Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Language learning and intercultural education: barriers and prospects in the Cypriot context

ABSTRACT The main goal of this study is to examine the barriers and prospects of intercultural education in Cypriot schools of the southern part of the island with regard to not only learning the language of the reception country, but also the language of origin. Taking this as the point of departure, this study aims to explore the content and goals of Cypriot policy, its contradictions, and transformation regarding this issue. The analysis draws upon policy documents collected from the Ministry of Education and Culture and interviews carried out with Cypriot policy-makers. The Ministry has initiated an educational reform, including a reform of the national curriculum, towards a more intercultural orientation. Despite Cyprus being officially a trilingual country, intercultural education policies in the south part of Cyprus almost exclusively relate to Greek-language teaching, promoting cultural assimilation. The absence of a coherent policy, along with inadequate teacher training, and collaboration between schools and migrant families are further impediments to intercultural education. To this end, promoting migrants’ inclusion requires the re-conceptualisation and re-structuring of Cypriot education and schooling.
Neighbors and Co-Workers: The Importance of Residential Labor Market Networks

We specify and implement a test for the presence and importance of labor market networks based on residential proximity, in determining the establishments at which people work. Using matched employer-employee data at the establishment level, we measure the importance of these network effects for groups broken out by race, ethnicity, and measures of skill. The evidence indicates that these types of labor market networks do exist and play an important role in determining the establishments where workers work; that they are more important for minorities and the less skilled, especially among Hispanics; and that they appear to be race based.
When the Sacred Hurts: Using Grounded Theory Analysis to Understand How Former Members Experienced Abuse of Religious Authority in Christian Groups

When the Sacred Hurts: Using Grounded Theory Analysis to Understand How Former Members Experienced Abuse of Religious Authority in Christian Groups Karianne D. P. Bilsky The topic of spirituality has recently enjoyed increased popularity within the field of psychology (Pargament, 2007). However, there is an aspect of spirituality that the scientific literature has only started to address – trauma that occurs through religious manipulation. The current study utilizes a qualitative research design to develop an empirical definition and preliminary model of abuse of religious authority (ARA). Seventeen former members of Christian groups were interviewed by employing a semi-structured interview, and the results were analyzed using grounded theory analysis. All participants reported that the negative aspects of their experience outweighed the positive aspects. Participants provided a definition of ARA that included misuse of power, inappropriate use of God, and excessive authority. Participants reported a range of past and current negative emotional and psychological responses. Participants also reported current positive outcomes. The results of the grounded theory analysis were utilized to construct an empirical definition and preliminary model of ARA. Clinical implications, ethical considerations, and directions for future research are discussed.
Critical Success factors for Enterprise Resource Planning implementation in Indian Retail Industry: An Exploratory study

Enterprise resource Planning (ERP) has become a key business driver in today's world. Retailers are also trying to reap in the benefits of the ERP. In most large Indian Retail Industry ERP systems have replaced nonintegrated information systems with integrated and maintainable software. Retail ERP solution integrates demand and supply effectively to help improve bottom line. The implementation of ERP systems in such firms is a difficult task. So far, ERP implementations have yielded more failures than successes. Very few implementation failures are recorded in the literature because few companies wish to publicize their implementation failure. This paper explores and validates the existing literature empirically to find out the critical success factors that lead to the success of ERP in context to Indian retail industry. The findings of the results provide valuable insights for the researchers and practitioners who are interested in implementing Enterprise Resource Planning systems in retail industry, how best they can utilize their limited resources and to pay adequate attention to those factors that are most likely to have an impact upon the implementation of the ERP system.
Adjusting Performance Measures to Ensure Equitable Plan Comparisons

When comparing health plans on scores from the Medicare Managed Care Consumer Assessment of Health Plans (MMC-CAHPS®) survey, the results should be adjusted for patient characteristics, not under the control of health plans, that might affect survey results. We developed an adjustment model that uses self-reported measures of health status, age, education, and whether someone helped the respondent with the questionnaire. The associations of health and education with survey responses differed by HCFA administrative region. Consequently, we recommend that the case-mix model include regional interactions. Analyses of the impact of adjustment show that the adjustments were usually small but not negligible.
Nominal Wage Rigidity in Australia

The existence of downward nominal wage rigidity has been used to argue against the adoption of zero inflation targets. Investigations of nominal wage flexibility in Australia have been hindered by a lack of suitable data. Using a unique and unpublished microdata set, we find strong evidence of downward nominal wage rigidity. The idea that firms are able to circumvent wage rigidity by varying broader forms of remuneration is not supported by our study. We find that these broad measures are still skewed away from pay cuts, though to a lesser extent than wages. The extent of rigidity we do observe lends support to the pursuit of small positive rates of inflation as an objective of monetary policy.
Enhancing self-regulated practice behavior in high school instrumentalists

