Awareness Of Content Research Articles

Is this recommended by an algorithm? The development and validation of the algorithmic media content awareness scale (AMCA-scale)

Online media platforms are increasingly using algorithms to select and present relevant information to their audiences. This highlights the importance of exploring whether people are aware of algorithmic content recommendations. Although some studies have already investigated algorithmic awareness, no standardized instrument has been developed yet to assess this construct. In this study, we therefore developed and validated the Algorithmic Media Content Awareness Scale (AMCA-scale). This scale contains four underlying dimensions: 1) users’ awareness of content filtering, 2) users’ awareness of automated decision-making, 3) users’ awareness of human-algorithm interplay, and 4) users’ awareness of ethical considerations. In validating the scale, results revealed strong psychometrics properties. The AMCA-scale was also successfully tested for three different online platforms: Facebook, YouTube, and Netflix, showing its robustness over different environments. Based on these findings, we conclude that the AMCA-scale offers scholars a valid, reliable and robust tool to measure algorithmic awareness.

Electronic Delivery of Pain Education for Chronic Overlapping Pain Conditions: A Prospective Cohort Study.

To examine the impact of educational materials for chronic overlapping pain conditions (COPCs), the feasibility of delivering materials online, and to explore its impact on self-reported self-management applications at 3-month follow-up. Prospective cohort study. Online. Individuals from a university-wide active research repository with ≥1 coded diagnostic COPC by ICD-9/10 in the medical record. We determined the number of COPCs per participant as indicated by diagnostic codes in the medical record. Consenting participants completed self-report questionnaires and read educational materials. We assessed content awareness and knowledge pre- and post-exposure to education. Comprehension was assessed via embedded questions in reading materials in real time. Participants then completed assessments regarding concept retention, self-management engagement, and pain-related symptoms at 3-months. N = 216 individuals enrolled, with 181 (84%) completing both timepoints. Results indicated that participants understood materials. Knowledge and understanding of COPCs increased significantly after education and was retained at 3-months. Patient characteristics suggested the number of diagnosed COPCs was inversely related to age. Symptoms or self-management application did not change significantly over the 3-month period. The educational materials facilitated teaching of key pain concepts in self-management programs, which translated easily into an electronic format. Education alone may not elicit self-management engagement or symptom reduction in this population; however, conclusions are limited by the study's uncontrolled design. Education is likely an important and meaningful first step in comprehensive COPC self-management.

A Sequential Explanatory Investigation of TPACK: Malaysian Science Teachers‟ Survey and Perspective

Like several other countries, Malaysia sees information and communications technology (ICT) as a potential tool for improving education quality. However, there is a shortage research examining the knowledge of Malaysia secondary school teachers in science ICT integration. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the secondary science teachers of Malaysia at exploring their perceptions of ICT integration regarding Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), which focused on quantitative findings supported by qualitative findings. This sequential explanatory approach aims to examine the views of science teachers regarding technology integration with respect to TPACK. The study included 219 survey respondents and 3 interview participants. For the quantitative data analysis, descriptive statistics and multiple regression were used, while a thematic method was performed for the qualitative data analysis. The results indicate that the understanding of science teachers regarding their technology-based knowledge is lower than that of non-technology awareness, both pedagogical and content awareness. Furthermore, interview results show about the technology integration related to TPACK, namely, type of ICT used, pedagogy of teaching, content knowledge and the purpose of ICT integration. The results address implications for professional development and programme accreditation for the secondary school science teachers.

Locked on Salt? Increased Consumption of High Sodium Foods During COVID-19 Presents an Underappreciated Public Health Risk

Abrupt changes in food preferences and eating habits pose an overlooked public health risk during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Emerging evidence suggests an ongoing, population-level shift to consumption of high-sodium foods, during COVID-19 and lockdowns, in the general population surveyed in different countries and cultures. High-sodium foods are defined as those with sodium contents exceeding 500 mg per 100 g, and many processed and preserved foods fall into this particular category. Excessive dietary sodium intake is associated with chronic diseases including hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and kidney diseases, and poses confounding risks during COVID-19. Here, we review food categories in consumers’ shopping lists and food parcels delivered to those who need assistance during the current pandemic, when frozen meals, canned foods, instant foods, snacks, and other high-sodium foods gained substantial popularity. Such emerging trends in consumers’ behavior are driven by a multitude of factors. Specifically, the perceived risk of COVID-19 infection in grocery shopping trips, limited supplies and inflated prices of fresh produce, preference on foods with long shelf lives, emotional eating, and the general low awareness of sodium contents in food have all contributed to the increased consumption of high-sodium foods during COVID-19. We also discuss the possible effects on COVID-19 infection and severity caused by excessive sodium intake, by reviewing current reports and hypotheses examining their relations. In light of the evidence, it is advisable to educate the public to maintain a healthy sodium intake during the current pandemic, and measures could be adopted by governments and private donors in procuring food parcels with more balanced sodium contents to lower the risks of prolonged and excessive sodium intakes in vulnerable population groups.

