Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of Competence in Dynamic Learning Environments

Perspective Text Analysis is a way to measure competence by measuring the strategy of synthesizing, which intelligence tests or questionnaires cannot measure. This paper proposes the use of Perspective Text Analysis in the study of instructional materials. Perspective Text Analysis has been applied in various learning environments, and the results have shown the ways in which people adapt their thinking and action to situational constraints. Previous research has confirmed that the quality of instructional-materials is crucial for the development of competence. Perspective Text Analysis can be used to analyze text materials for their conceptual relations so that they can govern learning situations. A theory of the construction of materials for the humanities and social sciences is also proposed as a new field of research. The starting point for studies in this field is a test that contains materials grouped according to the degree of difficulty in comprehension. The degrees of difficulty are related to three commonly accepted scientific models that build on the conceptual relations of behaviorism, cybernetics, and Gestalt psychology. Texts related to these models have been analyzed and their quality determined through Perspective Text Analysis. The materials can be compared with texts written by students as a way of defining the students' knowing or competence. The final part of this paper provides examples of prototypical studies in this area, showing some possible lines to follow when one wishes to introduce a humanistically based theory of materials into learning and judgment situations. (Contains 68 references.) (Author/SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 2 Copenhagen University Denmark
Faeces of Rhinolophus euryale (Chiroptera) from the winter season contain inorganic matter

Hibernating mammals arouse periodically from their torpor under the influence of an unknown mechanism to perform activities necessary for the correct functioning of metabolism. Our model species, the Mediterranean horseshoe bat ( Rhinolophus euryale Blasius, 1853), wakes up during the winter and produces both typical consumptive as well as non-consumptive faeces (produced after no feeding activity). The aim of this study was to characterize the composition of the latter droppings of R. euryale in comparison to summer droppings to better understand the processes involved in such arousals from winter hibernation. The non-consumptive samples were morphologically similar and consisted of mucous material on the outside and a homogeneous mass inside. The internal homogenous mass inside the faeces was composed of organic as well as inorganic material, consisting of phosphate, calcium carbonate, quartz particles, and clay. We also confirmed the overall presence of faecal spherulites, calcite crystals and siliceous needles. The faeces contained no cells or if some, merely fragments of them. In contrast, summer faeces were composed of insect fragments; i.e. they were typically consumptive. In addition, we found no trace of insect-prey DNA in the winter droppings, which contained bat DNA instead. We also found peptides belonging to Mammalia as well as to other craniate and eukaryotes, but Arthropoda peptides occurred in only a rudimental occurrence. We found Bacteria peptides as well. Internal parasites were also visually retrieved. The high concentration of inorganic material and virtual lack of prey observed in the non-consumptive faeces indicate that drinking as well as direct sediment consumption occur inside the cave environment during the hibernation period. We conclude that winter arousals are unlikely to be aimed at gaining energy through foraging but most likely allow regulating water balance by active drinking.
Genetic Characterization of Toxoplasma gondii Isolated from Chicken Meats in Tunisia

Background: Toxoplasmosis is one of the most important food-borne diseases distributed worldwide. In order to determinate the involvement of poultry meat in clinical toxoplasmosis, this study aimed to genetic characterization of Toxoplasma gondii in tissue samples of serologically positive chickens of Tunisia using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Methods: Trail of isolation of local T. gondii chicken strains through bioassay of the suspected infected chicken tissues in mice was carried out and the isolated strains were typed using PCR-RFLP targeting the marker AK69. Data analysis was performed by SPSS 16.0. Results: Out of 40 seropositive chickens, 15 were positive by AK69 gene PCR. RFLP analysis showed high prevalence of type II T. gondii in infected poultry meats in Tunisia. Conclusion: It seems that chicken meat of this region is not a risk factor of congenital toxoplasmosis. However, direct genotyping approach and deeper analysis should be investigated to have clearer idea about the epidemiology of the parasite and its transmission routs in Tunisia.
Willingness to pay for excreta pellet fertilizer: Empirical evidence from Ghana

This study examined farmers’ willingness to pay for excreta pellet fertilizer in Ghana. Primary data was obtained from 461 farmers in 10 districts in the Western and Greater Accra regions of Ghana through randomized questionnaire administration. The contingent valuation method was used in eliciting the farmers’ willingness to pay decisions (WTP) and maximum amount they are willing to pay. The Tobit regression model results revealed that being a household head, unit cost of current fertilizer used, and farm size positively influenced the willingness to pay amount whereas previous use of organic fertilizer influenced the willingness to pay amount negatively.
CAPITAL INTENSITY, OPENNESS, AND THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE ASEAN 5