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effects of a self-regulated learning practice strategy curriculum (SRL–PSC) on 30 high school instrumentalists’ performance achievement, self-efficacy, practice behaviors, and self-perceptions of practice behaviors. The curriculum included peer collaboration, verbal mediation, group discussion, and goal-setting. Results of this research revealed that participation in the SRL–PSC enhanced self-efficacy, F(1,19) = 14.86, p = . 001, and perceived music practice behaviors such as strategy usage and thoughtful intent, F(1,19) = 4.78, p = . 041. Implications from this research suggest that offering students opportunities to employ a self-regulated application of practice strategies may enhance musical independence supporting lifelong learning.
Embodiment and American Sign Language: Exploring sensory-motor influences in the recognition of American Sign Language

Little is known about how individual signs that occur in naturally produced signed languages are recognized. Here we examine whether sign understanding may be grounded in sensorimotor properties by evaluating a signer’s ability to make lexical decisions to American Sign Language (ASL) signs that are articulated either congruent with or incongruent with the observer’s own handedness. Our results show little evidence for handedness congruency effects for native signers’ perception of ASL, however handedness congruency effects were seen in non-native late learners of ASL and hearing ASL-English bilinguals. The data are compatible with a theory of sign recognition that makes reference to internally simulated articulatory control signals — a forward model based upon sensory-motor properties of one’s owns body. The data suggest that sign recognition may rely upon an internal body schema when processing is non-optimal as a result of having learned ASL later in life. Native signers however may have developed representations of signs which are less bound to the hand with which it is performed, suggesting a different engagement of an internal forward model for rapid lexical decisions.
Associations of serum lipid concentrations and obesity with mortality in women: 20 year follow up of participants in prospective population study in Gothenburg, Sweden.

OBJECTIVE--To examine association of different measures of serum lipid concentration and obesity with mortality in women. DESIGN--Prospective observational study initiated in 1968-9, follow up examination after 12 years, and follow up study based on death certificates after 20 years. SETTING--Gothenburg, Sweden. SUBJECTS--1462 randomly selected women aged 38-60 at start of study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Total mortality and death from myocardial infarction as predicted by serum cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations, body mass index, and ratio of circumference of waist to circumference of hips. RESULTS--170 women died during follow up, 26 from myocardial infarction. Serum triglyceride concentration and waist:hip ratio were significantly associated with both end points (relative risk of total mortality for highest quarter of triglyceride concentration v lower three quarters 1.86 (95% confidence interval 1.30 to 2.67); relative risk for waist:hip ratio 1.67 (1.18 to 2.36)). These associations remained after adjustment for background variables. Serum cholesterol concentration and body mass index were initially associated with death from myocardial infarction, but association was lost after adjustment for background variables. Serum triglyceride concentration and waist:hip ratio were independently predictive of both end points (logistic regression coefficient for total mortality for triglyceride 0.514 (SE 0.150), p = 0.0006; coefficient for waist:hip ratio 7.130 (1.92), p = 0.0002) whereas the other two risk factors were not (coefficient for total mortality for cholesterol concentration -0.102 (0.079), p = 0.20; coefficient for body mass index -0.051 (0.027), p = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS--Lipid risk profile appears to be different in men and women given that serum triglyceride concentration was an independent risk factor for mortality while serum cholesterol concentration was not. Consistent with previous observations in men, localisation of adipose tissue was more important than obesity per se as risk factor in women.
Spatial and Dynamical Biases in Velocity Statistics of Galaxies

We present velocity statistics of galaxies and their biases inferred from the statistics of the underlying dark matter using a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation of galaxy formation in low-density and spatially flat (Ω0 = 0.3 and λ0 = 0.7) cold dark matter cosmogony. Our simulation is based on a particle-particle-particle-mesh (P3M) N-body Poisson solver and smoothed particle hydrodynamics. Galaxies in our simulation are identified as clumps of cold and dense gas particles and classified as young and old galaxies according to their formation epochs. We find that the pairwise velocity dispersion (PVD) of all galaxies is significantly lower than that of the dark matter particles and that the PVD of the young galaxies is lower than that of the old types, and even of all galaxies together, especially at small separations. These results are in reasonable agreement with the recent measurements of PVDs in the Las Campanas redshift survey, the IRAS Point Source Catalogue Redshift Survey, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data. We also find that the low PVD of young galaxies is due to the effects of dynamical friction as well as the different spatial distribution, while the difference in the PVD between all galaxies and dark matter can be mostly ascribed to their different spatial distributions. We also consider the mean infall velocity and the POTENT density reconstruction that are often used to measure the cosmological parameters, and investigate the effects of spatial bias and dynamical friction. In our simulation, the mean infall velocity of young galaxies is significantly lower than that of all the galaxies or of the old galaxies, and the dynamical bias becomes important on scales less than 3 h-1 Mpc. The mass density field reconstructed from the velocity field of young galaxies using the POTENT-style method suffers in accuracy from both the spatial bias and the dynamical friction on the smoothing scale of Rs = 8 h-1 Mpc. On the other hand, in the case of Rs = 12 h-1 Mpc, which is typically adopted in the actual POTENT analysis, the density reconstruction based on various tracers of galaxies is reasonably accurate. We also analyze the motions of central galaxies and the velocity dispersion of galaxies within halos and discuss their implications for the motion of cD galaxies and the determination of the mass of galaxy groups.
O ct 2 00 3 Projective planes and their look-alikes

