The Impact of sex-separate toilets on school participation of pubescent-age girls in India

Thesis(Master) -- KDI School: Master of Development Policy, 2020The issue of sanitation is related to the academic achievement of students in developing countries. Above all, sex-separate sanitation facilities in schools play a crucial role when it comes to students’ ability to focus on their studies, particularly for girls just at the beginning of puberty. This paper examines the association between girls’ toilets and school participation by adolescent girls in India using a state-level panel data set. To control for potential omitted variables bias, I adopt state fixed effects among control variables. I have two major findings. First, schools with sex-separate toilets are associated with a higher level of girls’ enrolment at the secondary and the higher secondary level. Second, schools with sex-separate toilets are also associated with a higher level of school attendance by girls at the secondary level.INTRODUCTION THEORY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS METHODS FINDINGS CONCLUSIONmasterpublishedHyun Ji O

Understanding teachers' beliefs of young children's play in naturalized learning environments.

Recent research in the field of early childhood education has increasingly focused on children's connections with natural environments. However, there has yet to be a study that investigates teachers' perceptions of teaching young children and the impact on their learning utilizing natural environments during early childhood, which is precisely the aim of this research. Such a study is needed to attain authentic information about possible connections between teachers' personal experiences, their perspectives and their practices regarding teaching and learning in naturalized environments. This qualitative research study is composed of two major components: in-depth teacher interviews and an outdoor and indoor environment checklist. The in-depth teacher interviews document teachers' personal play histories, their ways of implementing children's play in naturalistic settings, and their beliefs about the value of children's play in naturalized environments. The environment checklist is used to examine the enriched naturalized environments that are provided indoors and outdoors to help children interact with the natural world. Four major themes were identified and several conclusions were drawn from the data. First, teachers' beliefs about naturalized environments are consistent with their teaching practice in those environments. Second, teachers who are teaching in naturalistic environment schools value the natural environment. Third, teachers' personal life experiences influence their perceptions of teaching and learning in naturalized environments. Fourth, teachers' perceptions regarding the value of naturalistic environments for children's learning were that creative thinking, problem solving, and more in-depth learning occurred

The Challenges of Supporting Young Children’s Outdoor Play in Early Childhood Education and Care Settings

This study explored preschool teachers’ beliefs about the challenges they have experienced when supporting young children’s outdoor play. Through Charmaz’s (2006) constructivist grounded theory data analysis process, two types of challenges for providing outdoor play were specified including: (1) natural environmental challenges, such as insect bites, allergies, and severe weather issues and (2) physical environmental challenges that include lack of play materials/environments and playground maintenance. The participant teachers perceive that these challenges are related to their preparation and planning for outdoor play including the provision of outdoor play, allotted play time, and a number of outdoor learning activities

An Examination of the Creative Aspects of Music Composition Lessons With a Focus on the Use of Modeling

Teacher modeling is a widely used pedagogical approach in music education. Several studies have sought to assess the effectiveness of modeling strategies on instrumental learning and have examined the effects of modeling. Nonetheless, not enough scholarly attention has been paid to the comparative effectiveness of such strategies when they are used to teach music composition during one-on-one lessons. The majority of existing research has focused on the successful use of composing techniques as an efficient way of reinforcing composition skills, not as a means of stimulating a learner’s creativity. The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the modeling strategies that are being used by music composition teachers. The composition teachers (N = 15) who have been teaching composition in a one-on-one setting at university for five years or more participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews. The study found that in composition lessons, modeling was mainly used for two different purposes, which include “modeling for exercise” and “modeling for actual composing.” In the case of using “modeling for exercise,” all the composers agreed that modeling works as a positive influence on the students by helping them learn musical concepts through imitation. However, in the case of using modeling for actual composing related to creativity, the opinions were varied. The study also found that choosing the appropriate timing, amount, and types of modeling play a crucial role in using modeling strategies while avoiding any possible negative effects

Human dopamine receptor nanovesicles for gate-potential modulators in high-performance field-effect transistor biosensors

