Distinct Discipline Research Articles

Effect of resistance band and weight training on throwing velocity of club level baseball players in Sri Lanka

International Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (IJMS) is published by the Faculty of Graduate Studies - University of Sri Jayewardenepura. IJMS provides a supportive environment for multidisciplinary researchers to publish their contribution to the academy of knowledge and wisdom. Focus of the journal is on multidisciplinary research which should cover at least two distinct disciplines.

In pursuit of a better world: crop improvement and the CGIAR.

The CGIAR crop improvement (CI) programs, unlike commercial CI programs, which are mainly geared to profit though meeting farmers’ needs, are charged with meeting multiple objectives with target populations that include both farmers and the community at large. We compiled the opinions from >30 experts in the private and public sector on key strategies, methodologies, and activities that could the help CGIAR meet the challenges of providing farmers with improved varieties while simultaneously meeting the goals of: (i) nutrition, health, and food security; (ii) poverty reduction, livelihoods, and jobs; (iii) gender equality, youth, and inclusion; (iv) climate adaptation and mitigation; and (v) environmental health and biodiversity. We review the crop improvement processes starting with crop choice, moving through to breeding objectives, production of potential new varieties, selection, and finally adoption by farmers. The importance of multidisciplinary teams working towards common objectives is stressed as a key factor to success. The role of the distinct disciplines, actors, and their interactions throughout the process from crop choice through to adoption by farmers is discussed and illustrated.

Differentiating the learning styles of college students in different disciplines in a college English blended learning setting

Learning styles are critical to educational psychology, especially when investigating various contextual factors that interact with individual learning styles. Drawing upon Biglan's taxonomy of academic tribes, this study systematically analyzed the learning styles of 790 sophomores in a blended learning course with 46 specializations using a novel machine learning algorithm called the support vector machine (SVM). Moreover, an SVM-based recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) technique was integrated to identify the differential features among distinct disciplines. The findings of this study shed light on the optimal feature sets that collectively determined students' discipline-specific learning styles in a college blended learning setting.

Oral medicine practice in Europe and Australia: Identifying practitioner characteristics and their clinical activity.

Oral Medicine is a young dental specialty born almost a century ago and deals with orofacial conditions not directly attributable to the most prevalent tooth pathologies such as dental caries or periodontal diseases. Presentations may reflect local disease or orofacial manifestations of more widespread pathology affecting other parts of the body. Due to its recency as a distinct discipline and to heterogeneous global settings, Oral Medicine has not yet achieved a shared scope and definition, as well as a recognized status across the globe. The current report presents survey data gathered from Oral Medicine practitioners in Europe and Australia and aimed to identify practitioner characteristics including demographics, training, clinical and research activity. As expected, Oral Medicine clinical practice commonly deals with conditions such as immune-mediated disorders, potentially malignant disorders, oral mucosal infections and chronic pain disorders, but geographical heterogeneities are observed. The present data, representative of current clinical practice, are valuable in order to understand the evolution of Oral Medicine as a distinct discipline and should be taken into consideration in order to create or update postgraduate training curricula able to meet the needs of future practitioners and the communities they serve.

Mars' surface is not universally biocidal.

The Mars surface/near-surface is often considered to be biocidal. Here, diverse lines of evidence are presented indicating that some terrestrial microbes can survive the in-situ conditions albeit in an inactive state. For the purposes of planetary protection, it is important to consider what we mean by a planetary 'surface'; this term has qualitatively distinct definitions fordifferent scientific disciplines, and can also have different meanings from a humanviewpoint versus that of a microbial cell. Most microbial cells spores or other cells deposited on Mars, even those that initially fall on the outward-facing part of the absolute surface, will fall within pores of the regolith or become covered by its dust. They are, therefore, protected from ultra-violet radiation. Desiccating conditions and low temperatures (-40 to -70°C) can act to preserve rather than kill all microbes, potentially maintaining cellular viability - especially for certain extremophiles - over geological timescales. Whereas salts are ubiquitous on Mars, many terrestrial microbes are highly tolerant to NaCl and other salts, and these substances (including potentially inhibitory chaotropes such as MgCl2 and perchlorates) cannot access cells in the absence of a liquid milieu. Whereas the Mars regolith is nutrient-deplete and conditions may be acidic in places, oligotrophic conditions per se are not biocidal and many terrestrial microbes can thrive in acidic conditions (some acidophiles can proliferate at or below pH0). The low temperatures of Mars' surface are not conducive to metabolic activity, but the biophysical sophistication and robust stress biology of many terrestrial microbes, and the protection afforded by Martian conditions, are likely to ensure the long-term viability of some extremophilic microbes if transported to Mars.

