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Teachers must understand the context within which students' performance improvement takes place. Operational effectiveness and strategy are both essential to superior performance and strategy execution is crucial for quality and better students' academic result. ICT can be a catalyst by providing tools which teachers use to improve teaching and giving learners access to electronic media that make concepts clearer and more accessible. Teachers in public secondary schools in Nakuru County, Kenya, have been integrating ICT in teaching, but students' academic performance in KCSE examinations has been low as shown by the outcome of the examination results by Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC). Few students qualify to join the various universities. This study used a survey research design to establish how the integration of ICT in teaching influenced the students' academic performance. A total of 486 teachers (405 classroom teachers and 81 principals) from 81 public secondary schools participated in the study. They were randomly selected from three clusters of schools namely National, Extra-County and County public secondary schools. Public secondary schools were selected because they are funded by the government and parents through parents' teachers' association (PTA) and are managed by the board of management (BOM). The findings of the study showed a positive influence on students' academic performance with integration of ICT in teaching. The finding also showed that there was no relationship between gender and integration of ICT in teaching but there were relationship between teachers' highest level of education, the age of the teacher and integration of ICT in teaching. The study concluded that integration of ICT in teaching is a vital component in improvement of students' academic performance.

To ensure the existence of humankind and the sustainable utilization of the earth's resources, deliberate action needs to be channelled towards the conservation of the vital support systems of the entire Earth ecosystems. Forests in this case form quite a crucial part of this wider arrangement that if man does not deliberately conserve and sustainably manage them, they risk being plunged into an irreversible predicament. This study aims at identifying the perception and understanding of the local community on land use and utilization of the Nandi Hills Forests. A mixed methodological design which incorporated both qualitative and quantitative methodologies was embraced. The mixed methodological approaches used in this study were the concurrent triangulation and nested/embedded designs. A four-tier analysis was carried out once all the data had been coded and grouped. The state of the Nandi Hills Forests has been notably influenced by the level of awareness of the local community on the significance of sustainable forest management and what their actions and/or inactions mean to the forests.

Research studies on teacher quality have concluded that students exposed to high quality instruction learn more than other students, but the evidence on teacher quality components is mixed. There is a growing concern that the decline in the quality of public school teachers is attributed to their preservice learning. In this research study, the perceptions of 178 preservice teachers on teacher quality components were analyzed. The result from the analysis showed that the participants rated National Board Certification status, classroom management skills, undergraduate education degree, love for children, verbal skills, ability to use diverse assessment strategies, and instructional leadership skills as the most important teacher quality components in urban schools. (Contains 4 tables.)

The use of computer technology in Kenyan schools is a relatively new approach that is currently being included in the school curriculum. The introduction of computer technology for use in teaching does not always seem to be accepted outright by most teachers. The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to investigate the teachers' changing roles in double entry lessons that involved the use of a computer-based instruction (CBI) program. A total of sixteen business education teachers taken from ten secondary schools situated in two provinces, Rift Valley and Western teaching double entry for a period of eight weeks. Two instruments, namely (i) the Teachers Interview Schedule (TIS) and (ii) the Classroom Observation Questionnaire (COQ) were used to collect the necessary data. Data was collected and analysed to help unravel what was actually happening as the teachers and the students interacted with the computer-based instruction program and/or instructional materials during double entry lessons implemented in real business education classrooms. Results indicate that the teachers developed better instructional practices as a result of augmenting double entry lessons with the CBI. Most teachers unanimously reported that their role changed from that of being an instructor to that of being a facilitator of the learning process. Although it was evident from a captured episode that amidst the presence of the computer most teachers preferred to do the job in the same way as the conventional methods without all the effort associated with organizing a technological classroom, data from classroom observation of teacher-student, student-student and student-teacher interactions recorded during the instructional process indicated that the teachers did not dominate in the CBI classrooms but gave learners opportunity to interact with each other and the instructional material. The results further showed that some of the unproductive activities and the state of confusion or silence often common in traditional classes where the role of the teacher is domination changed drastically. The use of CBI in this study proved that it has potential not only to change the teachers' roles but also to affect the students' learning in business education. (Contains 2 tables.)

Contamination of water resources with mixtures of organic micropollutants (OMP) including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals is a serious threat to aquatic organisms and human health. Long-term exposure to such pollutants may cause detrimental effects even at very low concentrations. Water resources in urban agglomerations in low- and medium-income countries may be under particular pressure due to high population densities, significant industrial activities, and limited water treatment and management resources. In these areas, many inhabitants directly rely on healthy urban water resources. Using the agglomeration of Lahore, Pakistan, as a case, we studied the occurrence, spatial distribution, and toxic risks of OMP mixtures in different urban water resources using target screening with liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry. In total, 266 of 576 target analytes were detected in at least one of the 200 samples taken from groundwater, canals, River Ravi and drains within the urban agglomeration. Notably, very high concentrations ranging from 10 to over 100 μg L−1 were found for highly toxic pesticides including several fungicides such as picoxystrobin, the transformation product phthalamic acid, and imazalil, the insecticide etofenprox but also industrial chemicals stemming for example from traffic such as 2-naphthalene sulfonic acid. Our study revealed high toxic risks particularly for invertebrates, fish and algae, with etofenprox as a dominant risk driver. This compound is extensively used in Lahore to control insect vectors of malaria and dengue fever in the urban agglomeration. Mixture risks were assessed using a toxic unit (TU) approach based on organism group specific effect concentrations, complemented with a risk quotient (RQ) approach using the lowest predicted no effect concentrations (PNECs). Acute and chronic risk thresholds were frequently exceeded, often by many orders of magnitude. These very high mixture risks strongly exceed those with previous studies in Europe, Africa and South America. [Display omitted] • Investigated Lahore's water resources with 200 samples for chemical pollution. • 266 contaminants were detected with max concentration of 230 μg L−1 for oxypurinol. • Acute and chronic risk thresholds frequently exceeded by many orders of magnitude. • Etofenprox was up to 30 μg L−1 exceeding the PNEC by a factor of 60,000. • Mixture risks are much higher than in studies from Europe, Africa and South America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jane H. Mashingia and colleagues reveal the progress made to date for the East African Community Medicines Regulatory Harmonization initiative., Competing Interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: DH, DM, & ML declare they are employees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which funds the EAC MRH initiative.

Margareth Ndomondo-Sigonda outlines future challenges for the East African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization initiative., Competing Interests: I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supported the preparation of the article.

RNA sequences having up to three consecutive internal amide linkages were synthesized and studied using UV and NMR spectroscopy. The amide modifications did not interfere with normal base-pairing and A-type RNA conformation. Three consecutive amides were well tolerated in the passenger strand of siRNA and caused little change in RNAi activity.

Amides as neutral and hydrophobic internucleoside linkages in RNA are highly interesting modifications for RNA interference. However, testing amides in siRNAs is hampered by the shortage of efficient methods to synthesize the monomeric building blocks, the nucleoside amino acid equivalents. This paper reports an efficient synthesis of protected ribonucleoside 5'-amino 3'-carboxylic acids from d-xylose in 14 steps 7% overall yield. The key features that ensure efficiency and ease of operations are chemoselective reduction of the ester and minimization of protecting group manipulation.