93887 research outputs found
Sort by
Developing a Connection to Nature: The Role of Pet Ownership in Childhood
Get PDFConnection to nature is associated with a range of benefits to well-being in both childhood and adulthood. Childhood experiences seem to play a big role in how adult nature connection develops. Among the many predictors of higher connection to nature, relationships with animals, including pets, likely play an important role in facilitating feelings of closeness with nature. In this paper we present two survey studies, one of children (n = 64, age = 6–16 years) and one of adults (n = 356, age = 18–80 years). Our aim was to find out if children who own pets have a higher level of connection to nature, as well as whether adults who owned pets in childhood have higher mean levels of connection to nature in adulthood than those who did not own pets. We also examined the relationship that level of engagement with childhood pets might have with nature connection. We did not find a significant difference in mean levels of connection to nature in either children or adults who own(ed) pets in childhood compared to those who did not. For adults, level of engagement with a childhood pet was associated with later nature connection; however, this relationship was not significant in children. These findings suggest that merely owning a pet in childhood might not be enough to encourage a strong connection to nature; rather, in line with the pets as ambassadors theory, active engagement and involvement in the care of childhood pets could be most important in facilitating this relationship. To build relationships with nature during formative childhood years, children could be encouraged to engage with and care for household pets
Investigating Using R, s, and x Charts in Monitoring Performance of Laboratory Equipment
Get PDFStatistical process controls are often used for monitoring processes to identify special causes of variation. Signals generated can assess the operational status of equipment and indicate when corrective action is needed. Control charts are a major tool in statistical process controls used in pharmaceutical manufacturing. It uses graphs as a statistical means of expressing the quality of a process or product. Quality improvement is inversely proportional to variability so that decreasing variabilities in product or process increases quality. Medicines testing laboratories employ various equipment to conduct analysis and generate reports to confirm a sample’s disposition. To ensure data integrity, laboratory equipment is routinely calibrated. In many low-income countries, this causes a great financial burden. This study, therefore, investigated the use of control charts to monitor the performance of laboratory equipment in between calibrations schedules. Also, to explore the use of the R, x., and s charts as an improvement over the use of 2SD and 3SD charts employed in earlier work
Reducing the Burden of Inspections on Pharmaceutical Manufacturers by Regulatory Authorities in Benin City, Nigeria
Get PDFIn Nigeria, pharmaceutical manufacturing is regulated by the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). The PCN Act gave the regulatory authority the mandate to register all pharmaceutical premises. With the later creation of NAFDAC to regulate drugs, comes the dual regulatory authority on those premises by both government agencies who carry out Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) inspections in the process of carrying out their mandates. Dual regulatory authority and inspections puts a considerable inspection burden on the manufacturers and even the regulators. This study examined the inspection tools used by each agency, the acts setting them up, as well as best practices around the world on inspections and regulatory frameworks. The goal was to identify regulatory practices that lessen the burden of inspection on pharmaceutical manufacturers and regulators. A review of the agencies’ inspection tools showed both PCN and NAFDAC utilize the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and templates on inspections. The primary function of PCN is the regulation of pharmacy and pharmacy practice with added responsibility to register and certify premises for pharmaceutical manufacturing purposes. NAFDAC’s primary role, on the other hand, is to regulate pharmaceutical products. Both PCN and NAFDAC carry out this regulatory function on pharmaceutical manufacturing premises through Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) inspections. This study showed an overlap in the agencies’ functions with respect to the inspection of pharmaceutical manufacturing premises before certification, thus creating a duplication of regulatory functions. Inter-agency collaboration would be of great value to lessen the burden on the manufacturers from frequent GMP inspection visits
Developing AI-Assisted In-Situ NDT Method for Air-Void Distribution Testing in Fresh and Hardened Concrete
Get PDFUnderstanding the air void content in concrete is crucial since it significantly influences the durability and strength of the material, especially in environments susceptible to freeze-thaw cycles. This report introduces an advanced nondestructive testing (NDT) method for the in-situ detection of air voids in concrete by employing diffusive ultrasound. Focusing on the ultrasound attenuation coefficient, this research established a strong correlation with key air void metrics, including the volumetric ratio and spacing factor, as outlined in ASTM C457. The study also undertook a comparative analysis of ASTM C457 methods B and C, revealing the instrument-dependent variability in measuring air voids. One pivotal discovery was that ultrasound attenuation in concrete is majorly influenced by air voids and aggregates, with a relatively minor contribution from cement. This methodology not only offers a novel approach for accurately assessing air void content but also enables visualization of air void distribution in concrete infrastructures like pavements. The findings of this research offer insights for enhancing concrete quality control and ensuring structural integrity in construction, particularly when the in-place air voids conditions are of interest
