Anisotropic alignments of hierarchical Li2SiO3/TiO2 @nano-C anode//LiMnPO4@nano-C cathode architectures for full-cell lithium-ion battery

We report on low-cost fabrication and high-energy density of full-cell lithium-ion battery (LIB) models. Super-hierarchical electrode architectures of Li₂SiO₃/TiO₂@nano-carbon anode (LSO.TO@nano-C) and high-voltage olivine LiMnPO₄@nano-carbon cathode (LMPO@nano-C) are designed for half- and full-system LIB-CR2032 coin cell models. On the basis of primary architecture-power-driven LIB geometrics, the structure keys including three-dimensional (3D) modeling superhierarchy, multiscale micro/nano architectures and anisotropic surface heterogeneity affect the buildup design of anode/cathode LIB electrodes. Such hierarchical electrode surface topologies enable continuous in-/out-flow rates and fast transport pathways of Li⁺-ions during charge/discharge cycles. The stacked layer configurations of pouch LIB-types lead to excellent charge/discharge rate, and energy density of 237.6 Wh kg⁻¹. As the most promising LIB-configurations, the high specific energy density of hierarchical pouch battery systems may improve energy storage for long-driving range of electric vehicles. Indeed, the anisotropic alignments of hierarchical electrode architectures in the large-scale LIBs provide proof of excellent capacity storage and outstanding durability and cyclability. The full-system LIB-CR2032 coin cell models maintain high specific capacity of ∼89.8% within a long-term life period of 2000 cycles, and average Coulombic efficiency of 99.8% at 1C rate for future configuration of LIB manufacturing and commercialization challenges.     

Exploration De La Résilience éducationnelle Chez Des Enseignants

AN EXPLORATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL RESILIENCE OF TEACHING STAFF – This study focuses on the degree of resilience displayed by teaching staff with the aim of promoting their professional development and preventing job-related exhaustion. Seven underprivileged schools in Montreal were selected, and 24 teaching staff with contrasting personal profiles were interviewed on the subject of their work. The Alceste software was used to analyse the conversations, which revolved around techniques applied when dealing with critical incidents. The main analysis identified five different discourses among the respondents. Three of these were associated with the more resilient of the teachers and two were associated with the more vulnerable ones. Resilient teaching staff characteristically discussed dealing with aggressive behaviour, the teaching-learning relationship and the subject of social relationships, whereas vulnerable teaching staff focused on work beyond the classroom, people in positions of higher authority and the community. The authors note that teachers who are just embarking on their careers appear more vulnerable than more experienced teaching staff, which suggests that more resources should be provided to support teachers in their profession.     

Can images provide contextual support for prose?

This study sought to determine whether contextual organizers presented before prose passages can improve learning and retention among students who have no prior knowledge of the subject. The researchers used two types of organizers — an image and its verbal equivalent. Students who were provided the organizers scored better than control students on tests given two weeks later, but the predicted advantage of images over verbal learning adjuncts did not appear.     

School Leaders’ and Teachers’ Perceptions of Learning Disabilities: Implications for Support in Inclusive Schools in the Sultanate of Oman

The study examined school leaders’ and teachers’ perceptions of Learning Disabilities (LDs) in Key Stage1 Schools in a sample drawn from schools in Muscat, the capital city of Oman. A sample of 175 school leaders and 175 teachers completed The Survey on Learning Disabilities (SLD), an instrument developed to explore beliefs and perceptions of the causes of LDs. A principal component analysis indicated that six factors underlie perceptions of LDs: The governmental formal educational system, repertoire of teachers’ skills and school support, familial and cultural background, students, academic curriculum, and social change. Multivariate analyses showed that school leaders perceive more strongly than teachers that the governmental formal educational system and academic curriculum as main causal factors for LDs. Implications for support of students with LDs in inclusive settings in Oman are discussed.     

What Knapsack of Invisible Privileges Do Muslim ESL* University Students Wish to Possess?

