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The study aimed to develop and validate academic motivation measures among university students. The study adopted the correlational method. An available sample of university students selected from the Faculty of Education, Suez Canal University. The study sample consisted of 453 people. The scales responded online to the students after they accepted the informed consent and wrote their data online in the same submission file. The study investigated the factor structures of the Academic Motivation Scale (three-, four, five-, and seven-factor models). The seven-factor model, the four-factor model, and the five-factor model were the most appropriate. According to the convergent validity, it was positively associated with the motives of autonomy and measures of cognitive styles, However, the lack of motivation subscale was nonsignificant with the Cognitive Styles scale and the Self-motivation subscale. The study indicates the psychological validity of the academic motivation scale for university students.

The study evaluates the Mythematix prototype, an innovative adaptive e-learning system designed specifically to enhance secondary school students' understanding and proficiency in mathematics. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, it combines qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to thoroughly assess students' perceptions and experiences with the Mythematix prototype. The study involved a group of 30 students participating in a comprehensive usability survey, which included a range of Likert scale questions alongside an open-ended response. This survey was designed to evaluate the usability of the prototype, pinpointing its strengths and weaknesses from the students' perspectives. The analysis of the survey results provided detailed insights into the most and least effective aspects of the prototype. Overall, the study contributes valuable insights into the effectiveness of adaptive e-learning platforms in enhancing and enriching students' learning experiences in mathematics, and it lays the groundwork for future research in this evolving educational field.

For the first time, a comprehensive, multidisciplinary remedial system has been introduced in Moroccan schools designed to fill gaps in students' fundamental knowledge. The system is based on the Teaching at The Right Level (TARL) method, the principle of which is to relearn fundamentals according to the student's actual level through interactive, effective, and fun activities. This paper presents a summary of TARL's initial impact after 8 weeks of remediation. Initial analyses of 63,000 pupils show a highly promising effect of teachers in pioneering schools on fundamental knowledge in all three subjects and for all grades. Prior to the project's commencement, a placement test was conducted in September in all pioneer schools involving 300,000 pupils. The results confirmed a deep crisis in learning: almost 80% of pupils had not mastered the fundamental skills taught in the previous year. The vast majority of pupils were more than a year behind, making them highly vulnerable to the risk of failure throughout their school careers. Within this framework, an "After-TARL" test was conducted to measure the initial effects of remediation on fundamental knowledge. An initial evaluation period ran from November 1 to 3, during which all pupils in the schools were tested. Mastery rates of assessed skills multiplied by 4 in mathematics, by 3 in French, and by 2 in Arabic. These initial achievements will need to be consolidated throughout the year to become ingrained in pupils' long-term memory. We conducted an experimental investigation from November 7 to 10 with a pre-selected sample of 1400 students in 76 pioneer schools to confirm the validity of the "After-TARL" test findings in pioneer schools. The same students evaluated by instructors during the initial assessment session from November 1 to 3 were retested by us, the verifiers.

This study attempts to understand the source of variation in the Students' Evaluation of Teaching (SET) of mathematics courses by comparing the data structure of engineering major students and mathematics major students' datasets. The sample considered in this study consists of 644 students distributed into two majors: 237 mathematics students and 407 engineering students who filled out a 20-item SET questionnaire to rate the teaching practices of three different mathematics courses offered by the Department of Mathematics. The hypothesis tested in this study is: that variation in students' perceptions of mathematics course teaching practices is different based on students' majors (Mathematics versus Engineering). Measurement invariance (MI) analyses were used to examine the source of variation in the datasets and to compare engineering and mathematics students' perceptions of the teaching effectiveness of mathematics courses. While the results of this study provide evidence of the SET validity, it was found that engineering students differently perceive three out of twenty of the SET questionnaire items when compared with mathematics major students.

The study aimed to reveal the degree of special education teachers' employment of electronic educational games in teaching the disabled. It also showed statistical differences according to the variables of gender, academic qualification, and years of experience. To achieve the objectives of the study, the descriptive survey method was used. The study sample consisted of (96) male and female teachers, of whom (47) male and (47) female teachers were chosen in a stratified random manner from the Directorate of Education for Najran region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the academic year 2022/2023. A questionnaire consisting of (30) items was used, distributed in three domains: planning, implementation, and evaluation. The results showed that the degree of special education teachers' employment of electronic educational games in teaching students with disabilities obtained a mean of (2.57), with a low degree. The results also showed that there are statistically significant differences in the responses of the study sample about the degree of special education teachers' employment of electronic educational games in teaching students with disabilities due to the variables of academic qualification in favor of postgraduate studies, and years of experience in favor of more than ten years. However, there was no statistically significant difference due to the gender variable. The study recommended that the Ministry of Education should pay attention to holding and organizing various specialized training programs to develop the capabilities of special education teachers to employ electronic educational games in teaching, especially in planning, implementation, and evaluation.

