Higher Secondary Commerce Students’ Engagement and Attitude towards Blended Learning Environment

At present, classroom instruction should be a self-regulated process and the learner who is self-motivated to explore problems and situations. For learning, the students are learning through the web as a source of knowledge, the learning environment should be shifted to a learner-centered rather than teacher-centered environment. Commerce education is to be directed towards mastery in its conventions and principles, towards thinking and solving problems in scientific ways, towards developing a positive outlook to the discipline at the higher secondary level. Attitude towards learning is associated with the academic performance of commerce-related tasks and improving achievement. It should be one of the basic features in designing effective commerce classroom instruction. In the present study, students’ attitudes can be enhanced by using a blended learning instructional strategy targeting the variables of learner attitude towards learning of instructional transaction, learning task, classroom interaction, and assessment. The study employs pretest-posttest non-equivalence control group design under the quasi-experimental method. The sample consists of 80 students of standard XII, 40 students each in the experimental group and control group. Statistical techniques of descriptive statistics, t-test, and Cohen’s d were used for comparing the pretest and posttest scores of attitude towards learning and measuring the effect size between experimental and control groups. The findings of the study showed that there is a significant difference in the mean posttest scores of attitude towards learning between the experimental group and control group and the blended learning instructional strategy is more beneficial in developing the attitude of higher secondary school students when compared to constructivist teaching strategy

A Novel Intermetallic Nickel Aluminide (Ni3Al) as an Alternative Automotive Body Material

Investigation on Intermetallic Nickel Aluminides (Ni3Al) was carried to determine the suitability of this material to replace the existing automotive body. The purpose is to produce vehicles which are lighter, more fuel efficient and cause less pollution. One key technical design strategy for improving vehicles efficiency is the light weighting. Attractive properties of Ni3Al including low density (~ 6g/cm3) resulting lightweight, high oxidation and corrosion resistance, combined with their ability to retain strength and stiffness at elevated temperatures lead to its selection as a candidate alternative material. The prime focus will be on to obtain the mechanical properties such as hardness which was tested using Vickers Micro hardness Tester. XRD was used to determine the crystal structure of the designed alloy. Microstructural properties of these alloys were examined using optical microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). SEM equipped with EDX used to do compositional analysis. Heat treatment (annealing) and Tafel extrapolation tests were carried out for thermal and corrosion properties of the intermetallic nickel aluminides respectively

Identification of cyclin D3 as a new interaction partner of lamin A/C

Lamin A/C is a major component of the nuclear lamina. An intact nuclear lamina has been proposed to be necessary for muscle differentiation. Cyclin D3 is known to be upregulated in differentiated muscle cells and to form insoluble complexes with cell-cycle regulatory factors in these cells. We have examined the possibility of direct binding interactions between lamin A/C and cyclin D3 by in vitro binding assays and co-immunoprecipitation studies with muscle cells. Our results indicate that cyclin D3 binds specifically to amino acid residues 383–474 of lamin A/C and associates with lamin A/C in muscle cells. The identification of cyclin D3 as a novel binding partner of lamin A/C has important implications for a role for lamin A/C in muscle differentiation

A Novel Intermetallic Nickel Aluminide (Ni3Al) as an Alternative Automotive Body Material

Investigation on Intermetallic Nickel Aluminides (Ni3Al) was carried to determine the suitability of this material to replace the existing automotive body. The purpose is to produce vehicles which are lighter, more fuel efficient and cause less pollution. One key technical design strategy for improving vehicles efficiency is the light weighting. Attractive properties of Ni3Al including low density (~ 6g/cm3) resulting lightweight, high oxidation and corrosion resistance, combined with their ability to retain strength and stiffness at elevated temperatures lead to its selection as a candidate alternative material. The prime focus will be on to obtain the mechanical properties such as hardness which was tested using Vickers Micro hardness Tester. XRD was used to determine the crystal structure of the designed alloy. Microstructural properties of these alloys were examined using optical microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). SEM equipped with EDX used to do compositional analysis. Heat treatment (annealing) and Tafel extrapolation tests were carried out for thermal and corrosion properties of the intermetallic nickel aluminides respectively

Applications of graphene nanomaterials in energy storage—A state-of-art short review

The study presents the usage behavior of graphene in the energy field. Graphene has been comprehensively studied in the energy-related application due to higher conductivity and mechanical flexibility. The architecture of graphene permits it to strengthen and facilitate its application in the energy arena. Herein, the application of graphene in various energy storages such as fuel cells, dye-sensitized solar cells, batteries, nuclear power plants, and thermoelectric has been studied neatly. Graphene reacts towards these substances chemically, mechanically, and electrically to a great extend and appears with the excellent output of these objects. In the future graphene could be applied to the others field of energy and science successfully

