Survey of Valinokkam Bay and adjoining area to assess its suitability for integrated sea farming — A report

The Valinokkam Bay and the adjoining area, east of the Bay surveyed, lie between Lat. 9°9' N and 9° 12' N and Long. 78°30'E and 78°42'E . The available information indicates that the bay and the adjoining grounds in the sea are highly productive and suitable for sea farming activities

Schizophrenia, tardive dyskinesia and essential fatty acids

Several reports have indicated that people suffering from schizophrenia show an associated abnormality in levels of certain essential fatty acids (EFAs) in blood cells. Similar abnormalities have also been noted in association with the presence of tardive dyskinesia (TD). In order to study this further, 72 patients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were examined to assess the relationship between psychiatric status, movement disorder (TD) and relative levels of the n-3 and n-6 essential fatty acids in red blood cell membranes and plasma. Patients were followed up over the next 4.5 years to determine whether or not changes in clinical state showed any systematic relationship to changes in essential fatty acid levels. We hypothesised that patients with schizophrenia would show persistently lowered levels of n-6 and n-3 series essential fatty acids, compared with normal controls. We further hypothesised that this abnormality would be greater in the presence versus absence of TD and the dominance of negative rather than positive symptoms. The only consistent findings were that lower levels of linoleic acid and higher levels of dihomogamma-linolenic acid characterised the patient population compared with control subjects but there was considerable variability in patients' EFA profile.Krishna S. Vaddadi, Christopher J. Gilleard, Eileen Soosai, A.K. Polonowita, Robert A. Gibson, Graham D. Burrow

Should Explanations of Program Code Use Audio, Text, or Both? A Replication Study

Studies in educational psychology suggest that people learn better when visual learning materials are accompanied by audio explanations rather than textual ones. Research on how this modality effect applies to computing education is scarce and inconclusive. We explore whether modality of instruction affects learning from videos that use a series of example programs to explain how variables work in Python. Learners (n=186) were crowdsourced from the internet and randomized in three groups, who received explanations as audio, text, or both, respectively. We did not find significant differences between the groups in near transfer to code-tracing tasks or perceived cognitive load. The result affirms the need to further investigate instructional modalities in programming education. There are a number of theoretical, methodological, and instructional-design factors that may explain these and earlier findings; we trace out future research that could explore those factors.Peer reviewe

Measurement Invariance of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire Across 17 Countries

The Meaning in Life Questionnaire assesses presence of and search for meaning in life. Although the questionnaire has shown promising psychometric properties in samples from diferent countries, the scale’s measurement invariance across a large number of nations has yet to be assessed. This study is aimed at addressing this gap, providing insight into how meaning in life is constructed and experienced across countries and into the extent to which cross-country comparisons can be made. A total of 3867 adult participants from 17 countries, aged 30–60, balanced by gen der, and with at least secondary education, completed the questionnaire as part of the Eudaimonic and Hedonic Happiness Investigation. Single sample confrmatory factor analysis, multigroup confrmatory factor analysis, and alignment optimiza tion were applied to investigate the scale’s performance across the samples. Good psychometric properties and high levels of approximate measurement invariance emerged for the Presence subscale after removal of item 9, the only reverse-phrased item. Performance of the Search subscale varied more across samples, suggesting caution in interpreting related results supporting approximate measurement invari ance. The conceptualization of presence of meaning operationalized in the corre sponding subscale (without item 9) appears consistent across countries, whereas search for meaning seems to be less universally homogenous and requires further exploration. Moreover, the Meaning in Life Questionnaire does not refect the con ceptual distinction between “purpose” and “meaning” currently acknowledged by researchers. This issue should be further explored in studies addressing the scale’s performance across culture

Measurement Invariance of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire Across 17 Countries

The Meaning in Life Questionnaire assesses presence of and search for meaning in life. Although the questionnaire has shown promising psychometric properties in samples from different countries, the scale’s measurement invariance across a large number of nations has yet to be assessed. This study is aimed at addressing this gap, providing insight into how meaning in life is constructed and experienced across countries and into the extent to which cross-country comparisons can be made. A total of 3867 adult participants from 17 countries, aged 30–60, balanced by gender, and with at least secondary education, completed the questionnaire as part of the Eudaimonic and Hedonic Happiness Investigation. Single sample confirmatory factor analysis, multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, and alignment optimization were applied to investigate the scale’s performance across the samples. Good psychometric properties and high levels of approximate measurement invariance emerged for the Presence subscale after removal of item 9, the only reverse-phrased item. Performance of the Search subscale varied more across samples, suggesting caution in interpreting related results supporting approximate measurement invariance. The conceptualization of presence of meaning operationalized in the corresponding subscale (without item 9) appears consistent across countries, whereas search for meaning seems to be less universally homogenous and requires further exploration. Moreover, the Meaning in Life Questionnaire does not reflect the conceptual distinction between “purpose” and “meaning” currently acknowledged by researchers. This issue should be further explored in studies addressing the scale’s performance across cultures.Fil: Schutte, Lusilda. North West University; SudáfricaFil: Brdar, Ingrid. University of Rijeka; CroaciaFil: Wissing, Marié P.. North West University; SudáfricaFil: Tončić, Marko. University of Rijeka; CroaciaFil: Araujo, Ulisses. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Carlquist, Erik. University of Oslo; NoruegaFil: Castro Solano, Alejandro. Universidad de Palermo; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Freire, Teresa. University of Minho; BrasilFil: Hernández Pozo, María del Rocío. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Jose, Paul E.. Victoria University of Wellington; Estados UnidosFil: Martos, Tamás. University of Szeged; HungríaFil: Nakamura, Jeanne. Claremont Graduate University; Estados UnidosFil: Nuñez del Prado Chaves, Pamela. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; PerúFil: Russo Netzer, Pninit. University of Haifa; IsraelFil: Singh, Kamlesh. Indian Institute of Technology Delhi; IndiaFil: Slezackova, Alena. Masaryk University; República ChecaFil: Soosai Nathan, Lawrence. MK University; IndiaFil: Unanue, Wenceslao. Universidad Adolfo Ibañez; ChileFil: Vella Brodrick, Dianne A.. University of Melbourne; AustraliaFil: Delle Fave, Antonella. Università degli Studi di Milano; Itali