Learning Emotion Concepts

This paper reveals the importance of learning emotion concepts due to the efficiency of emotional granularity during the categorization of emotions. There are two ways of learning emotion concepts that can contribute to emotional granularity. First, we can learn emotion words. Second, we can learn the implicit content of our emotion concepts, i.e. how emotions feel to us. In order to complete the second task, we need to acquire vivid awareness and vivid memory of the implicit content of our emotion concept. I claim that only after completing the second task can we learn emotion words in a way that is efficient for the categorization of emotions. The problem with that claim is that we do not know how to study the implicit content of our emotions, and how to obtain vivid awareness of it. In this article, I sketch a basic solution to this problem. The article has three parts. In the first part, I outline Lisa Barrett’s Conceptual Act View in order to reveal the functional role of emotion concepts in our brains. In the second part, I explain Anna Wierzbicka’s classical attempt to define emotion concepts. In the third part, I suggest how it is possible to study the fine-grained details of our emotional experience in a scientific way. The goal of developing the integrative model is to realize the learner's potential in personalized knowledge formation in an intelligent learning environment and to enhance the efficiency of learning.

Life positions in self-regulation of life activity of the youth

Recently, the topic of the life positions of young people attracts more attention due to the activation of youth in the socio-political space of the society life: defending their right to participate in the formation of urban space, participation in volunteer and environmental movement, for the preservation of cultural heritage and values ​​of a various spectrum: from traditional to modern. The nature of these and other types of activity is regulated by a life position, reflecting the understanding by different groups of young people of themselves, the meaning of their life, their role in society. The article examines the essence of the life position of youth, the specifics of its formation within the existing semantic space of reality and the relationship with social activity. On the basis of the concept of socio-cultural self-regulation of life activity developed by the Center for Sociology of Youth of the Institute of Socio-Political Research FCTAS RAS and the data obtained in the course of the Center for Sociological Research, the author analyses the connection between the life position of young people and age, the level of material status and education, as well as with regional living conditions. The interconnection between the life positions of young people and their ideological attitudes towards individualism and collectivism, trust and distrust of others are described. By using structural and taxonomic modeling of the life process of young people, the interrelationships of their life positions with elements of the socio-cultural mechanism of self-regulation are considered. Thus, the author analyzes the connections between the core of the taxon of habitus of active and passive life positions of young people with archetypes, mental traits, modern features and life-meaning values, types of youth cultures. It has been established that the regulatory function of an active life position is realiszed through both traditional and modern elements of the self-regulation mechanism: by archetypes of glory and idealzation of the past, on the one hand, and rationalism, openness to everything foreign, attitude to the country as a place of residence, on the other. In turn, the regulatory function of a passive life position is predominantly formed under the influence of the conditions of the vital activities of the young people, and the role of youth types of culture and life-meaning values ​​is reduced to their awareness of the semantic content of the formed habitual attitude. The article also analyzes the indicators of the social activity of young people based on their connection with the worldview semantic attitudes.

Fostering Learners' Online Dictionary Skills through Active Dictionary Rubrics

This article aims to explore new ways to improve dictionary skills for language learners by promoting the use of active dictionary rubrics. It also tries to get a deeper understanding on how students perceive dictionaries before and after this type of training in dictionary use. To this end, a total of 75 students participated in the study and answered a questionnaire on dictionary use previous to the experiment. A second questionnaire was delivered after the instruction period to compare the users' perception of dictionary affordances. A mixed-method approach is used to collect quantitative and qualitative data via both questionnaires. This study reports on students' dictionary content awareness and how this awareness may increase by creating a habit in dictionary use routines. Keywords: dictionary use, dictionary users, dictionary rubrics, English Language Teaching (ELT), dictionary skills, online dictionaries, dictionary consultation, writing skills, learners' dictionaries, dictionary use training

