Students’ Recognition of Function Transformations’ Themes Associated with the Algebraic Representation

The topic of function transformations is a difficult mathematical topic for school and college students. On the other hand, GeoGebra is a new technological tool for mathematics teaching and learning, so we wanted to experiment with this new tool in teaching non-basic function transformations to middle school students. Specifically, we wanted to examine how students conceive function transformations after working with GeoGebra, when this conceiving relates to the algebraic representation. The research participants were 19 ninth grade high achieving students who learned, with the help of GeoGebra translations, reflection and stretch. During their learning, the participants worked with transformations on the absolute function, the cubic function, and the quartic function. After they finished the transformation unit, the participants solved mathematics problems by means of function transformations. This research is interested in the participants’ solution of problems that included two non-basic functions: the absolute value of the quadratic function and the rationale function. The research findings show that the participants were generally able to solve successfully mathematical problems, by means of transformations on new and non-basic functions. Furthermore, the participants encountered difficulties in working with translations. These difficulties were due to the special algebraic form of the functions. We recommend that mathematics teachers expose middle school students to transformations on different types of non-basic function during learning this mathematical topic. Future researches could examine the impact of activities that include such functions and that are GeoGebra based on students’ conceptions and behavior when performing translations is involved

A pilot Citizens' Assembly on Electricity and Energy Justice in Hamra, Lebanon

The Citizens’ Assembly Pilot (CA) on energy justice and electricity was a conceptual and a methodological experiment conducted over five sessions over three days in the neighborhood of Hamra and Beirut in October and November 2020. The CA aimed at exploring meanings, dimensions, priorities of energy justice in a deliberative democratic setting. The CA tackled five main questions: How did we get to where we are? What is energy justice to us? What is the energy-mix we would like to have? What do we need to be doing as individuals and communities to achieve a better energy future? How should we move forward with our decisions on the above questions? The responses produced interesting findings for researchers and international stakeholders to consider further; such as skepticism over renewable energy targets, the interest in circular solutions to solve multiple intersecting service sectors like waste and water in particular. It also raised questions over decentralization as well as privatization at different scales of governance

THE ROLE OF QUALITATIVE SOCIAL POLICIES IN ACHIEVING THE HIGHEST INTERNATIONAL INDICATORS OF BALANCE AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Purpose of the study: The study aimed to identify the role of qualitative social policies in achieving the highest international indicators in the degree of balance and social organization, by taking the UAE as a model in qualitative social policies; with expectations to eventually follow this model. Also, in light of current events, this model has a positive role in reducing the social chaos in many Arab and international countries. Methodology: The methodology of the qualitative analytical approach was used by returning to the statistical reports on indicators of the degree of integration and community organization in the United Arab Emirates United, the historical methodology of returning to documents, records and laws to identify the most prominent policies in the country. Main Findings: The study has concluded that social policy has a major role in achieving the highest degrees of integration and community organization. Applications of this study: The study also reached a set of recommendations, the most important of which were: the need to follow the qualitative social policies as in the model of the United Arab Emirates; and study the feasibility of applying those policies to societies that suffer from Anomie. Novelty/Originality of this study: No study has investigated the relationship between the social policies in the UAE and the international indicators of balance and social organization

Identification of rare nonsynonymous variants in SYNE1/CPG2 in bipolar affective disorder

Background: Bipolar affective disorder (BPD) is a severe mood disorder with a prevalence of ∼ 1.5% in the population. The pathogenesis of BPD is poorly understood; however, a strong heritable component has been identified. Previous genome-wide association studies have indicated a region on 6q25, coding for the SYNE1 gene, which increases disease susceptibility. SYNE1 encodes the synaptic nuclear envelope protein-1, nesprin-1. A brain-specific splice variant of SYNE1, CPG2 encoding candidate plasticity gene 2, has been identified. The intronic single-nucleotide polymorphism with the strongest genome-wide significant association in BPD, rs9371601, is present in both SYNE1 and CPG2. / Methods: We screened 937 BPD samples for genetic variation in SYNE1 exons 14–33, which covers the CPG2 region, using high-resolution melt analysis. In addition, we screened two regions of increased transcriptional activity, one of them proposed to be the CPG2 promoter region. / Results and Conclusion: We identified six nonsynonymous and six synonymous variants. We genotyped three rare nonsynonymous variants, rs374866393, rs148346599 and rs200629713, in a total of 1099 BPD samples and 1056 controls. Burden analysis of these rare variants did not show a significant association with BPD. However, nine patients are compound heterozygotes for variants in SYNE1/CPG2, suggesting that rare coding variants may contribute significantly towards the complex genetic architecture underlying BPD. Imputation analysis in our own wholegenome sequencing sample of 99 BPD individuals identified an additional eight risk variants in the CPG2 region of SYNE1

