Estimulación temprana como programa neurológico en las capacidades y destrezas en niños en etapa infantil

La estimulación temprana son técnicas educativas, empleadas en niños/as en etapa infantil (0-10 años) para corregir cognitiva, social y emocionalmente; trastornos psicomotrices para estimular capacidades compensadoras. El objetivo de la investigación es, demostrar la importancia de la estimulación temprana como respuesta ante la necesidad de emplear actividades educativas que le permitan al niño/a contrarrestar habilidades y destrezas psicomotrices y lenguaje cognoscitivo, que coadyuve a una incorporación beneficiosa en la sociedad. El paradigma de la investigación es positivista de enfoque cuantitativo, de tipo no experimental de fuente documental y empírica. Considerando el espacio del estudio es de campo y longitudinal y, el nivel, es explicativo. La población la integran 200 niños de educación inicial II de Unidades Educativas ecuatorianas ubicadas en el cantón Ambato, Ecuador; en edades comprendidas entre los tres y cinco años. Los instrumentos de medición empleados fueron la Escala Abreviada de Desarrollo de Ortiz y el Test ELA-Albor. Los resultados indican que una vez empleado y analizado los valores de los instrumentos en sus fases I y II (pretest y post-test), en un espacio de tiempo entre cada uno de 6 meses, se observaron mejoras en los participantes en cuanto al desarrollo psicomotriz y lingüístico, evidenciando que las repeticiones y los reforzamientos entre el tridente (niños, educadores y padres), son efectivos para la evolución de los menores evaluados. Las conclusiones indican, que un adecuado uso de programas de estimulación temprana, garantizan el fortalecimiento de actividades de neurodesarrollo, que ayudan a la estabilidad emocional del niño/a, para desenvolverse socialmente. Abstract. Early stimulation are educational techniques, used in children in the infant stage (0-10 years) to correct cognitively, socially and emotionally; psychomotor disorders to stimulate compensatory capacities. The objective of the research is to demonstrate the importance of early stimulation as a response to the need to use educational activities that allow the child to counteract psychomotor skills and abilities and cognitive language, which contributes to a beneficial incorporation into society. The research paradigm is positivist with a quantitative approach, a non-experimental type with a documentary and empirical source. Considering the study space is field and longitudinal, and the level is explanatory. The population is made up of 200 children of initial education II from Ecuadorian Educational Units located in the canton of Ambato, Ecuador; in ages between three and five years. The measurement instruments used were the Ortiz Abbreviated Development Scale and the ELA-Albor Test. The results indicate that once the values of the instruments were used and analyzed in their phases I and II (pretest and post-test), in a period of time between each one of 6 months, improvements were observed in the participants in terms of development psychomotor and linguistic, showing that repetitions and reinforcements between the trident (children, educators and parents) are effective for the evolution of the minors evaluated. The conclusions indicate that an adequate use of early stimulation programs guarantees the strengthening of neurodevelopmental activities, which help the emotional stability of the child, to function socially.

Transcriptome Analysis of Genes Associated with Autolysis of Coprinus Comatus

Coprinus comatus, widely known as “Jituigu”, is an important commodity and food in China. The yield of C. comatus, however, is substantially reduced by the autolysis of the fruiting bodies after harvest. To gain insight into the molecular mechanism underlying this autolysis, we divided the growth of C. comatus fruiting bodies into four stages: infant stage (I), mature stage (M), discolored stage (D), and autolysis stage (A). We then subjected these stages to de novo transcriptomic analysis using high-throughput Illumina sequencing. A total of 12,946 unigenes were annotated and analyzed with the Gene Ontology (GO), Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins (COG), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). We analyzed the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between stages I and M, M and D, and D and A. Because the changes from M to D are thought to be related to autolysis, we focused on the DEGs between these two stages. We found that the pathways related to metabolic activity began to decline in the transition from M to D. In contrast, expression levels of chitinases, β-1,3-glucanases, and the ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E2 related to degradation of cell walls were higher in D than in M. In addition, 20 genes of interest were analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR to verify their expression profiles at the four developmental stages. This study, which is the first to describe the transcriptome of C. comatus, provides a foundation for future studies concerning the molecular basis of the autolysis of its fruiting bodies.