Analysing the Cumulative Hierarchy of the Taxonomy of Learning Objectives in Flipped Classroom

The emergence of digital learning formats influences the planning and structuring of digital teaching. Especially in times of the Corona Pandemic, when many universities remain closed, new digital learning concepts are emerging that can be integrated into face-to-face teaching in future. In this context, old teaching formats are often revised and questioned. But while technology only determines the form of collaboration, the real quality of learning depends on cognitive trials that the teacher addresses to the students. To classify these trials, a teacher can use Bloom's revised taxonomy, which ranks Learning Objectives in a six-level order and assumes a cumulative hierarchy: achieving a required Learning Objective level includes all lower levels. Especially in blended learning scenarios, such as a Flipped Classroom, this theory can be used to develop the course structure and to form exam questions. However, the applicability of the cumulative hierarchy is controversial in the literature and is rarely analysed in blended learning courses. Our goal is therefore to verify the cumulative hierarchy in a Flipped Classroom Course and derive recommendations for action. Therefore, we use a quantitative written survey. Since the analysis is based on the students' perceptions, these are verified by correlation analysis with the actual exam results and the awareness of contents and activities. Afterwards, the cumulative hierarchy is tested by regression analysis of the different levels of Learning Objectives. As a result, it could be confirmed for all levels, but not always by direct but often by indirect influences of other levels.

Provision and Awareness of Digital Library Resources in a Multi-Mode University: Perspectives of Distance Learners and Librarians.

The purpose of the study was to explore the extent to which digital library provision affects awareness and use of digital contents, digital reference services, and information literacy among stakeholders in distance education at a large multi-mode public teacher education university in Ghana. The study makes use of the concurrent mixed-method design. The population of the study was 1,834 distance students with a sample size of 641 distance learners reading programmes in Basic Education in three distance education Centres of the University of Education, Winneba namely Winneba (247), Kumasi (276) and Asante-Mampong (118). A total of 453 (70.67 percent) distance learners, selected randomly, completed a 31-item questionnaire. Also, the population consisted of four librarians from three Campuses in the vicinity of the Centres. A combination of probability and non-probability sampling methods were used for this study. The study found that awareness and use of digital library resources in the three distance education Centres were very low, if not non-existent. The findings revealed that for all the three main classes of digital library resources and services; digital contents, digital reference services and educative services, provision was very poor or non-existent for the distance learning community. This negatively impacted awareness and use of these resources. Among others, the study recommends a regular collaborative needs assessment of distance learners; establishment of dedicated library services for distance education; and the development of embedded library services which can appreciably raise the visibility of digital library resources in distance education. Keywords: Digital library provision; distance learning community; awareness; multi-mode; academic libraries in Ghana.

The challenges of teaching for human rights in Nigeria: knowledge, pedagogy and activism

Human rights promotion continues to elude Nigeria, despite the many human rights instruments ratified and the various human rights initiatives taken. The key question behind this paper is: Why is human rights behaviour poor and human rights violations high despite numerous measures to address these issues? To examine this, the study investigates teachers’ awareness of curriculum contents and pedagogies for cultivating human rights, drawing on a survey of 170 social studies teachers in Enugu State. We find challenges to teaching for human rights, including teachers’ poor knowledge of human rights content; a lack of awareness of human rights pedagogies; a reluctance to engage in activism; and little engagement with participatory pedagogies. We explain these challenges with reference to conservative teacher education, entrenched patriarchal values, a strong nationalistic-oriented curriculum, and authoritarian school structures. We recommend transforming Nigerian social studies teacher education programmes and policies to enable social justice and human rights.

