The impact of assessment techniques on the relationship between work-based learning and teamwork skills development

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effect of assessment techniques on the relationship between work-based learning and teamwork skills development at technical colleges in Nigeria. The sample consists of 257 technical teachers. The CFA models were developed to obtain the Chi-square values, modification indices, and standardized estimates using AMOS. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), employing AMOS version 22 was utilized to test the mediation effect and also the relationship between work-based learning and teamwork skills development among students of technical colleges. The findings of the study revealed that work-based learning has a direct significant negative relationship with teamwork skills development among students of technical colleges, while, it has a direct insignificant positive relationship with assessment techniques. However, when the mediation hypothesis was tested, the result indicates that assessment techniques have a significant positive indirect impact on teamwork skills development, that is, it fully mediates the relationship between work-based learning and teamwork skills development among students of technical colleges. This study implies to educators that there is a need to appropriately enforce the assessment techniques for effective development of teamwork skills among TVET students. It is therefore, confirmed that teamwork skills should be enhanced when work-based learning is used in collaboration with appropriate assessment techniques

Renormalizing Partial Differential Equations

In this review paper, we explain how to apply Renormalization Group ideas to the analysis of the long-time asymptotics of solutions of partial differential equations. We illustrate the method on several examples of nonlinear parabolic equations. We discuss many applications, including the stability of profiles and fronts in the Ginzburg-Landau equation, anomalous scaling laws in reaction-diffusion equations, and the shape of a solution near a blow-up point.Comment: 34 pages, Latex; [email protected]; [email protected]

The impact of generic skills on building technology graduates employability

Stressing the generic skills among learners is an essential component of producing graduates who would be employable and highly competitive in the world of work situations. This study empirically examined the influence of soft skill elements on building technology graduates’ employability at technical colleges in Nigeria. The study tested six hypotheses on soft skill elements influencing building technology graduates’ employability. Data were collected through personal-administered questionnaire from 314 building technology teachers at technical colleges in the north-western States of Nigeria. The instrument was embraced from an earlier study and distributed to Building technology teachers at technical colleges in North West, Nigeria. The results revealed through Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis that ICT skills, and resource management skills have a significant positive relationship with building technology graduates’ employability while personal skills and problem-solving skills have a positive but insignificant relationship with building technology graduates’ employability at technical colleges in Nigeria. It is recommended that teachers or academicians should come out with more interactive ways to develop soft skills among students at every stage to make them become more employable hence, avert them from being unemployed in the future

Construction and Expected Performance of the Hadron Blind Detector for the PHENIX Experiment at RHIC

A new Hadron Blind Detector (HBD) for electron identification in high density hadron environment has been installed in the PHENIX detector at RHIC in the fall of 2006. The HBD will identify low momentum electron-positron pairs to reduce the combinatorial background in the $e^{+}e^{-}$ mass spectrum, mainly in the low-mass region below 1 GeV/c$^{2}$. The HBD is a windowless proximity-focusing Cherenkov detector with a radiator length of 50 cm, a CsI photocathode and three layers of Gas Electron Multipliers (GEM). The HBD uses pure CF$_{4}$ as a radiator and a detector gas. Construction details and the expected performance of the detector are described.Comment: QM2006 proceedings, 4 pages 3 figure

Developing soft skills through project-based learning in technical and vocational institutions

Soft skills have become critical in the preparation of employable graduates. The education system must, therefore, aim to ensure quality training for the production of employable graduates. Soft skills are personal abilities that one retains and can adequately be nurtured through active participation of students in the teaching and learning process. It is validated by researchers that the prevalent employability skills deficiencies have been one of the main causes of unemployment globally. Consequently, soft skills have all the potentials for equipping graduates with adequate employability skills. Thus, this study investigated the effect of project-based learning on the development of soft skills among technical students at technical and vocational colleges, Kaduna State, Nigeria Smart PLS software was used to test the developed model. As the sample size for this study was relatively small, the researchers were not certain to have normally distributed data. Subsequently, Smart PLS is appropriate for non-normally distributed data and therefore, it was used to simultaneously evaluate the measurement model, structural models and to confirm the convergent and discriminant validity of the measure. The study revealed that collaborative skills construct have a significant positive relationship with soft skills of technical students at technical and vocational colleges, while communication skills, initiative skills, and problem-solving skills have a positive insignificant relationship with soft skills of technical students at technical and vocational colleges. The findings of this study suggest that the curriculum of technical programs in Nigerian technical colleges need to be reviewed and geared more towards activity-based teaching and learning to enable technical students effectively develop soft skills for employment

Design, Construction, Operation and Performance of a Hadron Blind Detector for the PHENIX Experiment

A Hadron Blind Detector (HBD) has been developed, constructed and successfully operated within the PHENIX detector at RHIC. The HBD is a Cherenkov detector operated with pure CF4. It has a 50 cm long radiator directly coupled in a window- less configuration to a readout element consisting of a triple GEM stack, with a CsI photocathode evaporated on the top surface of the top GEM and pad readout at the bottom of the stack. This paper gives a comprehensive account of the construction, operation and in-beam performance of the detector.Comment: 51 pages, 39 Figures, submitted to Nuclear Instruments and Method

Self-similarity and long-time behavior of solutions of the diffusion equation with nonlinear absorption and a boundary source

This paper deals with the long-time behavior of solutions of nonlinear reaction-diffusion equations describing formation of morphogen gradients, the concentration fields of molecules acting as spatial regulators of cell differentiation in developing tissues. For the considered class of models, we establish existence of a new type of ultra-singular self-similar solutions. These solutions arise as limits of the solutions of the initial value problem with zero initial data and infinitely strong source at the boundary. We prove existence and uniqueness of such solutions in the suitable weighted energy spaces. Moreover, we prove that the obtained self-similar solutions are the long-time limits of the solutions of the initial value problem with zero initial data and a time-independent boundary source

Ultrastructural and functional fate of recycled vesicles in hippocampal synapses

Efficient recycling of synaptic vesicles is thought to be critical for sustained information transfer at central terminals. However, the specific contribution that retrieved vesicles make to future transmission events remains unclear. Here we exploit fluorescence and time-stamped electron microscopy to track the functional and positional fate of vesicles endocytosed after readily releasable pool (RRP) stimulation in rat hippocampal synapses. We show that most vesicles are recovered near the active zone but subsequently take up random positions in the cluster, without preferential bias for future use. These vesicles non-selectively queue, advancing towards the release site with further stimulation in an actin-dependent manner. Nonetheless, the small subset of vesicles retrieved recently in the stimulus train persist nearer the active zone and exhibit more privileged use in the next RRP. Our findings reveal heterogeneity in vesicle fate based on nanoscale position and timing rules, providing new insights into the origins of future pool constitution

The determinants of vulnerability to currency crises: country-specific factors versus regional factors

We investigate the determinants of exchange market pressures (EMP) for some new EU member states at both the national and regional levels, where macroeconomic and financial variables are considered as potential sources. The regional common factors are extracted from these variables by using dynamic factor analysis. The linear empirical analysis, in general, highlights the importance of country-specific factors to defend themselves against vulnerability in their external sectors. Yet, given a significant impact of the common component in credit on EMP, a contagion effect is apparent through the conduit of credit market integration across these countries under investigation