One of the core elements of the neoclassical growth theory is that poor countries have low capital-labor ratios but have higher marginal products of capital than the rich countries. This means the low-income countries experience faster growth rates and become a reason for allowing capital, goods, and technology can move across countries. Assuming that the labor intensive countries have higher returns on capital, then investment will flows into those countries and encourage higher economic growth. However, in fact capital flows seems to go in the opposite direction. A country with abundant capital can expand its capital-intensive sectors and export their goods along with trade liberalization. Consequently, the returns to capital in its capital-intensive sectors rise and a greater demand for investment induces higher capital inflows from abroad. Those predictions push developing countries to change their labor intensive industrial structures and become more capital intensive, to encourage their economic growth. This paper examines how capital intensity and openness affect economic growth using data from the ASEAN 5 countries data. The issue of endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity, as major problems in a data panel, are addressed by the fixed effect method and the Feasible General Least Square (FGLS). Capital flows appears to be the most important source of economic growth, whilst trade is found to have a limited role. The interaction between capital intensity and the openness indicator do not indicate significant effects. Generally, there is no evidence that the more outward-oriented countries with high levels of capital intensity experiences higher economic growth.
Own-Gender Bias in Change Detection for Gender Specific Images

*Faculty mentor Change blindness is defined as the “inability to report a change that has occurred between two visual stimuli” (Werner & Thies, 2000, p. 163). The changes made to stimuli can be surfacelevel changes in color or rotation (Cole, Kentridge, & Heywood, 2004; Hollingworth, 2003; Rensink, O’Regan, & Clark, 1997; Werner & Thies, 2000), or more dramatic alterations, such as exchanging a person who is engaged in a social interaction. In Simons and Levin (1998), pedestrians on a college campus were giving directions to a confederate when two individuals carrying a door passed between them interrupting their conversation. Unbeknownst to the pedestrian, the confederate switched with one of the individuals carrying the door. The new confederate then resumed the conversation with the pedestrian. The majority of the pedestrians (8 out of 15) failed to notice that they had spoken to two different individuals. How can individuals miss such glaring changes in their environment? The fact that changes this extreme can be missed demonstrates the limitations of our attentional system, which has important implications for tasks that require sustained attentional focus, such as driving. It further suggests that foundational tenets on which society functions, such as the belief in the accuracy of eyewitness accounts of events, are potentially problematic themselves. When individuals encounter a visual scene, their evaluation depends, in part, upon environmental sensory information, or bottom-up processing (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2002). By contrast, top-down processes are personal experiences, expectations, ABSTRACT. Change blindness is a phenomenon that occurs when individuals fail to notice changes that take place in the visual world. Although individual differences in change blindness have been relatively well-studied, no one has examined differences in detection for gender1-relevant images. In the present study, men and women (N = 53) determined whether subtle changes were present in three types of images: male-oriented, female-oriented, and gender-neutral. Images were presented using a modified flicker paradigm. As expected, there were no overall differences in change detection across biological sex or image type. However, men and women more accurately detected changes for images that pertained to their gender, F(1, 51) = 4.78, p = 0.03, η2 = . 09. Men detected more changes in male-oriented images (M = 3.30, SD = 0.86) than female-oriented images (M = 3.10, SD = 0.86). Conversely, women detected more changes in female-oriented (M = 3.50, SD = 0.69) images than male-oriented images (M = 3.20, SD = 0.69). All remaining interactions were not significant, all F’s < 2.24, and all p’s > . 14. These findings are consistent with research positing an own-gender bias and extend previous research indicating that top-down processes can partially explain change blindness. Own-Gender Bias in Change Detection for Gender-Specific Images
Analysis of genotype and genotype × environment interaction in durum wheat in warm rainfed areas of Iran

Karimizadeh, R. , M. Mohammadi, N. Sabaghnia, T. Hosseinpour, and M. K. Shafazadeh. 2012. Analysis of genotype and genotype × environment interaction in durum wheat in warm rainfed areas of Iran. Crop Breeding Journal 2(2): 71-78. The objective of this investigation was to evaluate the magnitude of G × E interaction effects on durum wheat grain yield and to identify superior genotypes adapted to the test environments. Twenty improved durum wheat genotypes were tested in five locations over three growing seasons. Combined ANOVA indicated that the effect of year (Y) was significant and that of the location (L) was not, but that their interaction (Y × L) was highly significant. The main effect of genotype was also significant, as was the genotype × year interaction (G × Y); genotype × location interaction (GL) was not significant, but three-way interactions (G × Y × L) were highly significant. Clustering of genotypes based on intercept and slope parameters of the linear regression model produced three distinct groups, while using only line slopes for clustering produced no groups at all. The coefficient of determination of the linear regression model ranged from 0.84 (G10) to 0.98 (G2); therefore, it can be concluded that this clustering method was somewhat useful for this data set. According to the dendrogram of clustering based on G and G × E interaction of ANOVA, there were 15 genotypic groups, while according to the dendrogram of clustering based on G × E interaction of ANOVA, there were 12 genotypic groups. Considering all clustering methods and mean grain yield, genotypes G8 (2590 kg ha-1) and G13 (2592 kg ha-1) were superior and thus can be recommended as candidates for release in warm rainfed areas of Iran.
IDENTIFYING LEARNING STRATEGIES BETWEEN SUCCESSFUL AND UNSUCCESSFUL LEARNERS IN READING COMPREHENSION