Building the Biodiversity Heritage Library's Technical Strategy

In 2016 the United Nations published the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It quickly became clear that information is a catalyst for almost every goal, and enhancing information access is necessary to achieve and ultimately improve global community life. The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is therefore an invaluable resource for redressing inequallities as it provides information and literature as an open access library. But there are also still hurdles to overcome to ensure information for all. In the following, we will focus on technical developments outlined in the BHL’s technical strategy. One challenge is the different digital infrastructures resulting in limited access to the web-based BHL. In 2019, only 53.6% of the global population accessed the internet (Clement 2020). Even if the reasons for this are diverse, we assume that network coverage is a problem we have to address. One focus of the BHL's technical strategy is to support and provide solutions for remote areas with no or low bandwidth connection. Furthermore the technical strategy focuses on the provision of services and tools for various usage scenarios by implementing a responsive design. In 2019, mobile devices, such as mobile phones and tablets, accounted for 54% of all page views worldwide (Poleshova 2020). Even though a differentiated view must be taken of which devices are used for which scenario, it can be assumed that mobile devices will be used more frequently in everyday scientific life, for example in field research. By a responsive design of the BHL website, we address this trend in technological development and media usage in order to remain a user-friendly research infrastructure in the future. Another challenge is the multilingual user experience. The multilingualism of BHL will become an essential part of the technological development to address the global biodiversity community and to reflect the worldwide biodiversity research. We aim to achieve this through a multilingual user interface and multilingual search options. The services and tools mentioned above require a high quality database, especially machine-readable text. The improvement of optical character recognition (OCR) is fundamentally important for further technological developments. Good OCR results ensure a comprehensive search in the entire corpus, and with further technological possibilities, data could be added that goes beyond the pure text. Currently taxonomic names are parsed and linked to the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), giving users the opportunities to search for taxonomic synonyms. In the future, this enrichment could be used for more data, such as collection data, geographical names, etc. In the challenge of improving and enriching the data, the BHL will depend on its large community, for example in crowdsourcing transcription projects. In order to reach those objectives and to continue to offer BHL's services to the global community in the best possible way, we need to monitor best practices in digital library and bioinformatics developments and implement them wherever possible. The BHL consortium will have to rely on partnerships and collaborations to fulfill this plan. We are therefore looking into cooperation with other consortia and will also explore alternative technological development models where third parties would develop apps and services from open BHL data. Taking all the mentioned approaches into account, the BHL will develop from a mainly literature library to a data library. It will be our task to create open source software and tools, like better APIs, to support the re-use of the data. This goes along with the aim to increase the awareness of the BHL within the biodiversity community as it is set in the BHL Strategic Plan 2020-2025 (Biodiversity Heritage Library 2020). To draw a conclusion, the BHL's technical strategy focuses on five main objectives to advance information access for the biodiversity community worldwide: Improve global awareness and accessibility Enhance machine-readability of BHL content for data re-use Identify resources needed to achieve the technical plan Ensure continued priorities and leadership for technical infrastructure Implement BHL 2020 Technical Priority Plan (Biodiversity Heritage Library 2020). Improve global awareness and accessibility Enhance machine-readability of BHL content for data re-use Identify resources needed to achieve the technical plan Ensure continued priorities and leadership for technical infrastructure Implement BHL 2020 Technical Priority Plan (Biodiversity Heritage Library 2020). The principle of our work is to adapt BHL to current technological, scientific and social developments in order to provide the global community with the best possible research tool for biodiversity research and to enhance the achievement of the SDGs.

Study of the factors affecting Anemia in pregnant women in Al-Damer region, Sudan