Locality Preserving and Label-Aware Constraint-Based Hybrid Dictionary Learning for Image Classification

Dictionary learning has been an important role in the success of data representation. As a complete view of data representation, hybrid dictionary learning (HDL) is still in its infant stage. In previous HDL approaches, the scheme of how to learn an effective hybrid dictionary for image classification has not been well addressed. In this paper, we proposed a locality preserving and label-aware constraint-based hybrid dictionary learning (LPLC-HDL) method, and apply it in image classification effectively. More specifically, the locality information of the data is preserved by using a graph Laplacian matrix based on the shared dictionary for learning the commonality representation, and a label-aware constraint with group regularization is imposed on the coding coefficients corresponding to the class-specific dictionary for learning the particularity representation. Moreover, all the introduced constraints in the proposed LPLC-HDL method are based on the l2-norm regularization, which can be solved efficiently via employing an alternative optimization strategy. The extensive experiments on the benchmark image datasets demonstrate that our method is an improvement over previous competing methods on both the hand-crafted and deep features.

Towards Sustainability Pathway with Bio-Derived Platinum and Palladium Catalyst for Furfural Hydrogenation—A Novel Greener Approach in Catalysis

The use of living plants to recover precious metals with potential catalytic activity is still at the infant stage. In this study, selective hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol using novel bio-ore catalysts recovered from the end stage of phytomining process is demonstrated. The phytomining process was carried out in the green house by artificially contaminating cassava (Manihot esculenta) plant with 500 mg/L palladium (Pd) and platinum (Pt) solutions for a period of eight weeks. After harvesting, concentrations of metals as high as 78 ± 0.047 and 1276 ± 0.036 µg/g of Pd and Pt, respectively, were detected in the calcinated root of cassava. The produced bio-ore catalysts; @PdCassCat and @PtCassCat were fully characterized with the following techniques: transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), powder X-ray diffraction (pXRD), N2-sorption, and UV-visible spectroscopy techniques and directly applied as catalysts for hydrogenation of furfural to furfuryl alcohol. The reaction was conducted under an optimized condition (furfural (10 mmol), triethylamine (Et3N) (10 mmol), formic acid (20 mmol), temperature (160 °C), catalyst amount (40 mg)) realizing a yield of 76.5% and 100% furfuryl alcohol using @PdCassCat and @PtCassCat, respectively. The catalytic activities of the @PdCassCat and @PtCassCat were excellent as well as recyclable up to four and five times, respectively.

Why Socio-metabolic Studies are Central to Ecological Economics

Global material extraction has tripled since the 1970s, with more than 100 billion tonnes of materials entering the world economy each year. Only 8.6% of this is recycled, while 61% ends up as waste and emissions that is the leading cause of global warming, and large-scale pollution of land, rivers, and oceans. This paper introduces Socio-metabolic Research (SMR) and demonstrates its relevance for ecological economics scholarship in India. SMR is a research framework for studying the biophysical stocks and flows of material and energy associated with societal production and consumption. SMR is widely conducted in Europe, US, and China. In India, it is still at an infant stage. In this paper, we review pioneering efforts of SMR in India, and make the case for advancing the field in the sub-continent. The crucial question is whether India can source materials and energy necessary for human development in a sustainable manner.

