Exploring Practical Potentials of Business Simulation Games

With the emergence of the digital generation, advances in technology, and the trend towards more experiential learning formats, business simulation games (BSGs) are increasingly used by educators today. Of interest in this paper is the extent to which serious game playing, for business and technology professionals, influences work behaviors in practice. This study explores the business professional’s sense-making process when consciously reasoning about how BSG learning influences business practice. We adapt Toulmin’s framework for deconstructing practical reasoning to capture, analyze, and elicit patterns within arguments made regarding the application of BSG learning to business practice. The findings contribute to theories related to BSGs, and thus would benefit those practitioners who use BSGs

Flow in Business Simulation Games: Comparison between Online and Face-to-Face MBA

This study explores the role of flow and its relationship with other elements of Business Simulation Games (BSGs) used in different MBA course delivery methods, namely online vs. face-to-face (F2F). We collect level of flow and other game behavioral variables from young professionals enrolled in an MBA Technology and Operations Management course. We analyze the data with one-way ANOVA to explore flow measures across different course delivery methods. The findings show there exist differences in flow level and performance measures between online and F2F formats

Some Physiological Responses of Clarias gariepinus Fed Graded Levels of Cirina forda Larvae Based Diets

The study examined the growth performance, hematological and digestive enzymes of Clarias gariepinus juveniles fed Cirina forda meal (CFM) based diets in the laboratory for a period of 10weeks. Five iso-nitrogenous (30%) experimental diets were formulated at various levels of CFM inclusion levels of 0% (control), 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%, designated as diets Q, A10, B20, C30, D40 and E50 respectively. Fish fed the CFM based diets showed mean weight gain (MWG), specific growth rate (SGR) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) comparable to the control diet. There was significant differences in the digestive enzyme activities of the fish as the CFM level in the experimental diets increased. Protease and maltase activities significantly increased, with diet C30 recording the highest maltase activity (4.37) while the cellulase and glucanase activities of the fish significantly (P0.05) between the PCV and RBC of the blood of the fish fed the various diets. Highest RBC (2.75 x106/µL) was obtained in fish fed the control diet while the lowest (2.55 x106/µL) was recorded in the fish fed diet E50. The White Blood Cell count and the Neutrophils of the fish fed the trial diets were not significantly higher (P>0.05) than those of the fish fed the control diets. From the results of this experiment, it is concluded that up to 50% inclusion level of Cirina forda meal in the diet of Clarias gariepinus was tolerable for good growth and physiological well-being of the fish

Shape Space Methods for Quantum Cosmological Triangleland

With toy modelling of conceptual aspects of quantum cosmology and the problem of time in quantum gravity in mind, I study the classical and quantum dynamics of the pure-shape (i.e. scale-free) triangle formed by 3 particles in 2-d. I do so by importing techniques to the triangle model from the corresponding 4 particles in 1-d model, using the fact that both have 2-spheres for shape spaces, though the latter has a trivial realization whilst the former has a more involved Hopf (or Dragt) type realization. I furthermore interpret the ensuing Dragt-type coordinates as shape quantities: a measure of anisoscelesness, the ellipticity of the base and apex's moments of inertia, and a quantity proportional to the area of the triangle. I promote these quantities at the quantum level to operators whose expectation and spread are then useful in understanding the quantum states of the system. Additionally, I tessellate the 2-sphere by its physical interpretation as the shape space of triangles, and then use this as a back-cloth from which to read off the interpretation of dynamical trajectories, potentials and wavefunctions. I include applications to timeless approaches to the problem of time and to the role of uniform states in quantum cosmological modelling.Comment: A shorter version, as per the first stage in the refereeing process, and containing some new reference

Pod shattering: A homologous series of variation underlying domestication and an avenue for crop improvement

