Teachers' and children's personal epistemologies for moral education: Case studies in early years elementary education

While there is strong interest in teaching values in Australia and internationally there is little focus on young children’s moral values learning in the classroom. Research shows that personal epistemology influences teaching and learning in a range of education contexts, including moral education. This study examines relationships between personal epistemologies (children’s and teachers’), pedagogies, and school contexts for moral learning in two early years classrooms. Interviews with teachers and children and analysis of school policy revealed clear patterns of personal epistemologies and pedagogies within each school. A whole school approach to understanding personal epistemologies and practice for moral values learning is suggested

HTPS: Heterogeneous Transferring Prediction System for Healthcare Datasets

Medical internet of things leads to revolutionary improvements in medical services, also known as smart healthcare. With the big healthcare data, data mining and machine learning can assist wellness management and intelligent diagnosis, and achieve the P4-medicine. However, healthcare data has high sparsity and heterogeneity. In this paper, we propose a Heterogeneous Transferring Prediction System (HTPS). Feature engineering mechanism transforms the dataset into sparse and dense feature matrices, and autoencoders in the embedding networks not only embed features but also transfer knowledge from heterogeneous datasets. Experimental results show that the proposed HTPS outperforms the benchmark systems on various prediction tasks and datasets, and ablation studies present the effectiveness of each designed mechanism. Experimental results demonstrate the negative impact of heterogeneous data on benchmark systems and the high transferability of the proposed HTPS

Dual-Band Slotted Patch Antenna with Defective Ground for WLAN/WiMAX Applications

Abstract-A novel printed antenna with a slotted patch and a defected ground structure (DGS) for dual-band operation is presented. By inserting an I-shaped slot into the patch and defecting the ground plane, triple-mode resonance for achieving dual operation bands, especially an extremely wide bandwidth for the higher band, can be excited. The measured bandwidths are 100 MHz (2.38-2.49 GHz) and 2.94 GHz (3.4-6.34 GHz) for the lower and upper bands, respectively, which agree well with the simulation. The experimental average gains across the two operating bands are 1.0 and 3.9 dBi, respectively, with typical radiation patterns for a patch antenna having a defective ground. The proposed antenna with a compact size of only 22 × 25 mm 2 sufficiently covers performance requirement of the 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN and the 3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX operation systems

S-allylcysteine Improves Blood Flow Recovery and Prevents Ischemic Injury by Augmenting Neovasculogenesis.

Studies suggest that a low level of circulating human endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) is a risk factor for ischemic injury and coronary artery disease (CAD). Consumption of S-allylcysteine (SAC) is known to prevent CAD. However, the protective effects of SAC on the ischemic injury are not yet clear. In this study, we examined whether SAC could improve blood flow recovery in ischemic tissues through EPC-mediated neovasculogenesis. The results demonstrate that SAC significantly enhances the neovasculogenesis of EPCs in vitro. The molecular mechanisms for SAC enhancement of neovasculogenesis include the activation of Akt/endothelial nitric oxide synthase signaling cascades. SAC increased the expression of c-kit, β-catenin, cyclin D1, and Cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4) proteins in EPCs. Daily intake of SAC at dosages of 0.2 and 2 mg/kg body weight significantly enhanced c-kit protein levels in vivo. We conclude that dietary consumption of SAC improves blood flow recovery and prevents ischemic injury by inducing neovasculogenesis in experimental models

An Ultrasound Imaging-Guided Robotic HIFU Ablation Experimental System and Accuracy Evaluations

In recent years, noninvasive thermal treatment by using high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has high potential in tumor treatment. The goal of this research is to develop an ultrasound imaging-guided robotic HIFU ablation system for tumor treatment. The system integrates the technologies of ultrasound image-assisted guidance, robotic positioning control, and HIFU treatment planning. With the assistance of ultrasound image guidance technology, the tumor size and location can be determined from ultrasound images as well as the robotic arm can be controlled to position the HIFU transducer to focus on the target tumor. After the development of the system, several experiments were conducted to measure the positioning accuracy of this system. The results show that the average positioning error is 1.01 mm with a standard deviation 0.34, and HIFU ablation accuracy is 1.32 mm with a standard deviation 0.58, which means this system is confirmed with its possibility and accuracy

Effect of silicate on arsenic fractionation in soils and its accumulation in rice plants

Four rice genotypes, two hybrid and two indica, were selected to investigate the effects of silicate (Si) application on arsenic (As) accumulation and speciation in rice and As fractionation in soil. There were significant differences in root, straw and grain biomass among genotypes (p < 0.05), and Si application significantly increased root (p < 0.05) and grain biomass (p < 0.001). Silicate addition reduced the proportion of As associated with well-crystallized hydrous oxides of Fe and Al and residual phases, whilst increasing the proportions of specifically-sorbed As and As associated with amorphous and poorly-crystalline Fe and Al hydrous oxides. Furthermore, the results indicated that the fraction proportions of non-specifically sorbed, specifically-sorbed, and associated with amorphous and poorly-crystalline hydrous oxides of Fe and Al in rhizosphere soils, were greater than non-rhizosphere soils. Silicate application had a significant effect decreasing total As concentrations in root (p < 0.005), straw (p < 0.05) and husk (p < 0.001) of rice plants. The effect of Si on reducing As accumulation in rice leaves was revealed by SXRF. Indica genotypes transported and accumulated less As than hybrid genotypes. Both percentage and concentration of iAs were lower in indica genotype XFY-9 than in hybrid genotype XWX-12. Silicate reduced iAs and DMA by 21% and 58% in grain (polished) respectively. DMA may have a greater translocation capacity from straw to grain (polished) than inorganic As. The study provides the potential for understanding As uptake mechanisms in rice and mitigating the health risks posed by As contamination in paddy fields

Impact of differential-itemfunctioning on the personal epistemological beliefs for senior high school students

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the expression of items used to examine personal epistemological beliefs could affect the probabilities of response for compared groups and research outcomes. Differential-item-functioning (DIF) analysis on school types and location of school according to the Rasch model was performed in this study. Nonacademically inclined school students (n = 212) and academically inclined school students (n = 197) were selected to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of three dimensions of beliefs about knowing and two dimensions of beliefs about learning. The results of the DIF analysis suggested that the items in the dimensions about knowing favor academically inclined students and students from schools located in the northern areas of Taiwan. The items in the learning dimensions favor nonacademically inclined students and students from schools located in the southern areas of Taiwan. The group comparisons were different between the scale that included the DIF items and the scale that excluded the DIF items. The discussion addresses the value of the precise detections for inappropriate items and the effect of the academic achievement on completing the survey