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"Proceedings of International Conference on Research in Education and Science" includes full papers presented at the International Conference on Research in Education and Science (ICRES) which took place on April 1-4, 2021 in Antalya, Turkey. The aim of the conference is to offer opportunities to share ideas, to discuss theoretical and practical issues and to connect with the leaders in the fields of education and science. The conference is organized annually by the International Society for Technology, Education, and Science (ISTES). The ICRES invites submissions which address the theory, research or applications in all disciplines of education and science. The ICRES is organized for: faculty members in all disciplines of education and science, graduate students, K-12 administrators, teachers, principals and all interested in education and science. After peer-reviewing process, all full papers are published in the Conference Proceedings. [Individual papers are indexed in ERIC.]

A word association test was used to determine knowledge structures on biochemistry concepts of secondary school chemistry students, aged between 18-19 years. The basic biochemistry concepts related to the topic of Carbohydrates that take place in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme curriculum were determined as stimulus words: "Monosaccharides", "Glucose", "Cellular respiration", "Fructose", "Disaccharides", "Glycosidic bonds", "Polysaccharides", "Starch". Students were required to provide response words for each of the eight stimulus words within the pre-determined period of time. Analysis of data was done in order to find the stimulus words with the highest number of associations in students' knowledge structures and to calculate the relatedness coefficient between the stimulus words, in order to construct the relatedness networks that should model the students' knowledge structures. The results showed that students managed to relate most of the stimulus words with strong or medium strength links, however, "Cellular respiration" remained unconnected to other stimulus words in the students' knowledge structures. [For the full proceedings, see ED629086.]

While interdisciplinary approaches in the STEM subjects are widely advocated there are concerns that disciplinary learning can be compromised, especially in mathematics. The Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science (IMS) project is a three-year longitudinal study in four Victorian primary schools that has developed a pedagogical approach to mathematics and science learning where data modelling and representation are common to each. Investigations include astronomy, ecology, chemistry, fast plant growth, force and motion, water use, heat and temperature, body height, light and microorganisms. The paper describes the role of mathematics in the IMS pedagogical model and design of learning sequences.

Gamification is a very useful technique, that has been fully increasing in the last years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our innovation teaching group sent to our students several games, that were used by them for self-studying. Considering that many numerical problems can be proposed in Biochemistry, rather than numerical games (sudoku, adding and subtracting number games, …) word games were preferred to learn biomolecule nomenclature. Among these word games, we adapted to Biochemistry: connecting dots, labyrinths, mazes, matching two sets, amidakuji, logic games, crossword puzzles, word search puzzles, knight's tour games or anagrams. In this work, we present several games related to labyrinths and mazes. Connecting dot games were adapted to Biochemistry by using intermediate metabolite of a pathway instead of numbers to develop a picture when connecting the dots. Anyway, as pathways don't contain a big number of metabolites, no difficult pictures can be used. Thus, a labyrinth with questions and answers and letters connecting questions with answers can be better used. Correct answers can develop the letters of a biomolecule's name. Other kind of labyrinth can be those where the letters can be taken from the shortest route. Labyrinths can also be used to develop a word following the route in labyrinths and taking letters to get the word, as an anagram. Several examples are shown hereby, adapted for Biochemistry students of Chemistry degree. [For the full proceedings, see ED654100.]

Failing test scores in reading proficiency have been a blemish on our nation's report card for decades as scores have remained static despite the readily-available information on language and literacy attainment, and the employment of research-based strategies in classrooms. While we continue our quest to efficiently bolster reading skills, a less obvious solution may have little to do with literacy and everything to do with neuroscience. Over 60% of youths have suffered from one or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and children who experience adversity are more likely to struggle in school. Cortisol, a hormone released under stress, limits brain function and negatively impacts one's working memory, decision-making skills, and attention, all of which are required for reading proficiency. Researchers have proven that oxytocin, the "love hormone", reverses the effects of cortisol and is easily triggered in classroom settings via physical contact. By reversing the effects of cortisol, students will have the "mental real estate" to learn and retain the skills and knowledge necessary to become proficient readers. [For the full proceedings, see ED656038.]

Games are fully accepted by students, as they stimulate memory, activate reasoning capacities in brain, improve the knowledge and keep out the stress. Our innovation teaching group is interested in using games for teaching Biochemistry of the Chemistry degree. Most of the individual games found in Internet are classified in numerical games (sudoku, calculation games, a grid to paint black squares depending on the file and column numbers, …) and word games (anagrams, crossword puzzles, word search puzzles, connecting dots, mazes, labyrinths, matching two sets, amidakuji, logic games, or knight's tour games). Biochemistry books often contain glossaries and word index, and usually students must learn many difficult words, including biomolecules. In Chemical degree, it is important that students also know the structure of these biomolecules. In this work, we present some examples of chained-words games. Some of these games can be difficult to prepare, as most of the biomolecules end in -ose (most carbohydrates), -ase (most enzymes), whereas not many biomolecules begin with e-. Thus, domino games can be a good option to learn two aspects of biomolecules: structure and nomenclature. Dominoes tiles contain two zones (one with a structure of a molecule, and the other with the name of another molecule). Student must fit the structure of one molecule with its name, thus learning both structure and name. Depending on the dominoes, this game can be played individually or in groups of students. The game was very appreciated by all our students. [For the full proceedings, see ED630948.]

