Practising mental rotation using interactive Desktop Mental Rotation Trainer (iDeMRT)

An experimental study involving 30 undergraduates (mean age = 20.5 years) in mental rotation (MR) training was conducted in an interactive Desktop Mental Rotation Trainer (iDeMRT). Stratified random sampling assigned students into one experimental group and one control group. The former trained in iDeMRT and the latter trained in conventional condition. A multifactorial pretest posttest design procedure was used and data were analysed using two-way analysis of covariance. Overall, there was substantial improvement in MR accuracy. Main effects of training and gender were observed, indicating that iDeMRT group and boys outperformed the control group and girls respectively. In addition, an interaction between training method and gender was present, indicating that boys were more accurate when trained in iDeMRT and performed moderately in conventional method. Female participants achieved equivalent improvement gain in MR accuracy regardless of the training conditions used. For the speed measure of MR, no appreciable improvement was observed after training.     

Learning materials recommendation using good learners’ ratings and content-based filtering

The enormity of the amount of learning materials in e-learning has led to the difficulty of locating suitable learning materials for a particular learning topic, creating the need for recommendation tools within a learning context. In this paper, we aim to address this need by proposing a novel e-learning recommender system framework that is based on two conceptual foundations—peer learning and social learning theories that encourage students to cooperate and learn among themselves. Our proposed framework works on the idea of recommending learning materials with a similar content and indicating the quality of learning materials based on good learners’ ratings. A comprehensive set of experiments were conducted to measure the system accuracy and its impact on learner’s performance. The obtained results show that the proposed e-learning recommender system has a significant improvement in the post-test of about 12.16% with the effect size of 0.6 and 13.11% with the effect size of 0.53 when compared to the e-learning with a content-based recommender system and the e-learning without a recommender system, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed recommender system performed better in terms of having a small rating deviation and a higher precision as compared to e-learning with a content-based recommender system.     

Higher education in Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan after 9/11： Problems and prospects

The troubled state of affairs in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas （FATA） of Pakistan portends serious repercussions and grave consequences, destined to affect education particularly higher education in the entire tribal belt. Ironically, no extensive study has been conducted, to investigate those dimensions of FATA higher education which have been adversely affected in the aftermath of 9/11. This exploratory study examines those areas which have been badly affected as a result of current turmoil. In fact, the higher education in FATA has its own peculiar dynamics. Inherently, the entire tribal region has very few well-maintained and properly equipped colleges. Lack of adequate educational facilities, multiplied poor security environment has aggravated the entire situation. Law and order situation in the region has undermined the already dilapidated monitoring mechanism of education department. This state of affairs provides breeding ground for extremist propensities and radical tendencies. In reality, very little attention has been devoted to reform the education system in tribal areas. The whole set up needs to be rehabilitated by taking recourse due to the proactive role of international community. The paper concludes with recommendations for policy makers besides offering new avenues for further research.     

Toxic effects of Litsea elliptica Blume essential oil on red blood cells of Sprague-Dawley rats

Litsea elliptica Blume leaves have been traditionally used as medicinal herbs because of its antimutagenicity, che-mopreventative and insecticidal properties. In this study, the toxic effects of L. elliptica essential oil against Sprague-Dawley rat's red blood cells (RBCs) were evaluated. L. elliptica essential oil was given by oral gavage 5 times per week for 3 treated groups in the doses of 125, 250, and 500 mg/(kg body weight), respectively, and the control group received distilled water. Full blood count, RBC osmotic fragility, RBC morphological changes, and RBC membrane lipid were analyzed 28 d after the treatment. Although L. elliptica essential oil administration had significantly different effects on hemoglobin (Hb), mean cell hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), mean cell volume (MCV), and mean cell hemoglobin (MCH) in the experimental groups as compared to the control group (P<0.05), the values were still within the normal range. L. elliptica induced morphological changes of RBC into the form of echinoeyte. The percentage of echinocyte increased significantly among the treated groups in a dose-response manner (P<0.001). The concentrations of RBC membrane phospholipids and cholesterol of all treated groups were significantly lower than those of control group (P<0.001). However, the RBC membrane osmotic fragility and total proteins of RBC membrane findings did not differ significantly between control and treated groups (P>0.05). It is concluded that structural changes in the RBC membrane due to L. elliptica essential oil administration did not cause severe membrane damage.     

Stress intensity factors under combined bending and torsion moments

This paper discusses stress intensity factor (SIF) calculations for surface cracks in round bars subjected to combined torsion and bending loadings. Different crack aspect ratios, a/b, ranging from 0.0 to 1.2 and relative crack depths, a/D, ranging from 0.1 to 0.6 were considered. Since the loading was non-symmetrical for torsion loadings, a whole finite element model was constructed. Then, the individual and combined bending and torsion loadings were remotely applied to the model. The equivalent SIF method, F*_EQ, was then used explicitly to combine the individual SIFs from the bending and torsion loadings. A comparison was then carried out with the combined SIF, F*_FE, obtained using the finite element analysis (FEA) under similar loadings. It was found that the equivalent SIF method successfully predicted the combined SIF for Mode I. However, discrepancies between the results determined from the different approaches occurred when F _III was involved. It was also noted that the predicted F*_FE using FEA was higher than the F*_EQ predicted through the equivalent SIF method due to the difference in crack face interactions.     

Islamic pedagogy and embodiment: an anthropological study of a British Madrasah

This anthropological study of a higher education British Madrasah was undertaken to increase our awareness of the spectrum of sensory experiences that shape Islamic pedagogy. We started our anthropological study from an Islamic premise of the inseparable nature of knowledge and the sacred. Pedagogy is defined as not a matter of simple methods and technique but as a holistic approach that deals with the capacity to form the human person. Islamic pedagogy is represented by the heartfelt interactions between the teacher and learner through orality, facilitating memorization, and the didactic approach towards sacred texts. This research has explored the sensoria of a British Madrasah from a spiritual approach and this provides the foundation for shaping our understanding of the madrasah concept of Islamic pedagogy. An Al-Ghazali’s mystical-theoretical approach toward learning is evident in this research in defining the madrasah as a spiritual rather than social construct, and is optimized by the embodiment of learning.     

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him learn: Smartphone use in higher education

Smartphone technology is penetrating world markets and becoming ubiquitous in most college settings. This study takes a naturalistic approach to explore the use of these devices to support student learning. Students that had never used a smartphone were recruited to participate and reported on their expectations of the value of smartphones to achieve their educational goals. Instrumented iPhones that logged device usage were then distributed to these students to use freely over the course of 1 year. After the study, students again reported on the actual value of their smartphones to support their educational goals. We found that students' reports changed substantially before and after the study; specifically, the utility of the smartphone to help with education was perceived as favorable prior to use, and then, by the end of the study, they viewed their phones as detrimental to their educational goals. Although students used their mobile device for informal learning and access to school resources according to the logged data, they perceived their iPhones as a distraction and a competitor to requisite learning for classroom performance.