The educational technology designer should know about the learning theories to analyze the needs and design the contents in terms of the target that aimed to reach from learning operations. Educational technology is known as a process that includes many factors, which will provide a good simulation for the students. This research study used a basic qualitative study because it interprets an educational field experience. This is the type of research most commonly used in the fields of education, health, and social work because it is interpretative research. The participants in this study were two college instructors and 10 college students who volunteered to participate in this study. All participants have teaching experience and work in the same school. This study concludes that mixing instructional technology with behavioral theory provides an opportunity to stimulate students through psychological conditions by direct experiences and activities inside the classroom. Mixing instructional technology with constructivist theory allows educators to focus on how students can explore and discover class content and new experiences by explaining their mistakes, ideas, and experiences and the basics of the content.

In order to understand how faculty members, feel about using Moodle as a learning management system (LMS) tool for teaching and learning in Jordanian universities, a mixed-methods study was conducted. Surveys and interviews were used to gather the data. 270 professors from three Jordanian universities took part in the study. The results show that while the participating faculty members thought using Moodle in instruction was a useful teaching tool, they weren't happy with it. The Internet crisis, interaction, the need for education for electronic platforms, online tests, and self-regulation were among the difficulties mentioned by these participants. The potential use of Moodle in education is encouraged through pedagogical implication. In conclusion, the implementation of the Moodle system for distance learning has been very remarkable in recent years. The effectiveness of its use depends on the active involvement of business managers and the willingness of teachers to adopt e-learning. By addressing the challenges ahead and providing incentives for faculty, universities can ensure success and use of the system. As the use of the Moodle LMS continues to grow, it is important to focus on the development of the tool and provide ongoing support to improve its effectiveness and impact on distance education.

This paper aims to assess the impact of the reciprocal teaching strategy on the academic performance of student-teachers enrolled in the Higher Professional Diploma (HDE) program at Ajman University, United Arab Emirates. The study adopts a quasi-experimental design, employing pre- and post-tests and a control-experimental group configuration. The sample comprises 80 student-teachers selected from Ajman University during the second semester of the academic year 2022-2023. An academic achievement test in a multiple-choice format serves as the research instrument. The study's outcomes reveal noteworthy differences, indicating significant mean variations in the post-test scores between the experimental and control groups, favoring the control group in the context of the Reciprocal Teaching strategy. These results hold implications for international students, prompting considerations about the transferability and generalizability of teaching strategies across diverse cultural and educational settings. The findings suggest the broad effectiveness of the reciprocal teaching method, emphasizing the necessity of aligning teaching strategies with international students' specific needs and preferences. The research underscores the importance of tailoring teaching approaches to meet the unique requirements of a diverse cohort of global learners. It suggests that reciprocal teaching demonstrates efficacy across varied groups of international students, emphasizing the importance for instructors to select instructional methods that cater to the distinct needs of their diverse international student body.

The metaverse is rapidly reshaping our understanding of education, yet identifying the public's beliefs, emotions and sentiments towards its adoption in education remains largely uncharted empirically. Grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Digital Diffusion Theory (DOI), this paper aims to fill this gap using a big-data approach and machine learning to scrape comments made by social media users on recent popular posts or videos related to adopting the metaverse in education from three prominent social media platforms. The cleaning process narrowed down 11,024 comments to 4277, then analysed them using thematic, emotion and sentiment analysis techniques. The thematic analysis revealed that adopting the metaverse in education evokes a complex range of public beliefs: (1) innovative learning methods; (2) accessibility and inclusion; (3) concerns about quality and effectiveness; (4) technological challenges and the digital divide; (5) the future of work and skills; and (6) privacy and security concerns. Integrating these themes with emotion and sentiment analyses reveals a landscape of a significant portion of neutral sentiments that corroborates enthusiasm attenuated by caution. This careful consideration stresses the urgent need for a balanced approach to adopting the metaverse in education to ensure that resulting educational advancements benefit all learners equitably. As one of the first studies to offer a multidimensional view of the public's beliefs about metaverse education using big data, this research not only contributes to TAM and DOI but also provides critical insights that could inform policy, enhance educational practices and guide future scholarship in this emerging field.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major global health issue characterized by poor prognosis and complex tumor biology. One of the critical components of the HCC tumor microenvironment (TME) is tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), which play a pivotal role in modulating tumor growth, immune evasion, and metastasis. Macrophages are divided into two major subtypes: pro-inflammatory M1 and anti-inflammatory M2, both of which may exist in TME with altered function and proportion. The anti-inflammatory M2 macrophages are further subdivided into four distinct immune suppressive subsets. TAMs are generally counted as M2-like macrophages with altered immune suppressive functions that exert a significant influence on both cancer progression and the ability of tumors to escape immune surveillance. Their involvement in modulating immune responses via different mechanisms at the local and systemic levels has made them a key target for therapeutic interventions seeking to enhance treatment outcomes. How TAMs depletion influences immune responses in cancer is the primary interest in cancer immunotherapies. The purpose of this review is to delve into the recent progress made in TAM-targeting therapies. We will explore the current theories, benefits, and challenges associated with TAMs depletion or inhibition. The manuscript concludes with future directions and potential implications for clinical practice.