هدفت الدراسة إلى صياغة برنامج إرشادي غذائي وقياس أثره في النساء الحوامل المصابات بفقر الدم في منطقة الدامر. وتكمن أهمية البحث في أن كثيرًا من البحوث والدراسات أكدت تفش ي أنيميا نقص الحديد بين النساء في سن الإنجاب وأثناء فترة الحمل. وعادة ما يوجد مع أنيميا الحديد نقص في عناصر أخ ري مثل حامض الفوليك وفيتامين أ وفيتامين ب المركب. ونقص هذه العناصر له تأثير سلبي على وزن المولود وعلى صحة المرأة الحامل. ومن الجانب الآخر فإن من أسباب الأنيميا الجهل الفقر العادات الغذائية السيئة. – – المواد وطرق البحث: أجريت الدراسة في مستشفى الدامر وسبعة مراكز صحية في منطقة الدامر ولاية نهر النيل، حيث شملت العينة 30 امرأة من النساء الحوامل المصابات بفقر الدم والمترددات على المراكز الصحية ومستشفى الدامر أثناء فترة إجراء الدراسة. حيث تمت الدراسة في الفترة الثانية من الحمل للاستبانة القبلية، والنساء الحوامل في الفترة الثالثة من الحمل، للاستبانة البعدية، وتم تقديم وشرح البرنامج الغذائي المقترح من قبل الباحثة للعينة، وهو عبارة عن ثمانية رسائل إرشادية للنساء الحوامل المصابات بفقر الدم في منطقة الدامر. ثم قياس الأثر في التجربة البعدية في الفترة الثالثة من الحمل. وتقديم وجبات تحتوي على مواد غذائية محلية غنية بالحديد، ثم قياس أثرها بعد 6 أسابيع ) 20 - 31 ( أسبوعا، والهدف الأساس ي من تقديم هذه الوجبات هو رفع الوعي الغذائي المعرفي، وقياس مدى الوعي والمعرفة بالقيمة الغذائية للمواد المحلية المقدمة. النتائج: أوضحت نتائج الدراسة انخفاض مستوى التعليم حيث إن مستوى تعليم معظم أفراد العينة أساس )مرحلة ابتدائية( ) 43.3% ) من العينة. و ) 46.7 %( من عينة الدراسة اللاتي تراوح عدد الأبناء لديهن من واحد إلى ثلاثة كنّ من الفئة العمرية ) 20 – 29 ( سنة حذفت العبارة. كما حذفت العبارة أن ) 70 %( من العينة المختارة كان زواجهن مبكرا في الفترة العمرية ) 15 - 19 ( سنة. وبينت نتائج المجلة العربية للعلوم ونشر الأبحاث مجلة العلوم الزراعية والبيئية والبيطرية المجلد الرابع العدد الثالث سبتمبر 2020 م دراسة العوامل المؤثرة على فقر الدم لدى السيدات الحوامل في منطقة الدامر بالسودان ) عبد الحفيظ, الهدي, الطيب, علي ) 32 الدراسة ضعف المعرفة الغذائية في العينة )الأمية الغذائية( بنسبة، ) 80% ( من عينة الدراسة. وأن حذفت العبارة انتشار فقر الدم )نقص الحديد(، بثلاثة مستويات خفيف ) 9.5 – 10.4 جم/دل( متوسط ) 8.5 – 9.4 جم/دل( في ) 46.7% ( فقر دم شديد )حاد( ) 7.5 - 8.4 جم/دل( بنسبة 30% و 46.7% و 23.3 % على التوالي. كما أوضحت الدراسة عدم الاختيار الجيد لأنواع الأغذية التي يمكن أن تزيد من الهيموجلوبين أي عدم معرفة المواد الغنية بالحديد ) 60.0 .)% بينت نتائج الدراسة ارتفاع مستوى الوعي الغذائي والمعرفي، وزيادة مستوى الهيموجلوبين والتقليل من معدلات فقر الدم، و زيادة الوعي بأهمية المتابعة الشهرية للطبيب، ومعرفة واختيار الأغذية الغنية بالحديد التي تزيد من هيموجلوبين الدم . ومن توصيات الدراسة تصميم برامج لرفع الوعي التغذوي والصحي بالمنطقة، والتركيز على العادات الغذائية الصحيحة السليمة والابتعاد عن العادات الغذائية غير الصحيحة، باستخدام الأغذية والموارد الغذائية المحلية المتوفرة في منطقة الدراسة، وإجراء المزيد من البحوث في مجال تصميم برامج التثقيف الغذائي والتعليم الغذائي، تدريب الكوادر العاملة في مجال التثقيف الصحي الغذائي، توفير الوسائل الإرشادية السمعية والبصرية في مجال التثقيف الغذائي في المراكز الصحية في سن الانجاب، وتشجيع زراعة بعض الخضروات في المنازل مثل الجرجير والرجلة والسبانخ.

Underrepresentation of Racial Minorities in Breast Surgery Literature: A Call for Increased Diversity and Inclusion.

In this study, the extent of racial diversity in images of breast-related plastic surgery published literature was investigated to better understand disparities that exist in breast surgery. The lack of racial diversity in images of skin color in surgery literature can perpetuate implicit bias and stereotypes. Implicit bias can affect the way patients are evaluated, diagnosed, and treated. The visual aspects of plastic surgery make a lack of diversity in imagery especially impactful on patient care and outcomes. Published medical images and graphics depicting human skin were analyzed across 4 major plastic surgery journals. Up to 4 years were chosen a priori to evaluate from each journal and represented the initial year of color image publication, the year of study initiation (2016), and representative years for a given decade (2000 and 2010). Images and graphics were tabulated, rated by Fitzpatrick scale and categorized into "White" or "non-White." Data were evaluated with pair-wise and linear regression statistics. Of the 2774 images and 353 graphics that met inclusion criteria, only 184 (8.18%) images and 9 graphics (6.34%) depicted non-White skin. Temporal analysis showed that there is an increased diversity of images published since 2010 with 0% of images being non-White before and 7.3% to 10.3% after 2010. International and multi-national authors tended to publish more non-White images. There is insufficient racial diversity visually represented in the breast-related plastic surgery literature with a small degree of progress made towards more equitable imagery over time. Increasing awareness of image content, and the need for equitable visual representation may allow for improved racial diversity in surgical literature.

