The role of Social Capital in Education Literature: A Critical Synthesis

This critical synthesis incorporates both theoretical and empirical literature on social capital. A primary role of social capital is to enable a child to gain access to human, cultural, and economic capital, as well as to school resources and support. The focus of the review is on educational literature that studies social capital and educational equity. After outlining the approach, next, the study undertakes a critical review of the literature by first examining emphatical literature, trends in conceptualization, theoretical base, method and then assessing empirical support for claims that social capital is positively linked to education equity. Finally, discuss gaps in the conceptualization, measurement, and analysis of social cultural, economic and human capital in educational literature. Keywords: educational equity, literature reviews, social, economic, cultural and human capita

Current distribution and abundance of slender lorises (Loris tardigradus and L. Iydekkerianus) in Sri Lanka

Two species of slender lorises are currently recognized in Sri Lanka. They are Sri Lanka red slenderloris (Loris tardigradusj and Grey slender loris (L. lydekkerianus i, with four currently recognizedsub-species; viz. Western red slender loris (L. t. tardigradus), Montane slender loris (L. t.nycticeboidesi, Northern grey slender loris (L. 1.nordicusi, and Highland slender loris (L. 1.grandis).The objective of this survey was to map the distribution and estimate the abundance of lorises in SriLanka. The study was initiated in 2002 and continues to date. Thus far forty-five sites across all ofthe ecological zones have been surveyed covering approximately 400 krn-. In six of these sites, loriseswere not recorded. Of the other 39 sites, 223 sightings of slender loris (L. t. tardigradus (n = 86), L.t. nycticeboides (n = 3), L. 1. nordicus (n = 122), and L. l. grandis (n = 12). Abundance estimates, 'base on sightings of animals krn', were: L. t. tardigradus (0.5-8), L. t. nycticeboides (0.03), L. I.nordicus (0.7-13). and L. 1. grandis (0.3-4) were recorded. The abundance of lorises varied indifferent habitat types with the highest abundance oflorises occurring in the dry zone monsoon forests.The least abundance of lorises was recorded in the cloud forest

EXTENDED COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF A BIOGAS GENERATION PLANT

Solid waste is a growing problem in Sri Lanka in the absence of proper managementmeasures. Development and implementation of a National strategy for municipal solidwaste management is essential in order to reduce environmental, social and the economicproblems associated with the present disposal practices. Such strategies however, need tobe subjected to proper economic analysis in order to arrive at informed decisions. Thispaper presents an extended cost benefit analysis of a biogas generation plant that usesmunicipal solid waste as the raw material.To dispose vegetable market garbage available in Wattala, Kandana and Ja-ela areas a640 Mt capacity biogas/ bio fertilizer project has been housed at Muthurajawela (alongHamilton canal, Elakanda), by the National Engineering Research & DevelopmentCenter of Sri Lanka (NERDC) which uses Dry Batch Anaerobic Digester Technology.Among the other biological treatment options, anaerobic digestion is the most costeffective, due to the high-energy recovery linked to the process and its limitedenvironmental impacts.Economic analysis has been carried out to identify environmental costs and benefitsassociated with the above project. Several environmental valuation methods have beenapplied to value the identified costs and benefits. The main benefit of reduction ofmunicipal solid waste has been estimated by contingent valuation method using samplesfrom Wattala-Mabola, Ja-ela, and Peliyagoda local authority areas. Another benefit is thereduction of green house has emission due to the reduction of open dumping. Greenhouse gas (methane) emission from solid waste was estimated through Sholl Canionmodel and valued using avoided global damage cost approach. Benefits of biogas asenergy and organic fertilizers and employment benefits were estimated by market basedapproachesThe project is viable from economy and environment point of view with net present valueof Rs 142 million for a 20-year period with 10% discount rate. This analysis provides ajustification for undertaking solid waste management strategies in a technologically,environmentally and economically viable manner

Self-Regulation in a Web-Based Course: A Case Study

Little is known about how successful students in Web-based courses self-regulate their learning. This descriptive case study used a social cognitive model of self-regulated learning (SRL) to investigate how six graduate students used and adapted traditional SRL strategies to complete tasks and cope with challenges in a Web-based technology course; it also explored motivational and environmental influences on strategy use. Primary data sources were three transcribed interviews with each of the students over the course of the semester, a transcribed interview with the course instructor, and the students’ reflective journals. Archived course documents, including transcripts of threaded discussions and student Web pages, were secondary data sources. Content analysis of the data indicated that these students used many traditional SRL strategies, but they also adapted planning, organization, environmental structuring, help seeking, monitoring, record keeping, and self-reflection strategies in ways that were unique to the Web-based learning environment. The data also suggested that important motivational influences on SRL strategy use—self-efficacy, goal orientation, interest, and attributions—were shaped largely by student successes in managing the technical and social environment of the course. Important environmental influences on SRL strategy use included instructor support, peer support, and course design. Implications for online course instructors and designers, and suggestions for future research are offered