The development of a colloidal synthesis procedure to produce nanomaterials with high shape and size purity is often a time-consuming, iterative process. This is often due to quantitative uncertainties in the required reaction conditions and the time, resources, and expertise intensive characterization methods required for quantitative determination of nanomaterial size and shape. Absorption spectroscopy is often the easiest method for colloidal nanomaterial characterization. However, due to the lack of a reliable method to extract nanoparticle shapes from absorption spectroscopy, it is generally treated as a more qualitative measure for metal nanoparticles. This work demonstrates a gold nanorod (AuNR) spectral morphology analysis tool, called AuNR-SMA, which is a fast and accurate method to extract quantitative structural information from colloidal AuNR absorption spectra. To demonstrate the practical utility of this model, we apply it to three distinct applications. First, we demonstrate this model's utility as an automated analysis tool in a high-throughput AuNR synthesis procedure by generating quantitative size information from optical spectra. Second, we use the predictions generated by this model to train a machine learning model to predict the resulting AuNR size distributions under specified reaction conditions. Third, we apply this model to spectra extracted from the literature where no size distributions are reported and impute unreported quantitative information on AuNR synthesis. This approach can potentially be extended to any other nanocrystal system where absorption spectra are size dependent, and accurate numerical simulation of absorption spectra is possible. In addition, this pipeline could be integrated into automated synthesis apparatuses to provide interpretable data from simple measurements, help explore the synthesis science of nanoparticles in a rational manner, or facilitate closed-loop workflows.

Dynamin 1 (Dyn1) GTPase, a principal driver of membrane fission during synaptic endocytosis, self-assembles into short mechanoactive helices cleaving the necks of endocytic vesicles. While structural information about Dyn1 helix is abundant, little is known about the nanoscale dynamics of the helical scaffolding at the moment of fission, complicating mechanistic understanding of Dyn1 action. To address the role of the helix dynamics in fission, we used High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy (HS-AFM) and fluorescence microscopy to track and compare the spatiotemporal characteristics of the helices formed by wild-type Dyn1 and its K44A mutant impaired in GTP hydrolysis on minimal lipid membrane templates. In the absence of nucleotide, membrane-bound WTDyn1 and K44ADyn1 self-assembled into tubular protein scaffolding of similar diameter encaging the lipid bilayer. In both cases, the GTP addition caused scaffold constriction coupled with formation of 20 to 30 nm nanogaps in the protein coverage. While both proteins reached scaffold diameters characteristic for membrane superconstriction causing fission, the fission was detected only with WTDyn1. We associated the fission activity with the dynamic evolution of the nanogaps: K44ADyn1 gaps were static, while WTDyn1 gaps actively evolved via repetitive nonaxisymmetric constriction-bending deformations caused by localized GTP hydrolysis. Modeling of the deformations implicated filament twist as an additional deformation mode which combines with superconstriction to facilitate membrane fission. Our results thus show that the dynamics of the Dyn1 helical scaffold goes beyond radial constriction and involves nonaxisymmetric deformations, where filament twist emerges as a critical driver of membrane fission.

