Search Results (162)

In today’s fast-changing world, the higher education system must evolve to enhance the quality of learning and teaching. Fulfilling the role of a university is a major challenge. Universities must implement strategies that place the student at the center of their concerns; so, these strategies must be designed for and by the student. However, the high university dropout rate is one of the current problems faced by many universities. This suggests that there are some issues that hinder the learning process. Several studies have highlighted the advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in providing explorative and predictive analyses that explain why students are dropping out, with the aim of improving the quality of teaching and providing an integrated learning environment. This paper proposes a framework that predicts student dropout rates using machine learning techniques, based on data collected from various sources. Data collection was carried out between 2022 and 2024. We used a quantitative analysis method employed through a questionnaire distributed to 120 students (aged 18–26) from open access faculties of a Moroccan public university to identify the factors leading to an increase in university dropout rates. We discuss the impact of selected variables, and the findings show that several factors are related to university dropout rates, such as social background, psychological and health problems, insufficient motivation of professors, limited perspective on educational programs, changes in language and teaching methodologies, absenteeism, student attitude, and a lack of interaction between professors and students. Full article

This study conducts a comprehensive literature review to explore the potential and challenges of integrating game-based learning (GBL) into formal history education. Given the increasing interest in the educational value of games, this review systematically examines academic research published over the past fifteen years. The analysis focuses on two major themes: (1) the development and theoretical underpinnings of history-related game-based learning, and (2) the difficulties encountered when implementing GBL in formal education systems, including issues related to curriculum alignment, teacher readiness, and instructional assessment. Drawing on 118 selected high-impact publications, this review identifies both the pedagogical benefits and the structural limitations of using historical games in the classroom. The findings highlight that while game-based learning holds promise in improving students’ engagement, motivation, and understanding of historical content, its practical implementation requires careful instructional design, sufficient resources, and alignment with national educational standards. This review concludes by proposing a set of strategic recommendations to guide future integration efforts of GBL into history education. As a literature review, this study does not involve empirical data collection but rather synthesizes existing research findings to inform educational practice and future inquiry. Full article

Searching for very-high-energy photons arising from dark matter interactions in selected astrophysical environments is a promising strategy to probe the existence and particle nature of dark matter. Among the many particle candidates, motivated by the extensions of the Standard Model, Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are considered the most compelling candidate for the elusive dark matter in the universe. In this contribution, we report an overview of the important developments in the field of indirect searching for dark matter through cosmic gamma-ray observations. We mainly focus on the role of atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes in probing the dark matter. Finally, we emphasize the opportunities for the Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment (MACE) situated in Hanle, India, to explore WIMPs in the mass range of 200 GeV to 10 TeV for Segue1 and Draco dwarf–spheroidal galaxies. Full article

This systematic literature review (SLR) provides a comprehensive application-wise analysis of machine learning (ML)-driven predictive maintenance (PdM) across industrial domains. Motivated by the digital transformation of industry 4.0, this study explores how ML techniques optimize maintenance by predicting faults, estimating remaining useful life (RUL), and reducing operational downtime. Sixty peer-reviewed articles published between 2020 and 2024 were selected using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines, and were analyzed based on industrial sector, ML techniques, datasets, evaluation metrics, and implementation challenges. Results show that combining ML with diverse sensor data enhances predictive performance under varying operational conditions across manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and transportation. Frequently used open datasets include the commercial modular aero-propulsion system simulation (CMAPSS), the malfunctioning industrial machine investigation and inspection (MIMII), and the semiconductor manufacturing process (SECOM) datasets, though data heterogeneity and imbalance remain major barriers. Emerging paradigms such as hybrid modeling, digital twins, and physics-informed learning show promise but face issues like computational cost, interpretability, and limited scalability. The findings highlight future research needs in model generalizability, real-world validation, and explainable artificial intelligence (AI) to bridge gaps between ML innovations and industrial practice. Full article

Background/Objectives: Direct-to-Consumer Orthodontics (DTCO) has gained popularity through social media, offering clear aligner treatments without in-person supervision. However, there is limited research on the related user experiences, satisfaction, and complications, particularly in Spain. This study aimed to evaluate user experiences, satisfaction levels, and complications associated with DTCO in a sample of Spanish consumers. Additionally, differences among major DTCO providers were analyzed. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted over one year. This questionnaire, adapted from previous studies and reviewed by certified orthodontists, assessed user awareness, reasons for treatment selection, communication with providers, discomfort, complications, and satisfaction. A total of 101 valid responses were analyzed using statistical means. Results: The majority of respondents reported that their expectations were not met, and they would not recommend DTCO. Cost was the primary motivation for treatment selection, followed by convenience. Many users experienced complications, leading to dental consultations. While overall satisfaction levels did not significantly differ among providers, variations were observed in discomfort levels, in-person care availability, and the need for additional consultations. Conclusions: DTCO offers affordability and convenience but raises concerns regarding treatment quality and supervision. In most cases, users’ expectations were not met, highlighting the need for greater patient education and regulatory oversight. Full article