Assessment on timber and carbon in rubber plantations with special reference to the wet zone of Sri Lanka

Rubber (Hevea brasilensiss has traditionally been cultivated for the latex extraction; however, itsimportance in other uses, particularly producing quality timber and sequestering atmospheric carbonas a permanent sink, is also often highlighted. The amount of timber produced and carbon sequesteredin rubber trees has been assessed in isolations. Those values would differ under different growthconditions and to date, no simple protocol is available to quantify the amount of timber and carbon inrubber plantations. Therefore, the study reported here was aimed to develop simple growth models toassess the timber production and carbon fixing capability of rubber plantations in Sri Lanka.Initially, a growth function was developed to assess the girth development with respect to age andthereafter another three functions to quantify the amount of timber, biomass and carbon in the rubbertree based on girth diameter. Also, wood density variation with age of the tree was modeled todetermine the biomass in timber under different age categories. The assessment on the availablecarbon was based on the carbon content in unit biomass and the total amount of biomass in the tree.Growth data required for the girth development function were gathered from secondary sources andgirth measurements made on existing rubber clearings. Destructive sampling was conducted to assessthe timber, biomass and wood density.Based on above models, an average rubber tree at 30 years achieves a girth of 88.64 ern and produces0.656 m' of timber and 594.46 kg of biomass. The amount of atmospheric carbon fixed in timber atthis age was estimated as 193.7 kg per tree and 45.86 MT per hectare. However, total amount oforganic carbon fixed in above ground components was 220.8 kg per tree and 52.27 MT per hectare.The models of this study were developed under general conditions in the wet zone, hence should bevalidated for drier regions of the country before any wide scale adoption.

Designing electronic collaborative learning environments

Electronic collaborative learning environments for learning and working are in vogue. Designers design them according to their own constructivist interpretations of what collaborative learning is and what it should achieve. Educators employ them with different educational approaches and in diverse situations to achieve different ends. Students use them, sometimes very enthusiastically, but often in a perfunctory way. Finally, researchers study them and—as is usually the case when apples and oranges are compared—find no conclusive evidence as to whether or not they work, where they do or do not work, when they do or do not work and, most importantly, why, they do or do not work. This contribution presents an affordance framework for such collaborative learning environments; an interaction design procedure for designing, developing, and implementing them; and an educational affordance approach to the use of tasks in those environments. It also presents the results of three projects dealing with these three issues

Singularly Perturbed Monotone Systems and an Application to Double Phosphorylation Cycles

The theory of monotone dynamical systems has been found very useful in the modeling of some gene, protein, and signaling networks. In monotone systems, every net feedback loop is positive. On the other hand, negative feedback loops are important features of many systems, since they are required for adaptation and precision. This paper shows that, provided that these negative loops act at a comparatively fast time scale, the main dynamical property of (strongly) monotone systems, convergence to steady states, is still valid. An application is worked out to a double-phosphorylation ``futile cycle'' motif which plays a central role in eukaryotic cell signaling.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures, corrected typos, references remove

Unlimited multistability in multisite phosphorylation systems

Reversible phosphorylation on serine, threonine and tyrosine is the most widely studied posttranslational modification of proteins (1, 2). The number of phosphorylated sites on a protein (n) shows a significant increase from prokaryotes, with n less than or equal to 7 sites, to eukaryotes, with examples having n greater than or equal to 150 sites (3). Multisite phosphorylation has many roles (4, 5) and site conservation indicates that increasing numbers of sites cannot be due merely to promiscuous phosphorylation. A substrate with n sites has an exponential number (2^n) of phospho-forms and individual phospho-forms may have distinct biological effects (6, 7). The distribution of these phospho-forms and how this distribution is regulated have remained unknown. Here we show that, when kinase and phosphatase act in opposition on a multisite substrate, the system can exhibit distinct stable phospho-form distributions at steady state and that the maximum number of such distributions increases with n. Whereas some stable distributions are focused on a single phospho-form, others are more diffuse, giving the phospho-proteome the potential to behave as a fluid regulatory network able to encode information and flexibly respond to varying demands. Such plasticity may underlie complex information processing in eukaryotic cells (8) and suggests a functional advantage in having many sites. Our results follow from the unusual geometry of the steady-state phospho-form concentrations, which we show to constitute a rational algebraic curve, irrespective of n. We thereby reduce the complexity of calculating steady states from simulating 3 times 2^n differential equations to solving two algebraic equations, while treating parameters symbolically. We anticipate that these methods can be extended to systems with multiple substrates and multiple enzymes catalysing different modifications, as found in posttranslational modification 'codes' (9) such as the histone code (10, 11). Whereas simulations struggle with exponentially increasing molecular complexity, mathematical methods of the kind developed here can provide a new language in which to articulate the principles of cellular information processing (12)

