Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Development of Academic Vocabulary among Arabic Native Speaking Middle School Pupils: How Much Do They Really Know?

The purpose of this study is to obtain a more fine-grained understanding of academic vocabulary knowledge in Arabic as L1 among middle school pupils. Accordingly, 1197 middle school Arabic native speaking pupils, representing the different Arab subgroups in Israel, have participated in this study. In the first phase of the study, a corpus based Arabic academic vocabulary list (AAVL) was developed, setting ground for developing three assessment tests that measured receptive vocabulary knowledge on different levels, commencing from mere recognition to application and production of academic vocabulary in context. In the second phase, differences in academic vocabulary knowledge were assessed in relation to age (7th and 9th grades) and Arab sub-group (General Arab, Druze and Bedouin). Significant main effects were found for age and Arab subgroup. Significantly higher performance was noted among 9th graders when compared to 7th graders with the Druze sub group outperforming the general Arab and the Bedouin subgroup. The latter sub-group, characterized by the lowest socio-economic background showed the poorest performance. Additionally, three-way interaction was found between academic vocabulary knowledge level, age and Arab subgroup. In both 7th and 9th grade, significant differences were found between the Arab subgroups on the academic cloze test and production of academic vocabulary only. Post-hoc comparisons showed that in both age groups, the Druze subgroup achieved the highest performance in both tests. Significant differences between the general Arab and Bedouin subgroups were noted on the academic cloze test but not on the production of academic vocabulary test. The results of the study and its implications are discussed.
Qualitatively different forms of pure alexia

In this study we investigated two patients with pure alexia, F.C. and L.D. S. , in order to make inferences about how processes and levels involved in the early stage of visual word recognition are organized and how they can be selectively damaged. Moreover, we investigated whether pure alexia can be caused by different functional deficits. F.C. and L.D. S. were presented with tasks of letter processing and tasks of orthographic integration. There was a clear double dissociation between the pattern of performance of F.C. and L.D. S. F.C. was able to process single letters rapidly and accurately, but was unable to group together the letters that he had correctly identified. By contrast, L.D. S. was slower and more impaired at letter identification, but she could use letter groups to assist reading. Thus, two different forms of pure alexia emerged: F.C. has a higher level deficit in integrating letters, whereas L.D. S. has a lower level deficit in letter processing. The results support the assumption of a functional organization of the reading process that involves a series of orthographic units (i.e., single letters, sublexical letter groups, and the lexical unit), which can be selectively damaged. Finally, our data present difficulties for models of pure alexia that assume all patients to have a low-level processing deficit.
Changes in Subjective Well-Being Over Time in Germnay

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we study the evolution of subjective well-being from 1999 to 2014. More specifically, we analyze the main determinants of changes in subjective well-being once we determine the main factors of predicted changes of subjective well-being. Moreover, we test whether these determinants exert a differential effect when considering ups and downs in subjective well-being. Our main findings indicate that, social, cultural and psychological capital predict the largest changes in subjective well-being. We also observe that absolute income has effects on changes in subjective well-being, but is not relevant at level. Additionally, adaptation is always complete except when we focus on specific changes, that is, when we distinguish between ups and downs in subjective well-being, adaptation affects the positive changes. In general, our evidence shows that all factors except bridging social capital, worries and risk have a different effect on the level and changes in subjective well-being.
Application of Knowledge Discovery in Database to Blood Cell Counter Data to Improve Quality Control in Clinical Pathology

This paper analyzes the functions of an automated blood cell counter from a clinical pathology laboratory and proposes an application of the data preprocessing phase of the Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) processes such as data cleaning, data selection and data transformation on the blood cell counter data to enhance the quality of the system. The blood cell counter data are subjected to a range test normally to ensure quality and then the tests are repeated manually to ensure correctness of the results. The manual procedure is time consuming and hence it is desired to reduce the number of manual reviews. A delta check is performed in some cases to reduce the number of manual reviews and that involves the previous test results of the same patient for the same test. This paper analyzes various ways of finding the delta values of the tests to reduce the number of manual reviews. Two exceptions to the process are also analyzed in this paper. The first case is to repeat the test even when the test result is normal and the second is not to go for retest even if the test results are abnormal based on the past results of the same patient.
Public Support for Harsh Criminal Justice Policy and Its Moral and Ideological Tides

