Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Small Group Interactions in Wiki-Based Collaborative Writing in the EAP Context

Due to recent developments in Web 2.0 technologies, computer-mediated collaborative writing has captured the growing attention of second language researchers and instructors. The affordance of wikis for collaborative writing has been hailed, but few studies have explored the nature of wiki collaboration and interaction during small group writing using wikis. This dissertation investigated dynamic group interactions in wiki-based collaborative writing tasks in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course at a southeastern public research university in the U.S. A total of twenty-nine English as a Second Language graduate students collaboratively worked on two writing tasks within small groups in Wikispaces sites. By adopting a multiple-case study approach, I closely examined four small groups that had diverse L1 background composites and presented a comprehensive picture of students' wiki-based collaborative writing. Informed by sociocultural theory, particularly the notions of scaffolding and zone of proximal development, I explored small group interactions to derive how they negotiated writing tasks, co-constructed writing, and mutually scaffolded wiki writing processes. I also examined what factors mediated the dynamic interactions, and in what ways the interactions influenced wiki writing products and connected with students' reflections about wiki collaborative writing. The triangulated data sources included archived wiki "Discussion," "Comments," "History," and "Page" records, pre-task and post-task questionnaire surveys, post-task and follow-up interviews, students' reflection papers, instructors' assessment of students' wiki group writing, and my research logs. In terms of the data analysis, I mainly conducted qualitative procedures using constant comparative method and content analysis, supplemented with descriptive analysis. The results revealed that the four small groups demonstrated four characteristic patterns of interaction. The patterns were not static across two wiki writing tasks. Mixed patterns were found in Group 1 (Collective – Active/withdrawn) and Group 3 (Dominant/defensive – Collaborative). Group dynamics were also evident in Group 2 (Expert/novice) and Group 4 (Cooperating in parallel). These patterns were featured with language functions that small groups performed while negotiating writing tasks, writing change functions that they performed while constructing joint texts, and scaffolding strategies that they applied throughout collaborative writing processes. In addition, multiple factors mediated small groups' wiki interactions: motives/goals, agency and emotion, and prior experiences in such aspects of cultural background, small group work, and technology use. Moreover, the group interactions had influences on joint wiki writing products and also connected with students' reflections about wiki affordances and their learning experiences. This study bridged the gap in computer-mediated collaborative writing research, and also shed new light on the networked writing pedagogy in the EAP…
Determinantes sociales de las enfermedades

En su libro clásico Civilización y Salud, Henry E. Sigerist escribió que “en cualquier sociedad dada, la incidencia de la enfermedad está determinada mayormente por factores económicos. Una baja calidad de vida, falta de comida, ropa y combustible, malas condiciones de vivienda y otros síntomas de pobreza han sido siempre las mayores causas de enfermedad”. 1 Para enfatizar esta verdad con respecto a las condiciones laborales, Sigerist cita un antiguo papiro egipcio que considera una voz de rebelión:
A Comparison of BSCS Versus Traditional Teaching Methods by Testing Student Achievement and Retention of Biology Concepts.

DCCUMENT RESUME SE 007 675 Mcntgcmery, Jerry I. A Comparison of BSCS Versus Traditional Teaching Methods by Testing Student Achievement and Retention of Biolcgy Ccncepts. Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind. May ES 65p. ERRS Price MF -$O.50 HC -$3.35 *Academic Achievement, Biology, *Comparative Analysis, Conventional Instructicn, *Course Evaluation, Inquiry Training, *Retention Studies, Science Course Improvement Project, Seccndary School Science, *Teaching Methods Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, Nelson Biology Test, Processes of Science The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) materials and the inquiry teaching method on student achievement and retention in biclogy. Teachers were selected who used ESCS materials with inquiry methods, BSCS materials with traditional methods, traditional materials with inquiry methods, and traditicnal materials with traditicnal methods. Twelve students selected at random from the classes of each teacher chosen were pre-tested and post-tested using The Nelson Biology Test and The Processes of Science Test as a measure of achievement, then the same tests were administered after the summer vacaticn as a measure of retenticn. The data were analyzed by analysis of coveriance using the pretest scores as covariates in analyzing the pcst-test scores, and the posttest scores as covariates in analyzing the retention scores. The results indicated that the BSCS students taught by inquiry methods showed the greatest achievement, all ESCS students showed greater retention, inquiry taught traditional students showed greater retention cn the Processes of Science Test than traditionally taught traditicnal students, and tenth grade students cut-performed ninth grade students. An unexpected finding was a positive relationship between class,size and both achievement and retention. (EB)
Computational methods for mining health communications in Web 2.0

