Taxonomy Table Research Articles

Retrieval practice and test-potentiated learning: A comparison of high and low prior topic knowledge students in terms of procedural fluency and conceptual understanding

A cohort of pre-service mathematics students was exposed to a teaching strategy based on retrieval practice and test-potentiated learning. The aim of the study was to determine how high and low prior topic knowledge study participants compare in terms of their procedural fluency and conceptual understanding after exposure to the teaching strategy. A pre-test and post-test repeated measures design was employed in the study to compare within groups. A revised taxonomy table based on Bloom’s taxonomy was utilised to categorise test items. Findings indicate significant differences between pre-test and post-test scores within groups. Results from the independent samples t-test show a significant difference between the two groups. Outcomes confirm that the benefits of retrieval practice are greatest for unfamiliar content. Findings indicate that for low prior topic knowledge students, procedural fluency is enhanced and retained more than conceptual understanding whereas for the high prior topic knowledge students it was the reverse. The strategy was not as effective for improving conceptual understanding.Contribution: How a teaching strategy based on retrieval practice and test-potentiated learning affects the mathematical competencies of procedural fluency and conceptual understanding has not been researched. There is also a dearth of studies that set out to investigate how retrieval practice and test-potentiated learning affect research participants with different levels of prior knowledge. The contribution of this study therefore is to contribute to understanding of how retrieval practice and test-potentiated learning can be utilised to improve learning and teaching of mathematics at the school level.

Reverse Engineering a Multiple-Choice Test Blueprint to Improve Course Alignment

Large introductory classes typically reflect courses that cover a broad landscape of learning and necessitate assessment formats that are efficient and reliable, making multiple-choice (MC) tests a good option. Designing a good quality MC test requires reflection on the appropriateness of the assessment format, designing a test blueprint, and writing MC questions following item-writing guidelines that align with course learning objectives and teaching/learning strategies. It is a time-consuming endeavour that often requires a group of question writers who are experts in the domain—both of which can be challenging considering the demands of teaching in higher education. Sometimes we want to adopt or adapt existing MC tests that we have access to. I suggest a five-step “reverse engineering” analytical process for selecting questions from existing MC tests to utilize in our course assessment, emphasizing the alignment process. In one of the steps, we will refer to the Taxonomy Table, a practical two-dimensional aid proposed by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001), to select the questions that cover a cognitive dimension landscape. The outcome of this process provides an effective visual representation of the alignment and enables us to decide on the utility of questions for the context of our unit and assessment objectives.
 Keywords: course alignment, assessment, multiple-choice test, taxonomy table.

Detection of cardiovascular disease using explainable artificial intelligence and gut microbiota data

Purpose:Gut microbiota are defined as the microbial population of the intestines. They include various types of bacteria which can influence and predict the existence or onset of some specific diseases. Therefore, it is a common practice in medicine to analyze the gut microbiota for diagnostic purposes by analyzing certain measurable biochemical features associated with the disease under investigation. However, the evaluation of all the data collected from the gut microbiota is a labor-intensive process. Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be a helpful tool to identify the hidden patterns in gut microbiota for the detection of disease and other classification problems. Methods:In this study, we propose a deep neural model based on a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) to detect cardiovascular disease using bacterial taxonomy and OTU (Operational Taxonomic Unit) table data. The developed AI method is compared to classical machine learning algorithms, regression, boosting algorithms and a deep model, Tabular Network (TabNet), developed for tabular data and obtained outperforming classification results. Results:According to AUC (Area Under Curve) values, boosting and regression methods outperformed the classical machine learning methods. However, the highest value of 97.09 AUC was obtained with the developed 1D-CNN model by using bacterial taxonomy data even with less then expected number of samples. Using explainable AI, nine bacteria were identified which the models find important for classification. Conclusion:The proposed method is robust and well adapted to taxonomy data in tabular form. It can be easily adapted to detect other diseases by using taxonomy data. The study also investigated the effect on barcode sequence for the classification, but the result showed that barcode sequences do not contribute to the bacterial taxonomy data for the estimation of CVD disease.

