The Effectiveness of Predict-Observe-Explain Technique in Probing Students' Understanding about Acid-Base Chemistry: A Case for the Concepts of pH, pOH and Strength

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The present study describes high school students’ conceptions about acids and bases in terms of pH, pOH, microscopic level, strength, and concentration. A total of 27 high school students participated in the study. The data was collected using 3 POE tasks and a semi-structured interview. The data analysis demonstrated that most of the students had poor understanding related to a drawing of weak and strong acids. In addition, the findings revealed that the POE’s were effective in terms of gathering students’ predictions and reasons for the prediction of outcomes in an open-ended format. The POE tasks also revealed that some of the students had misconceptions regarding pH and pOH. The students believed that pH was a measurement of the acidity, while pOH was a measurement of the basicity. The findings obtained have certain implications for the secondary chemistry program

Effect of Vegetation Time and Climatic Conditions on trans- Resveratrol Concentrations in Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot Wines from Different Regions in Turkey

In this study, 21 wine samples obtained from wine manufacturers in Turkey and produced from differentgrape varieties cultivated in different geographical regions, were analysed to determine their resveratrolconcentrations. The HPLC method was used to analyse the trans-resveratrol concentrations of wines.Statistical analysis was done using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 20.0.0. Mean values were comparedby using the Tukey test at a confidence level of p = 0.05. The resveratrol concentrations of CabernetSauvignon and Merlot grapes were also determined. Since these two varieties are grown widely in manyregions of Turkey, they were studied in terms of the relationship of the resveratrol concentrations withparameters such as time of vegetation, total effective temperature, sunshine duration and rainfall. Positivecorrelations were observed between resveratrol levels and grape varieties, geographical regions and totaleffective temperature. The results of the statistical analysis showed that resveratrol concentrations alsovaried depending on vegetation time, sunshine duration and amount of rainfall in the vineyards. Thisstudy aimed to identify the relationships between (1) resveratrol concentrations of wines, (2) vegetationtime of the grapes and (3) climatic conditions of the respective regions. Moreover, the effects of grapetypes on resveratrol concentrations were investigated. This study contributes to the body of knowledgeby providing results on the utilisation of grapes that have high resveratrol levels for producing wines thathave functional properties that are increasingly in demand by consumers

Boosting MultiFarm track with Turkish dataset

The evolution of semantic structured data, such as those behind the deep web or socialnetworks, requires mapping between sources to enable a high level integration. Sev-eral ontology matching systems have been developed to establish mappings betweenmultilingual ontologies, however, employing these systems in real world requires anassessment of the ontologies capability and performance which is conducted by theMultiFarm Track. Yet, this track still lacks of ontologies from different language fami-lies. In this paper, we contribute to the OAEI initiative with a Turkish dataset to extendthe coverage of languages for the matching systems

Operator representation and logistic extension of elementary cellular automata

We redefine the transition function of elementary cellular automata (ECA) in terms of discrete operators. The operator representation provides a clear hint about the way systems behave both at the local and the global scale. We show that mirror and complementary symmetric rules are connected to each other via simple operator transformations. It is possible to decouple the representation into two pairs of operators which are used to construct a periodic table of ECA that maps all unique rules in such a way that rules having similar behavior are clustered together. Finally, the operator representation is used to implement a generalized logistic extension to ECA. Here a single tuning parameter scales the pace with which operators iterate the rules. We show that, as this parameter is tuned, many rules of ECA undergo multiple phase transitions between periodic, locally chaotic, chaotic and complex (Class 4) behavior

Effect of early clinical skills teaching on 3rd year medical students' learning: The student perspective

AbstractObjectivesThe main purpose of the early introduction of Clinical Skills Learning (CSL) to pre-clinical years is to allow medical students to gain experience in clinical examination skills, basic medical procedures, history-taking and clinical communication. The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the early teaching of clinical skills in preparing medical students for their clinical years.MethodsA validated questionnaire assessing the value of CSL on students in their first clinical year was distributed to 3rd year medical students. The questionnaire consisted of 8 items with a five-point Likert scale and one open-ended question.ResultsThe response rate to the questionnaire was approximately 62%. Nearly 97 (70.8%) students suggested that CSL was a favourable teaching strategy. A high percentage of students (90.5%) agreed that CSL was a useful pre-clinical module to prepare them for their clinical years. The students gave positive feedback on the teaching of history-taking and physical examination, exposure to the hospital environment and acquisition of communication skills with supervisors and patients. No student perceived the CSL module as poor.ConclusionsEarly CSL was well-perceived by students in preparing them for their clinical years. CSL is a vital part of the pre-clinical curriculum and should be further enriched with frequent hospital visits to enhance students' confidence level and performance when interacting with patients during their clinical years