Teaching Principles of Clear Writing Through Activities for Tertiary Level Learners

This article looks at teaching principles of clear writing to tertiary level learners using activities. While the general lecture method uses the lecture mode of teaching which caters only to the auditory learners, most other learners (the VAK) are left behind. This paper attempts to weave certain activities into a writing lesson inorder to make the lesson more rich, enjoyable and enrichin

A Stylistic Analysis of Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Stylistic devices and grammatical deviations have been liberally employed by novelists and poets to bring in certain specific effects in the minds of the readers. Arundhati Roy in her novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness employs these devices liberally to bring in the same effects. This article explicates some of the deviations and devices employed by Roy. This is not an exhaustive detailing of the devices, but a mere snapshot of the conventions flouted and deviations deliberately induced by Roy.

Teacher cognition of grade 8 teachers on teaching speaking in English as a foreign language in The Faroe Islands and its impact on teachers’ pedagogical praxis: seven case studies

Abstract Teaching is influenced by myriad factors and a significant player in this context is the teacher and his/her cognition. Teacher cognition is ‘the unobservable cognitive dimension of teaching – what teachers know, believe, and think’ (Borg, 2003). In recent decades, much research has been conducted on English as a foreign language teaching and teacher cognition, which continues to highlight the crucial significance of the role of teacher cognition in teaching.Research in teacher cognition covers various aspects of teaching language and language skills, with grammar enjoying predominance, while language skills, particularly speaking and listening, play second fiddle. Teaching speaking in English as a foreign language is important as foreign language learners desire to learn to speak the language and use it actively to communicate with peers and others.The purpose of my qualitative case study is to: glean teacher cognition about teaching speaking in English as a foreign language teaching of seven grade 8 teachers in The Faroe Islands; ascertain the impact of teacher cognition on their teaching speaking praxis; and attempt to identify the reflection of the ‘state of the art’ in teaching speaking in English as a foreign language. The case study attempts to identify themes and categorise teacher behaviour and events rather than testing theory or hypotheses. It is a collective parallel case study, where seven cases are viewed concurrently. This case study attempts to add to the significant and under-researched field of teacher cognition on teaching speaking.Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, observations and document analysis were used to elicit data to fulfil research aims. The results show that teacher cognition of grade 8 teachers does impact teaching speaking and congruence between the two appears to be the norm, with lesser representation of incongruence.The congruence between teacher cognition and teaching speaking is a result of two factors: firstly, the strong influence of ‘apprenticeship of observation’ i.e. the influence of teachers’ personal experiences as students from years of school, university and teacher education, which influences the way they teach and think about teaching. Secondly, teacher interpretation of teaching speaking as facilitating student spoken performance in the classroom, i.e. ‘doing speaking’ instead of teaching speaking i.e. using specific strategies to teach students to speak.The teacher education curriculum up to 2008 in the department of Education in The University of The Faroe Islands, to which most of the participants belong, did not include second language acquisition theories or language pedagogy. The incongruence therefore arises from the teachers functioning based on ‘apprenticeship of observation’ and experiential knowledge gleaned from teaching experience to create their models of teaching speaking. As for the post 2008 participants, new and inexperienced teachers are more likely to be concerned with classroom management before being able to practise subject pedagogy when teaching a language.Though congruence predominates, there is minor incidence of incongruence between teacher cognition and teaching speaking, which may indicate the core-peripheral beliefs dichotomy. Core beliefs find expression in teaching and are chosen over peripheral beliefs, which account for the gap between cognition and teaching. Phipps and Borg (2009) posit that core beliefs are experience-based and tend to be more stable. They exert an influence greater than that of peripheral beliefs, which are theory-based and have not been tried and tested in practice by teachers to become part of the teaching repertoire. In the case of feedback, grade 8 teachers desist from using it actively as the core belief that feedback may discourage student participation in class overwhelms the peripheral belief about the usefulness of feedback for student learning.The ‘Teaching-speaking cycle’ of Goh and Burns (2012) has been chosen to identify the reflection of the ‘state of the art’ in grade 8 praxis in teaching speaking. It subsumes earlier teaching speaking models and advocates a holistic approach to teaching speaking with specific activities to be carried out successively to promote the teaching of speaking. There is sporadic reflection of aspects of the model in grade 8 teaching speaking praxis, emphasising that there is ‘doing speaking’ i.e. opportunities for speaking rather than teaching speaking.The study underlines the pivotal role of teacher education in equipping teachers for their profession and proactively helping pre-and post-service teachers to be critically self-aware of the influence of teacher cognition on their praxis. It pinpoints the importance of continued professional development for teachers during their careers and makes a case for educational research to impact teaching and make a difference in education

