Search results for: teacher’s role

Authors: Carmen Manuela Pereira Carneiro Lucas

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Background: The milestones on first (L1) and second (L2) language acquisition have fascinated researchers and practitioners for decades. However, the findings from the available research do not always and instantly reflect on the classroom, specifically in Teaching English to Young Learners in Portuguese primary schools. Within this, it is worth highlighting, as per previous studies, the lack of uniformity in terms of syllabus design and implementation in the classroom. Moreover, more continuous professional development opportunities would be welcome. This paper is set out to gather the “best of both worlds”, with the aim of contributing to research-informed teaching, based in actual findings from the classroom, through and after the implementation of an action-research programme for nurturing the seeds in learning how to read in English. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of read-aloud storybooks, associated with the use of interactive whiteboards, further anchored in a phonics-based approach to teach reading and writing to Young Learners of English. Methods: Participants were 80 (n=80) native Portuguese children, attending the second year of primary school, learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes, aged 7 years old. Results and Conclusions: The findings suggest that through the use of storybooks, followed by watching the respective videos, together with follow-up phonics activities are effective strategies which Teachers of English to Young Learners can certainly use to “nurture the seeds” for English language learning.

Keywords: teaching English to young learners, phonics-based approach, content for language and integrated learning, English across the curriculum, interactive whiteboards, teacher training

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Authors: Sunethra Jayathilake, Vathsala Jayasuriya-Illesinghe, Kerstin Samarasinghe, Himani Molligoda, Rasika Perera

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In Sri Lanka, postnatal care in the state hospitals is provided by different professional categories: Midwifery trained registered nurses (MTRNs), Registered Nurses (RNs) who do not have midwifery training, doctors and midwives. Even though four professional categories provide postnatal care to mothers and newborn babies, they are not aware of their own tasks and responsibilities in postnatal care. Particularly MTRN’s role in the postnatal unit is unclear. The current study aimed to identify nurses’ (both MTRN and RNs) perception on MTRN’s tasks and responsibilities in postnatal care. This is a descriptive cross sectional study using postal survey. All nurses who were currently working in postnatal units at five selected tertiary care hospitals in the Western Province at that time were invited to participate in the study. Accordingly, the pre evaluated self-administered questionnaire was sent to 201 nurses (53 MTRNs and 148 RNs) in the study setting. The number of valid return questionnaire was 166; response rate was 83%. Respondents rated the responsibility of four professional categories: MTRN, RN, doctor and midwife whether they are 'primarily responsible', 'responsible in absence' and 'not responsible', for each of 15 postnatal (PN) tasks which were previously identified from focus group discussions with care providers during the first phase of the study. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20; descriptive statistics were calculated. Out of the 15 PN tasks, 13 were identified as MTRNs’ primary responsibilities by 71%-93% of respondents. The respondents also considered six (6) tasks out of 15 as primary responsibility of both MTRN and RN, seven (7) tasks as primary responsibility of MTRN, RN and doctor and the remaining two (2) tasks were identified as the primary responsibility of MTRN, RN and midwife. All 15 PN tasks overlapped with other professional categories. Overlapping tasks may create role confusion leading to conflicts among professional categories which affect the quality of care they provide, eventually, threaten the safety of the client. It is recommended that an official job description for each care provider is needed to recognize their own professional boundaries for ensuring safe, quality care delivery in Sri Lanka.

Keywords: overlapping, postnatal, responsibilities, tasks

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Authors: Hanit Ohana, Anat Scher

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For decades, attachment research examined how mothers’ attachment styles shape parenting and specific aspects of child development. Only limited research addressed pubertal development from the perspective of attachment relationships. The current study focused on pubertal development at 10 years of age, as defined by Tanner (PDS), and examined the associations with both mothers’ and fathers’ attachment styles (ECR-S). Sixty-nine parents and their children from a medium SES participated in the study. It was found that whereas mothers’ attachment was not related to the child’s puberty development, fathers’ attachment was associated with their daughter’s pubertal development. Specifically, in girls, but not boys, advanced pubertal development was positively correlated with fathers’ avoidance (r = .37, p = 0.05), and negatively correlated with anxiety scores (r = -.36, p = 0.05). This result raises the possibility that for girls, a relationship with fathers may serve as a psychological stressor, and in turn, induce concerns regarding resources and availability of interpersonal support. Such processes may contribute to different reproductive timing and strategies, including delayed and accelerated pubertal development. As more data are collected, we will be able to address with more power the role of parent’s attachment in shaping the pubertal development of their young adolescents. Expanding the understanding of aspects of pubertal development –an important milestone of human development- and the possible linkages with parental attachment is important for researchers and clinicians.