Games are highly appreciated by the population, so due to the COVID-19 pandemic confinement we decided to carry out an Internet research of several games, in order to use them for the assimilation of new words of Biochemical students. Games found in puzzle books allow the stimulation of memory, reasoning and other brain capacities, such as keeping us out of stress and improving our knowledge. For this reason, we thought that they could be interesting for relieving students of the stress of confinement, and at the same time allowing to learn Biochemical words with those games. Games found in puzzle books are based on two types of problems, based in numbers or in letters. Among the games based in numbers, the most frequent include sudokus, suzenjou, kakuros, arithmograms; while those based in letters include crosswords, self-defined, and games of words or letters. We decided to perform various puzzles based on letters, and the easiest to implement were those based on words and syllables games. The simplest word games are based on searching within a set of words, those that have some part in common. In this sense, we invented rhyming games, in which words ended in -ine (frequent ending of amino acids, nitrogenous bases, nucleosides and some proteins), in -ose (frequent ending in carbohydrates), or in -ic / -ate (frequent termination of fatty acids and other intermediate acids of metabolism, or of their corresponding salts). Thus, the students were able to observe these characteristics in the nomenclature. On the other hand, incomplete word games allow you to fill in the names of the metabolites using groups of letters to choose from. Our proposal includes various word games that we can apply to the Biochemistry course so that students remember them. [For the full proceedings, see ED626668.]

The aim of research was validation of a method for the assessment of cognitive complexity of chemical technology problem tasks. The method included an assessment of the difficulty of concepts and an assessment of their interactivity. As a research instrument for assessing performance, test of knowledge was used. Each task in the test was followed by a 5-point Likert scale for the evaluation of invested mental effort. The validity of this method was confirmed by a series of linear regression analysis where extremely high values of correlation coefficients are obtained among the examined variables: student's performance, invested mental effort and cognitive complexity. Keywords: cognitive complexity, problem solving, chemical technology. [For the full proceedings, see ED619611.]

The aim of the International Society for Technology, Education, and Science (iHSES) conference is to offer opportunities to share ideas, discuss theoretical and practical issues, and connect with the leaders in the fields of "humanities," "education" and "social sciences." It is organized for: (1) faculty members in all disciplines of humanities, education and social sciences; (2) graduate students; (3) K-12 administrators; (4) teachers; (5) principals; and (6) all interested in education and social sciences. [Individual papers are indexed in ERIC.]

This paper provides a broad reexamination of the correlates of faculty age, incorporating several measures of research activity and other related professional achievement variables. The data are derived from a large-scale, nationally representative survey of college and university faculty members; analyses are based on a subsample of all doctorate level teaching faculty in seven major representative scientific areas--physics, biochemistry, earth sciences, chemical engineering, experimental psychology, economics, and sociology. While much of the research focuses either on one discipline or on a broad aggregate of diverse fields, the present study analyzes each discipline separately, consistent with earlier research, which has shown substantial cross-field difference in research-professional activities. Additionally, no single model of aging is proposed a priori. Rather, a series of plausible mathematical models are postulated and tested. The compelling conclusion is that career age (and possibly tenure status) is a poor predictor of research-professional activity. (Author/KE)

Biomechanics involves the biological human beings interacting with his/her mechanical environment. Biomechanics research is being done in connection with sport, physical education, and general motor behavior, and concerns mechanics independent of implements. Biomechanics research falls in the following two general categories: (1) that specific research which contributes to the body of knowledge of motor behavior based on biomechanical type problems, and (2) the service components biomechanics provides to other subdisciplines for delineation of movement. The methods and general instrumentation techniques utilized in biomechanics research include (1) cinematography or high speed film (to record and analyze movement); (2) electronic transducers (to convert mechanical displacement, velocity, or acceleration into electrical voltage); (3) electrogoniometers (used to measure joint displacement); (4) anthropometry (technique of measuring length, girths, and widths of various part of the human body); and (5) electromyography (EMG) technique of investigating electrical activity associated with muscular contraction). (BD)

