A Cross-Age Study of the Understanding of Three Genetic Concepts: How Do They Image the Gene, DNA and Chromosome?

The study was carried out with 175 Turkish students by using drawings at different ages understanding of gene, DNA and chromosome concepts. Students from 8th, 9th, 11th grades and, science and biology student teachers were simply asked to draw the structure of gene, DNA and chromosome in a cell and also to give explanations about these three concepts. Differences in understanding between the age groups were found to be significant for the concepts of gene and DNA. None of the groups exhibit sound understanding and regardless of the age levels, students in all groups had alternative ideas about the three concepts investigated.     

Application of Quality Function Deployment for the Improvement of Quality in an Engineering Department

In adopting a customer‐oriented approach to higher education, quality function deployment (QFD) is one of the total quality management techniques which can be applied for process and design improvement. Following a review of some practices in this sector, this paper outlines a QFD model in which the opinions of three groups of customers are utilized for quality planning. A developed framework for the dimensions of quality in engineering education was used in conjunction with the quality processes in a departmental quality management framework proposed by the Engineering Professors’ Council. The results from the QFD led to a strategy for prioritizing the different quality processes within a school/department.     

To be or not to be in social media: How brand loyalty is affected by social media?

There is an ongoing debate over the activities of brands and companies in social media. Some researchers believe social media provide a unique opportunity for brands to foster their relationships with customers, while others believe the contrary. Taking the perspective of the brand community building plus the brand trust and loyalty literatures, our goal is to show how brand communities based on social media influence elements of the customer centric model (i.e., the relationships among focal customer and brand, product, company, and other customers) and brand loyalty. A survey-based empirical study with 441 respondents was conducted. The results of structural equation modeling show that brand communities established on social media have positive effects on customer/product, customer/brand, customer/company and customer/other customers relationships, which in turn have positive effects on brand trust, and trust has positive effects on brand loyalty. We find that brand trust has a fully mediating role in converting the effects of enhanced relationships in brand community to brand loyalty. The implications for marketing practice and future research are discussed.     

Adaptive output feedback neural network control of uncertain non-affine systems with unknown control direction

This paper deals with the problem of adaptive output feedback neural network controller design for a SISO non-affine nonlinear system. Since in practice all system states are not available in output measurement, an observer is designed to estimate these states. In comparison with the existing approaches, the current method does not require any information about the sign of control gain. In order to handle the unknown sign of the control direction, the Nussbaum-type function is utilized. In order to approximate the unknown nonlinear function, neural network is firstly exploited, and then to compensate the approximation error and external disturbance a robustifying term is employed. The proposed controller is designed based on strict-positive-real (SPR) Lyapunov stability theory to ensure the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. Finally, two simulation studies are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed scheme.     

Application of real options analysis for pharmaceutical R&D project valuation—Empirical results from a survey

Real options analysis was often recommended as an emerging valuation technique for high-risk investment projects. Former inter-sectoral surveys have drawn an ambivalent picture of real options usage in general. In addition, there is a lack of sector-specific investigations. In the following article the results of an in-depth analysis of collected empirical data regarding the application of this new tool in the pharmaceutical sector is presented by capturing the internal view from the pharmaceutical companies themselves and the external view from the health care departments of financial service firms. R&D stage specific modi of application, reasons for reluctance in the employment of real options and their assumed future prospects are elucidated.     

A comparison between two different automated total 25-hydroxyvitamin D immunoassay methods using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Introduction

Total 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] is the most reliable indicator of vitamin D status. In this study, we compared two automated immunoassay methods, the Abbott Architect 25-OH Vitamin D assay and the Roche Cobas Vitamin D total assay, with the liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).

Materials and methods

One hundred venous blood samples were randomly selected from routine vitamin D tests. Two of the serum aliquots were analyzed at the Abbott Architect i2000 and the Roche Cobas 6000’s module e601 in our laboratory within the same day. The other serum aliquots were analyzed at the LC-MS/MS in different laboratory. Passing-Bablok regression analysis and Bland-Altman plot were used to compare methods. Inter-rater agreement was analyzed using kappa (κ) analysis.

Results

The Roche assay showed acceptable agreement with the LC-MS/MS based on Passing-Bablok analysis (intercept: -5.23 nmol/L, 95% CI: -8.73 to 0.19; slope: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.77 to 1.15). The Abbott assay showed proportional (slope: 0.77, 95% CI: 0.67 to 0.85) and constant differences (intercept: 17.08 nmol/L; 95% CI: 12.98 to 21.39). A mean bias of 15.1% was observed for the Abbott and a mean bias of -14.1% was observed for the Roche based on the Bland-Altman plots. We found strong to nearly perfect agreement in vitamin D status between the immunoassays and LC-MS/MS. (κ: 0.83 for Abbott, κ: 0.93 for Roche) using kappa analysis.

Conclusion

Both immunoassays demonstrated acceptable performance, but the Roche Cobas assay demonstrated better performance than the Abbott Architect in the studied samples.Key words: 25-Hydroxyvitamin D, chromatography, immunoassay, methods, tandem mass spectrometry     

Internationalization of higher education： Challenges, strategies, policies and programs

In today＇s changing world, the idea of internationalization of higher education especially in developing countries has been deduced from globalization of education process. The international aspect of higher education is becoming increasingly important, composite, and confusing. The higher education has an effect on the society through policy-making, funding, and planning. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the meaning, definition, importance, necessity, and pre-requisites of internationalization of higher education. This paper also studies the programs and strategies of internationalization of higher education. Key challenges for the future direction of internationalization are identified in this paper.     

全面反映民族生活的画卷--论新疆柯尔克孜小说集《黑脸山仙》

新时期柯尔克孜族小说集《黑脸山仙》以立足现实、反映民族生活的现实主义精神,超越民族地域界限的世界性因素,以及鲜明的民族地域特色与现代表现手段相结合的特点,展示了新时期柯尔克孜小说的成就及成长历程。