Insects benefit from agri-environmental schemes aiming at grassland extensification

One key target of agri-environmental schemes (AES) is maintaining biodiversity. However, if and how insect biomass and diversity benefit from grassland AES is not well known. Using Malaise trap samples from 72 grassland sites in four grassland dominated regions in Southern Germany, we investigated the effect of 1) local grassland AES (three levels: control, farm-wide, site-specific), and 2) an index of land use extensification (LEI, calculated for each site) on insect biomass and species richness of all insects, of five insect orders including all species (Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera), and two pollinator groups (Syrphidae, Apiformes). Moreover, the effect of grassland AES in the surrounding landscape was quantified. Insect samples were subjected to metabarcoding to create DNA barcode sequences which were then compared with reference libraries (BOLD; NCBI) and additionally classified using the Ribosomal Database Project (RDP) classifier. Resulting taxonomies were combined into a consensus taxonomy table and the potential minimum number of species per sample was estimated. Statistical analyses were carried out using Generalized linear mixed models and Bayesian inference. Our results indicated that species richness of many insect groups benefited from AES. As predicted by the regression model, presence of site-specific grassland AES increased the species richness of all insects (∼8%), Hymenoptera (∼27%), Lepidoptera (∼35%) and Syrphidae (∼26%). While Apiformes benefited most, we found an average increase of species richness in the presence of farm-wide AES by ∼82% and even more with site-specific AES ∼120%. We found that an increasing LEI, and thus more extensive management, positively affected insect diversity in grassland habitats. No effect of local AES and LEI on insect biomass was found. Moreover, the amount of grassland AES in the landscape was less important for insect diversity. We conclude that many grassland insects (especially pollinators) benefit from extensive management. However, we showed that the studied AES variants comprise variable management intensities hampering general AES recommendations for promoting insects. AES programs should, therefore, specifically reward extensification measures that were shown to benefit insect diversity. The integration of the land use extensification index (LEI) as a tool in the AES framework seems a promising approach to preserve and promote of insect diversity.

Substantial Intestinal Microbiota Differences Between Patients With Ulcerative Colitis From Ghana and Denmark.

BackgroundUlcerative colitis (UC) is a relapsing nontransmural inflammatory disease that is restricted to the colon and is characterized by flare-ups of bloody diarrhea. In this study, we aimed to investigate intestinal bacterial diversity in healthy controls and patients with UC with and without active disease, from Ghana and Denmark.MethodsThe study included 18 UC patients (9 with active and 9 with inactive disease) and 18 healthy controls from Ghana. In addition 16 UC patients from Denmark (8 UC with active and 8 UC with inactive disease) and 19 healthy controls from Denmark. Microbiota diversity analysis relied on sequencing of ribosomal small subunit genes. Purified genomic DNA was submitted to PCR using a primer set targeting prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The purified DNA was sequenced on the Illumina MiSeq system in a 2 × 250 bp set up (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA). Blinded analysis of the taxonomy table was performed using BioNumerics-7.5 (Applied Maths NV, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium).ResultsWhen analyzing the taxonomy data for prokaryotes, cluster and principal component analysis shows Danish healthy controls clustered together, but separate from healthy controls from Ghana, which also clustered together. The Shannon diversity index (SDI) for prokaryotes shows significant differences between Danish healthy controls and patients in comparison with the corresponding groups from Ghana (p = 0.0056). Significant increased abundance of Escherichia coli was detected in healthy controls from Ghana in comparison with healthy controls from Denmark. The SDI of the prokaryotes ranges between 0 and 3.1 in the Ghana study groups, while in the Danish study groups it ranges between 1.4 and 3.2, the difference is however not significant (p = 0.138). Our data show a significant increased abundance of eukaryotes species in the healthy control group from Ghana and Denmark in comparison with patient groups from Ghana and Denmark.ConclusionOverall, healthy controls and patients with UC from Denmark have increased diversity of prokaryotes. Healthy controls from Denmark and Ghana have increased abundance of eukaryotes in comparison with UC patient groups from Denmark and Ghana.