The objective of the present work was to evaluate the possibility of converting three different kinds of paper sludge (PS) into ethanol using xylose-fermenting yeast SHY07-1 and common yeast SHY08-3 in separate hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF). Effects of pH, temperature and enzyme loading on saccharification of different PS were investigated and the enzymatic hydrolysis performance of chemical pulping PS was superior to that of deinking PS. The hydrolysate produced from enzymatically-digested PS (on a consistency of 6% (w/v, expressed in terms of total carbohydrate mass)) was fermented by yeast without prior detoxification and nutrient supplementation. A final ethanol concentration of 34.72 and 29.29 g/L was achieved by SHY07-1 and SHY08-3 separately, corresponding to an ethanol yield of 0.42 and 0.41 g/g with a fermentation efficiency of 80.84% and 68.18%. The results indicate that PS can be enzymatically hydrolyzed without pretreatment and the hydrolysate can be fermented efficiently to ethanol by using xylose-fermenting yeast SHY07-1. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The National Institute of Education takes a fundamental approach to the problems it is addressing. This implies the creation of an intellectual framework for the problem areas, which can be used to systematize existing knowledge and research approaches and suggest promising new directions for research and development. Neural mechanisms of learning and memory constitute the ultimate foundations upon which learning of basic skills rests. This conference grew out of such concerns. Twenty review papers were prepared and circulated in advance by leading investigators, each describing a major research approach, well-established findings, current gaps in knowledge, current research efforts and near-future prospects, and relations to other approaches. At the conference, presentation of highlights of each review by its author was followed by a prepared discussion of the paper by another leading investigator, and then by general discussion. The review and discussion papers, revised on the basis of discussions at the conference, will be published as the report of the Conference in late 1975 by the MIT Press. The report, in addition to being very useful to investigators in the field and to students, will be used by NIE in formulating its policy on future support of research in this area. (Author/CKJ)

In this study, the training effects of static and dynamic exercise programs on the firing patterns of 450 single motor units (SMU) in the human tibialis anterior muscle were investigated. In a six week program, the static group (N=5) participated in daily high intensity, short duration, isometric exercises while the dynamic group (N=5) participated three times weekly in low intensity, moderate duration, isotonic exercises. The control group (N=4) did not participate in an exercise program. Pre- and post-test SMU firing patterns were recorded by means of 26 gauge tygon coated monopolar needle electrodes. In order to assess the degree of impersistence or periodicity of motor unit firing, an interspike interval (ISI) longer than 260 milliseconds was defined as a lapse in motor firing. An individual ratio of normal ISIs to lapses for each SMU three minute recording run and the mean ratio for each subject (MLR) were calculated. Significant differences were found between MLR pre- and post-test values for both groups (p less than 0.05). These results indicate that changes in motor unit firing can be produced by specific exercise programs. High intensity, short duration exercises produce more variable than normal firing rates, and low intensity, long duration exercises produce firing rates less variable than normal. (Author/BD)

This study explores the dynamics and effects of mentoring relationships, with particular emphasis on the experiences of women and minorities as proteges. It draws upon quantitative and qualitative data gathered from a survey of 587 academic scientists and interviews with 55 academic scientists, in 3 disciplinary areas: physics and astronomy, chemistry and biochemistry, and sociology. Results are analyzed in terms of effectiveness of mentors, access to eminent mentors, advantages and disadvantages of mentors, gender neutral themes, gender specific themes, problematic relationships, race/ethnicity-linked themes, collaboration, other mentors, and consequences of the mentoring experience. The study concludes that women and minority scientists, overall, appear to find the mentors they need for career success, have effective mentoring relationships with doctoral and postdoctoral advisers, and find other mentors when necessary. Problems in mentoring relationships include difficulty in gaining access to the eminent mentors whose sponsorship can help to jump start their careers and a series of gender-related and race-related difficulties in sustaining mentoring relationships within the academic system. (Contains 31 references.) (JDD)

This research was conducted to contribute to the general knowledge concerning differences between smokers and nonsmokers. The data were obtained from a major epidemiologic study conducted in 1973 in the southeastern United States. A survey instrument composed of 403 questions and administered to 2029 randomly selected adults was designed to elicit mental and physical health information as well as sociodemographic and service utilization data. Significant differences have been found between smokers and nonsmokers. The highest percentage of smokers was found among males, those aged 30-44, the less educated, the divorced or separated, the middle socioeconomic class, those experiencing larger numbers of stressful life events, those who did not grow up with both their real parents, and those who had unhappy childhoods. Smokers as a group tended to score higher on psychological scales measuring anxiety and depressive symptomatology. The findings support that smoking is a compensatory form of behavior, a symptom of other problems of emotional health. Until it becomes possible to identify individuals who are biologically cancer-prone and to therefore direct educational efforts toward specific target groups who will suffer the most debilitating consequences of smoking, intervention must be persistent, individualized, and socially reinforced. (charts and graphs are included in the report.) (SK)