From the late 1970s on, penal populism, or the tendency for the public to support harsh criminal justice policies, has been recognized as a driving force of socially and economically costly punitive trends in the Western world. This support has traditionally been attributed to political leanings and related ideological systems. A competing view is that policy preferences reflect deep-seated individualizing and binding moral systems. However, each view has difficulty refuting the other in empirical and theoretical terms. Using a structural equation modeling approach, this study applies 2 competing theoretical models to investigate the ideological and moral underpinnings of public support for harsh criminal justice policy. Results suggest both ideological and moral components to public punitiveness. Though right-wing authoritarianism was most strongly associated with supporting harsh criminal justice policies, we find some indication of the underlying importance of moral concerns. We argue that persistent public calls for harsh criminal justice policy could be abated by appealing to deeply ingrained and universal moral concerns about fairness.
Geometric Numerical Integration

The numerical simulation of time-dependent processes in science and technology often leads to the problem to solve a system of ordinary diﬀerential equations (ODEs) with a suitable method. In many applications it can be shown that the exact ﬂow exhibits certain qualitative or “geometric” properties. For example, it is well-known that the ﬂow of a Hamiltonian system is symplectic, and that the energy remains constant along the solution although the solution itself changes in time. the solution or the is approximated by a numerical integrator, it is desirable to preserve these geometric properties (at least approximately), because reproducing the correct qualitative behavior in most applications. It turns out, however, that many numerical schemes destroy the structure of the solution, and that only selected methods respect the geometric properties of the dynamics. These methods are called geometric numerical integrators.
Lessons Learned From a Collaborative to Improve Care for Patients With Diabetes in 17 Community Health Centers, Massachusetts, 2006

Introduction In 2006, the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers convened a collaborative to systematically improve health care delivery for patients with diabetes in 17 community health centers. Our goal was to identify facilitators of and barriers to success reported by teams that participated in this collaborative. Methods The collaborative's activities lasted 13 months. At their conclusion, we interviewed participating team members. We asked about their teams' successes, challenges, and take-home messages for future collaborative efforts. We organized their responses into common themes by using the Chronic Care Model as a framework. Results Themes that emerged as facilitators of success included shifting clinic focus to more actively involve patients and to promote their self-management; improving the understanding and implementation of professional guidelines; and expanding staff roles to accommodate these goals. Patient registries were perceived as beneficial but lacking adequate technical support. Other barriers were staffing and time constraints. Conclusions Cooperative efforts to improve health care delivery for people with diabetes may benefit from educating the health care team about guidelines, establishing a stronger role for the patient as part of the health care team, and providing adequate technical instruction and support for the use of clinical databases.
The Consequences of Mandatory Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Four Countries

We examine the effect of mandatory sustainability reporting on firm disclosure practices and valuation. Specifically, we explore the implications of regulations mandating the disclosure of environmental, social, and governance information in China, Denmark, Malaysia, and South Africa using differences-indifferences estimation with propensity score matched samples. We find that relative to propensity score matched control firms, treated firms significantly increased disclosure following the regulations. We also find increased propensity by treated firms to receive assurance to enhance disclosure credibility and increased propensity to adopt reporting guidelines that enhance disclosure comparability. These results suggest that even in the absence of a regulation that mandates the adoption of assurance or specific guidelines, firms seek the qualitative properties of comparability and credibility. We do not find any evidence that, on average, the disclosure regulations adversely affected shareholders. Instrumental variables regressions suggest that increases in disclosure driven by the regulation are associated with increases in firm valuations, as reflected in Tobin’s Q.
Agent Architectures for Flexible, Practical Teamwork

Teamwork in complex, dynamic, multi-agent domains mandates highly flexible coordination and communication. Simply fitting individual agents with precomputed coordination plans will not do, for their inflexibility can cause severe failures in teamwork, and their domain-specificity hinders reusability. Our central hypothesis is that the key to such flexibility and reusability is agent architectures with integrated teamwork capabilities. This fundamental shift in agent architectures is illustrated via an implemented candidate: STEAM. While STEAM is founded on the joint intentions theory, practical operationalization has required it to integrate several key novel concepts: (i) team synchronization to establish joint intentions; (ii) constructs for monitoring joint intentions and repair; and (iii) decision-theoretic communication selectivity (to pragmatically extend the joint intentions theory). Applications in three different complex domains, with empirical results, are presented.
Highly Sensitive Gamma-Spectrometers of GERDA for Material Screening: Part 2

