Challenges Encountered and Technical Assistance Needed by Parents and Learners Utilizing Modular Distance Learning: Basis for a Proposed Support Program

The shift from face-to face to distance learning brought about by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is a major adjustment to all school administrators, teachers, students and parents. The study aimed to determine the challenges encountered and needed support of parents and learners in an elementary school of the Schools Division of Meycauayan City as basis for crafting a contextualized support program. It employed a mixed method design using survey-questionnaire and interview guide as data gathering tools to 123 parents and 10 learners respectively. Frequency and percentage were used to describe the demographic profile, frequency counts and ranking were used on the challenges encountered and support/technical assistance needed by parents while thematic analysis was used to describe the experiences of the learners. The study found out that difficulty in independent learning, difficulty in concentrating on studies and parent’s limited knowledge on the content of child’s lessons are the top struggles of parents in the modular distance learning while almost all learner-respondents describe their experiences of distance learning as difficult because of difficulty in learning by themselves, lack of reference materials for more examples, limited guidance from parents and teachers, challenges in load to research and difficulty in understanding English. Moreover, both respondents are unanimous in declaring that provision of additional reference materials will greatly help lessen the struggles they encountered. Therefore, it is recommended that the support program crafted should be implemented and monitored to fully reinforce the continuity of learning amidst the challenges encountered in the first quarter.

A Leap of Academic Faith and Resilience: Nontraditional International Students Pursuing Higher Education in the United States of America

International students pursuing higher education in the United States are faced with a multiplicity of challenges such as navigating an unfamiliar educational system, relocating to an unfamiliar country, overcoming negative stereotypes associated with being an educational student, and, in some instances, having to learn a foreign language. Despite such challenges, international students remain motivated to pursue higher education in the United States. This qualitative study, utilizing Schlossberg’s adult transition model as a theoretical framework, explored the lived experiences of 16 international students pursuing higher education in the United States. Emphasis was placed on their transitional experiences in relation to their learning. The major theme that emerged was “major adjustment.” Subthemes that emerged regarding these students’ adjustment included (a) diversity and cultural differences in the learning environment, (b) comparative differences in the learning environment, (c) language barriers, and (d) combatting stereotypes. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Training competences in smart cities: an online program for higher education students

Purpose This paper aims to explain the development of an online training curriculum to enable students to acquire the transversal competences needed to work on smart cities projects. In this curriculum, a modern approach to the teaching-learning process was applied, suitable for the interdisciplinary and multinational learning challenges that smart cities impose, but within the framework of a university-industry European partnership. Design/methodology/approach To develop the curriculum, the competences needed for smart cities, common to all disciplines and fields, had to be researched. In addition, real smart cities projects also had to be selected for work following a project-based learning methodology. For both, this study applied the Delphi method, selecting the most relevant ones based on the data obtained by performing a multi-criteria decision analysis. Findings The procedure followed for the identification of transversal competences in a field, the design of an innovative online training program and the results of the first edition of the program are discussed. Research limitations/implications The processes that were developed, both to detect the most relevant transversal competences and to design the online training program, could be extrapolated to other areas. Moreover, it is very likely that the competences detected in this work could also be extrapolated, for the most part, to interdisciplinary teams. Originality/value To date, there is no European initiative addressing the challenges of smart cities that requires a major adjustment in higher education, in the relationship between universities and all the mechanisms of lifelong learning with the industry related to smart cities. This work is a pioneer in this regard.

Shifting paradigms and novel players in Cys-based redox regulation and ROS signaling in plants - and where to go next

Cys-based redox regulation was long regarded a major adjustment mechanism of photosynthesis and metabolism in plants, but in the recent years, its scope has broadened to most fundamental processes of plant life. Drivers of the recent surge in new insights into plant redox regulation have been the availability of the genome-scale information combined with technological advances such as quantitative redox proteomics and in vivo biosensing. Several unexpected findings have started to shift paradigms of redox regulation. Here, we elaborate on a selection of recent advancements, and pinpoint emerging areas and questions of redox biology in plants. We highlight the significance of (1) proactive H2O2 generation, (2) the chloroplast as a unique redox site, (3) specificity in thioredoxin complexity, (4) how to oxidize redox switches, (5) governance principles of the redox network, (6) glutathione peroxidase-like proteins, (7) ferroptosis, (8) oxidative protein folding in the ER for phytohormonal regulation, (9) the apoplast as an unchartered redox frontier, (10) redox regulation of respiration, (11) redox transitions in seed germination and (12) the mitochondria as potential new players in reductive stress safeguarding. Our emerging understanding in plants may serve as a blueprint to scrutinize principles of reactive oxygen and Cys-based redox regulation across organisms.