The paper examines the incidence of minor physical anomalies (MPAs) in 42 normal junior high Ss, 24 kindergarten Ss in a middle class district, 52 status and misdemeanor delinquents, 70 adolescent psychiatric patients, 32 learning disabled children, and 10 autistic children. MPAs included facial asymmetry, epicanthal folds, and geographical or fissured tongue. Analysis of complete blood chemistries and neuropsychological examinations revealed that MPAs varied significantly among the groups surveyed. The value of each of the blood measures as predictors of acting out behavior was enhanced by its association with the number of MPAs. Normal junior high and kindergarten Ss had fewer MPAs than all others studied; status and misdemeanor delinquents had fewer MPAs than psychiatric patients and learning disabled or autistic Ss. Autistic Ss had more MPAs than all the other groups. (CL)

The paper describes part of our efforts to develop curricula specifically designed to challenge engineering students to cross boundaries and solve problems in different disciplines. Specifically, the paper discusses results of introducing faculty on-going research in the areas of human and protein kinematics into a junior mechanical engineering Kinematics of Mechanisms course, with the main goal of preparing the students to be critical thinkers, cross-disciplinary problem solvers and life-long learners. In the paper the term "integrated research" is used to refer to all categories of research involving integrated multiple disciplines. The Kinematics of Mechanisms is a lecture course which presents knowledge on the analysis, design and construction of mechanical systems, such as serial and parallel linkages, cams and gear systems and robot manipulators, to name a few. During the Fall 2016 semester, new experiences in the form of interactive activities, including research projects were developed and incorporated within the course. These activities were specifically designed to enhance the students' knowledge of how the above-mentioned mechanical systems appear in other domains, such as Biomechanics and Biochemistry with the goal of giving the students the opportunity to not only cross boundaries, but also integrate and use current knowledge in their own area to solve research problems in other disciplines. Results related to the three desired learning outcomes (critical thinking, intellectual maturity, and responsibility for own learning) were assessed through anonymous surveys. The results were based on students' as well as faculty perception. Part of the assessment was indirect and required the students to outline questions that they were asking themselves while working on each project. A comparison between the results from two sections of the class, both taught during the Fall 2016 semester, one with and one without the incorporated new activities, showed that presenting a series of multidisciplinary projects designed specifically to complement each other, improves students' critical thinking, intellectual maturity, and responsibility for their own learning. The intellectual growth was the category that improved the most, based on students' and faculty perception. In addition, the difference in students' performance on the project content and presentation between the two sections resulted in a difference of about 20%. This shows that the developed methods prove efficient not only for learning new material, but also in transferring learned skills to tasks of greater difficulty, i.e. interdisciplinary activities that are not necessarily within the typical mechanical engineering kinematics of mechanisms domain. The idea of enhancing a junior mechanism kinematics course with research activities related to application of gained knowledge in different domains is novel and provides interesting and promising perspectives, showing that such activities increase the students' knowledge and interest in learning, and at the same time enhance their critical thinking and intellectual growth. Although the new projects and lectures were developed specifically for mechanical engineering students, with sufficient changes the activities could be adopted in Health and Kinesiology, Biology, Biochemistry or Biotechnology courses in future. This will allow for continued data collection to assist our efforts in the development of curricula specifically designed to challenge students to cross boundaries and solve research problems in other disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the use of branching path narrative games based on cases written by industry partners and built using Twine in a graduate BioAnalytic Forensics module. The ease of use offered by Twine made it suitable as a tool to quickly introduce industry partners to the concept of interactive narratives which assisted them in framing their case studies. Twine is also an effective tool for introducing these games to students who may be unfamiliar with the genre. Business constraints central to the problems and modelled in the games include time taken to resolve the problem, and the regulatory requirement to fully explore possible root causes of the issue. Assessment was based on student reflections on their experience in game play, and on their team case study writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This catalog includes abstracts of each of the papers delivered at the Arctic Science Conference. The conference was divided into the following symposia: (1) "Biochemistry and Molecular Biology"; (2) "An Update of Alaskan Science and Discovery"; (3) "Science Education for the Public"; (4) "Hubbard Glacier, Russell Fjord and Situk River Studies"; (5) "Porcupine Caribou Herd"; (6) "Advising High School Teachers and Counselors on Engineering"; (7) "ANCSA (Alaska Natives Claims Settlement Act): Looking Ahead to 1991"; (8) "Alaska Education Using Telecommunications"; (9) "Programs and Perspectives in Alaska Native Science"; and (10) "Science Education". Technical sessions include the physical sciences; social sciences; engineering and engineering education; mathematics, statistics, computer science; and the biological sciences. Descriptions of the workshops and the poster sessions are included. (KR)