Comparing Published Gut Microbiome Taxonomic Data Across Multinational Studies.

Nurse researchers are well poised to study the connection of the microbiome to health and disease. Evaluating published microbiome results can assist with study design and hypothesis generation. This article aims to present and define important analysis considerations in microbiome study planning and to identify genera shared across studies despite methodological differences. This methods article will highlight a workflow that the nurse scientist can use to combine and evaluate taxonomy tables for microbiome study or research proposal planning. We compiled taxonomy tables from 13 published gut microbiome studies that had used Ion Torrent sequencing technology. We searched for studies that had amplified multiple hypervariable (V) regions of the 16S rRNA gene when sequencing the bacteria from healthy gut samples. We obtained 15 taxonomy tables from the 13 studies, comprised of samples from four continents and eight V regions. Methodology among studies was highly variable, including differences in V regions amplified, geographic location, and population demographics. Nevertheless, of the 354 total genera identified from the 15 data sets, 25 were shared in all V regions and the four continents. When relative abundance differences across the V regions were compared, Dorea and Roseburia were statistically different. Taxonomy tables from Asian subjects had increased average abundances of Prevotella and lowered abundances of Bacteroides compared with the European, North American, and South American study subjects. Evaluating taxonomy tables from previously published literature is essential for study planning. The genera found from different V regions and continents highlight geography and V region as important variables to consider in microbiome study design. The 25 shared genera across the various studies may represent genera commonly found in healthy gut microbiomes. Understanding the factors that may affect the results from a variety of microbiome studies will allow nurse scientists to plan research proposals in an informed manner. This work presents a valuable framework for future cross-study comparisons conducted across the globe.

The Alignment between Learning Outcomes and Assessment Tasks in Writing: A BRT Analysis

This study was aimed at obtaining the profile of alignment between learning outcomes and assessment tasks on ‘writing’ skills development in “Pathway to English Grade X” textbook with regards to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. The data of the study were 32 statements of learning outcomes and 49 items of assessment tasks of 10 chapters. This study used Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy table (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) as the framework of reference in conducting data collection and interpretation. The results showed that the LOs and ATs distributed over several levels. 34.38% of overall LOs of this textbook are described in level B4 (Analyze, Conceptual Knowledge), and 22.45% of overall ATs are described in level B2 (Understand, Conceptual Knowledge). In the textbook, it was found that 69.39% of the overall ATs match with the LOs in the textbook. 20.41% of the overall ATs partially match with the LOs, and 10.20% of the overall ATs do not match with the LOs in the textbook. The results showed that the alignment between the learning outcomes and assessment tasks on ‘writing’ skills development in this textbook is strong or the percentage is more than 50%.

How to design good experiments in marketing: Types, examples, and methods

In this article, we present key tenets of good experimental design and provide some practical considerations for industrial marketing researchers. We first discuss how experiments have the ability to assess causal claims. Next, we provide an experimental taxonomy table, which brings out the value and limitations of different types of experiments and maps the various goals of business marketing research within each category. Here, we pay particular attention to field experiments since they provide experimental realism by measuring respondents' actual behavior. We also provide a thorough discussion on important practical issues such as questions on experimental design, sample size, and how to involve business organizations in the implementing steps. The paper concludes by stressing the importance of combining data types (e.g., field plus laboratory experiments) and by offering methodological advice on how to analyze experimental data in marketing.

Effects of spaced, repeated retrieval practice and test-potentiated learning on mathematical knowledge and reasoning

Effects of spaced, repeated retrieval practice and test-potentiated learning on mathematical knowledge and reasoning in an authentic educational setting are investigated in the study. Research participants were a cohort of second-year pre-service mathematics teachers. A revised taxonomy table was utilized to measure the knowledge and reasoning proficiency of participants. Findings indicate that the intervention was effective in enhancing categories, where familiar algorithmic reasoning and procedural knowledge were required. It was less effective with categories requiring flexible and creative use of conceptual and procedural knowledge. Theories of storage and retrieval strength and conceptual knowledge are used to explain the findings.

