The Effectiveness of Visual Mind Mapping Strategy for Improving English Language Learners' Critical Thinking Skills and Reading Ability

<p style="text-align: justify;">This study investigated the effectiveness of visual mind mapping as a reading strategy for improving English language learners' critical thinking skills. Students from two general English courses were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. California Critical Thinking Test was used to assess participants' critical thinking skills. The findings revealed a statistically significant difference at (p < .005) in the mean scores of the experiment and control groups in the post-test due to visual mind mapping strategy in favor of the experimental group with a positive and significant impact on participants' critical thinking skills. The findings also showed that the experimental group’s scores were significantly improved in all indicators of critical thinking. The study results showed that visual mind mapping strategy affected the increased of critical thinking skills and reading comprehension ability. The study's findings revealed that using a visual mind mapping strategy had a significant improvement impact on English language learners critical thinking skills and reading ability.</p>

Powerful, efficient QTL mapping in Drosophila melanogaster using bulked phenotyping and pooled sequencing

Despite the value of Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) for the dissection of complex traits, large panels can be difficult to maintain, distribute, and phenotype. An attractive alternative to RILs for many traits leverages selecting phenotypically extreme individuals from a segregating population, and subjecting pools of selected and control individuals to sequencing. Under a bulked or extreme segregant analysis paradigm, genomic regions contributing to trait variation are revealed as frequency differences between pools. Here we describe such an extreme quantitative trait locus, or X-QTL, mapping strategy that builds on an existing multiparental population, the DSPR (Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource), and involves phenotyping and genotyping a population derived by mixing hundreds of DSPR RILs. Simulations demonstrate that challenging, yet experimentally tractable X-QTL designs ( &gt; =4 replicates, &gt; =5000 individuals/replicate, and selecting the 5-10% most extreme animals) yield at least the same power as traditional RIL-based QTL mapping and can localize variants with sub-centimorgan resolution. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach using a 4-fold replicated X-QTL experiment that identifies 7 QTL for caffeine resistance. Two mapped X-QTL factors replicate loci previously identified in RILs, 6/7 are associated with excellent candidate genes, and RNAi knock-downs support the involvement of 4 genes in the genetic control of trait variation. For many traits of interest to drosophilists, a bulked phenotyping/genotyping X-QTL design has considerable advantages.

Mapping Strategy Development Of Traveler Destinations In Empowerment Local Community East Coast In South Sulawesi

Research carried out to identify, analyze, and orientation of the mapping strategy to support the development of tourism destinations empowering local communities and area-based tourism as its leading sector. The approach used is qualitative and quantitative mix techniques. The results showed that developments rating in Sinjai can be seen from 1) traveller, 2) traveller destination, 3) traveller activities, 4) of accommodation used, 5) traveller trips, 6) average expenditure, 7) characteristics of the traveller market. From the description of the results of the study has increased every year. This is because adequate infrastructure increasingly supported sights. The mapping showed an increase and expansion of the traveller area each year. Increased traveller destinations and the availability of adequate infrastructure provide the opportunity for local communities to take part in the tourism industry that contributes to the empowerment of local communities. The government's efforts in promoting the expansion of development opportunities in various sectors of the tourism sector strongly support the improvement of the economy and social life at the local community level.

A Novel Adaptive Sparrow Search Algorithm Based on Chaotic Mapping and T-Distribution Mutation

Aiming at the problems of the basic sparrow search algorithm (SSA) in terms of slow convergence speed and the ease of falling into the local optimum, the chaotic mapping strategy, adaptive weighting strategy and t-distribution mutation strategy are introduced to develop a novel adaptive sparrow search algorithm, namely the CWTSSA in this paper. In the proposed CWTSSA, the chaotic mapping strategy is employed to initialize the population in order to enhance the population diversity. The adaptive weighting strategy is applied to balance the capabilities of local mining and global exploration, and improve the convergence speed. An adaptive t-distribution mutation operator is designed, which uses the iteration number t as the degree of freedom parameter of the t-distribution to improve the characteristic of global exploration and local exploration abilities, so as to avoid falling into the local optimum. In order to prove the effectiveness of the CWTSSA, 15 standard test functions and other improved SSAs, differential evolution (DE), particle swarm optimization (PSO), gray wolf optimization (GWO) are selected here. The compared experiment results indicate that the proposed CWTSSA can obtain higher convergence accuracy, faster convergence speed, better diversity and exploration abilities. It provides a new optimization algorithm for solving complex optimization problems.

Identification of a Novel Salt Tolerance-Related Locus in Wild Soybean (Glycine soja Sieb. & Zucc.)

