Strategies to deal with academic underperformance in grade 12 in the Free State

ThesisThe aim of this study was to investigate the impact that the intervention strategies had on the academic performance of grade 12 learners in the Free State province. The grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) results had been of poor quality over the years in the Free State province. This prompted the educational leadership at district and provincial level to develop and implement the various improvement strategies. The grade 12 learners in the underperforming schools were taken to camps during the school holidays. The other extra classes were held at the respective schools. The subject advisors were also involved in teaching at some of the centres. The performance targets were imposed on the schools. Different technologies were introduced into the classroom – HeyMath, ICITISE and the independent broadcasting programme. The districts conducted training on curriculum coverage, instructional leadership, subject content training, curriculum management and performance management. The grade 12 NSC results remained unimpressive despite the numerous intervention strategies implemented by the districts and the provincial department of education. This then led to the investigation on the possible reasons why the strategies did not yield the desired results. As a point of departure this investigation looked into the causes of underperformance in the schools. If there is urgency about improving failing schools, more attention should be channelled on the causes of underperformance as well as the factors that contribute to continuous failure. Identifying schools as underperforming is contingent on a large number of circumstances: poor curriculum coverage, poor classroom management, total disregard for teaching and learning time, lack of teacher discipline and poor work ethics, teacher apathy, high rate of unaccounted absenteeism and inadequate resources – to mention just a few. The empirical research was conducted using both the qualitative and quantitative methods. This was done in order to obtain triangulation. The grade 12 subject teachers completed the questionnaire while the principals of the underperforming schools and the school management and governance developers (circuit managers) were interviewed. The SPSS version 23 was used to analyse the empirical research data. It was established that many intervention strategies were not suitably differentiated. Many of them did not take into account the contextual factors within the underperforming schools. It was further established that the intervention strategies were too many and therefore lacked the necessary focus. One critical finding relates to the fact that the strategies were not designed to enhance the internal skills and capabilities of the teachers in the underperforming schools. The academic results would drop as soon as the intervention strategies were suspended or withdrawn. The teachers lacked the capacity needed to sustain improved levels of performance. The investigation revealed that there were too many execution gaps in the implementation of the intervention strategies. The study found that the strategies had a noticeable but not a lasting or sustainable impact on the overall pass rate, but they had no noticeable impact on the bachelors’ pass rate. The integrated learner attainment model proposed in this study focuses on bridging the execution gaps and on implementing the intervention strategies in an organised and well structured manner. The model proposes the involvement of all relevant stakeholders in the implementation process. There must be a well understood evaluation system that would be used to determine the impact of each strategy at regular intervals. Communication of the strategies must be improved in such a way that the circuit managers who are expected to monitor their effective implementation are on board at all times. The provincial department of education needs to invest in few strategies that are deemed as the most effective. The school management teams and the district officials must all be appraised on the salient features of the selected intervention strategies. The strategies must not be unreasonably imposed on the schools. The correct diagnosis of the problem must dictate the type of strategy to be implemented. The integrated learner attainment model proposes a systematic approach to the implementation of the intervention strategies

Evaluation of the primary biliary cholangitis-related serologic profile in a large cohort of Belgian systemic sclerosis patients

Background: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) and primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) are autoimmune diseases that may occur concomitantly and are both strongly associated with disease-specific autoantibodies. This study investigated the prevalence and fine specificity of PBC-specific serology (PBC-Ab) and associations with the SSc-subtypes and SSc-specific antibodies as well as the association with cholestatic liver enzymes. Furthermore, three different techniques for the detection of PBC-Ab were compared. Methods: Serum of 184 Belgian SSc patients with a known SSc-antibody profile, was analyzed for PBC-Ab (antimitochondrial antibodies [AMA], anti-Gp210, anti-Sp100 and anti-PML) using indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) analysis on human epithelioma-2000 (HEp-2000) cells (ANA-IIF, Immunoconcepts) and liver-kidney-stomach tissue sections (IIF-LKS) (Menarini), and a line immunoblot (LB) (Eurolmmun). Alkaline phosphatase/gamma-glutamyl transferase (ALP/GGT) were evaluated at time of first sampling (t0) and after 3 years of follow-up (t3). Results: PBC-Ab were present in 13% of patients and significantly correlated with centromere antibodies (anti-CENP-B), but not correlated with the limited cutaneous SSc subgroup (lcSSc). The most frequent reactivities were AMA (11%, with 9% AMA-M2) and Sp-100 antibodies (5%), showing a major overlap. There was no relevant association between the presence of PBC-Ab and ALP or GGT elevation at t0 nor at t3. Detection of AMA with IIF-LKS is comparable to LB. ANA-IIF screening was less sensitive compared to LB. Conclusions: A wide range of PBC-Ab is detectable in SSc in the absence of cholestatic liver enzyme elevations, even after 3 years of follow-up. However, as these antibodies may precede PBC-disease up to 10 years further prospective follow-up of our cohort will be necessary

