建立知识社会

人类社会正经历着向知识社会的转变;知识正日益成为经济发展和社会进步的核心因素.身处全球迈向知识社会的进程之中,我们目睹和亲历着世界性的合作、竞争、流动和创新.技术变革无疑是这一进程的强大驱动力之一;而在技术不断取得极大进步,知识与信息以空前的数量产生和极快的速度传播的同时,也存在着知识鸿沟或数字鸿沟现象.     

Challenging the myths about madaris in Pakistan: A national household survey of enrolment and reasons for choosing religious schools

There is speculation about madaris in Pakistan as sources of terrorists and about levels and reasons for enrolment, but a dearth of empirical data. We studied madarsah enrolment among 53,960 representative households; 853 focus groups of parents discussed enrolment choices. In 2004, 2.6% of all children (3.8% of school-going children) aged 5–9 years attended a madarsah. Children from urban and less educated households were more likely to attend a madarsah, but there was no difference by sex of the child or household vulnerability. Parents chose madaris because they offered an Islamic education. Our findings challenge misconceptions about madaris in Pakistan.     

Oxidatively Damaged DNA: A Possible Antigenic Stimulus for Cancer Autoantibodies

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are cytotoxic at higher concentration resulting in cell death, mutations, chromosomal aberrations or carcinogenesis. In this study DNA was modified by singlet oxygen and superoxide anion radicals generated by illumination of riboflavin under 365 nm UV-light. The modified DNA induced high titre antibodies in experimental animals. In enzyme immunoassay, serum antibodies from cancer patients (n = 34) showed a higher recognition of the modified DNA, as compared to the native form. This was further confirmed by the gel-shift assay. Immune IgG were used as a probe to detect oxidative lesions in the DNA of cancer patients. DNA isolated from lymphocytes of cancer patients proved to be an appreciable inhibitor of the experimentally induced antibodies against the ROS-DNA. This indicates the presence of oxidative lesions in the DNA obtained from cancer patients. The results show that ROS induced oxidative damage to DNA in cancer patients generate neo-epitopes that are alien for the immune system, resulting in autoantibody formation.     

The moderating role of intrinsic motivation in cloud computing adoption in online education in a developing country: a structural equation model

Asia Pacific Education Review - In the provision of massive open online courses (MOOCs), cloud computing services enable students to synchronize their study materials anywhere, anytime, and using...     

Mitigating the urban–rural educational gap in developing countries through mobile technology-supported learning

One form of educational inequality is the disparity that exists between urban and rural settings. Equal distribution of quality education is a challenge for developing countries due to the unavailability of resources. Various approaches to equal distribution are distance learning, telecast learning and e-learning; however, these approaches cannot achieve the desired objectives due to their limitations. This research aimed to investigate the interesting question of whether mobile technology can bring urban and rural settings closer together. A mobile application for learning Urdu grammar was designed to measure the learning gains of fourth-grade students at two different schools from urban and rural settings. A quantitative technique, the quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test method, was used to measure the effectiveness of the mobile application. The comparison of the students’ performances at the urban and rural schools illustrated the role of mobile technology in mitigating the educational gap. The present study provides evidence that children from different social backgrounds may benefit equally from mobile technology.     

Genetic basis of heterosis and inbreeding depression in rice (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Oryza sativa</Emphasis> L.)

The genetic basis of heterosis was studied through mid-parent, standard variety and better parent for 11 quantitative traits in 17 parental lines and their 10 selected hybrids in rice (Oryza sativa L.). The characters were plant height. days to flag leaf initiation, days to first panicle initiation, days to 100% flowering, panicle length, flag leaf length. days to maturity, number of fertile spikelet/panicle, number of effective tillers/hill, grain yield/10-hill, and 1000-grain weight. In general the hybrids performed significantly better than the respective parents. Significant heterosis was observed for most of the studied characters. Among the 10 hybrids, four hybrids viz., 17A×45R, 25A×37R, 27A×39R, 31A×47R, and 35A×47R showed highest heterosis in 10-hill grain yield/10-hill. Inbreeding depression of F₂ progeny was also studied for 11 characters of 10 hybrids. Both positive and negative inbreeding depression were found in many crosses for the studied characters, but none was found significant. Selection of good parents was found to be the most important for developing high yielding hybrid rice varieties. Project supported by the Foundation of Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology, People's Republic of Bangladesh     

