Adaptive Delivery as a Means to Increase Student Engagement and Learning Outcomes

The process of education involves at its core level the support of Learning, which leads to the acquiring of skills, knowledge, values, and habits. Technology has allowed educators and learners to move to a digital platform. These electronic learning platforms, previously classified as distance learning, have their advantages but also their pitfalls. The adaptive modification of learning systems can provide the student\u27s needs by educators even when the student is outside of the classroom. Community colleges are faced with a dilemma of funding and mission. To survey they to need act as agents to find their own solution. This research study provides an approach to identifying the learning style based on a Learning Style Scale (LSS) developed by Abdollahimohammad and Jaafar (2014). A sample group of 163 college students was selected for the study. This quantitative study was broken into multiple evaluation areas. First, the data from the validated instrument was used to cluster students into learning groups. Second, the experiment used learning style clusters to determine the Engagement effects of a lesson presented to those clusters in a sequenced order of their matched learning styles and unmatched style. The impact of this adaptive delivery provides a user interface and experience based on either Auditory or Visual styles in a feedback method. The feedback adaptation was validated using statistical analysis, and an assessment gauged fluctuations in baseline learning as an improvement and other matched treatment lessons as a higher improvement. Statistical analysis provided justification that a lesson/learner match did provide improved learning outcomes and refuted some criticisms connected to Learning Styles. Learning outcomes increased by 10 to 15 points by the comparison of pretest and posttest scores after the experimental treatment was matched. Unmatched learner/lectures actually decreased scores revealing a significant effect on Learning Outcomes

Magnetically Actuated Seal

This invention is a magnetically actuated seal in which either a single electromagnet, or multiple electromagnets, are used to control the seal's position. This system can either be an open/ close type of system or an actively controlled system

Water and sanitation assistance for Kabul: a lot for the happy few?

Kabul water and environmental sanitation services have been affected by war, which ravaged large portions of the city in the early 1990’s. After the fall of the Taliban in 2002, a considerable influx of returnees contributed to put an ever greater stress on already deficient systems. Large-scale water supply projects were initiated. However, they tackle only areas covered by water networks, leaving behind an estimated 60% of the population who live in ‘unplanned areas’. In order to address the needs of these ‘left-behind’ populations, organisations such as ‘Action Contre la Faim’ have designed programmes specifically for them. They intend to maximize the benefit of water and environmental sanitation by relying on affordable community-maintained systems, until access to centralized services is gained

A tale of two cities: restoring water services in Kabul and Monrovia

Kabul and Monrovia, the respective capitals of Afghanistan and Liberia, have recently emerged from long-lasting armed conflicts. In both cities, a large number of organisations took part in emergency water supply provision and later in the rehabilitation of water systems. Based on field research, this paper establishes a parallel between the operations carried out in the two settings, highlighting similarities and analysing the two most common strategies. The first strategy involves international financial institutions, which fund large-scale projects focusing on infrastructural rehabilitation and on the institutional development of the water utility, sometimes envisaging private-sector participation. The second strategy involves humanitarian agencies, which run community-based projects, in most cases independently of the water utilities, and targeting low-income areas. Neither of these approaches manages to combine sustainability and universal service. The paper assesses their respective strengths and weaknesses and suggests ways of improving the quality of assistance provided

Sphere and sustainability: a matter of time

The Sphere standards have been devised to ensure that people affected by disasters will receive an adequate level of assistance; these standards are used across the world and apply both to natural and complex emergencies. The latter tend to be lasting events that often create a displacement of the population and it is argued that in such situations, where prolonged assistance is required, the Sphere standards may be counterproductive. By using examples of water supply interventions, it is highlighted that in some circumstances the Sphere standards for water quality may only be achieved with systems too complex for the displaced population to operate and maintain on their own. The case of two waraffected areas of Eastern Chad are presented to illustrate the importance of the temporal aspects of the Sphere standards in complex emergencies, and raises important questions regarding the long-term sustainability of adopting such standards for displaced populations

The effect of plant density, cultivar and season on the growth and development of broccoli : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Horticultural Science (Vegetable Production) at Massey University

