Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relative Effectiveness of Training Methods for Attaining Training Objectives: Current Opinion of Training Practitioners.

This study replicated the earlier survey efforts of Carroll, Paine, and Ivancevich (1972) and Neider (1981) on the relative effectiveness among practitioners of various training methods for attaining different training objectives. Ten training methods were assessed: (1) computer aided instruction (CAI); (2) programmed instruction; (3) lecture (with questions); (4) movie films; (5) television lecture; (6) sensitivity training; (7) case study; (8) conference/discussion; (9) role playing; and (10) simulation/games. These methods were assessed regarding their effectiveness for attaining six training objectives: knowledge acquisi.tion; knowledge retention; attitude change; development of interpersonal skills; development of problem solving skills; and participant acceptance. Training practitioners (N=285) who are members of the American Society of Training and Development, responded to a questionnaire assessing their familiarity with training methods, the methods they use in their practice, and their opinion of the effectiveness of each of the 10 training methods studied for achieving each of the six training objectives. CAI received high ratings for knowledge acquisition and it was felt tha% CAI's effectiveness surpassed that of programmed instructicl for a'l objectives except interpersonal skills. Lecture, television lecture, and movie films were perceived as less effective methods for all training objectives while case study, conference, role-playing, and simulation-games were seen as relatively effective methods for achieving o'ojectives. The lecture method was reported as the most frequently used method, yet its relative effectiveness was low for all training objectives. Implications for practitioners are discussed. (NB) THE RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF TRAINING METHODS FOR ATTAINING TRAINING OBJECTIVES: CURRENT OPINION OF TRAINING PRACTITIONERS Elizabeth L. Shoenfelt Natalie A. Eastman & Raymond M. Mendel Department of Psychology Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky 42101 Presented at The Annual Convention of the Southeastern Psychological Association New Orleans, Louisiana March 21, 1991 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION (Awe of tducatiooit Rematch and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTLR (ERIC) Thm document ha8 been reproduced as received from the person or orgarliralloo onctsnating it Mirror changes have been made ! 0 improve reproduchon duality Pointe ol view or opinions staled in this cl(Lu ment do nol neceaaardy represent official OERI posihon or policy 2 "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY c/iedheM /, 51wepfe;# TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOUF.CES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC). " THE RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF TRAINING METHODS FOR ATTAINING TRAINING OBJECTIVES: CURRENT OPINION OF TRAINING PRACTITIONERS
Feedback communication over unknown channels

Suppose Q is a family of discrete memoryless channels. An unknown member of Q will be available, with perfect, causal output feedback for communication. Is there a coding scheme (possibly with variable transmission time) that can achieve the Burnashev error exponent uniformly over Q ? For two families of channels we show that the answer is yes. Furthermore, for each of these two classes, in addition to achieve the maximum error exponent, it is possible to uniformly attain any given fraction of the channel capacity. Therefore, in terms of achievable rates and delay, there are situations in which the knowledge of the channel becomes irrelevant. In the second part of the thesis, we show that for arbitrary sets of channels the Burnashev error exponent cannot in general be uniformly achieved. In particular we give a sufficient condition for a pair of channels so that no coding strategy reaches Burnashev's exponent simultaneously on both channels. As a third part we study a scenario where communication is carried by first testing the channel by means of a training sequence, then coding according to the channel estimate. We provide an upper bound on the maximum achievable error exponent of such coding schemes. This bound is typically much lower than the maximum achievable error exponent over a channel with feedback. For example in the case of binary symmetric channels this bound has a slope that vanishes at capacity. This result suggests that in terms of error exponent, a good universal feedback scheme combines channel estimation with information delivery, rather than separating them. In the final chapter, we address the question of communicating quickly and reliably. We consider a simple situation of two message communication over a known channel with feedback. We propose a simple decoding rule, and show that it minimizes a weighted combination of the probability of error and decoding delay for a certain range of crossover probabilities and combination weights.
The Death Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms among Poor Older Women in Rural Areas: The Moderating Effect of Social Support

Purpose: This study was conducted to identify the moderate effect of social support on the relationship between death anxiety and depressive symptoms among poor older women in rural areas. Methods: This was a secondary analysis of the data from 209 women who were participated in the intervention study to evaluate the effectiveness of depression prevention program. Data were collected between April and September 2012. The data were analyzed using moderate multiple regressions. Results: Among these poor older women, depressive symptoms were associated with death anxiety and social support. Self-esteem support had a moderating effect on the relationship between death anxiety and depressive symptoms. Conclusion: The results indicate that the self-esteem support was effective in decreasing depressive symptoms and death anxiety in poor older women. In order to reduce their depression and make positive changes in their lives, self-esteem improvement programs are needed.
1989 in European Vernacular Memory