Thai Americans: A Poem Collection featuring Bilingual หมา Standard Poodle and Last Name กู Too Long
Get PDFThis is a co-authored poem collection focusing on Thai American life. In Bilingual หมา Standard Poodle, interactions and observations are made between a Thai American family and their supportive standard poodle named Pumpkin. This poem interjects on the disaggregated Southeast Asian American experience with inclusion of a pet companion. In Last Name กู Too Long, a Thai American graduate student discusses with their mother the challenges of gaining employment. This poem brings attention to hiring bias in the screening and interview process
Integrated STEM Education and Students\u27 21st Century Skills
Get PDFThis research investigates the impact of integrated STEM education on students\u27 21st century competencies, aiming to enhance science and engineering design teaching within a local design-based context. Specifically, the project targets high school students in a rural area and utilizes local contexts, including local rural knowledge and indigenous science knowledge, to facilitate STEM learning. The collaborative effort involves partnering high school environmental science and Technology and Engineering Educators, leveraging their diverse content expertise to teach students collaboratively as a science-technology and engineering teacher pair. Furthermore, university faculty members and industry partners provided support to create a STEM community of practice. The study administered a 21st-century skills survey to students before and after the project to explore the project\u27s influence on critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication skills
The Future of Future City: A STEM Program
Get PDFThe idea of integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is still an enigma for many educators (Dare et al, 2021). Recent academic standards favor curricula that interweave the principles of integrated STEM into all content areas. Finding a “one size fits all” curriculum is challenging, perhaps even impossible. Future City is a national program that specializes in hands-on cross-curricular STEM education. Students work collaboratively using an engineering and design process to showcase their solutions to citywide sustainability issues. This research brief examines how educators can utilize the Future City program as the cornerstone of their STEM curriculum
The Idea of a Writing Center in Brazil: A Different Beat
Get PDFThis article explores the emergence and development of writing centers in Brazil, using the author’s experience founding the Centro de Assessoria de Publicação Acadêmica (CAPA) at the Universidade Federal do Paraná as a case study. The author provides some historical context about Brazilian education and its traditional “banking model” of education (Paulo Freire) that did not value individual expression—including through writing. This model persisted even as composition studies evolved elsewhere. Academic literacy development in Brazil is thus a relatively recent phenomenon, and the effects of that paucity are felt among scholars in higher education settings. This motivated the author’s research into publication challenges faced by Brazilian faculty and graduate students, which revealed a need for more institutional support. This inspired the idea for CAPA, conceived as a space promoting dialogue around writing, not just language editing. In establishing CAPA, critical considerations were the use of a public call mechanism familiar to Brazilians (“o edital”) to make consultations part of the writing process, offering translation to draw more people from around campus, and conducting outreach that stressed writing over “English.” CAPA’s mission to foster academic identities and combat epistemicide makes it unique, but also gives it a very Brazilian flavor. Unlike some writing centers in other global contexts, CAPA was not an imported idea but emerged from local needs, fully integrated with Brazilian higher education culture, compatible with Brazilian understandings like critical pedagogy. CAPA represents a Brazilian innovation contributing original knowledge to international writing center conversations
Comparative Assessment of Operation Thermal Characteristics of Different Types of Refrigeration/Heat Pump Systems for Space Cooling/Heating
Get PDFFacilitation in Pattern Motion Perception of Self-operated Stimuli Explained by Adaptive Contrast Normalization
Get PDFMovement can affect the way we make sense of complex visual information. To investigate this issue, we designed an experiment to assess changes of plaid motion perception threshold after a period of sensorimotor contingency experience. We found that movement training facilitates combination of elementary motion cues into a global motion percept. No changes in perceptual thresholds are observed in a passive visual condition. A Bayesian model suggested a reduction, after training, of the cross-talk between two gratings with unbalanced contrasts in corresponding sensory channels. To test plausible neural mechanisms for active reduction of cross-talk in cortical representation of complex visual motion, we exploited an hierarchical model based on a population of energy motion detectors. Perceptual threshold reduction is consistent with an early neural instantiation of perceptual learning processes, which might occur by rearranging divisive contrast normalization pool in the coding stage of component motion directions