Two field trials (summer and winter) were conducted at the Plant Growth Unit (PGU) to investigate the effects of density and season of planting on different cultivars of broccoli. Different aspects of growth and development were studied including dry matter accumulation, leaf production, curd initiation and curd maturity. Polynomial regression equations were fitted to the primary data and resulted in typical growth curves from which growth analysis parameters were derived. The season of planting significantly effected the developmental stages of the crop. RGR calculated according to the functional approach declined linearly with time in both winter and summer trial. It was initially highest in the summer trial but declined much faster than in winter trial. One of the components of RGR, namely LAR also showed the reduction over time, in both summer and winter plantings. The other component, NAR decline with time in summer, but showed slight increase over time in the winter trial. LAR was consistently lower during the summer trial compared with the winter trial. This consistent reduction is associated mainly with a lower specific leaf weight (SLW) because plants have thicker leaves which may absorb more radiation and therefore be more efficient in dry matter production. Differences in growth between seasons can be explained primarily by differences in accumulated heat units. In this study, it was evident that the number of leaves produced varied with planting season. The higher the temperature regime the more leaves produced hence, leaf count per plant was slightly higher in the summer than during the winter season. The time of head initiation were affected by planting density for both season. In the summer planting, widely spaced plants had higher leaf areas, number of leaves produced and curd yield but in the winter planting showed no significant differences in the number of leaves produced and the curd weight per plant between densities. The final number of leaves at initiation time showed variations with season of planting which suggests that leaf number can be useful index for the morphological age of the plant at curd initiation stage. Curd initiation (an important developmental event) was found to be strongly influenced by temperature. The number of days from transplanting to curd initiation was shorter in summer and longer in winter season. Considering a normal time scale, variations in the number of days from planting to curd initiation until maturity for both season was influenced by the two developmental stages of the crop: 1) planting to curd initiation, 2) curd initiation up to maturity. It took almost twice as long period for the plant to initiate curd during winter than during summer and the time from curd initiation to maturity was longest during the winter. The potential of the plants to produce dry matter varied with season. Total dry matter production was considerably lower in the winter crop which strongly suggests that the lower the temperature regime, the lower the potential for dry matter production. The heat unit accumulation necessary to bring the crop to the same stage of maturity varied in such a manner that it was lower when the season was cool, and higher when the season was warm. Total biomass per unit area increased with later harvests in the summer planting. Density influenced the curd and total dry weight per plant only in the summer planting. Varietal differences were found for both season of planting. Cultivar Shogun, with the longer growing period, had the lowest dry weight per plant for both plantings

An acceptor-substrate binding site determining glycosyl transfer emerges from mutant analysis of a plant vacuolar invertase and a fructosyltransferase

Glycoside hydrolase family 32 (GH32) harbors hydrolyzing and transglycosylating enzymes that are highly homologous in their primary structure. Eight amino acids dispersed along the sequence correlated with either hydrolase or glycosyltransferase activity. These were mutated in onion vacuolar invertase (acINV) according to the residue in festuca sucrose:sucrose 1-fructosyltransferase (saSST) and vice versa. acINV(W440Y) doubles transferase capacity. Reciprocally, saSST(C223N) and saSST(F362Y) double hydrolysis. SaSST(N425S) shows a hydrolyzing activity three to four times its transferase activity. Interestingly, modeling acINV and saSST according to the 3D structure of crystallized GH32 enzymes indicates that mutations saSST(N425S), acINV(W440Y), and the previously reported acINV(W161Y) reside very close together at the surface in the entrance of the active-site pocket. Residues in- and outside the sucrose-binding box determine hydrolase and transferase capabilities of GH32 enzymes. Modeling suggests that residues dispersed along the sequence identify a location for acceptor-substrate binding in the 3D structure of fructosyltransferase

Inductive effects in amino acids and peptides: Ionization constants and tryptophan fluorescence

Although inductive effects in organic compounds are known to influence chemical properties such as ionization constants, their specific contribution to the properties/behavior of amino acids and functional groups in peptides remains largely unexplored. In this study we developed a computationally economical algorithm for ab initio calculation of the magnitude of inductive effects for non-aromatic molecules. The value obtained by the algorithm is called the Inductive Index and we observed a high correlation (R2 = 0.9427) between our calculations and the pKa values of the alpha-amino groups of amino acids with non-aromatic side-chains. Using a series of modified amino acids, we also found similarly high correlations (R2 > 0.9600) between Inductive Indexes and two wholly independent chemical properties: i) the pKa values of ionizable side-chains and, ii) the fluorescence response of the indole group of tryptophan. After assessing the applicability of the method of calculation at the amino acid level, we extended our study to tryptophan-containing peptides and established that inductive contributions of neighboring side-chains are transmitted through peptide bonds. We discuss possible contributions to the study of proteins.Fil: Lara Popoca, Jesús. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Thoke, Henrik S.. International and Interdisciplinary Research Network; DinamarcaFil: Stock, Roberto P.. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Rudino Pinera, Enrique. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; MéxicoFil: Bagatolli, Luis Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigación Médica Mercedes y Martín Ferreyra. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Investigación Médica Mercedes y Martín Ferreyra; Argentin