All rights reserved. In wild habitats, fruit dehiscence is a critical strategy for seed dispersal; however, in cultivated crops it is one of the major sources of yield loss. Therefore, indehiscence of fruits, pods, etc., was likely to be one of the first traits strongly selected in crop domestication. Even with the historical selection against dehiscence in early domesticates, it is a trait still targeted in many breeding programs, particularly in minor or underutilized crops. Here, we review dehiscence in pulse (grain legume) crops, which are of growing importance as a source of protein in human and livestock diets, and which have received less attention than cereal crops and the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We specifically focus on the (i) history of indehiscence in domestication across legumes, (ii) structures and the mechanisms involved in shattering, (iii) the molecular pathways underlying this important trait, (iv) an overview of the extent of crop losses due to shattering, and the effects of environmental factors on shattering, and, (v) efforts to reduce shattering in crops. While our focus is mainly pulse crops, we also included comparisons to crucifers and cereals because there is extensive research on shattering in these taxa

Residues and World-Sheet Instantons

We reconsider the question of which Calabi-Yau compactifications of the heterotic string are stable under world-sheet instanton corrections to the effective space-time superpotential. For instance, compactifications described by (0,2) linear sigma models are believed to be stable, suggesting a remarkable cancellation among the instanton effects in these theories. Here, we show that this cancellation follows directly from a residue theorem, whose proof relies only upon the right-moving world-sheet supersymmetries and suitable compactness properties of the (0,2) linear sigma model. Our residue theorem also extends to a new class of "half-linear" sigma models. Using these half-linear models, we show that heterotic compactifications on the quintic hypersurface in CP^4 for which the gauge bundle pulls back from a bundle on CP^4 are stable. Finally, we apply similar ideas to compute the superpotential contributions from families of membrane instantons in M-theory compactifications on manifolds of G_2 holonomy.Comment: 47 page

High temporal resolution sampling reveals reef fish settlement is highly clustered

Coral reef fish larvae settle on reefs predominantly at night around the new-moon phase, after an early developmental period spent in the pelagic environment. Most sampling is conducted across whole nights, and any studies that have examined the frequency of arrival within nights have typically been limited to coarse sampling time scales of 1–5 h. Here, we present results for arrival numbers of fish caught between dusk and midnight from light traps sampled every 15 min at an Indonesian coral reef, providing the finest temporal resolution for this type of study to date. A spatial analysis by distance indices analysis, adapted to temporal data, revealed clustering of reef arrival times for many species, with an increase in catches immediately after dusk dropping off towards midnight. Importantly, the timing of clusters differed among species, indicating that different factors determine the timing of arrival among taxa. Our results support the hypothesis that larval behaviour influences the timing of arrival at a coral reef for different fish species

Accessing bacterial dark matter for improved enzyme discovery and engineering

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Three-dimensional general relativistic hydrodynamics II: long-term dynamics of single relativistic stars

This is the second in a series of papers on the construction and validation of a three-dimensional code for the solution of the coupled system of the Einstein equations and of the general relativistic hydrodynamic equations, and on the application of this code to problems in general relativistic astrophysics. In particular, we report on the accuracy of our code in the long-term dynamical evolution of relativistic stars and on some new physics results obtained in the process of code testing. The tests involve single non-rotating stars in stable equilibrium, non-rotating stars undergoing radial and quadrupolar oscillations, non-rotating stars on the unstable branch of the equilibrium configurations migrating to the stable branch, non-rotating stars undergoing gravitational collapse to a black hole, and rapidly rotating stars in stable equilibrium and undergoing quasi-radial oscillations. The numerical evolutions have been carried out in full general relativity using different types of polytropic equations of state using either the rest-mass density only, or the rest-mass density and the internal energy as independent variables. New variants of the spacetime evolution and new high resolution shock capturing (HRSC) treatments based on Riemann solvers and slope limiters have been implemented and the results compared with those obtained from previous methods. Finally, we have obtained the first eigenfrequencies of rotating stars in full general relativity and rapid rotation. A long standing problem, such frequencies have not been obtained by other methods. Overall, and to the best of our knowledge, the results presented in this paper represent the most accurate long-term three-dimensional evolutions of relativistic stars available to date.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figure