This article is part of the special section titled The Genealogies of Memory, guest edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joanna Wawrzyniak In our contribution, we examine the vernacular memory of the end of Communism and the year 1989 in Europe. Analyzing sixteen focus groups conducted in Germany, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, we concentrate on the question whether the events related to 1989 might have the disposition to become a transnational European lieu de mémoire. We show that 1989 is not a salient historical event for British and Spanish participants, while Polish and German respondents do connect it with patterns of national identity building. Differences between vernacular and official memories could be revealed as respondents hardly mentioned the democratic achievements made in the course of the transitions. A transnational dimension was only found in Poland, where respondents articulate a feeling of neglect toward their own national history. The Solidarity movement is being interpreted as a motor of liberation and Europeanization of Poland and as a pioneer of democratization on a European scale. German respondents remain in their national frame, focusing on flashbulb memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the issue of social integration of East and West Germany after 1990, which they evaluate as imperfect. The strong national bias of Polish and German focus groups raises doubts as to whether 1989 can become a transnational basis for a shared European memory.
Equal Justice

Empirical analysis of the disproportionate application of carceral punishment has traditionally targeted race and class inequality while omitting noncitizens as a systematically disadvantaged population within the criminal justice system. Of the limited extant literature on this issue, nearly all have examined overall incarceration odds while failing to account for prison alternative eligibility, inaccurately measuring judicial discretion. Likewise, none have disaggregated noncitizens across nationality, an oversight that implicitly assuming that all noncitizens are equal recipients of discrimination, likely suppressing noncitizen disadvantage. Finally, these studies often fail to include contextual measures in their analyses. Using data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC)’s Monitoring of Federal Sentences from 1999 to 2013, this study examines case-, district-, and cross-level effects of citizenship status, documentation status, and nationality on incarceration odds, prison alternatives, and sentence length for federal drug offenders. The results of this study support the hypothesis that noncitizens receive more severe sentencing outcomes than U.S. citizens, Mexican noncitizens receive more severe outcomes compared to those from other countries, and undocumented noncitizens receive more punitive outcomes, though these findings vary across districts. However, counter to minority threat theory, noncitizen (offender) populations do not appear to influence incarceration outcomes for noncitizen offenders in the projected direction.
Structural Relationships of Social and Marriage-Related Factors with the Amount of relationship with the Opposite Sex

In the recent years, one of the issues, which young people have encountered as a social norm, is friendship and relationship between girls and boys particularly at the university while there are legal, social, cultural and religious limitations in this respect, which causes concern and anxiety among parents and authorities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural relationships of social and marriage-related factors with the amount of relationships with the opposite sex. The statistical population is single students of Bahonar University of Kerman in the Iranian academic year of 2010-2011. Samples are 384 (212 girls and 172 boys) students. The research approach we have adopted is descriptive ex post facto research. Two researcher-prepared questionnaires have been used to gather data: a ten-item questionnaire intended to measure the amount of relationship with the opposite sex and a twenty-item questionnaire intended to measure social and marriage-related factors. Construct validity of the questionnaires was examined using confirmatory factor analysis approach. To analyze the data and structural equation modeling (SEM), SPSS18 and Amos18 software were used, respectively. The results of structural equation modeling showed that, the indices for measuring the elements have an acceptable validity and reliability and based on these elements a model could be drawn to explain the relationship with the opposite sex among teenagers and youth. [Solmaz Shokouhi Moqhaddam, Hassan Fallahi, Zeinab Javanmard, Mahmoud Zivari Rahman. Structural Relationships of Social and Marriage-Related Factors with the Amount of relationship with the Opposite Sex. Life Sci J 2012;9(4):5732-5739] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 853
Class, capital, and identity in Australian society

ABSTRACT Despite a comparatively ‘flat’ social structure and lack of obvious class-based cleavages, Australian society is stratified by objective, multidimensional measures of social class. Using data from a July 2015 survey of a random sample of Australian citizens, latent class analysis identifies six class types in Australian society, based on the distributions of cultural, social, and economic capital among respondents. The resulting classes are categorised as ‘precariat’, ‘ageing workers’, ‘new workers’, ‘mobile middle’, ‘emerging affluent’, and ‘established affluent’. The precariat is characterised by high numbers of retired pensioners, the ageing worker class the highest mean age, and the new worker class by its low rate of unemployment. The established middle class accounts for one quarter of the adult population, while the emergent affluent class has the youngest mean age, and the established affluent is the most advantaged. We also show Australians are acutely aware of their class identity.
Risk Sharing Arrangements and the Structure of Risk and Time Preference: Theory and Evidence from Village India