A straight-forward application of Poincaré duality shows that for such a manifold there exists a numberm ≥ 2 such thatHk(M) = Z, for k = 0,m, 2m; in particular,dim(M) = 2m is even. It follows from Adams’ Theorem on the Hopf invariant that m divides8. We construct a family of topological 2m-manifoldsM(ξ) which are Thom spaces of certain topologicalRm-bundles (open disk bundles) ξ over the sphereSm, for m = 2, 4, 8, and which we call models. This idea seems to go back to Thom and was explo ited further by Shimada [53] and Eells-Kuiper [14]. A particular case is worked out i n some detail in Milnor-Stasheff [46] Ch. 20. However, these authors used vector bundles inst ead ofRm-bundles. We will see that the non-linearity of Rm-bundles yields many more manifolds than the construction b y EellsKuiper. In [14] p. 182, the authors expressed the hope that “ e given combinatorial examples form a complete set [. ] for n 6= 4” . Our results show that in dimension n = 2m = 16, their construction missed 27/28 of the (infinitely many) combinatorial and topological solu tions, while in dimensionn = 8, they obtained all combinatorial, but only half of the topol ogical solutions. Next, we determine certain characteristic classes of our mo dels, and in particular their rational Pontrjagin classes. Using these characteristic classe s and Wall’s surgery sequence, we show that form 6= 2, every manifold which looks like a projective plane is homeo orphic to one of our models. Thus, we obtain a complete homeomorphism classi fication of all manifolds which are like projective planes. Furthermore, we determine which mo dels admit DIFF (or PL) structures. The casem = 2 (sodim(M) = 4) is different, but there, we can apply Freedman’s classifica tion of closed4-manifolds. We also classify the homotopy types of 1-connected Poincaré duality complexes X with H•(X) ∼= Z3. This homotopy-theoretic version of our main result (which was already proved in Eells-Kuiper [14]) is needed in the course of the homeomorph ism classification; since the methods here are somewhat different from the rest of the paper, I put i t in an appendix.
Diversity of Opinion and Financing of New Technologies

The objective is to compare the effectiveness of financial markets and financial intermediaries in financing new industries and technologies in the presence of diversity of opinion. In markets, investors become informed about the details of the new industry or technology and make their own investment decisions. In intermediaries, the investment decision is delegated to a manager. She is the only one who needs to become informed, which saves on information costs, but investors may anticipate disagreement with her and be unwilling to provide funds. Financial markets tend to be superior when there is significant diversity of opinion and information is inexpensive.
Observational Conditioning in Flower Choice Copying by Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris): Influence of Observer Distance and Demonstrator Movement

Background Bumblebees use information provided inadvertently by conspecifics when deciding between different flower foraging options. Such social learning might be explained by relatively simple associative learning mechanism: the bee may learn to associate conspecifics with nectar or pollen reward through previous experience of foraging jointly. However, in some studies, observers were guided by choices of ‘demonstrators’ viewed through a screen, so no reward was given to the observers at the time of seeing other bees’ flowers choice and no demonstrator bee was present at the moment of decision. This behaviour, referred to observational conditioning, implies an additional associative step as the positive value of conspecific is transferred to the associated flower. Here we explore the role of demonstrator movement, and the distance between observers and demonstrators that is required for observation conditioning to take place. Methodology/Principal Findings We identify the conditions under which observational conditioning occurs in the widespread European species Bombus terrestris. The presence of artificial demonstrator bees leads to a significant change in individual colour preference toward the indicated colour if demonstrators were moving and observation distance was limited (15 cm), suggesting that observational conditioning could only influence relatively short-range foraging decisions. In addition, the movement of demonstrators is a crucial factor for observational conditioning, either due to the more life-like appearance of moving artificial bees or an enhanced detectability of moving demonstrators, and an increased efficiency at directing attention to the indicated flower colour. Conclusion Bumblebees possess the capacity to learn the quality of a flower by distal observation of other foragers’ choices. This confirms that social learning in bees involves more advanced processes than simple associative learning, and indicates that observational conditioning might be widespread in pollinating insects, raising intriguing questions for the underlying mechanisms as well as the spread of social information in pollinator-plant interactions.
Condom use within marriage: a neglected HIV intervention.