Keywords: attachment style, children, gender, parents, puberty

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Authors: Thevaranchany Sivaskaran

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Women entrepreneurs are the key players in the society and their contributions is highly highlighted to enhance economic stability in the country. In Sri Lanka, especially in North and East provinces people badly affected by war. Most of them are widows and women headed families. Due to this changing environment, Educational opportunities, and the support of NGO’s Most of the women have started their business and become entrepreneurs. Even though existing family setup and social setup entrepreneurial women are overburdened and difficult to balance their business and family roles. The research has been conducted on the experiences of women entrepreneurs with the family role support and work-life balance within the small and micro- enterprise sector in Jaffna, Srilanka. This study aims to identify that what extent the role of family support will be the tool to balancing work and life effectively and, secondly, the main challenges they face in achieving work-life balance. This is done by drawing on literatures including those on work-life balance, small-and micro enterprises, and entrepreneurship theories. To find out this objective, the data were collected from 50 entrepreneurs among the members of Jaffna women chamber in each GS division basis (cluster random sampling). A qualitative methodological technique and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data for the case study on these entrepreneurs. The results indicate that the majority of entrepreneurs do not enjoy a sense of work-life balance because most of them are women headed family and they need to work hard to generate financial profit for the benefit of family. The motivation for them to work in this way is to provide basic needs. Results confirmed for others that support of husbands is very important. Mostly, emotional support (belief and empowerment) is exposed; however, getting financial contribution seems to be highly appreciated. More responsibilities which spouses were ready to take over regarding the home responsibilities (that is, childcare) should also not be neglected in the system of support to their entrepreneurial wives. Although, more important for all, women with children appreciated other members and spouses help and assistance to a higher extent. Results showed that majority of women who started their own business feel that in the first year of ope-ration the emotional support of family members was more important.

Keywords: family support, work life balance, women entrepreneurs, Jaffna District, Sri Lanka

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Authors: Sonam Kumari

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Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis, possesses a remarkable feature of entering into and emerging from a persistent state. The mechanism by which Mtb switches from the dormant state to the replicative form is still poorly characterized. Proteome studies have given us an insight into the role of certain proteins in giving stupendous virulence to Mtb, but numerous dotsremain unconnected and unaccounted. The WhiB family of proteins is one such protein that is associated with developmental processes in actinomycetes.Mtb has seven such proteins (WhiB1 to WhiB7).WhiB proteins are transcriptional regulators; their conserved C-terminal HTH motif is involved in DNA binding. They regulate various essential genes of Mtbby binding to their promoter DNA. Biophysical Analysis of the effect of DNA binding on WhiB proteins has not yet been appropriately characterized. Interaction with DNA induces conformational changes in the WhiB proteins, confirmed by steady-state fluorescence and circular dichroism spectroscopy. ITC has deduced thermodynamic parameters and the binding affinity of the interaction. Since these transcription factors are highly unstable in vitro, their stability and solubility were enhanced by the co-expression of molecular chaperones. The present study findings help determine the conditions under which the WhiB proteins interact with their interacting partner and the factors that influence their binding affinity. This is crucial in understanding their role in regulating gene expression in Mtbandin targeting WhiB proteins as a drug target to cure TB.

Keywords: tuberculosis, WhiB proteins, mycobacterium tuberculosis, nucleic acid binding

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Authors: V. Surena, B. Nazemisalman, F. Noghrehkar

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Introduction: Gingival overgrowth (GO) is a common side effect involving users of antiepileptic, immunosuppressive and calcium channel blocker drugs. Cyclosporine and phenytoin are amongst the most widely used drugs associated with GO. Gingival fibroblasts seem to have a significant role in the production of certain enzymes after administration of the drugs contributing to GO. Previous studies have shown a higher prevalence of GO in children and adolescents. The aim of this study was to compare normal human gingival fibroblasts with those exposed to Cyclosporine or phenytoin in measuring the production levels of certain enzymes that could have a possible role in GO. Methods: samples were obtained from the gingival biopsies of seven adult and seven children and were cultured into plates. With the growth of fibroblast cells, they were treated with or without either Cyclosporine or phenytoin. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to determine the expressed levels of R-EGF, cathepsin B,L, Lysyl oxidase, COL1, TGF β1, MMP-1,2, and TIMP1. Results: according to RT-PCR analyses, the expressed levels of R-EGF, cathepsin B, L, Lysyl oxidase, COL1, TGF β1, MMP-1, 2 and TIMP1 were affected by Cyclosporine and phenytoin. TGF-β1, TIMP, Cathepsin B and EGF showed comparable values in the adult and pediatric groups. Conclusions: Different expressed levels of enzymes after treatment of the gingival fibroblasts of adults and pediatrics with phenytoin or Cyclosporine could be the reason for the higher severity of GO in children. More studies need to be performed on the pathogenesis of GO at different age groups.