Optimizations for Energy Efficiency in Software-Defined Wireless Sensor Networks.

Software-defined wireless sensor networking (SDWSN) is an emerging networking architecture which is envisioned to become the main enabler for the internet of things (IoT). In this architecture, the sensors plane is managed by a control plane. With this separation, the network management is facilitated, and performance is improved in dynamic environments. One of the main issues a sensor environment is facing is the limited lifetime of network devices influenced by high levels of energy consumption. The current work proposes a system design which aims to improve the energy efficiency in an SDWSN by combining the concepts of content awareness and adaptive data broadcast. The purpose is to increase the sensors’ lifespan by reducing the number of generated data packets in the resource-constrained sensors plane of the network. The system has a distributed management approach, with content awareness being implemented at the individual programmable sensor level and the adaptive data broadcast being performed in the control plane. Several simulations were run on historical weather and the results show a significant decrease in network traffic. Compared to similar work in this area which focuses on improving energy efficiency with complex algorithms for routing, clustering, or caching, the current proposal employs simple computing procedures on each network device with a high impact on the overall network performance.

Unseen food images capture the attention of hungry viewers: Evidence from event-related potentials

Motivationally relevant visual targets appear to capture visuospatial attention. This capture is evident behaviorally as faster and more accurate responses, and neurally as an enhanced-amplitude of the N2pc – an index of spatial attention allocation, which is observed even when observers are unaware of the target. In the case of reinforcers such as food or substances of dependence, it is likely that the motivational state of craving accompanying deprivation potentiates this capture. The automaticity of such attentional capture by reward-associated stimuli, as well as its possible interaction with craving, is as yet not completely understood, though it is likely a major explanatory factor in motivated behaviors. For the present experiment, participants completed two EEG recording sessions: one just after eating lunch (sated/non-craving), and the other following a minimum 12-h period of fasting (hungry/craving). For both sessions, participants identified food- and clothing-related targets embedded in an object-substitution masking paradigm, which yielded trials of full target visibility, as well as trials for which targets were present but undetected. Although masking equally disrupted visual awareness of both classes of targets as measured behaviorally, a three-way hunger by visibility by target interaction was observed in the neural data, with unseen food targets eliciting an enhanced N2pc. Interestingly, this subliminal attentional capture by food-related items was observed only during the “hungry” session. No such capture was evident under conditions of full visibility. These findings indicate that attentional capture by food-related images, and reflected in enhancements of the N2pc, is spurred by hunger, and that this effect can be viewed as automatic, or independent of explicit awareness of food-relevant target content.

The awareness and application of multimedia tools for information literacy instruction at an African university

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine academic librarians’ awareness and application of multimedia content for information literacy (IL) instruction at the North-West University in South Africa.Design/methodology/approachThis study used both the survey and focus group interviews to gather data from the university's faculty librarians.FindingsThe results of this study show that despite the majority of librarians being aware of the existence and benefits of multimedia tools that can complement their traditional instructional practices, very few actually apply the tools for IL instructional practices. Among the multimedia tools that the librarians often use for the IL instruction, LibGuides were the most favourable because of their ease of use. The main reasons for not using the multimedia tools cited by librarians include the lack of infrastructure and insufficient skills.Practical implicationsThis study recommends the reskilling of librarians by training them in the use of multimedia tools for IL instruction.Social implicationsThe paper sheds light on the current strategies being implemented by faculty librarians in providing IL using multimedia tools. It also outlines the importance of multimedia tools in enhancing eLearning endeavours. Multimedia skills for librarians can also be essential during times of crisis such as the recent COVID-19 outbreak.Originality/valueThis study is a welcome contribution to the role of ICTs in enhancing library activities during the 4IR. The voice of the librarians in this area has also been minimally represented. This study, therefore, seeks to address these gaps in published scholarly literature.