Edible insects constitute a healthy food source providing a sustainable alternative to traditional animal protein. The present study explored consumers’ perceptions and attitudes toward insect consumption, and defined the main motivational factors influencing public awareness and acceptance toward entomophagy. Using a qualitative research design, individual-level data were selected from a sample of 70 consumers in Greece via semi-structured personal in-depth interviews. The Grounded Theory framework was adopted to develop awareness, perception and acceptance drivers. Although the participants were knowledgeable about the usage of insects as food, the great majority demonstrated abhorrence toward entomophagy, describing feelings of disgust and repulsion. Furthermore, the respondents seemed to be reluctant towards the distribution and availability of edible insects and insect-based food options in consumer markets, whereas food safety concerns were strong as many consumers seemed to question the relevant preparation regulations. A lack of information and cultural influences were found to restrict consumers’ acceptance of entomophagy, whereas health and food safety concerns comprised an inhibiting factor in incorporating edible insects in Greek cuisine. This study emphasized the need for a holistic information plan, which will help both food businesses and consumers understand the vital role of edible insects in modern food environments. Full article

Background: The school curriculum is increasingly aligned with real-world contexts and transversal skills. Simultaneously, conceptions of intelligence now emphasize contextual, motivational, and emotional dimensions. These shifts raise questions about the relevance of classical intelligence tests in predicting academic achievement, particularly during adolescence, a time of major curricular and developmental changes. Methods: Two independent samples of students, sixth–ninth grades (n = 1708) and tenth–twelfth grades (n = 3007), were randomly selected from public schools across Portugal. Cognitive abilities were measured by “Bateria de Aptidões Cognitivas” (BAC-AB), with nine subtests combining three contents (spatial, verbal, numerical) and three cognitive processes (comprehension, reasoning, problem solving). School achievement considers students’ grades in Portuguese and Mathematics. Results: Subtest scores were higher in advanced grades, particularly in early adolescence. The correlations between cognitive subtests and academic achievement suggested that alignment between test item content and curriculum subjects is more influential than cognitive processes. Subtest scores explained a larger proportion of variance in academic achievement in basic education than in secondary education. Conclusions: Curricular changes may reduce reliance on classical cognitive abilities for academic achievement, though correlations remain significant. More integrated cognitive skills are emphasized as the curriculum aims to prepare students for understanding complexity, adapting to societal changes, and applying knowledge to respond effectively to challenges in and outside of school. Full article

Background: Social media (SM) use has become an integral aspect of daily life. Overutilization of SM can adversely impact an individual’s physical and emotional well-being, especially that of students. This study evaluated the potential impact of SM addiction on anxiety and academic performance among university students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among medical ad non-medical students at Qassim University during September 2022–April 2023 after obtaining the Ethics Committee’s permission. Raosoft was used for calculating the sample size, and participants were selected through convenience sampling. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze and interpret the results, using SPSS version 25. Results: A total of 269 students participated in the study. The majority of them were male (52%), with a mean age of 22.28. The main purpose of SM usage was entertainment, followed by communication. More than 30% of them were using SM for 4–6 h per day, accessing SM 1–10 times in a day, with more than half of them feeling that they had SM addiction and that it was affecting their daily activities and sleep. The majority of them agreed that SM can be used for group discussion (78.1% vs. 71.6%) and knowledge sharing (93.7% vs. 90%). However, a statistically significant difference was observed about anxiety level between the two groups. A negative correlation was found between cumulative grade point average (CGPA) and anxiety level. Conclusion: The findings suggest that SM has both positive and negative effects on academic performance and social anxiety. Continuous education and motivation about wise use of SM is warranted among students by parents, university authorities, and policymakers. Full article