Data from social media platforms are being actively mined for trends and patterns of interests. Problems such as sentiment analysis and prediction of election outcomes have become tremendously popular due to the unprecedented availability of social interactivity data of different types. In this thesis we address two problems that have been relatively unexplored. The first problem relates to mining beliefs, in particular health beliefs, and their surveillance using social media. The second problem relates to investigation of factors associated with engagement of U.S. Federal Health Agencies via Twitter and Facebook. In addressing the first problem we propose a novel computational framework for belief surveillance. This framework can be used for 1) surveillance of any given belief in the form of a probe, and 2) automatically harvesting health-related probes. We present our estimates of support, opposition and doubt for these probes some of which represent true information, in the sense that they are supported by scientific evidence, others represent false information and the remaining represent debatable propositions. We show for example that the levels of support in false and debatable probes are surprisingly high. We also study the scientific novelty of these probes and find that some of the harvested probes with sparse scientific evidence may indicate novel hypothesis. We also show the suitability of off-the-shelf classifiers for belief surveillance. We find these classifiers are quite generalizable and can be used for classifying newly harvested probes. Finally, we show the ability of harvesting and
A test of productive English grammatical ability in academic writing: Development and validation

This dissertation study is intended to develop a test of productive grammatical writing ability in academic English as a supplement to the essay test of the English Placement Test at Iowa State University. In addition, it attempts to validate the score interpretation and use of the academic grammar test, using a validation framework adapted from both Kane’s (2006) interpretive/validity argument model and Bachman and Palmer’s (2010) Assessment Use Argument (AUA) model. Philosophically grounded in a constructivist-realist approach to the interpretation of test scores, the test particularly aims to measure non-native English speaking students’ grammatical writing ability exerted in the academic setting. The entire processes of test development and evaluation are guided by an interpretive argument, which consists of seven inferences—Domain Description, Evaluation, Generalization, Extrapolation, Explanation, Utilization, and Ramification. Warrants for these seven inferences and underlying assumptions are identified through the interpretive argument, and the necessary types of backing evidence are also specified, to support these assumptions. Using the quantitative and qualitative data collected in F12 and Sp13, the study investigates whether each of the seven inferences is sustained by sufficient backing evidence. Overall, the test appears to elicit the target construct of the test effectively from test takers, reflecting the linguistic characteristics of academic writing as a target language use (TLU) domain. Evidence pertaining to score interpretations also supports several claims the examinees’ performance on the academic grammar test corresponds to their ability to use the target construct in both testing and non-testing writing contexts, and satisfies theoretical expectations to some extent. Evidence for the validity of the test use for the intended purpose is sought from the interviews with three different stakeholders (i.e., the EPT
A Comparison of Upper Ontologies (Technical Report DISI-TR-06-21)

Upper Ontologies are quickly becoming a key technology for integrating heterogeneous knowledge coming from different sources. In this technical report we analyse 7 Upper Ontologies, namely BFO, Cyc, DOLCE, GFO, PROTON, Sowa’s ontology, and SUMO, according to a set of standard software engineering criteria, and we synthesise our analysis in form of a comparative table. A summary of some existing comparisons drawn among subsets of the 7 Upper Ontologies that we deal with in this document, is also provided.
Intergenerational learning as an entropy driven process

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual analysis of the intergenerational learning as an entropy driven process in organizations. It is a new approach based on the following assumptions: a) in any organization there are three fields of knowledge in a continuous interaction: the cognitive knowledge field, the emotional knowledge field, and the spiritual knowledge field; b) in knowledge intensive organizations we can identify several knowledge generations; c) intergenerational learning is an entropy driven process. Each of these assumptions is discussed and integrated into the theory of the entropic management.
Registration and Lesion Classification of Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Breast Images

Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) magnetic resonance (MR) mammography provides information about tissue vascularity and permeability, which cannot be obtained by X-ray mammography. Initial DCE MR screening studies of young, high-risk women have reported a greatly improved sensitivity at a slightly reduced specificity compared to X-ray mammography. A frequent, but often ignored error source is patient motion. Many registration algorithms for DCE MR mammography have previously been developed, but their quantitative evaluation has been almost non-existent. The first objective of this thesis is to develop a technique for the validation of registration algorithms for correcting for patient motion in DCE MR mammography. The second objective is to improve the classification of breast lesions by creating a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system for DCE MR mammography which includes registration. This novel validation method is based on simulating physically plausible deformations by biomechanical computer models using finite element methods. Firstly, the influence of various parameters on the model’s accuracy was assessed using 2 volunteers. The model’s accuracy was more sensitive to both the change in boundary condition and Poisson’s ratio rather than the elastic properties. Suitable configurations improved the average accuracy from 6.6mm to 2.1mm. Secondly, plausible breast deformations were simulated for 10 patients and the performance of several registration configurations was then optimized for 5 of these patients. The better configurations used normalized mutual information, volume preservation and relatively coarse control point spacing. These reduced the mean registration error of the remaining 5 patients from 1.40mm to 0.45mm. Finally, a CAD system which included image registration and a new segmentation refinement method was developed. This achieved an area under the receiver operator characteristics curve of 0.86 for leave-one-out tests. The classification performance for rigidly registered images was statistically significantly better than for the original images. This thesis showed for the first time that including volume-preserving non-rigid registration into a CAD system for DCE MR mammography improves classification; that volume preservation increases the accuracy of flexible DCE MR mammography registrations; and that elastic properties were less important than boundary conditions and Poisson’s ratios.
Validation of the Online Technologies Self-Efficacy Scale (OTSES).

Educational researchers have employed various self-efficacy instruments in a wide spectrum of disciplines and academic settings. However, self-efficacy measures specific to the online environment have not been developed yet. This paper provides a brief history of the online environment and discusses the development and validation of an instrument that measures online students' self-efficacy beliefs with communication technologies such as e-mail, Internet, and computer conferencing. Content validity, construct validity, and reliability were established in order to validate this instrument. Factor analysis and correlational analysis revealed that all items could be collapsed into one scale. This indicated that there is only one unified construct for self-efficacy. The Cronbach's Coefficient Alpha for the whole instrument was 0.95. The Online Technologies Self-Efficacy Scale (OTSES) is appended. Contains 26 references. (Author/AEF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Analysing Document Similarity Measures

Supervised by Professor Stephen Pulman. Obtained distinction on MSc. The observation that document similarity measures are systems that perform the same abstract task while drawing upon very different aspects of documents depending on the goal raises a few questions about their nature. What is the common thread to document similarity measure design? Is it a software engineering problem, or are there general principles feeding their construction? Are metrics designed for one purpose suitable for another? How would we determine it if they were? How do they deal with different kinds of input (words, sentences, sets of paragraphs)? On what grounds can we compare metrics? How do we choose a 'better' metric relative to a task? This jumble of questions justifies further work, but leaves us with little clue how to begin. Attempts have been made in the computational linguistics literature to answer some of these questions with regard to small groups of metrics, particularly within the context of comparing two specific types of metrics, however we found no attempt at giving a general theory of metric design and analysis in the literature, and have resolves to approach the problem ourselves. The common theme to the above questions can thus be synthesised into the following three questions which will form the basis of our investigation. Firstly, how are common document similarity measures designed and implemented? We wish, in answering this question, to learn a bit more about the kinds of metrics commonly used in text processing, and the sort of difficulties arising when considering how to use them in practice. Secondly, how can we analyse document similarity? In answering this question, which will form the bulk of our project, we wish to discuss how metrics can be compared and ranked relative to different types of document similarity, thus giving us some insight into their performance for a variety of text processing tasks. Thirdly and finally, how can the results of such analysis be leveraged to improve metrics or produce better metrics? In this dissertation, we describe both an experiment and the construction of a extensible metric analysis framework in an attempt to answer the above key questions.
Computing Krippendorff's Alpha-Reliability

Krippendorff’s alpha () is a reliability coefficient developed to measure the agreement among observers, coders, judges, raters, annotators or measuring instruments drawing distinctions among typically unstructured phenomena or assign computable values to them.  emerged in content analysis but is widely applicable wherever two or more methods of generating data are applied to the same set of objects, predefined units of analysis or items and the question is how much the resulting data can be trusted to represent something worthy of analysis.
Multidimensional Signal Analysis for Wireless Communications Systems

