WHAT FACTORS AFFECT SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN SCIENCE IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES? A CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR AN EXPLORATION

This paper develops a conceptual framework to explore the factors affecting secondary school students’ performance in science in the developing countries. While the various factors are related to the increased academic performance, the specific mechanisms through which those factors exert their influence on a child's academic performance are not yet fully understood. Based on both sociological and psychological theories and empirical studies, socioeconomic status, parental involvement, school resources and teacher quality as independent variables and motivation towards learning science as a mediating variable were incorporated into the proposed framework. Appropriate instruments for the exploration are suggested. While the conceptual framework developed in the present study lessening the knowledge gap pertaining to the factors affecting students’ performance in science, especially in the developing countries, it paves a path to explore the effect of those factors on students’ performance.  Article visualizations

The ATLAS experiment software on ARM

With an increased dataset obtained during the Run 3 of the LHC at CERN and the even larger expected increase of the dataset by more than one order of magnitude for the HL-LHC, the ATLAS experiment is reaching the limits of the current data processing model in terms of traditional CPU resources based on x86_64 architectures and an extensive program for software upgrades towards the HL-LHC has been set up. The ARM architecture is becoming a competitive and energy efficient alternative. Some surveys indicate its increased presence in HPCs and commercial clouds, and some WLCG sites have expressed their interest. Chip makers are also developing their next generation solutions on ARM architectures, sometimes combining ARM and GPU processors in the same chip. Consequently it is important that the ATLAS software embraces the change and is able to successfully exploit this architecture. We report on the successful porting to ARM of the Athena software framework, which is used by ATLAS for both online and offline computing operations. Furthermore we report on the successful validation of simulation workflows running on ARM resources. For this we have set up an ATLAS Grid site using ARM compatible middleware and containers on Amazon Web Services (AWS) ARM resources. The ARM version of Athena is fully integrated in the regular software build system and distributed in the same way as other software releases. In addition, the workflows have been integrated into the HEPscore benchmark suite which is the planned WLCG wide replacement of the HepSpec06 benchmark used for Grid site pledges. In the overall porting process we have used resources on AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and CERN. A performance comparison of different architectures and resources will be discussed

Can parental involvement mitigate “swing away from science”? Sri Lankan perspectives

“Swing away from science” is a dilemma that researchers are seeking solutions over 50 years. The dilemma is becoming more complicated due to the developmental decline in students’ motivation toward learning science around the world, particularly at the secondary level. While the parental involvement becomes more vital in the secondary school years, it also dramatically declines in this period. The study investigated the level of parental involvement in terms of parents’ socioeconomic factors and students’ demographic factors. The association between parental involvement measured in terms of four dimensions and Sri Lankan secondary public school students’ motivation toward learning science measured in terms of six dimensions was also studied. A random sample of 689 students and their parents participated in this quantitative survey. While the parental involvement showed significant differences in relation to the parents’ income level and the school category that the child attends, the same showed no significant difference in relation to parents’ ethnicity and child’s gender. Parental involvement showed a strong association with students’ intrinsically and extrinsically motivated science learning and self-efficacy. Home-based parental involvements had a stronger impact on students’ motivation compared to the school-based involvements. Measures that can be taken by the stakeholders to strengthen the parental involvement activities, which enhance students’ motivation to learn science and mitigate swing away from science were discussed

Low-Dose Adrenaline, Promethazine, and Hydrocortisone in the Prevention of Acute Adverse Reactions to Antivenom following Snakebite: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial

Background Envenoming from snakebites is most effectively treated by antivenom. However, the antivenom available in South Asian countries commonly causes acute allergic reactions, anaphylactic reactions being particularly serious. We investigated whether adrenaline, promethazine, and hydrocortisone prevent such reactions in secondary referral hospitals in Sri Lanka by conducting a randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Methods and Findings In total, 1,007 patients were randomized, using a 2×2×2 factorial design, in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of adrenaline (0.25 ml of a 1:1,000 solution subcutaneously), promethazine (25 mg intravenously), and hydrocortisone (200 mg intravenously), each alone and in all possible combinations. The interventions, or matching placebo, were given immediately before infusion of antivenom. Patients were monitored for mild, moderate, or severe adverse reactions for at least 96 h. The prespecified primary end point was the effect of the interventions on the incidence of severe reactions up to and including 48 h after antivenom administration. In total, 752 (75%) patients had acute reactions to antivenom: 9% mild, 48% moderate, and 43% severe; 89% of the reactions occurred within 1 h; and 40% of all patients were given rescue medication (adrenaline, promethazine, and hydrocortisone) during the first hour. Compared with placebo, adrenaline significantly reduced severe reactions to antivenom by 43% (95% CI 25–67) at 1 h and by 38% (95% CI 26–49) up to and including 48 h after antivenom administration; hydrocortisone and promethazine did not. Adding hydrocortisone negated the benefit of adrenaline. Conclusions Pretreatment with low-dose adrenaline was safe and reduced the risk of acute severe reactions to snake antivenom. This may be of particular importance in countries where adverse reactions to antivenom are common, although the need to improve the quality of available antivenom cannot be overemphasized

