Volume 7, Issue 1

The research investigated the consequence of self-regulated learning on students’ academic performance in physics, using selected public co-education schools in Aguata Educational Zone, Anambra State as the research area. The study became necessary as a result of the observed persistent poor performance of the student in Physics in external examinations over the years. The study made use of quasi-experimental research design method. The research information was gathered from the control and experimental groups and was investigated by mean, standard deviation and ANCOVA. The tests were conducted at 0.05 significant levels. The results showed that students taught using self-regulated learning strategy had more impressive mean success scores than those taught using conventional method. The result revealed also that there was no substantial difference between the mean success scores of the male and female students. However, there was substantial difference in the mean scores of rural and urban students in favour of rural students. The interaction effects of strategy and gender on one hand and strategy and location on the other hand, were not statistically significant. The research concluded that self-regulated learning strategy has great impact on students’ mean success scores in physics.

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Kahoot is one of the most popular learning platforms, with over 2.5 billion players per year worldwide, used mainly for knowledge review through gamification. However, students´ opinion and its effectiveness in online distance learning as well as in another language teaching has been little studied. With these aims, this study was carried out in the second semester of 2020/21 academic year, with 73 students of the double degree between “Food Science and Technology” at University of Extremadura in Spain (UEx) and “Food Quality and Safety” at Chongquin University in China (UEC). Due to COVID-19 disease, lessons were completely online through Zoom platform. To review the theoretical content a Kahoot quiz with 15 questions was given at the end of each lesson. In the middle and at the end of the course, a partial and a final exam was held repeating two aleatory questions from each Kahoots gamed after each lesson, to determine the knowledge memorisation. For the recognition of the different plant species studied, four Kahoots were carried out with 11 questions, and a final exam repeating eight photos was carried out. Finally, students filled in the feedback available on the website itself to determine their opinion of Kahoot. The results showed the effectiveness of using the Kahoots as a tool to reinforce knowledge, not only in theoretical content, with increases of 26.0 and 31.4% in the remembering, but also in the recognition of plant species, with an increase of 17.3%. Student feedback was very positive, with more than 95% finding the tool not only fun, but that it had helped them learn and would recommend it. However, about 12% of the students had an indifferent or negative perception of its use, and this should be explored further in future research.

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C programming is taught in a lot of universities across the world as the first computer programming language. Then, for novice students, it is important to read many simple C source codes and understand their behaviors to be familiar to the programming paradigm. Unfortunately, effective tools to support independent code reading study at home have not been well designed. Heretofore, we have proposed the value trace problem (VTP) for Java programming. A VTP instance consists of one source code, several questions, and the correct answers to them. Each question asks the value of a critical variable or output message in the source code. The correctness of any student answer is checked instantly by string matching at the answer interface for self-study. In this paper, we present the value trace problem (VTP) for code reading self-study of C programming. 42 VTP instances are generated using simple C source codes on basic grammar concepts and fundamental data structures & algorithms in textbooks and websites. In addition, for hard instances on pointer and algorithms, the devices of hints, multiple choice questions, and references are provided to improve their solution performances. For evaluations, we requested 49 undergraduate students in Japan, China, and Myanmar to independently solve them at home. Their average correct answer rate reached 94.29%, where our devices for hard instances improved it by 33.26%. Thus, the effectiveness of our proposal is confirmed in motivating self-study of C programming to novice students.