TaxonTableTools: A comprehensive, platform-independent graphical user interface software to explore and visualise DNA metabarcoding data.

DNA metabarcoding is increasingly used as a tool to assess biodiversity in research and environmental management. Powerful analysis software exists to process raw data. However, the translation of sequence read data into biological information and downstream analyses may be difficult for end users with limited expertise in bioinformatics. Thus, there is a growing need for easy-to-use, graphical user interface (GUI) software to analyse and visualise DNA metabarcoding data. Here, we present TaxonTableTools (TTT), a new platform-independent GUI that aims to fill this gap by providing simple, reproducible analysis and visualisation workflows. At its base, TTT uses a "TaXon table", which is a data format that can be generated easily within TTT from two input files: a read table and a taxonomy table obtained using various published metabarcoding pipelines. TTT analysis and visualisation modules include Venn diagrams to compare taxon overlap among replicates, samples, or analysis methods. TTT analyses and visualises basic statistics, such as read proportion per taxon, as well as more sophisticated visualisations, such as interactive Krona charts for taxonomic data exploration. Various ecological analyses can be produced directly, including alpha or beta diversity estimates, and rarefaction analysis ordination plots. Metabarcoding data can be converted into formats required for traditional, taxonomy-based analyses performed by regulatory bioassessment programs. In addition, TTT is able to produce html-based interactive graphics that can be analysed in any web browser. The software comes with a manual and tutorial, is free and publicly available through GitHub (https://github.com/TillMacher/TaxonTableTools) or the Python package index (https://pypi.org/project/taxontabletools/).

TaxonTableTools - A comprehensive, platform-independent graphical user interface software to explore and visualise DNA metabarcoding data

DNA-based identification methods, such as DNA metabarcoding, are increasingly used as biodiversity assessment tools in research and environmental management. Although powerful analysis software exists to process raw data, the translation of sequence read data into biological information and downstream analyses may be difficult for end users with limited expertise in bioinformatics. Thus, the need for easy-to-use, graphical user interface (GUI) software to analyze and visualize DNA metabarcoding data is growing. Here we present TaxonTableTools (TTT), a new platform-independent GUI that aims to fill this gap by providing simple, reproducible analysis and visualization workflows. The input format of TTT is a so-called "TaXon table". This data format can easily be generated within TTT from two common file formats that can be obtained using various published DNA metabarcoding pipelines: a read table and a taxonomy table. TTT offers a wide range of processing, filtering and analysis modules. The user can analyze and visualize basic statistics, such as read proportion per taxon, as well as more sophisticated visualizations such as interactive Krona charts for taxonomic data exploration, or complex parallel category diagrams to assess species distribution patterns. Venn diagrams can be calculated to compare taxon overlap among replicates, samples, or analysis methods. Various ecological analyses can be produced directly, including alpha or beta diversity estimates, rarefaction analyses, and principal coordinate or non-metric multidimensional scaling plots. The taxonomy of a data set can be validated via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) API to check for synonyms and spelling mistakes. Furthermore, geographical distribution data can be automatically downloaded from GBIF. Additionally, TTT offers a conversion tool for DNA metabarcoding data into formats required for traditional, taxonomy-based analyses performed by regulatory bioassessment programs. Beyond that, TTT is able to produce fully interactive html-based graphics that can be analyzed in any web browser. The software comes with a manual and tutorial, is free and publicly available through GitHub (https://github.com/TillMacher/TaxonTableTools) or the Python package index (https://pypi.org/project/taxontabletools/).

