Search results for: reception classes

Authors: Harshit Mittal, Neeraj Garg

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Hand symbol recognition is a pivotal component in the domain of computer vision, with far-reaching applications spanning sign language interpretation, human-computer interaction, and accessibility. This research paper discusses the approach with the integration of the Canny Edge algorithm and convolutional neural network. The significance of this study lies in its potential to enhance communication and accessibility for individuals with hearing impairments or those engaged in gesture-based interactions with technology. In the experiment mentioned, the data is manually collected by the authors from the webcam using Python codes, to increase the dataset augmentation, is applied to original images, which makes the model more compatible and advanced. Further, the dataset of about 6000 coloured images distributed equally in 5 classes (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) are pre-processed first to gray images and then by the Canny Edge algorithm with threshold 1 and 2 as 150 each. After successful data building, this data is trained on the Convolutional Neural Network model, giving accuracy: 0.97834, precision: 0.97841, recall: 0.9783, and F1 score: 0.97832. For user purposes, a block of codes is built in Python to enable a window for hand symbol recognition. This research, at its core, seeks to advance the field of computer vision by providing an advanced perspective on hand sign recognition. By leveraging the capabilities of the Canny Edge algorithm and convolutional neural network, this study contributes to the ongoing efforts to create more accurate, efficient, and accessible solutions for individuals with diverse communication needs.

Keywords: hand symbol recognition, computer vision, Canny edge algorithm, convolutional neural network

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Authors: Genesis F. Dela Cruz, Liza C. Costa

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The study is concerned with the Risk factors of dropping out among Grade VII students for SY 2012-2013. A total of 87 Grade VII Students-At-Risk-of-Dropping Out (SARDOs) were involved in this study. The descriptive survey method was used in this study. A 50-item questionnaire was used in data gathering. Expert validation was done to determine the validity and reliability of the instrument. The study used Chi Square, Kruskal Wallis Test and Mann Whitney Test in the statistical treatment of data. The study revealed that the respondents are within the standard age limit for Grade VII students in the Philippines which is 13 years old. Males more than females usually becomes SARDOs. SARDOs come from low economic status and complete families contrary to the common belief that they came from single-parent families. The study also showed that parent’s involvement in educating their children on family-related factors contributed to the very good perception on the family related factors. Based on age, there are no significant differences in their perception of the four major recognized risk factors for dropping out among all ages. There are no significant differences in their perception of the family, individual and community related factors for dropping out based on sex. However, females have a more favorable perception when it comes to school related factors. No significant differences in their perception of dropping out were also noted when they are classified according to distance of school from home. The respondents do not differ in their perception on family, individual and community related factors when they are classified according to type of family. When surveyed regarding the respondents’ reason for being absent, it was found out that laziness and being late are the two major reasons. Respondents also perceived remedial and tutorial classes as school-initiated intervention measure to prevent school disengagement or dropping out.

Keywords: drop-out, guidance and counseling, school initiated intervention, students at risk of dropping out

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Authors: Jacqueline Żammit

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Recent research indicates that the utilization of right-brain strategies holds significant implications for the acquisition of language skills. Nevertheless, the utilization of visual culture as a means to stimulate these strategies and amplify language retention among adults engaging in second language (L2) learning remains a relatively unexplored area. This investigation delves into the impact of visual culture on activating right-brain processes during the initial stages of language acquisition, particularly in the context of teaching Maltese as a second language (ML2) to adult learners. By employing a qualitative research approach, this study convenes a focus group comprising twenty-seven educators to delve into a range of visual culture techniques integrated within language instruction. The collected data is subjected to thematic analysis using NVivo software. The findings underscore a variety of impactful visual culture techniques, encompassing activities such as drawing, sketching, interactive matching games, orthographic mapping, memory palace strategies, wordless picture books, picture-centered learning methodologies, infographics, Face Memory Game, Spot the Difference, Word Search Puzzles, the Hidden Object Game, educational videos, the Shadow Matching technique, Find the Differences exercises, and color-coded methodologies. These identified techniques hold potential for application within ML2 classes for adult learners. Consequently, this study not only provides insights into optimizing language learning through specific visual culture strategies but also furnishes practical recommendations for enhancing language competencies and skills.

Keywords: visual culture, right-brain strategies, second language acquisition, maltese as a second language, visual aids, language-based activities

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Authors: Tahir Ali Akbar, Hirra Jabbar

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Land cover change analysis plays a significant role in understanding the trends of urban sprawl and land use transformation due to anthropogenic activities. In this study, the spatio-temporal dynamics of major land covers were analyzed in the last twenty years (1988-2016) for District Lahore located in the Punjab Province of Pakistan. The Landsat satellite imageries were downloaded from USGS Global Visualization Viewer of Earth Resources Observation and Science Center located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota USA. The imageries included: (i) Landsat TM-5 for 1988 and 2001; and (ii) Landsat-8 OLI for 2016. The raw digital numbers of Landsat-5 images were converted into spectral radiance and then planetary reflectance. The digital numbers of Landsat-8 image were directly converted into planetary reflectance. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was used to classify the processed images into six major classes of water, buit-up, barren land, shrub and grassland, sparse vegetation and dense vegetation. The NDVI output results were improved by visual interpretation using high-resolution satellite imageries. The results indicated that the built-up areas were increased to 21% in 2016 from 10% in 1988. The decrease in % areas was found in case of water, barren land and shrub & grassland. There were improvements in percentage of areas for the vegetation. The increasing trend of urban sprawl for Lahore requires implementation of GIS based spatial planning, monitoring and management system for its sustainable development.

