Academic resilience in education: the role of achievement goal orientations

Introduction: In the past 2 decades, research findings established achievement goal theory as a powerful framework for conceptualizing difference in the quality of student’s engagement, persistence on task, and academic resilience. So the present study examined the relationship between achievement goal orientations and academic resilience. Method: Participants were 606 students (307 girls and 297 boys) selected from Shiraz high schools. They completed the Achievement Goals Questionnaire and Youth development Module Scale (RYDM). To analyze the data, the relationships between variables were examined, using Pearson product– moment correlations. Also simulanteous multiple regression was performed to investigate the prediction of academic resilience by achievement goal orientations. To examine the reliability and the validity of measures Cronbach alpha coefficient and factor analysis method were applied, respectively. Results: Simultaneous multiple regression of achievement goal orientations on academic resilience showed that “mastery-approach” was a significant positive predictor of the “home care/high” and “peer care” subscales. Also, “performance-approach” was a significant, positive predictor of “home care/ high”, and “school/community meaningful” was predicted by “performanceavoidance” positively. Conclusion: According to the findings, it seems that achievement goal orientation has a critical role in students’ academic achievement. Implications of the results are discussed in more details

Comparison of the Effects of One-Step Acupressure of Spleen Point 6 (SP-6) and Gall Bladder 21 (GB-21) on the Duration and Type of Delivery in Nulliparous Women Referred to Hospitals in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran:

Background and Objectives: Sedatives constitute an important part of modern obstetric care. One of the under-investigation methods is the effect of acupressure on reduction of the duration of labor stages. This study was performed aiming at comparison of the effects of one-step acupressure of spleen point 6 (SP-6) and gall bladder 21 (GB-21) on the duration and type of delivery and Apgar of newborne in nulliparous women.Methods: This clinical trial study was performed on 150 nulliparous women. Women were randomly assigned to three groups, including gallbladder 21 acupressure, spleen point 6 acupressure, and control. In first two groups, pressure was performed at 3-4cm cervical dilatation for 20 minutes. In the control group, contact with no pressure was done on the acupressure points and with the same condition of the intervention group. The collected data was analyzed using paired t-test, independent t-test, and one-way variance analysis.Results: In this study, the duration of the active stage of labor in the intervention group was less than control group (p0.05). Also, duration of the second stage of labor in the control group was more than two experimental groups, but the difference was not significant (p>0.05). The three groups, had no significant difference in the fifth minute Apgar score (p>0.05). The number of cesarean sections in the intervention groups were more than control group (p<0.05). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, the acupressure in SP-6 and GB-21 points, in the one-step intervention was equally effective in reducing the duration of active stage of labor

Predicting the effects of environmental parameters on the spatio-temporal distribution of the droplets carrying coronavirus in public transport – a machine learning approach

Human-generated droplets constitute the main route for the transmission of coronavirus. However, the details of such transmission in enclosed environments are yet to be understood. This is because geometrical and environmental parameters can immensely complicate the problem and turn the conventional analyses inefficient. As a remedy, this work develops a predictive tool based on computational fluid dynamics and machine learning to examine the distribution of sneezing droplets in realistic configurations. The time-dependent effects of environmental parameters, including temperature, humidity and ventilation rate, upon the droplets with diameters between 1 and 250μm are investigated inside a bus. It is shown that humidity can profoundly affect the droplets distribution, such that 10% increase in relative humidity results in 30% increase in the droplets density at the farthest point from a sneezing passenger. Further, ventilation process is found to feature dual effects on the droplets distribution. Simple increases in the ventilation rate may accelerate the droplets transmission. However, carefully tailored injection of fresh air enhances deposition of droplets on the surfaces and thus reduces their concentration in the bus. Finally, the analysis identifies an optimal range of temperature, humidity and ventilation rate to maintain human comfort while minimising the transmission of droplets

Keyword and phrase extraction from Persian texts: A review of the literature

Keyword and phrase extraction is a prerequisite of many natural language processing tasks. However, a review on the related Persian and English literature showed that a few studies have already been done on how to extract keywords and phrases from Persian texts. Thus, aiming to shed light on the research status of Keyword and phrase extraction from Persian texts, the present study reviews the Persian and English publications which have assessed their research ideas over Persian texts. We also focus on each of the studies to challenge their methodologies, implementations and evaluation methods and measures. To our knowledge, a total number of 14 Persian and 6 English papers exist which have worked on the extraction of Persian keywords and phrases. Investigating on the papers revealed that they were mostly based on statistical and linguistic information. A majority of the papers suffered from the lack of either appropriate methodologies or lucid explanation of their research ideas. They generally used non-standard datasets and vague or problematic metrics to evaluate the experimental systems. Generally speaking, except 3 papers that appropriately reported their proposed methods, the other papers lacked reproducibility and generalizability. Hence, their results cannot be confidently used as a benchmark in evaluating future works, and their proposed ideas cannot be employed in developing applications for extraction of key words and phrases from Persian texts

Synthesis, in-vitro biological evaluation, and molecular docking study of novel spiro-βlactam-isatin hybrids

International audienceIn our ongoing search for bioactive compounds, a class of novel spiro-β-lactam isatin hybrids has been synthesized through a [2 + 2] cycloaddition reaction from 1-allyl-3-(arylimino)indolin-2-one, ketenes and various aryloxy acetic acids. The formation of all cycloadducts was confirmed by FTIR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and mass spectroscopy as well as elemental analyses. The new β-lactams were subsequently evaluated for their biological activities demonstrating moderate to good activities against P. falciparum K1 strain. Among them, 4b and 4e lead to the best results with IC50 of 5.04 and 7.18 µM, respectively. The molecular docking simulation of 4b with P. falciparum dihydrofolate reductase enzyme (PfDHFR) binding site presented several important intermolecular interactions. All the synthesized β-lactams were also evaluated for their antimicrobial activities against both Gram-positive (S. aureus ATCC 25923) and Gram-negative bacteria (E. coli ATCC 28922, P. aeruginosa ATCC 27853) but unfortunately MICs up to 200 µg/mL were encountered in all cases