The use of clickers in Instrumentation and Control Engineering education: a case study

ABSTRACT

This paper presents results from a small-scale study of third-year Instrumentation and Control Engineering (n?=?37) at the University of Plymouth. The aim of the study was to enhance student learning and increase participation via the use of clickers. Clickers allow for student participation anonymously. The lecture content was modified to embed clicker questions at regular intervals to test knowledge, understanding and cognitive skills. Largely, the students preferred interactive lectures to traditional didactic lectures and using clickers increased student engagement and participation. Interestingly, compared to assessment results from the previous year, the increased level of engagement did seem to lead to an overall improvement in grades of approximately 10% in the subject of Control Engineering. However, in Instrumentation, the average fell by approximately 20%. One possible contributory factor of this drop could be the changed exam format for Instrumentation only. This year, the multiple choice section was removed from the Instrumentation examination paper. Furthermore, an analysis of variance showed that in addition to using clickers in the lectures, attendance plays a key role. Results of this small-scale study show that for a more complex subject like Control, student learning, engagement and attainment can increase by the use of clickers.     

Science Letters:Nutritional composition of Pakistani wheat varieties

Pakistani wheat varieties are grown over a wide agro-climatic range and as such are anticipated to exhibit yield and quality differences. It is therefore necessary to investigate the nutritional status of wheat varieties in terms of biochemical and physiochemical characteristics available for food and nutritional purposes in Pakistan. The result shows that wheat grains of different varieties contain a net protein level of 9.15%～10.27%, 2.15%～2.55% total fats, 1.72%～1.85% dietary fibers, 77.65×10-6～84.25×10-6 of potassium and 7.70×10-6～35.90×10-6 of sodium ions concentration, 0.24×10-6～0.84×10-6 of phosphorus, 1.44%～2.10% ash, 31.108～43.602 g of thousand grain mass (TGM) and 8.38%～9.67% moisture contents. This study is significant in providing an opportunity to explore the available wheat varieties and to further improve their nutritional excellence and also essential for setting nutritional regulations for domestic and export purposes.     

Endophytes from medicinal plants and their potential for producing indole acetic acid,improving seed germination and mitigating oxidative stress

Medicinal plants have been used by marginal communities to treat various ailments. However, the potential of endophytes within these bio-prospective medicinal plants remains unknown. The present study elucidates the endophytic diversity of medicinal plants (Caralluma acutangula, Rhazya stricta, and Moringa peregrina) and the endophyte role in seed growth and oxidative stress. Various organs of medicinal plants yielded ten endophytes, which were identified as Phoma sp. (6 isolates), Alternaria sp. (2), Bipolaris sp. (1), and Cladosporium sp. (1) based on 18S rDNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. The culture filtrates (CFs; 25%, 50%, and 100% concentrations) from these endophytes were tested against the growth of normal and dwarf mutant rice lines. Endophytic CF exhibited dose-dependent growth stimulation and suppression effects. CF (100%) of Phoma sp. significantly increased rice seed germination and growth compared to controls and other endophytes. This growth-promoting effect was due to the presence of indole acetic acid in endophytic CF. The gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analysis showed the highest indole acetic acid content ((54.31±0.21) μmol/L) in Bipolaris sp. In addition, the isolate of Bipolaris sp. exhibited significantly higher radical scavenging and anti-lipid peroxidation activity than the other isolates. Bipolaris sp. and Phoma sp. also exhibited significantly higher flavonoid and phenolic contents. The medicinal plants exhibited the presence of bio-prospective endophytic strains, which could be used for the improvement of crop growth and the mitigation of oxidative stresses.