The Incorporation of High Order Thinking Skills in Exercises of the Eleventh Graders English Textbook

This study was qualitative research using content analysis that aimed to investigate to what extent high order thinking skills (HOTS) are incorporated in the reading exercises of English textbook for 11th graders and to describe how HOTS are incorporated in the reading exercises. This study used Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (BRT) table and the table of description was used to examine 107 essay reading exercises that come after every reading passage in a textbook published by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia. The findings showed that (1) the HOTS in the reading questions were available in 50 questions (46,7%) while the LOTS were in 57 questions (53,3%). (2) The HOTS questions required students to analyze the storyline from the reading passage, to argue their opinion or judge if they liked the reading text, to assess their own knowledge as their awareness were raised or changed toward the topic, and the last to create a new ending of the story. The findings of this research are expected to be the references for teachers to check the incorporation of HOTS in the exercises before they give to the students. 

SHOGUN: a modular, accurate and scalable framework for microbiome quantification.

The software pipeline SHOGUN profiles known taxonomic and gene abundances of short-read shotgun metagenomics sequencing data. The pipeline is scalable, modular and flexible. Data analysis and transformation steps can be run individually or together in an automated workflow. Users can easily create new reference databases and can select one of three DNA alignment tools, ranging from ultra-fast low-RAM k-mer-based database search to fully exhaustive gapped DNA alignment, to best fit their analysis needs and computational resources. The pipeline includes an implementation of a published method for taxonomy assignment disambiguation with empirical Bayesian redistribution. The software is installable via the conda resource management framework, has plugins for the QIIME2 and QIITA packages and produces both taxonomy and gene abundance profile tables with a single command, thus promoting convenient and reproducible metagenomics research. https://github.com/knights-lab/SHOGUN.

Evalutaion of the Activities in the Turkish Coursebooks (Student’s Books and Workbooks) Used at the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Classes of State Primary School According to Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bu araştırmada Millî Eğitim Bakanlığına bağlı devlet okullarında okutulan, ilkokul 2, 3, ve 4. sınıf Türkçe ders ve çalışma kitaplarında yer alan etkinlikleri, Yenilenmiş Bloom Taksonomisi’nden yararlanarak bilgi birikimi boyutu ve bilişsel süreç boyutu açısından sınıflayıp değerlendirmek ve bu etkinliklerin, üst düzey bilişsel becerilerin gelişimine katkı sağlama potansiyeline sahip olup olmadığını, öğrencinin bilişsel gelişimine uygun bilgiler içerip içemediğini tespit etmek amaçlanmıştır. Araştırmada, nitel araştırma modelinin desenlerinden belge (doküman) incelemesi kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın örneklemini Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’ne bağlı devlet okullarında 2016-2017 yılında okutulan ilkokul düzeyindeki 2, 3, ve 4. sınıf Türkçe ders ve öğrenci çalışma kitaplarında bulunan etkinlikler oluşturmaktadır. Örneklem grubundaki tüm etkinlikler, Yenilenmiş Bloom Taksonomisi belirtke tablosuna, araştırmacı tarafından çeşitli kaynaklardan yararlanılarak hazırlanan bilgi boyutu ve bilişsel beceri boyutu ile ilgili anahtar tablolardan yararlanılarak yerleştirilmiştir. Elde edilen tüm verilerin, SPSS 24 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) istatistik programı kullanılarak frekans, yüzde, iki değişken için iki yönlü kay-kare testi hesaplanmış ve tablolaştırma yapılmıştır. Bu şekilde, araştırma kapsamında toplanan veriler, betimsel analize tâbi tutulmuştur. Araştırmadan elde edilen bulgular; Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’ne bağlı devlet okullarında 2016- 2017 yılında okutulan ilkokul düzeyindeki 2, 3, ve 4. sınıf Türkçe ders ve öğrenci çalışma kitaplarında bulunan etkinliklerin Yenilenmiş Bloom Taksonomisi’nin bilişsel beceri boyutunu oluşturan tüm basamaklarına çeşitli oranlarda dağıldığını, bilgi boyutunu oluşturan tüm gruplardan sadece ilk üç gruba dağıldığını göstermektedir. Elde edilen verilerden 2, 3, ve 4. sınıf Türkçe ders ve öğrenci çalışma kitaplarında bulunan etkinliklerin üst düzey zihinsel becerilerden ziyade daha çok alt düzey zihinsel becerileri ölçtüğü anlaşılmaktadır. Ayrıca 2, 3, ve 4. sınıf Türkçe ders ve öğrenci çalışma kitaplarında bulunan etkinliklerin, sınıf düzeyi bakımından üst düzey zihinsel beceriler ve alt düzey zihinsel becerileri ölçme potansiyeli anlamlı bir farklılık göstermemektedir. Araştırma sonuçlarına dayalı olarak getirilen bazı öneriler şunlardır: MEB tarafından hazırlanan öğretim programları; gelişim psikolojisinin temel ilkelerini, eğitim alanında yaşanan güncel değişimleri ve bilimsel araştırmalar sonucunda ulaşılan bilgileri göz önünde bulundurmalıdır. Bu bağlamda hazırlanan ders ve çalışma kitapları amacına uygun olacaktır. Ders kitapları hazırlanırken alanında uzman kişiler, tüm dünyada benimsenen ilkeleri göz önünde tutarak, toplumun ve çağın gereğini göz ardı etmeden çalışmalıdır. Yapılan bu ve buna benzer araştırmaların sonucu; ders kitaplarındaki etkinliklerin YBT’nin boyutları açısından dengeli bir dağılım göstermediğini ortaya koymuştur. Bu araştırmaların sonuçları MEB tarafından önemsenmeli ve bu konuda kitap hazırlama komisyonunda değerlendirilmek üzere raporlar toplatılmalıdır.