Fountain-Coding Aided Secure Transmission With Delay and Content Awareness

Fountain coding is a new paradigm for enhancing wireless communications security. In this paper, we investigate how to dynamically construct the fountain code to prevent information leakage and reduce the decoding delay at the legitimate receiver. To be specific, a method is developed to determine how many source packets should be used and which source packets should be chosen to participate in the fountain coding process, taking into account the channel quality, delay constraint, as well as the priorities of various source packets. We also apply the proposed scheme to practical image transmission, and demonstrate the advantages of our scheme via numerical simulations.

Awareness and Effective use of ICT in Undergraduate Science Classroom Activities

Technology-dependency is increasing rapidly. People seek ways to apply technology to simplify complex tasks. Technology is the greatest platform for students to get ready for the world and become successful tech-oriented citizen. Knowledge acquisition needs to follow the current technological trends. Technology-dependency of our country increasing rapidly, students must learn to be tech-orianted. Integrating technology in education helps students to stay engaged. The purpose of the study is to identify the scenario of current trends, awareness and effective use of ICT and digital contents in science classroom of undergraduate students in Bangladesh. This study is focused on two central phenomena naming, ‘skills, capabilities and practices’ of teachers for appropriate and affordable digital content and ICT based learning’ and ‘use of digital contents to support collaboration, innovation and effectiveness’. The findings of the study represent that the concept of ICT based learning is not clear for both teachers and students so that classroom practice is not effective. Professional learning opportunities about ICT should be developed to meet the needs of teachers at various stages of knowledge, skills, understanding and practice. Keywords: ICT based learning, digital content, collaboration. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-20-03 Publication date: July 31 st 2020

Impact of guideline awareness in public pharmacies on counseling of patients with acute or chronic constipation in a survey of pharmacy personnel

BackgroundConstipation is often self-managed by patients and guidelines are available to aid healthcare professionals in the counseling of patients for self-management. Therefore, we have explored the knowledge and attitude of pharmacy personnel towards guidelines for the management of acute and functional chronic constipation and how they affects their recommendations.MethodsAn online survey was conducted among 201 pharmacists and pharmacy technicians from an existing panel. They were presented with two typical cases, a 62-year old woman with functional chronic constipation and a 42-year old woman with travel plans. For each case, they were asked about their treatment recommendations and the underlying rationale. Thereafter, they were provided with contents from an applicable national guideline and asked again about their recommendations and the underlying rationale. In line with the exploratory nature, data were analyzed in a descriptive manner only.ResultsBefore exposure to guideline content, the most frequent recommendations for chronic constipation were macrogol, fiber and lactulose and for acute constipation sodium picosulfate, bisacodyl and enemas. Following guideline exposure, the most frequent recommendations for chronic constipation were macrogol, bisacodyl and sodium picosulfate and for acute constipation bisacodyl, sodium picosulfate and macrogol (all three equally recommended by the guideline for the management of acute and chronic constipation). Correspondingly, the rationale behind the recommendations shifted with guideline conformity becoming a leading reason.ConclusionsAwareness of the content of an applicable guideline on the management of constipation was poor among pharmacy personnel. Accordingly, recommendations in many cases were not in line with the guideline. Greater awareness of guideline content is desirable to enable more evidence-based recommendations in the management of constipation.

A Predictive Model of Youth Bystanders’ Helping Attitudes

One of the direct effect of current COVID-19 pandemic’ social distancing on an unspecified period of time urges us to compensate our lack of physical connection with our readiness in the online environments, especially social media platforms. Present research investigates to which extent the internet content awareness construct, difficulties in emotional regulation and online duality have an impact on predicting future helping attitudes of bystanders. In order to investigate the eligibility of this prediction model, our team has advanced the Erasmus+ funded project Hate’s Journey. In 2019, our research team has designed a multiple specific sections online questionnaire addressing 206 youth from Latvia, Turkey, Spain and Romania. We have used a multiple linear regression analysis. The obtained results validate our hypothesis, confirming that if an individual is characterized by a decreased internet content awareness, a high level of difficulties in emotional regulation and increased online duality, then there is a 37% probability that the youth bystanders will develop a lack of helping attitudes towards the victims when facing a digital hate speech context. Conclusions and implications regarding to the current pandemic social distancing and digital closeness effects over the prosocial behaviour are discussed.