The development of molecular detection that allows rapid responses with high sensitivity and selectivity remains challenging. Herein, we demonstrate the strategy of novel bio-nanotechnology to successfully fabricate high-performance dopamine (DA) biosensor using DA Receptor-containing uniform-particle-shaped Nanovesicles-immobilized Carboxylated poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (CPEDOT) NTs (DRNCNs). DA molecules are commonly associated with serious diseases, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. For the first time, nanovesicles containing a human DA receptor D1 (hDRD1) were successfully constructed from HEK-293 cells, stably expressing hDRD1. The nanovesicles containing hDRD1 as gate-potential modulator on the conducting polymer (CP) nanomaterial transistors provided high-performance responses to DA molecule owing to their uniform, monodispersive morphologies and outstanding discrimination ability. Specifically, the DRNCNs were integrated into a liquid-ion gated field-effect transistor (FET) system via immobilization and attachment processes, leading to high sensitivity and excellent selectivity toward DA in liquid state. Unprecedentedly, the minimum detectable level (MDL) from the field-induced DA responses was as low as 10 pM in real- time, which is 10 times more sensitive than that of previously reported CP based-DA biosensors. Moreover, the FET-type DRNCN biosensor had a rapid response time (<1 s) and showed excellent selectivity in human serum

ENSO Teleconnection Pattern Changes over the Southeastern United States under a Climate Change Scenario in CMIP5 Models

A strong teleconnection exists between the sea surface temperature (SST) over the tropical Pacific and the winter precipitation in the southeastern United States (SE US).This feature is adopted to validate the fidelity of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) in this study. In addition, the authors examine whether the teleconnection pattern persists in the future under a global warming scenario. Generally, most of the eight selected models show a positive correlation between November SST over Ni˜no 3 region and December–February (DJF) mean daily precipitation anomalies over the SE US, consistent with the observation. However, the models with poor realization of skewness of Ni˜no indices fail to simulate the realistic teleconnection pattern in the historical simulation. In the Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 (RCP8.5) run, all of the models maintain positive and slightly increased correlation patterns. It is noteworthy that the region with strong teleconnection pattern shifts northward in the future. Increased variance of winter precipitation due to the SST teleconnection is shown over Alabama and Georgia rather than over Florida under the RCP8.5 scenario in most of themodels, differing fromthe historical run in which the precipitation in Florida is the most attributable to the eastern Pacific SST

ENSO Teleconnection Pattern Changes over the Southeastern United States under a Climate Change Scenario in CMIP5 Models

A strong teleconnection exists between the sea surface temperature (SST) over the tropical Pacific and the winter precipitation in the southeastern United States (SE US).This feature is adopted to validate the fidelity of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) in this study. In addition, the authors examine whether the teleconnection pattern persists in the future under a global warming scenario. Generally, most of the eight selected models show a positive correlation between November SST over Ni˜no 3 region and December–February (DJF) mean daily precipitation anomalies over the SE US, consistent with the observation. However, the models with poor realization of skewness of Ni˜no indices fail to simulate the realistic teleconnection pattern in the historical simulation. In the Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 (RCP8.5) run, all of the models maintain positive and slightly increased correlation patterns. It is noteworthy that the region with strong teleconnection pattern shifts northward in the future. Increased variance of winter precipitation due to the SST teleconnection is shown over Alabama and Georgia rather than over Florida under the RCP8.5 scenario in most of themodels, differing fromthe historical run in which the precipitation in Florida is the most attributable to the eastern Pacific SST

Thermoelectric properties of nanoporous three-dimensional graphene networks

We propose three dimensional-graphene nanonetworks (3D-GN) with pores in the range of 10 similar to 20 nm as a potential candidate for thermoelectric materials. The 3D-GN has a low thermal conductivity of 0.90 W/mK @773 K and a maximum electrical conductivity of 6660 S/m @773 K. Our results suggest a straightforward way to individually control two interdependent parameters, sigma and kappa, in the nanoporous graphene structures to ultimately improve the figure of merit value.open

Emission Rates of Volatile Organic Compounds Released from Newly Produced Household Furniture Products Using a Large-Scale Chamber Testing Method

The emission rates of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were measured to investigate the emission characteristics of five types of common furniture products using a 5 m3 size chamber at 25°C and 50% humidity. The results indicated that toluene and α-pinene are the most dominant components. The emission rates of individual components decreased constantly through time, approaching the equilibrium emission level. The relative ordering of their emission rates, if assessed in terms of total VOC (TVOC), can be arranged as follows: dining table > sofa > desk chair > bedside table > cabinet. If the emission rates of VOCs are examined between different chemical groups, they can also be arranged in the following order: aromatic (AR) > terpenes (TER) > carbonyl (CBN) > others > paraffin (PR) > olefin (HOL) > halogenated paraffin (HPR). In addition, if emission strengths are compared between coated and uncoated furniture, there is no significant difference in terms of emission magnitude. Our results indicate that the emission characteristics of VOC are greatly distinguished between different furniture products in terms of relative dominance between different chemicals