Addressing the COVID-19 Mental Health Crisis: A Perspective on Using Interdisciplinary Universal Interventions.

Mental health is reaching a crisis point due to the ramifications of COVID-19. In an attempt to curb the spread of the virus and circumvent health systems from being overwhelmed, governments have imposed regulations such as lockdown restrictions and home confinement. These restrictions, while effective for infection control, have contributed to poorer lifestyle behaviors. Currently, Positive Psychology and Lifestyle Medicine are two distinct but complimentary disciplines that offer an array of evidence-based approaches for promoting mental health and well-being across a universal population. However, these strategies for improving mental health are typically used in isolation. This perspective calls for a new paradigm shift to create and rollout well-designed interdisciplinary universal multicomponent mental health interventions that integrates the benefits of both disciplines, and uses innovative digital mental health solutions to achieve scalability and accessibility within the limitations and beyond the COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions.

Corporate carbon accounting: a literature review of carbon accounting research from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement

AbstractThis paper describes the development of and gaps in knowledge in research on carbon accounting based on a systematic review of 117 papers published in influential accounting journals between 2005 and 2018. The review shows the literature has developed into four major streams of carbon accounting: carbon disclosure, management, performance and assurance, and that carbon accounting is emerging as a distinct discipline. Finally, our paper highlights future research opportunities to improve carbon accounting, so it can play an even more important role to help business achieve the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.

Novel Inpatient Radiation Oncology Consult Service Model Reduces Hospital Length of Stay.

Palliative care and radiation therapy have played an expanding role in the management of patients with advanced cancers. Recent advances in our understanding of oligometastatic disease have led to increasing demand for familiarity with ablative techniques. Recognizing the demands of hospitalized patients for rapid access to care, we created an inpatient radiation oncology consult service (IROC) with consolidated expertise in palliative radiation and ablative techniques. In this quality improvement cohort study, we analyzed inpatient radiation oncology consults placed before and after IROC implementation and found that IROC led to increased delivery of specialty care and decreased hospital length of stay (median 8 days v 7 days, P = .005). This difference was most pronounced for patients for whom radiation therapy was indicated (14.5 v 11 days, P = .007). Our institutional experience demonstrates the value of recognizing metastatic disease as a distinct discipline and providing rapid access to palliative treatments for patients with advanced malignancies.

Titrating Teaching: An Interdisciplinary Case Study of Online and Face-to-Face Undergraduate Biochemistry Instruction.

Although many science education researchers have investigated developing science education at the K–12 levels to meet the needs of underrepresented students in science, far fewer have considered how shifts to online instruction in undergraduate science courses might provide insights into better supporting the achievement of students from diverse backgrounds at the university level. This case study aims to fill this gap by engaging in a reflective interdisciplinary “deep dive” into the instruction of one biochemistry professor at a designated Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), across two distinct modalities: face-to-face and online. The findings reported here suggest that the use of formative assessments and student feedback surveys, as well as responsive instructional strategies, facilitate access to and comprehension of complex material in the online modality, without diminishing achievement. Additionally, the reflective collaboration deployed methodologically in this study highlights how higher education faculty can marshal intellectual resources across distinct disciplines to identify and develop responsive pedagogy in advanced science courses at the university level.

Why and How Should Cognitive Science Care about Aesthetics?

Empirical aesthetics has found its way into mainstream cognitive science. Until now, most research has focused either on identifying the internal processes that underlie a perceiver's aesthetic experience or on identifying the stimulus features that lead to a specific type of aesthetic experience. To progress, empirical aesthetics must integrate these approaches into a unified paradigm that encourages researchers to think in terms of temporal dynamics and interactions between: (i) the stimulus and the perceiver; (ii) different systems within the perceiver; and (iii) different layers of the stimulus. At this critical moment, empirical aesthetics must also clearly identify and define its key concepts, sketch out its agenda, and specify its approach to grow into a coherent and distinct discipline.

