ABSTRACT:
Micro grooves have been designed to trap a biological cell, which flows through a micro channel in vitro. Each micro groove of a rectangular shape (0.002 mm depth, 0.025 mm width and 0.2 mm length) has been fabricated on the surface of the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) disk with the photolithography technique. Variation has been made on the angle between the longitudinal direction of the groove and the flow direction: zero, 0.79, or 1.57 rad. A rectangular flow channel (0.1 mm depth × 5 mm width × 30 mm length) has been constructed with a silicone film of 0.1 mm thick, which has been sandwiched by two transparent PDMS disks. Two types of biological cells were used in the test alternatively: C2C12 (mouse myoblast cell line originated with cross-striated muscle of C3H mouse), or 3T3-L1 (mouse fat precursor cells). A constant flow (2.8 ×10-11 m3/s) of a suspension of cells was introduced with a syringe pump. The behavior of cells moving over the micro grooves was observed with an inverted phase contrast microscope. The results show that the cell is trapped with the micro grooves under the wall shear rate of 3 s-1 for a few seconds and that the trapped interval depends on the kind of cells.

ABSTRACT:
The effect of micro ridges on cells cultured at a vibrating scaffold has been studied in vitro. Several parallel lines of micro ridges have been made on a disk of transparent polydimethylsiloxane for a scaffold. To apply the vibration on the cultured cells, a piezoelectric element was attached on the outside surface of the bottom of the scaffold. The piezoelectric element was vibrated by the sinusoidal alternating voltage (Vp-p < 16 V) at 1.0 MHz generated by a function generator. Four kinds of cells were used in the test: L929 (fibroblast connective tissue of C3H mouse), Hepa1-6 (mouse hepatoma), C2C12 (mouse myoblast), 3T3-L1 (mouse fat precursor cells). The cells were seeded on the micro pattern at the density of 2000 cells/cm2 in the medium containing 10% FBS (fetal bovine serum) and 1% penicillin/ streptomycin. After the adhesion of cells in several hours, the cells are exposed to the ultrasonic vibration for several hours. The cells were observed with a phase contrast microscope. The experimental results show that the cells adhere, deform and migrate on the scaffold with micro patterns regardless of the ultrasonic vibration. The effects of the vibration and the micro pattern depend on the kind of cells.

ABSTRACT:
Western-style scientific methods put a lot of emphasis on the comprehension and theoretical explanation of phenomena, that is, on the accurate modelling of factors that govern system operations. There are a great number of phenomena which are difficult even for well-equipped specialists to observe directly. Our paper, on the one hand, will present the role of informatics in these fields; on the other hand, we will offer a possible methodological structure that can be used both in the classes of informatics (programming) and in the education of the specific field.

In our view, developing programs for the purposes of simulation is an excellent task in the education of programming, because, for one, it is motivating for the students and, for two, it is possible to introduce each linguistic tool to the extent that the students can not only create but also use the program. In our paper we will demonstrate how a few-line-long program can be used to model phenomena taking place inside a container of gas particles and how specific effects like acceleration or force field can be considered.

ABSTRACT:
As information literacy is a key competence of the information society, information literacy instruction in public as well as academic libraries is crucial. Today, librarians do not only act as providers of information but also as educators of the information society’s citizens. The rapid development of information and communications technologies is constantly changing the way we interact with information, making it difficult to keep up to date with instructional trends. This study aims to assess the perceived quality of information literacy instruction in libraries of Canada’s informational cities: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Therefore, librarians were interviewed by means of a questionnaire inspired by the SERVQUAL diagnostic tool. The questionnaire comprises of two parts: The first part consists of questions regarding information literacy instruction, in the second part the focus is on the seven competence areas of information literacy. Based on the difference between the librarians’ “Expectation” and “Experience”, gap scores for all questionnaire items were calculated and are now being presented and discussed.