Distance education in higher education in Saudi Arabia in the post-COVID-19 era

COVID-19 has changed the field of education. This paper aimed to re-envision the post-pandemic higher education landscape in Saudi Arabia. This study employed descriptive-qualitative research design. Twenty postgraduates completed a journal task at a public university in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The responses revealed their first-hand experience of multi-sectorial communities caused by the COVID-19 lockdown, including students, parents and teachers. Results showed that there are seven positive and eight negative impacts of emergency distance education caused by the pandemic lockdown and various themes have emerged, including Social and Educational. To succeed in the post-pandemic era, teachers need to acquire online pedagogical content knowledge and teaching strategies, conduct effective student evaluation and engage students in both virtual and in-person labs and classrooms. This study contributes to quality access of students toward online learning in countries, where distance education is still in its infant stage, such as Saudi Arabia. Keywords: Distance education, post-secondary education, teacher training, teaching strategies, networked learning

Islamic Banks Financing of FinTech Start-Ups in Oman: An Exploratory Study

This study mainly aims to explore the current practice and prospects of FinTech start-ups financing in Oman, particularly the IFIs (Islamic Financial Institutions) financing practices and the challenges faced by these start-ups in obtaining it. The study applies qualitative methods in procedures of in-depth interviews with eight Islamic banks’ managers in Oman. The findings revealed that the financing of the FinTech start-ups in Oman still in the infant stage and below its potential. This might be due to the general lack of interest in this area by the Omani start-up businesses. This situation might be due to the lack of clear strategic vision of Omani financial institutions, including both Islamic and conventional financial institutions with regards the Fintech start-ups. The findings also showed that the start-ups in Oman prefer long term financial schemes, while the Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) generally prefer to offer short term financing on Musharakah and Ijarah contracts. Lastly, the findings showed that the IFIs are positive regarding the prospects of growth and success of FinTech in Oman. It is noteworthy that this is one of the early studies that addresses the FinTech start-ups financing from an Islamic perspective, and hence places the ground for the future studies to be conducted in this area.

Applications of Nanomaterials for Water Quality Sustainability: Present Status and Future Trends

The diversity of water pollution and the depletion of some water resources have continued to linger despite several governmental and non-governmental programmes, especially in developing countries for water quality sustainability. This problem has reduced potable water availability, and it has increased water-related diseases in these countries. These problems are severe, mostly, in drought prone areas where water supplies and treatments are still at an infant stage. Hence, researchers are proposing the application of nanomaterials for water treatment and desalination. However, nanomaterials can also turn to be water pollutants that can threaten the public health if handled carelessly. This study, therefore, presents the applications and implications of nanomaterials in relation to water treatment and water quality. The review results highlighted the state-of-the-art and prospects of nanomaterials for water desalination and water quality production.

High-entropy ceramics: Present status, challenges, and a look forward

High-entropy ceramics (HECs) are solid solutions of inorganic compounds with one or more Wyckoff sites shared by equal or near-equal atomic ratios of multi-principal elements. Although in the infant stage, the emerging of this new family of materials has brought new opportunities for material design and property tailoring. Distinct from metals, the diversity in crystal structure and electronic structure of ceramics provides huge space for properties tuning through band structure engineering and phonon engineering. Aside from strengthening, hardening, and low thermal conductivity that have already been found in high-entropy alloys, new properties like colossal dielectric constant, super ionic conductivity, severe anisotropic thermal expansion coefficient, strong electromagnetic wave absorption, etc., have been discovered in HECs. As a response to the rapid development in this nascent field, this article gives a comprehensive review on the structure features, theoretical methods for stability and property prediction, processing routes, novel properties, and prospective applications of HECs. The challenges on processing, characterization, and property predictions are also emphasized. Finally, future directions for new material exploration, novel processing, fundamental understanding, in-depth characterization, and database assessments are given.

Recent Advances of 4D Printing Technologies Toward Soft Tactile Sensors

Soft tactile sensors (STSs) combine the flexibility and the converting ability between mechanical forces and electrical signals. 4D printing was first introduced in 2013, and attracted great interest because of its versatile functionalities in actuators, artificial muscles, STSs, soft energy harvesting, pneumatic nets, electroactive polymers, and soft electronics. Using the 4D printing concept to fabricate STSs is promising, yet it is at its infant stage. At present, researchers have utilized two types of strategies: one is directly using smart materials through 3D printing manufacturing, and the other is programming codes of components and structures to create controllable changes. This review summarizes the recent research on 4D printing toward STSs and discusses the future perspectives of this emerging field.