Teachers’ and educator’s perceptions and experiences of maker education:readiness, attitudes, and challenges

Abstract. Maker education can be recognized as one of the most recent and autonomous learning strategy which helps the students to explore themselves in different ways while polishing a particular skill in their way. This study aims to identify the perceptions and experiences of teachers and educators towards the use of maker education while evaluating their technical readiness towards the use of resources, their attitude towards maker education, and lastly, explaining the challenges which teachers are facing in the current scenario regarding the maker education activities. This research study is based on Qualitative analysis, as it is going to investigate the quality of certain perspectives and particular situations while aiming for an in-depth analysis of the situation regarding maker education. The data collection tool being selected was the survey Questionnaire, which was distributed to 14 university teachers and educators while focusing on various international educational setups. The targeted audience for this research belongs to Finland, the University of Oulu, and the University of Helsinki. But the most distinguished and amazing aspect of this research was to get involved with two professors from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), the University of Malmo (Sweden), and Omnia (Estonia). The research finding indicates that time management during activities was found to be a challenge for the educators, as teachers were mostly new to digital fabrication and they needed time to incorporate maker education activities in the educational curriculum. As far as the teacher’s interest towards the integration of maker education into pedagogical education is concerned, most of them were found in favor of aligning the maker spaces with the professional standards for teachers. Computational and digital learning is found to be an area, where some of the teachers need to learn these skills to implement digital fabrication in maker spaces. As far as the pedagogical integration of curriculum and maker activities is concerned, all the respondents were found to be very optimistic and agreed towards the successful integration, as many of them were already using this technique in their particular subject method. A positive attitude can be seen from teachers and the challenges can be resolved with a little effort from both sides either it is the management or the educators

Anatomy and Physiology of Knee Stability

Knee instability has been the focus of large number of studies over the last decade; however, a high incidence rate of injury still exists. The aim of this short report is to examine knee joint anatomy and physiology with respect to knee stability. Knee joint stability requires the integration of a complex set of anatomical structures and physiological mechanism. Compromising any of these structures leads to destabilisation and increased risk of injuries. This review highlights the structure and soft tissue of the knee that contribute to its stability and function. This introduction is part of the Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology’s Special Issue “The Knee: Structure, Function and Rehabilitation”

Randomised feasibility study of a novel experience-based internet intervention to support self-management in chronic asthma.

ElectronicPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Physical and Chemical Characterization of Drag Reducing Polymer Based on Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in Human Blood Flow

A new attempt to use Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as a bio-drag reducing polymer agent for human blood flow has been studied. PVP was added at 0, 500, 750 and 1000 part per million (ppm) and mixed with human blood at room temperature for 2 minutes. Then, a cone on plate rheometer was used to investigate the effectiveness of PVP agent on blood rheological properties. The results showed significant effecting of PVP on blood fluidity characteristics, where the viscosity decreased as the PVP content increased or as a shear rate increased. For a certain shear rate, the shear stress decreased as PVP content increased. These changes will lead to increased mixing efficiency within the capillaries, increased oxygen transportation, increased tissue perfusion, modified red blood cells (RBCs) distribution, reduced pressure drop gradients, enhanced turbulent flow tendency, enhanced viscoelasticity nature of the blood and its strengthened non-Newtonian pattern. Also, the results showed that the viscosity-shear stress relationships become more linear at higher PVP concentrations. PVP addition caused no shifting in UV-absorbing positions and only moderate intensity changing. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) parameters provide other indicators about the role of PVP as a drag reduction agent for blood flow, where all of the amplitude, hybrid and special parameters decreased significantly

Correlation between TcT_c and anisotropic scattering in Tl2_2Ba2_2CuO6+δ_{6+\delta}

Angle-dependent magnetoresistance measurements are used to determine the isotropic and anisotropic components of the transport scattering rate in overdoped Tl$_2$Ba$_2$CuO$_{6+\delta}$ for a range of $T_c$ values between 15K and 35K. The size of the anisotropic scattering term is found to scale linearly with $T_c$, establishing a link between the superconducting and normal state physics. Comparison with results from angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy indicates that the transport and quasiparticle lifetimes are distinct.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

The role of Architectural Competitions in Breach the Familiar in Contemporary Architectural Production

استخدمت المسابقات المعمارية للحصول على مجموعة من التصاميم للمشاريع المعمارية والحضرية وتقديم الأفكار الخلاقة لإيجاد نتاجات معمارية بصيغ متفردة ولامألوفة تتفوق على زمانها وتضيف قيمة رمزية وجمالية لسياقها مكانيًا وثقافيًا. يحفز هاجس الفوز بالمسابقة المعماريين الى خرق المألوفات النمطية السائدة في عمليات إيجاد الشكل المعماري، وبهذا فقد برزت مشكلة البحث بـ (النقص المعرفي على مستوى الدراسات المحلية حول المسابقات المعمارية وارتباطها الفاعل بعمليات خرق المألوف في نتاجات العمارة المعاصرة) ويهدف البحث الى وضع تصور نظري واضح حول المسابقات المعمارية ودورها كمحفز ملهم للمعمارين في خرق المألوف السائد بغية الوصول الى نتاجات معمارية إبداعية معاصرة. ويفترض البحث فاعلية المسابقات المعمارية في خرق المألوف عن طريق إضفاء مجموعة من الخصائص الشكلية والجمالية اولا والمادية والوظيفية ثانيًا، ولتحقيق اهداف البحث تم تبني منهج تحليلي وصفي لمشاريع عالمية معاصرة ومن ثم تحليل مجموعة من الدراسات السابقة واستخلاص مفردات الإطار النظري وتطبيقها على عينة بحثية تضمنت ثلاثة مشاريع عالمية وإقليمية ومحلية وتحليلها. واستنتج البحث بان الخصائص الشكلية هي المؤشرات الأكثر تأثيرًا في زيادة احتمالية فوز المشروع في المسابقة المعمارية.Architectural competitions were used to obtain a set of designs for architectural and urban projects and to present creative ideas to create architectural products in unique and unusual formulas that surpass their time and add symbolic and aesthetic value to their spatial and cultural context. The obsession with winning the competition motivates the architects to breach the stereotypical norms prevailing in the processes of creating an architectural form, and thus the research problem has arisen with (the lack of knowledge at the level of local studies about architectural competitions and its active link to processes that breach the familiar in the products of contemporary architecture). The research aims to develop a clear theoretical perception about Architectural competitions and their role as an inspiring catalyst for architects in breaching the familiar in order to reach creative contemporary architectural products. The research assumes the effectiveness of architectural competitions in breaching the familiar by imparting a set of formal and aesthetic characteristics first, material and functional second, and to achieve the objectives of the research, an analytical and descriptive approach was adopted for contemporary international projects, and then analyzed a group of previous studies and extracted the vocabulary of the theoretical framework and applied it to a research sample that included three projects Global, regional, and local and analyzed. The research concluded that formal characteristics are the most influential indicators in increasing the likelihood of a project winning the architectural competition