Keywords: land cover changes, NDVI, remote sensing, urban sprawl

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Authors: Sarah P. Wuebbolt, Ashlee N. Sawyer-Mays

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Non-medical prescription and other drug (NMPOD) use has been a significant public health issue for the last few decades, with problematic use increasing among university students more recently. The current study focused on associations between NMPOD use and mental health, well-being, and world beliefs among young adults. Young adults (N=513) completed online questionnaires assessing stress, demographic characteristics, self-esteem, NMPOD use, coping mechanisms, and anxiety. A substantial portion of participants reported using cannabis (48.5%, n=249), while smaller portions of participants reported using stimulants (26.7%, n = 137), sedatives (17.2%, n=88), opioids (10.8%, n=55), and hallucinogens (14.4%, n=74). Five hierarchical logistic regressions were performed to determine the independent relationships between mental health, well-being, and world belief factors and NMPOD use for the five classes of substances. After controlling for demographic factors (age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religious affiliation), depression was associated with increased non-medical stimulant, opioid, and cannabis use; coping self-efficacy was associated with increased hallucinogen use, and attendance of worship services was associated with decreased non-medical cannabis and hallucinogen use. Results suggest that depression was strongly associated with non-medical stimulant, opioid, and cannabis use, and attendance of worship services was protective against cannabis and hallucinogen use. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to investigate the relationships between mental health, well-being, world beliefs, and NMPOD use among young adults. The present study illuminates future targets for intervention, such as increased access to mental health diagnosis and treatment and the exploration of the roles of religion and shared community in the prevention of drug use among young adults.

Keywords: cannabis, mental health, non-medical prescription and other drug use, world beliefs

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Authors: Kamal KC, Zhendong Yin, Dasen Li, Zhilu Wu

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Intra-plant disease classification based on leaf images is a challenging computer vision task due to similarities in texture, color, and shape of leaves with a slight variation of leaf spot; and external environmental changes such as lighting and background noises. Deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) has proven to be an effective tool for binary classification. In this paper, two methods for binary classification of diseased plant leaves using DCNN are presented; model created from scratch and transfer learning. Our main contribution is a thorough evaluation of 4 networks created from scratch and transfer learning of 5 pre-trained models. Training and testing of these models were performed on a plant leaf images dataset belonging to 16 distinct classes, containing a total of 22,265 images from 8 different plants, consisting of a pair of healthy and diseased leaves. We introduce a deep CNN model, Optimized MobileNet. This model with depthwise separable CNN as a building block attained an average test accuracy of 99.77%. We also present a fine-tuning method by introducing the concept of a convolutional block, which is a collection of different deep neural layers. Fine-tuned models proved to be efficient in terms of accuracy and computational cost. Fine-tuned MobileNet achieved an average test accuracy of 99.89% on 8 pairs of [healthy, diseased] leaf ImageSet.

Keywords: deep convolution neural network, depthwise separable convolution, fine-grained classification, MobileNet, plant disease, transfer learning

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Authors: Samira Kilani-Morakchi, Amina Badi, Nadia Aribi

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German cockroach, Blattella germanica, is known to be an important pest due to its high reproductive potential and its ability to build up large infectious populations. The infestations were generally controlled by neurotoxic insecticides including organophosphates (OP), carbamate and pyrethroids. An alternative cockroach’s control approach is the use insect growth regulators (IGRs). The relative fewer effects of these chemicals on non-target insects and animals, and their favourable environmental fate, make them attractive insecticides for inclusion in integrated pest management programmes. The juvenoids and chitin synthesis inhibitors are two classes of IGRs that have received the most attention for useful chemicals to manage German cockroaches while ecdysone agonists were mostly used to control Lepidopteran species. In the present study, the sublethal effects of the non-sreroidal ecdysone agonist tebufenozide were evaluated topically on adults of the B. germanica. The effects on reproduction were observed in adults females of cockroaches that survived exposure to LD25 (146 µg/g of insect) of tebufenozide. Dissection of treated females showed a clear reduction in both the number of oocytes per paired ovaries and the size of basal oocytes, as compared to controls. In addition, tebufenozide significantly reduced the mating success of pairs and altered the fertility as shown through the reduction of ootheca development and total absence of viable nymph. Tebufenozide disrupted the German cockroach reproduction by interfering with homeostasis of the insect hormones. In conclusion, the overall results suggested that tebufenozide can be used as a biorational insecticide for controlling cockroaches.

Keywords: B. germanica, ecdysteroid agonist, tebufenozide, reproduction

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Authors: Oyebade K. Oyedotun

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The cardiotocogram is a technical recording of the heartbeat rate and uterine contractions of a fetus during pregnancy. During pregnancy, several complications can occur to both the mother and the fetus; hence it is very crucial that medical experts are able to find technical means to check the healthiness of the mother and especially the fetus. It is very important that the fetus develops as expected in stages during the pregnancy period; however, the task of monitoring the health status of the fetus is not that which is easily achieved as the fetus is not wholly physically available to medical experts for inspection. Hence, doctors have to resort to some other tests that can give an indication of the status of the fetus. One of such diagnostic test is to obtain cardiotocograms of the fetus. From the analysis of the cardiotocograms, medical experts can determine the status of the fetus, and therefore necessary medical interventions. Generally, medical experts classify examined cardiotocograms into ‘normal’, ‘suspect’, or ‘pathological’. This work presents an artificial neural network based decision support system which can filter cardiotocograms data, producing the corresponding statuses of the fetuses. The capability of artificial neural network to explore the cardiotocogram data and learn features that distinguish one class from the others has been exploited in this research. In this research, feedforward and radial basis neural networks were trained on a publicly available database to classify the processed cardiotocogram data into one of the three classes: ‘normal’, ‘suspect’, or ‘pathological’. Classification accuracies of 87.8% and 89.2% were achieved during the test phase of the trained network for the feedforward and radial basis neural networks respectively. It is the hope that while the system described in this work may not be a complete replacement for a medical expert in fetus status evaluation, it can significantly reinforce the confidence in medical diagnosis reached by experts.

