The Importance of Character Education for Tweens as Consumers

Tweens is a term that denotes a market segment mentality that falls between children at the lower end and teens at the upper end. Tweens marketing strategies are considered critical for most global brands. Advocates against excessive consumerism and materialism polluting innocent childhood, specifically tweens, call for values implantation through character education in the school to breed more educated consumers. The effect of implanting character building programs in schools on the consumer behavior of the exposed children in the marketplace, however, has never been tested before. This research endeavor is, in essence, an overlap between consumer behavior and educational psychology, investigating the link between personality and behavior in the market. It falls under both positivist and interpretive consumer research, specifically the consumer socialization of children. The aim of this work is to develop a conceptual model linking character education to purchasing lifestyles and consumption patterns of the exposed children as consumers. Following, prospects for future research are highlighted.Educational psychology, character education, attitudes and lifestyles, opinion-leadership, humanitarianism, ethnocentrism, adolescents and middle schools

Allelotoxicity of Oudneya africana R. Br. aqueous leachate on germination efficiency of Bromus tectorum L. and Triticum aestivum L.

This present study was conducted to investigate the possible allelopathic effect of Oudneya africana (donor species) on Bromus tectorum (weed species) and Triticum aestivum (cv. Sahel1; crop species) through germination bioassay experiment. B. tectorum is a winter annual grass that grows in winter wheat and other crops and in both disturbed and undisturbed grasslands. The effect of O. africana aqueous leachate (OAAL) on germination and seedling growth of B. tectorum and T. aestivum was investigated. Higher concentrations of the aqueous leachate significantly reduced the germination rate of B. tectorum. Similarly, coleoptile (CL) and radicle (RL) lengths of B. tectorum seeds was significantly inhibited. To go through with this, seedling growth of the weed species was also affected. On the other hand, the germination parameters of wheat seeds were slightly affected with applying different OAAL concentration levels compared to B. tectorum. In conclusion, allelochemicals extracted from the donor species caused a significant reduction in germination and growth parameters of B. tectorum > T. aestivum.Keywords: Aqueous leachate, Oudneya africana, Bromus tectorum, germination rateAfrican Journal of Biotechnology, Vol. 13(10), pp. 1194-1197, 5 March, 201

Development and construction of rotating polarizer analyzer ellipsometer

A detailed mathematical derivation and an experimental characterization of one to two ratio rotating polarizer analyzer ellipsometer (RPAE) are presented. The alignment, calibration, and testing of reference samples are also discussed. The optical properties of some known materials obtained by the proposed ellipsometer will be shown and compared to accepted values. Moreover, the constructed ellipsometer will be tested using two ellipsometry standards with different thicknesses

Theoretical spectroscopic scan of the sensitivity of asymmetric slab waveguide sensors

An extensive theoretical analysis is carried out to investigate the variation of the sensitivity of optical slab waveguide sensors with the wavelength of the guided wave. We consider a three-layer waveguide as an optical sensor. The sensitivity for both polarizations of light: s-polarized light (TE) and p-polarized light (TM), is derived using the characteristic equation of the structure. The dispersion of the materials is taken into account to study the sensitivity spectroscopic scan over the near IR-range from 1.2–2 µm. It is found that an optimum wavelength exists for each guiding layer thickness and this optimum value increases linearly with the thickness of the guiding layer

Comparing optical sensing using slab waveguides and total internal reflection ellipsometry

The sensitivity of the effective refractive index of slab waveguide sensors to variations in the refractive index of the cladding is compared to that of the ellipsometric parameters. The changes of the effective refractive index of a waveguide and the ellipsometric parameter\Delta, due to the index change of the cladding, were derived and plotted as a function of the guiding layer thickness and with the index of the cladding. It is found that these changes almost have the same overall feature but the ellipsometric parameters showed considerable higher sensitivity than the effective index of the conventional waveguide optical sensors

Molluscicidal and Mosquitocidal Activities of the Essential oils of Thymus capitatus Hoff. et Link. and Marrubium vulgare L.