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The main goal of the work is to determine the basic conceptual solutions of a nuclear reactor operating on the surface of another planet. The problem was solved using the example of the Martian nuclear power plant. The article uses calculation and optimization research methods and corresponding program codes (well-known and author’s). The results of the study made it possible to formulate the basic requirements for the Martian nuclear power plant and select the type of reactor. This is a new type of reactor: pressurized liquid metal fast reactor. It is proposed to use an innovative cermets nuclear fuel based on mixed mononitride and uranium metal nanopowder, which was previously considered by the author for new generation BN and BREST ground-based reactors. It is proposed to use a eutectic (or near-eutectic) NaKCs alloy as a coolant. Optimization of the alloy composition has been carried out. The fuel and coolant of the reactor contains long-lived radioactive waste to be transmuted. NaKCs alloy is less reactive than pure alkali metals including Na, K and Cs. With an electric power of 600 MW, it is possible to ensure the internal self-protection of the reactor. All emergency modes of the ATWS type (anticipated transient without scram) are not hazardous. This means that with a decrease in power to values characteristic of the initial stages of the colonization of Mars, the safety of the reactor is easily ensured. The relatively low chemical activity of the coolant makes it possible to use a two-circuit energy conversion scheme. The second circuit can use water or carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is preferred because of its presence in the atmosphere of Mars (95% CO2). The significance of the research lies in the possibility of constructing a Martian nuclear power plant within the framework of existing technologies.

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The technological revolution penetrates every aspect of our dailylives; it changed our lives in different fields such as communication, decision-making, information access and work environment. These changes have benefits, but they also have costs. These costs include many ethical and social problems that need more investigation. The human element is the most affected part of this technological revolution; it affects our sense of privacy, our concepts of ownership, our consumption patterns and human relationships. A comprehensive review of various ethical concerns of using social media and how they affect our lives has been outlined in this paper. This study gives some recommendations and advices that help the society and reduce the heinous crimes that take place over social media.

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This paper reports on the successful deposition of amorphous carbon nitride thin films (a-CNx). Samples were deposited using a DC-pulsed sputtering technique in CH3CH2OH-N2 atmosphere at constant pressure (1 Torr). Raman spectra were collected to investigate the bonding structure of the deposed thin films, while scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to study thin-film surface morphology. Plasma characterization was performed during the deposition process using optical emission spectroscopy (OES), and the influence of the deposition process parameters on the chemical fragmentation of species present in the plasma was determined. Raman results were typical for a-CNx films, and SEM analysis showed that carbon clusters deposited onto the Cu substrate form a non-homogeneous surface. The morphology observed by AFM indicated that the thin films grow as islands, which corroborate the generation of amorphous structures grown on the Cu surface. OES spectra verified the existence of CN radicals within the CH3CH2OH/N2 plasma during thin-film deposition.

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Sustainable energy is gradually becoming the norm today due to greenhouse warming effects; as a result, the quests for different renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic cells as well as energy efficient electrical appliances are becoming popular. Therefore, this article explores the alternative energy case for thermoelectricity with focus on the steady-state mathematics, mixed modelings and simulations of multiple TEGs and TECs modules to study their performance dynamics and to establish their optimal operation points using Matlab and Simulink. The research substantiates that the output current from TEGs or input current to TECs, initially respectively increases the output power of TEGs and the cooling power of TECs, until the current reaches a certain maximum optimal point, after which any further increase in the current, decreases the TEGs’ and or TECs’ respective output and cooling powers as well as efficiencies, due to Ohmic heating and or entropy change caused by the increasing current. The research main contributions are elaborate easy to understand TEGs/TECs theoretical formulations as well as static and dynamic simulated models in Matlab/Simulink, that can be used initially to dynamically investigate an infinite quantity of TEG and TEC modules connections, be it in series and or in parallel. This is to assist system designers grasp TEGs and TECs theoretical operations better and their limits, when designing energy efficient waste heat recovery (using TEGs)/cooling (using TECs) systems for industrial, residential, commercial and vehicular applications.

