The Uses and Gratifications of Language in Social Media among the Indian Subcontinental Diaspora in the U.S.

This study examines the uses and gratifications of language in social media among the Indian subcontinental diaspora in the United States, based on data collected from an online survey of 535 adult immigrants following a snowballing technique. Results showed the use of native language is related to the use of home country media, while the use of English language is related to emotional adjustment. This study contributes to the literature on social media, community, and language preference by opening avenues for conducting further research on the usage of language in social media among the Indian subcontinental diaspora in the United States. The findings of this study contribute to an understanding of the influence of social media on language preference.     

Improving teacher prediction of children at risk for reading failure

Whether screening tests or teacher ratings best predict children at risk for reading failure continues to be an area of disagreement in the early identification literature. Our early studies confirmed low positive identification rates (30%) when kindergarten teachers were asked to predict future reading achievement using a traditional rating scale, while a project-developed, theory-based screening battery correctly identified 81% of poor readers. Construction of a teacher rating scale of current skill levels on research-validated precursors to reading improved prediction in the current study, although results were still inferior to the screening test (64% and 80% valid positives, respectively). Combining test results and teacher ratings resulted in 88% identification of those who failed in first, second, or third grade, suggesting that both teacher ratings and screening tests should be used to identify the largest number of those who will later fail in reading. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Computerization and e-Government implementation in Jordan: Challenges, obstacles and successes

With the latest revolution of technology in information, communications, and media, the need for computerization has been identified in most countries. Many social and technical advantages and problems come along with it. As a result, the Information Society concept has been created. There exist certain principles for building such a society, but in Arab regions it has unique challenges and obstacles. Jordan, responding to a royal vision, has established the goal of becoming a leader in information and economic developments among other countries in the region. Several plans and initiatives have been developed for this purpose. One of these initiatives is the implementation of e-Government, which offers several benefits for both the government and society. e-Government has five building blocks to achieve the expected results and the process of implementation involves passing through certain stages. Jordan, as an Arab country, faces several obstacles in the area of implementation. A readiness study for Jordan has been accomplished and implementation and achievements have been made in Jordanian e-Government.     

Research Productivity and Social Capital in Australian Higher Education

This study investigates the role of social capital in raising research productivity in academic institutions. Social capital as a strategic resource embedded in social relationships can be utilised towards decreasing pressures from external environmental conditions, such as the global financial crisis. A survey was sent to academic staff in five universities in Victoria, to collect data regarding their frequency of communications and research productivity. The findings indicated that there is a significant and positive correlation between social interactions and research productivity. Regression analysis demonstrated that social interactions as an independent variable predict research productivity of academics.     

Who Pays for Online Content? A Media Dependency Perspective Comparing Young and Older People

This study examines predictors of online content purchases through media dependency theory and comparing young and older people. It focuses on actual online content purchases instead of willingness-to-pay used in previous studies. The effects of two dimensions of media dependencies are compared: intensity and referent scopes. Social media dependency and mobile media dependency are examined specifically, in addition to general Internet dependency as new media dependency. Our results show young people make more actual purchases of online content than older people. Predictors of online content purchases include age group, online shopping habits, ownership of mobile applications and mobile devices, Internet referent dependency, and social media intensity dependency. New media referent dependency is more important than intensity dependency for predicting online content purchases.     

Partisan Media and Discussion as Enhancers of the Belief Gap

This study examines the roles of partisanship, partisan media use, and political discussion in the development of belief gaps. Using national survey data, we construct models of political identity, media use, and discussion factors predicting beliefs on five contested political issues and find that ideology and partisanship are generally stronger predictors of beliefs than is education. Notably, each has independent effects on belief outcomes. Contrary to some concerns that the Internet especially promotes partisan clustering, use of partisan traditional media—television and radio—is by far the strongest information-related predictor of belief outcomes, whereas partisan social media use and partisan discussion are relatively weak and inconsistent. These findings suggest that political elites continue to exert significant influence over the perceptions of rank and file partisans.     