Theoretically, reading skill is considered as one of the difficult language skills to master. This is reasonable because reading skill has some elements such as determining main idea, finding specific information, reference, inference and vocabulary. Therefore, there are still many problems faced by learners in comprehending a text. The difficulties in identifying the main ideas, making an inference and finding specific information also become a huge trouble in their reading. In fact, learning strategies of reading give a good effect to the results of learners’ achievement in learning reading because learning strategies have some effective elements to help students in reading comprehension such as cognitive, metacognitive, and social strategies. The research aimed to find out the differences of the learning strategies between successful and unsuccessful learners in English reading. This research was a quantitative study and was conducted to 68 learners in the first grade of SMA Al-Kautsar. In collecting data, the researcher gave a questionnaire (LLSQ) and reading tests. The data were analyzed by using Independent t-test. The results showed that (1) most of the successful students used cognitive strategy (3.46), metacognitive (3.19) and social (3.20), (2) there was no significant difference between successful and unsuccessful learners in using cognitive and social strategies meanwhile the metacognitive strategies had a significant difference. (3) the cognitive strategies had a high correlation with the inference aspect, the metacognitive had a high correlation with determining main idea aspect, and social strategies had high correlation with finding specific information aspect of reading comprehension. There was an implication for language learning strategies in reading skills because they include such activities as summarizing for each section from an expository passage, opening dictionary and note taking that could help students to overcome the problems in reading comprehension. Thus, the students need to be informed about learning strategies and how to use them appropriately in reading because choosing learning strategies was a student’s way in improving their skill in reading.
Finance, Comparative Advantage, and Resource Allocation

The paper examines the interplay between financial development and comparative advantage in shaping the survival of exporting firms on foreign markets. Exports suffering from comparative disadvantage (labour-intensive products from capital-abundant countries) survive shorter on the competitive US market. Crucially, the pattern is stronger if the exporting country has a well-developed banking system. This suggests a positive role for finance in pushing the manufacturing sector towards export composition congruent with the comparative advantage of a given country. A strong financial sector can thus mitigate misallocation of resources arising from inefficient exporting patterns.
A new application of morphometrics in a study of the variation in uncinal shape present within the Terebellidae (Polychaeta) : A reevaluation from digital images

Une nouvelle application de la morphometrie a l'etude de la variation de forme des uncini presents chez les Terebellidae (Polychaeta): une reevaluation a partir d'images numeriques. Dans cette etude, l'approche morphometriques est utilisee pour definir des groupes distincts en fonction de la forme des uncini dans quatre sous-familles de Terebellidae (Polychaeta). 24 parametres ont ete mesures a partir de photographies de 3 uncini issues du segment 7 et de 3 autres du segment 16, sur 31 especes, 2 appartenant aux Trichobranchinae, 2 aux Polycirrinae, 6 aux Thelepodinae et 21 aux Terebellinae. Ces parametres sont fondes sur 7 limites precises et 6 limites extrapolees ainsi que la mesure de la surface, du perimetre, de la plus grande longueur, de la plus petite longueur, du perimetre diagonal, du perimetre horizontal et du perimetre vertical. L'approche multidimensionnelle pour estimer la similarite et la dissimilarite des differents patrons d'uncini a ete realisee grâce a des n-MDS, ANOSIM et ACP. Le modele predictif developpe pour identifier les sous-familles de Terebellidae est fonde sur l'approche par reseau de neurones. Le n-MDS realise sur les 31 especes de Terebellidae met en evidence 3 groupes distincts: un groupe compose d'especes appartenant aux sous-familles Thelepodinae-Terebellinae et deux autres groupes formes par les especes de Trichobranchinae et Polycirrinae. La permutation testee par ANOSIM a confirme les tendances observees dans le n-MDS. L'ordination sur les deux premiers axes de l'ACP explique respectivement 64,2% de la variance totale sur l'ACP realisee sur les uncini du segment 7 et 65,05% sur l'ACP realisee sur les uncini du segment 16. Les ACP montrent que la majorite des mesures effectuees sur les uncini est importante pour obtenir une meilleure classification des donnees. Les trois patrons obtenus peuvent donc etre consideres comme trois etats caracteristiques pour definir la forme globale des uncini et ainsi utilises dans de futures etudes cladistiques. Finalement, le modele developpe sur la base d'une reseau de neurones a permis de separer avec succes les quatre sous-familles.
Character association and Path analysis in rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes evaluated under organic management

