ABSTRACT:
The concept of transdisciplinarity refers to the historically grown organization of science – an issue of sociology of science – and hence is not suitable for epistemological concerns. Instead, it is proposed to broaden the concept and speak of Trans-Domain Approaches (TDAs). Domains are fairly homogeneous knowledge fields that are clearly distinct from other such fields on scientific grounds. A TDA consists either (a) in a General Theory (GT) that connects, integrates and transcends a set of Domain-specific Theories (DTs); or (b) for practical purposes, in an action model that describes how practitioners can deal with DTs in concrete situations, for which no general rules are available. The Is-Ought problem, an important topic in research and in practice, serves as example for the use of TDA. It is shown that Is and Ought are separate domains. In a decision how to act, practitioners need to take both Is and Ought into account and relate them with each other. Further, TDAs can form a hierarchy, which means that the DTs can become GTs of subordinate TDAs. Finally, it is argued that one single universal TDA does not make sense; rather, the TDA will depend on the research topic and the author’s theoretical background.

ABSTRACT:
In this article, we would like to introduce a cross-cultural communication exchange between the University of Venice in Italy and our university in Japan, and we try to show how effective intercultural communication is for the processes of academic globalization. The aim of the exchange is to share ideas with presentations from students based on a theme of Fan Tourism. We incorporate Osland’s model of working abroad based on the hero’s journey and show the relationship between intercultural communication and Osland’s model. We also show the exchange output and discuss how transnational exchange can become a force driving and accelerating academic globalization.

ABSTRACT:
The cultivation of innovative talents is an important development strategy in China. Especially in the stage of basic education, there is an urgent need for specific instructional strategies for cultivating innovative capability. Based on the theories of "Hands-On Inquiry learning" and Constructionism and teaching practice, this study put forward an innovation capability cultivation oriented design-based learning model in junior high school information technology curriculum. The model has three characteristics: simple teaching links, reverse teaching design and equal teacher-student relationship. It is hoped to provide guidance on teaching operation level for frontline information technology classroom teaching, or for other disciplines’, and to provide a reference for international scholars to do the research about constructing instructional models for skill cultivation in the 21st century.

ABSTRACT:
A biological cell is flexible and must deform to pass through a narrow gap. Therefore, in capillaries and in liver and spleen sinusoids, vascular constrictions plays the role of a filter to sort healthy from damaged cells in vivo. In this study, deformation of a cell during accelerated passage through a microgap in a microflow channel was analyzed in vitro. A gap with the rectangular cross section (7 μm height, 0.8 mm width, and 0.1 mm length) was inserted at the middle of a microflow channel using photolithography. Myoblasts (C2C12: mouse myoblast cells) were used in the test. The flow rate of the medium fluid, in which cells were suspended, was controlled by the pressure head between the inlet and outlet. The deformation of smaller cells passing through the microgap with an accelerated velocity was observed with an inverted phase-contrast microscope. The results show that each elongated smalller (diameter < 15 μm) cell tends to tilt parallel to the flow direction during its transit through the gap.

ABSTRACT:
The digital divide as it pertains to information inequality among disadvantaged student populations in higher education is a pertinent problem, and has been further exacerbated by the increase in online learning due to COVID-19. This study explores Technological Access challenges of students at a small public midwestern university in the US that serves a disproportionately higher number of underserved and underrepresented students. Survey data from 535 undergraduate students indicate that a critical subset (n=61) of the sample who were first generation, low income, and nonwhite had significantly lower levels of Technological Access with respect to access to devices and Internet access, when compared to the larger sample. Additionally, nearly half of the sample used smartphones to access courses online. Educational implications of smartphone dependence among disadvantaged students and the consequent digital divide are discussed. As technology induced online learning proliferates, addressing such gaps will be a step toward mitigating inequities plaguing higher education.

ABSTRACT:
Satellite lifetime is one of the important characteristics of satellite design and construction. It’s also of practical importance to know when a satellite is about to fail, as reentry and disposal can become operational matters. Satellite lifetime estimation is not necessarily a one-time action, but can be repeated, and it depends on many factors such as orbital parameters, operational requirements, and various others.

Many products today are designed with safety, quality, and service life in mind. Based on the historical trend in satellite lifetimes, the approach used here is to predict the lifetimes of satellites using half-life values of their launch year cohorts. Half-life calculations can be made using either launch year or failure year cohorts, making a comparison of these of interest in forecasting the future lifetimes of satellites.

This study focuses on analyzing satellite half-lives and using that information to project lifetimes of satellites that are still operational from the satellite launch year. We examine conformance of satellite lifetime data to fitted curves that remove noise from the data and thereby predict lifetimes of satellites from their launch year cohorts.