FLY-CAPS- A Hybrid Firefly Feature Optimized Capsule Networks for Plant Disease Classification in Resource Constriant Internet of Things (IoT)

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, and the Internet of Things (IoT) enable farmers to better monitor and diagnose all agricultural procedures with super-intellectual accuracy. These technologies also contribute to boosting the productivity of agriculture, which increases the country’s economy. Though these technologies help farmers increase productivity, the detection of plant diseases still needs heightened scrutiny for prevention and cultivation. Plant disease categorization has expanded with the introduction of deep learning algorithms, but it still needs more innovation in terms of accuracy and computing burden. Thus, a novel deep learning model based on capsule networks with firefly optimization and potent multi-layered feedforward prediction networks is proposed in this research. The handcrafted features in this proposed system are optimized before being extracted using a capsule network, which reduces the complexity overhead and is suitable for IoT devices with limited resources. Finally fed to the feed forward layers for better classification. The extensive experimentation has been tested with the Plant Village databases, which contain more than 50,000 images of healthy and infected plants. Performance criteria including recall, specificity, recall, accuracy, and f1-score are used to assess the proposed algorithm's performance. Additionally, its efficiency and computational cost are contrasted with those of other recent models. The suggested model has greater performance (95%) with reduced computing overhead, according to experimental data, which is advantageous for the new prediction approach and the welfare of the farmer

Germination and plating efficiency of Neurospora crassa microconidia

The plating efficiency of microconidia , estimated by the number of colonies formed on a sorbose-containing medium, is commonly taken as a measure of their germinability. It has generally been low. We report that when microconidia of mcm and pe; fl strains were spread on a dialysis membrane overlying sorbose medium, their germination was greater than 80%

A CLINICAL STUDY OF MUSTA (CYPERUS ROTUNDUS LINN.) IN HYPERLIPIDAEMIA

Hyperlipidaemia is a metabolic disorder in population diagnosed by altered levels of Lipoproteins, Cholesterol and Triglycerides in plasma. This results deposition of lipids especially esterified cholesterol in the wall of arteries resulting in the narrowing and blockage of the arteries leading to heart diseases and other diseases such as cerebrovascular disease, renal disease, liver disease and peripheral vascular disease. The present work focused on comparative analysis of anti-hyperlipidaemic profile of Musta (Cyperus rotundus Linn.) in Male and female patients. The patients suffering from Hyperlipidaemia and its related disorders like non-insulin dependent diabetes etc. were divided into two groups, Group A confined to male and Group B confined to female. Each group contains 15 patients. All the patients were advised to take 3 gm powdered Musta rhizome in two or three divided doses for a period of 45 days. After treatment, Musta rhizome powder showed more significant anti-hyperlipidaemic activity in males than females. The significance in males total cholesterol (p<0.05), HDL (p<0.05), VLDL (p<0.05), triglycerides (p<0.05) is more than that of females VLDL (p>0.05), triglycerides (p>0.05). It is observed that in group A 40% patients got complete relief, 6.67 % patients got marked relief, 33.33% patients got moderate relief and 20 % patients got mild relief. Similarly, in group B patients 06.67% patients got complete relief, 6.67 % patients got marked relief, 53.33% patients got moderate relief and 33.33 % patients got mild relief

Rare presentation of a case of primary parasitic leiomyoma with concurrent uterine leiomyomas

Uterine leiomyomas are the most common pelvic benign tumours affecting women of reproductive age group. Parasitic leiomyoma is a type of leiomyoma which has been completely detached from uterus and is having independent blood supply from nearby structures, it’s attached with. Parasitic leiomyoma is regarded as a sub-type of subserosal fibroid by some authors. While others consider it as a complication of uterine procedures being performed for some type of uterine pathology. Here we are reporting a rare case of primary parasitic leiomyoma with concurrent multiple uterine leiomyomas that were managed by laparoscopic myomectomy. They create clinical dilemma due to their tendency to mimic as other pelvic tumours. So parasitic fibroids must be kept in the differential diagnosis of every case of abdominopelvic mass. Finally, it can be a rare complication of morcellation procedure performed for myoma retrieval and hence caution should exercise during such procedures