The previous article about material screening for GERDA points out the importance of strict material screening and selection for radioimpurities as a key to meet the aspired background levels of the GERDA experiment. This is directly done using low-level gamma-spectroscopy. In order to provide sufficient selective power in the mBq/kg range and below, the employed gamma-spectrometers themselves have to meet strict material requirements, and make use of an elaborate shielding system. This article gives an account of the setup of two such spectrometers. Corrado is located in a depth of 15 m w.e. at the MPI-K in Heidelberg (Germany), GeMPI III is situated at the Gran-Sasso underground laboratory at 3500 m w.e. (Italy). The latter one aims at detecting sample activities of the order ~0.01 mBq/kg, which is the current state-of-the-art level. The applied techniques to meet the respective needs are discussed and demonstrated by experimental results.
Cognitive and Neural Inhibition : Two Separate Worlds

Everyone knows what inhibition is-and that creates a very real problem. The idea is so ingrained that it is difficult to discuss it as a scientific concept without contamination from existing world knowledge. Yet discussing it is exactly what cognitive scientists have been attempting to do with renewed vigor in the recent past, owing to a t least three factors: the growth of cognitive neuroscience, developments in cognitive modeling, and newly described cognitive phenomena. Beginning with the phenomenon of negative priming (for reviews, see Fox, 1995; May, Kane, & Hasher, 1995; Tipper, 2001) and spurred by two influential books that appeared in quick succession just over a decade ago (Dagenbach & Carr, 1994; Dempster & Brainerd, 1995), interest in cognitive inhibition grew. Of course, the desire to mesh cognition with neuroscience also has provided a powerful impetus for understanding the place of inhibition in the current conceptualization of mind and brain. This interest is well illustrated by the inclusion of inhibition as one of only 16 core concepts in a recent effort to grapple with concepts-free of empirical research findings-that are fundamental to memory (Roediger, Dudai, & Fitzpatrick, in press). This chapter is intended as a broad introduction to the concept of inhibition in cognition and consequently to this book as a whole. For this reason, I take no strong stand on the value of the concept (although I have expressed a skeptical point of view elsewhere; see MacLeod, in press; MacLeod, Dodd, Sheard, Wilson, & Bibi, 2003). In this chapter, the goal is to set out the issues involved in the empirical study and theoretical understanding of the concept of inhibition as it applies to the operation of cognition. So I begin with what this chapter is and is not about. This chapter is not about the neural concept of inhibition: It is accepted that neurons certainly can inhibit each other. This chapter also is not about the physical-response concept of inhibition: It is
How do firms tackle strategic change? A theoretical model of the choice between dynamic capability-based and ad hoc problem-solving approaches

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical account of how firms make choices between dynamic capability-based and ad hoc problem-solving approaches toward strategic change. Design/methodology/approach A model has been developed to answer the questions of how and under what conditions firms develop appropriate approaches to handle strategic change. Findings Drawing upon structural inertia theory (SIT) and the resource-based view (RBV), the model predicts that firms, regardless of their age and size, are more likely to adopt an ad hoc problem-solving approach to handle change in both highly dynamic and low-dynamic environments. However, in moderately dynamic environments, a dynamic capability-based approach may be more appropriate, depending on which theoretical logic (SIT or RBV) the decision is made. Originality/value The paper builds on the useful distinction made by Winter (2003) in terms of the ways to handle organizational change and extends the recent research on temporary vs sustainable competitive advantages to investigate how firms tackle strategic change within the contexts of both environmental dynamism and organizational attributes.
Digital inclusion in later life: cohort changes in internet use over a ten-year period in England

ABSTRACT The ability to use the internet frequently is likely to provide a useful means of engaging with society and using services in later life, yet older people are the most likely to suffer digital exclusion, with those of the oldest ages at the greatest risk. Using six waves (2002–2012) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we model cohort-specific patterns of frequent internet use for people aged 50 and over. Multi-level growth models are used to observe trajectories of internet use over the ten-year period. Firstly, analyses are stratified by gender and wealth, and secondly we additionally test for health effects. The study finds cohort-specific differences in patterns of internet use. Rates of internet use increase faster among younger cohorts yet, despite initially increasing, begin to decline among older cohorts. Poor health is shown to be a key factor in shaping the trajectory of internet use over time. Rates of internet use are consistently lower for women than men and for those in poorer financial circumstances, independently of age cohort. The findings demonstrate the importance of ensuring older people can remain digitally included throughout later life, including after the onset of poorer health, especially as some of these individuals might benefit the most from some of the services the internet can provide.
Empathy Mediates the Effects of Age and Sex on Altruistic Moral Decision Making