ABSTRACT:
School of the Future Research Laboratory at the University of São Paulo – USP is 32 years old and since 2010 has been devoted to map and discuss new behaviors among different virtual communities seeking of media and information literacy (MIL), new ways of learning and producing contents on digital platforms. On order to do so we have been developing surveys, virtual ethnography and netnographic studies to map new attitudes and behaviors of contemporary networked actors. This article brings a summary of several findings in the research conducted in the last ten years, demonstrating how the pioneering work of School of the Future researchers points out indicators on the behavior of young communities that are valid to this day and still raise contemporary discussions. In order to do so we will focus on our most extensive netnographic studies developed with young students throughout Brazil in 2012-2014.

ABSTRACT:
The rapid spread of cloud services and the Internet of Things (IoT) leads to a request for secure communication between devices, called zero-trust security. However, security tends to be a low priority compared to the designated service because zero-trust security requires security knowledge. Therefore, a secure communication framework for developers’ service development process is essential as the security measures. The authors have developed CYber PHysical Overlay Network over Internet Communication (CYPHONIC) for secure end-to-end communication between devices. Since the CYPHONIC provides secure communication, it also performs as the secure communication framework. The current implementation requires installing the device program into the end devices to join our overlay network. However, it should support general devices such as embedded devices or dedicated service servers even if they refuse to install the additional program. This paper proposes a new technology to support these general devices without installing the device program into the devices. We developed a CYPHONIC adapter to provide secure communication to general devices. It shows that general devices can communicate over the overlay network through the proposed CYPHONIC adapter.

ABSTRACT:
Audiograms indicate expected ear age when used in studies that address the prevention of deafness resulting from earphone use. So far, the authors have collected data from Japan and other countries, statistically integrated them, and evaluated errors. While a Caucasian population was sampled in a previous study, a Japanese sample was considered in the present study.

The present study refers to the simplest modeling example of an audiogram, which is confirmed to be in good agreement with the actual situation. The gender gap of Japanese people was smaller than that of Caucasians. Furthermore, Japanese and Caucasian females were less likely to have deafness than males, and hearing capabilities of males varied more than that of females. The hearing of young people falls near 3000 Hz as a result of the integration, but it is considered that the graph around the region should be interpolated smoothly.

Improving the modeling accuracy would let us understand various things.

ABSTRACT:
We reflected on our experience in applying for, operating, and renewing a Research Experience for Undergraduates Site program in computational biology from 2016 to 2021 at a metropolitan public university, funded by the National Science Foundation of the U.S.A. Our mistakes during the application process were avoidable in retrospect. Our Interdisciplinary Computational Biology, iCompBio, REU site was a 10-week summer research program that included R and Python coding bootcamps at the beginning and short workshops on various topics interspersed throughout the program. ICompBio was in-person in 2019 and virtual in 2020 and 2021. ICompBio was fortunate to have a team of faculty mentors that were committed to undergraduate research training and recognized the importance of diversity in computational biology. Many students and faculty mentors turned the challenges in virtual REU programs into learning opportunities and had fulfilling research experiences. ICompBio participants reported learning gains higher than average in a 2020 external evaluation for virtual REU sites, particularly in the aspects of Research Self-Efficacy, Science Identity, and Life Utility. Our lessons and experiences may be helpful to other faculty and researchers that are interested in similar programs at their own institutions.

ABSTRACT:
Our world has been permanently changed by the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 starts around the end of 2019. In the first few months of 2020, the whole world was in urgent need of an effective, easy, and quick method for the identification of the infection of the new virus. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine, which can test DNA samples by rapidly making millions of copies of a specific DNA sample through the PCR process, including the COVID-19 virus, can perfectly fit this demand. In this study, a design project on PCR is introduced for undergraduate education in electrical and mechanical engineering. The objective of this project is to develop a low-cost, ease-of-use, wallet-size, portable real-time PCR (RT-PCR) machine for accurate testing of various bacteria or viruses. The key function of the PT-PCR system is to precisely control and maintain the temperature of the biosample solution within a range between 55°C and 95°C. This project provides students opportunities in studying and practicing a wide range of engineering technics and skills, including mechanical design, electronics design, microcomputer programming, data acquisition and processing, etc. Students can gain comprehensive understanding of the design of multiphysics system after they overcome various challenges emerging in the project. From the view of engineering education, the process of this project development has demonstrated the importance and benefits of adopting complex interdisciplinary engineering problems for student teams to solve, especially those involve contemporary issues.

ABSTRACT:
Students need to be engaged into the lab with real-world instrumentation such as Raman spectroscopy which is highly needed into today’s technological world. This study has engaged undergraduate students into problem solving the organic structure of various compounds /functional groups by utilizing i Raman spectroscopy instrumentation. The students understanding of abstract bonding concepts has been utilized by the FBI to solve and analyze unknowns /forensic chemistry compounds of interest. These experiences with the hands-on instrumentation have shown enhanced test scores in organic chemistry as well due to real-world bonding problems being resolved to analyze the unknown organic compounds by Raman spectroscopy.