Youth in Danger and Students at Risk of Dropping Out

Bullying is any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youth that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the targeted youth including physical, psychological, social, or educational harm. Bullying can lead to fear of school, absenteeism, and stunted academic progress, which in turn are precursors to dropping out of school. Effects of Bullying on Students Long lasting effects School Dropout. Lack of Concentration Reduced Motivation Less Class Participation Less Attendance Lower Academic Achievement Student Dropouts The increase in dropout rates in higher education is a phenomenon that has generated a lot of interest because of the need to deal with its economic, personal, and social consequences, and because of its prevalence, estimated around 30% in America. There is a similar interest in violent behavior in university classrooms, which has also been seen to have increased in recent years. Given that, and the fact that Book has shown personal variables to be more influential in dropout from higher education, the aim of this study is to explore whether those students who are the victims of bullying (both traditional and cyberbullying) are closer to dropping out from their degree courses. The results showed that students who were victims of bullying were more likely to consider dropping out than students who were not victims of bullying. In addition, variables related to social integration (support from friends and teachers) exhibited a moderating effect. These findings raise the urgent need to include intervention strategies in relation to bullying in university plans to prevent dropout. Higher education as we know it has now and forever dramatically changed. Leaders must take a fresh look at how their institutions design, implement, and measure practices in strategic enrollment management and expand the model, as never before. Higher Education on the Brink: Reimagining Strategic Enrollment Management in Colleges and Universities combines strategies for enrollment enhancement with significant support for development of alternative revenue streams for overall sustainability and growth. It introduces a new model for launching highly engaged strategic planning processes for colleges and universities. With current, real-world examples, the book details how colleges can be guided by integrated strategic planning processes to recalibrate efforts that yield key results. The major difference in this work is an exacting focus on organizational culture and each facet that defines it. As colleges and universities place new focus on strategically re-imagining higher education and their role in it, Higher Education on the Brink will serve as a guide for determining what difficult questions need to be asked and how to answer those questions in a manner that will position the college for the future with support from the college community, generating increased opportunities for student and operational success

Social Media Adoption by the Academic Community: Theoretical Insights and Empirical Evidence From Developing Countries

The paper investigates the impact of virtual environmental characteristics such as collaboration, communication, and resource sharing on social media adoption by the academic community at the university level. Building on the social constructivist paradigm and technology acceptance model, we propose a conceptual model to assess social media adoption in academia by incorporating collaboration, communication, and resource sharing as predictors of social media adoption, whereas perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness act as mediators in this relationship. Structural equation modeling serves to estimate the proposed conceptual model on a sample of 661 respondents from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The findings suggest that an individual’s propensity toward social media features (i.e., collaboration, communication, and resource sharing) acts as a stimulus to their social media adoption. Moreover, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness mediate the relationship between these stimuli and their outcomes (i.e., social media adoption). The paper concludes with the discussion on the findings and recommendations for the academicians and the practitioners of social media in the higher education institutions

Vicarious or direct? Testing experiences of interpersonal deviance and employees’ defensive strategies at work

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI linkThe interpersonal deviance (ID) literature has mainly relied upon the conservation of resource (COR) theory that explains the dissemination of stressful cues. While literature concerning resource investment decisions at work exists, how and when individuals enter defensive mode is a relatively less researched area. We investigate the effects of two forms of interpersonal deviant experiences, namely, vicarious ID and direct ID that results in self-serving behavior—a defensive withdrawal. We analyzed two waves of 346 subordinate– supervisor pairs. Multilevel path modeling exhibited an indirect effect from direct ID to self-serving behavior via communion striving. On the other hand, there was no indirect effect of vicarious ID on self-serving behavior via communion striving. The results reveal that direct ID is a crucial factor in explaining defensive strategies at work, whereas the effects of vicarious ID are contingent upon certain boundary conditions. Given that, findings show vicarious ID was positively related to communion striving for employees with low relational identification and high susceptibility to emotional contagion. We offer new insights into ID and COR literature by providing important implications for theory and practice

An Insight into Different Strategies for Control and Prophylaxis of Fasciolosis: A Review

Fasciolosis is one of the important diseases of livestock and has zoonotic importance. Fasciolosis can cause huge economic losses due to decrease in milk and meat production, decreased feed conversion ratio, and cost of treatment. Treatment and prophylaxis strategies for Fasciola infection are formed based on epidemiological data. The control of Fasciola infection can be attained by treating the animals with active anthelmintics. The use of different combinations of anthelmintics with a possible rotation is more effective against immature as well as adult flukes. Control of the intermediate host (snail) is vital for the reduction of fasciolosis. Due to the rapid growth of snails, the eradication is quite difficult in waterlogged and marshy areas. The use of different grazing methods and treatment of grazing areas can also help to control fasciolosis. A variety of antigens generated by Fasciola spp. have been shown to protect against liver fluke infection. The crude antigens, excretory/secretory, and refined antigens and their combination can be used as prophylactic treatment for the control of fasciolosis. The use of any of the single or combination of these methods can be very effective for the control of fasciolosis

The Evolving Faces of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome

Surveillance of the evolving SARS-CoV-2 genome combined with epidemiological monitoring and emerging vaccination became paramount tasks to control the pandemic which is rapidly changing in time and space. Genomic surveillance must combine generation and sharing sequence data with appropriate bioinformatics monitoring and analysis methods. We applied molecular portrayal using self-organizing maps machine learning (SOM portrayal) to characterize the diversity of the virus genomes, their mutual relatedness and development since the beginning of the pandemic. The genetic landscape obtained visualizes the relevant mutations in a lineage-specific fashion and provides developmental paths in genetic state space from early lineages towards the variants of concern alpha, beta, gamma and delta. The different genes of the virus have specific footprints in the landscape reflecting their biological impact. SOM portrayal provides a novel option for ‘bioinformatics surveillance’ of the pandemic, with strong odds regarding visualization, intuitive perception and ‘personalization’ of the mutational patterns of the virus genomes