Background/Objectives: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global health challenge, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Understanding the knowledge, attitudes, motivations, and expectations of community members regarding antimicrobial use is essential for effective stewardship interventions. This scoping review aimed to identify key themes relating to the critical areas regarding antimicrobial use among community members in primary healthcare (PHC), with a particular focus on LMICs. Methods: OVID Medline, PubMed, and CINAHL databases were searched using Boolean operators and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms relevant to antimicrobial use and community behaviors. The Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Study Design (PICOS) framework guided study selection, which focused on community members seeking care in PHC in LMICs. Data management and extraction were facilitated using the Covidence platform, with the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) qualitative checklist applied for qualitative studies. A narrative synthesis identified and grouped key themes and sub-themes. Results: The search identified 497 sources, of which 59 met the inclusion criteria, with 75% of the studies conducted in outpatient primary care settings. Four key themes were identified: (1) the ’patient’ theme, highlighting beliefs, knowledge, and expectations, which was the most prominent (40.5%); (2) the ’provider’ theme, emphasizing challenges related to clinical decision-making, knowledge gaps, and adherence to guidelines; (3) the ’healthcare systems’ theme, highlighting resource limitations, lack of infrastructure, and policy constraints; and (4) the ‘intervention/uptake’ theme, emphasizing strategies to improve future antibiotic use and enhance access to and quality of healthcare. Conclusions: Stewardship programs in PHC settings in LMICs should be designed to be context-specific, community-engaged, and accessible to individuals with varying levels of understanding, involving the use of information and health literacy to effectively reduce AMR. Full article

Drug abuse is a major public problem in the workplace, traffic, and forensic issues, which requires a standardized test device to monitor on-site drug use. For field testing, the most important requirements are portability, sensitivity, non-invasiveness, and quick results. Motivated by this problem, a point of care (POC) test based on lateral flow assay (LFA) was developed for the detection of cocaine (COC) and methamphetamine (MET) in saliva which has been selected as the matrix for this study due to its rapid and non-invasive collection process. In the design strategy of an LFA test, the use of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with strong optical properties has been combined with the advantages of selecting aptamers under in vitro conditions, making it a highly specific and stable recognition probe for the detection of small molecules in saliva. The developed aptamer-based LFA in a competitive format, was able to detect COC and MET in synthetic saliva at concentrations as low as 5.0 ng/mL. After analytical performance studies, the test system also detected COC and MET in real patient samples, which was verified by chromatographic methods. Full article

Background: Vaccination is one of the most effective ways of protecting individuals against serious infectious diseases and their fatal consequences. Objectives: The aim of this scoping review was to synthesize data on parental attitudes toward vaccination and identify factors influencing the motivators and barriers to children’s vaccination based on Polish studies. Methods: The scoping review process and reporting were based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScRs) checklist. In the period between January 2014 and July 2024, the following databases were searched for publications: PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane, Ebsco, and Scholar Google. Results: A total of 1531 potentially relevant records were reviewed, and 30 original publications from research samples collected in Poland were selected. According to the findings, vaccination rates varied between 100% and 70%, with parental acceptance levels for mandatory vaccination ranging from 99% to 65%. Parents most commonly cited the physician, the nurse, and the Internet as their primary sources of vaccination-related information. Moreover, parental primary motivators for vaccinating their children were prevention against infectious diseases, the opinion that vaccines are safe, and the belief that childhood vaccination is right and effective. The major barriers to vaccination were fear of vaccine side effects and the belief that vaccines are ineffective. Parents that were better educated, were of younger age, lived in cities, and had a higher income were much more likely to vaccinate their children. Conclusions: Understanding parental attitudes toward vaccination may help develop an educational program aimed at combating misinformation and increasing childhood vaccination coverage rates. Full article

The question of how to assess the comprehensive competitiveness of tourist destinations within cities is an important aspect for determining the potential of a city’s tourism development and its ranking among peers in the field. There are four main parts to the content of this article, which consist of the analysis of competition formation motives based on “Field Theory”, the selection of influencing factors by drawing on Porter’s theory of competitiveness, the construction of an assessment model based on the multi-factors weighted comprehensive evaluation method, and an empirical analysis using Nanjing as the research area. The conclusions are as follows: Firstly, the tourist destination field within a city is composed of three interrelated elements, which are actors, rules, and competition. Under the influence of mainstream social and cultural trends, each tourist destination occupies a certain “position” by relying on the attractiveness formed by various types of capital, and then participates in peer competition within the field. Secondly, the three major influencing aspects of the competitiveness of tourist destinations are element conditions, demand characteristics, and supporting conditions. The key points involved in the three aspects can be summarized into four categories of factors, namely, quality evaluation, popularity level, spatial attractiveness, and emotional cognition, which together constitute the indicator system. Thirdly, there are thirteen tourist destinations in Nanjing that are rated above the average, accounting for about 43% of all the popular destinations. The variation coefficient of competitiveness results is about 35%, indicating a moderate to relatively weak degree of dispersion. Finally, the competitiveness of the thirty hot tourist destinations generally presents a spatial order that gradually weakens in an outward direction from the center zone of the city, forming an overall pattern of cluster groups of well-known tourist destinations in the core of the city, relatively random small clusters in the new main city area, and scattered point distribution in the suburbs. Full article