This paper investigates the extent to which rural households in developing countries are able to smooth consumption. A basic model of full-information intra-village risk sharing adopted by Townsend (1994) is extended to the case where participating households have different risk and time preferences. A resulting rule of risk allocation is characterized in an intuitive way, clarifying the effects of diverse preferences. Empirical models are applied to the ICRISAT household panel data collected from rural India to test full insurance and to investigate the structure of risk and time preferences. Estimation results strongly support the heterogeneity of risk preferences and their distribution is cosistent with households' social positions in the village. In contrast, only a weak evidence is found for the hypothesis of heterogeneous time preferences.
Human Middle Temporal Cortex, Perceptual Bias, and Perceptual Memory for Ambiguous Three-Dimensional Motion

When faced with inconclusive or conflicting visual input human observers experience one of multiple possible perceptions. One factor that determines perception of such an ambiguous stimulus is how the same stimulus was perceived on previous occasions, a phenomenon called perceptual memory. We examined perceptual memory of an ambiguous motion stimulus while applying transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the motion-sensitive areas of the middle temporal cortex (hMT+). TMS increased the predominance of whichever perceptual interpretation was most commonly reported by a given observer at baseline, with reduced perception of the less favored interpretation. This increased incidence of the preferred percept indicates impaired long-term buildup of perceptual memory traces that normally act against individual percept biases. We observed no effect on short-term memory traces acting from one presentation to the next. Our results indicate that hMT+ is important for the long-term buildup of perceptual memory for ambiguous motion stimuli.
The notion of ‘prejudice’: Some rhetorical and ideological aspects

Introduction A recent issue of a magazine published by the National Front contained an article entitled ‘Patterns of prejudice’. It began with the statement: ‘Perhaps the favourite accusation thrown at the National Front by its multi-racialist critics is that we are simply a bunch of bigots, that our stance on Race, the very heart and core of our political being, is no more than ignorant prejudice against Coloured people’ ( Vanguard , April 1987). The tone of the article was pseudo-academic. The author, in the style of a scholar, defines ‘prejudice’ in his second paragraph: ‘it is generally taken to mean forming an opinion, especially about an issue or person or group of people, without knowing, or without taking into account, all the relevant facts’. The main part of the article was devoted to arguing that the National Front had taken into account ‘the relevant facts’ in coming to its conclusions that Britain should be populated solely with white-skinned people. The author cited psychological books, which claimed that black people were intellectually inferior on average to white people: ‘Read The Inequity of Man by H. J. Eysenck, Professor of Psychology at the University of London for the facts here. ’ A couple of paragraphs of lay anthropology were added to suggest that black people in Africa had accomplished ‘virtually nothing’ before ‘the White Man came’. The references to professors and their books led to the predictable conclusion: ‘On the Black issue our verdict is based on the facts, we have judged the case on the evidence, fairly, and come to the only just conclusions. ’ It was the National Front’s liberal opponents, who were avoiding the ‘facts’: ‘They can’t site [sic] a mass of scientific evidence to support their beliefs. ’ Having defined the key term and having cited the relevant facts, the author’s final sentence points the accusing finger at liberals: ‘Dare we say it – it is they, not we, who are prejudiced. ’
Teaching second language reading comprehension: the effects of classroom materials and reading strategy use

ABSTRACT The past decade has witnessed a plethora of research in teaching second language reading, and how to teach with efficiency has gradually gained ground in the field of Second Language Acquisition. Even though empirical studies have revealed that there is a positive correlation between students’ learning motivation and learning outcome for effective reading comprehension, such a correlation has not been clearly examined in Taiwan because the nature of its reading instruction has long been exam-oriented. The question as to how to stimulate students’ reading motivation still remains unknown. This study aims to bridge this gap by investigating the effects of using reading strategy instruction (metacognitive and cognitive knowledge) based on authentic reading materials for advanced EFL learners with the focus on their reading improvement and learning experience. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted to explore students’ reading strategy use. Results suggest that learners generally prefer metacognitive to cognitive knowledge when it comes to reading English texts, and authentic reading materials are found to heighten their learning motivation as well as attitude positively due to several salient factors. The importance of cultivating learners’ second language reading strategy awareness by using appropriate reading materials in class is discussed with several pedagogical and theoretical implications.
CULTURA POLÍTICA Y PARTICIPACIÓN ELECTORAL EN MÉXICO.