Strategies to Inspire Students' Engagement in Pharmacology Courses.

Pharmacology is a distinct discipline and offers core knowledge to broaden student programs in the provision of health care (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and others) as well as research-oriented programs (biosciences and biomedical). Therefore, knowledge and information on topics such as prescribing medication, drug interactions, dosage adjustments, and the correct drug dose calculation for medicine are essential for preventing and reducing medication errors, which is a key element in patient safety. Recently, many institutions have been trying to enhance their quality of teaching, as students demand support and success in their studies. Pharmacology is a highly challenging interdisciplinary topic, and requires a huge effort from both educators and students to achieve the best outcomes. Therefore, creating an effective environment to support students’ learning in pharmacology courses is essential to improving students’ engagement, success and learning outcomes. In recent decades, the landscape of education has changed, and distance learning has skyrocketed. This manuscript intends to discuss and highlight the importance of student engagement in higher education in pharmacology courses. Additionally, this paper spotlights and presents a review of recent studies focusing on student engagement in pharmacology courses and possible methods for enhancing and inspiring student engagement in pharmacology courses.

Śaivism after the Śaiva Age: Continuities in the Scriptural Corpus of the Vīramāheśvaras

This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantric traditions of the Śaiva Age. In academic practice up through the present day, the study of Śaivism, through Sanskrit sources, and bhakti Hinduism, through the vernacular, are generally treated as distinct disciplines and objects of study. As a result, Vīraśaivism has yet to be systematically approached through a philological analysis of its precursors from earlier Śaiva traditions. With this aim in mind, I begin by documenting for the first time that a thirteenth-century Sanskrit work of what I have called the Vīramāheśvara textual corpus, the Somanāthabhāṣya or Vīramāheśvarācārasāroddhārabhāṣya, was most likely authored by Pālkurikĕ Somanātha, best known for his vernacular Telugu Vīraśaiva literature. Second, I outline the indebtedness of the early Sanskrit and Telugu Vīramāheśvara corpus to a popular work of early lay Śaivism, the Śivadharmaśāstra, with particular attention to the concepts of the jaṅgama and the iṣṭaliṅga. That the Vīramāheśvaras borrowed many of their formative concepts and practices directly from the Śivadharmaśāstra and other works of the Śaiva Age, I argue, belies the common assumption that Vīraśaivism originated as a social and religious revolution.

Integrated process development: The key to improve Fab production in E. coli.

Bioprocess development and optimization is a challenging, costly, and time-consuming effort. In this multidisciplinary task, upstream processing (USP) and downstream processing (DSP) are conventionally considered distinct disciplines. This consideration fosters "one-way" optimization disregarding interdependencies between unit operations; thus, the full potential of the process chain cannot be achieved. Therefore, it is necessary to fully integrate USP and DSP process development to provide balanced biotechnological production processes. The aim of the present study was to investigate how different host/secretory signal/antigen binding fragment (Fab) combinations in E. coli expression systems influence USP, primary recovery performance and the final product quality. We ran identical fed-batch cultivations with 16 different expression clones to study growth and product formation kinetics, as well as centrifugation efficiency, viscosity, extracellular DNA, and endotoxin content, important parameters in DSP. We observed a severe influence on cell growth, product titer, extracellular product, and cell lysis, accompanied by a significant impact on the analyzed parameters of DSP performance. Our results provide the basis for future research on integrated process development considering interdependencies between USP and DSP; however, individual products need to be considered specifically. These interdependencies need to be understood for rational decision-making and efficient process development in research and industry.

Which patients benefit most from completing health risk assessments: comparing methods to identify heterogeneity of treatment effects