Keywords: cyclosporine, fibroblasts, phenytoin, gingivae

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Authors: Tsebe Wilfred Molotja, Mahlapahlapane Themane, Kgetja Maruma

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It is globally accepted that reading in the primary schools serves as a foundational basis for good reading skills. This is evident in the students’ academic success throughout their studying life. However, the PIRLS (2016) report on Literacy performance found that primary school learners are not able to read as fluently as expected. The results from ANA (2012) also indicated that South African learners achieved the lowest as compared to other global ones. The purpose of this study is to investigate the approaches employed by educators in developing learners’ reading and writing skills and to workshop them on the best reading and writing approaches to be implemented. The study adopted an explorative qualitative design where 27 educators from primary schools around the University of Limpopo were purposefully sampled to participate in this study. Data was collected through interviews and classroom observation during class visits facilitated by research assistants. The study found that teachers are aware of different approaches to developing learners’ reading and writing skills even thou these are not aligned with the curriculum. However, the problem is with implementation, as the conditions in the classrooms are not conducive for such. The study recommends that more workshops on capacitating teachers with the pedagogical approaches to teaching reading be held. The appeal is also made to the Department of Basic Education that it makes the classrooms to be conducive for teaching and learning to take place.

Keywords: academic success, reading and writing, community based, approaches

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Authors: Utsav Swarnkar, Rabi Pathak, Rina Maiti

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This study aims to investigate the thermoregulatory role of sweating by comprehensively analyzing the evaporation process and its thermal cooling impact on local skin temperature at various time intervals. Traditional experimental methods struggle to fully capture these intricate phenomena. Therefore, numerical simulations play a crucial role in assessing sweat production rates and associated thermal cooling. This research utilizes transient computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to enhance our understanding of the evaporative cooling process on human skin. We conducted a simulation employing the k-w SST turbulence model. This simulation includes a scenario where sweat evaporation occurs over the skin surface, and at particular time intervals, temperatures at different locations have been observed and its effect explained. During this study, sweat evaporation was monitored on the skin surface following the commencement of the simulation. Subsequent to the simulation, various observations were made regarding temperature fluctuations at specific points over time intervals. It was noted that points situated closer to the periphery of the droplets exhibited higher levels of heat transfer and lower temperatures, whereas points within the droplets displayed contrasting trends.

Keywords: CFD, sweat, evaporation, multiphase flow, local heat loss

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Authors: Dua Masarwa, Yulia Niazov, Merav Ben Natan, Dina Mostovoy

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Background: the aimed to explore the role of parental health beliefs in parent seeking of eye examinations for their children, using the Health Belief Model. Methods: In this quantitative correlational survey study, 100 parents who presented to Barzilai University Medical Center in July 2021 to perform an eye examination to their child completed a questionnaire. Results: Only 29.6% of the parents knew that a vision screening is performed in first grade, and 10% of the parents were unsure about where to find local eye care for their kids. Moreover, 19% of the parents indicated that they were concerned that their child would be prescribed glasses unnecessarily, and 10% believed that wearing glasses would weaken their child's eyes. Various parental health beliefs regarding children's eye examinations were found associated with parent seeking of eye examinations for their child. Thus, perceived susceptibility (r = 0.52, p < 0.01), perceived benefits (r = 0.39, p < 0.01), and perceived barriers (r=-0.31, p < 0.01) are associated with parent seeking of eye examinations for their child. Also, parents' level of knowledge was associated with seeking eye examinations for their child (r = 0.20, p < 0.01). Conclusion: Parent perceptions of the child's susceptibility to vision problems and perceived barriers to seeking eye examinations predicted parents seeking of eye examinations for their child. Interventions aimed at increasing timely eye examinations among children should focus on raising parent awareness of vision problems in childhood, dispelling misconceptions, and providing parents with practical information regarding available services.

Keywords: children, parents, eye examination, health beliefs, vision problems

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Authors: H. Haseena Banu, D. Karthick, R. Stalin, E. Nandha Kumar, T. P. Sachidanandam, P. Shanthi

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Background of the study: Type 2 diabetes is emerging as the predominant metabolic disorder in the world among adults characterized mainly by the resistance of the insulin sensitive tissues towards insulin followed by the decrease in the insulin secretion. The treatment for this disease usually involves treatment with oral synthetic drugs which are known to cause several side effects. Therefore, identification of new biomarkers as therapeutic target is the need of the hour. miRNAs are small, non–protein-coding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression by promoting degradation and/or inhibit the translation of target mRNAs and have emerged as biomarkers in predicting diabetes mellitus. Objective of the study: To elucidate the therapeutic role of gallic acid in modulating the alterations in glucose metabolism induced by miRNAs 194 and 135a in Type 2 diabetic rats. Materials and Methods: T2D was induced in rats by feeding them with a high fat diet for 2 weeks followed by intraperitoneal injection of 35 mg/kg/body weight (b.wt.) of streptozotocin. Microarrays were used to assess the expression of miRNAs in control, diabetic and gallic acid treated rats. Gene expression studies were carried out by RT PCR analysis. Results: Forty one miRNAs were differentially expressed in Type 2 diabetic rats. Among these, the expression of miRNA 194 was significantly decreased whereas miRNA 135a was significantly increased in Type 2 diabetic rats. The glucose metabolism was also altered significantly in skeletal muscle of Type 2 diabetic rats. Conclusion: T2D is associated with alterations in the expression of miRNAs in skeletal muscle. Both these miRNAs 194 and 135a play an important role in glucose metabolism in skeletal muscle of diabetic rats. Gallic acid effectively ameliorated the alterations in glucose metabolism. Hence, both these miRNAs can serve as biomarkers and therapeutic targets in diabetes mellitus. The study also establishes the role of gallic acid as therapeutic agent. Acknowledgment: The financial assistance provided in the form of ICMR women scientist by ICMR DHR INDIA is gratefully acknowledged here.