Wireless communications systems underwent an evolution as the voice oriented applications evolved to data and multimedia based services. Furthermore, current wireless technologies, regulations and the understanding of the technology are insufficient for the requirements of future wireless systems. Along with the rapid rise at the number of users, increasing demand for more communications capacity to deploy multimedia applications entail effective utilization of communications resources. Therefore, there is a need for effective spectrum allocation, adaptive and complex modulation, error recovery, channel estimation, diversity and code design techniques to allow high data rates while maintaining desired quality of service, and reconfigurable and flexible air interface technologies for better interference and fading management. However, traditional communications system design is based on allocating fixed amounts of resources to the user and does not consider adaptive spectrum utilization. Technologies which will lead to adaptive, intelligent, and aware wireless communications systems are expected to come up with consistent methodologies to provide solutions for the capacity, interference, and reliability problems of the wireless networks. Spectrum sensing feature of cognitive radio systems are a step forward to better recognize the problems and to achieve efficient spectrum allocation. On the other hand, even though spectrum sensing can constitute a solid base to achieve the reconfigurability and awareness goals of next generation networks, a new perspective is required to benefit from the whole dimensions of the available electro hyperspace. Therefore, spectrum sensing should evolve to a more general and comprehensive awareness providing a mechanism, not only as a part of CR systems which provide channel occupancy information but also as a communication environment awareness component of dynamic spectrum access paradigm which can adapt sensing parameters autonomously to ensure robust identification and parameter estimation for the signals over the monitored spectrum. Such an approach will lead to recognition of communications opportunities in different dimensions of spectrum hyperspace, and provide necessary information about the air interfaces, access techniques and waveforms that are deployed over the monitored spectrum to accomplish adaptive resource management and spectrum access.
Performance analysis of H.264 encoder forhigh-definition video transmission overultra-wideband communication link.

With the technological advancement, entertainment has become revolutionized and the High-definition (HD) video has become a common feature of our modern amusement devices. Moreover, the demand for wireless transmission of HD video is rising increasingly for its ubiquitous nature, easy installation and relocation. The high bandwidth requirement is the main concern for wireless transmission of high quality video streams. Research has been going on by the consumer electronics industry to provide different solutions of this issue, for the last few years. In this research work, HD video transmission feasibility using the Ultra-wideband (UWB) communication channel is analyzed. The UWB channel is selected for its short-range, high-speed data transmission capability at low-cost, and low-power consumption. The maximum transmitting range of this technology is about 10 m at 100 Mbps data rate. Simulation is conducted by controlling key parameters, such as, in-loop deblocking filter, group of pictures, and quantization parameter of an H.264/AVC encoder. Here, standard HD video streams with different motion characteristics are used, and the impact of these parameters change on the reconstructed video quality and the broadcasting data rate are analyzed. Finally, a generalized parameters settings, and a video content dependent settings for an H.264/AVC encoder are proposed for different bandwidth requirements, as well as acceptable video quality. Performance evaluation of these parameters settings is performed, and the results are quite satisfactory as long as the symbol energy to noise power density ratio, Es/No, is above 15. With the proposed parameters settings, maximum 20 Mbps data rate is achieved with 33.5 dB Y-PSNR. ii
Comparing the efficacy of different web page interface attributes in facilitating information retrieval for people with mild learning disabilities

This research aimed to determine what web page attributes facilitate optimal website design for use by learning-disabled people – a topic hitherto rarely addressed. Qualitative research developed methods appropriate for this cohort, determined attributes that impact on usability and explored ways of eliciting preferences. Attributes related to menu position, text size and images, which were then examined quantitatively by comparing web pages of different layouts. Task-times were analysed, determining which attributes have the greatest impact on performance. The main predictor of task-time was menu position, followed by text size. Images did not affect performance. The study also found that learning-disabled people have only ‘serial access’ to information when searching individual pages – it being imbibed sequentially until the required content is reached. Words on the left of horizontal menus were found quicker than those in the middle or right. Information access took longer from vertical menus, possibly because of the juxtaposition of distracting body text. Images were ignored until reached ‘serially’– and thus did not help signpost content. Small-text was consumed quicker than large, as the latter took up more lines and required more eye movements to negotiate. A three category rating scale and simple interviews elicited web design preferences. The ‘neutral’ category proved troublesome and so a refined four category scale without this mid-point was adopted which yielded a greater variety of results. In verbally eliciting preferences, ‘acquiescence bias’ was minimised by avoiding polar interrogatives - partly achieved by comparing different designs. Preferred designs were for large-text and images – the reverse of those facilitating fastest retrieval times, a discrepancy due to preferences being judged on aesthetic considerations. Design recommendations are offered which reconcile preference and performance findings. These include using a horizontal menu, juxtaposing images and text, and reducing text from sentences to phrases – facilitating preferred large-text without increasing task-times.