SOUND database of marine animal vocalizations : structure and operations

The SOUND database system for marine animal vocalizations has been updated to include changes in the structure and operations that have evolved with use. These include more convenient operations, greater flexibilty in analysis routines, and a revised database structure. The formats for data sorting and indexing, database structure, and analysis routines have developed into a convenient research tool. This report is a revision of the earlier operating manual for the SOUND databases (Watkins, Fristrup, and Daher 1991.) The interactive databases that comprise the SOUND system provide comprehensive means for quantitative analyses and statistical comparisons of marine animal vocalizations. These SOUND databases encompass (1) descriptive text databases cataoging the WHOI collection of underwater sound recordings of marine animals, (2) sets of files of digital sound sequences, (3) text databases organizing the digital sound cuts, and (4) software for analysis, display, playback, and export of selected sound files. The text databases index and sort the information about the sounds, and the digital sound cut files are accessed directly from the text record. From the text database, the sound cut data may be analyzed on screen, listened to, and compared or exported as desired. The objective of this work has been the development of a basic set of tools for the study of marine animal sound. The text databases for cataloging the recordings provide convenient sorting and selection of sounds of interest. Then, as specific sequences are digitized from these recordings, they become part of another database system that manages these acoustic data. Once a digital sound is part of the organized database, several tools are available for interactive spectrographic display, sound playback, statistical feature extraction, and export to other application programs.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research through the Ocean Acoustics Program (code 11250A) under Contract No. N00014-88-K-0273 and No. N00014-91-J-1445 with supplemental support by ORINCON/DARPA and NRL (code 211)

Software tools for acoustic database management

Digital archiving of bioacoustic data provides both curatorial and scientific benefits. To realize these benefits, key system requirements must be satisfied. This report discusses these requirements, and describes the software tools developed by the WHOI bioacoustic laboratory to maintain and utilize an archive of digitized biological sounds. These tools are written in standard C code, and are designed to run on PC-compatible microcomputers. Both the usage and structure of these programs are described in relation to the SOUND database of marine animal sounds. These tools include software for analog-to-digital conversion, text header maintenance, data verification and interactive spectrographic review. Source code listings are supplied.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research through the Ocean Acoustics Program (code 11250) Contract N00014-88-K-0273 and Grant N00014-J-1445 with supplemental support from NOARL (code 211)

Optimization of Reduction Process of Egyptian Ilmenitevia Metallothermic reactions

It is important to develop technologies for the production of master alloys for industrial applications. Detailed research on reduction of titanium from Egyptian ilmenite by an aluminothermic process in a graphite Crucible was charged by the mixture of ilmenite, flux, aluminum was investigated. This paper study the effect of aluminum feed (10%- 35%), flux material (type, and amount), and temperature preheat from 50 oC to 400 oC and time of preheating from 0.5 hr. to 3 hrs.  Then, the metallic samples formed by the reduction were analyzed using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy. The mixed fluxes were strongly and successfully reduced ilmenite to a high-purity master alloy with small amounts of detected impurities. Key words: Aluminothermic, Egyptian ilmenite, flux, ferrotitanium, master alloy DOI: 10.7176/CMR/11-7-04 Publication date:September 30th 2019

Caracterização morfologica e agronomica de algumas cultivares de capim-elefante.

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Viability of the UENF popcorn improvement program based on divergence in S1 families.

With the objective of evaluating the viability of the programme of recurrent selection with popcorn of the Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro carried out in Campos dos Goytacazes and Itaocara, state of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), 40 families that originated the second cycle were evaluated for 14 morphoagronomical characteristics and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers, using multivariate analysis. The analyses of variance revealed the existence of variability for most evaluated morphoagronomic traits. Clustering by Tocher's optimization method for the morphoagronomic traits of Campos dos Goytacazes formed eight groups and 16 for those of Itaocara. For the RAPD markers, 18 groups of S1 families were formed by Ward's clustering method. It is concluded that there is genetic divergence in the selected families, which allows the inference that there is sufficient variability for the continuity of the recurrent selection process with the formation of new cycles.