Keywords: gallic acid, high fat diet, type 2 diabetes mellitus, miRNAs

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Authors: Abdul Razzaq Azad, Muhammad Asad Razzaq

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The current study reveals that Muslim society losing their basics concepts of courtesy which are the part of Islam. It is known that Muslims played a key role for providing piece in society throughout the history. Humanities always accept the changes through time, ideologies, ethics and traditions, various religious changes, culture, social behaviors and social problems, attitudes, political situations, literature, historical stress, economic clashes, wars and daily routine’s life. It also observed that religious people have their mind set due to their different religious teachings. All the religions have their different religious teachings which have different approaches for their followers. All the religions have same lesson of peace and prosperity. After 09/11 the entire scenario changed, even tried to connect terrorism and extremism with Islam and Muslims. It created a gap among religions and there was not attempt to use for reducing that gap. There were many meetings called at different places of religious scholars in different countries, but not able to get acceptable results. It also created a gap within the country in different religious sects. In the last 15 years there were14000 people have been killed from different religious incidents and even in different sects’ activities. The current study based on survey from 25 Imams and 10 Khatibs from South Punjab. The results show that they knew the word interfaith harmony and the role of Imams and Khatibs for peace in the inter-religious societies.

Keywords: Islam, peace religion, terrorism, extremism, freedom, peace, prosperity and society

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Authors: Leah Ritchie

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By many accounts, the most recent economic recession and subsequent lack-luster recovery has demonstrated that corporate social responsibility is in a state of crisis. This crisis represents an opportunity for CSR scholars to play a role in restoring long-term economic growth and consumer confidence. In its current state however, CSR may not be in a position to facilitate positive change. In an attempt to remain relevant, the field has shifted toward a performance-based agenda that demonstrates in practical terms, how CSR can positively affect the financial and strategic performance of the firm. This paper argues that if CSR is to play a central role in helping to create a more equitable balance of power between industry and society, it must demonstrate the symbiotic nature of the relationship between these two entities, not just in terms of compartmentalized strategic and financial gain for the firm, but also toward maintaining a 'do no harm' imperative. Given the evidence that harm done to society is ultimately turned back on the firm, this is not simply a moralistic imperative. In order to affect change, CSR must also create an activist agenda to raise consciousness among the general citizenry toward mobilizing, uncovering, and repairing breeches in the implicit social contract between business and society.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, multiple stakeholder view, economic recession, housing crisis

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Authors: Eftah Bte. Moh Hj Abdullah, Abd Aziz Bin Abd Shukor, Norazilawati Binti Abdullah, Rahimah Adam, Othman Bin Lebar

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The competency and integrity required for better understanding and practice of School-based Assessment (PBS) comes not only from the process, but also in providing the support or ‘scaffolding’ for teachers to recognize the student as a learner, improve their self-assessment skills, understanding of the daily teaching plan and its constructive alignment of the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The cultivation of integrity in PBS among the teachers is geared towards encouraging them to become committed and dedicated in implementing assessments in a serious, efficient manner, thus moving away from the usual teacher-focused approach to the student-focused approach. The teachers show their integrity via their professional commitment, responsibility and actions. The module based on the cultivation of integrity in PBS among Malaysian teachers aims to broaden the guidance support for teachers (embedded in the training), which consists of various domains to enable better evaluation of complex assessment tasks and the construction of suitable instrument for measuring the relevant cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains to describe the students’ achievement. The instrument for integrity cultivation in PBS has been developed and validated for measuring the effectiveness of the module constructed. This module is targeted towards assisting the staff in the Education Ministry, especially the principal trainers, teachers, headmasters and education officers to acquire effective intervention for improving the PBS assessors’ integrity and competency.

Keywords: school-based assessment, assessment competency integrity cultivation, professional commitment, module

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Authors: Roshika Tyagi, Shuvomoy Banerjee

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Among various diseases, cancer has become a huge threat to human beings globally. In the context of viral infection, Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection is ubiquitous in nature world-wide as well as in India. Recepteur d’Origine Nantais (RON) receptor tyrosine kinase is overexpressed in Lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) but undetectable in primary B-cells. Biologically, RON expression was found to be essential for EBV transformed LCLs proliferation. In our study, we investigated whether EBV latent antigen EBNA3C is playing a crucial role in regulating RON receptor tyrosine kinase function in EBV-induced malignancies. Interestingly, we observed that expression pattern of RON was modulated by EBNA3C in EBV transformed LCLs compared with EBV negative BJAB cell line by PCR and western blot analysis. Moreover, in the absence of EBNA3C, RON expression was found low in western blot and immunofluorescence analysis and cell proliferation rate was significantly reduced in LCLs by cell viability assays. Therefore, our study clearly indicating the potential role of EBNA3C expressed in EBV-infected B-cells for modulating the functions of oncogenic kinases that leads to EBV induced B-cell transformation.