‘Give us back our eleven days’: Brexit or Breaksit?

A major adjustment to the British calendar occurred in 1752. This was the passage from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian, inaugurated in the sixteenth century by command of Pope Gregory XIII in the papal dominions, and swiftly followed by much of the rest of Europe. The consequent loss of eleven days in the ‘new style’ British calendar seems to have provoked a riot. The alternative calendars had been the source of complication in trade and trade agreements and had led to friction in everyday exchange. Within the United Kingdom, the contention about jurisdiction over time and its measurement was momentarily as live as the wars over space. Brexit is a contention about who has the power to regulate the laws of the geographical unit that is the island of Great Britain, and whether authority may be devolved to a larger political entity. Thus, at least in part, it is a dispute as to whether this administrative authority may be extended in ever finer detail. The measurement of time is an infinite approximation, as knowledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies becomes ever more precise and the ability to time these more exact with finer and more accurate methods.

Major Adjustment: Undergraduates' Transition Experiences When Leaving Selective Degree Programs

More than 80% of college students switch degree programs, and students in selective majors, such as business and nursing, often face complex processes with serious implications when leaving such selective degree programs. Therefore, using qualitative, exploratory research, we sought to understand the resources, including support, situation, strategies, and self, that students in selective majors use when transitioning to new degree programs. We also examined the resources students identified as most valuable and the factors most influential in their decision to persist at their current institutions. The findings can provide academic advisors with valuable insight about ways to best support students as they transition out of selective majors.

Periodic catastrophes over human evolutionary history are necessary to explain the forager population paradox

The rapid growth of contemporary human foragers and steady decline of chimpanzees represent puzzling population paradoxes, as any species must exhibit near-stationary growth over much of their evolutionary history. We evaluate the conditions favoring zero population growth (ZPG) among 10 small-scale subsistence human populations and five wild chimpanzee groups according to four demographic scenarios: altered mean vital rates (i.e., fertility and mortality), vital rate stochasticity, vital rate covariance, and periodic catastrophes. Among most human populations, changing mean fertility or survivorship alone requires unprecedented alterations. Stochastic variance and covariance would similarly require major adjustment to achieve ZPG in most populations. Crashes could maintain ZPG in slow-growing populations but must be frequent and severe in fast-growing populations—more extreme than observed in the ethnographic record. A combination of vital rate alteration with catastrophes is the most realistic solution to the forager population paradox. ZPG in declining chimpanzees is more readily obtainable through reducing mortality and altering covariance. While some human populations may have hovered near ZPG under harsher conditions (e.g., violence or food shortage), modernHomo sapienswere equipped with the potential to rapidly colonize new habitats and likely experienced population fluctuations and local extinctions over evolutionary history.

Experimental Analysis on Sinking Time of Littoral Submarine in Various Trim Angle

A submarine must conform to Archimedes’ Principle, which states that a body immersed in a fluid has an upward force on it (buoyancy) equal to the weight of the displaced fluid, (displacement). Submarines are ships capable of being submerged. The history of submarines and their operation have largely revolved around being able to alter the density of the vessel so that it may dive below the surface, maintain a depth, and return to the surface as needed. The way modern submarines accomplish this task is to bring in and remove water from tanks in the submarine called ballast tanks. Ballast tanks fit into two categories: those used for major adjustment of mass (main ballast tanks); and those used for minor adjustments (trim tanks). The effect of each tank is plotted and this is compared with the changes in mass and trimming moment possible during operations using a trim polygon to determine whether the ballast tanks are adequate. On the water surface, metacentric height (GM) is important, whereas below the surface it is the distance between the centre of buoyancy and the centre of gravity (BG) which governs the transverse stability of a submarine.

The Influence of Social Media on Teamwork Aspects

Social media has become an integral part of society compared to only ten years ago and has changed the way we communicate. On the other hand organizations are increasingly working in teams. Key in teamwork is communication, according to Salas et al. communication is invaluable in teamwork. However what is the influence of social media on teamwork with this major adjustment in the way we communicate? This chapter introduces a conceptual model to measure the influence of social media on teamwork aspects.

THe Question on Excitation of Criminal Cases Against Judges

The subject of research are the legal provisions governing the institution of criminal proceedings against a judge or bringing him in as a defendant, as well as their practical implementation. In the study we used systematic methods of analysis, generalization of legislation, research papers, statistical, sampling method. Analysis of the practice revealed a number of problems in the application of complicated procedure brought against a judge of the criminal case (bringing him in as a defendant), in which the excitation of proce- dure of the criminal case against a judge needs a major adjustment in the way of closer relationship guarding the status of a judge of the constitutional norms and the criminal procedural rules guaranteeing protection of the rights of victims of crimes committed by them.