Keywords: decision support, cardiotocogram, classification, neural networks

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Authors: Paschal Ohalehi

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Purpose - The purpose of this paper, which is part of a PhD thesis is to examine the role of risk based approach in minimising financial crime in the charity sector as well as offer recommendations to improving the quality of charity regulation whilst still retaining risk based approach as a regulatory framework and also making a case for a new regulatory model. Increase in financial crimes in the charity sector has put the role of regulation in minimising financial crime up for debates amongst researchers and practitioners. Although previous research has addressed the regulation of charities, research on the role of risk based approach to minimising financial crime in the charity sector is limited. Financial crime is a concern for all organisation including charities. Design/methodology/approach - This research adopts a social constructionist’s epistemological position. This research is carried out using semi structured in-depth interviews amongst randomly selected 24 charity trustees divided into three classes: 10 small charities, 10 medium charities and 4 large charities. The researcher also interviewed 4 stakeholders (NFA, Charity Commission and two different police forces in terms of size and area of coverage) in the charity sector. Findings - The results of this research show that reliance on risk based approach to financial crime in the sector is weak and fragmented with the research pointing to a clear evidence of disconnect between the regulator and the regulated leading to little or lack of regulation of trustees’ activities, limited monitoring of charities and lack of training and awareness on financial crime in the sector. Originality – This paper shows how regulation of charities in general and risk based approach in particular can be improved in order to meet the expectations of the stakeholders, the public, the regulator and the regulated.

Keywords: risk, risk based approach, financial crime, fraud, self-regulation

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Authors: Efuwape Bamidele Michael, Efuwape Oluwabunmi Asake

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Nigeria has some deep rural environments that seem secluded from most of the technological amenities for convenient living and learning. Most schools in such environments are yet to be captured in the educational applications of technological facilities. The study explores the facilitation of basic technology instructions with micro-learning and gamification among students in rural Junior Secondary Schools in the Ipokia Local Government Area (LGA) of Ogun state. The study employed a quasi-experimental design, specifically the pre-test and post-test control group design. The study population comprised all Junior Secondary School students in the LGA. Four Junior Secondary Schools in the LGA were randomly selected for the study and classified into two experimental and two control groups. A total sample of 156 students participated in the study. Basic Technology Achievement Test and Junior School Students’ Attitudinal Scale were instruments used for data collection in the study with reliability coefficients of 0.87 and 0.83, respectively. Five hypotheses guided the study and were tested using Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) at a 0.05 level of significance. Findings from the study established significant marginal differences in students’ academic performance (F = 644.301; p = .000), learning retention (F = 583.335; p = .000), and attitude towards learning basic technology (F = 491.226; p = .000) between the two groups in favour of the experimental group exposed to micro-learning and gamification. As a recommendation, adequate provisions for inclusive educational practices with technological applications should be ensured for all children irrespective of location within the country, especially to encourage effective learning in rural schools.

Keywords: inclusive education, educational technology, basic technology students, rural areas in Nigeria, micro-learning, gamification

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Authors: Maimona A. E. Elimam, Suhair Rehan, Miskelyemen A. Elmekki, Mogahid M. Elhassan

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Staphylococcus aureus (Staph. aureus), a major cause of potentially life-threatening infections acquired in healthcare and community settings, has developed resistance to most classes of antimicrobial agents as determined by the dramatic increase. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of MRSA, and VRSA in patients with different clinical manifestations in Khartoum state. The study population (n, 426) were males and females with different age categories, suffering either from wound infections (105), ear infections (121), or UTI (101), in addition to nasal carriers of medical staff (100). Cultures, Gram staining, and other biochemical tests were performed for conventional identification. Modified Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method was applied and DNA was extracted from MRSA and VRSA isolates and PCR was then performed for amplification of arc, mecA, VanA, and VanB genes. The results confirmed the existence of Staph. aureus in 49/426 (11.5%) cases among which MRSA were isolated from 34/49 (69.4%) when modified Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method was applied. Ten out of these 34 MRSA were confirmed as VRSA by cultures on BHI agar containing 6μg/ml vancomycin according to NCCLS criteria. PCR revealed that out of the 34 MRSA isolates, 26 were mecA positive (76.5%) while 8 (23.5%) were arcC positive. No vanA or VanB genes were detected. Molecular method confirmed the results for MRSA through the presence of either arcC or mecA genes while it failed to approve the occurrence of VRSA since neither VanA or VanB genes were detected. Thus, VRSA may be attributed to other factors.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance, Staphylococcus aureus, VRSA, MRSA, Khartoum, Sudan

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Authors: Juliane Toce, Steven Holochwost