Modeling an Agent for Paper Generation System using Utility Based Approach

Test paper generation for examination in various level of education is one of the most preliminary requirements. Preparing and processing a test paper has vital place at every stage of E-education system. Most subsisting systems automate test paper generation by randomly selecting question items from knowledgebase/database. Usually these systems have no concern about difficulty level of question items. Some intelligent systems have been developed. But mostly it considers difficulty level at the time of assessment. Some other intelligent system gives approximate solutions for producing a test paper while considering difficulty level and type etc.  Unlike the existing test paper generators, our utility based test paper agent chooses question items in such a way that the difficulty level of each question item takes part in computing exact difficulty level of test paper. Proposed Utility based test paper agent (UBTPAgent) picks the question items with its utility value. Hence provides exact difficulty level for whole paper as required by user. So test papers on the same level are different on basis of culled difficulty level. In design phase examiner creates a knowledgebase of questions for UBTPAgent by assigning some utility values with every question on which our selection algorithm operates. Whenever a test paper is required examiner provides difficulty level for test paper. And on the behalf of examiner UBTPAgent selects question with utility value in such a way the total of utility value is equal to required difficulty level. Later, a test paper is produced by test paper generator according to difficulty level specified by examiner. As percentage for any test paper is 1 to 100 percent for any test paper, therefore, 100 difficulty levels are available for any test paper. Here, selected difficulty level is for the entire paper. Finally, UBTPAgent model is proposed, implemented by providing algorithm, executed using case study, and tested to ensure the feasibility of this approach

Workplace Deviance – A Move Towards the Social Constructivist Perspective

open access articleThe present systematic literature review aims to present the ontology of workplace deviance. For this purpose, a review on the field of workplace deviance was conducted from the years 1983-2019. The screening of the articles resulted in 75 studies. The results are separated into four clusters including; drivers, outcomes, mediators, and moderators. These clusters provide understanding on the workplace deviance typology given by Robinson and Bennett. The results suggest the need to offer new insights into the social constructivist lens to advance the literature in future. Lastly, some of the potential future directions are discussed in the articl

Social Media Adoption by the Academic Community: Theoretical Insights and Empirical Evidence From Developing Countries

open access articleThe paper investigates the impact of virtual environmental characteristics such as collaboration, communication, and resource sharing on social media adoption by the academic community at the university level. Building on the social constructivist paradigm and technology acceptance model, we propose a conceptual model to assess social media adoption in academia by incorporating collaboration, communication, and resource sharing as predictors of social media adoption, whereas perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness act as mediators in this relationship. Structural equation modeling serves to estimate the proposed conceptual model on a sample of 661 respondents from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The findings suggest that an individual’s propensity toward social media features (i.e., collaboration, communication, and resource sharing) acts as a stimulus to their social media adoption. Moreover, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness mediate the relationship between these stimuli and their outcomes (i.e., social media adoption). The paper concludes with the discussion on the findings and recommendations for the academicians and the practitioners of social media in the higher education institutions

The use of Neem biomass for the biosorption of zinc from aqueous solutions

An adsorbent was developed from mature leaves and stem bark of the Neem (Azadirachta indica) tree for removing zinc from water. Adsorption was carried out in a batch process with several different concentrations of zinc by varying pH. The uptake of metal was very fast initially, but gradually slowed down indicating penetration into the interior of the adsorbent particles. The data showed that optimum pH for efficient biosorption of zinc by Neem leaves and stem bark was 4 and 5, respectively. The maximum adsorption capacity showed that the Neem biomass had a mass capacity for zinc (147.08 mg Zn/g for Neem leaves and 137.67 mg Zn/g Neem bark). The experimental results were analyzed in terms of Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. The adsorption followed pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The thermodynamic assessment of the metal ion-Neem tree biomass system indicated the feasibility and spontaneous nature of the process and Delta G degrees values were evaluated as ranging from -26.84 to -32.75 (Neem leaves) kJ/mol and -26.04 to -29.50 (Neem bark) kJ/mol for zinc biosorption. Due to its outstanding zinc uptake capacity, the Neem tree was proved to be an excellent biomaterial for accumulating zinc from aqueous solutions. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Biosorption of chromium (III) and chromium (VI) by untreated and pretreated Cassia fistula biomass from aqueous solutions

The present study explained the effect of pretreatments on the biosorption of Cr (III) and Cr (VI) by Cassia fistula biomass from aqueous solutions. For this purpose Cassia fistula biomass was pretreated physically by heating, autoclaving, boiling and chemically with sodium hydroxide, formaldehyde, gluteraldehyde, acetic acid, hydrogen peroxide, commercial laundry detergent, orthophosphoric, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, and hydrochloric acid. The adsorption capacity of biomass for Cr (III) and Cr (VI) was found to be significantly improved by the treatments of gluteraldehyde (95.41 and 96.21 mg/g) and benzene (85.71 and 90.81 mg/g) respectively. The adsorption capacity was found to depend on pH, initial metal concentration, dose, size, kinetics, and temperature. Maximum adsorption of both the Cr (III) and Cr (VI) was observed at pH 5 and 2. When Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms were tested, the latter had a better fit with the experimental data. The kinetic studies showed that the sorption rates could be described better by a second order expression than by a more commonly applied Lagergren equation