Polymer optical fibers (POFs) have many advantages. Because of their biocompatibility, they can be used as biosensors. In this paper, we report three types of refractometric sensors in poly(methyl methacrylate) PMMA POFs. They are based on different technologies, i.e. tilted fiber Bragg gratings (TFBGs), TFBGs with a thin gold layer and non-clad POFs. All the three sensors are sensitive to surrounding refractive indices showing great potential for (bio)chemical sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancylis sativa Liu is a kind of insects to cause severe damage to jujube trees. This paper studies the recognition of Ancylis sativa Liu from catchers via using computer vision technique. The image of a Ancylis sativa catcher generally shows not only Ancylis sativa but also other objects. Consequently it leads to that the image has a complicated background and an uncertain interesting region. Ancylis sativa Liu are able successfully to be recognized from the image as follows. Firstly, the region of interest is extracted from the image by enhancing the contrast of Ancylis sativa Liu to the background. Secondly, the outline of Ancylis sativa Liu shape is drawn by identifying the vertexes of the object figure. The recognition of Ancylis sativa Liu is effective and practical. It can be expected to be applied to the detections of similar kinds of jujube insects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of the paper is to emphasize the role of Mytilus galloprovincialis (mussel) in the marine ecosystem and economy in the way of sustainable development and exploitation. The paper presents the general biochemical (moisture, mineral and organic substance, protein, lipid and carbohydrate contents) and ecological aspects of mussels from the four areas for the development and exploitation of mollusks in the Romanian coastal area which are designated according to the requirements of implementing the EU legislation in Romania, the EU "Shellfish Waters" Directive No. 2006/113/EC. The biochemical analysis of the soft tissue indicated high organic substance and protein contents, which represent very important elements with economic significance. In 2006, M. galloprovincialis was the dominant species in all areas analyzed, being relatively evenly distributed and represented by young individuals in three of the four areas of shellfish growth, over 60% of individuals having the length below 25 mm. In 2009, in mussels from the sedimentary substrate very young individuals predominated only in area 2 (30%), in areas 3 and 4 their share in the population being very low (5% in area 3 and 2% in area 4). In 2012, the mussels had a uniform distribution along the Romanian coast, so the species recorded the highest abundances and biomasses in the north, an area which in the past used to record the lowest values The population structure showed the predominance of the young individuals. The biomass and abundance are influenced by the low salinity in the northern part of the Romanian Black Sea coast due to the Danube river influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metallurgical coke, as a fuel and a reducing agent, also allows for the gas to go through a charge in the blast furnace. The coke must have a strength, porosity, reactivity and a uniform granulation, because reaction of CO2 at high temperatures in the furnace. There are various mathematical models for the optimization of coal blend, which allow the forecasting of mechanical properties of coke in cold conditions as well as at high temperatures and presence of blast furnace gas. The so-called Modified Basicity Index (MBI) model is used for forecasting the following coke quality parameters: CRI (coke reactivity index) and CSR (coke strength after reaction with CO2), based on the content of volatile matters and ash in coal, as well as the chemical composition of coal ash. In this paper will be given the calculation of coke quality parameters based on the mathematical model MBI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the impact of variable environment acidity and low temperature on the stability of biosensor receptor layer component BSA (Bovine Serum Albumin). With the use of UV/Vis spectrophotometer, absorption spectra in range (250-300nm) was taken to study conformational changes of the protein with time after exposition to different factors. The results showed an increase in absorption, associated with the conformational changes of BSA with time. A significant decrease in the absorption intensity was noted after the addition to pure BSA - brain metabolite NAA. Performed studies showed that, the increase in the concentration of the NAA brain metabolite caused a decrease in the pH of aqueous solutions of BSA, which correlates the environmental changes to more acidic ones. For samples with higher acidity, the changes in absorption over time were gentle, which may confirm the increased stability of the biosensor matrix factor in an acidic environment. Comparing the effect of low temperature, it could be seen that temperature 4°C also influence on the protein stability and showed tendency to maintain receptor layer component stable. The observed trend of change, under the influence of external factors was more evident with time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent work we have shown how to use the von Neumann entropy to construct a Jensen-Shannon kernel on graphs. The kernel is defined as the difference in entropies between a product graph and the separate graphs being compared. To develop this graph kernel further, in this paper we explore how to render the computation of the Jensen-Shannon kernel more efficient by using the information functionals defined by Dehmer to compute the required entropies. We illustrate how the resulting Jensen-Shannon graph kernels can be used for the purposes of graph clustering. Experimental results reveal that the methods gives good classification performance on graphs extracted from an object recognition dataset and several bioinformatics datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a new procedure to find the impact of the time-delay (TD) of the patient and instrumentations such as bispectral index (BIS) monitor on closed-loop control of depth of anaesthesia during surgery. In the current work, the TD is estimated using Smith Predictive control technique. The method is validated with measured BIS signals in simulation. The results showed that the proposed procedure improves the performance of the closed-loop system for reference tracking and overall stability, and the proposed method has less overshoot, shorter settling time and is more robust to disturbances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Target tracking with the wireless sensor networks (WSN) has been an issue full of potentialities and challenges. In this paper, an improved hormone secreting mechanism for object tracking based on the information exchange principle of the endocrine system of human body is proposed. The nodes in a completely decentralized network can tune themselves spontaneously by exchanging information about the environment with their regional neighbors. Comparative simulation shows that proposed strategy can perform independently without the aid of other auxiliary algorithms for maintain the network status. The tracking mission towards the invading object can also be conducted more efficiently and persistently, and the energy consumption can therefore be distributed to the whole network. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After an informal review of the basic ideas in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, I collect sparse observations on the statistical physics of small systems (small N, few degrees of freedom, nanometer scale in size). Inspired by the contributions of Philippe Chomaz, Francesca Gulminelli and Michel Farizon, presented in this section, I would like to envisage connections with other contributions in the volume, and with other themes of research, close and not so close; the hamiltonian mean field model, the biophysical chemistry of dilute protein solutions and the non equilibrium properties of small systems. Further investigations on the analogies between effectively and real long-range systems could open new perspectives for a thermodynamic understanding of matter at the nanoscale, but also on larger scales...it seems a matter of relaxation times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines gendered nature of an academic job market in case of Korean academic biochemistry. I examine the factors that influence a Ph.D.'s chance to get a tenured-track job in a university. In particular, I compare male and female biochemists with same list of covariates such as age, academic performance, and prestige of graduate institutions to understand the role of gender on the success of academic job markets. The analysis shows the following results. First, including both male and female scientists, gender clearly influences a chance of getting a job. Second, separate models for male and female scientists show that academic performance and type of graduate institutions only affect female scientists. In other words, academic performance affects job market outcomes of only female scientists, not those of male scientists. Such results strongly suggests that gender is not just an important factor in academic job market, but the market itself is segmented along a gender line, thus, requiring analyzing different process for male and female scientists separately. It also emphasizes social embeddedness of academic job market in sciences. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methane decomposition in a planar RF discharge (13.56 MHz) leads both to a dust-particle generation in the plasma bulk and to a coating growth on the electrodes. Growing dust-particles fall onto the grounded electrode when they are too heavy. Thus, at the end of the experiment, the grounded electrode is covered by a coating and by fallen dustparticles. During the dust-particle growth, the negative DC self-bias voltage (VDC) increases because fewer electrons reach the RF electrode, leading to a more resistive plasma and to changes in the plasma chemical composition. In this paper, the cleanliness influence of the RF electrode on the dust-particle growth, on the plasma characteristics and composition is investigated. A cleanliness electrode is an electrode without coating and dust-particles on its surface at the beginning of the experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization of pen shell (Atrina pectinata) generally in some areas only as edible portion adductor muscle (meat) so the shells become fishery waste. Shells are raw materials that contain chitin and chitosan. Benefits of chitin and chitosan in various fields of modern industry are quite a lot, including in the pharmaceutical industry, biochemistry, biotechnology, biomedical, food, nutrition, paper, textile, agriculture, cosmetics, and healthcare membrane. Quality of chitosan is influenced by deacetylation degree which is one of the most important chemical characteristics. Deacetylation degree gives affect in application of chitosan, due to the value of amina chain and used to differentiate between chitin and chitosan. Deacetylation degrees of chitosan are determined by several factors such as NaOH concentration, temperature and time process. In addition, treatment of deacetylation process of chitin can give effect to deacetylation degree value of chitosan. The method that was used in this research was an experimental method with a statistical analysis of the data. The results showed that stage deacetylation process of chitin have the effect to increase deacetylation degree of chitosan. Multistage deacetylation process of chitin with 3 stage process was capable to make the deacetylation degree on average 75% with 82.91% of solubility. The increase result of deacetylation degree of chitosan is directly proportional with the increase in solubility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the processes that seal the soil is crusting. The succession of many rainfall events during a year periodically changes the top structure and seal the soil surface. Soil sealing by crusting induced radical changes in the top soil conditions as the reorganization of soil constituents, collapse and redistribution of pore system that deeply change the gaze content and biochemistry, and consequently the soil life environment. The paper aimed to the results of a micromorphological study of a sealed clayey-loam Argic Chernozem formed in loess like deposits. The soil was sealed either in June or in July under the rainfall impact, thus crust and sub-crust soil were sampled in both month (June and July) for physical, chemical, mineralogical and micromorphological analysis. The data of the micromorphological study emphasized that in June a 6 mm crust formed. The degree of the aggregates breakdown (under the raindrop impact) was moderate, whereas the aggregates that kept their integrity appear imbedded in a matrix riche in skeleton grains and vesicular pores (with entrapped air). The rare vughy packing voids (of compaction) are also present. The plasmic material resulted from the aggregate collapse was locally reorganized and illuviated at >1 cm below the crust, generating coatings and concentrations into the poral space. The structure of the crust and its granulometry emphasized that very low material was leached from the crust zone and no runoff occurred. In July, a 6 - 8 mm dens structural crust was formed. The vesicular