Moral decision making involves affective and cognitive functions like emotional empathy, reasoning and cognitive empathy/theory of mind (ToM), which are discussed to be subject to age-related alterations. Additionally, sex differences in moral decision making have been reported. However, age-related changes in moral decision making from early to late adulthood and their relation to sex and neuropsychological functions have not been studied yet. One hundred ninety seven participants (122 female), aged 19–86 years, were tested with a moral decision making task comprising forced choice “everyday life” situations in which an altruistic option that favors a socially accepted alternative had to be considered against an egoistic option that favors personal benefit over social interests. The percentage of altruistic decisions was analyzed. A structural equation model (SEM) was calculated to test the hypothesis whether age and sex predict altruistic moral decision, and whether relevant neuropsychological domains mediate these hypothesized relationships. A significant relationship between age and moral decision making was found indicating more frequent altruistic decisions with increasing age. Furthermore, women decided more altruistically than men. The SEM showed that both age and sex are significant predictors of altruistic moral decision making, mediated by emotional empathy but not by reasoning. No cognitive empathy and ToM scores were correlated to age and moral decision making at the same time and thus were not included in the SEM. Our data suggest that increasing age and female sex have an effect on altruistic moral decisions, but that this effect is fully mediated by emotional empathy. The fact that changes of moral decision making with age are mediated by emotional empathy can be interpreted in the light of the so-called “positivity effect” and increasing avoidance of negative affect in aging. The mediated sex effect might represent both biological aspects and socialized sex roles for higher emotional empathy leading to more altruistic decisions.
Background-dependent effects of polyglutamine variation in the Arabidopsis thaliana gene ELF3

Tandem repeats (TRs) have extremely high mutation rates and are often considered to be neutrally evolving DNA. However, in coding regions, TR copy number mutations can significantly affect phenotype and may facilitate rapid adaptation to new environments. In several human genes, TR copy number mutations that expand polyglutamine (polyQ) tracts beyond a certain threshold cause incurable neurodegenerative diseases. PolyQ-containing proteins exist at a considerable frequency in eukaryotes, yet the phenotypic consequences of natural variation in polyQ tracts that are not associated with disease remain largely unknown. Here, we use Arabidopsis thaliana to dissect the phenotypic consequences of natural variation in the polyQ tract encoded by EARLY FLOWERING 3 (ELF3), a key developmental gene. Changing ELF3 polyQ tract length affected complex ELF3-dependent phenotypes in a striking and nonlinear manner. Some natural ELF3 polyQ variants phenocopied elf3 loss-of-function mutants in a common reference background, although they are functional in their native genetic backgrounds. To test the existence of background-specific modifiers, we compared the phenotypic effects of ELF3 polyQ variants between two divergent backgrounds, Col and Ws, and found dramatic differences. In fact, the Col-ELF3 allele, encoding the shortest known ELF3 polyQ tract, was haploinsufficient in Ws × Col F1 hybrids. Our data support a model in which variable polyQ tracts drive adaptation to internal genetic environments.
Neuronal processing of natural rewards

Depletion imposes both need and desire to drink, and potentiates the response to need-relevant cues in the environment. The present fMRI study aimed to determine which neural structures selectively increase the incentive value of need-relevant stimuli in a thirst state. Towards this end, participants were scanned twice either in a thirst or no-thirst state while viewing pictures of beverages and chairs. As expected, thirst led to a selective increase in self-reported pleasantness and arousal by beverages. Increased responses to beverage as compared to chair stimuli were observed in the cingulate cortex, insular cortex, and the amygdala in the thirst state, which were absent in the nothirst condition. Enhancing the incentive value of need-relevant cues in a thirst state is a key mechanism for motivating drinking behavior. Overall, distributed regions of the motive circuitry, which are also implicated in salience processing, craving, and interoception, provide a dynamic body-state dependent representation of stimulus value.
An Iteratively Decodable Tensor Product Code with Application to Data Storage

The error pattern correcting code (EPCC) can be constructed to provide a syndrome decoding table targeting the dominant error events of an inter-symbol interference channel at the output of the Viterbi detector. For the size of the syndrome table to be manageable and the list of possible error events to be reasonable in size, the codeword length of EPCC needs to be short enough. However, the rate of such a short length code will be too low for hard drive applications. To accommodate the required large redundancy, it is possible to record only a highly compressed function of the parity bits of EPCC's tensor product with a symbol correcting code. In this paper, we show that the proposed tensor error-pattern correcting code (T-EPCC) is linear time encodable and also devise a low-complexity soft iterative decoding algorithm for EPCC's tensor product with q-ary LDPC (T-EPCC-qLDPC). Simulation results show that T-EPCC-qLDPC achieves almost similar performance to single-level qLDPC with a 1/2 KB sector at 50% reduction in decoding complexity. Moreover, 1 KB T-EPCC-qLDPC surpasses the performance of 1/2 KB single-level qLDPC at the same decoder complexity.