Containers usage on the ATLAS grid infrastructure

Containerization is a lightweight form of virtualization that allows reproducibility and isolation responding to a number of long standing use cases in running the ATLAS software on the grid. The development of Singularity in particular with the capability to run as a standalone executable allows for containers to be integrated in the ATLAS (and other experiments) submission framework. Operating System upgrades, data and software preservation, users' development cycle, software distribution at sites that don’t have middleware and cvmfs, and isolation of the payload from the pilot environment are all use cases which can find a solution in using containers. While singularity seems easy enough to run, the variety of grid sites configurations and workflows still makes it a challenge to use everywhere seamlessly. As usual the answer is to maintain a flexible system. This paper will describe the deployment of containers in the ATLAS experiment

Xcache in the ATLAS Distributed Computing Environment

Inherited from the flexible architecture of Xrootd, Xcache allows a wide range of customization through configurations and plugin modules. This paper describes several completed and ongoing R&D efforts of using Xcache in the LHC ATLAS distributed computing environment, in particular, using Xcache with the ATLAS data management system Rucio for easy-to-use and to improve cache hit rate, to replace Squid and improve distribution of large files in CVMFS, to adapt the HPC environment and the data lake model for efficient data distribution and access for the HPCs

The ATLAS experiment software on ARM

With an increased dataset obtained during the Run-3 of the LHC at CERN and the even larger expected increase of the dataset by more than one order of magnitude for the HL-LHC, the ATLAS experiment is reaching the limits of the current data processing model in terms of traditional CPU resources based on x86\_64 architectures and an extensive program for software upgrades towards the HL-LHC has been set up. The ARM architecture is becoming a competitive and energy efficient alternative. Some surveys indicate its increased presence in HPCs and commercial clouds, and some WLCG sites have expressed their interest. Chip makers are also developing their next generation solutions on ARM architectures, sometimes combining ARM and GPU processors in the same chip. Therefore it is important that the Athena software embraces the change and is able to successfully exploit this architecture. We report on the successful port of the ATLAS experiment offline and online software framework Athena to ARM and the successful physics validation of simulation workflows. For this we have set up an ATLAS Grid site using ARM compatible middleware and containers on Amazon Web Services (AWS) ARM resources. The ARM version of Athena is fully integrated in the regular software build system and distributed like default software releases. In addition, the workflows have been integrated into the HEPscore benchmark suite which is the planned WLCG wide replacement of the HepSpec06 benchmark used for Grid site pledges. In the overall porting process we have used resources on AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and CERN. A performance comparison of different architectures and resources will be discussed

The ATLAS experiment software on ARM

With an increased dataset obtained during the Run-3 of the LHC at CERN and the even larger expected increase of the dataset by more than one order of magnitude for the HL-LHC, the ATLAS experiment is reaching the limits of the current data processing model in terms of traditional CPU resources based on x86_64 architectures and an extensive program for software upgrades towards the HL-LHC has been set up. The ARM architecture is becoming a competitive and energy efficient alternative. Some surveys indicate its increased presence in HPCs and commercial clouds, and some WLCG sites have expressed their interest. Chip makers are also developing their next generation solutions on ARM architectures, sometimes combining ARM and GPU processors in the same chip. Therefore it is important that the Athena software embraces the change and is able to successfully exploit this architecture. We report on the successful port of the ATLAS experiment offline and online software framework Athena to ARM and the successful physics validation of simulation workflows. For this we have set up an ATLAS Grid site using ARM compatible middleware and containers on Amazon Web Services (AWS) ARM resources. The ARM version of Athena is fully integrated in the regular software build system and distributed like default software releases. In addition, the workflows have been integrated into the HepScore benchmark suite which is the planned WLCG wide replacement of the HepSpec06 benchmark used for Grid site pledges. In the overall porting process we have used resources on AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and CERN. A performance comparison of different architectures and resources will be discussed