ABSTRACT:
This study explored the state of psychological well-being and academic optimism in relation to university tasks among one hundred sixty-nine (169) professors in selected UAE universities, utilizing mixed quantitative and qualitative research approaches. The quantitative aspect primarily employed descriptive correlation method which used quantifiable data through survey instruments on psychological well-being, academic optimism, and university tasks. The qualitative analysis was used through a focused group discussion among nineteen (19) key informants. Six (6) areas of psychological wellbeing: autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations, purpose in life, and selfacceptance were measured through the Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being. Academic optimism scale measured three (3) subscales: efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis. University tasks were categorized into three (3) major areas: student centered work, professional development work, and community centered work. The moderator variables considered were age, gender, length of teaching experience, length of experience in the UAE, and area of specialization. The results showed that the participants tend towards high scores in the subscales of autonomy, self-acceptance, and purpose in life. The academic optimism scale showed prominent high scores in efficacy and trust. Among the university tasks, student-centered work was the most fulfilled. Using the focused-group discussion, most expat university professors lament on the lack of time, management support, and lack of funding to pursue professional development, particularly research and publication. The regression analysis showed that there is a significant correlation between psychological well-being and academic optimism. Both psychological well-being and academic optimism predicts fulfillment of university tasks.

ABSTRACT:
This paper presents the comprehensive results of the study of a cohort of college graduate and undergraduate students who participated in playing a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) as a gameplay rich with social interaction as well as intellectual and aesthetic features. We present the full results of the study in the form of inferential statistics and a review of our descriptive statistics previously reported in [46]. Separate one-way independent-measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA)’s were used to analyze the data from several instruments to determine if there were statistically significant differences first by gender, then by age group, and then by degree. Moreover, a one-way repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between the clusters in the 5 gaming clusters on the Game Characteristic Survey. Follow-up paired samples t-tests were used to see if there was a statistically significant difference between each of the 10 possible combinations of paired clusters. Our results support the hypotheses and outline the features that may need to be taken into account in support of tailoring gamified educational content targeting a certain demographic. Sections 1, 2, and 3 below from our pervious study [46] are included because this is the second part of the two-part study.

[46] Tavakkoli, A., Loffredo, D., Ward, M., Sr. (2014). “Insights from Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games to Enhance Gamification in Education”, Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics, and Informatics, 12(4), 66-78.

ABSTRACT:
In terms of network economics, as well as other information services, a social network service (SNS) has two chances—either it gains acceptance (“success breeds success”) and will become standard or it slowly dies. Nowadays, Facebook is the standard in the social network world, however, not in Russia’s and the neighboring countries’ social network communities. Here, Vkontakte, the domestic SNS, dominates. What are the reasons for this success of the regional SNS and the failure of the global giant? We answer this research question while we empirically studied both SNSs, Facebook as well as Vkontakte, among Russian users. In the evaluation, based on the Information Service Evaluation (ISE) Model, we found out that Vkontakte is perceived as more useful than Facebook, is much more trustworthy, and more enjoyable to use. The cultural environment of the Russian community plays an important role as well.

ABSTRACT:
The arrival of new Information and Communication Technology on the world stage has caused a change in the traditional model of management and communication within companies and their customers. Organizations are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) or large companies that are aware of this change and see the need to promote the use of these new technologies through the development of e-administration. This aims to offer significant opportunities, improve the services provided, strengthen organizations work processes and support public policies, so that social development and economic growth is favored. The aim is for sustainable development. This paper tries to explain that the paperless office is something that everyone wants and needs, but why cannot it? Why for SMEs it is more complicated?

Achieve a paperless office is possible, what is needed regardless of the size of the company, it is administrative will, since it is necessary to reform administrative processes.

ABSTRACT:
This paper explores how self-set security goal orientations and self-regulation theory can provide potential venues to motivate end-user sustained IS security compliance. Organisations have found that it is essential to motivate end-users to comply with information security measures and policies on a regular basis. The research aims to obtain an understanding of the relationship between individual IS security goal orientations, self-regulation process and IS security compliance. The outcome of the research will facilitate the establishment of a security training program and communication strategy to increase self-regulated IS security compliance from end-users.