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A substantial and growing literature has demonstrated that arts education benefits young children’s socioemotional and cognitive development. Less is known about the capacity of arts-integrated instruction to yield benefits to similar domains, particularly among demographically and socioeconomically diverse groups of young children. However, the small literature on this topic suggests that arts-integrated instruction may foster young children’s socioemotional and cognitive development by presenting opportunities to 1) engage in instructional content in diverse ways, 2) experience and regulate strong emotions, 3) experience growth-oriented feedback, and 4) engage in collaborative work with peers. Start with the Art is a new program of arts-integrated instruction currently being implemented in four schools in a school district that serves students from a diverse range of backgrounds. The program employs a co-teaching model in which teaching artists and classroom teachers engage in collaborative lesson planning and instruction over the course of the academic year and is currently the focus of an impact study featuring a randomized-control design, as well as an implementation study, both of which are funded through an Educational Innovation and Research grant from the United States Department of Education. The paper will present the early results from the Start with the Art implementation study. These results will provide an overview of the extent to which the program was implemented in accordance with design, with a particular emphasis on the degree to which the four opportunities enumerated above (e.g., opportunities to engage in instructional content in diverse ways) were presented to students. There will be a review key factors that may influence the fidelity of implementation, including classroom teachers’ reception of the program and the extent to which extant conditions in the classroom (e.g., the overall level of classroom organization) may have impacted implementation fidelity. With the explicit purpose of creating a program that values and meets the needs of the teachers and students, Start with the Art incorporates the feedback from individuals participating in the intervention. Tracing its trajectory from inception to ongoing development and examining the adaptive changes made in response to teachers' transformative experiences in the post-pandemic classroom, Start with the Art continues to solicit input from experts in integrating artistic content into core curricula within educational settings catering to students from under-represented backgrounds in the arts. Leveraging the input from this rich consortium of experts has allowed for a comprehensive evaluation of the program’s implementation. The early findings derived from the implementation study emphasize the potential of arts-integrated instruction to incorporate restorative practices. Such practices serve as a crucial support system for both students and educators, providing avenues for children to express themselves, heal emotionally, and foster social development, while empowering teachers to create more empathetic, inclusive, and supportive learning environments. This all-encompassing analysis spotlights Start with the Art’s adaptability to any learning environment through the program’s effectiveness, resilience, and its capacity to transform - through art - the classroom experience within the ever-evolving landscape of education.

Keywords: arts-integration, social emotional learning, diverse learners, co-teaching, teaching artists, post-pandemic teaching

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Authors: Padmini S. Navalgund, Manasi Naik, Ujwala Patil

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Road hump is a semi-cylindrical elevation on the road made across specific locations of the road. The vehicle needs to maneuver the hump by reducing the speed to avoid car damage and pass over the road hump safely. Road Humps on road surfaces, if identified in advance, help to maintain the security and stability of vehicles, especially in adverse visibility conditions, viz. night scenarios. We have proposed a deep learning architecture adaptation by implementing the MISH activation function and developing a new classification loss function called "Effective Focal Loss" for Indian road humps detection in adverse light scenarios. We captured images comprising of marked and unmarked road humps from two different types of cameras across South India to build a heterogeneous dataset. A heterogeneous dataset enabled the algorithm to train and improve the accuracy of detection. The images were pre-processed, annotated for two classes viz, marked hump and unmarked hump. The dataset from these images was used to train the single-stage object detection algorithm. We utilised an algorithm to synthetically generate reduced visible road humps scenarios. We observed that our proposed framework effectively detected the marked and unmarked hump in the images in clear and ad-verse light environments. This architectural adaptation sets up an option for early detection of Indian road humps in reduced visibility conditions, thereby enhancing the autonomous driving technology to handle a wider range of real-world scenarios.

Keywords: Indian road hump, reduced visibility condition, low light condition, adverse light condition, marked hump, unmarked hump, YOLOv9

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Authors: Andrew Nowlan

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During the Coronavirus pandemic, collaborative online international learning (COIL) emerged as an alternative to overseas sojourns. However, now that face-to-face classes have resumed and students are studying abroad, the rationale for doing COIL is not always clear amongst educators and students. Also, the logistics of COIL become increasingly complicated when participants involved in a potential collaboration have different second language (L2) learning goals. In this paper, the researcher will report on a study involving two bilingual, cross-cultural COIL courses between students at a university in Japan and those studying in North America, from April to December, 2022. The students in Japan were enrolled in an intercultural communication class in their L2 of English, while the students in Canada and the United States were studying intermediate Japanese as their L2. Based on a qualitative survey and journaling data received from 31 students in Japan, and employing a transcendental phenomenological research design, the researcher will highlight the students’ essence of experience during COIL. Essentially, students benefited from the experience through improved communicative competences and increased knowledge of the target culture, even when the L2 learning goals between institutions differed. Students also reported that the COIL experience was effective in preparation for actual study abroad, as opposed to a replacement for it, which challenges the existing literature. Both educators and administrators will be exposed to the perceptions of Japanese university students towards COIL, which could be generalized to other higher education contexts, including those in Southeast Asia. Readers will also be exposed to ideas for developing more effective pre-departure study abroad programs and domestic intercultural curriculum through COIL, even when L2 learning goals may differ between participants.

Keywords: collaborative online international learning, study abroad, phenomenology, EdTech, intercultural communication

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Authors: Bruno Gontijo Batista

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This paper analyzes how the Socially Aware Design (SAwD) and the Value-oriented and Culturally Informed Approach (VCIA) design model can be used to develop an edutainment game for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The SAwD approach seeks a design that considers new dimensions in human-computer interaction, such as culture, aesthetics, emotional and social aspects of the user's everyday experience. From this perspective, the game development was VCIA model-based, including the users in the design process through participatory methodologies, considering their behavioral patterns, culture, and values. This is because values, beliefs, and behavioral patterns influence how technology is understood and used and the way it impacts people's lives. This model can be applied at different stages of design, which goes from explaining the problem and organizing the requirements to the evaluation of the prototype and the final solution. Thus, this paper aims to understand how this model can be used in the development of an edutainment game for children with ADHD. In the area of education and learning, children with ADHD have difficulties both in behavior and in school performance, as they are easily distracted, which is reflected both in classes and on tests. Therefore, they must perform tasks that are exciting or interesting for them, once the pleasure center in the brain is activated, it reinforces the center of attention, leaving the child more relaxed and focused. In this context, serious games have been used as part of the treatment of ADHD in children aiming to improve focus and attention, stimulate concentration, as well as be a tool for improving learning in areas such as math and reading, combining education and entertainment (edutainment). Thereby, as a result of the research, it was developed, in a participatory way, applying the VCIA model, an edutainment game prototype, for a mobile platform, for children between 8 and 12 years old.