A destilação por arraste a vapor dos óleos essenciais de partes aéreas de Thymus capitatus Hoff. et Link. e de Marrubium vulgare L. coletadas na costa norte do Egito resultaram em rendimento de 0,5% e 0,2%, respectivamente. Resultados de análises por cromatografia gasosa acoplada à espectrometria de massas de ambas as amostras possibilitaram a identificação de 96,27% e 90,19% dos constituintes químicos respectivamente de T. capitatus e M. vulgare. Verificou-se predomínio de constituintes oxigenados (88,22% para T. capitatus e 57,50% para M. vulgare, principalmente fenóis, como carvacrol (32,98%) e timol (32,82%) no óleo essencial de T. capitatus, e timol (34,55%) no óleo essencial de M. vulgare. Avaliou-se a atividade dos óleos essenciais obtidos contra adultos e ovos de Biomphalaria alexandrina, bem como em larvas e pupas de Culex pipiens. A CL50 e CL90 do óleo essencial de T. capitatus em moluscos adultos foi respectivamente 200 e 400 ppm/3hrs, enquanto para o óles essencial de M. vulgare verificou-se CL50 e CL90 de 50 e 100 ppm/3hrs, respectivamente. Além disso, M. vulgare apresentou atividade ovicida, com CL 100 de 200 ppm/24 horas, enquanto o óleo essencial de T. capitatus não demonstrou atividade ovicida. Verificou-se ainda atividade mosquitocida, com CL50 e CL90 de 100 e 200 ppm/12hrs respectivamente para larvas, e 200 e 400 ppm/12hrs contra pupas de C. pipiens.Steam distillation of essential oils of aerial parts of Thymus capitatus and Marrubium vulgare L. collected at North cost of Egypt yielded 0.5% and 0.2%, respectively. Results of Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analyses of the two samples identified 96.27% and 90.19% of the total oil composition for T. capitatus and M. vulgare, respectively. The two oil samples appeared dominated by the oxygenated constituents (88.22% for T. capitatus and 57.50% for M. vulgare), composed of phenols, mainly carvacrol (32.98%) and thymol (32.82%) in essential oil of T. capitatus, and thymol (34.55%) in essential oil of M. vulgare. It was evaluated the molluscicidal activity of T. capitatus and M. vulgare essential oils on adult and eggs of Biomphalaria alexandrina as well as their mosquitocidal activity on Culex pipiens. The LC50 and LC90 of T. capitatus essential oil against adult snails was 200 and 400 ppm/3hrs, respectively, while for M. vulgare it was 50 and 100 ppm/3hrs, respectively. Moreover, M. vulgare showed LC100 ovicidal activity at 200 ppm/24 hrs while T. capitatus oil showed no ovicidal activity. It was verified mosquitocidal activity, with LC50 and LC90 of 100 and 200 ppm/12hrs respectively for larvae, and 200 and 400 ppm/12hrs respectively for pupae of C. pipiens

Rotating polarizer, compensator, and analyzer ellipsometry

In this paper we propose theoretically a set of ellipsometric configurations using a rotating polarizer, compensator, and analyzer at a speed ratio of N 1 ω: N 2 ω: N 3 ω. Different ellipsometric configurations can be obtained by giving different integral values to N 1, N 2, and N 3. All configurations are applied to bulk c-Si and GaAs to calculate the real and imaginary parts of the refractive index of the samples. The accuracies of all ellipsometric configurations are investigated in the presence of a hypothetical noise and with small misalignments of the optical elements. Moreover, the uncertainties in the ellipsometric parameters as functions of the uncertainties of the Fourier coefficients are studied. The comparison among different configurations reveals that the rotating compensator—analyzer configuration corresponds to the minimum error in the calculated optical parameters

A polynomial regression model for stabilized turbulent confined jet diffusion flames using bluff body burners

AbstractThermal structure of stabilized confined jet diffusion flames in the presence of different geometries of bluff body burners has been mathematically modeled. Two stabilizer disc burners tapered at 30° and 60° and another frusted cone of 60°/30° inclination angle were employed all having the same diameter of 80(mm) acting as flame holders. The measured radial mean temperature profiles of the developing stabilizing flames at different normalized axial distances were considered as the model example of the physical process.A polynomial mathematical model of fourth degree has been investigated to study this phenomenon to find the best correlation representing the experimental data. Least Squares regression analysis has been employed to estimate the coefficients of the polynomial and investigate its adequacy. High values for R2>0.9 obtained for most of the investigated bluff burners at the various locations of x/dj prove the adequacy of the suggested polynomial for representing the experimental results. Very small values of significance F<(α=0.05) for all investigated cases indicate that there is a real relationship between the independent variable r and the dependant variable T. The low values of p<(α=0.05) obtained reveal that all the recorded parameters for all the investigated cases are significant

Rapid measurement of tacrolimus in whole blood by paper spray-tandem mass spectrometry (PS-MS/MS)

Background Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) provides sensitivity and specificity for monitoring tacrolimus drug level in blood, but it requires an LC system and sample preparation, which is not amenable to random access testing typical of immunoassays. Paper spray (PS) ionization generates gas phase analyte ions directly from dried blood spots without sample preparation and LC. We evaluated a PS-MS/MS method for tacrolimus drug monitoring in a clinical diagnostic laboratory. Methods Whole blood sample was mixed with stable isotope labeled internal standard ([13C, 2H2]-FK506) and spotted onto a cartridge containing triangular shaped card paper. After drying, samples were analyzed by PS MS/MS in the selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode, with a run time of 3 min/sample. Results Analytical measurement range was 1.5–30 ng/ml. Assay inter-day imprecision was 13%, 8%, and 5% at tacrolimus concentrations of 4.5, 10.5, and 24.5 ng/ml, respectively. Accuracy was determined by pure tacrolimus solution and was confirmed by result correlation to an immunoassay (slope = 1.0, intercept = − 0.02; r2 = 0.99), and to a conventional LC-MS/MS method (slope = 0.90, intercept = 0.4; r2 = 0.94). Conclusions PS-MS/MS provides accurate results for tacrolimus with rapid turnaround time amenable to random access testing protocols