Analisis Struktur dan Kemunculan Tingkat Kognitif pada Desain Kegiatan Laboratorium Materi Fotosintesis

In practical activities usually teachers provide guidance in the form of students’ worksheet or design of laboratory activity. Based on field studies Supriatno (2009), only 24% design laboratory that can be done with the appropriate procedures and complete results in terms of data analysis and conclusion, so it does not support the construction of knowledge. It required the analysis to determine whether design laboratory used already support the construction of knowledge. Design laboratory analysis refers to the Vee diagram and revised Bloom's taxonomy as both lead students to construct knowledge. This research is a descriptive study with purposive sampling technique. The research data captured with a rare test work results table, the table where the component diagram Vee, Vee diagrams scoring table, as well as the revised Bloom's taxonomy table. The results of the 16 samples and 5 samples design laboratory, junior high school design laboratory of photosynthetic material shows that there are still procedural mistakes and instruction unstructured. Vee diagram component analysis results show the general components that arises is the question of focus, the object/event, theories, principles, concepts and knowledge claims. Components that are generally not appear that notes/transformation. Results of the analysis showed scores of each component Vee diagram, Vee diagram on middle and high school degign laboratory generally have not yet reached the ideal score. Results of the analysis showed the emergence of the cognitive level of cognitive level generally required design laboratory in middle and high school, namely C1, C2 and C3, with dominant category procedural C3. This cognitive level is in conformity with the demands of basic competencies middle school, but not in accordance with the demands of basic competencies of high school.

웨딩플래너 선택속성에 관한 에스노그라피적 연구

As the types of wedding ceremonies become diversified, and consumers’ needs become more selective, greater importance is given to wedding planners’ roles in the wedding industry, and consumers require differentiated types of wedding service. As a preliminary qualitative study in this field, an ethnographic study was conducted to identify factors valued by consumers when selecting a wedding planner in the wedding planner market, which has rapidly grown in recent years. An in-depth interview was performed with eight participants in terms of wedding planner utilization type and consumers’ understanding of wedding preparation with a wedding planner. The collected data were analyzed through taxonomy, component analysis and decision table analysis; for validation, professional wedding planners were asked to review the items valued by consumers in selecting a wedding planner. Four factors - expense characteristic, wedding planners, wedding consulting companies, and customer characteristics - were identified, along with eight sub-factors (capability, service attitude, technical communication, personal factors, wedding planner encounter paths, spouse’s satisfaction status, and companies). Out of these, price (within budget), wedding planners’ capability, wedding planners’ service attitude are expected to be meaningful in further research because they were found to be attributes commonly valued by every respondent. This study is significant in that it has made a new approach to understanding wedding planner selection attributes through ethnographic research and identified new wedding planner selection attributes.