OBJECTIVE To assess the contraceptive effectiveness of condoms versus oral contraceptive pills and estimate the reproductive consequences of a major shift from pill to condom use. METHODS Secondary analysis was performed on nationally representative cross-sectional surveys of women in 16 developing countries. FINDINGS In the 16 countries, the median per cent of married couples currently using condoms was 2%, compared with 13% for the pill. Condom users reported a higher 12-month failure and higher method-related discontinuation rates than pill users (9% and 44% vs 6% and 30%, respectively). Condom users were more likely to report subsequent abortion following failure (21% vs 14%), and also more likely to switch rapidly to another method (76% vs 58%). The reproductive consequences, in terms of abortion and unwanted births, of a hypothetical reversal of the relative prevalence of condom and pill were estimated to be minor. The main reason for this unexpected result is that the majority of abortions and unwanted births arise from non-use of any contraceptive method. CONCLUSION A massive shift from the more effective oral contraceptive pills to the less effective condom would not jeopardize policy goals of reducing abortions and unwanted births. However, such a shift would potentially have an added benefit of preventing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections, especially in countries with generalized HIV epidemics.
MATHEMATICS – EXAMPLES OF LESSONS FROM GEOMETRY

This article presents the benefits and importance of using multimedia in the math classes by the selected examples of multimedia lessons from geometry (isometric transformations and regular polyhedra). The research included two groups of 50 first year students of the Faculty of the Architecture and the Faculty of Civil Construction Management. Each group was divided into two groups of 25 students, one of which had the traditional lectures, while the other one had the interactive multimedia lessons. The main source of information in multimedia lectures were the softwares created in Macromedia Flash, with the same definitions, theorems, examples and tasks as well as in traditional lectures but with emphasized visualization possibilities, animations, illustrations, etc. Both groups were tested after the lectures. In the both multimedia groups students showed better theoretical, practical and visual knowledge. Besides that, survey carried out at the end of the research clearly showed that students from multimedia groups were highly interested in this way of learning.
Parenting Styles and Gang Membership: Mediating Factors

ABSTRACT While literature suggests that parenting has direct and indirect effects on gang membership, mediating effects have been established for the relationship between unidimensional parenting variables and gang involvement. This study fills the gap in the literature by examining how multidimensional parenting styles affect gang membership, and which factors mediate this relationship. The logistic regression models indicate a negative relationship between authoritative parenting and gang involvement, and a positive relationship between authoritarian, neglectful, and permissive parenting and gang membership. The analyses show that delinquent peers, self-control, rationalizations, and guilt are complete or partial mediators of parenting styles and gang membership.
The SCUBA Half Degree Extragalactic Survey – IV. Radio–mm–FIR photometric redshifts

We present the redshift distribution of the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) Half Degree Survey (SHADES) galaxy population based on the rest-frame radio–mm–far-infrared (FIR) colours of 120 robustly detected 850 μm sources in the Lockman Hole East (LH) and Subaru XMM–Newton Deep Field (SXDF). The redshift distribution derived from the full spectral energy distribution (SED) information is shown to be narrower than that determined from the radio–sub-mm spectral index, as more photometric bands contribute to a higher redshift accuracy. The redshift distribution of sources derived from at least two photometric bands peaks at z≈ 2.4 and has a near-Gaussian distribution, with 50 per cent (interquartile range) of sources at z= 1.8–3.1 . We find a statistically significant difference between the measured redshift distributions in the two fields; the SXDF peaking at a slightly lower redshift (median z ≈ 2.2 ) than the LH (median z ≈ 2.7 ), which we attribute to the noise properties of the radio observations. We demonstrate, however, that there could also be field-to-field variations that are consistent with the measured differences in the redshift distributions and, hence, that the incomplete area observed by SHADES with SCUBA, despite being the largest sub-mm survey to date, may still be too small to fully characterize the bright sub-mm galaxy population. Finally, we present a brief comparison with the predicted, or assumed, redshift distributions of sub-mm galaxy formation and evolution models, and we derive the contribution of these SHADES sources and the general sub-mm galaxy population to the star formation rate density at different epochs.