Personalized recommendation of learning material using sequential pattern mining and attribute based collaborative filtering

Material recommender system is a significant part of e-learning systems for personalization and recommendation of appropriate materials to learners. However, in the existing recommendation algorithms, dynamic interests and multi-preference of learners and multidimensional-attribute of materials are not fully considered simultaneously. Moreover, these algorithms cannot effectively use the learner’s historical sequential patterns of material accessing in recommendation. For addressing these problems and improving the accuracy and quality of recommendation, a new material recommender system framework based on sequential pattern mining and multidimensional attribute-based collaborative filtering (CF) is proposed. In the sequential pattern based approach, modified Apriori and PrefixSpan algorithms are implemented to discover latent patterns in accessing of materials and use them for recommendation. Leaner Preference Tree (LPT) is introduced to take into account multidimensional-attribute of materials, and learners’ rating and model dynamic and multi-preference of learners in the multidimensional attribute-based CF approach. Finally, the recommendation results of two approaches are combined using cascade, weighted and mixed methods. The proposed method outperforms the previous algorithms on the classification accuracy measures and the learner’s real learning preference can be satisfied accurately according to the real-time up dated contextual information.     

Challenges and policies for promoting internationalization—The case of Iranian public universities

The global knowledge economy has turned higher education into a key player in societal development. Internationalization benefits higher education institutions in several aspects, such as improvement and visibility in international rankings, revenue generation via tuition fees and external funding, improvement of research and teaching quality, integration with academic communities and familiarization with scholarly attitudes. In this study, we provide insights into the challenges of internationalization faced by higher education institutions in Iran as a developing country. Several policies and practices have been adopted in Iran to improve internationalization efforts; however, these activities have had little impact on the quality of research and educational programs at Iran's universities. Understanding the challenges they face in a systematic way can help identify different factors and develop a set of suggestions to increase the quality and quantity of international cooperation. We formulate our suggestions based on the opportunities provided by the digitalization solutions in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing importance of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals in both global and national environments. We interviewed 15 faculty members in Iranian higher education institutions and 14 managers in charge of international affairs at universities in Iran. In addition, data extracted from three forums on Iranian higher education internationalization are analysed. Using a grounded theory approach, we group the challenges into macro-, institutional and individual levels and then suggest a number of practices and policies to increase the quantity and quality of internationalization efforts.     

Synthesis of Gold Nanoparticles Coated with Aspartic Acid and Their Conjugation with FVIII Protein and FVIII Antibody

Carboxylate-modified gold nanoparticles (GNPs) were synthesized in a simple one-step process based on the reduction of tetrachloroauric acid by aspartic acid in water. GNPs were identified by UV–Vis spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy. Conjugation of protein molecules with functionalized nanoparticles was performed through electrostatic interaction. The GNP–protein conjugates were characterized by gel electrophoresis. The interaction between functionalized GNPs and protein molecules lead to conformational transition of protein structure after conjugation of protein with GNPs. This process was investigated by fluorescence spectroscopy and circular dichroism spectroscopy.     

Immunoisolated Transplantation of Purified Langerhans Islet Cells in Testis Cortex of Male Rats for Treatment of Streptozotocin Induced Diabetes Mellitus

The objective of this study is to induce experimental diabetes mellitus by streptozotocin in normal adult Wistar rats via comparison of changes in body weight, consumption of food, volume of water, urine and levels of glucose, insulin and C-peptide in serum, between normal and diabetic rats. Intra-venous injection of 60 mg/kg dose of streptozotocin in 250–300 g (75–90 days) adult Wistar rats makes pancreas swell and causes degeneration in Langerhans islet β-cells and induces experimental diabetes mellitus in 2–4 days. For a microscopic study of degeneration of Langerhans islet β-cells of diabetic rats, biopsy from pancreas tissue of diabetic and normal rats, staining and comparison between them, were done. In this process, after collagenase digestion of pancreas, islets were isolated, dissociated and identified by dithizone method and then with enzymatic procedure by DNase and trypsin, the islet cells changed into single cells and β-cells were identified by immune fluorescence method and then assayed by flow-cytometer. Donor tissue in each step of work was prepared from 38 adult male Wistar rats weighted 250–300 g (75–90 days). Transplantation was performed in rats after 2–4 weeks of diabetes induction. In this study, the levels of insulin, C-peptide and glucose in diabetic rats reached to normal range as compared to un-diabetic rats in 20 days after transplantation of islet cells. Transplantation was performed under the cortex of testis as immunoisolated place for islet cells transplantation.