Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metacognition : A Biased Competition Model 1 Metacognition : A Closed-Loop Model of Biased Competition Evidence from Neuroscience , Cognition , and Instructional Research

Learning and thinking are synergistic actions of the way people develop knowledge to adapt to the world. The actions are collateral cognitive operations that share a unitary outcome of performance. And yet, it is not entirely clear how the operations actually take place-either at the neurological level of the brain, the metaphoric level of the mind, or the action-oriented level of behavior. In the present chapter, we will build a case for metacognition as an integral operator in learning and thought. We will put forth a position that thinking is best characterized by the metacognitive operations learners deploy when they attempt to learn—the planning, monitoring, and evaluating learners do to regulate their learning processes. We will support our case at the level of the neuro-anatomical structures of the brain, the metaphorical architecture of human cognition, and relevant features of instruction. We focus on these three levels because: 1) there is a rich literature on frontal lobe involvement specifically targeted to explain learners' ability to think and learn; 2) decades of research on human cognitive architecture has been closely examined in the context of the neurological involvement of frontal lobe activation; and 3) learning and thinking are inextricably combined under the auspices of instruction. Finally, we will inventory the role of metacognition in some of our work, and selected works of others. Metacognition and self-regulation are not synonymous terms. Individually, the concepts have a long, independent history with distinct theoretical bases (e.g., Flavell, 1979, Bandura, 1977); however, over the last few decades, the concepts have been blurred by inconsistent use and theoretical ambiguity, in addition to the necessary and inevitable revisions the concepts require to evolve theoretically over time. This led Dinsmore, Alexander, and Loughlin (2008) to review 255 articles published over the Metacognition: A Biased Competition Model 3 last five years, asking the question: ―should we expect to hold current generations to the conceptions first framed by Flavell, Bandura, and others, or is it assumed that alternative and contemporary conceptions are warranted? ‖ Dinsmore et al. (2008) conclude that metacognition is rooted in the theoretical foundation of Jean Piaget and centers around cognition and matters of the mind. Flavell, working from a Piagetian theoretical base, was responsible for conceptualizing metacognition as ―thinking about thinking,‖ (Dinsmore et al., 2008); a definition that still stands 40 years later. Further, metacognition is conceptualized as being comprised of two factors: knowledge—what individuals know about their …
Learning About Fiscal Policy and the Effects of Policy Uncertainty

The recent crisis in the United States has often been associated with substantial amounts of policy uncertainty. In this paper we ask how uncertainty about fiscal policy affects the impact of fiscal policy changes on the economy when the government tries to counteract a deep recession. The agents in our model act as econometricians by estimating the policy rules for the different fiscal policy instruments, which include distortionary tax rates. Comparing the outcomes in our model to those under full-information rational expectations, we find that assuming that agents are not instantaneously aware of the new fiscal policy regime (or policy rule) in place leads to substantially more volatility in the short run and persistent differences in average outcomes.
SERIAL FOLLOW UP OF SOLUBLE THROMBOMODULIN LEVELS IN PATIENTS WITH SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS

Plasma thrombomodulin (TM), a marker of disease activity and endothelial damage, was measured in follow up of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Plasma levels of TM were measured by ELISA method using the mouse antithrombomodulin monoclonal antibody in the group of 52 lupus patients. Disease activity was assessed by European Consensus Lupus Activity Measurement (ECLAM) and levels of anti-dsDNA antibodies and C3 and C4 complement components were investigated. Correlation between thrombomodulin plasma levels and disease activity index was found (r = 0.69 p = 0.00001). Stable and low levels of TM were found in the subgroup of patients with low stabile disease x = 32.0 (± 11.56) ng/ml with no trend to significant change. In the subgroup
The dynamics of Hong Kong's office rental market

Forecasting office rents is among the most researched topics in real estate study. However, there are still heated debates on how predictions can be best done. This study provides a generator approach, on the basis of both system dynamics and econometric modeling. The findings suggest that the office rental values in Hong Kong appear to be more volatile and uncertain under better economic conditions, likely due to both the supply side of the property market being over‐optimistic of economic trends and the development lags and adjustment cost, under the influence of the current land policies in Hong Kong, are the main issues behind this phenomenon. In order to minimize the uncertainties on the office leasing market, the government should relax the approval procedures concerning changing land use, and the subsequent rearrangements of premium payment. Further, the current policies on land sales need to be revised, especially the application list system. Those measures could reduce the time and transaction cost incurred, thus leading to more timely response to demand changes over time.
An organic user interface for searching citation links