ABSTRACT:
Primary education is the gold stage of personal growth which is the foundation of the comprehensive development of moral, intelligence, physical, art and labor. Therefore, grasping the daily education of primary students is the focus of primary education. The application of big-data analysis could focus on the micro and overall performance of students. Maybe, these data have no significance to the individuals, but the information of all the students could solve many problems in the teaching process. Accordingly the teachers could acquire the real learning level of most of the students in school and more accurately carry out the personalized education and facilitate the efficient study of students.Using the SAS statistical models, this paper mined and analyzed the 3-6 grade's big testing data on Chinese Language courses through the VOSMaP Database of the EduCube project. In this study, the results of two-way ANOVA analysis model can provide the finding and effectively assist educators to solve the child's learning problems. In China the Chinese Language courses of Basic Education focus on the cultivation of loving the motherland language, cultural and social values; it emphasizes on the development of intellectual, morality and sound personality as well as the balanced development of moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, labor and so on. Based on the big data analysis, this paper concludes that the Chinese Language education fused with social values can facilitate the effectiveness of this kind of integration education in China, as well as can provide the educators of this field a new thinking in the big data era.

ABSTRACT:
Statistical properties extracted from text are useful in many areas. Knowing who authored some text or knowing the category of a text is among the uses of collecting such statistics. In this paper, language-independent properties of text are studied using two categorized corpora of news articles. It is observed that the properties do not depend on the corpus nor on its size. Several interesting properties are identified which enable minimizing the training set for an intelligent categorization system. Aside from text categorization, the properties can be used to compare the information content between different corpora. The properties can also be used to compare the rate of new information content between different corpora.

ABSTRACT:
In this paper, a novel gender prediction scheme based on a gait analysis is proposed. For the gait analysis, we propose a novel feature extraction scheme that uses the time series vari- ation in the joint positions directly. Here, normalization by linear interpolation is adopted to set the number of samples of a walking period as the same constant for all target hu- mans. The classifier for gender prediction is constructed with a support vector machine using the feature extraction scheme. To evaluate our proposal, we carried out an experiment for gender prediction using six male and six female humans who are in their twenties. The experimental results show that the classification accuracy is 99.12% when three-dimensional co- ordinates are used directly for feature extraction and 99.12% if two-dimensional features are used in the best case.

ABSTRACT:
Nursing practice is comprised of knowledge, theory, and research [1]. Because of its impact on the profession, the appraisal of research evidence is critically important. Future nursing professionals must be introduced to the purpose and utility of nursing research, as early exposure provides an opportunity to embed evidence-based practice (EBP) into clinical experiences. The AACN requires baccalaureate education to include an understanding of the research process to integrate reliable evidence to inform practice and enhance clinical judgments [1]. Although the importance of these knowledge competencies are evident to healthcare administrators and nursing leaders within the field, undergraduate students at the institution under study sometimes have difficulty understanding the relevance of nursing research to the baccalaureate prepared nurse, and struggle to grasp advanced concepts of qualitative and quantitative research design and methodologies.

As undergraduate nursing students generally have not demonstrated an understanding of the relationship between theoretical concepts found within the undergraduate nursing curriculum and the practical application of these concepts in the clinical setting, the research team decided to adopt an effective pedagogical active learning strategy, team-based learning (TBL). Team-based learning shifts the traditional course design to focus on higher thinking skills to integrate desired knowledge [2]. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of course design with the integration of TBL in an undergraduate nursing research course on increasing higher order thinking.

[1] American Association of Colleges of Nursing, The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice, Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2008. [2] B. Bloom, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain, New York: McKay, 1956.

ABSTRACT:
This paper present a purpose to characterize power lines in order to identify level of operation since the power grid planning. In order to model a power line was required the use of computational tools to generate a mathematical model in MATLAB, which was based on the finite difference method and represent the electromagnetic field (EMF) contribution. The results were contrasted with real and measured values taken from a cross section of a power line that was previously modeled. Statistical analysis showed an accurate estimation of the electric and magnetic field emitted by the line identifying the same shape of the plotted curve and values in an acceptable range.