An experimental evaluation of specific heat of mono and hybrid nanofluids

The experimental study evaluates the specific heat capacity of diversified mono and hybrid nanofluids. Specific heat is one of the most important attributes of mono and hybrid nanofluids for various heat and thermal applications. Herein, varied mono nanofluids such as CNC, Al2O3, and ZnO and only one hybrid nanofluid such as Al2O3/CNC have been studied to figure out their specific heat capacity. Standard test method applied to measure the specific heat of mono and hybrid nanofluids by using DSC. Mono nanofluids and hybrid nanofluids present some significant results of specific heat capacity and hybrid nanofluids show a maximum of 126% negativity than mono nanofluids. These experimental values would be a good aspect of the nanofluid applications

Investigation Of Tyre Pressure Drop Phenomenon Using Specially Designed Real-Time Data Mining And Storage System

Tyre pressure plays an important role in ensuring safe operation and performance of a motor vehicle. Improper monitoring of tyre pressure always results in reduction of gas mileage, tyre life, vehicle safety and performance. Studies reflects that, properly inflated tyres can increase tyre life span up to 20% which is equivalent to nine months of its life span, save fuel from 4% to 10%, increase braking efficiency up to 20%, lightens steering system and ease self-steer. Monitoring proper tyre pressure using manual gauges are less effective as they tend to provide slight gap at the valve for air leakage during pressure checking. Therefore, a device called tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) is used in the current research to efficiently monitor air pressure and temperature in the tyre of a motor vehicle which then generates a signal indicative of the pressure and temperature in each of the tyre thus increasing the monitoring system of a vehicle and its safety. This paper presents a “cost-effective” real-time data plotting application based on LabVIEW graphical user interface using a TPMS device. Notably, the entire system is tailored to the situation whereby with the existence of this interface; tyre researches and scientist would able to effectively monitor and simultaneously plot the tyre pressure and temperature data even at dynamic condition

Auxin pretreatment promotes regeneration of sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids) midrib segment explants

We have developed a new, simple, quick and genotype-independent method for direct regeneration of sugarcane using novel midrib segment explants. Our protocol involves two steps: the pretreatment of starting material on MS (Murashige and Skoog (1962) Physiol Plant 15:473–497) medium containing 3.0 mg/l 2,4- dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) for 8 days under continuous dark and subsequent transfer of the explants to MS medium augmented with 0.1 mg/l benzyladenine (BA) and 0.1 mg/l naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) under light-dark conditions. On the regeneration medium, numerous globular structures appeared from the explants and subsequently differentiated into shoots. Regenerated shoots attained 2–5 cm height within 30 days of culture initiation and readily rooted on MS basal medium. Hardened plants were successfully established in the greenhouse. The regulation of sugarcane morphogenesis by auxin pretreatment is discussed

Learning curves of basic laparoscopic psychomotor skills in SINERGIA VR simulator

Purpose: Surgical simulators are currently essential within any laparoscopic training program because they provide a low-stakes, reproducible and reliable environment to acquire basic skills. The purpose of this study is to determine the training learning curve based on different metrics corresponding to five tasks included in SINERGIA laparoscopic virtual reality simulator. Methods: Thirty medical students without surgical experience participated in the study. Five tasks of SINERGIA were included: Coordination, Navigation, Navigation and touch, Accurate grasping and Coordinated pulling. Each participant was trained in SINERGIA. This training consisted of eight sessions (R1–R8) of the five mentioned tasks and was carried out in two consecutive days with four sessions per day. A statistical analysis was made, and the results of R1, R4 and R8 were pair-wise compared with Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Significance is considered at P value <0.005. Results: In total, 84.38% of the metrics provided by SINERGIA and included in this study show significant differences when comparing R1 and R8. Metrics are mostly improved in the first session of training (75.00% when R1 and R4 are compared vs. 37.50% when R4 and R8 are compared). In tasks Coordination and Navigation and touch, all metrics are improved. On the other hand, Navigation just improves 60% of the analyzed metrics. Most learning curves show an improvement with better results in the fulfillment of the different tasks. Conclusions: Learning curves of metrics that assess the basic psychomotor laparoscopic skills acquired in SINERGIA virtual reality simulator show a faster learning rate during the first part of the training. Nevertheless, eight repetitions of the tasks are not enough to acquire all psychomotor skills that can be trained in SINERGIA. Therefore, and based on these results together with previous works, SINERGIA could be used as training tool with a properly designed training program