Keywords: ADHD, edutainment, SAwD, VCIA

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Authors: Aregamalage Sujeewa Vijayanthi Polgampala, Fang Huang

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This study explores the genesis and development of concept mapping as a useful tool for science education and its effectiveness as technique for teaching and learning and evaluation for secondary science in schools and the role played by National College of Education science teachers. Concept maps, when carefully employed and executed serves as an integral part of teaching method and measure of effectiveness of teaching and tool for evaluation. Research has shown that science concept maps can have positive influence on student learning and motivation. The success of concept maps played in an instruction class depends on the type of theme selected, the development of learning outcomes, and the flexibility of instruction in providing library unit that is equipped with multimedia equipment where learners can interact. The study was restricted to 6 male and 9 female respondents' teachers in third-year internship pre service science teachers in Gampaha district Sri Lanka. Data were collected through 15 item questionnaire provided to learners and in depth interviews and class observations of 18 science classes. The two generated hypotheses for the study were rejected, while the results revealed that significant difference exists between factors influencing teachers' choice of concept maps, its usefulness and problems hindering the effectiveness of concept maps for teaching and learning process of secondary science in schools. It was examined that concept maps can be used as an effective measure to evaluate students understanding of concepts and misconceptions. Even the teacher trainees could not identify, key concept is on top, and subordinate concepts fall below. It is recommended that pre service science teacher trainees should be provided a thorough training using it as an evaluation instrument.

Keywords: concept maps, evaluation, learning science, misconceptions

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Authors: R. M. Kashim

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The study investigated primary school teachers’ conceptual and procedural knowledge of rational numbers and its effects on pupil’s achievement in rational numbers. Specifically, primary school teachers’ level of conceptual knowledge about rational numbers, primary school teachers’ level of procedural knowledge about rational numbers, and the effects of teachers conceptual and procedural knowledge on their pupils understanding of rational numbers in primary schools is investigated. The study was carried out in Bauchi metropolis in the Bauchi state of Nigeria. The design of the study was a multi-stage design. The first stage was a descriptive design. The second stage involves a pre-test, post-test only quasi-experimental design. Two instruments were used for the data collection in the study. These were Conceptual and Procedural knowledge test (CPKT) and Rational number achievement test (RAT), the population of the study comprises of three (3) mathematics teachers’ holders of Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) teaching primary six and 210 pupils in their intact classes were used for the study. The data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, analysis of variance, analysis of covariance and t- test. The findings indicated that the pupils taught rational number by a teacher that has high conceptual and procedural knowledge understand and perform better than the pupil taught by a teacher who has low conceptual and procedural knowledge of rational number. It is, therefore, recommended that teachers in primary schools should be encouraged to enrich their conceptual knowledge of rational numbers. Also, the superiority performance of teachers in procedural knowledge in rational number should not become an obstruction of understanding. Teachers Conceptual and procedural knowledge of rational numbers should be balanced so that primary school pupils will have a view of better teaching and learning of rational number in our contemporary schools.

Keywords: conceptual, procedural knowledge, rational number, pupils

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Authors: Bahareh Golchin, Nooshin Riahi

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One of the most significant issues as attended a lot in recent years is that of recognizing the sentiments and emotions in social media texts. The analysis of sentiments and emotions is intended to recognize the conceptual information such as the opinions, feelings, attitudes and emotions of people towards the products, services, organizations, people, topics, events and features in the written text. These indicate the greatness of the problem space. In the real world, businesses and organizations are always looking for tools to gather ideas, emotions, and directions of people about their products, services, or events related to their own. This article uses the Twitter social network, one of the most popular social networks with about 420 million active users, to extract data. Using this social network, users can share their information and opinions about personal issues, policies, products, events, etc. It can be used with appropriate classification of emotional states due to the availability of its data. In this study, supervised learning and deep neural network algorithms are used to classify the emotional states of Twitter users. The use of deep learning methods to increase the learning capacity of the model is an advantage due to the large amount of available data. Tweets collected on various topics are classified into four classes using a combination of two Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory network and a Convolutional network. The results obtained from this study with an average accuracy of 93%, show good results extracted from the proposed framework and improved accuracy compared to previous work.

Keywords: emotion classification, sentiment analysis, social networks, deep neural networks

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Authors: Elsa Makue Nguuffo, Esther Del Florence Moni Ndedi, Jacky Njiki Bikoï, Jean Paul Assam Assam, Maximilienne Ascension Nyegue

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Aims: The present study aims to evaluate the kinetic parameters of essential oils (EOs) and combinations fromDrypetes gossweileri Stem Bark, Ocimum gratissimum leaves, Cymbopogon citratusleaves after evaluation of their antibacterial activityonmultidrug-resistant strains ofShigella. Material and Methods:fiveclinical strains of Shigellaisolated from patients with diarrhoeaincluding Shigella flexneri, and 4 otherstrains of Shigella sppwere selected. Their antibiotic profile was established using agar test diffusion with seven antibiotics belonging to seven classes.EOs were extracted from each plant using hydrodistillation process. The activity of Ciprofloxacin®, OEs, and their combination formulatedinthe followingratios(w/w/w): C1: 1/1/1; C2: 2/1/1; C3: 1/2/1, C4:1/1/2 was evaluated microdilution assay. The various interactions of OEs in the different combinations were determined then the OE and the most active combination were retained to determine their kinetic parameters on S. flexneri. Results: Antibiotic susceptibility tests revealed that most Shigella isolates (n = 4) were resistant to six antibiotics tested. Ciprofloxacin (40%), Nalidixic acid (60%), Tetracycline (80%), Amoxicillin (100%), Cefotaxime (80%), Erythromycin (100%), and Cotrimoxazole (80%) were the profiles found in the different strains of Shigella. About the antibacterial activity of OEs, Drypetes gossweileriOE and C2 combination had shown a higher Shigellicide property with a Minimal Inhibitory Concentration(MIC) respectivelyranging from 0.078 mg/mL to 0.312 mg/mL and 0.012 to 1.562 mg/mL. Combinations of OEs showed various interactions whose synergistic effects were mostly encountered. The best deactivation was obtained by the combination C2 at 16 MIC withb= 1.962. Conclusion: the susceptibility of Shigella to OEs and their combinations justifies their use in traditional medicine in the treatment of shigellosis.