Implementasi Neighbor Embedding pada Pewarnaan Citra Grayscale

Pewarnaan Citra adalah sesuatu yang menarik dalam Image Processing. Citra yang sebelumnya memiliki warna yang kurang diminati, bisa diubah menjadi warna yang sesuai dengan keinginan. Permasalahan yang sama yang diangkat oleh Tugas Akhir ini adalah Pewarnaan Citra Grayscale. Citra grayscale yang hanya tampak hitam dan putih berdasarkan tingkat kecerahannya akan direproduksi kembali untuk menjadi citra berwana.Metodologi yang digunakan adalah Metode Neighbor Embedding yang merupakan pengembangan dari metode Locally Linear Embedding. Metode ini pernah dilakukan untuk menangani kasus Super-Resolution. Metode ini juga telah diimplementasikan oleh Jun Li untuk menangani kasus pewarnaan citra.Metode Neighbor Embedding yang diterapkan pada pewarnaan citra grayscale ini merupakan metode pewarnaan citra secara otomatis. Metode ini membutuhkan dua citra yaitu citra grayscale sebagai citra target dan citra berwarna sebagai citra training atau acuan. Setelah dilakukan penelitian untuk melakukan pewarnaan citra dengan metode tersebut berdasarkan analisis histogram, citra training berhasil dilakukan proses transfer warna ke citra target. Semakin dekat luminance dari keduanya, semakin mudah mentransfer warnanya. Selain itu ada beberapa parameter yang mempengaruhi hasil warna yang ditransfer, yaitu patch, nilai K dan juga range warna yang ada pada citra target. Selain penelitian berdasarkan analisis histogram, telah dilakukan penelitian terhadap MAE (Mean Absolute Error) untuk model warna YIQ yang digunakan sebagai model warna pewarnaan citra grayscale ini. MAE yang didapat dari pengujian pewarnaan citra target yang merupakan citra training yang di-grayscale-kan, nilai yang terburuk adalah 0,028311104 untuk MSE I, dan untuk MSE Q 0,025990016. Hal ini menunjukan bahwa model warna YIQ cukup layak digunakan dalam pewarnaan citra dengan metode ini. Analisis berdasarkan MOS yang telah dilakukan juga menunjukkan bahwa warna citra hasil pewarnaan oleh Neighbor Embeding cukup sesuai dengan warna citra pada umumnya. grayscale, colorization, Locally Linear Embedding, Neighbor Embedding, YI

Effects of Short-Term Aging on Asphalt Binders and Hot Mix Asphalt at Elevated Temperatures and Extended Aging Time

The production process of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) causes a short term aging (STA) to asphalt binder due to the heating of both asphalt binder and aggregates before mixing together. Laboratory protocols are followed to simulate the STA conditions for both asphalt binders and asphalt mixtures. STA protocols expose asphalt binders or asphalt mixtures to specific aging temperature for a specific period of time to produce stiffening that is similar to that of actual production conditions. Successful construction of HMA in cold season/regions may require elevating the production temperature of HAM to achieve proper compaction of HMA layers. Producing HMA mixtures at elevated temperatures may cause further increase in the binder stiffness and negatively affect the future field performance of asphalt pavements. This negative affect can be even worse especially if it is coupled with extended exposer time increase. This study aims to investigate effect of elevated production (mixing and STA) temperatures and exposure time on the stiffening of binders and asphalt mixtures. The binder experiment involved aging of two Performance Graded (PG) binders (PG 76-16 and PG 64-22) at two different temperatures and aging durations. The asphalt mixture experiment involved the STA of asphalt mixtures produced in the laboratory at mixing and STA temperatures 25°F above standard practice and aging time 2 and 4 hours longer than standard practices. The effect of different aging times and temperatures was investigated by running viscosity tests on binders and dynamic modulus |E*| and Indirect Diametrical Strength (IDT) tests on asphalt mixtures. The results showed that increasing the mixing and STA temperatures by 25°F seems to have no significant effect on the asphalt mixture properties while doubling the standard STA time seems to have a significant effect on binder and asphalt mixture properties