Keywords: apoptosis, cell proliferation, Epstein–barr virus, receptor tyrosine kinase

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Authors: Salwa Hagag Abdelaziz, Dorria Salem, Hoda Zaki, Suzan Atteya

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Early detection of breast cancer saves many thousands of lives each year via application of mammography and genetic screening and many more lives could be saved if nurses are involved in breast care screening practices. So, the aim of the study was to identify nurse's role in early detection of breast cancer through mammography and genetic screening and its impact on patient's outcome. In order to achieve this aim, 400 women above 40 years, asymptomatic were recruited for mammography and genetic screening. In addition, 50 nurses and 6 technologists were involved in the study. A descriptive analytical design was used. Five tools were utilized: sociodemographic, mammographic examination and risk factors, women's before, during and after mammography, items relaying to technologists, and items related to nurses were also obtained. The study finding revealed that 3% of women detected for malignancy and 7.25% for fibroadenoma. Statistically, significant differences were found between mammography results and age, family history, genetic screening, exposure to smoke, and using contraceptive pills. Nurses have insufficient knowledge about screening tests. Based on these findings the present study recommended involvement of nurses in breast care which is very important to in force population about screening practices.

Keywords: mammography, early detection, genetic screening, breast cancer

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Authors: Zuhal Mohammed, Khalid Siddig, Harald Grethe

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Vocational training (VT) has been identified as a potential engine for achieving economic and social development, particularly in developing countries, while during the last two decades it is deemed as an essential determinant of human capital accumulation. Furthermore, it has a crucial role in reducing inequality, wage gaps and unemployment and in promoting skill decomposition. Government plays an important role in the human capital formulation by providing finance for education. In some countries, a large portion of the public educational investment is devoted to academic education (primary, secondary and tertiary). This is reflected in disproportionately increasing investment in various education sectors other than vocational education and VT. Nevertheless, the finance of VT system is not likely to increase or even remain at its existing level. This paper conducts an in-depth analysis to quantify the impacts of various options for expanding the public expenditure on education as well as vocational training in the Sudan. The study uses a recursive dynamic CGE modelling framework that accommodates VT and allows depicting the impact of various policies targeting the vocational training system with special focus on the agricultural sector. This allows for depicting the potential effects of various resource allocation policies not only among education versus non-education sectors, but also between the various types of education and training. Moreover, the study assesses the role of VT system in the economy through its influence on workers’ skill improvement and their movement across sectors. The results show that an increase in the public educational investment will lead to decrease the supply of low and high educated workers as results of increasing the school participation of the students in the short run. While in the medium to long run, this measure guides to increase the productivity of the labour and thus the growth rate of the gross domestic product (GDP). Therefore, the findings of the study provide Sudanese policymakers with needed information to help to adopt measures to reduce unemployment, enhance workers’ skill and ultimately improve livelihoods.

Keywords: vocational training, recursive dynamic CGE, skill level, labour market, economic growth, Sudan

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Authors: Annamarija Paula

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Modern psychology is divided into three distinct domains: cognition, affect, and conation. Historically, psychology devalued the importance of studying the effect in order to explain human behavior as it supposedly lacked both rational thought and a scientific foundation. As a result, affect remained the least studied domain for years to come. However, the last 30 years have marked a significant change in perspective, claiming that not only is affect highly adaptive, but it also plays a crucial role in cognitive processes. Affective states have a crucial impact on human behavior, which led to fundamental advances in the study of affective states on perception and judgment. Positive affect and negative affect are distinct entities and have different effects on social information processing. In addition, emotions of the same valence are manifested in distinct and unique physiological reactions indicating that not all forms of positive or negative affect are the same or serve the same purpose. The effect plays a vital role in perception and judgments, which impacts the validity and reliability of memory retrieval. The research paper analyzes key findings from the past three decades of observational and empirical research on affective states and cognition. The paper also addresses the limitations connected to the findings and proposes suggestions for possible future research.

Keywords: memory, affect, perception, judgement, mood congruency effect

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Authors: Kirti, Samanta Sekhar Khora

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Inflation serves different purposes in different organisms and adds beauty to their behavioral attributes. Pufferfishes are also known as blowfish, swellfish, and globefish due to their remarkable ability to puff themselves up like a balloon when threatened. This ability to inflate can be correlated with anatomical features that are unique to pufferfishes. Pufferfish skin provides a rigid framework to support the body contents and a flexible covering to allow whatever changes are necessary for remarkable inflation mechanism. Skin, the outer covering of animals is made up of collagen fibers arranged in more or less ordered arrays. The ventral skin of pufferfish stretches more than dorsal skin during inflation. So, this study is of much of the interest in comparing the structure and mechanical properties of these two skin regions. The collagen fibers were found to be arranged in different ordered arrays for ventral and dorsal skin and concentration of fibers were also found to be different for these two skin parts. Scanning electron microscopy studies of the ventral skin showed a unidirectional arrangement of the collagen fibers, which provide more stretching capacity. Dorsal skin, on the other hand, has an orthogonal arrangement of fibers. This provides more stiffness to the ventral skin at the time of inflation. In this study, the possible role of collagen fibers was determined which significantly contributed to the remarkable inflation mechanism of pufferfishes.

