Substandard Performance in Mathematical Problem Solving in Physics Among Higher Secondary School Students in Kerala - An Investigation on Teacher Perceptions and Student Difficulties

Physics and Mathematics are two deeply interlinked domains of Science. Mathematics is considered as the language in which the Physics theories are built by employing mathematical symbols and operations to make equations and representations in the world of Physics completely meaningful. In spite of being the backbone of Physics, the use of Mathematics principles and operations in Physics is the root cause of most of the issues and hassles aroused among students who learn Physics. This is an investigation on the substandard performance in mathematical problem solving in Physics among higher secondary school students by looking into the responses of teachers and students. The responses obtained from 21 higher secondary Physics teachers through questionnaire were studied using percentage analysis and the four major categories of ‘Difficulties in Mathematical Problem Solving in Physics’ faced by students viz., ‘Creating or Identifying the Formula’, ‘Extracting Information from Diagrams’, ‘Using Physics Concepts to Create Schematic Diagrams’ and ‘Application of Mathematics’ to solve Physics problems. were identified, The investigators used ‘Test on Mathematical Problem Solving in Physics’ with 40 multiple choice questions on select basic topics from ‘Motion’, which was informed by the Physics teachers to be one of the strenuous concepts for students while solving problems. The extent of each category of difficulty in the respective topics based on the students’ responses in the test was studied to rank them. This study also highlights some suggestions for improving the teaching and learning of mathematical problems in Physics at higher secondary level

A diagnostic review of aspects of management in an urban primary school in Kwa-Zulu Natal [sic] with particular reference to perceptions of quality and criteria for total quality.

Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Durban, 2003.This thesis investigates the diagnostic review of aspects of management, with particular reference to perceptions of "quality" and criteria for "total quality". The system of education in South Africa faces grave problems: the collapse of the culture of teaching and learning, under-resourced schools and under qualified educational managers and educators. In this regard the new paradigm in managing schools known as Total Quality Management (TQM), was investigated in this thesis. Total Quality Management (TQM), is an approach which has great potential for the enhancement of public schooling in South Africa. School systems in South Africa now faces dramatic changes in the external environment. The TQM approach focuses in particular on leadership and people, and the comprehensive change to the theory and practice of management. This study, thus, tries to determine the nature and characteristics of TQM in the school through the review of literature, and to determine the elements of TQM that were identified in the school. The study further investigates if the strategies employed in schools are based on TQM principles and if it could be characterised as effective in terms of TQM. A literature study was undertaken to analyse TQM and to determine methods for implementing TQM in the school. The empirical research consists of two phases: a quantitative phase comprising the use of a self - completion questionnaire to determine to what the official position of the school is and to what extent the principal makes use of TQM, and a qualitative phase in which the key individuals of the school namely the principal, deputy principal and two heads of department participated in interviews to determine to what strategies the school use are based on TQM. The data collected from both the literature review and the empirical study was used to develop a strategy as a guide to improve school effectiveness through TQM. The main findings of this study reveals that there are identifiable characteristics of TQM in the school, although most educators could not identify with the philosophy of total quality management as an approach to managing the school. The study also finds that the strategies employed by the school's management team can be regarded as effective in terms of TQM

A content delivery system for computer aided language instruction

North American children have a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. For children whose mother tongue is still being spoken at home, maintaining and advancing parental linguistic instruction is an ongoing effort. This effort must be upheld by the parents and other classroom based media if the child is to preserve and further his mother language acquisition. We propose a means for computer assisted language delivery based on an expandable language content delivery system. The system is applied to the instruction of the Arabic language for grade one, second language instruction. All aspects of the delivery process are demonstrated in terms of letter shape, composition, recognition, connection shapes, and relevant vocabulary models. The model discussed in this thesis is relevant to the instruction of cursive languages such as Urdu or Persian. We drew on relevant research to enhance and contrast our system where necessary. A system designed based on the model gave rise to the creation of an engaging, user oriented interactive software application for the use of children at the grade one level. A total of seven students were asked to use the software and their interaction was observed and analyzed. The results of our experiments reveal acceptance and enhanced language acquisition as demonstrated by the evaluation experiments

Comparative evaluation of surface detail reproduction and dimensional stability of poly ether, polyvinyl siloxane and vinyl polysiloxane ether impression materials: An In Vitro study