Methods for identifying heterogeneity of treatment effects in randomized trials have seen recent advances, yet applying these methods to health services intervention trials has not been well investigated. Our objective was to compare two approaches—predictive risk modeling and model-based recursive partitioning—for identifying subgroups of trial participants with potentially differential response to an intervention involving health risk assessment completion alone (n = 192) versus health risk assessment completion plus telephone-delivered health coaching (n = 173). Notably, these approaches have been developed by investigators from distinct disciplines and reported in separate literatures and have generally not been compared in prior work. Furthermore, these methods approach subgroup identification differently and answer related but slightly different questions. The primary outcome for both approaches was prevention health program enrollment by six months. The predictive risk model was developed in two steps, where, first, a single risk score was derived from a logistic regression model with 12 a priori chosen covariates by the scientific investigator team (c-statistic = 0.63). Then, the treatment effect was calculated within quartiles of risk via interaction in a logistic regression model (c-statistic = 0.69; c-for-benefit = 0.43). The greatest treatment effect was in the second quartile, in which 54% (22 of 41) of intervention patients and 10% (5 of 50) of control patients reported prevention program enrollment. In contrast, with the data-driven approach of model-based recursive partitioning, all 28 baseline covariates were considered, with the algorithm selecting covariates and optimal split points. Final model results had a c-statistic of 0.69 and a c-for-benefit of 0.55 (optimism-corrected c-statistic = 0.62 and c-for-benefit = 0.53) and identified 4 subgroups, with the greatest treatment effect among patients with lower mean numeracy, education less than a bachelor’s degree, and diabetes, in which 54% (15 of 28) of intervention patients reported prevention program enrollment versus 7% (3 of 41) of control patients. While there is increasing interest in discovering heterogeneity of treatment effects, our analyses highlight the important differences between these approaches, both from questions answered, model development, and results obtained. Specifying goals of treatment heterogeneity analyses, choosing the appropriate method to best address the goals, and external validation of results are important steps when applying these methods. Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT01828567

Hyphal and mycelial consciousness: the concept of the fungal mind

Like other cells, fungal hyphae show exquisite sensitivity to their environment. This reactiveness is demonstrated at many levels, from changes in the form of the hypha resulting from alterations in patterns of exocytosis, to membrane excitation, and mechanisms of wound repair. Growing hyphae detect ridges on surfaces and respond to restrictions in their physical space. These are expressions of cellular consciousness. Fungal mycelia show decision-making and alter their developmental patterns in response to interactions with other organisms. Mycelia may even be capable of spatial recognition and learning coupled with a facility for short-term memory. Now is a fruitful time to recognize the study of fungal ethology as a distinctive discipline within mycology.

Postural sway in young female artistic and acrobatic gymnasts according to training experience and anthropometric characteristics

BackgroundGymnastics training enhances the development of postural control in children and adolescents. In competitive gymnastics, the training regimen is specific to the given gymnastic discipline and is usually followed from the early years of practicing. This study aimed to determine whether postural steadiness differed between young gymnasts practicing two distinct disciplines, and whether it was related to the duration of their training experience, age, and their anthropometric characteristics.MethodsThirty 10–13-year-old females ̶ ten artistic gymnasts, ten acrobatic gymnasts (training as “tops”), and ten non-athletes ̶ were examined during 60-s quiet standing trials on a force platform with the eyes open and closed. Their postural sway was represented by directional components of centre of foot pressure mean velocity. Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon and Spearman’s ρ tests were used for analyses.ResultsAnterior-posterior and medial-lateral centre of foot pressure mean velocities were not different between the artistic and acrobatic gymnasts (p > 0.05). In the artistic gymnasts, the duration of training experience, age, body height, body mass, and maturity offset were negatively correlated with the anterior-posterior centre of foot pressure mean velocity under eyes-open conditions. The acrobatic gymnasts’ body mass and BMI percentiles were negatively correlated with their anterior-posterior and medial-lateral centre of foot pressure mean velocities under both visual conditions (r ranged from − 0.64 to − 0.93; p < 0.05). The non-athletes’ centre of foot pressure mean velocities were non-significantly correlated with their age and anthropometric measures under both visual conditions (p > 0.05).ConclusionsThe artistic gymnasts’ longer training experience, greater age, body height, body mass, and biological maturity were associated with better anterior-posterior postural steadiness when vision was available; the acrobatic gymnasts’ greater body mass and BMI percentiles were associated with better overall postural steadiness regardless of visual conditions. Relationships were observed between postural steadiness and discipline-specific training experience and anthropometric characteristics; however, causes and effects were not proven.