Keywords: collagen, histology, inflation, pufferfish, scanning electron microscopy, Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS), transmission electron microscopy

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Authors: Zikora K. G. Anyaegbunam, Annabel A. Nnawuihe, Ngozi J. Anyaegbunam, Emmanuel A. Eze

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The discovery and production of new antibiotics is unavoidable in the fight against drug-resistant bacteria. However, this is only part of the problem; we have never really had medications that could completely eradicate an infection. All pathogens create a limited number of dormant persister cells that are resistant to antibiotic treatment. When the concentration of antibiotics decreases, surviving persisters repopulate the population, resulting in a recurrent chronic infection. Bacterial populations have an alternative survival strategy to withstand harsh conditions or antibiotic exposure, in addition to the well-known methods of antibiotic resistance and biofilm formation. Persister cells are a limited subset of transiently antibiotic-tolerant phenotypic variations capable of surviving high-dose antibiotic therapy. Persisters that flip back to a normal phenotype can restart growth when antibiotic pressure drops, assuring the bacterial population's survival. Persister cells have been found in every major pathogen, and they play a role in antibiotic tolerance in biofilms as well as the recalcitrance of chronic infections. Persister cells has been implicated to play a role in the establishment of antibiotic resistance, according to growing research. Thusthe need to basically elucidate the biology of persisters and how they are linked to antibiotic resistance, and as well it's link to diseases.

Keywords: persister cells, phenotypic variations, repopulation, mobile genetic transfers, antibiotic resistance

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Authors: Mary Butler

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Background: Screening programmes for older drivers in Europe (though not the UK), and in many states in the US and in Australia are based on medical assessment of fitness to drive. These programmes require physicians (including general practitioners) to carry out an assessment of fitness to drive in their offices. In 2006, New Zealand changed from doing on-road driving tests with all older drivers from the age of 80, to a screening programme that uses medical assessment of fitness to drive only. Aim: This study set out to understand the experience of New Zealand GPs as they manage the process of medical assessment of fitness to drive assessments for older people. In particular, it aimed to establish how GPs understand the role of specialist driving assessment and rehabilitation carried out by occupational therapists. Design and setting: The study used an interpretive descriptive approach to analyze data from ten interviews with GPs in New Zealand. Results: The results indicated that GPs lack understanding about how occupational therapists can assist their patients, and tend to refer only when there is a disagreement with the patient. Conclusion: There are problems with the medical assessment of fitness to drive carried out by GPs, and there is a need for a more comprehensive community approach to driving cessation. Patients, families and the multidisciplinary team all have a role in deciding when driving cessation should occur. Occupational therapists have a particular responsibility for strategic leadership in this area of practice.

Keywords: assessment, driving, older people, occupational therapy

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Authors: Egbo Anthonia Chinonyelum

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This study was designed to identify the extent of the influence of vocational guidance services on career choice of secondary school students in Enugu State. The study was guided by two research questions and two null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. A sample of 1,054 respondents made of teachers, students and counsellors drawn from the 34 secondary schools from the six educational zones of Enugu State Nigeria was used for the study. The researcher administered the research instruments generated from the randomly selected senior secondary schools from the six educational zones in Enugu State. The data collected from the respondents were analyzed using mean statistics drawn from the responses of senior secondary school students, counsellor and teacher to the questionnaire item. Four point scale was used to measure the opinion of the respondents, such that after the statistical analysis, those items in the questionnaire that have the mean rate of 2.5 and is of great level of influence on the career choice of students. While questionnaire item with the mean below 2.5 were taken as having little extent of influence on career choice of students. The findings in this work showed that there was little extent on the influence of vocational guidance on career choice, choice of subjects and positive attitude of students towards vocational guidance. Based on the findings the researcher recommended that government and other relevant authorities should help by creating the awareness of vocational guidance programme in Schools.

Keywords: vocation, guidance, counselling, services, career, choice

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Authors: Johnnie Hay

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New Zealand is well known for its natural beauty, diversity of people but also for its strong focus on mental health through the provision of a vast network of psycho-social support services. South African-trained psychologists often make New Zealand their new home when emigrating - as it is relatively simple to slot into the well-established mental health system. South Africa is bigger in size, population, GDP and probably people diversity than New Zealand but struggles to provide adequate educational and psychological support services to schools. This is mainly due to budgetary pressures brought about by the imperative to first ensure that the approximately 13 million learners all have a teacher in front of their classes and at an average ratio of not more than 40 learners per class. In this paper, perspectives on educational and psychological support in New Zealand and South African schools will be shared. Through basic qualitative research encompassing semi-structured interviews with two South African educational psychologists who returned from New Zealand, supplemented by document analysis, the New Zealand situation will be scrutinized. South African perspectives will be obtained through a number of semi-structured interviews and questionnaires administered by education support services specialists working in district-based support teams in three provinces of the country. This research is in process, but preliminary findings indicate large disparities between the two countries' emphasis, funding, post provisioning and structure regarding educational and psychological support services.