porosity was lower that in the June crust, while the destruction of aggregates was higher. The sorting degree of the soil material was also higher, thus a succession of the coarser (rich in skeleton grains) and the finer (rich in plasma) layers formed. In the poral space, located under the crust, textural sorted material was leached at the beginning of the rainfall. The crust micromorphology showed an important runoff. The mineralogical data (of both June and July crusts) showed a difference at the colloidal level, between the crust and the underlined soil, due to a lower content of illite and a higher content of smectite (in the crust). After the soil sealing, two main processes are involved in soil structural autoremediation, which succeed each other or take place simultaneously: a physicomechanical process of creaking; a biological activity which generated channels in the crust that favor gas exchange between soil and atmosphere and also coprolites (the alive and high quality soil aggregates) that substitute the collapsed structural aggregates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the influence of chemical and phase compositions of NiTi surface layers modified with Si ions by plasma immersion implantation on their interaction with endothelial cells. It is shown that certain technological modes of Si ion implantation enhance the adhesion, proliferation, and viability of endothelial cells. It is found that the Si-modified NiTi surface is capable of stimulating the formation of capillary-like structures in the cell culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discovery of DNA structure has changed our understanding of life. Large data has been generated from researches triggered by this discovery. Information technology development has made it possible to share DNA sequences, proteins sequences, and 3D structure of proteins, articles, and tools. This information will be continuously produced. Consequently, it will result in dynamic databases. As an agent of sustainability change, university is forced to make continuous adjustments to this dynamic phenomenon. This paper reports our preliminary study on developing a learning model to promote life-based learning to prepare our students to live in such dynamic and rapidly changing environments. This study focuses on utilizing open-access databases as learning resources by final year students to construct their knowledge on biochemistry and biotechnology through the final year project. The research was done by overviewing students' scripts and gathering information from students carrying the final year project using a closed- ended questionnaire. The results showed deficient students' access to the open-access databases by students who worked on protein projects due to low awareness of the presence of such databases. We propose problem-based learning with a database digging learning model as a possible learning model to promote students awareness at early courses [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games are fully accepted by students, as they stimulate memory, activate reasoning capacities in brain, improve the knowledge and keep out the stress. Our innovation teaching group is interested in using games for teaching Biochemistry of the Chemistry degree. Most of the individual games found in Internet are classified in numerical games (sudoku, calculation games, a grid to paint black squares depending on the file and column numbers, ...) and word games (anagrams, crossword puzzles, word search puzzles, connecting dots, mazes, labyrinths, matching two sets, amidakuji, logic games, or knight's tour games). Biochemistry books often contain glossaries and word index, and usually students must learn many difficult words, including biomolecules. In Chemical degree, it is important that students also know the structure of these biomolecules. In this work, we present some examples of chained-words games. Some of these games can be difficult to prepare, as most of the biomolecules end in --ose (most carbohydrates), --ase (most enzymes), whereas not many biomolecules begin with e--. Thus, domino games can be a good option to learn two aspects of biomolecules: structure and nomenclature. Dominoes tiles contain two zones (one with a structure of a molecule, and the other with the name of another molecule). Student must fit the structure of one molecule with its name, thus learning both structure and name. Depending on the dominoes, this game can be played individually or in groups of students. The game was very appreciated by all our students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tensegrity models for the cytoskeleton structure of living cells is largely used nowadays for interpreting the biochemical response of living tissues to mechanical stresses. Microtubules, microfilaments and filaments are the microscopic cell counterparts of struts (microtubules) and cables (microfilaments and filaments) in the macroscopic world: the formers oppose to compression, the latters to tension, thus yielding an overall structure, light and highly deformable. Specific cell surface receptors, such as integrins, act as the coupling elements that transmit the outside mechanical stress state into the cell body. Reversible finite deformations of tensegrity structures have been widely demonstrated experimentally and in a number of living cell simulations. In the present paper, the bistability behaviour of two general models, the linear bar oscillator and the icosahedron, is studied, as they are both obtained from mathematical simulation, the former, and from larger scale experiments, the latter. The discontinuity in the frequency response of the oscillation amplitude and the lateral bending of the resonance curves are put in evidence, as it grows larger as the driving amplitude increases, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an aggressive task allocation strategy for an Artificial Hormone System (AHS). The AHS is a completely decentralized operation principle for a middleware which can be used to allocate tasks in a system of heterogeneous processing elements (PEs) or cores. Tasks are scheduled according to suitability of the heterogeneous PEs, current PE load and task relationships. In addition, the AHS provides properties like self-configuration, self-optimization and self-healing by task allocation. The AHS is able to guarantee real-time bounds regarding these self-X-properties. The aggressive task allocation strategy presented in this paper allows to halve the worst case execution times for the self-X-properties compared to previous strategies thus improving the suitability of the AHS for hard real-time systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the last century there has been a considerable increase in human longevity