This paper describes Butterfly, an Information Visualizer application for accessing DIALOG'S Science Citation databases across the Internet. Network information often involves slow access that conflicts with the use of highly-interactive information visualization. Butterfly addresses this problem, integrating search, browsing, and access management via four techniques: 1) visualization supports the assimilation of retrieved information and integrates search and browsing activity, 2) automatically-created "link-generating" queries assemble bibliographic records that contain reference information into citation graphs, 3) asynchronous query processes explore the resulting graphs for the user, and 4) process controllers allow the user to manage these processes. We use our positive experience with the Butterfly implementation to propose a general information access approach, called Organic User Inteifacesfor Infomiation Access, in which a virtual landscape grows under user control as information is accessed automatically.
Visual object recognition using local binary patterns and segment-based feature

Visual object recognition is one of the most challenging problems in computer vision, due to both inter-class and intra-class variations. The local appearance-based features, especially SIFT, have gained a big success in such a task because of their great discriminative power. In this paper, we propose to adopt two different kinds of feature to characterize different aspects of object. One is the Local Binary Pattern (LBP) operator which catches texture structure, while the other one is segment-based feature which catches geometric information. The experimental results on PASCAL VOC benchmarks show that the LBP operator can provide complementary information to SIFT, and segment-based feature is mainly effective to rigid objects, which means its usefulness is class-specific. We evaluated our features and approach by participating in PASCAL VOC Challenge 2009 for the very first attempt, and achieved decent results.
The effective density and fractal dimension of particles emitted from a light-duty diesel vehicle with a diesel oxidation catalyst

A differential mobility analyzer (DMA) and a Couette centrifugal particle mass analyzer (Couette CPMA) were used to measure the effective density and fractal dimension of particles emitted from a light-duty diesel vehicle fitted with a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC). It was found that at high engine loads, the DOC increased in temperature, sulphate levels in the particulate matter increased, and a transient nucleation mode was observed. The increase in sulphate levels resulted in a drastic increase in the effective density and fractal dimension of the particles. At low engine loads (8–15%), sulphate levels were much lower, no nucleation mode was present and the fractal dimension varied from 2.22 to 2.48, which is in good agreement with previous studies. At 40% load, sulphate levels were much higher and the fractal dimension was 2.76. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Likelihood reweighting methods to reduce potential bias in noninferiority trials which rely on historical data to make inference

It is generally believed that bias is minimized in well-controlled randomized clinical trials. However, bias can arise in active controlled noninferiority trials because the inference relies on a previously estimated effect size obtained from a historical trial that may have been conducted for a different population. By implementing a likelihood reweighting method through propensity scoring, a study designed to estimate a treatment effect in one trial population can be used to estimate the treatment effect size in a different target population. We illustrate this method in active controlled noninferiority trials, although it can also be used in other types of studies, such as historically controlled trials, meta-analyses, and comparative effectiveness analyses.
Mobile technologies for public police force tasks and processes: a t-government perspective

The research in this paper considers the adoption and diffusion of mobile technologies for t-Government transformation to police force tasks and processes. Specifically, it undertakes an analysis of the use and impact of two mobile technologies (Mobile Data Terminals and Tablet PCs) on three specialist groups of police in Victoria, Australia. Technology and task issues are identified that lead to performance effectiveness and virtualization of policing activities. The research extends the theory of task technology fit with the theory of virtualization to explain the transformation of police processes as an outcome of mobile technology applications.
1 A Practical Implementation of Maximum Likelihood Voting

The Maximum Likelihood Voting (MLV) strategy was recently proposed as one of the most reliable voting methods. The strategy determines the most likely correct result based on the reliability history of each software version. In this paper we first discuss the issues that arise in practical implementation of MLV, such as the question of unrealized outputs, the handling of voting ties, and the issue of inter-version failure correlation. We then present an extended MLV algorithm that a) uses a dynamic voting strategy which automatically adapts to the number of realized output space categories, and b) uses component reliability estimates to break voting ties. We also present an empirical evaluation of the implemented MLV strategy, and we compare it with Recovery Block (RB), N-Version Programming (NVP) and Consensus Recovery Block (CRB) approaches. Our results show that, even under high inter-version failure correlation conditions, our implementation of MLV performs well. In fact, statistically it outperformed all variants of NVP, CRB and RB fault-tolerance strategies that we examined in this study. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical study of the MLV strategy.
Managing partially controllable raw material acquisition and outsourcing in production planning