Keywords: educational psychological support services, support for learners experiencing special needs, education support services, diverse learner population

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Authors: Farnoush Haghanipour

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Objective: Father loss as one of the major stress factor, can causethe mental imbalances in children. It's clear that children's family condition of lacking a father is very clearly different from the condition of having a father. The goal of this research is to examine mental imbalances comparative checking in complete form and in five subsidiary categories as aggression, stress and depression, social incompatibility, anti-social behavior, and attention deficit imbalances (wackiness) do between children without father and normal ones. Method: This research is in descriptive and analytical method that reimburse to checking mental imbalances from 50 children that are student in one zone of Rasht’s education and nurture office. Material of this research is RATER behavior questionnaire (teacher form) and data analyses were did by SPSS software. Results: The results showed that there are clear different in relation with behavior imbalances between have father children and children without father and in children without a father behavior imbalance is more. Also showed that there is clearly a difference in aggression, stress, and depression and social incompatibility between children without and without fathers, and in children without a father the proportion increases. However, in antisocial behaviours and attention deficit imbalances there are not a clear difference between them. Conclusion: With upper amount of imbalance behaviour detection in children without fathers compared with children with fathers, it is essential that practitioners of society hygienic and remedy put efforts in order to primary and secondary prevention, for mental health of this group of society.

Keywords: child, behave imbalances, children without father, mental imbalances

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Authors: Mei-Hui Liu

Abstract:

This study examines the effectiveness of a blended professional development program on preservice EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers’ learning to teach speech acts with the advent of Information and Communication Technology, researchers and scholars underscore the significance of integrating online and face-to-face learning opportunities in the teacher education field. Yet, a paucity of evidence has been documented to investigate the extent to which such a blended professional learning model may impact real classroom practice and student learning outcome. This yearlong project involves various stakeholders, including 25 preservice teachers, 5 English professionals, and 45 secondary school students. Multiple data sources collected are surveys, interviews, reflection journals, online discussion messages, artifacts, and discourse completion tests. Relying on the theoretical lenses of Community of Inquiry, data analysis depicts the nature and process of preservice teachers’ professional development in this blended learning community, which triggers and fosters both face-to-face and synchronous/asynchronous online interactions among preservice teachers and English professionals (i.e., university faculty and in-service teachers). Also included is the student learning outcome after preservice teachers put what they learn from the support community into instructional practice. Pedagogical implications and research suggestions are further provided based on the research findings and limitations.

Keywords: blended professional development, preservice EFL teachers, speech act instruction, student learning outcome

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Authors: Anjali Sharma, R. R. K. Sharma

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The purpose of this study is to examine relationships between personality factors and customer switching for services. Earlier research was directed towards establishing relationship between individual personality traits and customer switching variables considering five-factors model comprised of five personality dimensions (OCEAN), in which personality was not the only influencing factor. Moreover, these works were found to be focused on products and not services. In contrast, the current study is aimed at investigating role of personality using Myer Briggs Type indicator (MBTI) as well as Five-Big Factors, on customer switching and building the conceptual framework on services rather than products. MBTI also known as four opposite pairs or dichotomies of personality dimensions are studied using different levels Involvement (High, Low) of consumer and Value of service-offering (Value for money and Premium) as moderators associated with Consumer Switching. The study is unique in sense that consequences of these indicators of personality on switching behavior has never been studied using considering moderating effect of involvement and value of services. According to our prepositions for a more Extrovert, Intuitive Personality the switching is going to be high whereas the switching is going to be less for an Introvert, Judgmental kind of personality. Similarly, for a consumer with high Neuroticism and Agreeableness the switching would be less as compared to an Open and Conscious Personality type. These level differs with level of a consumer’s involvement and type of a service being offered based on its value.

Keywords: consumer switching, involvement, Myer Briggs personality type indicators, personality, value of service

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Authors: Yanyue Yuan

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In this paper, the author shares the findings of a pilot study that examines students’ creative expressions and their perceptions of creativity when engaged in project-based learning. The study is based on an elective course that the author co-designed and co-taught with a colleague to sixteen grade six and seven students over the spring semester in 2019. Using the Little Prince story as the main prompt, they facilitated students’ original creation of a storytelling concert that integrated script writing, music production, lyrics, songs, and visual design as a result of both individual and collaborative work. The author will share the specific challenges we met during the project, including learning cultures of the school, class management, teachers' and parents’ attitude, process-oriented versus product-oriented mindset, and facilities and logistical resources. The findings of this pilot study will inform the ongoing research initiative of exploring how we can foster creative learning in public schools in the Chinese context. While K-12 schools of China’s public education system are still dominated by exam-oriented and teacher-centered approaches, the author proposes that expression-based learning can be a starting point for promoting students’ creativity and can serve as experimental efforts to initiate incremental changes within the current education framework. The paper will also touch upon insights gained from collaborations between university and K-12 schools.