Keywords: shigella, multidrug-resistant, EOs, kinetic

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Authors: Yelbek B. Utepov, Assel T. Mukhamejanova, Aliya K. Aldungarova, Aida G. Nazarova, Sabit A. Karaulov, Nurgul T. Alibekova, Aigul K. Kozhas, Dias Kazhimkanuly, Akmaral K. Tleubayeva

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This research focuses on enhancing geotechnical surveying for foundation design through the spatial interpolation of intermediate soil properties. Traditional geotechnical practices rely on discrete data from borehole drilling, soil sampling, and laboratory analyses, often neglecting the continuous nature of soil properties and disregarding values in intermediate locations. This study challenges these omissions by emphasizing interpolation techniques such as Kriging, Inverse Distance Weighting, and Spline interpolation to capture the nuanced spatial variations in soil properties. The methodology is applied to geotechnical survey data from two construction sites in Astana, Kazakhstan, revealing continuous representations of Young's Modulus, Cohesion, and Friction Angle. The spatial heatmaps generated through interpolation offered valuable insights into the subsurface environment, highlighting heterogeneity and aiding in more informed foundation design decisions for considered cites. Moreover, intriguing patterns of heterogeneity, as well as visual clusters and transitions between soil classes, were explored within seemingly uniform layers. The study bridges the gap between discrete borehole samples and the continuous subsurface, contributing to the evolution of geotechnical engineering practices. The proposed approach, utilizing open-source software geographic information systems, provides a practical tool for visualizing soil characteristics and may pave the way for future advancements in geotechnical surveying and foundation design.

Keywords: soil mechanical properties, spatial interpolation, inverse distance weighting, heatmaps

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Authors: Judith Hanke

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Due to the rise of students with reading difficulties, a digital reading support was developed. The digital reading support focuses on reading comprehension of elementary school students. It consists of literary texts and reading exercises with diagnostics. To analyze the use of the reading packages an intervention study took place in 2023. For the methodology, an ABA-design was selected for the intervention study to examine the reading packages. The study was expedited from April 2023 until July 2023 and collected quantitative data of individuals, groups, and classes. It consisted of a survey group (N = 58) and a control group (N = 53). The pretest was conducted before the reading support intervention. The students of the survey group received reading support on their ability level to aid the individual student’s needs. At the beginning of the study characteristics of the students were collected. The characteristics included gender, age, repetition of a class, spoken language at home, German as a second language, and special support needs such as dyslexia; right after the intervention, the posttest was examined. At least three weeks after the intervention, the follow-up testing was administered. A standardized reading comprehension test was used for the three test times. The test consists of three subtests: word comprehension, sentence comprehension, and text comprehension. The focus of this paper is to determine which characteristics have an impact on reading comprehension of elementary school students. The students’ characteristics were correlated with the three test times through a Pearson correlation. The main findings are that age, repetition of a class, spoken language at home, German as a second language have an effect on reading comprehension. Interestingly gender and special support needs did not have a significant effect on the reading comprehension of the students. The significance of the study is to determine which characteristics have an impact on reading comprehension and then to assess how reading support can be modified to support the diverse students.

Keywords: class repetition, reading comprehension, reading support, second language, spoken language at home

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Authors: Calvin Odhiambo

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Depression among young adults is a common health problem and a growing public health concern. Of the young adult population, college students are particularly vulnerable to depression as they find themselves grappling with the stress and anxiety of college life while at the same navigating the demands of separation and independence from familial ties. To deal with the resultant mental health challenges affecting this population, most colleges offer counseling services to their student population. What is not known, however, is the extent to which students are aware of or even utilize such mental health services. Our study set out to assess the level of student awareness and utilization of counseling services and programs at a southeastern public university in the United States. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaires given to a convenience sample of 508 undergraduate students voluntarily recruited from 38 classes representing five colleges. Data analysis was done using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. Results showed that even though a majority of students were aware of the mental health services offered by the university, an overwhelming majority of these students did not utilize any of these services or participate in any mental health programs offered by the university. Significant gender and racial differences were observed. Reasons for the lack of awareness and utilization of mental health services are explored. Recommendations are made on how to increase student awareness and utilization of mental health services, and the implications of the findings are discussed. The findings of this study help to fill an academic lacuna on this issue and provides an important basis for developing policies to help mitigate the growing problem of depression and attendant mental health problems among undergraduate students.