Salinity is an important abiotic stress factor that affects growth and yield of soybean. NY36-87 is a wild soybean germplasm with high salt tolerance. In this study, two F2:3 mapping populations derived from NY36-87 and two salt-sensitive soybean cultivars, Zhonghuang39 and Peking, were used to map salt tolerance-related genes. The two populations segregated as 1 (tolerant):2 (heterozygous):1 (sensitive), indicating a Mendelian segregation model. Using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers together with the bulked segregant analysis (BSA) mapping strategy, we mapped a salt tolerance locus on chromosome 03 in F2:3 population Zhonghuang39×NY36-87 to a 98-kb interval, in which the known gene GmSALT3 co-segregated with the salt tolerance locus. In the F2:3 population of Peking×NY36-87, the dominant salt tolerance-associated gene was detected and mapped on chromosome 18. We named this gene GmSALT18 and fine mapped it to a 241-kb region. Time course analysis and a grafting experiment confirmed that Peking accumulated more Na+ in the shoot via a root-based mechanism. These findings reveal that the tolerant wild soybean line NY36-87 contains salt tolerance-related genes GmSALT3 and GmSALT18, providing genetic material and a novel locus for breeding salt-tolerant soybean.

Design and Performance Investigation of a Robot-Assisted Flexible Ureteroscopy System

Flexible ureteroscopy (FURS) has been developed and has become a preferred routine procedure for both diagnosis and treatment of kidney stones and other renal diseases inside the urinary tract. The traditional manual FURS procedure is highly skill-demanding and easily brings about physical fatigue and burnout for surgeons. The improper operational ergonomics and fragile instruments also hinder its further development and patient safety enhancement. A robotic system is presented in this paper to assist the FURS procedure. The system with a master-slave configuration is designed based on the requirement analysis in manual operation. A joint-to-joint mapping strategy and several control strategies are built to realize intuitive and safe operations. Both phantom and animal experiments validate that the robot has significant advantages over manual operations, including the easy-to-use manner, reduced intraoperative time, and improved surgical ergonomics. The proposed robotic system can solve the major drawbacks of manual FURS. The test results demonstrate that the robot has great potential for clinical applications.

An Integrated District Mapping Strategy for Loiasis to Enable Safe Mass Treatment for Onchocerciasis in Gabon

The lack of a WHO-recommended strategy for onchocerciasis treatment with ivermectin in hypo-endemic areas co-endemic with loiasis is an impediment to global onchocerciasis elimination. New loiasis diagnostics (LoaScope; Loa antibody rapid test) and risk prediction tools may enable safe mass treatment decisions in co-endemic areas. In 2017–2018, an integrated mapping strategy for onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis (LF), and loiasis, aimed at enabling safe ivermectin treatment decisions, was piloted in Gabon. Three ivermectin-naïve departments suspected to be hypo-endemic were selected and up to 100 adults per village across 30 villages in each of the three departments underwent testing for indicators of onchocerciasis, LF, and loiasis. An additional 67 communities in five adjoining departments were tested for loiasis to extend the prevalence and intensity predictions and possibly expand the boundaries of areas deemed safe for ivermectin treatment. Integrated testing in the three departments revealed within-department heterogeneity for all the three diseases, highlighting the value of a mapping approach that relies on cluster-based sampling rather than sentinel sites. These results suggest that safe mass treatment of onchocerciasis may be possible at the subdepartment level, even in departments where loiasis is present. Beyond valuable epidemiologic data, the study generated insight into the performance of various diagnostics and the feasibility of an integrated mapping approach utilizing new diagnostic and modeling tools. Further research should explore how programs can combine these diagnostic and risk prediction tools into a feasible programmatic strategy to enable safe treatment decisions where loiasis and onchocerciasis are co-endemic.

The Significance of Semantic Hierarchy and Canonicity in Sentence Comprehension: A Study of Persian-speaking Patients With Alzheimer

Introduction: A lot of research in diverse languages has tried to scrutinize the impact of canonicity upon the performance of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Regarding the gap in the Persian setting, this study tried to delve into the nature of this deficit in patients with Alzheimer. Materials and Methods: This is a case series study, and our subjects included 2 Persian- speaking monolingual patients with Alzheimer and 5 healthy elderly individuals matched with each other according to parameters like educational degree, vernacular tongue, and homeland. The categories to be tested included subject agentive, subject experiencer, object experiencer, and object cleft constructions. Results: The results of the sentence completion task demonstrated that problems would emerge when patients with Alzheimer try to comprehend the syntactic structures belonged to 2, 3, and 4 categories. Conclusion: Our findings would demonstrate that patients with Alzheimer have many challenges when trying to map syntactic representation onto semantic realization. This type of deficit escalates when patients attempt to assign thematic roles to psychological predicates. As for the clinical implication of the research, it was recommended that the type of structures utilized by neuropsychiatrists for the communicative purpose be chosen from utterances that are in line with the mapping strategy.