Online Community and Its Impact on E-Learners' Commitment To Stay in their Programmes

Attrition rate has been found to be higher in non traditional universities compared to traditional universities. Feeling of isolation has been identified as one of the key factors that cause attrition. Thus many universities developed the Learning Management System (LMS) to increase contact hours for their learners as well as providing learning support. This tool if managed well can silently trigger the creation of an Online Community and engage learners, tutors and management staff. This paper focuses on the impact of Online Community on learners Commitment to stay in their programmes. Data analysis on 1,116 respondents from Open University Malaysia found that there was a strong correlation between the Sense of Community, Satisfaction, Motivation and their Commitment to stay in their programmes. Sense of Community, Satisfaction and Motivation explains 68 percent of their Commitment to stay. (Authors' abstract

Impact of COL in participation behavioral pattern of learners and tutors in the online discussion forum

Besides the face-to-face tutorial session and self-managed learning mode, online discussion forum is the third pillar OUM's blended approach

Reviews on the Forming Process of Heat Treatable Aluminium Alloys

Available forming process applied for heat treatable aluminium alloy were reviewed and presented in this paper. The reviews emphasized on the heat treatment, application and contribution of the forming methods. Forming methods discussed includes traditional, warm forming, hydroforming, superplastic forming, hot forming with in-die quench (HFQ) and hot press forming (HPF). The effects of forming processes towards heat treatable aluminium alloy were presented through the understanding on each process strengthening phenomena and the heat treating phenomena. These were to ensure better understanding on heat treatable aluminium alloy composition changes throughout forming process. Finally, concluding remarks the underline challenges of forming heat-treatable aluminium alloy and subsequently highlights the potential work that can be applied in order to ensure a more efficient and sustainable manufacturing agenda for heat treatable aluminium alloy.Available forming process applied for heat treatable aluminium alloy were reviewed and presented in this paper. The reviews emphasized on the heat treatment, application and contribution of the forming methods. Forming methods discussed includes traditional, warm forming, hydroforming, superplastic forming, hot forming with in-die quench (HFQ) and hot press forming (HPF). The effects of forming processes towards heat treatable aluminium alloy were presented through the understanding on each process strengthening phenomena and the heat treating phenomena. These were to ensure better understanding on heat treatable aluminium alloy composition changes throughout forming process. Finally, concluding remarks the underline challenges of forming heat-treatable aluminium alloy and subsequently highlights the potential work that can be applied in order to ensure a more efficient and sustainable manufacturing agenda for heat treatable aluminium alloy

The Impact of Online Learning on Student\u27s Academic Performance

The spread of online learning has grown exponentially at every academic level and in many countries in our COVID-19 world. Due to the relatively new nature of such widespread use of online learning, little analysis or studies have been conducted on whether student performance takes a toll through this different medium. This paper aims to propose a research project targeted to study the impact of online learning on the academic performance of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) students, as compared to an in-person medium. The research will be conducted over a period of 2 years for 3 modules that are common for students across all courses. Data utilized in the study will be obtained through a survey, as well as academic performance data sourced from ERAU. The analysis will be conducted using T-test and Regression techniques to identify statistically significant impacts of student performance in online versus in-person classes. The results obtained can be an estimated general trend of student performance in various other universities which conduct a mix of in-class and online learning in this COVID-19 era. The results obtained will also serve as a framework, and as possible preliminary results for future academic research with regards to the proposed topic. The observed trend will benefit institutions in identifying the method of instruction in which they would need to refine, to raise the standards of different instructional methods to a parity

The Recombinational Anatomy of a Mouse Chromosome

Among mammals, genetic recombination occurs at highly delimited sites known as recombination hotspots. They are typically 1–2 kb long and vary as much as a 1,000-fold or more in recombination activity. Although much is known about the molecular details of the recombination process itself, the factors determining the location and relative activity of hotspots are poorly understood. To further our understanding, we have collected and mapped the locations of 5,472 crossover events along mouse Chromosome 1 arising in 6,028 meioses of male and female reciprocal F1 hybrids of C57BL/6J and CAST/EiJ mice. Crossovers were mapped to a minimum resolution of 225 kb, and those in the telomere-proximal 24.7 Mb were further mapped to resolve individual hotspots. Recombination rates were evolutionarily conserved on a regional scale, but not at the local level. There was a clear negative-exponential relationship between the relative activity and abundance of hotspot activity classes, such that a small number of the most active hotspots account for the majority of recombination. Females had 1.2× higher overall recombination than males did, although the sex ratio showed considerable regional variation. Locally, entirely sex-specific hotspots were rare. The initiation of recombination at the most active hotspot was regulated independently on the two parental chromatids, and analysis of reciprocal crosses indicated that parental imprinting has subtle effects on recombination rates. It appears that the regulation of mammalian recombination is a complex, dynamic process involving multiple factors reflecting species, sex, individual variation within species, and the properties of individual hotspots

Compact fuel cell system utilizing a combination of hydrogen storage materials for optimized performance.

An entirely new class of light-weight reversible hydrides was recently discovered (the Ti-doped alanates)[1]. These NaAIH{sub 4}-based materials have demonstrated reversible hydrogen storage capacities of up to 5 wt%, nearly 4 times the gravimetrically density of commercial metal hydrides. For this reason, they have been considered a breakthrough for hydrogen storage in fuel cell vehicles. This project is the first to publish the use of alanates for the generation of electrical power and the first demonstration of a hydride-fueled elevated-temperature PEM Fuel Cell. Because the kinetics of hydrogen uptake and release by the alanate improves with elevated temperatures, novel concepts were tested for the purpose of developing a highly efficient stand-alone power system. A major focus of this work was on the modeling, design, construction and testing of an integrated fuel cell stack and hydrogen storage system that eliminates the need of complicated heat transfer systems and media. After extensive modeling efforts, a proof-of-concept system was built that employs an integrated fuel cell stack and hydride beds that balancing the generation of fuel cell waste heat with the endothermic release of hydrogen from the alanates. Our demonstration unit was capable of greater than one hour of operation on a single charge of hydrogen from the integrated 173 gram alanate bed. In addition, composite hydride materials with synergistic reaction heats were evaluated and tested to enhance the operational performance of the alanates. The composites provide a unique opportunity to utilize the heat produced from hydriding classic metal hydrides to improve both absorption and desorption rates of the alanates. A particular focus of the mixed storage materials work was to balance the thermodynamics and kinetics of the hydrides for start-up conditions. Modeling of the sorption properties proved invaluable in evaluating the optimum composition of hydrides. The modeling efforts were followed by full validation by experimental measurements. This project successfully completed the proof-of-concept goals and generated a powerful set of tools for optimizing the complete power-generation system. It has also created a new direction for hydrogen power generation as well the potential for new R&D based on this work