Keywords: depression, counseling services, undergraduate college students, utilization of mental health services, perceptions and awareness

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Authors: Terigele

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Cultural products are always shelved into different classes of a hierarchy that separates so-called highbrow and lowbrow cultures. This study illustrated that audiences might even construct a hierarchy according to the origin countries when consuming certain products. Chinese audiences now have access to TV series from all around the world thanks to the internet. TV series from different origin countries show some particular features in terms of length, theme, plots, accessibility, seriousness etc. Their audiences were therefore stereotyped because of what they watch. Based on in-depth interviews with 20 participants, this research has following findings: 1) Most popular origin countries of foreign TV series in China are Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and European countries in a descending order. Korean TV series are most popular because they are less serious and more accessible compared to others. 2) In the hierarchy of the TV series, European TV series stand on the top followed by British and American TV series. Japanese TV series are also categorized into highbrow class. Korean TV series are at the bottom and always seen as lowbrow cultural products. 3) Most audiences consume TV series from more than one origin countries and have different needs when watching them. Participants reported that they watch European TV series because those TV series are more artistic than their counterparts and of great quality. They watch British and American TV series mainly to improve their English and to learn about the culture. They find Japanese TV series very enjoyable with a large variety of themes and impressive lines. Audiences watch Korean TV series mostly to entertain and kill time. 4) Audiences do care about cultural taste. Especially those who watch European, British and American TV series usually tend to consider audiences who watch nothing but Korean TV series to be shallow. On the other hand, Korean TV series’ audiences seem to care less about the hierarchy of the TV series. Even when they discuss the hierarchy, they tend to accept the judgments with ironies and jokes. Future studies can dig deeply into the genre and content of TV series with different origin countries and also investigate more about the psychology of audiences regarding the gender, age, education, socioeconomic status etc.

Keywords: foreign TV series, hierarchy, popularity, uses and gratification

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Authors: Saziye Darendeli

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Motivation has a significant impact on a second/foreign language learning process, so it plays a vital role while achieving the learning goal. As it is defined by Simon (1967, p. 29), motivation is “a goal terminating mechanism, permitting goals to be processed serially.”AccordingtoSimon, if a learning goal is activated and enough attention is given, the learner starts learning. In connection with this view, the more attention is given on a subject, and the more activation takes place on it, the quicker learning will occur. Moreover, today almost every teacher is familiar with the term “distance education” regardless of their student's age group. As it is stated by Visser (2002), when compared to the traditional classrooms, in distance education, the rate and success of language learningdecreasesandone of the most essential reasons is that motivating students in distance education contexts, in which interaction is lower, is much more challenging than face-to-face training especially with young learners(Lim& Kim, 2003). Besides, there are limited numbers of studies conducted on motivational strategies for young learners in distance education contexts since we have been experiencing full time the online schooling process recently, yet online teaching seems to be permanent in our lives with the new technological era. Therefore, there appears to be a need for various strategies to motivate young learners in distance education, and the current study aims to find out the strategies that young learners’ teachers use to increase their students’ motivation level in distance education. To achieve this aim, a qualitative research approach and a phenomenological method with an interpretive design will be used. The participants, who are teachers of young learners, will be interviewed using a structured interview format consisting of 7 questions. As the participants are young learners’teacherswhohavebeenexperiencingteaching online, exploring thestrategiesthattheyusetoincreasetheirstudents’ motivationlevelwillprovidesomesuggestionsaboutthemotivationalstrategiesforfuture online classes. Also, in this paper, I will move beyond the traditional classrooms that have face-to-face lessons and discuss the effective motivational strategies for young learners in distance education.

Keywords: motivation, distance education, young learners, strategies

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Authors: Luanna B. Prevost, Kelli Carter, Margaurete Romero, Kirsti Martinez

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Writing is an essential scientific practice, yet, in several countries, the increasing university science class-size limits the use of written assessments. Written assessments allow students to demonstrate their learning in their own words and permit the faculty to evaluate students’ understanding. However, the time and resources required to grade written assessments prohibit their use in large-enrollment science courses. This study examined the use of machine learning algorithms to automatically analyze student writing and provide timely feedback to the faculty about students' writing in biology. Written responses to questions about matter and energy transformation were collected from large-enrollment undergraduate introductory biology classrooms. Responses were analyzed using the LightSide text mining and classification software. Cohen’s Kappa was used to measure agreement between the LightSide models and human raters. Predictive models achieved agreement with human coding of 0.7 Cohen’s Kappa or greater. Models captured that when writing about matter-energy transformation at the ecosystem level, students focused on primarily on the concepts of heat loss, recycling of matter, and conservation of matter and energy. Models were also produced to capture writing about processes such as decomposition and biochemical cycling. The models created in this study can be used to provide automatic feedback about students understanding of these concepts to biology faculty who desire to use formative written assessments in larger enrollment biology classes, but do not have the time or personnel for manual grading.

Keywords: machine learning, written assessment, biology education, text mining

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Authors: G. De Matteis, L. Martina, V. Turco

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The work is focused on determining and comparing special nonlinear static configurations in cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs), confined between two parallel plates and in the presence of an external static electric/magnetic field. The solutions are stabilised by topological and non-topological conservation laws since they are described in terms of integrable or partially integrable nonlinear boundary value problems. In cholesteric liquid crystals which are subject to geometric frustration; anchoring conditions at boundaries, i.e., homeotropic conditions, are incompatible with the cholesteric twist. This aspect turns out to be essential in the admissible classes of solutions, allowing also for disclination type singularities. Within the framework of Frank-Oseen theory, we study the static configurations for CLCs. First, we find numerical solutions for isolated axisymmetric states in confined CLCs with weak homeotropic anchoring at the boundaries. These solutions describe 3-dimensional modulations, namely spherulites or cholesteric bubbles, actually observed in these systems, of standard baby skyrmions. Relations with well-known nonlinear integrable systems are found and are used to explore the asymptotic behavior of the solutions. Then we turn our attention to extended periodic static configurations called Helicoids or cholesteric fingers, described by an elliptic sine-Gordon model with appropriate boundary conditions, showing how their period and energies are determined by both the thickness of the cell and the intensity of the external electric/magnetic field. We explicitly show that helicoids with π or 2π of rotations of the molecular director are different in many aspects and are not simply algebraically related. The behaviour of the solutions, their energy and the properties of the associated disclinations are discussed in detail, both analytically and numerically.