Mucho se ha afirmado que la cultura política es una de las variables que explica la existencia en nuestro país de un régimen electora! no-competitivo, pero estable. En efecto, las creencias, símbolos, valores y actitu des frente a la política que caracterizan al mexi cano promedio son un elemento que ha ayudado a obstaculizar el florecimiento de organizaciones partidiarias fuertes y la existencia de elecciones verdaderamente disputadas que constituyen una condicionante de toda formación política demo crática. Pero, al mismo tiempo, esta cultura polí tica ha prometido que las elecciones tengan conti nuidad y vigencia institucional, conservando su carácter de expresión del consenso del Estado mexicano. Dado que en un sistema democrático el voto es la manifestación más clara de la participación polí tica masiva, el comportamiento electoral ha sido uno de los indicadores de primer orden para inferir las concepciones y orientaciones que los ciudada nos poseen acerca de la política. En México, el predominio casi absoluto del partido oficial, el control gubernamental sobre los proce sos electorales y la debilidad de los partidos de oposición han hecho que este terreno no sea el más propicio para la participación política. Fuera del marco de las organizaciones integradas al partido oficial y protagonistas privilegiados del juego polí tico, son hasta ahora los tradicionales mecanismos informales de participación y las formas de organi zación no-partidarias los caminos más socorridos para buscar respuestas a demandas e intereses concretos. 'Dicho de otra manera, la participación orientada a la representación, la cual se asienta en el sufragio, no constituye la vía reconocida para asegurar la incidencia de determinados intereses en la definición de las políticas gubernamentales. Por los rasgos de nuestra estructura política, las elecciones han jugado un papel de constatación de hegemonía que de efectiva demostración del grado y tendencias de la participación política. No obstante, en la coyuntura actual, se presentan nuevos fenómenos en el campo electoral que invi tan a replantear la relación entre las formas de participación en las elecciones y la cultura política que las sustenta. La baja constante de los votos del PRI, que en las pasadas elecciones federales de 1982, según cifras oficiales, se dio en todos los estados de la Repú blica. con excepción de Tamaulipas, aunque con acentos en las zonas urbanas con fuerte concentra ción de sectores madios y en las fajas fronterizas;^
Enhanced photocatalytic activity of Ag–ZnO hybrid plasmonic nanostructures prepared by a facile wet chemical method

Summary We report the synthesis of Ag–ZnO hybrid plasmonic nanostructures with enhanced photocatalytic activity by a facile wet-chemical method. The structural, optical, plasmonic and photocatalytic properties of the Ag–ZnO hybrid nanostructures were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), photoluminescence (PL) and UV–visible absorption spectroscopy. The effects of citrate concentration and Ag nanoparticle loading on the photocatalytic activity of Ag–ZnO hybrid nanostructures towards sun-light driven degradation of methylene blue (MB) have been investigated. Increase in citrate concentration has been found to result in the formation of nanodisk-like structures, due to citrate-assisted oriented attachment of ZnO nanoparticles. The decoration of ZnO nanostructures with Ag nanoparticles resulted in a significant enhancement of the photocatalytic degradation efficiency, which has been found to increase with the extent of Ag nanoparticle loading.
Findings on Student Use of Social Media at the Collegiate, Undergraduate, and Graduate Levels: Implications for Post-Secondary Educators

In this paper, we present findings on social media use by students at two institutions in three levels of postsecondary programs. We find that students are almost universally using at least one social network, with Facebook as the most popular, and Instagram second. Many respondents are simultaneously active on several social networks. However, few post to any social medium more than once per day. Social media usage levels of students in our survey far exceeded that of the adult Canadian population at large. Changes in student posting habits during the course varied widely with the level of post-secondary program, as did views on the professional applications of social media.
Assessing Procrastination

Abstract. The short form of the General Procrastination Scale (GPS-K; Klingsieck & Fries, 2012 ; Lay, 1986 ) is a reliable self-report scale measuring general procrastination. The presumed one-dimensional factor structure of the scale, however, has never been examined. Thus, the purposes of this representative study were to examine its dimensionality and factorial invariance across age and sex, and to provide norm values of the German general population. The GPS-K was administered to a representative community sample ( N = 2,527; age range 14–95 years). A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted. To explore convergent validity, standardized scales of distress and life satisfaction were used. Measurement invariance across sex and age was tested. The CFA revealed an unsatisfactory model fit of the presumed unidimensional factor structure of the GPS-K. Therefore, a 5-item one-dimensional version of the scale was suggested (General Procrastination Scale – Screening; GPS-S). Correlations between GPS-S, distress and reduced life satisfaction provide evidence on its convergent validity. The one-dimensional GPS-S can be assumed to be scalar invariant across sex and for participants older than 29 years. The scale can be administered in only a few minutes providing an economic screening for research and practice.