Investigating dynamic and energetic determinants of protein nucleic acid recognition: analysis of the zinc finger zif268-DNA complexes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Protein-DNA recognition underlies fundamental biological processes ranging from transcription to replication and modification. Herein, we present a computational study of the sequence modulation of internal dynamic properties and of intraprotein networks of aminoacid interactions that determine the stability and specificity of protein-DNA complexes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To this aim, we apply novel theoretical approaches to analyze the dynamics and energetics of biological systems starting from MD trajectories. As model system, we chose different sequences of Zinc Fingers (ZF) of the Zif268 family bound with different sequences of DNA. The complexes differ for their experimental stability properties, but share the same overall 3 D structure and do not undergo structural modifications during the simulations. The results of our analysis suggest that the energy landscape for DNA binding may be populated by dynamically different states, even in the absence of major conformational changes. Energetic couplings between residues change in response to protein and/or DNA sequence variations thus modulating the selectivity of recognition and the relative importance of different regions for binding.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results show differences in the organization of the intra-protein energy-networks responsible for the stabilization of the protein conformations recognizing and binding DNA. These, in turn, are reflected into different modulation of the ZF's internal dynamics. The results also show a correlation between energetic and dynamic properties of the different proteins and their specificity/selectivity for DNA sequences. Finally, a dynamic and energetic model for the recognition of DNA by Zinc Fingers is proposed.</p

Nanopore sequencing of a forensic STR multiplex reveals loci suitable for single-contributor STR profiling

Nanopore sequencing for forensic short tandem repeats (STR) genotyping comes with the advantages associated with massively parallel sequencing (MPS) without the need for a high up-front device cost, but genotyping is inaccurate, partially due to the occurrence of homopolymers in STR loci. The goal of this study was to apply the latest progress in nanopore sequencing by Oxford Nanopore Technologies in the field of STR genotyping. The experiments were performed using the state of the art R9.4 flow cell and the most recent R10 flow cell, which was specifically designed to improve consensus accuracy of homopolymers. Two single-contributor samples and one mixture sample were genotyped using Illumina sequencing, Nanopore R9.4 sequencing, and Nanopore R10 sequencing. The accuracy of genotyping was comparable for both types of flow cells, although the R10 flow cell provided improved data quality for loci characterized by the presence of homopolymers. We identify locus-dependent characteristics hindering accurate STR genotyping, providing insights for the design of a panel of STR loci suited for nanopore sequencing. Repeat number, the number of different reference alleles for the locus, repeat pattern complexity, flanking region complexity, and the presence of homopolymers are identified as unfavorable locus characteristics. For single-contributor samples and for a limited set of the commonly used STR loci, nanopore sequencing could be applied. However, the technology is not mature enough yet for implementation in routine forensic workflows

Creation of the Short Documentary 'Sampah Siapa? Siapa Sampah?" for Waste Management Awareness and Sustainable Development in Surabaya

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a global action plan endorsed by world leaders, including Indonesia, comprising 17 Goals and 169 Targets, the SDGs aspire to be achieved by 2030. This study focuses on environmental preservation, aligning with Goal 15 (preserving terrestrial ecosystems), Goal 6 (access to clean water and sanitation) and Goal 14 (conserving marine ecosystems). Environmental degradation remains a detrimental factor in disrupting Earth's natural ecosystems, impacting various aspects of the environment and giving rise to problems such as floods, which inevitably lead to various diseases, bacteria, and even viruses. Waste is generated, ranging from household refuse to industrial waste. Our current challenge lies in a lack of public awareness regarding the importance of responsible waste sorting. We hope that the public will shift their perspective on waste from being a "negative" aspect to a resource that can be repurposed for the betterment of society and the environment. To raise awareness, we have created short videos featuring testimonies from individuals affected by waste pollution in their communities. Waste management serves as a solution and is a crucial element of our video content, as it not only raises awareness but also imparts essential knowledge to the public, helping to reduce waste generation and simplify the waste separation process. This, in turn, minimizes the residual impact of waste disposal. Our study underscores the significance of promoting waste management awareness to achieve the SDGs. Through educational videos and public engagement, we aim to inspire individuals to take proactive steps in preserving our environment and building a sustainable future

Jurnal Guru Dikmen Vol.2 No.1 Desember 2017

Wahana Saling Bertukar Pandangan dan Pengalaman untuk Meningkatkan Mutu Guru Pendidikan Menega