Physical inactivity among undergraduate university students has been considered a public health concern. To address this, researchers have utilized consensus workshop approaches to develop effective physical activity (PA) recommendations. However, the existing research has limitations: it is outdated, not context-specific to young adults, and does not account for psychosocial factors (such as mental health, motivation, and social support) that hinder or promote PA behavior, particularly in South Africa. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to engage with stakeholders to achieve a consensus on a set of context-specific guidelines to enhance the physical activities of undergraduate university students. Utilizing the Social Ecological Model, this study employed two online consensus workshops with 25 purposively selected stakeholders (Round 1 = 8 and Round 2 = 17). Stakeholders were divided into breakout rooms via the Google Meets feature, to discuss and brainstorm the guidelines, expressing their agreement or disagreement with the proposed names and descriptions. The consensus was considered achieved when the majority of stakeholder responses fell into the ‘Agree with the guideline’ category. An inductive thematic analysis approach was used to generate common themes, which were then coded via Atlas Ti. V8. Stakeholders reached a consensus on four categories and 32 guidelines, namely, PA (9 guidelines), mental health (7 guidelines), motivation (9 guidelines), and social support (7 guidelines). Each category, along with its respective set of guidelines, provides insights into the type of information undergraduate students require to enhance their PA participation. Using a consensus workshop facilitated the co-creation of context-specific guidelines to enhance the physical activities of undergraduate university students. This approach proved to be a valuable tool for fostering collaboration between academic staff and students. Full article

In this study, we respond to calls for more research on the motivation to learn a third language (L3), especially regarding how this motivation is influenced by linguistic distance in various second language (L2) contexts. We employed a comparative and mixed-method design to investigate whether L3 learners with a “longer L2–L3 linguistic distance” show significantly different L3 motivational constructs compared with L3 learners with a “shorter L2–L3 linguistic distance”. We recruited sixty university students majoring in English who were enrolled under same program curriculum in China, with half of them selecting French as their L3 and with the other half selecting Japanese. The French L3 group was labeled “shorter L2–L3 linguistic distance”, and the Japanese L3 group was labeled “longer L2–L3 linguistic distance”. We recruited learners from the same Chinese university to complete a Taguchi-based questionnaire on the L3 motivational system. The quantitative results revealed that the ideal L3 self, the ought-to L3 self, family influence and instrumentality promotion were significantly different between these two L3 groups. Qualitative results based on follow-up interviews with four participants showed that shorter L2–L3 linguistic distance contributed to higher instrumentality promotion, and family influence tended to be driven by practical concerns. These findings demonstrate how cross-linguistic factors may impact multilingual learners’ motivation and insights, which may be also of assistance to L3 acquisition and pedagogy. Full article

The purposes of this systematic review (PROSPERO ID: CRD42024510614, no funding source) were to quantify relationships between situational and dispositional dichotomous achievement goals and sport performance and explore potential relationship moderators. Published studies that reported at least one situational or dispositional achievement goal and a performance score were included. Studies without performance scores or based in a non-sport context were excluded. Information sources consisted of studies found in relevant published meta-analyses and EBSCOhost databases (finalized September 2024). The following statistics were conducted to assess the risk of bias: class-fail-safe n, Orwin’s fail-safe n, and funnel plots with trim and fill estimates. The summary statistics were r and d. Thirty studies from 1994 to 2024 met all inclusion criteria with 8708 participants from Europe, Asia, North America, and Oceania. The majority of samples were non-elite male youths and adolescents. The random-effects relationships (r) between task climate, 0.20 [0.14, 0.25], task orientation, 0.17 [0.12, 0.23], ego orientation, 0.09 [0.03, 0.16], and sport performance were small and significantly different (p < 0.05) from zero, while the ego motivational climate relationship was not, −0.00 [−0.48, 0.05]. The random-effects standard differences in means (d) for both the task orientation, 0.08 [0.02, 0.14], and ego orientation, 0.11 [−0.05, 0.26] were minimal in meaningfulness. Mixed-effects moderator analyses resulted in the following significant (p < 0.05) sub-group differences: subjective compared to objective performance measures (task orientation), elite compared to non-elite samples (task climate), and athlete-completed compared to coach-completed performance measures and performance records (task orientation). Finding only 30 studies meeting the inclusion criteria, which limited sub-group samples for moderation analyses, was the main limitation. Despite this limitation, AGT provides athletes and practitioners performance enhancement strategies. However, caution is warranted regarding relationship expectations given the small mean effect size values and the true prediction interval ranging from negative to positive, perhaps as a result of the heterogeneous samples and performance measures. A clear line of future research, considering the reviewed studies, with elite athletes is needed to verify the performance benefits of the task climate and ego orientation as well as the use of the ego goal orientation in selection decisions. Full article