Taking ownership: The story of a successful partnership for change in a Pacific Island science teacher education setting.

This paper explores an example of a partnership approach that appears to be producing sustainable change in a Pacific Islands education setting. The people involved report on the way science education staff from the Solomon Islands School of Education (SOE) and staff from the Faculty of Education University of Waikato (UOW), New Zealand worked together on the redevelopment of undergraduate science education courses for the SOE. Together we sought to identify significant factors supporting the process. The development required significant change and posed a number of challenges yet resulted in local staff producing high quality materials and programmes and taking ownership of ongoing development. More importantly, there was significant personal professional learning in both science education and initial teacher education for local Solomon Islands staff. Factors contributing to the success of the partnership are explored through the perceptions of the participants and include the quality of relationship, mutual respect, emphasis on conceptual agreement when working together, and the involvement of local staff in decision-making

Semantic Perceptual Image Compression using Deep Convolution Networks

It has long been considered a significant problem to improve the visual quality of lossy image and video compression. Recent advances in computing power together with the availability of large training data sets has increased interest in the application of deep learning cnns to address image recognition and image processing tasks. Here, we present a powerful cnn tailored to the specific task of semantic image understanding to achieve higher visual quality in lossy compression. A modest increase in complexity is incorporated to the encoder which allows a standard, off-the-shelf jpeg decoder to be used. While jpeg encoding may be optimized for generic images, the process is ultimately unaware of the specific content of the image to be compressed. Our technique makes jpeg content-aware by designing and training a model to identify multiple semantic regions in a given image. Unlike object detection techniques, our model does not require labeling of object positions and is able to identify objects in a single pass. We present a new cnn architecture directed specifically to image compression, which generates a map that highlights semantically-salient regions so that they can be encoded at higher quality as compared to background regions. By adding a complete set of features for every class, and then taking a threshold over the sum of all feature activations, we generate a map that highlights semantically-salient regions so that they can be encoded at a better quality compared to background regions. Experiments are presented on the Kodak PhotoCD dataset and the MIT Saliency Benchmark dataset, in which our algorithm achieves higher visual quality for the same compressed size.Comment: Accepted to Data Compression Conference, 11 pages, 5 figure

Space current division in small pentodes

Thesis (B.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, 1948.by James Darr, Jr. and Solomon Manber.B.S

Determinant of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Low Participation in Public Procurement in Lagos, Nigeria

It is an established fact that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are crucial to economic development of any nation. SMEs participation in every sphere of economic activities including public procurement is one of the ways the sector can promote economic development of the country. However, SMEs sometimes are usually reluctant to sell to government. This study identified and classified into eight themes factors responsible for the low participation of SMEs in public procurement in Lagos State, Nigeria. Data were collected with questionnaires from 193 SMEs Chief executives. Data generated were analyzed using ranking method. The study revealed that perceived lack of transparency in public procurement proceedings, disproportionate eligibility criteria and burdensome nature of public procurement are the major reasons SMEs are reluctant to participate in public procurement in Lagos, Nigeria. It was concluded that transparency is vital in public procurement for SMEs to adequately participate in the process. The study recommended that in order to boost SMEs participation in public procurement transparent procurement management must be guaranteed. Keywords: Determinant; SMEs; Public procurement; Contract; Eligibility criteria.

Stability analyses on the effect of vaccination and contact tracing in monkeypox virus transmission

Monkeypox is a significant health concern due to its potential for morbidity and occasional mortality. Vaccination and effective contact tracing play pivotal roles in controlling infectious diseases, including monkeypox. This study aims to contribute to our understanding of monkeypox dynamics by developing a comprehensive mathematical model that incorporates key factors such as vaccination, quarantining, and contact tracing. Through rigorous sensitivity analysis, we explore the impact of varying vaccination coverage and contact tracing on the disease’s dynamics. In particular, we investigate the dynamics of the disease in relation to variable vaccination coverage and contact tracing. Our findings highlight the critical role of vaccination and contact tracing in reducing monkeypox transmission. Higher vaccination coverage, combined with effective contact tracing and other control measures, leads to increased stability of the disease-free equilibrium and a decreased likelihood of sustained outbreaks. These findings emphasize the need for continued efforts in promoting vaccination programs and strengthening contact tracing capabilities to effectively manage and contain monkeypox transmissions

Theoretical design and analysis of a sensing system for high pressure and temperature measurement in subsea underwater applications.

The theoretical design and analysis of a metal coated hybrid sensing system of Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) and Extrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometer (EFPI) cavity for high pressure high temperature (HPHT) measurement in subsea underwater applications is reported. The FBG and EFPI are used to measure temperature and pressure respectively. An opto-mechanical model that assesses the measurement of HPHT for subsea underwater applications with hybrid sensing system was developed. In this model, coating of the sensor with metallic materials is studied. The model combines both optical and structural analyses for developing an optimal sensor system design. The optical analysis is carried out to obtain the spectral response of the sensor while the structural analysis is used to obtain the change in optical properties of the sensor due to photo-elastic effect. Analytical results showed that the temperature sensitivity of the hybrid sensor with double layer metal coated FBG increased to 23.89 pm/ {deg}C when compared with single metal coated FBG of 13.95 pm/ {deg}C from previous study and the associated pressure range measured up to 5000 Psi. Furthermore, the proposed sensor design has shown good linearity. While the single coated FBG sensor shows little sensitivity, the sensitivity increases with thickness for double metal coating

Comparative Analysis of South West Students’ Performance in National Mathematics Olympiads Competitions in Nigeria

The main purpose of this study was to carry out a comparative analysis of the performance of South West students in the mathematics Olympiads competition organized annually in Nigeria by National Mathematical Centre, Abuja. Secondary data of the results of students for 2015, 2016 and 2017 Olympiads examinations in the six states of South West, Nigeria was collected and analyzed. Frequency count, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used to answer the three raised research questions while t-test and ANOVA were used to test the two formulated hypotheses. Results of the study showed that South West students’ performance for the three years was largely poor. The result also showed that male students performed better than their female counterparts. It was recommended among others that the National Mathematical Centre, Nigeria should make preparatory textbooks and other materials available and accessible to participating students to get them well prepared and perform better in the Olympiads. Keywords: Olympiads, National Mathematical Centre, Abuj