This paper studies a single-item production planning problem for a manufacturing firm. Besides being able to acquire raw material from an external supplier, the firm may also face an incoming stream of internally supplied raw material. In addition, outsourcing may serve as an alternative to in-house production for the firm to satisfy its demands. Attention is focused on the case where acquisition, production, and outsourcing costs are setup-linear and inventory holding costs are linear. For this case, polynomial algorithms are presented for some situations and the NP-hardness of other problem is shown. A computational study is used to show the competitiveness of the proposed heuristic. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of IIE Transactions for the following free supplemental resource: Appendix]
THE EFFECTS OF CONSUMER PERCEIVED VALUE ON PURCHASE INTENTION IN E-COMMERCE PLATFORM : A TIME-LIMITED PROMOTION PERSPECTIVE

In order to stimulate consumption, most e-commercial giants of China conduct sales promotions centered on “price war”, thus impeding the healthy development of e-commercial enterprises to some degree. Under this condition, it’s every e-commercial enterprise’s top priority to understand the perceived dimension of the central value of the customers’ purchase intention and thus reposition their marketing direction. Therefore, centered on the customers’ purchase intention, this paper structures a four-dimension (i.e., price, functional, emotional and social) model of the perceived value; and, in the meantime, considering the time-limit characteristic of the promotion, as a moderator variable, time pressure is used in the model to conduct the empirical analysis. According to the study, among the dimensions of the perceived value, only the price value and emotional value have a significantly positive influence on the customers’ purchase intention, and the influence by emotional value is bigger than the other. In different time pressure, the influence on purchase intention by perceived value makes significant difference. When there is difference in product category, the time pressure adjustment makes big difference too.
Water Management in Islam

In the Middle East and North Africa, water is rapidly becoming the key development issue. The region has one of the highest population growth rates in the world and scarce natural water supplies. In this region and others, policy makers have often proposed or even tried to implement policies such as higher water tariffs or privatization without considering local culture, including religion; which clearly influences how people perceive and manage a resource, such as water. In addition to supporting large minorities following various faiths, the region is home to 300 million Muslims. Therefore, developing an understanding of the Islamic perspective on proposed water management polices is a key for sustainable and equitable development for Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and elsewhere. This volume presents Islamic perspectives on a number of proposed water-management policies, including water demand management, wastewater re-use, and higher tariffs. The book opens avenues for wider dialogue amongst researchers working at identifying the most promising water management policies; adds to our knowledge of some of the influences on formal policy and informal practice; and makes these ideals available to a broader public. It serves as a concrete example of the benefit of examining development in the context of values and culture. It also dispels common misconceptions about the Islamic view on water management practices such as selling water and wastewater reuse. Water Management in Islam will interest researchers, scholars, and students in natural resource management, Islamic studies, Middle Eastern studies, development studies, and public policy. It will also be of interest to professionals, including policy makers in donor organizations, development organizations, NGOs and government departments; and agencies, both North and South, working in the area of water management.
Segments of sustainable food consumers: a literature review

Sustainable food consumption is an important aspect of sustainable development. When adopting a sustainable food lifestyle, consumers are confronted with complex choices. Today’s food consumption is too complex to be explained by socio-demographic factors exclusively. A broader perspective is needed. In order to explain behaviour across different consumer segments better, relatively homogenous segments of food consumers were identified by segmenting food consumers based on a wide range of variables. The current study aims to provide an overview of published studies that have segmented consumers with regard to sustainable food consumption. The literature review has been conducted by searching SciVerse Scopus for all relevant articles available until November 2010. The main criterion for including a specific study was the inclusion of empirical analyses of primary data, resulting in consumer segments with regard to sustainable food consumption. Sixteen articles were incorporated in the final analysis. First, the variables used for segmentation and profiling in the included articles have been categorized into three levels of abstraction: personality characteristics, food-related lifestyles and behaviour. The three levels of abstraction proved to be helpful in categorizing the segmentation studies. The findings indicate that variables on all three levels were efficient in differentiating consumer segments regarding sustainability. In addition, the importance of price and health differed across the segments, although these variables are only indirectly related to sustainability. Second, the three most frequently identified consumer segments with regard to sustainable food consumption were: ‘greens’, ‘potential greens’ and ‘non-greens’. These segments differed from one another on all three levels of abstraction. This implies that future segmentation studies should include variables on all levels of abstraction to get a complete picture of existing sustainable consumer segments. Marketers should be aware that targeting specific segments based on socio-demographic variables exclusively is not sufficient. Personality characteristics, lifestyle and behaviour are all important to take into consideration. Attempts at stimulating sustainable consumption might be most effective when differences across consumer segments are taken into account. Future research is needed to explore the characteristics of different sustainable food consumer segments with respect to their potential contributions in promoting sustainable development.
Outliers Detection, Correction of Financial Time-Series Anomalies and Distributional Timing for Robust Efficient Higher-Order Moment Asset Allocations