and this made a large number of people to reach a critical age for development of several diseases. As a result of this increase in life expectancy health issues related to ageing appeared, some examples are hypercholesterolemia, hyperglycemia and increased levels of blood urea. This paper presents a portable and low cost system using Artificial Neural Networks to Hemo metabolites identification. The system developed is based in amperometric biosensors and is able to perform the identification of glucose, cholesterol and urea concentrations in the blood. The main goals of this system is: the identification of three types of Hemo metabolites with their concentrations, the low cost of the entire system and the reuse capability of the biosensor. Cost of the entire system and the reuse capability of the biosensor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Biosensors are heterogenous devices, incorporating biological structures combined with electronics, optical or other readout systems. They have been developed for detecting different biomolecules and/or pathogens and represent a key technology for advanced and point-of-care diagnostics as well as patient monitoring. In this paper we present a systematic classification of biosensors described in literature, particularly focusing on nanotechnology-based sensing. Then, we present our approach to develop electrochemical biosensors for measuring metabolites and anticancer drugs, based on a platform for multiple target detection. This platform is modular and achieves a clear separation between the chemical and the electrical components, thus easing design and manufacturing. It shows superior performance thanks to the excellent properties of electron transfer and selectivity showed by enzymes immobilized on carbon nanotubes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research focused in detecting cause and progression of the diseases is gathering an impressive amount of data. Integrating available information in a systemic approach requires knowledge about details as well as overview about predictable interconnections. The amount of accumulated data often underscores human mind capabilities to perceiving links and correlations. The paper offers an overview about several schools of thoughts perceiving OA as a systemic disease Bioinformatics is proposed as a tool in organizing existent knowledge aiming introduction of the discovery approach in using clinical and experimental data. Computational biology is used to detect possible correlations and links in molecular pathways and further pointed as one useful method to design focused systematic research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Adaptability is undoubtedly one of the most important characteristics of autonomous robots working in real-world outdoor applications. Due to the fact that real-world outdoor environments are dynamic and uncertain, an ability to adapt to cues provided from environments is a potentially important aspect for adaptable robots. This paper proposes an artificial hormone network as a mechanism to alter robot behaviours in order to lessen the effects of environmental changes. Hormone dynamics are subjected to environmental cues and used to help an autonomous robot to deal with environmental variations. The proposed system is tested on a physically-realistic simulated robot and environment. The results are promising in helping the robot to deal with both internal and external environmental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Relevant researches in the past semi century have shown that there is a significant decrease in fertility during the hot months. The most important factor is a consequence of increased temperature. Heat stress (HS) can have large effects on most aspects of reproductive function in mammals. In this paper, the effects and possible mechanisms of heat stress on the reproduction of mammalians are discussed in three aspects: gametes production, embryo development and litter size, so as to guide the production practice and offer a theoretical basis for exploring mitigation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Lignocellulosic biodegradation by microorganism is difficult as the complicated structure of lignocellulose and there are different views on the anaerobic degradation mechanism. In this paper, anaerobic degradation mechanism of lignocellulose is outlined. The research orientation has some preliminary discussions further more. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cellulose is the largest renewable resource in the world, and it has the highest utilization value in biomass energy. But the biggest problem in usage of cellulose is degradation, the most effective solution is to make use of cellulase to degradated it, which is thorough and free from contamination. With gradually increased understanding of cellulase, more and more people start to study the cellulase from animals. In this paper, methods of cellulase extraction from Cipangopaludina Cahayensis were studied. Effects from extraction temperature, time, pH and extraction buffer on extraction result were studied and optimal conditions were determined. Moreover cellulase activity was measured and cellulase were purified preliminary by sulphat precipitation and dialysis. All these will be a new way on cellulose energy-oriented use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The effect of different mixed fertilizer on soil environment and nutrient in stevia rebaudiana Bertoni had been studied in open field. The result showed that application of organic fertilizer could significantly increase the organic matter, microbial biomass, and the activities of urease and phosphatase and catalase in soil. The potential nutrient and nutrient supplying capacity of soil had been improved by organic fertilizer cultivation as illustrated in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the effect of polypyrrole electro-deposition under pulsed electric field. The effect of pulsed electrochemical deposition can clearly be seen from the improved results of sensitivity and the linear range. The main reason behind this effect is the growth of different polypyrrole islands on the Pt/ITO substrate. Sensor performance were further enhanced by introducing glutaraldihyde as a cross-linking agent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper deals with a hybrid system comprised of scalar continuous dynamics and a pulse-modulated feedback that represents a simplified version of a model earlier proposed for describing the mechanism of pulsatile hormone regulation in endocrinology. It is shown that even in this drastically reduced form, the system demonstrates a wide range of complex behaviors, including chaotic dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]