SOCIAL IMPACT OF MOBILE LEARNING TABLETS ON EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM A PRIVATE NIGERIAN TERTIARY INSTITUTION

The advent of Information and Computer Technology (ICT) has suddenly turned the world into a global village. One of the ICT gadgets that appeared to be instrumental to the growing global socialization is mobile learning tablet. This study focused on ascertaining the social impact of mobile tablets on education and sustainable development. Recently, a private university in Nigeria with a population of over 8000 distributed Samsung tablet to all students. Using the clustered sampling technique, 220 students participated in the survey study. Simple descriptive statistics and t-test statistics were used in data analysis. The findings were: Out of the five most preferred websites indicated by respondents, the fairly academically inclined website visited by the respondents was Google (87.9%); 81.4% of the respondents were either always or sometimes using the mobile learning tablets for social networking; 48.2% of the respondents used the mobile tablets for chatting sometimes or always. 47.3% of the respondents reported that the mobile tablet had more negative social impact on them.; 58.3% of the respondents concurred they were predominantly using the mobile learning tablet for non-academic purposes; gender factor tended not to have a significant effect on the use of mobile tablets [t=-.825; p=.411]. Hours of usage had a significant social impact amongst the undergraduate students [t=-11.9; p=.000]. Those who used the mobile learning tablet more frequently tend to experience more negative social impact. Based on the findings, it was recommended that management of educational institutions need to exert more control on the use of mobile learning devices to experience more sustainable development-oriented social impact in the system

Calibration of CR-39 solid state nuclear track detector

Nowadays there are increasing uses of SSNTD on scientific works in Thailand. Currently we are using SSNTD as an important tool for confirming active fault zones in a province in which a new nuclear research reactor has been proposed to come up. Soil gas radon was measured by both active and passive methods. In the latter case CR-39 SSNTD was installed in a PVC tube of 50 cm long by 5 cm in diameter. The tubes were placed in 50-cm deep holes lining perpendicular to the faults’ trace for one week. In this paper we describe the method and the results on calibrating these detectors using a radon chamber and a NIST-traceable radium-226 standard source.Author Affiliation: P Wanabongse, B Sola, J Jamsangtong and S Rattanabussayaporn 1. Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology, 16 Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand 2Department of Nuclear Technology, Chulalongkorn University, Payathai Road, Patoomwon Bangkok 10330, Thailand 3Office of Atoms for Peace, 16 Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand E-mail : [email protected] Institute of Nuclear Technology, 16 Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand 2Department of Nuclear Technology, Chulalongkorn University, Payathai Road, Patoomwon Bangkok 10330, Thailand 3Office of Atoms for Peace, 16 Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailan

Management of drug resistance in mantle cell lymphoma

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a rare but aggressive B-cell hemopathy characterized by the translocation t(11;14)(q13;q32) that leads to the overexpression of the cell cycle regulatory protein cyclin D1. This translocation is the initial event of the lymphomagenesis, but tumor cells can acquire additional alterations allowing the progression of the disease with a more aggressive phenotype and a tight dependency on microenvironment signaling. To date, the chemotherapeutic-based standard care is largely inefficient and despite the recent advent of different targeted therapies including proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory drugs, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, relapses are frequent and are generally related to a dismal prognosis. As a result, MCL remains an incurable disease. In this review, we will present the molecular mechanisms of drug resistance learned from both preclinical and clinical experiences in MCL, detailing the main tumor intrinsic processes and signaling pathways associated to therapeutic drug escape. We will also discuss the possibility to counteract the acquisition of drug refractoriness through the design of more efficient strategies, with an emphasis on the most recent combination approaches

Equation of state description of the dark energy transition between quintessence and phantom regimes

The dark energy crossing of the cosmological constant boundary (the transition between the quintessence and phantom regimes) is described in terms of the implicitly defined dark energy equation of state. The generalizations of the models explicitly constructed to exhibit the crossing provide the insight into the cancellation mechanism which makes the transition possible.Comment: 3 pages, talk given at TAUP200

A ‘threat’ is a ‘Threat’: Incentive effects of firing threats with varying degrees of performance information

We study the incentive effect of firing threats when bosses have limited information about workers. We show that a minimal amount of individual information about workers’ effort such as the time spent at their work station is sufficient to ensure strong incentive effects. This supports the use of firing threats based on rudimentary yet uncontroversial measures of work performance such as absenteeism, in organizational settings in which only limited information about workers is available. Our results help understand the limited link between pay and performance observed in compensation contracts calling for an extension of the principal-agent model to take into account how workers (mis-)perceive the intensity of incentives

Absolute properties of the binary system BB Pegasi

We present a ground based photometry of the low-temperature contact binary BB Peg. We collected all times of mid-eclipses available in literature and combined them with those obtained in this study. Analyses of the data indicate a period increase of 3.0(1) x 10^{-8} days/yr. This period increase of BB Peg can be interpreted in terms of the mass transfer 2.4 x 10^{-8} Ms yr^{-1} from the less massive to the more massive component. The physical parameters have been determined as Mc = 1.42 Ms, Mh = 0.53 Ms, Rc = 1.29 Rs, Rh = 0.83 Rs, Lc = 1.86 Ls, and Lh = 0.94 Ls through simultaneous solution of light and of the radial velocity curves. The orbital parameters of the third body, that orbits the contact system in an eccentric orbit, were obtained from the period variation analysis. The system is compared to the similar binaries in the Hertzsprung-Russell and Mass-Radius diagram.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, accepted for Astronomical Journa

Structure and properties of polyamide 11 nanocomposites filled with fibrous palygorskite clay

Various amounts (up to 10 wt%) of palygorskite nanofibers functionalized by 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) coupling agent were used to reinforce polyamide 11 nanocomposites prepared by melt compounding. The covalent bonding of the silane on the palygorskite surface was confirmed by infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. X-ray diffraction revealed the retention of the α-form of polyamide crystals upon the addition of both natural and silane treated palygorskite nanorods. All the investigated nanocomposites showed an improvement of the thermal stability, especially when surface treated palygorskite nanofibers were considered. Tensile tests and dynamic mechanical thermal analyses on the prepared materials evidenced how the incorporation of palygorskite nanofibers significantly increased the elastic and the storage moduli of polyamide, and this enhancement was more evident when natural palygorskite nanorods were used

Combinatorial Intracellular Delivery Screening of Anticancer Drugs

Conventional drug solubilization strategies limit the understanding of the full potential of poorly water-soluble drugs during drug screening. Here, we propose a screening approach in which poorly water-soluble drugs are entrapped in poly(2-(methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine)-poly(2-(diisopropylaminoethyl methacryate) (PMPC–PDPA) polymersomes (POs) to enhance drug solubility and facilitate intracellular delivery. By using a human pediatric glioma cell model, we demonstrated that PMPC–PDPA POs mediated intracellular delivery of cytotoxic and epigenetic drugs by receptor-mediated endocytosis. Additionally, when delivered in combination, drug-loaded PMPC–PDPA POs triggered both an enhanced drug efficacy and synergy compared to that of a conventional combinatorial screening. Hence, our comprehensive synergy analysis illustrates that our screening methodology, in which PMPC–PDPA POs are used for intracellular codelivery of drugs, allows us to identify potent synergistic profiles of anticancer drugs