We propose a new methodology for abnormal return detection and correction, and evaluate the economic impacts of outliers on asset allocations with higher-order moments (Cf. Jurczenko et al., 2008). Indeed, extreme returns and outliers greatly affect empirical higher-order moment estimations (Cf. Kim and White, 2004). We thus extend the outlier detection procedures of Franses and Ghijsels (1999) and Charles and Darne (2005) with an Artificial Neural Network - GARCH model (Cf. Donaldson and Kamstra, 1997). The proposed method for deletion and correction of outliers, coupled with the use of a robust approach based on higher-order L-moments, clearly show some improvements of the portfolio allocation performance in the French stock market.
An accurate interpolating scheme for semi-Lagrangian advection on an unstructured mesh for ocean modelling

The semi-Lagrangian method is used for advection experiments on an irregular grid. A cosine hill is advected using a specified flow field corresponding to solid body rotation. A major difficulty is to find an interpolator which is at least fourth order accurate on an unstructured mesh. Such accuracy is needed for the treatment of Rossby waves in ocean models. We develop such a method using a dual kriging interpolating scheme. The results are better than fourth order accurate, as shown by comparison with bicubic spline interpolation on a structured grid. Such accuracy is maintained for an unstructured triangular grid. The dissipation and dispersion of the cosine hill remain small, even after many rotation periods. The increase in computational cost is significant even if the interpolation is performed separately on smaller subdomains. However, by taking advantage of the increased flexibility of unstructured meshes and accuracy of the kriging approach, it is possible to achieve the same accuracy at a reasonable computational cost compared to traditional methods. DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0870.1997. 00009.x
A Time-Series Analysis of the Effects of Output Forecast Shocks on the Japanese Economy

Abstract: In this study, we investigate the effects of output forecast shocks on the Japanese economy, using historical decomposition based on a standard time-series analysis. The novelty of this study is that it incorporates the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) indices of production forecasts a time series of firms’ one-month-ahead output forecasts, in its analysis of output data. This direct observation of forecasts facilitates the identification of expectation shocks. Our analysis reveals that whereas the output slowdown after the 2008 global financial crisis was caused mainly by shocks to expectations, the output slump following the 2011 earthquake in East Japan resulted from shocks to output.
Working Alone Together: Team Identification and Knowledge Sharing By

In this study we test the effect of several team features on knowledge sharing within teams of primary school teachers and the performance of these teams. We contend that trust in team leaders and trust in colleagues, mediated by team identification, will have a positive effect on knowledge sharing and through knowledge sharing on team performance. Team value diversity, on the contrary, can have a negative effect on both knowledge sharing and team performance. We therefore explore a moderator effect of team identification on the relation between team value diversity and knowledge sharing. We hypothesize that if team identification is low, team value diversity will have a negative effect on knowledge sharing and team performance, while if team identification is high, value diversity will not constrain knowledge sharing and team performance.
Benefit from the Chin-Down Maneuver in the Swallowing Performance and Self-Perception of Parkinson's Disease Patients

Aims. To verify the effectiveness of the maneuver application in swallowing therapy with PD. Materials and Method. We performed an open-label trial, with three groups compounds by PD individuals: the experimental group, control group, and orientation group. The study included PD patients with dysphagia. A cognitive screening, through a questionnaire about depression and quality of life, was conducted. Swallowing assessment was performed through (1) fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES); (2) clinical evaluation and Functional Oral Intake Scale (FOIS); and (3) assessment of the quality life related to swallowing (SWALQOL). A therapeutic program, which consisted of chin-down postural maneuver and orientations on feeding, was applied. Both groups (EG and OG) received on-month therapeutic program. Results. A significant improvement in swallowing, evaluated by clinical assessment, was observed in solid (p < 0.001) and liquid (p = 0.022) consistencies in EG when compared to OG and CG. Patients in EG presented improvement in QoL, with the significant difference in comparison with the other groups, about domain frequency of symptoms (p = 0.029) in SWALQOL questionnaire. Conclusion. The postural maneuver chin-down improved swallowing performance and self-perception, but not the laryngeal signs. This trial is registered with registration number NCT02973698.