression profile of dengue patients at different phases of illness

Background: Dengue is an important medical problem, with symptoms ranging from mild dengue fever to severe forms of the disease, where vascular leakage leads to hypovolemic shock. Cytokines have been implicated to play a role in the progression of severe dengue disease; however, their profile in dengue patients and the synergy that leads to continued plasma leakage is not clearly understood. Herein, we investigated the cytokine kinetics and profiles of dengue patients at different phases of illness to further understand the role of cytokines in dengue disease. Methods and Findings: Circulating levels of 29 different types of cytokines were assessed by bead-based ELISA method in dengue patients at the 3 different phases of illness. The association between significant changes in the levels of cytokines and clinical parameters were analyzed. At the febrile phase, IP-10 was significant in dengue patients with and without warning signs. However, MIP-1 beta was found to be significant in only patients with warning signs at this phase. IP-10 was also significant in both with and without warning signs patients during defervescence. At this phase, MIP-1b beta and G-CSF were significant in patients without warning signs, whereas MCP-1 was noted to be elevated significantly in patients with warning signs. Significant correlations between the levels of VEGF, RANTES, IL-7, IL-12, PDGF and IL-5 with platelets; VEGF with lymphocytes and neutrophils; G-CSF and IP-10 with atypical lymphocytes and various other cytokines with the liver enzymes were observed in this study. Conclusions: The cytokine profile patterns discovered between the different phases of illness indicate an essential role in dengue pathogenesis and with further studies may serve as predictive markers for progression to dengue with warning signs

Penilaian pengetahuan dan kesedian menghadapi bencana gempa bumi dalam kalangan guru sekolah di Ranau, Sabah

Gempa bumi Ranau yang melanda pada 5 Jun 2015 adalah gegaran yang paling kuat di Sabah dan menyebabkan penduduk tempatan dalam keadaan panik. Hal ini menunjukkan bahawa penduduk di Sabah harus dididik agar bersedia untuk menghadapi bencana alam ini yang dijangka akan berlaku dalam masa 20 tahun lagi. Pelbagai kajian menunjukkan hasrat murni ini akan tercapai sekiranya pengetahuan pencegahan dan mengahadapi gempa bumi ini diterapkan melalui pendidikan formal di sekolah. Namun begitu, pengetahuan dan kesediaan guru tentang pencegahan dan menghadapi bencana gempa bumi perlu diambil kira untuk memastikan mereka bersedia untuk mendidik murid. Kajian ini yang berpaksikan kaedah penyelidikan gabungan (Explanatory Sequantial Design) dijalankan untuk mengkaji pengetahuan dan kesediaan guru sekolah di Ranau untuk menghadapi bencana gempa bumi. Kaedah persampelan bertujuan telah digunakan untuk memilih 18 buah sekolah yang mengalami kerosakan teruk akibat dari bencana gempa bumi 2015. Enam orang guru lelaki dan perempuan telah dipilih secara rawak mudah untuk ditemuramah. Instrument The Spittal Eartquake knowledge and Readiness Scale digunakan untuk mendapatkan data kuantitatif. Data kualitatif dikumpul dengan menggunakan kaedah temuramah semuka. Analisis data kuantitatif menunjukkan bahawa tahap pemahaman konsep gempa bumi dan kesediaan guru untuk menghadapi bencana alam ini adalah sederhana. Terdapat juga perbezaan yang signifikan tahap pemahaman mengenai konsep gempa bumi dan kesediaan untuk menghadapi bencana ini antara guru lelaki dan perempuan. Analisis kualitatif menunjukkan tahap pemahaman konsep dan kesedian guru untuk menghadapi bencana gempa bumi adalah sederhana kerana mereka tidak jangka bahawa kawasan Ranau berisiko tinggi. Guru perempuan mempunyai pengetahuan yang lebih baik berbandingkan guru lelaki dalam menghadapi bencana gempa bumi kerana mereka meneroka maklumat melalui internet, akhbar, laman web dan group Whats App. Penemuan kualitatif juga merumuskan bahawa guru lelaki lebih bersedia menghadapi bencana gempa bumi berbanding dengan guru wanita. Oleh itu, disarankan agar pihak Jabatan Pendidikan Negeri dan Jabatan Pendidikan Daerah dengan kerja sama NGO menganjurkan kursus dan latihan untuk membantu guru meningkatkan pengetahuan bencana gempa agar mereka lebih bersedia untuk menghadapi bencana gempa bumi dan menyalurkan ilmu ini kepada murid di sekolah

The interaction between academic stress and self-control in predicting psychological well-being

This study was conducted to identify the influence of academic stress and self-control on the psychological wellbeing of university students in the Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia campus. Besides that, gender ethnicity and location (oncampus and off-campus) have been compared according to academic stress, self-control and psychological well-being. This study uses a quantitative method in which 320 university students were involved. The research questionnaire consists of the Perception of Academic Stress Scale (PAS), the Sense of Control Scale and the Psychological Wellbeing (PWB) Scale were used as instruments of this study. This study found that academic stress and self-control are direct predictors of the psychological well-being of university students during the COVID-19, with beta value, the study findings showed (Beta = –0.18, R² = 0.056, p < 0.05) and self-control (Beta = 0.17, R² = 0.052, p < 0.05). Based on this indicates, academic stress contributed (5.6%) and self-control (5.2%) to the psychological well-being of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is due to the academic stress from the aspect of workload that is given during the online teaching and learning sessions. Therefore, university student needs to give importance to self-control and other recreational activity for them to be psychologically happy during the COVID-19 pandemic. With high self-control, students can manage their academic stress and increase their psychological well-being

Optimization of production, biochemical characterization and In Vitro evaluation of the therapeutic potential of fibrinolytic enzymes from a new Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens

The capacity of fibrinolytic enzymes to degrade blood clots makes them of high relevance in medicine and in the pharmaceutical industry. In this work, forty-three microorganisms of the genus Bacillus were evaluated for their potential to produce fibrinolytic proteases. Thirty bacteria were confirmed as producers of fibrinolytic enzymes, the best results obtained for the strain Bacillus amyloliquefaciens UFPEDA 485. The optimization of the enzyme production conditions was done by a central composite design (CCD) star 23 that allowed to define the optimal conditions for soybean flour and glucose concentrations and agitation rate. The highest fibrinolytic activity (FA) of 813 U mL-1 and a degradation of blood clot in vitro of 62% were obtained in a medium with 2% (w/v) of soybean flour and 1% (w/v) glucose at 200 rpm after 48 h of cultivation, at pH 7.2 and 37 °C. The obtained fibrinolytic enzyme was characterized biochemically. Fibrinolytic activity was inhibited by PMSF (fluoride methylphenylsulfonyl - C7H7FO2S) 91.52% and EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid - C10H16N2O8) 89.4%, confirming to be a serine- metallo protease. The optimum pH and temperature were 7.0 and 37 oC, respectively, and the enzyme was stable for 12 h. The fibrinolytic activity at physiological conditions of this enzyme produced by Bacillus amyloliquefaciens UFPEDA 485, as well as its long term stability, demonstrate that it has suitable characteristics for human and veterinary applications, and promises to be a powerful drug for the treatment of vascular diseases.We express our thanks to Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Education Personnel (CAPES) - Doctoral Sandwich Program (PDSE) Nº 0259/ 12-8 and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) - Nº 202026/2011-6 for the financial support