Demand-Side Contribution to Power System Frequency Regulation : -A Critical Review on Decentralized Strategies

Abstract Nowadays the contribution of smart load technologies to power system frequency regulation is spurred due to the increasing penetration of renewable energy resources. This paper presents a comprehensive and up-to-date critical review on different decentralized load control strategies. This includes a joint literature- as well as simulation-based investigation in order to scrutinize different decentralized frequency-based load modulation strategies through organizing a taxonomy table and performing different simulation scenarios. Furthermore, the effectiveness of different gain tuning procedures in each control action are scrutinized and compared in terms of frequency nadir and steady state error. The detailed simulation is performed using SimPowerSystem (SPS) toolbox, in phasor mode, on IEEE 39-bus New England test system.

SDN/NFV-Based Mobile Packet Core Network Architectures: A Survey

The emergence of two new technologies, namely, software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV), have radically changed the development of network functions and the evolution of network architectures. These two technologies bring to mobile operators the promises of reducing costs, enhancing network flexibility and scalability, and shortening the time-to-market of new applications and services. With the advent of SDN and NFV and their offered benefits, the mobile operators are gradually changing the way how they architect their mobile networks to cope with ever-increasing growth of data traffic, massive number of new devices and network accesses, and to pave the way toward the upcoming fifth generation networking. This survey aims at providing a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art research work, which leverages SDN and NFV into the most recent mobile packet core network architecture, evolved packet core. The research work is categorized into smaller groups according to a proposed four-dimensional taxonomy reflecting the: 1) architectural approach, 2) technology adoption, 3) functional implementation, and 4) deployment strategy. Thereafter, the research work is exhaustively compared based on the proposed taxonomy and some added attributes and criteria. Finally, this survey identifies and discusses some major challenges and open issues, such as scalability and reliability, optimal resource scheduling and allocation, management and orchestration, and network sharing and slicing that raise from the taxonomy and comparison tables that need to be further investigated and explored.

Meaningful learning and summative assessment in geography education: an analysis in secondary education in the Netherlands

ABSTRACTEnhancing meaningful learning is an important aim in geography education. Also, assessment should reflect this aim. Both formative and summative assessments contribute to meaningful learning when more complex knowledge and cognitive processes are assessed. The internal school-based geography examinations of the final exam in pre-vocational secondary education in the Netherlands are an important test case to reveal the extent to which geography teachers construct examinations containing complex knowledge and cognitive processes. In this study, internal school-based examinations were analyzed based on a taxonomy table derived from a revision of Bloom's taxonomy and discussed with teachers and experts. The results of the content analysis showed that more than half of the test items in the internal school-based examinations are based on remembering knowledge, especially factual and conceptual geographical knowledge.

Knowledge and cognitive process dimensions of Technology teachers’ lesson objectives

A clearly stated lesson objective is considered an essential component of a well-planned lesson. Many teachers of Technology, a relatively new subject in South African schools, teach Technology with rather limited training both in content and methodological approaches. This study sought to investigate and classify lesson objectives framed or implied by teachers in their lesson plans according to knowledge and cognitive process dimensions. The two-dimensional Taxonomy Table introduced by Krathwohl was adapted for Technology and formed the framework for this study. It was found that most of the directly stated objectives are directed to the lower level of the cognitive process dimension and address mainly factual knowledge, while no activities or lesson components address meta-cognitive knowledge. Some lesson objectives inferred from planned assessment activities placed higher demands on learners’ cognitive domain. A recommendation flowing from the study is that, during pre-service training and in-service teacher support processes, the importance of clear lesson objectives should be emphasised and that assessments planned for such lessons should closely match the lesson objectives. Further research is also needed on the reasons why low cognitive demands are made in the teaching of Technology. Keywords : Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy; cognitive process dimensions; higher cognitive skills; knowledge dimensions; Krathwohl’s two-dimensional taxonomy; lesson objectives, technology education