Glioma evolution is governed by a multitude of dynamic interactions between tumor cells and heterogenous neighboring, non-cancerous cells. This complex ecosystem, termed the tumor microenvironment (TME), includes diverse immune cell types that have gained increasing attention for their critical and paradoxical roles in tumor control and tumorigenesis. Recent work has revealed that the cellular composition and functional state of immune cells in the TME can evolve extensively depending on the tumor stage and intrinsic features of surrounding glioma cells. Concurrently, adaptations to the glioma cellular phenotype, including activation of various cellular states, occur in the context of these immune cell alterations. In this review, we summarize important features of the immune TME that play key roles during each stage of glioma progression, from initiation to immune escape, invasion and recurrence. Understanding the complex interplay between tumor and immune cells is critical for the development of effective immunotherapies for glioma treatment.

SYNGAP1 is a high-confidence autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk gene, and mutations in SYNGAP1 lead to a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) that presents with epilepsy, ASD, motor developmental delay, and intellectual disability. SYNGAP1 codes for Ras/Rap GTP-ase activating protein SynGAP (SynGAP). SynGAP is located in the postsynaptic density of glutamatergic synapses and regulates glutamate receptor trafficking in an activity-dependent manner. In addition to forebrain glutamatergic neurons, Syngap1 is highly expressed in the striatum, although the functions of SynGAP in the striatum have not been extensively studied. Here we show that Syngap1 is expressed in both direct and indirect pathway striatal projection neurons (dSPNs and iSPNs) in mice of both sexes. In a mouse model of Syngap1 haploinsufficiency, dendritic spine density, morphology, and intrinsic excitability are altered primarily in iSPNs, but not dSPNs. At the behavioral level, SynGAP reduction alters striatal-dependent motor learning and goal-directed behavior. Several behavioral phenotypes are reproduced by iSPN-specific Syngap1 reduction and, in turn, prevented by iSPN-specific Syngap1 rescue. These results establish the importance of SynGAP to striatal neuron function and pinpoint the indirect pathway as a key circuit in the neurobiology of SYNGAP1-related NDD.

Archaeal group II chaperonins, also known as heat shock proteins (HSPs), are abundantly expressed in Sulfolobales. HSPα and HSPβ gene expression is upregulated during thermal shock. HSPs form large 18-mer complexes that assist in folding nascent proteins and protecting resident proteins during thermal stress. Engineered HSPs have been designed for industrial applications. Since temperature flux in the geothermal habitats of Sulfolobales impacts intracellular temperature, it follows that HSPs have developed thermotolerance. However, despite the low pH (i.e., pH < 4) typical for these habitats, intracellular pH in Sulfolobales is maintained at ~6.5. Therefore, it is not presumed that HSPs have evolved acid-tolerance. To test tolerance to low pH, HSPs were studied at various pH and temperature values. Both circular dichroism and intrinsic fluorescence indicate that HSPα and HSPβ retain structural integrity at neutral pH over a wide range of temperatures. Structural integrity is compromised for all HSPs at ultra-low pH (e.g., pH 2). Secondary structures in HSPs are resilient under mildly acidic conditions (pH 4) but Anilino naphthalene 8-sulfonate binding shows shifts in tertiary structure at lower pH. Trypsin digestion shows that the HSPβ-coh backbone is the most flexible and HSPβ is the most resilient. Overall, results suggest that HSPα and HSPβ exhibit greater thermostability than HSPβ-coh and that there are limits to HSP acid-tolerance. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations complement the wet lab data. Specifically, MD suggests that the HSPβ secondary structure is the most stable. Also, despite similarities in pH- and temperature-dependent behavior, there are clear differences in how each HSP subtype is perturbed.

BACKGROUND: Contemporary surgical practices for traumatic brain injury (TBI) remain unclear. We describe the clinical profile of an 18-centre US TBI cohort with cranial surgery. METHODS: The prospective, observational Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury Study (2014-2018; ClinicalTrials.gov #NCT02119182) enrolled subjects who presented to trauma centre and received head computed tomography within 24-h (h) post-TBI. We performed a secondary data analysis in subjects aged ≥17-years with hospitalisation. Clinical characteristics, surgery type/timing, hospital and six-month outcomes were reported. FINDINGS: Of 2032 subjects (age: mean = 41.4-years, range = 17-89-years; male = 71% female = 29%), 260 underwent cranial surgery, comprising 65% decompressive craniectomy, 23% craniotomy, 12% other surgery. Subjects with surgery (vs. without surgery) presented with worse neurological injury (median Glasgow Coma Scale = 6 vs. 15; midline shift ≥5 mm: 48% vs. 2%; cisternal effacement: 61% vs. 4%; p