Association between footwear use and neglected tropical diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND The control of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) has primarily focused on preventive chemotherapy and case management. Less attention has been placed on the role of ensuring access to adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene and personal preventive measures in reducing exposure to infection. Our aim was to assess whether footwear use was associated with a lower risk of selected NTDs. METHODOLOGY We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the association between footwear use and infection or disease for those NTDs for which the route of transmission or occurrence may be through the feet. We included Buruli ulcer, cutaneous larva migrans (CLM), leptospirosis, mycetoma, myiasis, podoconiosis, snakebite, tungiasis, and soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections, particularly hookworm infection and strongyloidiasis. We searched Medline, Embase, Cochrane, Web of Science, CINAHL Plus, and Popline databases, contacted experts, and hand-searched reference lists for eligible studies. The search was conducted in English without language, publication status, or date restrictions up to January 2014. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they reported a measure of the association between footwear use and the risk of each NTD. Publication bias was assessed using funnel plots. Descriptive study characteristics and methodological quality of the included studies were summarized. For each study outcome, both outcome and exposure data were abstracted and crude and adjusted effect estimates presented. Individual and summary odds ratio (OR) estimates and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated as a measure of intervention effect, using random effects meta-analyses. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Among the 427 studies screened, 53 met our inclusion criteria. Footwear use was significantly associated with a lower odds of infection of Buruli ulcer (OR=0.15; 95% CI: 0.08-0.29), CLM (OR=0.24; 95% CI: 0.06-0.96), tungiasis (OR=0.42; 95% CI: 0.26-0.70), hookworm infection (OR=0.48; 95% CI: 0.37-0.61), any STH infection (OR=0.57; 95% CI: 0.39-0.84), strongyloidiasis (OR=0.56; 95% CI: 0.38-0.83), and leptospirosis (OR=0.59; 95% CI: 0.37-0.94). No significant association between footwear use and podoconiosis (OR=0.63; 95% CI: 0.38-1.05) was found and no data were available for mycetoma, myiasis, and snakebite. The main limitations were evidence of heterogeneity and poor study quality inherent to the observational studies included. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Our results show that footwear use was associated with a lower odds of several different NTDs. Access to footwear should be prioritized alongside existing NTD interventions to ensure a lasting reduction of multiple NTDs and to accelerate their control and elimination. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews CRD42012003338

Communication and proximity effects on outcomes attributable to sense of presence in distance bioinformatics education

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Online learning is increasingly popular in medical education and sense of presence has been posited as a factor contributing to its success. Communication media influences on sense of presence and learning outcomes were explored in this study. Test performance and ratings of instruction and technology, factors influenced by sense of presence, are compared under four conditions involving different media and degrees of student physical presence: 1) videoconference co-located, 2) webcast co-located, 3) videoconference dispersed, and 4) webcast dispersed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eighty one first to forth year medical students heard a lecture on telemedicine and were asked to collaboratively search a telemedicine website under conditions where the lecture was delivered by videoconference or one way streaming (webcast) and where students were either co-located or dispersed. In the videoconference conditions, co-located students could use the technology to interact with the instructor and could interact with each other face to face, while the dispersed students could use the technology to interact with both the instructor and each other. In the webcast conditions, all students could use chat to communicate with the instructor or each other, although the co-located students also could interact orally. After hearing the lecture, students collaboratively searched a telemedicine website, took a test on lecture-website content and rated the instruction and the technology they used. Test scores on lecture and website content and ratings of instruction and technology for the four conditions were compared with analysis of variance and chi-square tests.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were no significant differences in overall measures, although there were on selected ratings of instruction. Students in both webcast conditions indicated they were encouraged more to follow up on their own and felt instruction was more interactive than co-located videoconferencing students. Dispersed videoconferencing students indicated the highest levels of interaction and there was evidence they interacted more.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Results do not strongly support proximity as a sense of presence factor affecting performance and attitudes, but do suggest communication medium may affect interactivity.</p