Keywords: creativity, expression-based learning, K-12, incremental changes

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Authors: Nadia Pourabbas Tahvildari

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National identity is formed in the process of time and in the community while influenced by the historical events. The country which has a more coherent national and historical identity would be successful as well as strengthening solidarity and social cohesion. Among the international community where the various likes challenge the subject of identity, taking into consideration the components which using identity seems to be very critical. Handicrafts as reflecting the historical and cultural characteristics of the product location can be used as an important component in order to introduce the culture and identity to be evaluated. As one of the most durable crafts for man, handicrafts have played a continuous role in sustaining human culture. Today without the presence of handicrafts, restoration of culture and national identity and religious beliefs of the past clans and people, is not only difficult but is even impossible also. Due to its brilliant historical experience and having rich culture and civilization, Iran has accomplished to the high competence in the field of traditional arts and handicrafts. This article is a scientific approach which by using descriptive – analytic method based on library studies tried to address the issue of handicrafts looking to examine the position of the industry to consolidate the national identity. Studies indicate that Iran as one of the original human habitats in the field of handicrafts has adequate enrichment and in case there will be an appropriate planning and investment away from oil-based industry, it would be beneficent. Furthermore, the quality and variety of handicrafts can be used as an essential yardstick for the consolidation of Iran national identity in the age of globalization.

Keywords: handicrafts, Iran national identity, globalization, cultural heritage

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Authors: Monica Alzate, Marcos Dono, Jose Manuel Sabucedo

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As long as collective action and its predictors constitute a big body of work in the field of political psychology, context-dependent studies and moral variables are a relatively new issue. The main goal of this presentation is to examine the differences in the predictors of collective action when taking into account two different types of protest, and also focus on the role of moral obligation as a predictor of collective action. To do so, we sampled both protesters and non-protesters from two mobilizations (N=376; N=563) of different nature (catalan Independence, and an 'indignados' march) and performed a logistic regression and a 2x2 MANOVA analysis. Results showed that the predictive variables that were more discriminative between protesters and non-protesters were identity, injustice, efficacy and moral obligation for the catalan Diada and injustice and moral obligation for the 'indignados'. Also while the catalans scored higher in the identification and efficacy variables, the indignados did so in injustice and moral obligation. Differences are evidenced between two types of collective action that coexist within the same protest cycle. The frames of injustice and moral obligation gain strength in the post-2010 mobilizations, a fact probably associated with the combination of materialist and post-materialist values that distinguish the movement. All of this emphasizes the need of studying protest from a contextual point of view. Besides, moral obligation emerges as key predictor of collective action engagement.

Keywords: collective action, identity, moral obligation, protest

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Authors: Basheer Idrees Balarabe, Aminu Hamisu Kura, Nabila Shehu

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As the power demand rapidly increases, the generation and transmission systems are affected because of inadequate resources, environmental restrictions and other losses. The role of transient stability control in maintaining the steady-state operation in the occurrence of large disturbance and fault is to describe the ability of the power system to survive serious contingency in time. The application of a Unified power flow controller (UPFC) plays a vital role in controlling the active and reactive power flows in a transmission line. In this research, a genetic algorithm (GA) method is applied to determine the optimal location of the UPFC device in a power system network for the enhancement of the power-system Transient Stability. Optimal location of UPFC has Significantly Improved the transient stability, the damping oscillation and reduced the peak over shoot. The GA optimization Technique proposed was iteratively searches the optimal location of UPFC and maintains the unusual bus voltages within the satisfy limits. The result indicated that transient stability is improved and achieved the faster steady state. Simulations were performed on the IEEE 14 Bus test systems using the MATLAB/Simulink platform.

Keywords: UPFC, transient stability, GA, IEEE, MATLAB and SIMULINK

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Authors: Tayebeh Zargar

Abstract:

The aim of the present research is to study the role of organizational trust in the relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors in sport organizations of Tehran Municipality. The method of this study is correlation and it is based on structural equation modeling. Among all staffs of sport organizations of Tehran Municipality, 150 staff members were selected through random sampling. The data gathering instrument of the study incorporated the Moorman’s (1999) Organizational Justice Questionnaire (OJQ), Ruder’s (2003) Trust Organizational Questionnaire (TOQ), and the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale (DiPaola, Tarter, & Hoy, 2005). SEM was utilized to analyze the data. Regarding the relationships between the variables presented in the model, the following results were obtained: organizational justice has significant direct positive effect on organizational trust (β=0.82), and organizational trust itself has significant direct positive effect on citizenship behavior (β=0.65). According to the results, making efforts in order to encourage staff members to participate more in organizational decision-making will influence their condition. Furthermore, paying more attention to organizational justice may cause the staff members to accept the organizational structure and respect the rules, volunteer in supporting the organizational resources, and have active participation in managing organization roles.

Keywords: organizational trust, organizational justice, organizational citizenship behaviors, sport organizations

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