BACKGROUND: An accurate duplication of the patients hard and soft tissue is an significant. one to give a precise fitting cast restoration. Impression making an integral part of prosthetic dentistry. Development of material science has allowed integrating qualities of hydrophilic poly ether and hydrophobic polyvinyl siloxane into a newer hybrid material vinyl polysiloxane ether. The aim of this In vitro experiment is to compare the newer material vinyl polysiloxane ether with the poly ether and polyvinyl siloxane in terms of accuracy and dimensional stability. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Stainless steel dies with ADA specification 19 was made. Die has 3 horizontal and 2 vertical lines are used for taking impression. The horizontal lines are labeled one, two, and three. The horizontal line has a width of the 0.60 mm. Two cross-points at the junction of the vertical lines with line 2 were patent as x and x' serve. These lines were the beginning and end points of dimensions for dimensional accuracy. Accuracy was evaluated 30 minutes after making each impression stored in room Stainless steel dies with ADA specification 19 was made. Die has 3 horizontal and 2 vertical lines are used for taking impression. The horizontal lines are labeled one, two, and three. The horizontal line has a width of the 0.60 mm. Two cross-points at the junction of the vertical lines with line 2 were patent as x and x' serve. These lines were the beginning and end points of dimensions for dimensional accuracy. Accuracy was evaluated 30 minutes after making each impression stored in room temperature. Continuity of line of replication is measured. If at least 2 of the 3 horizontal lines were reproduced continuously between cross points, this impression was considered satisfactory. The specimens are poured with type IV gypsum product and allowed to set completely for 24 hours. Then dimensional stability was measured in the model by measuring the distance between the two lines and comparing the distance with the measurement of line on metal die which was used to make the impression. RESULTS: The mean value obtained for the vinyl polysiloxane ether light was 0.0 5370 and for medium was 0.05330. the mean value for light and medium bodied polyvinyl siloxane was 0.06370 and 0.07150 and the mean value for poly ether monophase was 0.06430 respectively. A 2-way ANOVA statistical analysis gave a significance of p=0.005 while the post- hoc test for inter group analysis gave a p value of > 0.05. CONCLUSION: The newer vinyl polysiloxane ether material showed good surface detail reproduction and Dimensional Stability among all five materials. Although these differences when compared to the master die were significant, such a small discrepancy between the five groups, in relation to the overall dimension can be considered clinically insignificant, such a small discrepancy between the five groups, in relation to the overall dimension can be considered clinically insignificant

Vagal Withdrawal and Sympathetic Overactivity Contribute to the Genesis of Early-Onset Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension

Objective. In this study, we have assessed sympathovagal imbalance (SVI) by spectral analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) that contributes to the genesis of early-onset PIH. Methods. Body mass index (BMI), basal heart rate (BHR), blood pressure (BP) and HRV indices such as LFnu, HFnu, LF-HF ratio, mean RR, SDNN and RMSSD were assessed in normal pregnant women (Control group) and pregnant women having risk factors for PIH (Study group) at all the trimesters pregnancy. Retrospectively, those who did not develop PIH (Study group I) were separated from those who developed PIH (Study group II). Study group II was subdivided into early-onset and late-onset PIH. Sympathovagal balance (LF-HF ratio) was correlated with BMI, BHR and BP. Results. LF-HF ratio was significantly high in study group II compared to study group I and control group, and in early-onset PIH group compared to the late-onset category at all the trimesters of pregnancy, which was significantly correlated with BHR and BP. Alteration in HFnu in early-onset category was more prominent than the alteration in LFnu. Conclusion. Though the SVI in PIH is contributed by both sympathetic overactivity and vagal withdrawal, especially in early-onset type, SVI is mainly due to vagal inhibition

1-[2-(4-Chloro­phen­yl)-5-phenyl-2,3-dihydro-1,3,4-oxadiazol-3-yl]ethanone

In the title compound, C16H14ClN3O2, the 2,3-dihydro-1,3,4-oxadiazole ring [maximum deviation = 0.030 (1) Å] and the pyridine ring [maximum deviation = 0.012 (1) Å] are inclined slightly to one another, making a dihedral angle of 11.91 (5)°. The chloro-substituted phenyl ring is almost perpendicular to the 2,3-dihydro-1,3,4-oxadiazole and pyridine rings at dihedral angles of 86.86 (5) and 75.26 (5)°, respectively. In the crystal, π–π [centroid–centroid distance = 3.7311 (6) Å] and C—H⋯π inter­actions are observed

ArtELingo: A Million Emotion Annotations of WikiArt with Emphasis on Diversity over Language and Culture

This paper introduces ArtELingo, a new benchmark and dataset, designed to encourage work on diversity across languages and cultures. Following ArtEmis, a collection of 80k artworks from WikiArt with 0.45M emotion labels and English-only captions, ArtELingo adds another 0.79M annotations in Arabic and Chinese, plus 4.8K in Spanish to evaluate "cultural-transfer" performance. More than 51K artworks have 5 annotations or more in 3 languages. This diversity makes it possible to study similarities and differences across languages and cultures. Further, we investigate captioning tasks, and find diversity improves the performance of baseline models. ArtELingo is publicly available at https://www.artelingo.org/ with standard splits and baseline models. We hope our work will help ease future research on multilinguality and culturally-aware AI.Comment: 9 pages, Accepted at EMNLP 22, for more details see https://www.artelingo.org