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The transmission network has been considered among the globe’s prevalent complex systems, comprised of hundreds of electrical transmission lines and other equipment used to transmit electrical energy from one location to another. Over a decade, power engineers have worked tirelessly to ensure that the transmission network operates reliably, transmitting electrical energy from the power station to the consumers without interruption. With growing generation capacity and the recent introduction of renewable energy systems (RES) such as wind turbines and solar energy, the transmission lines are increasingly being forced to run near their design limitations and greater unpredictability on the network operational configuration. As a result, the transmission network faces greater challenges than previously. As a worst-case scenario, large-scale electrical network power outages caused by electrical faults can disrupt electricity availability for several hours, impacting millions of customers and inflicting massive economic damage. These electrical faults must be repaired before electricity is restored to consumers. This necessitates a thorough grasp of the challenge and potential remedies to assure improved power efficiency. In the present work, an expansion of preceding work, a novel algorithm for estimating faults on transmission lines is presented. Impedance-based techniques are susceptible to producing errors or incorrect predictions. The presence of faults induced from high impedance sources produces an extra impedance to the ground, which negates the impedance calculation and produces errors in the distance to the fault. This results in inaccuracies that can affect a distance-to-fault estimation by 1-15 % of the overall line length. In this work, a design of a fault detection-location element (FDLE) algorithm is proposed. This algorithm relies on the dynamics of current and voltage signals on the transmission line while deserting impedance. Comparison research is undertaken against the impedance-based techniques to validate the proposed algorithm. Finally, the proposed algorithm findings are compared to fault location estimations using an impedance-based technique. Extensive trials on a simulated transmission line prove that the proposed algorithm is responsive to faults with an error as low as 1%, reaching a precision of 98.9%.

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The present work develops an estimator for thermal conductivity using a simple exper- iment implemented in a simulated solid metallic bar. The bar is sectioned in a finite number of segments, lately called nodes, and a discretization of the Fourier heat equation is applied in each node to generate a timed-spaced model of the temperature behavior along the bar. Considering only one-dimensional heat flow, an algorithm based on the temperature measured in each node generates the calculus of the estimated thermal conductivity for every segment of the bar. The calculations of thermal conductivity depends on previous values, such as temperature measurements and adjacent segments thermal conductivity, leading to an error propagation. The analysis of uncertainty related to this values is used to establish a range of values for thermal conductivity estimation. Using the proposed technique allows to calculate thermal conductivity in real time and add to the results a uncertainty estimation for thermal conductivity, providing a more complete information about the measurement procedure. Knowing the uncertainty allows to indicate, in statistical terms, the dispersion of the actual values for thermal e values calculated may vary from real, a higher uncertainty implies a lest reliable calculation according to statistics.

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Photovoltaic systems are classified as non-linear systems. On the other hand, the characteristics of photovoltaic cells are non-linear. For this reason, researchers use several methods of maximum power monitoring (MPPT) to improve the performance of photovoltaic system. It is therefore necessary to use an adaptation stage between the photovoltaic generator (GPV) and the load to take out at any time the maximum power available of the GPV and to transfer it to the load. This stage acts as an interface between the two elements by ensuring the transfer of the maximum power supplied by the generator using a control system used for this purpose. This work described a study on two Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) techniques, classic sliding mode control (SMC) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) for controlled boost chopper. The decisive simulation results that by applying the PSO and the conventional SMC to a well-built model, the PSO achieves high precision results compared to the sliding mode control. In fact, we have suggested a new MPPT method based on the optimization of the command parameters in sliding mode by the PSO optimization algorithm.

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Using Proofs of Retrievability (PORs), a file owner is able to check that a cloud server correctly stores her files. Using Proofs of Retrievability and Reliability (PORRs), she can even verify at the same time that the cloud server correctly stores both her original files and their replicas. In 2020, a new PORR combined with Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs) was presented by Gritti. VDFs are special functions whose evaluation is slow while verification is fast. Therefore, those functions help guarantee that the original files and their replicas are stored at rest. Moreover, an important feature of the 2020 PORR solution is that anyone can verify the cloud provider’s behaviour, not only the file owner. This paper extends Gritti’s version. In particular, a realistic cloud framework is defined in order to implement and evaluate accurately. Results show that this PORR solution is well suitable for services provided for cloud storage.

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