Keywords: cholesteric liquid crystals, geometric frustration, helicoids, skyrmions

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Authors: Lusia Ndahafa Nghitotelwa

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India is a home to many languages, cultures, traditions, castes and religions. This diversity, when observed in education, appears to be challenging and difficult to manage with respect to including everyone in the educational system. But in order to achieve this, attempts to understand the complexity of the issue and find some solutions for including everyone in education has been made in India since independence, regardless of the students’ background. Despite that, the challenge is still topical. Plenty of students are left out of the system due to the lack of awareness and appropriate management of these diversities. Therefore, the present paper makes an attempt to study the awareness and management of diversity in Indian schools. Existing studies on diversity in Indian schools, along with how measures and which measures have been taken to accommodate and retain everyone in school, have been looked at, and a thorough critical analysis of findings has been narrated. It was found that a lot of efforts have been conjugated to include and educate children of all castes, religions, and linguistic backgrounds. Furthermore, the awareness of inclusive education among teachers and society members is moderate, but teachers lack the necessary skills and knowledge on how to deal with students with special educational needs in regular classes. Also, the management is aware of inclusive education, but the management does not include teachers in decision-making. Moreover, it was found that the poor management of inclusion services and retention of special needs students in Indian schools results in their poor effective integration into the workforce. Finally, the management was found to have stringent admission criteria, which has the effect of hindering some students from entering the educational system. Based on the results of the study, it is clear that the implementation of inclusive education is still a challenge in India. However, there are promising results in tackling the issue. All children should be given an opportunity to learn together with other children in order to broaden their interest and challenge their potential.

Keywords: awareness, management, inclusive education, students

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Authors: Martha Karunakar

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There exists a wide divide between the urban and the rural students in a vast country like India. This dichotomy is seen in the resources available to them, like the learning facilities, the infra-structure, the learning ambience and meeting of their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. This paper discusses the effect of English language teaching as a Bridge course on a select batch of rural students at an Engineering college in Chennai, one of the four Metros of India. The study aims to understand how the teacher input and the teacher- peer-student interaction facilitates the acquisition of the basic structures of the English language to a group that is minimally exposed to the language. The objective in conducting the Bridge Course is to integrate these rural students into the mainstream and empower them in terms of English speaking ability; to enable them to comprehend their respective engineering classes where the medium of instruction is English and also to be able to interact with their urban peers. This program is conducted prior to the start of a regular academic session to equip them face the rigors of engineering education. The study is placed within the framework of Interaction theory in second language acquisition. The study evaluates the impact of linking theory and practice by implementing meaningful interaction not only within classrooms but also in the common areas. By providing intensive comprehensible input, it is anticipated that participant’s level of English language improves. The teaching methods and classroom activities included individual and group participation, encompassing all the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW). The diagnostic tests that were administered before the commencement of the course and the exit test after the completion were used to record the impact of the training.

Keywords: comprehensible input, interaction, rural students, teaching English

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Authors: Elham Fariborzi, Hoda Anvari Kazemabad

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Today, ICT plays an important role in all matters and it affects the development of creative cities. According to virtual space in this technology, it use especially for expand terms like smart schools, Virtual University, web-based training and virtual classrooms that is in parallel with the traditional teaching. Nowadays, the educational systems in different countries such as Iran are changing and start increasing creativity in the learning environment. It will contribute to the development of innovative ideas and thinking of the people in this environment; such opportunities might be cause scientific discovery and development issues. The creativity means the ability to generate ideas and numerous, new and suitable solutions for solving the problems of real and virtual individuals and society, which can play a significant role in the development of creative current physical cities or virtual borders ones in the future. The purpose of this paper is to study strategies to increase creativity in a virtual learning to develop a creative city. In this paper, citation/ library study was used. The full description given in the text, including how to create and enhance learning creativity in a virtual classroom by reflecting on performance and progress; attention to self-directed learning guidelines, efficient use of social networks, systematic discussion groups and non-intuitive targeted controls them by involved factors and it may be effective in the teaching process regarding to creativity. Meanwhile, creating a virtual classroom the style of class recognizes formally the creativity. Also the use of a common model of creative thinking between student/teacher is effective to solve problems of virtual classroom. It is recommended to virtual education’ authorities in Iran to have a special review to the virtual curriculum for increasing creativity in educational content and such classes to be witnesses more creative in Iran's cities.

Keywords: virtual learning, creativity, e-learning, bioinformatics, biomedicine

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Authors: Mashaal Hooda

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The rationale for conducting this action research was to increase students' Academic Achievement (AA) contexts of studying/researching by employing the Goal Setting intervention (GS). The purposive sample consisted of 10 female undergraduate students at a university in Dubai. The intervention was introduced through workshop classes conducted online. The pre-intervention consisted of discussions concentrating on participants' research contexts amidst a pandemic. The GS moderators were implemented in the class, followed by scaffolding and mentoring interactions and self-reflective accounts of students' actions and feelings of using the intervention to better plan and structure their dissertation tasks. The research incorporated a Mixed Methods Methodology (MMM). Quantitative data collection took place through surveys, while qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews. Triangulation of the emergent themes showed a positive increase in students achievable GS, self-regulatory study skills, feedback-seeking behaviours, research organisation and synthesis, self-reflection and Academic Resilient (AR) attitudes amalgamate to enhance students' AA outcomes. Though, students' intrinsic motivational levels to study and research observed minor changes only. Nonetheless, the pebble in the shoe was removed as students AA contexts improved in undertaking better actionable steps for their research. Therefore, the GS intervention enabled students to set, balance, and achieve academic goals while catering to their academic anxieties, mental health concerns, and adaptability to the e-learning platforms amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the wide-scale changes the pandemic brought to the teaching and learning communities, the GS intervention served as a targeted intervention to help students maintain their achievement contexts in a goal-oriented way.

Keywords: academic achievement, acadeic resilience, COVID-19, goal setting

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