Stephanie Vandrick published a piece in the Journal of Language, Identity and Education titled “No ‘Knapsack of Invisible Privilege’ for ESL University Students,” in which she reflected her thoughts on Peggy McIntosh’s groundbreaking list of the invisibly acquired privileges of Whites. Both pieces inspired this article, which brings up an unheard voice: Muslim ESL students who undergo situations that can indicate that public space of some cities in the United States are exclusive to the dominant culture and that any deviations are not welcome.

These days, with terrorist incidents happening in different places around the world and with the presidential executive order of banning Muslims, the situation has worsened. Here, based on my experience, I develop a list of privileges that Muslim ESL university students wish to possess. This article concludes with recommendations that can raise the awareness of educators and instructors who teach or supervise Muslim ESL students to take this issue into consideration.     

Emotional and behavioural difficulties among middle school students in Oman: an examination of prevalence rate and gender differences

Children with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBDs) began to receive considerable attention in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa region including Oman. In the Omani context, there is lack of valid assessment instruments which can be used to obtain information on EBDs in schools. The current study used the Arabic self-report version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (A-SDQ) to examine EBDs in a sample of middle school students. 816 middle school students from both genders, who were randomly selected from different schools in two big cities in Oman, filled out the A-SDQ. Results provided initial evidence of good psychometric properties of the A-SDQ reflecting that it can be a valid tool for use in schools in Oman. Further, the participants reported moderate to high rates of EBDs as measured by the different subscales of the A-SDQ. Significant gender differences were found in students self-report of EBDs. Compared to boys, girls reported more emotional symptoms, less conduct and peer problems. Implications of the study findings for the identification of students with EBDs in schools in Oman are presented.     

The challenge of shaping socially responsible teachers*

It has been vigorously argued over decades that trainee teachers hold entrenched, stereotypical attitudes and beliefs about diverse groups of pupils. These assumptions have been shown to create discriminatory teaching practice which affects the educational attainment of pupils as young as five. This article reports on a study of the complex issues involved in challenging trainee teacher assumptions in an attempt to address the cycle of perpetuating stereotypes. The study was carried out within the context of Initial Teacher Training during a 10-month primary PGCE programme at an English university. The professional reflections of a participant sample of trainee teachers were analysed to ascertain the participants’ awareness of their own socio-cultural beliefs and assumptions and how the variety of instructional pedagogies supported or inhibited their examination of those beliefs. The findings provide implications for all teacher training programmes that attempt to ensure educational equality for children.     

Antibacterial and antifungal activities of different parts of Tribulus terrestris L. growing in Iraq

Antimicrobial activity of organic and aqueous extracts from fruits, leaves and roots of Tribulus terrestris L., an Iraqi medicinal plant used as urinary anti-infective in folk medicine, was examined against 11 species of pathogenic and non-pathogenic microorganisms: Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus cereus, Corynebacterium diphtheriae, Escherichia coli,Proteus vulgaris, Serratia marcescens, Salmonella typhimurium, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans using microdilution method in 96 multiwell microtiter plates. All the extracts from the different parts of the plant showed antimicrobial activity against most tested microorganisms. The most active extract against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria was ethanol extract from the fruits with a minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) value of 0.15 mg/ml against B. subtilis,B. cereus, P. vulgaris and C. diphtheriae. In addition, the same extract from the same plant part demonstrated the strongest antifungal activity against C. albicans with an MIC value of 0.15 mg/ml.     

Stemming to improve translation lexicon creation form bitexts

Arabic is a morphologically rich language that presents significant challenges to many natural language processing applications because a word often conveys complex meanings decomposable into several morphemes (i.e. prefix, stem, suffix). By segmenting words into morphemes, we could improve the performance of English/Arabic translation pair’s extraction from parallel texts. This paper describes two algorithms and their combination to automatically extract an English/Arabic bilingual dictionary from parallel texts that exist in the Internet archive after using an Arabic light stemmer as a preprocessing step. Before using the Arabic light stemmer, the total system precision and recall were 88.6% and 81.5% respectively, then the system precision an recall increased to 91.6% and 82.6% respectively after applying the Arabic light stemmer on the Arabic documents.