The impact of the intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors on pre-service second language teachers' identity construction

Purpose – This article reports on the intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors that shaped the professional identity (PI) construction of five ESL Malaysian pre-service teachers (PSTs) during microteaching classes and teaching practicum. Design/methodology/approach – The study is qualitative in nature aiming to give voice to ESL PSTs and allow them share their personal experience while constructing their professional identity. The semi-interview data were supported by observation data to validate what PSTs report in their interview. The researchers chose junctural points in the PI construction journey to follow the developmental line of PI growth and to live the experience with the participant. The project was a co-construction of knowledge and enabled a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. Findings – This inquiry revealed that PI is dynamic and changing constantly as one reinterprets and reevaluates self and interact and react to the various intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors in their context. At the intrapersonal level, lack of practical experience and intrinsic motivation and sense of low self-efficacy created a perception of low PI in the beginning of the simulated practice. The findings also show that supportive interpersonal relationships developed within a facilitating context such as the simulated teaching class smoothed the emergence of high PI. However, when the interpersonal relationships and ecological context in the practicum settings were challenging, they hindered PI development and led to a PI crisis. Practical implications – The article offers recommendations to enhance the pivotal role of teaching practice during PSTs' journey of becoming. Originality/value – This study was conducted in one of the understudied contexts in regards of PI construction. It captured a holistic view of the PI construction. It showed that the interplay of interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, in addition to ecological factors, is not isolated from each other. On the contrary, they were like a cycle circumscribing the PSTs and impact their PI construction. Hence, the authors believe that the study contributed with a comprehensive understanding of pre-service PI construction

Why do consumers trust online travel websites? Drivers and outcomes of consumer trust toward online travel websites

Egypt is currently one of the leading nations especially in the Middle East region with a well-established e-commerce environment and advanced IT infrastructure, but rapid growth of e-commerce will soon occur in other nations with similar consumption patterns. This study tests a model of antecedents (consumer experience, propensity to trust, reputation, perceived website size, ease of use, perceived usefulness, and website quality) and consequences of consumers’ trust toward online travel websites. Trust is expected to predict consumer attitude, perceived risk, and intention to purchase travel online. Data of 1,431 users of online travel websites were selected from the Supreme Council of Universities Database–Egypt (SCU) and analyzed through structural equation modeling. The findings show that all the aforementioned factors with the exception of consumer experience influence consumer trust toward online travel websites. Trust influences consumers’ attitude, perceived risk, and intention to purchase travel online

SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest and concern naming scheme conducive for global discourse

A group convened and led by the Virus Evolution Working Group of the World Health Organization reports on its deliberations and announces a naming scheme that will enable clear communication about SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest and concern.Molecular basis of virus replication, viral pathogenesis and antiviral strategie

Syndromics: A Bioinformatics Approach for Neurotrauma Research

Substantial scientific progress has been made in the past 50 years in delineating many of the biological mechanisms involved in the primary and secondary injuries following trauma to the spinal cord and brain. These advances have highlighted numerous potential therapeutic approaches that may help restore function after injury. Despite these advances, bench-to-bedside translation has remained elusive. Translational testing of novel therapies requires standardized measures of function for comparison across different laboratories, paradigms, and species. Although numerous functional assessments have been developed in animal models, it remains unclear how to best integrate this information to describe the complete translational “syndrome” produced by neurotrauma. The present paper describes a multivariate statistical framework for integrating diverse neurotrauma data and reviews the few papers to date that have taken an information-intensive approach for basic neurotrauma research. We argue that these papers can be described as the seminal works of a new field that we call “syndromics”, which aim to apply informatics tools to disease models to characterize the full set of mechanistic inter-relationships from multi-scale data. In the future, centralized databases of raw neurotrauma data will enable better syndromic approaches and aid future translational research, leading to more efficient testing regimens and more clinically relevant findings

Middle East - North Africa and the millennium development goals : implications for German development cooperation

          Closed-loop controlled combustion is a promising technique to improve the overall performance of internal combustion engines and Diesel engines in particular. In order for this technique to be implemented some form of feedback from the combustion process is required. The feedback signal is processed and from it combustionrelated parameters are computed. These parameters are then fed to a control process which drives a series of outputs (e.g. injection timing in Diesel engines) to control their values. This paper’s focus lies on the processing and computation that is needed on the feedback signal before this is ready to be fed to the control process as well as on the electronics necessary to support it. A number of feedback alternatives are briefly discussed and for one of them, the in-cylinder pressure sensor, the CA50 (crank angle in which the integrated heat release curve reaches its 50% value) and the IMEP (Indicated Mean Effective Pressure) are identified as two potential control variables. The hardware architecture of a system capable of calculating both of them on-line is proposed and necessary feasibility size and speed considerations are made by implementing critical blocks in VHDL targeting a flash-based Actel ProASIC3 automotive-grade FPGA

Evaluation of appendicitis risk prediction models in adults with suspected appendicitis

Background Appendicitis is the most common general surgical emergency worldwide, but its diagnosis remains challenging. The aim of this study was to determine whether existing risk prediction models can reliably identify patients presenting to hospital in the UK with acute right iliac fossa (RIF) pain who are at low risk of appendicitis. Methods A systematic search was completed to identify all existing appendicitis risk prediction models. Models were validated using UK data from an international prospective cohort study that captured consecutive patients aged 16–45 years presenting to hospital with acute RIF in March to June 2017. The main outcome was best achievable model specificity (proportion of patients who did not have appendicitis correctly classified as low risk) whilst maintaining a failure rate below 5 per cent (proportion of patients identified as low risk who actually had appendicitis). Results Some 5345 patients across 154 UK hospitals were identified, of which two‐thirds (3613 of 5345, 67·6 per cent) were women. Women were more than twice as likely to undergo surgery with removal of a histologically normal appendix (272 of 964, 28·2 per cent) than men (120 of 993, 12·1 per cent) (relative risk 2·33, 95 per cent c.i. 1·92 to 2·84; P < 0·001). Of 15 validated risk prediction models, the Adult Appendicitis Score performed best (cut‐off score 8 or less, specificity 63·1 per cent, failure rate 3·7 per cent). The Appendicitis Inflammatory Response Score performed best for men (cut‐off score 2 or less, specificity 24·7 per cent, failure rate 2·4 per cent). Conclusion Women in the UK had a disproportionate risk of admission without surgical intervention and had high rates of normal appendicectomy. Risk prediction models to support shared decision‐making by identifying adults in the UK at low risk of appendicitis were identified