Content-specific differences in Padlet perception for collaborative learning amongst undergraduate students

Collaborative learning offers benefits but there is insufficient information on how students perceive specific digital tools supporting collaborative learning and whether there are content-related differences in students’ perceptions. Here, we utilised Padlet to mediate collaborative learning amongst undergraduate students from two distinct disciplines, Dentistry and Bioscience to examine students’ perceptions of Padlet-mediated learning and identify any content-specific differences. Data distribution was assessed via Shapiro–Wilk test, Mann–Whitney U test was used to assess distribution of responses and correlations were studied via Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (ρ). Data revealed that majority of students across both cohorts perceived Padlet as easy to use and beneficial to learning. Dentistry students perceived Padlet to be more beneficial to learning and easier to use than Bioscience students (p &lt; 0.01). Most Bioscience students liked to undertake collaborative learning via Padlet, whereas most Dentistry students felt more confident to ask questions and better understood content via Padlet. In the Bioscience cohort, perceived benefit-to-learning strongly correlated (ρ = 0.75; p &lt; 0.01) with fondness to use Padlet, whereas in the Dentistry cohort, it moderately correlated (ρ = 0.5; p &lt; 0.01) with better understanding of subject content. Thematic analysis of students’ textual responses revealed anonymity, peer-learning and engagement as key benefits. Thus, this study strengthened the evidence for using Padlet for collaborative learning in a wider context. Moreover, it uncovered significant disparities in students’ perceptions of the tool, when used to foster learning of different subject contents.

Stimulating students' learning motivation: A case study of music education and pedagogy course based on flipped classroom

This study reports the results of a case study that investigated the impact of music education and pedagogy course based on flipped classroom on music major students in Beijing City University. The main findings from this study indicated that flipped classroom had a positive impact on stimulating students' learning motivation, which is related to three main themes: student-centered, peer motivation and deep learning. Although some of these impacts were not always clearly distinguished from the more general experience of higher music education, some effective practical paths had been identified in teaching that link to these three themes in some interrelated contexts. This study raises some important questions, that is, how to stimulate students' learning motivation in the distinctive music discipline, and discusses the direction of further reform of this course based on flipped classroom.

What Is Educational about Education? The Distinctiveness of Education

AbstractThis article explores two questions: (1) Is education a unique and distinct discipline? (2) Is education anything other than the achievement of noneducational aims or objectives? In it, Trevor Norris examines how these two questions are interconnected, specifically analyzing how what we think about education as a distinct field of study informs what we ask of it as a practice. When we study education, we should be educational about it, because if we render education as the object of study, it is never endowed with agency or distinctiveness. Norris inquires into the distinctiveness of education as a way of thinking and a way of impacting the world, asking what are the conditions that make it possible for us to identify something as “educational”? To investigate this question, Norris draws from Hannah Arendt's account of politics, and he concludes by describing a case study assignment that requires educational foundations students to draw from philosophy of education in order to show what exactly is educational about education by contrasting education with business and psychology.

Chemical Oxygen Demand Can Be Converted to Gross Energy for Food Items Using a Linear Regression Model

Human and microbial metabolism are distinct disciplines. Terminology, metrics, and methodologies have been developed separately. Therefore, combining the 2 fields to study energetic processes simultaneously is difficult. When developing a mechanistic framework describing gut microbiome and human metabolism interactions, energy values of food and digestive materials that use consistent and compatible metrics are required. As an initial step toward this goal, we developed and validated a model to convert between chemical oxygen demand (COD) and gross energy (${E_g}$) for >100 food items and ingredients. We developed linear regression models to relate (and be able to convert between) theoretical gross energy (${E_g}^{\prime}$) and chemical oxygen demand (COD'); the latter is a measure of electron equivalents in the food's carbon. We developed an overall regression model for the food items as a whole and separate regression models for the carbohydrate, protein, and fat components. The models were validated using a sample set of computed ${E_g}^{\prime}$ and COD' values, an experimental sample set using measured ${E_g}$ and COD values, and robust statistical methods. The overall linear regression model and the carbohydrate, protein, and fat regression models accurately converted between COD and ${E_g}$, and the component models had smaller error. Because the ratios of COD per gram dry weight were greatest for fats and smallest for carbohydrates, foods with a high fat content also had higher ${E_g}$ values in terms of kcal · g dry weight-1. Our models make it possible to analyze human and microbial energetic processes in concert using a single unit of measure, which fills an important need in the food-nutrition-metabolism-microbiome field. In addition, measuring COD and using the regressions to calculate ${E_g}$ can be used instead of measuring ${E_g}$ directly using bomb calorimetry, which saves time and money.