Environmental knowledge and behavioural outcomes of tourism students in Australia: towards testing a range of mediation and moderated mediation effects

Our study examines the environmental knowledge (EK) and behavioural outcomes of students studying ecotourism in Sydney, Australia. Three competing models were tested to examine the relationships between EK, participation intention (PI) in ecotourism programs, landscape likeability (LL) and social interactions (SI); and the study also tested the moderated mediation influence of gender differences and relationship length on mediators. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data collected from 173 residential tourism students. Key findings suggest whilst LL and PI are significant outcomes of EK, LL has a stronger mediating effect on PI compared to SI; and all mediation effects are further moderated by gender differences. However, only Model 3 confirms the moderating effect of the length of relationship. Noting the key role that EK plays in influencing their PI and LL, our study also suggests ways of developing the tourism students’ EK, through various experiential and pedagogical interventions.     

Changes in Self-Reported Well-Being: A Follow-Up Study of Children Aged 12–14 in Algeria

This article reports on a 2-year follow-up study (443 Algerian children). Using a variety of satisfaction measures, along with detailed questions relating to family, school, local area, material deprivation, and daily activities, we aim to explore changes in the self-reported well-being of children from age 12 to 14. Satisfaction with health and friends remained stable, meanwhile satisfaction with school decreased more for boys than for girls, but satisfaction with family, time use, and material possessions decreased for girls. This pattern was further confirmed by children's reports on the selected activities, experiences, and facilities provided to them. Regression analyses indicated that satisfaction with material possessions predicted satisfaction with life and positive affect, meanwhile satisfaction with family life and friends predicted eudaimonia.     

Detection of PCV2 DNA by SYBR Green I-based quantitative PCR

We developed an assay for the detection and quantitation of porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) with the SYBR Green I-based real-time PCR. The real-time PCR provides a broad dynamic range, detecting from 103 to 1011 copies of DNA per reaction. No cross-reactions were found in specimens containing PCV1. Because of the high sensitivity and specificity of the assay with a relatively rapid and simple procedure, real-time PCR can be used as a routine assay for the clinical diagnosis of PCV2 infection. In this study we applied real-time PCR assay to 80 clinical samples, collected from 40 pigs with postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) and 40 healthy pigs in comparison with conventional PCR assay. In 56 of 80 samples, PCV2 DNA was de-tected by conventional PCR assay. All samples positive for PCV2 DNA in conventional PCR assay were also positive in real-time assay, and 12 of 24 samples that tested negative for PCV2 DNA in the conventional assay were tested positive in real-time PCR assay. Real-time PCR assay increased the number of samples in which PCV2 was detected by 15%. It is, therefore, considered to be a useful tool for the detection of PCV2.     

The phonological awareness relation to early reading in English for three groups of simultaneous bilingual children

Reading and Writing - Phonological awareness is critical for early reading acquisition across alphabetic as well as non-alphabetic languages. The grain size of phonological awareness varies with...     

Exploring the role of India’s secondary school compulsory curriculum textbooks in students’ national identity constructions in an overseas school

This study problematises the contribution of India’s school textbooks in students’ national identity constructions in an overseas school in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The textbooks construct students’ national identity on the concepts of India’s secular democracy, colonial resistance and equal citizenship rights. Notwithstanding study participants’ ambivalent identification with these ideals, they mostly express confusing identities evincing religious tendencies, gendered beliefs towards women and antipathy for India’s neighbouring states. This entails implications for India’s national cohesion and students’ ability to live in harmony with other communities in the diasporic setting. It also poses risks to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 2030.     

Discursive construction of Pakistan's national identity through curriculum textbook discourses in a Pakistani school in Dubai,the United Arab Emirates

This study investigates Pakistan's secondary school children's constructions of their national identity in a Pakistani school in Dubai by drawing on data collected from students and teachers from the case school and analysing national curriculum textbooks used in the school. Informed by Foucault's concepts, the article problematises how the curriculum textbooks are employed as a technology of power for inculcating national consciousness in the students. The findings suggest that Pakistan's national curriculum textbooks deploy a specific version of Islam as a major technology, which then influences other national identity signifiers in the textbooks for shaping students' national identity. The school affords a crucial space for the complex interplay of these technologies, which construct students' ethnocentric national identities, encouraging social polarisation. This has implications for Pakistan's national social cohesion as well as the potential for subverting international peaceful coexistence and working relationships, particularly in the selected overseas study context.     

Stability and synchronization criteria for fractional order competitive neural networks with time delays: An asymptotic expansion of Mittag Leffler function

Competitive neural networks(CNNs) has not been well developed in nonlinear fractional order dynamical system, which is developed first time in this paper. Then, by means of a proper Lyapunov functional, asymptotic expansion of Mittag-Leffler function properties, together with some Caputo derivative properties, the testable novel sufficient conditions are given to guarantee the existence, uniqueness of the equilibrium point as well as global asymptotic stability for a class of fractional order competitive neural networks (FOCNNs) are all derived in the form of matrix elements. Furthermore, the boundedness for the solution of FOCNN is presented by employing Cauchy–Schwartz inequality and Gronwall inequality. Besides, a linear feedback control and adaptive feedback control are designed to achieve the global asymptotic synchronization criterion for FOCNNs with time delay and these explored consequences are extended from some previous integer order CNNs output. At last, two numerical simulations are performed to illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed theoretical results.