The present investigation is carried out at College of Agriculture, Padannakkad, Kerala Agricultural University, to study the character association and path analysis in sixty-five genotypes of rice (Oryza sativa L.) under organic management. Among the correlation coefficients of thirteen growth characteristics with grain yield plant-1, for the characteristics chlorophyll content of flag leaf, chlorophyll content of third leaf, number of tillers plant-1at 30DAT, the genotypic correlation coefficients were higher than phenotypic correlation coefficients, indicating the less influence of environment on these characters. However, in the case of parameters namely, number of tillers plant-1at 60DAT, number of tillers plant-1at 90DAT and number of tillers plant-1at harvest, the phenotypic correlation coefficients were higher than genotypic correlation coefficients, which indicates that the influence of environment on these characters is high. Among these characters, number of tillers at harvest and number of tillers at 60DAT possessed both positive association and direct effects. Hence, selection for these characters could bring improvement in organic rice yield improvement programmes.
A Comparison of Adjusted Bayes Estimators of use in Small Area Estimation

Empirical and Hierarchical Bayes methods are often used to improve the precision design-based estimators in Small Area estimation problems. By the way, when posterior means are used to estimate an 'ensemble' of parameters, a poor estimate of the empirical distribution function of the ensemble typically results. Several adjusted estimators have been proposed in the literature in order to obtain better estimates of nonlinear function of an ensemble of parameters. In this paper we discuss a set of adjusted estimators with reference to the univariate and multivariate Fay- Herriot models within the framework of Hierarchical Bayesian modeling. The repeated sampling properties of the considered estimators and the associated measures of uncertainty are evaluated by means of a simulation exercise.
Determinants of Health Care Demand in Ghana Using the Ordered Probit Model Analysis

The study examines the factors that determine health care demand of the people of Kwabre East District in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Health behaviour model formulated by Anderson and Newman was adopted for the analysis with the help of Ordered Probit. The result of the study revealed that, the level of income, transportation cost, hospital cost and NHIS have positive signs, implying that as these factors increases, the utilization of health care facilities also increases. It was found out from the marginal effects results that, NHIS and transport cost have negative signs on the patient’s first visit to hospital whiles the level of income and hospital cost were insignificant.
Ethics, Reflexivity, and “Ethically Important Moments” in Research

Ethical tensions are part of the everyday practice of doing research—all kinds of research. How do researchers deal with ethical problems that arise in the practice of their research, and are there conceptual frameworks that they can draw on to assist them? This article examines the relationship between reflexivity and research ethics. It focuses on what constitutes ethical research practice in qualitative research and how researchers achieve ethical research practice. As a framework for thinking through these issues, the authors distinguish two different dimensions of ethics in research, which they term procedural ethics and “ethics in practice. ” The relationship between them and the impact that each has on the actual doing of research are examined. The article then draws on the notion of reflexivity as a helpful way of understanding both the nature of ethics in qualitative research and how ethical practice in research can be achieved.
Discards of the purse seine fishery targeting small pelagic fish in the eastern Mediterranean Sea

We analysed data collected on board commercial purse seine vessels in the Aegean and Ionian Seas (eastern Mediterranean Sea, Greece) in 13 seasonal sampling periods from 2003 to 2008 in order to describe the composition of the retained and discarded catch and shed light on discarding practices. In each area, five species constituted the majority of the marketable catch (> 97%): sardine ( Sardina pilchardus ), anchovy ( Engraulis encrasicolus ), round sardinella ( Sardinella aurita ), bogue ( Boops boops ) (in both areas), mackerel ( Scomber japonicus ; in the Aegean Sea) and picarel ( Spicara smaris ; in the Ionian Sea). Discarded quantities were on average 4.6% and 2.2% of the total catch in terms of weight in the Aegean and Ionian Seas respectively. Discards on the marketable ratio fluctuated over years and seasons without showing any particular trend. At the species level, sardine and mackerel were seldom discarded while large amounts of anchovy were discarded only during its recruitment period (autumn), when juvenile fish dominate the population. The discarding ratio for bogue, picarel and round sardinella ranged from zero to total discarding because they constitute a supplementary source of income for the fishers. Discarded fish comprised mainly small individuals for all species considered with the exception of round sardinella. However, the lengths at which 50% of the individuals were discarded were generally small, often smaller than the species minimum landing sizes. Geographical coordinates and marketable catch explained part of the variability of the discarded quantities, as revealed by generalized additive models. Discarding practices and implications for management of purse seine fisheries are also discussed.